Chapter Text
Renée angrily yanked at the strap of the enormous bag hanging from her shoulder as it slipped down for what felt like the thousandth time, its ridiculous size made even more absurd by her small frame. With her other hand, she studied the map of the city on her phone, trying to make sure she was actually going in the right direction.
Not that she had any idea what the right direction was. It was bad enough that the bastard, Mr. Barreau, paid her barely enough to keep herself fed for her part-time work. Now he had sent her to Paris for the day and expected her to come back with a story. Naturally, the first thing Renée had asked was what, exactly, she was supposed to write about.
“Paris’ heroes, of course!” Barreau had replied, wearing that smug little grin of his. “It’s a guaranteed story. People love that stuff. Idiotic kids in tights running across rooftops. How fascinating!”
Barreau’s opinion of Ladybug and Chat Noir had never been a secret. He considered them nothing more than charlatans. But money came first for Barreau. He probably would have sold his own mother if he thought it might help him sell another few copies of his dying little magazine.
And Ladybug and Chat Noir always sold. That much was undeniable. So when Pierrot fell ill and they suddenly needed something to fill the empty space in the upcoming issue, Barreau had immediately ordered Renée onto the next train to Paris.
“The magazine is covering the train ticket, of course,” he had boasted, as though he were doing her some extraordinary favor. The bastard was so cheap, he had even booked her return ticket for that same evening rather than pay for a hotel overnight.
“But what am I supposed to write about?” Renée had asked. What the hell was she supposed to accomplish in a single day? Was she supposed to sit around waiting for an akuma attack? Paris already had a thousand newspapers and magazines. There was even that Ladyblog thing that seemed to exist entirely for the purpose of reporting on akuma attacks and Ladybug and Chat Noir. No one was going to give a damn about some ridiculous little magazine from Nantes publishing yet another story about an akuma attack.
“Do I have to tell you that, too?” Barreau had snapped. “Just find something interesting to write about.”
Unlike Barreau, Renée didn’t have any particular opinion about Paris’ superheroes. She didn’t live in Paris, for one thing, and Ladybug and Chat Noir had always seemed strangely removed from the real world to her. They belonged on rooftops. Closer to the sky than to the streets. They were mysterious, certainly, but the appeal of that mystery had always worn off rather quickly. In the end, they were just two young people doing their jobs like everyone else, only their job was far more complicated than Renée’s.
So Renée respected them. She had nothing against them. She simply had no particular interest in them. But now, it was all starting to become a problem. Because how exactly was she supposed to write a story about two mythical figures who drop into the city whenever there's an akuma and disappear again, who couldn’t be tracked down, interviewed, or even called? She couldn’t ask them questions. She couldn’t follow them around. And waiting for an akuma attack was out of the question. So what the hell was she supposed to write about?
In the end, she would probably have to write some lifeless, soulless little piece praising their heroics. And, of course, that would be perfectly good enough for that pathetic little magazine. But Renée didn’t want to write small, hollow things just because she happened to work somewhere that published them. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
So, with no idea what else to do, she began wandering aimlessly through the city. She was making her way down a street called Rue du Grenier-Saint-Lazare, muttering bitterly under her breath as she followed the route on her phone, when something in the window of one of the shops caught her eye.
Renée stopped dead.
“Camembert for Chat Noir, always available!”
For a moment, Renée simply stared blankly at the sign. Was it a joke? Some kind of marketing gimmick? Despite her limited time—and despite the strong likelihood that this was complete nonsense—curiosity got the better of Renée. She pushed open the door of the fromagerie and stepped inside. The little bell hanging above the door announced her arrival, and the young woman behind the counter looked up.
“Welcome! How can I help you?”
“Hi,” Renée said, tugging the slipping strap of her bag back onto her shoulder. “I know this is going to sound strange, but…” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb toward the sign hanging in the window. “Does this actually mean anything?”
The young woman glanced at the sign Renée had pointed to and laughed.
“Oh, it’s not strange at all. A lot of people ask me, or Mr. Jacques, the same thing. Let’s just say something happened a little while ago, and Mr. Jacques put it up as a reminder for Chat Noir. You know, just so he always knows that our door is open to him.”
Renée had no idea what one of Paris’ superheroes could possibly want from a cheese shop, but it was obvious the girl wasn’t going to offer any more details. There was clearly no story to be had here. Still, she asked, if only to get a better sense of what exactly she was dealing with.
“So, you like the heroes?” The young woman gave her a strange look. It was not judgmental, or annoyed. More like she was silently wondering what kind of question that was.
“Of course! Ladybug and Chat Noir have been protecting our city with everything they have for years. We’re grateful to them.”
Renée supposed she should consider herself lucky, at least. She had actually found someone who had interacted with Chat Noir in person at first try. And yet she couldn’t help feeling frustrated. Was there really no story she could get out of this? She decided to try one last time, this time being more direct.
“Did he fight an akuma here?” The woman’s face scrunched up.
“Um… it wasn’t exactly a fight, and it was an akuma attack. But the akuma wasn’t even here. I didn’t know about the details until the Ladyblog posted about it.” Renée suppressed a sigh and tried again.
“Did something unusual happen, then?” The woman raised her eyebrows and gave her an apologetic smile.
“Oh…” The woman hesitated. “He ate some cheese?”
Wonderful. So she could go back and write a magnificent article titled Chat Noir’s Top Five Favourite Cheeses. And hey, maybe she’d even win a Pulitzer for it! For a moment, Renée imagined herself handing the article to Barreau and couldn’t decide whether she wanted to laugh or cry. The look on his face would probably be spectacular. Unfortunately, Renée was fairly certain she wouldn’t be the one having the last laugh.
Well. Fuck my career, I guess.
“That’s cute and all, but…” Renée pressed, unable to help herself. “Putting up a special note just for him…” She gestured vaguely toward the sign. “I mean, I don’t know. What do you actually know about them? Thanking someone for doing their job well is one thing, but this seems like a little much.” She hesitated. “Almost personal.”
“Well…” The woman blinked, looking almost confused by the question. “Of course it’s personal.”
Realizing that Renée still didn’t understand, the woman leaned forward, resting her arms against the counter.
“You know, when Chat Noir came here, there was an emergency. And he needed a piece”—she lifted her left hand, bringing her thumb and index finger almost together to show just how small—“a tiny little piece of Camembert. He kept thanking us over and over again. He even tried to pay us for it afterward. But of course, Mr. Jacques would never have accepted something like that.”
“And?” Renée asked, raising one eyebrow, still unsure where the story was going. The woman looked slightly disappointed that she still wasn’t getting through to her. Her expression fell just a little, though she remained perfectly polite.
“You’re not from Paris, are you?” the woman asked instead. Renée was a little surprised by the question, but answered without much reaction.
“No. I’m from Nantes.” She didn’t see any reason to explain why she was there. It wasn’t important, and she didn’t want the woman to feel as though she were being interrogated. Sometimes, when people found out Renée was a journalist, they became guarded. They would look at her with sudden distrust and stop wanting to talk altogether. The woman nodded, apparently confirming her guess.
“I think you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. That’s why you keep asking these questions.” Renée’s hand went automatically to the slipping strap of her bag again, but this time she didn’t find it irritating. Her entire attention was on the woman.
“How so?”
The woman smiled knowingly and rested her cheek against the palm of her left hand, her elbow propped on the counter.
“Because when you ask me these questions, you’re thinking about the mask. The one that appears during an akuma attack and disappears the moment it’s over.” She tilted her head slightly. “You talk about Chat Noir as though he were some kind of mythical figure. That’s partly how I realized you weren’t from here. Because when I answer you, I’m always thinking about the young man I met.” Her smile widened slightly. “I suppose that’s why we haven’t quite understood each other.”
Feeling a different idea beginning to take shape in her mind, Renée gripped the strap of her bag tightly, even though it wasn’t slipping anymore. She leaned forward, suddenly eager.
“And that young man… What was he like?”
“Well, he is…” The little bell above the door chimed as another customer stepped inside. The woman’s eyes flicked past Renée, and she greeted the newcomer with a warm smile and a small nod before turning her attention back to her. “He’s many things, I suppose. Selfless, as you can probably guess. Gentle and kind. But you can see all of that in videos anyway.” She answered thoughtfully, her gaze occasionally drifting toward the new customer, who was looking over the shelves as though checking whether they needed any help, before returning to Renée. “But I don’t think there’s an easy way to describe him the way you want me to.”
Renée hoped the disappointment she felt didn’t show on her face.
“I mean,” the woman continued, “if you really want to look beyond the mask, a lot of people in this city have a story about Chat Noir. And not all of them have anything to do with akuma attacks.”
“What kind of stories?” Renée asked, her disappointment quickly giving way to curiosity.
“That’s for you to find out,” she said playfully. “If you really want to understand Chat Noir, stop looking at the sky.” She winked at Renée. “Look down. At the streets. Look for the traces he’s left behind.”
Honestly, Renée left the little cheese shop with a healthy dose of skepticism, giving the woman behind the counter a small wave and a polite thank-you as she stepped back onto the street. What else was she supposed to do? Stop random people in the street like a lunatic and ask them about Chat Noir like some obsessed fan?
And yet, as an idea began to take shape in the back of her mind, Renée still walked toward the Panthéon via the Louvre, uncertainty lingering somewhere beneath her irritation. Chat Noir and Ladybug had fought akumas around these famous landmarks hundreds of times, surely. There had to be something here. Some story, some trace.
Except there was no akuma attack today. The sun was high and bright overhead. Tourists wandered happily through the streets, taking photographs and stopping to admire the sights. The rooftops were empty.
No akumas. No superheroes.
By the time she reached the area around Montparnasse, the cheese shopkeeper’s words had begun to circle back in her mind. Maybe she really did need to stop looking at the rooftops. Maybe she needed to look down. At the streets.
Well, there certainly was a cat here. It just wasn’t the one she was looking for.
“Hello there,” Renée said softly, crouching down and reaching a hand toward the cat. Unlike her aunt’s notoriously lazy cat, this one wasn’t fat or cumbersome. It was clearly well cared for, but there was a certain agility to it, a coiled energy beneath its sleek frame. And unlike the city’s most famous cat, it wasn’t black either. White stripes ran through its orange fur, giving it an almost tiger-like appearance.
Apparently, the cat knew it, too. Because unlike her aunt’s spoiled lump of a cat, this orange menace responded to Renée’s outstretched hand by swiping at it with a vicious little paw. Renée yanked her hand back.
“Ow!”
The cat immediately darted behind the wall.
“Oh, don’t take it personally. Coco’s not like other cats,” said a middle-aged man who had been sweeping the pavement in front of a seafood restaurant. He stopped, resting one hand on his hip while the other remained wrapped around the broom, and grinned at her. “She’s got the soul of a tiger.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Renée muttered.
“I’ve never seen her get along with anyone,” the man said, turning back to his sweeping. “Except Chat Noir, of course. But maybe cats just speak the same language.”
He chuckled at his own joke. Renée straightened, but the moment she heard the name, her attention sharpened.
“Chat Noir?”
“You know,” the man said, pausing and pointing toward the sky with his index finger. “The superhero. Blond hair? Green eyes?”
Renée barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“I know who Chat Noir is,” she said. “Have you actually met him?”
“Well, we don’t get many akuma attacks around here, for some reason. They seem to prefer the Eiffel Tower area.” The man shrugged. “But we see Chat Noir around here pretty often. He comes by sometimes to feed the cats.”
“Feed the cats?”
“Mm-hm.” The man nodded toward the cemetery. “There are quite a few around here. Strays, mostly. He started bringing food after one of them got injured during an akuma attack.”
Renée glanced toward the wall where Coco had disappeared.
“Coco?”
“No, Coco belongs to the restaurant owner, actually.” He laughed. “She just likes to pretend she owns the entire neighborhood.”
As if summoned by the accusation, the orange cat poked her head through the iron railings and fixed Renée with a challenging stare.
“So Chat Noir just… feeds them?” Renée tried to picture the black-clad superhero she was so used to seeing in videos, that almost unbearably self-assured grin plastered across his face, here on this very street, in broad daylight, casually feeding stray cats with a bag of cat food in his hands.
“Sometimes. Sometimes he plays with them. Depends on how much time he has.” Renée looked at the man, trying to determine whether he was making fun of her. But he had already gone back to his work, sweeping the pavement without even glancing in her direction. There was no trace of mockery in his expression, either. He was talking about it as though there were nothing unusual about it at all.
With her thoughts more muddled than ever, Renée distractedly thanked the man and wished him a good day. Then, with an awkward little wave toward the cat still watching her through the iron railings, she started walking again.
He fed cats. The superhero of Paris—the young man who could reduce almost anything to rubble with a single touch, who could face the most terrifying akumas in the city with nothing more than a grin and a swing of his claws—came down this street to feed these cats.
Renée shook her head and quickened her pace. She had absolutely no idea what to make of that.
Eventually, as the hours slipped by and people began streaming past her on their way to lunch, filling the restaurants and cafés around her, Renée decided it was probably time to eat. She made her way toward the 7th arrondissement and, determined to make the most of the money Barreau had given her for food, ducked into a small, charming café.
The café was crowded at that hour, but Renée barely noticed. She took a bite of her pastry and was almost surprised by how quickly it melted in her mouth, the freshness of it making her realize just how hungry she had been. She took a sip of her coffee and tried to focus on the notes she had been scribbling about Chat Noir, letting the low hum of conversation around her fade into the background.
“Dude,” one of the British tourists at the table beside her said with a laugh, “mine came out better!”
“You’re arguing over nothing,” one of the girls at the table replied in an unbearably smug tone. “Unlike yours, Chat Noir is actually looking at me in mine. Look at him. Look at the way he’s looking at me.”
“Yeah, Liv,” the first boy said sarcastically. “Chat Noir is definitely in love with you.”
“Fuck you, Thomas,” the girl shot back, clearly annoyed, though the faint flush creeping into her cheeks suggested she was at least a little embarrassed. Renée set her pen down on her notebook and turned toward them.
“Excuse me,” she asked in English, “are you talking about Chat Noir?”
The teenagers looked at her in surprise, but the boy named Thomas answered politely.
“Yeah. We ran into him around the Panthéon yesterday.”
“When we called out to him, we thought he’d just wave at us,” said a short girl with cropped red hair, her voice bright with excitement. “But he actually came down and came over to us. He agreed to take some pictures with us, and we were just looking through them.”
“They can’t decide which ones to put on Instagram,” said the boy sitting beside Thomas with a grin. “Oh, look how good Chat Noir looks in this one,” he added in an exaggeratedly high-pitched voice. “His muscles… his eyes… his hair…”
The red-haired girl kicked him under the table, making him laugh. Thomas gave Renée an embarrassed little grin.
“I mean, I don’t think any of us can deny that Chat Noir is good-looking,” he said, sounding as though he felt the need to justify himself. “And hey, it’s not every day you get to take a picture with a superhero.”
“So, just like that?” Renée asked, genuinely bewildered. “You called out to him, and he just came down and took pictures with you?”
The teenagers must have taken her question as an accusation that they were lying, because the brown-haired girl, Liv, immediately turned her phone toward Renée and thrust the screen in front of her face.
“Here. You can look if you don’t believe us.”
In the photograph, Liv was wearing a leather jacket, the cream-coloured blouse underneath visible through the open front. Her straightened brown hair lifted slightly around her face in the breeze, while the sunglasses perched on top of her head kept it from falling into her eyes. Her lips, painted a vivid red, curved into a delighted smile as she looked toward the blond boy beside her. Chat Noir was looking at her, grinning.
It was obvious the picture had been taken in the middle of a conversation, but Renée could understand why Liv was so proud of it. There was something almost intimate about the moment, the kind of photograph that could make it look as though the two of them were sharing some private little exchange rather than simply posing for a picture.
“Huh,” Renée murmured. She wasn’t sure whether the image of Chat Noir in her head was becoming clearer, or somehow even more blurred.
“He’s really chill,” the boy sitting beside Thomas said. “Some Chinese couple even stopped him to ask for directions, and he just answered them in Chinese.”
Renée blinked.
“He speaks Chinese?”
“Apparently.” The boy shrugged. “They looked pretty happy about it.”
Renée stared at him for a moment.
“Of course,” she muttered.
Renée thanked them for answering her questions and, taking another sip of her coffee, jotted down what she had learned in her notebook. When she asked for the bill, the waiter brought it over, but then lingered beside her table for a moment, looking slightly hesitant. Renée looked up at him.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just…” He glanced toward the teenagers. “I heard you asking those tourists about Chat Noir.”
Renée raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah?”
“I was just wondering if there was a reason.”
Renée sighed, tossed her pen onto her notebook, and leaned back in her chair.
“I’m trying to write something about Chat Noir. Maybe Ladybug, too. I’m just not really sure what to write yet. So I’ve been asking people about their interactions with him.” The young man smiled, almost as though he were relieved to have his suspicions confirmed.
“Ah. I thought so.” He pointed toward a small pastry shop across the street. “If you want to talk to someone who’s actually met him, you could try there. Chat Noir buys things from that place pretty often.”
“From that bakery?” Renée leaned forward, glancing toward the place he had indicated. “Is there a particular reason?”
The young man shrugged.
“I don’t know. The owner’s daughter was akumatized once, and Chat Noir sometimes likes to visit people after they’ve been victims of an akuma. Maybe that’s why.”
“He visits akuma victims?” The young man gave her a look.
“Of course. He visits quite a lot of them, actually. Talks to them, asks how they’re doing.” Renée looked down at the crooked handwriting filling her notebook and frowned. Who the hell was this guy? Look for the traces he’s left behind, the woman at the cheese shop had told her. At first, Renée had thought finding those traces, and following them, was going to be difficult.
Now, that seemed almost ridiculous. The woman had been right. Chat Noir’s fingerprints were everywhere in this city. Renée had always thought of him as someone who belonged to the sky. To the Eiffel Tower. To the rooftops of the Panthéon. To the places where akumas appeared and heroes came running.
But perhaps Chat Noir belonged to bakeries, too. To schoolyards and sidewalks. To quiet little streets and narrow alleys where stray cats slept.
Huh.
“Why did you tell me all that?” Renée asked, genuinely curious. The question seemed to catch him off guard. A faint flush crept across his cheeks, and he looked away, but Renée could still see the shy smile tugging at his lips.
“Well…” He hesitated. “Chat Noir is… He’s really special. And I don’t think everyone appreciates him as much as they should.” His fingers tightened slightly around the edge of his tray. “And when I saw you asking questions and taking notes…” He glanced back at her. “This kind of thing happens around here sometimes. People asking about him. But if you’re planning to write about him, especially if you’re actually writing about him, I guess I just wanted to make sure you wrote something good. Something that really understood him.”
Renée stared at him, genuinely surprised. To care that much about what someone wrote about a person he barely knew, someone whose name was already everywhere in the media, someone people talked about constantly—
It told her something. Whatever impression Chat Noir left on people, it ran deeper than she had expected. Almost everyone she had spoken to seemed to act as though they were the ones who needed to protect him, rather than the other way around.
“You seem rather fond of Chat Noir,” she said, intrigued. “That’s interesting, because from what I’ve seen, people usually seem to admire Ladybug more. They generally prefer talking about her. At least, that’s how it looks online.”
“Ladybug is wonderful,” the boy added quickly, but there was something in his eyes that made Renée think he wasn’t quite saying everything he wanted to. “We love both of our heroes. It’s just…” He hesitated for a moment, and Renée thought his cheeks seemed to grow a little redder. “You know, there’s just something about Chat Noir. It’s like he’s always a little closer to us. To the people down here, you know?”
“Yeah,” Renée muttered. “I’m starting to understand.” She glanced up at him. “Thank you,” Renée said simply, deciding not to embarrass him any further.
The bakery the young waiter had pointed out was small and charming, with warm coffee-coloured tones dominating the interior. It was obvious at a glance that the place was well loved by the neighborhood. Renée lingered on the pavement outside for a while, watching as two women finished their shopping and stepped out of the shop laughing, paper bags swinging from their hands as they walked away. Then, with her notebook and pen tucked deep into her jacket pocket, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.
She didn’t have much time left in Paris. She could only hope the waiter had been right, and that the people here would have a little more to tell her about Chat Noir.
“Hello!” said a cheerful middle-aged man. His thick brown hair and carefully groomed moustache were almost exactly the same shade. “How can I help you?”
“Hello,” Renée replied, her eyes sweeping over the shop. Maybe it was silly, but she had half expected to find some trace of Chat Noir here. Wasn’t that what usually happened when someone famous visited a restaurant or a local business? The owner would proudly display a photograph, some little souvenir to prove that the celebrity had been there. But there was nothing here. Not a single sign of Chat Noir. “I’m sorry to bother you, but could I ask you something?”
“Of course, madame,” the man said, leaning forward across the counter with interest.
“I was hoping you could tell me something about Chat Noir.” Renée had neither the time nor the patience left for beating around the bush. Her train was leaving soon, and she still had a good twenty-five minutes of walking ahead of her to reach Montparnasse station. Fortunately, the bakery owner seemed more than willing to talk about Chat Noir.
“Ah! Chat Noir,” he said with a smile. Encouraged by his reaction, Renée smiled back and jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the street.
“The waiter across the street told me he comes here fairly often.”
“Ah, yes. That’s right,” the man said, scratching his chin. Renée waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. After a moment of him simply standing there, looking at her, Renée sighed.
“Why, though? Why does he come here so often?”
The man lowered his gaze to the pastries arranged beneath the glass counter, displayed so beautifully and perfectly that they almost looked too good to be real. As though the answer were hidden among them, he stared at them for a moment before calmly saying,
“Gougères.” Renée looked away from the pastries and back at him, frowning.
“Gougères?” The man nodded knowingly.
“Yes. Chat Noir’s favourites. Especially the ones with plenty of cheese. Nice and creamy.” Then he tilted his head back thoughtfully, staring at the ceiling as he scratched his chin again. “Although, to be honest, I’ve never actually seen him eat one.”
Renée opened her mouth to ask another question, but the bell above the door chimed, announcing another customer. She glanced over her shoulder. Just two middle-school-aged boys. They wandered inside, chatting among themselves as they looked over the pastries, and Renée turned her attention back to the baker.
“So he just comes here to buy them?” she asked, frowning. “But you’ve never actually seen him eat one?”
The man shrugged.
“No. He buys them, thanks me, and leaves.”
“That's… strange.”
“A little.” He agreed. “Perhaps he saves them for later.”
Renée stared thoughtfully at the cheese-filled pastries for a moment. The children’s chatter and the faint sounds of movement coming from upstairs had become little more than background noise. Eventually, she looked back at the man and bit her lower lip hesitantly. But this was her last chance, and she was determined to use it.
“The waiter also mentioned your daughter,” she said carefully, her eyes searching the man’s face for the slightest change in expression. But he didn’t look uncomfortable or offended. He didn’t react as though she had crossed some invisible line or asked something disrespectful. His expression simply softened.
“Ah,” he said. When the man didn’t react negatively, Renée carefully, but quickly, continued.
“He said she was akumatized?”
“She was.”
“I’m sorry,” Renée said sincerely.
“It’s all right now.” The man placed both hands on the counter and sighed, his gaze dropping thoughtfully to the pastries in front of him. “It happened because she and her mother had a disagreement. Nothing particularly unusual. Families argue.”
He lifted his eyes to Renée, as though looking for some kind of confirmation. Renée immediately nodded. She knew that well enough. She and her own mother had argued plenty when they’d lived together. Now that they lived apart, their relationship had become considerably calmer. More peaceful, even.
“Unfortunately, that villain took advantage of that disagreement, and of my daughter’s emotions.”
Renée could see the man’s hands tense against the counter. Her expression softened. The helplessness of a parent… even imagining it was difficult.
“But Ladybug and Chat Noir helped?” she asked gently.
“They did. And everything turned out all right.” The man shook his head, as though trying to pull himself away from the memory, and smiled. “Chat Noir actually stayed behind afterward for a little while. Made sure she was all right. Asked if she needed anything.”
The respect and warmth in his voice were so unmistakable that Renée felt as though she could almost hear his gratitude echoing inside her. As though she, too, wanted to thank him for something he had done for someone else. Thank you, she thought. For not leaving that girl alone.
She cleared her throat.
“And Chat Noir still checks on her?”
“Sometimes.” The man laughed softly. “But Anaïs is really doing fine. There’s nothing wrong with her. So, honestly, I think he mostly comes for the gougères.”
“Hello, sir!” one of the boys interrupted. Renée shifted slightly to the side to make room for them.
“Hello, boys!” the man greeted them cheerfully, leaning forward over the counter so he could see them better. “What can I get you?”
“Two of those sandwiches,” said the dark-haired boy, pressing a finger against the glass. The man gave him an affectionate nod before turning around and pulling a paper bag from beneath the counter. The other boy, blond-haired and slightly shorter, watched Renée with open curiosity.
“Are you talking about Chat Noir?” Renée leaned one arm against the counter and looked at the boys with genuine interest.
“You know Chat Noir?” The dark-haired boy answered without looking away from the sandwich the man was preparing.
“He came to our school!”
“He did?” Renée straightened from where she had been leaning, suddenly more attentive. “Why?”
“Yeah. He gave us a speech,” the boy said with a shrug. “He’s a bit silly.”
Renée laughed softly.
“Is that so? Why?” The dark-haired boy finally turned to look at her, scrunching up his face in mild annoyance.
“He tried to give me advice about eating my vegetables.” When he noticed that Renée didn’t quite understand, he turned his attention back to the man and added, almost defensively, “My parents are vegetarians. I always eat my vegetables!”
After a long day spent in a strange, irritable mood, Renée finally threw her head back and laughed, a genuine, unrestrained laugh that surprised even her. The blond-haired boy shook his head and glanced at his friend.
“Maybe he didn’t know, Rémy.”
“I told him!” Rémy protested. But his friend rolled his eyes dramatically.
“Only after he gave you the advice. He was trying to help!” Rémy merely huffed.
“He was still being silly,” he muttered, planting both hands impatiently against the glass counter. The blond-haired boy turned back to Renée.
“He liked my drawing, though.”
“Did he?” Renée asked with interest. “What did you draw?”
“Ladybug, of course!” the boy said, with a shy flicker of excitement. “He said it was really good.”
“Pfft,” Rémy said mockingly. “He was just being nice. You drew her with six arms.”
His friend threw both hands dramatically into the air in protest.
“But she needed six arms for that mission!”
Renée watched the boys from where she leaned against the counter, the exhaustion of the long day finally settling over her like a blanket. The sweet atmosphere of the little shop, the warmth lingering in the air, and the steady hum of voices around her had left her pleasantly dazed. She watched as the man handed the boys their sandwiches and accepted their payment, and even as they headed for the door, they were still arguing between themselves about the advantages of Ladybug having six arms.
What had she actually learned all day?
Gougères. An akumatized daughter. A speech at a school. A visit to a cheese shop. Photographs with tourists. A drawing. None of them were particularly remarkable things. None of them were the sort of thing that would ever make the news. And yet, after the few hours she had spent wandering through this city, Renée was no longer quite so sure.
After all, what made Ladybug and Chat Noir newsworthy in the first place was that they were superheroes who fought villains. But what exactly made someone a superhero? Was it their powers? Their costumes? Their masks?
Or was it something else entirely; the part of Chat Noir that made him come down from the rooftops, walk among the people he protected, and leave something of himself behind wherever he went?
She thought of the waiter. Of the way his fingers had tightened around his tray as he spoke, embarrassed by how badly he wanted to do right by a blond boy he would probably never truly know. She thought of Coco, the irritable little cat who apparently reserved her affection for Chat Noir alone. Of the tourists at the café, and the happiness and laughter he had given them simply by stopping to take a few photographs.
Different people. Different neighborhoods. Different lives.
And somehow, Chat Noir had touched all of them. Because that woman at the cheese shop had been right. There were thousands of tiny pieces of Chat Noir scattered throughout Paris. He wasn't where Renée had always imagined him to be. He wasn't only on rooftops, or on top of the Eiffel Tower, or racing across the skyline whenever an akuma appeared.
He was down here. Among these people.
The mask might have separated him from them, but somehow, it had never become a wall. And perhaps that was why Renée felt different now from the woman who had stepped off the train that morning. Because after spending an entire day following the traces he had left behind, she could no longer imagine this city without Chat Noir in it.
What she had been doing all day was beginning to feel less like following traces and more like discovering roots. They stretched beneath the streets of Paris, reaching into bakeries and cafés, schoolyards and little shops, winding their way through the lives of people who had never thought of themselves as part of his story.
Chat Noir had been here. And there. And there.
He had left something behind in every place: Memories. He had done it all, perhaps without even noticing, with a slice of cheese, a kind word, a concerned voice offered to an akuma victim, or a piece of well-intentioned but completely misguided advice to a child.
Tiny things. Almost nothing, really. And yet, somehow, they had added up to something enormous.
Chat Noir is really special. I just wanted to make sure you wrote something good. Something that really understood him.
Renée wished she had the time to go back to that café. She wished she could find that waiter again and tell him not to worry.
I will.
I do understand.
“There you are.” Renée looked up to find the man watching her with a patient expression.
“Any other questions?”
Renée shook her head and straightened, ready to leave. She had a train to catch. But just as she turned away, something stopped her. Her gaze fell to the beautiful pastries arranged beneath the glass counter. Then she looked back at the man. And pointed at the gougères.
“Actually,” she said, “could I get a few of those?”
After all, it would hardly do to go home without spending every last bit of the money Barreau had given her, would it?
Renée curled her legs beneath herself, trying to find a comfortable position in her train seat. She dipped one hand into the paper bag and pulled out another gougère, taking a generous bite as she used the thumb and forefinger of her other hand to scroll down the Word document open on her laptop on the little table between the seats.
Her thoughts from that morning still held true. There was no point in writing about akuma attacks. Anyone could write about Chat Noir saving Paris alongside Ladybug, after all. And they did. All the time. Newspapers, magazines, blogs.
Everyone already knew that story. The akuma changed, the battles changed, but the ending remained the same: Ladybug and Chat Noir saved Paris.
But perhaps the woman at the cheese shop and the young waiter had been right. Perhaps no one had ever really thought to write about Chat Noir himself. Just Chat Noir being there.
They could rest easy, though.
Renée swallowed the last of her gougère and returned her attention to the laptop. Her fingers began moving quickly and decisively across the keys.
She was going to do everything she could to tell their story.
Renée had spent almost the entire night awake, and by the time she arrived at the magazine office, tugging that stupid bag back onto her shoulder every few minutes, she already knew she was in for something like this. Still, this time, she was completely prepared for it. So when Barreau snatched the pages she had printed in the photocopy room and flung them onto his desk, Renée somehow managed to keep her face completely expressionless.
“Feeds strays? Are you shitting me?” Barreau jabbed a finger at the pages scattered across his desk. “Is this why I sent you to Paris? To write about Chat Noir feeding stupid stray cats?” When Renée offered no answer, standing quietly in front of his desk with her hands clasped behind her back, Barreau huffed. “None of this is even heroic! If you can’t sell heroism, then what’s the point of writing about some stupid kid in tights running around on rooftops?!”
Renée knew he was already under enough pressure because of Pierrot’s sick leave. So she simply waited, refusing to take the bait. Eventually, Barreau rubbed his eyes in frustration.
“Ugh. We don’t have any stories to publish, so this will have to do.” He looked up at her. “What did you say the title was again?”
Renée straightened her shoulders and met his gaze, making it clear that this, at least, was not up for discussion.
“Le Chat de la Ville. The Cat of the City.”
Barreau grimaced as though the words themselves had left a bad taste in his mouth. But apparently deciding that arguing with her wasn't worth the effort, he waved her away with the back of his hand.
“Go. Get it to the press.”
At last, Renée let the mask of indifference and seriousness crack into a grin. She quickly gathered the pages scattered across Barreau’s desk and hurried out of his office before he could change his mind. Behind her, Barreau grumbled as he turned back to his computer.
“Stupid strays and stupid superheroes. Ugh.”
As Renée made her way toward the pressroom, she held the pages against her chest and smiled to herself. Yes, perhaps it wasn’t a particularly grand story. She certainly wasn’t going to win a Pulitzer for it. But even while working for this ridiculous magazine under this ridiculous man, she could almost taste the satisfaction of knowing that she had managed to preserve something of herself.
Something that was hers.
She knew what her boss thought she had handed him: some pointless, irrelevant piece filled with stupid little anecdotes, something she had thrown together because she had been too lazy to find anything better. But Renée’s conscience was clear because she knew what she had actually written.
A portrait of a city, and of the boy who moved through it, and of the strange, beautiful relationship between them.
She had poured her mind into those pages. And her soul, too.
She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. As the elevator began its descent, Renée looked at her reflection in the mirrored wall and smiled.