#prince/assassin au go brrrrr

[miabrown007]

Power-Struggle Power-Couple

Ladybug's final mission should have gone smoothly. Quick and painless, as a professional of her scale always works. After all, there should be nothing special about the crown prince she has to kidnap.

Now, if only he would quit hitting on his hitman.

***

Ladrien prince/assassin AU

many thanks to @ladyofthenoodle and @chocoluckchipz for beta reading! <3

Power-Struggle Power-Couple (1,826 words, Teen, 1/1 chapter)

“Oh, this could get embarrassing quickly.”

Ladybug pinches her nose and mentally recites the thirty-five most effective ways to incapacitate her enemy. Anything to ignore Adrien Agreste’s disturbingly handsome face that hovers just a lunge’s distance away.

“I mean, I can understand why you don’t really want to talk. Kidnapping someone can be a tiresome duty, I get it. Lots of concentration, scheming, lots of moving parts. I’m okay with the silence,” he says. The cadence of his voice lets her know that—despite both his previous statement, as well as her desperate pleas—shutting up in the foreseeable future doesn’t rank high among his priorities. “But did you know that there is only one bed? That can get embarrassing quickly.”

“I’m aware,” she says, in the flattest voice possible.

Adrien blinks at her, then a jolly smile spreads on his face and he falls back on the bed—which is really a bale of hay at the otherwise empty loft of an abandoned stable. “That’s good. I’d hate to be the one to make this embarrassing.”

“I’m aware that there’s only one bed,” Ladybug clarifies pointedly, because, apparently, they are having a conversation about this now. “There’s no need for more, though. You can sleep if you want, but I certainly won’t be.”

Craning his neck, he eyes her from under his golden fringe. His hands, bound by the wrists, go over his head and rest at the back of his neck, as if he was on some luxury getaway and not in the process of being held hostage.

“A fan of sleep-deprivation?”

“We aren’t staying for long,” she says, coming to sit at the bale’s edge. She twirls a small knife between her fingertips, for good measure. She’s an assassin, goddamnit, with knives, and a final mission, and—overwhelming desire to leave this all behind and open a flower shop in the countryside aside—she’s dangerous. If only he would quit acting like he didn’t get that memo. “In a few hours, your family will fulfill my commissioner’s demands, and then, we can both go our separate ways.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.”

She peers at him from the corner of her eyes, but he looks equally as unfazed as before. “What do you mean?”

“Just that my father is not the kind of person who you can blackmail. He doesn’t let people get him into that position.” Adrien shrugs.

“Well, he is now. We have his son.”

“He isn’t a family-man, either.”

The flat retort does make Ladybug quiet for the duration of one, two, three blinks. She is nothing if not thorough , though. “You’re the crown prince.”

“That I am. If my estimates are punctual, for about an hour or two more.” When she continues to stare at him—now with a confused frown added to the repertoire of her facial expressions to shake things up a bit—he sneers at her. “I also have a twin brother. What do you think, how long will it take for the rumour that dilettante assassins mistakenly kidnapped the second in line to reach your commissioners?”

She twists in his direction with her whole torso, eyes blown wide. “He wouldn’t!”

Adrien holds her gaze for a short second, something gut-wrenchingly sad fluttering in the depths of forest green, before he shuts his eyes. “Well, you know what they say about that. Wait and see.”

But Ladybug doesn’t solve problems by trusting the whims of fate. Even if, realistically speaking, she knows this isn’t her problem. She’s just a hitman who gets paid either way. There’s no reason for her to care. But for some reason she still reaches out, hand hovering over him until she finally settles for poking him in the side.

“He wouldn’t,” she repeats, with conviction this time. “He wouldn’t, because that would mean that my commissioners would have to make an example.”

She isn’t superstitious, but words have weight. She won’t say it.

Adrien is seemingly unaware, or uncaring, of such damning possibilities.

“You would have to kill me. I know.” His tone is light as a feather, but if she listens carefully to the silence, her practiced ears can pick up the swallow.

“He will not,” she spits.

She scoots up on the bale and peers out on the window by his head, but there’s only the lonely midnight of the orchard stretching below them. There’s not a soul—not even a messenger pigeon—in sight.

The bale moves under her and Ladybug’s grip tightens on her weapon, but it’s only Adrien rolling to his side and tucking his hands against his chest. When he looks up at her, he has a smile about him that jiggles. “It’s fine, if you have to kill me. I won’t hold a grudge.”

“Of course you won’t! You’ll be dead, you jester!”

She swats him on the shoulder, which proves to be an intimidation tactic of below-average success. He bursts out in a guffaw.

“Hey, stop that! Death is no laughing matter!”

Ladybug tries to make his laughter stop by plastering her palms over his mouth. That proceeds to go reasonably well up until the second moment of the endeavour, upon which Adrien promptly licks her palm. She sounds rather unassassin-like as she snatches her hands away, falling square on his chest with the momentum.

It isn’t her fault, though. That was a dirty trick.

“It’s my death, not yours. I get to make as much fun of it as I please,” Adrien says. His voice comes out a little breathy, and she can’t decide whether the culprit lies in his wheezing laughter, or on top of him.

At any rate, Ladybug pushes herself up into the most dignified sitting position she is able to conjure. If that’s straddling his hips while she stares down at him… Oh well.

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t diminish the significance of this issue. We’re talking about my profession, after all.”

“Have you ever considered changing career paths?”

“Every day. In fact, if you really want to know, this is my last mission,” she says.

She strokes away the golden locks falling in his eyes and tucks them behind his ear. His breath comes out in an uncertain huff. Her lips curl up at the edges.

“And what will you do after you’re done here?” he asks.

“I’m heading to the sea. Buying a cottage. Selling cut-flowers. Stuff like that.”

He smiles up at her, eyes glinting in the low light of the sole candle. “Sounds like you know your area of expertise. But—and forgive my manners for asking such things—aren't you too young to retire?”

Ladybug draws an eyebrow. “Don’t you talk too much for someone who’s currently being abducted?”

His whole body trembles under her as he chuckles. And even though it’s a lovely sound, she’s still thinking of a way or two to silence him. None of them involve any of her usual arsenal.

“You’re the expert, you tell me,” he says.

However, what he says appears to be the last thing he’s paying attention to. His bound hands wander to her hip, thumb swiping over the exposed flesh where her crimson tunic has ridden up her side in the mighty quest of wrestling him. His eyes flash at her, experimental. Ladybug doesn’t hesitate as she grabs his wrists and pins them over his head.

Her hair cascades down around them, leaving them in darkness.

Her vision has never been clearer.

“Yes, you definitely talk too much,” she says, lacing their fingers as she kisses him.

[read the whole fic on AO3]