Chapter Text
The web-shooter in her hands looked painfully lonely and abandoned.
Peter’s invention and his skill still amazed Marinette just as much as they had the first day she learned about it. On the other hand, the idea of getting even closer to spiders (when a mutation in his DNA should have been more than enough already) was honestly terrifying. Quite terrifying.
Chat Noir and cats were something similar in her fragmented memories too: purring, tail-like body language… perhaps it was just a thing with all superheroes whose other selves were tied to animals, no matter what world they came from.
Either way, you either accepted your mask as a part of yourself, or you slowly drowned in anxiety and madness. She couldn’t remember a single hero who had ever managed to keep a real distance between their ordinary self and their other identity without eventually burning themselves alive in guilt or something even worse.
She should have looked for that answer a long time ago.
Her own story still hid behind closed eyes.
She… had been Ladybug for almost three years. She had known countless villains and heroes, and for some time she had even shared Miraculouses with other people. Master Fu had believed in her, and she had gone looking for trustworthy people to tell: Hi. Today it’s your turn to be a hero.
She had always — always — kept her civilian identity behind hundreds of barriers, separate from the rest of her life.
And that was exactly what had brought her to this point.
This was not some wise or noble story about a hero who won.
This was her life, where akuma attacks had once been small, almost manageable incidents, only to turn smoothly into violent mob showdowns. The fourth time this month. This month.
And this time the criminals had crossed the line.
This was no robbery, no warehouse break-in, no stolen money.
This was kidnapping.
Her partner.
Marinette would never recommend that anyone else try to wear her shoes and be both Ladybug and an ordinary teenage girl. Never.
But if she had the chance to choose again?
To meet Tikki a second time, to fight Hawkmoth all over again, to go back to school with everyone just the same… she would not hesitate for a second.
That was what had led her here.
New York was not her home by birthright. Under normal circumstances, she would never have ended up here. And yet she had. And somehow she was still standing. Against all odds.
Here, she could breathe again. Here, she could finally straighten her shoulders.
When she was found, she had been close to apathy — that awful state where you keep repeating the same patterns every day, but can no longer understand why you are doing any of it, or what reason there is to keep going. Here, she had been helped to find meaning again. To see hope. To begin living, instead of merely existing.
They were not going to kidnap Peter that easily.
Not on her watch.
Marinette locked the web-shooter onto her wrist, whispering to the device that she would return it to its owner as soon as possible. Its weight felt… different. Familiar in a way, and yet not.
For years, her yo-yo had been her main weapon, with its own rhythm, its own patterns of movement. She could change direction mid-throw, alter the trajectory, choose a new target in a heartbeat. The poor Eiffel Tower had probably been cut apart by her yo-yo dozens of times.
The web synthesized in school labs was different. Softer, but clingier. All its strength rested in the web-shooters strapped to the wrists. Peter had never been afraid to throw out a thin strand and trust it with his full weight, suspended high above the streets, dependent on nothing but the number of cartridges he had left.
For Marinette, every swing still required a certain kind of courage.
Even if it was followed, every time, by delight.
She had thought getting used to the spider-style of movement would take a while. Luckily, Ladybug and Spider had enough in common in the way they moved that even a long break… a vacation… a pause… had not erased the basics from her muscles.
The habit of checking for a bag with Tikki inside, or a yo-yo at her wrist, still had not gone away, even though it had been monthes since her last transformation.
God, she really was ridiculous.
The tightness in her nerves refused to leave.
Not when Peter — oh, mighty kwami — not even Spider-Man, but Peter had been kidnapped and taken to who-knew-where. Marinette was no longer able to undo destruction simply by catching one butterfly, or even hundreds of them. This had not been caused by magic. It had been caused by human actions. By permissiveness. By impunity. And maybe by some alien technology too, if she remembered correctly.
One way or another, tonight Ladybug… Spider… whatever she was…she was going to finish the story of the Gray gang.
The superhero suit, made from ordinary mass-market materials and patched together with Peter’s own creation — an abomination, really — was far from perfect. Nothing could ever be perfect once you had worn the living magic of a Miraculous. When you had grown used to the certainty that no bullet, no Cataclysm, nothing could truly hurt you beyond repair… well, simple fabric had a way of making anxiety ring loud and clear.
Still, red and blue were familiar colors. His colors. That was enough to let Marinette feel safe, if only for a moment.
Peter could make her feel steadier even from far away.
What an unfairly sweet partner.
Marinette smoothed the seam on her shoulder, the one that had become a problem after one too many repairs over the trace of a knife wound. Then she reached for the mask. Outwardly, it looked almost identical to Peter’s version, but it suited her much more.
An ordinary human being whose senses did not need to be artificially dulled.
Without hesitating, she pulled it on, hiding every last identifying feature.
No hair. No eyes. Not even her voice—thanks to a voice modulator assembled practically from scrap metal.
Spider had always been defined by anonymity, by the ability to vanish into a crowd or melt into the city around him.
Online arguments had often questioned even Spider-Man’s gender. And to some extent, people had a right to wonder. Not long ago, Peter had been replaced by Marinette.
She could not patrol as long or as thoroughly as he did. To try would have felt too much like stealing someone else’s life — someone else’s destiny. But on nights like this, bad nights, backup was never unwelcome.
So far, no one suspected that the vigilante who irritated both New York’s criminal underworld and part of its legal hero community might actually be one person more than expected.
Their problem.
Marinette checked the fastenings on her feet one more time. Without Tikki’s support, experience and skill alone would never have been enough to imitate Peter’s spider-like abilities this well.
Then she opened the window.
Cold air rushed into the room.
She climbed onto the windowsill. The lights of the city glittered below like garlands on a Christmas tree.
She could almost hear it.
The voice of New York.
It called to her, lured her, the way it might lure a naive child.
Spider smiled, though the smile disappeared beneath the seamless mask before she leaned forward and shifted her weight into the fall.
The web-shooter worked flawlessly, catching her and carrying her upward.
She might have stopped being Ladybug, but she would never, ever be able to tear the habits of a hero out of herself—that hunger, that dependence on adrenaline, that need for the rush.
Never.
Rise and fall. Fall and rise.
The sensations, painfully familiar, answered in her body and tugged at her heart. These movements had nothing of the yo-yo’s grace, but like everything else, they brought the past back to her.
She flew, listening to the call of the city, following the signal from Peter’s tracker, and remembered.
She could not help remembering those days when it had seemed that everything was over.
When in truth, everything had only just begun.
And not without the involvement of one charming, friendly neighborhood boy.
Oh, Peter.
<The First Hours in New York>
The glowing portal closed behind her with a soft click.
Marinette dropped her transformation immediately, cutting off any path back. Then she whispered the formula to renounce ownership.
She was not ready to listen. Not to lectures, not to advice, especially not from a kwami that was not hers. Not now, when it felt like the entire weight of the universe had gathered around her and was pressing down harder and harder, trying to force regret and acceptance out of her, judging her with every breath of wind.
Instead of curling into herself and hiding somewhere in a corner, Marinette lifted her chin and exposed her tear-reddened face to the world.
It was cool.
Good.
It would not take long for the traces of her breakdown to fade into something less noticeable.
She did not look back. She did not even glance around.
She stepped out of the alley and onto the busy street as if she had lived here her whole life.
No clear plan. No destination.
The crowd swallowed her and carried her along between bright billboards and towering buildings. Her mind, clouded with emotion, did not notice anything strange.
Back then she knew nothing.
She naively thought that her desperate wish to get away from the trip had only taken her a few blocks off course.
Dusk was settling in. The air was growing colder.
Marinette pulled out her spare jacket. Aside from that, her backpack held her documents, a little food for Tikki, and water for herself. A short trip to London had not required a large suitcase, but even so, her second bag with the rest of her things was still at the class hotel.
She was not very confident she would find it intact when she returned.
But after tears came indifference.
Let it be.
The long walk helped, at least a little.
Marinette could feel herself slowly stabilizing. It was not real healing, but maybe she would be able to explain her disappearance to Madame Bustier. Maybe she could even endure the trip back home.
After all, Ladybug had never been able to choose her enemies or the timing of a fight. She had adapted.
So why could she not do the same?
Why could she not be like that as well?
The wind playfully tugged at loose strands of her hair. She turned and gasped.
The night city stretched out before her, glowing.
Lights merged into one living picture, whole and breathtaking. Marinette stood at the top of a sloping staircase and could not look away.
Distant sirens. Dogs barking. The murmur of voices. It all felt so much like Paris. Like the hero and villain side of Paris. Like her Paris.
Painfully so.
Her hand moved to her bag and smoothed over the zipper.
Soon.
She would have to go back soon.
Tikki. Kaalki. Hold on just a little longer.
Because if they could not endure it, then she definitely would not be able to either.
Marinette bit her lip and cast one last look at the place she still believed to be London.
When she called for her kwami, ready to return, no one came.
She was alone.
<The First Days in New York>
At first, she had stubbornness and confidence. And battery on her phone. Every new detail, every strange inconsistency on top of the missing kwamis kept throwing her off balance. She did not really want to tell Alya where she was, but it did not matter, because the messages did not reach anyone from her group. Not even teachers. Believing that she somehow ended up on the blacklist of twenty people at once was… a little hard.
Regular calls did not work either, roaming or not. The ringing always turned into a mechanical message in English. A foreign language, a foreign country. Marinette did not stop trying completely, but she dropped the calls faster and faster, until she could almost predict what the operator would say. She should have used that intuition on her kwamis.
Marinette was not going to the police or anywhere like that. She still believed she would return home soon, and so she spent the nights on rooftops, following the simple rule that the higher you are, the safer you are.
She managed to eat Tikki’s cookies at first, but after that it became harder. It was not only nerves draining her strength anymore, but hunger as well.
On the third day, her phone battery dropped to thirty percent, and she went out to look for a charging station or a café where she could use an outlet.
Of course, everything went wrong. With her luck, nothing could go right.
A street pickpocket tried to snatch her bag, which was not the best choice considering her kwamis were still missing, but in that moment Marinette was more startled than anything else, and so she ran.
She chased the thin boy, who looked only a little older than her, for so long that she lost track of time. Her experience with tracking villains would not let her lose him so easily. He kept looking back, again and again, and every time he met her gaze, sharp and burning. Did he think he had just met his death? Maybe. Marinette was not planning to be kind in that moment.
Her breathing stayed light, her steps fast, and she was catching up, almost there, just a little more.
"Stop!"
At that moment something white shot forward and wrapped around his legs, or at least tried to. At the last second he jerked away, saving one leg and twisting on the other, then turned toward her and raised a knife. Of course.
His gray eyes were wide, almost swallowed by his pupils, and sweat ran down his face. For some reason Marinette could not look away from that wrong, stretched look.
"D-don’t come close! I… I’ll cut you!"
She froze for a fraction of a second. A knife. Not magic, not an akuma, just real.
She inhaled slowly and stepped forward, lifting her hand slightly, steady.
"Put… down," she said, the words slow, careful, her accent heavy.
He hesitated.
"I said—"
She moved.
Fast enough. Not perfect, not Ladybug, but enough.
She pushed his wrist aside, stepped in, broke his balance, and the knife slipped from his fingers and hit the ground. He yelped, and Marinette stopped herself just before striking again.
He dropped down immediately.
"P-please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t—"
She pointed at the bag.
"Give back."
Short. Clear.
He fumbled with it, hands shaking.
"…it’s empty."
Marinette blinked, and her expression changed before her words did.
"What…?"
She checked herself, and of course there was nothing inside. The bag had been used to carry kwamis, invisible to ordinary people, and now invisible to her as well.
"I ran all this way for nothing?" the boy muttered, sounding genuinely offended. "I mean... not that I wanted to run! You’re scary!"
Marinette looked at him for a long moment, long enough for him to shrink under her gaze.
"…Don’t," she said, pointing at him and then at the street. "…again."
"…Yeah. Got it."
They fell silent, both a little uncomfortable in the sudden quiet.
And then—
"Oh no. Not you again."
Marinette turned.
A boy stood nearby, breathing a little heavier than he probably wanted to show, hoodie pulled up over a simple suit with a spider symbol on his chest. Young. Too young.
"…Yeah. Hi, Steven."
"Mr. Spider-Man, sir, I can explain—"
"You always can," he said calmly. "Doesn’t make it better."
His gaze moved quickly, first to the knife on the ground, then to Marinette, brief but precise, as if checking whether she was hurt without making it obvious.
"You okay?" he asked.
Marinette hesitated, her fingers tightening slightly on the strap of her bag.
"…Yes."
A pause.
"…I manage."
He watched her for a moment longer than necessary, not pushing, just noting, then gave a small nod.
"Good."
He shifted his attention back to the thief.
"That’s twice this week, Steven. You’re not even trying anymore."
"I didn’t take anything this time!" the boy protested quickly. "The bag was empty!"
Spider-Man glanced at Marinette, questioning without words. She exhaled softly, irritation flickering across her face.
"…Empty," she confirmed, giving a small nod.
He looked back at Steven.
"…Congratulations," he said dryly. "You almost committed a useless crime."
"I didn’t know!"
"Yeah. That’s kind of the problem."
Silence stretched for a moment.
Marinette watched him. No Miraculous. No magic. Still moving like someone used to this. Still steady.
She stepped a little closer.
"You… are hero?" she asked, slower now, searching for words.
He looked at her properly this time.
"…Yeah. I try to help."
Not proud. Not joking. Just simple.
Marinette studied him, then gave a small nod, like she accepted that.
"You’re not from here," he said, not really asking.
Her shoulders tensed slightly.
"…No."
Another pause.
"…I lost… direction."
Not entirely a lie.
He did not question it.
"Okay."
He crouched briefly to pick up the knife, holding it away from both of them.
"I’ll drop him off with the police," he said, already turning. "He knows the way."
"I do," Steven muttered weakly.
Spider-Man stopped for a moment and looked back at Marinette.
"Stay here. I’ll be back."
Simple. Direct.
She held his gaze, then nodded.
"…Okay."
He left, quick and efficient, no unnecessary movement.
Marinette stayed where she was.
She was supposed to be in Paris, writing a chemistry test.
Paris.
Instead, she stood here, waiting for Spider-Man to come back.
Charming, isn’t it?
The landing on the roof the signal had led her to was soft and silent. Spider noticed that once she had considered similar places for sleeping. Having something in common, even something like a love for abandoned places, with people like the Gray gang was… painful. Damn, maybe this wandering life really had become a part of her, and Peter had not been joking about it? She shook her head, forcing herself back to reality.
First, get her partner out.
Everything else — later.
Moving quietly, Spider went around the whole roof, scanning the area as she moved. Despite the sharp upgrade from bank robberies to… well, kidnapping people??? the Grays remained the same beginners they had been a month ago.
So, how best to get inside…
A few minutes later, crawling through the ventilation, Spider admitted she had picked up some of Peter’s habits. It was expected, because despite many similarities New York was different from Paris. You had to play by new rules, since the old ones no longer worked. Parker, who had grown up in an environment where alien invasions every few years counted as normal life, loved ventilation shafts, while Ladybug usually entered through windows. Well, this city clearly did not like windows.
It was darker and more closed. More… harsh.
Handling something like this alone… no. Good thing they had each other and could cover one another’s backs. Opportunities to fight side by side did not come often, but Marinette had learned to appreciate the forced pause. Help another hero with training, work in a bakery. No hooligans, no akumas, no accusations from the police. A miracle of a life for Ladybug.
Spider suddenly froze, catching her own pun. A quiet sigh followed, more a gesture than a sound. Great. Now she was almost literally in Spider-Man’s skin: gear, fighting style, and now even the jokes.
She listened, but nothing pointed to Peter’s presence, or even to guards nearby. She moved further, occasionally checking the tracker signal.
A bit to the left… forward…
"Kidnapping people is a level above robbing stores. Pretty sharp change of direction, I have to say. I’ve been following you. Hard not to, when you’re the most ambitious beginner gang around. I even subscribed to your fan page."
Usually, without the mask, Peter held back his talkativeness, but now tension slipped through. He spoke almost as fast as he did in the Spider-Man suit, yet none of the guards told him to shut up. It felt like he had ended up here by accident and now played more the role of decoration than an actual hostage.
Spider narrowed her eyes, trying to count how many of them there were. Damn, they should really think about adding some kind of radar. Not everyone had that unfair sense.
"I mean, I tried. Studied social media, invested in promotion. The new style works better than the old one."
Oh, please…
"Yes, it does match your idea and name much better."
…don’t say it…
"I’d add some price lists or ads. Word of mouth is great, unless it spreads bad rumors. You can always get ahead of it by starting good ones. Like saving kittens from trees or—"
"I don’t think that’s part of our plan, dude. Sorry."
"Does he even understand the situation?"
"But those are actually good points…"
…Peter Parker was giving a lecture on social media to his kidnappers. Using her design advice. Marinette did not know what was more shocking, yet somehow perfectly fitting into the chaos of her life, so she kicked the vent grate loose without caring much about stealth or anything else.
What she heard was more than enough: the Gray gang had not changed. Still trying to climb higher in the criminal hierarchy, raising stakes, but refusing to kill or lose their humanity. That alone made them… almost likable. In her improvised ranking of enemies, they still held a place in the top ten. For bringing out Peter’s chaotic side, though, Marinette was ready to cut their score in half. Because yes.
"Sorry for dropping in on your party uninvited," the device flattened her voice, removing any clear femininity, though the tension still slipped through.
Peter and the man talking about fan accounts both flinched slightly, clearly sensing how bad Spider’s mood was tonight. The others raised guns and bats, already used to the fact that the vigilante active for only a few months could dodge almost anything. It would not change much. Except their pride, but…
"I warned you last time. Behave yourselves. Decided to play at something bigger? Fine. Your friendly neighbor will show you why using a drill at three in the damn morning is a bad idea. Let’s dance."
<Twenty minutes later>
"Spider-Man, you’re really… amazing. Almost miraculous, even—"
"Don’t. Stop right there."
Peter immediately raised his hands in a "okay, I surrender" gesture. His brown eyes were smiling, warm and bright as he looked at Spider. Thankfully, the true power of that expression remained unknown to him.
"Hopefully this time they actually learn something. Message to the police sent. Web will hold for a few hours. Did we miss anything?"
"We could take their new toys. I think the Grays only went for this because they got access to Stark tech or Chitauri materials. This didn’t look like a targeted kidnapping. I just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right one, if it prevents something worse."
"I still can’t believe they started with stealing bicycles."
"And yet here we are. Human overconfidence, right. So, where did you say the shiny attractive pieces were?"
"You’re a spider, not a magpie. Stay in character."
"As if I had one to begin with."
"Hey!"
Talking like that, they cleared the base, collecting the new components for later analysis. Neither of them planned to get involved in anything on the Avengers’ level, but the safety of New York still mattered to them. Making sure something like this did not happen again was a shared problem. Maybe they would not fully understand alien tech, but if criminals did not have access to it, dealing with them became much easier.
"Is it naive to be glad they didn’t actually use this thing properly?"
"I like how carefully you censor yourself."
"…I’m serious."
"I’m not the best person to give advice on this. I don’t know much, and I’m far from your level of hero work. But we don’t get that many things that actually feel like a win. You never know when the next alien donut is going to drop from the sky with some power-hungry idiot attached to it. You’re a hero, Spider-Man, and you deserve to feel that. Thanks for the save."
"Don’t worry about it. Just… normal stuff. Part of the job."
"You don’t get paid."
"You don’t either!"
"What are you talking about? I’m just a completely normal student living a completely normal student life~"
Peter suddenly went quiet, listening to something only he could hear.
"Let’s move. The police will be here in a few minutes. Better not be around."
"No desire to give an interview as the terrified hostage?"
"…I’ll pass. I’d rather use Spider-Man Airlines and go home. There’s enough evidence here to put them away for a long time."
Spider did not argue.
Their relationship had clear boundaries. Peter did not comment on the circumstances of her world, allowing her to actually enjoy the pause from being Ladybug. She, in turn, let him build his own line between his hero and civilian life. Learn through mistakes, deal with reporters, hide broken cups caused by poor control over his strength.
If Peter believed he should stay out of police reports, then so be it.
After all, this was his life, while Marinette belonged to another world.
Her family, her friends, her studies, her routine were all several universes away. No one knew when the kwamis would return or whether the Horse Miraculous would work again.
All they could do was keep moving forward.
And they did.
Side by side, again and again.