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Chapter Text

Marinette rested her chin on her hand and stared out the classroom window at the city below, sketchbook open on her desk. Scratchy doodles and outfit designs covered the creamy paper, accompanied by vague notes on the art history lecture she was meant to be listening to... But there was no way Marinette could focus on the lecture, not with Adrien Agreste sitting next to her.

Slowly, subtly, Marinette tilted her head far enough so that she could see his notebook from the corner of her eye. Like hers, it was covered in scrawled notes and miniature drawings. She turned her head fractionally and regarded his hands, first casually and then -when he didn't notice her gaze - as though she were about to draw them. They were pianist's hands, long-fingered and elegant, with a light golden tan and a silver ring on the left ring finger. Shadows clung to the knuckles and the slightly raised veins that disappeared as the skin thickened towards his wrists. 

Aware that she was being super creepy by appraising his hands, Marinette looked away, flushing. She couldn't help it! Ever since she moved to the damned art college she couldn't avoid noticing every small, stupid thing about the resident supermodel. It was embarrassing, especially since Alya caught on and began teasing her relentlessly.

Alya was Marinette's best friend, the responsible mother figure in their two-person friend group. She was studying journalism and had a job at the local tabloid. It was perfect for her, being headstrong and talented at ferreting out information. Since they studied different courses they rarely had lectures or classes together, but were almost constantly with each other outside school. 

The person who did share all of Marinette's lectures and classes happened to be Adrien. Sure, there were a good fifty other people in the same course, but they faded to nothing around him... at least to Marinette.

The lecture ended and the group of students were let go early. Marinette bought a latte at the nearest café and walked home alone. There was no point waiting for Alya, whose journalism class wouldn't end for another hour. It was early autumn, and the clouds scudded across a cornflower sky. She could smell her parents' bakery from fifty metres away and her stomach growled. When she opened the door to the sound of a jangling bell, Marinette grabbed a scone from the tray in the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time, then burst into her room and flopped onto her bed.

She didn't have any work to do, it being the Friday before reading week, so to pass the time before nightfall she listened to music and drew, pausing for family dinner then escaping back to her room. She kissed her parents goodnight, quietly shut the bedroom door and turned a silver key in the lock.

                                          *

-Two hours later-

Marinette wiped blood from her bottom lip and inhaled slowly. She pushed off the ground with her forearms and rose to a crouch, keeping her eyes on her enemy, who suddenly dealt her a savage kick to the ribs, her fair ponytail swinging. Marinette slumped to the ground again, gritting her teeth and letting her attacker advance. Then, with lightning speed she spun her leg in an arc parallel to the gritty tarmac, connecting with the thug's mid-calf. The attacker - a pretty blonde with a picture of a storm cloud on her T-shirt - staggered, and Marinette flipped to her feet with a manly grunt that would have been humourous in any other situation. She punched her enemy solidly in the head and, when she stumbled back, grabbed her by her blonde ponytail and knocked her head against the alley wall.

The girl collapsed, unconscious, and Marinette leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Her split lip throbbed and she felt her ribs where the blonde had kicked her. Bruised, not broken. The rib she could hide, but the split lip was going to take a lot of makeup to conceal. Shit. Not as bad as a black eye like last time, though.

She turned to the boy who she had rescued from the blonde girl, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the distinctive red hair and clear blue-green eyes of Nathanael, a boy in her art class. One of the many who blended into the background around Adrien Agreste. He was trembling, crumpled against the alley wall with his sketchbook clutched to his chest. He looked as though he were about to vomit. Marinette felt a rush of sympathy for the poor boy and offered him her hand. He took it tentatively and got shakily to his feet.

"Do you have any idea who that was and why she attacked you?" she asked him, letting go of his hand. He shook his head, eyes wide.

"I was making my way home from a friend's house when she appeared out of nowhere. She asked me if I knew someone called Marinette. When I said no, she started threatening me until you arrived. You.... You killed her!" He was hyperventilating now, eyes seemingly unable to focus. Not a good sign.

"Okay kid, you need to calm the fuck down. Look!-" Marinette said, going over to the motionless girl lying in a heap. "Just unconscious, see?" She poked the girl in the ribs and she moaned. "She's fine! Now, I suspect you're either mildly concussed or are going into shock. Either way, you need to get home. Where do you live?"

Nathanael told her reluctantly and she heaved him onto her shoulder, careful to keep his head relatively still in case we was actually concussed. She picked up the unconscious blonde, too, whose cheek was starting to bruise, and slung her over her back. She stepped out of the alley in to the Paris streets, aware that she didn't exactly look inauspicious - a teenage girl with a hood and a red scarf covering most of her face, carrying two limp people as though they weighed less than sacks of flour, through the Paris streets at half twelve at night. Nobody accosted her, though, and she got Nathanael to his doorstep in less than ten minutes. She put him down gently.

"Are you okay now? Are your parents home?"

He nodded.

"Wake them up. You might be concussed. Also let them know that you're in danger. That girl who attacked you? Her employer is very powerful and very dangerous and he knows who you are now. You should probably leave the city. Do you understand me?"

He nodded again.

"Good. Now eat something sweet and if you vomit or faint, go to the hospital. See you around."

Marinette turned to go. The blonde was a dead weight and she was losing energy fast.

"Wait!" Nathanael shouted after her. She stopped.

"Who are you?"

Marinette smiled secretively, looking at him sideways.

"You can call me... Ladybug," she intoned dramatically (or as dramatically as you can intone when there's an unconscious twenty-something woman slowly slipping off your shoulder).

With that, Marinette sprinted about ten metres up the road before flipping onto a low canopy and scaling the apartment block one-handed, effectively vanishing into the night and leaving Nathanael standing alone at his gate, staring after her.

After dropping the girl off at the police station with a sticky note on her forehead explaining her actions, Marinette headed home.

She hoped Nathanael was okay after his ordeal, but she had more pressing matters on her mind. The girl's employer, Hawkmoth no doubt, knew who she was. He was targeting people around her to get to her, she knew that much.

She had to stop him. No matter the cost.

Chapter Text

Marinette dropped down soundlessly onto her rooftop patio and stepped into her bedroom, making sure the blinds were shut before pulling down her hood and the scarf that covered her mouth. It was a pretty flimsy disguise, sure, but it did the job. Then she shrugged off her trademark dark red bomber jacket with black patched-on polka dots and the red handwraps she always wore when she went out as Ladybug. After she removed these symbols of her Ladybug disguise, she was suddenly just Marinette again, albeit in a suspiciously bloodstained tank top (Her blood, mostly).

She was paying special attention to removing her disguise tonight because she really didn't want to think about the terrifying implications of what she'd discovered tonight. She could leave that, and all her other Ladybug problems, till tomorrow.

She pulled her tank top off over her head and looked at herself in her bathroom mirror.

Black hair, eyes the colour of ink (in that weird place between blue and black). Full lips, fair skin, prominent collarbones. Faint freckles dotted her cheeks, and her pigtails made her look younger than she really was.

The bruise on her right side was blue and purple now, the size of her splayed hand and it hurt like hell. Grimacing, Marinette got arnica cream from the medicine cabinet behind the mirror and rubbed it in. When she was done, she put the tube away and stared at herself in the mirror again, resting her aching hands on the sides of the sink.

For the umpteenth time she questioned what she was doing. Hawkmoth was her enemy, of that she was certain, but after two months of gleaning information from petty criminals at the bottom of the chain of command all she had was his name. He was a shadowy, enigmatic figurehead whose anonymity made him terrifying. And he was careful. Nobody ever said his name outright. Nobody met in public to give or receive orders. Marinette had a suspicion that he paid people off, people who had power, to keep him a mystery, poisoning Paris from the shadows.

How could she hope to fight someone like that when she got beaten up by an unarmed girl barely older than her? And when Marinette had strength and agility that far surpassed what she should be able to do, she really had no excuse for her hand-to-hand skills.

But it was hard to improve them when she could only be Ladybug during the night. How would it look if innocent Marinette started training jiu jitsu in the college gym? Keeping the distinction between Ladybug and Marinette was the only way she could have a kind of normality in her life.

She sighed and rubbed her face. It was now two a.m., and she had to help out in the bakery later on. Exhausted, she switched off her bedroom light and fell into bed.

. *

Adrien let the makeup artist wipe the last of the foundation from his cheeks, thanked her, and stood up to leave. The chauffeur was waiting outside the studio in the family limousine, as usual. On the ride home from the photoshoot Adrien was despondent. It wasn't ideal, spending a Saturday evening modelling for a major perfume brand when he could be spending time with Nino. Well, theoretically. His father was now home from a trip to Milan and Adrien's days had become a cycle of school, home, work, school, fencing, home, work, modelling, school.... And repeat ad nauseam.

When they pulled up at the family mansion, Adrien got out of the stupid white limo and ran up to the privacy of his bedroom. His room was cavernous, with two full-size white sofas, a plasma screen television, a computer and gaming station with three consoles and six screens, a master bed and a library's worth of books. He hated it. He hated everything his father gave him in a pathetic attempt at parenting.

After a joyless three-course dinner eaten alone, Adrien instructed Nathalie not to bother him and retreated to his room. He played video games until midnight, then ensured the house was quiet before locking his door.

Kneeling down beside his bed, Adrien pulled out a plastic storage box and opened it. Inside was clothing: a black leather jacket, black steel-capped boots, a pair of silver metal gauntlets, a strip of material and two stubby cat ears. He shrugged on the coat, loving the feeling of the smooth leather on his skin. Next were the boots. The soles had a concealed blade, which he could activate by flexing his toes. Same with the gauntlets- when he clenched his fist, four needle-thin, claw-like blades slid from the wrist joint, and extended about five inches past his knuckles. He sheathed them again by flexing his fingers. Next came the disguise part of his costume. He picked up the long strip of material - padded, midnight black and about three inches wide, with holes for the eyes that were form-fitting - and tied it around his head. Lastly, he ruffled his hair until it was spiky and stuck out, the clipped the small cat ears on. You could only see them if you looked closely, as they were half-hidden by his golden hair.

He crossed to his bedroom window and opened it cautiously. The night wind caressed his face and he could hear car horns and distant music and he smiled, letting the feelings of freedom and anticipation wash over him. He let his eyes slip out of focus and his night vision switched on, and the serene, inky-black sky became a roiling mass of radioactive green, dotted with pale stars. 

Grinning, he thrust himself onto the ledge above his window and pulled himself up to the roof before following his usual route away from the mansion - running low on the telegraph wires that went from his house to the pole on the street, careful to keep his glowing green eyes off the CCTV cameras. From the telegraph pole he leaped to the nearest building, and from there began to free-run across the city rooftops. There was nothing like the feeling: nowhere was out of bounds and the city sprawled beneath him, glimmering golden and promising. His night vision ability granted him sight better than an average person's in the daytime, and paired with his cat-like reflexes meant that he could go anywhere in Paris, unstoppable.

What a contrast it was to his ordinary life! By day he was a supermodel, his father's little puppet, burdened with the weight of his father's ambition and shackled by responsibility, seeking little freedoms such as fencing and friends. By night he had nothing but freedom. Nobody knew who he was in this disguise, nobody could catch him. He could do whatever he wanted.

Adrien stopped and crouched on the edge of a roof, the broad Champs-Elysées far below him, bordered with rows of trees and dotted with parked cars. The Arc de Triomphe stood at one end, looking over the three roads that branched out from its foundation. He stayed there for a while, letting his breathing slow and listening to the sounds of Paris.

It was then that he heard a scream.

Immediately Adrien spun, grabbed the ledge of the tiled roof and dropped to the balcony below. From there he swung to the left, unsheathed the knives in his boots and hands in midair and jammed them into the bricks of the building next door, then proceeded to shimmy down the drainpipe until he was low enough to drop down without injury. The scream had come from the direction of the alley on the other side of the block, and he sprinted down the alley in pursuit. He ran around the corner and skidded to a stop as he assessed the situation. 

A young woman in the shortest dress he'd ever seen was backing away from a man in a hoodie, who was advancing threateningly, his back to Adrien. The woman was clearly drunk and her makeup was running, and the man had cornered her against a wall. His hands crept down to the fly of his jeans, at least until Adrien grabbed his shoulder, twisted him around and hit him square in the jaw with the point of his elbow. The man's face cracked to the side, he stumbled back, a dumbfounded expression turned to rage and his fist lashed out at Adrien's head. Adrien ducked easily and punched him hard in the gut. The man choked and passed out, face going slack. Adrien dropped him and turned to the girl.

"Call 112. The police will arrive soon and deal with this scumbag. You're safe now, don't worry. I'll watch over you until the police come," he said, turning away. He could hear the beeping of the buttons on her phone as he walked away... just in time to collide with someone barrelling around the next corner.

Adrien collapsed in a winded heap, the weight of the person pushing the air from his lungs. The person he had collided with rolled off him and bounced to her feet, hands up in a defensive stance.

"Who screamed? Who are you?"she demanded, muffled through her mask.

Adrien held his hands up in a don't-shoot position, smiling lazily. "Don't worry, I saved the day already. And hey! You ran into me! I think I deserve to know who you are first!" 

After a brief hesitation the masked girl frowned, sighed and pulled him roughly to his feet. 

 "Fine. I'm Ladybug. I save people. And you are?"

Adrien hadn't actually thought of a name yet. "Uhh... Call me Chat Noir. I save people too, I guess."

She gazed at him silently, and for a moment Adrien thought she was going to say something meaningful and poetic.

"What's up with your eyes?" she said instead.

"...Night vision, my lady", Adrien said roguishly. " All the better to see you with." He winked and Ladybug made an expression of abject disgust.

"Ew. Anyway. What happened here?"

Short and to the point. Adrien liked that.

"Some asshole attacked a girl", he explained. " I incapacitated him, made sure she was okay  and made her call the police. I was just taking my leave when you knocked me over." He rubbed his back to illustrate his point.

As if by magic, red and blue lights lit up the alley walls and the shriek of sirens made them jump. "We'd better get out of here", Adrien said.

"Agreed", Ladybug replied, and she began to climb, using the shutters on the windows overlooking the alley as footholds. Within seconds she had scaled the building. From the top of the building she called down to him-

"See you around, kitty cat!" 

It was only when he could hear the footsteps of impending policemen that Adrien sprinted away down the alley.

As he made his way home over the rooftops he felt more alive than ever. He needed to see the mysterious Ladybug again, and soon.