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Alya stretched, glancing at the time. Well after 10pm, and her livestream had ended a little after 3, yet things were only now finally starting to calm down. Aside from a short dinner break, she had been on her computer all afternoon, updating her blog as more news unfolded, following the story, monitoring comments, and trying to reach out to Adrien to find out if he was okay.
Adrien’s father was Hawkmoth. The world now knew that without a doubt. Alya had watched her own footage again and again - Ladybug going down in the fight, Chat Noir throwing himself at Hawkmoth in a desperate attack, their subsequent duel that had ended with Hawkmoth’s rapier impaling Chat Noir. The teenaged superhero had dropped from Alya’s view as he fell, and Hawkmoth bent over him. A flash of green light was her only clue that Chat Noir’s transformation had gone, as Hawkmoth raised the ring in victory, only to glance down at the identity of his rival - and drop to his knees, both the ring of the cat miraculous and his weapon clattering to the ground. Then out of no where, Ladybug’s yo-yo bound the man, and it was child’s play for her to pluck the butterfly miraculous off his unresisting form, revealing his identity as Gabriel freaking Agreste. Ladybug had swung him down off the side of the building and into the waiting hands of the police below, barely sparing him a glance before leaping back up to the roof, picking up the cat miraculous, and carefully scooping up a very injured blonde boy, balancing his too-still form in one arm, and quickly swinging them both away.
According to the news conference at city hall, Gabriel Agreste was being charged with numerous terrorism charges. Nathalie had also been charged with accessory. Adrien was not considered to be under suspicion. Ladybug had not been heard from since she had swung away, and no one was able to offer any information on Chat Noir’s condition.
Alya’s own footage, by far the best recording of the events even if it was trying to film a rooftop fight from the street below, had been shown by every major newscaster, and at one point this afternoon the Ladyblog had crashed due to overwhelming numbers trying to access the site. Major news stations had brought her in by remote as an expert on their panels, and thankfully her parents were both home that night and faithfully recording every appearance she made or was mentioned in - at this point she was going to have every university she applied for begging her to study journalism with them.
Most of all, though, she worried about the fates of her heroes.
She had tagged Nino, of course. Neither of them had been able to get through to Adrien. It wouldn’t be surprising if he had turned his phone off all together, but she hoped he would make contact with his best bro soon - she knew Nino would pass on the message as soon as Adrien got in touch.
Alya sighed, and briefly found herself missing Marinette. She longed to be able to call her former best friend, to bask in the events of the day, to share her worries about Ladybug and Chat Noir and Adrien, to talk over Gabriel Agreste being Hawkmoth. It was impossible, of course. Too much water was under the bridge now.
It had been Lila who had pointed out that Marinette was hiding something, always flaking out on plans. Alya had given her best friend the benefit of the doubt for as long as she could, but Marinette’s excuses kept getting weaker and weaker, and she had never backed down from her hostile stance against Lila’s lies - awkward for Alya, caught between two girls whom she considered to both be her friends. But in spite of Marinette’s accusations against Lila, it was Marinette who was eventually caught in a lie, claiming she was forced to stay home and help at the bakery the night that Alya’s Ladyblog was getting an award, presented by Ladybug herself at an event hosted by the Mayor. Yet when Alya had stopped by the bakery on the way home, her parents had disclaimed all knowledge of her being kept home, and were under the impression she had gone to the event in support of Alya. Their fight had been terrible, mostly because Marinette had refused to either defend herself or offer the truth. The only thing she had said was that she promised that one day, when she was free to do so, she would explain everything. Alya had been so hurt that she had stopped speaking to Marinette after that. Alya hung out with Lila and Nino mostly, and Adrien, and sometimes the other girls in her class, and Marinette just… withdrew, seating herself in the back row and participating less and less in class activities. Then Lila had been exposed as a liar and expelled from school for her manipulation of the faculty and for skipping so many months when she had supposedly been “travelling”, and the rest of the class made a huge effort to apologise to Marinette and bring her back into things but the rift between Marinette and Alya had never healed. And so six months had passed, while Alya missed her former friend like a limb, too much had happened to ever recover their friendship - even on a night like tonight when she would have done anything to share her excitement.
A tap on the window interrupted her musings.
A tap on her window? But how…?
She whirled around and her jaw dropped as Ladybug waved awkwardly, swinging slightly as she clung to her yo-yo. Crossing the room in a fash, Alya opened her window as wide as it would go and assisted her favourite hero over the windowsill.
“Ladybug! What are you doing here? Are you okay after today? How’s Chat Noir?” Alya couldn’t stop the questions, her fingers itching for her phone to record an exclusive.
“Thanks for letting me in, Alya. Chat’s - he’s hurt pretty bad, this afternoon was awful so I didn’t want to leave him, just in case, but he’s sleeping now and it looks like he’s going to pull through. He’s safe, and we’re going to keep him safe, but I don’t want to stay away long.” Ladybug looked tired, Alya thought. Tired and sick with worry.
“What can I do, then?” Alya asked immediately, and Ladybug smiled wistfully.
“A couple of things. Here,” she said, handing over a flash drive.
Alya turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”
Ladybug’s shoulders drooped for a moment, then squared. “It’s a video message, from me and Chat to Paris. Saying goodbye.” Tears welled in her big blue eyes but she blinked them back. “Now that the butterfly miraculous has been recovered and the city is safe from Hawkmoth, Chat and I need to surrender our own miraculous. It’s not safe to leave them active now that the threat has passed. Tonight will be my last night as Ladybug, but Paris deserves to hear it from us.”
Alya’s eyes filled, but she paid no heed as her tears spilled over, instead clutching the ladybug-red thumb drive in both hands like a sacred and priceless artifact. “Why are you trusting this to me? There are much bigger news outlets that would happily screen this.”
Ladybug offered a sad smile. “Because you’re going to be - no, that’s not fair. You already are the best journalist I’ve ever met. You’ve supported us right from the start, and have always shown so much integrity in your reporting, even though you’re still in school. You’ve earned it.”
“Ladybug, you’ve always been my hero, right from the start,” Alya began, but Ladybug held up her hand to stop her.
“Please don’t,” she said quietly. “I don’t deserve it, not from you. There’s another reason I came to you tonight. I came to fulfil my promise, while I’m still Ladybug and can still prove it.”
Alya blinked. “You’ve never promised me anything.”
A sad smile twisted the corner of Ladybug’s mouth. “Not as Ladybug. As my civilian identity. The girl under the mask made you a promise a little over six months ago, and before I stop being Ladybug, I want to fulfil it.”
Alya’s world tilted on its axis. “We’ve met when you’re not Ladybug?” she asked, mind boggled.
“We have.”
“But… when…?”
Instead of answering, Ladybug crossed to the book case and picked up the award she had presented to Alya at the Mayor’s function. “Do you remember the night you got this? I wasn’t going to go to some stuffy event at the Mayor’s hotel, but then I was told who I would be presenting this award to, and I was so, so proud of you. Did you know you beat out a Pulitzer Prize winner for this? And I knew - civilian me, that is - I knew how much it would mean to you to have Ladybug herself present you with this award. Even though… even though I knew that by choosing to be there as Ladybug, it would mean missing out on being there as… well, as me. And I knew at the time it would hurt you, but I hoped… I hoped it would be enough. And I knew that I got to be there, and not just see you recieve it but present it to you myself. So I figured any fall out with civilian-me would be worth it. Only it ended up costing me my best friend, because I owed you an explanation I could never give you without revealing myself.”
Alya blinked. “What?”
Ladybug took a deep breath as if steeling herself, and turned to face her. “Tikki, spots off,” she said, and a wave of pink washed over her.
Alya’s heart was in her throat. Staring back at her was her former best friend, the girl who had failed to show up to the biggest night of Alya’s life, the one who was always flaking out on plans, who had refused to back down from her stance that Lila was a liar.
Suddenly everything made terrible, horrible sense.
“All this time,” Alya whispered. “It’s been you all this time.”
Marinette took a deep breath, then spoke in a rush. How had she never seen her friend in her hero before? It was so obvious now! “I wanted to tell you every day, Alya. Out of everyone, I wanted to tell you the most, you and Chat and my parents. But I knew it would put you in danger, and I could never risk that. But now Hawkmoth is done and I’m not going to be Ladybug any more after tonight anyway, and when we had that fight after your award I promised you that one day I would explain, so… here I am.” Her shoulders slumped. “I know it doesn’t make up for being such a bad friend, but at least now you know the truth,” she finished in the smallest voice Alya had ever heard.
It took three strides for her to cross the room and wrap Marinette in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry, ‘Nette. I was so hurt and wrapped up in myself and Lila kept making jabs at you and I didn’t even see the way that eroded my opinion of you, and all this time you’ve been carrying this responsibility and being a literal superhero - MY hero - and all I did was treat you like crap. And you just took it because you were putting saving Paris first.”
Marinette’s arms came around Alya, and both girls were crying. “I never blamed you for being angry. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be the kind of friend you deserve.”
“Are you kidding me? Girl, I’m the one to blame. As if you could put hanging out with me over saving the city.” Alya pulled back so she could look Marinette in the eye. “But once this is over, I want all the details, you hear me? I won’t put anything on the blog you don’t want me to, but I have so many questions, you have no idea.”
Marinette laughed, looking far more relaxed and happy than Alya had seen her in six months. “That’s a deal. Friends again?”
“Friends.” The girls hugged again.
“And now I really have to get going,” Marinette said with a heavy sigh. “Tikki, are you ready? Spots on,” she said, and Alya watched in awe as the pink light faded and Ladybug stood before her once more.
“How did I never see it?” Alya breathed. “It’s so obvious now!”
“All part of the magic,” Marinette - Ladybug - winked, and turned to the window.
“Wait, Marinette, Chat Noir…? Is he really going to be okay? Do you know who he is, outside the mask?”
Marinette paused as she sat on the windowsill. “He’s… you’ll see when you watch the video, we took it right before I came here. He’s not amazing, but he’s going to be okay. I only found out who he today when Hawkmoth…” she looked away and swallowed.
Alya placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It was bad?”
Marinette nodded tightly. “I’m not going to tell you who he is, it’s not my secret to tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he chooses to tell you, and soon.”
“It’s okay, Marinette. I trust you.”
“You’re the best friend I could have wished for. Sleepover this weekend? Then I will tell you everything.”
“Deal. Goodnight, ‘Nette. I’ll text you in the morning.”
Marinette grinned, then shot her yo-yo out and swung away.
Alya glanced down and the thumb drive in her hand, and plugged it into her computer. It held a single file, the video. She copied it across to her desktop, then opened it.
Chat Noir was filming selfie-style, propped up on pillows in an unfamiliar bed, still quite pale and not altogether comfortable, Ladybug sitting beside him. He greeted the camera with a good imitation of his usual chirpy happiness: “Hi Paris, just wanted to let you all see I’m not dead.”
Ladybug shot him a look, then turned back to the camera. “With Hawkmoth in Police custody, it’s too risky to have our miraculous anymore, and there’s no need for superheroes when there’s no villain to defeat.”
Chat Noir nodded. “The police certainly don’t need us, or anyone, turning into vigilantes, and it’s time the city had some peace and quiet, don’t you think?”
“So we wanted to take a moment to say good bye to you, the people of Paris. It’s been an honour to work along side you. You have shown me every day just how big hearted and beautiful this city and its people can be, and I want you to know I will treasure this experience every day for the rest of my life,” Ladybug said, eyes filled with tears.
Chat leaned his head on her shoulder in comfort, clearing his throat before he was able to speak. “Being Chat Noir has meant the world to me,” he croaked out. “I have loved every minute of it, and every one of you has been so insanely supportive, we can never thank you enough for how you all embraced us. To us, you are the superheroes.”
Ladybug’s head came to rest on top of Chat’s. “We love you, Paris. We’re so sorry we have to say good bye. If you think of us, keep being each other’s everyday superheroes, okay?”
Both heroes wave at the camera. “Stay clawsome. Bug out,” said Chat Noir with a cheeky wink, and the screen went blank.
Alya stared at her screen for a moment, deep in thought, then pulled the video up again, pausing it so she could stare at the faces of the two heroes. Once again, she kicked herself for how oblivious she had been to Marinette’s secret identity, then her eyes narrowed as she focused on Chat. Something about him was incredibly familiar, she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Her phone buzzed, and she picked it up, seeing a text from Nino: Still no word from Adrien. Hope he’s ok.
Adrien.
Adrien?!?!
Her eyes flew back up to the screen, and everything clicked into place.
Picking up her phone, she dialled Marinette’s number for the first time in 6 months.
“Alya?”
“ CHAT NOIR IS ADRIEN FREAKING AGRESTE?! TELL THAT BUTTERCUP SUNSHINE CHILD OF MINE THAT HE BETTER NOT DIE OR I WILL KILL HIM MYSELF. AND TELL HIM TO CALL NINO! HE’S WORRIED! ” Alya whisper-shouted into the phone.
Marinette’s laughter echoed down the line. “Adrien,” she cooed. “Phone for you!”