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aidanchaser · 5 months

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A Mari/Griffe remix of Partners in Clown by @miabrown007

And with that, my participation in the @mlsquaredance 2023 event comes to an end! This is my final remix! Thank you again @ladyofthenoodle for organizing and for encouraging this little brain worm. Thank you @wield-the-mighty-pen for beta reading!

And without further ado, enjoy some angsty teens flirting badly.

Read below or read on Ao3.

Adrien leaned towards his reflection and tilted his head to get a better look at his neck and jawline, the way a young man might search for a sign of his beard growing in. Instead, jagged lines like lightning spread out of his chest and climbed up his throat. He had grown used to the sharp black lines and had taken to wearing turtlenecks to hide them, but the claw-like cracks that spread out onto his cheek were new. He thought it all looked rather cool. He certainly wasn’t scared of what it might mean, not in the least.

But Adrien was a liar, especially to himself.

He poked curiously at the black wound centered over his heart. A sharp ache pulsed in time with his heartbeat. The pain, however, wasn’t the thing he was concerned about. Adrien reached for his bottle of concealer.

He finished hiding the marks on his jaw and cheeks then smeared foundation and matte powder over his marred face. He was putting the finishing touches on his heavy eye makeup when he heard his bedroom door open.

Of course his father didn’t knock. Gabriel never knocked.

“Adrien!”

Adrien immediately thrust his shoulder against the bathroom door. Had he been dressed, he might have kept Gabriel out just to be a nuisance, but he certainly didn’t want his father to see him like this.

“Adrien, open this door.”

Gabriel tried to yank the door open, but Adrien held it closed firmly from the inside. His father gave up, as he always did, with a heavy sigh.

“I only wanted to remind you to stay in your room tonight. It’s for your own safety.”

Gabriel had already texted him this—twice—but Adrien hadn’t replied to the texts, and he didn’t bother to reply now. He could lie easily and promise to stay inside. It wasn’t the lie Adrien had a problem with; it was the talking to his father that he took issue with.

Adrien hadn’t exchanged more than three words with Gabriel since his mother’s funeral. Not since Adrien had dared to stand at his mother’s coffin and say, “But couldn’t the Supreme—” and Gabriel had cut him off with, “Don’t speak.”

So Adrien had stopped. What was there to say, anyway? The only thing Gabriel ever wanted to hear was, “Yes, Father.”

Gabriel tried to pull the door open one more time, but Adrien kept it firmly closed.

“Just stay in here tonight, please,” Gabriel finally said with a sigh weighted with defeat.

Adrien listened to his father’s footsteps fall away and waited until he heard the familiar click of his bedroom door’s deadbolt, sealing him inside.

Adrien used a hand towel to cover his face as he pulled the turtleneck over his head, an old trick he’d learned on set—not that he was ever on set these days. Once upon a time, he and his mother had frequently visited the shooting locations for Gabriel’s designs. His mother had even modeled once or twice, and Adrien had been allowed to attend shoots with her. Even though he had never been allowed to model himself, he had enjoyed watching his mother work. Now, Adrien was lucky if he was allowed into his own dining room.

He double-checked his appearance to confirm that any sign of the cracks in his skin had been covered and that the edges of his eyeliner were as crisp as when he had applied it. He thought about fixing his hair, but that didn’t matter too much. No one was going to see it.

Adrien was going out, but not as Adrien.

Gabriel had a good reason to keep Adrien locked in his room tonight. There would be people visiting, people whom Adrien was not supposed to know. The fashion designer and recluse, Gabriel Agreste, was hosting a competition to find his next new designer and his next season’s iconic model. Designs and headshots had been submitted, and tonight, Gabriel was supposed to announce the winners.

There were always concerns that something celebratory might spark Hesperia’s interest, so the Supreme had asked Griffe Noire to crash the event in order to keep the chaos and tension high. And, if possible, chase any purple butterflies back into their holes.

That was fine with Adrien. He probably would have done it anyway.

When Griffe Noire arrived at the event—it was merely a leap out window with the loose catch and a short slink across the lighting rig strung up over the stage in the Agreste Manor garden—he found that there was already plenty of tension and chaos present. He could practically taste it in the air.

Modeling culture’s competitive nature didn’t exactly induce a pleasant, warm atmosphere. Still, there was plenty of room for him to cause trouble.

The miraculous themselves were supposed to be secret, so he kept his destructions small: crumbling the leg of a chair so that when someone sat down, it collapsed beneath them; brushing his Cataclysm against a portrait wall of the model contestants, leaving their faces half-eaten with rot; catching his claws against a blazer; plucking a hole in an elbow or waistline. His chest burned with each tiny Cataclysm, but he didn’t mind. If anything, it made him feel alive in a way few other things did.

As he approached the food table, wondering just how many gowns he could manage to stain with a single bowl of punch, the sight of a girl with a familiar pink streak in her bangs stopped him in his tracks. Though her dark hair was pulled up into a bun instead of tied back in her usual pigtails, her makeup was still just as heavy. For the event, her smudged eyeshadow flared with bright pink and blue. Her dress was black, but the tulle over her skirt was a vibrant pink, and roses of fuschia sequins spiraled over the black bodice. The square neckline fell on top of a dense black mesh that climbed her throat and covered her arms. Griffe Noir’s insides did a full somersault, and he practically skidded to a stop.

He didn’t know her name, didn’t know how to get her attention, but he knew he had to talk to her. He might not have another chance. Every other time he had seen her had merely been an opportunity to stare at her, him sealed away in his car and her encased in her bakery.

He plucked a cupcake from the stand and proffered it to her with a low purr. “A sweet treat for the purr-incess?”

Her shoulders drew up tight as she turned to look at him and, before she even quite saw him, she smacked the cupcake from his hand. Her blue eyes stared at him with a combination of fury and disdain, a look he was fairly familiar with on his partner. He didn’t like seeing it on this baker anymore than he enjoyed it on Toxinelle.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a tight voice.

It was the first time he had ever heard her speak. He wondered if she always sounded so nervous.

“Making trouble,” he grinned and reached for another cupcake. “Are these yours?” As he peeled off the paper and took a bite, the lavender frosting smeared across his nose.

“I don’t own the cupcake table, you stupid cat,” she grumbled and folded her arms over her chest.

“You didn’t make these?” He swallowed the last of the cupcake and reached for another.

“No. And I don’t even think you’re supposed to eat them.”

“No?”

“It’s a fashion event. No one actually eats at these things.”

Griffe Noire hummed thoughtfully. “Who told you that?”

“Do you see anyone else eating?”

She had a point. The plates and napkins sat untouched. No one gathered near the punch; only a few guests bothered with water. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that models would prefer to feast on the scent of food rather than its substance, but he didn’t know how anyone could ignore these sweets. He checked the cupcake wrapper and sure enough, her bakery’s logo was embedded into it.

He leaned against the table. It creaked under his weight, but didn’t collapse. He could Cataclysm a leg and make a bit more trouble for the event, but the girl next to him looked so intent on avoiding attention. He didn’t want to make it worse for her.

He took another bite of the cupcake and through a mouthful of cake and frosting said, “So you do modeling, too?”

She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Are you insane? I entered the design portion of the contest.” And then she bit down on her fuschia-stained lips and turned away, as if she hadn’t meant to confess that much.

“Did you design your dress?”

Though she didn’t answer, he could guess by the way her shoulders tightened up and curled in on herself like she was trying to hide her dress, that he had hit the mark.

“It looks nice,” he said, then immediately bit down on his tongue. He wasn’t supposed to be sincere. He’d had enough warnings from the Supreme about letting his Cataclysm out of control. The last thing he needed was to be scolded for being nice to people. “You know, for—pink,” he finished lamely.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You still have frosting on your nose,” she said.

He swiped at it with his thumb, but it only smeared over his cheek.

“You stupid cat,” she grumbled. She took a napkin and wet it with the condensation that clung to the base of the punch bowl.

His heart went perfectly still as she stepped closer to him. She smelled like sugar and fresh bread, just like that first whiff each time he opened the pastry bag. The bakery was the closest he ever came to the outside world as Adrien. How could he have done anything less than fall in love with her?

But he couldn’t risk her smudging through his layers of concealer. When he ducked out of her reach, she balled up the sopping napkin and threw it at his face.

“Oh, come on,” he complained as it fell short of its mark and struck his shoulder. With a grin, he swiped his finger through the frosting of a cupcake and smeared it over her cheek.

“Hey!” she protested and tried to push him away, but he grabbed her arm.

“But now we match,” he grinned. “Partners in chaos.”

“We are not partners,” she hissed with a rather venomous ferocity.

He gave her an insincere pout, hoping that the true hurt in his chest was masked appropriately. “So fur-ocious, princess. What did I do to deserve such bite?”

But before she could answer, a familiar shrill voice cut through their conversation.

“Is that Dupain-Cheng?”

The girl in front of him went so stiff, it was as if Chloé’s loud sneer had sliced its way up her spine with a force that made even Griffe Noire’s heart lurch.

And then she disappeared. She was in front of Griffe Noire one moment and gone the next, vanishing through his fingers like smoke. Chloé stalked up to him and looked around with a sneer on her face.

“Where did that girl go?”

Griffe Noire turned behind him, but he saw no sign of the baker and designer. “I think she took a dive into the punch bowl. Care for a swim, Queen Bee?”

Chloé didn’t like that. Her sneer turned to a snarl and she shoved him back into the table. It was bold of her to pick a fight with him, but he was glad she did. He was itching for a real fight. It was a shame Toxinelle wasn’t here to antagonize as well.

“Too soon?” He picked up a cupcake and peeled the paper wrapping back with his claws. “Don’t worry; I think only half the world thought Chloé Bourgeois’s dip in the Seine was funny. The other half probably doesn’t think about you enough to care.”

She drew her hand back to slap him, but he was ready. He ducked beneath her hand and shoved the cupcake into her face. He hissed, “Cataclysm,” and his power crackled in his other hand. He crouched to swipe low—obliterating one heel was the funniest, most irritating thing he could think to do to Chloé—but something tugged on his tail and he froze.

Chloé didn’t seem to notice. She stepped away from him, face burning with fury but eyes trained warily on his Cataclysm. She was familiar enough with his brand of power. He’d never used it on her actual body, but he’d used it on enough of her accessories that she’d learned to fear it.

She tried to wipe the cupcake from her face, but only managed to smear her makeup and the frosting further. “You stupid cat,” she shrieked, voice on the edge of tears. “I’m going to tell Daddy, and he’s going to tell the Supreme, and—”

“And what? You think the Supreme will just give you back your miraculous? After you let Hesperia get one of his moths into it?”

Chloé shoved him backwards again, no longer concerned by the black power crackling in his hand. This time, when he hit the table, he felt certain he heard a muffled yelp from beneath it.

Chloé didn’t seem to hear it, though. She stalked off and, to Griffe Noire’s satisfaction, snapped a heel as she crossed the lawn. Her scream of frustration echoed across the manor grounds.

He dismissed his Cataclysm and the burning in his chest dimmed. There was another tug on his belt and this time, he followed its source to beneath the table, where he found the baker, crouched with an arm around her knees, glowering at him.

“She’ll be worse now because of that,” she grumbled.

“So I take it you know Chloé Bourgeois,” he said.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Then why didn’t you let me Cataclysm her? She deserves it.”

She let go of his tail and looked away. Something shimmered in her blue eyes, but even with his night vision, it was hard to make sense of.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she whispered.

“That’s kind of the point, isn't it?”

“I mean, doesn’t it hurt you?”

For Adrien, the answer was unchanged. But instead, he lied. “No.”

She frowned at him and suddenly, he felt seen in a way he never had been before. Even his father’s ever-perceptive assistant didn’t pause to examine Adrien’s lies. Something tugged in his chest, like a line had been pulled taut between him and the baker girl. Suddenly, he didn’t remember how to breathe.

“You’re a terrible partner in chaos,” he finally said in an effort to undo whatever had just been done, “leaving me to face Chloé alone. We could have done a real number on her together.”

It worked, though it hurt his heart in a fully different way to see her curl back in on herself. She was no longer looking at him, no longer looking through him. He felt like he’d just stepped out of a warm bath and into cold air.

“I can’t stand up to Chloé,” she murmured into the tulle bunched over her knees.

“You stand up to me,” he said.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I am the smartest, funniest person in this entire house at the moment, I’ll have you know. I’m the best at absolutely everything.” He paused to consider her, then added, “Though I suppose I may not be the best fashion designer here.”

“Gabriel Agreste literally lives here.”

“Gabriel Agreste sucks like a supernova gone dark. I wasn’t talking about him.”

She frowned again, and it occurred to him that he didn’t like it when she frowned. It hurt somewhere near where his Cataclysm burned in his chest, but like a dull, persistent ache rather than a sharp, throbbing pulse.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she said. “You don’t even know me.”

Though she was technically right, he didn’t know her in any real sense, he certainly felt like he did. He felt like he knew the draw of her shoulders and the pout of her lip. He felt like he knew the way she tied a scarf around her throat to bury herself, the same way he was constantly burying himself, like maybe if he died enough times, his father might miss him, too.

“I’m not nice,” he snapped. “I smeared frosting on your face.”

“You still have frosting on your face too, doux minou.” She reached out and swiped her finger against his nose.

He grabbed her wrist as she touched him, heart pounding from the contact between them, from the strangely delicate affection in the nickname he had never heard before.

Her eyes were wide, too, like she hadn’t heard it until after she had said it. That line between them pulled taut once more and his breath hung suspended in his chest. Griffe Noire was so terrified of what it might become that he knew his only choice was to unravel it now.

He pulled her hand down to his lips and licked the frosting off of her finger.

She went very still but didn’t try to pull away. He wondered if that was because she could feel the press of his ring against her wrist and knew how easy it would be for him to summon his Cataclysm against her, or if it was because she genuinely did not mind.

He leaned in closer, and still she did not move. She had stood her ground against him all night, had stopped him from using his Cataclysm against Chloé, and had dared to ask if using his Cataclysm was dangerous to him. He didn’t see why she wouldn’t back away now if this wasn’t what she wanted.

He got close enough that her knees dug into his chest. His lips hovered over hers. He tasted fresh mint on her breath, cool and inviting. Could taste the sugar on his, too?

But instead of closing the space between them with a kiss, he tipped his head and licked the frosting off of her cheek. He murmured into her ear, “Still think I’m a sweet kitty?”

She both pushed him away and scrambled backwards in a single flurry of motion. Beneath her makeup, he could see a blush rising in her cheeks and her chest rising and falling in a new rhythm.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Why did I do what?”

Her shock turned into a glare and this time, he was prepared for the ache in his chest. He braced himself against it the way he braced against his Cataclysm. He relished it the way he relished his Cataclysm.

But instead of folding in on herself the way she had all night, she crawled closer to him. She leaned in, just as he had done to her. His lungs filled with her cool breath once again and a shiver curled down his spine and coiled itself in his stomach.

Her hand reached for his chin and pain lanced through the growing wound buried beneath his makeup. She brushed her fingers along the smeared crystals of sugar along his cheek, wiping them away, then drew her hand back to her own lips, licking the sweet off of her own fingers.

His heart stuttered in his chest as he realized that she was teasing him, that the glare in her cool blue eyes was revenge as much as it was anger.

Her fingers slid carefully through the spikes around the bell at his throat, like a gardner used to working with thorns. She yanked him towards her until their lips were separated only by a breath. “I never liked sweets much anyway,” she murmured, and pulled him into a kiss.

It was too short for Griffe Noire’s tastes. She pressed her lips to his and the moment he leaned into it, the moment he pushed his tongue against her, she dragged her mouth up his cheek and to his ear. He wanted to chase her, to follow her taste, but she held him firmly in place.

“You don’t have a monopoly on chaos, minou,” she whispered, then let him go.

He blinked, and once again, she disappeared. He tried to go after her, but all the dexterity and wit that normally pulsed through him seemed slow and sluggish. He struggled to crawl out from under the table and back onto his feet, and by the time he finally did, she was gone.

He ran his hand through his hair and tried his best to keep his breathing even. He slipped through the crowd, past models and designers and socialites, past displays and vendors, but she was nowhere to be found. Desperation grew in his chest and seemed to eat away everything else.

He wanted her. He wanted her more than he wanted anything else.

He glanced down at the ring on his finger and knew, whether it would upset the Supreme or not, he wasn’t going to use his power for the rest of the evening. For the first time in a long time he wanted something other than his own destruction. For the first time in a long time, it felt like living was chaotic enough.

#marigriffe #marichat #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfic #ml fic #miraculous square dance 2023 #reverse paris special #griffe noire #claw noire

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