Chapter Text
Paris at night. The city of love. Charming, amazing, exciting.
Defenseless.
Defenseless? Not today. Thought the raven-haired girl.
Out of all people in Paris, whether they were locals or tourists, no one could make out the dark silhouette perched on the roof of one of the most famous places in the entire city — Notre Dame de Paris. The darkness and height did their work, giving Ladybug the assurance that she was well hidden from any prying eyes. Or at least, she was almost sure.
Ladybug shook her head, shutting out the thoughts that anyone could go out of their way to follow their routes. She knew what she needed to do and focused on her primary goal — keeping a watchout for any potential dangers.
She knew pretty well that Paris went by many names and described in many ways. But defenseless? Hardly. She looked around the city; her gaze filled with motherly attentiveness and love. Knowing for a fact that she was not alone on her mission gave her a significant confidence boost.
There’s another pair of eyes, just as attentive as mine! Only these have the ability to see through the darkness!
“So where is that other pair of eyes?” Ladybug whispered to herself, her brows furrowing as eventually, she began drowning in her own thoughts.
***
She remembered this dream well. It didn’t feel like one at first and for a second Marinette even thought she had gotten caught in the akuma attack.
She found herself surrounded by an unnatural pitch-black darkness. Other than the thundering heart beating wildly against her chest, not a sound could be heard. Cold sweat ran down her neck, her stomach clenching into an uncomfortable knot of nerves. She crossed her arms over her chest, hands shaking against her prickled skin. Shadows loomed just out of the corner of her eye. She could hardly make anything out. A flicker of light in the distance eased her rising fear, whispering the promise of protection from the dark. She followed its call, the flickering light revealing what she hadn’t been able to see before. It was a street lamp that had suddenly been turned on in front of her. Under it, she spotted a beautiful black cat sitting up straight, tail twitching slowly back and forth behind it. It’s piercing green gaze fixated in her direction with great interest, but somehow… it did not see her at all.
Seeing how the cat was trying very hard to notice her, Marinette finally gathered her courage and decided to move closer to help the cat see her. Upon her mere thought moving closer, the lamp above their heads sputtered a few times. For a moment, she even thought she saw the cat’s fur change color from pitch-black to a familiar sunshine blonde.
As soon as she stretched her hand out to touch the cat, she woke up. Her damp hair clinging to the back of her neck, hands shaking as she gasped for air her lungs so desperately needed.
Surprised and worried by the clear images she had imprinted in her mind by the plaguing dream, she remembered talking to Tikki about the lingering images. And she remembered the little kwami shaking her head thoughtfully:
“Don’t rush it, Marinette. You’ll soon figure everything out yourself.”
***
The liberating sound of the wind whistling in his ears gave a needed boost in speed as he rushed forward. Jumping from one rooftop to another, his heart began to race, getting closer to his goal.
Suddenly he stopped, his feet making a muffled shambling sound sliding against the gravelled rooftop. He stared at the building that was his goal. Chances were he was the only person in the entire city who could make out the dark silhouette perched on the roof of Notre Dame, the endpoint of their patrols. The cathedral was beautiful, of course, but he was not focused on its history or architecture. The superheroine who waited for him on the rooftop thoroughly consumed his thoughts. It was not the first time in the past few weeks that his mind wandered into thoughts about his Lady. He couldn’t exactly say that Ladybug wasn’t on his mind all the time, but lately she’d been gradually taking more and more of his brain’s processing capacity for reasons that were not exactly unknown to him.
***
Chat Noir closed his eyes, inhaling deeply to try and calm his stuttering breaths.
This dream he remembered well. Adrien didn’t forget dreams that are, obviously, connected to his Lady.
Even surrounded by complete darkness, he knew perfectly well where he was. For a few minutes he just stood there, trying to get his eyes to adapt to the absence of light. He looked around, noticing very familiar scenery. There was no chance he wouldn’t recognise this place. It’d be a bad sign if he didn’t recognize his own school. And then there was a question of why he was here, which Adrien entertained for a few minutes, but to no avail.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a dark figure that ran past him, slamming into his shoulder and almost knocking him down. His eyes narrowed. He couldn’t make out the figure clearly enough, it was as if his cat-vision didn’t work, but it seemed to be chasing something. In a second, he knew what it was after. The bright pink light made of millions of ladybugs, the Miraculous Cure. But it just left him with more questions.
Why would anyone need to chase it? Adrien thought, not understanding a bit of what was happening around him.
And, apparently, it was important for that unknown person. The wave of millions of ladybugs continued to whirl around him while that person was chasing the light as if their life depended on it, nearly knocking Adrien down a few times.
But when he finally gathered his courage and stretched his hand out to stop the person, he immediately woke up.
And after every abrupt ending to his restless sleep, Adrien would jump up, hands outstretched, with the agonizing feeling of an unsolved mystery unremorsefully cutting through his heart.
Pressing his hand against his chest, Adrien would close his eyes again to try and recall as many fragile fragments of his dream as he possibly could. He knew perfectly well that this was important. This, whatever it was, interfered with his usually perfect sleep and he didn’t like it one bit. If this was to continue, he wouldn’t last much longer.
Interested in the dream and the way it was obviously connected to his Lady somehow, there wasn’t a chance that he wouldn't be interested in something involving her, he remembered asking Plagg all about it. The sarcastic look etched on the kwami’s face flashed in his mind. The only answer Adrien got after bribing his kwami with another piece of Camembert hadn’t been worth leaving the comfortable warmth of his bed;
“Don’t rush it, kid. You’ll soon figure everything out yourself.”
***
Snapping out of the thoughts before they could consume him once again, Chat jumped forward without a sound and continued running. The city lights enveloped him in their gentle, serene warmth, welcoming its defender. It felt reassuring and comforting at the same time. Adrien felt as though he’d found his purpose. This city was his purpose. And only in moments like these, running across the rooftops, hidden under his mask with the strength of a Miraculous flowing through his veins, he truly felt like himself.
***
“A penny for your thoughts, my Lady.” She heard a familiar voice say from behind.
The girl barely turned her head towards him and even though she rolled her eyes, she eventually let out a bright, relieved smile.
And he saw her smile, just for a moment, but it was enough for him to enjoy his Lady’s beautiful eyes, twinkling in the bright luminescence of the moonlight. And at this very moment his Lady’s big blue eyes were even more gorgeous. He didn’t exactly know how it was possible, but he wasn’t ready to question anything.
“What took you so long, Chaton?” She asked with a teasing smile, her gaze returning to the city. She still had her duties to fulfill, to make sure that their beloved city was safe. “Were you busy flirting with some other cat?”
With a faint surprise in his eyes, Chat pressed his palms to the center of his chest in a theatrical gesture.
“I don’t flirt with anyone apart from my Lady!” He exclaimed, his voice almost sounding offended. “For your information, I chose the longer route just to give you… a head start.”
“Always a gentleman, aren’t you?” She said rolling her eyes once again. “Just admit it, you can’t keep up with the fierce force that I am.” Ladybug laughed, throwing her fist up.
“Ha-ha, my Lady.” Chat put every bit of sarcasm he had into this laugh. “So, have you noticed anything suspicious while I was… giving you a head start?
“Alright, alright, a head start,” She spoke, thinking about if she saw anything for the last half an hour in Chat’s absence. “No-o, everything was calm and quiet. Before you showed up that was.”
Ladybug smirked and sat on the edge of the building, patting the space near her. Chat arched his eyebrows, looking at her in slight surprise, but accepted her offer anyway.
Ladybug observed the city once again, letting out a thoughtful and deep sigh.
“Is something wrong, milady?” He asked, concerned about her well-being.
“Well, everything’s mostly alright, but…” Ladybug started, gazing down to her lap. “I’m a bit concerned with the dreams I’ve been having lately.”
Chat gave her another surprised look.
“Dreams?”
“Yes, Noir, dreams,” She repeated. “They seem to haunt me, coming back every other night. As if my subconsciousness is trying to tell me something. And usually, after those dreams, I feel awful. It’s always so hard to wake up and the constant headache is really harsh. I get up feeling like I haven’t slept at all.”
Turning her head towards Chat, she only saw concern with a barely noticeable glimpse of hope in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare think I’ve gone mad!” She laughed, softly punching his shoulder.
“That wasn’t what I thought at all, Ladybug,” Chat said thoughtfully, rubbing his hands absentmindedly. “In fact, I understand you completely. Actually, that’s exactly what I was planning to discuss with you. Lately, and far too often, I’ve had, have… interesting dreams.”
This time it was her turn to stare Chat down with an astonished expression climbing on her face.
“No-no-no, my Lady,” Chat raised his hands up defensively, feeling the warmth spread through his face as his cheeks flushed red. “It’s not what you think it is! Cat’s honor! Just let me explain!”
“Okay, Chat, go on,” Ladybug smirked, seeing how fast he tried to renounce the mere joking suspicions about him having wet dreams about the superheroine.
“But I will tell you all about them in exchange for…” Chat started, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
“In exchange for a kiss, I assume?” She interrupted him, laughing. “Well then, you can leave your interesting dreams to yourself.”
“Will you stop interrupting?” he flared up. “ In exchange for telling me about your dreams!”
Ladybug went silent for a moment, considering the risks. Her mind instantly sprung to action and gave her all the possible consequences of this decision. She had to stop her brain from wandering when the thought of them revealing each other identities appeared.
Well, that’s a stretch. Even I can’t see it happening, she thought, trying to calm the raging brainstorm.
It wasn’t exactly impossible , but she decided that way too many things had to align just perfectly for it to happen. And she really wanted to talk about these dreams to someone who she knew she could trust.
“Deal,” She sighed, finally agreeing to his proposition.
***
“Good morning, Marinette!” Tikki’s high-pitched voice split her head with the strength of a sledgehammer. Accompanied by the annoying buzzing of her alarm perforating her head like an enormous drill, she struggled to open even one of her eyes. Blindly, she managed to turn off the alarm to her relief. The girl buried her face in her palms, groaning loudly. She rubbed her eyes, struggling to maintain consciousness. Marinette sat up on her bed, leaning heavily on her shaking hands. Buzzing of the alarm still echoed in her ears. She tried to open her eyes again, feeling as though in her sleep she was taking long sand baths. Marinette rubbed her eyes again, much more vigorously this time and once she was sure she wouldn't fall asleep again, she allowed herself to lay down. She raised her palms to her face and carefully stroked her cheeks. Her entire body screamed about being exhausted. With her fingertips Marinette felt thenasty black circles under her eyes. She buried her hands into her tangled hair and groaned in pain. Marinette could tell she was not going to look forward to her morning routine.
Practically all night, she had the same dream that she had recently spoken to Chat about. Repeating itself again and again like a broken record, it seemed like it was trying to show her something, but she was never sure she quite understood the meaning of it. Instead of clarity, with each repetition of the dream, she felt as though she was actually understanding less and less.
Now here she was, laying down on her bed, looking to the ceiling through her open figures with thoughts about that dream filling every thought. Marinette never thought she had the sharpest of minds, yet she understood there was some obvious connection between the cat in her dream and her kitten in real life. She thought she could ask Tikki about it, but the hardly coherent thoughts buzzing around in her head decided that it was a topic for another time.
The cats aren’t going anywhere. Marinette decided.
The girl sat up on her bed, trying to blink away the sleepiness. The first thing she saw was the concerned gaze of her kwami. In Tikki’s big blue eyes, Marinette saw sympathy and care. As if the tiny creature knew exactly what her chosen one was feeling at this moment.
“Bad dreams, Mari?” Tikki asked quietly.
“Yeah,” she answered shortly, rubbing her eyes. “There’s something I want to talk about but… Not now, I can’t.” She gestured toward her head. “The brain thingy doesn’t work properly. Doesn’t work at all, to be honest.”
Tikki smiled warmly and nodded. “I’ll be here when you’re ready and will try to help as much as I can.”
The headache caused by sleep deprivation left her with little to no strength or desire to get out of her bed, let alone going anywhere, but she knew perfectly well that she had to. Gathering her strength, she threw herself out from under the blankets. Each step towards the bathroom echoed loudly in her head, vibrating painfully through her entire being and squeezing quiet sobs out of her.
Was Chat’s morning as awful as mine?
***
Adrien woke up to the obnoxiously bright morning sun shimmering down onto his bed. He woke up as usual, just before the alarm went off, but still feeling as if his head was about to implode. The strange and unknown feeling of anxiety washed over him. Trying to figure out where it came from, he glanced towards the windowsill where he found Plagg, already awake and thoughtfully looking outside while enjoying his 100% Camembert breakfast.
Although these dreams were a significant influence on his overall well-being, which inevitably showed with the awful dark circles under his eyes, Adrien still had no trouble waking up before the alarm. And even though he had an insufferable headache and a loud banging in his ears, he was sure he’d make it through the day. Well, he was almost sure.
“So I had a thought,” He spoke loud enough so Plagg would hear him. And judging by the extremely sarcastic expression growing on kwami’s face, he did hear him. The growing bitter comment inside of the tiny creature’s mind was utterly obvious, but he, somehow, managed to keep it to himself, turning his head slightly to listen to what his chosen one had to say. “Is it possible that Ladybug’s and my emotions and feelings are somehow connected? Or are maybe becoming connected?”
Adrien saw a spark of some unrecognizable emotion flash in his kwami’s eyes. It disappeared in the blink of an eye, and this once Adrien decided to dismiss all the curious questions appearing in his head about it. He needed to focus on the matter at hand.
“So I’m going to assume that you pretty much know the answer. I’ve lived a long life, kid, and I have had many holders of the black cat Miraculous. More than you can imagine. The heroes and we, kwami, often meet similar problems like the uncertainty of the wielders, but we also have to face absolutely unique problems in each experience that may do more harm than good if we intervene or try to help. And, I’m sorry Adrien, this is exactly that kind of problem. You’ll have to figure it out yourself.”
Adrien gave his kwami a questioning look. Plagg had given him far too much explanation for quite a simple question.
“Would a weekly supply of Camembert help you change your mind?
Adrien asked, knowing exactly how to tempt the kwami into giving him the information he needed.
“Don’t even try to bribe me,” Plagg answered firmly, making Adrien smirk widely. A few moments of silence passed before Plagg understood how obvious he was by hiding the whole truth from his chosen one. “Whops? I guess it’s too late to retract, right? You owe me a lot more than a weekly supply now.” He continued, showering Adrien with a grim look, angry at how easily the kid fished the information out of him. “And, to answer your question, yes. Only your Miraculouses were designed to work together. In history, we had a few occurrences when feelings and emotions of the wielder of the black cat miraculouses would sync with those of Ladybug Miraculous wielder. But it never led to any serious consequences. And, if we understood the circumstances correctly, it only happened because… No, wait. That’s a big spoiler.”
“Plagg, you probably already know this, but I’m going to tell you one more time: you’re terrible,” Adrien mumbled.
“Sure, I know that, but I don’t want to answer all of your questions,” Plagg grinned, “At least, not right now. Where’s the fun in that?” He floated closer, seeing the annoyed expression on his holder’s usually calm face, “Besides, I highly doubt that Ladybug bothers her kwami with so many questions. Now, where’s my cheese?” Plagg laughed hearing Adrien groan at the mention of cheese, and floated towards the mini-fridge, which only found its purpose after Adrien acquired his Miraculous.
Well, that’s some amount of useful information. A lot actually, considering it’s Plagg.
Making his way towards the bathroom, his fingertips found their way to his temples, the throbbing pain in his head worsening the more he dwelled on the dream. He hoped his lady had managed to get a better night sleep than he did at least.
***
Marinette was particularly happy that her usual ‘luck’ struck her this morning. She didn’t have to talk much during morning classes and she didn’t have to explain to anyone her apathetic, somewhat careless, look. The mere thought of social interactions made her cringe. Though the headache had calmed a bit, she was far from feeling like a normally functioning human being.
She could barely sit upright. Her lack of focus and attention span of a goldfish was going to come back to bite her sooner or later. Yet, she didn’t seem to care enough about it or about the contents of the lessons she was half-deliberately skipping out on mentally. She could’ve tried and listened to their teacher, but she knew she had exactly zero chance of success of actually taking in any sort of information. The hazy cloud stuffed inside her head was a wall to the outside world, refusing to let anything besides the fragments of her dream in. That’s why she decided to focus on them, trying to make any sense out of the scattered pieces.
For Marinette, the whole morning was a long, everlasting blurred mess of sounds. Only the afternoon break bell was able to, somewhat successfully, break her free from the zombie state she was in.
Letting out a relieved sigh, she shakily stood up and started to pick up her things hurriedly while Alya was distracted chatting with Nino.
Keeping her head low, she stepped towards the exit, but almost immediately crashed into an obstacle.
A soft and warm one with familiar sunshine colored hair.
“Ad-Adrien?!” She mumbled out. “I’m s-sorry. I wasn’t looking! And you here! And so am I!”
Marinette flinched backward a few steps and nearly fell on her bottom. But thanks to Adrien's quick reaction, she did not. He launched forward, catching her and clasping her body safely inside the space of his arms.
“Adr… I..” She tried to speak, her cheeks flaring up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mari.” He whispered, still not letting her out of his hold. “Are you alright?”
“Who, me? Yes! Bever netter! I mean, never better!” She blurted, making herself move away from him.
Yet, when she gathered enough courage to look up, she instantly felt her heart sink. The state Adrien was in was not much different from her own. There were the noticeable dark circles under his eyes, the way his hair looked messier than usual as it stuck out wildly in odd places, and the general tiredness in his usually put together appearance. Marinette felt a shiver running down her spine once she realized that he probably saw the same things in her.
“Well, are YOU alright, Adrien?” She mumbled, taking a good long look at the deep tiredness in his eyes.
“Me?..” He echoed, confused. “I’m good! It’s just, lately, I’ve been having…”
“...Bad dreams?” Marinette blurted out, finishing the phrase for him.
“Y-yes?” Adrien arched his eyebrow, visible concern growing in his eyes. “How did you know?”
She felt her knees starting to tremble, trying to come up with a suitable answer.
“It’s intuition,” Alya interrupted, coming closer to Marinette and hugging her shoulders. “And Sunshine, it’s basically written all over your face. Besides, Marinette mentioned she had a few nightmares recently.”
“M-Marinette? You too?” Adrien asked, looking closely at her. “So nightmares, huh?”
“Well…” She mumbled as she silently nudged Alya towards the exit. “Would you look at the time! We don’t want to miss dinner, do we?”
With that rather abrupt and obvious avoidance of the subject, she took a hold of Alya’s hand and ran out of the door.
In the process of her escape, she cast another look back at Adrien, with only one thought buzzing around in her head.
This is impossible. It can’t be.
Obviously, she couldn’t have known that at the same time, the same exact thought popped up inside Adrien’s head too.