Cops and Robbers | ✓

42 | hell bent nightmares

This chapter is a collaboration with arcana_fuse !!

Enjoy!

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If his eyes could widen any further, Marinette was sure Chat's eyes would have popped out from their sockets. The ravenette quickly averted her gaze from his however, regret simply soaring throughout her entire body as she awaited for his response. This hadn't been the way she wanted to tell him.

"Wh....what...what do you mean she's p-passed away?" his voice echoes into the large room of silence, the tone of sadness laced in his every word and his voice cracking on ever syllable. It was clear he was trying to hold his emotions back, for Chat Noir wanted not to look weak and vulnerable before his father's eyes. But it seemed his tears had a rather different mission, and would flow regardless of who or what tried to hold them back.

"I was going to tell you, Chat." Whimpers Marinette, her own tears threatening to spill as she takes a step closer to him. Feeling ashamed, she still refused to meet his tear filled eyes. "But there was so much going on, and I couldn't find the right time to tell you. I didn't want you to have to come here with such a heavy weight on your shoulders."

But he steps away, a conflicting look written in his orbs as he met her eyes. "How could you keep that from me? I—I trusted you...."

"I was going to tell you, Chat, trust me." Marinette interrupts him, her voice more stern as she meets his gaze. "But it just wasn't the right time, and I knew you had a lot on your mind—"

His temper withered. "That doesn't matter! You should've told me what happened, it's my mother for hell's sake!" His expression turned to pique, a single tear spilling from his swollen eyelids, anger piling within him. "If you haven't already noticed, she was the only person — not to mention family — who actually cared about me. Not everyone lives in your own little bubble, Marinette. She was all I really had left... and I-I trusted you to tell me..." The pitch of his voice was rising, cracking with every word he forced out. He couldn't do this. He couldn't break down — not here, not anywhere.

At first, Marinette felt a depth of sorrow begin to grow in her stomach. It was true that he had deserved to know from the moment it had happened, but during that time things were diverged and conflicted between her and Chat Noir. How could she have just told him so simply with everything that had been going on?

Looking into his pained eyes, the guilt she felt from
being the cause of it still didn't mask her true feelings. Regardless of the mistake she had made, Chat Noir had no right to be angry at her in particular. How was it her fault that things had unfolded the way they did?

"How.. how dare you throw around the word trust, Chat Noir!" Her eyebrow twitched, a furious scowl overtaking her features. "I understand you're hurt, but have you forgotten what you've done? I came to Paris to be an officer, to follow my dream..but... " She clenched her fists, the words dangling off the edge of her lips. An unsettling flare of anger swirled through her irises. It was terrifying to see her so imminently about to explode of rage.

"You ruined everything, Chat Noir! You ruined my life from the moment you stepped into my apartment!" She yelled, her voice echoing loudly throughout the room, stunning him. It seemed all of his negative feelings had suddenly dissolved at this one painful remark, the atmosphere falling completely silent. Did she really mean it?

She didn't stop there. "I'm guessing that wound you had the night you came to me for help wasn't because you trusted me. That wound was inflicted by one of your own, just to try and get closer to me, wasn't it? To manipulate me further?"