Chapter Text
The quiet autumn night was interrupted, even shattered, by the black-clad figure leaping from roof to roof, whooping all the way. The people down at street level looked up at the noise -- some frowning at the noise, but most grinning at the sheer joy in the sound. They couldn't really hold a little noise against the city's more rambunctious superhero, not when they'd both saved most of their lives directly at least once over the last year or so, to say nothing of their fights to keep the city at large safe. Staff in hand, Chat Noir took a flying leap over a four lane road, landing perfectly on the roof across the way, letting out a loud giddy laugh the whole way over.
Geez, kid, do you think you could dial it down a little? a voice in Chat's head grumbled.
"Sorry, Plagg, no can do," Chat said aloud, grinning widely. "I'm in way too good a mood."
What's even got you so hyped up tonight, anyway?
Chat began leaping up the spire-like tower the city was so known for, grin widening. "Nothing special really. It's just a nice night to be out, and I get to spend it with my Lady."
Chat could feel a difficult to explain sensation just to the back of the head, but it translated to Plagg giving an eyeroll. You got it so bad.
"I won't argue with that," Chat agreed, landing at the top point of the Rib, looking out over the city of Bonesburough, with amber colored slit eyes from behind a black mask. Chat took a deep breath. This was her favorite spot in the entire city, in part because she was one of two people who could access it. She raised her hands above her head, arching her back as she stretched. The full moon behind her illuminated the body-hugging black jumpsuit, collar with large round bell around her neck, dangling tail-like belt off her waist, and cat ears perched atop her head. She plopped herself down on the tiny little platform, dangling her feet over the edge, and ran a hand through her lilac hair.
"You're late Gatita."
Chat grinned at the sudden voice from below and hung upside-down from her perch, catching an exasperated look from a pair of brown eyes behind a spotted red mask. "My Lady," Chat said, "I would never be late to a date with you."
Ladybug huffed a chuckle as Chat dropped down to the slightly larger platform she was standing on, and not for the first time, Chat had to exercise enormous self-control not to, ah, appreciate how flattering the red-and-black spotted body stocking was on her superhero partner. "C'mon Chat. We're going out on patrol, not a romantic night on the town."
Chat took one of Ladybug's hands into hers and placed a quick kiss upon the knuckles. "My Lady, you should already know, every night I spend out with you is a romantic night on the town."
Ladybug's already dark complexion darkened just a bit further in the cheeks, even as she flicked Chat on the nose like, well, a misbehaving housecat. "You're ridiculous," she said, firmly ignoring the snickering in the back of her head that was not her own inner voice.
Chat covered her chest with both hands with an overdramatic gasp. "You cut me to the quick! Ridiculous? Me?" Then she smiled. "Maybe. But just around you."
Ladybug rolled her eyes as she took out her yo-yo. "I'm sure. C'mon Gata Linda, we got a city to protect." With that she launched off the tower, and swung off to the distance, followed shortly after by a whooping Chat.
The next morning, The Owl House Pawn Shop...
Eda Clawthorne yawned widely before taking a draft from her coffee. Once upon a time she would never have been up at such an ungodly hour -- that's one of the reasons she opted for a pawn shop as her source of income, she could more-or-less choose her own hours. But the last year or so had given her a reason to get up early.
"EDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
And there it was. A now-familiar set of crashing sounds erupted from the stairway that led to the upstairs apartment, followed by barking at the foot of the stairs. A moment later, Luz Noceda emerged with a little black terrier in her arms. "Hey, King. How's the most precious little doggo in the world this morning?"
From her spot at the front desk, Eda cleared her throat. "So, what's the emergency, kiddo?"
"Oh, yeah! Eda Eda Eda Eda! I can't find my backpack."
Eda grinned. "You mean that backpack?" She pointed toward a far wall, where a colorful backpack hung from the antler of a stuffed deer head. Luz squeaked as she put King down and dashed across the shop to grab her pack. "So, Kid," Eda said even as she put a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the desk. "Anything fun happen when you were out superheroing last night?"
Luz gasped dramatically. "Eda! Not so loud!"
Eda laughed. "Relax, kid. Your mom's been gone for hours. Some kind of emergency at the hospital."
"Really?" Luz asked, concerned. "Things were pretty quiet last night."
"Not every emergency is some big citywide event, kid."
Luz nodded thoughtfully at that. "True, I guess." At least there wasn't a chance of repeating the... misstep that caused Eda to learn her secret identity.
"So the good news is your little friend can get a quick snack before school."
At that, the little red creature named Tikki suddenly appeared from where she was hiding in the hood of Luz's jacket. "Why thank you Ms. Clawthorne!" And she practically dove into the plate of cookies.
Eda gagged. "'Ms. Clawthorne' is my sister, kid. I'm Eda."
Tikki peeked out from the cookie pile with a smile. "And I am far, far older than you, Ms. Clawthorne, and yet you still call me 'kid.'" Then she vanished back into the cookies.
Eda blinked a couple of times. "She's not as sugary sweet as she makes herself out to be, is she?" she asked Luz.
Luz grinned. "You're just figuring that out now?" Before the conversation could move on, Luz's phone started buzzing. "Oh, hey, we gotta go. C'mon Tikki!" Tikki, one last cookie in hand, zipped into Luz's backpack as Luz ran out the door. "Bye Eda!" CRASH! "I'm okay!"
That same morning, en route to Hexside Academy...
"Sooooo, anything you wanna say Mittens?" Emira Blight asked from the driver seat of the sports car.
"I don't know what you're talking about," her little sister Amity said with a huff from the back seat.
"Sure you don't," Edric said from the passenger seat. "C'mon Mittens. We're sneak-out experts. We know you've been sneaking out at night. On the regular even."
Amity kept her imperious facade. "Not that you can do anything with that knowledge," she said, not bothering to deny.
"Oh, sure," Em said cheerfully. "You've got blackmail material, we've got blackmail material we've all got blackmail material. That's just the way this family runs."
"Not that we'd even want to bust you on this one," Ed said, causing Amity to blink at him in surprise. "We're proud, actually. Get out there, express your individuality, get away from mom. We're all for that."
Em grinned and shared a look with Ed. "But we just can't help but wonder a bit on what keeps you out so much. Or who?"
Amity's normally pale face suddenly went a rather notable shade of pink as she was suddenly very interested in the view outside. "There is no 'who,'" was all she could mutter out.
The Twins shared a knowing look as they pulled in front of the school. "Uh, huh," Ed said. "I hope you introduce us some time."
"There is no 'who.'" Amity repeated more forcefully as she exited the car as fast as she could and slammed the door.
As she stomped into the school and towards her locker, Plagg barely peeked out from her school bag. "Those two are too smart for our own good," he grumbled.
"Yeah," Amity muttered. "It's almost tempting to just tell them what's going on just to get it over with."
"Yeah, kid, I don't think that'd be a good idea."
Amity huffed a laugh. "Yeah. We could basically say good bye to a secret identity in that case."
A sudden voice from behind caused Amity to shut up and Plagg to dive back into the bag. "So did either of you see Ladybug and Chat Noir last night?" It was Gus Porter, of course.
"No. Me and my dads had a pretty quiet night in, actually." Willow Park. Amity winced a bit at that. Former best friend, and she was still working on rebuilding that bridge. It still hurt to be honest. "Was there anything of note about it? An Akuma attack? Nothing was in the news."
"Nah, nothing like that. I think they were just on patrol. Maybe looking for Hawk Moth's lair or something. But by all accounts, Chat Noir was even louder than usual. She seemed to be in a really good mood.
"Yeah," a third voice added, one that made Amity stop short and brought heat to her face. "From what I've heard she's been like that for the last week or so. Oh, hey Amity!"
Amity stopped walking and turned to face her three... friends? Though really, she turned to face one in particular. "Hey, Luz."
"Did you get your stuff from your locker yet?"
Amity started stammering incoherently for a moment, before she took a deep breath to collect herself. "No. Not yet."
Luz grabbed Amity's hand, causing her brain to blue screen for a moment. "Then let's go. We don't wanna be late for first period, right? See you, Gus, Willow!" And she started dragging Amity off to their lockers.
"See you, Luz," Willow said with a knowing smile.
Luz dragged Amity over to the lockers, babbling on about her mom's job at the hospital, her... whatever Eda was to her and her latest weird and wild merchandise, and, of course, the latest Azura book, and Amity just listened, not trusting herself to say anything. For a brief moment, while Luz was distracted and a good chunk of her upper body was in her locker, Plagg peeked out from Amity's bag again. "Two-timer," he whispered with a smile, only to be shoved back into the bag.
Unknown...
The room was lit only by a large, round window, and it was featureless save for the hundreds upon hundreds of glowing blue butterflies. A shadowed, masked figure stepped into the room, its shoes clicking on the floor, causing an echo to reverberate. The figure held out a finger and a butterfly landed on it. The figure smiled and let the butterfly fly off, to seek out a new Akuma victim. It was a new day, and today the Miraculous would belong to Hawk Moth.