Say Something

Hello friends! I decided to write something new. This one will definitely be more angsty than The Ladybug Effect.

Say Something is based off of the book If I Stay by Gayle Forman, and is told through the alternating perspectives of Marinette and Adrien as they reflect on their relationship.

Warning, there will be swearing, and there is character death. Therefore this currently has a T rating.

I don't own Miraculous, I just wrote this story. I hope that you enjoy!

-Marinette-

The highway stretched on and on like a grey ribbon as far as the eye could see. Almost nobody was on the highway this early, which was a good thing. Sometimes the traffic on the highway is so dense that one can hardly travel a few feet in an hour. But the highway was mostly clear this day, which was unusual for a Friday. That was a pleasant surprise. It had rained earlier that morning, but the sun was slowly starting to peek out from behind the clouds, promising to dry the roads. The pavement was still slick with water, the concrete shone like silver and the headlights of the car were reflected in the puddles. Half of the sky was still filled with passing grey rainclouds, while the other half was clear blue sky. There were still raindrops on the windowpane, waiting to either fall or be evaporated by the sun's rays. I sat in the backseat of the car with my sketchbook in my lap, scribbling a new design that I had been working on all morning. The pencil was light, it felt natural in my hand as I drew clean lines across the previously blank page. My mother, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Her kind eyes filled with so much love and adoration for me, her smile was so genuine and wonderful. I let the image of her smiling fix itself into my brain, making sure that it never leaves.

"I expect you to socialize, Marinette," She reminds me, her kind smile still frozen on her face. "I don't want you scribbling in that book for the entire party."

"Yes, mom." I reply without looking up from the design that I'm creating.

This would have made a nice addition to my portfolio for Central Saint Martins. Why couldn't this kind of inspiration had come to me when I was applying? This new design was so much different from all my other ones, there could have been more contrast. Why am I so stupid?

"Marinette." My mother isn't smiling this time. I'm suddenly reminded of where I am, of where we're going. "I'm serious. And watch the present, it's very fragile."

I smile at her and nod. Once her eyes are off me I lean back in my seat, careful not to accidentally undo the bun sitting at the top of my head. It took a thousand bobby pins and an entire can of hairspray to make my bun stay in one place. I smooth out the skirt of my dress, it's one of my own creations. It is light pink with an illusion neckline and an off the shoulder sleeve, the skirt is soft and flowing, and it's longer in the back than it is in the front. It wasn't one of the designs that I sent in my portfolio for Central Saint Martins, home to the most prestigious fashion program in the world, the design was far too simple. The universities do not want simple. They want to see everything that I can do, how creative I can be. How I turn the ordinary into extraordinary. I put my sketchbook down on the seat next to me for a moment, next to a box wrapped in cream paper. Inside of that box was a present for the wedding reception we were to attend. I hardly knew the bride and groom, they were two of my parent's friends. I still don't see why they had to bring me, I was perfectly content on staying home by myself. Studying, sleeping, refreshing my email inbox to see if I had gotten any acceptance letters from universities. My parents were surprised to hear that I was applying to school in London, but they were also incredibly supportive. I'm very fortunate to have them. However, someone else was not so pleased with this new development. Someone that I was extremely fond of.

I stuck my earbuds into my ears, right above my Ladybug earrings. I hit shuffle and a familiar tune filled my head. It was one of the older songs in my playlist, something that was popular ten years ago, but unless someone were singing the song one probably wouldn't be able to recall it. I put my head on the window, looking out at the world as it passed by. When I was a little kid, I thought that the backseat of my parent's car was completely boring. My parents would play music that I didn't like, talk about things that I didn't understand, and I felt the need to interrupt with a chorus of 'are we there yets?' just to remind them that I was there. But the older I got, the more their music became mine, the more I understood their conversations, the more I could contribute. Car rides became a lot more bearable after that. Still, I loved to stick my head out the window and watch the world pass by in a blur. When you're driving you go so fast that you don't have the time to process it, you don't see the full picture, only the obscurity of what might have been there. Cars of all shapes and colours zip past, some speeding, some slow, all in a hurry to get from here to there. Sometimes I would stare at those cars and wonder where they're are going, work, home, school, late night rendezvous with a forbidden lover, international spies intercepting a heist. I can't wait until I'm old enough to drive. I will travel the streets of Paris, zipping through the boroughs and the cul de sacs. I'll journey down a road that keeps going, a never ending highway that I can ride endlessly. To be seventeen is to be completely and helplessly confused and anxious. At seventeen there is so much that you can't do, and it's like adulthood is right there but it's just out of reach. All of the promises of adulthood can be daunting on a seventeen year old, work, responsibility, job, school, life. So many things that I don't know. It's a big world out there, one day I'll have the chance to explore it. It's not that I don't love Paris, or being Ladybug, or my parents. It's just that this city is getting too small for me. I know every street, I know every corner, every building. I want something that I don't know. That's why I did what I did. And it's my decision to make, nobody else's. That's the beauty of this whole free will thing, right?

My phone buzzed in my handbag and woke me from my thoughts. My eyes grew wide, I fumbled with the silver clutch before prying it open to see who had texted me. Maybe it was something from the school, maybe it was Adrien.

"Who's that sweetheart?" My father chuckled when he noticed me fumbling with my purse.

I flushed and held my phone in my hand, swiping at the screen with my finger to unlock it. Nothing from school, nothing from Adrien. Just Alya. While I was a little bit disappointed that I hadn't heard from the university or my- No, he wasn't anymore. He hadn't been since that stupid argument. Well, maybe it wasn't stupid. It was complicated. It didn't matter, Alya's text was enough to make me smile, and that was all I needed.

"Just Alya." I reply with a smile.

I tapped at the screen, writing out my response and adding a little kiss face emoji at the end. I don't remember the text now, I don't even remember what I typed besides that emoji. I just remember that it was my last constant, the last time that my life would ever be normal. Family, friends, waking up every morning, going to school. Things as mundane as texting my best friend would never be the same ever again. The course of my entire life was completely altered in an an instant.

I thought that I would have time, a life, a future. I thought that I would go to university, that I would get married, that I grow up and grow old. I thought that I would have some kind of normal. But normal stopped the instant I felt the violent jerk of the car, and saw the headlights of the car in front blinding me as it sped towards us. I felt the car slam into us with a force so powerful it sent us flying off of the road. The present, wrapped all pretty in the vacant seat next to me, fell to the floor with a crash, my phone left my grasp as the wind was knocked out of me. I heard the crash, I heard the screaming. It took me a moment to realize that it was me who was screaming. That didn't scare me. It was what came after, what I heard next, that horrified me. I heard silence.

My eyes felt heavy, black spots clouded my vision, my chest and throat felt tight, I couldn't breathe air. I could see red, and yet I felt no pain. Instead I felt light and heavy at the same time. I could feel my eyelids growing heavier with every passing second as I struggled to stay conscious, but to no avail. This was it. My last moment, my last thought, my last breath, my last text.

-Adrien-

Photo shoots are long and boring. All I ever do is stand around for hours while some guy takes three hundred photos of the exact same pose just to get one good photo for father's next advertisement. Any good photographer knows that one must take at least one hundred photos in order for one photo to be decent. Or at least, that is what they told me so that I would willingly stand like a statue for hours. I honestly don't know how those street buskers do it. An hour in a completely uncomfortable, yet appealing, position. Then I'd change poses and hold for another hour or however long it took for the photographer to get a good shot. It put a lot of strain on my muscles to say the least and my back usually kills me afterwards, which is probably why I have my own personal masseuse. Why did they need to take so many pictures of me leaning back anyways? These advertisements are about the clothes, not me. Usually I don't mind all of this modelling stuff. The hair, the makeup, the clothes, the long hours of posing. I'm usually able to smile through them without a second thought. But not today. Not after another long and restless night. I should probably be sleeping better these days, we've been akuma free for a few months now, after Ladybug and I defeated Hawkmoth. Which means that it's also been a few months since I learned that Ladybug was Marinette.

"Adrien!" The photographer scowled at me.

I hadn't even realized that my smile had fallen when her name creeped into my head. I haven't seen or heard from her since our fight. She's been purposely ignoring me at school and she hasn't been out on patrols recently either. If I'm being perfectly honest, I don't blame her, I acted selfish and irrational the last time we spoke. I feel a sudden ache in my chest, my heart races faster, my lungs fill up like a balloon that's about to pop. My stomach churns and I suddenly feel so nauseous, I really hope that it doesn't show on my face. It feels like someone has stabbed me in the chest, and they are twisting the knife so agonizingly slowly. That's what being without her feels like. I will never forget that goodbye. The way she said the word, it just felt so angry, so final. God I miss her so much. I should try calling her when I finish up here, whenever that happens to be.

As if by some miracle, one of the studio lights stopped working and I was allowed to take a break due to technical difficulties. I could finally relax from the insufferable pose that photographer had me in. I trudged over to one of the tables set up with water and fruit. Being a model I was forced onto a very strict diet, which sucked because every once in awhile I wanted to eat whatever I want and not count calories. Despite my better judgement, my mind drifted to the gooey chocolate chip cookies that Marinette's parents sold in their bakery. How they were still warm and fresh from the oven, how sweet they tasted when they melted in my mouth. I shook my head and took a bite out of an apple. It did not taste like a chocolate chip cookie.

Suddenly my phone buzzed restlessly in my pocket, there was almost an urgency in the ringing of that phone. And I almost didn't pick it up. There was a rule against phones during photo shoots, which is why I kept it on vibrate, but a thought popped into my head. It might be Marinette. I made sure that no one was looking and slipped my phone out of the pocket of the jeans they had forced me into for the photo shoot. I was so anxious to pick up the phone that I hadn't even checked the caller identification to see who could have been calling me. I was just too focused on the possibility that it might have been her.

"Hello?" I answered, my voice hopeful, yet trembling at the same time.

"Adrien?" The voice on the other end was male. It was just Nino, which made my shoulders slump in disappointment.

"Hey Nino," I replied, feeling completely defeated. "I'm in the middle of a photo shoot, could you-"

I never got to finish that sentence.

"I don't care if you're in the middle of a fucking shoot! Get your ass to the hospital, now!" I was taken aback by Nino's screaming. I hadn't even noticed how distraught his voice sounded, how heartbroken he was.

Wait. Hospital? Why was Nino at the hospital? What happened? I hadn't even noticed that my heart rate had spiked tremendously just after he spoke those words, my breathing was becoming shallow. What if he was sick? Or hurt?

"Why are you at the hospital?" My voice shook with every word.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the photographer eyeing me, silently judging me. He seemed annoyed and obviously just wanted to finish the photo session, but I didn't give a damn.

"Adrien," His voice cracked on the other line. My best friend never cried, but I could practically hear the tears falling from his eyes. "It's Marinette."

That's when my legs gave out underneath me. Her name echoed in my brain. Marinette. Marinette. What happened? Why was she in the hospital? My mind immediately went somewhere very dark and grim, somewhere that thoughts should never go. Obviously I feared the worst, and silently prayed that I just had an overactive imagination. That everything was just in my head, that I was overreacting. But the tone of Nino's voice hadn't sounded promising at all. My head was spinning, I could hear my heart beating in my eardrums. One of the photography assistants kneeled down in front of me and asked me if I was alright. I didn't answer. I could only hear those two words over and over in my mind, playing back to me like a broken record. Marinette. Hospital.

"What happened to Marinette?" I asked when I finally found my voice again. I was terrified of the answer, something completely unknown, and something that had the potential to kill me inside.

"Marinette was in a car crash," Nino's voice quaked as the words fell from his mouth. "With her parents. I don't have any other details… Alya and I are on our way to the hospital. Please, please meet us there."

I could hear Alya in the background. She was in hysterics. She was screaming and sobbing, and it was obvious that Nino was trying so desperately to stay calm himself, but it wasn't working. I could feel tears prick and pool in my eyes, I didn't bother to wipe them away as I forced myself onto my feet. Marinette. Crash. Hospital. No. She was okay. She had to be. She couldn't have been in a car crash, she couldn't have been in the hospital. This wasn't happening. This was all a dream. But I knew that wasn't the case. This was life. And Marinette might be slowly loosing her's.

How could I have been so stupid with her? So unbelievably selfish. There were so many things that I should have done, so many words that I shouldn't have said. I never wanted to hurt her, but I did. There were so many things that I still needed to say to her, so many things that I had to apologize for. And now she could be… No. Don't you go there Adrien. Don't you fucking go there.

"I'll be there." I confidently told my best friend. "I'll see you soon."

I hung up the phone after that. Determined to not let anything distract me as I made my way to the exit. All of the photographers and staff looked at me, completely dumbfounded, but I didn't notice or care. My hand was on the door handle, about to pull open the door to exit the photography studio, when a strong hand landed on my shoulder. I turned around a little too quickly, my head was still spinning due to the loss of blood circulation. The man looked down at me with a stern look on his face.

"Just where do you think you're going young man?"

And that is chapter one, I hope that you liked it. I'm going to alternate chapters between hospital scenes and flashback, so the next chapter is going to be flashback.

Just for reference, Marinette, Adrien, and their friends are all seventeen/eighteen and in their last year of Lycée (French high school.) Also for reference: In France there is no drinking age, but to purchase alcohol you must be eighteen, the legal driving age is also eighteen. And Central Saint Martins is a real school in London, and it is considered the best fashion school in the world.

Also this is after Hawkmoth's defeat and I'm going off the assumption that Gabriel Agreste isn't Hawkmoth. I mean, I still think that he's Hawkmoth in cannon but this is just a fan fiction so...

Btw, I'm writing this on google drive (because the word on my computer is ancient and doesn't save properly) and drive keeps autocorrecting the word "girl" to "girly" and I have to keep going back to fix it. Does anyone know how to fix the autocorrect so that it doesn't do this? It would really help me out. Thanks!

I hope you enjoyed!

Keep on reading!