Chapter Text
“Chat, you need to take it!” Ladybug said, sounding desperate.
“What?” he said, horrified. He’d misheard her, he must have misheard her—
“No, seriously,” she said, “I have it all worked out, we’ll just drop down here and hide and then we can trade, so no risk of whatever terrible thing that would happen if you had both Miraculous at once, God only knows. Then I head off as a civilian, while you don’t look, Chat, and you’re here in case it needs to get purified. I’m sorry, Chat, I’m so sorry to leave you like this, but I have to go right now, you know I wouldn’t if this wasn’t vital.” She scanned the horizon as she spoke. They’d ditched the akuma pretty thoroughly, and this one was already pretty distractible, from what he’d seen before they ran off. But it still paid to be careful: he could almost hear that thought in Ladybug’s voice, if he hadn’t been busy feeling all that horror.
“I’m not—” and for one lurching moment he thought the next word out of his mouth would be worthy. He coughed. Time to get himself together, like someone who could play it cool for literally one goddamn second. “I’m not ready, milady. I don’t know how to use the yo-yo like you do, I really don’t know if—”
“You’ll be fine, chaton, it’s like riding a bicycle. You smash your knees badly enough, maybe your face a little, after that you start to figure it out pretty quick.” She jumped down to a lower roof, just two stories, gripped the edge, and dropped.
Adrien followed. “Me-ouch, is really that how that went for you?”
“Of course not!” she said, turning her face away to search the alley for cover. “You remember, chaton. I was a natural.”
She was behind a dumpster and detransformed before he could say anything, the graffiti illuminated, strangely lovely, in the flash of pink light.
“Sorry, Tikki”, he heard her say. The reply came in familiar unearthly kwami tones— “It’s all right! I’ll be fine with Chat. Good luck,”—and then it cut off abruptly.
She held them out to him. Her arm stretched out from behind the dumpster. He tried not to study the dark cuff of her— shirt? jacket? It wasn’t going to tell him anything about her, and there were more important matters. Ladybug’s earrings were in front of him, cradled in Ladybug’s bare palm.
He detransformed fast. Adrien pulled off the ring and dropped it into Ladybug’s hand— her bare hand— and grabbed the earrings. Then he froze. Was he supposed to pierce his ears? Now? In an alley? He nearly looked around for needles before they shimmered a little and changed into clip-ons. Adrien’s hands shook as he put them on, expecting to feel different, somehow. Instead the ladybug kwami burst into existence and immediately laughed at him.
“Sorry, Adrien,” she trilled, “you just look so worried about it. They’re only earrings.”
“You know who I am?” he said.
“Of course.” She paused. “Through magic.”
Adrien nodded— right, obviously, magic— and turned on his heel.
“I’ll have it back to you soon, Milady,” he called. “You do what you need to do.”
He took one breath, tried to smirk. Chat Noir, he thought, it’s just like being Chat Noir, I’ll just be red Chat Noir. Everything’s fine. I’m a hero, I’m ready for this, I’m Chat Noir but red, baby! Chat Noir-et-Rouge, out on the town, defeating this akuma all by my red-hot self!
“Tikki,” he said, “spots on!” He thought he heard his lady’s footsteps for a moment, retreating down the alley, and then the transformation took him. His own pink light.
As soon as the sparks cleared, Adrien leapt back up to the roof and bounded back toward where they’d left the akuma. He felt dizzy with fear, unbalanced. Apparently, as Chat Noir, he relied a lot on the claws for handholds; he had to try and use sheer grip strength to make up the difference.
Actually, he thought, frowning, his whole center of balance was off. What he’d thought was vertigo from the absolute yawning terror of having to be Ladybug was maybe just regular vertigo. He kept using the wrong amount of strength to swing himself around. Adrien hadn’t seriously worried about falling while he ran since his first night with the ring; was something wrong with his transformation? Maybe the earrings could tell he wasn’t clever enough to do the job, he thought miserably.
Okay. Okay. Focus on the akuma. He still wasn’t sure what this one was even about— he’d only seen the beginnings from a distance, when the street started to plow up and something wiggly and enormous emerged, with a rider on its back. They’d barely caught a glimpse of it before Ladybug had grabbed his wrist and run. He paused when he could hear it close up, apparently smashing cars along the Rue Saint-Martin, and peeked around the corner. Yes, there it was: the giant worm, transparent and shuddery, and the rider, face obscured, shouting for Ladybug and Chat Noir to come face her. Adrien crouched and ran along the roofs parallel to the street, trying to get in close enough to spot where the butterfly might be hidden. The butterfly he would have to purify. Without his lady.
Up close he was getting worried that the rider’s mask wasn’t a mask; there were beady eyes, no nose, and— was that supposed to be a worm’s mouth? Holy shit, was that what a worm’s mouth looked like? That was awful, there were lumps and a round sucking hole and spikes? Adrien spared a moment from wishing he wasn’t about to fail as Ladybug to wish this akuma was literally anything else. Anything? Maybe Gamer again, that was great, all Adrien had to do was fall over and turn into digital cubes. Cubes sound awesome right now. Adrien would love to be cubes.
He sighed, half-stood behind someone’s rooftop garden, and didn’t notice the worm’s tail slamming into the building until he’d already overbalanced. Arms flailing, he drew the yo-yo with cat-like reflexes, wrapped it around a balcony railing, and then cleverly fell off the roof anyway.
It only seemed reasonable to call out to the akuma, now that he was on a collision course. Something really hilarious and distracting, obviously.
“Hey, watch meow-t where you’re waving that thing!”
Hang on— was his voice different? He was pretty sure his voice was different. Not a different pitch, quite, but smoother. Rounder? Could voices be round? Maybe just more resonant. Commanding, like Ladybug should sound. He was still worrying about it when he slammed into the worm’s side, but he put his elbow into the hit anyway, just for the sake of trying.
The giant round worm thing had some give, under him, but when he pulled back, trying to cling to its strange, smooth-scaled sides, there wasn’t even a mark where he’d hit. So: new plan needed, or even just “a plan.”
There was a weird little platform thing up near the worm’s head, where the akuma was riding. If he kept his hold and anchored the yo-yo on the building next to him, he could swing around, catch hold of the platform, and get a good look at the akuma, maybe even grab her object before she shook him off. At least then he’d have a better idea of where it might be. Adrien nodded to himself. This was a good plan. He was making progress. Like Ladybug would! Adrien waited until the rider was in clear view. In an easy arc, he swung out his arm, deployed the yo-yo, and let go of the worm.
He sailed right over the akuma’s head and toward the building across the street.
The roof lurched up at him. He landed well, at least, tucking into a roll, feeling only barely jarred. Then he just lay on his back, panting. That hadn’t been just because he didn’t understand the yo-yo, that time, or even just the way he seemed slightly off-balance. He’d had that jump, he knew he had. Maybe the aerodynamics of the suit were different. No boots as Ladybug, right? No pockets or belt or whatever— and for the first time, setting aside his terror, Adrien looked down at himself in the suit.
It’s subtle. To anyone else it would seem subtle. But Adrien’s a model; he knows his measurements, his proportions, how clothing looks on him. And the width of his hips was different. His arms and shoulders seemed slimmer, longer somehow. His chest, curved slightly more than pectoral muscle alone would do, that was different. That was new. That probably would throw him off-balance, now that he mentioned it.