Chapter Text
The student that interrupted them was pretty and unfamiliar. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear part of your conversation. I think you might be in my class.”
Nino, on Alya’s right, perked up. “A new student? This time of year?”
She smiled prettily too. “My name is Lila. My mother moves around a lot on account of her work. On one hand it means that I don’t get to settle down in one place, on the other it means I get to travel the world. We’ve recently come from the Kingdom of Achu, and I’m still reeling from culture shock. Paris is so open!”
This time Alya smiled. “I know what you mean. Martinique is pretty stifled too.”
Nino cast her a skeptical look. “Girl, stop the presses: I can’t go a day without you talking my ear off about how you miss your old place.”
Alya made an awkward expression. How to describe it? Paris was large. There were so many groups of people, so many avenues of discovery, and so many modes of self-expression. People were interesting.
Martinique was tiny. The culture was rich, but it was limited. The folk were warm, but they were few. If there was a way to pair Paris’ diversity in people with Martinique’s steady sunlight and limestone beaches she’d do it in a heartbeat.
She took as long to find the best words: “I won’t lie. Do I miss being able to walk fifteen minutes from my house to the Caribbean Sea and back? Sure. But I also wouldn’t mind if I spotted a superhero or two along the way.”
Nino rolled his eyes good naturedly.
The new student chimed in, “Are you referring to Ladybug and Cat Noir?”
Alya’s face transformed from casual politeness to sincere enthusiasm. “You’ve heard of them!”
Before Lila could continue, Alya was off like a shot—“There are more than a handful of densely populated cities around the world that support superheroes, and New York is pretty famous for having so many per square kilometer, but France was pretty slow in that department until Ladybug and Cat Noir showed up in opposition of HawkMoth about five months ago. Unlike the Owl, who uses gadgetry to battle crime, or Majestia who survived a chemical blast, Ladybug and Cat Noir’s abilities are rooted in ancient magic artifacts known as Miraculous. Our resident supervillain every so often goes up on the stage with this huge production that would have put him out of business weeks ago if he wasn’t literally magic—by the way have I mentioned my theory that HawkMoth is a member of the one percent because what human being thinks that terrorizing people is just a fee to get what you want—”
Nino grabbed Alya’s shoulders. “Babe, you’re overwhelming the new kid.”
Lila, to her credit, had a flawless steel countenance. Whatever her private thoughts, she’d managed to strike the balance between politely interested and faintly surprised, all the while cataloguing each word and gesture her new classmates fed her. What could she make from Alya’s mode of dress? What did Nino’s little eye-roll before Alya’s rant mean? Each detail was shelved with cold analytic notes attached.
She aimed for the easiest mark: “You’re so passionate, Alya! That’s so beautiful. I’m sure Ladybug is honored to have your steadfast support.”
“Ladybug’s first fan here,” Alya glowed with predictable pride. “You’re talking to the foremost resource on all things Ladybug and Cat Noir: the Ladyblogger!”
The who? “Oh, am I?”
Nino had already pulled up the website on his phone. “Alya runs a blog where she posts videos, photographs and theories about the superheroes of Paris. Even news outlets have used her media sometimes.”
Alya threw her chin in the air. “Oh please, Nino, stop! You’re embarrassing me!”
“Yeah, I can tell from the way your head’s swelling.”
Lila scrolled through the blog with shrewd eyes and a tepid smile and ignored their blatant kiss. She made her smile sweeter. “I remember consulting this blog on my way from Achu! Ladybug herself said that it was an amazing repository of information for the public.”
Lila may as well have said that she was the mother of superheroes everywhere the way how Alya beheld her. “You know Ladybug personally?!”
Lila flinched her head back, widened her eyes, threw her hand to her parted lips and shifted back on one foot, all this to communicate: I shouldn’t have said that!
Nino threatened to destroy her act. “I don’t think that’s what she said, babe.”
“Shush!” She arbitrarily pressed her hands to Nino’s face. Nino spluttered. “As a reporter I know these things. You’ve got an in with Ladybug!”
Lila threw her gaze to the floor, hiked up her shoulders, pulled her elbows in so she looked small and contrite. Her gestures were subtle but noticeable. I’ve been found out! She whispered, “I shouldn’t have said anything. You must think I’m such a phony.”
Alya blinked the stars out of her eyes. “What? No! Why do you think I’d ever think that?”
Lila rolled her head to the side, lifted one shoulder, spread her hands, diffident. I’m uncomfortable! “A new girl waltzes in and says she’s best friends with Paris’ most beloved hero is fishing for attention, right? I’m sorry. I just wanted to make friends but me and my big mouth…”
“Hey hey hey,” Nino came forward and pressed a hand to her shoulder. Lila thought, distantly, that he had such beautiful skin; she disliked him. “Nobody thinks that, okay? If I were in your position I’d be screaming from the rafters that I’m buddies with Cat Noir.”
Alya snorted. “That’s ‘cuz you wanna sleep with Cat Noir.”
Nino whipped around and shook his giggling girlfriend. “Hey! I told you that in confidence, man!”
“Sorry, sorry, but hey—Lila can keep a secret, right?”
Nino looked at her skeptically. Lila smiled. She did just out herself as a big mouth—she filed away the following information: Nino: observant, likes Cat Noir, might be the type to hold a grudge? She threw him her prettiest smile. “I don’t blame you, Nino. Cat Noir is objectively handsome.”
Nino’s shoulders sagged in relief, all the while unaware that she hadn’t exactly answered the question.
“Alright, enough about Nino’s bi-crisis—”
Nino squeaked, “Hey!”
“—Lila: how about an interview for the Ladyblog?”
Lila retreated. Score! She made her voice plaintive, “Are you sure? I mean, I’m not Ladybug herself.”
“No, but you’re the next best thing!”
“Might not be safe for her, Als,” Nino again threatened Lila’s streak. “I mean, I dunno if HawkMoth watches your feed—”
Waspishly, “Why wouldn’t he?!”
“—but on the off chance he does do you really want it getting back to him that LB’s best buddy is just walking around like free pickings?”
Lila nearly narrowed her eyes. How to salvage this? She laughed. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. Look!”
Alya and Nino obediently leaned forward as she produced something from her hand. Her fingers unfurled and revealed an innocuous blue marble, unimpressive in hue, gleam and texture.
Alya said, “Um.”
Nino said, “Sure.”
Lila giggled louder than she would otherwise. “It’s a lucky charm, sillies.”
They chorused, one skeptical, one bemused, “Lucky charm?”
“Created by Ladybug herself,” Lila grinned. “She gave it to me before I came to Paris so that I would be protected from akumatization. I know it looks boring but that’s part of the spell.”
Nino and Alya’s eyes had a bit of shine to them. Careful to leave them wanting, Lila hastily stored the marble away. That ten year old she’d charmed this morning was good for something after all. She continued, “HawkMoth won’t be able to touch me.”
Nino put his hands on his hips and he leaned upright. “Huh. You’d think that Ladybug would be giving that stuff out like fan service at a Stray Kidz concert.”
Alya joked, “You’re not beating the bi-allegations, babe.”
“K-pop is a genre that is loved across all genders, ages, and cultures—!”
“Ladybug can’t do this spell on command,” Lila provided. “Oh! But please don’t put any of this on your blog; it’s a skill she’s cultivating and it wouldn’t do for HawkMoth to come up with a way to counter it.”
“Of course not,” Alya grinned. “Consider it forgotten.”
“By which she means I’m going to be thinking about this for the next twelve hours and annoying my boyfriend with new theories every two.”
Alya ignored him. “So I guess this means that we can do that interview, huh? This is great! Sit over here where the light comes in. Babe, get my tripod from my locker? Since this is going to be a quickie Lila—”
Somewhere out of sight Nino chortled.
“Shut up. –since this is going to be like three, five minutes tops, I’m going to ask you to answer all my questions with full sentences but not like you’re answering a question, and give as much information and you’re comfortable sharing. Anything that you don’t want to include we can edit out. Any questions?”
Lila was seated, her hair flipped, her skin artfully positioned in a stream of pink morning sun. “I’m ready for my close up.”
Alya and Nino laughed. The end result of the interview was as follows:
“My name is Lila Rossi. I met Ladybug like anyone does—she was in the middle of saving my life. I happened to have a part to play in helping her thwart an akuma—ah, but this was at midnight and there was next to no collateral damage so it didn’t show up on the news—and something about that night…well, suffice it to say, we clicked.
“I moved back from the Kingdom of Achu recently and so we’ve reconnected, and it has been so good seeing her. I don’t know how she does it on top of all the homework she has to do: between you and me she’s not the best student! But there’s a reason for that: she’s saving PARIS! How many of us have THAT on our resume?
“All we can do is our due diligence to support her by evacuating areas during attacks calmly and swiftly and keeping our hearts open to resolution instead of anger so that we can force HawkMoth against the ropes. Ladybug gains her strength through her friends and through the citizens of Paris. Let’s be her strength.
“Ciao!”
“Wow, Lila! You’re a natural in front of the camera!”
If only Lila could blush on command, her performance would be all the prettier.
Nino looked over Alya’s shoulder. “Think you wanna cut out the part about Ladybug being a bad student?”
Lila’s blanched horror was rehearsed. “Oh no! I’ve ruined her image with that, haven’t I?”
“I mean, it’s kinda cute, isn’t it?” Alya disagreed. “It humanizes her.”
“Hm.” He dropped his chin on her shoulder and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“This is great! Thanks, Lila—I bet this’ll be my second most popular video on my blog.”
“Second?” Lila giggled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “What’s your most popular?”
“An interview with Ladybug herself!”
Lila remained beautiful despite her bones’ and blood’s sudden transformation to ice. “Alya!” She transformed her fretting emotion into a gleeful tone. “You said you didn’t know Ladybug!”
“I don’t, I don’t—I met her in person all of twice, maybe? But y’know—I’ve got connections.”
Nino grinned. “You mean Marinette’s got connections.”
“Gosh, yes, Marinette knows everybody, it’s ridiculous.”
“Utterly.”
“Shut up.”
Lila gripped her fingers to keep them from twitching. “Marinette? Who’s Marinette?”
Alya opened the photo album on her phone. “She’s my best friend. You’ll probably meet her later—”
“Assuming she isn’t late—”
“Babe, don’t be mean.” She kissed his cheek. “Of course she’ll be late.”
They giggled as Lila scrutinized the selfie of Alya and the girl who must have been Marinette. She was no knock out but she had hair so black it was nigh iridescent: Lila envied her. She seemed optimistic, upbeat, and sweet. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She had to keep from saying something unpleasant.
Marinette: Alya’s best friend, is well-connected, apparently has personal ties to Ladybug???
Lila needed more information. “She’s so pretty! How did you two meet?”
Alya’s lips parted to reply, it seemed like a good story, but then her and Nino’s phones synchronized with a jarring jingle that leeched their expressions of joy—well, Nino’s expression anyway. Alya lit up like it was Christmas.
Lila pressed her hands against her ears. “What is that?”
“An akuma,” Nino replied ruefully.
“An akuma!” Alya shrieked happily.
Lila swallowed her fright. She was Ladybug’s best friend! She had her lucky charm in her bag! She smiled indifferently. “Oh, is that all? We’ll be alright then.”
Nino’s eyes widened and he whistled low. “Cool as hell, girl. I guess that’s what being Ladybug’s best bud does to you.”
Alya clicked her tongue. “It’s on the other side of the city! I probably won’t be able to bike there in time to see it!”
“Nevermind you won’t be able to bike back in time for school.”
“Shush, Nino.”
Nino giggled.
Lila disguised her nerves as smoothing her hair. “From what I understand, the best thing we can do is, as the Brits say, keep calm and carry on, hm? I could use help finding our classroom.”
“Yes, of course!” Alya threaded their arms together. “You’re going to love it. Everyone’s really sweet, well, barring Chloe and her cronies, but Marinette’s been calling her out religiously and she’s really mellowed out…”
Lila smoothed out the eyebrow that wanted to twitch. Marinette again? She laughed when her gentle smile failed her. Who is she? What do the others think of her?
How can I use her to my advantage?
-
The best way to make a trap was to know one’s prey. Lila knew this well. The first hours of her first day was spent listening, delivering leading statements, and cataloguing interactions.
Max was a lover of numerals and optimistic science. He was awkward, but he peppered conversation with fun facts, and his classmates learned how to riff off of his interjections.
Ivan was the gentle giant. He was as powerful as he looked and could be twice as scary, but he took greater joy in inner strength.
Mylène was skittish. She spoke often of green initiatives to the point it became trite.
Lila filed away these bits and pieces in folders in her mind. No doubt Rose’s favourite perfume or Juleka’s favourite nail polish will serve her in the future. She had to be precise. She had to be careful. She could not make the same mistake as she had this morning.
Her fib to Alya had yet to be aired, but it was a matter of time. If she had a connection to someone who had a connection to someone else who could topple her house of cards—all with a dismissive, confused little “who?” at that—she needed to tread carefully.
She needed a plan of encounter for this Marinette.
For now, stories starring celebrities and superheroes were shelved. She spoke of her healing wrist, her tinnitus, and her adventures in Achu if only to keep the interest of Rose, who had no filter, and Alya, who was constantly lapping up a scoop, and Kim, who was mindlessly parroted anything of vague interest. She was gathering a winning hand.
Juleka and Nathaniel were the class wallflowers, Alix the class counter-culture misfit, Chloe the queen and Sabrina her dog. Lila smiled her first true smile. If Marinette proved to be as archetypical as her classmates, then Lila’s kingdom would be secure before the end of the day.
And then he walked in.
With Nino at his elbow strode in a young god of sunlight and air, sweet and noble, his beauty unrivaled. His every stride was weightless. His laugh—in retaliation to whatever nonsense Nino was gesticulating—was like a gust of clean summer wind.
Lila felt her voice catch in her throat. Alix followed her line of sight and smirked, “It’s cool. Everyone reacts like that first time they see Adrien.”
Lila blushed in humiliation and did not read the giggles and sighs around her as good-natured or long-suffering as they were. She fixed her hair and stammered, “A-Adrien?”
Mylène volunteered, “Adrien joined us at the beginning of the year, just as Alya did.”
Kim volunteered, “He’s pretty cool; we did this awesome capoeira collab for my channel. Wanna see?”
Alya rolled her eyes. “No-one wants to see your sweaty videos, Kim.”
“Says you. My followers were eating that up!”
“Yeah,” she was droll, “because of Adrien.”
To a scatter of laughter and Kim unforgiving pout, Juleka mentioned, “He’sprettygoodatUMS.”
Rose chirped, “He’s beaten Max even, and he plays at the tournament level!”
Max adjusted his spectacles. “We’re currently at a draw but he is formidable, yes.”
Alix snorted, “As formidable as Marinette?”
Lila balked. Marinette again?
Max tilted his chin up. “Marinette is a thorough gamer. I can think of no-one better to troubleshoot the videogame I’m developing.”
Lila seethed as she filed that nugget of information away.
Marinette: Alya’s best friend, well-connected, friends with Ladybug(?), troubleshoots Max’s indie videogame, started the initiative for each student to learn how to sew cushions for their benches at Rose’s suggestion, is the class president, won a Gabriel Agreste derby hat competition…Lila was beginning to suspect that this girl wasn’t real.
Nino’s voice roused her just then: “Here she is! Say hey, mec.”
“Hey, mec.”
Nino pulled Adrien’s cheek. “That’s never been funny.”
Lila’s heart leapt into her throat. She’d been so busy ruminating tactics that she hadn’t noticed her first love stroll up to her. She was on a self-made throne and surrounded by adoration. He made her feel small. He was stunning! The glow of his skin, airiness of his hair, and cultivation of his facial expressions implied that his image was heavily curated. He made it look easy to be beautiful. At the same time she sensed conflict.
Too subtle to name, but here and there, in the hold of his hips, the angle of his shoulders, the lean into Nino’s side, she read him as someone deeply ignorant of his own sense of self.
Adrien: ???
Alix coughed and Kim laughed.
“A-Adrien,” Lila jumped from her seat. She caught herself and offered her hand—the unwounded one. “Hi. Your friends have had nothing but good things to say about you.”
He accepted her handshake easily, still not moving one wit away of Nino half draped over his side. “Really? That’s too bad given that I’ve been going out of my way to be the class clown.”
Ivan snorted.
Mylène intoned airly, “Dad jokes and cat puns does not a class clown make.”
“Y’know it’s my love for wordplay that makes me get top grades in literature, right?”
Nino was disgusted. “Mec, you get top grades in everything.”
Lila thought she saw stiffness in Adrien’s responding laughter. Did he…not like being reminded of his academic excellence? She needed more information. “Adrien, I was wondering, I can’t tell up from down on the best of days—would you be willing to give me a tour guide of the school?”
Alix and Kim did not help: somewhere behind her one wolf-whistled and the other went “ooooh!” It was pin drop silence otherwise. Lila could hear Adrien’s jacket as he breathed to respond.
“I don’t see why not. I’m guessing Marinette’s too busy to? I don’t mind helping her out.”
Marinette again! Lila tucked a stray hair behind her ears. “Actually I haven’t met Marinette yet.”
“Really?”
Lila blinked. That exploded out of him like he couldn’t believe it.
Nino jostled him. “What, are you new? When has Marinette ever been on time for anything?”
Adrien laughed with everyone else. “You’ll like her when you meet her, Lila. She’s really smart, super kind, and very funny.”
Alya teased, “Coming from you, being funny isn’t exactly a compliment.”
“Ha ha,” Adrien groaned as the crowd laughed at his expense. Lila saw his shoulders slacken beneath Nino’s arm. What was the story here? Why was Adrien defensive about his successes? Why did his face clear of tension when being teased?
And who the hell was Marinette?!
-
Marinette appeared in the middle of chemistry class. Adrien told a joke about Chloe’s hot air being one of the noble gases, and the class cracked up in such uproar—Chloe had got up with a stool in her hand and shrieked, “Don’t think I won’t bruise that pucker, Centerfold!”—that Marinette was able to sneak into her seat without Miss Mendeleiev noticing.
Lila watched from her throne at the back of the class as Alya nudged her shoulder. Marinette was tense and pink and…squirmy. Did she have hypermobility? Even when she was focused she was a simmering point of energy in Lila’s peripheral vision.
Lila looked away, irritated.
Marinette: Alya’s best friend, well-connected, knows Ladybug, troubleshoots Max’s indie videogame, taught the class to sew cushions, class president, won a Gabriel Agreste derby hat competition, restless.
Adrien: ??? weird sense of humour.
-
Marinette was missing at lunch time.
“Between us, I think Marinette has bad anxiety attacks too,” Mylène volunteered as she held Lila’s food tray through the cafeteria. Ivan, half a step behind her, had hers. “If I didn’t have my teddy bear, I don’t know how I would have gotten through this morning.”
“Don’t give me all the credit, Mylène, you’ve come a long way in facing your fears.”
Lila smiled at the sweet couple. Internally she gagged. There were a disproportionate number of happy couples in her class. She needed information. “I would have thought that since Marinette is friends with Ladybug that she wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“What?”
Ivan frowned, “Did Marinette say that she was friends with Ladybug?”
“Isn’t she?” Lila touched her fingertips to her lips, took a step back enough that her hair swayed, summoned enough tears that the light caught on her doe eyes. “When Alya told me that Marinette was the one who secured for her an exclusive interview, I had just assumed. I mean: how else could that have happened?”
“Oh!” Mylène laughed. “I forgot that you’re new. It’s so comfortable talking to you that I forget.”
Lila’s eyes flickered between them. She felt her face stiffen. “I get the sense that I’m missing something?”
“Marinette’s parents run the best bakery in town!”
“So good,” Ivan chimed in, “that even Ladybug and Cat Noir are regulars.”
“There are so many selfies of the heroes with Parisians just in their bakery, that apparently Misses Cheng has stopped charging the heroes because they’re bringing in such good business.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Marinette asked Ladybug for a favour under those conditions,” Ivan nodded. “Lila, would you like to join us there after school? Maybe we’d even get to see Ladybug!”
“Or Cat Noir,” Mylène added with a knowing lilt. Ivan looked away, noticeably pink.
Lila gently deflected as she considered: So Marinette isn’t BESTIES with Ladybug, but she does see her often enough for conversation. In Lila’s book, in the long run, this amounted to the same thing.
She needed to set her fangs in Marinette to protect her story. Posthaste!
“Hey, Lila.”
“Adrien!” This was after she’d finished lunch and was weathering how much tooth rotting sweetness from the couple she could stomach. “Did you come to look for me?”
“Yeah,” he tucked his hands into his pockets. Casual! Confident! Practiced. “You wanted a tour, right? We’ve got half an hour, and you’ve already seen the cafeteria and the labs, I’ll show you the library and the fire exits.”
She echoed, “Fire exits?”
“You’ll be using them a lot when akumas attack,” Adrien sighed. He perked up artificially. “Shall we?”
He stiffened when she experimentally threaded her arms through his but he did not push her away or tell her to stop. She smiled at him and watched him smile back. She felt his discomfort rolling off of him in waves. And then…it wasn’t. Ironically, that more than his initial discomfort made her want to release him. She pressed on. “Have you met Ladybug too, Adrien?”
He startled. Why was he that guarded? “Too?”
“I’ve heard that Marinette is real close to Ladybug. To the point that she gives her free croissants from her bakery and set her up with an interview with Alya! I was wondering if all our classmates were that impressive.”
His brow lowered faintly. “Uh, well, yeah, I guess they are. They’re really kind.”
Lila soured. Was he socially impotent? He gave her nothing!
The tour was strictly that: a tour. He showed her the library, the art room, and the activities that are done when and where. Wherever they went they caught stares, but Adrien didn’t notice. Lila wondered if he was simply that used to being that beautiful. If she had a face like that she’d probably never have to pay for anything for the rest of her life.
If she had a face like that at her side…
“Thank you for taking the time, Adrien,” Lila said when he was done. “I enjoyed our time together.”
“Oh, yeah? Likewise, Lila.” He skipped out of her hold. “Anyway to get to class—”
“Wah!”
Something little and pink collided with Adrien. Books and models spilled across the floor. As Adrien gathered his bearings, the bell rang.
“Oh no! No no no no! Nothing’s broken is it? Please tell me nothing’s broken?”
“Just my pride, Marinette. I’m fine.”
And the little pink thing went even pinker.
Here was Marinette, the class president, the one whose parents owned a bakery frequented by superheroes, who taught the class to sew cushions for the hard benches just because Rose asked, who combed through Max’s indie game for bugs, who represented the school in an Ultimate Mecha Strike III competition, whose derby hat caught famous designer Gabriel Agreste’s eye, who was Alya’s best friend, who was Ladybug’s best friend, and who apparently loved the same boy that Lila did.
She was shorter than Lila was expecting.
“A-A-A-A-ADRIEN!”
Patiently, indulgently, “Hi, Marinette.”
“I’m so sorry! Are you alright? Nothing’s broken is it? Please tell me nothing’s broken?”
Like that, Lila heard Adrien giggle.
Giggle. Like a little schoolgirl facing her crush, Adrien giggled just because Marinette was fretting over his throwaway line of a broken pride. She was mentioning glue and putty and beeswax, and Lila realized that there was at least one person whose sense of humor was more abysmal than that of the most beautiful boy on Earth.
She went to her knees. The metaphorical spotlight switched on. “Gosh, Marinette, that was quite the fall!” She handed her a chipped model with a gentle, maternal smile. “Are you alright?”
Marinette accepted the model as her eyes turned to her. Who are you? Was written clear over her features. Lila nearly shrieked with glee! She hit the jackpot!
If Adrien was a wall of conflicting micro gestures, then Marinette was a deluge of non-verbal information. Everything about her was written on the wall—her panic over the tossed geography textbooks and splintered models, her naked adoration of Adrien, her comfort in her own body, her bemusement of the beauty facing her.
“Who are you?”
Lila nearly cackled! Marinette, her greatest foil, was an open book!
“This is Lila.” Adrien dusted himself off and pulled Marinette to her feet. She blushed and stammered and hopped upright. “She’s our new classmate. You haven’t met her, right? I was giving her a tour of the school since you were busy.”
“What? No! I mean—excuse me, it’s so nice to meet you! My name is Marinette and I’m the class rep! If you need anything, I’m your girl! Directions, art supplies, tutorials, an in with the nurse, the principal’s secret stash of mints—just don’t tell him it was me—and I am so sorry that I wasn’t here to help you get around! Adrien, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s alright, Marinette,” Adrien rolled his eyes, “if anything, Vice President is the one who slacked off.”
“Alya…”
Between the three of them, Marinette’s cardboard boxes were repopulated. Lila watched Marinette twitch in place. She was so busy! She was anxious to get to class. People communicated a lot when they were under duress, so she held Marinette up intentionally: “Adrien was the perfect gentleman. He showed me all the fire exits.”
Marinette froze. She blinked audibly. She turned her head to Adrien. Her eyes were weirdly unmoving. She echoed, “Fire exits?”
Lila witnessed the pleasure of Adrien flushing the most delicious shade of golden pink she’d even seen. How was he humanely capable of rivaling sunsets? How was Marinette able to draw that out of him?
“It helps to know where your exits are during an akuma attack,” he rubbed his nape shyly. Shyly! Lila watched the curve of his back, the slant of his hips, the flicker of his eyes—he was unguarded! She didn’t know he was capable of it!
Marinette stammered, “Th-th-that’s unintelligent—I mean SMART! That was so smart of you, Adrien, you’re so smart—not that you didn’t already know that, of course, I mean, you are top of the class—”
“And you don’t make me forget it.”
She pointed her finger at his nose. “The day I get a perfect A+ in literature and English and history and biology—”
“So…half of all our classes then.”
“—it is over for you.”
“Can’t you be satisfied that you’re better than me in math?”
“No.”
Was this banter? This was catastrophic!
Lila clapped. “You two get along so well! Between you two, Alya and Nino, and Ivan and Mylène, our class has so many power couples!”
Adrien stiffened. Marinette blanched.
“Actually, Lila—”
“Yaaaah!” Marinette screamed. “It’s this late already?! Time to go time to go! Bye Adrien nice to meet you Lila time for claaaaaaaassss!” And she grabbed the box that Adrien had been about to offer to carry for her and took off, all but leaving a dust cloud in her wake.
Adrien’s hand lifted uselessly as if to wave her off. He dragged it down his face instead.
Lila probed, while sounding remorseful, “I…misread that, didn’t I.”
“Uh. Yeah. A little.”
“I’m sorry!” She covered her mouth in a fine pantomime of horror. “It’s just the way how you look at her—”
“I look at Marinette a certain way?”
Lila paused. She did not like the way he lunged for that train of thought. Was he unaware of how relaxed he was in her company? She saw how his eyes barely lifted from her person. When Marinette was in front of Adrien, she was his focus. She saw how his feet and hips and shoulders turned to her in full. When Marinette was around, he was attentive.
Adrien reacted like that to no-one else, that she could tell. While his love for Nino was plain, that was the kind of thoughtless, perennial love that existed between men who didn’t question or name the connection between them. Adrien’s interest in Marinette, conversely, seized him. She said instead:
“Although…it appears that she feels differently. The way she fled the scene…you don’t think I made her uncomfortable, do you?”
“Oh…oh. No, Lila. I doubt that you did.” Adrien’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Lila’s innards celebrated. Success!
He smiled tiredly. “We should get to class.”
She threaded her arms through his. “Lead the way.”
-
“Excuse me, Miss Bustier? I’m not able to hear you very well from the back of the class. May I sit in the front row with Marinette?”
Miss Bustier blinked. “Lila, what do you mean?”
Alya volunteered, “Lila has tinnitus, miss.”
Kim whispered, “When a nail stabs your foot?”
Max whispered, “That’s tetanus.”
Lila stood. “I could stay here, but I’m missing every other word and my sprained wrist makes it hard to make notes in a timely manner.”
Kim whispered, “That’s one of the simple machines from physics class?”
Max whispered, “That’s spring.”
Miss Bustier considered. “We can’t have that…but I can’t have Marinette take notes for you, Lila.”
Lila grinned, “It’s okay, Miss Bustier, she promised me earlier that she was willing to help me work around all my disabilities!”
Marinette blinked out of her dose. Had she…had she said that? She probably did? It was all a blur of green eyes and gold hair. Adrien, meanwhile, half listening, frowned.
Miss Bustier smiled, “What I mean is…Marinette has a…unique method of taking notes. You won’t be able to make sense of it.”
Nino chimed, “No one’s that fluent in chicken scrawl.”
To the music of the class’s laughter Marinette tossed her stylus at Nino’s head. Adrien laughed at Nino’s offended squawk.
“Alright, class, settle down.” Miss Bustier smiled. “Chloe, would you and Sabrina mind terribly moving to the back of the class?”
Chloe shrieked. “Excuse me? Absolutely not! The back of the class is for losers!”
“On the contrary,” Miss Bustier offered, “the row of the back of the class is the highest seat, higher than even my own. What sort of class queen would you be if you didn’t have the appropriate throne?”
The class watched on in bated breath. They jumped when Chloe pulled herself to her feet.
“Come, Sabrina. We’re moving to greener pastures!”
The class let out a collective sigh.
“As for your note taking, Lila, I’m giving you special permission to record this lesson. But only for today, do you understand? If your injury persists for more than three days, I will need to see a doctor’s note explaining why you cannot write.”
“Of course, Miss Bustier. Thank you.” She winced as she picked up her bag.
Like clockwork Marinette came forward. “I’ll help you with that, Lila.”
“Thank you, Marinette. I’ve wondered ever since I came here why this class is so welcoming and it’s all because of you and Miss Bustier, isn’t it? You’re both so big hearted. I’m sorry that we won’t be deskmates, but I hope to live up to your example.”
Marinette, the fool, was touched. She shot a wet look at Alya, who shook her head with a defeated smile. With her permission Marinette spoke to Miss Bustier, “Can I sit next to her for the first two weeks at least? Just until she gets her bearings?”
Miss Bustier smiled. “You’re a principled class president, Marinette. I’ll allow it.”
Marinette and Lila beamed at each other as they sat in the front of the class.
Adrien side-eyed them.
-
Marinette Marinette Marinette! How could she do so much when she wasn’t even here!?
“I was integral in the cover art for Jagged Stone’s single Rock Cold,” she informed Marc as they waited for Nathaniel in the art room. “The concept was my idea but I asked not to be acknowledged. Jagged Stone was so generous, he didn’t want any aspersions cast on the up-and-coming graphic designer he commissioned.”
“Yeah, Marinette said he was the type,” Marc smiled, happy with small talk, ignorant of the way Lila’s world ground to a halt.
“I’m sorry, Marinette?”
“You haven’t met her yet?” Marc grinned. “She’s super nice. She’s the one who paired Nath and I together for the comic that we’re doing. Nath always bounces ideas off of her because she’s really good at graphic design where Nath’s better at sequential design, so she always knows what element to cut out of an image to improve its legibility.”
Lila had no idea what he was talking about.
“She’s gotten so busy recently working after doing that commission for Jagged Stone. Hey: is it the same one you’re talking about?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, yes, but I was in correspondence with Jagged and the designer anonymously, Marinette wouldn’t know it was me. Keep it between us, huh?”
“If you like, but I’m sure she’d be thrilled to know.” Marc smiled. “Marinette’s always open to do collaborative work. Since you’re artistically inclined, what about a collab with me and Nath?”
“You’re too kind, but I have an inflammation in my wrist that gets in the way of drawing for long periods of time so I can’t.”
“Sure,” Marc chirped easily. His eyes did not glitter for her.
-
Marinette Marinette Marinette Marinette Marinette Marinette—
Adrien said, “I guess you could say that in those days prosthetics cost an arm and a leg!”
The entire class seethed. A torrent of rolled up paper balls rained upon the poor, guileless, giggling Adrien, all the while Miss Bustier tirelessly called for order. In the chaos, Marinette slithered through the door, sashayed to the back of the class, ignored the quizzical quirk of Markov who thought her an odd shadow, and slipped into her seat at the front, the world none the wiser.
“Nicely done,” Lila lied.
Marinette met her with a tight smile. “Maman jokes I have the bladder capacity of a grape. Um—keep that to yourself, please?”
“Of course, Marinette, you can trust m—”
Lila reached for her pencil case but pushed it instead. The clamour had died down and so the crash of pencils landed like a gunshot. All eyes turned towards the front…and where Marinette hadn’t been a minute ago.
Miss Bustier frowned, “Marinette! This is the third time today you are late for class! This is unacceptable!”
Marinette rambled and muttered and stuttered and gestured.
Lila placed a hand on Marinette’s shoulder, “Please don’t hold it against Marinette, Miss Bustier, I was told she has terrible panic attacks, and I personally know what havoc it can wreak on one’s continence. With all the akuma attacks across the city, I think she could be pardoned, at least for today.”
The class was silent.
Kim whispered, “Continence is when you’re good at something, right?”
Max whispered, “That’s competence.”
Miss Bustier sighed. “Do you need to go to the nurse’s office, Marinette?”
The guffaw at the back of the class was all Chloe.
Marinette looked into her lap—it was true that she ran home to change her pants, but that wasn’t why—and, beet red, she murmured, “No, Miss Bustier.”
“Very well. Back to the project…”
Lila leaned over and whispered, “I’m sorry, but I thought if I said we both have bladder problems then we’d be excused. It worked, huh?”
Marinette offered her a tight smile. “Like magic.”
Lila righted in her seat, inexorably proud of her work in Marinette’s flagging posture. When her eyes skittered up, it caught on spring green, verdant foliage…neon acid.
Adrien cast his look forward before Lila catalogue it.
-
MarinetteMarinetteMarinetteMarinetteMarinetteMa—
“MDC’s urban apparel is launching a Ladybug and Cat Noir inspired line!” Aurore belted.
Rose cheered, “I’ve always loved their jackets—so fashionable, and so comfortable!”
Alya scrolled her phone. “The new website is looking clean.”
“Abitminimalistinmyopinion,” mumbled Juleka.
“It’s true, it could use some colour,” Lila concurred. “Is MDC popular here too?”
“Too?” Alix bogged. “You heard of her in Achu?”
“Of course!” She flipped her hair. “Who do you think gave her her big break?”
Alya laughed, “Geez, Lila, who are you? Ladybug’s friend, Jagged Stone’s co-stylist, MDC’s big break—when do you sleep?”
Lila smiled mutely. She had told only one person of her connection to Jagged Stone. So Marc and Alya spoke, did they? Or did it pass through the grapevine via Nathaniel? She made note.
Marc: talkative, connection to Alya?
Nathaniel: not talkative, connection to Alya?
She wondered how they would come into play in her future machinations.
Aurore sighed, “It’s just a shame that it takes so long to get a piece.”
Kim groaned, “Right? I put in a request for those sick Cat Noir cargo pants and I got an e-mail back saying it’ll take ten weeks. Ten weeks!”
Alya kicked his shoe, spurring him to push her away before she damaged the goods. “Be grateful you’re getting quality, Kim.”
Lila struck: “Would you like me to put in a good word for you?”
Eyes fell on her, as invigorating and stimulating as a strong cup of coffee.
Kim brightened. “Yeah? Think you can bump me ahead of the line?”
Lila put a finger on her bottom lip and deferred her eyes. Coquettish, darling, and said, “I can’t make any promises, but I know I have their ear.”
Juleka mumbled something.
Lila noticed the energy shift to something light. She smiled, “I didn’t catch that?”
“Oh,” Alya repeated, “Juleka was just joking that there’s no way Marinette’s going to bump Kim of all people to the head of the queue.”
Kim jumped to his feet in mock outrage and overshadowed Lila’s mile yard stare. Marinette? Marinette? Why were they bringing up Marinette again?
Rose was poked Kim’s chest now. “Marinette makes each piece painstakingly by hand! Of course it’s going to take a long time!”
Aurore continued, “But they’re so well made as a result. You can’t even see the stitches! You’d never guess she put it together in her bedroom.”
Lila made a horrified little gasp. What was Marinette’s last name?!
Alya noticed her again, “It’s so cool though that you were one of Marinette’s supporters on her patreon! Hey, we should tell her, maybe she’d give you an autograph!”
Lila burned with rage! She deflected it into demure embarrassment instead. She batted her lashes! She brought her hands to her mouth and cheeks! She leaned back! “Oh no, I could never. It’s unseemly!”
“Unseemly! No way!” Alya jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. “Agreste over there, baldfaced as the sun, went up to Marinette for autographs twice. I say shoot your shot, girl!”
Lila’s eye twitched.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Alya’s best friend, Ladybug’s best friend, class president, winner of Agreste fashion competition, winner of Ultimate Mecha Strike III interschool competition, MDC—indie fashion apparel designer!, restless, whose parents own a bakery frequented by superheroes, who taught the class to sew, who de-bugs Max’s games, who could make Adrien LAUGH…
Adrien AGRESTE?!: weird sense of humour.
-
“I’m telling you, LB, there’s something off about this new girl in my class.”
“Coming from you, chaton, she must have eye stalks and webbed feet.”
“Hey, I’m being serious here.”
“The guy who leans so hard into the gimick that half his fanbase is convinced he’s a literal cat wearing a Miraculous on his tail is being serious?”
“Just because my fanbase is weird doesn’t mean I am!”
Dramatically, “Show me your fans and I’ll show you who you are.”
“That is not how the expression goes!”
Ladybug and Cat Noir stalled their banter to pose for selfies then reunite a lost child with her father. As they continued their ‘patrol’, a lazy walk by the Seine with their ears half pricked for sirens, Cat Noir draped an arm over her shoulder and she didn’t push him away. It was companionable.
“So, what does this mystery girl of yours do?”
“Hm?” He’d forgotten the train of conversation as he basked in the evening. “Oh! Mm. Alright, here’s one thing: she keeps telling everyone that she’s your best friend.”
Ladybug looked at him.
He lifted his eyebrows as if to say, Weird, right?
“Chaton, half the city claims to be my friend.”
He shot his arms into the air. “No!”
“Half the girls in Paris claim to be your girlfriend.”
He shot his arms ahead of him. “No!”
“Half of Paris claims I’m your girlfriend.”
“Y’know they might be onto something.”
She laughed and pushed him by his nose. He nearly fell into the river. She gasped and grabbed him by his belt. Success! She was half nervous about his arm draped over her shoulder for the rest of their walk. Was he going to push her next?
“And there’s this other thing, like…she’s always surrounded by people.”
“She’s new isn’t she? She’s a novelty.”
“But like, she likes the attention.”
Ladybug turned her head and tickled his chin and all but whispered in his ear, “Like you like my attention?”
He felt his eyes dilate. The second helpless reaction was the feverish spike of cold energy from his nape to his pelvic floor. It sizzled. The shiver reverberated down his belt-tail, transforming into a real-time wave of action, and its very tip was so energized it cracked through the air. Snap! Ladybug turned.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” He bodily turned her around and resumed their walk. “It was nothing. And it’s not like that. Y’know, it reminds me how an akumatized villain stands when they’re surrounded by their cronies. Like, she can do no wrong, she’s queen of the castle.”
“So your new classmate has an ego trip.” She rolled her eyes, her hair brushed his cheek. “No-one is perfect.”
Cat Noir turned his head and ran the tip of his nose against the shell of her ear and whispered, “Present company excepted?”
Ladybug, surprised, pink, really shoved him into the river that time.
-
Lila needed more information.
The stories that would have given her a foothold in the popular crowd in any other school was given no more than amused dismissal among the children of superstars and mayors, the winners of accolades and titles, friends of princes, actual princes, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng: Alya’s best friend, Ladybug’s best friend, class president, winner of Agreste fashion competition, winner of Ultimate Mecha Strike III interschool competition, MDC, whose parents own a bakery frequented by superheroes, who taught the class to sew, who de-bugs Max’s games, who could make Adrien laugh, who was infamously unpunctual, restless, top of the class—if not for Adrien, helped Mylène and Ivan organize their anti-pollution marathon, was signed on with Bob Roth Records as designer to indie band Kitty Section…
Lila slammed her locker shut. There was no way one person could do all of this.
Marinette had to be lying. And as a master of the craft, Lila was not above demasking another in the industry. Before that, Lila needed more information. How was Marinette capable of convincing everyone she was approachable, dependable, industrious and sweet without so much as a whiff of bullshit she was no doubt shoveling?
She caught her thunderous expression in her compact and smoothed it out by thinking of Adrien Agreste. Marinette was a bulwark, but Adrien was easy.
Naïve, sheltered, and socially infantile, Adrien had nothing to say of her kisses to his cheek and looping of arms. Her initial conclusion was that he was an enigma. Today, she was certain he was simply empty headed. And what did empty headed boys think about?
Lila brushed a stray thread from her denim mini skirt.
“Loving the fit, girl,” Nino praised from Alya’s shoulder at the school gates. Was he ever not draped over someone?
His girlfriend side-eyed him with a flirtatious smile. “Her eyes are up there, Nino.”
“I wasn’t—I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
Lila laughed to dispel any misunderstandings immediately. She could not be painted as a homewrecker—been there—and worse, she could not be associated with Lahiffe. He was too physical, too boorish, too watchful. She needed someone with tact and a pedigree. She needed the boy on the megawatt billboards.
She flashed her pretty nails, “I’ll consider it a compliment on my look, and thank you! I wanted to change up my style a bit.”
“Not rocking any MDC designs today?”
Lila hadn’t needed to imply that she had a closet full of Marinette’s wares. The blessing/curse of handling Alya was that she filled in the blanks herself. Lila replied, “I didn’t want to be ostentatious. I’m looking forward to wearing pieces from her new line with all of our friends—once she chews through the backlog, of course.”
Nino pulled away from Alya. There was only one reason to do so and there he was: the sun on the hills, the gold in the stream, the glow of the hearth. Adrien! Dapper and beautiful…this despite the atrocities on his feet. Alya saw them too.
“What. Is that.”
“Don’t like my high tops?” Adrien leaned on Nino and was silly: he stuck a foot out. “Bashing my kicks?”
“You look like Nino.”
Adrien and Nino, as though they rehearsed it, clutched onto each other and stuck out their feet and yelled, “Twinsies!”
“Dorks.”
Lila swallowed the same reaction. Adrien was so…elegant when he wasn’t among his classmates. Were they corrupting him? Did he think this behavior was endearing? She needed more information.
“Good morning, Adrien.” She kissed his cheek. “How did you sleep?”
“Oh, just fine, Lila.” He put space between them. He slipped his hands into his pockets and tilted his head forward with a little smile. Poised, cool, effortless. There was her dapper boy. “Thanks.”
Was he not looking at her because she was too generous with her neckline? Was he immodest or a prude? She knew he wasn’t dead: sometime last week, Mylène wore a V-neck beneath her linen onesie. She looked cute, objectively, but she was also objectively blessed in the chest, and so when she laughed or leaned, boys’ eyes wandered, if only for a moment.
Adrien’s eyes had wandered too. Ivan had caught him. Adrien had slapped his hand over his face. “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Ivan replied lightly, as grave as he was proud. His girl was beautiful and he knew it—and the other boys knew to keep their distance. Nothing more needed to be stated.
Lila, of course, had filed that nugget of information away.
Today she utilized it in the form of platform sneakers, a mini-denim skirt in off white, a puffy jacket tied around her hips for volume, and a close fitting dark red top with a boat neck. With a bit more lip gloss and sheen the fit would give Y2K. Adrien, however, had looked at her all of twice. His eyes had yet erred past her chin. She could yet tell if that was a positive reception or a negative one.
Alya turned, “What? Are pigs in flight?”
Nino elbowed her. “Hey, that’s not nice, that’s just Marinette, running like her heels are on fire.”
“Shut up, you know what I mean—it’s snowing in August! The pigs are in flight! Marinette Dupain-Cheng isn’t late for school!”
“Oh stop,” gasped Marinette as she collapsed against Alya. Lila looked on with a wince. Why were they all so…physical? “Maman all but threw me out this morning. My new alarm clock was disturbing the early customers.”
Alya joked, “Was that the ringing I’ve been getting in my ear?”
“Ha ha,” she replied. Adrien and Nino laughed. Marinette greeted them, blushed predictably, and beamed at Lila. “Hey! Lila, I see the cast is off!”
Lila waved her free hand. “Now I can make my own notes!”
Lila had angled again for Marinette to do her note taking so that they could spend more time together—so that Lila could decode her—but Marinette’s notes were a cipher.
Marinette’s notes were one third French one third stickers one third sketches sketches sketches. Marinette’s saving grace, Miss Bustier said more than once, was that students were not graded on their note taking. After that, Lila abandoned the inflamed wrist route. There existed other methods of ingratiation.
One such method involved hooking her elbows with Marinette. “I love your dress, Nettie! It’s adorable. Don’t you think, boys?”
Marinette’s dress was a passion project. It was a bright pink spaghetti strap with a high waist and knee length bell skirt. Marinette wore black stockings and a white dress shirt for modesty. Around her throat, just beneath the collar, peeked a racy black ribbon choker with a little bell—the debut of her Cat Noir accessory line. She was cute and flirty.
Just like Lila standing beside her.
Lila prompted, “Boys?”
Adrien looked out the door. Nino looked at Alya. Alya looked on knowingly.
Marinette smiled, “Thank you, Lila, your skirt and top today really bring out the warmth in your complexion.”
“Oh my gosh, stop. This from MDC herself? I think I’m blushing!”
Adrien tucked his hands into his pockets. When he faced them he was dapper. He’d gotten a hold of the version of himself that Lila loved. “We should get to class.”
Lila strode ahead of the group and walked such that her hips bounced against Marinette’s on every step. Adrien wasn’t giving her the answers she wanted, but that was fine. She would get the reaction she needed with a bit of trial and error.
All she needed was more information.
-
Ladybug bit on her popsicle and mumbled, “Something wrong, kitty?”
“There’s a girl in my class and I saw her legs for the first time today.”
Ladybug bit on her popsicle.
“Not like that—”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It was tasteful but like, I could…I could see her knees.”
Ladybug bit her popsicle.
Cat Noir grumbled, “Am I weird?”
Ladybug bit her popsicle. “Because you have the kinks of a late Victorian era sexually repressed Catholic? Probably.”
He pitched her into the Seine.
-
When Lila mentioned that she worked with the Prince of Achu on a noise pollution awareness campaign, Marinette lit up and said, “You and Rose must have so much to talk about!” Lila did not have enough information for the lunch date to follow.
Rose was welcoming on the best of days, but today she was confused. No, she said, she was unfamiliar with such a program. No, pollution usually was not Prince Ali’s focus. No, whenever they spoke it was usually about their youth initiatives. No…Prince Ali had never mentioned Lila. Yes, she was in close contact with Prince Ali even now. Yes, she had an open invitation to visit the palace.
“You should go with her, Lila!” Marinette beamed. The rest of the conversation had been touch and go, but finally here was common ground. She all but steamrolled over Lila and Rose’s incompatibility with her cheerful determination to make Lila new friends. “Who better than you to show Rose around the Kingdom of Achu?”
Juleka muttered, “How about someone who’s actually been there?”
Lila shot to her feet. Her chair clattered and the cafeteria quieted. Eyes turned on them, dozens, all at once, and it was ambrosia. As Lila’s fists tightened Rose felt her brow pinch. Rose so sure the look in her eyes was rage—but in the next moment six fat crocodile tears rolled down her chin. Everyone at the table startled.
“I’m sorry!” Lila bawled. “I wanted to fit in because everyone in our class is so amazing, so I stretched a little white lie—the truth is I’ve only met Prince Ali once and he was so kind but I…I obviously misconstrued what we meant to each other if he doesn’t even remember me! I’m sorry!”
She took off before waiting for the applause.
“Wait! Lila!” Marinette didn’t take after her right away. Instead she spun on her heel. “Not cool, Juleka.”
Juleka withered.
Rose denied. She rose bodily between Marinette and Juleka, her small mouth downturned as it never was. Her voice was piercing: “Do not make this out to be Juleka’s fault. She did nothing wrong!”
“Lila’s crying, Rose!”
“And I’m sorry that she’s upset,” Rose allowed, “but it is in no way Juleka’s fault for pointing out that Lila does not know anything about Prince Ali or the Kingdom of Achu as much as you claimed she did!”
“No-one knows as much about Prince Ali as you do, Rose! You’re his friend! And I brought Lila over here so that the two of you could bond over a mutual topic of conversation and be friends, not humiliate her because she doesn’t know as much as you.”
“I would welcome conversation with Lila,” Rose cut, “once we have a so called mutual topic to discuss!”
“You both have disappointed me.”
Rose was not moved. “You’ve disappointed me, Marinette.”
Marinette gave Rose and Juleka one final, sour look then dashed off in the direction Lila fled. She was mostly alone when she was lost as to where to go next. She moaned, “Poor Lila. She must be sobbing her eyes out.”
Tikki’s little voice opined, “Marinette…I wonder if your friends have a point.”
“Rose and Juleka were out of line.” Her expression twisted. “They’re usually so kind.”
“Exactly,” Tikki concurred. “I think you need to replay that conversation between the four of you in your head again.”
Marinette looked at her hip in surprise. Tikki looked up at her with her big eyes, clearly imparting something. Like puzzling out a lucky charm, Marinette’s gears turned. She murmured, “Tikki…are you saying that—”
“Akuma!”
Marinette ducked her head. Above, an explosion and a gust of wind had her crouch and shield her kwami. Tikki was warm and fluttery as a heartbeat in her palm. A voice echoed:
“I AM QUEENDOM. BOW BEFORE ME, LOYAL SUBJECTS—I KNOW THEE! SO TOO SHALL I KNOW SIRS LADYBUG AND CAT NOIR, TO BE WELCOMED IN MY COURT! BRING THEM BEFORE YOUR QUEEN!”
Marinette rubbed dust from her eyes. “No rest for the wicked!”
“Just say the words, Marinette!”
“Spots on!”
It was not three swings before Ladybug had company. Cat Noir appeared beside her as though he melted out of the ether. “Forsooth: ‘tis the lady of the hour, she who is the east, and I her sun.”
Ladybug played along and tapped her yo-yo to his left shoulder, then to his right. His head tilted in curiosity until she said, “And so I dub thee my knight for perpetuity.”
Cat Noir grinned and flirted, “At your command, my liege!”
She flipped his tail as she circled him. His dilated eyes followed her and his smile fell in the same beat she sobered. She informed him, “I have reason to believe our akumatized victim is Lila Rossi.”
Cat Noir jerked a bit. “Oh.” He scratched his jaw. “Why…do you say that?”
Ladybug sighed. “One of her friends went overboard trying to force her to get along with her classmates and caught her in a fib she told in an attempt to make them like her.”
“Again?” He had heard much of the same in his chat with Marc yesterday—
Ladybug’s eyes flickered to his face. “What’s that, kitty?”
“I, uh,” he fumbled. “Is that worth being akumatized over?”
Ladybug shot him a shocked look. “Minou.”
Her disappointment flattened his ears.
“The only one to blame for someone’s akumatization is HawkMoth. People should be allowed to feel sad or disappointed or regretful when they make mistakes.” She took a moment to close her eyes, caught in the hypocrisy. Rose and Juleka’s faces would not vanish from her mind. Who was in the right between them?
“You’re right, m’lady. All the more reason to take the fight to him one day. But for now: what’s the plan? Any idea what her object might be?”
Ladybug pinched her chin. “I say we take a page out of your playbook.”
Thrilled, Cat Noir lit up. “Mine? Yes, mine! Uh, what’s my playbook exactly?”
“What else?” She danced away, “Other than being outrageously distracting?”
He flexed a bicep. “I knew you thought so!”
She giggled and dashed ahead. “C’mon! We’ll get an idea of what her powers are then I’ll think up a strategy.”
Between the two of them, playing cat and mouse was child’s play. Cat Noir would draw her fire and, if a new attack brushed his whiskers, Ladybug was there or yanking him into a new trajectory. Five minutes later, Ladybug and Cat Noir’s came to the same conclusion.
“Her belt!”
“Lucky Charm!”
Cat Noir barely pulled her out of the way. A cruise ship descended from heaven. In slow motion, with a heaving groan, it cast the world into darkness and particulates.
Steel, asphalt and concrete crumbled like a crushed paper mache project. Visibility went to zero in a shot. Ladybug couldn’t see the red of her suit between the dust and the tears. Beneath and around her however was a vitality and warmth she’d know punch drunk and raving mad: Cat Noir, cradling her between his arms and legs. It did not occur to her to move.
He grimaced, “Now that’s a Lucky Charm!”
“Or an unlucky one,” she coughed. “Think maybe Tikki’s trying to kill me?”
Cat Noir’s response was either a noncommittal laugh or a distracted purr.
“Ugh,” Ladybug finally pushed herself to her feet. The dust had yet to settle. She gasped, “Lila—I mean, the akuma! Where has it gone?”
Dim groaning answered them. Cat Noir pointed. Ladybug winced. “Well, her jacket doesn’t need any ironing.”
“Neither does the rest of her.”
For better or worse, HawkMoth made his akuma hardy. Queendom was wholly disoriented and totally pinned by the cruise ship’s anchor, but she was in one piece where mortals would be paste. Ladybug poked through the wreckage.
Delicately, wary of doing further damage, Ladybug pried the akuma free. She tossed the belt to her partner. Cat Noir wordlessly raked his claws clean through it.
“Gotcha!” Marinette turned the reformed butterfly loose. “Now then…how am I going to cast the Miraculous Cure with this?”
Cat Noir folded his arms. “Do you have to throw all of it?”
Ladybug whirled around with bright eyes. “Chaton! I could kiss you!”
“Okay—”
“But we don’t have time for that!”
“I mean, we have a little time—”
Ladybug was already gone, scouring the ship for something light and detachable. She vanished in three bug-like leaps. He swallowed a lovelorn sigh. Instead, he kept preoccupied by kneeling beside the akumatized victim. She was covered in enough dust to be unrecognizable.
“Eugh,” she coughed. “What happened?”
“HawkMoth took advantage. You’re alright now.”
“…Cat Noir?”
“In the leather!”
“…ugh.”
“Hey! That was funny!”
And from above came the call like the song written by angels: “Miraculous Ladybug!”
The world was set to rights and Ladybug artfully tumbled through the air. As she rolled to a halt with unnecessary acrobatic artistry that made Cat Noir smile a little, she reached for the akumatized victim only to recoil.
“Chloe?”
Chloe tossed her hair. “What’s that reaction about?”
“No! No no no, I,” Ladybug, usually surefooted, was a delightful vision rubbing the back of her head and stammering for the best placations. “I had just assumed from the, uh, design of the akuma that you were someone else.”
Chloe sniffed. “Even my akumatized forms are glorious, I know, don’t lose sleep over it.”
Cat Noir snarked, “From the nightmares, you mean?”
Chloe shot Cat Noir a quelling glare. He shot her a shit-eating grin back.
Ladybug regained some of her comportment. “What’s the story, Chloe? Usually you treat HawkMoth like an inconvenience.”
Chloe smiled, ego recharged: “Good to know that Ladybug recognizes my potential. Now if only such skills could be recognized with a Miraculous in hand—”
“You know the rules,” Cat Noir said bitingly. “No Miraculous is safe if your civilian identity is known.”
“This despite your talent in fending off akuma.” Ladybug softened the blow only a little, because Chloe’s pinched face was from true rejection. “I’m sorry, Chloe. If things were different then you would be my first choice.”
Cat Noir cleared his throat.
“Second choice.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “The two of you are sickening, you know that?”
Cat Noir threw his arm around Ladybug in agreement. Her earrings beeped. But before that, “Chloe, what happened?”
Chloe groaned. “Fine! Since you keep insisting: I…may have gotten into a little fight with my Adrikins.”
“Adrien?” Ladybug echoed, ignorant that the easy way her tongue glided around her tongue shot something warm and viscous to Cat Noir’s belly. “The two of you have known each other forever, haven’t you? What could you possibly have to fight about?”
“Ugh, it’s ridiculous, but Adrikins has been nothing but ridiculous in recent weeks—that new girl keeps ignoring his discomfort, kissing him and hugging him, and then he said that she meant nothing by it and that she was just lonely and wanted company and I answered that I’m lonely but you don’ t see me hanging off of him like a koala and he answered ‘not anymore’ and I said because you told me not to and—”
Ladybug’s earrings beeped. “Perhaps skip ahead a bit?”
Chloe rambled unhurriedly. “I told him that he wouldn’t know what boundaries looked like if they spread their grubby paws on his chest and tweaked his nipples—”
Cat Noir felt Ladybug jolt in surprise.
“—and he answered that it wasn’t my place to tell him how to live his life because I wasn’t the class queen I pretended to be.” Chloe’s nose scrunched a moment later. “And I don’t care what he thinks about me.”
Cat Noir’s tail stopped swaying.
“Sometimes we can be terribly cruel to the ones we love.” Ladybug took Chloe’s hands. “And the blow from the ones we love is harder because we love them and they know us.”
Chloe tossed her head. “I don’t care. I hate him. Adrikins can get mauled by vixens and shrews and all manner of beasts all he likes. See if I care about him ever again!”
“I encourage you to talk to Adrien, Chloe. I, um, I don’t know him very well, obviously, but he never struck me as the kind to raise his voice. That he felt comfortable doing so with you shows how much he trusts you.”
Chloe yanked her hands free. “Not everything is koombayah around a campfire, you know!”
Ladybug snarled, “Damn, bitch, fine! I hope your day gets worse actually.”
Chloe’s jaw dropped so hard she could hear it click. Cat Noir’s knees gave out as he laughed.
-
Adrien happened to cross paths with Lila on his way back to class. Ladybug had been oddly worried about her, so he turned on his heel and ducked. He heard her muttering to herself. That bode well. “Lila?”
She turned and he flinched. It was a wonder she wasn’t akumatized. Lila’s eyes were bloodshot and her mascara smeared. Despite this, there wasn’t one tear to be seen. In the dark, hunched over, bright eyed, holding something in two hands, Adrien could feel his instincts flaring.
He blurted, “Holding onto something precious there?”
Lila stared at him.
“Y’know. Tolkien? Smeagle? The Hobbit?”
“…the movie?”
Adrien was disgusted. “Sure.” He put his elbows on his knees. “Are you alright, Lila? Your friends were worried that you had been akumatized.”
“I can never be akumatized.”
Try saying that again when you aren’t wearing your lip gloss for eye shadow, Adrien did not say.
“I have this.” He held up a dull marble. “My best friend gave it to me. She said it would chase away the akuma, and it did.”
Adrien watched her for two seconds. He decided, “I’m getting the nurse.” And a straightjacket.