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[Ladybug → Viperion]
It’s almost half-past nine. Perfect.
Chat Noir’s been waiting with her on this rooftop for the last fifteen minutes or so. Only fifteen, because he was caught up in something just as he was leaving, or so he claims. Still, his toes are tapping, and his arms are folded, and when he heaves a sigh it takes everything in Ladybug not to wince or roll her eyes. “How much longer until we can start?” he asks, half a drawl, half a complaint. “I’m itching to patrol.”
“That’s new,” Ladybug quips back, though it’s all in good nature. “Are you sure it’s not just fleas?” She doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s pouting, and that’s probably for the best; she’s got to have eyes on the city, after all. “Just a little longer, chaton. Have some more patience.”
Silence falls behind her, and somehow it feels like a chill, too. Not a sudden gust of winter, but the brisk reminder that it’s still coming. She has no intention of blaming the weather. “Did I say something wrong?” she asks, perhaps a bit more cautiously than she’s used to with him.
“I…” Chat Noir pauses. “Just wasn’t expecting you to call me that.”
This time, Ladybug is the one to go quiet. She can’t say it’s not right for him to think that way, because it could be. Can’t tell him that nothing’s changed between them, because it has. It didn’t take her first day of school for that to happen. It was…
How long ago was it, really?
She sighs. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re alone for now. “Chat,” she says, with no real way of knowing exactly how to say what she needs to. It’s always the heavy things that are like that, isn’t it. “I need to be honest with you about… something.”
“Haven’t you been honest with me about enough things?”
“Something else.” Someone else. Ladybug holds her tongue, just for a moment, and turns on her heel to face him. “Don’t I always owe you as much?”
Chat Noir is bristled—she can see that no matter how far away he is—but eventually he settles and waits for her to speak,
“I—” It shouldn’t be this hard. She could trust him with… most things, couldn’t she? “We’re waiting for someone.”
For some reason, Chat looks… relieved? His ears even perk up a bit. “Oh! You should have just said so, my—Ladybug. You had me purrfectly on the edge of my seat there. So? Who is it? Rena? No, wait, Carapace!”
Before Ladybug can answer him—or wrinkle her nose at yet another typically bad pun—a grunt and the steps of a light landing cut her off. They turn, and Viperion is standing there at the edge of the rooftop, sure on his feet and waving with lyre in hand.
“Evening,” he says, cool but not impolite. “Got here as fast as I could. Did I…” He looks between them; his stance may be certain, but his speech doesn’t sound so. not entirely. “…Interrupt something?”
To an untrained eye, Chat Noir’s enthusiasm might have barely muted itself, but Ladybug hopes she knows her partner a little better than that. His ears fold back, and his tail swishes just so, and his eyes widen in the way that it’s hard to tell what kind of pouncing he might do. “Oh, of course,” he says. “Viperion. Duh.”
Right. Duh. Might as well rip the bandage off. “How do you feel about him joining the team permanently?” Of course she could have said it the way it needed to be said: that Viperion was joining permanently, and that was that. But Chat is still part of this team, and more than that, his thoughts matter to her. They always will.
Chat looks between them, his tail still flicking idly as he holds their attention. In the end, all he says is, “So what’s tonight’s plan?”
Hardly missing a beat, Ladybug launches into the details of their positions, how long their shifts will be, where they’ll reconvene. Chat Noir nods as soon as she’s finished, and he leaps into the night without question. But just as she’s unleashing her yo-yo, Viperion takes her by the wrist. “You’re worried,” is all he says. All he needs to say. “That he’s secretly upset with you and didn’t want to cause a scene.”
There’s a reason—more than one reason—he’s on this team. No wonder Master Fu had so much to say about snakes and right hands. She heaves a sigh, and lowers her yo-yo, and turns to look him in the eye. They’re gleaming green in the dark of the night, and for a foolish moment she’d like to stay here longer. Just to keep looking at them. “I know him,” she murmurs, her hand flexing faintly in his grip. She doesn’t know what else to say. She’s not even entirely sure what she means.
“I know,” Viperion murmurs. “I know you do.” Her hand slips, and his thumb swipes across her knuckles. Where no one else can see. Where only they can feel. “I know you, too.”
Ladybug’s breath catches, and her stomach turns in a way that she thinks is good. Her eyes flicker down to his hand, still holding hers, and then toward the bangle. “You know what’s on your shoulders now.”
“Of course,” he says. “You put it there.” He gives her hand a squeeze. “I want it there.”
This time, when she feels her blood buzzing under her skin, she knows it’s a good thing. “Eighth arrondissement.”
“Two hours,” he replies before she can. It’s a hum—maybe even a hiss—but it reassures her nevertheless. “I know.” He lingers, though, looks at her like there’s a million things he wants to do with her. For her. Like he wants to take one step closer for every one of those things. Instead, he holds his breath in his chest, perhaps restraining himself as much as she is. And he traces his thumb over her cheek, just along the outline of her mask. And he whispers, “We’ve got you, Ladybug.”
Then Viperion is off into the night, leaping from building to building, before she can do anything in return. Before she can tell him not to go yet. She brushes her fingers against her cheek, as though he had kissed her there instead. And she laughs to herself, brandishing her yo-yo once more.
He’s right. No matter what happens, he’s got her.
They both do.
[Viperion → Marinette]
Marinette doesn’t assign any shifts on the nights she doesn’t or can’t come out, and she certainly doesn’t expect either Chat Noir or Viperion to pick up her slack. She will admit, though, that sometimes she wants the night to feel like what it feels like for most everyone else: peaceful, and open, and full of possibility. Somewhere—somewhen—to escape to when the rest of the day is already so hard and not worth reflecting on.
When she puts her homework away and climbs up onto her balcony, she’s half-expecting Chat Noir to be there, flicking his tail and turning those narrowed, gleaming eyes toward her. Perched right where she can see him, or sprawled out on her deck chair. Like he’s been waiting all day to talk to her. She wouldn’t mind it; she’d be looking forward to it, too. It’s been a while since he stopped by to chat with her, and, well, she’ll admit she’s been thinking about the comfort of that last hug. he gave her. She just hopes that “last” means “previous” and not “final.” And that the next one—assuming there is a next one—happens under some happier circumstances.
What she’s not expecting, after basking in the quiet of the autumn evening for a few moments, is the sound of someone clearing their throat just behind her. Startled and half-prepared to scold Chat Noir for scaring her, she turns on her heel and braces herself against the balcony railing… and she’s confused to find no one there. But there’s the sound again, louder and more emphatic this time; she has to crane her head up to find the source of it.
It’s Viperion. Crouching on her chimney. Saluting her with a wave of his lyre.
Marinette sighs in relief as he practically slithers down to perch on one of the posts, but it doesn’t stop her heart from pounding. It’s hard to tell if it’s leftover adrenaline or… something else. “What are you doing here?” she says by way of greeting.
Viperion fixes her with a grin, the tip of his tongue poking out between his teeth. He’s got a real affinity for this snake thing, huh. At this rate, it might as well be forked and flickering. “I figured that would be obvious,” he replies. His mouth gets caught on the last s, probably thanks to Sass, and it’s kind of endearing how his nose wrinkles in his own disapproval. It’s also kind of endearing how he just sits there, perfectly content to watch her and wait for her to speak.
She’s sort of expecting him to transform back now that he’s here, but she doesn’t complain when he doesn’t. With a faint smile, she gathers up her watering can from the corner and sets to work tending her flower boxes. “Be careful,” she chides, though half-sweetly. “I’ve got friends who’ll write stories about you.”
“Let 'em write their stories.” His eyes flash, yellow-green in the night. “They’ll be good ones.”
“Viperion.” Marinette can hear how her voice sobers up and hardens. How much like Ladybug it sounds, even when it shouldn’t. Even though it can. And then, more softly, “I just think you ought to be careful, going around the night like this, stopping by… civilians’ houses.” Her voice lifts just a bit to barely playful. “You are a pretty strong hero, after all. What if I got caught up in one of your antics?”
“Oh…” Viperion turns his lyre this way and that; he can play back plenty, with all the air in his voice, and without the puns to boot. “I’m sure you’d find a way to take care of yourself. I hear you’re unbelievably brave, after all.”
Hearing that makes her turn away with a smile that is impossible to hide, but she mocks offense all the same. “You mean you wouldn’t try to help me?” she tries to tease back. “Wouldn’t you protect me?”
“With my life,” he replies without hesitation. It’s surprising, but not unsettling, the way this facade drops altogether. The look they share—intense, and full of meaning—makes them both go quiet. For a while, the only sound between them are the few wayward plucks of the strings of his lyre; perhaps he’s trying to make meaning of what he’s said, or how he said it. (Briefly, she wonders what color it is.) “I just think,” he eventually says, “that I owe you something for all this. Protecting you—checking on you—that is the least I can do.” His eyes flicker toward hers again. “Don’t you think so, too?”
Slowly, Marinette sets the watering can aside, takes a comfortable seat on the deck chair. Close to him, but not too close. Enough to want to be closer. To maybe feel that he might want it, too. “I…” she starts to say, and she shifts in her seat, rubbing at the knotted emblem of her promise ring. “I didn’t do this”—she gestures toward him—“so that you’d owe me something.”
“No,” Viperion muses in agreement. “You did it because, in your mind, it was the right thing to do.” He inclines his head, plays a few more notes. They sound… happy. Safe. Like it’s his way of touching her before he asks permission, no matter how readily she’d give it to him. “In my mind, this is the right thing to do. And besides,” he adds, “I don’t consider it a bad thing to be in your debt. I don’t consider it a bad thing to have a reason to keep coming back to you.”
At first, Marinette is too stunned to say anything. She only hopes the street lamps and the lights above her head don’t illuminate the growing blush in her cheeks. That would just be cruel. And she hopes that the suit doesn’t, for some reason, give him supersonic hearing. That he can’t tune into the steady pan dingo finer heart, or the way her stomach churns. She blinks a couple of times, watches him pluck another note or two with that reassuring, knowing smile of his. Eventually she gathers her words, and she sort of chokes out, “Then… as long as you’re being safe about it… I wouldn’t mind if you kept coming back to me, either.”
Viperion practically beams. “Then I’ll keep coming back,” he says—an assertion and a promise, all in one. He slides off of his post, takes even, deliberate steps toward her. She can’t help staring up at him—that yellow-green is mesmerizing beyond words—and her heart catches in her throat when he kneels down to meet her at eye-level. “I’ll keep coming back,” he says again, a murmur this time, but he doesn’t kiss her the way she thinks he might, or the way she hopes he will. Instead, he draws his thumb over her cheekbone, just under her eye, as though there’s an invisible mask there. Then it finds the outline of her lips, and she’d plead with him to hide under the canopy with her and give her this thing they both quietly need and burn for if she could.
Then he says, “I should probably get going, huh.”
Marinette wills her heart not to sink—or at least, she tries to, and only sort of succeeds. “Yeah,” she says back in the little space between them. “Chat Noir’s probably waiting for you somewhere. Don’t wanna keep him waiting, right?”
Viperion’s eyes flicker. “Will you?”
“What? Keep him waiting?”
“Wait for me,” he breathes. “Will you wait for me.”
If she’s smiling so hard her face will hurt later, she doesn’t really care. “Yeah,” she whispers back. Even dares to rest her hands on his face, pressing her thumbs against the fangs at the bottom of his mask. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”
Viperion searches her face—every centimeter, it feels like. Being this close has Marinette dazed, just a little, but she’s still aware of how his gaze lingers on her lips. “Okay,” he says, barely above a whisper. Reaches up to take her hands in his and squeeze them. As if hypnotized himself, he presses his mouth to one palm, and then the other. And then he’s leaping up on to the chimney again, and away into the night, and Marinette finds herself holding her hands to her mouth in his absence.
Marinette doesn’t stay up all night. Not when she has school the next day. But she swears there’s a flash of teal in the sky, bathed in the glow of the moon, just before she turns in. And she considers that waiting enough.
[Marinette → Luka]
High school has only ever been a distant thing. Something in the hands of test scores and Mr. Damoclès’s end-of-year advice and her parents, as much as they value her input and make the effort to listen to her. Even when she’s passed them by on a delivery for the bakery, or on the way to hang out with her friends, those lycée buildings have always sort of felt untouchable. As though they only open their doors to those they deem elite, worthy enough to walk its halls.
Maybe she only feels that way because she’s still in collège. Or maybe it’s because high school is starting to creep up on her now, only a matter of months away with only the brevet as an obstacle. (Well. An academic obstacle.)
Or maybe it’s because she’s standing outside of Luka’s school building now, waiting for his classes to let out for the day. (That’s the other thing that feels so inconceivable: why do they get out so late? For God’s sake, it’s almost 5:00.)
She already feels small and immature, standing on the sides of her feet and clinging to her backpack. It only gets worse when hordes of students start filing out, locked in loud, excited conversation as they break off into smaller groups and go their separate ways. They just might swallow her up, there are so many of them, and she finds herself apologizing and stepping aside and bumping into strangers more than she is doing any actual searching.
Great. She’s not even in high school and she already doesn’t fit in.
Finally Luka emerges from that monster of a building. He’s taking his time, chatting with another boy who looks his age. He’s a bit taller, but not by a lot, and his skin is much darker, and when Luka meets her eyes and smiles, so does he. He says something she can’t make out from this far away—probably who’s that? She doesn’t have to guess at how Luka answers. Not with that look on his face.
He gives the boy a clapping sort of handshake before they part ways, and the first thing he does when he gets to her is kiss her. It’s more than the kind she’s seen her parents share when one of them comes back from shopping, or the kind Alya’s father steals from her mother when she comes home from work late. Instead, he sways with her, and their fingers tangle together as she stands up on her toes, and she actually forgets what day and time it is until a whistle causes them to jump apart. It’s that boy again, grinning at them both as he’s strapping a helmet to his head. Luka makes a face at him, but his cheeks go bright pink even as he slings an arm around her shoulders and turns them away.
“Who was that?” she asks. She wants to wait until they’ve gotten some distance to take his hand, but he grabs hers first and slides their fingers together again, and she doesn’t complain.
“Just my friend,” he says. It’s nice to hear about him talking to other kids in his grade. Making new friends. She was just as worried about it as he was. “Dennis. He just moved here. From Cuba. His name even rhymes.” He grins. “Dennis Jiménez.” He says the J like an H. She didn’t know other languages just… did that. “More like Dennis the Menace sometimes, but…” He laughs to himself, and shakes his head.
Marinette gives his hand a squeeze in the silence that follows, and lifts it to kiss the sailor bracelet. “You have a friend,” she says, hoping he can hear the smile in her voice, and she fits his hand in the back pocket of her jeans. He keeps it there the whole way back to the Liberty, and it makes her feel a little more grown-up. A little closer to high school. A little more like she could fit in after all.
Juleka must have already come home, because the gangplank is open. Luka still helps Marinette up with a hand, but then it’s at the small of her back, even as they settle in the greenhouse room—it never fails to amaze her, just how much the Liberty can hold. Luka drops his backpack in an unceremonious heap in one of the armchairs; he’s at least more careful with his gig bag, because of course he still brings his guitar to school. Then he all but collapses onto the couch, sprawling out on it and patting his chest for her to join mm. she obliges him, even though she can feel herself blushing as she wedges herself in next to him, and tries to ignore how Sass winks at her from the front pocket of Luka’s backpack.
“Do you have any homework?” she mumbles, squeaking when he readjusts and pulls her closer to his chest. Then she sighs, and breathes in what must be the scent of his body spray. Did he have PE last period? And why is he so cold?
He nods, cradling the back of her head, and twirls a lock of her hair around his finger. “But I did most of it during my free period. Some of it during lunch, too. And tomorrow’s Wednesday, anyway. Only have a half day.” He kisses the top of her head. “Your habits are rubbing off on me, y’know.”
Marinette isn’t sure whether to stutter or smile, so she goes with the latter, errs on the side of cautious flattery. “Not all my habits,” she tries to tease back. “Bet you don’t have your schedule memorized yet.”
“Hey, you don’t have my schedule memorized, either.”
Marinette considers that an accomplishment, honestly. Besides, it’s nice to hear him go into the details of his classes without her already knowing what’s coming. It’s nice to devote herself to just listening to him instead. “So…” She deflects, and busies herself with playing with one of his hands. “What do you want to do now?”
Luka grins.
Marinette blushes and flicks his palm. “Not now! Your sister’s home!”
“Hasn’t stopped you before,” he says, but he relents anyway, tracing his fingers up and down the dip in her back. It’s soothing, just as much as the rain the weather forecast said would be coming soon. He shudders, holding her even closer, and now she can definitely feel the goosebumps on his skin. “Is it me, or is it getting really cold, really fast?”
“Might be Sass,” she murmurs. “Cold blood and all… Is the sun helping?”
Luka hums and winds their legs together; he’s more affectionate than usual today. Or maybe it really is because he’s cold. “Yeah,” he says. “So are you.”
They stay like that a while longer, soaking up the warmth of the sun until they’re halfway to falling asleep. When the clouds gather, and the first drops of rain hit the greenhouse ceiling, Marinette shifts in Luka’s arms, taps his chest to make sure he’s awake. “Could you play it again?” she asks.
Luka yawns. “Play what?”
“The rain.”
He blinks, and then he smiles, slithering out of her grasp with a kiss to her forehead. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
It sounds just like the weather, when he plays those first few notes. She still can’t hear the colors the way he can, but the pitter-patter of the music is still the same. The way it makes her fall asleep is still the same. Like the rock of a barely legal boat, or the glide of a skater through a rink, or a poem fashioned from a wax museum. Whatever color it is, it feels like the right one.
[Luka → Ladybug]
Some things don’t change. Say this with more than a drop of sarcasm.
Paris does not care that Marinette Dupain-Cheng is in her third year of collège and has exams to prepare for. Why should it? It never has before. Perhaps, more accurately, Hawk Moth has never cared before. But when has he ever cared about anything?
The city is in a mild uproar, again, right in front of the Louvre, again, and she has to get creative enough to sneak away from a field trip and transform. This isn’t going to be a solo job—these things hardly ever are, if Chat Noir and now Viperion have something to say about it—but she doesn’t know how long Ladybug will have to hold out until either of them shows up. She gets the feeling, somehow, that it won’t be very long.
(Sometimes, she wishes she could just read these stories instead of having to live them all the time. When is Nathaniel and Marc’s next issue coming out again?)
By the time Ladybug swings out into the courtyard, the “mild uproar” has upgraded to “medium chaos.” It’s still manageable on her own, but not for much longer. Especially if the empty bus this supervillain just hauled onto its shoulders is any indication. It—he? she?—swings, like it’s getting ready to do some kind of hammer throw, and Ladybug doesn’t want to think about how much damage it’ll do, how much she’ll have to reverse when this is all over, when tensions are this high and safety is on the line, she doesn’t get to think. Doesn’t even get to process much. She only gets to act.
But then she freezes—has to freeze—at the sight of Luka on the streets just outside the courtyard, rooted to the spot, as the bus slips out of the villain’s grasp and hurtles toward him.
Ladybug doesn’t know who moves first—either she starts swinging, or he starts running for his life. The only thing she cares about is knocking him out of the way, twisting their bodies to take the brunt of the fall. The only thing she cares about, when she acts and doesn’t think, is that Luka is alive. “It’s okay,” she says. “I’ve got you.”
The pain sinks in seconds later, as she’s blinking back into awareness, and so does the feeling of how tightly she’s holding him. “Are you hurt?” she asks, and then, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m fine,” he coughs out, waving away smoke and debris. Then he whispers, “I was waiting for you.” He’s still looming over her as he tries to get to his feet, and she doesn’t have time to get all fluttery over where he is or what he said—or even the fact that he’s scanning the area just as cautiously as she is. As though he’s trying to protect her, too.
“Luka,” she says out of the corner of her mouth, still poised to take whatever the villain is about to dish out. To fight back, or perhaps to run away and keep as many people out of harm’s way as possible. (That is a lofty thought; she’s learned on more than one occasion that if one person is in danger, then everyone is in danger.) “Luka, you have to get somewhere safe.” She glances back at him. At least affords herself the chance to admire how battle-ready he is, too. “Will you be all right?”
He seems to understand what she’s asking of him, what she’s giving him. “Of course,” he says, little more than a breath now. “I’ll be all right because you trust me.”
“Good.” It warms her more than it should—it was one of the first questions she asked him, after all. She knew from the get-go that she could trust him. But she can return the warmth, at least, as she brandishes her go-go, getting ready to move. “I need you to be all right.” Her fist goes tight. “I need you.”
Luka gives her one firm nod, but the spark in his eyes isn’t lost on her. I’ve got you, too, it seems to say. I need you, too. He takes off down the street, disappearing between a couple of buildings in all the chaos, and it’s then that Chat Noir springs into a landing from one of the rooftops nearby. “Just in time, milady,” he says, as light in his speech as he is on his feet. “Did I miss anything?”
Ladybug wants to say something like, Yes, almost-certain death. But before she can open her mouth, the supervillain rounds on them, says something admittedly cheesy about getting their Miraculous—don’t they get tired of saying the same thing all the time?—and puts all focus on fighting them instead of wreaking havoc. She’d like to think, somehow, that that’s a good thing.
They leap apart in separate directions, Chat Noir already playing decoy and taunting them with his usual enthusiasm. Ladybug lands far away enough to get some distance on both of them, to get some time to actually think about a plan of attack. Before she actually gets to, there’s a hand at her shoulder, and a voice at her ear.
“Heard you needed me?”
Her right hand.
She should have seen it coming, but relief washes over her anyway. When she turns, there is Viperion, lyre in hand, ready to jump in—which is probably a relief to Chat Noir, too, from his perch on the Louvre Pyramid. “Yeah,” she says, starting to catch her breath. “Just in time.”
Viperion grins. “I’ve been told I’m good at time things. Besides, I told you before.” He tilts his head. “We’ve got you.”
He’s running to Chat Noir’s aid before she can say anything—probably to play or throw his lyre as another distraction, if past experience and Nathaniel’s cheeky remarks are anything to go off of. But it leaves her smiling after him, in the space he’s given her to think. Of course they’ve got her. Of course he does, too.
Of course this is how they’re unified.
Ladybug takes a deep breath—one, two, three, four, hold—and allows history to repeat itself.