Adrien was twenty years old when he first became Chat Noir and met Ladybug. Four years later, amidst the toughest time of his college career, he meets Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
A College/Reverse Crush AU exploring what would happen if Marinette was fo...
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The world vanished.
The sky turned dark, the deck beneath his feet became a gaping void and Chat Noir was left bereft in a sea of panic and horror. Only two solid facts remained:
Marinette had fallen. And he was still trapped.
Time no longer felt real, everything happened too quickly and yet slow enough to burn into his mind every painstaking detail. Time stretched on, and he was still on the wrong side of the glass.
And time, as well, was running out.
"CATACLYSM!" he heard himself yell. Because he no longer cared. Because the girl he loved was no longer on the boat. What did it matter if he was yet again too emotional to focus the attack on one specific place? What did it matter if his attack spread, like a virus, infecting the whole ship until the wretched thing disappeared?
He'd destroy it. He'd destroy the whole damn thing if it meant getting to her, if it meant her being safe. She had to be safe. She had to be.
The box was the first thing to disappear under his fingers, but the inky blackness of his attack was spreading. He ran. Even as the deck began to disintegrate under his feet, as he felt each footstep grow heavier and heavier under the weight of the collapsing ship, like running through sand, he kept going.
By the time he reached the spot where Marinette had fallen, half of the boat had gone. As soon as he jumped, it vanished completely, a smattering of black dust was all that remained as he leapt headfirst into the river. He didn't look back.
The cold hit him almost immediately, a million icy daggers stabbing every exposed bit of flesh unguarded by his suit. Even with his powers protecting him from the brunt of the pain, he still felt it, and it only made him more fearful for Marinette.
He kicked his legs, his lungs burned, and still he swam further down. Every part of his body was screaming at him to close his eyes, to clamour back to the surface. Doing his best to block it out, Chat forced his eyes wide open, ignoring the stinging as his vision shifted to the familiar night-vision green. It only improved his visibility by a fraction. The water was murky, as most city rivers tended to be.
Where was she?
A glimpse of what looked like a shadow was all Chat needed to dive deeper. Swimming harder than he'd ever done in his life, fighting against the current, fighting against his own body, fighting for her, Chat fumbled semi-blind until he finally, finally felt something.
A hand. A hand that squeezed back.
Chat pulled until Marinette's form appeared from the darkness of the river. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he kicked upwards and prayed he wasn't hurting her further. Water flooded through his nostrils at the change of direction and he choked. All at once, his mouth was consumed by the river, the rancid water flowing through him until he felt like he was merging with it. Still he clawed his way to the surface, Marinette in his arms.
