Work Text:
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
– Ernest Hemingway
At some point during their impromptu sleepover, Ladybug and Chat Noir drift off to sleep.
Chat wakes up the next morning with the sun shining on his face, and a warm weight upon his chest.
Grimacing at the rising sun, Chat turns to the body sprawled across his chest. In her sleep, Chat’s partner has apparently mistaken his chest for a pillow. Ladybug’s limbs are tangled around his body, clinging to him like an octopus.
Huh. A sly smile spreads across Chat’s face. Ladybug is going to be so embarrassed when she finds out she has been cuddling him like a giant kitty plush all night.
“Hey, ‘bug, rise and shine.” He pokes Ladybug’s shoulder. “The sun is up and I need to go home before Na—my—people finds me missing.”
Ladybug groans, nuzzling her face into Chat’s chest. “‘ive more minut’, Chato—” she freezes, stilling as she realises her current predicament. Her cheeks flush until her face is as red as her suit. “Uh.”
“Oh, don’t stop on my behalf, m’Lady.” Chat grins, “You look like you’re enjoying yourself. Besides, isn’t it every guy’s fantasy to have a beautiful lady lie on top of him?”
Ladybug scowls. She manages to untangle a hand from their mess of limbs just to whack him on the head.
“Hey! My beautiful face!”
“Shut up, Chat.” Ladybug grumbles, pushing herself into a sitting position. “You know I—ow!” She winces suddenly, almost losing her balance despite being seated.
Chat hastily steadies her. “‘bug! Are you okay!?”
“Y—yeah. I just—” Ladybug grimaces as she gingerly shifts her weight off Chat’s lap, before raising a hand to massage her temple. “—damnit. I thought the side effects are gone by now. Not sure if this is better than the vertigo.”
Chat frowns. This doesn’t sound good. He sits up as well, “Do you need—”
Ladybug waves him off. “I’ll be fine. It’s just like the world’s largest migraine. It’ll fade in a few hours.” She pauses. “I think.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
Ladybug snorts, then immediately grimaces. “I know.”
“Okay. If you’re sure…” Chat watches in concern as Ladybug hauls herself to her feet, stumbling as her feet catch on a blanket patterned with rabbits. She steadies herself on the wall of the adjacent building before Chat can offer her his hand.
“Yeah.” Ladybug replies, half-heartedly. She gropes around her waist, fumbling twice before she manages to unhook her yo-yo from her suit. “See you, Chat—”
“Wh—wait!” Chat’s tail flickers in alarm. “You—you can’t swing home in this condition! You’re gonna fall off a building or something—”
“‘m fine, Chaton. Not gonna pass out on my way home. You can go. Your family’s waiting, right?”
“But—”
“Chat. Seriously.” Ladybug leans against the wall to stare into her partner’s eyes. “Please don’t make me argue with you over a migraine.”
“…fine. But can we patrol again tonight? Just so that I can sleep easy knowing you didn’t trip into a ditch trying to get home. And don’t hesitate to call if you need help, ‘kay? We’ll figure something out.”
“I—” Chat’s concern bring a small smile to Ladybug’s face. “Yeah, okay, sure. See you tonight, Chat. Go home before your family finds out you’re missing.” Rubbing the sides of her head one last time, Ladybug tosses her yo-yo forward, in what is presumably the direction of her home.
“…of course.” Chat promises. But he doesn’t move until Ladybug disappears from his line of sight, and it is only then—knowing there’s nothing more he can do even if Ladybug trips this far into her journey—that Chat Noir reluctantly begins making his way back.
Between lessons, Adrien is struck with a genius idea. “Hey, Nino, do you know how to bake a cake?”
Nino blinks. He slides his headphone from his head to his shoulders. “…come again?”
“Do you know how to bake cake? I want to bake a cake.”
“Um. Dude, I think you’re asking the wrong person.”
“Oh, yeah.” Adrien turns to the seat behind him, clearing his throat, “Alya, do you know how to bake a cake? Your mother is a chef, right?”
Nino facepalms. “I meant Marinette, dude. Her parents literally own a bakery.”
“Oh!” Adrien smacks his own forehead in mirror of Nino’s action. “Can’t believe I forgot. Hey, Marinette! Can you teach me how to bake a cake?”
Marinette groans, lifting her face from her desk. She looks like death warmed over. “Huh…?”
Adrien winces. “Right, you’re not feeling well; sorry. I’ll just ask Alya—”
“No—no. It’s fine. I’m fine.” Marinette waves off his concerns. “You want to learn how to bake cakes, right? I’ll call Papa during lunch. If the bakery isn’t too busy today, you can come over after school. I’ll teach you how to bake.” She pauses, “Only in our family kitchen, though. I don’t think the bakery kitchen will have enough space.”
“Ah, are you sure? You shouldn’t force yourself if you’re feeling—”
Marinette waves her hand dismissively. “It’s just a passing migraine, stop worrying; I feel better already. Besides, after the morning I just had, doing something like this will cheer me up.”
Alya’s eyes widen. A delighted grin stretches across her face, “Something like this, huh? Marinette, did you just invite Sunshine Boy on a date?”
Marinette’s brows furrow. “What? No? I was just about to invite you and Nino.”
Adrien’s face lights up, “Oh, yeah! I think I can make it if I return to school before fencing class is over; that way, my driver won’t know I wasn’t at practice. Can you guys come too?” He pouts, “Please?”
“…sure? Baking isn’t really my speed, though.” Nino replies slowly. His eyes dart over to find Alya’s.
Alya pinches the bridge of her nose. Adrien wonders what that is about. Is she getting a headache too? He hopes there isn’t a stomach-bug-but-for-headaches going around. “…you know what? Fine, I’ll come as well.”
M. Dupain-Cheng—wait, M. Dupain—ends up even more enthusiastic about Adrien’s baking lesson than Adrien himself. Weeping over the phone, M Dupain grants Adrien his blessing to ask for Marinette’s hand in marriage, “but only once you’re both 18, you hear me?” and “Sabine and I will make a worthy successor out of you just yet!”
Marinette’s face burns so brightly she looks ready to combust on the spot, while Alya looks about to combust due to an entirely different reason. Nino pats Adrien on the back sympathetically, and shepherds his three human-disaster-shaped friends to the bakery.
Thank the kwamis for Nino.
That’s how Adrien ends up in this situation half an hour later, shrieking in Marinette’s kitchen. “That’s—!? Cakes have that much sugar!? No wonder my nutritionist said they’re the foodstuff of the Devil!”
Alya raises her eyebrows. “Do you want the cake to taste good or not, Sunshine Boy?”
Adrien wrinkles his nose. With great disgust, he grabs the bag of white crystals, measures two cups, and dumps them into his mixing bowl.
Marinette glances over. She immediately winces. “…um, Adrien, that’s salt, not sugar.”
Adrien curses.
Alya gasps dramatically, “Language!” She narrows her eyes, “If I ever find out who taught Sunshine Boy to swear, they’re gonna be dead meat.”
Nino chuckles nervously.
(But no—it isn’t Nino’s fault, seriously.)
(It’s Plagg’s.)
(And the internet’s.)
Surprisingly, Ladybug is the first to show up on patrol that night.
She falls face-first into Chat’s blanket nest, cuddling his Ikea Blahaj plushie (creatively named Shark) to her chest. Sighing in contentment, Ladybug rolls over, burying her face into Shark’s soft body. It smells like cheap laundry detergent, a smell that reminds her of warmth and safety and Chat’s kind smile—
This is about when Chat chooses to appear, “‘night, m’Lady.” He says quietly, padding towards the blanket nest. “Are you feeling better?”
“Mm…?” Ladybug turns her head so that her face isn’t entirely smothered by Shark, blinking lazily at her partner. Huh, weird—Chat’s hands are hidden behind his back. It’s probably nothing though, and Ladybug doesn’t feel like psychoanalysing her partner’s actions on such a nice day. “Oh, yeah. Much better.” The ghost of a smile grazes her lips. “My civilian life…I had a good day.”
“Good.” Chat smiles, his belt tail curling happily. “Then I hope you won’t mind the state of my present too much.”
“Present…?” Ladybug finally sits up, setting Shark to her side. She squints at Chat, “Is this because of my—because of yesterday? Chat, you don’t have to—”
“But I want to.” Chat retorts. He finally brings his hands to the front, revealing a nondescript white box in his arms. “Besides, I had fun making this.”
Curious, Ladybug takes the offered box. She opens it.
Within the box is a cake, covered in uneven white frosting. Painstakingly piped onto the surface is the following message, spelt out with shaky black icing:
Congrats on finally discovering the source of your trauma!!
{ sorry that the bunny-cat thing was awful :,( }
Ladybug stares.
Chat winces, “Sorry…is that too soon?”
The yes lies on Ladybug’s tongue, but then—she pauses.
Is it really? She felt so light last night, sharing her past life with Chat Noir. And even now, thinking about her previous life—all she can feel is relief, like a gasp of fresh air: the acceptance that the past is in the past and she is no longer drowning.
Also, the ‘bunny-cat thing’ is awful.
Ladybug shakes her head, “Not at all. Hey, do you have a knife? Let’s share the cake.”
Sliding open his baton, Chat thrusts his hand into the pocket dimension. He rummages around for a bit, but only manages to out a pair of scissors with the blades slightly bent.
“Sorry,” he grimaces at the state of the stationary, “But I don’t think it’ll be sanitary to cut the cake with this.”
Ladybug narrows her eyes in thought. “Hmm, what if…” her bluebell eyes light up, “hey, Chaton, I have an idea.”
Ceremoniously, Ladybug pulls her yo-yo from her waist. “I, Ladybug the…um. Ladybug the Ancient Guardian of the Cake-cutting Art, hereby dedicate this delicious cake to Chat Noir, the best partner a superhero can ask for, who is willing to listen to his partner’s tragic backstory at three in the morning—”
“—and to Ladybug, who survived said tragic backstory through nothing but the sheer strength of her spirit. And technically, you didn’t tell me about your ‘tragic backstory’ at 3 am, we just stayed up talking about it until 3 am—"
“Hush, you.” Ladybug grins, flicking Chat’s bell with the hand not holding her yo-yo, “Let the Cake-cutting Guardian perform her duty.” Turning back to the cake, Ladybug pulls a length of wire from her yo-yo. Clearing her throat, she declares, “With this wire, I cut thee.”
With a grand flourish, Ladybug slices the cake in half, box and all.
Chat blinks. “…I’m not sure if that’s better than the scissors, but whatever.”
Taking half of the cake, Chat bites enthusiastically into it. He gets frosting all over his cheeks and nose, with a smear of frosting even making it to his mask.
Ladybug giggles at her partner’s face. She takes her half of the cake, and bites into it much more primly. (At least, she hopes so.)
Huh. It kinda tastes like Adrien’s cake.
Princess Magia announces her arrival with a tsunami of sparkles and hearts. A quite literal tsunami of sparkles and hearts, one which transforms every person in its path into mindless beings clad in ruffles, capable of only answering to Princess Magia’s every command.
“Princess Magia’s threat level has been upgraded from low-tier to mid-tier.” Announces a government official on the news. “All citizens are to stay indoors if possible. I repeat, all citizens are to stay indoors. Do not provoke the akuma, and do not put yourself at fuBEEP risk trying to take photos of that BEEP akuma! Look, I know none of you fBEEP BEEP listen to my BEEP advice, but for the BEEP of BEEP, I’m BEEP sick of repeating myself to you BEEP reBEEP and being made into a BEEP meme! And BEEP my manager who never BEEP BEEP BEEP, you’re a horrible person and a cheater and your wife should BEEP divorce you and take all your kids and your dog—BEEP you, I BEEP BEEP quit—!”
Marinette closes her tab on the news station, before turning her computer to sleep mode. She stretches, kicking her swivel chair away from the table, and turns to Tikki.
Tikki regards her with concern. “Marinette, are you—”
Marinette understands the kwami’s hesitation. After all, this is the first akuma attack since the Goddess—since Marinette remembered—and it couldn’t have been Mr. Pigeon or someone easy! It was Princess Magia, whom Marinette…historically didn’t deal well with.
But Marinette—
“I’m not afraid anymore.” Marinette tells Tikki, and for the first time, those words don’t feel like she’s trying to convince herself.
Marinette’s resolve reflects itself in Tikki’s eyes. The kwami nods firmly, and Marinette calls upon her transformation phrase. Within a minute, Ladybug is swinging through the air towards what was once her least favourite akuma.
Chat is already observing the scene on a nearby roof when she arrives. He turns to Ladybug, mouth open to offer her a quip, but then he…pauses. Falters.
“Hey, ‘bug,” he says instead, “how are you doing?”
Ladybug’s lips quirk, “I have to say, these magical girl minions make much better zombies than I ever did.”
Chat blinks, his leather ears swivelling around his head. “You—um—”
Ladybug raises her eyebrows. “What? If you’re allowed to give me a cake calling Kyubey the ‘bunny-cat thing’, I’m allowed to make jokes about how I was technically a magical girl zombie in my past life.”
“I—no, it’s just…I didn’t expect you of all people to make that joke, m’Lady.”
“What can I say? I am full of surprises.” Ladybug grins, “Also, I heard somewhere that humour is a great way to cover up your trauma. Thought I’d give it a try.”
“…that is incredibly unhealthy. But also I have zero room to judge you on this, so. What’s the plan with the akuma?”
“Right. Back to business.” Ladybug grabs her yo-yo from her waist. Tossing the yo-yo into the air, Ladybug calls, “Lucky Charm!”
A loveliness of ladybugs spills forth, circling each other to form a flat, round object. The Lucky Charm falls from the air, and Ladybug catches it with practiced ease.
Ladybug stares.
Her own face stares back.
The Lucky Charm is a reflective surface surrounded by a cassetta frame, carved with delicate red bugs resting upon black leaves and petals.
“That’s a giant ornate mirror.” Chat whistles in appreciation. “Tikki felt like showing off today, huh?”
“Maybe she wants to tell Princess Magia that Rococo isn’t the style to go.” Ladybug shrugs. She pauses as an idea suddenly occurs to her, “Hey, Chaton, what do you think will happen if we reflect Princess Magia’s costume beams back at her?”
Chat blinks, “Are you suggesting…?”
“Do you think her outfit will receive a power-up, or will the beam cancel out her transformation and revert her back to civilian clothing? My money’s on the latter.”
“Then let’s find out!” Chat Noir beams. “I’ll distract the magical girl zombie minions and you’ll hold the mirror?”
“Wait—Chat, let’s not—”
Despite Ladybug’s protests, Chat Noir once again ends up being bait.
“It’s not my fault I’m so dazzling none of the akumas can keep their eyes off me.” Chat proclaims, right before he leaps into battle. “Hey! Magical girl zombie minions, over here! Betcha can’t catch this sly lil kitty!”
“Stop mocking me, you meanie villain!” Princess Magia screams. She points her wand at Chat, but thankfully doesn’t think to shoot him with a magic ray. “In the name of Justice, catch him, my loyal magia! We will not rest until all evil is exposed under the Light of Justice!”
Ladybug rolls her eyes. She jumps off the building, holding the mirror in front of her like a shield. The Lucky Charm is so unwieldly, Ladybug can barely see where she’s going with the mirror brandished in front of her. At least it isn’t a car jack that she has to use by jumping into an alligator’s mouth.
One of these days Ladybug will get a Lucky Charm that’s a reliable ol’ sword. She misses the ones her former magical girl self wielded.
“Incoming!” Chat shouts. Ladybug braces for impact, moments before a sparkling ray of energy slams into her mirror with the force of a colliding train.
Gritting her teeth, Ladybug reangles the mirror ever so slightly, so that the reflective surface catches the beam entirely and bounces it back towards Princess Magia.
“No—!” Princess Magia’s eyes widen, revealing heart-shaped irises. She raises her wand in an attempt to catch her own redirected attack, but by then—
It is already too late.
A blinding pink glow encompasses the akuma, forcing Ladybug to look away.
The glow subsides just as Princess Magia lets out an ear-splitting wail. “You—you monsters! How could you do this to me!?”
Ladybug glances back, and blinks.
In place of the bubblegum-haired girl is a child with plain brown hair and chocolates eyes, which are slowly welling with tears. She is wearing a simple t-shirt with an assembly of magical girls.
This must be what the girl was wearing when she had been akumatized. Was it because someone made fun of her hobbies?
For all intents and purposes, the girl (child, even younger than Ladybug thought she is) looks no different from any other girl her age. The only sign that her akuma hasn’t been purified is the heart-shaped bracelet around her wrist, the pink gem still pulsing with unnatural light.
A purple butterfly outlines itself on the girl’s face. Her tearful eyes flash dangerously—dancing from brown to pink and then back again.
“You’re right, Hawkmoth.” She whispers. Then, louder, “I will never allow you villains to defeat me!” Her bracelet pulses with magic. “For the Love of Light and Justice, Magia—”
Chat Noir reaches over to pluck Princess Magia’s bracelet from her wrist. The clasp gives way with a slightest bit of resistance, and the moment he has the bracelet in his hand, Chat shouts, “Cataclysm!”
The glowing heart jewel disintegrates in his hands. A purple butterfly flutters out, which Ladybug promptly captures with a flick of her wrist.
“Bye-bye, little butterfly. Miraculous ladybug!”
The next time they patrol, Chat plops down on his pillow nest and begins without so much as a greeting. “Hey, ‘bug, Plagg told me last night that there are infinite versions of us out there, in different universes.”
Ladybug blinks, raising her head from where she is once again cuddling Shark. “Oh yeah, I think Tikki mentioned something about that before.”
“Ha, can you imagine that? Maybe in another universe you’ll remember a totally different past life. I bet it would be way happier than the one you remember now, and you’ll take those memories as inspiration for how you model yourself as Ladybug.”
Ladybug snorts, “I’m one of a kind. Not sure how likely that another ‘me’,” she makes air-quotes against the pronoun, “will remember my ‘past life’. Accidentally falling out of heaven because one’s deities were quarrelling so hard they temporarily damaged reality isn’t exactly a common occurrence.”
“That isn’t the only way someone can remember their past lives, though! Sometimes it’s because there’s a soul parasite attached to their soul. Other times it’s ‘cause a soul skipped a few steps in their reincarnation process. Sometimes a god or spirit or whatever interfere to make people recall their past lives.”
“Huh.” Ladybug blinks. “Plagg said all that?”
“Yeah. Apparently one of Trixx’s past holders got cursed with a soul parasite in their past life.”
“And you don’t suppose one of the ‘me’s in another universe has a soul parasite?”
“Who knows?” Chat shrugs, sprawling out on his back. “It might be possible. Maybe her past life’s boyfriend even follows her to her new universe, and her current and past life boyfriend fight to the death, only for Ladybug to banish her jealous ex-lover back to his original universe. From what I’ve discovered in the past week, anything’s possible.”
Ladybug snorts. “That sounds like something straight out of bad fanfiction.”
Chat grins, “What’s that term again? Reality is stranger than fiction. I bet there are even worlds where the supernatural exist—hey, maybe I’m a werecat in another universe. Maybe you’re a wereladybug. Wouldn’t that be cool? Or—maybe you can be a fairy! Even the Knitting Fairy! Ladybug the Knitting Fairy—that sounds like the title of a serial novel.”
Ladybug makes a face, recalling that night Alya’s sisters were akumatized, and Ladybug had a panic attack over the Fox miraculous. It feels like decades ago, has it really been only a few months? “You remembered that?”
“Of course I did.” Chat wiggles his eyebrows, “Do you think there’s a world where one of us was raised by Master Fu, or that everyone has superpowers? That would be so cool. Like, ‘in a world where everyone is extraordinary, nobody is.’ Isn’t that an awesome tagline? Hey, maybe I should quit my job as a future therapist and become a future author.”
“Maybe you should stick to writing fanfiction for now.”
“Wait—” Chat sits up suddenly, squinting at Ladybug with neon eyes, “how did you know—”
“I—?” Ladybug blinks. “You—you actually write fanfiction!?” She giggles, burrowing her face into Shark’s fabric to smother her laughter. “Kwamis, Chaton, that’s so much like you—of course you would—I bet you still post reader x character fics on Wattpad—”
Chat blushes, the rosy tone contrasting sharply with the black textile of his mask. His leather ears flatten, then perk up. “Wait…” he says slowly, “How do you know so much about fanfics?”
Ladybug freezes. Opps. “…well,” she hesitates, “I never said I didn’t read fanfics in my spare time…”
“But do you read ‘reader x character fics’? ‘On Wattpad?’”
“…maybe.”
A delighted smile stretches across Chat’s face, who now sports the expression who was just told Christmas is coming early. “Holy akumas.”
Ladybug anchors her yo-yo to the nearby chimney with a flick of her wrist. “Hey Chaton, do you ever think it’s strange?”
Chat’s leather ears perk as his head swivels in Ladybug’s direction. “What’s strange?”
Ladybug shrugs. Leaping off the roof, she allows her yo-yo wire to reel her across the crosswalk. Retracting his extended baton, Chat follows Ladybug in freefall.
Ladybug waits until both of Chat’s feet have landed on the roof to continue, “To tell the truth…I thought telling you about my memories would change…everything, I guess. But…it’s been two weeks since my memories returned, and basically nothing has changed.”
Chat blinks. “Well, of course! It isn’t like your personality underwent a total overhaul that night. At your core, you’re still the same Ladybug I’ve known since I became Chat Noir. Your memories returning…all that did was provide some much-needed context, but…it isn’t because of the return of your memories that you’re finally moving on from your past life. You’ve begun that process long before that night, otherwise…I’m sure you wouldn’t have chosen to stay in this world.”
“…you’re right.” Ladybug shakes her head with a sigh. How did Chat manage to put all her messy half-realised thoughts into words? She didn’t even recognise her own thoughts on the matter until Chat summarized them for her.
“Of course I am.” Chat sniffs. “I’m the mighty future psychologist Chat Noir, after all!” He pauses, “Besides, all that talk about having a past life and you still haven’t beaten me to the Eiffel Tower once.”
With those words, Chat extends his baton and leaps from the roof, leaving a gaping Ladybug behind.
“You—hey!” Ladybug protests, tossing her yo-yo forward. “That’s only ‘cause you cheat every time, you mangy cat! I will catch you this time, I swear—!”