Everything in between

7. I'm Not A Hero

Adrien
Before

He watched her from a distance. She was walking out of the school entrance mid conversation with a friend. Adrien didn't know much about her. He'd only seen a snapshot. Just a blurry photo of her walking on a crowded sidewalk, taken by a car parked a dozen or so feet away. There are about ten people between the photographer and the girl and so her face has been circled with a red pen. On the back of the photograph are the words Marinette Dupain-Cheng and an address. It was handed to him a week or so ago. He'd never done anything like this before. All the previous assignments he'd gotten were small things. Larceny, yes. Harassment, yes. Not kidnapping. But he figured they thought it was time he graduated to bigger stuff and besides he need the money. Also he was sure this job wasn't a suggestion.

He'd been following her for the last few days. He knows where she lives, where she goes to school, and what times she's alone. He's never spoken to her. He wouldn't recognize the sound of her voice. He doesn't know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she's scared. But he will.

And so he watched. He watched as the two girls said bye and started to go their separate ways. "Oh and Marinette don't forget! You need to come over tonight so we can work on that project!" The one girl called, her voice, carrying across the street to where he stood. Marinette turned back around and gave her a thumbs up. "Yes, I'll see you later!" Then she waved goodbye. 'Huh, Good to know.' he thought to himself. Adrien continued to follow the girl who was his target, careful to maintain a good distance of maybe 20 or 30 ft. Not like he needed to be careful anyway, this girl was terrible at being attentive to her surroundings. But whatever, it made his job easier.

It didn't take him long to figure out where she was headed. The past few days he'd seen this girl visit there twice. He couldn't blame her it had a nice view of the tower; if you're into that type of stuff.

Adrien still didn't know how he was going to do it. She normally wasn't alone at night. And there were always too many people around for him to knab her in daylight hours, unless...Maybe he could get her to trust him. That would skip all the trouble, she would come with him willingly.

He observed as she stepped off the side walk and started to cross the street, completely oblivious to the distracted vehicle heading straight for her. What is she doing? Does she not see the stupid car?? Immediately, he broke out into a run. 15ft, 10ft, he was almost to her, 5ft...

Wham!

He pushed her out of the way at the last second and used the momentum to throw his body forward. He could feel the wind from the car passing by and hear her cry out in surprise. If he had been one second later it would have hit him instead of her. Geez this girl was already a lot of trouble. For a moment, he wondered why he had saved her anyway. Maybe if the car had hit this girl he wouldn't be under anymore pressure to kidnap her; which definitely wasn't on his bucket list he might add. But then again, he wouldn't be getting paid either. The force from him shoving Marinette out of the way had sent them both to the ground and the hands he braced himself with  stung. He turned over on his back, now sitting upright, and glanced over at the wide eyed girl.

"You really need to watch where you're going. Are you alright?" He laughed but it wasn't funny. However he figured it was just the product of left over adrenaline from their near death experience. Part of him was actually angry. He could've almost been killed because this girl doesn't know the number one rule about crossing the street. But he decided to let it go, what's done is done, they were both ok weren't they? Then Adrien got to his feet and mentally checked for any injuries, and, apart from the stinging in his hands, he was injury free.