#can and will fill up the 'gala friends ladrien' ao3 tag singlehandedly if I have to

[miabrown007]

a case study of intimacy

Adrien desperately wants to get lost in her embrace and not think about Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth. For just a little while. But whatever comforting Ladybug’s arms are, they can’t hide him forever from the question looming over their heads. Can a not-relationship survive as many secrets as there are trying to separate them?

a case study of intimacy (1,623 words, 1/1 chapter, Teen) @ladrienjune

Adrien doesn't expect a visitor.

That's why — when Ladybug lands on the windowsill of the hotel room Chloé had fought tooth and nail to reserve for him — Adrien doesn't think. He wraps an arm around her and pulls her in, kissing her so hard she can hardly breathe, much less speak.

Not looking, not even caring, they stumble to the bed and Adrien already has his white shirt undone when the thought registers.

"Wait—" he gasps, hands flying off of her to palm the comforter instead. "We can't— You can't do this with me."

She freezes immediately, hands still on his chest as she straddles him. “What?” she whispers, bluebell eyes blown wide.

“We can’t. Not after yesterday. Everyone thinks that I’ve helped him, that I’ve helped Fath— ” he tries to explain, but his voice breaks and he looks away. How is he supposed to look her in the eyes after what his family had done? “You can’t be associating with me.”

Her shoulders drop, and she cups his cheeks. Her super-suit-covered palms hold him delicately, still firm enough to guide his gaze until he’s looking at her.

“Did you help him?” she asks softly.

At first, Adrien can only blink at her, mouth agape. Then his violently constricted lungs get some air, and he fights his nausea down to exclaim, “Of course not, I would never!”

Her face breaks out in a gentle smile and she strokes at his fringe to kiss his forehead, as if that would be the easiest thing in the world. “I know. So there’s nothing to talk about.”

“But the public opinion—”

“I don’t give a damn about the public opinion. Being next to you when you need someone is the only thing I care about,” she says with a conviction in her voice that renders him speechless. But then a small crinkle forms between her eyebrows, and she draws away just enough for Adrien to miss her warm breath against his skin. “That is, if you want me to be that someone even after… If you don’t want me after what I did to your family, I completely understand.”

That’s all it takes for his hands to fly back to her hips, to make sure she doesn’t accidentally slip away in a blink of an eye.

“Don’t ever say that again, please,” he says, but it comes out choked up.

She doesn’t seem to mind his clumsiness, though. She relaxes and pulls him closer, until she’s cupping his cheeks and kisses him with the force of a thousand suns — making sure the message is loud and clear.

And Adrien just holds her tighter, kisses her harder and inhales her sugary scent of happiness tainted with sacrifice.

He can’t tell when he starts crying.

But even then, Ladybug sits there, stroking his hair gently and letting him bury his face in the crook of her neck. And she whispers to him, the only thing still capable of holding him together. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.”

And maybe it’s silly to grieve for something he had never had — a stable family, a loving father, a mother who doesn’t need to be buried twice — but she doesn’t call him out on it.

Neither does she propose a solution, a grand plan to remedy everything — which is very uncharacteristic of Ladybug who always goes, goes, goes and does what needs to be done. It might be because she doesn’t have a plan herself either, but from the way she slips her hand under his shirt and traces stars on his skin, Adrien thinks it's more than that.

She sits with him in the silence.

[read the whole fic on AO3]