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There’s only so much patience a deity can have.
Admittedly, they have to have a lot, what with being basically immortal beings and all, but even that has to have a limit. It’s like the universe. Maybe the beginning of it is time out of mind for us mere mortals, but sooner or later, it has to end. And humanity has a tendency to seriously put even the most bottomless of immortal patience to the test.
But, goddammit…
Seriously. Goddammit if gods can’t be just a little bit of a thorny prick sometimes. They play with people’s lives, which, when viewed by a god, seem so fucking short, to the point of almost being grossly insignificant. And then things like war and famine and let me just go ahead and make the most beautiful woman in the world fall in love with Paris of Troy and run away with him even though she’s already married and her husband will slaughter thousands upon thousands, just because Paris called me the prettiest goddess happen, and you’ve got a bunch of beings with way too much time on their hands, and an overwhelming abundance of creatures with basically no way of helping themselves when the Powers that be Vain and Stupid go and fuck things up for the mortal world.
I mean, you’ve got your villain deities, too. Nevermind the gods who have a tendency to manipulate things above the ground but below the clouds: they’re harmless in comparison, except for being just plain old incapable of imagining what it must be like to be human. But you compare them to the real villains--textbook evil characters like Fenrir, Hades, Cronus, Apophis, Lamashtu--you probably start to more or less imagine that, even if you’re a deity, that shit gets old real fuckin quick.
So when it comes to Ladybug--who, surprisingly, even though she’s a bit of a clutz and a spaz, has patience in spades--when she’s the one who’s clean run the fuck out of patience and then some, you know you done fucked up.
You know she’s patient--besides being just about the oldest god of Miraculous mythology (except maybe the Jade Turtle, that is, her predecessor, but even he got old enough to pass his title and his power on to someone else, so you know they’re both pretty seasoned), she’s been guarding the resident asshat of the Miraculous pantheon for fucking nearly a thousand years.
And she’s, you know, being cool, being Ladybug. She’s chillin. Hanging out in one of the hottest corners of the underworld with her crossword and a fucking Bahama Mama, leaning all lax against the rough stone wall and sipping that fruity drink while Hawkmoth grumbles (which he hasn’t stopped doing for at least four hundred years) in his three-seal secure prison. She just tunes him out, not at all concerned that the biggest pain in her backside since Volpina abused the power given to her by Trixx and had to have her Miraculous ripped from her lying little claws by Ladybug herself, is on a roll of insults directed at his guard, a roll that started sometime early last century at least.
So there she is, pretty used to being alone with an annoying butterfly, and not nearly as bothered by it as she was for the first two hundred years, leaning against a rough stone wall with one foot planted firmly on the ground and the other propped on a niche jutting out from the dusty-colored stone, when she feels more than sees someone approaching from afar.
And what. The actual fuck. Chloe, err, Queen Bee is supposed to be guarding the fucking gate to Hell. Ladybug pushes off the wall with a roll of her eyes. Fucking Queenie. She hasn’t stopped complaining since the dawn of fucking time about how hot and steamy it is in the underworld. Says it dries out her hair. More likely than not, she probably ran off to flirt with anybody in the entire world instead of doing her job.
Ladybug sighs, drops her crossword off to the side in a casual toss.
“What are you doing here?” she asks around a frown, hands on her hips. You better have a good fucking reason to be here, because my patience is wearing thin, her look says. A figure in black slinks out from the shadows, their movements some cross between sheepish and confident that she just doesn’t understand. The light is dim, but she can see the iridescent gleam of green cat eyes.
There’s a cigarette dangling precariously between her lips, and Ladybug eyes the visitor suspiciously while she takes a long drag. Reaching up and plucking it aside, she lets out a slow, thoughtful plume, then flicks it carelessly away.
“You know smoking will kill you.”
Only if you’re a mortal.
“Can I help you with something?” she responds testily, pointedly ignoring the comment and crossing her arms this time as the figure draws closer. She’s not exactly concerned, but she isn’t not. No one comes down here, not if they can help it. And no one, not ever, comes down to Hawkmoth’s cell unless they have a serious wish to get on Ladybug’s bad side.
No one wants to get on Ladybug’s bad side, just for the record. Nobody’s that stupid (except Hawkmoth, maybe).
The lighting’s bad down here, so Ladybug tosses her bandalore up casually and taps it against the ceiling, retracts it and replaces it at her hip. A million tiny lightning bugs start flashing their abdomens, making the cavernous wasteland glow strangely. The warm light bounces off the visitor’s cat-like green eyes and the odd bell nestled at his throat, making them flash in the effect. Two black cat ears peek out of hair that shines golden.
“Pleasure to meet you, my lady,” he says with a bow. To Ladybug’s distaste, he takes her by the fingertips and tips her knuckles gently toward his lips. She pulls her hand back before they can make contact, causing him to briefly startle, but he recovers quickly and straightens. “Chat Noir, at your service.”
Ladybug looks down her nose at his boldness and raises her eyebrows past the fringe on her forehead, striving to reach to her hairline.
“I know who you are. I created you.”
Chat Noir blushes at this (much to Ladybug’s confusion) and averts his gaze.
“Be- be that as it may, I plan to prove myself as worthy of being your equal.”
Ladybug narrows her eyes at him, watching him twitch with an abundance of excited energy before her. She assesses him while he does so, noting the brightness of his features, the lean strength in his limbs, the striking way the mismatched greens of his irises and sclera contrast against the expanse of black mask surrounding them. After a long moment, she draws a breath, then releases it.
“Go home, Chat Noir.”
She turns away. End of conversation. He’s barely over a thousand years old. He can come back and try again when he’s gained a few millenia.
“My lady-”
A hand to her arm, and she spins on instinct, slamming him against the rock wall she had been leaning on minutes before. The silver baton he wears tucked between his belt and his lower back clatters loudly from the impact. Chat Noir stares at her through wide, luminescent eyes.
“I think we both know you could be doing a lot of other things right now than coming down here and announcing your intentions to prove yourself, which you could easily be doing up at the surface, helping humankind, so tell me, Chat Noir: what the fuck are you really doing here?”
He looks so taken aback that for a second, Ladybug wonders if a thousand years of virtual isolation have had more of an effect on her than she thought. But shortly after, the surprise transitions into awe, and then he’s kind of smiling, the whites of his canines gleaming almost threateningly.
“Wow,” he wonders, drawing out the word, “you’re amazing, you know that?” The smile on his face transitions into a full-blown, shit-eating grin, and Ladybug almost backs away. Her fingers itch with the urge to slap that look right off his face.
“How do you do that?” he continues. “That’s amazing! Do you just, like, know me that well, or is it some sort of connection we have, or…” He trails there, cocking his head as he stares at her in obnoxious adoration.
Ladybug can’t keep the confusion from her face.
“...What the fuck are you talking about?” she finally asks.
Chat Noir just keeps grinning like a fool.
“You somehow just know , don’t you?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “It’s like we share a mind-- it’s almost creepy!”
To be honest, he sounds more excited than creeped out, and she still has no fucking clue what the hell he’s saying.
All at once, he turns and ducks under her arm in one smooth movement, then heads toward the sealed cell. Hawkmoth has been disturbingly quiet since the whole exchange started, and Ladybug is torn between knocking this juvenile the fuck out and sending him home, and poking the proverbial but currently harmless bear she’s guarding to make sure it’s still alive (not really). Alarm takes precedence, though, and she quickly grasps Chat Noir and yanks him back, placing herself between him and the supernatural prison.
“You still haven’t told me what the hell you’re doing here.”
Her arm is outstretched defensively, and she realizes with a bit of a shock that she’s flustered.
Well, that just won’t do.
“Proving myself,” he answers and shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing. “I thought we went over this already.” Then he makes to walk around her, but she gets in his way again.
“Over what?”
Chat Noir stops and stares at her, considering. A hum emanates from his throat.
“Setting Hawkmoth free, I thought that was established, why are we wasting time like this? Let’s get this party started.”
Nani the fuck.
“Say what now?” Her hand is still raised as a barrier, the other reaching for the bandalore on her hip.
Chat Noir tries to move forward, but Ladybug is already two steps ahead of him. With a flick of the wrist, she has him wrapped up tight in the string of her bandalore. Confusion, then frustration flash across his young-looking face. Ladybug just stares at him, on edge.
“What do you think you’re trying to do? Hawkmoth can’t be let out, are you insane? Do you have any idea what he’s done to the world, how much mess I had to clean up after the shit he’s pulled? I know you were basically a newborn back then, but take a fucking history lesson or something- ”
“I know.”
Ladybug dead stops. Her expression goes blank.
“I know,” Chat Noir repeats. He’s sort of trying to get out of his bonds, but not really. He just keeps fidgeting. A beat passes. “I know I’m young, but geez, I mean, I know that already.” He blushes a little, looking almost embarrassed, pauses. “That’s, like, the point, you know?”
No, she doesn’t know.
Chat Noir sighs, slumping as much as he can tied up the way he is.
“Like... that’s the point: it was you. You’re the one who defeated Hawkmoth. All the other Miraculous gods and goddesses tried and failed to stop him, but you didn’t. You beat him, because you’re the strongest, the most powerful of them all, and you created me to be your counterpart, you know? I’ve been told that my whole life. I’m the balance to the all mighty Ladybug, so I have to be worthy of that. I have to deserve that title, I have to earn it.”
He stops, takes a breath, winded from the emotional confession. Then he chances a peek at Ladybug, who’s still holding tightly to his restraints.
“Well, isn’t that cute?”
Both of them are startled by the sudden intrusion of a third voice. It’s a voice that Ladybug knows well, one that’s been droning on in her ear for centuries, but somehow it still manages to take her by surprise.
“The kitten has a crush,” Hawkmoth drones in a sinister-sounding tease. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir turn toward the cell, a slim male with stark white hair and grey eyes peering back at them. His rumpled white shirt is partially unbuttoned, only tucked into one half of his loose-fitting purple trousers. He has no shoes of any kind on his feet--not that it matters; as a god, it’s basically impossible to mar his skin, and it’s even harder for him to get just plain dirty.
Ladybug straightens, sighing tiredly. Was somebody messing with her today? What was going on?
“Just ignore him,” she says, retracting the string. Chat Noir adjusts bodily to the freedom, rubbing his wrists and flexing his joints. He spares Hawkmoth a glance while Ladybug watches them both. “But you.” Chat Noir redirects his attention back to Ladybug. “You need to go home. This isn’t the way.”
She turns her back to him then, fully expecting him to comply with her command. He follows her hesitantly but keeps splitting his attention between the figure in the cell, who’s watching them, and the figure in front of him.
“Is he really… ok like that?”
Ladybug doesn’t even bother to spare a backwards glance; she just waves dismissively.
“It may not look like it, but if he gets too close to the invisible barrier, he’ll get an ugly shock. Knock him out for a decade or so. Trust me; he’s done it before.”
Chat Noir gives one more lingering look toward the captive god, who watches him in reciprocity from the mouth of his seemingly open cave. If it weren’t for the energy radiating from the cell, Chat isn’t sure he would be entirely convinced of its security. Hawkmoth narrows his eyes at Chat Noir, the calculating gleam behind them leaving the latter with an unsettled feeling.
“That doubles for you too,” she adds in warning. Chat reluctantly turns away from his target and chases after Ladybug, who’s somehow halfway across the large cavern already.
“My lady! My lady!” Chat calls her twice when she doesn’t respond right away. He’s jogging at twice her brisk walking pace just to catch up. “My lady! Wait!”
She slows, just barely, allowing him to finally close the distance and fall into step beside her. As he does so, Ladybug pulls the bandalore from her hip again and slides it open, transforming the weapon into a communicator. Chat watches her with mild surprise, then pulls his baton out from its place at his back and starts pushing buttons to see if it’s capable of the same. After a few quick guesses, half the baton at one end slides up, revealing a screen within. He gapes in awe and excitement as Ladybug’s call continues to ring.
“Wow, a thousand years, and I never knew it could do that-”
Ladybug gives him a look at the same time her call connects.
“Nice of you to pick up, Queenie,” she effectively cuts him off. She’s slowed again in her tread, and her gaze keeps straying toward the cell and its occupant like she’s hesitant to step anywhere they aren’t in her line of sight. They’re almost to the other end of the cavern, and she finally comes to a complete stop. Chat Noir continues watching her with unconcealed wonder, barely remembering to close his baton and replace it back in his belt.
“Ugh, Ladybug,” comes a nasal, feminine voice. It manages to sound both annoyed and whiny. “Can’t I just get, like, five minutes of peace? I’ve been watching the gate to the underworld since, like, before the French had their little civil war-”
“Revolution.”
“Whatever. That thing-”
“For which you are partly to blame.”
“Ugh. Whatever. It’s not my fault Marie Antoinette was so out of touch. I tried to tell her to stop being such a diva, but-”
“Queen Bee, you left the underworld unguarded, and now, instead of guarding my prisoner, I’m sitting here, talking to you, who are not where you should be right now, and telling you if you don’t come back and escort Chat Noir out of here in the next three seconds-”
“Oh my gods, Chat Noir is there!?”
Despite the fact she isn’t holding it up to her ear, Ladybug nonetheless holds the device even further away when the ungodly shriek erupts from the speaker. She frowns, opens her mouth to speak again, only to be beat to the punch.
“Don’t move, I’ll be right there!”
The call abruptly ends, and Ladybug closes her bandalore with a sigh, replaces it at her hip. She turns to Chat Noir with a tired look.
“Stay right here. Don’t move until Queenie comes to get you. I have to get back.”
Then Ladybug walks around him and back toward her former post. She seems used to being obeyed, so when she hears Chat Noir’s unmistakeable footfalls close behind her, she reacts with an about-face and wide, surprised eyes.
“Ladybug. We need to talk about this.”
There’s disbelief sitting on her features, disbelief and some unnameable emotion Chat Noir just can’t place. While he studies her reaction, he thinks he notices one of her eyes twitch.
“What’s your deal?” she says after a long, awkward moment of silence.
“My deal?” Chat tries to ignore the way his voice squeaks on the question.
“You’re not very good at listening, are you?” She’s advancing forward, and Chat has to step back before she completely barrels him over. “I don’t have time for this,” she continues, and her right hand is reaching almost absent-mindedly for her bandalore again. “ Now is not the time to play hero, Chat Noir. This is not the way to prove yourself.” She’s still advancing, and Chat feels his back hit a wall. Both his gloved hands plant palm-flat against the rough surface. “You might be a god, but you’re still basically a toddler , and I don’t have time to clean up the mess you will inevitably make, the moment you do something stupid like let a god stronger than all of your predecessors combined out of his prison so you can get your ass handed to you.” Ladybug stops, takes a deep breath in an effort to calm her rising blood pressure, closes her eyes. One red hand speckled with black spots rises to eye level, forefinger and thumb forming an O. “Do you have any idea what he is capable of?”
Chat’s flattened himself as much against the wall as physically possible, and he can’t help the warmth that floods his face when Ladybug stands so close. She’s so… fiery, and strong….
“Uhhh,” he gulps, confused by the conflicting physiological responses going on in his young (for a deity) body. “Yes?”
She narrows her eyes.
“Didn’t you strip him of his Miraculous powers though?”
Ladybug slows raises an arm, props it next to his head, leans closer. Chat Noir tries to to pretend like he isn’t having an internal meltdown.
A heavy beat passes between them.
“I stripped him of his Miraculous, but I can’t take away his powers completely unless his kwami has chosen to sever their bond. He can still do quite a bit more than you realize. He’s still a god.”
Chat digests that for a minute.
“But Volpina-” he tries.
“Trixx was ready to part ways with her for a long time before I finally stepped in.”
He nods, trying to take everything in. It doesn’t help that Ladybug is still so close-
“I have to do this Ladybug,” he practically whispers. Damn it all, he needs this.
Ladybug is shaking her head.
“He’s stronger than you think,” she tells him. And he knows that, but he’s always felt so woefully inferior to everyone, being the youngest of the pantheon, the least experienced, when he’s supposed to be as powerful as Ladybug, how else is he supposed to show the whole world he’s worthy of that title, of the same respect-
“But you made me to balance you. I know I’m still young, but the powers you’ve given me-- no one else could wield them like I can. All it takes is one Cataclysm-”
He realizes his mistake too late, more or less at the same time as Ladybug. Her eyes blow wide and immediately flick upward to focus on the space above his head. He can already feel the wall crumbling against his back, can see the way Ladybug tilts her head back and watches as the wall and the ceiling, all of it one, cracks, blackens, turns to ash, disintegrates above and around them. Visibly panicked, she turns and follows the dissolving structure with her gaze as it spreads, spiderweb-like, toward the cell. In a split second, she’s holding her bandalore and spinning it in a circular path mid-air. Her gaze darts about as she takes in the situation. The more the infection spreads, the greater the clouds of dust forming around them grows.
The sound of a coughing reaches their ears, and they turn simultaneously to see a willowy goddess, bedecked in yellow and black, hair golden and eyes an icy blue, emerge from the haze.
“ Ugh , I’m gone for five minutes-”
“Get him out of here,” Ladybug cuts her off, “and then get back here as soon as you can. Call the others.”
Queen Bee stares, shocked, for a moment before reaching for Chat Noir and tossing him over her shoulder too quickly for him to react. By that point, Ladybug has already disappeared into the cloud.
“Ok, kitty, time for the adults to get to work. Play time’s over~”
She only makes it a few steps before Chat Noir gathers his bearings and leaps out of her grasp. He stands a few paces away, stance defensive. Queen Bee huffs, irritated, and narrows her eyes at him.
“I need to get you out of here so I can come back and help Ladybug. I don’t have time for your little tantrum-”
She lunges forward, stinger raised, but Chat jumps easily up and over in a dodge. By the time she stops her own momentum, Chat is already sprinting back toward the area where he knows Ladybug has to be.
“Sorry, but I’m not letting her deal with this alone,” he calls over his shoulder. In an instant, though, he finds himself lurching and falling face first to the ground.
“Neither am I,” Queen Bee grits through her teeth and hefts him up like a sack of potatoes. Unluckily for her, Chat Noir has his baton in his grip, and with the press of a button, he has them both launching up at the ceiling of the passageway. Both slam against the decaying tunnel with breath-stealing force. They crumple back to the floor, slightly disoriented. Chat rises a little unsteadily to his feet while Queen Bee does the same. “What the fuck?” she screeches.
Through the sounds of rocks crumbling, falling, and crashing, they can hear Ladybug cry out. As one, they take off at a sprint, throwing each other glares along the way.
“This is all your fault, isn’t it?” Queen Bee growls.
Chat Noir snarls at her.
“It was an accident.”
Queen Bee scoffs disdainfully, sounding slightly winded.
“What a surprise.”
Chat’s glare even harder at her.
“Coming from the one who abandoned her post because she has to flirt with anything that moves.”
A high pitched, almost gurgling noise escapes from Queen Bee’s throat.
“You’re such a child! If anything happens to Ladybug or the mortal world, I will crucify you-”
“Wouldn’t want to hurt one of your many admirers.”
Queen Bee seems to give up at this, because she lets out another indescribable shriek and turns her attention forward. They’ve reached what was the cavern, but the ceiling above them is gone, the space much larger and dimmer. It’s difficult to tell if there is any ceiling at all, anywhere above their heads, but reason tells them there must be. Far above, the lightning bugs can be seen glowing faintly. All around them, the air is a cloud of reddish-brown dust, gray ash scattered like snow beneath their feet. Both fall silent at the same time, straining to hear anything. Chat does his best to see in the dimness but the air just isn’t clear enough.
Noises reach them from somewhere in front, and they take off once again in that direction. Queen Bee has her spinning top at the ready; Chat Noir holds his baton tightly in his grip. The air is thick, but with the aid of his enhanced vision, he can make out a red form ahead, not far from another form, this one taller.
“Ladybug!”
When he finally reaches the two, he has to duck under a swing, but another quickly follows, which he’s forced to block with a forearm.
“Chat Noir!”
He doesn’t have time to enjoy the sound of his name coming from his lady’s lips. He dips on instinct as Ladybug spins and kicks, though it’s so swift that he barely even sees it. Hawkmoth avoids it and seems to be keeping up with the combat, to Chat Noir’s surprise. He looks almost human in this form--none of the grandeur of their deific personas, and stripped even of the magical jewelry that hones their respective powers and amplifies their abilities. Yet there’s a power to his lean limbs, something far surpassing mortal strength, that can only be attributed to Hawkmoth’s status as a god. He is not quite as old as Ladybug, but he is definitely one of the first--to the point where it must have pained Ladybug to fight against him. At some point, they had to have been allies…
“Ladybug!”
Queen Bee’s voice draws Chat out of his distracted thoughts. Faster than he can blink, Ladybug casts her bandalore, wrapping Hawkmoth in its virtually indestructible string.
“Queenie!”
Queen Bee launches towards them, stinger held toward their foe. “Venom!” Hawkmoth falls, paralyzed and restrained as Ladybug slumps.
“Shit. A thousand years and he’s still so fucking fast.”
She doesn’t let go of the string, though.
“Where are the others? I don’t know how long this is going to hold him.”
“Five minutes, probably,” Queen Bee says as she raises her spinning top, transforming it into a communicator. She finagles with the screen and adds, “Our powers don’t work as well on each other.”
“Geez, can we all do that?” Chat can’t help but wonder out loud.
She ignores him, though, and instead keeps staring at the screen on her device.
“They’ll be here any minute.”
Chat surreptitiously glances at the screen.
It has a GPS too??
He lifts his baton to try to find the locator function, only to remember the situation and reassert his attention to the problem at hand.
With a deflated sense of disappointment, he realizes absolutely nothing he did helped in stopping Hawkmoth.
Well, shit.
Chat casts a cursory glance about the mess. The structure is gone, and he wonders briefly at the power in his hand. It really is amazing.
“Who are we waiting for?” he asks after a brief moment of quiet. He’s still taking in the collapsed structure but eventually redirects his focus to the two goddesses beside him.
Queen Bee gives him an impatient glance. Ladybug’s expression is back to being unreadable. She stands with her legs spread, leaning against a small boulder jutting up from the ground. The string of her bandalore runs from her hand to the paralyzed god it’s still wrapped around.
“Rena Rouge and Carapace,” Queen Bee answers reluctantly. “I take it you haven’t met them yet?”
Before Chat can ask anything more, Ladybug attracts his attention with a shift in her position. She sighs, readjust her grip on her bandalore.
“I can’t rebuild Hawkmoth’s prison without Carapace. It’s a modified form of his Shelter… you wouldn’t understand.”
Chat visibly winces. That stings a bit, but he can’t argue. He managed to fuck up his own heroic quest and in the end didn’t do anything to repair the damage created by his mistake. He’s still a newbie, in the long scheme of things, still a newborn compared to these seasoned deities who have been around, honing their powers and perfecting their understandings of them for millenia.
Ladybug sighs again at the look on his face.
“It’s a power that comes from using more than one Miraculous. Carapace has Shelter, and I have my own powers. If I wear the Turtle Miraculous, I can employ a power of fusion called the Miraculous Shelter. It’s equally indestructible to the Shelter, but it will never time out. It can last for basically all of time. The only thing that can destroy it is…” She hesitates, draws a breath. “Your Cataclysm.”
It’s said so matter of fact, like Chat didn’t just do something incredibly fucking careless. Sure, he had planned, on letting Hawkmoth out, but in a calculated, controlled way--not this, oops-I-released-him-on-accident-and-I’m-caught-off-guard clusterfuck kind of way.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, not because of his pride, necessarily, but because he’s embarrassed as hell.
Maybe he isn’t yet good enough to stand next to Ladybug after all.
“It’s…” she stops, thinks, “hopefully a lesson learned. I mean,” inhales deeply, “it’s not like we all haven’t fucked up before. You’re just a little… later to the game.”
Queen Bee snorts at the confession, to which Ladybug raises an eyebrow. (Probably. The mask crinkles on one side of her forehead.)
“Don’t get me started on you Queen Bee. Remember the time you created a crisis because you wanted to prove you were a hero-”
“Ladybug!”
“That was when you first gained your powers, too,” Ladybug continues, amused. “It wasn’t even the last time you did something so stupid.”
“That was, like, thousands of years ago!” Queen Bee protests. She’s flushed, flustered, suddenly fidgeting restlessly.
Ladybug smirks, triumphant. Point made. She turns back to Chat Noir.
“When I first gained my powers, I had to fight these monsters… and I completely bungled it. It was so bad, I tried to quit. I thought, there had to be someone out there--anyone, who would do better at this.” She shrugs, like she’s not completely turning Chat’s world on it’s side, like she isn’t perfection incarnate. Chat just stares, wide-eyed and unable to look away. “Turns out you can’t reject a calling like that. You can’t be un-made a god. Master Fu guided me through it, and now it’s my responsibility to guide you.”
Chat gapes, can’t say a word. She’s so fucking incredible, an incarnation of all the majesty of all the stars and all the nebulae and all the planets in the universe, the strength and the beauty of creation itself. And, yea, she’s beautiful in the mortal way of viewing things--that abstract and vague je ne sais quoi that humans use to arbitrarily and inconsistently differentiate between each other, that they use to measure each other’s worth. But that’s a different kind of beauty. To be a god is to see deeper, to look down at the world and see the stardust in every person. To see what they’re actually made of, their hopes and dreams, virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses.
Looking at Ladybug is like looking at the sun. She’s radiant. The light of a thousand galaxies. Strength immeasurable. Power resplendent with possibility, limitless.
And she wants to mentor him?
“I’m sorry, Chat Noir. I shouldn’t have dismissed you like that. I tend to think I have to take everything on myself, and I end up neglecting other responsibilities. I created you, to be my equal no less, and it’s my job to make sure you find your way. I’m sorry I left you to figure it out on your own.”
All this time, Chat had been wandering about the earth, trying to find ways to make himself stronger, to prove he was worthy of being born in this form.
...And now he’s learning it doesn’t have to be that way?
“Chat, would you be my partner?”
Partner? Not… protégé? Not… intern? Or lapdog? Gofer? Servant? Slave?
Holy fucking shit.
“I-”
A groan interrupts the moment, and Ladybug rises immediately to her feet.
“We’ve got a live one,” Queen Bee announces dryly.
“Dammit, where is everyone?”
“We’re here!”
Two figures step through the opening, a fox lady with long, red hair, tipped in white, carrying a flute in one hand, and a turtle-looking man, goggles covering his eyes and a green hood over his head.
Hawkmoth starts moving, twisting sluggishly at first like a drunk, then thrashing more violenting as the paralytic effects of Queen Bee’s Venom wear off. Queen Bee drops to the ground in an attempt to hold him down.
“Carapace, now,” Ladybug orders, holding out her hand.
“Shit.”
Carapace practically rips the bracelet off his wrist and tosses it to Ladybug. His turtle-like appearance immediately changes to a much more human-like one.
Ladybug catches the bracelet and holds it up, takes out an earring and holds them side by side.
“Unify!”
Her formerly red-all-over with black spots suit changes. Now, the suit is black, with spots of green in a domino-like pattern.
“Queenie!”
At the same time Ladybug retracts her bandalore, Queen Bee casts her spinning top and yanks Hawkmoth toward them. He crashes to the ground, and she draws the top back to her waiting hand. Ladybug winds and tosses the bandalore high, calling, “Miraculous Shelter!”
When it begins to fall, she pulls it swiftly back with a flick of the wrist and sets it spinning, then finally casts it on the ground with such force, Chat isn’t sure how it doesn’t break. A bubble-like forcefield appears, but the green-tinged, honeycomb-like structure of it quickly fades into a transparent thing. The barrier is there, but invisible.
“Shit,” she says, seemingly out of breath as she draws up beside Chat Noir and rests a forearm on his shoulder. “This was not how I planned on spending my day.” Then, “Oh.” Ladybug straightens and holds the jewelry up in her hand. “Divide!”
She tosses the bracelet back to Carapace and resumes her stance. The five of them stand around, looking at Hawkmoth back in his cell.
“Damn. I’m going to have to build another cavern. That’s going to take ages -”
“What happened in here?” Carapace asks while he finishes adjusting his bracelet. He’s back to being fully suited up, and Rena Rouge looks on beside him.
“Yea, no kidding,” she agrees.
“Have you met Chat Noir yet?”
It’s abrupt and not very smooth, but Chat is grateful for the way Ladybug redirects the conversation. Rena just arches an eyebrow, clearly still curious but not willing to push the point. Carapace just extends his hand toward Chat without so much as a blink.
“Hey, bro! Finally! Man, do you know how long I’ve been the only guy around here?”
Rena elbows him and rolls her eyes.
“Welcome to the team,” she says. The way she looks at him, though, he’s pretty sure he’s going to get some kind of interrogation later.
“Heh.” Chat rubs self-consciously at the nape of his neck. “Thanks. I’m… really honored.”
“Come on, then.” Ladybug wraps her elbow around his neck and begins to pull him in another direction. “You can help me design a new lair. This place was getting outdated, anyway. And I don’t want to have to keep staring at Hawkmoth’s ugly face for longer than necessary.”
A noise of displeasure reaches them from the general area of Hawkmoth’s prison. Ladybug barely glances back as she flips him the finger.
“See you guys later! Thanks!” she calls over her shoulder. They hear a few acknowledgements as they emerge into the corridor, Queen Bee’s voice the last to carry over to them.
“Oh my gods, Rena, you wouldn’t believe-”
That’s the last they can hear before they’re too far out of range. Chat keeps silent as they walk, not daring to remind Ladybug she still has her arm around his neck, lest she think better of it and remove the appendage.
“So, uh… we’re partners, then?” He sounds insecure about it, and he is. She’s the guardian, and he’s practically a fledgling.
“Yep,” she answers, popping the ‘p.’ “I’m not letting you out of my sight for a while.”
Chat tries not to, but he blushes anyway.
“R-Right.” A gulp. Then, softer: “partners.”
Ladybug throws him a sideways glance.
“Don’t go getting any funny ideas.” She nudges him a little with the weight of her body. “This is strictly professional.”
Chat turns absolutely crimson.
“N-No! Of course not!”
Her arm drops--to his disappointment--and she skips a little ahead with a smirk on her face.
“Well, maybe for now.”
A beat passes. Chat’s heart does something funny in his chest. His mouth catches up with his brain.
“W-What?”