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Chapter Text

There should have been nothing. I wanted there to be nothing. I had committed the ultimate sin and nothing was all that I deserved. More than I deserved. I was an ugly, ugly being and I had spit in the face of the people that loved me – I died sobbing, choking on salty tears and blubbering apologies, in the face of the desperate pleas of the most precious person of my existence.

I killed myself.

And then, as if my ugly, ugly existence hadn’t merited its wretched, miserable end, I wake up.

“Marinette! If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll be late for school!”

What?

I struggle to my feet – no, I don’t. My limbs aren’t sluggish like they usually are, I’m not burdened with the weight of the world like it always was before.

My body is lithe, responsive – not mine.

“What-”

I’m disassociating – not that that’s odd, but the level of dissociation it would take to create this kind of disconnect is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. This was straight up derealization. I passed out, was resuscitated at the hospital, and whatever combination of anesthesia and psychiatric medications they put me under have blown me into a new realm of reality I have never been in before.

“Marinette?”

I part my lips and wonder if my voice will work, if it will be my voice or if I am that far gone.

“I’m up,” I croak, my voice breaking horrifically on the second word out of my mouth because it’s not my voice it’s not my mouth this can’t be real it’s not happening-

Everything is fine.

My name is… I can’t remember what my name is, I think frantically, my heart pounding. I can’t remember my name.

“Marinette? Are you alright?” I am hyperventilating. I can’t remember my name. “Marinette, I’m coming up!”

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t-

“Marinette!” Her face is horrified. “Oh, Marinette, what happened?”

Her arms envelop me in a warm hug as she alternates between, “Tom, Tom! Come up!” and “oh, Marinette, what’s wrong? What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

I am sobbing, outright bawling, her touch is like acid bubbling on my skin and I can’t wrench myself away. This isn’t real. This isn’t real – and even if it was, I don’t deserve to be comforted, I don’t-

For a moment, I feel as though I’m going to faint.

This isn’t real. Everything is fine.

I repeat the mantra in my head – and like magic I calm down.

“Marinette,” Marinette’s mother says worriedly not ten minutes later as I wipe my eyes, my face blank (not my eyes, not my face), “are you sure you’ll be alright going to school?”

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. Everything is fine.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, “mom.”

Marinette’s mom, I correct in my mind, but I feel sick anyway.

“Marinette…” she says worriedly, but the blank look on my (Marinette’s) face makes her reconsider.

I catch sight of Marinette’s face in the mirror and want to vomit.

“Wait,” I say before I can stop myself.

“Yes?” Marinette’s mom asks almost hopefully, seemingly wishing I’ll reconsider.

The face in the mirror twists into a grotesque parody of itself. No – it’s fine. Everything is fine. This isn’t real.

“My hair…” I say, the words slipping out of my mouth before I can strangle them. “Could you… please?”

She approaches me like one would a wounded animal.

“Could you maybe… braid it for me?” I ask, and something in her expression softens further, the taut line of her mouth easing into an expression of concern, of love for her daughter.

I am not Marinette.

I’m not, but her hands are so, so gentle that I almost cry again.

Instead, I go downstairs and pretend that I didn’t break down earlier, that Marinette’s father hadn’t looked utterly bewildered when he rushed upstairs only to find Marinette’s signature pigtails gone and a severe single braid in their place.

I greeted him woodenly, called him ‘dad’ as though that weren’t an even worse infraction, and managed a weak smile as I thanked him for the box of macarons he gave me to share with Marinette’s class at school.

I am lucky to be able to unlock Marinette’s phone – I use its GPS services to figure out how to get to school.

I remind myself that this is all a very involved hallucination and that there are probably doctors fighting to keep me alive. I wish they would stop and this would end, but there’s no point in focusing on that right now. Everything is fine. This isn’t real.

This isn’t real, I remind myself when I spot Master Fu crossing the street with his eyes practically closed as a car speeds towards him.

This isn’t real. I don’t have to do anything. This is all my subconscious mind replaying an episode. He’s not in any real danger. He’s fine. I’m fine. The car isn’t real. Everything is fine.

I take a deep breath and my nose wrinkles at how vivid the scent of freshly baked macarons is from the box in my hands. How vivid, how real.

I think of the way Marinette’s mom gently braided my hair because I was a grown-ass adult and Marinette’s hands were shaking too badly for me to do it myself.

The car, I think with sudden, startling certainty, is going to hit him.

This isn’t real.

I smell macarons and if I don’t move I will smell blood, metallic and nauseating, vivid red spilling onto the streets like it spilled from my wrists-

I am terrified.

I move anyway.

The car honks as though I’m the one at fault, as though I’m the one who nearly hit someone as I make a strangled noise in the back of my throat – I smell the metallic reek of blood. I failed. This isn’t real. Everything is fine.

I scramble up. Marinette’s knees hurt. Her elbow hurts. Her palms hurt. But wait-

He’s alive.

“Sir,” I say, wondering if he can hear the rising hysteria in my voice. Marinette is hurt. Marinette is bleeding. “Sir, are you alright?”

He peers up at me and I wonder what he sees in Marinette’s eyes – does he see the terrified, quivering failure lying beneath?

He smiles. It’s small and slight, but he accepts Marinette’s hand and I help him up, worriedly looking over him to make sure he’s alright.

He’s fine. He’s unhurt.

(This isn’t real.)

I smile back anyway, tentatively, anxiously, but a small smile all the same.

Most of the macarons have been trampled. Those that weren’t had been rendered inedible just by virtue of tumbling out of the box onto the street, beyond recovery. A shame. Marinette’s dad had worked hard on them.

“Are you alright, miss?” He asks and I stare at him dumbfounded.

Oh right, Marinette is hurt.

I don’t feel it anymore.

“I’m fine, sir.” I tell him, because I am fine. Everything is fine. Marinette is bleeding, her palms are full of abrasions, her elbow and her knees ache from the impact and how they were skinned along the pavement… Marinette’s blood is there, staining the cement in little specks of red. I have to look away. “Please be careful when crossing the street. I would hate for you to get hurt.”

I hesitate a moment because what am I supposed to say?

“I’m sorry for knocking you over,” I say quietly and when he opens his mouth to say something else, something damning, something I don’t want to hear like, like thank you – I flee.

Later, I wonder if I really did die and school is my purgatory. I don’t remember all of the stuff I learned in high school – I don’t even remember most of it, and while I find myself picking things up quickly, I quickly realize that I can’t simply rely on my own memory to coast through Marinette’s classes.

Chloe is an annoying shit in this warped reality, made more so by the fact that it was me that had to deal with her in Marinette’s body.

Alya, the ‘new girl,’ notices the scrapes on Marinette’s body and looks curious but I don’t speak to her. I don’t speak to anyone except to say ‘present.’

I let Chloe have the seat that will be by Adrien’s because I couldn’t care less about a teenage boy, no matter how much I had shipped Ladybug and Chat Noir while watching the series on Netflix.

I sit quietly in Marinette’s new seat and pay attention while the mundane novelty of high school classes is shiny and ‘new’ because I know that if this psychiatric episode lasts the length of, well, an episode of the show, I will be back in class in whatever passes for a day and by then will be more interested in doodling on Marinette’s ‘notes.’

Stoneheart happens. I am surprised that my memory of the show is good enough to supply me with his name.

Alya ‘saves’ me and drags me to the library. She asks me something but I can’t hear her. I can’t speak either – words fail me. So I grab her hand briefly, give it a little, childish squeeze, and then close Marinette’s eyes and run.

I run as fast as I can, taking the same route back to Marinette’s house that I took to get to school. Luckily it’s straightforward so I don’t need the GPS again.

I want to wake up. I want to apologize to my family, to tell them I don’t deserve them, that I’ll never try to do it again.

Or, I want to just die outright and end this.

Neither happens though, so I go to Marinette’s house and tell her father that I dropped the macarons on my way to school and that I was very sorry, and when I get away from the smothering concern of Marinette’s parents and shut myself up in her room, I am horrified to see the innocuous little black box sitting by Marinette’s computer.

Why?

Why did he give me the miraculous. I saved him, but I did a piss poor job of it. I waited too long, I was clumsy and reckless and hurt myself, and I didn’t give him a macaron. It didn’t make sense.

I can’t be Ladybug. I’m not a hero. I’m pathetic. A coward.

(Some part of me thinks the part of my brain responsible for this derealization that cooked up this whacked up theme knew what it was doing. I’m terrified of responsibility. I’m not good at anything and I’m unreliable. I can’t do this.)

But this isn’t real, I remind myself, and reach for the box.

I don’t know where Master Fu lives. I literally have no idea. The best way to return it would be to ask Tikki. But Tikki will try to convince me to take care of Stoneheart. I’m not – I can’t.

Part of me wonders why I haven’t been akumatized already for being so negative. I wish that-

Everything is fine, I tell myself firmly. It’s fine. This is a dream, you will wake up. In the meantime, go with the show.

I’m scared shitless at the idea of being responsible for anything but then… I always wake up when I buy something in a dream because I guilt-trip myself to hell over spending money so why should this be any different?

If I try it, when I fuck up, what does it matter in the end? None of this is real.

Everything is fine. Remember your grounding techniques. Breathe in, breathe out. I don’t remember my name. That’s okay, that’s the medicine and the blood loss. It’s fine. I’m a twenty-six year old woman, and it’s the year 2020.

I feel the weight of the box in my hands and try hard to focus on positive things like ‘cool, a magical girl transformation’ instead of Uncle Ben’s ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ speech.

Everything is fine.

Marinette’s hands are trembling, her fingers shaky as they gingerly open it.

“Hello, Tikki,” I say to the light that emerges – who cares if she knows I know her name? This is my hallucination.

She is remarkably small. Smaller than I expected. Like she could fit in the palm of Marinette’s hand. She blinks at me, clearly confused.

I smile despite myself.

“My name is… well I don’t remember my real name,” I confess, because she is so cute and friendly looking and I am aching for something that I can’t name. “I’m not the real Marinette, but while I’m here you can call me that if you like.”

She looks troubled, a little wary and my face falls.

“I’m sorry, I’m not good at – at these things.” I don’t know why I’m apologizing to a literal figment of my imagination but I just can’t stop talking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Marinette was meant for this not me. I’m… I’m not hero material. I’m sorry. But… I’ll try. I’ll do… my best…”

No, no, no, I think. I don’t want her to think I’m crazy-

“Please,” I say, anxiety bubbling up in my throat. “I know I’m not what is needed but I don’t know how to get you back to Master Fu for a new person to be chosen and Stoneheart has to be stopped in the meantime…”

“Marinette,” she says slowly, and I cringe but nod. She blinks at me, not sure of what to make of all this. I am desperate, desperate to not fall short. I can’t, I need-

“I’m sorry,” I say miserably, begging her to understand.

“It’s okay Marinette,” she says, and when I cringe again she seems to realize something.

I tense up, waiting.

“Is there another name you like better?” she asks gently, sweetly and I want to cry.

“I don’t – I can’t think of it,” I say honestly, and remind myself (again) that it’s fine. “But there’s no time, Stoneheart is rampaging all over the city and – and someone has to do something.”

She considers me for a moment, and then shoots me rather bashful look.

“I don’t know where to start or what you need me to explain,” she tells me, a little bit of almost incredulous laughter in her voice.

It makes me feel just a little lighter.

“I need to use Lucky Charm to capture the akuma and cleanse it in the yo-yo, right?” I ask, feeling a sudden wave of nausea at the thought of actually fighting Stoneheart and-

This isn’t real. It’s nothing to worry about.

“Yes,” she replies encouragingly, and after a moment of thought zips up to Marinette’s face and nudges my cheek. “Don’t be afraid. You were chosen for this.”

I shouldn’t have been is the reply on the tip of my tongue but I can’t say that to her, not when she’s been so kind-

“You can do this,” she says, and it doesn’t escape me that she doesn’t call me by Marinette’s name.

She waits for me to say the words and I blurt them out like a terrified sheep without thinking-

“Tikki, spots on-”

And I change.

It’s not just Marinette’s clothes, it’s her whole body. The blood in her veins pumps faster, she feels lighter, stronger – actually capable of all the flipping around she does as a weightless tv character. I stare at my red gloved hands in shock in awe.

Not my hands – Marinette’s hands.

The outfit is different. It looks more grown-up, black from the neck down to the sweetheart neckline low on the chest and from there all spotted ladybug red. Form-fitting, too flattering for a teenager probably. The result of a lifetime of reading comic books bleeding into my perception of what Ladybug should look like.

I stand there for a moment, blown away.

And then the anxiety comes bubbling back up because what if I fail-

I climb up to the roof and lean over the railing thinking to myself that if I fall from this height I very well could die.

The yo-yo feels heavy in my hand, hefty, sturdy. Despite having watched the show, I don’t know how to use it. And yet, as I take it in my hand, give it an experimental tug, I find that it’s somehow in my muscle memory, that I can sling it towards that building and swing around like the real Ladybug. Well, I could if I tried, I mean.

But that’s the real issue, isn’t it? Trying…

If you die in a dream, you wake up, right?

I throw the yo-yo on pure instinct and leap off the roof.

“Oh my God,” I breathe with a startled laugh as I sling myself through the streets. It’s amazing. It’s – wonderful. I feel light for the first time in forever, like I can breathe, like there’s nothing wrong and the world is a beautiful place that I-

I don’t scream, but the sound that comes out of my mouth is something in that general direction. I can hear the cries of people fleeing Stoneheart and the world comes crashing down around me. This is serious. I can’t be fucking around, I have a job to do. So of course with these heavy thoughts weighing me down I falter when I throw the yo-yo and miss.

I panic for a moment-

-and then he catches me.

“Well, hey there,” Chat Noir says with a cheery grin, “nice of you to drop in. You must be the partner my kwami told me about!”

The moment he lands on the rooftop I slip away from him awkwardly.

“I’m,” I begin, and force myself to claim the name because what else would I call myself? “Ladybug. It’s nice to meet you.”

This was why I hadn’t spoken to anyone all day. The age difference made me feel like slime even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“By the way – your power,” I forced out, one hand drifting up to rub my sore elbow, “you can only use it once and then you only have a few minutes before you transform back. We can’t reveal our secret identities to anyone – even each other.”

“What?” He asked, looking taken aback. “Only once?”

I nodded mutely.

“Well, good to know, I guess,” he admitted sheepishly before extending a hand. “I’m… Chat Noir… Chat Noir, yeah. And you’re pretty business about all this, aren’t you?”

I focus on how good I feel, how strong, how quick, how light.

“You could say that,” I say, letting the corner of my mouth turn up in a slight smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Chat. Now let’s get to it!”

My little façade of bravado is met with an enthusiastic grin.

If I zip away in the direction of the akuma without waiting for him, I hope at least that he takes it for enthusiasm and not my own discomfort. I don’t – I don’t want to hurt him. He’ll never know why I feel so uncomfortable around him and he doesn’t deserve to wonder.

I resolve to do my best to overcome my insecurity – he is my partner now, for now at least, and he deserves better. And – I’m not Marinette. I don’t have anything to worry about with him anyway.

I shake these thoughts from my head because I have a job to do, one that… that is becoming more and more daunting as we get closer to Stoneheart. By the time I actually see the monster that Marinette’s classmate has become with Marinette’s eyes, with time to look, all I can think is this was a mistake. I can’t do this. I-

“Hey!” The sound of his voice cuts through my panic like a clean blade. “It’s not nice to pick on people smaller than you!”

Stoneheart roars in fury – and then Chat Noir is leaping past me, a streak of agile black against the sky, all energy and motion as he engages the monster.

I don’t know what to do.

“Chat,” I try, my voice cracked on his name, it didn’t carry, wasn’t loud enough, but I had to try- “The paper in his hand-”

He can’t hear me. Of course he can’t hear me. Someone standing next to me couldn’t hear me. But I am petrified – not even from fear of the akuma, this monstrous thing that was so disconcertingly real in front of me.

If I move, if I take another step… that’s what I’m afraid of.

I watch like a statue as Alya starts filming the monster, her face the picture of excitement. I watch Chat struggle, watch him get swatted away-

And then, just like earlier, I am moving again, leaping onto the pitch as I swing my yo-yo like a professional. I need to get the paper out of his hand, but how-

“Chat!” I cry out, adrenaline pumping through Marinette’s veins as I dodge Stoneheart’s fist with what felt like downright inhuman reflexes. “I’m sorry for the wait, but I’ve figured it out!”

“No problem, Wonderbug,” Chat says lightly, and then is forced to dodge a monstrous blow from Stoneheart.

I backflip away from Stoneheart to regroup with Chat, who is panting heavily as he stares down the infuriated Stoneheart.

“His fist,” I manage through my own exertion, “it’s the paper in his closed fist. We need to destroy it.”

Chat and I are forced to leap in separate directions as Stoneheart reaches us-

I try to think of Marinette’s plan but I don’t remember it. There’s no time-

“Lucky Charm!” I cry out, shrill notes of desperation bleeding into the words. This is it, this is our only chance.

A large, spotted red belt falls into my waiting palms.

“A belt?” Chat calls out in confusion, none the wiser to my sudden panic. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

Marinette didn’t use a belt. She didn’t. It was like a balloon or something inflatable – I couldn’t remember exactly. What was I supposed to do with a belt.

“Ladybug!” Chat cries out, and then I am tackled away from a stone fist by a streak of agile black-

We hit the ground hard and as we roll with the momentum of his tackle I see Stoneheart raise both fists to smash us-

I throw my yo-yo with a prayer and haul Chat by the waist as I yank us out of danger – and then it hits me.

“Chat, cover me!” I call out – I don’t have much time and this is it.

I throw my yo-yo and leap high into the air as Chat engages Stoneheart, drawing his attention away from me. I take the belt in my hands and pray that this is what I’m meant to do because I am out of ideas and I’ve already wasted a precious minute of time.

I land on Stoneheart’s shoulder and slip down to his elbow, wrapping the belt around his forearm as best I can while he tries to throw me off and tightening, tightening-

“Chat! Use your Cataclysm on his fist!” I yell, clinging onto Stoneheart for dear life, ready to tighten the belt more-

“Cataclysm!” Chat shouts, and then he is lunging for the closed fist too quickly for Stoneheart to swat him away.

It only takes the barest contact with his fingertips and then Stoneheart is screaming-

His fist dissolves around the paper as he tumbles backwards, writhing, and I tighten the belt until it effectively cuts off the ‘infected’ hand-

“Destroy the paper!” I call out, opening the little compartment in my yo-yo to prepare to cleanse the akuma.

“Got it!” Chat says as he snatches the paper up and rips it in two.

The black butterfly that springs free is almost grotesque in its seeming innocence.

I shiver as I wind up my yo-yo and throw it at the akuma, somehow managing to catch it on the first try.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma,” I murmur to it as it flies free of my yo-yo, pure white. I look at the belt and at Stoneheart who I think has outright passed out from the pain, and I throw it up in the air as high as I can.

“Miraculous Ladybug!” I cry out, and then maimed Stoneheart is Ivan and whole again and the wreckage of the stadium and whatever else is set to right.

We did it, I think, breathless. We did it!

“You were meownificent, kitty-cat!!” I exclaim breathlessly, turning to face him with a blinding grin. Because I’m trash for this show, I raise a fist in offering. “Pound it!”

Whatever Chat was going to say is lost because his cheeks turn pink in the face of my sincerity – but he manages to bump his fist against mine despite his embarrassment.

“You were purrty amazing yourself,” he says after a moment, swallowing.

I smile widely at the compliment.

We did it, of course, but…

I’d done it too. I couldn’t wait to tell Tikki!

“This is incredible!” Alya shouted, running over to us. “Who are you guys? Are you going to be protecting Paris from now on? I have sooo many questions!”

I took a step back, my anxiety spiking back to my normal level. My earrings beeped, signaling that I would soon transform back.

“I-I have to go,” I stuttered, taking a step back.

I made to leave and remembered suddenly – the piece of paper.

It couldn’t hurt to take a few extra seconds to talk to Ivan. Marinette had, and, well, I would want an encouraging word said to me if I were the first person in Paris to be akumatized, or just akumatized at all.

I snatched up the paper, avoiding glancing back at Alya, and hurried over to Ivan.

“Hey,” I said, trying not to sound like I was too much in a hurry even though I was. “I just wanted to tell you that there’s never any shame in having feelings for someone – and whether you confess those feelings or not is your decision and has nothing to do with anyone else. They’re your feelings, and I can tell they must be really sincere. So what I’m saying is, I guess… don’t let anyone make you feel bad for what you do or don’t do. If you want to confess to her, I think everything will turn out great. But if you don’t, if you’re not ready, that’s okay too. That’s always okay. So basically – just do what feels right, and if anyone teases you again, tell them Ladybug would like a word.”

I forced a big, wide smile onto my face and was gratified when he returned it, his pinks cheek with embarrassment.

“Good luck, Ivan,” I said, and then, before Chat who so obviously wanted to say something could speak, cried “Bug out!” and hastily zipped away.

I made it just over the stadium wall and into some bushes before I transformed back but the warmth in my chest lingered.

“Tikki,” I whisper excitedly. “Tikki, we did it! I did it!”

Her red head peeks out of my purse, her blue eyes shining brightly.

“You did wonderfully!” she returns, a big smile on her face. “You were amazing!”

I clutch my purse close, heart full to bursting at her sincere, goodness.

And if I break down by the side of the stadium, hugging my purse, my kwami, to my chest because when was the last time I had heard such gently spoken kindness – well, who is there to see it?

Chapter Text

Days passed since our victory against Stoneheart. I didn’t wake up in a hospital bed with my family next to me, with my best friend next to me. No, instead I go to sleep and wake up as Marinette.

“Marinette,” Marinette’s mom says as I’m halfway out the door, the word bursting with meaning.

I stop because it’s expected of me but can’t bring myself to say anything.

“Have a nice day, sweetheart,” she says quietly – and what else can she say.

I grip the new box of macarons more tightly than is probably safe.

“Thanks, mom.”

I fly out of the bakery like a bat out of hell.

School, thankfully, isn’t far from home and I’ve managed to memorize the route there with little difficulty. Ladybug or not, there won’t be any tardiness from this Marinette, not while I’m in charge.

The word ‘lazy’ rings in my ears though no one here has spoken it to me and I can’t shake it.

I make it to school on time and present the box of macarons to Marinette’s class with her teacher’s permission, issuing a small apology for interrupting class days in to do so.

“The last box had a little accident, you could say,” I offer up, brushing Marinette’s bangs back anxiously. “I hope you guys enjoy them.”

I pass them out without making eye contact with anyone. I know I need to make friends with Alya and Nino at the very least due to their futures as Rena Rouge and Carapace, but I missed my initial opportunity and don’t know how to start over. For one, I wasn’t even sitting next to Alya. Since I’d made a beeline for Chloe’s old seat on the first day of school, she’d taken the seat next to Alya to be closer to Adrien with little trouble and I was stuck next to Sabrina.

Marinette’s classmates seem grateful for the treats, at any rate – I return a slight smile and a nod to each ‘thanks’ I receive, but I can’t bring myself to actually look at anyone.

Especially not Adrien, whose sunny ‘thank you!’ makes a wave of sharp, sudden nausea turn my stomach. I hold out the box for Nino to take one and practically flee back to my seat.

The day ends without me working up the nerve to talk to the people I know I should be talking to. The next day ends the same. I speak when spoken to, only in response to Marinette’s teacher, my answers quiet and succinct. I go through the motions of Marinette’s life like I am made of wood, withdrawing from everyone around her because she is no longer here.

The only person other than Tikki I have any real, meaningful human interaction with is Chat Noir, who never knew Ladybug as Marinette. We fight together, Chat Noir and I – behind the red mask, with Tikki’s power coursing through my veins, I am alive.

“Wait – milady!” Chat called out when we’d taken care of the akuma. What a mess, I’d thought…

“Are you alright, Chat?” I asked him, a bit concerned. I was usually gone the moment we were done, so I didn’t know if it was out of character or not for him to call me out.

His cheeks pinked – just a little, nothing to worry about.

“I’m fine,” he blurted, and while I felt a little bad that he was so awkward around me, I was more relieved for it than anything – this Chat didn’t flirt with me like Chat did with Marinette as Ladybug.

“I’m glad,” I told him, wishing for a brief moment that I knew some way to convey the sincerity behind the words. “Take care of yourself, okay? I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He perked up, a wide grin slipping over his mouth and I couldn’t help but beam back.

“Milady,” he started, and then shook his head, gazing at me rather fondly. “I will. You take care of yourself, too.”

I saluted him instead of answering – because I couldn’t promise him that.

“Bug out!” I cried, making use of the traces of adrenaline still pumping through my blood to make a fabulous exit.

I never looked back to see his wistful gaze trailing behind me.

“Until next time, milady.”

To be honest, Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste, no matter that I know the truth, become two completely separate people in my mind (much like Ladybug and Marinette Dupain-Cheng). Adrien Agreste is another face in the crowd at school and I pay him no notice.

I drown in Marinette’s day to day life, unable to do more than fake a smile for her parents and assure them as best I can that ‘everything is fine.’ I make it a point to get grades that place me above Marinette’s teachers’ scrutiny, and…

And I cling to being Ladybug, rely so heavily on Tikki that I risk calling attention to her throughout the day just for her to reassure me that she’s there.

“Breathe,” Tikki whispers anxiously, and I take in a shaky breath of air and wonder for a split second how long it has been since I last inhaled.

She doesn’t say my name because I don’t remember it, and she doesn’t call me by Marinette’s name because I flinch like a kicked dog when I hear it.

“Sorry, Tikki,” I whisper back, clutching my bag carefully close to remind myself that she’s there, that I’m not alone. She smiles kindly at me and I feel like my lungs can freely expand and contract again.

She cuddles into me through my bag – I can feel her there through the soft nest of the ‘spare’ t-shirt I carry in my bag for her comfort – and I manage to focus again on what the teacher is saying.

I am staring with blank eyes at the door when that same panic starts to bubble up in my throat again. What am I doing? I don’t belong here. I’m not Marinette. I wasn’t meant to – to settle into this life, into this role.

I was meant to die and stay dead. Instead, I was here.

An eerie calm washed over me at the thought. I couldn’t settle here. This is not my home. This is not my life. My life is over. And if it’s not – if I’m dreaming in a hospital bed because I’ve been given a real second chance and not this farce of one – then I owed it to my family to do my best to wake up.

And there it was, that terrible feeling of falling short, of not being enough. The calm washed over me, pushing me mechanically through Marinette’s day – and then the guilt settled in.

What am I doing? I can’t stay here and pretend everything is well and dandy. This isn’t my life and I refuse to live it. I refuse. If I can’t go back to my life, I won’t live any life at all. It made sense, didn’t it?

(I didn’t deserve a second chance, and if I did, I didn’t deserve this easy life with loving parents and classmates that seemed to care, that could be friends.)

I disgust myself. This was an elaborate fantasy. A world in which there was nothing chemically wrong with my brain and I couldn’t do things right anyway.

Class passed me by in a blur. I couldn’t focus. All I can think of is that I am a disgrace and I am failing my real family. I lose myself to the kinds of negative thoughts my therapist had tried to talk away with soothing words and gentle, encouraging expressions.

But all my bad thoughts are right. They are true. I think of Marinette’s parents – the kind of parents I hated myself for wishing I had had in my real life – and think that they aren’t real and if they are, they deserve better than me.

I am swallowed up by these thoughts, and when the bell rings I robotically put my things in my bag, a new resolve forming.

The memory of the pain of the scabs that have formed on Marinette’s knees and elbow and palms from saving Master Fu is so distant that it doesn’t seem real. I forget about it completely, because all I can think of is that right here, right now, there is no proof that any of this is real.

I am dreaming, and there is only one way I know of to wake up.

If Tikki tries to catch my attention subtly from the bag, I don’t notice. I put one foot in front of the other with single-minded determination, plans being formed and discarded in my mind as I go. The last time I tried to kill myself, I had done it the cowards way, overdosing on prescription medicine and pain killers.

I thought of what it was like to be Ladybug and soar, unfettered and free, and all I could think was that this time I would do it right.

My feet took me to the bridge of their own volition. I didn’t have to think about it. I just walked there with zero coherent thought in my head past the all-consuming impulse to just do it.

“Marinette! Marinette!” Tikki cries in the distance as I abandon my bag by the railing of the bridge. I didn’t hear her over the sound of the cars speeding past or my blood rushing in my ears.

The sun is setting, I note distantly, feeling the warm light on my face and wondering if it were possible for me to go to heaven.

I lean against the railing, quivering at the thought. It will be so easy. All I have to do is jump and then I can be free. I’ll fly like Ladybug and then there will be blessed nothing, or I will be home again (to try again). I won’t have to live like this. For a split second, I even think that when I do it, I will remember my real name.

“Marinette!”

I keep my eyes fixed on the setting sun as I carefully sit myself on the bridge’s railing. All I have to do is swing my legs over – nice and easy, that’s it…

“Marinette!”

I want to be free. I just – I just want to be free.

Adrien Agreste would never know what it was that made him ask his bodyguard to pull over when he saw his classmate that never spoke leaning against the side of the bridge, her hair lit up in the light of the dying sun. He would never know what it was that prompted him to get out of the car, to see if she was alright.

All he would remember of that moment was watching her slip her legs over the railing and then-

“Marinette!”

His heart thundered against his chest as he broke into a run and tried to grab the girl with both arms in the instant she pitched forward. She almost slipped through his fingers – but he grabbed tight and managed to secure his grip on her arm.

“Marinette, you have to help me,” he cried out, struggling to pull her up. If only he were Chat Noir – then he would have the strength to pull her up but he couldn’t even transform.

Her bluebell eyes glanced up at him, abject fear evident in her features.

“Marinette, please,” he begged – honestly, he wasn’t even one hundred percent sure that was her name but that didn’t matter right now-

She stared at him, panic slowly dawning over her features as she took in (his green, green eyes) the situation, as she seemed to come aware of how painful dangling from one arm must be – because her other hand came up and clasped his forearm and then-

And then Adrien could have cried in relief because his bodyguard was there, pulling her up with him. She let go of him as soon as she was back over the railing, collapsing to the ground, her chest heaving as she burst into tears. He waved off his bodyguard’s concern – he wasn’t the one that needed it right now.

“Marinette,” he tried, and seeing her flinch cringed because that must have been the wrong name after all. “Are you okay?”

The words seemed hollow in the face of what had just occurred (honestly he didn’t even know what had just happened, or perhaps just couldn’t accept it), but they were all he had.

His hand comes down on my shoulder so gently I want to be sick.

My arm hurts. I’d forgotten that there was pain in this dream that – that it had to be real because my arm, Marinette’s arm, it hurts, it hurts so badly I’m afraid that I’ve dislocated it.

But this isn’t the time for that – this is the time for lying, for covering myself.

So I do, badly.

“I was trying to take a picture.” I say, as though I’d had my phone out and my intentions hadn’t been clear. “Thank you so much.”

The words are hollow. I wish he’d have just let me fall. I’m shocked there isn’t a crowd forming – all the cars are just going on their merry way, thankfully. Yes, I’m grateful for that at least. Guilt churns in my stomach but I push it back.

He can’t know. He doesn’t know.

He hands me my bag and I can’t stop the sobbing that starts bubbling up in my chest, nearly hysteric. Tikki. How could I do this to Tikki. How irresponsible of me – to have tried to leap off the bridge with the earrings on I was an idiot, how thoughtless and stupid-

“What’s your name?” Adrien asks kindly, and that just makes me sob harder because I don’t know, I still don’t know, I don’t have one.

“Mari-“ I try but I can’t get the whole word out. I just can’t. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey,” he says gently, trying to calm me down. It’s kind of him to try, but it’s not happening. I can’t stop crying.

Adrien’s bodyguard looks anxiously at his watch, clearing his throat to signal Adrien that they had taken long enough. Adrien is saying something to me but I can’t quite make it out – and then his eyes are wide and he is hauling me away from-

From a black butterfly flapping right in my direction.

Tikki what do I do? I ask, but of course there is no answer. I try to shove away the all-consuming guilt I was too familiar with and focus on positive things. I can’t be akumatized. I can’t. I’m – I’m Ladybug.

Adrien is telling me to fight it, his hand squeezing mine as he pulls me to his car. I nod dumbly, trying to think of happier things – but thinking of my real family, my real friends, threatens to push me over the edge of despair. So instead I think of being Ladybug, think of how imperative it is that I do not succumb because it’s too late to give Adrien my earrings and tell him to run-

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells me, green eyes wide and sincere. “Just do your best to fight it, we’ll do it together, alright?”

Together. For all that he is different, this is my Chat Noir. My only friend besides Tikki. He may not be in his true form, but-

I think of Marinette’s parents and how kind and loving they were, how concerned they must be. I think of what Chat would say if I am akumatized and Ladybug never shows.

And gently, oh so tentatively, I squeeze his hand back.

“Okay,” I say, and just this once, let myself believe in someone else.

The butterfly phases right through the car door Adrien has closed behind us, drifts slowly past him, and right as it reaches me, turns away and flies out the window.

The danger is past.

I laugh and then I can’t stop laughing, hardly able to breathe through desperate gasps for air. Adrien keeps holding my hand until I stop, squeezing it tightly as the hysteria passes.

“Thank you,” I blubber, and I mean it this time. Mean it with every ounce of my being. “Thank you so much.”

I don’t apologize because if I do I will spiral into guilt and shame again, but Adrien is a better person than me because he doesn’t expect me to, is content with the watery smile I manage in his direction.

“I’m Adrien,” he says, a gentle expression on his face. “We’re classmates, in case you didn’t know.”

I nod, shame-faced, because of course I knew – but then I had gone out of my way to avoid everyone at school so why would he think I knew who he was?

“I’ll take you home, just give directions and we’ll be there in no time,” he supplies cheerfully, and I nod in response because I don’t know what else to say.

I wonder what Hawkmoth is thinking – I am surely the first victim to turn away an akuma. The thought of myself being a victim is nauseating, but I fight it back.

I need to control myself, I don’t quite admonish myself, because my therapist had always said to be kind. But in this world I am Ladybug (I quiver at the thought of facing Tikki) and I have to be better than this. Who knew what Hawkmoth had gotten from me just from sensing the burst of guilt and shame that had called his akuma towards me.

More importantly – what had happened with the akuma? Had it gone back to him? Or was it a matter of time before it found someone else to make a victim of?

I don’t know it then, but Hawkmoth is intrigued by me and adds me to his list of people to keep an eye on. Adrien’s ‘friend’ from school. Ironically, if it wasn’t for this exact moment in time, we would never one day defeat him.

Adrien drops me off at the bakery and when I walk in with my tear-stained face, clutching my arm close, awkwardly, Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng rush to my side, pulling me into a crushing embrace as they ask me what happened, what’s wrong, as Marinette’s mother slips away briefly to flip the sign on the bakery to ‘Closed’ just in case as they walk me up the stairs.

Fresh sobs bubble up in my throat but these are tears of gratefulness as much as they are guilt because these people love their daughter and for now, at least, I am her, and –

And it was a wonder, really, to be treated like this, by parents that love you.

But they’re not my parents, I think sadly, so I pull away from them.

“I’m sorry,” I say, in control of myself now, and run.

I don’t have the energy to play the part of Marinette and I don’t have it in me to lie in the face of her parents’ honest concern. They could assume what they liked.

I don’t crumble again until I am safe in my room. Marinette’s room. I stay composed until the trap door is secured behind me and then I – I don’t lose it, don’t start bawling, don’t start up with any dramatics, I just…

I just sit there as tears well up in my eyes and spill over, drip drip drip onto my pants, onto my helpless hands, and just feel.

“Mari,” Tikki says gently, her little head resting against my elbow.

I flinch like a struck dog – but she has no lecture for me. Instead she smiles, and hers is a watery smile and I realize suddenly that – I scared her.

“Oh Tikki, I’m so sorry,” I babble, “I didn’t mean to. I would-“

I can’t lie and say I would never no matter how I wish I could reassure her. I don’t know what to say, except…

“He’s Chat, isn’t he?” I manage blankly though I know full well.

Tikki’s face flickers through a myriad of different emotions.

“It’s okay, Tikki,” I tell her tiredly. “I already knew. I just – I didn’t believe it, I guess.”

Being Ladybug is all I have in this life. Even still…

“If you tell me how to find Master Fu, I can take you back to him,” I tell her, the words wooden and empty. “I don’t deserve you. I… I was almost akumatized today. I’m not a good choice.”

I don’t hope that she’ll tell me that no, I don’t have to give her back, that I can stay as Ladybug, but she seems genuinely distressed at my words so I carefully scoot her onto my palm so that I can cradle her to my chest.

“It’s okay, Tikki,” I murmur gently. “I get it, I do. Just – can I take you back tomorrow? I can’t-“

I couldn’t face Marinette’s parents like this.

“You don’t have to give up your miraculous,” Tikki says quietly, so quietly that I don’t realize what she’s said until well after the words are hanging in the air with such heavy, imperative weight.

“What?”

Tikki’s zooms up towards my face so that we are looking at each other square in the eye.

“You were chosen, Mari,” she says, watching me carefully. “And you have been a great Ladybug so far. No one has been permanently hurt and today you resisted akumatization when you were at your lowest!”

I swallow hard, my eyes brimming with fresh tears.

“Tikki…”

She hugs me for all her little body is worth.

“You can’t help that you already knew Chat Noir’s true identity,” she tells me, voice ripe with understanding. “We’ll have to tell Master Fu eventually, but right now it’s more important that you keep doing your job. Hawkmoth is just getting started. We have to protect the people of Paris.”

I look at her sincere, shining eyes and decide that now is the time for the truth – the whole truth, with nothing left out.

“Tikki, I know who Hawkmoth is,” I tell her gravely. “I just don’t know how to go after him yet because… he’s Chat Noir’s father.”

A horrified gasp escapes her.

“I know,” I agree tiredly. “I just… Chat needs time. This is all so new – and I can’t do this without him. Plus Hawkmoth has additional advantages like a book detailing all the miraculous powers. He can’t read it because it’s written in code that only Master Fu can read, at least. He also has the peacock miraculous, though no one is using it yet because it’s broken.”

“Marinette?” Sabine Dupain-Cheng called from the trap door, prompting Tikki to hide no matter that she must have been bursting with questions. “Can I come up?”

“Yes,” I called out, internally panicking. “Come up.”

It wasn’t just Marinette’s mom, it was her dad too, looking unusually grave as he followed his wife up into the room.

“Marinette, sweetheart,” Sabine began gently, “we’d like to talk to you.”

I was ready to have an anxiety attack.

“Are you being bullied at school?” Tom blurted out, obviously unable to help himself. Sabine looked chagrined at his straightforward question but it must have been one she was planning on asking because her eyes lingered on me with burning intensity.

“I-“ I didn’t know what to say. I had never mattered enough at school to be bullied. Most of my issues stemmed from chemical imbalances and child abuse at home. Instead…

I swallowed.

“Mom,” I said, trying not to cringe. “Dad. I’m not being bullied. I’m just… struggling. I… I don’t know how to be happy anymore. I feel like there’s no point to anything, like I could just… close my eyes and go to sleep.”

Sabine looks horrified.

“I feel like I don’t belong anywhere I go. I feel so alone.” I hesitate because I don’t know what the state of the Dupain-Cheng family finances are, but if I’m going to make it in this world… “I would like to go to therapy, if that’s possible. Especially since…”

In for a penny, in for a pound, I think, clenching my trembling hands into fists.

“Today one of those butterflies that have been on the news came after me. A classmate talked me through it an the butterfly flew away, but… I don’t want to be like those poor people on tv. I’m having a hard time right now and… I need help.”

Sabine’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

“Oh Marinette, of course you can go to therapy,” she said, unable to disguise the burning curiosity in her tone. “We just want you to be well.”

My eyes water.

“I’ll make some calls for you today, okay sweetheart?” Tom asks, and I can’t help it – I fling myself at him, at Sabine, (at mom and dad).

My own parents had laughed in my face when I asked for therapy. Not long later, they were forcing me to attend. But I would never forget begging them for help and getting it flung back in my face because I wasn’t contributing to the household like to be worth that kind of expense.

Tom and Sabine take the day off of work to go through therapists on google with me, calling various offices to see who specializes in what, going over profiles (with Tom trying to make it like a game, trying to lighten the mood in the only way he knew how) until we find someone who I hope will fit. I make macarons with them; they are surprised when I tell them raspberry is my favorite.

Marinette never had a favorite, I supposed. Or she did, it was something different, and they just didn’t mention it.

By the time I get back upstairs I am drained and exhausted, but hopeful.

I tell Tikki all about the steps we (it was strange to be a part of a we again) were going to take to shoring up my mental health and she pointedly doesn’t mention all the information I dumped on her earlier.

“I’ll get better,” I tell her – and I believe myself. Marinette Dupain-Cheng may have inherited my insecurities and depression, but she has a healthy brain unaffected by mood disorders. I may not even need medication to get back on my feet in this world – and I’ll do my best to take advantage of that. “I’ll be worthy of being Ladybug. You’ll see.”

I drifted off to sleep in my clothes under Tikki’s gentle, watchful eye…

“Oh, Mari,” Tikki says, mindful that the sleeping girl didn’t flinch or cringe at the nickname she had inadvertently given Adrien. “You already are.”

I wake up the next morning feeling a little lighter than I had the day before, despite the runaway akuma being a very real threat to Paris’ tentative peace. There will be an akumatization today, I’m sure of it, but I trust, I know, that Chat Noir and I will handle it.

So I get ready feeling hopeful, greet my mom and dad as sweetly as possible given my enduring discomfort around them, despite all their help, and head off to school.

I get the shock of my life when, instead of Sabrina in the seat next to mine, it’s…

“Good morning, Mari!” Adrien greets me, smiling wide.

What?

Chapter Text

Adrien becomes my friend through sheer force of will.

Wherever I go, he is there. He sits next to me in class, he partners up with me for all assignments, he even convinces me to watch his fencing practices so that we can go home together in his car. He shuts Chloe down at the first sign of meanness with a firm hand I didn’t think he had – that he hadn’t had in the show – and smiles at me so bright it’s blinding.

It’s not romantic, his interest in me or mine in him, it’s just… sincere. I worry that he feels some sense of responsibility towards me from that fateful day, but he never, ever treats me like I’m a risk to myself, and I find myself wanting rather desperately to be his friend.

And that’s what we are. Neither of us will say the word aloud because it seems silly and inconsequential, somehow, but we are friends and all that entails.

I start watching videos of fencing from the Olympics so that I can learn more about this sport he seems to love.

He asks me questions about Marinette’s sketchbook – I can’t answer those, but I show him my own drawings, professional looking drawings made in a cheap composition book by someone who had studied costuming at a university level in a past life.

I bring croissants to school, fresh from my father’s bakery, to share during lunch.

He starts to teach me Chinese.

We spend all this time together, and it never once occurs to me that his father has surely taken notice by now, is surely watching me throughout the course of our acquaintanceship.

I don’t even think about Hawkmoth knowing that I am friends with his son, because I am something approaching happy.

It’s a tremulous feeling, this casual closeness. It’s only been a few days, but we feel like old friends.

“Hey, Mari!” He greets me every morning-

“Hi, Adrien,” I say shyly back.

The akuma that almost got me is silent for several days. I wonder if Hawkmoth has recalled it, even, if that was even possible.

And then I wake up one day and I can’t remember how old I am – and I forget all about akumas and the plot because this is another vital, vital piece of my existence and it’s been lost to me forever and I can’t-

I skip school that day with my parent’s approval and cry my eyes out.

I don’t feel like I did that day, full of guilt and shame, but I have to make a concentrated effort not to fall into real, abiding despair. I remember – was it college? Or high school…? It all blends together, one birthday bleeds into the next in a smear of memories.

I was older than Marinette, I knew that much, but by how many years? Was I a grown adult? Just leaving my teens? I couldn’t place it.

(But my knowledge of the show was still crystal clear).

Tom calls my therapist and asks if I can have an appointment that day during school hours. The receptionist agrees to squeeze me in and my parents agree that today is not a good day for Sabine (never me, I was out because I was unfit), to babysit Manon, the daughter of her family friend that I’d found annoying when watching the show.

(Just the thought of remembering something stupid like that, like a bratty child from a tv show, when I couldn’t remember my own age was nauseating.)

I go to therapy and though I can’t talk about the real issue, I find myself making progress. I talk about school, about Adrien. I tell my therapist that I had been having suicidal thoughts, but that those weren’t a current risk.

I don’t tell her how recent these thoughts were, and though I can tell she has her suspicions, she lets it slide as we are still so early in our sessions that she doesn’t want to push me when I seem relatively stable.

The session goes well, at any rate, and I go home with my dad chattering happily about the positive progress I feel I’ve made.

I get a text from Adrien sometime after the session inviting me to meet him at the park and keep him company while he does a photoshoot. I hesitate over my phone, wondering if it’s really alright. My parents haven’t met Adrien but they were curious, too curious, and I just knew they would misunderstand and see our blossoming relationship as something other than the simple, sincere friendship that it was.

“Why don’t you ask your parents, Mari?” Tikki suggests innocently, as I sit on my bed and stress over it like the worrywart I am. “The worst they can do is say no.”

I bite my lip as I think – an unladylike habit I was often scolded for in my old life. The truth is, Marinette’s parents have been nothing but kind and reasonable. They let me skip school today because I woke up crying, which was more kindness than I’d ever thought myself worthy of, and I didn’t want to push my luck by asking to do something trivial like go see a friend and-

Oh. I see. I’m afraid that by asking to do something that will make me happy, I will invalidate my own suffering. A carryover from my old parents. You can’t be that sick if you’re well enough to watch television all day. You can’t be struggling if you have time to goof off with friends.

Tom and Sabine are good people and kind beyond understanding. They’ve given me no reason to think they will react this way, but old habits die hard.

“Ok,” I agree quietly, steeling myself for – I don’t know what.

I am anxious while I ask, stuttering even though that’s a habit I thought I’d long been corrected of, but Sabine smiles at me gently and tells me that that sounds like a wonderful idea, adding that she knows I’ll keep up with my schoolwork even if I take some time to relax with friends.

I can’t help it – I’m so chock full of appreciation for this kind woman that I throw my arms around her in a hug of sheer gratitude.

Her hands are gentle as they settle on my back, but her return embrace is fierce and full of love.

It’s hard to face her after that, so I take off for the park as quickly as possible, and when I get there I am both horrified and relieved.

The merry-go-round is frozen over completely and the photoshoot is in shambles as one of the more memorable akumatized villains of the week sets about trashing everything with her weather manipulation powers.

That’s right – Stormy Weather has made landfall and I can’t find a place to transform.

I see Stormy Weather heading right towards the park gate – right towards me – and panic.

She spots me.

“Hey Ice Queen!” Chat yells, not perched on the fence like he was in the show, but very obviously trying to distract her from me.

She glances up just in time to dodge his baton.

“My name,” she begins, brow furrowing into a sharp v of anger, “is NOT Ice Queen – it’s Stormy Weather!”

I take the chance to run, looking around the deserted park for any kind of cover.

There! Didn’t Adrien transform by those boxes? They would have to be enough. At any rate, Stormy Weather was engaged with Chat now so Hawkmoth wouldn’t see me.

“Tikki, spots on!” I whisper as I duck behind the boxes and let the transformation wash over me-

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own temperature?” Chat asks, and she snaps, blasting him back with a gust of frigid air.

I don’t hesitate, I throw my yo-yo and chase after him.

Think, think, think. What did Marinette do in the show? The akuma was in her umbrella, and I knew she could blast us back with gusts of air and… wasn’t lightning one of her powers too? But she had to call a storm in for that, so maybe while she was holding her umbrella up…

I know he’ll be fine but as he hurtles towards the ground my heart jumps to my throat so I leap down and catch him.

He’s heavier than I thought, but transformed like this with strength coursing through me, he’s not so heavy as to stop me from coming to his rescue.

“I know cats always land on their feet,” I tell him lightly, laughter bubbling up behind the words at his bemused expression, “but the way I see it, you’ve only got nine lives to lose. Why risk it?”

A trace of pink appeared from beneath his mask – just good-natured embarrassment, I’m sure. He hadn’t given me any reason to think he had feelings for me thus far and I wasn’t going to do him the disservice of assuming he did when I was nothing like Ladybug in the first place.

“Did something happen today, Milady?” He asked with something approaching wonder in his voice. “Because you seem to be in fine form and feline great!”

I don’t have a chance to laugh his words off – or puzzle over them – because Stormy Weather catches up to us then.

(Later, though, later I will wonder what he really knew about me, because there was something in his words that made me anxious. Until then, though, I really did feel good. My therapist told me I was making good progress and while I’d suffered a shock that morning, my parents and Tikki’s support had me feeling more confident and, well, sure.)

“You!” Stormy Weather shouts, looking furiously at Chat. He must have pissed her off more than I’d realized because she totally ignores me in favor of immediately blasting him back with more air.

The beginnings of a plan start to form in my head, but how to get Chat in on the action when he’s being blasted around like that?

“Hey!” I shout, not really thinking it through. “Ladybug stands against animal cruelty!”

I almost get her umbrella, ironically enough. She yanks it out of the way of my yo-yo at the cost of her arm; she quickly recovers and tries to blast me back with a gust of air but my yo-yo is wrapped around her arm so I flail about harmlessly in the breeze, keeping a vice grip on my weapon and then-

This is it.

“The forecast for today has changed,” she announces maliciously.

“Chat! Umbrella!” I shout, wondering if he even heard me-

“Paris will soon be hit by a freak lightning storm!” She crows, raising the umbrella high. Storm clouds gather at an alarming pace as I struggle to pull back my yo-yo, abandoning my grip on her in favor of freeing myself up to dodge.

“Cataclysm!” Chat shouts-

Lightning comes blasting down from the sky blasting me backwards. My arms are crossed in front of me as meager protection from debris-

“The akuma, milady!”

I glance up and sure enough a black butterfly is flapping away from Chat and the broken umbrella. I hesitate-

“Lucky Charm!” I shout, keeping an eye on the escaping butterfly.

I worry for a brief moment that it won’t work, but it does and I am left holding a book.

My worry doubles as I wonder what it could be for – but I don’t miss the chance to capture and purify the akuma.

“Bye-bye little butterfly,” I murmur as it flies away. Then, anxiously, I throw the red spotted book in the air and cry out, “Miraculous Ladybug!”

My prayers are answered – it seemed that using my power before purifying the akuma still counted as far as the ability to restore everything to how it was before the akuma attack.

“You were on fire today, Lady!” Chat exclaims exuberantly. “Have we ever taken down a villain so fast? You spotted the akuma so fast and then I was like bam, Cataclysm, and we didn’t even need your Lucky Charm, well we did at the end to fix things, but wow!”

I feel great. Just, really great.

“You were so on the ball, Kitty-Cat!” I return, pride blossoming in my chest. “I didn’t think you’d even heard me, but you were right on it as she summoned the storm!”

We grin at each other like children and say it together, in perfect harmony:

“Pound it!”

“Ladybug!” someone shouts; oh shit, the news is here. “Is it true what you said about animal cruelty?”

I blink.

“Yes,” I say, almost inaudibly, and then clear my throat. “Yes. As protector of the Paris, I stand for all of its citizens, great and small. Animal cruelty is shameful!”

I hear Chat’s ring beep and know that my earrings aren’t far off. I think about Alya on the first day of class, the words she would have said to me if I’d spoken to her about evil people and doing nothing. And I think that…

“The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke said that. The measure of a person is in how they treat those beneath them. Ladybug will always stand for those who cannot help themselves.” I say firmly despite the waves of anxiety threatening to engulf me completely. “You don’t have to be a superhero to make a difference. In my daily life I too donate even just a few euros to the SPA when I can.”

My earrings beeped.

“Chat Noir is with you a hundred percent, milady,” Chat announces to the press, smiling wide. “Saving Paris isn’t something you need a superhero mask for – anyone can make a difference by donating to or volunteering with many of the excellent local charities benefitting animals, children, and the elderly.”

His support means everything to me.

“That’s right!” I exclaim, smiling wide. “Every Parisian is capable of making a difference!”

“That said, we need to go,” Chat says with a casual salute.

My cheeks pink. I hadn’t forgotten, but…

“You’re right!” I say to him, seeing off the reporters with a friendly wave. “Bug out!”

I try not to go too far because I will need to walk back to the park to meet up with Adrien and eventually find a quiet place to transform back behind a dumpster in an alley. My phone was blown up with messages from my parents so I called them.

“Marinette? Sweetheart are you alright?” Sabine asks worriedly as soon as she picks up. I could hear Tom drop something in the background and presumably rush over to her side to hear the phone better.

“I’m fine, mom,” I return, and it doesn’t hurt quite so much this time. “I ran away before Ladybug came. I’m going back to the park now to check on my friend, I didn’t see him when I left.”

“Alright,” she says, perhaps a little reluctantly, and then laughs. “You know, I saw Ladybug on the television just now. Would you imagine she shares your love for the SPA?”

My cheeks are burning, I’m sure of it. Sabine is referring to my purchase of several cupcakes that had been ordered at our bakery for a fundraiser for a local Parisian chapter of the SPA.

“Imagine that,” I repeat weakly because I honestly don’t know what else to say.

I don’t know it then, but Ladybug mentioning donating to the SPA on the news will lead to a massive influx of donations of money and items not only to La Société Protectrice des Animaux but to several other charities because people were actually inspired by what I had to say and really wanted to make a difference.

I say goodbye to Sabine feeling sick and like I’ve severely overstepped – no one asked me to talk about charities and good people, but I try to focus on what we talked about in therapy and breaking negative thought chains and I try to straighten myself up to meet Adrien.

“Everything good?” Tikki asks tiredly, prompting me to apologize and dig free the box of macarons from my purse to feed her one.

“Yeah,” I respond, having a little trouble focusing. “Sabine is really nice.”

Tikki doesn’t mind if I call Sabine by her name or Tom by his, which is a relief because I obviously can’t call them that to their faces. Tikki’s lack of judgement is a blessing I vow I will never take for granted.

“You should check in with Adrien,” Tikki reminds me nicely. “He looked very worried about you.”

“Oh no, Tikki, you’re right!” I exclaim – because Adrien had already been Chat when I came upon the park, and he’d forced Stormy Weather’s attention to him to give me the chance to run.

I pick up the pace and grab my phone from my pocket, intent on calling him-

“Mari! You’re okay!”

I glance up and Adrien is jogging towards me, face full of relief.

“Chat Noir saved my life,” I tell him, not feigning the admiration in my tone. Adrien had gone out of his way to protect me and I appreciated it. “I think I’m in love.”

I was feeling so good today that I couldn’t help but tease him a little – and I got precisely the reaction that I wanted as he sputtered, looking awkward as hell.

“I’m kidding,” I tell him (before he has an aneurysm). “But I’m pretty sure I’m his number one fan now. Just saying.”

He laughs finally.

“There must be something in the air today,” he muses, falling into step beside me as we head into the park side by side. “You seem happy.”

I almost stop walking and just stare at him for that observation but instead I just don’t look at him, feeling almost shaken by how those words struck me. He’d said something similar to Ladybug – I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions about what he may or may not know, but it was enough to spook me that Chat and Adrien had observed the same thing about Ladybug and Marinette.

“My parents are very kind and understanding,” I tell him slowly, mind whirring with these thoughts. “They let me take a day off for my mental health and, um, it helped a lot.”

His smile is as bright and brilliant as the sun, without any self-focused anguish about how utterly unsupportive his father is. He’s just happy. For me. It’s humbling.

“Perfect!” The photographer exclaims as we draw near, causing me to blink and stop where I am, wondering what he could possibly be talking about.

“This is your friend, yes?” He asks, eyeing me up and down with concentration. “She will do!”

Adrien looks at me sheepishly and before I know it I am dragged into the photoshoot with him.

“Your braid, bring it forward over your shoulder!”

I comply feeling a little overwhelmed.

Adrien adjusts it for me, his smile apologetic.

“Perfecto! Now-“

Adrien makes it fun. Or he tries to, as much as possible. My smile is forced at first, my posing stiff and reeking of anxiety, but I am with Adrien, my friend, and it becomes easier, more natural.

To be honest, I don’t even know what the photoshoot is for, and it’s that thought that helps. I’m not thinking of magazines or editorials, it’s just me and Adrien and the photographer asking for silly things like ‘you are sharing the spaghetti, lean in closer, get lost in each other’s eyes and take a big bite!’ It would be hard not to have fun as my stiff posture melts into more natural, more fluid movements and the smiles on our faces are real, born of genuine laughter.

“Last one! The young lady will lean in like so,” the photographer says, positioning me with eager (respectful, thank God) hands. “The young man will put an arm around her…”

He steps back towards the camera.

“He will look down with longing, yes with longing, and then-“

I feel awkward standing there with Adrien’s arm gently, almost protectively draped over my shoulders so I shyly glance up at him to get a read on what he’s thinking, fully expecting to have a laugh at his ‘longing’ expression.

Instead our eyes meet and I’m caught there for a moment-

(Adrien’s cheeks are pink.)

“Yes! Yes!”

And then we were blinded by the flash of the camera going off twenty times in rapid succession. Blinded by the camera flash in broad daylight. Who would have thought?

“Sorry you got dragged into all this,” he apologizes, and then the world is back to normal because he’s casual, just himself, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head.

“It’s okay,” I say, far more comfortable now than I had been a second ago. “I didn’t realize modelling was such hard work!”

He gives me a loaded look and then we both dissolve into a laughter.

“Hey, Mari?” He says after a minute or two, sounding a little more sober than the situation called for.

“Hmm?” I’m not sure what he wants to say and am gripped with sudden anxiety-

“Thanks for coming,” he says, and I feel the tension in me drop like a stone and dissolve into nothing at the sight of his brilliant smile. “I was worried when you didn’t come to school today.”

For a moment, I am speechless. Just speechless.

“Oh, yeah,” he continues, like I’m not standing there ready to blubber my thanks for his consideration because we’d only been friends for a few days but he already cared so much- “I brought you notes from class today. If you want.”

He fumbles through his bag and for a moment I think I see a little black thing there – and then he is giving me a modest number of pages, all hand-written. I’m touched that he’d obviously copied his notes for me.

“Hey, Adrien,” I begin, wishing I were better with words so that I could express exactly what his thoughtfulness means to me. “Thank you.”

Sometimes keeping it simple is best.

“No problem!” He answers, smiling brightly. The boy is like the sun. I feel warm as I return his smile with my own. “Anyway, let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”

When I wave goodbye to him and head home, I see Tom and Sabine watching his car pull away with unabashed curiosity in their eyes.

“Hi mom, hi dad,” I greet them tentatively as I walk in.

“Did you have fun, sweetheart?” Sabine asks casually, too casually.

I have to fight the urge to laugh.

“Yes, mom. I got to be in a photoshoot, it was pretty fun. And Adrien gave me notes on what I missed in class today.”

‘Adrien?’ Tom mouths at Sabine as though I can’t see, making her elbow him.

“We’re glad, sweetheart,” Sabine says, and out of impulse I wrap my arms around her, following up with a hug for Tom, too.

“Thank you,” I say, and though I can’t articulate what for, they seem to understand at least the surface of what I am grateful for. “I feel much better today, and ready to take on school tomorrow.”

When I finally get up to my room, Tikki zooms out of my purse, beaming at me.

“You did wonderfully today, Mari,” she says, nuzzling my cheek.

“Thanks, Tikki,” I return – and I mean it. Tikki was my first support in this world, and even now she’s still the most important. “You’re my best friend, you know that? Followed by Chat and Adrien, of course.”

She laughs. It’s a sweet sound. It’s to the soothing sound of Tikki’s voice that I later fall asleep.

The photoshoot is posted publicly to Adrien’s modelling blog the next day. Honestly, I’m impressed because the photographer must have stayed up all night editing them. There were quite a few, mostly of Adrien himself, but I was gratified to see that, despite obviously not being a model, I didn’t look terrible standing beside him.

There was a big buzz about it at school, and to be one hundred percent honest, I was shocked that Chloe didn’t get akumatized because of it.

“You think you’re so special, Dupain-Cheng,” she sneered at me, waving her phone around in my face, “but you’re not. Adrien was my friend first-“

“I’m not trying to steal your friend, Chloe,” I tell her tiredly. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with her today. “The photographer just wanted an extra and I happened to be there for moral support. He’s still your friend. He can be friends with more than just you. Adrien is a great person, he won’t just forget about you, you know.”

I wish I could make friends with Chloe. I know she has a lot of potential, but I don’t think I’m capable of coaxing it out of her. Not like this.

“Is everything alright?” Adrien asks, brow furrowed as he takes in Chloe’s stance in front of my desk where I am seated, my expression blank.

“Everything’s fine, Adrien,” I respond, unable to meet his eye.

Was I just fighting over him? Did that count as fighting over him? I don’t want to be the kind of person that fights over a boy, even if it’s just for friendship reasons.

He takes his seat looking between us a little unsurely and then Chloe scoffs and heads back to her seat with Sabrina in tow. It’s no wonder, I think perhaps a little spitefully, that so many people end up akumatized because of Chloe’s spiteful behavior. Since I became Ladybug, I’ve had to fight four akumatized people that I didn’t recognize from the show and two of them were directly caused by her.

Actually, on that note, I’d come to realize that my memories of the show probably only accounted for the more interesting akumatizations as far as plot and character development went. Life for me was very monster of the week except it could happen twice in one week, depending on the collective mental health of the city of Paris. I’d been worried that perhaps my presence was making waves in the form of new, different akumatizations, but Stormy Weather had given me a new outlook.

From what I could understand, based on the show’s choppy timeline, the akumatizations that made it to the television series were key points in this world’s timeline – meaning that less important akuma (ones that were defeated easily, for example) didn’t get screen time.

Thus far, the akumas we had fought had required my lucky charm but had been pretty straightforward to defeat. Stormy Weather, despite being more powerful than the usual akumas, was taken out quite handily by Chat due to the advantage of my knowledge…

“Hey, you’re Mari, right?” someone asked, bringing me back to planet earth from how far into space I’d been, lost in thought.

I blinked.

“Ah – yes,” I stuttered elegantly.

It was Alya, I thought, a little shocked.

She grinned.

“I saw you talking to Chloe earlier, girl,” she said, leaning forward like she was imparting some great secret to me. “You really stood your ground!”

I flushed.

“Oh. Thank you?” I ventured shyly, wondering where Adrien had gone because – because I trusted him to be my parameters in social situations.

“You know, Ladybug – who has to be a Majestia fan, omg – said that ‘all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing,’” she says, making air quotes. “And that girl? She is evil.”

I laugh. And I think that maybe – just maybe – this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

Chapter Text

Alya and I became quite friendly after that. We were nowhere near as close as Marinette and Alya were, but we were casual friends, close enough that I began to get a feel for her beyond what was depicted on the show. She had a lot of potential, and I respected her greatly, even if I disapproved of her nosiness when it came to Ladybug, but I digress. We got along quite well, our only real point of contention being…

“Guess who’s birthday is coming up?” She sings as she walks in to class, leaning against my desk. Adrien isn’t here yet, not unexpected. He usually arrives three minutes before the bell exactly.

“Yours?” I try, because I don’t want to miss it when it does and I’d rather she tell me straight up when it is so that I can organize some small present for her, to celebrate our budding friendship.

She smirks.

“Nope! It’s your boyfriend’s,” she teases, the corner of her mouth pulling up in a grin. “What are you going to do to celebrate Adrien’s big day?”

Not this again, I think, and my lack of enthusiasm must show on my face because she has the gall to actually snicker at me.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I tell her bluntly, because honestly just the thought makes me uncomfortable. Adrien is my friend. Talking about him like he’s something he’s not makes my stomach churn with discomfort.

In truth I’d thought a lot about his birthday though. We’d only been friends for, well, less than two weeks, but to be honest I really cherished his friendship. Marinette had knit him a silky scarf in a pale blue color that he’d thought was from his dad, but I didn’t have that kind of time or focus.

I did, however, know how to knit and I figured that, while I wasn’t willing to spend the insane amount of time Marinette must have on a silky knit scarf, I did find some super soft bulky yarn that came in an array of colors so I worked up a quick knit chunky scarf in a long striped pattern that would match his signature t-shirt.

If I knitted myself a matching chunky scarf in all black with a great big green paw print on it to cement my position as Chat’s number one fan, well, they were friendship scarves, okay? It’s fine.

“Morning Mari,” Adrien greets as he walks up, causing Alya to smirk at me as though him greeting me first means something. “Hey, Alya. How are you?”

She responds casually before running off to her seat to watch.

Adrien and I don’t have much time to say much of anything to each other before class starts, but we exchange casual pleasantries – it’s comforting to have someone to do that with – and then settle in for another mind-numbing day of schoolwork.

The day passes by quickly, without any trouble of the kind Ladybug and Chat Noir are responsible for. It’s just me and Adrien and a soul-destroying amount of math homework. No big deal.

Adrien doesn’t mention his birthday to me, which isn’t surprising, because the boy is modest and almost shy about himself. What is surprising is the way Nino hangs around our desk at the end of the day, asking if Adrien’s dad is letting him have a party or not.

Nino warmed up to Adrien after he stood up for me to Chloe, but to be honest up until this point I hadn’t thought they’d gotten very close simply because Adrien spent the majority of his free time at school with me. To hear Nino talking to him was… a bit of a shock, to be honest.

“Hey, Adrien,” I start, trying to look happy and casual and whatnot to cover up the appalling emotions running through my head. “I’m heading home early today, but I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

His green eyes meet mine, a little confusion visible in them as he glances from me to Nino, who quite frankly sounds surprised that I’ve spoken at all, and-

I pretend my phone buzzes, fake surprise, and then make my escape with a quick, “gotta go!”

I have nothing against Nino. I’m a little bit overwhelmed by his presence, not because he’s a bad guy or because I dislike him, because I don’t, but he’s a lot and I realize with a start that a part of me is jealous and insecure and I rely on Adrien so much (both as himself and as Chat Noir) that I’m anxious that – that he’ll forget about me.

It’s a silly thought, but it’s one that I can’t shake.

I spend the rest of the day fretting over the scarf I have knitted him, checking it over to make sure I wove the ends in neatly when I changed colors, and wishing that I were a better, a normal person. It’s not right, feeling… jealous. And it stings to put a name to that foreign emotion that makes my stomach churn with anxiety.

“Is everything alright, Mari?” Tikki asks, her expression full of patient acceptance.

I startle as if caught, folding up Adrien’s scarf and shoving it in the gift bag I bought, fixing my eyes on the hasty scrawl of my name written on the tag. (I’m not making Marinette’s mistake, not when I know that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth and having seen how he is willing to treat his son by time this timeline reaches Chat Blanc, however that will go down).

“Do you think Adrien will forget about me?” I ask before I can berate myself into burying the question deep down because this is Tikki and I can talk to Tikki. “As he makes new friends, I mean?”

Tikki’s face contorts into a little expression of anguish.

“Oh, Mari,” she hums, looking at me worriedly. “Oh, Mari, you know he would never. Adrien is a good boy. He’s your friend, both as himself and as Chat Noir. Why do you think he would forget about you?”

Relief bubbles up in my stomach – silly, I know.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling lost. “I just worry that he’ll wake up one morning and think that I’m – that I’m dragging him down, that I’m not fun, or that I’m depressing or, or something.”

As the days go by, I lose more and more of the memories of who I was before. First my name, then my age, and now… now the memories of my friends are indistinct. Blurry. Disconnected.

I try to picture their faces in my mind and instead I see Tikki, see Adrien, even see Alya.

“He likes you, Mari,” Tikki says quietly, earnestly. “He is your friend because he likes you. You both get along great both as Adrien and Mari and as Chat Noir and Ladybug. Just because you know the truth and he doesn’t does not make your friendship any less real.”

I bite my lip as I look at her and pull her in for a hug. I would be lost without Tikki.

“Thanks,” I murmur, holding her close as she nuzzles my collarbone happily.

“Anytime, Mari,” she responds, and then it’s time for bed. “He’s going to love the scarf, so don’t you worry about a thing.”

It’s her sweet voice that lulls me to sleep.

The next morning, I wake up refreshed, with a gentle nudge of anxiety in my stomach simply fluttering at the thought of giving Adrien his present. What if he misunderstands? What if he just doesn’t like it? I have a lot of questions and insecurities but I try to focus on Tikki’s words from the night before.

Adrien is my friend. He knows me as well as anyone could considering my circumstances, and I trust him to understand what my gift is trying to convey – my appreciation for his friendship and his time and person. I like Adrien. He’s a great person and he means a lot to me.

Everything is fine. Everything will be fine. Even if he doesn’t like the scarf – it’s the thought that counts, right?

“Breathe, Mari,” Tikki reminds me sweetly, and I do.

Everything is fine.

I wear my new scarf to school because I think it will help Adrien understand that – that we’re like the musketeers, two peas in a pod even if most of what we have in common is that video game Marinette’s dad taught me to play and new things we find together.

I’m actually a few minutes late because this morning, because as I grab the camembert from the fridge that I had gotten Adrien along with his scarf as a joke, I am feeling brave and extra appreciative of all that Adrien does for me, and so show off the knowledge he’d given me by saying good morning to Sabine in Chinese.

“Good morning, mother,” I greet nonchalantly, my heart pounding in my chest as I await her reaction.

Sabine’s eyes widen and she turns to me and replies in kind, happily. I recognize ‘good morning’ but assume she replaced the standard word for daughter with an endearment or something. I resolve to ask Adrien later…

“Where did that come from?” She asks, laughing at my perplexed face.

“My friend is teaching me,” I admit shyly. “I’d love to practice with you. If that’s okay, that is.”

Sabine is delighted and calls Tom in to hear my determinately practiced ‘good morning,’ her eyes crinkled with happiness. Tom, I note, looks proud. Though I haven’t learned any Italian from anyone, I muster up a mangled ‘Buongiorno,’ for him, causing him to burst into laughter.

“Adrien’s only teaching me Chinese,” I admit after a moment of giggling at my father’s – Marinette’s father’s – face. “But I’m open to learning if you want to improve this terrible accent.”

Tom mentions something about learning from his mother and Sabine quickly takes over saying that I can learn Italian once I’m fluent in Chinese after all my friend is being kind enough to tutor me and she is delighted to help me practice…

And so I run into class a few minutes late and don’t get to immediately give Adrien the very obvious gift bag I am carrying because Ms. Bustier starts class almost right away.

We sit in the front row, so I am surprised when Adrien, under the guise of taking notes, writes Nice scarf on the margin of his notebook and angles it so that I can read it, his elbow subtly brushing mine to catch my attention.

For a moment, I stupidly think he means his gift, the scarf wrapped up in the gift bag I have tucked under the desk, but I quickly realize the subtle, uncharacteristic smirk on his face is directed at the bright green pawprint on the soft black scarf around my neck.

I write I told you, I’m his biggest fan on the corner of my own notes, and angle it so that he can see, my eyes trained on Ms. Bustier as though that will cover up the pink blossoming on my cheeks.

The look on his face is so utterly Chat Noir that I am almost taken aback – he looks like the cat that got the cream, supremely flattered and pleased with himself. He’s so obvious about it, I can’t help but smile. He’s happy, and that makes me happy.

We make it to lunch exchanging covert notes without getting caught.

“It suits you,” is the first thing he says when we’re dismissed, and we’ve been talking about other things – I said good morning to my mom in Chinese today – With her help you’ll be better than me before you know it – so it takes me a minute to realize he means my scarf.

“Oh,” I say, my cheeks pinking. Marinette’s face flushes too easily, I think. I don’t remember if my face was the same or not. “Oh! This is for you.”

I grab the gift bag from under the desk and pray that the camembert has survived the day so far. I suppose Plagg would have had to wait until lunch for it, anyway…

Adrien’s eyes widen as he takes in the bag, and for a moment I am sure that his heart skipped a beat in surprise.

“For me?” He repeats, so taken aback that for a moment I’m worried I’ve done something wrong.

“For your birthday,” I add after a moment, anxiety bubbling in my stomach. Why isn’t he opening it? “Happy birthday, Adrien!”

He opens it and – oh, for a minute I’m mortified because the cheese I’d gotten him as a gag gift is what’s sitting on top, wrapped with a bow.

“Is this camembert?” He asks, his voice rising in pitch.

“Yeah,” I return, and for a second I feel like I’m having one of Marinette’s crazy moments. “Don’t you like camembert? You smell like it so I thought-“

Both of us are mortified.

“Oh my god,” he says, and, catching sight of my face immediately backtracks. “I mean, yeah, I… love camembert. It’s great.”

I can vaguely see Nino watching us but don’t register the amusement on his face.

“There’s something else,” I say, and regret ever thinking of giving him the cheese because I hadn’t thought through how funny it would be if his fear of smelling like it was proven true and how that might, just maybe, make me look like a friend-sniffing lunatic.

He reaches into the bag and his expression changes from one of muted horror to one of surprise and then appreciation as his slender fingers reach the soft, soft wool of the scarf.

“To match your shirt,” I murmur as he pulls out the scarf, his expression a silly look of wonder as he takes in the long stripes of color. “It matches mine, too. You know, like a friendship scarf. ”

Friendship scarves are totally a thing, right? Of course they are. Surely.

The soft wool of the scarf is two feet away from my face one second and then it is tickling my nose and it’s only then that I realize that – oh, Adrien is hugging me.

“Thank you, Mari,” he says, the words thick with some unknowable emotion. “I love it.”

My face is beat red as I gently pat his back, once, twice, and then we are both awkwardly separating, looking anywhere but at each other and then-

“I’ll see you after lunch!” I blurt, and like the coward I am, I run.

I brush past Nino on my way out and don’t dare look back.

I am at home when the latest akumatized villain strikes. I remember Nino being akumatized on Adrien’s birthday but I thought it happened after school not during our lunch break. But it does, and I’m at home eating lunch with Sabine when bubbles arrive and kidnap Marinette’s parents.

“Mom!” I cry, putting on a show of trying to get to Tom and Sabine as they float out the door of the bakery. “Dad!”

I chase them down the street a little as Tom shouts for me to get back inside and wait for Ladybug, so I run back home as though I am desperate to get the news and instead run up to my room and say those magic words that make me feel alive-

“Tikki, spots on!”

The transformation courses through me, making my veins sing and come alight as I feel lighter, stronger, powerful. I am Ladybug, and as Ladybug, I am whole.

I fly over the rooftops on my way to Adrien’s house, where I know the world’s shittiest birthday party must already be underway. Honestly, the Bubbler isn’t exactly subtle. The fireworks going off over the Agreste mansion would be a dead giveaway even if I didn’t already know where I’m going.

I don’t announce my arrival because I feel bad for Adrien – even I had birthday parties growing up, though I shared them with my brother and the guests consisted entirely of my mom’s friends. I remember vaguely that Plagg advises him to enjoy the party before transforming; I won’t be the one to spoil it for him.

So I watch the Bubbler play DJ for a bunch of miserable kids and wait for Adrien to realize that this isn’t what he wants – and am instead surprised.

“Has anyone seen Mari?” I hear from the courtyard – Adrien looks miserable alright, but not because of the party itself.

He’s wearing the scarf I gave him and he’s looking for me, I think slowly, stupidly, because, well, of course. We’re friends. Why wouldn’t the look for his friend at his birthday party – the friend whose gift he was wearing despite the sunshine and moderate temperature.

I duck behind the wall of the manor-

“Tikki, spots off.”

I can’t disappoint him. I can’t.

“Mari, the Bubbler,” Tikki points out quite reasonably.

“Just until he’s ready,” I reply, squaring my shoulders as I prepare to walk into the manor courtyard. This is fine. I’m just going in incognito until Chat arrives, that’s all.

The idea of being irresponsible and misusing my powers makes me want to vomit but it obviously means something to Adrien that I am there, so I will show up and then sneak inside the house to transform when he realizes everyone’s miserable.

“If you’re sure,” Tikki says slowly, peering up at me with eyes shining with empathy. “I trust you, Mari.”

I swallow.

“I want to be someone you can trust and rely on,” I tell her directly, because it’s true, it’s true, I need Tikki like I need my own right hand. “But I want to be that for him too, Tikki. I can’t bear the thought of disappointing him, in any form.”

Tikki smiles at me and it’s clear from the gesture that she understands, which is what I need more than anything, so with her gentle support, I walk through the open gates with my head held high and… and am immediately spotted by Adrien.

“Mari!” He exclaims, his face brightening like the sun. “You made it!”

“Hey Adrien,” I say, trying to find some middle ground between being happy for him and acting upset about Tom and Sabine. “Happy birthday!”

He immediately starts up about this being his first birthday party, how Nino organized it for him, how he’d never celebrated with friends before and – and my heart ached for him.

“Want to dance?” He asks casually, offering me a hand with bright eyes.

“Sure,” I force out, and place my hand in his.

We dance amongst our miserable schoolmates and to be honest, despite the whole akumatized Nino forcing kids to party thing, it’s kind of fun. Nino is a great DJ no matter how you look at it and if everyone wasn’t mourning their parents, the party would be totally hoppin’.

Still, all good things must come to an end, even if this was only arguably good due to the whole akumatized villain thing.

“Thanks, Adrien,” I say, and I mean it sincerely as I take a step back from him as a slow dance, of all things, comes on.

He holds a hand out in offer of another dance, this time lazy swaying back and forth to the slower, romantic music, but I shake my head.

“You really took my mind off my mom and dad,” I say, not meaning to guilt him but trying to impress upon him that, like all the other kids, I was missing my parents too. “I’m glad you got to have a party after all, but I think I’m going to head home now. I want to be there when my parents come home once Chat Noir rescues them! And Ladybug, of course.”

His eyes widen, his smile falters.

“Your parents,” he manages after a moment, and I feel bad for making him feel bad, but I think we’ve spent longer at the party than he did in the show at this point. It’s time for Ladybug and Chat Noir to make their appearance. “Of course. Mari, I’m so sorry.”

He takes my hands and his and his eyes are so earnest, so light and green and full of promise, that for a moment I am caught up in them.

“Chat Noir will definitely get here any minute to save the day, I promise,” he tells me, and I’m taken aback by his brazen words – does he realize what he’s saying and how that could be misconstrued if I were a civilian who didn’t already know about his identity.

He pulls me to the gate of with a determined stride and I notice absent-mindedly that his hand is so strong, his grip sure on mine.

“I’ll see you in school tomorrow, okay Mari?” He says, bidding me goodbye with a quick, fierce hug.

“Okay,” I reply, dazed.

He runs back towards the house and I duck behind the wall, leaning against it for a moment as I catch my breath. Adrien is a great friend, I think, my hand coming up to touch the paw print on my scarf. I force myself to focus and push that thought away, instead scanning the deserted streets just in case to confirm there was no one in sight…

“Alright Tikki,” I say when the cost is clear. “Time to take care of the Bubbler!”

She beams at me and it’s her smiling face I keep in mind as I say the magic words and transform. The Bubbler’s akuma is in his weapon, I remind myself as the transformation washes over me and I become stronger, lighter, faster, free in a way I couldn’t be as Marinette.

I launch myself up without hesitation-

“Mind if I crash the party?” I ask as I land on the edge of the wall, surveying the Bubbler and all our classmates at risk between us.

“Fashionably late today I see, Milady,” Chat greets me from the steps of the house, smiling widely.

I can’t help but grin back.

“This party is invitation only,” the Bubbler growls, drawing his bubble wand sword thing. “And you two weren’t invited!”

He launches a cascade of red bubbles right at me, making the fatal mistake of ignoring Chat-

“It’s in the sword!” I call out as I dodge, and then Chat is on the Bubbler, forcing him to defend himself too close up to use his bubbles against us – or turn the ones he sent after me into a giant bubble to trap me and Chat.

I sprint towards the fight and jump in with a sweeping kick intended to knock the Bubbler off his feet, elation thrumming in my veins. This is what I’m meant to do.

The assembled kids are all hiding out on the stairs, cheering for us as I throw my yo-yo in time with Chat’s attacks to put the Bubbler on the defensive-

“Lucky Charm!” I cry out, eager to get us out of this détente we’re stuck in, unable to do much other than fight him head on in hand to hand combat to keep him from bubbling us or our classmates.

I get a record.

Chat does his best to keep up the pace, to keep going for the bubble wand, as I figure out what on earth I’m supposed to do with-

Marinette got a record in the show to stop the slow song. Somehow, I doubt funky music is the solution here…

I glance around and think, think, think – Marinette flung it onto the needle by throwing it at an angle. And actually, judging from the white noise coming from the speakers, everything was still working. I look back at Chat and the Bubbler fighting in the courtyard, look back again to the position of the speakers and-

“Alya!” I cry out to the girl I know is in the crowd. “Volume to the max please!”

I throw my yo-yo ahead of me to trip up the Bubbler, holding the record under my arm as I dodge an onslaught of bubbles created when the Bubbler put some distance between himself and Chat.

“Chat, over here with me, then the floor!”

The white noise is horrifically loud now thanks to Alya’s quick reaction and I am where Marinette was when she flung the record like a frisbee. Chat disengages and jumps backwards towards me, taking the break to summon his power-

“Cataclysm!”

And then he is disintegrating the courtyard that the Bubbler is standing on. I fling the record and pray – and it lands on the needle and starts to play just as the Bubbler jumps back onto the DJ deck to get away from the destroyed ground.

The music starts up and blasts so loudly from the speakers not two feet away from the Bubbler that all of us flinch – but him most of all, dropping his bubble wand as his hands come up to protect his ears. He quickly tries to put the volume down to a manageable level but it’s too late – Chat takes advantage of the moment and breaks the Bubbler’s wand over his knee.

The black butterfly flies out and I capture it quickly.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma,” I say to it almost fondly. “Time to de-evilize!”

I let it fly free out of the compartment in my yo-yo, now pure and white, and then retrieve the record from the turntable and throw it into the air.

“Miraculous Ladybug!”

I am giddy with a job well done when Chat approaches me, looking quite satisfied himself, and offers me a gently closed fist.

“Pound it!” We chime together, grinning wide.

I head home quickly before I am missed – tell my parents upon arrival that the akumatized person was my classmate Nino and that I had been kidnapped to attend a birthday party, and head up to my room. It’s been such a hectic day, but I feel better, feel stronger than I have in days.

“You did well today, Mari,” Tikki tells me affectionately, nuzzling her head into the junction of my neck and shoulder in a sweet hug.

My heart swells.

“Thanks, Tikki,” I say, feeling ready to burst because – I had done well today. I managed to be there for Adrien and take care of the Bubbler. And – and Tikki wasn’t disappointed in me like she had been in Marinette for using her powers for jealousy.

(Maybe here, in this world, I can be something more than a perpetual disappointment.)

My good mood keeps me from settling down to do my homework, so I head out to my balcony in the evening to get some fresh air.

“I like your scarf,” someone says, scaring the life out of me because it’s not Tikki and Tikki is the only person who should be talking to me up here.

I glance up in shock and my heart nearly stops dead in my chest when I realize I’m looking at green eyes. Familiar green eyes.

“Mind if I drop in?” Chat Noir asks, beaming brightly at me from his perch on the railing. “I just saw your scarf while patrolling the city and had to ask where you got such a pawsome accessory.”

I swallow, my mind going a thousand different directions at once. Oddly enough, I felt a little star struck. Which was odd, because it’s just Chat. I was friends with Adrien in my daily life. So why is this so, so-

“I made it,” I manage at last, feeling shy despite myself. Was this because Adrien never got a present from his dad today? Had he been lonely enough that he felt compelled to sneak out to seek some company.

I felt terrible, suddenly… I hadn’t wanted to do Gabriel Agreste any favors because the man didn’t deserve it, but I hadn’t really thought through Adrien’s side of things.

“Wow, all by yourself?” He teases, friendly and inviting. “It looks purrfessionally made!”

“Thank you,” I say quietly, my face heating up. I don’t know why. I don’t know why he’s here or what’s happening to me. But, this is Adrien, and if he’s here, even in this form, there must be a reason.

I think about it, and figure that after his miserable birthday party, the least I could do is…

“Do you like croissants?” I ask him after a moment, knowing the answer. “Or some other pastry. In case you didn’t know, you’re above a bakery right now. I can bring up some snacks for us. If you-“

I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew for a moment, but-

“Croissants are my favorite,” he says brightly, dropping down from the railing, and for a moment I am overwhelmed with him being here, in this form, like that, while I am here and just… just Mari(nette). “I’d like that very much.”

If Adrien doesn’t want to spend his birthday alone, he won’t. It’s as simple as that.

I rush downstairs wondering if he’ll still be there when I get back, grab some croissants and, after a moment of thought, a cupcake for him. I practice what I’ll say the whole way back upstairs, fully expecting this to have been some kind of elaborate hallucination and when I get back up to the balcony – he’s there.

“It was my best friend’s birthday today,” I tell him after a moment, setting down the croissants between us and holding out the cupcake I’d nicked from the bakery shyly despite myself. “I wanted to give him this, but I didn’t have the chance. I figure, it’s not every day you get to meet your number one hero though, and I can’t wait to tell him all about this, so I thought you might like to have it. We can celebrate together.”

For a moment, he looks utterly floored.

“Your best friend’s birthday was today?” He asks, approaching me slowly. Has he always been this tall? I don’t know why, but it’s suddenly a little hard to breathe. “Your best friend?”

I nod, unable to speak.

He breaks out into the widest grin I have ever seen from him-

“I would be honored to celebrate with you, purrincess!” He declares, flopping down to the floor to sit with his legs crossed in front of him, outright beaming. A sly look comes over his features- “Number one hero, huh?”

I almost want to fling the cupcake at his smug face.

“Laugh it up, kitty cat,” I return coolly despite my pink cheeks. “Maybe now that I’ve met you you’ll be demoted. I might start knitting up a Ladybug scarf tonight.”

He laughs and it’s so warm and full of genuine mirth that I can’t help but laugh along with him.

We laugh a lot that night, sitting on the floor of my balcony together, splitting a lonesome cupcake for his birthday and slowly making our way through a plate of croissants. This, I think abruptly, isn’t Adrien as I know him. This is Adrien when he is free.

I go to sleep wondering if we will ever know each other completely, my dearest friend and I, when we are so different between forms and the way we are together in the different dynamics our powers have created. But even so…

“You know, you can come by whenever,” I offer, feeling stupidly shy again.

He grins.

“Oh, purrincess, don’t you know? Feed a stray and he’ll always come back.”

I go to sleep smiling because I know that whatever this is, it’s a new beginning for us both.

Chapter Text

Adrien never gets a birthday present from his father. He thinks Nathalie looks upset but honestly, after hearing that he is Mari’s best friend and receiving the wonderful scarf she made him and the cheese for Plagg (which was positively mortifying) and on top of that spending the rest of his birthday as her number one hero and sharing a cupcake with her-

Basically, some petty, lesser part of him (that he’s ashamed of) is glad Nathalie is upset because she is in charge of his schedule and she didn’t remember his birthday and his dad obviously didn’t even wish him a happy birthday…

And while last year he would have been disappointed, he has a real friend this year that cared – even his new friend Nino cared enough to become akumatized trying to make his birthday special! And his dad didn’t… didn’t even say anything. Even when Nino came to his house to ask about the party, waving the fact that it was his son’s birthday in his face…

Adrien is a curious mix of being so happy he could burst and being disappointed and a little bitter. It’s a strange combination, but then, he’s always been different from other kids, no matter how much he wants to fit in, so why should this be any different.

Mari is… Adrien can’t put it into words, honestly. She seemed so sad when he first saw her in class, and then… then on that day, when he couldn’t pull her up over the bridge, weak as he was when he was just Adrien, just as powerless in that moment as he was in the rest of his daily life.

She’d babbled something about taking a picture then, but Adrien wasn’t that naïve.

He’d initially befriended her because… because she was obviously lonely, had serious problems that she had no one to talk to about, and was desperate the same way he had been desperate when he’d decided to start at school no matter what his father said.

He was desperate for companionship, for friendship, and while he hasn’t figured out what Mari was desperate for then, he hopes that their friendship filled up some of that lack for her like it did for him. He can’t imagine what it must be like to be pushed to the extreme of even contemplating, even less attempting… you know.

The thought of losing Mari, originally a disquiet thought born of neighborly concern for a classmate, is now enough to turn his stomach.

Mari is amazing. She is his first real friend – her and Ladybug, he amends for fairness. Sure, he’s known Chloe all his life, but he never felt that kind of partnership that he felt doing things with Mari, that Ladybug brought out in him. And Nino, he’s a real friend too, but in a way Adrien can’t explain, it’s different from Mari.

He still doesn’t know what it was that made him transform and head over to Mari’s house. He’s lucky she was on the balcony at all, though to be fair he’d gone on the basis that she’d casually mentioned to him at school that she liked taking a bit of fresh air before going to sleep.

Hearing her call herself his biggest fan had made him feel warm all over, but he hadn’t thought of it much past that initial rush of satisfaction. He likes being Mari’s hero. He likes it a lot.
Seeing her face flush at his presence had filled him up with something potent and heady.

He likes being the reason her cheeks turn pink.

To be honest, he’d had a little, tiny bit of a crush on Ladybug when they’d first met. Just a little bit, because she seemed so unsure and small in the beginning and had surprised him every day since. After their first meeting, he found himself wishing Hawkmoth would attack again so that he could be free to be himself with Ladybug at his side-

Now, though, as much as he enjoys being Chat Noir, he worries. He knows that he and Ladybug make an excellent team and together can take on anything Hawkmoth throws at them – but there’s Mari to think of now, and when he looks back at the day that she cites Chat Noir became her hero, he can’t help but feel retroactive horror that he hadn’t really felt in the moment.

Mari arrived at the park just as Stormy weather was leaving it and she’d been right in the path of danger. If he hadn’t acted then to draw Stormy Weather away – Mari could have gotten hurt.

He used to look forward to akuma attacks because he could spend time with Ladybug, the only person he could be free with, be himself without constraints, and now…

Now he finds himself immersed in his day to day life, in Mari.

He’s excited to go to school – that was always a given – but he looks forward to sitting next to Mari, to laughing at the faces she makes during math, to scribbling notes to her and teaching her Chinese during break and eating delicious croissants with her from her parents’ bakery and maybe showing off a little during fencing because she learned so much about the sport (for him) and he is coming to find that he lives off of her wonder and pride.

And then he visits her on his birthday and finds that she genuinely likes him as Chat Noir, too, likes both sides of him and turns pink when he teases her and gets confident and sassy like she doesn’t with Adrien in response to him and-

And he can’t stop.

He counts the days, desperate to not seem over eager, before the next visit.

Mari positively gushes about meeting him as Chat to him as Adrien at school and it’s a little harder to curb the impulse to sneak out to see her.

Mari is a strong person. He knows she is. She has to be, to smile and laugh when she looks so lost and sad sometimes. But he’s starting to understand that she’s not ready for what he is beginning to be sure he wants from her. He has to tread carefully because his life is full of secrets and pressure and he will die before she breaks on the wheel of his problems.

He is bitter because the more he hears about Mari’s parents, about Nino’s home life, the more he realizes something is wrong between him and his father. He is over the moon because he spent his birthday with Mari, who has somehow become the balm that soothes his soul.

He’s not sure he’s ready for a relationship, not when he is starting to realize that he has his own issues to deal with before he even thinks about winning Mari over… and he knows, he knows she’s not ready because while he knows she is a strong person there is something so very breakable about her…but he can’t help what he’s beginning to want and he knows she isn’t ready for it.

He wants a lot. He wants to be the reason her cheeks turn pink, he wants to hold her hand, he wants to be the first person she thinks of in the morning and the last person she thinks of before going to sleep, he wants, like a lot, to know if she feels the same way-

Things are fine where they are. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. He has a lot to think about regarding his father, and really, he is only a few short years from being an adult. He has growing up to do. And Mari – he knows she’s in therapy, she admitted as much to him. She has healing to do. He thinks she’s too mature for her age and wonders what happened to make her like that. He hopes that by the time they have both developed as people they will meet somewhere in the middle, where he can pursue her earnestly.

For now, though, he tells himself, he likes making her cheeks turn pink. He likes showing off during his fencing lessons, and most of all, he likes being her hero.

He couldn’t stop visiting her as Chat if he tried and he definitely isn’t trying.

“Are you thinking about Mari again?” Plagg asks, deadpan, as he gobbles down a piece of camembert before bed.

Oh God, that just puts Adrien in mind of the horror of being told he really did smell like cheese and by the girl he likes, too!

“Good night, Plagg,” Adrien grumbles good-naturedly, rolling over to press his suddenly burning face onto his cool pillowcase.

He has to go to sleep early because he’ll have a headache of a time trying to sneak out tomorrow to go to the unveiling of the statue made to honor him and Ladybug…

He wonders if Mari will be there to see him honored for his crime-fighting. She said she would catch the tail end of it, if not the whole thing, because she was doing something for her parents after school. She promised to watch it on television until she could escape to see him live, though.

(Mari is, as usual, the last thing he thinks of before finally falling asleep.)

“But isn’t Ladybug supposed to be at the unveiling?” Tikki asks, not in any form accusing, simply curious. “How will you be there as Mari too?”

It takes a minute for my brain to catch up.

“Well, I told Chat I’d be there for the tail end of it,” I explain slowly, “so I figure I show up as Ladybug, thank the sculptor profusely, and then slip off to transform. Luckily the unveiling is at the park, so it’s right by the house. I can change back at home and job up as the ceremony ends.”

I wait anxiously for Tikki’s reply as she mulls it over. I didn’t put much thought into the plan, to be honest, but it had sounded easy enough, and the ceremony was due to start soon, so I didn’t really have time to change plans now that it would be last minute.

“It sounds doable,” Tikki agrees after a moment, but it doesn’t sound like her concern is completely gone. “But the sculptor was akumatized originally, right? Do you think he might feel slighted if you leave early?”

That, at least, I’m not worried about.

“I’m going early so that I can thank him personally,” I affirm, feeling a little better at hearing the heart of Tikki’s worry on the subject. “Plus, Chat is hardly going to get jealous and claim he and I are together, so I don’t see what he could probably be upset about.”

Today is my first day preventing an akumatization with my foreknowledge and I need everything to go well.

I arrive early to the ceremony where I am immediately approached by the shy, star-struck sculptor that had made the statue honoring us.

“You’re amazing!” He blurts out around the lollipop stick in his mouth. “You’re so brave and smart, and the way you always save everyone is-“

My face, I’m sure, is a furious red under my mask. I wonder for a brief moment how Marinette would have handled this.

“Please, if you wouldn’t mind, would you sign this photo for me? It was the inspiration for the statue I’m going to unveil today.”

I wonder where Chat is? I wasn’t prepared for this guy’s earnest adoration.

“Of course I’ll sign it for you,” I offer readily, a kind smile over my face. “I’m honored to hear that you hold me in such esteem!”

I write ‘to a great artist, thank you for honoring me! Bises, Ladybug.’ I wonder briefly if I’ve been to familiar writing ‘kisses’ on there, but it’s a common French letter ending, so surely it’s fine.

“Perhaps we should commence,” the Mayor says, ignoring the sculptor’s star struck expression as he clutches the paper to his chest, with a brilliant smile. “It might bring Chat Noir here faster.”

What could his hurry be, I wonder, because he’d been eager to get on with things in the show too, only then it was Ladybug that didn’t show up because Marinette ‘had’ to steal Adrien’s phone for some ridiculous reason. I can’t remember what it was now, but I remember being disappointed that a role model for children like Marinette was stealing from her friend – even if she intended on immediately returning it.

I’m so lost in thought I almost miss the sculptor giving the mayor the go ahead-

“Wait!” I cry, a little over enthusiastically. “I’m sure Chat will be here any second now. Please, let’s wait just a few more minutes for him.”

The sculptor, whose name I haven’t gotten yet, seems eager to go along with whatever I say and repeats my request to wait for Chat to the mayor, who agrees with a sigh.

I know Chat wouldn’t miss this, especially not when he invited me as Mari to see him.

I’m relieved when Chat finally drops in, greeting everyone with an exuberant hello, smiling at his fans and posing by the statue in such a way that for a moment I’m shocked no one can guess he’s a model. I greet him earnestly, pleased to have him with me because, well, I feel a little overwhelmed by the sculptor’s adoring eyes watching me.

“Why hello there, Milady,” Chat returns smoothly, mock bowing to the delight of our audience.

He’s great with PR stuff due to his own experience in his daily life, but I know him well enough as Ladybug and Mari to notice that he’s preoccupied. His eyes scan the crowd looking for Mari, who I know he won’t see yet. But he will, I amend, as soon as I can slip away.

Now that Chat is here, there’s no reason for the mayor to delay.

“It’s only proper for Paris to pay homage to those who protect us,” the mayor said, and then the cloth covering the statue was pulled off to reveal an honestly incredible likeness of me and Chat-

I thanked the sculptor profusely for his efforts while people cheered and then, as soon as I found an opening, I slipped away and left Chat to the adulation of the crowd.

Adrien notices Ladybug leave but doesn’t think much of it until the sculptor who suddenly seems to have a problem with Chat corners him beside the statue with an expectant expression and-

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” He asks after a moment, and Adrien isn’t sure what to say because he doesn’t know where this is coming from or where it’s going.

“Um, no, Milady can handle herself, that’s for sure,” he replies light-heartedly, trying to keep it friendly and to hopefully diffuse some of this weirdly tense atmosphere building up. “I’m waiting for a friend. She promised she’d come see the statue unveiling. You really did a great job.”

The sculptor is obviously crushing on Ladybug hard, and Adrien doesn’t blame him. He’d been there once too, and his partner is fighting crime is a wonderful person who cares a lot about Paris and all its citizenry. Maybe Adrien would have been jealous once, but now he’s content to just let the guy down gently on his Ladybug and Chat Noir fantasies(?)… they’re not harming anyone, after all.

“She wanted to wait for you,” the sculptor points out, sounding a little heated. Just a little. “She got here early and insisted we wait for you to arrive.”

Adrien is taken aback.

“I’ll be sure to thank her for thinking of me,” he says, reminding himself again that he had to be more responsible now – and this guy was giving off some serious akumatization victim vibes with how out of the blue angry he seemed.

Adrien is being responsible and friendly and appropriately grateful but he’s done with this weird conversation but now feels responsible to an extent that this guy relaxes a little.

At least – he does feel that way, until he spots Mari on the edge of the crowd, beaming up at him. He waves back. The crowd is starting to disperse, anyway… but the sculptor still looks upset.

“You know,” he begins slowly, trying to find the right words to put a band-aid on the sculptor’s displeasure, “I’ve never seen Ladybug so proud of something made for her. She really likes the statue. You did a great job!”

The sculptor falters and then, as though despite himself, smiles, almost shy.

“You really think so?” He asks, looking down at the autographed photo in what Adrien can tell is lovesick adoration.

Adrien nods his head up and down, trying to keep Mari in sight.

“I know so.” He promises, because Ladybug did seem embarrassed and awed by the likeness. He’s not lying.

The sculptor relaxes and all Adrien can think is – phew, that felt like a close one.

“Chat out,” he says in a brief goodbye, before leaping down from the statue eager to meet with his number one fan.

He doesn’t see the way the sculptor briefly looks up from his precious autograph just in time to see Chat Noir make a beeline for a girl in the crowd, Ladybug long forgotten.

“Chat!” Mari cries when she sees him, laughing at the way he sidles up, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“Is it a great likeness or is my likeness just that great? What do you think, purrincess?” He asks, imitating the statue’s pose.

“I think it’s a great likeness, Kitty,” Mari returns with mock coolness, pretending to inspect him from all angles. “Here I was thinking the it made your butt look big, but I guess that’s true to life.”

He gasps in mock outrage, resisting the urge to pounce on her (too soon for that and not in public) and instead simply feigning offense.

“Excuse you, my butt is perfect,” he responds, maybe meaning it a little because he’s a model okay he knows his best angles, and then they both dissolve into laughter.

He doesn’t dare be as affectionate with Mari in public as he is when it’s just them on her balcony, which is a shame because she looks so pretty in the sunlight he thinks after a moment, his heart skipping a beat-

And then he remembers he is supposed to be at fencing practice right now and it doesn’t take this long to get a drink of water and-

“I have to go!” He blurts out, rather regretting it when Mari looks at him quizzically.

She seems to be thinking about something – realization dawns on her face.

“Oh, right, me too,” she says, and Adrien nods along, wishing he could stay longer. “Talk to you later, Chat!”

He grins, wishing he could draw her into a hug.

“See you later, Miss President of the Official Chat Noir Fan Club!” He teases, and then leaps away to get back to school ASAP.

He gets through the rest of fencing practice and waits for Mari’s inevitable texts about seeing Chat Noir again with warm anticipation – and instead is greeted with his worst fear come to life when breaking news later pings his phone.

I am sitting upstairs by my computer eating a croissant sandwich as a snack before dinner to celebrate my success in avoiding the whole Copycat debacle when I find out I have been apparently been fucking akumatized.

“Mari, look!” Tikki cries, zooming towards the tv I keep on the news channel just in case of akumatization.

“The thief, who called herself Imitatrice, has been identified from museum surveillance footage as an underage girl whose name has not been disclosed by authorities due to her age. The police have yet to confirm whether or not she is a victim of Hawkmoth, but experts believe that-“

“Holy shit,” I manage, staring at the screen in horror. The footage being replayed as the news lady speaks is so obviously me I can’t believe it. It’s Marinette I see on screen, dressed in what could only be described as Chat Noir cosplay without a mask. The long scarf around her neck, complete with green paw print, flaps in the wind, a sick parody of my cozy friendship scarf.

My face was plastered on the screen in a sick parody of itself, Marinette’s face but not her expressions, not my expressions, topped with the same type of lollipop the sculptor had been sucking on at the ceremony.

I haven’t prevented anything.

I am a step away from hyperventilating. Have my parents seen this? What must they think?

“Mari, focus,” Tikki implores, grabbing hold of my sleeve and tugging with all her might to snap me out of the cycle of anxiety I am beginning to drown in.

“Tikki,” I manage, my arms wrapped around my middle. I feel like I am going to be sick. Some lunatic is running around with my, with Marinette’s face, committing crimes in an effort to call out Chat Noir and – and – why? What could he possibly have said after I left that caused this? Was it something that I said? Ladybug was there on time, he got his autograph, it doesn’t make sense.

“Mari, you can fix this,” Tikki reassures me. “Transform and we can get through this together.”

I want to throw up.

“Yeah,” I agree, light-headed already. “Yes. You’re right.”

Tikki tries to look encouraging for me, though the expression is overshadowed by her obvious worry. I return it with a weak smile and take a deep breath to center myself. I have to be out of here before my parents catch me here and try to help me clear my name. Better if they think I’m akumatized for now.

“Chat Noir will help you,” Tikki affirms, giving my shoulder a brief hug. “You’re not alone.”

It is with that thought in my head, the thought that I am not facing this disaster by myself, but rather with Chat at my side, that enables me to say the magic words and transform.

“Tikki, spots on!”

I am no sooner transformed and heading out that I literally crash into Chat Noir as I head up the ladder onto my balcony, sending us both tumbling into my room.

“Milady?” Chat asks, clearly stunned at my presence here, in Marinette’s room.

For a moment I am completely at a loss for words. How do I explain this?

No time.

“Imitatrice isn’t here,” I say, focusing on channeling my frustration at being slandered and defamed into the words, as though I’d been following a real lead. “I’m guessing since you came here you also figured out the victim in the news real was Marinette?”

“You know Mari?” He blurts out, his ears going back a little. I don’t know how to interpret that.

“Marinette, right? I was visiting the bakery when I saw the news,” I lie, badly, but this tenuous cover will have to do for now. “I’ve met her in civilian form. Quiet girl. Her parents are kind people. I wonder what set her off?”

He accepts this at face value, incredibly enough. He’s so worried for Mari (for me) that he doesn’t stop to think too hard about it.

He trusts Ladybug not to lie to him, I think to myself, feeling sick.

“She’s my friend,” he blurts out after a moment, looking guilty. “She’s me as Chat Noir’s friend. I saw her at the ceremony today. She seemed fine, but…”

“But what?” I ask softly, knowing I’m prodding but hearing what he thinks has happened will help me build up a believable cover until I can convince him that it’s the sculptor that’s at fault.

Chat hesitates.

“Mari has been in trouble before,” he admits, looking for all the world as though it pains him. “She was almost akumatized once – in front of a friend. She, uh, told me that once. She seemed fine today, though, so I don’t understand what happened to make her vulnerable to Hawkmoth. It’s definitely her, though – she has a scarf just like that. I bet that’s where her akuma is.”

I thought for a moment.

“If you know her so well, Chat, why do you think she stole a painting? I didn’t see the whole newscast because I was trying to find a place to transform safely, but I heard she stole something from the Louvre. Do you have any ideas as to what could have upset her?” I ask, prodding just a little bit more.

Chat is silent, and only then do I realize that this is the first time he’s been in my room. His eyes drink in the pink walls, the cluttered desk area, her small bed, as though he is searching for some kind of clue there.

Finally, he speaks.

“I think,” he tries, pausing again. “I think it’s because of me. That maybe… um, I think she thinks you and I are, you know.”

I cannot believe this.

“Why?” I ask, aghast. Chat had seemed to much more mature and down to earth in the time I had known him, had he really told the sculptor we were a thing?

“I don’t know-“ He shakes his head, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “The news footage had her calling me out and saying that you deserve better. I don’t understand. I don’t think I ever behaved in a way that would give her an idea like that and I’ve certainly never told anyone we were together, so I… I don’t know.”

I believe him. Though the evidence of the show and his still cocky, if a little more centered nature compared to his televised alter-ego are proof against him, I don’t believe he would lie to me, not about this, when his friend Mari is at stake.

“Do you think,” he starts slowly, swallowing hard, “do you think she has feelings for me? And maybe saw something about you and I and got jealous?”

He sounds almost hopeful.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling constricted in Marinette’s space with both of us here as superheroes. “I think there’s more to this than we currently know. But clearly we’re not going to find her here. I think we need to figure out some way to draw her out.”

Chat nods, clearly preoccupied, and then brightens in tandem with me.

“The news station!” We exclaim at the same time – and then we are on our way.

Chapter Text

Adrien is losing his mind with worry, he’s sure of it. First, he finds out Mari has been akumatized, then he finds out it’s because of him. That’s the only explanation for it, for her calling him out on the news like that. It’s his fault. He’ll be happy to spend the rest of forever making it up to her, of course, but right now he was supposed to find her and – and fight her.

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to do that, because the idea of raising a hand against Mari, especially Mari who looks like Mari just in a costume, her pretty face on full display, makes his stomach churn. Again, it’s different than it is with Nino, and not just because Nino had been akumatized in a way that completely changed him. With Mari, it was like she wanted her real face plastered over the news, as though she wanted him to know it was her without a shadow of a doubt.

Adrien trusts Ladybug, and not just because she is the only one that can actually help Mari and purify the akuma that’s taken over her. He trusts her, but this – fighting Mari – feels wrong.

It’s too late though; they’ve already put out the bait. He has no choice but to wait for Mari to show up and hopefully this will all be over quickly.

I can tell Chat isn’t in the right headspace just by looking at him, but I don’t know what to do about it.

I let out an impassioned plea via the news based on playback of the video footage of Imitatrice, who I was dead certain was the sculptor simply because how many other people felt so strongly about Ladybug and had an opportunity to talk to Chat Noir and possibly misconstrue things with him at this exact time today? My ‘plea’ consists of basically asking Imitatrice to meet me at the station to tell me the truth I didn’t know about Chat Noir (because Imitatrice has been running around screaming about knowing Chat’s secret, Ladybug deserves better, etc, on camera).

I confess, it’s a relief to know that we’re at the news station – so I’ll be able to clear my/Marinette’s name once Imitatrice turns into the sculptor for all to see on everyone’s favorite Parisian news station.

No one would miss a chance to catch Ladybug and Chat Noir in action, at any rate, so clearing my good name is all but assured.

I wait, feeling confident in my plan, nodding to Chat when we hear a door open…

Imitatrice is here to spring our trap, but we’re ready and while I don’t know where the autographed photo is, exactly, I am 99% sure that that’s the item the akuma is in. Chat looks ready to fight, which eases my anxiety a little. We’ve got this. Everything is fine.

(I hate waiting.)

“Ladybug!” Imitatrice cries out dramatically, entering center stage with her shoulders squared, Marinette’s face, my face, twisted into a self-righteous sneer as she takes in Chat’s presence beside me.

“Imitatrice,” I greet, keeping my voice even, compassionate. “Thank you for agreeing to meet us here. I’m ready to listen to what you have to say.”

Seeing my cheeks pink at, well, me, is downright weird. It’s like looking in the mirror and blushing at myself. Only this version of me is wearing what looks like a sexy Chat Noir costume. The sculptor, I think, has a very low opinion of me, and it’s evident in the skin tight black leather bodysuit, the way it’s unzipped to tease my nonexistent cleavage. It’s absolutely inappropriate for someone of my age and I feel irrationally angry looking at it up close. The scarf helps, but that’s beside the point.

This grown ass man gets himself akumatized and takes the form of a teenage girl he has decided is some kind of hussy because he has a thing for Ladybug and evidently thinks Chat is two-timing her with a school girl.

I am so angry I want to break something.

“Mari-“ Chat begins – if he had a tail, it would be swishing back and forth anxiously. “You don’t have to do this. Just give us your scarf and we’ll take care of everything. Please.”

He steps closer and I have to scramble to pull him back.

“Imitatrice has something to tell me, Chat, I promised to listen to her,” I remind him, and if my tone is a little bit shrill, it’s merited. He can’t just deviate from the plan like this!

“That’s right, Ladybug,” Imitatrice says, sneering at Chat. “Chat Noir isn’t who you think he is.”

I can’t focus on Chat right now, I tell myself, because I need to find the akuma – a difficult thing when I can’t find any visible pockets on my evil twin’s skin tight costume.

“Chat Noir is leading you on, Ladybug,” Imitatrice says loudly, fixing me with an almost imploring look. “You’re devoted to the wrong man… Chat Noir is seeing me behind your back!”

Chat looks like all of his theories have been confirmed.

“It’s not like that at all, you’re wrong,” he says desperately, “please let us help you.”

“Chat Noir and I are not together,” I say mildly, my mind working a mile a minute.

Copycat had been a literal copy of Chat Noir, complete with his powers. Imitatrice, I realized suddenly, hadn’t shown evidence of any power. What if… her power was the transformation?

“You waited for him!” Imitatrice accuses. “You wouldn’t give m- Théo Barbot the time of day! All you could think about was Chat Noir and he didn’t even go after you when you left!”

Bingo! Théo Barbot, that was the sculptor’s name. It is him – meaning that the akuma is definitely the autographed photo.

“It’s not like that,” I try, and apparently that is the wrong thing to say because that is when Imitatrice loses it and attacks us.

“You’re not listening!” Imitatrice cries out, fists clenched, nearly shaking with rage. “But you will! You’ll listen when I take your miraculous and expose Chat Noir for the liar he truly is!”

She lunges for me – without powers, I note.

Imitatrice is strong and fast like any other akumatized villain – but she doesn’t have a power. Meaning that shapeshifting into a recognizable form of me is her power.

Meaning that the akuma item is likely only reachable in her base form.

“Chat!” I cry out, leaping backwards, away from her. He understands what I need without me saying it, jumping into the fray to keep Imitatrice busy in close combat while I use my power. “Lucky Charm!”

A spotted red pen appears in my hand, much to my confusion.

I don’t have the time to wonder what it’s for because Chat is suddenly thrown into me, bowling us both over as I struggle to catch him.

“Sorry, Milady,” he apologizes, sounding winded. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

I worry as I wonder if that’s true or if he’s pulling his punches because she’s wearing my face.

“It’s in her scarf,” Chat tells me distantly as we separate, his gaze fixed on Imitatrice. “I just know it.”

To be fair, if it really was me, he’d be right. But it’s not – but how to prove that to him?

Imitatrice comes at us in a full attack, and – and Chat dodges, deflects her movements with skill I couldn’t match, and… doesn’t strike back.

“Chat, focus!” I say, and then because I need to buy time while I figure something out say, “the scarf!”

I have no good reason to share my suspicions yet, so I don’t. It wouldn’t make sense for me to doubt him without giving his theory a chance unless I somehow knew Imitatrice wasn’t the real Mari. Which I do, obviously, but letting him know that risks my identity.

Anxiety rolls in my stomach and I push it away. Chat knew it was the sculptor in the show because… of the lollipop stick. Imitatrice has a lollipop in her mouth. Why isn’t it clicking for him?

I focus on getting the scarf, trying to divide my attention between fighting Imitatrice and figuring out what the spoon is for. I’m coming up with nothing so far and my earrings are counting down…

“Cataclysm!” Chat shouts, making me miss a step, turning only to see him lunge for the edge of the scarf with his hand outstretched-

But Théo Barbot has done his homework and knows everything about us. Imitatrice lets Chat’s cataclysm connect to the scarf, grinning maliciously as it is destroyed, an expression that looks so, so wrong on Marinette’s, on my face that I feel sick for a minute.

“What?” Chat starts, looking almost helpless as Imitatrice leaps at him-

I glance around desperately searching for the key items I need to pull a crazy plan together to utilize the pen my lucky charm gave me, and the unthinkable happens.

Imitatrice successfully pins Chat. He’s pulling his punches, scared to hurt someone wearing my face. It’s becoming a real problem, really fast, but it makes sense.

Imitatrice grapples with Chat for his ring. That is what Hawkmoth wants. This, too, makes sense.

I tackle Imitatrice off of Chat, engaging in, for lack of a better expression an ugly cat fight. We roll across the floor together as she tries to grab my earrings, babbling about how it will be better this way – how I will be better off without Chat – and I gain the upper hand. Coming to Chat’s aid, this struggle, it all makes sense.

“Chat, help me!” She cries, her voice full of fear and pain that I know is contrived - and this is where stops making sense. “It hurts!”

I am tackled off of her by a blur of black.

Blood rushes in my ears.

My heartbeat is a painful hammering against my chest.

I stare at Chat, mouth slightly agape, the first, biting sting of betrayal dawning painfully slowly across my face.

This doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand.

I am an inch from hyperventilating, and losing it fast.

I don’t register the pain until the tip of the spotted red pen in my hand bites so deeply into the skin of my palm that it bleeds-

And just like that, it comes to me.

I need to pull myself together. I need to pretend that I’m alright.

Chat can’t look me in the eye, torn between checking on that false Mari and saying something, anything, that might help me make sense of what has happened.

I can pretend that this is alright. And that’s the key – I need to pretend.

“Chat, I can’t take this anymore,” I say slowly, as though pained by the words. I feel nothing. I feel everything. I don’t know what I am feeling but its ugly and sits heavily on my shoulders like the weight of the world. “You should be happy with her. The truth is, I’m in love with the sculptor who made that beautiful statue of us!”

Chat looks like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, like he is completely blown away.

Imitatrice stops, looking wildly in my direction.

“Do you really mean that?” She asks, stepping towards me.

“Yes, I do,” I say evenly, “Your name – Mari, is it? I want you to be happy with Chat Noir. I could never love someone that wasn’t devoted to me. And Théo Barbot – you can see his devotion in every line of his work! The man is a genius! I wanted to write ‘will you be mine’ on the photograph he gave me to sign… I only hope he feels the same way.“

“I do!” Imitatrice shouts, and then she is morphing into a green-skinned monster that vaguely resembled Théo Barbot. “I do!”

Chat looks shocked. I don’t care.

“Théo?” I gasp in false surprise. “It was you all along?”

“Yes!” He says, fumbling in his pocket for something – for the photo. “Ask me, Ladybug! Write it here!”

“Oh, Théo,” I return dramatically, “of course I will.”

I click the pen, gazing at him with false love-sickness.

He hands me the photo – and I promptly rip it in half.

The rest of the affair passes by in a blur. I capture the akuma, I purify it, I release it and use my power to return everything to normal. The cameras, unfortunately, weren’t rolling, but once the sculptor is himself again, crews come in and film the end of everything, clearing my name. I leave. On my way out, Chat looks like he desperately wants to say something but I can’t look at him right now. Just… just for now.

Instead, I make my way to Théo Barbot’s studio, my nerves rattled from what happened, where, after letting myself in through the window, I promptly dial 17 for the police, acting like a scared, clueless school girl explaining that I was kidnapped by a green man that turned into me and knocked me out. I need an alibi for my parents, after all.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a brief blurb on the news that night, a teenage girl, whose name is not released to the public because she is a minor, being ‘rescued’ from a profusely apologetic sculptor’s studio by police. Emergency medical services check me out and believe that Ladybug’s power healed any bumps or bruises I might have gotten during the kidnapping. They diagnose me with shock, which is both laughable and worrisome.

My parents, who were worried sick, are relieved to have me back. They keep me bundled up in the blanket given to me by the paramedics all the way home, my mom’s hand remaining a gentle touch on my shoulder, my dad straight up holding my hand the whole way.

I tell them I am tired because I can’t bear their loving concern, it’s suffocating, I need to breathe, I love them (I love them, I really, really do) but I can’t. I need-

“Tikki,” I try when I am upstairs, when it is safe – and that is when I lose it.

“Shhh,” Tikki tries, fluttering anxiously by me as I tug the shock blanket they’d let me keep closer around myself, tears welling up in my eyes as I let out one, two great sobs and start crying in earnest. “Oh Mari, no… it’s okay, Mari. It’s okay…”

I cry my eyes out because I trusted Chat and he – he chose who he thought was me over me. It stung. I had trusted Adrien as Chat before I even knew him as Mari, he had been the second person after Tikki that I had formed a tenuous bond with in this world and today he-

He’d thought I was hurting his friend Mari, so he had stopped me. I should be flattered that he thought so highly of me as myself that he would go against Ladybug, but instead I felt betrayed…

“What’s wrong with me, Tikki?” I ask, hiccupping. I furiously wipe my tears on the back of my sleeve.

Her little face is full of sympathy.

“Nothing is wrong with you, Mari,” she insists, zipping close to my face to stare right into my eyes. “Chat Noir put your civilian self over Ladybug. Not because he doesn’t trust Ladybug, but because he is so attached to you, Mari, that he wasn’t thinking straight. Just look at how many messages he’s left you on your phone.”

It’s true. Adrien blew up my phone after the news station and I… I hadn’t replied.

“It hurts, Tikki,” I whimper, hanging my head low to avoid looking her in the eye as hot tears threaten to spill over onto my cheeks again. “I don’t know why I’m overreacting like this.”

“Because you trust Chat Noir,” Tikki states factually, leaving no room for argument. “He trusts you, too. He was just confused because Imitatrice looked like you. Adrien cares for you very much, Mari. In both forms. He just doesn’t know who you are.”

I cry. I can’t help it.

“You’re right, Tikki, and I know that. I do,” I repeat, as though saying it again will make me believe it more than I do now. “I just – I thought – why doesn’t he trust Ladybug like I trusted him before I even met him as Adrien?”

Tikki is silent. I realize after a moment my error, my hands flying up to my cover my mouth in horror.

“Oh, Tikki, I didn’t mean it, of course I still trust him,” I babble, my breath coming in quick, short pants. “I trust him, I do. I didn’t mean-“

Like I trusted him, I had said. I want to be sick.

“Mari-“ Tikki starts, and never gets the chance to finish because right then the trap door to my room opens.

“Marinette, sweetheart?” my mom calls out gently-

“I’m here mom,” I reply, sounding stuffy and shaken and miserable.

“Oh, Marinette,” she murmurs, voice laden with sympathy. “I’m coming up, sweetheart.”

She sets down a hot cup of some kind of sweet smelling tea and lets herself in as I wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole. I wipe at my face but nothing I can do in this instant will disguise the puffiness there, the redness of my eyes and nose.

She sits with me, for how long, I don’t know, but long enough for the tea to cool to a drinkable temperature, long enough for me to drink it in slow, little sips – it’s good to calm the nerves, she tells me gently, so, so gently – long enough for me to fall asleep to the sensation of her fingers carefully brushing my bangs out of my face…

I don’t deserve Marinette’ parents is the last, guilty thought I have before I fall asleep.

I wake up the next morning to a missing cup no longer on my nightstand and my mom (Marinette’s mom) long since gone. I sleep in, actually, long past the start of school and honestly, I am relieved. My parents obviously don’t mind if I stay home today, which is for the best because I can’t stomach the thought of seeing Adrien.

Adrien, Adrien… He’s left me several new texts since this morning, but I don’t dare even look at them to see what they’re about. A glance at the message preview on my phone tells me that he’s trying to be casual about everything and failing – leaving me to wonder when I got to know him so well that I could pinpoint his floundering from a mile away.

I stay in bed that day, only leaving the sanctity of my covers when my dad brings me up some late breakfast, knowing my fondness for croissants. He sits with me while I eat, chats lightly with me about video games and school, gently suggests that if I’m willing, he’d like to move my next appointment with my therapist up as close to today as possible so that I can talk about the kidnapping stuff, and…

And it makes me feel warm. Loved. I agree to therapy – not because of the kidnapping, of course, since I staged that, but… it might do me some good to talk about things with a professional.

I give Tom the biggest hug-

“Love you, dad,” I say, and I mean it. It’s the first time since I’ve arrived here that I’ve been able to say it, been able to mean it, and I do. “I love you and mom so much.”

They’ve been so kind to me, so understanding and patient. How many parent would let their kid skip school, understanding that depression is a sickness that needs help to fix?

There are tears in his eyed as he hugs me back, fiercely, determinedly.

“A classmate of yours dropped by during lunch today,” he said after a moment, instead of the myriad of things he could have said in response. He was trying to find some even ground to tread on. I couldn’t blame him for that. “Asked how you were. Said he had notes for you.”

Adrien.

My heart skips a beat and this time it’s not a pleasant feeling. It’s the all too familiar cloying thickness in the back of my throat of anxiety, making it impossible to answer, to say anything.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m encouraging you skipping school, but since you have an appointment tomorrow, if you don’t feel ready to face your friends, you can stay home,” my dad offers kindly, but firmly. “The day after, though, you’re going back to school. And I fully expect you to keep up with your schoolwork.”

I am reminded, again, that I do not deserve Marinette’s parents and in a paradoxical way feel guilty for holding them in such high esteem because it’s a betrayal of my own, in my heart of hearts, against the parents I can barely remember.

“Thanks, dad,” I return quietly, and give him a brief but no less sincere hug. “I’ll text Adrien to let him know I’m okay.”

I will. Eventually.

“Adrien, huh?” Tom says lightly, chuckling as I fix him with an embarrassed look. “Alright, alright. If you’re up to it, your mom will be happy to see you downstairs.”

“Yes, dad,” I respond sheepishly – and he leaves me to my thoughts with a brief tousling of my hair.

I end up thinking about Adrien without even meaning it. It’s not fair of me to ghost him like this, to leave his messages of concern unread for no apparent reason. But I can’t – I can’t bring myself to just… reply. I don’t know how. I don’t know what I should be saying to soothe him because he’s Adrien but he’s Chat and right now the hurt is Ladybug’s and I don’t know how to separate Ladybug from Mari because I was Ladybug first.

Still, it’s not fair to Adrien, so I tentatively pick up my phone to make the effort because he doesn’t deserve my silence, especially not for something that was between Ladybug and Chat.

I take the plunge.

‘Mari, I saw you on the news tonight are you okay?’

‘Saw you weren’t in class today. I stopped by your house, but your parents said you weren’t feeling up to visitors. I hope you feel better soon.’

‘I know you’re probably busy with all that’s happened, but text me when you get a chance, ok?’

‘Hey Mari, last text of the day, I promise. I’ll drop off notes for you after school, hope to see you then!’

Guilt churns in my stomach. Adrien doesn’t deserve this. He certainly deserves better than me.

‘Hey Adrien, sorry for not answering. I’m okay. I won’t be in school tomorrow but I’ll be back the day after,’ I type and then erase what I’ve written anxiously. ‘Hey Adrien, it’s me-‘

No, wrong again. I briefly see a sign that he’s typing – I wonder if he’d been about to text me and saw his messages switch to read – but that goes away. He’s waiting.

‘Hey Adrien, sorry, I’ve been really overwhelmed. I’m okay. I’ll be back at school the day after tomorrow. Thanks for thinking of me.’

I hit send before I can second guess myself because it’s not fair to keep him waiting while I dither about a reply. I quickly exit out of my message app because I don’t want to read any replies that might be coming.

My phone buzzes like ten seconds later, from Adrien, the notification helpfully informs me, and I decide it’s about time to set my phone down for the day.

Instead, I make my way downstairs to spend time with my family, sitting quietly, perhaps too quietly but I can’t help it, in our living room watching the news with them, later helping make dinner and eating with them as unobtrusively as possible, trying to keep my presence light and less dismal than I feel. We talk about random things as they come up, my mom echoing my dad’s earlier sentiment that since I have an appointment during school hours, I can stay home tomorrow as long as I keep up with my homework, which I’m grateful for.

I’m sure they’re still not convinced I’m not being bullied at school, because they only have the time I spend away from them as a frame of reference for why I am the way I am, which is probably why they’re letting me skip again. Keeping up with high school level homework isn’t a big deal for me because – it’s blurry, my memories of my previous life, but I think that I finished high school, maybe finished some college. I don’t remember much anymore, and what I do is disjointed, knowledge without origin, skills without a source. Either way, I’m glad to not have to face Adrien tomorrow.

And it’s that thought that brings me back to Chat Noir. I’m lucky, very lucky, that there wasn’t an akumatization today. There may be one tomorrow, and I might have to fight side by side with him again while this is unresolved in my head.

“Good night mom, good night dad,” I say, retreating to bed early that night due to the mounting headache I’m suffering as I try to figure out how to get over this stumbling block.

“I don’t know what to do, Tikki,” I mutter tiredly once I am in the safety of my room.

“Talk to him,” Tikki suggests lightly, her expression and tone of voice full of encouragement. “If you don’t try talking to him, Mari, you’ll never work this out.”

She’s right, of course she is, but I don’t know how to address the fact that apparently Adrien feels so strongly about his friend Mari that he would defend her from Ladybug. Because that’s what he was doing. He thought I was hurting Mari and in the process of helping his best friend inadvertently betrayed her.

No, I can’t think like that. He didn’t betray me, that’s an intrusive thought. He thought I was hurting someone, of course Mr. White Knight is going to save the day. He thought I was hurting his best friend. It’s not about Ladybug at all, it’s about Adrien and Mari and Chat Noir and Mari. That I’m Ladybug is unfortunate coincidence at this point, and that’s all.

Tikki looks up for a moment, thinking.

“Why don’t you get some fresh air, Mari?” She suggests sweetly. “It might help you clear your head.”

I draw my blanket closer around me, considering it.

“You’re probably right, Tikki,” I admit after a minute. I always feel better after sitting on my balcony for a while. It’s become my place to think. “I think I’ll do that.”

It’s late by this point, but it’s not like anyone’s going to be walking the streets below to get a peek of me in my PJs, so I just head on up to get some much needed air.

I realize Tikki has tricked me when it’s too late.

Adrien didn’t expect to see Mari, honestly, but felt that he had to try. She was withdrawing from everything, from him, even, and he knew why.

He hadn’t saved her.

Sure, maybe he’d helped Ladybug stop the akuma (had he really, though? Ladybug’s face when he shoved her off of who he thought was Mari haunted him), but he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t even realized she was kidnapped. He should have been the one to find her, not police, he was her hero and…

And he hadn’t been there.

He thinks he can find out what she thinks, if she’s okay, how she’s taking this as her friend Adrien, but she withdraws from him too so he’s back across the street from her balcony and this time he takes the plunge and lands on her balcony directly, intent on knocking-

And, like magic, the one person he wants to see most in the world chooses this moment to appear.

“Mari,” he says, and before she can reply, swoops in and wraps his arms around her in a stiff, awkward hug.

“Chat,” she says thickly in response, her voice muffled by his shoulder, and though she sounds subdued, without the usual excitement, the usual warmth he is used to hearing there, he doesn’t hear accusation in her voice, not accusation or resentment and that’s how he knows-

He can fix this.