Just An Ordinary Girl
A love square remix of A Friend Like That by @trainsinanime. Written for the @mlsquaredance. This fic was so much fun write. Do please read the original first. It makes this one more fun!
Read on Ao3
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“We need to stay together!” Viperion called out. “Splitting up does not end well.”
The sheer exhaustion in Viperion’s tone didn’t bode well either. Carapace didn’t want to know how many loops Viperion had gone through this go around especially considering it was his third time loop this battle.
Even from Carapace’s less than fifteen minutes of experience, this battle was awful.
The akuma was like Miraculer - he could steal their powers. But he was worse because it could split into four clones of himself.
“Okay then!” Chat Noir called. “Ryuko, Rena, and Carapace, protect our backs. Tigress and I will guard the gap! Viperion stays in the middle.”
Carapace missed Ladybug. There was nothing wrong with Chat’s orders. Carapace didn’t disagree with any of his calls. This akuma just sucked. And Ladybug just had this insane creative genius for hare-brained schemes that seemed to be able to cut through anything.
The akuma struck. Carapace narrowly yanked Rena Rouge aside and they both fell to the ground hard. His elbow took the majority of the impact, which hurt like a bitch, but he was glad it was him who took the brunt of it instead of her. And it worked.
Except one of the other clones clipped him.
A mud brown impenetrable dome manifested around all six of them immediately.
Purple Tigress punched it with her power. Nothing.
Cataclysm dissolved it, but it was immediately replaced with another.
“Crap!”
That was one word for it. Carapace might have had a far less kid-friendly one ringing through his head. The six of them were getting their butts handed to them by this akuma.
Carapace took personal offense to the barrier that stood as a mockery of his own power.
“Viperion?” Chat called.
The snake hero shook his head. “We’re on loop number 1703. This is the best possible outcome. Trust me.”
Chat Noir winced.
Carapace really missed Ladybug.
“I think we have to call Ladybug,” Rena Rouge said, turning toward Chat Noir.
“No! We can’t!” Chat objected.
Rena raised an eyebrow. “We can’t let the akuma win. We’re trapped.”
“She only asked for one weekend off! She deserves to have one weekend off! We can handle it.”
“I hate to break it to you, but we’re not handling it,” Ryuko added dryly.
“We will not be calling Ladybug,” Chat declared firmly.
The other five of them exchanged a look.
“We can get help from someone else!” Chat insisted.
“Like who?” Rena Rouge demanded. “You’d need someone who is willing to pull off crazy stunts, who is a tactical creative genius against so many, and someone who is not intimidated by akumas.”
“Marinette!” Chat exclaimed, his face lit up in excitement.
“How do you know Marinette?” Ryuko asked, her eyebrows furrowed together.
“You think Marinette can do what six fully equipped superheroes couldn’t?!” Carapace asked.
Rena’s eyes narrowed. “Why Marinette?”
“Are you kidding? Marinette could kick any one of our asses,” Chat said. “Marinette is the only person I know who has gone up against an akuma as a civilian.”
Seriously?! Did the cat have selective memory? But it wasn’t like Carapace could remind everyone that Nino had gone up against Anansi as a civilian.
Of course, he had lost, but that wasn’t the point.
“You’re crazy,” he said instead, crossing his arms.
“I’m in.” Rena said.
“What?!” Carapace turned to her in shock, feeling more than a bit betrayed.
Viperion and Ryuko nodded in agreement as well.
Was everyone insane? He turned to Rena. “You’re going along with this? You’d throw Marinette—“ her best friend went unsaid, but Rena understood what he was saying. “—out there unsupported against an akuma?”
His girlfriend shrugged. She shrugged . “If Ladybug’s not an option. Marinette is the next best thing.”
Carapace stared at her incredulously.
Chat clapped his hands together, clearly pleased with this so-called solution. “I’ll call her!”
“You have her number?” Carapace asked. What the actual fuck?
But obviously he did because he had the cat phone to his ear and it was audibly ringing. “Hey princess!” Chat greeted enthusiastically, turning away from the group like it was a private conversation.
“Princess?” Carapace echoed. What kind of relationship did Chat Noir and Marinette have?
“No.” Marinette’s firm voice echoed throughout the dome.
“I haven’t even asked for anything yet.”
“The answer is still no! I only have twelve hours before this project is due. I cannot take a break.”
“But Paris needs you.”
“The answer is no. Call someone else! Call Ladybug!”
“No! Marinette! I can’t! Last week was terrible for her. I promised I could handle one weekend. She deserves and needs the time off. Plus, we don’t need her. I know you can do this. You can do anything . Remember Kwamibuster?”
Chat Noir spoke to Marinette like he was trying to sweet talk her. Carapace didn’t like it. Chat had always been flirtatious, and Marinette deserved someone loyal and sincere.
Someone like Adrien.
“What do you expect me to do against an akuma without a miraculous?” Marinette asked.
“Whatever it is you did against Evilustrator and Hack-san.”
“I can’t do this. Not today.”
Chat only grinned at her refusal. “You always say that, and then you do it anyway.”
“What do I get out of this?”
“Your friends and family safe and sound, free to feel their own feelings and pursue their own dreams.”
Marinette groaned. “Chaaaat!” she whined. “You’re gonna owe me so much for this.”
“See you soon, Princess!” Chat sing-songed, and turned his attention back to the group. “She’s on her way.”
As if that solved all their problems.
“Shouldn’t we… I don’t know… come up with a back up plan?” Carapace asked.
Purple Tigress looked at the other four expectantly, as if agreeing with him, but the others just exchanged glances and shrugged. They honestly thought Marinette was the solution.
Carapace really hoped they were right. Marinette was amazing, but did that mean she could get through an akuma that Viperion had just spent who knew how many weeks fighting unsuccessfully across three time loops?
“You don’t need to worry so much,” Chat Noir assured, and it was galling that Chat Noir could read him so well.
“How can you be so confident? Aren’t you worried about her at all?”
“Marinette would kick my ass into next Sunday if I worried about her. She can take care of herself, and she knows what she can handle and what she can’t. I’ve learned over and over again not to underestimate her. Kwamibuster was an akuma where Ladybug and I both lost our Kwamis, and therefore our transformations. Marinette pulled off a stunt the old Guardian thought was impossible with all the remaining miraculouses using the mouse to protect her own psyche. She was brilliant.”
“But she doesn’t have an entire box right now.”
“She doesn’t need an entire box. She defeated Hack-San without any powers at all. Her super power is in how she thinks!”
Carapace held his hands up. “I know firsthand that she’s brilliant. I’m just scared for her too. That akuma handed our asses to us.”
“She’s doing fine,” Rena commented, projecting a video from her flute into the air for all of them to see.
Chat Noir flipped around the projected image, so he wouldn’t be seeing the mirror image like Nino from the back.
“Some girl just took out an akuma with a trash can and a fire hydrant,” Chat read aloud. “She ran off before anyone could thank her.”
In the video, Marinette hid in the trash can and when the akuma was overhead, she leapt out of her hiding place and tackled the clone onto the ground where the fire hydrant went off in its face. Marinette used the distraction to snatch the clone’s sash, and the thing dissolved underneath her. Then she was running away before the other three could grab her, her pigtails bobbing behind her.
Chat’s expression was completely besotted. “The way she lured him in like that?! She’s just amazing!” Then he turned toward Carapace triumphantly like a proud boyfriend. “See! She just has this way of cutting to the right idea at the right time! I could watch her working on a problem or project for hours!”
Did Chat Noir realize how he sounded?
And it wasn’t fair because Nino was certain that Adrien was finally starting to realize that he was crushing hard on Marinette.
What if Chat Noir got there first?
“You think she’ll clear this up before sunset?” Purple Tigress asked.
“Why? Got somewhere else more important to be?” Viperion asked.
“Well, not more important . But something I’d like to do, yes.”
“A hot date?” Viperion teased.
“What’s it to you?” Purple Tigress growled back.
Viperion held his hands up in surrender. “Just teasing! You deserve to get to go on your date. Hopefully Marinette pulls through. She usually does.”
“I never said it was a date,” Tigress muttered. But clearly it was.
“I have another Marinette update,” Rena announced, playing another video from the Ladyblog’s fan submission page.
“This girl is insane!” the narrator exclaimed, his camera flashing toward two bungie cables dangling from the overhead railing with two suitcases attached on either end. “She set up a pulley system with two guys’ luggage and a plastic bag to set a trap for a friggin’ akuma and she won!” The video angled back to his face. “Where the hell are Ladybug and Chat Noir?”
“Wow! That’s super cool!” Tigress said, watching the video with wide eyes.
“That’s Marinette for you. She never sits out a fight when she can do something,” Chat said.
“You really like her, don’t you?” Ryuko asked, smiling fondly.
“Oh yeah, she’s absolutely amazing! Have you ever seen her designs?” His face was as bright as the moon as he spoke.
Carapace shook his head. Chat Noir didn’t just know about Marinette’s designs. He had seen them! Nino wondered again how much time Chat Noir spent with Marinette on the regular? Even Nino had only ever caught glimpses of her work and he was in almost all of Marinette’s classes.
“You know, even if Marinette manages to take out all four clones, how is she gonna break through this barrier?”
“She’ll figure it out,” Chat insisted. “She always does. I wish we had something in here to give her to show our appreciation.”
Rena smiled at him. “I’m sure she’ll know we appreciate her.”
“I just feel so bad for interrupting her project right before a deadline. I’ll have to make it up to her.”
Yeah, Chat Noir had it bad, which wasn’t good. Nino didn’t want him swooping in right before Adrien was finally seeing her.
“Ah! We have an update on the akuma,” Rena announced, projecting the post into the air again.
“My little girl almost got hit by an akuma! Luckily, this girl knocked it out of the park before it touched her at all. And then she stayed and danced until my girl was laughing again! What an absolute angel!”
“Wow!” Purple Tigress said. “Marinette’s usually so clumsy.”
But Chat was shaking his head. “Not during emergencies or akumas. Then she’s graceful. And yeah, she trips and stumbles constantly–” he was smiling fondly as he said this. “-- which can be really adorable, but she’s really good at catching herself! She kind of has this unique way of pinwheeling her arms to regain her balance. And her gestures are so creative and expressive… Honestly, I could spend hours just watching her.”
That description was remarkably specific. “Aren’t you supposed to be in love with Ladybug?” Carapace asked.
Chat turned to him, his eyebrows furrowed in total bafflement. “I am in love with Ladybug.”
Carapace crossed his arms. “Are you sure? Seems like you have a thing for Marinette.”
“Oh, he definitely has a thing for Marinette,” Rena interjected, studying the feed on her flute before flashing him a smirk. “But then who doesn’t?”
“Right?!” Viperion chimed in.
Even Ryuko was nodding. “I admit I hold more than a passing affection for Marinette as well.”
Carapace hated that he couldn’t even argue. He had harbored a crush on Marinette for months . But he buried his hooded face in his hands anyway. This was ridiculous.
“I don’t have a thing for Marinette!” Chat objected.
“God! You’re worse than my best bro!”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re totally oblivious.”
And Nino hoped it stayed that way at least until Adrien had a chance to say something.
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t have a thing for Marinette! She’s in love with someone else. You should have heard her confession!”
“She confessed?!”
“She practiced it anyway. It was silly at first, but then just so sincere. I wish someone would confess to me like that.”
Chat’s shoulders were slumped, and his gaze downcast. Carapace stared at a dejected Chat in disbelief. Did Chat Noir really not get that he had feelings for Marinette?
Chat looked up straight at Carapace. “Do you think anyone will ever love me like that?”
Nino froze. Chat Noir, one of the two primary heroes of Paris who pranced around in a catsuit and flirted with every other person he encountered, was looking to him for reassurance?!
Today was just absolutely wild.
“I’m sure there’s someone out there for you, dude,” Carapace reassured.
There was a loud bang, and they all tensed, flipped around facing the barrier read to fight.
But the dome just faded away. Marinette stood on the other side, holding out a clear glass bottle with an akuma fluttering angrily inside.
Chat Noir plucked the bottle from her hold, smiling at her like she hung the moon. He released the akuma just far enough to cataclysm it.
“See! I knew you could do it.” His eyes were so soft, he could give Adrien a run for his money.
Marinette scowled at him, crossing her arms. “You know who else could have done it? Ladybug!! She has actual powers! Do you know how hard it was to go after an akuma without enhanced agility?”
Chat took her hand. “May I offer the princess a kiss in gratitude?”
“I think I’m the knight in this scenario,” she replies petulantly, but she didn’t pull away.
He pressed a lingering kiss onto her hand.
Marinette didn’t even blush. “You owe me bigtime!”
Chat nods. “Thank you for bailing me–” he gestured to all six of the present heroes, “–I mean, bailing all of us out.”
“Why’d you ask me? I’m just an ordinary girl.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing ordinary about you, Marinette.” He said her name with absolute reverence.
Nino shook his head in exasperation. There was no way in hell Chat Noir wasn’t in love with Marinette. Nino would have to warn Adrien to get his game on. He had competition, even if he didn’t know it.
The other heroes surrounded her and offered thanks and congratulations. “Marinette! You are amazing!” Carapace told her. “Like you pulled off an impossible feat!” And then he bent down and whispered. “And I think if you’re not careful you’re going to break a certain black cat’s heart.”
Marinette’s brows furrowed. “What are you talking about? Chat’s way too obsessed with Ladybug to ever really see me.”
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Let It Snow 2/2 - Random Drabble
Aged Up scene that popped into my head with comments from a reader. Rough drafted storyline rather than a legit fic.
Inspiration: i'll be surprised if the snow around them didn't melt that day lol since that was quite intense esp for just playing along.
Part 1/2 | Part 2/2 | AO3
~~~~~~~
(Marinette humming in the kitchen while preparing coffee wearing just one of Felix's dress shirts, sleeves rolled up and bottom barely covered)
(Door opens, Adrien enters and tosses keys onto the entry table) "Hey Fe....M-Marinette?!"
"Oh...um, h-hey Adrien. Felix was checking on the laundry. You...uh, want some coffee?"
"Uh...sure..." (takes in her appearance: tousled bedhead hair, pink cheeks, lack of clothing)
"Um, what are you doing at Felix's apartment, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Well, we uh...got soaked in the snow and h-he invited me back to warm up?" (busying herself with the coffee maker)
'Wow, that was so nice of Felix...I'm so glad they're friends!'
(Felix enters and slides up way too close to her backside while helping her retrieve a mug from a tall shelf, a hand placed on her waist in a way that is more than friendly. He's wearing just a t-shirt and boxers, looking just as tousled, winks at her and pulls away just enough for her to complete her task while still staying in physical contact) "So cousin, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"
(Adrien, watching their interaction with increasing confusion, Felix just smirks at him) "Buh... We were, uh...supposed to meet up today and...I figured you might want company for breakfast."
(Marinette slides Adrien his mug with a small smile, then hands Felix his. Felix takes her hand and kisses it with a smile before starting his coffee and resting an arm around her loosely) "Well, as you can see, Adrien, I already have company for breakfast." (Fe's eyes slide down her body lecherously for a moment while she rinses out her mug)
"I...uh...ye-yeah..." (flustered and confused Adrien)
(Felix leans down to Marinette's ear and murmurs to her while his arm snakes around her hips) "I put your clothes on the bed, my dear. But you're welcome to stay as long as you like..."
(Marinette smiles slyly up at him and brushes some imaginary lint from his right pec of his shirt) "I would but I have classes today." (flutters her lashes) "Perhaps we could meet up for some Netflix and chill later tonight..."
(Felix grins) "I look forward to it." (his grin becomes predatory as he watches her walk away to change, she flirtatiously looks over her shoulder at him before passing out of sight)
(Adrien looks perplexed, also noticed how short the shirt was on her and feeling confusing urges) "So... you and Marinette seem...close."
(Felix goes back to smirking and dumping his coffee in the sink) "Oh, very close. Now, I apologize, cousin, but I have a guest to take care of before our meeting. You'll see yourself out, won't you?" (Felix heads in the same direction that Marinette left, looking quite excited)
"Sure..." (Adrien rinses out his mug and proceeds back towards the entry, murmuring to himself and Plagg as muffled giggles/squeals/moans are heard further in the apartment) "I didn't realize how mannerly Felix was towards his guests..." (Plagg facepalms in his pocket)
"I'm so glad Marinette made friends with him! Did you see how much he was smiling? If anyone can bring out the best in him, it would be her. She's amazing, our Everyday Ladybug." (blushes remembering the shirt hiking up as she was grabbing him a mug, shakes it off and walks away)
~~~
[Imagine him telling Nino?!]
"Uh...dude, I don't think..."
"You should have seen them! They're probably better friends than us, Nino!"
(Nino's visible confusion, perhaps bi-confusion, dissolves into a facepalm)
Nino muttering: "not for a lack of trying..."
Adrien: "What?"
Nino: "Nothing, dude!"
~~~~~~~
Author Notes: You've all been warned now, this is what happens when people comment. My brain is a dangerous place. Don't give it ammunition.
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