Half an hour passed far too quickly. Once he'd gotten comfortable in his hard, orange, plastic chair, time seemed to fly by for Adrien, as he sat among friends and held his loved one's hand. It seemed like only a few moments later when the redheaded nurse poked her head round the doors with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, guys, but your time's up. You can come visit her tomorrow, okay?"

There were disappointed sighs, but the teenagers began getting up, the kwamis flying back into Adrien's pocket discreetly once the nurse's back was turned. He tightened his grip on Mari's hand for a moment, silently promising to see her soon, then walked towards the door.

The nurse gave them a sympathetic look, they were obviously reluctant to leave, but she had a job to do. She then began leading the way to the front of the hospital, striking up a light, casual conversation with Alya and Nino as she went. But Adrien lingered, half in the ward and half in the adjacent corridor, keeping his eyes on the tiny figure lying amongst the white sheets, suddenly scared to leave. He didn't want to take his gaze away from her, scared that if he did she'd fade away. He didn't want to leave her, not while she was still so vulnerable. What if she… worsened while he was away? Or what if she woke up all alone? Worst, what if she died while he was gone, what if she died all alone?

"Come back tonight." A little voice whispered from inside his jacket, Tikki's head just barely visible.

"You know I can't, she's not allowed any more visitors today." Adrien frowned unhappily.

"Not as Adrien," Tikki hinted.

Oh. Adrien tilted his head thoughtfully. He'd be much more stealthy as Chat Noir, and he doubted any hospital staff that managed to catch him in there would be so willing- or able- to make him leave if he was in superhero form. He nodded, the plan warming him up from the inside as he realised how much time he would be able to spend with Marinette. He could talk to her, make sure she knew she wasn't alone, he could watch over her all night.

"Okay, Tikki." He muttered, keeping his voice down so any encroaching hospital staff wouldn't hear him talking. Adrien looked back at Marinette, his heart swelling in hope and love. "I'll see you tonight, Mari." He swore, and turned to go before the redheaded nurse came back to look for him.

The door had just swung shut behind him when the figure in the bed let out a little sigh, her torso lifting slightly with the weight of it. Eyelids flickered slightly, a moan emitting from the just-open mouth. Hands moved, fingers twitching as they searched for the contact they didn't know they'd been aware of.

"Chat…" the murmur went unheard as the darkness enveloped her again, her search proving fruitless. Her hands fell back to the mattress, unsatisfied as unconsciousness pressed in once more. "Adrien…"

oOo

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Adrien flinched, his previous relatively-good mood dissipating in the wake of his father's anger.

"It was one night, Father. And I was just being a good friend." He muttered, his eyes downcast as he stood stiffly in his father's office, the older man standing robotically by the window.

"I don't care. You are not allowed to spend nights away from home, you're perfectly aware of this. You're lucky Nathalie persuaded me to let you stay, otherwise your driver would have turned up at every hospital in Paris looking for you. She convinced me to let you have this one night, as it wouldn't be good for either of our reputations if word got out that I was looking for you in all the hospitals. But she agreed that I should punish you as I see fit as soon as you got home. And that is what I will do."

"But, Father-" Adrien cried, angered and scared by his father's tone. He wasn't a child, and Mari had needed him, how could he have been expected to come home? He was glad he'd turned his phone off after calling Nathalie to let her know where he was, as he'd known that he'd receive a myriad of calls demanding he come home. It would be easier to deal with them once the visit was over.

"No, Adrien. You are my son, you live under my roof and you with live by my rules!" His father ordered, a rare show of emotion crossing his face as he angered. "As a consequence for both your insubordination and disobeying your normal rules, you are grounded for the next fortnight. Other than school and your modelling contracts, you are confined to the house. And if you choose to either argue with me on this or disobey me again," the man added, seeing Adrien's mouth opening in horrified protest, "I will re-think my stipulations so that they do not involve school. I will re-schedule your home tutoring sessions, and I may even un-enrol you permanently from the College Francois-Dupont. Am I understood?"

Adrien breathed heavily, struggling to contain his anger and fury at how unfair it all was. He worked to maintain a conversational tone, knowing that if he yelled he'd only make it worse for himself.

"And what about Marinette?" He asked in a slightly strained voice.

Gabriel frowned, exasperated and thoroughly tired of the whole affair.

"Who?"

Swallowing his annoyance at his father's lack of listening skills, Adrien choked out a response.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The girl I was visiting. In the- the hospital."

If Gabriel noticed how Adrien's voice cracked slightly when he spoke, his face didn't betray it, his expression remaining stoic and cold.

"Ah. Well, you are obviously not exempt from your grounding in order to visit her. You are not to go to the hospital, is that understood? And I suggest that, upon her hypothetical recovery, that you keep your interactions with the girl to a minimum. Clearly, she is not a good influence upon you if your insubordination today is anything to go by. If I hear of you having too much to do with her, I may have to do something about it. Understood?"

A gasp ripped itself out of Adrien's mouth, indignation, horror and fury bubbling within him. But when Gabriel raised an eyebrow, he somehow managed to push all his negativity down deep enough to splutter out an enraged "Understood."

With a careless wave of his hand, Gabriel dismissed his son and turned back to his paperwork, choosing to ignore the tears he very much saw pooling in the boy's eyes.

oOo

Adrien had never slammed a door so hard in his life. The wood shook in it's frame as he contained himself in his bedroom, knowing that his father's office was far enough away in the huge mansion that his anger would go unnoticed.

Hot tears of indignation spurted down his cheeks, a pressure behind his eyes growing at how unfair everything was.

"Adrien?" Plagg's voice was unusually soft as he and Tikki moved upwards to look the boy in the eyes. Adrien rested his forehead on his bedroom door, trying to shut out the pain and pull himself together. "Look, it's alright..."

Adrien choked out a laugh, the sound derisive and harsh in the quiet of his room.

"Nothing is 'alright' about this, Plagg. Everything is very much wrong. Marinette's unconscious in hospital after taking a bullet for me. She still might die, Plagg, and now because I stayed with her like a good, normalhuman, my father's punishing me because I spent a single night trying to be a good friend. I'm practically under house arrest, and if I put another toe out of line I'm probably never going to see her again."

Everything suddenly came crashing down on the boy, and his knees buckled. He twisted as he crumpled so he was sat with his back against the door as he dissolved into sobs. He knew he was being dramatic, but at this point he couldn't find it within himself to give too much of a damn.

Plagg looked uncomfortable with the tears, so Tikki took over.

"Adrien, you know Marinette's going to live. I can't believe how often I've told you that you just need to believe in her. Don't you think it's getting a bit repetitive?" She said gently, looking him in the eye as he blearily raised his head. He smiled weakly.

"I do, I do. I know she'll be okay, I'm just scared, and everything's piling up. But… Father's just so… not human, it's like he can't understand compassion or friendship or even how to be a good, proper father. It's so unfair." Adrien scrubbed roughly at his face with a damp sleeve, shaking his head incredulously at his father's ridiculousness.

"It'll be okay," Plagg chimed in, flying up to be next to Tikki and at eye-level with the boy. "It's only a two-week grounding, you can be a model son for that long, right?"

"I guess so," Adrien sighed, his face cooling and his heart-rate slowing. "I'll just have to be extra-perfect for about a month, and after that he'll forget all about it. He's never cared about any one thing longer than that."

"Exactly." Tikki's voice was reassuring. "After two weeks you're free to go where you please, and everything will be back to normal. You can still see Mari at school and of course there's the times when you're Chat and Ladybug. And if, after a month, he does forget about this, you'll be able to spend as much time with her as you want."

"But I can't see her now," the blond mumbled, his gaze unfocused. "I know I can still go see her as Chat as long as I do it at night and remember to lock my bedroom door, but I can't go as Adrien."

"Why's that bad?" Plagg's voice, on the other hand, was confused and somewhat less comforting.

"Because then it'll look like I'm not visiting, and I'll look like a massive jerk. Mari will wonder why I didn't come, and-"

"Adrien, she knows you're Chat." Plagg cut him off exasperatedly and Adrien froze.

He had managed to somehow forget about that. He'd spent a miraculously small amount of time worrying about her response to his reveal, so little in fact that he'd forgotten she knew. The reveal was seemingly insignificant among everything else that had happened, but it and what had followed certainly seemed momentous now.

"Sh- she does, doesn't she?" He whispered after a moment, a smile starting to creep across his face. The kwamis exchanged exasperated looks, but wiped them off their faces innocently as Adrien looked up at them. "She… she said she loved me. Didn't she? In the- in the alleyway, she said she loved Chat and she said she loved Adrien. Then she promised she wasn't going to leave, she was going to stay. She… lovesme."

Tikki smiled gently at the genuine happiness that spread over the poor boy's face.

"She does. And she won't leave. She'll keep her word."

Suddenly the weight fell off Adrien's shoulders and he felt remarkably at peace. Marinette loved him, she wasn't going to leave him… he trusted her enough to believe that.

"I know she will." In the absence of his anxiety and loneliness, he finally felt the fatigue he'd been battling all night set in, and his body grew heavy and drowsy. Recognising the signs, Plagg flew over to help the boy up and over to his bed.

"Come on, come on," he sighed as the boy stumbled over to the bed, the tiredness growing remarkably fast. It had been a very long day, with an emotional rollercoaster to boot. "Take a nice long nap and we'll wake you up later in time for some food. Then we'll transform and go back to the hospital, alright? But go to sleep."

"Mmmhmm." Adrien sighed as he flopped face-first down on top of the duvet, still fully clothed. "She loves me…" He didn't even bother to fight to keep his eyes open, merely snuggling deeper into the comforting blankets and warmth, a bleary smile still plastered onto his face.

"Sweet dreams," Tikki cooed as his eyes drooped closed and slight snores filled the room, all his anger and fear forgotten as he fell deeper and deeper into his much-needed slumber.