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Marinette presses her hand to her ribs, cursing the damned corset she's wearing and the dress for requiring it. It's not even to her taste – this style of dress is so old it's nearly antiquated. Court styles haven't caught up to the present day yet, not so soon after the old king's death, and she'd been forced to haul out her mother's presentation dress as a reference for her own.
It's heavy, too, and she's dreadfully afraid that she's going to start sweating soon. There's a hundred people packed into this room if there's one, and her skirts are pressed up against the legs of some anonymous royal guardsman on one side and Lady de Salignac's on the other.
They share a quick, polite smile before Lady de Salignac is called forward and Marinette starts to breathe long and slow breaths. She's next.
She can't let her hatred show on her face. Marinette cannot afford the suspicion that would bring on her. The Dupain-Chengs are no one, only middling nobility in the ranks of the royal court, and it's very important that they stay that way. She's had so much practice controlling her emotions at court these last few years, but that was when she was dealing with her own kind – with the families who are pushing and shoving to improve their lot with the King. This is a higher level of court intrigue than she's used to. She's heard tales of people able to discern one's very thoughts from a flutter of eyelashes, or a word stressed in an unexpected way, and she's terrified of what they might discover about her if she's as clumsy in this as she was learning to dance.
But even that terror will doom her if not managed.
And so... Marinette breathes, her eyes carefully veiled by her lashes, and waits for her turn.
"Countess Marinette Dupain-Cheng!"
One more breath, and then Marinette steps forward and into the middle of the aisle created by the two rows of royal guardsmen. She moves forward at an even pace, neither too quick nor too slow, and stops at the bottom of the stairs to the dais.
And then she kneels, her skirts settling around her like the great waves around the bow of a ship, and bows her head to the new king.
"Countess Dupain-Cheng."
She's allowed to look up now, and she smooths every trace of emotion from her face and lifts her eyes to meet his.
It would be easier for her if he were ugly. Or if his temperament were reflected on his face in the way that some people's dissipation ruins their looks. But King Adrien is young, and handsome, and he smiles easily and pretends to be kind.
He's smiling at her now. It's a perfectly judged curve of the lips, the smile of a consummate politician who has no use for the person he's looking at but wishes not to offend them in case he can betray them later –
And Marinette hates him with every bone in her body. Every inch of her is spite and poison and disgust. Only the most iron of wills keeps it off of her face.
His father had been a good king. Once. Before the queen died, before Marinette was old enough to understand what was happening to the country around them. Before her parents whispered in the dark, faces drawn with worry over rising taxes and endless small wars that ate and ate and ate at the treasury and took tiny chunks out of France's borders; before the price of bread crept its way past what their common people could afford.
Before the stagecoach accident that took her parents from her forever.
(And doesn't she have suspicions about that – suspicions that she could never prove, but oh, don't they chafe in the middle of the night while she lies awake with only her memories.)
Gabriel's son is just like him. He'd trained Adrien to statesmanship. With his hand at her helm, France is almost certainly doomed.
She'd started planning two years ago, long before the old king died; when she got the news, she pivoted seamlessly into plotting against Adrien instead. Marinette is going to take his throne from him, and if he's lucky, she'll let him disappear into history. And if he's not...
Well.
She takes a breath.
"I, Marinette, Countess of Saint-Caenois, do swear fealty and homage to my lord, Adrien, king of France, and I will keep faith with him against all creatures, living or dead..."
The oath is interminably long, and after all of her studying, she knows it by heart. That leaves her all the time in the world to wonder: if King Adrien is half the politician she thinks he is –
Why does something tell her he's trying not to laugh?
———
Late the next day, Marinette dresses in the trousers and coat she'd bought in a third-hand shop near the docks, sets a hat on her head to cover the masses of hair she's braided close to her head, and ducks out through the gatehouse. She walks through alleys and parks and narrow, winding paths to her destination, a tiny drinking house with rooms available to let upstairs.
She slips up the stairs to knock at the door to the corner room. The pattern of knocks depends on the day of the week. Today's is particularly convoluted, and she curses herself again for letting him devise most of the patterns.
The door cracks open just an inch. She pushes her handkerchief through – linen dyed scarlet, with painted black spots – and he takes it from her hand before opening the door just enough to let her through. She slips through and hears the door being bolted behind her, and only then does she let herself breathe for the first time in what feels like days.
"You poor thing," Chat says behind her, laughter in his voice. "Was it that bad?"
Marinette turns to frown at him. The mask makes his eyes look impossibly green, and every time she wonders what they look like without it, if they're as verdant, as bright. "I was sure every second that he was going to somehow divine the thoughts straight out of my head and have me executed on the spot," she says, snapping off the ends of her words. "So, no, it was a delightful afternoon tea with cream and cakes."
He laughs out loud, leaning into her personal space. "If it's tea and cakes you'd like, my lady, you have only to ask."
Marinette looks around the dim, cramped room, further crowded by a table covered in tattered city maps and old mug stains, and gives him an inexpressibly dubious look. "It's not exactly Versailles in here, is it, chaton?" She plants one finger on his nose and pushes him back. He gives way easily, a long, cocky smirk growing on his face. "Save that for later. We have business now."
"One day you won't be able to put me off so easily," Chat murmurs, but he circles the table anyway, leaning over it in such a graceful movement that it's a pleasure just to watch him.
And on that day... Marinette thinks, biting her lip thoughtfully. Maybe you'll get a surprise, mon minou.
It was the greatest good fortune in her life that two years ago, when she went looking for someone who hated King Gabriel as much as she did, she found him. Or as he'd have it, that Chat found her. She'd had no idea what she was doing, and neither had he; they taught each other in secret messages and clandestine meetings, learning not only from their mistakes, but from their successes. And now here they are, on the eve of a coup against the crown of France, and in Chat's company is the only place in Paris she truly feels safe.
It was at her insistence that he kept his mask on. He's wanted her to know who he was since the day they met. It wasn't safe – it wasn't safe; if either of them had been caught, Gabriel's torturers would have dragged out every scrap of information they had and anything else they could make up out of whole cloth.
But she's getting awfully tired of not knowing who her best friend is.
They're going to take the throne soon – very soon. Within the next week, if everything goes to plan. And then – and then –
Ladybug leans over the wobbly table, meeting Chat's eyes with a fierce grin, which he returns in kind. "Pour la France?"
"Pour la France," Chat agrees, his eyes aglint with mischief, and they bend over the maps.