Chapter Text
Marinette
It had happened again. She’d arrived at school late, in a mad rush. She hadn’t been able to find her sketchbook that morning, but she knew that she’d taken it with her the previous day. She’d been working non-stop for the past three weeks on a new set of designs – there was going to be another design competition at the collegé, conceptual designs this time rather than physical prototypes and the prize was a coveted junior internship at Agreste Fashions. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of and she’d poured her heart and soul into the designs she was going to submit.
She hadn’t let the book out of her sight for the past few weeks except for the previous day when she’d needed to run across the building to pick up some documents for Miss. Bustier for her class representative duties – documents that hadn’t even been there. She should have known that something was wrong, but between being Ladybug and the competition she hadn’t slept in two days and she was so tired. Given how things had been since Lila returned to school, it shouldn’t have surprised her to arrive to the sound of her classmates loudly congratulating the transfer student about her victory in the design competition and it really shouldn’t have surprised her to see her design book in Lila’s hands.
After that, her memory blurred. She’d been so angry and distraught and tired, and she had tried to explain, but no one had listened, berating her again for her jealousy and her hatred and she just couldn’t do it anymore. She’d run away, but as she left she saw Chloe Bourgeois, newly returned from a trip to New York with her mother, scoff and glare at Lila, speaking up to draw attention away from Marinette. She hadn’t even gone home – she’d just shrugged off Tikki’s attempts to console her and transformed into Ladybug, spending the day running across the rooftops and saving kittens from trees and smiling even though her heart was breaking and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to put it back together again.
Before she knew it night had fallen. She didn’t want to go home – not yet. There would be questions about why she’d run from school and her parents were so busy and she didn’t deserve to trouble them with her problems – they worked so hard and they deserved a better daughter… She looked up from her musings as she felt the first raindrops of a storm on her face as the clouds broke open. She needed to get inside, the last thing Tikki deserved was to get sick when she already had to deal with a Ladybug that had so many problems.
She took stock of where she was with surprise. The last thing that Marinette Dupain-Cheng would have expected when she woke up that morning was to be standing on the balcony of the girl who’d bullied her for years, wrapped in Tikki’s comfortable magic and shaking, tears still streaming down her face. She didn’t know why her feet had led her to the Grand Paris of all places, but her mind kept stubbornly replaying those few moments when Chloe scoffed and actually questioned Lila.
Besides, she desperately needed to talk to someone. Her parents were so incredibly busy and she didn’t want to trouble them. Chat had been growing increasingly pushy since Frozer and, although she wanted to believe in the best in her partner, she was afraid he’d feel like she owed him something if she went to him for help. Tikki was wonderfully understanding, but she was an immortal god and despite all her years of experience there were some things she just couldn’t understand. Normally she’d talk to Alya, but… No. The fact was that she didn’t really have anyone to talk to or anywhere else to go. Making up her mind, she raised a red and black spotted hand and hesitantly knocked on the glass doors.
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Chloe
The last thing Chloe Bourgeois would have expected when she woke up that morning was for Ladybug to knock on her balcony door in the middle of the night. Nonetheless, she was nothing if not adaptable, especially for her idol. She adjusted her silk pajama robe and ran for the door to let Ladybug in.
“Ladybug! It’s so good to see you? Is there an akuma? Do you need my help? Did you stop by to say hello to your favorite civili—” Chloe cut herself off. The darkness had prevented her from noticing it, but the light that spilled out of her suite made it abundantly clear – Ladybug was crying.
“Can I come in?” the heroine’s voice was unusually small.
Wordlessly Chole moved out of the way. Ladybug took short, sad steps past her, pausing listlessly when she reached the middle of the room.
Oh god, what was she supposed to do?! As far as Chloe knew, there was no established protocol for dealing with crying superheroes bursting in on one in one’s pajamas. And that didn’t even touch the fact that Ladybug’s eyes were so much more blue this close and Chloe was in her very short and very thin pajamas. She shook her head. It was apparent that Ladybug needed her, and if Queen Bee couldn’t help, then Chloe Bourgeois would have to do. She hesitantly walked over to Ladybug.
“Do you want to talk about it?” The words were uncharacteristically quiet and soft. Chloe rifled through her memories, desperately trying to remember how Adrien’s mother had consoled her after so many tears in her childhood. It hurt, to think back to then, but if anyone was worth it, Ladybug was. Ladybug believed in her when no one else did and she’d never admit just how good that made her feel inside.
Ladybug turned towards her, tears still leaking out of her large, bluebell eyes. Without warning, she shot forward and wrapped her arms tightly around Chloe, breaking into incoherent sobs. It felt like forever before the spotted heroine stopped shaking like a leaf, tears drying to sniffles. Chloe awkwardly kept rubbing circles onto her back the whole time, hugging Ladybug as best as she could even as her mind whirled at a hundred miles an hour. What in the ever-loving-fuck was happening? Who could have made Ladybug so upset? It was a good thing she didn’t have her miraculous or she’d venom whatever bastard did this to her… Then again, she could probably still claw someone’s eyes out outside of the suit as well… No, Ladybug needed a shoulder to cry on, not a homicidal sometimes-superhero on the warpath.
Chloe took a deep breath in and maneuvered them so that they were sitting down on one of the plush sofas in her suite. She moved to extricate herself from Ladybug and dammit if the way she tried to cling to Chloe with a small whimper didn’t give her feelings.
She awkwardly cleared her throat. “You need to stay hydrated. You’ve been – I’m going to call for some refreshments. Did you want anything in particular?”
Ladybug wiped her eyes on the back of a spotted glove. “Cookies, if you have them,” she said quietly. “I’ve been out for hours, I need to recharge.”
Chloe nodded, not quite thinking of the magnitude of that statement and picked up the phone at the side of her bed. She didn’t even wait for whoever was on the other end to say hello. “Yes, I need a mug of warm milk and a plate of cookies as quickly as possible. Understood?” She hung up as soon as it was clear that someone had heard her and went back over to Ladybug. “It should be here in a few minutes.”
Ladybug nodded silently.
Chloe sighed and braced herself. Clearly, Ladybug needed someone to talk to and for some unknown reason, she’d come to her of all people, so she was going to have to do her best. This really wasn’t her strong suit. “Alright,” she said briskly, breaking the silence. “As many lovely qualities as I have, I have to admit that I’m wondering why you came here tonight. Clearly, you’re upset. Why not talk to that mangy alley cat about it? Or a friend from the other side of the mask? As much as it pains me to admit, I haven’t been… the best person in the past. It seems like there’s someone out there who could give you a hell of a lot better advice about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
Chloe didn’t miss the way Ladybug flinched, first when she brought up Chat Noir and then civilian friends. Oh, something was definitely going on and somebody was sooooo going to pay for this.
Ladybug twisted her hands together. “I…. I can’t,” she said. “I… I don’t think I have any friends outside of the suit anymore.”
“What happened?” Chloe questioned, trying to make her voice as quiet and reassuring as possible. It felt like squeezing into a too-small shirt, but it must have worked because Ladybug continued.
“They betrayed me.” Her voice broke. “Rena Rouge, Carapace, I knew them both as civilians… I trusted them with the miraculous because they were my best friends. But they took the word of someone they barely know over me and they hate me.” She paused. “They were all I had. Before this year, I didn’t have any friends at all. They were my very first.” A watery smile broke over her face and vanished. “I tried so hard to be a good friend – I didn’t want them to leave me alone again. I was just trying to protect them from being deceived and manipulated… Oh god, it hurts. It hurts so much.”
Fat tears rolled down Ladybug’s cheeks and Chloe’s heart about broke in her chest. If there was one thing that she understood so very well… She scooted closer to Ladybug and wrapped the heroine in as tight a hug as she could manage. She could feel as the shoulder of her robe was dampened by Ladybug’s tears.
“I’m —- I’m so sorry,” she said. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.” The emotion was getting too thick in her voice too oh god she could not cry right now keep it together Bourgeois. She took a breath and carried on. “From where I’m standing it sounds like you were a much better friend than they deserved and they didn’t return the favor all that well. I’m not — I don’t have much experience with things like this. I wish that I knew what I could say to make it better, but I don’t. All I can think of are plans to hit them so hard they’ll fly right out of Paris and not bother you again, but you seem like the kind of person who wouldn’t really be okay with that – I’m rambling, I’m sorry.”
Ladybug choked off a laugh into Chloe’s shoulder and raised her head. “Thank you, Chloe,” She said with a watery and tentative smile as she wiped the tears off of her face.
Just then a knock sounded on the door to the suite. “Miss Bourgeois? Your refreshments have arrived.” Chloe bustled over and opened the door just wide enough to grab the tray before slamming it in the face of whatever poor soul that had delivered it.
She offered the plate of cookies and the steaming mug of milk to Ladybug. “Here.”
Ladybug set the plate next to her on the couch and wrapped shaking fingers around the mug. “Thank you.”
As she sipped the milk, Chloe’s mind went back to something else she’d said earlier. She didn’t quite know how to bring it up in a way that wouldn’t hurt, but if she was right, she needed to talk to Ladybug about it.
“So… you said that things were pretty tense with your civilian friends. Why aren’t you talking to Chat Noir?”
Ladybug froze, looking down at her lap. “It’s probably silly,” she started and stopped. Chloe didn’t speak, only looking at Ladybug until the heroine continued. “He’s always been so flirty and I think that’s just the way he is, so I try to put up with it. It’s just… lately, he’s been… different. When we were fighting Frozer he nearly quit because I wouldn’t return his feelings and ever since Oblivio he’s been acting like it’s a given that we’re going to be in a relationship and he’s getting so pushy and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he’s been more and more flirty and handsy and I’m worried that the people of Paris will think that we aren’t taking our jobs seriously. I’m worried that if I’m too upfront about turning him down again that he’ll just disappear and we’ll lose to Hawkmoth because of my stupid feelings. He’s making me feel really, really uncomfortable.” She winced as she said the last part.
Chloe’s blood was about boiling in her veins. Being Adrien’s friend had given her a front-row seat to quite a few cases of stalking and sexual harassment. Chat Noir was a superhero, dammit. If Ladybug should have felt safe with anyone, it should be her partner.
Chloe softly rested her hands on Ladybug’s cheeks and held her face up so that she could look her in the eyes. “Listen to me. I know that you want to make excuses for him, but I want you to know that what he is doing to you is wrong. It is harassment and emotional manipulation. He’s holding your sense of responsibility to the city hostage to cater to his own ego and desires and that is not right. God, I don’t know how you can go about fixing that, but I want you to know that you shouldn’t have to put up with that shit ever.”
Ladybug’s eyes were blown wide in shock. “But he –”
“Shh. I want you to really think about how he’s been treating you. It sounds like you care about your friends a lot. What would you do if he’d been behaving this way towards Rena?”
Ladybug was still for a long moment and then let loose a watery chuckle and shook her head. “I’d probably kick his ass.”
Chloe smiled ruefully, “There you go then. Now, you said that you had to recharge. There’s a bathroom just down the hall. Go feed your kwami, I bet she’s worried about you.”
Ladybug nodded and grabbed the plate of cookies, slowly making her way down the hall.
Chloe sagged back into the couch and watched her, rage and sadness at what had happened to Ladybug and quiet awe and relief that she had somehow managed to help, to say the right thing as herself for once. She let her own tears fall and prayed for the first time in years for the strength to be able to continue to help Ladybug and to be somehow able to rescue her heroine as Ladybug had rescued her from herself.