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ravennm84 · 1 year

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Making Your Own Luck

Quick story I wrote while thinking of Plagg’s love of cheese, Tikki’s love of cookies, and the different ways we associate with good and bad luck. Sprinkle in a little Lila salt and you’ve got some wonderful brain candy to tide you over until the next story. Warm-Fuzzies and enjoy!!

There were more than a few abilities that kwamiis had that normally weren't used. Kaalki could improve her holder's horseback riding ability. Pollen could help flowers grow when she spent enough time in an area.

Tikki's power over luck and good fortune was very well known. But it wasn't only her lucky charm, but her ability to take away luck. Now, this wouldn't give someone bad luck, that's Plagg's thing and had started the whole black cat crossing your path superstition. It would just set a person's luck to zero, and their actions afterwards would determine if it turned good or bad. This is where the concept of karma and the saying 'making your own luck' came from.

Normally, these were abilities that kwamiis kept to themselves or would become a side effect of being active for an extended period of time. Tikki was able to control that ability easily… until her holder came across that Italian rat, Lila Rossi. Oh, how she wished for the chance to reset that girl's luck and let karma determine her punishment. It would be so easy, just a second of physical contact and all her luck would disappear. Then everything she did would continue to build and grow, not that the little Goddess had to guess which way it would go.

Then, one glorious Tuesday morning, Lila accused Marinette of stealing her orange pen. Tikki had been eating her blueberry and lemon curd macaron while reclining on a silk scarf when the girl snatched the purse she was in. Marinette tried to get it back, horrified when Lila opened the latch and shoved her hand inside.

The purse jostled roughly to one side, causing Tikki's cookie to fall to the floor as the stolen pen slid out of the girl's sleeve and into the purse. What happened next occurred so quickly, that she would always claim, while ignoring Plagg's jokes and side eyes, that it was a complete accident. Tikki grabbed the pen, touching Lila’s fingers as she pushed away and fazed through the bottom of the purse. With all the chaos of Lila keeping the purse out of Marinette’s reach and Mme. Bustier, demanding that everyone calm down, no one noticed the kwamii fly under the desks, drop the pen under Lila’s chair, and return to Marinette to hide in her backpack.

"...but she took my pen, I saw her put it in-"

"If that is the case, you tell me and I will handle it," Bustier said sternly, displeased that her lesson had been interrupted and her pregnancy hormones giving her a shorter fuse. "Give Marinette her purse back, now." She did, barely hiding her smirk. "Marinette, may I please take a look inside your purse?"

Hands shaking from the adrenaline, having a flashback of the last time her bag had been searched, and worried about Tikki being found, Marinette wanted to say no. It was only when she spotted Tikki out of the corner of her eye, head poking out of her backpack and giving a reassuring nod, that she handed over her purse.

A few seconds later, Bustier handed the purse back and cast a disappointing scowl at Lila. "I believe you owe Marinette an apology."

Shock broke through Lila’s façade as she sputtered. "But… but she took my favorite orange pen. I swear I saw-"

"Isn't this it?" Nathaniel asked, causing everyone to turn and see him pick the pen up from under their shared desk.

Sputtering a bit more, Lila clenched her jaw before giving Marinette a terse "sorry" before stomping back to her seat.

Plagg knew exactly what his Sugarcube had done, he'd felt the slight spike of power after the cookie had shattered on the floor and that brat had shoved her hand into Pigtail's purse. The embarrassment of apologizing in front of the class was just the start. He knew the girl wouldn't accept defeat so easily, and the consequences would keep growing.

And he was not disappointed.

Lila tried to trip Marinette in the cafeteria, and ended up stubbing her toe on a table leg hard enough to cry real tears. When she attempted to switch their homework assignments in Mendeleiev's class, the teacher not only spotted the switch but proved it in front of everyone by comparing handwriting. That got Lila a week of detention.

Then, at the end of the day, Lila accidentally dumped her water bottle all over Marinette’s head and backpack. Despite acting oh-so apologetic and reminding everyone about her weak wrist, she wasn't getting the support or assurances of "it's not your fault" that she expected. Many glared at her while others ran off to get towels to help Marinette. Realizing that she miscalculated and did too much on a single day, Lila made a hasty retreat outside. Only to get absolutely soaked when a car sped through a puddle on the street.

Plagg laughed his little whiskers off from that one. But he knew it was just starting. He couldn't wait to hear about what happened away from school.

~oOo~

The following morning, Lila looked like she'd been dropped into Dante's Inferno and spat back out just in time for school. What happened didn't even have anything to do with Marinette, so she couldn't blame it on her. That just annoyed her all the more.

While storming home wet from the puddle, she kicked a pebble that hit a bird, then a flock of birds swarmed her while she ran for two blocks. She shoved a neighbor out of the way when she got to her apartment building, and the door flew back and cracked her in the nose. It bled for over ten minutes.

She went to the mall for some retail therapy, coupled with a five finger discount, and was caught immediately. Her mother was called and she was banned from the mall for life. Greta was not happy with her daughter and gave her extra chores as punishment. While Lila was muttering mean and disrespectful things about her parents while cleaning the bathroom, she didn't account for the volume of her voice or the bathroom tiles echoing what she said. Her grounding was extended.

All this made Lila’s mood particularly volatile when she arrived at school that morning. Not bothering to pay attention to what was around her, she gave Mireille a shove out of the way, making the girl stumble down the stairs. A couple seconds later, Lila slipped on the wet steps and fell all the way to the bottom. Her classmates saw the whole thing, and although they were miffed that she pushed someone, they still helped Lila to the nurse to get checked out. Nothing broken, but there were multiple new bruises to match her black and purple nose.

In class, Marinette had to resist the urge to stare at the hot mess her bully had become in a single day. The rest of the class had noticed too. Nathaniel decided to move up a row to sit with Ivan. Rose and Juleka cast wary glances in her direction whenever Lila started muttering to herself. Even Mme. Bustier had to tell Lila multiple times to stop talking with the threat of detention.

By the time lunch came around, Marinette made sure to be with one other person at all times. With how unhinged Lila was getting, she didn't want to risk being caught alone with her. Luckily, Ivan, Rose, and Juleka wanted to talk with her about the new designs for Kitty Section, so she was covered.

Lila noticed how the class was starting to avoid her. Fighting off the urge to curse and scream at them, she took a few deep breaths to clear her mind. She'd been rushing too much for the last two days, she knew that. Trying to compensate for her failure was only bringing more attention to herself and the sheep were noticing that something wasn't right. She had to slow down and make them come to her.

For the next few days, Lila backed down. She smiled at her followers, paid attention in class, and would occasionally look at her phone in distress and act like she was fighting off tears. By Monday morning, things were going better for her. She'd avoided getting in any more trouble with her mom and teachers, she'd texted a fake apology to her classmates, and admitted that she was going through something that was causing a lot of stress. When some of them asked what it was, Lila timidly said that she was too nervous to say anything else. She knew they would bug her and assure her that she could tell them anything.

Monday morning, just as she planned, everyone was encouraging her to trust them and tell them what was bothering her. Seeing that Bustier and Marinette weren't in class yet, she knew now was the time to strike.

Squeezing her eyes shut as she harshly pinched the inside of her elbow to bring tears, she started weaving her story. "It's just, someone's been bullying over text. It's so bad. She keeps telling me that I'll lose all my friends and that I should just kill myself," she said between forced sobs as she dropped her head into her hands. "And it never stops. Sh- she texts all day and into the night. And when I tried to show my mom, the messages were gone. I don't know how, but it's like my phone got hacked and the messages disappear after I've read them."

Max mentioned that there are self deleting message apps, but he wasn’t familiar with them. Then he looked at her searchingly. "You keep saying 'she', that would indicate that you are aware of who is behind this?"

Doing her best surprised face, Lila shook her head. "I can't say, none of you would believe that Marinette would-" she gasped and covered her mouth. "Oh no, I really shouldn't have said anything."

Lila watched as the sheep exchanged surprised looks while Adrien glared at her, but he wouldn't say anything. His father would have made sure of that.

"You're saying that Marinette, our class rep, has been bullying you over text?" Alix asked, unease evident in her tone.

She shook her head while turning up the water works. "I knew I shouldn't have said an-anything. She's your friend, too."

"You said she's been doing this constantly?" Mylene asked, eyeing her carefully as Lila nodded. "When did she last send you one of those texts?"

Sniffling, Lila rubbed her eyes to give herself a second to think. It felt like these were leading questions, like they knew something she didn't. Meaning they'd probably spent time with her over the weekend and would have noticed her messaging Lila constantly. But since everyone was here and Marinette wasn't…

"Right before class. It- it asked if I was dead yet." Another sniffle and she was sure the class was wrapped around her fing-

"Marinette was right! You are a liar!"

Lila was so surprised by Kim's outburst, she forgot to keep crying and stared at everyone as they glared at her in disgust and moved away from her.

"I can't believe we almost bought that crap you were selling!" Alix turned away, face turning red in anger.

"But- but it's the truth! I-"

"There is a .03% chance of what you said being true." Max interrupted, staring down his nose at her. "At this point it is better that you admit it."

Casting a desperate look around the classroom, she was surprised that no one looked supportive. Even Adrien looked absolutely done with her. Realizing the jig was up, she let her expression morph to anger and annoyance as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Wow, I'm surprised you idiots figured it out. Usually you do exactly what I say after faking a few tears. I'm curious, what gave me away?"

The sudden change in the Italian girl gave them a bit of whiplash, but Nino answered her. "You ruined Marinette’s phone when you dumped your water on her. She isn't getting a new one until this Friday. No way she could have been messaging you at all."

"Huh, I guess it was worth dumping that on her, even if you idiots started to notice." Then she shrugged and stood from her seat. "Oh well, good to know for my next school, this place was getting stagnant anyway."

Kim blocked her way. "You're not going to get away with-"

"Shut it, you stupid jock. I've already got Bitch-stier and Dumb-ocles eating out of my hand. When I tell them you're ganging up on me, all of you will get detention while I walk free." Sidestepping her soon-to-be former classmates, she gave them a sarcastic wave and smile as she bid them "ciao" and opened the door…

To come face to face with a furious teacher, principal, and her mother!? What's she doing here? Did they just hear what I said?

The thought barely finished when her mother reached out, literally grabbed her by the ear, and dragged her out the door. The class watched in shock as Mme Rossi screamed and lectured her daughter all the way to Damocles' office.

They would be informed days later that Lila had been sent to military school in Italy. In lycee, they heard rumors that she had been arrested for stalking a local celebrity in Venice. During university, Alya found an article about Lila Rossi being sentenced to 30+ years in prison for attempting a ponzi scheme. It had failed terribly and her victims got all their money back, but Lila would have to serve 5 years for each of her victims.

Not that it mattered to them anymore. The class was too busy with their own lives and futures to put much thought into some lying brat that they went to school with for a little while.

Bonus:

Tikki fought her grin as she watched Lila being dragged away by her ear as she and Marinette came up the stairs. Sighing with relief, she was about to enjoy a well deserved treat when she heard a familiar snicker behind her.

"Nice going, Sugarcube. Couldn't have done it better, myself." Plagg cackled as he passed her a cookie before indulging in a wedge of cheese he'd brought with him.

She grudgingly took the cookie before looking away from him. "It was an accident, I touched her hand when she tried planting that pen in my holder’s purse. What happened was her own doing and not my fault."

"Su~re. And the fact that she interrupted your cookie time and dumped your macaron onto the floor had nothing to do with it?"

The look she gave him had Plagg laughing on the inside. Only on the inside.

"That was a perfectly baked, blueberry macaron with a tart, lemon curd filling. I only got one bite before it got dumped to the floor. A price had to be paid."

Plagg watched with great affection as his Sugarcube took a bite of her sweet treat. Oh yes, he'd learned millennia ago not to interrupt cookie time. Just like Henry the VIII, that Lenin guy in Russia, and a few others. They had experienced the wrath of the goddess of creation when interrupting cookie time, though Plagg was the only one to know why things went so bad. It made him smart enough never to do it again.

Taglist:

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#miraculous ladybug #miraculous justice #lila lies #lila salt #lila bashing #class redemption #badass tikki #tikki and plagg

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gale-gentlepenguin · 2 years

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ML Reboot: Miraculous: Heroes of Miracles: The Dupain-Cheng Family

-So not to diss the family, with there being less focus on the Agreste family drama (it’s still there but it’s not the Main show), I figured I should add some depth to Marinette’s family. Specifically the pasts of Tom and Sabine.

-Tom Grew up in Provins. A small town in France near Paris. His father liked to keep things simple, and Paris was complicated.

-Rolland, (Tom’s dad) and Tom had a falling out when Tom was a teen.

-Rolland was very Traditional, believing in the Legacy of Bread Makers. He didn’t believe in making desserts, it was only bread. For “Bread was the foundation of life.” The Dupain family motto.

-Tom loved making bread, but he also loved Baking desserts, Cakes, cookies, macarons.

-To Rolland, Tom’s ‘hobby’ of making sweets was shameful, and unmanly. But so long as he kept it out of the store, he would let it be. Tom however planned on making desserts for his Fathers bakery when he took over. Saying it would bring new customers

-Rolland thought it an insult to the craft. Telling his son that the modern trend of sweet breads was just that, a trend. And Tradition must stand strong. The Dupain legacy was 5 generations strong.

-Tom told his father he will keep making bread, that won’t be lost. But the store is suffering, the customers that remain loyal are getting older and they haven’t attracted new customers in decades.

-Rolland told Tom that if he wanted to make bread he could stay, but if he insisted on baking cakes… he must leave.

-Tom hadn’t spoken to his father since the day he left.

-Tom’s mom, Gine heard about what happened. She tried to give Tom money, but he refused. Instead selling all of his things before heading to Paris. He managed to buy a dingy hole in the wall that needed repairs thanks to a mix of his life savings and loans.

-Tom Cleaned it up and Called it “Tom’s Bakery”

____________________________________________

-Xia Bing Cheng (later known as Sabine) was born in Shanghai. Her parents passed away when she was 10 due to a tragic accident. Ever since, she and her sister were raised by her uncle. Helping out at his Restaurant.

-Wang was not a famous chef. He was incredibly talented, but his place was not as famous as in canon. He worked hard and long hours. Having Xia Bing and her sister do errands to help out.

-Xia Bing was fierce and independent. She felt she was trapped, forced to work for her uncle, and wanting her own life.

-Xia Bing was of course was also resentful and rebellious. Often going out late as a teen and causing trouble. She often got into trouble with the police despite that She was never caught, but a lot of her friends were. Burned a lot of bridges by leaving them out to dry.

-It broke Wang’s heart to see her go out of control. Trying to reign her in. But Xia Bing always seemed to ignore him.

-In truth, Xia Bing knew the struggles Wang dealt with, knowing some nights he would be up wondering how to provide for them. It’s why Xia would go out. Conning people and committing petty theft. So she could provide for herself and not take away from Wang and her sister.

-At 17, Xia managed to leave Shanghai and found herself bouncing from country to country until she ended up in France. She had caused a bit too much trouble and didn’t want her uncle and sister to suffer due to her own actions.

-At this time Xia was nearly broke, and her cons didn’t work so great as her charming wit was not heard due to her inability to speak French well. So she decided to find work wherever she could to take care of herself.

-Xia Bing changed her Name to Sabine, and worked at numerous places, all long hours for little pay, and often no pay as they would threaten to report her to the police.

-Sabine found herself at rock bottom, close to being evicted. She wondered how her uncle and sister were doing. She was weighing her options all of which weren’t good. She hoped they were better off. Her stomach growled and her nose caught on the smell of something sweet.

-She found herself inside a small bakery, very bare bones. Clearly still in the midst of repairs, but it was clean, and the goods smelled heavenly.

-There she saw a young man, no older than her, working behind a counter. He could tell she was hungry and got her some macarons, free of charge.

-She learned his name was Tom. She told him she would pay him back.

-“Seeing the delight you took in my dessert is pay enough for today”

-This was the first genuine act of kindness she had received from someone since coming to Paris.

-She asked if he was hiring. He told her he was looking for help, but he couldn’t pay much.

-She accepted it.

__________________________________________

-Tom and Sabine ended up working together and thanks to their dedication, they were able to start making profit. Tom helped Sabine learn French, Sabine showed Tom tricks in cooking and baking that he had not been privy to. Having worked at her uncles restaurant and other French cafe’s, kitchens and so on.

-Tom changed the name of the bakery to “Tom and Sabine’s” as he felt she was just as much part of the bakery as he was.

-They ended up falling in love. Tom proposing and Sabine happily Accepting.

-Shortly after the bakery started getting recognition and Tom was able to really start paying back the loans he took.

-Marinette was born a year after their marriage,

________________________________________

-Marinette knew very much that Tom and Sabine put their heart and soul into the bakery, and figured one day she would take over, as their daughter.

-But as Marinette discovered her desire to go into fashion, she felt guilt. How could she just abandon her parents labor to pursue her own path.

-This comes to a head in season 3 where after her breakdown. She tells her father her dream. She apologizes to him, saying she knows how ungrateful she sounds tears forming in her eyes. Because she feels she is breaking his heart

-Tom hugs her.

-Because he knows the pain she is feeling, and he never wanted her to feel obligated

-Tears in his eyes, he tells her he never wanted her to feel obligated to the bakery. This bakery is not meant to be her shackles.

-“Tradition should never come before love.”

-Marinette gets to pursue her dream, the bakery would be there as a means to have her have employment should she need it, or if she decides that the bakery is where she wants to be. But that is her choice. Something both Tom and Sabine agree on wholeheartedly.

#miraculous: heroes of miracles #sabine cheng #tom dupain #ml #marinette dupain cheng

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fragileizywriting · 2 years

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it's time for me to talk a little bit more about my thoughts on flp, and this one in particular is a long one so i will be putting a readmore like usual, please enjoy

okay something i do want to mention before i forget it is that i fucking LOVE that i did this on complete accident in flp, where i made young child marinette an absolute disaster when it comes to dirt. this little child has so much SHIT on her at all times. she'd probably be the girl to put her hand in her apron and find a stale cookie. she'd also be the girl to eat it. leaves, dirt, flour, ink, butter and milk all over her, this girl is a FIASCO.

and i love i love i LOVE that by the time she reaches adulthood, she's transitioned out of it. i have no idea why this happened, but she's a stickler for hygene in the beginning of flp in the first chapter where she's wiping chat clean. little marinette wouldn't have cared at all about the dirt, and probably would've made a bigger mess.

that type of growth was entirely unplanned but i absolutely love it, because it means that somewhere between child and adult she started caring, and now i'm starting to wonder what it was and why and christ i now have so many ideas

like i always thought that the first few days of marinette having a familiar would be so funny. her realizing that there's a whole MAN living in her house now and trying not to freak out-- it's not even the demon part. it's just the Guy part. like they stand in her little house in the middle of this small town that isn't paris, her home she'd lived on close to the beach so she could spend more time with luka, and she's just like "holy shit there's a guy just living here now, what did i do."

and chat!!! and chat!!!! finally meeting, like, The Girl his parents have talked about after so many years, hearing about her accomplishments-- amazing the witch practitioner with her test skills, saving a naga hatchling from suffocation, all these great things and then coming across this... strange woman.

there's nothing in her house.

it's true that her parents moved out and went further north to escape the town and took most of the furniture, yes, and it's also true that he'd shown up literally as her house was turning into coal and ash, but this woman lives in sparsity.

there's a stool. a mattress. and a chest with clothes. and so many ingredients just lying around.

the oven doesn't even work. she'd tried fixing it and broke it and hasn't even been using it anymore. she cooks in her cauldron, which rings all sorts of alarms in his head, because he knows the proper and right way to do things because he's a proper and right man who learned the proper and right things from his parents, but this woman lives in no fear of anything. chat gets whiplash meeting a woman who has no sense of self-preservation, sticking her fingers into a naga(!!!!!)s mouth when they complain of toothaches, completely unaware that chat is having a heartattack behind her about how simple it would be for the naga to just. bite. and leave her fingers severed off.

she's a disaster. no wonder chat falls in love with her the moment he meets her. she's so confusing. she tells him to clean up after himself and not leave dirty marks to which chat just gestures around, confused, asking her "and dirty what???? you barely have a floor in here!!!!"

anyway. those are some of the thoughts i have about flp

#speakizys #fire lily petals #this is not all of my thoughts #i kinda rambled here sorry

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quicksilversquared · 3 years

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The Wavering Peahen: Chapter 6

When Nathalie started feeling oddly ill again, both she and Gabriel were worried that the Peacock Miraculous might somehow (impossibly) be to blame again.

So naturally, they pick someone else to be the Peacock for a bit. You know, as a test subject. Except the new Peacock… doesn’t exactly know that.

links in the reblog

Marinette was starting to think that Hawkmoth had officially gone around the bend.

For months after the Miracle Queen attack, Hawkmoth and Mayura had hammered at the superheroes, both of them plus the regular akuma and a sentimonster showing up to the battles. The superheroes had struggled to adapt, sacrificing their free time and fun activities to find and train new allies to help them as needed and doubling up on Miraculous almost as often as not to have access to more powers. They had been managing- sometimes only by the skin of their teeth- but it was taking a lot of effort.

And then, all of a sudden, Mayura vanished, and Pavona took her place next to Hawkmoth.

The change by itself would have been odd enough even if Pavona was an equally good fighter as Mayura. But Pavona was a poor fighter and even worse strategist. Her sentimonsters were easier to fight than Mayura's, and her outfit- while fancy- was a piece of cake to grab onto, either to yank her backward (or sideways) out of an attack or to fling her several blocks away, away from the fight and out of their hair for several minutes while the supervillain picked herself back up and straightened her outfit out.

(The Ladyblog had had an absolute field day with how ridiculous and ill-suited for fighting Pavona's outfit was. Marinette had worried that it would make Pavona reconsider her transformation and choose something more practical, but either the supervillain was unaware of the Ladyblog or was just so generally inept that she wasn't willing to sacrifice fashion for practicality.)

In most cases, Marinette would have assumed that Pavona had stolen the Miraculous from Mayura, and that was the reason for the change. But it was obvious that Pavona wouldn't have been able to overpower Mayura to start with, and Hawkmoth had clearly been anticipating the change. Right now, her assumption was that something had happened to Mayura- maybe she had died in an accident or something, she didn't know- and Pavona was Hawkmoth's only choice for an ally.

To be honest, Marinette was of the opinion that Hawkmoth would have been better off fighting on his own. Pavona only seemed to get in the way, and then she had to be saved before the superheroes could grab for her Miraculous. Pavona hadn't come out on the battlefield again after one particularly idiotic blunder, but considering that Mayura hadn't returned and the Peacock's sentimonsters were still showing up, it was more than likely that Pavona was just sulking in a lair somewhere for a bit before trying battlefield fighting again.

And now, after weeks- no, months- of Hawkmoth going after the superheroes with increased ferocity, the attacks had suddenly stopped. There had been nothing for the past four days.

Not that Marinette was complaining! Being able to attend school without having to dash out was really nice. It was just odd, that was all.

"Oh, Lila's looking like she might be finally getting better! I'm glad, she was looking so ill at the end of last week!"

Marinette blinked, pulling herself out of her thoughts and glancing over at Alya. "Hm?"

Alya nodded towards the front of the classroom, where Lila was straggling across the front of the classroom. "Lila caught a cold or something last week and she was so exhausted. She couldn't rest very well, since she's been pushing herself to get all of this work for her charities done before this deadline and there's been, like, so many emergencies that she's had to deal with all in a row. We've all been trying to help out so she won't get behind, but she's really been struggling. So I'm glad that she's feeling at least a little better now!"

For once, it was easy not to sigh in exasperation. Instead, Marinette frowned, glancing towards Lila as she headed for the back of the classroom.

The charities were a lie, of course. They always had been and always would be. Lila was too selfish and self-centered to even think about spending her time and money helping others. But the lie definitely got Lila a lot of (undeserved) admiration and offers for help. Mysteriously, Lila could never use the help with the charity directly- Marinette hadn't bothered to hear her excuses for that- but she could use the help when it came to things like homework. Normally, Marinette would assume that Lila had just wanted her classmates to offer to do all of her homework because she felt a little under the weather.

This time, though, Marinette had noticed that Lila seemed a bit under the weather, and it hadn't seemed faked. In fact, it had been pretty obvious once she looked a little closer that Lila had applied makeup to hide how bad she was feeling. And that was strange.

Sure, Lila seemed to have made a little bit of a recovery, but Marinette couldn't help but feel a bit curious about the whole situation. Downplaying her troubles wasn't Lila's style at all, and Marinette had to wonder what was going on. Because something had to be going on, unless Lila had gotten a personality transplant overnight.

(Considering that she was still lying about her charity work, Marinette doubted that.)

"I wonder if there's something going around," Adrien commented quietly to Marinette as Alya and Nino broke off into their own little conversation. "Nathalie was sick a couple weeks ago, and I've never seen her so drained. She's been getting better, but she still gets these little relapses sometimes." He glanced towards the back of the classroom, his brow furrowed. "Maybe Lila picked it up at one of the photoshoots or something."

"I hope it doesn't spread, then," Marinette said. She chanced a glance back at Lila, who was clearly half-heartedly engaging in conversation with a few of their classmates. "Being tired and miserable for over a week sounds miserable."

Miserable, and not very safe. Marinette had had to be Ladybug when she had a bit of a cold more than one time, with a stuffed nose and a sore throat, and that had been bad enough. It hadn't affected her fighting that much, she thought, but combine that with how being tired during late night and early-morning fights affected her...

"She probably shouldn't have been coming to school," Adrien added after a moment. "It's a bit odd that most of the time she's so eager to skip, but the one time when she actually has a legitimate excuse to stay home, she doesn't."

Marinette nodded, glancing backwards again. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

The lack of akumas continued for the rest of the week, and Marinette got to get caught up with- well, everything- for the first time in ages. She worried that Hawkmoth was planning something, of course, but there wasn't really much that she and Chat Noir could do about it besides patrolling every evening in search of trouble.

Well, patrolling and going over what little information they had about the Miraculous powers and potions, comparing notes about what Master Fu had taught them. Thankfully she had gotten copies of pretty much all of Master Fu's translations before he was caught, but she hadn't had the chance to go through all of them and truly figure out the extent of the information at her fingertips. She and Chat Noir had been finding hidden crannies- ones where they wouldn't get spotted and where they couldn't be overheard or snuck up on- and going over the notes, puzzling over cryptic clues and tossing ideas for interpretations back and forth. Maybe it was a nice change of pace from battling akumas (and it was definitely something that they had to do anyway), but it was also difficult and frustrating and slow-going. Things had to be interpreted and then sorted into some semblance of order so that they would be able to find the notes again when they needed them.

So by the time Saturday rolled around, marking a full week without the barest whisper of an akuma, Marinette was more than happy to set her schoolwork and the Miraculous notes aside (the latter locked up in a box that was both secure and hidden), bake a batch of cookies, and package them up with some rejected pastries from the bakery to bring to their class picnic at the park. It sounded like a great opportunity to relax and focus on something else for a change.

Their classmates trickled in, coming in pairs and trios, laden with food. Thankfully it looked like people had brought dishes instead of just treats this time, so they would have a proper meal instead of just sugar, sugar, and more sugar. It was a far cry from their first class picnic, where almost all of them ended up feeling a bit ill from the number of sweets that they had eaten.

Rose, bless her, had even brought salad. She had put in a fair amount of work, clearly, tossing in more veggies and croutons and bringing a container of homemade dressing to make it more interesting.

Everyone milled around, talking and relaxing in the warm sun. Marinette wandered between her classmates, chatting with pretty much everyone before gradually circling back around to hang with Alya, Nino, and Adrien again. Maybe she got to hang out with them most often, just by virtue of where they sat in class, but they were also her best friends. They could talk for forever about nothing in particular, and it was nice to have that.

Ten minutes after the bulk of their class had arrived, Lila finally showed up. And in typical Lila fashion, of course she had to make her entrance loud.

"Oh my god, you guys, you'll never guess what my mom did for me! It was so sweet of her!"

"Oh, what now?" Marinette grumbled as people started to flock towards Lila as though they were being drawn by a magnet. "Can't we go one day without her making up some ridiculous story to tell?"

"I'll go listen in," Adrien volunteered, placing one hand on her shoulder. "Just to see what she's up to. If you want to, uh..."

"I'll go organize things on the picnic table so that I don't have to listen to her," Marinette offered, picking up what he was going to say. It was obvious to anyone with eyes (and critical thinking skills) that listening to Lila blather on made Marinette's blood pressure rocket up. "And then, uh, do some cloud-watching?"

Adrien snorted. "Honestly, that sounds way more appealing than listening to Lila. Anything is, really, but..." He glanced towards the growing group around Lila. "I'd rather not have to hear about what Lila was saying and showing off secondhand, not when everyone believes everything she says."

Before Marinette could agree, Adrien had darted off, lingering on the edges of the group. He blended in pretty naturally, clearly going for a 'just-here-because-Nino-is' look and succeeding fairly well. Before anyone could notice that she wasn't joining the rest of the group, Marinette wandered off to rearrange the table and make it not quite so chaotic. Since Lila seemed to be settling in for a long story-telling session, Marinette took her sweet time in surveying everything that people had brought (Lila, she couldn't help but notice, had opted not to contribute) and figuring out the best way to arrange them. Shapes of containers had to be taken into consideration, of course, and then similar things- the salads, the chips- could be put together.

It made the table much neater and meant that nothing was in danger of falling off anymore.

Lila was still going strong with her stories, so Marinette turned her attention skyward for all of a minute (cloud-watching, it turned out, was not particularly interesting for an extended period of time) and then down to her phone. Finally, finally, Lila stopped talking and everyone broke up into their little friend groups. Marinette headed over to Adrien's side at once, something that was made much easier by the fact that Alya and Nino were still talking to Lila.

"So what's the latest nonsense?"

Adrien startled for a moment, then relaxed once he realized that it was Marinette next to him. "Oh, gosh. I don't know how, but Lila's come up with pictures to go along with her stories. She has selfies with Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, Prince Ali, Ladybug..."

"She- what?" For once, Marinette was caught completely off guard. "She has photos? But none of those stories are true!"

"My guess is Photoshop. That, or she wanted to go low-tech, posters and life-sized print-outs." Adrien made a face, glancing around as he did to make sure that they weren't being overheard. "I don't know why she went all-in like that all of a sudden. Like, it didn't seem as though people were believing her any less than they were when she first showed up."

"Maybe she just wanted to head off that possibility before anyone caught on." Which was annoying, really. Marinette had just been about ready to try for another round of pointing out inconsistencies in Lila's stories to Alya, abet a more subtle round, and now that Lila had "evidence" to back up her claims...

Well, that made things a lot more difficult. She would have to abandon subtlety altogether and do something much more direct, like calling up Jagged Stone and having him come in or somehow approaching Lila as Ladybug when Alya was nearby and calling her out for the Photoshop.

She really should have just nipped the entire problem in the bud when Lila first showed up and gone to Alya's apartment to ask about the video of her "best friend" on the same day that it was posted, but it was a little too late to do that now.

"It makes me wonder if she's setting up to do something bigger," Adrien murmured, keeping his voice low. Maybe none of their classmates were lingering close by, but they didn't want to be overheard. "Then she would want to have a solid base. If she validates all of her previous lies, then she can tell a bigger one and not run as big of a risk of people doubting her."

Marinette nodded. Yeah, she was afraid of that, too. She also wouldn't be surprised if Lila decided to make up something about her to get rid of the dissenting voice for once and for all. If she tried, though, Marinette was ready.

There was a lock on her school bag, and another on her locker. Tikki had been told to keep an eye out and to destroy anything that Lila tried to plant. Marinette had even bought a recorder, in case she ever found herself alone with Lila and no witnesses again.

Of course, Lila might very well decide to take the approach of making Marinette look like the bad guy by bringing attention to the fact that she didn't believe any of Lila's stories, and then try to alienate her friends that way. Marinette wouldn't let that happen- she'd just use her connections to discredit Lila if it got that bad- but it wouldn't be particularly pleasant, either.

"Maybe she wants to skip again and the teachers are starting to doubt her," Marinette suggested, keeping her voice just as quiet as Adrien's. "So she's going more indirect this time by showing off her pictures to classmates but not the teacher- except no, it would make more sense than to show the photos off at school. Then she wouldn't have to depend on the teachers overhearing classmates just happening to mention the photos."

"True. Which suggests that whatever she's planning, it's more important that our classmates all believe her." Adrien sighed. "I miss the days before Lila showed up. I didn't feel like I had to keep an ear open to what was going on and what was being talked about all the time."

Marinette nodded. Yeah, things had been a lot more simple before Lila returned. Maybe she still had to deal with Chloe's nonsense, but at least Chloe hadn't been trying to frame her for things, just make her life difficult in typical bully fashion.

"I guess we'll find out what she's up to soon enough," Marinette said with a sigh. She wasn't looking forward to it. "I almost wish I could see the photos without Lila there. I bet there's something off about them that I'd be able to point out, but she's hardly going to hand over her phone and let me pick them apart."

Adrien perked up. "Oh! Lila sent her Ladybug photos to Alya to post on the Ladyblog. Maybe it's not all of the photos, but you could at least look over those ones."

Marinette grinned. That was a start, at least. Of course, she would have to be really careful when bringing up any problems with the photos because otherwise she wouldn't even get her friends to actually look at the issue before they jumped down her throat about how she was being so mean doubting poor Lila, but maybe she could pose any concerns as a question or something.

"Hey, Marinette, come check this out!"

"I'll wait here and if Nino and Alya got anything more out of Lila once they finish chatting with her," Adrien said when Marinette hesitated to respond, not fully willing to give up their discussion so early. He nudged her towards Max. "There'll be plenty of time to try to figure out what Lila's up to later."

Marinette nodded, stepping away from Adrien and heading across the grass towards Max. He was grinning, looking eager about something.

"I would love some feedback on some of my proposed designs for the akuma villains that I'll be rolling out as part of my upcoming game update," Max told Marinette as she drew closer. He pulled a folder out of his bag and opened it, pulling out a sheath of papers. "Both the villain costume design and the powers, really. I want to make them a bit less, ah, one-dimensional, I suppose. Less predictable. I had some ideas, but would definitely be open to any improvements before I code them all in."

Marinette perked up. Oh, that sounded interesting, and something that sounded loads more interesting than discussing Lila and her nonsense. "Sure! How many akumas are you thinking of adding?"

"I thought ten to fifteen in the next release, then maybe do regular releases after that on a more regular basis with five or so akumas per release, just to keep things fresh." Max adjusted his glasses, angling the paper stack so that Marinette could see the top design. "Of course, how long I can do that for depends on Hawkmoth making new akumas and not simply recycling powers over and over, but at the moment I have quite a list of supervillains that I could use."

"That sounds like a lot of work, but very cool," Marinette told him, accepting the top paper. She scanned the design, grinning when she noticed how well Max had done at getting the details right. "This is so cool! Was it hard getting all of the details?"

"Nathaniel assisted with the character modeling," Max told her, shuffling around so he could stand next to her and see the page as well. "Which really helped bring the characters to life."

"It's really fantastic!" Marinette glanced through the next few papers, impressed. It was a real step up from Max's original character designs, which had been detailed enough for people to be able to identify the characters but nowhere near this quality. He had focused less on the design and more on the coding for the actual play. "Have the old characters gotten the same design upgrade?"

"Yes, that was what the last update was. I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect and there wouldn't be any mismatch between the old characters and the new ones." Max shuffled a step closer. "So, what do you think about this character?"

Ten minutes of character review later, Marinette left Max scribbling down notes in the margins of his character pages and headed back across the park to where her friends were hanging out. Halfway there, she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of Lila's voice, loud and pointed and annoying.

"You missed out on seeing my pictures earlier," Lila said loudly, smugness coming across loud and clear in her voice. "Which is a pity, really. There were some really nice ones that my mom recovered off of my old phone. If you wanted, I could still show you a couple."

Marinette snorted at that. As if. "So you've taken up Photoshop as a hobby, I take it?" she asked, thoroughly unimpressed. "And I think I'll pass on looking at the photos. If I wanted to see something that wasn't real, I'd go watch an action hero movie. That would at least be enjoyable."

"You're just so certain that they're doctored," Lila sniffed, still insufferably smug. "Do you know how jealous that makes you sound? It's not a very attractive look on you at all."

Marinette had to roll her eyes at that. Jealous? Why on earth would she be jealous of Lila? "Puh-leeze. There was a photo of me and Jagged Stone on the cover of Metal Lord not even a year ago, and I've got actual selfies of me and Clara Nightingale on my phone from when she was doing her music video. I don't need Photoshop. Some of us actually have the connections that you pretend to have. If anyone is jealous, it's you."

With that, she turned on her heel and left before Lila could say anything else, continuing her journey towards Alya and Nino and Adrien. Alya was busily tapping away on her phone, clearly in Ladyblog article mode.

She would probably have the photos and whatever article she was writing up done by the evening and posted with the photos, and then Marinette could look at them. With any luck, there would be something obvious wrong with them, and maybe- maybe she could post under an anonymous name and bring up the fact that the photos were clearly faked then?

"Max sure looks serious about something," Adrien commented as Marinette returned, settling down on the grass between him and Alya. "I don't know anyone else who would bring a file folder to a picnic- well, anyone else our age, at least."

"He's gearing up to start work on a new release for his video game," Marinette told him. She was really excited to see it, actually. Hopefully she would actually have the time to play. "Or, well, he's started work, but he wanted to get some input on how to make it better. He has twenty new akumas lined up to create, and they all look fantastic!"

Adrien perked up. "Oh, cool! I saw that the graphics took a huge leap forward with the last release, which was really nice. Before, it was very, ah..." He tipped his head to one side, considering. "Very early-game-y? But now the graphics match the coding, which is nice. I know there was a huge spike in interest once that upgrade came through."

"As there should be!" There had been several akuma-and-superhero-themed games that had come out since she and Chat Noir hit the scene, but in Marinette's (completely unbiased) opinion, Max's was one of the best. "We were talking about the powers that the akumas get and how he's working on making them a little more realistic and less predictable. Thankfully he doesn't have to puzzle it out through trial and error for each akuma. Or, well, at least he really only had to do a bunch of puzzling for the first one, and then each one after that only needs a few small tweaks here and there."

"I can't wait for that to come out. Did Max say when he's expecting to have that ready to roll out?"

Marinette shook her head. She had asked too, but Max had said that there were way too many variables to promise anything yet. "I think he's still early on enough in the process that it's impossible to predict. Everything could go really smoothly..."

"...or the code could tie itself into knots and take weeks to find the issue," Adrien finished. "Ah, I suppose I could be patient."

"I wonder if Max would be interested in giving out some preview pictures before everything is ready to go," Nino chimed in. "I know Alya's mentioned his game on the Ladyblog before, but it never hurts to drum up some more interest. Right, babe?"

He got a vague grunt in response.

"Babe?"

"I think she's a bit focused at the moment," Adrien said with a laugh when Alya didn't respond again. "We'll bug her later. I think Max's game is a pretty cool thing to put on the Ladyblog."

"Though not as cool as Lila!" Nino exclaimed. "I mean, I guess her friendship with Ladybug is old news now, but Ladybug doesn't pose with civilians that often, not unless there's an event or something. And the pictures- Marinette, you missed that! Lila's mom got a specialist to recover a bunch of her photos from off of her old phone that got destroyed, and she was showing everyone. It was cool to get to see the inside of Prince Ali's palace! Like, there weren't a ton of pictures of the inside, just what we could see in the background of her photos with him, but still!"

"Hm," Marinette said, completely noncommittal. "Pity. I had to make sure that none of the food was going to fall off of the picnic table. It kind of looked like Kim might have arranged it last- there was a really precarious pile of stuff. One pan was hanging halfway off of the table and the only reason why it hadn't fallen yet was because something else was piled on top of the portion that was actually on the table."

Adrien laughed. "That sounds like Kim. And yet there was plenty of space on the table, it seems? Nothing is about to fall off now."

"Yeah, it was just that dishes were piled every which way and there were a lot of oddly-shaped gaps between..." Marinette trailed off, squinting across the park. Lila was headed towards Rose and Max and Juleka, but something seemed... off. She didn't seem entirely steady on her feet for a moment, half-stumbling before catching herself and continuing.

Huh. Was Lila still sick? She had seemed mostly fine at school on Friday, and for most of the rest of the week, too. Marinette would have guessed that Lila was just trying to get attention again, except that stumble was...muted. Almost like Lila was trying to hide it.

...maybe she just didn't want to take attention away from her faked photos? The attention from that was sure to be better than any attention that she could get from being sick, even if Lila had clearly enjoyed the attention that she had gotten during her- what? One, two, maybe three weeks of being sick?

That... that was a long time to be sick.

Marinette kept watching Lila as she sat down, almost immediately joining in the conversation. She seemed fine now, but Marinette was positive that she hadn't imagined that stumble.

"-lots of tasty dishes," Nino was saying, though Marinette had largely tuned him out. "A lot of things that I want to try. The pastries you brought look great- and did you see the quiches that Juleka brought? I heard she made them herself!"

He didn't get a response. Marinette was too busy watching Lila.

She had the feeling that something was off, and she didn't want to let her guard down until she figured out what.

Hawkmoth had been quiet lately. Lila had gotten photos that were either photoshopped or had been made in some other way. Maybe it was a stretch to say that the two were related, but there was a niggling feeling in Marinette's gut that there was some sort of connection.

Marinette had long since learned that her gut was usually not a great thing to ignore. If she sensed that something was wrong, she needed to investigate. Just sitting back and waiting for things to resolve themselves or for problems to show up wasn't enough, not anymore.

"You guys? The quiches?"

Marinette startled, pulling her gaze away from Lila and back towards Nino. Right. Investigating was important, but so was not being obvious about it. If Lila caught her staring, or one of her other classmates did, then Lila would no doubt go out of her way to be even more sneaky about whatever it was that she was up to.

That was fine. Marinette could hold a conversation and watch Lila unobtrusively at the same time. So she did. And what she noticed...

Well, Lila was definitely still sick. She had looked positively green as she picked up food from the table (following what might have been either an attempt to make people feel like they had to rush to assure her that she could take all the food she wanted or a stab at getting out of eating that backfired spectacularly- Marinette suspected that it was meant to be the latter) and not entirely steady on her feet as she headed back to the bench that she had been sitting on. She hadn't eaten until one of the other girls commented on it, instead just pushing her food around her plate, and, if Marinette's eyes were serving her correctly, Lila seemed to occasionally be swaying in place. Which... wasn't normal.

If it weren't for the faked photos, Marinette would say that Lila was just ill and wasn't up to- well, wasn't up to being up to something. But clearly she had had enough energy to put in the work to create the photos.

Unless- well, there was a possibility that Lila had been working on those photos gradually, over the course of several weeks, and just finished them recently. Several weeks of Photoshop work logically made more sense than a day or two, unless Hawkmoth was involved. Somehow.

...it wasn't a completely illogical thought, right? She was pretty sure that Lila had worked willingly with Hawkmoth before. She had been Akumatized and looked just like normal, at least for a bit. So it wasn't impossible.

...but then how did the cold fit in? And why on earth would Hawkmoth bother giving someone photoshopping powers?

Across the way, Lila swayed in her seat again. She was looking rather pale now, and Marinette wondered why she hadn't just gone home. It would have been easy enough for Lila to claim that she had just gotten an email requesting an urgent Skype meeting about pollution or something and then she could have left.

"Just like Mom and Nathalie," Adrien murmured, pulling her out of her thoughts. "That's so strange."

"Hmm?" Marinette blinked over at him, puzzled. "Who is?"

"Lila." Adrien tipped his head towards Lila, who was pushing herself to her feet to follow Rose. "I think I might have mentioned it once before. Nathalie was really ill just like Lila. She was all tired and ill and dizzy for the longest time before she started getting better, and then there were sometimes off days where she seemed just as sick as she had been before. Mom was like that too before she vanished. And I've never heard of a cold before that acted like that."

"Me either." Not that there weren't illnesses that behaved that way. They just weren't colds. Not an average, run-of-the-mill cold, anyway. "Nathalie got better though, right? So if Lila caught whatever she had- oh my god!"

Across the park, Lila had stumbled and then simply collapsed, hitting the ground hard enough- and in an awkward enough position- that it was pretty obvious that it was 100% not at all faked.

"LILA!" Rose shrieked, dashing back to her side. "Oh my god, can you hear me? Are you okay? What- what do we do?"

"Rose, take a deep breath," Marinette called, already shoving herself to her feet. She had gotten first aid training several months prior, just in case she ever needed it as Ladybug, and- well, she was pretty positive that she was the only one in the class with the training, which meant that she needed to take charge. No matter how much she disliked Lila- or how suspicious she was that Lila was up to something- she had to do the right thing. "Juleka, help Rose roll Lila onto her back so that she isn't all crumpled up like that. Alya, call for an ambulance."

"On it!"

Marinette dashed over as Rose and Juleka got Lila into a more comfortable position on the ground. Lila's skin was white as a sheet against her hair, so far beyond pale that it was really concerning.

At least she was breathing. Marinette could tell as much as she skidded to a stop by Lila's side.

Rose was practically in tears. "Is she going to be okay?"

"She's breathing, so she should be fine." As long as she kept breathing, at least. Marinette quickly scanned through her memories of what she had learned in her first aid class. Lila had been acting ill before, so they didn't need to worry about environmental threats to them, too. That also pretty much ruled out choking, and the fact that Lila hadn't been coughing or clutching at her throat (or eating) before confirmed that. She had just passed out, so watching after her while they waited for an ambulance to arrive should be pretty easy.

Now, as far as things that they could do went...

"We want to encourage blood flow to the head, since Lila fainted," Marinette told everyone, keeping a close eye on the slow rise and fall of Lila's chest. "If someone could find something to prop Lila's feet up a bit, that should help. And then I'm just going to make sure that her clothes aren't too tight, because tight clothes restrict blood flow."

Several people darted off to grab their backpacks or bags to prop Lila's feet up. Marinette watched them go for a moment, then turned her attention back to Lila.

Right. What she was meant to do if Lila's clothes were tight, Marinette wasn't sure, but if she could figure out how to defeat an akuma with a traffic cone, she was pretty positive that she could puzzle out how to help Lila.

Methodically, Marinette worked over Lila's body, scanning for anything that might be in need of loosening, pausing briefly partway through to help Nino prop up Lila's feet slightly before going back to her scan. Nothing in particular was sticking out, except for maybe Lila's scarf. Even that was pretty loose, though, not something that would be cutting off any blood or air.

Maybe she should still be removing it? That would probably be a good idea.

"Marinette," Tikki hissed suddenly from Marinette's collar. "I'm sensing something really odd near Lila's neck. Can you take off her scarf? I just- I want to check something out."

Marinette nodded as subtly as she could, not wanting to attract any attention from her audience, then carefully removed Lila's scarf. There was something hard hidden in the folds, and a quick glance down at Tikki confirmed that whatever it was that she had sensed was on the scarf itself.

Had- had she been right? Was Lila actually akumatized and Tikki had detected the akumatized object? Maybe she had been akumatized all week, and that was why she had seemed better. Then the sickness had gotten too much and gotten through the boost that the akuma gave.

Which... well, that made Marinette wonder just how sick Lila was if it was able to force its way through the boost that an akumatization usually gave.

Also, speaking of which, she had to get away soon, then, and purify the akuma before it peeled itself out of whatever was in the scarf. But she couldn't just step away from Lila unnoticed, not when she was the only one of her classmates who was trained in first aid. She would have to wait until the professionals arrived- and even then, she would probably have to brief them on what she had seen and done, even if she had seen the same thing as most of her classmates and hadn't really done much in terms of care.

...maybe she would get lucky and the cursed butterfly would stay in the brooch or whatever it was in the scarf until after Lila was turned over into far more capable hands. It was a long shot, but not completely impossible.

Maybe. Hopefully.

"Here comes the ambulance!" Nathaniel called from the corner of the park. He rushed back towards them. "Clear a path, clear a path!"

The next few minutes were a blur as everyone scrambled out of the way of the path and grabbed up stray bags, making way for the paramedics. They surrounded Lila, taking her vitals and moving her onto a stretcher when she didn't respond. There were questions to answer about what they had seen and what they had done and then Lila was being wheeled away towards the ambulance. The class swarmed towards the curb, watching the ambulance pull away anxiously, but Marinette held back. With everyone else's attention off of her, she glanced down at the scarf in her hands. No corrupted butterflies had fluttered free yet, so Marinette carefully unfolded the scarf to see what was inside.

The folds fell away, tumbling to the side, and the pin inside was exposed. It glinted brightly in the sun, and Marinette gasped.

Because that was no akumatized brooch. That was the Peacock Miraculous.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #The Wavering Peahen

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donnajons · 4 years

Text

Leave Paris Move to Gotham Chapter 3

I know this is way over due but here it is. Sorry fro grammar error I just finished it.

Fresh cinnamon buns

That was what the bakery always smell on Sunday mornings, mainly because it was the special of the day. On Sundays, Marinette took care of the bakery while her parents where in the back baking special orders. The girl liked the routine that came with cinnamon morning. She opened the bakery prompt at six a.m. for Marinette’s dismay. At six thirty, the first customers came in, usually old people, sorry, elderly people. Mrs. Page always ordered green tea and a single cinnamon bun, and Mister Legrand, her husband, liked to order a cup of black coffee along with three strawberry macarons. The couple always sat near the window next to the door.

It was the little things like Mister Legrand asking Marinette random questions about his crossword, (or how the newspaper boy always tried to ask for her number but ended up with a bag of cinnamon buns), and how the air was just full of cinnamon that made Sunday mornings special.

Yes, cinnamon Sundays were the best.

Marinette sat on the counter while she flipped through the pages of her sketchbook looking for new inspiration. Maybe, she and her parents could go to the movies and then to the park to talk. The commissions and babysitting was taking too much time from her family. Marinette really missed them. She missed their laugh, their warm hugs, kisses on her cheeks, and their affections.

She was looking forward to a day with her parents. That was until the sudden burn smell.

The girl stood up from her chair and ran to the kitchen where her parents were finishing the last set of cinnamon buns. They must have burned them by accident. She kicked the doors of the kitchen just to find black smoke covering the room.

“Ma Mi! Babo!” Marinette tried to scream but the smoke was so thick that it compressed her lungs.

She tried to open the kitchen door so the smoke could get out, but she couldn’t find it.It was just too dark to see.

“Ma Mi! Babo!” she tried to call them again. The air was was hard to breathe and smell like burned fresh instead of burned cinnamon.

She walked deeper inside of the darkness. The only thing that mattered to her was to find her parents. They were somewhere here, waiting for her to save them. She needed to find them.

She needed to save them.

“Ma… Mi… Babo…” she coughed so hard that it burned her throat. It felt almost like if someone was strangling her.

Her body felt so heavy like and hurt as if rocks were falling on her.

After what felt like hours, Marinette collapsed on the dark cold floor.

This was the end.

People said that when they are about to die, they see a light that emits peace. Others think that they heard the voices of their loved ones that went to sleep before them. Marinette didn’t see any light or heard the voice of her mom’s parents.

Everything was so dark that it hurt her to keep her eyes open, but she could hear something: steps. Heavy, strong steps coming to her, but they weren’t her parents. Her mom’s walk was elegant and delicate, and while her dad’s was strong, he didn’t make that sound.

Those steps sound like a beast hitting the ground, a beast coming for her.

The girl tried to stand up, but she fell at the first try. She couldn’t move. She couldn't breath, she couldn't see. She couldn't fight.

She was the prey.

The steps got closer and closer until she didn’t hear them anymore.

The girl was sweating cold because, if she couldn't hear the steps, it meant that either the beast leave her alone or, whatever that thing was, it was in front of her.

Marinette hold her breath trying to avoid any sounds that the Beast could hear. She hugged her legs close to her chest trying to protect herself.

She stayed like that for a while waiting for the beast to get her. She waited, waited, and waited, but the beast never came.

The girl let a broken sob come out as tears fell from her eyes.

All of this was her fault was her fault. If she just had let the door open, if she took the fire extinguisher or a lanter, she would have found and then saved her parents. They would be together in a place so much nicer than this. Maybe they would be in the living room of their apartment, watching an old movie. Maybe Marinette would have fell asleep in the middle of the movie over her father’s shoulder, and then the next morning she would wake up in her bed to the voice of her mother telling her that she was late for school.

But she didn’t.

She was alone. Her parents were lost in the darkness with that horrible smell of burning flesh surrounding them, and there was a beast waiting for her to make a mistake, the tiniest mistake, so he could find her and hurt her.

And it was her fault. It was Marinette’s fault, Marinette’s, Marinette’s...

Her throat burn like if somebody was choking her. If the air was already difficult to breath know was impossible. She kicked and punched the hair in panic.

She deserved the pain.

Marinette…

She deserved the suffering.

Marinette…

But the girl wasn’t ready to give up.

Marinette!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Guardian gasped in search of air.

It took her several breath to realise that she had her hands on her neck, and it took her two more to notice Tikki in front of her.

“Marinette, breath, just breath. It was just a nightmare. You are safe. You are with me. We are together, just breath.” The goddess helped the blue eyed girl to take out her hands from her neck slowly.

“That’s it. You are doing great, Marinette.”

Marinette put her hands down. There were nasty bruises forming on her neck. It was going to be difficult to explain it to people.

“I-it was my fault, Tikki. My parents are… my parents are dead because I-I couldn't protect them. I wasn’t strong enough!” A glass in the kitchen’s counter broke down.

Tikki rested on her hands while she pat them.

“No, Marinette. It’s not your fault. The only one that deserves the guilt is Adrien. He burned the the bakery, not you. He kidnapped you. He made the wrong decisions. You, Marinette, you fought them. Repeat after me: ‘It’s not my fault.’”

“I… don’t…

“It’s not, repeat it, It’s not.”

“It’s… it’s not…”

“My fault....”

“M-my fault.”

“Good, now all together.”

“I-it’s not… my fault.”

Tikki smilled. “Again, and don’t forget to breath.”

“I-it’s not my fault… It’s not my fault.” Marinette took another breath. “It’s not my fault.”

Marinette wiped her tears with her blanket.

“It’s not my fault.” this time she was more confident.

Tikki wiped her face and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Good, know what do you think if we go to the kitchen and we eat some cookies and drink some warm milk? So we can talk about your dream. Would you like that?”

Marinette nodded.

This was going to be a long night.

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It was 4:36 AM, and Marinette and Tikki just finished eating.

The kitchen of her apartment was just besides her bedroom… well, better say the kitchen was part of her bedroom. The walls needed a little paint, the door cracked, the sink dripped, and the heated was broken, and yet there was something about the apartment that made her feel safer.

“Thank you for listening to me, Tikki.” Marinette took the last sit from her cup.

By then, it was normal for Marinette to wake up from a nightmare, but the bruises and the choking were new. It made her feel terrified, useless, and… and dead.

“You don’t need to thank me.” Tikki finished the last cookie. “Would you like me to sleep on your chest tonight?”

Marinette nodded “Yes, but I don’t think I can sleep just yet… I need to take a walk.” The girl stood up, put on a black hoodie that was on her closet.

No, she couldn’t go back to sleep. The idea of dream of that darkness was just awful.

“Wait, Marinette. Where are you going?”

The guardian opened up the window of her room just to be received by a cold wind along with tiny snowflakes. Dear lord, Gotham was so somber and cold that it snowed in the middle of Summer.

“I need to take a walk, Tikki. I won’t take long.” Got out through the window to stand in the fire stairs and them closed the window.

“But, Marinette, you are shoeless!” But the pink-haired girl was already climbing to get to the roof.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being Ladybug came with sacrifices: her friends, her partner, her parents, her life. Sure, the miraculous gave her powers, but at the great cost of being alone. Sometimes Marinette questioned if the path that she took was really worthy.

This was one of those moments.

The roofs of Gotham were completely covered with snow, which made even more difficult for Marinette to jump and land on them. She jumped and ran throw the cold snow. She almost fell two times and kissed the floor of the roofs three, but it was somehow good for her. The adrenaline rushing through her veins, the snow touching here bare legs, the feeling of falling made her feel alive.

There was a point in which the guardian couldn't run anymore and so collapsed on the tick snow.

Marinette was breathing fast (she literally just run a marathon). The snow was soft but cold against her skin. She took a little to feel how it melted.

“I am alive” She said as she felt her heart pumping.

“It’s not my fault.”she said as she took a little bit of snow and put it where the nasty bruises were.

“I don’t deserve this.” she said as the snowflakes landed on her as if they were cold blanked.

Marinette closed her eyes.

She was tired, physically and psychologically. She couldn't rest because if she did the memories of her past would hunt her. She couldn't talk with anyone because that would jeopardize her identity, and yes, she had Tikki, but sometimes, it was not enough.

This was just adequate.

The snow was freezing, but it didn’t hurt her. Being Ladybug for a long time gave her the consolation gift to being able to adapt to any environment. A desert? She could survive years without water and food. A tropical forest, mosquitos and humidity would do nothing to her. So, lying down over a freezing snow blanket will do no cold bite or give her hypothermia, yet it was cold enough to keep her awake, just what she needed at that moment.

It was peaceful and all because of the snow kept her mind occupied. It felt cold, soft, and wet. What did she expected? Snow is made of water after all. Marinette’s hoodie and yellow shorts were starting to get soaking wet, bug it didn’t make her feel uncomfortable.

She could have stayed like until sunrise, but the sudden feeling of pressure on her sensitive neck made her jump and instintaly cover her neck.

In front of her, a dark figure kneeled down. He was wearing a dark gray spandex-like suit with a black cape covering him. His face was hidden under a mask that only permitted her see his mouth with that serious expression.

As previously mentioned, Marinette decided to stay in Gotham due to the large number of vigilantes and villains. She hoped that if she kept a low profile and stayed out of problem, she would be lucky enough to never meet one in their spandex suits. Guess, she wasn’t as cautious and lucky as she was supposed to be. So much for lady luck.

The man tried to reach her with her hand, but she pushed herself away from him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” the man said in a deep voice. Marinette could clearly tell that he was forcing it. “Can you understand me?”

It didn’t matter if the man in front of her was a vigilante or a villain. Both would try to hurt her in different ways. Villains may kidnap her, toture her, and/or kill her. Vigilantes will put her identity at risk by turning her in the government.

She needed to get out there, but she couldn't run. The man will follow her. Fight him was a foolish idea because if she showed to be a threat, he may turn her or kill her. She had only one option.

“Why did you touch my neck?” Marintte asked the man as she put her hands on her neck.

The man kept looking at her, or at least, she thought that he was looking at her. That mask made difficult to read him.

“I thought you passed out. I was just checking your pulse.” The stranger said as he took out one of his gloves. Then he gently offered it to her. “Can you squish my hand?”

Marinette stared at him. What ever he was playing, she had to be careful.

“Why would I do that?”

“To know how much time I have left to take you to the hospital before you get hypothermia, so now take my hand.” this last part sounded like a polite order.

The girl hesitated for a moment, but in the end she took it and squashed it hard. The man was surprised not only for the strength of the tiny girl but by the fact that her hand was warmer than him. He turned her hard and put two fingers in her wrist. Her pulse was normal considering that she was just covered with snow few moments ago.

“You don’t need to take me to a hospital. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Sorry, lady, but no, person in a right state of mind would be in the middle of a weather like this, less wearing pajamas, so why are you out here? Do your parents know that you are out here?” When he finished that sentence, Marinette let go of his hand and lost herself.

Her parents…

Marinnete hoped that they weren’t watching her. She she hopes that, if they were in whatever comes after life, they weren't watching the failure of daughter that she was.

All her mistakes, all her fears, all her shame… She hoped they weren’t watching her.

Suddenly she went back to reality.

Marinette took a deep breath. “I live alone… well not alone. I live with my cat, who must be worried sick because I told her I would take a quick walk, and it’s almost sunrise, so maybe I should head back to my apartment.”

The girl stood up quickly and attempted to go back to her apartment, but she was stopped by the mysterious man.

“I cannot let you go.” The man put a hand on her shoulder at which she tensed. The man seemed to notice and quickly took his hand off her.

“Oh yes, you can. You just stay here or walk in the opposite direction from my apartment. It’s not impossible.”

The man didn’t seem to share her sense of humor.

“You are not thinking straight. I’ll take you to the Wayne Hospital.” He took off his cape just to try to put her on her shoulders, but she took a step back.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. Although, I am thankful that you are being so nice to me, I can’t go with you, sir.”

The man looked at her as if he was judging all her sins. Then he tried to put her cape on her shoulders just to this time succeed.

“Okay, this is why are we going to do.” he said as he fixed the cape. “I am going to ask you some questions, and if they are adequate, I will take you to your apartment. If not, I will take you to the hospital.”

That wasn’t fair.

“That isn’t fair for me. If I lose you take me to a place where I don’t need to be, but I win you will know where I live.”

Marinette tried to the man’s reaction, but he was as blank a white page before a college student began their essay. It was hard to read him.

Marinette singed, it was obvious that this man would not let her go on her terms.

“What’s the first question?”

The man in black took a step forward. “Why are you here?”

“‘Why are you here’ as in ‘why are you doing this roof in the middle of a blister in pajamas’ or as what is my purpose in the universe and why I was born?’” Marinette said awkwardly.

Again that man didn’t share her sense of humor.

“I’ll take that as the first option… so… well… I…” Marinette had to take a deep breath to keep going. “I-I had a nightmare, and it got so real that I needed to take a walk.”

“In the middle of a torment”

“Y-yes, and in pajamas. Maybe, it was not one of my top ten decisions, but I really needed to get out of my apartment to clear my mind, to feel that I was alive. T-that’s why I was lying on the snow, to feel alive.”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a good idea a stranger all this intimate things, but it felt so well to get out this pain out of her chest.

Marinette watch the stranger not react at her confession. The coolness of the man made her feel insignificant.

“How did you got the bruises around your neck.”

The bruises, she forgot about the bruises.

“Like I said, my nightmare got a little bit too real…” Slowly, she put a hand on her neck.

It was a little bit to real that made her choke herself. The girl hoped that she never experienced something like that ever again. Marinette tried to breathe slowly. Thinking of having another nightmare like that made her uneasy.

The stranger didn’t say anything for a long time, and then he offered his hand to her. Marinette froze at the sudden movement of the man.

“Let’s go, I’ll take you to your apartment.”

Her mind went to a Shakespeare play.

To go or not to go with him. That was the question. Was it better to trust this stranger that declared to be onto something good or to run away far from him…

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Tikki was going to kill her for trusting strangers.

After a lot of thinking, Marinette risked it and agreed to let the man take her to her apartment, but only because if she didn’t agree to it, he would take her to a hospital. The man carried her like a fireman while she was still covered by his cape. Her body was tense and ready to fight the man if decided to ignore her directions to get to her apartment.

It was a stupid desition to run on the roofs of the city of crime and not expecting to find people like this man… who she didnt’t even knew his name or better say his identity name.

The last time that someone carried her through roofs on a dark night, she was kidnapped by her ex-partner, but there was a big difference between the man and Cha… Adrien.

Adrien carried her as if she was a bag of diamonds, close to him like if he let her go someone else would take his treasure, his property. This man carried her tightly but it didn’t feel like if he wanted to hurt her, it weirdly felt like the way her dad used to carry her… he carried her like a dad. Marinette could not help but wonder if the man behind the mask had children, maybe some nieces or nephews.

“My building’s roof is the next one.”

The man just nodded. He was a man of few words; Marinette really appreciate that.

He put Marinette down. Her feet felt cold on the snow, maybe she should have worn some shoes.

“Thank you for bringing me here, sir.” Marinette put the cape on the man’s hands. “I really appreciate it, and I hope you have a good night, sir.” She bowed in signal of respect.

“If you accept an advice, don’t go out at night, less on the roofs. There are many villains rounding in this city.” He stood up on the border of the roof. “And respecting your nightmare, talk to someone with a degree. There are many gratuite institutions that offer help.”

The man jumped from the roof into the nothing. Marinette run to the border of the building just you let a breath go when she was the man get on the next building.

Marinette let her knees hit the show in real hard.

This was a crazy night, no scratch that. This was a really close night. She pushed her luck too much. She shouldn’t do it again. Maybe next time she would be found by a person who wanted to hurt her… She really should look up who that man was.

Gotham was a really strange city.

It was 5:49 in the morning, and the sky just cleaned up. The first rays of the sunrise were lighting the snow from the gothic buildings. It was a totally completely different city. It was as if the snow was a gift wrap paper over a worn down carton box.

It was just beautiful that made Marintte let go a few tears, but those tears were tears of relief. Somehow, being in the snow calmed her down.

If hell was made of flames, then heaven was made of pure snow.

And that was the day Marinette realised what her cure was: coldness. Because if snow could make pretty this city of atrocities, it could also make her soul appear pretty. The colder she was, the farther her memories the bakery were.

After looking to the sky for at least five minutes, Marinette dragged her cold wet body back to her apartment. She had to get ready to go shopping for her materials for school. Then she had to go the boutique to show the suits to the Waynes.

Today was going to be a long day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Selina Kate, aka the semi-retired Cat Woman, was many things: a thief, a feminist, a beautiful woman, a trickster, and more recently a hair dresser, but she never imagined to be a babysitter.

“You want me to do what?” Selina asked incredulously to her boyfriend?... lover?... partner.

“Keep an eye on this girl. She lives a few blocks from here.” Said Bruce as he took off his mask and sat on the couch of Selina’s apartment.

“And what should I do that?””

“Because she is Diana’s employee, and she asked me to keep an eye on her.”

“She asked you, not me.” Selina took another sip from her coffee. That was why Tim and her got along so well. They both were coffee addicts.

“I feel that you would be really helpful to keep an eye on her white I can’t.”

Selina looked at Bruce.

Years of having a complicated love-hate-back-to-love-hate-again-and-so-far-love has taught Selina when Bruce is interested in somebody, not romantically, but as a child. A child that is in problems. Selina knew that his dad intuition was almost flawless.

“Tell me, did she escaped from an abusive relationship or is a target?” Selina asked him with a little hint on sad curiosity on her voice.

Bruce stop for a moment to think of the answer.

“I look her up in the system. Her name is not there. For the interaction that I had with her, I believe she is here illegally, most likely from France.” Bruce took the mug from Selena hand and took a long sip. He also had a problem with coffee. “Diana knows it too. That’s why she asked me to keep an eye on her. I was only going to patrol more often this area, but after what happened today, I would like you too also keep tags on her.” Bruce said in a soft tone.

Oh, shit.

Oh, mother fucking shit.

This was serious of Bruce used that tone.

“What do you mean ‘after what happened today?’”

And then Bruce told her everything. He told her how he found the girl lying down on the snow. Her skin looked so pale but it didn’t look like if she was being affected by the coldness. In fact, he could dare to day that she had a small blush on her cheeks. He rushed to check the pulse of the girl and hoped that she wasn’t death, and if she was, he hoped she had enough time before the hypothermia killed her. It surprised him when pink haired jumped from the snow.

“Wait, did you say pink haired girl? Asian heritage? Pretty blue eyes?” Selina asked him.

Curious how she knew all this information from the girl, Bruce just nodded.

“I know her. I paint her hair pink a week ago. Oh, god, please tell me that she is okay. She looked so weak when she came to my salon.

He told her about their little talk and the little nightmare that she had. The bruises on her neck were deep purple and black like if they were made by an extremely strong person, not a little girl like her.

“She clearly has problems and no adult supervision. That’s why I am asking you to keep an eye on her, until Diana comes back and we figure a plan.”

Selina bit her lip. She couldn't help but think about the poor girl.

“Okay, I’ll do it, but only if you promise me that you will not adopt this girl until we know more about her situation.”

Bruce frounced, “I am not going to adopted her.”

“I don’t know about that Bruce. You tend to adopt every child that has blue eyes. I bet you she is gonna be a Wayne.”

“Her last name name already is Wayne. Marinette A. Wayne.”

Selina just look at him.

“God dammit, Bruce.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

@cyborgcandy

@mikantsume @cyborgcandy @northernbluetongue @mystery-5-5@livpc @serina-leigh @tazanna-blythe @blue-peach14 @justarandomtumblerblog@fantasticfourintraining@indecisive-mess-named-me @xxmadamjinxx @ captainmac6 @luckysouleaglenerd@sidefrienda@mindfulmagics @komaedasnatched @adrienne7698@akira-daiyamondo-suta @raingirl0135@kittyotakunoir666 @a-cat-with-a-knife l@thebananathatwrites@howtoshuckatlife @dolph1nch1ca1@spicytacos @re-side-this @emocinamonroll@mystery-5-5 @spicybelladonna a @salladanne @mjisntme @lunar-wolf-warrior @tazanna-blythe @yin-390 @constancetruggle @celestiacq @laurakinneylance @roseinbloom02

@literallytryingmybestbutok @ellerahs @felicityroth @liawinchester67 @octoberscorn @eliza-bich @chrismarium @captainmac6

#maribat #daminette #LPMG #My writing

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tsuki-chibi · 4 years

Text

Blackberries (Adrinette April) Day 24: Kwami visits

Or see it on AO3: Blackberries

--------

“Okay, now I need to hear the whole story,” Chloé said.

Adrien glanced around automatically to make sure that no one else was within earshot, realizing that he should have expected that. He, Marinette and Chloé were sitting outside on the patio, which was technically closed right now – but of course, when you were the daughter of the man who owned the hotel, nothing was ever truly closed. But it did mean that there was no one else sitting around them. The rest of the tables were empty, and the waitress had closed the door to the hotel behind her when she went back in.

‘What do you think?’ Marinette thought. ‘How much should we tell her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Adrien thought back. His instinct was to tell Chloé the whole story, but he doubted that Marinette would be on board with that. And really, Master Fu was upset enough that Chloé knew who they were. He would no doubt strongly prefer it if the two of them didn’t tell Chloé anything else.

Marinette’s eyes sharpened, her mouth tugging down into a scowl, and she turned to Chloé and said, “The guardian chose two random people to be the new Ladybug and Chat Noir, but he didn’t give them any training or tell them what to do. So, Adrien and I had to step in using the Bee and Fox miraculous as Miel and Tromper. We used that as leverage this morning to make sure that we got our miraculous back from him. It turns out that he was just mad because he wanted to train me as the new guardian, but he didn’t want Adrien to know anything.”

“Marinette!” Adrien exclaimed, shocked.

“Marinette!” Tikki scolded at the same time. Chloé’s jaw dropped as Tikki flew up above the table, crossing her little paws and frowning at Marinette. Adrien clapped a hand to his face and groaned. So apparently they were also letting Chloé in on the existence of kwamis now.

Plagg cackled, poking his head out of Adrien’s shirt pocket, and said, “Nice going, Pigtails. I had no idea you could be so spiteful, but I like it.”

“Chloé’s not going to tell anyone. Right?” Marinette said, turning to Chloé.

Looking a bit shell-shocked, Chloé silently nodded.

“Still. I can’t believe you did that. Master Fu would be furious if he knew you’d just told someone all that,” Adrien said. They couldn’t even blame it on an accident this time.

"Pardon me if I don't really care what Master Fu thinks," Marinette said stiffly.

"Marinette," Tikki said again, this time with more exasperation. "I understand that you're upset with how Master Fu handled the situation, and you have every right to feel that way. But that doesn't mean you can go around spilling everything! Chloé is not a miraculous holder and -"

"Well, maybe it's good for Adrien and me to have someone to talk to who isn't," Marinette interrupted. "I know that Chloé found out by accident, but why shouldn't we tell her anything else? It's not like she's going to do anything with the information. Even if she was, she already knew the most important bits. So what difference does it make?" She set her jaw as Adrien stared at her. She was radiating frustration and hurt and anger, and he realized that the conversation with Master Fu had been bothering her a lot more than she had let on.

'No chance of that happening now,' Adrien thought, glancing at Chloé. She looked utterly fascinated by the conversation that was occurring in front of her.

Tikki sighed. "You shouldn't tell her anything else," she said, but with a tone of great resignation, as though she already knew that Marinette was going to ignore her advice.

"Um, so… what is that?" Chloé asked Adrien, pointing to Tikki. Tikki glanced up at Chloé but said nothing.

"We're called kwami," Plagg said lazily, jumping out of Adrien's pocket and floating down to inspect their plates. There was a piece of swiss cheese accompanying Adrien's crepe. Plagg grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth.

"Kwami," Chloé repeated, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar word. "Wait. That day you guys came to see me, you said you couldn't detransform because you were hiding the fact that you were soulmates. You were hiding it from them?" She gestured to Plagg and Tikki.

Adrien nodded, figuring they might as well tell her the rest. "Plagg and Tikki are how we transform," he explained. "They go inside of our miraculous and grant us our powers. As soon as we detransform, they appear. When they found out we were soulmates, and that you knew, they were obligated to tell the guardian that."

"And then he took away your miraculous and gave it to someone else," Chloé said, the awe fading from her expression to be replaced by a flat look. Suddenly, she turned to Marinette. "Wait, did you say that guardian didn't want Adrien to know anything?"

Marinette nodded furiously. "He had a whole bunch of reasons, but I think most of them were crap. The real reason he got so mad is because he wanted to train me as a replacement. Not that he actually asked me if I wanted that, mind you. He just decided that I would make a good one. But because Adrien and I don't have any shields, anything the guardian told me would automatically be known by Adrien as well."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Chloé demanded, looking ready to throw down with the guardian on Adrien's behalf.

"Thank you!" Marinette said, throwing her hands up.

"Adrikins would be make an excellent guardian!" Chloé exclaimed.

"Right?! I have no idea what the guardian's problem was! He kept going on about the balance of the team!" Marinette said.

"That's stupid," Chloé sneered. "How the hell is your team balanced if one of you knows way more than the other?"

"Exactly!" Marinette shouted, slamming her hand down on the table with such force that her water glass nearly fell over. Adrien's hand shot out and he grabbed it just in the nick of time.

"Is this really happening?" he whispered to Plagg as Chloé and Marinette continued to rant at each other.

Plagg snickered. "Apparently you have your own fan club."

"I already have a fan club. This... this is something completely different," Adrien muttered, feeling like his head was on a swivel as he looked from one girl to the other. They were both being so passionate in his defence! It was both touching and a little scary.

"It was just dumb!" Marinette said angrily. "He didn't even have a good reason for it! He just said it was "complicated"." She made finger quotes around that last word, wrinkling her nose.

"Pfft, yeah right," Chloé scoffed. "Complicated is what adults say when they don't know what else to say! It sounds more like he thought he could wrap you around his little finger, whereas Adrien is used to flouting authority."

"What?" Adrien broke in before he could consider whether that was a smart idea, and both girls turned to him like they’d forgotten he was there.

"What?" Marinette said, blinking.

"That's not true. I don't flout authority," Adrien objected.

"Adrien, honey, where exactly does your father think you are right now?" Chloé asked.

"Err… at basketball practice…" Adrien said. It hadn’t taken much convincing for his bodyguard to take him by Chloé’s instead.

Chloé shot him a knowing look. "You know, I thought this soul bond thing between you and Marinette was going to be a total bust, but I really like how it's brought out your rebellious side," she said.

"You can thank me for that too," Plagg piped up. "I'm always encouraging him to ignore his responsibilities."

"He really is," Adrien said with a resigned nod.

"Well then, I like you," Chloé said. "Feel free to visit me whenever you want, little kwami." She gently rubbed Plagg's head.

“If you have cheese around, I’ll visit you lots,” Plagg said.

“Umm, hang on,” Adrien said hastily, visions of the disasters that Chloé and Plagg could get up to together dancing through his head.

Marinette snorted at that and picked up her orange juice. “It was just disappointing,” she said quietly, and Plagg, Tikki, Adrien and Chloé all looked at her. “I thought Master Fu would be so much better than he was. He’s not much of a guardian at all.”

��He’s like everyone else. He tries his best,” Tikki said gently, patting Marinette’s arm. “In this case, he was completely off base. I’m really proud of both you and Adrien for negotiating with him the way you did.”

“You should’ve just threatened him,” Chloé said.

“Actually, Marinette almost did,” Adrien said.

Chloé smirked. “You’re moving upwards in my opinion,” she said to Marinette.

“Gee, thanks,” Marinette said sarcastically, but that meant more to her than she was letting on and Adrien knew it. He gently nudged her foot under the table and grinned at her. She just flushed and made a face back at him.

“Well,” Plagg said, rubbing his paws together. “How about some of that cheese?”

“And cookies!” Tikki said.

“I’ll get them,” Adrien said quickly, getting to his feet. As he walked away, he heard round two of defending his honor start up behind him and shook his head.

Forget Plagg and Chloé or Plagg and Trixx, Master Fu had better hope that Marinette and Chloé never teamed up.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #chloe bourgeois #plagg #chloe bourgeois redemption #kind of a crack part but i couldn't resist #blackberries #adrinetteapril2020

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daminettes · 5 years

Text

Blood and Tears

In which Marinette is left badly injured after an akuma attack.

“Robin! Grab ahold of the akuma! I have an idea!”

“Roger that Ladybug!”

Robin quickly caught the akuma with his grappling hook causing it to stay still in its place. The akuma quickly tried to make its way out of his grip causing Robin to struggle with it.

“Ladybug hurry up! I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto it anymore!”

Ladybug quickly scanned the akuma for its akumatized object, Her eye finally caught a small gold locket, she quickly grabbed onto it and snatched it away from her. She threw it onto the ground and broke it, but right before she was able to capture the akuma, she slipped right off the railing of the tower.

She managed to capture the akuma and purified it but she was still falling.

“Ladybug!” Robin screamed.

She was falling. Falling from the Eiffel Tower. She was quickly going to plummet to her death if he didn’t do anything. Her transformation slowly undid.

“Angel!”

He was too late.

Ladybug- No Marinette, was lying limp on the ground. Bits of blood spewed from underneath her clothes. Her breathing slowly came back to her but was dangerously slow.

“Angel, You have to breathe with me”

“I-I” She huffed.

“Don’t talk beloved, Just breathe, Breathe with me please. He begged. He can’t lose her. He won’t lose her.

“The ambulance is going to be here soon, please stay with me.”

Marinette slowly placed her hand onto of Robins. It was dangerously cold.

“I-Love you,” She managed to whisper out before going limp again.

Tears quickly filled up into his eyes causing his vision to go blurry.

“Angel, Please.”

“You’re quite lucky, Marinette seems to be in a stable state right now. Of course she has major injuries to her back, and many broken ribs, but she will be on bed rest for a good while. She is still unconscious but she will be waking up in about a few hours, I will check up on her soon, You may stay if you would like too.”

“Thank you doctor.”

“It’s quite alright, I’ll see you too soon.”

Damian looked back at Marinette. Her face was pale, well atleast paler than usual. Her face was sprinkled with small bruises that stopped right at her neck. Her whole body was bandaged up with only small parts of her skin visible. A few IVS were inside her, She looked so miserable.

Damian slowly reached out for Marinette’s hand and held onto it.

“Angel, You need to stop scaring me like this, I can’t lose you, I love you so much, please be alright.”

Damian brought his beloved angel’s hand up to his lips and placed a light kiss on her knuckles.

Hours past and she hasn't woken yet. Damian for sure fell asleep by her side. He was not leaving her side anytime soon. While sleeping a sudden movement came through the blanket making it rustle against Damian’s skin.

“Ow”

Damian quickly bounced back, He saw his sweet angel slowly opening up her eyelids and was hit with blue. So blue, all different kinds of blue. Blue as light as the sky to blue that was dark as the ocean.

“Marinette” He sighed.

“M-Ow” Marinette hissed.

Oh shit. He had completely forgotten the fact that the girl sitting up right in front of him was injured really badly. And he had just only laid next to her and she could still feel the leveling weight of discomfort.

“Sorry Angel,I fell asleep by accident.” He said while pushing away strands of hairs that covered her eyes.

“It’s alright, I’m ok” She whispered melting right into his touch.

“You’re not ok Marinette, You fell from the Eiffel Tower m, That’s 984 feet, You could of died Angel, I can't lose you.”

“You won’t even lose me. I promise.”

One year later.

Marinette’s bruised body has finally healed up, instead of different shades of purples and blues her old porcelain white skin as back. She could finally breathe again. Everything was great.

There stood Robin and Ladybug at the railing of the Eiffel tower that once resembled a horrible memory in there mind. But was now replaced with a more pleasant one.

Ladybug glanced down at the rose gold and white that sat gently on her ring finger. It had three diamonds engraved that represented three long years of them being together. On the inside it had three words engraved. I Love You. It glimmered with the sunset. It was gorgeous.

“Everything alright Angel?”

“Everything is alright thanks to you my dove.”

“I can't believe it's been one year Dami.”

“Me neither Angel.” He whispered while pulling her into a warm hug.

“Angel?”

“Yes Damian?”

“it's just you and me against the world right?”

“Always.”

i hope you guys like this ! <3 I FIXED IT GAMERS

tag list : @kelelamentia @luciferge @zebrabaker @sonif50 @heldtogetherbysafetypins @if-you-give-a-chat-a-cookie @poshplumcot @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @dickisabanana @kuroko26 @thepeacetea @octoberscorn @bluerosette23 @captainmac6 @freeze-rae @officiallyathiana @mystery-5-5 @casual-darkness @constancetruggle @destinyhunter77 @fsketchart

#marinette x damian #daminette #maribat #maridami #dc x mlb #mlb x dc

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marimeetsmischief · 4 years

Text

the Safety of a Mask - Chapter One

read on Ao3

summary: Two years ago, Ladybug and Chat Noir faced off against Hawkmoth for the last time. Two years ago, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste were forced to give up their miraculous in the months after the final battle. They never got the chance to tell each other who they were, or have any kind of life together. Two years ago, everything just... stopped.

Marinette has been locked in grief for two years and no one even knows what happened to Adrien. The betrayal of his father, Nathalie, the permanent loss of his mother, Plagg and his Ladybug, he had every reason to grieve.

But now Paris is faced by a new villain, with an all-new Miraculous, and all anyone wants to know is...

Where are Ladybug and Chat Noir?

A tiny set of pink lips parted widely, a soft and sweet yawn escaping them. As she always was this early in the morning, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was exhausted. Even with years of filled up schedules and even a double life for a while, she had never quite adjusted to the lack of sleep. Now, even though she was twenty years old, she was still just as exhausted by it as she had always been. It was hard for her to find much energy anymore, or inspiration or creativity of any kind. It wasn’t exactly hard to pinpoint the moment those things had left her either. But, as much as she wished otherwise, there was nothing she could do about it anymore.

She took a moment to stretch, yawning again before letting her arms fall at her sides, hitting her hand on a macaron display in the process. The little wire tower wobbled for a moment as she froze in place, praying for some kind of good luck to keep it from falling, but it was pointless. Her luck had left her two years ago, she knew that much. The tower shuddered one last time, and as it started to settle, one of the legs happened to shake right off the edge of the counter, toppling the whole thing over and covering Marinette in the pastel cookies.

“Figures,” she muttered hollowly, dusting them off of her and sighing helplessly. It was a good thing that her and her parents had learned to be prepared for this kind of thing. She picked up the macarons carefully, and arranging them haphazardly with the tray of croissants she had overcooked slightly this morning when she had fallen asleep in the kitchen. Because of her frequent mishaps, they had decided to have a little section that was aptly named the “Marinette Special,” which was just a teasing way of saying pastries and cookies that were half off because of some accident or another. At least this way, the thought had been, they don’t completely lose out on money. And sure enough, people didn’t mind buying dented macarons or crunchy pastries since Tom Dupain’s recipes were still the best around. After she’d set those up on the discount tray, she disappeared into the back, grabbing a replacement tray of macarons to arrange on the wire tower.

Coming back into earshot of the front door, she head the little bell jingle and whispers of the tiniest voice leaking into the kitchen. Practically throwing down the tray, Marinette dashed out of the kitchen, looking around wildly for the source of the voice, trying desperately to spot what she was so sure had to be the little red kwami. When her eyes landed on a little girl in the arms of her mother, she tried her best not to be surprised. After all this time, she wasn’t sure what she expected.

—-

Two Years Before

“Master, please, you can’t,” Marinette pleaded tearily, holding the red kwami to her chest and slowly backing away from the Guardian she had trusted so wholeheartedly.

“Marinette, I would not ask for this if I was unsure. The powers of the Miraculous will be needed elsewhere, and I cannot make another mistake with them.” Wang Fu’s words were solemn, the whole speech dripping with sadness at the heartbreak he had to inflict on a girl he cared deeply for. Marinette and Tikki were both in tears, not sure how they could ever say goodbye to each other. Fu had already collected the black cat Miraculous, having hoped it would be the easier of the two, but Plagg had put up much more of a fight than he ever had before. After having to fight through that interaction, the poor old man was tired, and thoroughly broken.

“Oh Marinette, I’ll never be gone from you,” Tikki said softly, pain in her voice as she floated up, kissing the tip of her chosen’s nose. “You’ll always be my Ladybug, Marinette. And we’ll be together again soon, I just know it,” she added, trying to show some kind of smile and bravery. Marinette could do nothing but sob once more and wipe her eyes, nodding. With shaking hands, she slowly took the familiar earrings off, holding them out to Master Fu and dropping them into his hands. The sudden coldness on her earlobes broke her heart more than she thought it would. She closed her eyes and turned away, crying softly as the door opened and shut with a very final sounding click. “Tikki, I renounce you,” she mumbled, barely audible at all. Her shoulders heaved with body racking sobs, feeling the warmth of her friend leave her once and for all, like all the light in the world had gone out.

——

Marinette quickly shook her head, forcing the memory from her mind and trying to focus on the customer in the bakery, taking a moment to comprehend that both the girl and her mother were frantically pointing at something behind her. As soon as she was alerted to it, her nose recognized the smell of smoke and she whirled around, rushing into the kitchen.

“NO! No no no no no,” she muttered angrily, flinging the door of the oven open, and grabbing for the tray. In her rush, she had forgotten that her hands were bare, and screeched rather loudly. By now, the smell of smoke and the scream of pain had alerted her father to some kind of crisis and his heavy steps sounded on the stairs, rushing down them to find the problem. When he got down the stairs, he was greeted with the sight of his poor daughter on her knees in tears, clutching her hand carefully with a tray of blackened cookies next to her. Upon seeing him, she cried even more, trying to make her way onto her feet without using her hand somehow.

“Papa, I’m so sorry, I spaced out and-“ he quickly cut Marinette off and pulled her into a crushing hug, petting her head carefully.

“Shush now, sweetheart, you hurt yourself, please don’t apologize.” Tom knew his daughter had always been clumsy and a little odd, maybe even rough around the edges, but she had been so much worse in the last year especially. She had never burned her hand this badly before, and it broke his heart to see her apologizing to him when she was the one hurting. He pulled away, helping to lift her onto her feet and finally met her teary eyes with the softest look only a concerned parent could hold. “It’s okay, Marinette, I’ll handle this, and you go to the hospital to get that hand checked out, okay?”

At first she wanted to protest, trying to muster the strength to play off the burns and convince him that she was okay. When she looked into his eyes, she knew that there was no fooling him though, and just nodded dejectedly. She started up the stairs, tearing up again as she climbed them. She made a beeline for her room, ignoring her mother’s attempts to talk to her, concern laden in her voice. She grabbed her purse, and pulled her apron off, forgetting for a moment about her burned hand only to cry out when she used it to grasp the rough fabric. She descended from her room, stopping at the top of the stairs into the bakery when she heard her parents talking.

“Tom, I can’t stand seeing her like this,” Sabine sighed tiredly. Even though she couldn’t see her mother’s face, Marinette could hear the tears starting to creep into her voice.

“I know, honey, but I don’t know what else to do. You know as well as I do, nothing we’ve tried has worked. She doesn’t talk to anyone, she doesn’t go out, she doesn’t even sketch designs anymore!” Her father’s voice was shaky, pain present in every wobbly syllable. Tom Dupain was always the steady one, the rock in the great storm of life. At least, that’s what Marinette thought of him. But because of her, he was hurting, she thought.

“Well maybe we could give her a break from the bakery. Or even get her out of Paris, send her on a trip with her grandmother? We have to try something.”

Deep down, she knew that it was only said out of worry. She knew her parents loved her dearly, even with all the accidents and vacantness she had held lately. But when she heard those words, the only thing her brain could process was that they wanted to get rid of her. And in her mind, they were right to. She had fallen apart after everything that had happened, and she honestly wasn’t sure how she would ever be okay again.

Somehow, Marinette held back the overflow of tears that was gathering at her eyes, keeping the floodgates up long enough to run down the rest of the stairs, out the door and halfway down the block before letting it all out.

——

To be entirely honest, Marinette had no idea how she had managed to make it all the way to the hospital. That had to be some kind of miracle, of course, given her track record. She had been in a daze for the whole walk there, vaguely knowing where she was going, but not much more than that. Thankfully, she had found the hospital somehow and headed for the first set of doors she saw, too many tears in her eyes to bother reading the signs around her. The automatic doors whooshed open in front of her, and she stepped into the chilly air and hugged her shoulders tightly. She hadn’t anticipated this level of air conditioning, dressed in just a pink tee shirt and black skinny jeans. Marinette awkwardly approached the front desk, finally realizing that she probably wasn’t at the right entrance, but not sure how else to get there but ask directions.

“Uh, erm, hi, I’m looking for the emergency room?” she asked, her voice hesitant and soft as she stumbled over the words. At first, the woman at the front desk seemed annoyed, slapping her magazine closed with a loud sigh. However, as soon as she noticed Marinette’s tear stained face and red eyes, her gaze softened and she took pity on the girl.

“It’s a little confusing to find it from here, give me a second and I’ll call someone to escort you, alright?” she said, trying to be as comforting as possible with her tone. Then, she picked up a walkie talkie off of her desk and pushed the call button and began to talk into it. Marinette at this point had nodded and looked around her, trying to find some sign of where she was. The inside of the room was stark white and bare, bright fluorescent lights that could have given her a headache. She’d always hated the way hospitals were cold like this, even though she knew it had to do with cleanliness. Finally, someone showed up and the nurse at the desk motioned for her to follow him out the door she had come in, which she quickly did. Or rather, tried to, almost instantly crashing into a tall man dressed in designer looking clothing. She fell to the floor, toppling backwards slightly with a squeak. Quickly shaking her head to clear the confusion and disoriented feeling from her limbs, she scrambled up, muttering high pitched apologies as she rushed to follow the orderly. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the person she had knocked into, confusing herself when she thought that they looked a little familiar. As she hurried out the door, she didn’t notice the blonde head of hair shake in disbelief, or the bright green eyes widen in recognition. She definitely didn’t hear the person softly mumble her name as they watched her speedwalk to keep up with the orderly’s longer legs. What she did notice, however, was the lettering over the doorway that read “St. Bernadette Psychiatric Institute.”

What a place to mix up with the ER, she thought to herself, shaking her head. I’m lucky she didn’t see my excessive crying as a danger and have me committed. She shuddered at that thought, not even remembering that the man she had run into had seemed familiar in the slightest. Noticing that her guide was already a few paces ahead of her, she tried to stop thinking entirely, picking up her pace in order to not lose sight of him. By the time they had reached the emergency wing, she was thoroughly winded, and thanked him profusely between panted breaths before heading for the correct set of doors.

——

After about four hours of waiting and talking to doctors and nurses, Marinette left the hospital with her hand carefully bandaged, a prescription for a topical salve that would help it heal, and instructions to change the bandage every day. With all the time she had had to think and figure her mind out, she felt a little soothed, though not enough to be completely relaxed. She had no idea how she was going to talk to her parents after she had left the house in such an emotional state. It was even harder to think about telling them that she had heard their conversation about sending her away. She wasn’t sure why she was so opposed to the idea, but something in her was screaming at her that she had to remain in Paris. It wasn’t like she really had anything there for her at the moment. She wasn’t taking any classes, didn’t have any internships, and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had even spoken to someone that could be considered a friend. In fact, if she really thought about it, she hadn’t really spoken to anyone after she had taken her final exams at Françoise-Dupont. If she was in a better state of mind, maybe that would bother her more, but as it was, she wasn’t really sure how she felt about it.

Losing Tikki when she hadn’t expected it had taken a lot away from her. It was almost as if all the progress she had made while being Ladybug was heavily reverted, and she ended up even worse than she had been when she took on the mask. Her creativity had plummeted, her clumsiness skyrocketed, and even her luck got worse. Of course, if she had lived a normal life, it would have just been labeled as depression. But she wasn’t exactly normal, and she knew that. There were times when she almost wished she had never even become Ladybug in the first place. After growing so used to having Tikki and her powers, Marinette had grown to feel kind of useless without them. In her mind, her classmates had probably been relieved when she drifted away from them and eventually just vanished from their lives. It wasn’t like she could remember how much they had tried to stop her anyways, the last months of her time in school flashing by like a meaningless blur. But that was two years ago. Was two years a long time to go without really having friends? Did it really matter, in the long run? After all, no one had made any recent attempts to reach out, so she had to be right about her absence being some kind of relief… right?

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she groaned out loud, picking up her pace as she walked back to the bakery. She wanted to get back already and have this awful conversation with her parents, not even caring what the outcome would be anymore. Even if her gut told her to remain in Paris, she didn’t see why she had to listen to it, especially since she had reminded herself once again that she had nothing to keep her here. Maybe if she went with her grandma, she could find another source of inspiration, or anything at all to keep her going, and get her off of the train towards lifelessness she was stuck on. It was a hard decision to think about, the idea of leaving the place she had been raised, even if only for a month or two. By the time she had made it to the bakery, she was thoroughly confused and conflicted, having twisted her mind up with every pro, con, and what if scenario.

“Mama, Papa, I’m back!” she called out to the empty bakery, looking around. Apparently they had closed for the lunch break already, so she popped upstairs and found them sitting at the table, a sandwich already prepared for her. That little gesture put a smile on her face and she greeted them both with love, kissing their cheeks softly.

“Marinette, sweetie, how’s your hand?” her mom asked her immediately, standing up to check on her and make sure she was okay. She just shrugged it off, chuckling in a way that was a little less forced than normal.

“It’s alright, they said the burn was only a second degree, so there might be some blistering but I’ll be okay. I picked up the prescription salve they gave me on the way back.” She sat down at the table with them, trying to figure out how to eat the sandwich with only one hand before her mother stopped her, laughing and shaking her head.

“Here, here, let me cut it into small pieces,” she said, standing up and grabbing a knife, cutting the sandwich into eighths that were small enough to be picked up with only one of Marinette’s dainty hands. “Do you want anything to drink, sweetheart?” she asked after she had cut the lunch up, moving to the fridge. “There’s still some lemonade left from yesterday’s lunch, if you want that.”

“That’s perfect, mama, thank you,” she said softly, becoming increasingly worried by the careful way they were treating her. They had always been fairly gentle with her, but this porcelain doll treatment was even more worrying than normal. She hurried to swallow the bite of sandwich she had taken, wanting to talk before they got the chance to say whatever they were clearly worried about bringing up. “Listen, I know I haven’t… been exactly myself for a while, and I’m sorry it’s worried you so much. With everything that happened at the end of my last year of school, I think I got a little confused with what I wanted and who I wanted to be.”

She paused, pursing her lips and wrinkling her eyebrows in thought as she searched for the right words. It was hard to understand what she wanted to say, even for her. Did she want to stay or go? Should she even bring up that she had heard their conversation? Would that just cause more problems, or should she just approach it head on like she always had so much trouble doing. So many years of carefully crafted and elaborate plans, sometimes she thought she had forgotten how to just be direct, even with herself or her parents.

“Please don’t send me away,” she finally admitted abruptly, looking down at her plate as she willed the tears not to fall. She gritted her teeth and steeled herself, trying to appear to be steady, even just for her parents' sake. “I understand why you think that might be a good idea for me, but here, with you, is where I belong.”

Her parents were definitely shocked by her sudden eloquence. It definitely wasn’t what they expected from their daughter. They couldn’t help but be proud of her for it though, and nodded, glad that she had managed to tell them how she felt about it all. None of them could really phrase any of the intense emotions in the room, so they settled for exchanging a set of loving and understanding looks before settling in to finish the lunch in silence. Thankfully, it wasn’t awkward, and the silence didn’t last the whole way through. After about ten minutes of quiet chewing, Marinette dropped an entire slice of tomato on her lap, groaning exasperatedly before meeting her parents eyes, all three of them bursting into cheerful and amicable laughter. A little bit of tried and true Marinette brand clumsiness had been exactly what they needed to get back to normal, and the meal continued with a series of teasing bread related puns from her father and amused giggling from her mother, punctuated by the odd groan or grumble from Marinette. This was who they had always been, after all. For all their messes and worries, the Dupain-Chengs were possibly the least dysfunctional family in Paris, and that would never change.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfic #ml fanfic #tsoam #the safety of a mask #my writing #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #ladybug #chat noir #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir

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flightfoot · 5 years

Text

Turning Points

(So I’ve had this idea for awhile and I couldn’t resist. And no I don’t have set up for it, but I’ve had this in my head and I wanna share it.)

Marinette blinked as the world around her, Nino, Adrien, and Alya blurred. Some new akuma had barged into the schoolyard, yelling about how he’d show everyone the turning points in their lives, when things changed forever. How that was supposed to help Hawkmoth get the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, she didn’t know, but she’d LONG since stopped trying to figure Hawkmoth OR his akumas out. Besides, however the akuma was showing people these turning points, it involved being shot with a weird portal gun thing and a giant metallic-looking bubble appearing around the person and anyone who’d been unfortunate enough to be near the victim, so she didn’t want to take any chances.

Marinette was just about to mumble some excuse to Nino, Adrien, and Alya so she could run off and transform when she was shot, the bubble engulfing herself and her friends.

When it cleared, the four of them were standing in Ms. Bustier’s classroom. Which wouldn’t have been unusual at all if not for versions of all of them (except for Adrien) ALREADY existing in the classroom.

“Nino! Why don’t you have a seat in the front row this year?”

Marinette blinked. Nino sit in the front row? But he’d been sitting in the front row ever since-

Oooooh.

“I think this is the first day of school,” she stated.

Alya looked around, making note of everyone’s positions. “I think you’re right.”

Chloe slammed her hand on past!Marinette’s desk. “ Marinette Dupain-Cheng!”

Past!Marinette looked dejected. “Ugh. Here we go again.”

“That’s my seat,” Chloe declared imperiously.

“But Chloe, this has always been my seat,” Marinette tried to explain.

“Not anymore!” Sabrina interjected. “New school, new year, new seats!”

“So why don't you just go and sit beside that new girl over there?” Chloe said, pointing at past!Alya.

The current Alya laughed a little. “If Chloe knew how much THAT suggestion would screw her over, do you think she’d still have made it?” she asked Marinette.

Marinette laughed.

Alya would still have become friends with her, she was sure, but it might’ve taken a few more days before they’d speak to each other. By Chloe being... Chloe, she’d unintentionally helped spark her friendship with Alya.

“Listen. Adrien's arriving today, and since that's going to be his seat, this is going to be my seat. Get it?” Chloe ordained.

Adrien frowned. “But our seats weren’t assigned at that point.”

Marinette sighed. “Like that would stop Chloe. She probably expected to just declare the seating arrangement and have everyone go along with it.”

Past!Marinette quietly asked, “Who’s Adrien?”

Not knowing who Adrien was was such a foreign idea to Marinette now. She hadn’t even known him for a year, yet she couldn’t imagine life without him. So much had changed with the start of the school year.

Chloe and Sabrina laughed. “Can you believe she doesn't know who Adrien is? What rock have you been living under?”

Sabrina explained excitedly, “He’s only a famous model.”

Chloe finished, “And I am his best friend. He adores me. Go on, move!”

Adrien winced. “No wonder you thought I was helping Chloe that first time we met. I’m sorry, Marinette.”

Marinette shook her head. “It’s Chloe’s fault, Adrien, not yours. I still shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But thanks.”

Adrien smiled back at her. Marinette was a great friend.

Past!Alya stalked up to Chloe, “Who elected you Queen of Seats?!”

Chloe fired back, “Oh, Look Sabrina! We've got a little do-gooder in our class this year. What are you gonna do, super noobie? Shoot beams at me with your glasses?“

Present Alya snorted. “Really? THAT’S the best she could come up with? Calling me a good person and making fun of my glasses? For someone with so much experience at insulting people, she sure isn’t good at it. I’d forgotten her first attempts at bullying me were THIS lame.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” past!Alya growled. She took Marinette by the arm and tugged her over to the front, accidentally causing Marinette’s macaroons to spill onto the floor.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Marinette mumbled as she rushed to pick up all the cookies.

“Sorry Marinette,” the present Alya apologized. “I shouldn’t have been so rough with you.”

“It’s fine, you were just trying to get me away from Chloe, it was an accident.”

“Has everyone found a seat?” Mrs. Bustier asked. No one answered her.

“Chillax, girl. No biggie,” past Alya reassured her.

“I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do,” past Marinette said sadly.

“You mean the way Majestia does it,” past Alya said, showing past Marinette a picture of Majestia on her phone. “She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.” Past Alya pointed at Chloe. “Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.”

Alya smiled. “Majestia was great, but Ladybug’s WAY cooler.”

“I’m sure Ladybug thinks you’re cool too,” Marinette replied, suppressing a grin.

Alya laughed. “I’m pretty cool, but compared to Ladybug? Nah. I’m just a reporter. Why would she think I was cool?”

Marinette let her grin loose. “Oh I don’t know, I think you’re pretty great.”

“Thanks, girl.”

Past Marinette wasn’t as confident. “Well, that's easier said than done. She likes to make my life miserable.”

Adrien frowned. He knew Chloe could be mean to her other classmates, but seeing the sadness and hopelessness in Marinette’s eyes... he REALLY didn’t like it. Marinette had had to deal with Chloe’s bullying many times over the past year, but she’d never looked this hopeless before. Had Alya made that big a difference over the course of a day, so that Marinette felt confident enough to stand up to him the very next day when she had thought he was bullying her?

Past Alya certainly seemed to be trying. “That's cause you let her, girl! You just need more confidence!”

Past Marinette took the last remaining macaroon and broke it in half, holding one out to past Alya. “Marinette.”

Past Alya took it. “Alya.”

The current Alya blinked, realizing something. “Wait. The akuma said that he was showing us turning points in people’s lives, and he took you back to this moment... oh, girl...”

Marinette looked her in the eye. “I meant what I said. You ARE great. You were the first person I’d seen really stand up to Chloe, and for my sake! You inspired me. And... well... you were the first really close friend I’d had in a long time. This moment meant a lot to me.”

Alya blushed slightly, embarrassed. “Thanks. I couldn’t just leave you to that bully. And it meant a lot to me too.”

The world blurred again, colors zipping around, melting into one another, until they coalesced into a new scene.

Oh crap, I forgot, Marinette thought. I got so caught up in the past, I got distracted from figuring a way out of here!

Then she noticed where - and more importantly, when - they were.

Double crap.

Marinette jumped in front of Alya, Nino, and Adrien, trying to obscure her past self from their gaze.

“We shouldn’t be watching this! It’s made by an akuma, it’s definitely gonna be bad for you guys to see - because... uh... maybe we’ll freeze when it’s done! Or explode!”

Marinette could tell Alya didn’t buy it. “We watched the last bit just fine, and it’s not like we can really STOP watching it, unless we all closed our eyes and stuck our fingers in our ears until it stopped. And then we really WOULD be sitting ducks for an akuma.”

She looked at Marinette suspiciously. “What is this REALLY about?” she gestured to past Marinette, who was watching news footage about Stoneheart while cowering in her chair in her bedroom.

Adrien spoke softly. “It’s okay to have been scared, Marinette. None us knew what was going on, we’re not going to judge you for that. We’re your friends.”

“No, that’s not... ugh,” Marinette glanced back at her past self.

“I hate first days back at school...” her past self said, then glanced down.

There was no time. This was going to happen, whether Marinette liked it or not. She chose ‘not’.

She looked at her friends, trying to project her Ladybug seriousness. “You can’t tell ANYONE about what you’re about to see.”

The three of them looked confused.

Then Marinette’s past self picked up a small, ornate black box.

“What’s this doing here?”

Nino’s, Alya’s, and Adrien’s eyes widened in recognition. Which Marinette thought was weird in Adrien’s case since he wouldn’t have ever seen a box like that, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Past Marinette opened the box.

A bright red light shot out, fading to reveal...

“A kwami?”

Marinette’s three friends looked at each other, realizing they’d all spoken at once.

“Wait, how do you know what a kwami is?” Alya and Nino asked Adrien, and Adrien asked them simultaneously.

As the three of them scrambled to come up with explanations, past Marinette provided a helpful distraction.

She jumped up and yelled, attempting to cower against her desk, “ Ahh! Help! It's a giant bug! A... a mouse! A... a bug-mouse!“

Alya couldn’t help chuckling a little.

But... wait... a bug kwami... who was red with a black spot...

Her eyes widened, Nino and Adrien coming to the same conclusion.

Adrien;s reaction was much more noticeable. He gaped at Marinette, slack-jawed, eyes bugging out of his skull.

“Everything's okay!” the kwami said soothingly. “Don't be scared!”“

This did NOT have the desired effect.

“Ahh! Bug-mouse talks!” past Marinette yelled, throwing anything she could get her hands on at the small creature.

The present Marinette winced. “Sorry, Tikki.”

Adrien got ahold of his mouth, miraculously enough.

“Ladybug?” he asked, sounding strangled, like his mouth still couldn’t quite form the words.

She winced. “Yeah. Sorry for keeping it from all of you. It was too dangerous to tell anyone. Even Chat doesn’t know.”

She groaned. “Oh man, CHAT. He’s gonna be so upset when he finds out that other people found out first.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Adrien said in a high-pitched voice, sounding like he was on the verge of hysterics. “I think he’d understand.”

She frowned at him, a little puzzled at his weird behavior, when Alya came to her senses.

“OH MY GOD! YOU’RE LADYBUG! MY BEST FRIEND IS MY IDOL! MY BLOG IS DEDICATED TO MY BEST FRIEND! LADYBUG IS MY BEST FRIEND!”

Marinette laughed nervously. “Yep.”

Alya calmed down slightly. Slightly. “Wait, so all those times you made up lame excuses to ditch me, all those times you got separated from me while an akuma was around...”

“I needed to get out of sight so I could transform and defeat the akuma.”

“And that interview- OH MY GOD no WONDER you paid me special attention! No wonder you were able to set up that first interview!”

Marinette laughed a little. “Yeah, you’ve got it. I felt bad about deleting that footage you took of me earlier, so I decided to give you something even better.”

Alya teared up a little. “Girl...”

Marinette glanced down at her purse. “Hey Tikki, since they already know, do you want to meet my friends?”

Tikki flew out of her purse. “Hi Nino, Adrien, Alya, nice to meet you officially.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

“Hiya, dude!”

Adrien just made some more strangled sounds. Marinette looked at him worriedly, then glanced back over at the past version of herself and TIkki.

“This has to be some mistake,” past Marinette told TIkki anxiously. “The only superpower I could possibly have is super-awkwardness.”

Marinette’s friends gave her concerned looks. She smiled back reassuringly.

Past Marinette continued, “I know! Alya would know! That's my friend. Well, at least I think she would... She loves superheroes! She'd totally be up for the job! You should totally go see her!”

“Marinette, you’re the Chosen One!” Past TIkki insisted.

Present Alya was stunned once again. “Girl, you... you didn’t think you could be Ladybug? But you’re awesome! You ALWAYS win, no matter the odds! And... you wanted ME to be Ladybug?”

“Before this past year, I’ve never been very confident. I was always kinda a screw-up. But you gave me HOPE, Alya. I meant it when I said that Ladybug thinks you’re cool. You INSPIRED me, Alya.”

Alya hugged her.

Nino spoke. “You were never a screw-up, Marinette. No more than anyone else was. You’ve always been really nice and talented. You just needed a confidence boost, like Alya said.”

“Marinette, you’ve ALWAYS been amazing. Never doubt that,” Adrien spoke, adoration in his eyes.

No, I HAVE to have that wrong, Marinette thought. He only thinks of me as a friend. I can’t get my hopes up.

Past Marinette put on the earrings, ”Okay, so all I have to do is break the object where the whatchama-call-it is hiding?”

Past Tikki replied, “It's called an akuma. Which you must then capture.”

“Got it! Capture it! And what's that charm thing again?”

“Your Lucky Charm. It's your secret superpower!”

”Aww... this is all going too fast, Tikki... I... won't be able to pull this off!”

“Trust yourself, Marinette. Just say ‘Spots on.’”

Adrien smiled. “Tikki’s right. You did fine. Plus you remembered to ask about your powers, which I bet Chat didn’t do.”

Marinette laughed and blushed, not trusting herself to speak.

“Spots on?”

Past Marinette transformed, thoroughly freaked out.”Whoa! What is happening?”

“Whoa... So cool!” Alya squealed. “I just witnessed Ladybug’s first transformation!”

“Ladybug... Marinette is Ladybug...” Adrien mumbled dazedly.

Marinette was REALLY worried now. “You already knew that, Adrien. Are you okay?”

“It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to see it,”

Past Ladybug looked at herself in the mirror nervously, “ Aww... how does this thing come off?”

She wandered away from the mirror, calling out to her kwami, “Tikki, if you can hear me, I want my normal clothes back. I'm not going anywhere!-”

Until she noticed the news.

Notably, news footage of Alya riding her bike behind Stoneheart, following him.

Past Ladybug gasped, looking worried. “Alya...?”

She rushed off to the roof, the current versions of herself, Alya, Nino, and Adrien following her.

“Girl, you first left to save Paris... because of me?” Alya asked.

Marinette nodded. “I couldn’t let my new friend get hurt, not when I could help.”

Alya smiled at her. Marinette was an even better friend than she could’ve imagined.

“Ok, I have special powers, and apparently this amazing super yo-yo thingy?”

Past Ladybug threw the yo-yo outwards.

Current Marinette whimpered. “Oh no...”

Alya grinned widely. She was gonna get to see Ladybug swing through the city for the first time!

The line went taut.

Past Ladybug was sent flying off into the distance. “WAAAAaaaaaa...”

Marinette covered her eyes, wishing she could disappear. “Please let this be a bad dream.”

The scene changed slightly. The four of them found themselves on some street in Paris.

“Where’d Ladybug go?” Nino asked.

Marinette pointed upwards as a familiar scream got louder and louder. Then she covered her face again. “...aaaaAAAAAAH”

Nino, Adrien, and Alya watched as past Ladybug collided with the past Chat Noir, wrapping both of them up in her yo-yo and leaving them dangling a few feet from the ground.

“This is so embarrassing,” Marinette muttered.

“THAT’S how you two first met?” Alya asked incredulously.

Marinette nodded, hoping she’d spontaneously melt into the floor. Bad enough Alya and Nino saw this, but Adrien too? He’d think she was a total spaz, worse than he’d already thought!”

“Nice of you to drop in,” past Chat said teasingly.

“I’d forgotten the first thing he said to me was a joke,” Marinette muttered, very much NOT in the mood.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose,” past Ladybug replied.

“ I bet you're the partner my kwami told me about,” past Chat replied, dropping down to the ground. “I'm... Chat Noir. Yeah, Chat Noir. And you?”

“So that’s when he came up with his name,” Alya muttered.

“ I'm Ma... err... Mar... uhh...” Ladybug said as she tugged at her yo-yo. She finally succeeded at getting it loose, accidentally bonking Chat on the head with it.

“Madly Clumsy. I am so clumsy,” she said, embarrassed.

“You almost introduced yourself as Marinette? That’s what that was about?” Adrien asked, eyes wide as saucers. They’d been that way for most of the past few minutes.

“Yeah, I did... wait, what do you mean ‘that’s what that was about?’“

“Errrmmm...” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. Luckily for him, the past provided a distraction.

The street rumbled with the sound of Stoneheart’s footsteps, a tower falling over in the distance.

Past Chat extended his baton, pole-vaulting onto the nearest building. Past Ladybug called out after him, “Hey wait, where are you going?”

“To save Paris, right?” he called back cockily, before turning to chase after Stoneheart.

“Trust yourself, trust yourself...” past Ladybug muttered to herself before throwing her yo-yo again, sending her flying, screaming, to where Chat and Stoneheart would be waiting.

“Kitty’s always been so eager to be a superhero, right from the very beginning,” Marinette said softly, looking at where Chat had been with a fond smile on her face.

Adrien blushed, which Marinette thought was a little strange, but Adrien had been acting strange since he found out she was Ladybug.

Their surroundings changed again, this time taking them to on top of the wall of a stadium.

“Oh! Your first fight!” Alya practically vibrated with excitement. “I remember this! I always wondered why you waited a little bit before joining in. I figured you were watching Stoneheart, planning your strategy, waiting for just the right moment to swoop in and save the day.”

Marinette winced. “Not exactly...”

As Chat attempted to battle Stoneheart, past Ladybug stood nervously on the wall.

“Where are you, partner?” past Chat asked.

“Oh, I can’t, I’m not going to be able to do it,” past Ladybug muttered to herself, covering her face.

“You were scared?” Adrien asked Marinette, as if it was a foreign idea.

“Yeah,” Marinette told him, ashamed. “Chat was all ready to battle supervillains right from the start, but I wasn’t. I was convinced that I was the wrong person for the job. I almost let him down.”

Stoneheart hurled the soccer net at Alya, forcing Chat to sacrifice her baton to save her.

“What are you waiting for, super red bug? The world is watching you!” past Alya shouted up at past Ladybug.

Past Ladybug shut her eyes, screwed up her face, and made a decision. She put on a determined face and jumped into the fray.

The current Alya gaped. “Wait. I was the reason you joined the battle here?”

“Well, partly because of Chat, but yeah. You gave me the last push I needed to get past my fear.”

Alya hugged Marinette. “You’re AWESOME, girl, you know that?” she whispered in her ear.

Marinette hugged back. “Thanks, Alya. You’re pretty awesome yourself.”

“So after this you got past your anxiety and just kicked butt, right?” Alya asked.

Marinette winced. “Not quite. I failed the first time, remember? I took it hard. REALLY hard.”

The four of them flashed forwards, landing in Marinette’s room right as Tikki finished explaining what would happen now that the akuma was free.

“So that means... this is all my fault?” past Marinette asked miserably. “I knew it! See, Tikki? I'm not cut out to be a superhero! I'm only gonna keep messing up.”

“Marinette...” Adrien said softly, wanting to give her a hug. No. Bad Adrien. She’s in love with Luka, she might take it the wrong way.

Tikki attempted to reassure her, comfort her, “ Keep calm. It was your first time. You're going to go back and capture Stoneheart's akuma, and do it successfully!”

“I can't! I told you, I'm clumsy! I create disaster all the time! I'll only make things worse for me, for you and for everyone. Chat Noir will be better off without me. I'm quitting.”

“NO!” Adrien yelled.

Marinette jumped.

Adrien made a strangled sound. “Mi- Marinette, you thought Chat would be better off without you? Because you’re WRONG. He needs you. He can’t DO this without you. You’re partners! You don’t make things worse, you never make things worse. Everyone’s lives are better because you’re in them! My life is better because you’re in it...”

Adrien’s outburst petered out as he finally seemed to realize what he was saying. He blushed crimson red.

The other three stared at him, Marinette gaping, Nino giving him a thumbs up, and Alya grinning like a loon.

Past Marinette couldn’t hear Adrien’s words of encouragement, unfortunately. “ If Chat Noir can't capture the akumas, then... just find another Ladybug. I told you, I'm not cut out to be Ladybug!”

Past Marinette took off the earrings. “I'm sorry Tikki.”

Tikki tried to warn her, “ No, don't do tha-”

And then she was gone.

Past Marinette looked around her. “...TIkki?”

Sadly, past Marinette replaced the earrings in their box and put them in her drawer. She fell to her knees, “I’m really sorry, Tikki...”

Adrien made a high-pitched whining noise.

Alya took over since Adrien’s capacity for coherent speech appeared to have been exhausted. “Ladybug is awesome because she’s YOU. And you ARE cut out to be Ladybug! Everyone makes mistakes, especially their first time doing things! Just try again!”

Alya blinked. “Actually... come to think of it, what DID happen after this? It sure didn’t seem like you’d quit, you showed up again the next day.”

Unfortunately Marinette couldn’t answer since her brainspace was currently dedicated to screaming Adrien just said that his life is better because I’m in it this is the best day of my life he loves me! Wait but what will we tell our kids about how we got together we won’t be able to tell them we’re superheroes and what will we name our hamster?!

Alya waved her hand in front of Marinette’s face, snapping her out of her stupor. Alya smiled at her, amused. “Breathe girl, breathe.”

Marinette took a deep breath and let it out again.

“So, now that you’re back on Earth,” Alya asked, “How DID you go from quitting on this day, to declaring you were gonna save Paris the next day?”

Marinette gave a nervous little giggle. “Well it’s a funny story...”

The world blurred again.

Next Chapter

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #fanfiction #nino lahiffe #turning points

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leswansong · 5 years

Text

Ladynoir July - When Tomorrow Comes

Day Five: Babysitting

[ A03 ]

AN: I know this is extremly late but life happened and I'm only just getting back into writing, -Swan

Marinette hastily descended the stairs to the door leading to the streets, the constant, panicked knocking had awakened her from deep slumber four stories above and the windows dotted around her home informed her that it was still night. Her fingernails scratched at her scalp and at the large knots that had formed in it during her slumber. She yawned and stretched before she opened the door.

Much to her surprise, she opened the door to Alya standing there, her hair was a mess just like Marinette’s, fresh tears were in her eyes and her cheeks were a bright red. Marinette pushed open the door wider and pulled her friend inside for a tight hug. The dam broke and Alya erupted into tears against her shoulder, she glanced over her friend's shoulder to see her younger sisters standing there.

She pulled away from the embrace in exchange for quickly ushering them all inside, she checked the streets before closing the door, they didn’t need spies to be watching. Alya and her sisters started up the stairs past the closed bakery door and towards the third floor.

She locked the door to the kitchen to make sure they weren’t interrupted before she found out what had brought her friend to tears. She snatched two cookies from the plate as she passed through to the small seating space, the sister's eyes grew wide as they took the small baked biscuits from her, a few small thankyous were sent her way before they took a bite of the sweets.

Marinette smiled and turned to her shocked friend, “Where did you get the money for that?” Alya asked.

She shook her head, “It doesn’t matter,” she replied and changed the line of questioning, “Alya? What happened?”

Her friend looked to the floor in defeat then at her younger siblings and choked back a sob, Marinette frowned, Ella and Etta understood what their sister was asking and quickly made themselves scarce. Marinette watched them run up the steps to her room, the trapdoor shut gently and the room was once again filled with silence with the occasional sob from Alya.

She waited patiently for her friend to speak, “They came for Papa and Nora this morning, I-” Marinette’s heart dropped at the words but Alya continued, “They also came to take me, I couldn’t leave Ella or Etta there. I- I- I need you to look after them, they’re after me not them, I just need a few days to find a route out of Paris for them, I have an aunt east of here, near the coast, she’ll take us,” Alya explained wiping away a few remaining tears, “I need to go, the longer I’m here, the more I put you and your parents at risk.”

Marinette tried to protest but her friend was already heading towards the door.

“Alya…” she called, “don’t you want to say goodbye to them?”

Her eyes met the floor and she shook her head. Marinette heard the lock click and Alya threw open the door, her feet hurried down the steps and Marinette’s ears picked up on the front door being shut.

Marinette sighed and fell back onto the sofa, out of the corner of her eye, the first few rays of sunlight slowly peaked their way through the clouds. Her eyes flickered over to her still closed trapdoor and another sigh escaped her lips, she stood up and headed up to her room.

The trapdoor let out a loud creak and it hit the floor, Marinette winced slightly at the loud sound before continuing up the last few steps.

Her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkened room, she fumbled to find the small handle of her door but she made sure that it was closed gently.

She located the girls on her chaise, they didn’t move when she called their names, she shook them slightly and still didn’t get a response. Slowly she turned on her heels and shuffled over towards her desk, she tried to remember where she had left the candle the night before, in her haste to finish her sketch and return to the small bed above she had forgotten to put it back in its usual place; her hand knocked over several things, her pencil tin and all its pencils were scattered by a simple misguided flick of her hand.

Tikki ever her savour lit a nearby candle for her, the soft auburn light illuminated the mess she had caused, she sighed and started to clean up some of the mess. She heard a soft sleep-filled groan from behind her, glancing behind her she realised that the twins were asleep.

She stopped what she was doing and gently placed down the cup she had in her hands back on the desk, slowly she reached over to the candle on the desk and backed her way towards the steps to her bed up above her. Tikki followed her up the steps and waited until Marinette settled back under the bundle of blankets before she blew the flame out, the only light left in the room was from the steadily rising sun outside.

-x-

Adrien looked down at the crowded streets below, the shadow of the building hid his darkened form from them. People chattered happily as they walked, some had baskets full of different fruits and vegetables, others had armfuls of books, one was even carrying a large cross in their hands as they passed.

He was still amazed by the crowds of people, his windows back at his childhood home never allowed him to see the street, the large sandstone like walls also added to that.

He shook his head to try and pull him from the distant memories form the past, he seemed to be thinking about that old house more and more, an odd thing considering that he hated that house, he wanted nothing more than to escape its cold walls and now he wanted nothing more than to return to it, he even thought about his father more, a feat that he never thought was possible.

A giggle was what ultimately pulled him from his self-pity, it took him a moment to locate the source but eventually his eyes located and tracked the two giggling girls running away from a much taller and frantic girl, she was trying her best to chase after the two without knocking over anyone or bump something out of someone's hands by accident.

He laughed, it was truly never a dull day in Paris, he looked down at the street below before he extended his baton down to the street so he could cut them off. People around him tried to catch his attention, he tried his best to be polite and brush them off but some were still trying to push their questions.

He escaped them by returning to the roofs once again and the light blue dresses of the girls he was chasing caught his eye, he jumped across the buildings following them through the crowd, the older girl was still trying to find them but her pace was starting to slow.

He watched them duct down a darkened alleyway and he readied his baton to descend to them. His boots landed heavily on the mud and puddle ridden road.

Leaning on his baton he called after the girls. “Hey! Where do you think you're going?”

They both stopped in their tracks and sheepishly turned to face him, a set of apologetic smiles were already spread across their faces.

“Sorry, we ran from Marinette,” one apologised while the other nodded along.

“Is Marinette the girl you were running from?”

They both nodded in response.

He gave them a lighthearted frown, “I think we should-“

“There you are!” A familiar voice called cutting him off, he knew it from somewhere but he couldn’t place where.

His tall cat ears snapped around to the source then his head and he froze watching idly as she pushed past him to talk to the runaway girls.

Her long black hair, the grey apron, and the dirty pink skirt with spots of dried mud around the base from several rainstorms, all the same. She, of course, didn’t recognise him making him feel a little disappointed but it was her, it was the girl with the bread.

She quickly bent down and wrapped the two girls into a tight hug sending a smile to spread across his normally neutral face.

“Thank you,” she said, still trying to catch her breath.

“It’s okay,” he replied, trying not to stutter.

“Where were you going?!” She yelled, her attention was now solely on the runaways.

The two girls eyes met the floor in shame. “We were going to see Alya,” one mumbled, his ears twitched at the name.

Marinette sighed, “We talked about this… She’ll be back for you, you just need to be patient.”

“But why?” One cried, a few tears started to fall freely from her eyes, “She promised us that she’d never leave us!”

Bread girl didn’t seem to know how to answer that question, she just continued to look at the two.

“Ella, you know why she had to leave, she did it to protect you and your sister. I wish she had handled it better but that’s in the past, she will be back for you and then you’ll go with her to see your aunt, okay?”

The girl slowly nodded but she still didn't like the outcome of the conversation.

Adrien took this as this moment to make a stealthy retreat, carefully he took one step backwards, then another and another, he was almost clear when he sent his foot into a puddle of water. He winced and accepted his fate, his eyes slowly opened and he felt everybody's eyes on him.

“You must be Chat Noir?”

He nodded.

“Thank you… For stopping them I mean, I would never have caught them if you didn’t.”

He smiled, “It’s no problem,” he replied.

“I should probably introduce myself, I’m Marinette,” she offered out her hand for him to shake, he smirked and quickly flipped her hand over and placed a gentle kiss on the back of it, a few giggles escaped from the younger girls at her side.

He looked up expecting her to be shocked but no, she continued to smile and waited for him to release her hand, “I best get these two back home,” she explained, the two girls locked hands and one grabbed hold of Marinette’s free hand. He dropped her hand, he had only been holding it for five seconds but he could feel the heat from her calloused hand through his leather gloves.

“Of course,” he replied, bowing his head slightly, “Maybe I’ll see you again someday, Princess.”

He mentally chastised himself as soon as the nickname passed through his lips.

“Maybe…” her soft voice echoed.

She waved at him before pulling the two giggling girls back towards the way the had come, leaving him alone in the shadow-filled alley. He slowly backed his way further into the shadows before he returned to rooftops of the tall houses. His ears tracked their footsteps as they slowly grew distant until he no longer heard the soft footfalls against sharpened stones, his eyes searched the skies above for a reason not to follow them and eventually, he found one.

The hour bell rang from Notre Dame informing all who heard it what time it was, he pulled a small pocket watch out from a hidden pocket and double-checked the time, five o’clock, patrol time. His legs carried him over the rooftops towards the meeting spot near the western gate.

It was easier to start near one of these gates then work their way inwards and they wouldn’t get confused by the sometimes confusing streets and roads.

He found the designated rooftop empty when he arrived, he shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the cold tiles, waiting.

-x-

Watching the two girls out of her eyes Marinette got to work fixing her torn skirts, she held it up to the light and sighed as she saw just how bad the damage was for the first time, the damage was too great and now it was only good for mending other torn outfits.

Her eyes flickered over to the basket of clothes, she had promised that she would never touch them but… it wouldn’t hurt to take one would it, it wasn’t like someone was coming back for them and nobody had come to claim the many baskets that lined the far wall of her room.

Still uncomfortable with the thought of it she looked over the baskets of light and darkened cloth. She pulled out various shirts for both males and females, her left hand grabbed a hold of a dark grey stretch of fabric, it was heavy and was once most likely a curtain, she inspected it carefully for holes and found none, a first in a very long time.

She pulled the long cloth out further from the tangled confines of the small woven basket and heaved it towards her desk. It met the sewing desk with a loud thump, she laid it flat and with her eyes, she measured out the desired length, her hand felt around in the draw beside her for the pair of fabric scissors she kept there, they wrapped around the cold heavy metal.

Within the first few snips of the stiff fabric, she had attracted the attention of the twins. They watched eagerly as she cut out a skirt pattern and it wasn’t long before they were asking for tasks they could perform for her. Ella was handed the offcuts in case they were needed to extend the skirt in parts, Etta made sure that the wool she was using to stitch it all together didn’t get tangled up into massive knots even though Marinette had it somewhere where it was least likely to happen.

She flipped the dress over and got started on hemming the long skirt, the wool proved to be the correct choice in threading, her needle struggled to pierce the fabric several times causing her poor fingers to meet the unfortunate end of it. The fresh wounds stung painfully but she forced herself to continue the skirt as she waited for the question she knew that the twins were only just holding back to be asked.

The sewing needle went in and out of the skirt at a steady pace, Marinette only just heard the girl’s voice but it had finally been asked.

“Could you make me one?” Etta whispered.

She smiled and let out a small giggle, “Of course but you have to promise to eat everything tonight.”

Etta nodded her head and returned to the ball of wool in the basket, her eyes had turned to the other balls that Marinette had in there most likely contemplated what colour she wanted to be used with hers.

“Can I have one too?” Ella piped up, “I promise to eat all my dinner too…”

Marinette nodded in return and the twins excitedly started gushing about their new skirts.

All the talk of dinner reminded Marinette that she needed to keep an eye on the time, she quickly felt around at her pockets for her grandfather's pocket watch, it ticked in her hands and it took a second for her mind to work out the time.

Her eyes grew wide and she froze for a second before she felt herself start to panic, the twins sent her an odd look as she raced around the room looking for her bag, they tried to help her but she sent the girls to the bakery below, they didn’t protest much as they knew they would most likely worm their way into a couple of the leftover sweets the bakery still stocked.

With the door below slamming shut, Tikki flew from her spot with her bag in her hands, Marinette let out a sigh of relief and followed the Kwami down the steps to the kitchen below. Tikki went for the warm coals that had been left in the fireplace to add to the cold ones under the stove to start warming up the soup still sitting atop the stove.

Marinette went to the bucket of water they kept in the kitchen to rinse out the bowel and pot she had forgotten to clean out the night before. She dumped the dishes into the bucket and got to work with scrubbing them clean.

�� Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Tikki ponder over the ingredients in the pot, her ears picked up on the small bubbling happening within the pot as the soup started to heat up but something still wasn't right with it, Tikki had said as much the night before, even with Marinette insisting that the soup was alright. The Kwami flew back over to the spice shelf, her bright blue eyes searched the rows looking for that one ingredient that would bring it all together, Tikki wanted it to be perfect and nothing would convince her otherwise.

Finally, Tikki found the spice that would tie the soup together and eagerly dumped it into the pot, the Kwami struggled a little to pick up the wooden spoon to mix it in, Marinette tried to help her but she had her hands full drying the bowel but Tikki proved that she could handle it herself. Marinette smiled as her hands circled the cloth around the pot wiping away the small droplets of water still left on it from its brief swim in the bucket until it was dry, Tikki gave the wooden spoon one final turn in the dish then turned to her and gave her smile, it was ready.

With a little of Tikki’s help, Marinette picked up the pot and poured a large amount into the pot to try and make up for making him late. She felt horrible after asking him to show up early, only for her to show up late the next day.

With a frown, she tied the long white cloth around the pot to keep the lid on and called for her transformation, she threw her small fabric bag over her shoulder and carefully made her way up to the roof. Night had fallen and she could see the candles burning in so many windows, she pulled her trusty yo-yo from her side, it was only there to catch her if she fell, there was no way she would be able to properly swing while holding the warm pot in her hands and she slowly made her way towards the meeting spot, her mind already at work at explaining why she was late.

-x-

Adrien watched the rooftops carefully for the red and black spotted suit, he was early just like she had asked him to be. He paced back and forth while he waited, his eyes still dutifully flickered up to the rooftops but as darkness started to descend upon him, he started to lose hope of her ever showing. He pulled out his pocket watch and watched the seconds hand tick their way around the clock face once, then twice until he had lost count.

The cold started to set in, they had been two months off of winter when he last looked at a date, he could tell it wouldn’t be long now, the heavy snow would soon snake its way across the country and eventually come to Paris.

His eyes caught sight of a flash of red across the rooftops, a small wave of relief washed over him, he watched her bound ever so carefully across the rooftops, she had something in her hands, the off white ribbon tied on top of it stood out from the darkened rooftops as did her suit but maybe it was because he could see much better in the dark. She paused for a moment to adjust her grip on the object in her hands, Adrien contemplated meeting her halfway but he didn’t know whether or not she could see him in the moonless night.

She landed gracefully on the rooftop beside him, a long line of apologies came his way as soon as she did. She pulled an empty bowel from her bag and emptied the soup from the pot into it.

“Are? Are you okay?” he asked.

She shook her head, “I’m sorry Chat, I- I can’t stay long,” she replied passing him the bowel, “I need to get back before they notice that I’m gone.”

He frowned in confusion but still took the bowel from her, “Who’s they?”

She groaned, “The siblings I’m looking after.”

He nodded and quickly started to drink the soup, “Did you still want me to do patrol?” he asked in between mouthfuls.

She shook her head, “Only if you want to.”

He nodded and returned to the much warmer soup, he was never going to show up late again, it tasted a lot better warm and it was a shame that he had to rush it. He gulped down the remainder of the soup and handed her back the bowel, she frowned at the state of it but still wiped it down and stuck it back into her fabric bag.

“You should go home Chat, it's cold and I don’t want you to catch a fever.”

“Aww, you do care,” he teased bringing a small smile to her face before she punched his arm.

“Don’t push it,” she warned collecting her stuff, “Go home Chat,” she commanded, she threw her yo-yo back towards the direction she had come from, “No excuses.”

He nodded his head and with that Ladybug leapt back off into the night, she ducked around a bell tower and he lost sight of her. With a sigh, he looked towards the direction of home then off towards the start of the patrol route, he knew he shouldn’t and that he should go home but with one massive leap, he started the patrol route.

Adrien promised himself that he wouldn’t do it all and would go home after a few minutes of roaming the darkened rooftops but as usual he kept telling himself just a little further then he’ll stop but it was always just a little further and eventually, he had done it all. In shame, he slunk back home with his head hung low, the patrol route he had taken ended nearby his home so it was a short walk home but still a long one for his cold and tired body.

His ring chimed loudly and he picked up his pace at the warning sounds, his legs protested and wanted to go back to the slow pace of a walk. A sudden blast of cold winter wind hit him and almost knocked him off of the small board he had slowed down to walk across it, he wobbled slightly and jumped the rest of the distance to the roof, he landed perfectly.

Shivering he pushed open the door and stumbled inside the remaining heat from the burnt-out fire that burnt out several hours ago still lingered within the building, his cheeks burned slightly but he was still cold. Plagg flew from his coat, phasing through the decorated roof to the floor above presumably to try and restart the dead fire, Adrien slowly followed him up the stairs, he pulled his coat further around his thinning frame.

Adrien dropped to the floor in front of the fire while Plagg tried to light the bundle of sticks underneath a log, a small orange flame slowly made its way through the sticks and soon the fire took hold of the small log, their last log, the small coin purse that had afforded them this luxury but it had, of course, run out, Adrien shuffled closer and closer to the fire, eventually he laid down in front of it, the soft sounds of the fire crackling sent him towards the desperately needed sleep he wanted.

The last thing he remembered before falling into a deep dreamless sleep that called for him was Plagg pulling one of the dust sheets off of the chair and haphazardly draped it over him then curled up into a ball beside him in front of a roaring fire.

Made for @ladynoirjuly2019

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kulcipher · 5 years

Text

ML Partners in Crime au: Adieu Adrien and Marinette

Apparently I can’t get enough of @gale-of-the-nomads‘ Partners in Crime au so I wrote another short fic lol. Trigger warning for faked/ implied suicide

Marinette’s mouth was full of pins as she worked on a new set of disguises when Adrien walked into their latest hideout. She made a muffled greeting when she became aware of his presence though continued what she was doing. The disguises had become necessary to throw off suspicions recently, all of Paris was looking for Ladybug and Chat Noir it seemed and Marinette had the foresight to see it might be strange if she and Adrien were seen near any- or multiple- sightings of their alter egos.

“Marinette… I’ve been thinking.” Adrien started as he sat next to her work station. “Isn’t it time that we disappeared?” He asked slowly. He watched as she frowned and got to a stopping point so she could pull the pins from her mouth and actually speak. “What do you mean disappear?” She asked, eyes briefly following Plagg as he floated over to where Tikki was moodily munching on a chocolate chip cookie.

“It’s getting harder to live up to the Agreste name, I think Nathalie is suspicious of where I run off to all the time.” He admitted. It was tiring going back and forth between his two lives and if he was being honest he was just plain tired of modeling and being an Agreste. Marinette was quiet for a while before she nodded. “Okay, I think we should do more than just disappear though.” Her lips twisted up into a vicious smile. “So Mr. Agreste, how would you like to die?”

“You’re sure you want to do this? You won’t be able to take it back.” Marinette said softly in Adrien’s ear under the pretext of wishing him luck before the fashion show. She smiled and straightened out his collar, glancing briefly to see who might be watching them. His hands came up to cover hers and he smiled back at her. “I’m sure Marinette.” He kissed away anything else she might have said and cupped her face tenderly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.” She sighed and nodded as she reluctantly left him to get into place.

As Marinette joined Alya her cell phone rang and she excused herself to answer it. After a moment she rejoined her friend and winced. “Sorry Alya, Maman called and said they really need my help with a big order. Can you let Adrien know after the show?” She asked as she hugged her friend.

“Shoot girl yeah, are you sure they can’t make do without you though? This is a huge show!” Alya said while Marinette shook her head sadly. “I guess you do get invited to all of them but still… Alright, I’ll tell him.” The ombre haired girl sighed and waved as Marinette ran off.

Once outside, Marinette found a secluded spot and opened up her bag. “Okay come on out.” She said softly. The little fox kwami floated out, looking a bit uneasy. “Trixx, let’s pounce!” She exclaimed and light surrounded her. The necklace hiding under her shirt glowed and she was transformed into an orange fox-themed outfit. She jumped easily onto the roof and settled near a skylight, sitting with her flute and watching the show. Once Adrien had his turn on the catwalk it was show time.

Marinette brought the flute to her lips and created an illusion, showing everyone watching the tragic end of the famous model Adrien Agreste.

~~ Marinette had just arrived at her parents’ bakery when her phone rang. She knew what it was about and took a deep breath. Adrien had done his part, it was time to do hers now. She pasted on a smile as she walked inside and greeted her Maman while answering her phone. “Hey Alya, what’s up?”

“Marinette… I’m so sorry. There’s- there’s been an accident. Adrien-“ Alya choked on a sob.

“Alya, what are you talking about? What happened? Is Adrien okay?” Marinette’s voice rose with faked panic and both her parents paused in concern.

“I’m so sorry Marinette… A stage light fell and Adrien… Adrien’s gone.” Alya had started crying and Marinette cried with her, feeling incredibly guilty for putting her friend through this and more. She tried not to think about what Nino might be going through.

“H-he can’t be, what do you mean he’s gone?!” Marinette wailed. Her parents gasped and hurried over to her, having gleaned enough to figure out what had happened. She put her phone on speaker as Alya haltingly explained what had happened and how Adrien had passed away. Marinette shoved her phone into her father’s hands and fled upstairs to hide away in her room.

Her parents consoled her for the next few hours until they thought she had cried herself to sleep.

“Marinette you really shouldn’t be lying to everyone like this.” Tikki said timidly, floating out of her chosen’s bag. “You’re hurting a lot of people.”

“Tikki… It’s too late to go back. We can’t explain how Adrien is somehow still alive and I can’t just abandon him. We’re partners and this was my idea.” Marinette said firmly. “In the long run this is a good thing.” She and Adrien could die before their loved ones could truly suspect who they were and what they had done. “But Marinette-“

“But nothing Tikki, you can’t change my mind.” Marinette cut off her kwami. Tikki was too kind hearted to understand why this was necessary. She respected Tikki but the kwami saw too much good in people, even the ones who had done nothing but hurt and corrupt those around them. Despite being an ancient being of enormous power, Tikki was still way too naïve about humans and how terrible they were. Tikki was quiet and just looked at her chosen forlornly.

~~ Marinette had a lot of practice with acting. First at convincing her parents that school wasn’t that bad, that oh she’d skinned her knees because she was clumsy not because anyone pushed her, then convincing Alya that she overslept constantly so no she hadn’t had time to their homework and she certainly wasn’t being forced into doing Chloé’s, and of course living a double life for years.

She didn’t enjoy deceiving her parents but it had to be done, so for the next few days she hardly ate (at least in front of them), pretended as if she hadn’t slept, was listless and allowed them to see how dead inside she’d felt before she’d been given her miraculous. They were concerned of course and often sicced Alya on her but gave her space to grieve.

After a few days of her listlessness, Marinette called Alya to meet her for ice cream. Alya jumped at the opportunity and agreed of course. Marinette arrived first and climbed over the rail of the bridge they had agreed to meet on. She leaned against the rail as she waited for Alya to arrive.

“Marinette? What are you doing?” Alya asked when she did finally arrive and saw where her friend was standing.

“I’m sorry Alya.” The once aspiring designer whimpered. “I just- I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice broke and she let go of the rail with one hand.

“Marinette no! Please don’t do this, things will get better!”

“I’m so sorry.” She let go just as Alya lunged for her, falling before her friend could catch her. Alya screamed and Marinette shut her eyes, peeking one open when the fluttering of a flute sounded. She smiled as a blonde boy in a fox themed outfit caught her and pulled her out of sight while an illusory image of her fell into the water below.

“Good work Princess.” Adrien whispered in her ear as she wrapped her arms around him. “Shall we head home?” She nodded silently and held onto him as they soared through Paris. She heard Alya’s cries grow more and more distant until they faded altogether and ignored how what was left of her heart tore a little more.

#ml au #ml partners in crime au #Ladybug #Chat Noir #adrinette #fox!marinette #fox!adrien #Ladybug stole the fox miraculous from Alya when Rena and Carapace tried to take back the cat and ladybug miraculouses #faked deaths #fake suicide #implied suicide #marinette has a lot of internalized anger and resentment #I'm still new to writing short fics #also i'm an edgy b*tch so I love writing death scenes apparently #I feel kinda bad for Alya #she's so traumatized ;-;#she lost a miraculous then saw her friend die then saw her best friend commit suicide #i swear i don't hate her

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bearnakedlady-blog · 5 years

Text

Famous

Also posted here:https://archiveofourown.org/works/19064266

It’s not that Adrien didn’t try to talk to Ladybug before she left, he definitely did. But it had taken a few moments to compose himself after their encounter. And even longer to transform with how much teasing Plagg was doing. When he finally was able to get out to her she was a veritable ball of energy. It seemed everything she did was hyper-focused and fast.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous that she’d rather kiss him in his civilian form. Because finally, finally, he had a kiss from her he could remember. And if her somewhat erratic behavior was anything to go off of, she was excited too. He tried bantering with her, only to be met with dreamy smiles and vague nods. It would be worrisome if he didn’t know the cause. As it was Adrien was on cloud nine. They took down the Akuma in record time, and as soon as their fists parted she was off.

Adrien was disappointed of course. Especially when he realized his friend must have also left because of the attack. Not to mention the shoot would have to be rescheduled for the next morning, which would make him late for school.

He’d tried to be optimistic, tried to tell himself he’d catch her next time. Because no matter how the talk went, the needed to talk. The universe, or at least Hawkmoth seemed determined to keep them apart. While it was completely normal to get an Akuma three times a week at his school, now that he hoped for one, there were none. And even though it was commonplace for them to crop up around him when he was out and about, now there was radio silence.

Not to say that there weren’t Akuma's. They just happened miles away from wherever Adrien was at any given moment. On top of that, instead of finding a safe spot to wait out the attack, his bodyguard immediately drove him home. Which, of course, made it harder to get to Ladybug, to begin with. In fact, there were a couple fights he hadn’t made it to and it was driving him mad.

“I don’t know what to do Plagg, it's like she’s avoiding me!” Adrien flopped onto his bed after another fight where Ladybug bailed as soon as the fight was over. “But that’s impossible, right?”

“I don’t know kid, ever think you aren’t that great of a kisser?”

Adrien groaned, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow. “She’s not running from Adrien. Just Chat Noir.” The bitterness that had eluded him after their fireworks inducing kiss crept up on him as he stewed.

“Well, You’ve only tried to get her attention as Chat. Adrien hasn’t tried to talk to her.”

“Adrien doesn’t know who she is though. It’s not like I have her number in my phone, or that I see her every day or something.”

Plagg cackled as he flitted about the room. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“What would be something is if you were actually helpful”, Adrien grumbled. How was his first kiss (that counted) from his true love so frustrating?

“Look, kid, you do realize you’re famous, right? Why don’t you ask her on that web thing you are always talking about? You know, where you post those pictures?”

Adrien shot up, scrambling to find his phone. “You think she follows me?” Plagg leveled him with a droll stare. “Right”, he chuckled. “Famous. And Ladybug probably doesn’t make out with every celebrity. Right?” Plagg snorted, which didn’t assuage any of Adrien’s concerns. Which was fine since he hadn’t expected that when they started the conversation.

It took him a while to set up the post, and he almost forgot to block anyone he didn’t want to see the post. He agonized over sounding too confident, or not confident enough. He was basically calling her out, what if she didn’t think he was worth her time? What if she only showed up because she felt like it was a challenge? What if she didn’t want anyone else to know?

“It’s okay, this is the only way.”

“Careful there. I hear it’s not good when humans talk to themselves.” Adrien swatted at his kwami, knowing he’d dodge with ease.

“Hush. You are no help”

“Excuse me, whose idea was this anyway?”

Adrien scowled at Plagg before rewording the post. Again. “Fine, if this works, all the Camembert you can eat. For a month.”

“If I knew love advice was all it took to get cheese out of you, I would have said something sooner.”

Adrien read and reread the text, drew a deep breath, and pressed post. Instantly he felt his heart drop to his stomach.

“Crap.”

Crap was right. There had been a flock of messages, everything from congratulations to outrage. But nothing from Ladybug. Adrien had stayed up all night reading over every comment, hoping for any sign that she’d even read what he’d said. So he looked awful when he trudged to his desk the next morning.

Well, awful for him. His clothes were still coordinated, and his hair was still in place, but the bags under his eyes had bags. And he might have spilled espresso on his sweater. He was so late, in fact, that even Marinette was in her seat when he stumbled in. Though she looked even worse than him if that was possible. Was her shirt on backward?. She was looking anywhere but at him, and there was no time to talk to her though as the class had already started.

The whole class was silent excepting a whispered “Duuuuude”, from Nino. He knew there would be questions later, especially if Chloe’s glare was anything to go off of. He almost wished he’d never even bothered last night, but any chance to be closer to His Lady was worth it. She would be worth anything.

The class was excruciating. He was too jittery to actually fall asleep, but he wished he could. Instead, his stomach was in knots, keeping him from focusing on anything. Except for his spiral into hysteria. Madame Bustier seemed to take pity on him, which he had the mind to be grateful for. And somehow the clock made it to lunchtime before his head exploded.

As soon as they were able, his classmates swarmed to his table.

“Are you really gonna meet her?”

“You got some guts Agreste!”

“It’s so romantic, don’t you think?”

“It’s ridiculous I didn’t hear about this sooner, utterly ridiculous!”

“Look, guys, I really don’t want to talk about it,” he started, before he was interrupted again.

“Dude, this is crazy!”

“I hope I’ll get an exclusive after, you aren’t holding out on me, are you?”

He cleared his throat and tried again, “ Now is not the best time, I’m kind of really nervous and-”

He was cut off by a shrill whistle from behind. Everyone snapped their attention to the culprit, Marinette. “C’ mon guys, leave him alone. He doesn’t look too well.” She sidled her way to him, managing to only trip twice. “As class representative, I’m going to take him to the nurse. So, disperse.” She made a shooing motion, and to his surprise, everyone obeyed.

Even Chloé, though not without a remark, “Your tag is under your chin Dupain-Cheng.”

Adrien followed close behind her, thankful for her interference. She managed to keep the other students at bay until they made it to the school clinic, which was a miracle. Now that they were alone her bravado deflated, and his thankfulness doubled.

“I’m sure you want to be alone”, she started finally. “And I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it. But if you did, want to talk about it I mean, I would listen.”

“There’s not much to talk about. I’m an idiot”, he mumbled into his sleeves.

“Nobody thinks you’re an idiot Adrien, why would they? I mean, lots of people want to meet Ladybug-”

“Yeah, most of them don’t use their fame to call her out on social media. I should have figured something else out, but I just couldn’t think of anything, and I’ve been trying to see her for weeks.” Once the dam broke, it seemed it wouldn’t stop. “What if she doesn’t show up? I mean, what if it only meant something to me?” Adrien fought to keep his voice from cracking as he swiped at his eyes. “I mean, she’s Ladybug, she’s, she’s, I can’t even put it into words.”

Marinette placed her hand tentatively on his own. “What only meant something to you?”

“Our kiss!” He nearly shouted the words and regretted before he finished. “Gosh, I’m sorry Marinette, you're just trying to help, I should be thanking you, not taking all my insecurities out on you.”

“I’m sure she’ll come, Adrien. She’s gotta feel the same. Maybe she’s shy. Or maybe she didn’t realize you cared so much. But I’m sure she’ll show.” Her words were sweet, and the most comfort he’d gotten since this whole thing started, but he was still anxious. Ladybug didn’t know him outside of their few interactions together. Why would she care about him?

“I guess.”

“Hey, none of that. How about this, if Ladybug doesn’t show, I’ll kick her butt.” Adrien snorted, finally glancing back up at Marinette. She was giggling herself, her nose wrinkled in amusement. “I mean, I’m bluffing, because I know she’ll be there, but. If by some cooky accident you end up in The Twilight Zone and she doesn’t, well, I’ll probably be stronger than her then.”

“Thanks, Marinette, I needed that.”

#ladrienjune #@ladrienjune #ladrien #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #plagg

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maskedmuses-archived · 5 years

Text

Continued with @blueberryserpent from here!

Her head had been bent down into her hands as she leaned forward, elbows on her knees. Sitting on his bed in his room was always a comfort, but not today. Not when Marinette had nearly broken Luka’s precious guitar by tripping over the chord. She had grazed it and snapped a string, but it still had been the final straw on this horrible day. Bad luck had seemed to trail her everywhere she went.

His tender touch made her slowly look up, her eyes glossy and rimmed with droplets. “But I…I almost broke your guitar, and the string, you had to retune it entirely…” Her lips pressed together as she resumed her downward gaze.

Her cheeks were pinkening even as he mentioned her being cute. “I even messed up my dad’s batch of cookies today on accident. It’s why I came over here in the first place, just so I could hear you play and…I ruined it.”

#RP #||Miraculous Everyday| Marinette/Ladybug||#blueberryserpent #Hope it's okay to continue this!

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ladywritesthings · 5 years

Text

The Parts of You, ch37

AO3

---

‘I must be hallucinating,’ thought Nino vaguely, blinking away the after-effects of the bright pink glow that had faded nearly as quickly as it had come. ‘The pain must be getting to my head.’

Faint spots still danced across his vision but he ignored them for now. There were two things demanding his immediate attention at the moment, and neither of them made any sense.

Ladybug was… right there. And now she wasn’t, but… she was. Because in her place stood a quivering Marinette, disheveled hair barely caught in Ladybug’s loose ponytail, staring back at him with the expression of a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh no,” she squeaked.

“Oh dear,” murmured the second of the metaphorical elephants in the room, flitting out from behind Marinette’s head. “This is unfortunate,” the thing said, and tsk-ed quietly.

“I’m sorry!” whispered Marinette, although whether the sentiment was on behalf of or directed towards the bug-thing floating around her head was unclear and, frankly, he didn’t really care. “I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I messed up…”

“Oh, Marinette,” sighed the thing in a voice that sounded like bells, swooping down to nuzzle at Marinette’s cheek. “It was an accident, we’ll figure it out!”

‘Marinette?’ thought Nino dimly. ‘Ladybug? Marinette is Ladybug? Ladybug is Marinette is…’ He was starting to feel dizzy, yet also terrifyingly, vividly sane.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Marinette, whirling on him, eyes wild and desperate. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this, you weren’t supposed to find out at all, oh, and now we’re stuck—” Tears were forming in her eyes, spilling unnoticed down her cheeks in thick streams, all traces of her former Ladybug confidence gone like, well, magic as the color suddenly drained from her face. “Chat,” she breathed. And then she was going berserk, pounding and screaming at the unyielding door, the thuds of her fists sending tremors through the spindly wooden shelves lining the walls, lightbulb boxes and paper towels shuddering and bouncing.

“Marinette, stop!” yelled the tiny creature, trying vainly to calm the now-feral Marinette, whose fists were surely bruised and bleeding by now from the sheer force of her repeated blows.

And still Nino sat, staring unblinking at the scene unfolding before him, unable to do anything but… process.

“Nino!” cried the tinkling voice, and he was snapped from his daze as he suddenly found himself face-to-face with the bug-thing, its big blue eyes wide and urgent. “Help me,” it said. “She won’t listen to me.”

He opened his mouth automatically at the command but words wouldn’t come, his throat had closed in on itself and what could he possibly say to help a superhero on the verge of total collapse — no, not just a superhero, but his friend…

“Nino,” said the creature again, more gently this time but just as authoritative. “I know this must be quite a shock, but she needs you right now. Please.”

He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Mari,” he croaked. She couldn’t hear him. “Marinette,” he tried again, louder.

Her screams of her absent partner’s name had subsided but her sobs and her desperate lunges at the door had not. Gritting his teeth, he summoned all his strength and lifted himself from his precarious perch on the stool, wincing as he limped clumsily the few steps to the door. “Mari,” he croaked again, a tentative hand reaching out to grab her fist before the next blow.

That simple touch seemed to sap all her remaining strength and she stood there, tears still streaming from wild eyes as she wavered and shuddered on the spot. And then she wasn’t anymore, because she nearly knocked him off his bad leg as she dissolved into fresh sobs against his chest, burying her face against his t-shirt as he clutched her close, awkwardly patting her hair in the most soothing way he could muster. It seemed like the only thing he could do.

The bug-thing hovered silently beside them, a grave expression on its face. “I’ll try to find something to eat,” it muttered, mostly, apparently, to itself. “People live here, don’t they? There must be food.” To him it added, “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, Nino. This is turning out to be a very… intense day, isn’t it?”

“Um,” said Nino, cradling a still-sobbing Marinette in his arms.

“I’m Tikki, by the way,” it said. “How silly of me to forget my manners, but you’ll have to excuse me.” It flitted towards the door, and paused. “If she asks,” it said, “just tell her I’ve gone to recharge. I’ll be back momentarily. And then we can see about fixing that door, shall we?” And then it went through the door — Nino blinked, sure he must have missed something — and was gone.

It took a few moments for Marinette’s hiccupping sobs to calm enough for her to catch her breath. “He needs me,” she whimpered into his chest, eyes bloodshot. “He’s waiting for me and he needs me, I was only supposed to be gone a few minutes…”

‘He?’ Nino stumbled blankly for a second before supposing with a sudden jolt: “he” would mean Chat Noir. Of course it would, because who else had she been screaming herself hoarse over? Chat Noir, the wild, flamboyant boy who was much more of a real person to Marinette than to the rest of Paris’s much more vague symbolic ideal; Chat Noir who, at this very moment, would be dodging bombs and biding his time while waiting for backup that wouldn’t — couldn’t, presently — come. A cold lump of horror slid its way into the pit of his stomach and settled there, hard and heavy as iron. “I — I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Nino as his voice cracked, unconvincing even to himself.

She straightened, taking tremulous breaths as she sought to collect herself. “Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes, mascara collecting in ugly rings under them and smearing on her skin. She glanced at him finally, a softer sort of concern tinging her expression now. “How’s your leg?”

He shrugged a one-armed shrug and winced as he did. “It’s been better,” he managed.

She took his arm and guided him gently back to the stool, careful not to disturb his ankle more than absolutely necessary. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all this,” she said quietly, kneeling beside him as he situated himself as comfortably as he could. “I never wanted any of you to find out this way. Or, y’know, at all, but…” She let out a weak, semi-hysterical kind of half-laugh that didn’t quite land.

He had a million things to say, a million wildly roiling thoughts fighting to be verbalized first, but when he looked at her all he could see was his friend, tired and scared, buckling under a kind of weight he could barely understand. “Yeah,” he said finally, pushing aside the Other Things for later. “Yeah, this sucks.”

She broke their held gaze, fidgeting without direction, looking haggard. “I’m sorry,” she said again, voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have been more careful,” she said viciously, lips pressing together in a harsh line. “I should have picked a better spot, I should have paid attention—”

“Hey, Marinette, this isn’t your fault!” he cut her off firmly. “You wouldn’t even be trapped in here if it weren’t for me.”

“You were my responsibility!” she spat, rounding on him with anger in her voice, but her eyes were nothing but regretful and terrified. “Everyone is my responsibility! Paris is my responsibility! And Chat…” She took a long, slow breath and looked at the ceiling, in an apparent attempt to quell any more rising tears. “He can’t handle this by himself, and I’m — I’m not there right now because I was stupid and careless…”

He gripped her shoulder before she could start crying again. “Hey,” he said softly. “Keep it together, yeah? We’ll figure this out.”

“Nino,” she whispered, voice wavering dangerously. “What if somebody dies?”

The question hit him like a punch to the gut but she kept going. “We’ve never had an Akuma this bad before — I mean, Jesus Christ, an actual terrorist? What if somebody dies because I was stupid enough to get locked in here and I couldn’t save them? What if Chat—”

“Hey now,” interrupted Nino shakily. “Don’t think like that, okay? We’re going to be fine, you hear me? They’re all going to be fine.” Through the sudden, violent barrage of intrusive thoughts racing through his mind — Alya’s broken body crushed under a pile of rubble, eyes unseeing behind cracked glasses; Adrien, burning; the mangled corpses of Kim, Alix, Rose, anyone he’d ever known, strewn across the sidewalk like ragdolls — he squeezed her shoulder in what he hoped was taken as a comforting gesture, despite it rapidly becoming more of a stabilizing gesture for himself than anything else.

She sniffled weakly and nodded, wiping at her nose with a half-hearted swipe of a fist as her gaze flicked across the room. “Where’s Tikki?” she asked.

It took a moment for “Tikki” to connect to “weird magical bug-thing that flies through walls” in Nino’s head. “Oh,” he said. “It, uh, said it needed to… ‘recharge’? It went through the door a few minutes ago, it said it’d be back soon to fix the door.”

“But I have cookies in my—” She stopped mid-sentence and groaned. “I told her to stop eating them unless there’s an Akuma, she promised! Those are for emergencies only!” She raked an exasperated hand through her hair, inadvertently yanking strands loose from her already haphazard ponytail. “I hope she’s back soon.”

“…She?” said Nino tentatively.

Marinette glanced at him, a tired half-smile quirking the corner of her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “Tikki’s my kwami, she’s the one who gives me my power.”

He took a moment to consider this factoid. “I see,” he said, not really seeing at all.

Her smile turned sad. “We’re going to have a lot to talk about after this, aren’t we?” she said rhetorically.

He met her gaze. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed.

Marinette glanced up at the ceiling, expression hard as the faint smile slipped from her face. “It’s awfully quiet out there,” she said.

Nino tried not to think too hard about the implications of this.

Their attention turned suddenly to the door as a sharp clunk broke through the silence, and the bug-thing — Tikki — finally reappeared through the door. “I did my best with the lock,” it — she — said. “I’ve never actually tried to do that before, but dear Lucretia was quite handy with a hatpin, and she showed me a thing or two — of course, it’s been nearly 200 years—”

Marinette stood up as Nino’s train of thought stumbled over “200 years.” “After this, you and I are going to have a serious talk about what ‘emergency rations’ means,” she said sternly.

“Won’t happen again,” said the now-sheepish kwami.

“Tikki,” Marinette said, and her voice changed somehow as she did, “spots on!”

The bright pink light filled every inch of the small room. Nino squeezed his eyes tight but it permeated his eyelids, pressed past his shielded gaze, a flicker of warmth washing over him with the light. And just as suddenly, it was gone, and Ladybug had returned. Only, it wasn’t just Ladybug. Not anymore.

Nino stared at her with bare-faced wonder; ogling, really, barely even registering the embarrassment that would usually accompany such boldness. It was like something had snapped in his head — it really was just Marinette in spots. He couldn’t understand how he’d never seen it before.

She flexed her fingers and aimed for a kick at the door. It held fast, but only barely, a clear dent by the lock now. “C’mon,” she whispered as she kicked again.

The door buckled off its hinges on the third try, flying open with a bang. “Oh thank God,” she breathed, unhooking her yo-yo. She paused in the doorframe, glancing back on him briefly with an expression he couldn’t place. “I’ll be back for you,” she said, and then she was gone.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring vacantly at nothing with unseeing eyes. So many thoughts raced through his head, he didn’t know which part to focus on first, so he simply let them come. Marinette’s odd behavior and flimsy excuses over the years; mysterious disappearances whenever an Akuma showed up, finally explained. Her muscles, less “jacked,” as he had described them in the past — that description made her sound like a body builder — but clearly those of a gymnast, or else an agile superhero who spent more of her time sprinting over rooftops than down on the ground; defined, but lean, not bulky. Her quick defense of Chat Noir, especially if debating with classmates who was “better” between him and Ladybug; why would she sing her own praises when the partner who she relied on so heavily was right there?

A magical bug-creature, who could phase through walls and gave Ladybug her magic. Marinette risking her life, right now.

Alya.

Alya, constantly worried for Marinette’s safety and considering it paranoia. Alya, betrayed. Alya, rushing away from an exploding building, crushed to death under falling rubble…

There was some yelling, somewhere on the outside, a familiar female voice he would now recognize anywhere. A thump. Some quiet. And then the unmistakable shout of “Miraculous Cure!”

Tiny, glowing ladybugs swept through the building, gently wiping every trace of destruction away. The door, leaning weakly on its own hinges, was righted in a second, balanced innocently on the stupid, insecure bucket that had started the whole incident. They washed over him, clearing away the grime and the sweat, warming his ankle and suddenly the pain was gone. He flexed his foot experimentally. Completely healed. He stood, grabbing the step stool he’d been perched on, and replaced the bucket with it.

Honestly, who thought a bucket with wheels would be even slightly secure against such a heavy door? The bucket, now moderately warped from the weight of it, rolled innocently away. He stepped out.

The apartment was actually quite nice, once it wasn’t half-destroyed. He made his way down the modest staircase, the simple front door no longer a twisted hunk of metal and broken glass. Pushing it open, he saw hordes of people, immaculate and unhurt, swarming around the distant figures of Chat Noir and Marinette-Ladybug, looking slightly more out of breath than before but with an otherwise press-friendly smile gracing her face. He stood for a moment, watching the crowds milling, hesitating. Should he wait for Marinette? Should they walk together back to the park, or return separately?

…The park!

Adrien.

Alya.

He fumbled for his phone.

The line rang twice before she picked up. “Are you okay?” she demanded, not waiting for or offering a greeting.

“I — yeah, I’m okay,” he said, and suddenly he began to shake, his knees threatening to collapse under him at the sound of her voice. ‘She’s alive,’ he thought dazedly, taking long, quivering breaths through his nose. ‘She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive…’ “Where’d you go? I lost you.”

He hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation, but she sounded nearly as relieved as he felt and ignored his tone. “I went home,” she explained in a voice that wavered with barely-restrained emotion. “After we lost each other, I-I ran into my sisters — they got separated from maman and I didn’t know where else to go… It was close enough to get to on foot but far enough away that the Akuma hadn’t touched our street yet…”

His heart fluttered and sank at the same time. “Your parents,” he said. “Are they…?”

“They’re fine,” said Alya roughly, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “They were the first people I called, Ella and Etta were crying so hard… Dad’s on his way right now, and Mom should be here any second.”

Nino collapsed against the brick wall behind him, dragging a hand across his face. “Good,” he said finally. “That’s… that’s good.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re out of town,” he said, sinking slowly to the ground on his haunches as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Anniversary trip, they left this morning, thank God.”

“Thank God,” she echoed. “You should probably still call them. They’ll be worried sick once they hear.”

“They’ll probably hop on the next plane back,” he agreed. The thought of how anxious he’d been to get them on their way that morning, the relief he’d felt when they’d finally left and he had the house to himself for a rare week… How strange to think that had only been a few scant hours ago.

“Have you — hold on.” Alya’s voice cut off as the sound of her phone being shuffled around took over, and then a muffled chorus of “Maman!” and the shriek of relief from a grown woman’s voice filled Nino’s ears as the distant reunion could be heard in indistinct snippets over the phone line. Nino let it play out, the happy sobs of Alya’s little sisters filling him with a calm he couldn’t ever remember matching, and just as he’d begun to let himself drift the shuffling phone sounds were back. “Maman just got home,” Alya clarified unnecessarily. “I’m on my way back out. Have you heard from the others yet?”

“Ah — huh?” He snapped back to reality, and with him came a sudden rising dread. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“I can’t get through to Marinette or Adrien,” she explained urgently. “You either, until now. I’m heading back to the park, but you haven’t heard from them?”

“Um,” said Nino. When Marinette left him, she’d said she’d be back, but had failed to specify when. Or how. Or what he could and couldn’t share. His thoughts briefly turned to what Alya had said about Miraculous magic the other day and panicked. How much had she gotten right? What would happen if he accidentally slipped? Why hadn’t Marinette at least hinted at what to do when faced with the prospect of The Alya Inquisition? Why couldn’t there have been more time?

“A missed call from either of them? A text? Anything?” Alya prompted. Her voice was becoming increasingly worried, and Nino’s panic was rising.

And then, like an angel, he glanced around and there she was.

“Marinette,” he said.

“Marinette?” repeated Alya anxiously. “What about Marinette?”

“I — Marinette’s here. With me.” He gestured wildly and she made a beeline for him, hurrying over from the opposite direction from where he’d seen her and Chat last as he brandished the phone at her. “Here, prove to Alya you didn’t die.”

“Alya?” Marinette brightened instantly and grabbed the phone, running her fingers through the hair she now loosened from her wild ponytail. Her hands had been healed. Of course they had. “Oh, thank God… No, we’re fine. Did you…?” A pause. “Yeah, we’ll be there, we’re only a few blocks away. But…” Another pause. Her face paled slightly. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly, and then Nino was hit by it at nearly the exact same moment.

Adrien.

She seemed to read his thoughts as her phone was already out of her purse by the time he had the presence of mind enough to think to ask for it. She unlocked it quickly without looking, and Nino punched in the numbers without bothering to try scrolling through her contacts.

Three agonizing seconds ticked by as he held her phone to his ear.

A click. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message or try again later…”

He hung up and redialed. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is…”

Again. “We’re sorry…”

Nino looked up and met Marinette’s waiting gaze, a sick pit in his stomach. Her expression steeled as he forced himself to shake his head. “Nino will keep trying,” she told Alya. “We’ll see you soon.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

He kept calling as they walked, each step increasing the icy feeling in his gut until the emptiness spread to his toes, his fingers, clouding his gaze. ‘Pick up,’ he willed Adrien silently, as Marinette gently steered him over curbs and around lampposts. ‘Pick up, pick up, pick up…’

In what seemed like hours and yet only seconds, hard pavement gave way to soft, springy grass, and still there was no answer other than the robotic, vaguely feminine voice on the other end of the phone. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried — a dozen? A hundred? His fingers were numb, and still he hit redial…

“Mari! Nino!” And suddenly he wasn’t dialing anymore, because a sudden death grip around his neck and fiery hair in his face knocked the air from his lungs and the phone from his lungs as Alya rocketed across the park and folded him and Marinette together in a rib-crushing hug.

“We’re here, Alya,” soothed Marinette in a strangled voice as Alya sobbed openly onto their shoulders. “It’s okay, you can let go…”

“Bullshit, I’m never letting either of you go ever again!” came her muffled voice, buried somewhere in Nino’s shoulder, although the pressure around his neck mercifully lessened slightly. “God, I was so worried! The whole time I was with my sisters, trying to calm them down but the whole time I was thinking of you but now you’re here and you’re okay—”

“It’s all right, Alya,” said Marinette soothingly, petting her hair. “We’re fine. And you’re fine.” She gently but firmly loosened Alya’s death grips on them and turned to face her. “Is your family all right?”

“Yes, and so’s yours, by the way. Your mom called when she couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“I couldn’t get through,” lied Marinette, looking concerned and relieved all at once. “I guess the lines were all jammed up or something.” Nino watched her silently out of the corner of his eye. There wasn’t a trace of deception in her face, not that even Alya would have noticed right now.

“You didn’t hear from Adrien on the way back, did you?” asked Alya anxiously, looking between them as she wiped the residual tears off her face. “I’ve been texting and texting…”

“I… No, not yet.” He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away from Marinette, jumping back into the moment with some difficulty.

Marinette’s face fell, and that sinking, icy feeling in Nino’s insides returned. “Nino’s been calling, but… we hoped he might be with you,” she said.

There was a tense silence — Marinette biting her lip, hands wringing; Alya, suddenly looking ashen and small. Nino picked up Marinette’s discarded phone from the ground by his feet with fumbling fingers. “I’ll try him again,” he managed finally.

Alya’s phone was already in hand. “Nothing,” she said after a few seconds, looking sick.

“Well, try it again.”

Nothing.

“Okay,” said Marinette, pale but her face set with a determined calm. “Let’s just… stop for a moment. Breathe. Where would he go?”

“Home?” suggested Alya. “You know his bodyguard will have been scouring the city…”

The girls’ voices faded around him as Nino retreated into himself, weighing the possibilities. It could only have been, what? Ten minutes since the Lucky Charm cleared away the rubble? Twenty? Hardly enough time to do a full sweep of the city, even factoring in the limited area in which the Akuma had time to attack before Ladybug and Chat Noir put him down. There could be bodies all over the place, in forgotten alleys or empty apartment buildings; wherever people had retreated for cover.

Clearly they weren’t the only ones worried about loved ones either, considering everybody around them on the streets and in the park were on their phones or clinging to each other with sobs of relief. And Marinette said herself that she didn’t know the extent of her city-healing abilities…

Alya was by his side again, looking anxious as she tried the phone again. He felt his arms tighten around her automatically, feeling the warmth from her body trying and failing to ease some of the tension in his body, the monotonous tone from the phone still rattling around in his head; ‘We’re sorry…’

Through the sea of her hair, a familiar, stupidly tall blond head edged through the crowd, bobbing around like it was looking for something…

“Adrien!”

He was running before his brain caught up with his body, nearly knocking the girls over in his haste, tripping over his own feet and uneven ground and—

“You stupid idiot!” he yelled, nearly knocking Adrien to the ground as he squeezed him tight on impact.

“Dude,” protested Adrien in a wheeze, arms hovering only a split second before returning the hug. “What gives?”

“Answer your damn phone, dumbass,” said Nino, finally feeling the tears he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in flooding down his face. He didn’t even notice the girls following him until Alya crashed into them as well, Marinette in hot pursuit. “You stupid, goddamn idiot.”

Adrien let them dogpile him for a while before gently untangling himself to answer Alya’s clamoring demands about where the hell he’d been. After they’d got separated, he’d holed up in a clothing store a few blocks away, but hadn’t realized he’d dropped his phone in the confusion. He’d had to retrace his steps once the coast was clear, which was why he was the last one back, and had only just found it, kicked under the edge of a dumpster across the street from the park. Nino didn’t care how or why he hadn’t answered now. The only thing rattling around his head as he dried his face was the constant ‘He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe…’

“So, what now?” Adrien finished, glancing between them. “I… uh, don’t suppose there’s much call for the movies now, is there? Especially since I can’t imagine anything will be open just now.” The ghost of a grin flitted across his face and died.

“I want to hear about you guys,” said Alya, turning to Marinette and Nino. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, um, I just did a lot of running,” said Marinette sheepishly. “Kind of just… going wherever the Akuma wasn’t, you know? I found an apartment building and stuck around there for a while, and then I ran into Nino when Ladybug and Chat Noir caught the Akuma.”

It was so… strange, hearing her refer to herself like that. To Ladybug, knowing she was Ladybug. Nino felt a new level of appreciation for how difficult keeping the lies straight must be, and keeping herself from saying “I” or “we” when referring to the protectors of Paris.

“What about you, Nino?” said Adrien.

And then he blanked.

“Uh, well… I kinda ran around for a while when we got separated,” he stuttered after a moment. “I broke my leg—”

“What?” exclaimed Alya.

“I — um…” Marinette was watching him quietly, not pointedly, but he could see something behind her eyes; something willing him to please don’t fuck this up.

He couldn’t do it.

“Turned out,” interjected Marinette brightly after a few agonizing seconds, “we ended up hiding in the same building!” Alya and Adrien turned to look at her as Nino stared, partly grateful, partly shocked. “Yeah, Ladybug found him and dropped him off at the same apartment building I was in toward the end. ‘Course we didn’t find out until after it was all over and we came out of hiding, but isn’t that crazy?”

They all turned back to look at Nino, who coughed. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Crazy, huh?”

“Too bad she didn’t bring you to the same floor, right?” said Marinette lightly, nudging his leg with a toe. “Would have saved us a lot of panic, huh?” The gesture was casual, disguised as a playful act of camaraderie between two people who’d been through a harrowing ordeal — only he understood the hidden implication: ‘Play along.’

He coughed again gracelessly. “I was pretty glad to find you,” he admitted. “Since you never answer your phone and have a worse sense of direction than Alya, we might never have seen you again otherwise.”

“Hey, not cool,” protested Alya. “Too soon.”

“I’m just… glad you’re all okay,” said Adrien. “Sorry I freaked you guys out.” He looked between them all, a warm smile on his face, but… Was that Nino’s imagination, or did he seem… distracted? He wanted to shake himself. Of course there he was. They’d all just survived a terrorist attack, and a super-powered one at that. None of them were okay.

They were quiet for a moment, just savoring the fact that they were alive, that their families were alive and okay…

“So… what now?” said Alya quietly.

“I guess…” began Marinette, and then trailed off.

“Well, I’m pretty sure Nathalie and the Gorilla are looking for me,” said Adrien with a weary sigh, “so I should probably get a hold of them before they tear the city apart. Again.”

“I just wanna go home,” said Alya in a small voice, looking suddenly nearly as tired as Nino felt. “My mom didn’t want me coming back out so soon after she got back, but…”

“Me too,” agreed Marinette softly. “I guess, just… Stay safe?”

“We’ll talk later, yeah?” said Adrien with a half-hearted smile, and in the group hug that followed Nino pulled them all as close to him as he could, wishing to preserve the moment for as long as humanly possible.

But then the moment passed, and one by one they took their leave until only he and Marinette remained.

“So…” he said awkwardly after a pause.

“So,” she agreed with equal discomfort.

He cleared his throat with some difficulty. “So,” he began again, “when should I expect this… talk?”

Marinette looked down at her toes. “I have to see my parents first,” she said, “obviously. And—” She dropped her voice low, “—I… I have to see Chat, y’know, because we didn’t really get a chance to do… this after the fight.” She gestured vaguely at the teary civilians, and their own recently-disbanded reunion. “But I’ll stop by later, if that’s all right. Or you could come to my place, if you want…?”

“My place is probably better,” he said wearily. “My parents are out of town.”

She blinked. “Oh. Oh, I see.” She bit her lip. “D’you want to come to my place anyway, after I see Chat real quick? So you don’t have to be alone, I mean, I can meet you outside the bakery—”

“No, no,” he interrupted distantly. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I need to call my folks anyway.” A beat of silence. “Thanks, though,” he added hastily.

There was something behind her eyes, a deep sadness he tried very hard to ignore at present. “Are you… sure you’re all right, Nino?” she asked quietly.

Was he? Was anyone, right now? “I’m fine,” he lied.

She didn’t look like she believed him. “I’ll see you later, Nino,” she said, and then she, too, was gone.

He stood there for an indeterminate amount of time, just surrounding himself with the collective relief of Paris, the sudden and inexplicable peace after such a violent event. He kept his mind carefully blank, if only for that one moment, where he could pretend that none of it had ever happened, that nothing was wrong.

He opened his eyes and began to walk.

Time seemed immaterial at the moment. If he’d been asked, he’d have been hard-pressed to tell anyone how long it took him to get home, or which route he took. All he knew was that at some point, he found himself standing in front of his apartment door, and a few moments passed before he remembered to fish out his keys.

The apartment looked exactly as he had left it. Of course it did; why wouldn’t it? His laptop, snoozing on the kitchen counter. His breakfast dishes still piled in the sink. He’d left the bathroom light on by accident.

Nino sank into the couch, gazing blankly at his faint reflection in the darkened TV screen.

It was all… too much.

Calling his parents would be pointless — they probably hadn’t even landed yet, and if they had they hadn’t heard what happened, given the fact that they hadn’t blown up his phone yet; what would be the point in worrying them and ruining their vacation? So there was nothing to do but sit until Marinette-Ladybug showed up at his door.

He came to the sudden, terrifying realization that that was the last thing he wanted in the entire world.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want — no, need — answers; he did, desperately. As the silence of the apartment pressed in around him all he could see was the pink flash of light, all he could hear was Marinette’s terrified voice, ‘You weren’t supposed to find out like this…’

‘You weren’t supposed to find out at all…’

How long, exactly, had she been planning on keeping something like that a secret? Did she think she could just continue with this massive lie of a double-life for as long as she held the mantle of Ladybug, before quietly retiring an indeterminate number of years in the future without a word? Had she even thought that far ahead? Not like what happened today was in any way predictable, but still.

He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to have such knowledge forced upon him. He didn’t have Alya’s drive, her insatiable need to learn every dark secret Ladybug and Chat Noir had hidden away. He was content to live in the dark, let them live their lives as they wished. And yet here he sat, and all he could think about was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, clad in the red and black of one of Paris’s most prominent protectors.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the image brighter.

Marinette, her Ladybug suit melting away into jeans and sneakers.

Marinette, talking to a magical bug.

Marinette, beating herself bloody on the immovable door, screaming for her partner with a furious desperation he’d never seen the likes of before.

Everything Alya had told him swirled around in his head, mixing and matching with everything he could remember about Ladybug, everything he’d ever known about Marinette. Little quirks in Ladybug’s speech, half-remembered from Ladyblog streams past. Marinette’s every disappearance, and every Ladybug sighting moments later. Flustered excuses and panicked distractions melded together into one truth so brutal he could hardly bear to acknowledge, but knew he had to accept.

Marinette was a superhero, and she could have died today.

Even more so than any of the rest of them, and that scared him most of all.

He snapped back to reality at the sudden knock on the front door.

Opening it, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Marinette standing there in the hall — looking tired, of course, and nervous, but more put-together than before — and yet he was, slightly, anyway. “You got here fast,” he commented.

She looked at him quizzically. “It’s been two hours,” she said.

Really? Glancing behind him out the window, he finally noticed how the light had shifted, the shadows longer than they had been the last time he checked. Huh.

“…Can I come in?”

He looked back at her, hovering in the doorway, and blinked. “Sorry,” he said, moving aside, and she flitted past him into the living room.

“Um,” he said as he closed the door, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings and the situation and her, “d’you, I don’t know, want something to drink?”

“Oh,” she said, looking almost as uncomfortable as he felt. “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

They stood there in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity, both staring at anything that wasn’t each other.

Well, there were no two ways around this; might as well rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with. “So,” he said to the floor. “You’re a superhero, huh?”

She surveyed the bookshelf in the corner. “Yeah,” she said.

“Fighting crime,” he continued at a lamp. “Saving the day. Kicking ass.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re… Ladybug.”

She reddened slightly. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

It was a struggle, but he forced himself to meet her hesitant gaze. “So,” he said. “Parkour, huh?”

The split second of silence as she processed his remark was deafening, but then she cracked a grin, a relieved, genuine smile that seemed to melt some of the tension away. “To be fair,” she said, “it wasn’t exactly a lie.”

He gestured to the couch and they both sat down, albeit a bit farther apart than they might have before. Baby steps. “How are your parents?” he asked, picking imaginary lint off his jeans.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Dad cried a lot when I got home. They didn’t want me coming out again so soon, but I told them you were home alone and I wanted to make sure you were okay. You may or may not be expected for dinner until your parents come home.” She side-eyed him. “That wasn’t a lie either, you know,” she added softly. “Wanting to make sure you were okay, I mean.”

He cleared his throat. “Do they, uh, do they know?”

She looked away. “No,” she said. She sounded almost ashamed. “No, you’re the only one.”

He looked up in surprise. “The only one?” he repeated. “Doesn’t Chat Noir know?”

Her ears went red, and there was definite shame in her voice when she admitted, “No.”

“How — but why?” A thought struck him. “Do you know who he—”

She shook her head, picking at a loose thread in the seam of a couch cushion. “No,” she said quietly. “We can’t know. We’re not supposed to. Nobody is. Maybe someday, but—” She cut herself off and shook her head again. “We shouldn’t,” she reiterated. “It’s too dangerous.” She fiddled with the thread, a bundle of nervous, directionless energy, and sighed again. “It’s like,” she began again, and stopped.

Nino let her collect her thoughts, his own mind tripping over itself with questions and exclamations and the need to scream, but he let her figure out the words first. It was her secret, after all. Her life.

“The whole time I’ve been Ladybug,” she said finally, “protecting my identity has been, like, the most important thing. The most important, even more important than stopping Hawkmoth, because we can’t fight him if he knows who we are, y’know? He could just… find us, send Akumas after our families, take our Miraculous. It’s like this constant cloud over our heads. We can’t tell the people closest to us, because they might get Akumatized. And we can’t tell people who’ve already been Akumatized, because they might get Akumatized again…” Her fist clenched. “We don’t even know if we can get Akumatized — that’s the scariest part. And even if we can’t, he’s been controlled by them enough that… I can’t even trust him with that part of myself, and I trust him more than—” She cut herself off, exhaling as the fist slowly released its grip. “We argue about it sometimes. And I’ve been so paranoid for so long…”

“…You don’t know what to do,” finished Nino quietly. “Now that I know.”

She looked at him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said.

“Of course not. But I’m a problem now.” It wasn’t meant as a jab, just a statement of fact, but she winced anyway.

“I wouldn’t say ‘problem,’ exactly…”

“No, I get it.” He shrugged lopsidedly. “Trust me, it’s a problem for me, too. Like, how am I supposed to cover for you? Because I can’t lie, you know that.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, looking lost.

“Of course I will,” he continued, less to her now and more to himself, “obviously. But I won’t like it.”

She reached for him hesitantly, but couldn’t quite seem to bring herself to touch him. “I’m sorry, Nino,” she said.

He sighed. “Don’t be,” he said. “Honestly.”

“You shouldn’t be in this position,” she said, and to that he had nothing to say. So they sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own heads.

“Where’s your… uh, friend?” he asked delicately, as a way to break the awkward lull in conversation.

“My… Oh, you mean Tikki?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “She’s, ah, in my my purse. We figured it would be better that way, I guess. Easier.”

He frowned. “Why did you bring it — sorry, her, then? If you didn’t know if I could take it?”

“She’s always with me,” said Marinette quietly. “She has to be, y’know? Because of the Akumas.”

Of course. What a stupid question. Nino kicked himself mentally and cleared his throat. “You can… You can come out now, um, if you want,” he said, a little too loudly. He felt like an idiot, but then he heard a soft zipping noise and looked down to see Marinette’s purse opening on its own. As if by magic, or so it would have seemed were it not for the tiny paws reaching up through the zipper to move it. He stared.

The little bug thing — he had to stop calling her that, she had a name — poked her head out. “Hi, Nino,” she squeaked.

Nino blinked. “What’s hangin’, little dude?” he said faintly. He could feel himself beginning to detach at the sight of her. It wasn’t right, wasn’t real, he couldn’t take this — but he did. He could. He forced himself to stay present.

He’d turned into a supervillain controlled by a butterfly, after all. For daring to believe his best friend should have a birthday party.

This should be a piece of cake.

“Do you guys want anything?” he asked suddenly, jumping to his feet. “A snack? A drink? I think I have some Pepsi in the fridge…” He was babbling. He could handle this. Of course he could. He just needed to… move. Around. Sitting was boring, anyway.

“Oh,” said Marinette. She and Tikki exchanged glances. “I’ll have some water, I guess. Since you’re offering.”

“Great,” said Nino, clattering around the kitchen aimlessly. Glasses, where were the glasses? He felt like a stranger in his own home, and it took him two tries to open the right cupboard. The tap sounded awfully loud as he ran a fumbling finger through the stream of water, checking the temperature out of habit without really feeling.

“Do you have any cookies?” asked the tinkling voice of Tikki. He nearly dropped the glass in the sink.

“Cookies?” he repeated shakily.

“She prefers sweets,” explained Marinette from the couch.

He rummaged through some more cabinets to fish out a half-filled roll of Oreos. ‘Do kwamis need plates?’ he wondered uncertainly. He brought one anyway, the tiniest tea saucer he could find, although it was probably still larger than her entire body. On the way back, he hovered for a moment in front of the fridge before grabbing a can of soda for himself. Normally he’d have a Red Bull or some other highly caffeinated sleep-substitute, but he was high-strung enough as it was. He didn’t really want the soda, either, but at least now he’d have something to do with his hands.

He set everything down carefully on the coffee table, arranging everything meticulously in front of them. However, there were only so many ways one could stack Oreos on a plate before it started to look weird, and his stalling time ran out. There was nothing else for it but to sit back down and face the music. “There you go,” he said unnecessarily, not quite settling back down into the cushions.

“Thank you, Nino,” said Tikki brightly, fluttering over to the pile of cookies and perching on the rim of the plate. She took one — it was nearly as big as her head — and bit down in the tiniest bite he’d ever seen. He knew it was rude to stare, but he couldn’t help it. She certainly seemed to take no notice.

“You might want to let go of that Pepsi,” suggested Marinette quietly, “before it explodes on you.” He looked down to see his knuckles were white around the can, and there was already a dent in the metal from his thumb. He hastily set it down, but the dent remained.

“So…” he said awkwardly. “You’re… Tikki.”

Tikki swallowed with a delicate gulp and smiled. “Yes, I am.” Nino opened his mouth to say something, hovered for a moment, and closed it again. Tikki’s smile turned matronly, or as close to it as her strange features allowed. “I’m sure you have questions,” she prompted gently. “It’s alright. I answered them for Marinette.”

Nino glanced between them uncertainly, taking in Tikki’s strange patience and Marinette’s nervous encouragement, and swallowed heavily. “What…” He gripped the knees of his jeans, fingers tightening on the loose denim until the knuckles went white again. “What are you?” he asked quietly.

Tikki settled back on her pile of Oreos. “I am a kwami.” Nino looked at her blankly and she considered for a moment. “A sort of demigod, I suppose,” she said. “Marinette can call me to her Miraculous and access some small part of my power, when she needs to.”

Nino’s gaze slid back to Marinette, who was looking at him carefully. “What’s your Miraculous?” He paused. “I mean, where is it?”

Marinette gestured to her earrings, angling her head so her hair fell away. The studs were plain, dark stones — she’d been wearing them forever. Since collège…

Of course. He’d never been as into the Ladyblog as Alya would have liked, so it took him a second to put it together, but when he did he felt silly for not doing so sooner. His stint as an Akuma was vague, the memory faded by time and post-cleansing amnesia, but he’d seen enough attacks since to remember the manic demands from Hawkmoth’s henchmen. Ladybug wore earrings too, red and black like her suit. Like Tikki. Because Tikki…

“How long have you known?”

Marinette considered her cuticles. “I’d only had my earrings for a day or two when Ivan was turned,” she said. “They just… turned up in my bedroom. I found them when I got home one day. I had no idea where they came from. And then there was this… bug-mouse flying around, telling me I was a superhero and I had to fight an actual supervillain…” Her voice softened. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was… just so much.” Nino could sympathize. She paused for a moment and smiled. “You’re taking this very well,” she said. “When I first met Tikki I tried to attack her.”

That was… understandable. “Wait, really?”

She chuckled. “Threw everything at her but the kitchen sink.”

“And then you trapped me under a water glass,” added Tikki in an amused tone.

Nino blinked. “But you can go through walls.”

Marinette looked embarrassed. “Well, I didn’t know that at the time,” she said.

His hands were still trying to shake, so he released his death grip on his jeans and folded them carefully into his lap. His mind, however, was surprisingly calm. Tikki spoke in measured, lilting tones that were surprisingly calming, Marinette interjecting occasionally with a clarification or anecdote. He found himself asking fewer and fewer questions even than before — he didn’t even know what he didn’t know, so he simply let them take the reins and allowed the revelations to wash over him. An explanation of Ladybug’s powers and transformation. A brief rundown of what Alya had already figured out about the magic, with an added clarification here and there. Marinette reliving the first Akuma attack. A quiet smile as she recalled literally running into Chat for the first time.

And that was another thing.

“How’s he going to react to this?” Nino asked, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours. He rubbed his neck awkwardly. “I mean, you have to tell him, right? This is kind of… big.”

Marinette went quiet for a moment, a cloud passing over her expression. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted haltingly. There was silence again as she pursed her lips, picking at the loose thread again absently. “It was an accident, I’m sure he’ll understand that. But…” She trailed off.

“Marinette?” he prompted, but she stayed silent. “Mari,” he said again, more insistent this time as he finally understood her expression. “You can’t just not tell him.”

“Of course,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “I couldn’t keep this from him, even if I tried, I know that, it’s just…” She slumped forward slowly, hands dragging down her face before coming to rest on her chin as she stared blankly into space. “It’ll be hard,” she said. “You don’t understand. It hasn’t even been a week since…” She trailed off again, a flush starting creeping up her ears, still frowning at nothing.

“Since what?” he prompted when she didn’t finish her sentence.

She sighed and slumped back instead, sinking into the cushions. “We had a huge fight,” she said. “When that rainstorm hit the other night. It was horrible. There was this whole—” She gestured vaguely at nothing as she searched for a suitable description, “thing about a girl who triggered the magic for him, in his civilian life, I mean, and he told me about it, and it was… It was a mess.” Her expression twisted. “And then there was an Akuma attack in the middle of it all, and—”

“An Akuma?” interrupted Nino. “There wasn’t anything on the Ladyblog about it.”

Marinette shrugged. “It was late,” she said, “and absolutely pouring. The streets were deserted — I don’t know why that woman was out driving in the first place, you could barely see a thing. There were apartments and stuff, so I’m surprised nobody saw us from their windows, but if they did I’m honestly glad nobody tried submitting any pictures. That whole night was…” She sighed, running her hands over her face, through her hair. “It was something, all right. We don’t need that all over the internet.”

Nino frowned. “That was Tuesday, though,” he said. “You guys seemed pretty chummy on Wednesday. Not like you’d been fighting.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

She was hiding something. He squinted at her. “What?” he asked.

Her ears were well and truly red now, even though her expression betrayed nothing. She looked down, away, pursed her lips, fingers absently worrying at the loose thread. “We… kissed,” she said finally, almost embarrassed.

“What?”

“Well, I kissed him first, but then, well…” She trailed off, blushing furiously. “You know how it goes,” she mumbled.

“You kissed Chat Noir?” Nino didn’t know what to do with himself, reeling at the admission. Conflicted on whether to slump back or jump to his feet in shock, to yell or sit in silence, never mind what to do with his hands… He settled for clutching his hair.

“What, like I couldn’t pull a hot blond guy after what happened?” said Marinette, her voice laced with a defensive tone.

“What? No! I mean… what?” He was wringing his cap in his hands with no clear memory of how it got there. On a day that had felt like getting punched in the stomach multiple times in a row, somehow this was the revelation that had sparked the most reaction. Magic? Sure. Secret identities? Whatever. Marinette getting some with her partner? Stop the presses, hold the phone. Madness. He’d sort through his priorities later.

“It’s not that weird,” she said, sounding slightly miffed.

He waved his cap dismissively. “It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s just… Chat Noir.” She looked at him blankly. “Chat Noir,” he said again for emphasis.

“Oh, that’s right, you don’t actually know him,” she said. “He’s just a giant dork, honestly.”

“A celebrity superhero giant dork,” he corrected her. “Who wears a leather catsuit and has fangirls and gets cosplayers at fetish conventions. That Chat Noir.”

“Who also regularly stops patrols to pet stray cats and who cried on my shoulder for an hour and a half after I made him watch Titanic for the first time,” countered Marinette, the tiniest hint of a smile quirking up a corner of her mouth. “Really, it’s not that big of a deal. Well,” she amended, her cheeks turning slightly pink again, “it’s not not a big deal, but just not like that…”

Nino finally sank back into the cushions, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled and put his now severely wrinkled cap back in place. “Boy, you sure can pick ‘em,” he said, finally cracking the can of Pepsi with a soft hiss.

She smiled bashfully. “Tell me about it,” she agreed.

“How does something like that even happen?” he said. “I mean, you fight, kick ass, then, what, make out in an alleyway in the rain? With your superhero partner? Like, what?”

She paled. “I thought there weren’t any pictures,” she breathed.

“What? No, I just mean…” He reached for the gently sweating Pepsi can and cracked it absently. “Is your life an actual movie or something?” he said. “What the hell?”

“I wish it wasn’t,” she said dully. “Not that I don’t love Tikki, or care about Paris or anything, but I just wish—” She stopped. Sighed. “Everything’s so complicated,” she said.

He couldn’t disagree.

“I tried to give them to Alya,” she confessed finally, through the silence.

Nino nearly choked on his soda. “Give—” he spluttered.

“My earrings,” she clarified unnecessarily. “I tried to give them to Alya. After everything went so wrong with Ivan.” Curled up on the cushions as she was, she looked smaller somehow, as if the admission had shrunk her down to a child again.

Nino set the can down carefully, wiping soda off his chin. “Why?” he said after a moment.

She didn’t answer immediately. “She was so… confident,” she said finally. “So sure of herself, and so unafraid. Not like me. And she loves superheroes. She was so… excited when everything started happening. No powers at all, and yet she hurled herself into the middle of it all anyway. Just imagine how she’d be with magic.” A small smile twitched up as the image settled over them both. Of Alya, with her wild hair and righteous sense of justice, raising hell in black and red.

Alya.

He glanced at her as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, eyes cast down, lost in thought. “I thought a lot about it afterwards,” she said quietly. “Even after I decided to stay. About how different things would have been. They would have been easier…” She shook her head. “No, not ‘easier.’” She paused. “Simpler, I guess.” She hunched down lower, arms wrapping around her knees as if that could protect her. “I’ve never told anyone that before either,” she said.

He didn’t know what to say, but he had barely been able to keep up all day anyway. “She would have been a good Ladybug,” he agreed slowly. “But she wouldn’t be you.”

She blushed at that, frame relaxing a little. “Thanks, Nino,” she said. “It’s still one hell of a mess, though.”

“True,” he said.

“And that’s why telling Chat is gonna be a nightmare,” she continued. “Tuesday was the biggest fight we’ve had about it, and then… things…” She trailed off, embarrassed. “I don’t know what we are anymore,” she admitted in a small voice, “but I don’t want to ruin it.”

“It was an accident, though. It was out of your control.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “But I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“Would it… help if I talked to him?”

She glanced at him, a mixture of confusion and vague surprise on her face.

“I mean—” Nino swallowed, hardly believing the words about to come out of his mouth, “—if you’re worried about him getting mad, I mean, or blaming you or something, would it help if I was there? I could explain the situation, y’know. And maybe it would help to meet me for real, if he’s worried I might talk or something…”

“That’s…” She smiled a little, relaxing in her seat. “That’s really nice of you, Nino.” She took a thoughtful sip of her water and set it down again carefully, lips pursed. “I’m not really worried he’ll be mad, exactly. I think he’ll just be disappointed. Hurt, maybe.” Her expression twisted and she looked back at him out of the corner of her eye. “Could I keep you on retainer?” she asked jokingly. “I think I should talk to him alone first, but, like, just in case…”

“Anything you need.” The promise came automatically, and just like that, it was settled in his mind. Marinette needed him. There was no question; of course he would help her in any way he could.

She smiled again. “You might get a visit from him anyway,” she said. “Just… be warned. Even if he isn’t mad or anything, he’s still pretty protective of me. He’ll want to make sure you can be trusted.”

“I can take him.”

He absolutely couldn’t, but he made her chuckle, at least.

“And anyway,” he added, “Alya would want someone to interrogate the boyfriend. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”

She started laughing for real then, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “At least, I don’t think he is. He’s just… my partner. Who I like a lot. And kiss sometimes.”

“You’re right, my mistake, sounds completely platonic to me.”

“But…” And here she sobered a little, mid-laugh, the pink fading slightly from her skin. “I’m sorry about Alya, I know you hate lying to her.”

The reminder made his chest tighten, but he shook it off. “She doesn’t know I know anything,” he rationalized. “I won’t have to lie if she doesn’t ask.”

“I know, but her investigations…” Marinette sighed, massaging her temples with a finger. “She promised she’d drop it, and I want to believe her, but you know how she is sometimes. Especially lately…”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised. “Honestly, I don’t know if I can.” He glanced at Tikki out of the corner of his eye, who was now on her third Oreo. Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, he was surprised to find she looked kind of cute. Like a living stuffed animal, with unsettlingly large eyes. “Can I?” he said.

Tikki swallowed delicately. “You could,” she said. “But the magic knows it’s not your secret to tell.”

“What does that mean?” asked Marinette.

“It means,” said Tikki, “if you slip up on accident, you won’t reveal Marinette as Ladybug. But I’d be—” And here she paused a moment, considering, “—careful about what you say, or how much. The magic can have… consequences.”

Marinette and Nino exchanged glances. “Cool,” he said, in a voice slightly too high. “That’s cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

“You’ll… you’ll be fine,” said Marinette encouragingly. She wasn’t fooling anyone. “Just, like, don’t say anything, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” His hands were starting to sweat as he picked up the Pepsi can again. “Just don’t be suspicious around Alya, that’s all. No worries.” The soda was gone before he realized he’d been chugging it.

“I-I’ll talk to Chat tonight,” said Marinette finally in the silence. “Or maybe tomorrow, I guess. I need to plan out what I’m gonna say.”

“Great,” he squeaked. “Sounds great.”

“Hey,” she said suddenly, standing up, “let’s get out of here. You hungry?”

“Hungry?” The concept seemed foreign to him over the crushing sense of existential dread that had just settled over his shoulders, but his stomach rumbled in spite of himself.

She smiled and beckoned to Tikki, who swooped up and into her open purse, zipping it after herself. “My dad’s making some major comfort food tonight; he always cooks when he’s upset.”

He shook himself, setting the can down with exaggerated care. It was slightly crushed now, and tilted awkwardly to one side. “You sure?” he said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

She fixed him with a look. “Of course not,” she said. “And honestly, if I showed up at home without you, I’m pretty sure my mom would march right back here and drag you home herself. I told you, you’re expected.”

Seeing her standing there, looking down at him with an expression of such warmth that simultaneously left no room for argument, he let out a half-hearted sigh and got to his feet. “Alright,” he said. “Let me grab my stuff.”

“I’m sorry again, Nino,” she said as he cleaned off the coffee table and dumped dishes in the sink.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “I’m okay, really.”

“I know this day didn’t turn out how any of us wanted, but…” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I guess if it had to happen like this, if it had to be anybody but Chat… I’m glad it was you, and not some stranger.”

“A ringing endorsement.”

“Sorry.”

He remembered to switch off the bathroom light before they left.

#ml tpoy fic #fanfiction #LadyNoir #Lady writes things #miraculous ladybug

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