Chapter Text
A faded red.
That’s the color of the trim hanging from the chandelier.
Just a few shades darker than its surroundings, a deep maroon bordering on brown. She’d never noticed the difference until now.
She huffs in indignation.
Chloe Bourgeois liked to think of herself as particular. Some might prefer the term “bitchy,” but regardless, she’d always been good at noticing things, whether it was the exact actress the sad girl working reception’s haircut was trying to copy, or the name of whatever headache-inducing fragrance her latest admirer was shoving up her nose.
It was a useful skill among high society. She’d learned early that it was the littlest things that separated her from the commoners around her. So she’d gotten good at it. Survival of the fittest, and all that science crap.
Which is why, sprawled out on her bed, staring craters into her ceiling, she replays the encounter over and over in her mind, trying to arrange these new details into a picture that made any kind of sense.
It had happened so fast, too fast for Dupain-Cheng to have noticed anything, and it’s corrected just as quickly. She’d just needed one tug to adjust her swimsuit back into place, and after shoving Chloe out of the way of the changing room’s exit, it’s no surprise the baker girl wouldn’t give the interaction a second thought.
She’d probably been expecting Chloe to follow, and of course three seconds ago that had been her exact intention. Follow a few steps behind and make some comment about her choice of swimwear, or slippers, or swim cap, or any of the other dozen little buttons she was so used to pressing.
But Chloe didn’t follow, even long after Marinette made her way out of the changing rooms and into the pool area.
Because the rows etched into Marinette’s upper thigh had been far too orderly for some coincidental scarring. And Chloe isn’t some spaz, she knew exactly what she’d seen, anyone would’ve.
Still, her mind is stuck buffering, for the twenty or so minutes she spends awkwardly standing in the changing room, for the whole drive back to her father’s hotel. Even now, hours later, she hasn’t been able to collect her thoughts.
It just… Doesn’t. Doesn’t fit or compute or work out or sit right or settle, the memory just sort of hangs, muddled by conflicting emotions like a window during a rainstorm.
Chloe sits up on her mattress, shaking out the beginning bed head as she tries to calm her breathing.
She assures herself that tomorrow will bring answers. That’s how she gets herself back into bed and under the covers, a repeated mantra of tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
She shuts her eyes, and proceeds to be completely and utterly not worried for the rest of the night.
Completely. And utterly.
Tomorrow, class is a bust.
It’s not like Chloe made a habit of being a stellar student, but today, even pretending like she was absorbing the lesson seems impossible. Her eyes keep drifting to the corner, doing their best to steal glances at the baker girl just a row and aisle away.
It’s unnerving, how plainly the girl holds herself. Coming into class, Chloe didn’t know what to expect, but it was definitely more than the average student routine Dupain-Cheng’s been boring her with since the start of the year. She takes some notes, whispers stupid comments to Alya, ogles the back of Adrien’s head.
Chloe roles her eyes.
She’d spent all morning dreading this, her mind concocting doomsday scenarios faster than her hand could shove croissants into her mouth, yet this is all she’s met with. It’s insulting. Dupain-Cheng could’ve at least had the decency to opt for a wardrobe change, anything to make the world look as different as it felt.
When the bell rings and students start to filter out, she hands her homework to Sabrina and tells her she’ll collect it tomorrow. She had enough on her plate as it was. The girl smiles and mumbles a goodbye, leaving Chloe alone in the classroom. She takes a deep breath, through her nostrils and out her mouth.
Chloe steps out of the classroom, scanning the various clumps of students that litter the hall in between classes. She spots them, Dupain-Cheng and Cesaire, chatting near the stairs. Marinette makes some nervous gestures with the hem of her blazer, and Alya places a notebook in her hands. Then a dopey grin spreads across Marinette’s face, and with a hug she’s off to her next class. Alya calls after her, but makes her way down to the lockers.
Chloe makes a poor attempt at stifling a groan, before setting off after her.
She considers her plan of attack, as Alya sorts through her books. In the end, she settles on a standard lean behind her locker door, and, when it slams closed, there she is, giving the redhead a spook that normally would’ve brought a satisfied smirk to her face.
Once Alya gets over the initial surprise, her expression quickly sours, and Chloe can’t help but feel a little offended.
“What do you want?”
Chloe scoffs. “Well hello to you too, Ms. Cesaire.” She pushes off the locker and crosses her arms. Alya rolls her eyes.
“Look, Chloe, I have class so whatever this is is gonna have to wait.”
Chloe tuts, her annoyance growing. “Well, your class is gonna have to wait, because this is important.”
Alya doesn’t even bother to turn around as she answers, “If you want my notes, I already gave them to Marinette.”
Chloe smirks. “She was literally writing things all class, why would she need your notes?”
Caught in her lie, Alya stops and turns. Yet the sheepish expression she’d been expecting is instead one of confusion. Caught off guard by the sudden change, Chloe shrugs, egging Cesaire on.
“She was sketching, not taking notes,” Alya continues. “She usually has trouble with physics.”
There was a surprise. Madame Bustier’s star student, behind? Chloe nods, because that seemed like the nonchalant thing to do, before asking, “So… trouble with physics… is that uh, like, a new thing? With Marinette?”
“I mean, not really-“ Alya suddenly pauses, and narrows her eyes. “Okay, what’s your angle here?”
Chloe places a hand to her chest. “Angle?”
“Yeah, why all these questions all of a sudden?” Alya crosses her arms.
“Can a girl not be curious?” Chloe turns away, but keeps her head toward Alya.
“Of course,” Alya starts, “It’s just that you’re usually only curious about things that make my friend miserable.” As she speaks, Alya steps forward again, forcing Chloe back a step. “So, why the sudden interest?”
Chloe’s top lip scrunches with agitation. “I don’t need to explain myself to you!” She leans into Alya’s face, her disgruntled expression giving her a kind of glow that sets Chloe off.
“Hey girls, everything alright?” A voice calls from the side. Both girls pivot, turning their sour expressions onto none other than Adrien Agreste.
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “Uh, am I interrupting something?” He asks, sheepishly.
Chloe’s look of contempt softens slightly.
“No, Chloe was just about to go.”
And hardens just as fast.
“Not until our little reporter gives me a straight answer.” Chloe uncrosses an arm and flicks out her wrist.
“Answer to what?” When Adrien pipes in, Chloe bites back some of the venom she’d intended to lace onto her words.
“Marinette.” She says, curtly.
“Not a question.” Alya supplies.
Chloe groans. “Just, like, have you noticed anything weird? Y’know, not weird like basic baker girl weird like… I don’t know! Odd?” Chloe’s agitation builds along with her embarrassment. At this rate her questions were sounding ridiculous even to her.
Alya regards her with skepticism. Adrien responds, “I mean, I haven’t really noticed anything off recently.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Alya supplies, unhelpfully.
Chloe rolls her eyes.
“Alright, well, I still have to get to class so…” Alya starts looking through the various papers she’s holding, as she slowly makes her way to the stairs.
“Y’know, it’s sorta ironic how you’re coming to us asking if Marinette’s acting different,” she says, pausing at the bottom of the stairs.
Chloe pouts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Alya shrugs. “No nothing just… I don’t know, you’ve known her a lot longer than we have. You’d think you’d know.”
Any retort Chloe could possibly make dies in her throat.
She probably would’ve been stuck like that a while longer if Adrien didn’t interject with a hand on her shoulder.
“Chloe, have you noticed something wrong with Marinette?”
It takes her a second to remember how to speak, but eventually her brain does manage to catch up with the rest of the world.
“What!? No? I don’t know anything about Marinette! Nothing, natha, zilch!” She whips around to fix Adrien with an exasperated stare. His arm drops from her shoulder, and his eyes go a little wide.
“Alright,” he drags out the word. “Just uh, if there was something going on with Marinette, you’d let us know, right?”
That, that right there was what Chloe was avoiding like the plague, that soft upward tilt to his voice. The plain fondness, the worry. Of course Adrien’s words are drenched in it, what with his natural angelic compassion.
But Chloe doesn’t have time for it. Or at least, she shouldn’t. Of the million things to do in a day, worrying about some baker girl going schizo wasn’t exactly at the top of her list of priorities.
Yet here she was, making time.
Chloe sighs.
“Of course.” She answers, finally. “It's just some girl stuff, y’know?” Adrien smiles warmly. Sometimes she thinks it’d disturb her, how easy it was to lie to the boy, if it wasn’t so convenient.
“Well, alright,” Adrien says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly, I’m just glad that you aren’t trying to start a fight with her for once.”
Chloe melts comfortably back into indignation. “And how do you know I’m not?”
Adrien shrugs. “Just a hunch.” He also turns back to the stairs. “Talk after class?” He calls over his shoulder.
Chloe smiles, nice and plastic. “Totally!”
Chloe had snuck out of class early, texting her driver that she hadn’t been feeling well and not even bothering to fake the fever past a single forced cough.
She had been stuck in her head, all the way to the hotel and all the way to her room. She still was stuck, if she was being honest. There were too many disparate details swirling around her pretty little head, and the afternoon looked like it was going to end up exactly like yesterday’s.
Well, maybe not exactly. Today, one thought does manage to keep getting its head above water, despite Chloe’s best efforts to smother it under the waves.
You’ve known her a lot longer than we have.
Chloe throws her head into the couch cushion. Leave it to Alya to make things weird.
It annoys her mostly because it’s true. She’s known Marinette a lot longer than them, longer than almost anyone at Françoise Dupont. The baker girl had been a thorn in her side since she was eight years old, ever since her father had insisted she start attending “normal” school.
Most of her earliest memories of Marinette are as a bother. With her blue hair pulled into a ponytail, she ran around their classroom in a pink blur, loud and bubbly and aggressively friendly. To top it off, it seemed like Chloe’d always ended up at her side, paired up at desks or chucked together for a group project. Odder still, was that at first, Marinette didn’t seem to mind.
Why the girl bothered to stick around her was a mystery. Chloe had never been shy about her distaste for Dupain-Cheng. Besides her annoying singing out in the middle of class or bad habit of surprise hugs, they were just plainly different. A baker girl and the heiress to Paris. It just didn’t match up in her head.
As the years stretched on, Marinette slowed down, and excessive extroversion faded. She sits mostly still, keeps mostly quiet. Chloe almost takes pride in how quickly she’d been able to whip the girl into shape.
And thus their relationship remained consistently sour, and Chloe had been content.
Chloe rolls over to her back. She tries to feel surprised at having her thoughts consumed by the baker girl, but that would be dishonest. Truth be told, these past few months especially, Chloe often found herself wondering about Marinette Dupaim-Cheng.
She was just… Annoying. not in the hyperactive way she’d been when they were little girls, it was lamer than that. There wasn’t really any reason for her to stick herself into Chloe’s mind like gum under a desk, yet she does. And Chloe’s never quite been able to understand why.
It had to be intentional. That was the only explanation. Her little snippy comments, her giggles, her annoyingly pretty face. The mere thought makes her scowl. Even when she was trying to help her, that dumb broad found a way to piss her off.
She sits up, and starts pacing the room, tapping the tips of her index fingers against each other.
There were simply too many versions of Marinette in her head. Too much conflicting information, warm smiles and dry scowls and stuttering drawls matched with confident tirades.
And behind all these thoughts Alya’s words ring clear. You’ve known her a lot longer.
Chloe moans and rubs her palms against her eyes, before throwing herself back onto the lounging chair she’d just been pacing around. Her arms fall away to dangle theatrically off to her side. Her head hangs off the edge of the couch.
That must be the problem. She’s known the girl too long and enough of her crazy has rubbed off to drive her insane.
Deep breath in, then out through her nose.
She was at a loss. Truly and utterly stumped. This was usually the point in her problem solving process where she’d run and find a way to have her issue fired, but she couldn’t exactly fire Marinette. She’d wasted enough time over the years trying to figure out a way to.
She opens her eyes. Her bed, suspended on the ceiling, seems to glare back at her. Frankly, Chloe doesn’t appreciate its attitude. She flicks her eyes lazily across the rest of the suite.
Dozens of posters and trinkets and designer items litter the space. Each is similarly unhelpful. She wishes she hadn’t blown Sabrina off earlier, having a target to direct her frustrations toward really would help her mood.
Her thoughts of Sabrina lead her eyes to the wardrobe next to her bed, where their Ladybug and Chat Noir suits are stored.
Hanging on the ornate handle was her upside down ladybug mask.
It stares her down, not glaring, like the rest of her backstabbing furniture, but its gaze is steely nonetheless. It takes Chloe a second to decipher what it possibly wanted.
Then her eyes go wide.
She sits up sharply, and she can feel the eyeless mask burning holes in her skull. Chloe turns to face it, now hanging down instead of up. A wicked smirk twists up her lip, and she can almost see one reflected under the red and black mask.
Suddenly, all thoughts of Marinette’s countless contradictions start to slot into place. She may not be any closer to figuring out what the hell has the girl in such a fit, but for the first time in two days Chloe feels like she’s gotten a clear picture of her situation.
Marinette was in trouble, and no one knew but her. If she could help Marinette, more importantly if she could show Ladybug that she could help Marinette… her smile erupts into a fit of horrible laughter. Obviously Ladybug wouldn’t deny her a miraculous for such a noble cause. It was a win win. She could help fix Dupain-Cheng and secure her miraculous back in a single swift motion!
She really was a genius!
Now, she just needed a way to contact Ladybug…
Chloe runs to her balcony. Sure, it was childish, but it wasn’t rare at this point to expect to see one of the Parisian heroes dashing across the rooftops. She searches but… no. Nothing. Utterly disappointing.
She slumps against the railing. It could be days before another akuma attack, and she didn’t have that kind of time. What if Marinette throws herself into the Seine tomorrow? Then how would she get back her miraculous?
Scanning the horizon, Chloe’s eyes settle on the Eiffel Tower, standing unusually tall against the otherwise modest Paris skyline…
Her eyes widen, and slowly drift to the tower’s point.
Oh she was on a roll today.
She whips out her phone and taps her driver’s number. “Jean-paul, I’m going sightseeing. Get the car ready.” He tries to correct her on his name, and Chloe might’ve cared had she cared. She slips back on her shoes and checks her reflection in a vanity near her door.
Hair pristine, makeup perfect, smile dazzling. Her eyes go soft and pleading. “Oh, Ladybug, it’s for the greater good!” She cries, in the most sympathetic tone she could muster.
Yeah, Queen Bee was basically already back.