Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As the light of the unification died away, Marinette steadied herself with a hand to the railing of her balcony. Somehow, even though unifying miraculous was always a strain, she felt better now than she had since this whole mess had begun. Steadier. They had a plan, and they were going to see it through no matter what it took.

With a confident smile, she turned to Adrien and said, “Okay, I just need to get something to use as an anchor and then we can go.”

“What are you going to use?” he asked.

Marinette frowned briefly, then shrugged. “Give me a moment. I’ll find something.”

She slipped quickly into her room and went over to her dresser. According to Kaalki, the items she used as an anchor weren’t as important as the intent and the feelings behind them. She just needed something that could be given to someone important enough that the bonds would stretch across space and time and give her a way back to both Adrien and their home.

The item she was going to pick for Adrien was obvious. She grabbed the charm bracelet that he had given her once. For Alya, it was a little harder. But finally, Marinette picked up a little Rena Rouge figurine that she had bought on a whim one day at the market. Alya had tried hard to hide it, but she’d been so happy to see Marinette buy Rena Rouge merchandise that she’d almost cried.

Holding both items carefully, Marinette returned to the balcony and handed the charm bracelet to Adrien. “Whatever you do, make sure you don’t lose it,” she warned him.

“I won’t.” Adrien’s brown gloves closed around the bracelet, and he clutched it to his chest. “What else do you have?”

She showed him the figurine. “I’ll give it to Alya, and then we can go.”

“Right.” Adrien smiled at her. It was a shaky smile. He was nervous, and she didn’t blame him. He was putting a lot of trust into what was essentially a ridiculous plan.

He was putting a lot of trust into her.

She took a deep breath and beckoned to him, and he followed her when she jumped off the balcony. It began to rain as they made their way towards Alya’s apartment building. Marinette hoped desperately that it wasn’t a sign of bad things to come.

“I’ll wait here,” Adrien said when they got close.

“I won’t be long,” Marinette promised him. After all the hours she had spent in Alya’s room, she knew exactly which window was hers. She landed on the thin ledge and perched there, peeking inside.

There was Alya, laying on her bed with her phone.

Marinette knocked on the window.

Alya jumped and her head snapped around.

“Ladybug?” she exclaimed, leaping off the bed and rushing to the window. She wrenched it open and then paused, her expression collapsing into uncertainty when she saw who was on her ledge.

“It’s me,” Marinette told her. “I just had to use a couple of different miraculous today, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Alya’s eyebrows furrowed. She was no doubt torn between asking for more details and asking why Marinette was there.

“I need your help, Alya.”

“Of course!” Alya’s face lit up. Marinette almost hated to disappoint her, but…

“Not how you think. I just need you to keep this safe for me.” Marinette dug out the figurine and handed it over. Alya took it, looking confused.

“Uh… sure, Ladybug. But why?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s just really important that you keep this on you at all times. Can you do that?” Marinette asked urgently.

Alya blinked, surprised, but then gave a solemn nod. “Absolutely. I won’t let you let down, Ladybug.”

“Thank you,” Marinette said, relieved. “And… someday I’ll explain, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Alya said with a cheeky smile.

Marinette gave her a small smile back and jumped off the ledge, aiming for the roof next door. It was a little weird not to have her yoyo, but she was able to make her way back to Adrien without too much trouble. Unlike when he was Chat Noir, his orange-and-brown costume stood out like a beacon.

She hoped that when they were in different universes, he would still be the beacon guiding her back.

Chapter Text

When looking for a particular universe to jump to, Kaalki had again told them that it was all about intent. So before Marinette used her attack, she closed her eyes and thought particularly hard about the sort of universe that they needed to go.

For Adrien, a universe where there was a Ladybug but no Chat Noir.

For Marinette, a universe where there was a Chat Noir but no Ladybug.

Everything inside of her cried out strongly against such worlds – she believed with all of her heart that Ladybug and Chat Noir belonged together – but Marinette did what she could to push those feelings down as she spoke the words that might just change their lives forever.

“It worked,” Adrien said in her ear, and Marinette opened her eyes.

Two portals were floating in front of them. Contrary to Bunnix’s portals, which were usually white, these portals were more of a bluey-green color. It reminded Marinette of pools of sea water, except she couldn’t see through the bottom. She couldn’t see anything. The portals were just endless depths of color, and that left her feeling anxious.

What if they didn’t go anywhere?

What if she had done it wrong?

Tikki had told her how dangerous this was…

Adrien must have noticed her apprehension because he smiled at her. “Think there’s a chance one of these will drop me into a Ghibli AU?”

“A… what?” Marinette said, blinking.

“You’ve never seen a Ghibli film?” Adrien said, looking a bit horrified. “That’s it. When we come back, we’re having a movie marathon night.”

“Uh… sure,” Marinette said, shrugging. The brief back-and-forth had helped to ease her nerves a bit, though she was still cautious as she stepped closer to one of the portals.

It moved away from her.

Adrien looked at Marinette.

She looked back at him blankly.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Adrien asked after a pause.

“I have no idea.” Marinette tried to approach the portal again, but it determinedly moved away from her.

“Maybe…” Adrien walked right up to the portal. It stayed where it was supposed to be, even allowing Adrien to reach out a gloved hand to not-quite-touch.

But when Adrien tried to walk over to the other portal, that portal then moved away. Adrien nodded.

“Yeah, this one must be mine and that’s yours,” he said, gesturing to the portal that wouldn’t allow him to get close. “I guess that’s good. Means that we won’t end up going to the wrong place.”

Marinette hadn’t even thought about that being a possibility, and she gulped. It would’ve been a mistake that they could have fixed, though it would’ve required her feeding Fluff and Kaalki to do so. As it was… she checked her miraculous, realizing that she had missed the first warning beep. They had less than four minutes to get through the portals.

She didn’t even want to think about what might happen if the timer ran out and she detransformed while they were still in the portals.

Maybe they’d be lost forever…

“We need to go,” she blurted out. “I don’t know how long it takes to go through, and I have less than four minutes – no, make that less than three minutes before I detransform.” She amended her sentence partway through when both miraculous beeped again.

“Right.” Adrien put on a brave smile. His orange, white-tipped fox ears bobbed as he walked over to her and took both of his hands into hers.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Though Marinette knew they had both done dangerous things before in the line of duty, somehow this felt different. Ladybug and Chat Noir were an unstoppable team… when they were together. Normally even if they had to separate during an akuma attack, it was always short.

A few days really wasn’t that long, but right then it felt like forever.

“It will be okay,” Marinette said finally, forcing herself to smile too.

“Yeah,” Adrien said softly. He looked like he wanted to say something else.

Marinette wished he would.

There were so many feelings bubbling up inside of her that she just didn’t know how to express.

But maybe Adrien was having the same problem because he let go of her hands without saying anything.

Then he did something that surprised her.

He held his fist up.

Marinette could have cried as she formed a fist and bumped her knuckles against his.

“Bonne chance, My Lady,” Adrien said somberly, with none of his usual joy. Then he turned on his heel and ran towards his portal.

“Good luck, Chaton,” Marinette whispered right before he went inside.

Her heart felt impossibly heavy as she watched the portal swallow him up. He was out of sight within seconds, gone into the sea of blue green. The portal faded away seconds later. Marinette took a couple of deep breaths, trying not to freak out too badly.

He had the charm bracelet, she reminded herself.

She would find him again.

They would be together again.

Holding that thought in her head, and in her heart, she turned and walked through her own portal.

Chapter Text

There was nothing but blue-green light for the longest time, pressing down on her from all sides. Marinette had to close her eyes against the brightness of it. Despite the pressure, walking forward was easy. So she kept moving, step after step, until suddenly the pressure disappeared. She stopped, instinctively sucking in a deep breath, and smelled…

Pizza?

Marinette opened her eyes.

She was on a rooftop, just like the one where she had been before. Another warning beep sounded in her ears, and she glanced at her miraculous to see that she had less than one minute left now. Which meant that it had taken at least a minute for her to travel through the portal. She filed that tidbit of information away for the future and kept looking around.

Everything seemed normal, though. The sky was blue, there were buildings all over the place, and, when she walked to the edge of the roof and glanced over, plenty of people were milling around in the streets enjoying the warm weather. If it weren’t for the fact that the sun was shining in the sky whereas a minute ago it had been pouring, she would have wondered if the portal had even worked.

With one last, echoing, feeble beep, her transform came undone. Marinette put her hands out just in time to catch Kaalki and Fluff. The two kwamis looked exhausted.

“It worked,” Fluff said weaky before Marinette could even ask if they were okay.

Marinette exhaled. “Yeah, I know that it did.”

And she didn’t really know how she felt about that…

“I’m hungry,” Kaalki said.

Well, at least that was one place to start.

“Alright, you two hide. I’ll get you some food,” Marinette said, gently sliding both of them into her purse. It was fortunate that she had her purse, she realized, because she was going to be on her own for food and stuff like that. She hoped that Adrien had his wallet.

Luckily, there was a door on the roof that led to a set of emergency stairs. Marinette clattered down the steps and emerged out onto the street. No one gave her a second glance; she was relieved to see that fashion-wise, she blended right in.

She walked down the street until she found a café, and then she went in and bought some cookies. While Kaalki and Fluff were munching away, she took out her phone and tried to connect to the internet.

It didn’t work.

“Damn,” Marinette muttered under her breath. She had been hoping she could look up Adrien on the internet.

Did the internet even exist here?

How was she going to find him otherwise?

What was she going to do if it turned out that someone else had the Black Cat miraculous?

She rubbed her forehead, suddenly feeling the beginnings of a bad headache. Okay, she just had to think about this logically. She knew where the Agreste mansion was in her own world, as well as where their school was. Maybe she could try going to one or both of those places. Finding Adrien, even if he might not be Chat Noir, seemed like a good first place to start.

“Excuse me, what day is it?” she asked a man who was walking by. It had been Saturday in her universe, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was the same day here. Her suspicions were confirmed when the man gave her a weird look but responded.

“It’s Tuesday.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Marinette said, only now realizing how weird that sounded. She smiled awkward and quickly walked away, heading in the direction of Collège Françoise Dupont had been in her own universe.

Apparently, some things didn’t change because the school was in the exact same place. Judging by the clock in the window of the store across the street, there was only about fifteen minutes until quitting time – in her universe, anyway. Marinette scuffed her foot in the dirt and waited, heart pounding.

When the kids began to trickle out, Marinette snapped to attention. Most of them didn’t look familiar…

Then a very familiar face walked by.

“Chloé?” Marinette blurted out.

The girl turned towards Marinette. And yes, it was Chloé – but she was wearing her hair down instead of the customary ponytail that Marinette was so familiar with. Even more surprisingly, the bottom two inches of her hair was dyed bright blue. More blue strands framed her face. But the narrowed blue eyes that stared at Marinette were the same.

“Who are you?” Chloé said. “How do you know my name?”

“Uh… My name is Mari,” Marinette said, thinking quickly. ‘Marinette’ was an unusual name, but ‘Mari’ was less so. “I used to go here a long time ago.”

Chloé frowned. “I don’t remember you.”

“We were classmates a long time ago,” Marinette lied. “I was wondering… does Adrien Agreste go here?”

Chloé’s face shut down immediately. “That’s none of your business,” she snapped, and walked away.

Chapter Text

“That went well,” Kaalki observed, poking her head out of Marinette’s purse.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what universe I’m in. Chloé will always be a rude brat,” Marinette muttered.

“Marinette, that’s not really fair. You’re going to have to be a lot less obvious,” Fluff said, following Kaalki. “Think about it. If someone had come up to you and started asking about Adrien, you wouldn’t tell them whatever they wanted to know either, would you?”

Marinette started to respond and then paused, realizing that Fluff might have a point. In fact, Marinette had been approached by strangers – both fans and reporters – asking about Adrien before. So had Alya and Nino. All three of them had a pact that they wouldn’t answer any questions about Adrien to people they didn’t know. It was the polite thing to do.

“Shoot. Chloé was actually being a good friend,” Marinette said, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot. Maybe approaching Chloé so bluntly hadn’t been the right idea after all.

“She’s walking away,” Kaalki said. “Are you going to follow her?”

“I guess.” Marinette didn’t have any other ideas. Even if she saw Alya or Nino come out, or the alternate universe version of them anyway, it was unlikely they’d give her any more information than Chloé had.

She glanced both ways before crossing the street after Chloé, then turned right. It was the same way she would have gone had been going home.

But the Dupain-Cheng bakery wasn’t there.

Marinette slowed before the building, belatedly realizing that Chloé was entering a nearby café. Instead of a popular French bakery, there was a boutique of some kind. A display of purses and shoes was sitting right out front, and a couple of women walking by stopped to browse.

Where were her parents?

Did Marinette even exist here?

Maybe she didn’t. She had asked for a universe where there was no Ladybug, after all.

Or maybe her parents just didn’t live in Paris. That was a more comforting thought. Marinette did remember Sabine telling her once that, when Marinette was just a baby, Tom and Sabine had talked about moving to China. But they had decided to stay in Paris and open the bakery, which had been such a success that any talk of moving to China had been off the table.

Either way would also explain why Chloé hadn’t recognized her. In this universe, they had never met before.

At least she didn’t need to worry about running into another Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she supposed. It would probably be pretty suspicious if people started noticing a duplicate of someone they already knew running around.

Then again, there was nothing say she and the Marinette of this world would look exactly the same.

“Marinette, there goes Chloé!” Fluff said, and Marinette snapped to attention.

Sure enough, Chloé was walking out of the café and making her way down the sidewalk. Marinette followed slowly, making sure that there was plenty of distance between them. She wasn’t surprised when Chloé eventually ended up at Le Grand Paris. Chloé walked right inside like she owned the place, which she probably did – or at least, her father probably still did.

She stood there for a moment, torn.

It didn’t seem like talking to Chloé was going to be very helpful. She had sort of hoped that Chloé might lead her right to Adrien, but of course Marinette’s luck wasn’t that good.

Maybe she should just go right to the Agreste mansion? If she knew for sure that Adrien still lived there, then she could use her miraculous to get to Adrien’s bedroom to speak to him. She felt confident that getting to Adrien would be half the battle; if she could just talk to him, surely he would understand.

If he was Chat Noir here…

“Maybe I should go to Master Fu’s shop first,” Marinette murmured to herself. It was pretty unlikely she’d be able to steal the Ladybug miraculous, but if she knew where it was that would be a huge step in the right direction.

If she couldn’t find Master Fu, then she could try to find the Agreste mansion. If they didn’t live there, then she could come back to the hotel. Maybe if she hung around for a little while, she would see Adrien coming to visit Chloé. She could also go back to the school tomorrow morning to see if Adrien showed up for class.

And if all that still led her to a dead end, maybe she could try to find a library and use the computer to track Adrien down.

Marinette gave a determined nod, feeling better now that she had a bunch of steps laid out, and started heading for where Master Fu’s shop was in her own world.

Chapter Text

“Marinette, are you okay?” Fluff asked.

“I’m fine,” Marinette said hollowly, pulling her knees up against her chest so as to better shield the kwamis from the view of anyone who might be walking by.

But honestly, she was not fine. Not even close.

She hadn’t realized just how much she was pinning her hopes on finding Master Fu until she got to what would have been his shop in her world and realized that he wasn’t there. Instead, there had been a neat row of apartment buildings. Marinette had hung around out front for a little while until people who were coming and going started giving her weird looks, at which point she left.

“You don’t look okay,” Kaalki said, peering up at her worriedly.

“It’s just… I didn’t think about the possibility that Master Fu wouldn’t be the guardian here.” Marinette gulped, running her hands through her hair.

That had been really stupid, hadn’t it? Not only was it unlikely that Master Fu would be the guardian in every universe, but there was also a good chance that what happened in her universe could have happened here. Even if Master Fu had been the guardian, he might not be now.

Which meant that the miraculous could be in the hands of anyone in Paris…

Or worse, maybe they weren’t even in Paris. Master Fu had been drawn here because of the missing Butterfly miraculous.

She squeezed her eyes shut, wondering how Adrien was making out. Maybe he’d already contacted the Ladybug in that alternate universe. He probably had. Ladybug was the one who came up with the plans, but Chat was often the one who made those plans happen. Plus, he was charismatic and likeable enough to be able to sweet-talk anyone he came into contact with.

All Marinette was doing was sitting on a park bench, trying not to cry.

“Oh, Marinette, it will be okay,” Fluff said soothingly, flying up enough to be able to pat Marinette’s cheek. “Just take some deep breaths. You’ve been walking around all day. You’re tired. You just need a break.”

“Right,” Marinette said, trying to dredge up a smile – but she was pretty sure she failed. Her stomach felt like there were rocks in it, sharp enough to make taking a deep breath painful.

What if she couldn’t get the Ladybug miraculous?

What if she had to go back to Adrien empty-handed?

That would be awful. Adrien was depending on her. She had to do this; she had to hold up her end of the bargain.

But how?

“What can you do next?” Kaalki asked. “You could try talking to Chloé again.”

Marinette shook her head. “No, I’d rather save that for a last-ditch effort. I guess I could go by the Agreste mansion… though it’s getting late.”

It had taken her longer to walk to where Master Fu’s shop used to be than she had expected.

If she didn’t know better, she would swear this Paris was laid out a little differently than the one in her world.

Hell… maybe she didn’t know better. Maybe it was.

“Where are you going to sleep tonight?” Fluff asked her.

“Uh…” Marinette blinked at the kwami, then shrugged. “Probably outside somewhere. I don’t have enough money on me to go rent a hotel room somewhere. And I don’t know anyone here, and they don’t know me. No one is going to let me stay with them.”

She had already counted up her funds while she was walking back. She had enough money to feed both her and the kwamis for a few days, but that was about it. Any attempts at getting a room to sleep in was going to leave her totally broke, and that wasn’t something she could let happen. She didn’t even care if she went hungry for a couple days, but she absolutely had to have food for the kwamis.

Fluff frowned. “That’s not ideal.”

“It’ll be fine. I can get somewhere high up where no one will bother me,” Marinette said, shrugging. There were no other options so far as she could see. After all, if there was no Marinette Dupain-Cheng in Paris in this world, it wasn’t even like she could pretend to be her alternate universe’s self.

She probably wouldn’t sleep well… she’d probably have nightmares if she could even sleep at all… but there was nothing else she could do.

She sighed and leaned back against the park bench, deciding that she’d rest a little while longer and then she’d go try to find the Agreste mansion.

Chapter Text

On Kaalki’s somewhat sternly worded recommendation, Marinette stopped by a street vendor to buy herself a fat pastry stuffed with meat and vegetables before she went any further. She had to admit, having some warm food in her belly made her feel better. She chewed slowly on the pastry as she walked, occasionally slipping bits of food into her purse for the kwamis.

She saw the Agreste mansion long before she reached it: the building looked almost identical to the one in her own world, except that the garden was much nicer. Marinette paused before the gates, looking admiringly at the beautiful flowering trellises that climbed the fence. Given how much work she had to put into the plants on her balcony, she knew how much effort that would take.

But it also had the effect of limiting how much she could see into the yard, which was annoying. Clearly whoever lived here was very concerned about their privacy, so maybe it was Gabriel Agreste after all. She swallowed the last piece of her supper and wiped her hands on her shirt while she decided what to do next.

“Can I help you?”

“Eep!” Marinette squeaked at the unexpected voice, pulling back. Something moved in her periphery version and her head snapped up. Belatedly, she realized there was a camera about a foot above her head.

Well, of course there was. There’d been one in her world too, hadn’t there?

She blushed at the thought that whoever was on the other side had seen her standing here, staring at what she could see of the house while using her shirt as a handkerchief. That was embarrassing. Thank goodness she couldn’t see the face of whoever was talking to her right now, because she was pretty sure they were judging her.

“Umm, hi,” Marinette said, waving a hand weakly. “I was just looking for Adrien Agreste.”

“Please state your business.”

The voice sounded so monotone that she couldn’t even tell if it was a male or female. Almost robotic. It definitely wasn’t the Nathalie that Marinette knew. Maybe it was a robot.

“I’m a friend of Adrien’s,” Marinette said. That wasn’t technically a lie, right? She was a friend of Adrien’s… just not this Adrien.

“Please state your business,” the voice said again.

Marinette squinted at the camera. “I need to see him, please. It’s urgent.”

“Please state your business,” the voice said for a third time.

“I need to see Adrien!” Marinette said, becoming more convinced than ever that she wasn’t talking to a real person.

Sure enough, the voice said again, “Please state your business.”

“Ugh, never mind,” Marinette said crossly, glancing at the house. Well, if not Adrien, then someone who valued their privacy lived there.

She walked away from the gate and down the street a little ways, contemplating her next move. She could transform, wait until it was much later, and then approach the house to see if she could find Adrien’s bedroom – but that might not be such a good idea when she didn’t know what the security for the house was like. And she didn’t know if the Adrien from this universe would appreciate a midnight visit from a superhero.

“Maybe you should just transform and hang out on the rooftops,” Kaalki said, poking her head out of the purse.

“What?” Marinette said, surprised.

“Well, you asked for a universe with no Ladybug… but did you think to specify a universe where Adrien was still Chat Noir?” Kaalki asked.

Marinette opened her mouth to respond, then paused.

She tried to remember exactly what had been going through her head while thinking up the portals.

But she’d been so nervous… so flustered and so worried. It was hard to remember.

“I’m just saying, maybe all this searching you’re doing for Adrien is pointless,” Kaalki said sensibly. “But if the miraculous are active, there must be a threat. So if you hang out on the roof and make yourself visible, sooner or later someone will notice.”

“What if they think I’m an enemy?” Marinette said.

Kaalki shrugged. “Transform with me. You can get away easily that way if things go wrong, right?”

She had to admit that Kaalki had a point. Besides that, it was going to be dark soon. She didn’t want to be wandering around an alternate universe Paris by herself after dark. At least transformed and on the rooftops, she would be safer.

“Okay. I guess you’re right. It can’t hurt.” Marinette briskly walked up the street, searching for a safe place to transform. She finally found it in a darkened alley between two restaurants a couple blocks from the Agreste mansion. Marinette slipped into the alley and walked all the way to the back, then shuffled behind a dumpster where she’d be well-hidden from the street.

“Eww, stinky,” Fluff said, wrinkling her cute nose as both she and Kaalki emerged from the purse.

“Sorry, it’s the best I could do,” Marinette said, taking the Horse miraculous out of her pocket. She slipped the glasses on. “Ready, Kaalki?”

“I’m ready!” Kaalki said.

“Great. Okay Kaalki, full gallop!”

Chapter Text

She was sitting on the Eiffel Tower, idly staring out at the city, when it finally happened.

And by it, she met the arrival of another miraculous holder.

Marinette’s breath caught in her throat as the slender form landed on the beam about ten feet away from her.

She tensed up immediately, scrambling to her feet.

Because yes, finally, she had proof right here before her that there were miraculous holders in this alternate universe. And while under any other circumstances, that would be cause for celebration given how lackluster her luck had been so far, whoever this girl was –

She had the Peacock miraculous.

The girl straightened up, looking Marinette up and down with a cool look. “Who are you?” she asked finally, fan held lightly in her hands.

“My name is – ” Marinette paused, suddenly realizing that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Damn it.

She couldn’t exactly say she was Ladybug. That wouldn’t make any sense.

“Licorne,” she said finally. That was as good as any name for now. “Who are you?”

For a moment, the girl remained quiet. She stared hard at Licorne, like her gaze alone could penetrate and unveil the secrets that Licorne was hiding. It was a chilling gaze, not friendly by any stretch.

“You don’t know,” the girl said at last. “You must not be from around here, then.”

“No, I’m not,” Licorne admitted, because she didn’t see any danger in being honest about that. It was going to be pretty obvious that she wasn’t from around here, especially once Chat Noir or the guardian showed up.

“Then who are you, and why are you here? You’re not a demon,” the girl said.

“A demon?” Licorne looked at her incredulously.

She had expected to be accused of being an akuma, or maybe an amok.

But a demon?

“You’re really not from around here,” the girl murmured. “My name is Plume.” She half-raised the fan she held. A miniscule shift of her wrist made the feathers flutter invitingly.

Or at least, it would’ve seemed inviting had it not been so threatening.

This wasn’t Mayura, Licorne reminded herself. Mayura was Nathalie. Mayura was taller, for one thing, with a deadly air to her that couldn’t be ignored. This girl – Plume – was maybe two or three inches taller than Licorne, but no where near as tall as Mayura. And while the aura she gave off was cool and suspicious, it was nothing like the implied threat that Mayura exuded.

“Plume,” Licorne repeated. “What’s a demon?” She knew she should be asking about Chat Noir, but her curiosity was piqued.

“If you stick around in Paris long enough, you’ll know,” Plume said lightly. “Now. Do tell me. How did you get your hands on the Horse miraculous?”

It seemed like an innocent question, but Licorne could tell that it wasn’t.

She needed to tread carefully.

“That’s a long story,” Licorne said slowly. “It’s not one that I care to repeat more than once. Are you the only miraculous holder in Paris, Plume?”

Licorne sure hoped not. It would make life a lot more difficult if she had to convince this suspicious girl to hand over the Ladybug miraculous.

“No, I’m not,” Plume said. She seemed to be holding herself back from saying something. Probably a third comment about how Licorne wasn’t from around here, probably.

Which, Licorne couldn’t blame her for that. Everyone in Licorne’s Paris knew about Ladybug and Chat Noir. So everyone in this Paris probably knew about Plume and her teammates, whoever they were. Licorne should have asked someone, she realized. Someone, anyone, who could’ve given her the rundown before she met up with one of the miraculous holders in person.

She was really just screwing this up left, right, and center, wasn’t she?

“I’d like to meet your teammates. I have a problem. A big problem,” Licorne said.

“A big problem,” Plume repeated, her eyes narrowing slightly. “A problem that you’re causing?”

Too late, Licorne realized how her words could’ve been interpreted and quickly shook her head. “No, I mean – I’m not here to cause a problem. I’m here hoping you can help me solve a problem.”

“I find that hard to believe when you’ve already stolen a miraculous,” Plume said softly.

“I didn’t steal anything. I think you’ll find your Horse miraculous is exactly where it’s supposed to be,” Licorne told her. “Look. Meet me tomorrow night, same time, same place. Bring your teammates. I’ll tell you the whole sordid story.”

“Or I could take the Horse miraculous back from you now,” Plume said, holding up her fan.

“Yeah, no. Voyage!” Licorne shouted, throwing her arm out. By the time feathers came flying her way, she had already leapt through the portal to safety.

Chapter Text

The portal spit Licorne out onto grass. She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky, heart still hammering against her ribs. That had been a much closer call than she had been anticipating. Thank goodness she’d been wearing the Horse miraculous, which allowed for the quickest escapes of all the miraculous. Had she tried to get away on foot, she was positive that Plume would’ve followed her.

And there was no way she could handle a battle right now.

“Ugh. Never mind Ghibli AU or whatever it was. Why couldn’t I have created a portal into a princess and knight AU where Chat Noir adores Marinette Dupain-Cheng and follows bows to my every whim?” she asked the sky. “Or better yet, some kind of AU where the miraculous are left out for me to just take…”

“Are you okay, Marinette?” Fluff was hovering over her face seconds later, peering down at Marinette worriedly.

“I’m fine. Plume didn’t actually do anything,” Licorne said reassuringly. The Horse miraculous beeped, and one of the spots on the right lens went out.

“But that was a close call,” Fluff said.

“Tell me about it. I wasn’t expecting her to be so aggressive… but I guess if she thought I stole a miraculous…” Licorne closed her eyes for a moment, frowning.

That meant Plume probably wasn’t the guardian in this universe. Otherwise, she could have checked the Miracle Box to see if this universe’s Horse miraculous was still there before confronting Licorne.

But Plume had teammates – or at least a teammate.

So there could be a guardian, or maybe one of the teammates had the Miracle Box.

Either way, she felt like she had taken a step forward – though she also had the feeling that tomorrow’s meeting wasn’t going to be fun. If Plume’s teammates were as suspicious and confrontational as Plume was, Licorne was going to have an even harder time convincing them to hand over the Ladybug miraculous than she’d hoped.

She sighed. “Kaalki, dismount.”

Her transformation came undone in a flash of light, and the gentle weight of a kwami came to rest on her chest a moment later. Marinette opened her eyes again and saw that Fluff had moved, possibly to check on Kaalki, which left her view of the sky unimpeded.

What did Plume look like?

It was frustrating that the miraculous magic was in full effect, which meant Marinette honestly didn’t know. Though she knew that Plume was a girl, she couldn’t remember the color of Plume’s hair or eyes. She couldn’t even really remember what Plume had sounded like, beyond the fact that Plume spoke flawless French. So basically, that meant Plume could be any one of thousands of girls in Paris.

Very helpful.

“Stupid miraculous magic,” she muttered under her breath, pushing herself up. She caught Kaalki in her hands and looked around.

The Horse miraculous was all about intent, Kaalki had told her, much like the Rabbit miraculous. Marinette hadn’t had much in mind other than a desire to get away from Plume when she’d created her portal to escape. So it seemed like the portal had brought her to a small park a few miles away from the Eiffel Tower, judging by the fact that she could see the tower in the distance.

At least it was too far away for Plume to cover the ground in that time. But still, Marinette was very aware she was out in the open. She cupped Kaalki to her chest and grabbed Fluff, quickly crawling over under she was hidden beneath a piece of the kid’s playground equipment.

Then she sat back, sighing, and just... was quiet for a moment.

“Marinette?” Kaalki said eventually, sounding tentative.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Marinette mumbled. She dug around in her purse and produced a couple of cookies for Kaalki to munch on.

“Are you okay?” Fluff asked her.

“I’m just tired,” Marinette told them.

And it wasn’t a lie.

There was a bone-deep weariness settling over her shoulders.

First there had been everything with Adrien and Gabriel, now this…

She didn’t think she had ever lived through a more hectic few days than she was living through right now.

But it wasn’t over yet. She needed to figure out how she was going to approach Plume and the other miraculous holder’s tomorrow night.

No matter what, she had to convince them to give her the Ladybug.

Adrien… Tikki… Plagg…

They were all counting on her.

Marinette was not going to let them down.

Chapter Text

There was a painful crick in Marinette’s neck, which was what woke her from her sleep. She grimaced as she lifted her head and opened her eyes, reaching up to gingerly rub at the base of her neck. She had fallen asleep sitting up, leaning against the playground equipment, chin against her chest, and now she was paying for it.

Fluff and Kaalki were both curled up in her lap, sound asleep. Still rubbing her neck, Marinette smiled down at them. As difficult and frustrating as this was, having the kwamis there made a big difference. They couldn’t replace Tikki, of course, but they were both a valuable source of support that she desperately needed. She couldn’t imagine having to be here in this alternate universe without them.

Trying not to move too much, she stretched her arms over her head as best she could and then shivered. The early morning air was cooler than she had expected, and the clothing she was wearing wasn’t really weather appropriate. Too bad she hadn’t thought to grab a jacket before putting hers and Adrien’s plan into motion - or better yet, a blanket.

Yeah, a blanket…

A blanket just big enough to wrap around her and Adrien while they cuddled together on the balcony.

That would feel so nice right now.

“Adrien always gives off so much heat too,” she mumbled longingly. Chat was like a portable furnace in the winter. It was wonderful.

But since cuddles weren’t going to be happening anytime soon, Marinette gently slid the kwamis into her purse without waking them up. Then she crawled out from under the playground equipment and stood up. Her body ached in various ways, and every inch of her felt stiff from sleeping in such an awkward way. She stretched again, wincing -

And so, just happened to be looking up when a familiar shadow passed overhead.

“Chat Noir!” Marinette called out without thinking.

He must have heard her, because his trajectory changed. He landed in a nearby tree and then hopped nimbly to the ground, straightening up.

Marinette stared at him.

Piercing green eyes stared at her from behind a black mask, but that, the black cat ears, and the messy blond hair was about the only similarities to the Chat Noir that she knew.

This Chat Noir had a costume that was largely black, but which had silver stripes across his chest and abdomen. His biceps and knees were also covered in silver material too. And his tail wasn’t just a belt; it looked more like a real cat tail, and seemed to move of its own accord as he walked over to Marinette.

“Were you talking to me?” he asked.

“Um… yes,” Marinette said, trying and failing to conceal her surprise over the costume changes.

“Why did you call me Chat Noir?” He seemed bemused, and looked at her with an expression of pure curiosity.

“Uh,” Marinette said, not sure how to answer that. She finally gestured weakly to his costume. “You’re… a black cat? So…”

“You must not be from around here,” he said. “All of Paris knows my name. I’m Griffe.”

Griffe. Claw.

The unfamiliar name made her heart ache.

Until now, she hadn’t truly considered the possibility that Adrien might not have the Black Cat miraculous.

But this boy…

Was this Adrien?

It bothered her that she couldn’t tell.

She had thought that she would just… know.

“Do you need help?” Griffe asked, looking at her expectantly.

Marinette didn’t know what to say.

She’d never needed help more in her life.

She just didn’t know if Griffe was the person to help.

“You’re right. I’m new to Paris and I think I’m lost,” Marinette said finally.

Maybe it was Adrien.

It made sense that he would look different and maybe even after different. It would be unrealistic if the Chat Noir from her universe was exactly the same as the Black Cat miraculous holder from this universe.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

Blond hair and green eyes…

Didn’t lots of boys in Paris have that coloring?

Griffe smiled. “I can certainly help with that. Where were you trying to go?”

Marinette’s brain went blank for a split second and she was left scrambling to come up with an answer.

“Collège Françoise Dupont,” she said finally, remembering her original plan to go to the school and watch for Adrien. She didn’t know what time it was, but it seemed early. The sun had just come up.

He looked surprised. “Mademoiselle, I regret to inform you that you are a long ways away form your destination. You’re on the other side of the city.”

“I must’ve gotten turned around,” Marinette lied. She pasted on a pleading expression. “Could you help me get there?”

Maybe she could sweet talk him into telling her something helpful?

Griffe frowned for just a moment before nodding. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

Marinette couldn’t have put into words how strange it felt when Griffe wrapped an arm around her waist.

Being so close to a Chat Noir, knowing that it wasn’t her Chat Noir, was startlingly painful.

“Are you scared of heights?” Griffe inquired, bringing out the baton.

“No, not at all,” Marinette said. She paused, warring briefly with herself, before she put her arm around his neck to better hold on.

“Okay, good. Hold on tightly, Mademoiselle. I’ll have you where you want to go in no time.” Griffe extended the baton slightly, setting the bottom against the ground. Then he gripped the top and pushed the button to extend it fully, launching them both several dozen feet into the air.

It was a rush, and not in the good way.

Marinette had thought that being Ladybug had forever abolished any fear of heights. After all, she could soar above Paris effortlessly when she had her yoyo in hand. And even the handful of times when she hadn’t been transformed, and Chat Noir had been tasked with moving her civilian self around the city, she had never been afraid. Nestled in her partner’s arms, it had never even occurred to her to be scared.

But it was something different to be so high above the city with someone she didn’t know, and who she had no reason to trust. Marinette’s stomach swooped with anxiety and she found herself squeezing her eyes shut. Even the thought that if Griffe dropped her, she could transform before she hit the ground didn’t do much to make her feel better.

She told herself not to think about it.

To imagine something better.

Like cuddling with Adrien, or studying with him, or even cooking together… yes. A small smile crossed her face as she pictured her and Adrien cooking – no, not cooking. Baking together. Marinette was no master when it came to sweets, but she knew enough about the basics to teach something completely new to baking like Adrien. And she was positive he would love to learn.

It probably wouldn’t been smarter to look at the city and see how the layout was different from her world, but Marinette kept her eyes shut and indulged in her little daydream of teaching Adrien to bake.

Then came the moment when Griffe touched down and stayed down, and then he said, “Mademoiselle, you lied to me. You said you weren’t scared of heights.” His voice was faintly teasing, but also held enough concern that Marinette didn’t feel too indignant when she opened her eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Griffe was close.

Really close.

He was looking at her with a faintly worried expression, perhaps trying to assess whether she would collapse on the spot if he let go. This close, she could see every detail of his face perfectly. His mask was identical to Chat Noir’s, she realized. It covered the bridge of his nose and crossed his defined cheekbones before disappearing under several wild strands of blond hair.

His eyes…

They were green.

But were they the same shade of green as Chat Noir’s?

She couldn’t remember.

“Mademoiselle?” Griffe said again, lips pinching into a frown.

“I’m okay,” Marinette said quickly, realizing that she had been quiet for much too long.

It really wasn’t appropriate to gaze into another boy’s eyes when you had just figured out that the boy you were in love with was also your beloved partner.

Even if this boy may or may not be an alternate universe version of said beloved partner/love-of-your-life.

“If you’re sure,” Griffe said, not sounding too convinced. “We’re near the school. I can set you down in a little park nearby. Or would you prefer to take it from here?”

Marinette glanced around. They were standing on top of a roof; it wasn’t too bad since they were only three stories off the ground. She could see the roof of Collège Françoise Dupont easily. The school was maybe three or four blocks away. It would be nothing for her to get there on foot.

But she was reluctant to let Griffe leave that easily.

She couldn’t help feeling like he was going to be the key to a successful mission.

So she said, “I’m not good with directions. I’m afraid I’d get lost again. Will you please take me the rest of the way?” And gave him her best pleading smile.

“Of course,” Griffe said easily. He seemed all too willing to believe that she was bad with directions, possibly because he thought she’d ended up on the wrong side of the city looking for the school.

And then, again, they were off.

Chapter Text

When they landed in the promised park, Marinette realized that she recognized it. This was the park down the block from what was the Dupain-Cheng bakery in her world. She had spent a lot of time here with Manon and her friends over the past couple of years.

Though of course, things were different. There was no fountain. Instead, there was a bunch of small picnic tables. Being that it was so early in the morning, all of the tables were thankfully empty. She was sure it would have looked odd to anyone who happened to see her using Paris’s superhero as a taxi service, and that was sort of the attention she didn’t want right now.

“There you are, Mademoiselle. Collège Françoise Dupont is just down the street, though I don’t think it opens for another hour. Are you a new student there?” Griffe released her as he spoke, backing off a few feet and retracting his baton.

“I might be,” Marinette said vaguely. “We just moved to town. My parents are looking at a couple of different schools in the area, but I wanted to check them out myself.”

She wondered if she should mention that she was looking specifically for Adrien Agreste.

It would be really interesting to see if Griffe reacted to the name in any way.

But at the same time, she felt like that might make him a little suspicious.

After all, Marinette didn’t even know if Adrien Agreste was famous here. For all she knew, Adrien could just be a regular kid.

If Griffe knew Adrien… or if he was Adrien… she wanted to keep him at ease.

“Thank you for your help,” she added. “I might never have found the school without you!”

Griffe gave her a polite smile. “That’s what I’m here for. Good day, Mademoiselle.” Much like he had before, he thrust the end of the baton against the ground and vaulted himself into the air.

“Bye,” Marinette said softly, watching as he quickly disappeared.

She hated to see him go, but at least she knew she would see him tonight.

Him… and anyone other miraculous holders.

“Well, wasn’t that something!”

Marinette’s purse popped open and Kaalki and Fluff sped out. It was Fluff who had spoken, and she started making excited loops around Marinette’s head.

“We could sense Plagg,” Kaalki said, hovering a safe distance away from Fluff.

“Could you?” Marinette murmured, unsurprised.

She wondered, suddenly, if Griffe was familiar with the other miraculous. Maybe it was a good thing she had the Horse and Rabbit miraculous in her pockets rather than somewhere visible. There was a chance, however small, that Griffe could have recognized them.

But that brought her to her next question, and she looked quickly at Kaalki.

“Wait, would Plagg be able to sense you two in return?” she asked nervously.

Fluff stopped flying around Marinette’s head to look at Kaalki. The two kwamis were silent for a moment, which made Marinette really nervous.

Maybe she shouldn’t have accepted a ride from Griffe after all…

“Yes, probably, he could,” Kaalki said finally. “But whether or not Plagg would say anything is another question entirely. I mean, it’s Plagg. He’s the same no matter what universe we’re in.”

“Besides, if the miraculous holders don’t know each other’s identities here, Plagg might not say anything to avoid the risk of outing another holder,” Fluff added.

Marinette thought about that for a second, but it didn’t make her feel better. “But wait, though. You guys can tell which kwami you’re sensing, right? So if Plagg knew that say, the Peacock and the Black Cat miraculous were the only miraculous being used in this universe, and then he started sensing you two, he would know that something wasn’t right!”

Kaalki and Fluff looked at each other again.

That was all the confirmation Marinette needed to know that she was right.

She groaned loudly, clasping her hands to her head. “Oh man. I screwed up. I should’ve stayed far away from Griffe as Marinette!”

“There’s a good chance that Plagg didn’t, Marinette. Like I said, this is Plagg we’re talking about,” Kaalki said quickly.

Fluff nodded vigorously. “That’s right. Plagg doesn’t pay a lot of attention to anything that isn’t cheese.”

Marinette had to admit that they had a point about that, though it didn’t really make her feel better. Kaalki seemed to realize that, because the kwami gave her a kind smile.

“Why don’t you take a break, Marinette? Get some breakfast. You need to keep your strength up.”

“I want to go to the school first. I want to watch to see if Adrien comes,” Marinette said. “Then we’ll get breakfast, okay?”

Chapter Text

The one thing Marinette had to buy before she took up her post was a big cup of coffee. She ducked into the same café that Chloé had gone into yesterday and ordered the biggest size they had on their menu, flavored with plenty of cream and sugar. Only then, cradling a cup that was almost as big as her head, did she take a seat on a bench across the street from Collège Françoise Dupont.

She sipped from her coffee slowly, keeping an eye on the school. Coffee had never been a big favorite of hers when she was growing up. But having a late-night patrol on the same day when she had to get up for school was brutal. Taste or no, she had grown to love the caffeine jolt that had kept her awake on too many early mornings.

And right now the steaming hot liquid was also helping to combat the chill, warming her from the inside-out since she didn’t have her kitty around to provide cuddles.

Very slowly, students began to arrive. Marinette examined each person closely as they walked into the school. Most kids, she didn’t recognize – but that wasn’t unique to this universe. There were plenty of kids that attended her own school that she had never met before. She was mostly familiar with the kids in her class and a few others in her grade, but Collège Françoise Dupont was a huge school.

Then she sat up straight.

“Oh, it’s Rose and Juleka!” she whispered to herself.

Sure enough, what could only be an alternate universe version of her friends was standing right there in front of her. This version of Rose had longer hair, just brushing her shoulders, but the same blue eyes and friendly smile. She was walking hand-in-hand with Juleka, who actually didn’t look that different from the Juleka in Marinette’s world.

Marinette chewed her lower lip as she watched them go. Part of her wanted to rush over and ask them for help… but that would be foolish. Even if she knew they could be trusted, which she didn’t, she didn’t have any extra miraculous to spare right now.

She forced herself to settle back down and keep watching.

There was Nathaniel…

Kim…

Nino…

Chloé again, this time with her hair tied back in a long braid. She was looking down at her phone and, fortunately, failed to notice Marinette watching.

Then came Alix…

Mylène…

But no Alya, she noticed. Maybe in this universe, Alya had never moved to Paris. In Marinette’s universe, Alya’s parents had moved here because Alya’s mom had been offered an opportunity as a chef at Le Grand Paris. Maybe that had never happened here…

She finished the last of her coffee as the bell rang. All of the students hanging out in the yard immediately ran into the building. With moments, the yard was totally empty. Marinette waited another ten minutes just in case, trying to pretend like she wasn’t making her neck hurt more by constantly looking up and down the street in hopes of seeing a black car.

No Adrien.

Marinette sighed, crumbling up her coffee cup.

“I guess that would have been too easy,” she muttered, getting up. There was a chance that Adrien just hadn’t shown up today because of his schedule, but there was just as good of a chance that he wouldn’t be coming at all.

She really needed to get her hands on a computer so that she could look Adrien up.

And maybe also the miraculous holders, she thought as she dropped her empty cup in the garbage. If she could find a computer, she’d be able to figure out if Plume and Griffe were the only heroes running around Paris.

Just because Ladybug and Chat Noir were the only ones who kept their miraculous in Marinette’s world didn’t mean that was the case here.

The school would have a computer. But she’d need to make sure she wasn’t caught. A library would be a better bet.

First things first, though. Her stomach was beginning to growl, and she had promised Kaalki and Fluff a good breakfast. Marinette looked up and down the street, searching for somewhere that wasn’t too expensive. It wasn’t like she had an unlimited source of funds, especially when she was trying to feed herself and two kwamis.

Especially if Fluff and Kaalki ate the way that Tikki and Plagg did!

Chapter Text

Once she had finished breakfast, Marinette paid and then slipped out of the café. She retraced her steps back up past the school, but everything there was quiet – which made sense, since it wasn’t even lunch time yet. All the students would still be in classes. She couldn’t help shooting a long glance towards Madame Bustier’s window.

Or at least, what would be Madame Bustier’s window in her world. She had no idea if Madame Bustier was even a teacher in this world.

“Gotta find a computer,” Marinette said to herself. Not knowing anything was getting on her nerves, and she was beginning to feel like she was running out of time. She had already been in this world for about a day, and Kaalki and Fluff had warned her that her time was limited, so she needed to start making things happen instead of waiting around.

She ducked into the closest store, a small flower shop, and glanced around. The young man standing behind the counter had a friendly face, and he smiled at her when he saw her, so she felt okay about approaching.

“Hi. I’m new to Paris and I think I’m lost,” Marinette said nervously.

“Oh dear. Where are you trying to go?” the man asked.

“I need to find a library. A public library,” she added, just in case the man tried to direct her back towards Collège Françoise Dupont.

“That’s easy. The library is just a couple of blocks from here. I’ll write you out some instructions.” He pulled a pad of paper out and quickly scribbled down a few lines, then tore the paper off and spun it towards Marinette. She read through them, realizing that she eventually would have stumbled across the library herself had she kept going.

“Thank you,” she said politely, folding the paper up. “I didn’t realize how close I was.”

He smiled again. “New places are hard, and Paris is really big. The library should be able to help you find your way. And here… to cheer you up.” He reached over and plucked a pink carnation out of a bucket, holding it out to her.

For some inexplicable reason, his kind gesture made tears well up in Marinette’s eyes.

Everything had been so awful and stressful lately.

It was easy to forget why she and Adrien were doing this.

They were trying to protect innocent people like this man.

She cleared her throat and smiled back. “Thank you, Monsieur. I appreciate it.” She took the flower, thanked him again, and made her way out of the shop.

The carnation’s beautiful, pale pink petals were soft against her fingers when she gently touched them as she raised the flower to her face. Marinette just stood outside on the sidewalk for a few seconds, inhaling the scent – it smelled exactly the same as a carnation from her world. The familiar scent made her heart ache with a sudden bout of homesickness.

She wanted to go home.

But she couldn’t.

Not until she got the Ladybug miraculous.

Taking a deep breath, Marinette blinked away her tears and started walking. It only took her about ten minutes to make it to the public library. She walked up the steps and entered the building, staying well away from the information desk for the time being.

Instead, she made her way over to a long row of advanced-looking computers. A couple of them were already logged on. With a quick glance around to make sure that no one was watching, Marinette sat down at the computer that was closest to the wall. She was small enough to practically be hidden behind the huge monitor, and she hoped that meant no one would bother her.

The very first thing she looked up was Adrien Agreste.

A strong feeling of relief washed through as results about Adrien immediately started popping up. At least she knew for sure he was alive in this world. What’s more, he was also a model for his father’s business here. There were tons of results about Gabriel’s line of clothing and the work Adrien was doing to promote it.

Marinette clicked on an article at random and held her breath as a photo of Adrien came up.

He looked… mostly the same. Like Chloé, there were some superficial differences. His hair was a bit longer and was styled differently, and, unless the angle of the photo was distorted, she thought he might be a couple of inches taller than the Adrien from her universe. But he still had green eyes and a nice smile.

But was that the same smile that Griffe had given her a couple of hours ago?

Chapter Text

She spent a little while gazing at Adrien’s picture before she looked at the others that were available. It was a bit of a shock to stumble across an image of Gabriel and Émilie Agreste dancing together. The caption that went along with the photo seemed to indicate that it was a very recent image, so apparently in this universe Émilie had never used the Peacock miraculous.

Well, that would make sense. Plume seemed to be using the Peacock miraculous with no issues. So maybe in this world, the Peacock miraculous had never been broken?

“So maybe Gabriel isn’t Hawkmoth here… if Hawkmoth even exists,” Marinette said under her breath. She quickly typed in a search for miraculous holders.

Nothing came up.

She tried Hawkmoth.

Nothing.

Lastly, she tried Griffe. That definitely yielded some results. A bunch of pictures of Griffe flooded the screen. Marinette scrolled through them slowly, smiling to herself when she noticed that several were fan blogs. Chat had a lot those too, though the biggest blog in Marinette’s Paris was undoubtedly the Ladyblog.

There was no Ladyblog here that Marinette could find, which made sense since the Ladybug miraculous wasn’t being used. And if there was no Alya in this version of Paris, then there was no one around to make the world’s best Black Cat miraculous-themed blog.

She leaned her chin on her hand and selected one of the blogs at random. Instantly, a picture flashed up on the screen and Marinette caught her breath.

Apparently, she’d been right to think there was more than just Plume and Griffe.

The picture was of four miraculous users. Griffe, Plume, and two more – another boy and a girl. The boy was clearly using the Dragon miraculous, whereas the other girl had the Pig miraculous. Marinette leaned closer to the screen, taking the two of them in, and read the caption underneath to find out who else she might be dealing with.

Fortune was the name of the Pig miraculous holder, which Marinette supposed made sense: Master Fu had taught her that, in the Chinese zodiac, pigs were associated with good fortune and prosperity.

Blaze was the name of the Dragon miraculous holder. Simple and straightforward.

She slowly scrolled down the page, where she came across more pictures of them. Griffe and Blaze, Plume and Fortune, Griffe and Fortune, Plume and Blaze and Fortune. They all seemed to be very comfortable with each other, which was something that Marinette envied.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were extremely comfortable with each other after months of fighting together, but they were almost too comfortable. Adding in another miraculous holder always left them a little out-of-step.

“Alright, so I’m dealing with at least four miraculous holders,” Marinette murmured to herself. “That means it’s going to be four against one. Not exactly the best odds.”

“Do you think there are more miraculous holders than this?” Kaalki asked, head poking out of her purse.

Marinette quickly looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to her, but the only other person in the library that she could see was the very bored librarian standing at the front desk. The librarian was slowly checking in books and not interested in what Marinette was doing at all.

She sighed and opened up her purse so that both Kaalki and Fluff could peek out. “I don’t know. Maybe. If this universe is like mine, they could have other miraculous holders on call.”

“Hmm. If you could figure out who the guardian is, maybe you should just steal the Ladybug miraculous,” Fluff said.

“I could try, but I think it would be much harder. Ugh.” Marinette lowered her head and groaned, rubbing at the back of her aching neck.

Maybe the smarter thing to do would be to just ask these miraculous holders to come back to her universe and help.

But… that probably wouldn’t work either, would it?

Hadn’t Fluff or Kaalki said something about too many copies of one miraculous in one universe destroying that universe?

She supposed she could ask them to come along and provide them with miraculous from her own universe… if Mayura hadn’t stolen the miraculous box.

“Just out of curiosity, what would happen if I invited these guys back to my universe to help?” Marinette asked, trying hard to sound casual.

“It could be fine… but having four duplicate miraculous, including another Black Cat miraculous, could tear apart your universe in a matter of days or hours,” Kaalki answered readily. “There’s no way to tell exactly what would happen. What we do know is that the more alternate universe miraculous you add in, the more instability you’re causing.”

“Right,” Marinette said, nodding. There went that idea.

Chapter Text

Marinette stuck around the library a little while longer, researching the alternate universe heroes as much as she could. It would’ve been a lot more helpful if there was just one blog where she could find all the information, like Alya’s blog did. The Ladyblog had a separate page for each new hero that popped up, detailed with all the information that Alya could find.

There was nothing like that here. Some of what Marinette found was a little conflicting, so she couldn’t even be sure if it was all true – but she did find out that Griffe had been first, followed by Fortune, then Plume, and then Blaze. There were no mentions of any other miraculous heroes, but that didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t any.

Still, it was looking like she had a core group of four to deal with. Marinette sat back in her seat and wondered what she should do about them.

Was it best to meet them tonight as Licorne?

Was it better to seek out Griffe on her own? Maybe he’d be more receptive to Licorne instead of Marinette.

Or should she try to meet up with Fortune or Blaze to see if they were more amenable?

The floor rumbled beneath her feet.

Marinette blinked for a moment, looking down instinctively before she glanced around. The library had gradually become busier while she’d been absorbed in the computer. There were a lot more people around now. Some were using the computers like hers. Others were perusing books or sitting down reading. And instead of one bored librarian behind the desk, there were three or four now.

For a moment, she thought that the rumbling had been her imagination. No one else seemed to be reacting.

But then one of the librarians said something to another, and one of them came out from behind the desk and walked over to the front doors to lock it.

“What?” Marinette said to herself. She quickly exited out of all the browers that she had opened and jumped up, hurrying over to the desk.

“How can I help you?” one of the librarians said.

“Why did she lock the door?” Marinette asked.

“Oh, that’s standard procedure when there’s a demon attack,” the librarian said.

“A demon attack?” Marinette said. Plume had mentioned demons too, hadn’t she? Marinette hadn’t thought to look those up. In all her searching about the miraculous holders, she hadn’t come across much information about what they were fighting against.

Maybe because it was common knowledge? But again, it just proved that the Ladyblog was so much better than anything offered in this universe. Alya had posts about each akuma Ladybug and Chat Noir had ever faced. Marinette had never missed Alya as much as she did right then. When she got back to her world, she was giving Alya a great big hug.

“You must not be from around here,” the librarian said, and Marinette was getting really tired of hearing those words.

“No, I’m not. What’s a demon?” she demanded, too impatient to be polite.

“It’s a monster,” one of the other librarians said in a hushed tone.

The first librarian rolled her eyes. “Not really. I mean, I guess you could call it a monster, but the much more common name is demon. You don’t need to worry. Griffe will take care of it.”

“Right…” Marinette said slowly.

How was Griffe going to take care of it?

If a demon was an akuma, then Griffe would need the help of the Ladybug miraculous to purify it.

So maybe a demon wasn’t an akuma. She hadn’t been able to find anything on Hawkmoth, after all.

But if it wasn’t an akuma… then what was it?

“Are there any windows here where I could see what’s going on?” Marinette asked.

“Fourth floor, front of the building from what the looks of it,” the librarian said, clearly losing interest in the conversation now. She picked up a big stack of books and carried it away.

Fourth floor. Marinette turned away and headed for the staircase. She raced up all four flights, bursting out onto a quiet floor with much dimmer lighting.

Right away, she noticed something weird.

That wasn’t sunlight shining in through the windows.

It was… moonlight?

“What?” she whispered again, rushing over to the nearest window. Even though it wasn’t even noon yet, it looked like it was after midnight. The sun was gone, replaced by the moon. The skies were dark.

In the distance, a big shadow moved.

Chapter Text

Marinette pressed a hand against the window, then gasped. The glass was cold to the touch. Too cold, given how warm the sunshine had been this morning. She realized that it felt like the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

A quick glance around told her that she was alone. She could see all the way up and down the floor from where she was standing. Unless someone was hiding in the shadows on purpose, she was alone – or at least, there were no other humans around.

“Kaalki, Fluff, what is that?” Marinette said out loud.

The flap of her purse immediately went up and both kwamis rushed out to see what was going on. Marinette watched them closely as both Kaalki and Fluff took in what was happening.

“Ah,” Kaalki said.

“What does that mean?” Marinette demanded. “Do you know what that thing is?”

“What did you say they were called here?” Fluff asked, looking over at her.

“Plume called it a demon. So did the librarian,” Marinette said.

“That’s not what we called them,” Kaalki murmured. “Different universe, different name.”

“But what are they?” Marinette practically screamed. She was so tired of not getting the answers that she wanted to have!

Fluff sighed. “Marinette, did you ever stop to wonder what the purpose of the miraculous is? Beyond giving kwamis a way to interact with humans, I mean. Surely you didn’t think that the miraculous were created with the purpose of fighting against each other?”

Marinette opened her mouth, then closed it. Honestly, she had never stopped to think about it. Master Fu had never even alluded to another reason for the miraculous to exist. So many of the lessons that he’d given her had been geared towards providing her as much information to fight Hawkmoth and Mayura as possible. There hadn’t been room for anything else.

Or maybe, she reflected, Master Fu hadn’t even known himself. After all, Master Fu had not completed his guardian training. There was a lot that he hadn’t known, and that was never more obvious than it was right now.

She thought back to the pictures she had seen in the miraculous grimoire. So many ancient miraculous holders had been depicted fighting. Why hadn’t she ever thought to question what they were fighting against?

“The miraculous were created in part to keep humanity safe from threats,” Fluff said gently. “Including those.” She gestured to the big shadow looming over Paris. “They are a physical, magical manifestation of negative emotions.”

Marinette looked back out the window again. “Are they… dangerous?”

“They can be,” Fluff said carefully. “It happens when negativity and residual magic collide.”

“But why haven’t I ever seen anything like that in our world?” Marinette said. Her heart started thumping against her ribs so hard it hurt. She and Chat were just barely handling the Butterfly and Peacock miraculous. What the hell were they going to do if something like this started happening?

“They exist, but there is a high degree of magical use in Paris right now because of all the akuma. There’s also the fact that the Butterfly miraculous is already manipulating negative emotions.” Kaalki turned away from the window to look at Marinette. “My guess, and this is just a guess mind you, is that both of those things combined to help keep the demons at bay.”

“This does explain why they don’t use the Ladybug miraculous here,” Fluff added thoughtfully. “The Ladybug isn’t necessary to purify a demon. In fact, the Black Cat’s Cataclysm would be much more useful in just destroying them.”

Kaalki nodded back. “Yes, and I expect they’ve activated the Dragon for basic offense. The Pig would be able to improve the negative emotions of those around her, and the Peacock miraculous, well…” She smiled a bit. “What better to fight a creature of emotions than another creature of emotions? This is quite the group that they’ve put together. I’m impressed.”

“So you’re saying that in this universe, the Peacock miraculous definitely isn’t evil,” Marinette said. She had been pretty sure that wasn’t the case given all the articles and pictures of the four miraculous holders together, but you never knew.

“No, I would say that the Peacock miraculous is being used for its true purpose here,” said Kaalki. “It was always invaluable in these kinds of fights.”

“Right.” Marinette breathed out, her anxiety rising, and Fluff came in close to cuddle against her. An odd sound came from the kwami. It took Marinette a moment to realize that it was a strange version of a purr – Fluff was purring to comfort her.

And as much as that touched her heart, it also made her miss Chat Noir and the comfortable familiarity of her own universe so much it hurt.

Chapter Text

“So you said they can be dangerous,” Marinette said once she had successfully gotten herself under control. “What does that mean? What could a demon do?”

“Besides general destruction?” Kaalki shrugged. “As Fluff said, demons are created when residual magic and negative emotions collide. A demon craves negativity; it’s what helps them grow. And while sometimes they can grow off the general emotion in one particular area, usually that’s not enough. So they end up latching on to one or two people in particular.”

Marinette shuddered. That sounded horrible. “What happens then?”

“The demon will exaggerate the negative emotions of their victims,” Fluff said, still huddled against Marinette’s chest. “Until they grow strong enough that their appetite rages out of control. One or two victims isn’t enough for it at that point. That’s what happened right now. And then, the only thing that can stop them is a miraculous holder or…”

“Or…?” Marinette said, a little alarmed at the way that Fluff had trailed off.

Kaalki and Fluff looked at each other.

Finally, Fluff sighed. “Victims of demons, no matter how few or how many, are… locked in, Marinette. They generally can’t free themselves of a demon unless they have magic. So if demons are allowed to rage on, unchecked, there have been times in history when people have died.”

Marinette stared at them, speechless.

“That’s partly why the miraculous were created. They gave humanity a way to fight back and keep the demons in check. Unfortunately, use of a miraculous in an area creates residual magic which creates demons which creates the need for the use of a miraculous. It’s a cycle,” Kaalki told her.

“But… can’t we just not use the miraculous? Then there wouldn’t be any demons,” Marinette said weakly.

Fluff gave her a sympathetic look and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. While the miraculous are one way for residual magic to collect, they are not the only way. There is a lot of magic in the world, Marinette. More so than you could fathom.”

“I need to sit down,” Marinette muttered, reaching out and grabbing a chair. She sat down hard, her legs feeling a little weak.

She knew that people had died before during akuma attacks. It was pretty hard to not acknowledge that fact when the freaking Eiffel Tower had collapsed before. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe there was any chance that all the innocent civilians had gotten out of the way before the Eiffel Tower, a gigantic billboard, or even a building had hit the ground.

Hell, even Chat had died before – or at least, he had been erased from the timestream. As far as Marinette was concerned, that was the same thing. She would never forget how it felt to have him fade away right out of her arms. There one moment, gone the next. Suffice to say a fair amount of her worst nightmares involved Chat dying or fading away.

But at the end of the day, she tried not to dwell on those things too much because she knew the Ladybug miraculous could fix everything. There had never been an akuma fight where a “Miraculous Ladybug” at the end of the fight couldn’t reverse all the damage that had been done.

Everyone who had been hurt or died could be brought back.

“Why don’t they use the Ladybug miraculous?” she asked, looking at the kwamis. “Can’t it purify the demons and erase the damage that’s done?”

But Kaalki was already shaking her head. “The Ladybug miraculous gains its power to restore damage by purifying something. There is nothing to purify in this situation. Just demons that need to be destroyed. That’s why they’ve chosen to activate the Black Cat instead of the Ladybug.”

“Out of all the miraculous, the Black Cat and the Ladybug create the most residual magic because of their power,” Fluff explained. “In a situation like this, having both active is actually detrimental. And of the two, the Black Cat is by far the most useful miraculous due to its destructive powers.”

Marinette blinked for a moment, absorbing that tidbit.

That was certainly a first.

So far as Master Fu was concerned, the Ladybug miraculous was the most important miraculous there was in any situation.

It was troubling to think that he had never bothered to educate her on situations where that wasn’t the case.

More and more, this was making her wonder… what else had he forgotten or not known to tell her?

Chapter Text

In the distance, bright flashes of light suddenly caught Marinette’s attention. She stood up and moved closer to the glass again, realizing that what she was seeing was the Dragon miraculous in action. She had seen Ryuko before, of course, but there was something a little more awe-inspiring about standing back and just watching the miraculous holders do their thing.

“Do you think I should go help?” Marinette asked.

“Yes. It could score you bonus points with them,” said Kaalki.

But Fluff shook her head. “Or it could anger them if you get in the way. If they’ve been fighting miraculous for a long time, then they might have a very specific plan that they adhere to. You might inadvertently make things worse.”

They both had a point, Marinette realized, biting anxiously at her thumbnail. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to get close just in case they needed her help. She didn’t have to let them know that she was there unless she had to. If they didn’t need her help, then she could just harmlessly slip away.

“Okay. I’m going to get closer and see what’s happening,” Marinette decided, squeezing her hands into fists. “Kaalki –”

“Wait!” Fluff exclaimed.

Marinette looked at the kwami in surprise. “What?”

“Well, for one thing you’re still in the library with no way of getting outside,” Fluff said. “For another, what do you plan to tell the miraculous team once you speak to them?”

“Well, I…” Marinette blinked for a few seconds. “I suppose I’ll tell them the truth, that I’m from another universe and that I need to borrow the Ladybug miraculous…?”

Oops. Hearing it out loud, she thought she understood why Fluff and Kaalki were giving her such dubious looks. At the time, standing there with Adrien on her balcony, it hadn’t sounded too crazy. But that was before she had met Plume and Griffe face-face-to-face.

Now, it sure didn’t sound like something either of them would accept.

If someone had shown up out of the blue in hers and Chat’s universe and claimed to be from an alternate universe, Marinette wasn’t sure she would have believed them.

She hadn’t even known universe travel was possible until Tikki had told her about it.

If the Ladybug miraculous wasn’t being used here, then who knew if these heroes had heard about it? She had the sinking feeling she was going to be faced with a lot of skepticism. There was a chance that Plagg or one of the other active kwamis might know, but they also might not.

But…

“Wait a minute,” Marinette said. “Someone did show up out of the blue in my universe! She didn’t ask for a miraculous, but she did ask for our help. Chat and I trusted her because I knew that the Rabbit miraculous was capable of time travel!”

Fluff grinned and nodded proudly. “Exactly. That’s why you make such a good guardian, Marinette.”

Marinette flushed, embarrassed but pleased at the praise, and said, “Thanks. So you think it would look better if I transformed with you and told them I’m from the future?”

“I think it would be easier for the average miraculous holder to accept than universe travel,” Fluff replied.

“They’re still going to ask you why you have two miraculous,” Kaalki warned her.

“That’s okay. I can just say that I needed the Rabbit miraculous to travel through time, and that the Horse miraculous is the miraculous that I normally use in battle,” Marinette said confidently. The Horse miraculous would be useful against demons, right?

“But what will you say when you ask them why you want the Ladybug?” Kaalki asked.

Marinette thought for a moment. “Well, I guess I’ll say a new enemy came to be that does require the Ladybug miraculous, but that the Ladybug miraculous was lost or stolen. And that we need their Ladybug miraculous to get it back.”

She still didn’t think it was an ideal plan – there were lots of potential holes in her story that Griffe, Plume, Blaze, or Fortune could question – but it was the only thing she could think of right then.

Hopefully, none of the miraculous holders would accuse Marinette of having been the one to steal the miraculous before time travelling.

“Okay, then you need to find a way out,” Fluff told her.

“Right. The librarians were locking the doors downstairs, so I guess that means we’re going up!” Marinette said, hoping there was some way to get to the roof. Otherwise, she’d have to go back downstairs and hope she found an unlocked door.

In her world, she wouldn’t have hesitated to break a window to get out because she could just repair it later.

Too bad nothing was that easy here.

She swept Kaalki and Fluff back into her purse, just in case she ran into someone else, and headed for the stairs.

Chapter Text

There was not a single way to get to the roof that Marinette could find. She ran around the top floor for a couple of minutes before finally realizing that it was probably in an area unavailable to the general public. Naturally, when she located the staff only door and tried the handle, it was locked. She jiggled the handle for a few seconds out of frustration, like it might magically open.

“You could just break it down,” Kaalki whispered.

“I can’t do that…” Marinette said reluctantly, though honestly it was pretty tempting. Property damage wasn’t the best thing to do when she knew she wouldn’t be able to fix the damage.

But was breaking a lock as bad as breaking a window? She didn’t think so. In the grand scheme of things, a broken lock wasn’t that bad at all. There had to be worse damage happening to the city on a regular basis if they weren’t able to repair what happened following a demon attack. She only had to think about the usual damage that happened during an akuma attack to know that much.

Besides, the alternative wasn’t looking too great either. There had been a lot of people downstairs when all of this began. It would be pretty hard to walk around looking for a way out unnoticed, especially if the staff were guarding the doors to make sure that the patrons didn’t leave. The last thing Marinette wanted to do was make someone suspicious of her.

“Okay, fine,” she muttered, trying not to feel bad. “I’ll do it. Come on out, you guys.” She glanced around one last time, but this corner of the floor was empty.

It was almost creepy.

“Yay!” Kaalki said, bursting out of her purse, and Marinette gave the kwami a deadpan look.

For someone who had criticized Trixx so heavily, Kaalki sure seemed to be pretty fond of mischief. But now wasn’t the time to point that out. She withdrew as far into the shadows as she could get, just in case, and looked at Fluff. Fluff nodded at her and smiled comfortingly.

“It’ll be okay. Go get ‘em, Marinette!” Fluff said.

Marinette nodded. “Fluff, clockwise!”

Pale blue light lit up the shadows around her for a split second, and Marinette was flooded with the disorienting feeling of the world seeming to rush by her. Then it all snapped back into focus. Kaalki was watching her with an expectant expression, and she took a quick glance down at herself. Rather than the blue-and-brown uniform she’d ended up with when unifying the Horse and Rabbit miraculous together, her suit was blue-and-white.

“Marinette, focus. Let’s go! You’re wasting time,” Kaalki reminded her.

“Right.” Marinette grabbed the handle. Beneath her gloved fingers, it snapped frighteningly easily. Sometimes it was weird to think about just how strong they were when transformed with a miraculous.

She swiftly entered the room and looked around. No doors, but – yes. A window that was open a crack! Marinette closed the door behind her and ran to the window. Kaalki swooped over and grabbed onto her shoulder as Marinette shoved the window up and looked out. She found herself facing the opposite direction of the fight, but there was an easily accessible roof right across from her.

“Hold on tight, Kaalki,” she whispered, awkwardly clambering up onto the windowsill. She balanced her feet against the edge and then sprang off, aiming herself in the direction of the roof.

Without a yoyo or a baton, her landing was less than graceful. Though she made it to the roof with no problems, she had misjudged how much energy to put into it. She landed hard on her feet but immediately fell over onto her hands and knees, and then forward onto her shoulder. Her face came with an inch of hitting the ground, and her shoulder instantly started to ache.

“Uh, are you okay?” Kaalki said from somewhere above her.

“I miss my yoyo,” Marinette mumbled pathetically.

But honestly, it could’ve been worse.

At least none of her friends had been here to witness that.

Chat would’ve teased her for the rest of time, and Alya probably would’ve taken pictures.

She sat up, brushing hair out of her eyes, and looked up to see that Kaalki wasn’t even paying attention to her anymore. Marinette followed Kaalki’s gaze and gulped, realizing that dark clouds were gathering in the sky. The clouds were almost enough to block out the moon entirely. She might not know much about demons, but she knew that couldn’t be a good sign.

Chapter Text

The first sight of a demon up close wasn’t nearly as horrifying as Marinette expected it to be. When someone said the word ‘demon’, she automatically thought of those pictures that depicted demons as monster with horns and tails and disfigured bodies.

But this demon, even up close, still just looked like an ominous shadow. Except that a shadow should never be able to swing a fist and send Blaze flying halfway across the city. Marinette’s heart almost stopped when she saw that; she was reaching for a yoyo that didn’t exist before she could stop herself, wanting to snatch Blaze right out of mid-air to safety. Her fingers, of course, closed around nothing.

“Damn it,” she hissed under her breath, clenching her hand into a fist.

Something purple moved in her peripheral vision. Marinette’s first instinct was that it was an amok. When she turned her head, she saw that she was right – but also not. Because the enormous black cat, shaded in a beautiful purple light, that was stalking towards the shadow didn’t look like it wanted to do anything but stop the demon.

“This is the true power of the Peacock,” Kaalki whispered in her ear. “This is what it was really meant for, not whatever bullshit that Mayura pulls.”

Marinette could only nod, a little awe-struck, as she watched the Peacock’s creation engage in battle with the demon. It was truly something incredible to watch. Despite how bad things had looked, the battle was over in a matter of minutes: Griffe snuck up behind the demon while it was distracted.

“Cataclysm!” he shouted, slamming a paw down on the demon.

Just like in Marinette’s world, the demon immediately dissolved into nothing.

What was left behind was something that looked a little like black ashes. They were swept away by the wind. Like magic the clouds dissipated, and the sun was left shining as though nothing had ever happened.

“That’s it?” Marinette said quietly to Kaalki, who nodded.

“That is the extent of a simple demon fight,” Kaalki confirmed. “But don’t be persuaded into thinking that demons are easy to deal with, by any extent. The miraculous holders in this world have done extremely well in choosing which miraculous to activate. Also, the Peacock user is very skilled at using her power.”

“I can tell,” Marinette said. Maybe Nathalie just wasn’t very good at it? The amoks that they had faced were nothing like what Marinette had seen here.

“Plus, this was just one demon,” Kaalki added.

“You mean that there can be more than one?” Marinette whispered.

“Oh yes. Hundreds of demons can form at one time.”

Marinette imagined that and shuddered.

It sounded too much like the scenario that Scarlet Hawkmoth had set up.

She and Chat had barely gotten through that.

Though of course, in this world it didn’t seem like the miraculous holders had to worry about being akumatized. Dealing with Scarlet Hawkmoth would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee hadn’t fallen prey to that.

Unless the demons could somehow brainwash people?

She took one look at Kaalki’s little face and decided that was something she didn’t want to know.

“Well, it seems like they were able to handle things without my help,” Marinette said finally, feeling a little silly over how frantic she had been to get out of the library.

Of course these four miraculous holders had it under control.

What had seemed like a huge threat to Marinette had just been another typical fight for them. Probably not very different than when Mr. Pigeon reared his akumatized head in Marinette’s world. From the outside, that could be perceived as a serious battle – but she and Chat treated it as no more than an annoyance because they were so used to it.

“Are you going to go over there?” Kaalki asked.

Marinette shook her head. “No. They didn’t need my help, so they didn’t me. I don’t think the right time to approach them is right after a battle when they’re probably tired… even if it was a simple fight.” She glanced over at the miraculous holders again.

Blaze had returned and was speaking to Plume. Neither one of them looked very happy. There was no sign of Griffe or of Fortune.

Definitely not the right time.

She silently jumped off the rooftop she was standing on, carefully making her way back down to the alley between the two buildings. She was trying to decide if she should go back to the library to do a little more research into demons when someone spoke up right behind her.

“Okay, Mademoiselle, just who are you?”

Chapter Text

Marinette’s blood ran cold.

Her mind raced frantically for about thirty seconds, trying to figure out the best thing to do.

If she ran, Griffe would definitely chase her. She might be able to out-run him, but he knew this version of Paris much better than she did. That would be a huge disadvantage and would probably end up with her getting caught anyway.

Of course, she could always try running and finding a spot to de-transform. But he had called her Mademoiselle. Did he know who she was? How could he know? If he did know, then de-transforming would be useless. Even dangerous, because then there would be a miraculous holder after her and she wouldn’t have any of the advantages of being transformed.

But then it occurred to her that she didn’t need to worry, and she realized slightly. She could run, and keep running, until Griffe’s timer ran out. It had been what, three minutes since he had used Cataclysm? That meant he only had a couple of minutes left. Surely she could out-run him for that long. She could out-run Chat for longer than that.

But no sooner had that thought crossed her mind than Griffe drew closer to her, so close that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

“Turn around please, Mademoiselle,” he requested softly.

Perhaps it was foolish, but Marinette obeyed. Griffe looked her up and down, a deep frown on his face. Marinette met his gaze for only a moment before she couldn’t help taking a quick glance down at his hand. She was surprised and dismayed to see that the ring on his finger still had all five paw pads lit up. The softly glowing green seemed to taunt her as she stared at it.

That wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. The miraculous seemed to obey the same rules here as they did in her universe, and Griffe had used Cataclysm about four minutes ago now. There was no way –

Unless he’d immediately slipped away to de-transform and feed Plagg before re-transforming and coming to confront her.

Marinette felt like smacking herself.

She hadn’t thought twice about the fact that only Blaze and Plume had been visible immediately following the demon’s destruction. She really should’ve been paying more attention! But not once had it crossed her mind that Griffe might have known she was there, or that he’d gone to re-charge Plagg.

There went any hope that she could run away until Griffe’s timer ran out.

Until he used his power again, he could stay transformed for hours. Marinette could too, but she had the feeling that three against one wasn’t going to be fun. Because surely Plume and Blaze would’ve fed their kwamis by now too.

Unifying the Horse and Rabbit to escape was looking better and better.

“Who are you?” Griffe asked, apparently not willing to beat around the bush. “Why do you have a miraculous? Two miraculous,” he amended, and Marinette knew he’d caught a glimpse of Kaalki.

“I didn’t steal a miraculous, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Marinette told him, hoping that she sounded calmer than she felt.

Griffe narrowed his eyes. “I know that. I checked. The Horse and Rabbit miraculous are both accounted for.”

So he had access to the other miraculous. She wondered if he was the guardian, or if he just knew who the guardian was.

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re here or who you are,” Griffe went on. “I would like an answer to those questions. I know you gave the name Licorne to my teammate, but that doesn’t tell me much.”

“You can just call me Lapine,” Marinette said with a sweet smile. ‘Rabbit’ in French was a pretty lame name so far as miraculous holder names went, but it was a lot easier to think up a good name when you weren’t doing it on the spot like this!

He scowled back. “I would rather call you by your real name as you explain to me what you’re doing here. I’ve been watching you since I dropped you off in that park, Mademoiselle. I saw you talking to Kaalki and Fluff.”

Marinette froze.

Shit.

It had never occurred to her that Griffe might still have been watching after he left. She had thought he was gone, and Kaalki and Fluff had come out right away.

That had been stupid.

Really stupid.

She gave him a weak smile. “Any chance you would believe I just dropped into town for a movie night?”

Chapter Text

Griffe didn’t smile back at her. If anything, his expression darkened further. He was no longer the polite hero who had helped a lost civilian to get to where she wanted to go. Now, he was the stern hero who was facing down a potential threat. She had to respect that, even if she vastly preferred the former.

It was probably time to come clean, she realized.

There was no point in dancing around the subject. Based on everything she had seen and read so far, Griffe was not stupid. He wasn’t going to believe that she was in cosplay, or that there was another Miracle Box that just happened to have two miraculous that were identical to ones that he was familiar with, or anything else that Marinette might be able to come up with on the spot.

“You said you were not from around here. That, I believe. You went to the library and looked up my team,” Griffe continued. “Of course, that was after you staked out the school for a couple of hours.”

Marinette frowned. “Wait, just how long were you watching me?” she demanded, momentarily distracted.

And maybe a better question was, why hadn’t she noticed that Griffe was watching her? She sure didn’t remember any black-clad cat boys watching her from the roof, which meant that Griffe had probably been observing her in his civilian form. She tried and failed to remember any blond boys with green eyes who might have been hanging around. She just hadn’t been paying attention.

“I watched you for as long as necessary to determine whether you were a threat,” Griffe told her. “I was going to confront you but then the demon attacked, and you showed up with the Rabbit miraculous. There’s no better time than the present. So tell me, Mademoiselle, before I feel the need to implement stronger methods.” He gripped his baton lightly.

It was probably a fake threat. Marinette didn’t really believe he would do anything to hurt her. Yet just the fact that he’d said it spoke to his desperation, and that made her realize that the time to be upfront really had come. Or at least, as upfront as she was willing to be given that there was a limit to what they would be willing to believe.

She sighed, letting her shoulders slump. “Okay. My name is Marinette,” she said. “And I wasn’t lying to you. I really am new here… just not in the way you would think.”

Griffe’s eyes narrowed, searching her face. “I don’t understand,” he said at last.

“I come from the future,” Marinette explained.

“The future?” Griffe repeated. He seemed to pause before drawing back, putting slightly more distance between them so that he could look her up and down again. Marinette was content to let him do so, knowing that he was taking in her suit and hoping that led credence to her story.

“Yes. From approximately thirty years from now. I hope you understand why I can’t give you an exact date,” she lied. “But I came here because I need to borrow the Ladybug miraculous.”

“The Ladybug? Why would you need that? It’s not that help against demons,” said Griffe.

Marinette frowned, stung. “The Ladybug miraculous is always helpful,” she said indignantly. “And besides, in our case we’re not dealing with demons. We’re dealing with a sorcerer of some kind. He possesses the power to turn people into monsters. The Ladybug miraculous is instrumental in purifying those people and turning them back to normal.”

She carefully avoided any mention of the Butterfly miraculous. If Griffe made the comparison on his own, she’d just tell him that the sorcerer had powers that were very similar. Given that they had Plume on the team, it seemed best to not talk about stolen miraculous that were being used for evil purposes.

“There’s no such thing as a sorcerer,” Griffe said, and it was Marinette’s turn to scowl at him. Okay, technically she didn’t know if sorcerers were an actual thing either, but…

She flung a hand out to indicate the city. “You just got finished fighting with a demon and you have the nerve to tell me that there can’t be such a thing as a sorcerer? Seriously?”

She half-expected him to take offence to that.

But much to her surprise, Griffe actually smiled at her proclamation.

Uncertain, Marinette smiled back. Maybe this wasn’t going over as badly as she’d thought.

Chapter Text

“Okay, so let’s pretend that I believe you when it comes to the sorcerer,” Griffe said, his smile fading. “Why do you need to borrow our Ladybug miraculous? Why can’t you just use your own?”

Marinette had been mentally preparing for this question because she had known that it was inevitable that he would ask. She had contemplated telling Griffe a couple of different things before ultimately deciding which way she would go. Telling him that the Ladybug miraculous had been or stolen wouldn’t inspire much confidence when she was asking to borrow theirs. But…

“It was damaged in a fight,” Marinette announced. “The sorcerer wanted to stop my team from being able to purify people. He targeted the Ladybug miraculous and its user.”

Griffe frowned in concern. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t good. The Ladybug miraculous can’t be used right now, and its user is out of commission,” Marinette said quietly, which was only a half lie. Of course Marinette was fine and not out of commission at all, but the Ladybug miraculous really couldn’t be used right now because it was in Émilie’s hands.

“Hmm.” Griffe stood there for a long moment, just staring at her. Marinette met his gaze with a calm she didn’t feel and waited for more questions.

It was tempting to fill the silence with chatter or more information, but she refrained. The more details that she gave, the more she would need to remember if and when she had to re-tell the story. If she started getting confused and making mistakes about it all, they would never believe her. So it was better to be quiet and let Griffe ask specifically what he wanted to know.

“So what happened to the Ladybug miraculous that it can’t be used?” Griffe said finally.

Marinette shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. Tikki disappeared inside and won’t come out. Plagg said he’s never seen that before.” She hoped that dropping Tikki’s and Plagg’s names would make her story seem more valid.

“What did your guardian say about it?” Griffe asked.

“Our guardian…” Marinette’s heart hurt a bit as she automatically thought of Master Fu. Kaalki patted her cheek in comfort, and she raised a hand to pet the kwami in thanks.

Griffe watched this with a confused expression.

“I’m the guardian now,” Marinette said, and Griffe’s eyes widened a bit. “Our last guardian got cornered by the sorcerer. In order to save the Miracle Box, the guardian renounced himself. That means –”

“He forgot everything,” Griffe concluded, and Marinette nodded.

“Yes. I got him out of Paris as quickly as I could after that. I was worried that the sorcerer would think that he still had some answers. It’s just me now, and I wasn’t able to finish my training. So there’s a lot I don’t know, and I think that how to repair the Ladybug miraculous is one of them. That’s why I’m here. To borrow yours and give us some time to examine the Miraculous Grimoire to figure out how to fix ours.”

Marinette took a deep breath after all that. Part of what she’d said hadn’t been a lie. She really hadn’t finished her training with Master Fu. There was just so much she hadn’t had a chance to learn, and this whole experience was really driving that home.

“I’m sorry,” Griffe said after a few seconds. “This sounds like the plot of a show, or of some kind of video game.”

“I wish it was, but it’s not.” Marinette sighed. “Look, I know this is a lot to dump on you… that’s why I was trying to do some research on your team. Our guardian never got the chance to tell me much about the past teams. I don’t even know who you are!”

There. That was a good cover for why she wouldn’t know who any of these miraculous holders were, right?

Griffe pursed his lips. Then he said, “Could I speak to Fluff?”

“Oh, sure,” Marinette said, a bit surprised. But she supposed it made sense. Griffe probably wanted to make sure that she was telling the truth.

“Fluff will be hungry,” Kaalki piped up, speaking for the first time within Griffe’s hearing. “Transforming, even if our attacks aren’t used, takes energy. Do you have food?”

“I do,” Griffe confirmed. “I always keep cheese on me, because you know… Plagg.” He looked so resigned by that, that Marinette had to swallow a giggle. Plagg was definitely the same, it seemed.

“Okay. Fluff, Counter Clockwise!”

Chapter Text

Even before the blue light of the transformation died away, Marinette slipped on the Horse miraculous and whispered, “Kaalki, full gallop!”

If Griffe was surprised to see her transform into Licorne so quickly, he gave nothing away. Perhaps he had been expecting it.

After all, she could understand that he wanted to speak to Fluff.

But it would be foolish to just trust him implicitly. He might have owned the Black Cat miraculous, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was as trustworthy as Chat Noir was. Marinette couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes here. If Griffe attacked and stole the Rabbit and Horse miraculous, she wouldn’t be able to get home – and worse yet, she wouldn’t be able to get Adrien home.

It made her feel sick just to think about Adrien waiting for her in another universe. Waiting for her to come back to him just like she’d promised.

She had to keep that promise.

“Hello Fluff,” Griffe said, drawing Licorne’s attention back to him.

“Good day,” Fluff said cheerfully, landing on Licorne’s outstretched hand. She was glad to see that Fluff didn’t look too tired.

“What happened to the Ladybug miraculous in your universe?” Griffe wanted to know.

“It can’t be used right now,” said Fluff, and Licorne could have kissed the kwami for instinctively knowing enough to not admit that the Ladybug miraculous had been stolen. Saying that it couldn’t be used right now could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, including the way that Griffe had heard.

Griffe narrowed his eyes slightly. “Why can’t it be used?”

Licorne’s heart just about stopped at that.

Crap.

She really should have talked this over with Kaalki and Fluff in advance.

But Fluff surprised her.

The kwami puffed up, scowling at Griffe. “Didn’t Licorne go over this with you? Why are you asking me when I am sure that she has already answered all of your questions?” Fluff demanded.

Griffe blinked. “Uh –”

“Don’t you realize how rude that is? Don’t you believe her? Everything that she’s told you is the truth. Either you believe her or you don’t, but you’re not going to get a different answer just by asking me. Licorne is the guardian. That should be proof or not.” Fluff looked and sounded really mad, and – not that Licorne would ever be dumb enough to tell the kwami this – it was actually really cute.

“Right,” Griffe said, sounding a bit stunned. “I, uh, apologize, Marinette.”

“It’s okay. I understand why you’re trying to cover all your bases,” Licorne said graciously, giving Fluff a gentle, appreciative pat on the head. “I reacted the same way when the Rabbit miraculous holder from the future first appeared in my time.”

“This happened to you?” Griffe said.

Licorne smiled at him. “Who do you think gave me the idea? Although in my case, it was because they needed our help to take care of a demon.”

“Why did they need you?” he asked.

“It was a much bigger demon than they’d ever dealt with before,” Licorne improvised. She wasn’t sure if demons had the ability to time travel. “I can’t give you many more details than that, I’m afraid.”

Fluff nodded. “That’s right. We can’t tell you anything about the future. Doing so could both the future and the present in danger. So don’t ask!” She gave Griffe a warning look.

Griffe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s what the Fluff of this time always says.”

“You’ve tried to ask questions about the future?” Licorne said, surprised.

“You haven’t?” It was his turn to look surprised.

“Ah… well… I guess I did a bit at first, but…” Licorne shrugged. She could understand why Fluff and Bunnix hadn’t told her anything beyond what she needed to know.

Knowing about the future led to emotions like grief, anger, jealousy, frustration, fear…

It had bothered her for a long time, not knowing exactly what had led to Chat Blanc. Knowing vaguely that it was just Ladybug and Chat Noir dating had made her afraid to even think about Chat romantically. Now that she knew who Hawkmoth was, she could make an educated guess as to how it had happened.

But for a while there, she’d been so worried that she would inadvertently make it happen again because she was trying so hard to not make it happen.

She understood now that there was value in not knowing what would happen, and in letting the future happen however it needed to happen.

Chapter Text

“I don’t think this is a decision I can make by myself,” Griffe said finally. “I need to talk to my teammates, and to our guardian. The miraculous aren’t mine to give out.”

Licorne nodded. She could respect that. She doubted that Master Fu would have been okay with her promising a miraculous to someone in his stead when he was the guardian. In a way, it actually made her like Griffe more. He seemed to be a little more responsible than Chat could be sometimes.

“That’s fair. Do you have any more questions for me?” she asked.

Griffe thought for a moment before he said, “How long would you need to borrow the miraculous for?”

“Oh… It shouldn’t be more than a week or so. A month at the most,” Licorne replied. She didn’t even think it would take that long if Adrien had been able to get the Black Cat miraculous, but she wasn’t completely sure how time worked between this world and her own. She didn’t want to lie to Griffe and promise that it would only be a day or two when she didn’t know.

“And what happens if we need the Ladybug miraculous for something in the meantime?” he asked.

“You could use the Rabbit miraculous to get to the future,” Licorne said.

Technically it wasn’t a lie. Griffe, or anyone else in his team or the guardian, really would be able to go to the future to borrow the Ladybug miraculous – or to the past, for that matter. They just wouldn’t be able to get the Ladybug miraculous Licorne would hopefully be borrowing, since she wouldn’t be in the future. She’d be back in her own world.

But all these technicalities were starting to weigh heavily. She felt guilty for lying to him, and she wished that she could tell Griffe the truth – but she just couldn’t take the risk that he would react poorly to the truth and refuse to give her the Ladybug miraculous. Whatever it took to get it, that’s what she had to do.

Besides, she was confident that she wasn’t leaving them in the lurch. They didn’t need the Ladybug miraculous to fight against demons. And even if something happened, they did have a way to get a Ladybug miraculous. It wasn’t like the one she was borrowing was overly special.

“Right.” Griffe sighed and scratched his nose. “Okay, then. Do you have a cell phone?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem to work here. The technology must be different,” Licorne said. “I couldn’t get it to connect with anything. That’s why I was at the library.”

He made a face. “Fine. Just meet me in the park where I dropped you off this morning at 7pm tonight.”

“I was supposed to meet Plume tonight,” Licorne remembered suddenly. It seemed like so long ago that she’d met Plume for the first time, but it had been just last night.

Griffe nodded. “Yes, I know. Plume told me. Don’t worry. I’ll let her know that she doesn’t have to meet you. I mean, if you prefer, I could send Plume to you tonight at 7pm…” He smiled, a teasing glint in his eye.

“No. Nope! I’m good. I’ll meet with you,” Licorne said, shaking her head rapidly. She didn’t know Plume very well, of course, but based off of what she had learned so far, Griffe was much easier to get along with. She didn’t need to be a quick study to know that much!

He chuckled. “I thought you might say that. Umm… I didn’t give you any food for your kwamis. Do you need money?”

Touched that he asked, she shook her head again. “No, it’s okay. I do have a little money on me. Not a lot, but enough to feed a hungry kwami.”

“Ah, but you’ve transformed with both now. Are you sure you have enough to feed two hungry kwamis?” he asked.

Licorne smiled. “I think we’ll manage. Thanks, but we’re good.”

“Alright. Then I will see you tonight at 7pm… Marinette.” He saluted her and then grabbed his baton, thrusting it against the ground to vault himself up and over the roofs.

A little shiver ran through her when he said her name.

As many times as she’d heard her name, it had never been said quite like that.

“You really are a Ladybug,” Fluff whispered in her ear, and Licorne blinked.

“Wait, what? Why do you say that?”

Fluff smirked. “Because no matter the world, you’re weak to a charming Black Cat.”

“Wh-what – I am not!” Licorne sputtered, her face turning pink. Fluff just laughed at her.

Chapter Text

Going back into the library to do more research didn’t appeal to her after all that, so Marinette de-transformed and went to get herself, Kaalki, and Fluff a well-deserved lunch. She found another small café a short distance away from the library and gratefully sank down into a chair at one of their outdoor tables.

“Here’s a menu, Miss.” A waitress approached and set a menu down in front of Marinette. “We don’t usually see customers so soon after a demon attack.”

“I’m new to the area,” Marinette said wearily, hoping that the waitress would just chalk it up to a stupid tourist not being smart enough to know when to run for cover. Sure enough, the waitress gave a knowing nod before turning on a customer-service smile.

“Well, you don’t need to worry. Griffe took care of the demon, so we’re all perfectly safe,” the waitress said with a confident nod of her head. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to look over the menu.” She walked away, heading back into the café.

Marinette looked down at the menu without really seeing it. It was so strange to hear people talk about Griffe with so much confidence.

In her world, people would’ve been talking about how Ladybug had taken care of everything. At some point, “Ladybug and Chat Noir” had been shortened to just Ladybug. She hadn’t really noticed it at first, and then after a while it just became the way things were.

But she wondered now if that bothered Chat.

People were always grateful for his help, but there was no denying the fact that Ladybug took center stage because she was the one who could fix things. Did that make Chat feel left out?

“Marinette? Why haven’t you opened the menu?” Kaalki hissed, and Marinette startled. She took a quick, frantic look around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone nearby. Of course, now that she knew Griffe had been following her around all morning, she was very aware of the fact that someone could be there, and she just might not know.

“She’s too busy thinking about Griffe,” Fluff said knowingly.

Marinette blew her breath out in an annoyed sigh and grabbed the menu off the table, holding it up so that if anyone was walking by, they would just see the menu and not the annoying kwamis in her lap.

“I was not thinking about Griffe,” Marinette mumbled, pretending to look at the menu.

“Suuuure you weren’t,” Fluff said with a smirk.

“I wasn’t! This might be an alternate universe, but it’s not some sort of reverse crush scenario. I happen to have the love of my life waiting for me. I don’t need any other Chat Noir, and I never will,” Marinette said indignantly.

Maybe there was a world out there where a Marinette Dupain-Cheng was madly in love with a Chat Noir, but it wasn’t this one!

Although technically…

Adrien was Chat Noir.

So didn’t that make her own world a world where a Marinette Dupain-Cheng was madly in love with a Chat Noir?

The thought made Marinette blush furiously, and both Kaalki and Fluff started cackling.

“Shh!” she snapped at them, seeing that the waitress was coming back outside.

“Have you decided what you’d like?” the waitress asked, walking over to Marinette’s table. Marinette quickly pulled the menu up against her, hiding the kwamis from sight.

“Umm… could I have another minute or two? Everything looks so good. I just can’t decide,” she said with her sweetest smile.

“Sure. Just wave to me when you know what you want,” she said, moving away.

“I want pancakes,” Kaalki announced. Marinette glanced quickly at the waitress, but she didn’t seem to have heard.

“Oh my gosh, you guys, do you two have no concept of making sure you don’t get caught?” Marinette whispered, totally exasperated. She really missed Tikki. At least Tikki knew how to hide when other people were around!

But then again, she supposed it had been so long since Kaalki and Fluff had been outside their miraculous that hiding from human view probably wasn’t their greatest concern.

“I’ll hide if you agree to pancakes,” Kaalki said.

Marinette sighed. “Yes, fine, pancakes it is. Just get back in my purse until I tell you it’s okay to come out!” She kept the menu up until she was sure that both of them were tucked back into her purse. Only then did she dare to lower it and wave to the waitress.

After all that, the kwamis weren’t the only ones who were hungry!

Chapter Text

Admittedly, Marinette felt better once she had eaten. Breakfast seemed like it had been a long time ago, and she hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she was setting her fork and knife down on an empty plate. Kaalki and Fluff had also enjoyed the meal, with Kaalki eating some of the pancakes and Fluff chowing down on the side of fruit.

“Anything else?” the waitress asked, materializing by Marinette’s side to pick up the empty plate.

“Do you have any cake?” Marinette asked impulsively, thinking longingly of her parent’s bakery. She had never considered herself a big sweet person, but that was before she entered a universe where the Dupain-Cheng bakery didn’t exist.

“Cheesecake okay?”

“Yeah!” Marinette said, perking up a bit. The waitress smiled at her and went back into the café, but she came back shortly with a plate of delicious-looking cheesecake.

As Marinette ate her cake, a street performer showed up and took up right across the street from the café. She took a guitar out of her bag and started to play and sing at the same time. It was a beautiful, gentle song, exactly what Marinette needed after seeing that demon.

Other people must have felt the same way, because slowly but surely the street started to fill up with people as though they were all being lured out by the sweet singing. Within fifteen minutes, no one would have ever known that the street was empty. It was like everything was back to normal. Even the tables around Marinette quickly filled up.

“Amazing,” Marinette murmured, licking her fork. She wondered if this was what it was like in her Paris after an akuma attack. She and Chat had never been able to hang around long enough afterwards to tell.

A flash of blue caught her eye, and Marinette’s head snapped around. Her eyes widened as she watched Chloé and the alternate universe version of Mayor Bourgeois sit down at one of the tables. Today Chloé had her blonde-and-blue hair pulled back into a braid, and she was wearing jeans and a blue shirt. But it was definitely her, down to the obnoxious laugh that floated over the tables.

“The mayor likes to be seen after demon attacks,” the waitress said practically in Marinette’s ear, and Marinette jumped.

“Wh-what?” Marinette stammered.

The waitress nodded in Chloé’s direction. “That’s the mayor of Paris and his daughter. Whenever possible, the mayor makes it a point to be seen out and about after demon attacks to make Paris seem like a safe place. You should probably get going if you’re all done. There will be paparazzi showing up before long, and it’s going to get pretty crowded around here.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Marinette said, quickly eating her last bite of cheesecake.

Sure enough, by the time she had paid her bill, there were already cameras flashing in the mayor’s direction. Marinette made herself scarce. She had the feeling that Griffe wouldn’t be very happy if she got herself caught on camera, and frankly Marinette didn’t want that to happen either. It seemed best to leave this universe as untouched as possible, with no evidence of herself left behind if possible.

She entertained herself the rest of the day by browsing through some of the little boutiques. It was strange to see so much merchandise of the miraculous holders but have there be nothing red with black spots. There was a lot of stuff for Griffe and Plume. There seemed to be less for Blaze and Fortune, but Marinette still came across a fair amount of pig and dragon stuff.

She lingered over a miniature statue for some time. Small though it was, the details were incredible. Whoever had designed had captured Griffe’s image perfectly, down to the differences in his costume. She deliberated for a little while before picking the statue up and paying for it. She was positive that Adrien would love to see what another Chat Noir looked like.

Maybe she could even get Griffe to pose for a photo. Her phone didn’t need to be hooked up to a network for that, right?

After that she was tired, and Marinette went to the park.

She found a spot to sit down underneath a tree.

It would have been almost pleasant, with some kids running around and the warm air, if it weren’t for the fact that she was anxiously awaiting 7pm.

A watched clock never ticked, but Marinette had nothing to do but wait.

Chapter Text

“Good evening, Marinette.”

Marinette startled, blinking and looking around. She was a little surprised to see that Griffe was standing there, looking down at her.

By the time that 7:15pm had come and gone, Marinette had started to think that maybe Griffe wasn’t going to come at all. It was a depressing but realistic point of view: maybe Griffe had never intended to come. He could have just pretended to believe her story while simultaneously thinking that she was crazy. She had even started to think that maybe they were just going to ambush her for her miraculous at some point…

Yet here he was, and Marinette scrambled upright. “You came!”

Griffe winced. “I apologize for being late. My conversation with the guardian ran longer than expected, and then I was unavoidably held up with a private matter. I would’ve called you, but…”

“But I don’t have a phone that works right now,” Marinette said, more relieved than she cared to admit. “It’s okay. I was just sitting here daydreaming.”

She looked over at a group of kids that were running around playing a game with a ball. One of them was pretty cute, a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had fallen while playing with her friends and started crying, prompting both of her parents to come to her rescue. It was the kind of heartwarming scene that Marinette normally would not have paid much attention to.

But in this case, it just so happened that this little girl’s dad had blond hair too, while her mom was a brunette. From enough of a distance, Marinette could imagine that perfect scene of domesticity was the future awaiting her and a certain blond cat boy. She’d let herself indulge in the daydream, maybe a little too much given that she hadn’t even noticed Griffe’s approach.

“Still, my apologies for keeping you waiting,” Griffe said, following her gaze. “But I’m glad to see you were not waiting completely alone.”

Marinette smiled. “No, I had good company in this park,” she said. “What did your guardian say?”

All of her anxiety rushed to the surface when Griffe’s smile faded away. That serious look of his kind of made her want to throw up.

What if it was bad news?

What if the guardian had said no?

Stealing the Ladybug miraculous would be that much harder when Griffe’s whole team now knew that she wanted it!

“The guardian would like to meet you first,” Griffe said, pulling Marinette out of her increasingly wild thoughts. “Is that okay?”

“Absolutely,” Marinette said, inwardly so relieved that her knees were a little shaky. That wasn’t an outright ‘no’, which was a big step in her opinion, and she felt like the guardian wanting to meet her first was fair. She probably would’ve had the same stipulation had she been in their shoes.

Griffe smiled back at her. “Excellent. I had hoped you would respond that way. I’ll let you transform. Meet me on the roof of Collège Françoise Dupont, okay? I’ll take you to the guardian then.”

He turned on his heel and jumped away before she could respond, which finally got him noticed by everyone else in the park. Marinette watched as he took the time to wave to all the people who called out to him. No wonder he had stopped when she called him out too. Much like her Chat Noir, he seemed to care a lot about the citizens of Paris.

A few people were now eyeing her, clearly wondering what she’d been talking to a superhero for, so Marinette quickly gathered her things and left the park. As she looked for a hiding place to transform, she wondered what the guardian of this world was like.

Was it Master Fu?

Was it one of the other monks?

Was it someone completely different?

She turned down into an alley and quickly walked all the way to the end. After checking to be sure that no one had noticed, she opened up her purse and let Kaalki and Fluff come out. She didn’t think it was just her imagination that the kwamis looked as excited as she felt. This could be it. This could be the moment when they got what they needed.

She could be seeing Adrien again in a matter of hours.

Marinette held tightly to that.

She hoped that he was doing okay.

“Kaalki, I’m going to transform with you so I have an easy way to escape if I need it,” she said softly. “That okay?”

Kaalki nodded. “Yup. Good luck, Marinette!”

“Thanks. Kaalki, full gallop!”

Chapter Text

Licorne met up with Griffe on top of the school, as promised. It was getting dark now, and she wondered if Plume, Blaze, and Fortune were watching from somewhere nearby. She fought to look calm as she approached Griffe, hoping that her racing heart wasn’t evident. Right now more than ever, she needed to look like she was in control.

“Where is your guardian?” she inquired.

“Waiting for us,” Griffe replied, taking out his baton. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s only about ten minutes away.”

“Not at all,” Licorne said, biting back a question about where they were going. She had already been by Master Fu’s shop, so she knew they couldn’t be going there. So either Master Fu was set up somewhere differently, or they were going to see someone else.

She followed Griffe as he made his way across Paris. At last, he dropped down next to a small apartment building. Licorne followed, looking around curiously. Griffe didn’t go into the building, but instead made his way towards the end of the street. When she followed, she saw that his destination was a small park not unlike the one that she had been waiting for Griffe in.

“We’re here,” Griffe announced, gesturing around.

Dark as it was, Licorne almost missed the person sitting on the bench – especially since whoever it was, was almost fully obscured by the large rose bushes surrounding the bench. It was only thanks to the accelerated eyesight granted by her miraculous that Licorne realized a person was there at all. She squinted, realizing that they were wearing some kind of robe that was pulled up around their face. She couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

“Hello, Griffe!” Something moved near the guardian’s shoulder and then a kwami popped out – a kwami that Licorne had never seen before. Her eyes widened.

“Nooroo?” she exclaimed, because that was the only explanation.

Nooroo tilted his head cutely. “Do I know you?”

“This is Licorne. She’s the one I was telling you about,” Griffe explained. “So yes, she knows you in the future.” He shot Licorne a curious look, no doubt wondering why she’d been so surprised to see Nooroo with the guardian. Licorne thought fast.

“My previous guardian used the Turtle miraculous,” she said, deciding to go with the truth. “I guess I thought that all guardians did.”

“The Turtle… that’s an interesting choice,” Griffe said. “Our guardian uses the Butterfly so that if we need additional help during a battle, they can designate a champion to help in their stead. That way, the guardian never actually has to enter into the battle.”

Licorne had to admit that that made sense and was probably a wise use of the Butterfly miraculous. She knew she would have found it really hard to stay on the sidelines if that had been expected of her as a guardian. Luckily, Chat had never brought it up to her as an option – probably because, in their case, they didn’t have the luxury of Ladybug staying out of battles, and there was no question that Marinette, and only Marinette, would ever wield the Ladybug miraculous.

But could that be why Master Fu has chosen to use the Turtle miraculous? Because he knew he would never enter – or at last, he knew he should have never entered – into battle? Or had he gone with the Turtle miraculous just because he was partial to Wayzz? In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter. Nothing would have saved Master Fu from Hawkmoth’s clutches, even if he had had a different miraculous.

“What miraculous do you use?” Griffe asked her.

Licorne blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

“When you fight the sorcerer… you made it sound like you participate, even though you’re the guardian. The Rabbit isn’t designed for battle. It’s a last resort miraculous. Do you use the Horse?” He looked her up and down.

“Yes, I do,” Licorne said. “I usually keep my distance from fights, but the Horse enables me to get members of my team out of the way quickly if necessary.” That was a flat-out lie, but she thought it sounded like a reasonable explanation for why a guardian might choose the Horse miraculous.

The guardian stood, a movement so sudden and fluid that Licorne almost jumped. She instinctively took a deep breath, inhaling the overpowering fragrance of the roses.

“I’ve never heard of miraculous crossing time. That could be dangerous. I’m not sure I’m okay with that.” As the guardian spoke, they lowered their hood.

Licorne’s eyes widened in shock.

“Ch-Chloé?!"

Chapter Text

Chloé Bourgeois just looked at her, seemingly unfazed by Licorne’s shock. Her hair was still tied back in the braid from earlier, but now some blue strands had fallen free to frame her face. Somehow, she looked older and wiser than she ever had before.

“I take it you know me. I was wondering why you were asking me about Adrien that day,” Chloé said.

“I… uh…” Licorne didn’t even know what to say.

Out of all the people who could have been underneath that hood, Chloé was probably at the very bottom of the list. Licorne actually wondered if she was dreaming. But when she blinked a couple of times, Chloé was still there. The cloak had fallen open, revealing that she had the Butterfly miraculous pinned to the collar of her shirt.

“Are you okay? You went really pale,” Griffe said, watching Licorne with concern. Fluff, who was sitting on Licorne’s shoulder, gave her a none-too-gentle pinch as a hint.

“I was just – I didn’t expect someone so young,” Licorne said, trying to pull herself together.

“I’m your age,” Chloé pointed out.

“Yeah, but my guardian… well, our last guardian… he was very old. I guess I assumed your guardian would be too,” Licorne explained.

Griffe and Chloé looked at each other for a moment.

Then Griffe said, “Chloé wasn’t the only guardian. We had another…” His expression shut down, and Licorne got the feeling that the story wasn’t a nice one. Probably something similar to what had happened to Master Fu, no doubt.

“So I’m not the guardian in your time, then,” Chloé said quietly.

“No… you’re not,” Licorne said, realizing that she had effectively backed herself into a corner on that one.

Which meant Chloé was now assuming she was either dead or had lost all her memories in the future.

Good going, Marinette.

“So you want to borrow our Ladybug miraculous,” Chloé said, crossing her arms over her chest. It was such an obvious change of subject that Licorne was tempted to call them on it but decided not to. Fabricating a story to make Chloé feel better in the moment wasn’t going to help.

“Yes, I do. And I really don’t think there’s too much concern about a miraculous crossing timelines. Right, Fluff?” Licorne said.

Fluff took a moment to answer. Finally, she said, “It can be dangerous to have two duplicate miraculous in the same timeline for too long of a time, but Licorne only needs to borrow your Ladybug miraculous for a short period of time. Plus, our Ladybug miraculous isn’t working the way it should be right now. So there shouldn’t be any danger to our time.”

“But what about our time? The Black Cat miraculous can become unsteady without the Ladybug miraculous around to balance it,” Chloé said, and Licorne realized that Chloé must have been talking to the Fluff of this world before she’d met with them.

At least that explained why Fluff hadn’t lied. Fluff must have realized that her alternate universe counterpart would’ve been honest about the dangers with a guardian. So Chloé would’ve immediately realized that Fluff had been lying, and that would’ve destroyed whatever trust Licorne had managed to build up with Griffe.

“That’s true,” Fluff said slowly. “However, it would take a while for that to happen. Longer than we’d need the miraculous for.”

“I could always use another miraculous if I had to,” Griffe said.

Chloé put her hands on her hips. “Where was that attitude the last time I asked you to put on the Dog miraculous to help me experiment?”

Griffe scoffed at her. “I’m a cat, thank you very much. I do not, and will not, use that miraculous.”

Licorne had to bite back a laugh.

“Luckily, there are half a dozen other miraculous that I could use,” Griffe went on. “Most of them aren’t as useful when it comes to dealing with demons, but they’re not terrible either. I think we would be okay.”

Chloé sighed. “I just don’t know. It’s not that I don’t want to help you, but –” She looked genuinely torn, and Licorne felt a flash of sympathy for her.

She knew exactly what it was like to be shoved into the guardian’s shoes and expected to have to make some really heavy decisions. Guilt curdled in her stomach, hot and sour, over the realization that she was the one putting Chloé into that position right now. And all over some lies, no less.

Damn Hawkmoth.

Really. Damn him to hell.

When she came to return the Ladybug miraculous, she would tell them the truth, Licorne decided. It was the only promise that she could make, and she couldn’t even say it out loud right now – but she was making it in her heart, whether they knew it or not.

Chapter Text

“Please,” Licorne said quietly. “I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t really important. We need your Ladybug miraculous more than anything. We’re doomed without it.” She set aside all of her personal feelings about Chloé Bourgeois and looked at the guardian with the most open, hopeful look that she could muster. Without words, she tried to communicate just how much this mattered.

For a long, tense few seconds, she didn’t think it had worked.

Then Chloé pursed her lips and said, “Okay.”

“Seriously?” Licorne gasped, shocked.

“Yes, seriously. Griffe seems to trust you, so I’m putting this on him.” Chloé looked sideways at Griffe as she spoke. “This is going against my better judgement, but Griffe pointed out that as miraculous holders we’re all responsible for the future. Even if it’s a future that won’t directly impact us for a while.”

She reached into her pocket and, when she held out her hand, there it was. The Ladybug miraculous. Two red, black-spotted earrings tucked cozily into Chloé’s palm. Licorne wanted to cry. It took effort for her to hold the tears back.

Because this wasn’t her miraculous.

The Tikki inside wasn’t her Tikki.

But she wanted it to be so badly…

“It’ll be okay. I know that Plume didn’t agree with this, but I really do think it’s the right choice,” Griffe said with a smile. “Thank you, Chloé.”

“Don’t thank me. Just hope that your friend here is telling the truth. Because if she’s not, you’re the one who gets to use the Rabbit miraculous until you find her and bring our Ladybug miraculous back,” Chloé said. She looked at Licorne. “You hear me? We will track you down if we have to.”

“I understand,” Licorne said.

And frankly, she believed Chloé in that moment.

It didn’t matter that Chloé didn’t know she was from an alternate universe and not the future. She was absolutely sure that Chloé would find her.

She held out a hand, hardly daring to breathe as the Ladybug miraculous was carefully handed over. She had to fight the urge to look weird by clutching the miraculous to her chest. This was one half of what they needed to get their own miraculous back.

“Thank you,” she told them both.

“Good luck,” Griffe said.

“Don’t forget,” Chloé warned.

“I won’t.” Licorne took a deep breath and then jumped, hearing a couple of startled cries from Chloé and Griffe. Maybe they’d expected her to detransform and use the Rabbit’s power right there? But she couldn’t, since she needed to unify the Horse and Rabbit to travel.

“Okay, Marinette, now you need to get back to Adrien,” Fluff said in her ear as they went.

“Do I need to make an anchor from this world?” Licorne asked.

“No. The Ladybug miraculous you have should lead you back here,” Fluff replied. “A miraculous will always want to come back to the place where it belongs.”

“Right.” Licorne was a little relieved about that. She didn’t like the idea of having to go back to Griffe or Chloé and give them something to tether her to this world. It wasn’t like Adrien or Alya, when she could be completely certain that they would keep the items she had given them safe.

She landed on the roof and paused there, realizing that she was shaking. It was like a surge of adrenaline had hit her all at once. She clenched her hand around the Ladybug miraculous until the earrings dug into her skin.

Fluff flew off her shoulder to hover in front of her. “Now, you’re going to have to focus hard, Marinette. Focus on Adrien and the object that you gave him.”

“What if I can’t find him again?” Licorne said. That was a thought that had been lingering in the back of her mind since this whole mess began, but now she couldn’t help voicing it out loud.

Fluff gave her a stern look. “Don’t talk like that. You two are soulmates. You are always connected, regardless of whether you have the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous. The bond between you is much stronger than you realize. Unify us, and then focus.”

“Right,” Licorne whispered, her throat dry. “Kaalki. Fluff. Unify!”

The bright flash of light died away, leaving her alone on the roof once more. Closing her eyes, she clasped the Ladybug miraculous to her chest and thought about her partner.

The gentleness of his smile when they had finished a patrol and were relaxing together.

The twinkle in his eyes when he came up with a really good pun.

The way he was always kind to everyone, even to people who didn’t deserve it.

The way he sounded when he said her name.

“Marinette.”

“Ladybug.”

It was like she could hear his voice, calling to her across reality.

Breathing out, she cast her attack. When she opened her eyes, there was another bluey-green portal floating right in front of her. There was no way to tell where it led. Did it lead to Adrien? Back home? To another universe altogether? She had no way of knowing. All she could do was trust in her power, trust in their bond, and go forward.

“I’m coming, Chaton,” Marinette said out loud, and stepped through the portal.