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"Destroying the Eiffel Tower was a good design choice," Shadybug said. Or Ladybug. Adrien wasn't quite sure how to refer to her yet, or himself for that matter.
A single night of restless sleep after their adventure in another world hadn't exactly helped his brainstorming. They stood together in someone's house, meeting up for the first time since they've been home, and neither of them knew what to say.
"Seeing it standing was an eyesore," he agreed. "So that's one good deed we've done for Paris."
She sighed, crossing her arms as they looked out at the mix of rubble and rebuilt buildings, the endless security cameras and propaganda posters for the Supreme. It would be worth bringing back the Eiffel Tower to get rid of all that, Adrien supposed, even though he still wasn't sure how a world ran without someone like the Supreme in charge.
"So we're… Going to start meeting with Betterfly?" he said uncertainly.
"I guess." She glanced at him, looked him up and down in a different kind of way.
It was a nice kind of way, actually. A kind of way that didn't make him think she was trying to figure out where she'd bury his body, which was new. It was better than before when he felt like he was always on the balls of his feet, ready to spring away the moment she went for him.
He really didn't know what to do with that, so he just said, "Chloe Bougeois is alive."
She stared at him in a very familiar way this time. That look that said that he was an idiot and she had no idea why he ever opened his mouth at all. She raised an eyebrow and went, "Yyyeah?"
"You didn't kill her," he clarified. "I know her in real life. She says you harass her all the time or something."
"Yeah."
"But she's alive."
Ladybug scowled and shook her head. "Okay, yeah, what's your point?"
"My point is… You could've killed her, right? And you didn't?" Adrien fiddled with his silver nunchucks. They spun quickly in the air as he cleared his throat. "So maybe that's two good deeds. And if there's two, maybe there's more and if there's more…"
Maybe we're not so bad, he thought, though the words died on his lips.
She closed her eyes. "Not killing someone isn't exactly a good deed, kitty. More like the bare minimum." Then she opened them and breathed in the ashy air and looked, just for a moment, like the Ladybug of the world they left behind. "But it's not nothing. It's a start."