Be Myself

Be Myself - Chapter Four

"Ahh...!" Marinette jumped at the sound of the razor clattering on the ground, and she quickly scrambled to pick it up, cutting her palm as she did so.

"What do you mean, Chat Noir? Nothing happ-" Marinette flusteredly tried to defend herself, but halting her own words when she saw Chat Noir walk into her room.

"Hey... don't – don't come into my room..." She stammered, tears welling up in her eyes. "This, this is mine."

Chat Noir stopped walking, and looked up to Marinette's scared, tearful, vulnerable eyes.

This room is her safe space... he realised.

He swallowed.

"Please may I enter your room?" He gently asked, afraid to scare her.

She looked into his eyes.

"... okay."

He slowly took another step towards her. His attention was caught by a flash of red and his eyes darted to Marinette's left fist, clenched, blood dripping from it onto the floor. She noticed him looking at her fist, and she flinched - clenching it tighter in fear, wincing in pain.

"Woah, Marinette, please... stop."

Another step towards her.

"N – no!" She blurted, her hand tightening. Her left foot shifted slightly away from Chat. He stopped moving.

"Okay, okay, I'll stay here." He said quietly, slowly raising his open hands to look less dangerous. "Just please... drop the knife."

Marinette started shaking and crying harder.

"I... I can't! What if, what if I drop it and you attack me like everyone else?" However, while saying those words, her grip loosened.

"Whose 'everyone else'?" He asked, noting the lack of grip on her weapon for self-mutilation.

"A – Alya, Nino, A – A..." She took deep breath, "Adrien, and... and..."

"And who?"

The knife fell on the floor.

"Chloe."

As soon as the words left her lips, her knees bucked. Chat rushed to her side and caught her, mentally scolding himself for being a part of her problem, and placed her on her bed.

He needed to help her. And that started with stopping her, by any means necessary.

He went into her bathroom and grabbed every sharp object, going so far as to remove her mirror – luckily hers wasn't bolted to the wall – and other easy to smash items. He then also scouted her bedroom and again removed any sharp objects he could find. He was unable to check her bed, worried about accidentally waking her, but carefully scrutinised every other part of her room. He sighed from exhaustion, before cautiously grabbing the pile of sharp objects – some bloody – and turning around to her stairs.

She's going to hate me for what I do next..." he muttered to himself before heading down them.

"Mr Dupain-Cheng? Mrs Dupain-Cheng?"

---TimeSkip---

Later, as he laid down on his bed, de-transformed obviously, he worried about what he had done. Had he made the right choice?

"You had to Adrien." Plagg tried to comfort him. "Besides, regardless of what you do as Chat Noir, Marinette would still prefer him to Adrien right now."

He wasn't doing a good job.

"Plagg, that is not what I need to hear right now." Adrien angrily muttered. "She's going to end up being angry with both parts of me, and then whose going to comfort her?"

"... Her parents?" Plagg asked.

"... Fair point." Adrien agreed, "But if she hates me, then I won't be able to properly help her. She won't confide in me as much as she did today. I won't be able to protect her from Alya, Nino, Chloe..."

"... and yourself?"

"She shouldn't need to be protected from myself, Plagg." Adrien sighed. "I wish I could go back and erase the awful things I said to her."

"Dude, just apologise." Plagg bluntly said. "Make it honest and heartfelt, then prove it by spending all your time with her. While doing that you can also use the time to figure out what's been going on with her."

"..." Adrien was speechless. Plagg gave a really good idea.

"That's... not a half bad idea, Plagg. Nice job!" He said, giving Plagg some cheese. (Operant conditioning!!)

He looked outside his window, at the other Parisians wandering the streets, wondering if Marinette was among them. He could almost see her hair swaying in the breeze as she strolled down the sidewalk to his door, to see him, play video games and talk together. He could imagine them... together.

"Hey, its almost time for your patrol with Ladybug, you should get ready." Plagg told him, for once being complacent with going in his Miraculous. But for the first time, Adrien didn't want to go on patrol.

He didn't want to stop thinking about Marinette.

Hey guys! I'm back with another update. I hope you like this one, although its got no My R song in it – the second verse should be next chapter – with poor Rose being the suffering soul. Will Marinette be able to save her?

Find out in the next episode of DRAGON BA-

Wait wrong show XD – See you all soon!

But for now...

Peachy out! 😊