Chapter Text
19 kwamis that belong in the miracle box.
17 kwamis that were currently in her possession.
15 active teammates that were in dire need of a break.
The plan was straightforward. Shadow Moth had been running them ragged with frequent akuma attacks. In the interest of broadening their hero-ing abilities, bringing the team closer together, and hopefully having some fun, Ladybug had proposed a group activity where everyone would swap Miraculouses for an hour or so. They'd even secured permission to use the stadium, guaranteeing ample space to spread out and practice.
Alya was upset she couldn't join in, but they'd both agreed that bringing Rena out of hiding was too risky.
"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Ladybug asked her partner as they walked onto the field. The other heroes were already gathered, awaiting their de facto leaders. "With someone else being Chat Noir, I mean?"
"As long as I continue to be your Chat Noir, I'll be okay. Plagg's upset, but I bought him off with cheese."
"Good. Well, not good for you since you're paying for it, but good that he won't give anyone grief…"
He laughed in a way that suggested he wouldn't promise that.
"And kitty?" She placed a hand on his shoulder and he turned his head to look at her. "You'll always be my Chat Noir."
Their words reached those teammates with enhanced hearing. Polymouse swooned while Purple Tigress pretended to vomit.
"Alright, alright. Listen up, everyone," Ladybug addressed the assembled heroes. "We've done some light training in groups lately, but I'm so glad you're all up for trying something a little different today. Or a lot different, I guess. While Chat and I have swapped Miraculouses before, the rest of you have only used the first ones I gave you. Today will be a chance to experience things in someone else's shoes."
"What if there's an akuma?" Viperion asked.
"Ugh," Carapace groaned. "Don't jinx us."
"If there's an akuma, Chat Noir and I will swap with whoever's using our Miraculouses," Ladybug said simply.
She worried this might sound untrusting, but she refused to take any chances. If Ladybug ever failed, she would be the Ladybug that failed. Fortunately, nobody objected.
Vesperia raised her hand awkwardly.
"So how are we doing this?"
"Bathroom stalls. There's restrooms through there." She turned to her partner. "You'll go first. We'll both close our eyes. You'll pick something out of the yoyo and drop in your ring. I'll start at one end and go down the line, then take the last one."
Whoever was in the last stall would get the earrings, though she didn't dare announce that and cause a stampede.
"Very generous, letting everyone else go first, m'lady."
She privately thought that generosity had nothing to do with it. It just made things simpler.
"What if we get our normal Miraculous?" Caprikid asked.
"Well the odds of that are only 1 in 15, right?" Rooster Bold noted.
"Precisely," Pegasus said, adjusting his glasses. "Though technically, the probability is different for each successive person due to the diminishing set of available choices. It will be 1 in 15—or approximately 6%—for the first selection, and 1 in 14 for the second selection, but even that doesn't account for the possibility that Miraculous was taken in an earlier selection. So the probability for the first person is 1/15. The probability for the second person also incorporates the probability of their Miraculouses not being selected in the first round—14/15—and being selected in the second round—1/14—multiplied together, which is 1/15."
"My brain hurts," said King Monkey.
"Now the third person's probability is more interesting, because it needs to take into account non-selection in the first two selections. A 14/15 chance of not being taken the first time, a 13/14 chance of not being taken the second time, and a 1/13 chance of being taken the third time. All multiplied together, that is 6%."
"So… 1 out of 15," Miss Hound verified.
"Correct. 1 in 15, or 0.066 repeating."
"That's… That's what I said." Rooster Bold noted weakly.
Of course, Ladybug figured the odds were different for Chat and her given that they'd used each others' Miraculouses too. She wouldn't complain about some extra play time as Lady Noire, though.
"Well wouldn't the person going last have only a small chance of picking their own, based on whether it was still available after everyone else picked?" Viperion asked.
"Yes," Pegasus said. "1 in 15."
The heroes were still confused. Ryuko decided to take a different approach.
"Imagine we all stand in a line and a Miraculous is placed out for each of us. It doesn't matter who gets theirs first. The odds of you getting the one you already use is still just 1 in 15."
"It hurts real bad," King Monkey moaned.
"We need to move on," Ladybug declared. "Follow me."
They trooped off to the restrooms, where Ladybug had left a big cooler packed with various kwami snacks. She waited in the hall while everyone took up positions in stalls. Once given the all clear, she entered the ladies' room and went down the row of stalls, her detransformed teammates surrendering their Miraculouses over the top of the doors. Once done, she ventured across to the gross, disgusting men's room and repeated the process, working toward the sound of Chat helpfully singing about kitties and ladies in the last stall.
"Alright, I've got them all," she informed him once outside his stall. "Now, eyes closed, open up."
The door squeaked ajar and she felt his hand find hers and cup the one holding her yoyo, presumably to keep it steady while he dipped his other hand in. He exhaled in relief.
"Nervous about being Mister Bug again, kitty?"
"Huh? Oh! Haha, yeah, that's it. All set."
The door snapped shut, and she went on down the line, doling out new Miraculouses at each stall, first in the men's room and then in the ladies' room. For the last person, Rose, she released her transformation and deposited the earrings in Rose's outstretched hand. Rose gasped as she recognized the two distinct pieces, and Marinette couldn't help smiling to herself. She then dipped her hand into the yoyo and pulled out the last piece of jewelry she expected to see.
The Mouse Miraculous.
"Gah!" Marinette flailed, sending the necklace flying across the bathroom. She scurried after the wayward jewelry on her hands and knees as it clattered across the floor.
"What was that?" someone said.
"Everything okay?" asked another person.
"Yup! Everything's fine!" she shouted. "Eyes closed! Stay in your stalls!"
The necklace slid all the way to the restroom entrance. In her scramble she crashed into the door as she caught it. She didn't care what Max or Kagami said, the odds of drawing this particular Miraculous couldn't possibly have been just 1/5, or even 2/15. It had to have been 15/15 because she had the worst luck in the world. Ignoring all the good luck, of course.
Suddenly there was a knock from the other side.
"M'lady, is everything okay?"
"Gah! Why are you so attentive?! Stay out!"
"I wasn't going to come in!" he insisted, but she was already dashing back across the room. There were no free stalls, so she awkwardly ducked into the small janitorial closet and slammed the door behind her. Dim light shining through the ventilation slats at the bottom of the door revealed a cramped space occupied by a dripping utility sink, a mop and bucket, and old metal shelves sagging under multi-gallon jugs of hand soap.
She stared at the necklace like she was expected to eat it.
"Can we come out now?" someone called.
"Yes, get out!" Marinette shouted.
She hadn't even heard anyone talking to the kwamis or calling on transformations, but she heard the stalls open, boots slap against cold tile, and then dead silence save for the periodic dripping of the utility sink.
"Tikki, what do I do?"
Of course, there was no answer because she wasn't wearing the earrings.
Tikki was supporting someone else at the moment.
She obviously couldn't go out like this. She obviously couldn't transform and go out either, because then her partner would see that she was Multimouse and know that she was Marinette and then she'd have to give up her earrings except she couldn't because she was the guardian so he'd have to give up his Miraculous all because of her because if he didn't they'd be in danger but he'd already given it up once and she already knew she could never find another Chat Noir, so she might as well die.
But it wasn't too late! She'd just pop over to one of the other stalls and switch with one of them! Even if she just reclaimed the earrings, it'd be fine. But she couldn't because she just told them all to get out!
A hand gently knocked on the door as familiar bootsteps entered the restroom.
"Everything okay, m'lady?"
Yup. Dying was ideal.
"Chat, what are you doing in the women's room?!"
"I wanted to check on you! Also, everyone else is out there, so I knew nobody was in here. The girls said it'd be okay if I came in to check on you myself."
Of course they did.
"Chat, I'm… I'm just not in the mood for this right now. But you should all still practice without me, okay?"
"Nonsense! How could we possibly practice without our leader?"
"You be the leader. Make… Make me proud!"
"Okay, but you can't just tell me you're not in the mood and expect me to not be concerned."
She heard him step closer until she saw his boots through the vent. her mind filled in the rest of him, standing there with his arms crossed and that face.
"You don't need to be concerned! I'm fine! I'm… I'm just not feeling well. Ow. I must have eaten something that didn't agree with me. Yeah, that's probably it."
It was a feeble excuse, but she didn't really have any option. She could not let him see her transformed into Multimouse.
"Well then maybe you should step out and use one of the stalls," he noted, amused.
Dammit. That's right. She was just standing in a closet. Would he buy it if she told him there was a toilet? Probably not. Maybe she could use the sink?
"C'mon out, Bug."
"No! I can't! I… I… " Marinette took a deep breath. "I hate my suit!"
"You hate… your suit," he said dryly.
"Yes. I hate my suit. It looks awful and I don't want anyone seeing me."
There was a brief moment, then he erupted in laughter.
"There's 13 other heroes out there all experimenting with brand new powers. No offense, but I don't think anyone's going to care what you look like."
"Yes they will. My Ladybug look was classic and this is just all wrong. It won't work for me."
"Well I don't believe that for a second. I think you could make any outfit work."
Alright, new strategy: maybe if she just stood there completely silently, he'd leave on his own. Cats got bored easily. She lasted about six seconds.
"You alive in there?"
"Yes, Chat! And I'm going to stay in here."
"If you hate your suit that much," he sighed, "you could always change it."
This was actually news to her.
"What? What do you mean?"
"It's a mental thing," he said, and she sensed a shift in his tone that was almost… excited…? to be sharing something she didn't already know. "Plagg showed me how the suit adapts to your mindset and takes into account how you want it to look. It's pretty cool, actually. You can look so different that nobody even recognizes you."
This suddenly felt like more than new information. It felt like dangerous information.
"Chat… How do you know that…?"
He fell silent, and there was no sound but the dripping sink, plinking metallic against the bottom of the metal basin.
"Kitty?"
"Um. I wanted to try it out once. Just trying to learn my powers to the fullest, you know?"
"The fullest."
"Y-yeah! Like maybe… I could make my suit green… if I needed camouflage."
"Camouflage."
"The arboretum's nice this time of year."
"Chat, am I one of the people who didn't recognize you?"
She was. She knew she was.
She couldn't allow herself to think about that right now.
She needed to get rid of this Miraculous, plain and simple.
"Quick, close your eyes and trade with me."
"Okay," he said promptly, always ready to follow her plan.
But he couldn't know she had the Mouse Miraculous.
"No! Nevermind!"
"What?"
"That... That plan's not good enough! Yeah! I can come up with something better than that stupid plan!"
She laughed. Smooth.
"O…kay," he said, alarmed.
"Okay! Yeah! Can you get someone else to come in?"
Only after she heard the restroom door swing closed behind him did she allow herself to breathe. This would work. She'd swap with someone, no longer be the mouse, he'd never know she'd been the mouse, and the other person would be—
"Hello, Ladybug! It's Mylene!" came a bright voice as she entered the restroom.
—Polymouse.
Dammit.
"How can I help?" she added cheerfully.
She couldn't, of course. If they swapped, and Polymouse appeared, then Chat would question why someone was using a Miraculous they'd already used and maybe he'd already seen that Polymouse wasn't there before and she was now and either way he'd realize that someone else had been using the Mouse before and it was her and he'd question why she'd needed to stop being the mouse and—
"You can't!"
"What?"
"You can't help actually. I need… I need someone else!"
"Oh… Okay. One second…"
Mylene quickly shuffled out of the room, and it was only seconds later that the door banged open again.
"What's wrong, m'lady?"
"What the heck, why are YOU back?"
"I was waiting outside and Mylene said something was wrong and you needed someone to help and—"
"OH MY GOD I needed someone ELSE's Miraculous," she groaned, banging her head against the door.
"Someone else," he repeated, and she could tell from his voice that he was growing frustrated by her shifting excuses. "M'lady… what Miraculous did you get?"
She jumped and squeaked.
"It's a secret!"
"That makes no sense. You can't even keep that a secret when I can just step outside and see who's missing."
Dammit.
"Ladybug, you're starting to scare me."
How could she possibly just tell him, which it would surely register as suspicious. But he was right: he didn't need her to tell him. He just wanted her to hear it from her, and not be yet another secret.
"It's the mouse."
"Oh. I bet you'd make a cute mouse," he said tightly.
She sighed, part relief and part exasperation. Of course he would. He probably had the first time too. More importantly, though, he didn't seem to find this suspicious.
"No, it's awful."
"Aw, c'mon, little mouse."
"Please don't call me that."
He chuckled and she sighed again.
"Alright, Mullo, I need to change my suit."
The mouse kwami flew out from hiding, but it was her partner who spoke first.
"Wait. You're not transformed? Then how'd you know the suit looked—"
"I transformed and changed back! Please, Mullo, w-w-what do I do so I can look… different than I did… last time?"
Mullo was normally mischievous. Not nearly as bad as Trixx, but a similar kind of scamp. Scampery? Scampiness? She'd look that up later. At present, though, Mullo was giving her a look that was unexpectedly serious and downright apologetic.
"I don't know," Mullo said.
"What?" she breathed.
"I don't know. I haven't been used as much as Plagg has. I've never had a holder change their suit before."
"Okay." Marinette swallowed. "Chat, how did you do it then?"
"Uhh…. I don't know? I didn't just think about a different look, I kind of… put myself in a different mindset, I guess? I don't know how to describe it."
"Well then that's not helpful at all!" she snapped. "Mullo, get squeaky!"
After the flash of light dissipated, she saw that her suit was exactly the same as the first time. Multimouse through and through.
"No no no…"
She detransformed and retransformed.
Multimouse again.
She did it three more times, until Mullo was exhausted even without her power being used.
Multimouse every time.
No matter how she tried to relax or think differently or picture a new suit or control her breathing, the suit remained the same. While Multimouse was freaking out, terrified to detransform in case Mullo couldn't retransform again, her partner was oblivious.
"So what's your mouse name going to be?" he asked lightly.
"Shut up, kitty!"
Her options dissolved into nothingness. She was grasping for something—anything—that could salvage this while keeping her partner none the wiser, but everything she reached for just slipped away like a fistfull of sugar.
"Okay, okay," Multimouse said, hyperventilating as her mind pushed into overdrive. "Okay, here's what we'll do. You said you don't know exactly who's transformed outside, so close your eyes and call in three— No! Four! Call four people in here and don't look at who they are! And then we can switch them up and you'll never know the difference. Let's do that, okay?"
A pause.
"You're trying to deceive me?"
His words hung in the stale air.
Oh no.
"I'm… I'm trying to protect our identities," she argued weakly.
There was a sharp intake of breath.
"You need to stop talking," he said suddenly.
"I-I-I'm… I'm sorry, you know I—"
"No, Bug, you—"
Through the door vent, she watched him slide down to the floor.
"Shit."
In all their time fighting together, no matter the stakes or struggles, she'd never heard her partner swear before. It sounded so tasteless coming leaving his mouth that this, more than anything else, startled her into silence.
"You said too much," he said quietly.
"W-what do you mean?"
"Shit," he repeated. "You're saying I can't see you in your current outfit. You're implying it'd risk our identities, but it could only risk yours. But how could it? But you… you know there's only so many heroes… Only so many transformations I've seen…. and would recognize."
There was a sudden pounding on the door and she realized he was slamming the back of his head against it over and over and over.
"I can rattle them off, if you want," he continued. "I can't mistake you for Rena or Carapace or Viperion or Vesperia or Ryuko or King Monkey or Pegasus or Versperia or Minotorox or Polymouse or Miss Hound or Caprikid or Rooster Bold or Pigella or Purple Tigress or Bunnyx. You're not Scarabella."
"You did that fast."
"The speed isn't the problem, Bug!" he shouted, and she was shocked by the frenzy of his unbridled agitation. "I can step outside and see a whole bunch of heroes I don't recognize because of the masking magic. But I once assumed you were Lady Noire due to circumstances and likelihood of you coming to fight an akuma, because you always do. Just like I initially assumed Multimouse was you. But that's the problem, isn't it? If you were unrecognizable, it wouldn't be an issue. You're not worried about being unrecognizable, Marinette."
With a dizzying rush of blood, Multimouse dropped to the floor. Her back banged harshly against the shelves on the way down, but the pain was distant. Like it belonged to someone else. Shaking, she brought her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, desperate to hold in her identity. She bit her lip and tasted salt.
"So I guess the jig is up, huh?" she finally said.
She had a good run. It was hard to believe her own stupid mouth did her in. She tried to remember how it felt with Alya, when all the stress had mounted into a teetering pile so high that nothing could keep it upright. Surrender, mostly. But she had chosen to surrender then. This was a different kind of defeat.
"I suppose an apology is in order," she added when he hadn't said anything.
He laughed and it was like no laugh she'd ever heard out of Chat Noir before. It was sharp and frantic, a release of desperation.
"You don't… sound mad," she murmured, quiet and lifeless.
"How can I be mad?" He laughed again, but it was cracked and hollow this time. "Well, I am mad at myself, honestly." She expected him to explain why, but he merely exhaled a long and shuddering breath. He stood up and moved away from the door. "Why don't you come on out?"
In some small way, his suggesting it made it easier to commit.
She emerged from the closet to find him leaning against the wall, arms crossed, one foot propped up. He was trying so hard to look cool, she thought. Calm. There was something endearing about that, actually—still trying to impress her. Upon seeing her, his leg and arms dropped along with his mouth. His eyes trailed over her body, innocently, disbelievingly. He'd already worked it out, but the visual confirmation clearly overwhelmed him.
Stunned beyond speech was an unusual look on Chat Noir.
He wasn't Chat Noir, of course. The bulk of his chest was yellow leather with a faint honeycomb pattern. It wrapped over his shoulders and around his sides to his back, with three black stripes across his abdomen. The arms and legs, also black, were sliced with yellow around his thighs and biceps. Yellow also circled the eye holes of his black mask, as well as his soles.
He looked incomplete without the cat ears.
"Hey," Multimouse said awkwardly.
"Hey," he said.
He said nothing more. For once, she wished he'd just act normally and talk—fill the silence with noise and assure her they were still them. But he waited on her. She needed to say something.
"Yellow isn't your color," she blurted out. He actually pouted in response, and her stomach dropped. "I-I-It's just… you're blonde…"
"Queen Bee was blonde," he said defensively.
Good. Keep talking.
"Yeah, but I don't care about Chloe. You just… You need some contrast. Your hair normally pops but the vibrant yellow suit makes it look too muted. Black is better on you." She knew she was rambling, but he followed along. "So… who are you supposed to be? I mean, I know you've already picked out a name for yourself."
"Andrenidae. It's… It's a family of bees."
"No other wordplay?" she said, somewhat surprised. "I expected a pun out of you."
He opened his mouth to say something, but evidently thought better of it. Then he adopted a mischievous grin.
"Nope."
She nodded seriously. If nothing else, she would cling to their dynamic with both hands.
"Okay, well, here's my proposal," she said, and damn if there wasn't still a faint spark of excitement in his eyes at the word 'proposal.' "Let's go out there, act like nothing's different, see what everyone's up to, make the most of this, and then… deal with what comes after…"
She suspected that "after" entailed him showing up on her balcony uninvited. Uninvited but not unexpected and surely they both knew that.
"Now that you know me," she finished lamely.
"Honestly, I feel like I barely know you now," Andrenidae admitted.
Multimouse blinked, taken aback by this downcast admission.
"Why would you think that?"
"Because you were you and I never saw it."
"Okay, well, that's nonsense because you definitely know Ladybug, and you still know Marinette even if we don't see each other every day. So there's only like one other person who's got you beat."
"I wish there wasn't."
"I'm sure you'll fix that."
Smirking, he gently guided her out to the corridor. Just inside the exit to the field, a lanky rooster was waiting for them, far enough away that he couldn't have overheard them.
"It's Viperion," he said softly. "Everything okay?"
Andrenidae said "yes" while Multimouse said "no."
They exchanged a glance, then reversed their answers.
"I'll leave you two to sort this out yourselves," he chuckled.
He headed for the men's room, and she noticed Andrenidae's eyes flick between the two of them, his expression unreadable, before leading her back out to the field. As they exited, the towering snake holder passed them, his bracelet beeping.
"What a day, huh?"
Multimouse wouldn't think about the ramifications of him approaching the snack cooler.
Instead, she sank down onto the grass. Her partner remained beside her, seemingly unconcerned about missing practice time with the other heroes, and she took comfort in his loyalty. Together, they observed the scene before them.
Unlike earlier, when the temporary heroes had rigidly awaited their leaders, now the stadium was a flurry of color and motion.
The new horse hero—a dark-haired girl—was teaching the dragon proper sword form as he sparred with the redheaded catboy while the tiger looked on. The diminutive ladybug, dwarfed by the malamute-themed girl beside her, watched the monkey spin around on her staff, seemingly relishing her increased flexibility and agility. The redheaded turtle girl was sitting safely—though nervously—within her Shellter while the bespectacled goat hit it repeatedly with a comically large hammer.
Powers aside, all the heroes had similar strength and agility, and swapping Miraculouses shouldn't make a huge difference. But she knew from experience that it was different, and the others acted accordingly. So feeling no less like Ladybug despite the change in attire, she contentedly watched her teammates experiment, testing their limits without threat of failure, leaping and laughing and, hopefully, feeling the lightness of being superpowered teens instead of the weight of being Paris's protectors.
"Think they're okay without us?" Andrenidae asked.
Their joy was undeniable. He was just testing the conversational waters.
"Yeah."
"Think you'll be okay? Once your shock wears off?"
Was she in shock? She supposed she must be.
"It might take some time," she said somberly.
A warm arm wrapped around her and she realized he'd sat down beside her.
"That's okay," he reassured quietly. "I'm with you."
Oh course he was. Probably now more than ever. She lowered her head onto his shoulder and let her mind go blank. She felt his soothing rumble and, after a minute, it was joined by light, periodic pressure on her hair. She realized he was bopping her space buns with his free hand.
"I know I'll see you later tonight," she said, and he didn't deny it. "Just… I'm letting you know now that you're not allowed to keep me up late. I do have school tomorrow."
"Yeah," he said softly after a moment. "I know."