Blindsided

012 - the honest truth

a/n : please remember to vote!








***

Marinette slid into the cushioned seat, inhaling the warm scents of her parent's bakery.

Across from her sat the green eyed blonde. His hands rested on top of the table, clasped together with fingers intertwined.

She could see he was tense, as he kept releasing and tightening the grip on his fingers, nails digging into the skin.

The ravenette placed her hand on his, the sudden touch calming the blond immediately.

Adrien sighed. "Sorry." He apologised.

Marinette offered a smile, tilting her head, causing loose strands of hair to fall into her eyes. She pushed them away.

"It's okay, Adrien. I'm going to go get some macaroons for us, wait here." The ravenette spoke, standing up and pushing her seat back.

The blonde rested his head on his hand, watching as the ravenette came back with a tray full of sweets. She placed them down onto the table, and he reached his hand out to take one.

They were passion fruit, his favorite.

"Is this a coincedince, or did you remember my favorite macaroon flavor?" Adrien joked, smirking. Marinette blinked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a flustered motion.

"U-Uh, coincedince?" She squeaked, not getting by as believable.

The blonde let out a chuckle, smiling sadly.

"Okay, enough with the procrastinating. I should do what I came here for." The blonde muttered, the ravenette barely being able to hear his words.

The ravenette and the blonde had met up at the Dupain-Cheng bakery to discuss what had been left unsaid for too long. Everything.

Well, almost everything.

"Alright then. Start when you're ready." Marinette spoke, leaning on her elbow as she zoned in, her attention fully diverted to the boy in front of her.

Adrien let out a quick nervous breath as he tensed up.

He had so much to say he didn't even know where to begin.

"I'll start from the beginning." He murmured. The ravenette nodded in response. "When we were younger, everything was fine. Maybe that was the problem, how well things were going for me. Shortly before we became enemies, when I broke things off with you, my mother died. She was horribly sick, but never told me for my own safety. Right before she passed away she left my father a note. A note telling him, that I wasn't actually his biological son." Adrien started, Marinette's eyes widening as he finished the sentence.

"Not long after, he had figured out that my mother was having an affair earlier in their marriage, and that I was the result of that affair. He had gone ten years thinking I was his real son, acting like a real father only because he believed we shared the same blood. When he found out, that's when Gabriel began to abuse me. He blamed me for it all, her death, the holes in their relationship. He would lock me in a small room everyday after he beat me, starving me. Only giving me enough food to keep me alive, and only leaving me concious or well enough that I was able to go to school without question or so the police couldn't track him down." The blonde managed to choke out.

Marinette could tell this wasn't an easy topic to discuss, but he continued willingly.

"The truth is, there was this girl. She was the light of my day, the one thing I would look forewards to was seeing her. She was the only one that ever had hope in me, that kept me going. She never gave up on me, and no matter how hard or deep I fell, she would always find a way to pull me back up off the ground.

"But I mistreated her. I was an absolute dick, on purpose actually. Because it wasn't only that I knew I didn't deserve an angel such as her in my life, but because she was in danger because of me. After my mother's passing, the father I once knew as Gabriel Agreste was not him anymore. He looked and sounded the same, but his sould had changed.

"He knew that as my legal guardian he was stuck with me 'till adulthood, unless he wanted to grant me the freedom of gaining foster parents or being adpoted. He wanted me to be vulnerable to absolutely no light or happiness whatsoever, which meant he would do anything to hurt the girl that I loved. He never knew who she was, because no matter how hard he beat me I would never spill her name.

"He knew that I had fallen, and that I had fallen hard. But I couldn't take any chances confessing or even giving her special treatment, or telling my friends. Then, I got what seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. If I built a reputation for myself, one where I was a player and slept with every single girl in the entire school, then Gabriel would never guess in a million years which one of those girls was really the one I had fallen in love with." Adrien finished, pausing to give the ravenette time to process the information.

Marinette remained silent. She quickly drew a hand to her mouth, and she bit her bottom lip as she wanted to cry.

All this time she had misjudged the boy in front of her. She had said horrible things to him, when he was secretly suffering and enduring more pain imaginable, not even able to truely be himself around others all just to protect the last sliver of light he had left.

And on top of that, he could never grasp onto that light because as soon as he did, darkness would consume all of him and his loved ones.

The ravenette wanted to focus, but all she could think about was the girl Adrien was in loved with, and the word 'was' that he had repeated multiple times.

Adrien was in love with her, so he wasn't anymore?

Who was the girl? Did Marinette know her?

And most importantly, why the hell did that fact that Adrien was in love with someone that wasn't the ravenette make her want to punch a wall?

Marinette balled handfuls of hair in her fists as she pounded her hands against her head.

Now was absolutely not the time to be thinking like that.

Adrien watched the ravenette, and he could see her blue eyes glistening as tears dared to fall. He bit his lower lip, his eyes slimming.

"I'm sorry, Mari, I shouldn't have dumped all of that onto you-" The blonde started standing up from his chair and walking towards the ravenette.

What Marinette did next shocked the blonde more than it shocked herself.

The ravenette sprang from her seat, wrapping her arms around Adrien's built torso, clasping her hands together as she hugged him tightly. Tears fell from her eyes, but she burried her face into his shirt to hide them.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," She apologized repeatedly, her voice muffled.

Adrien's eye widened slightly, but normalized again as he ruffled her hair, an action that was strangly comforting to the ravenette.

"You don't have to apologise, silly. You didn't do anything wrong." The blonde chuckled.

His laugh, his sincere, hearty laugh. They way Adrien smiled when he was truely happy, the way he chewed on his bottom lip when he was nervous, the way his cheeks warmed adorably when he was flustered,

and the way that Marinette's name rolled off of his tongue perfectly, as if the sound alone was music to her ears.

It was enough to make the ravenette speak without thinking, as she looked up at the blonde and said, "Whoever the girl you love is, I'm sure she loves you just as much as you cherish her." Marinette spoke softly, sadness hidden behind her tone.

The sentence was supposed to be reassuring, comforting,

which is why Marinette had no idea how accurate it was.