#There's No Camembert in Tibet

[auspicious-lilana]

Two Cats, One Heart (Chat Noir x Reader)

Summary: Y/n Ross and Adrian Agreste are childhood best friends, they’ve been through thick and thin, including losing their mom, and dad. Since then Y/n's mom made her live with Adrian at his mansion and forever leaving her life. Watch as their lives Change as they become the new heroes of Paris alongside Ladybug and see how Romance sprouts between the two models. 

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7  | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

here's the long-awaited (and overdue) chapter! Enjoy! 

"Yes, I'm busy. I was right in the middle of something very important. What do you want?" Gabriel spoke on his phone as he was standing by a painting of his wife, holding the book containing records of the miraculous holders.

Adrian and Y/n who were about to head out overheard the phone call and decided to snoop on the man, watching him as he placed the book in a safe. 

" What?! This is unacceptable! The sample garment doesn't match at all! All you had to do was follow a pattern. . . Imbeciles! What am I supposed to do? The show is in three days!" He closed the painting, noticing it was one of Adrien's mom. " No, don't use him, he's completely useless. Call my assistant, She'll give you some other names." 

"He hides stuff behind the painting of mom?" Adrian whispered to Y/n. As his father left the room, their Kawamis peeked out to watch with them. 

"I love dirty secrets!" Plagg exclaimed as they walked over to the painting. 

"Right?" Alpha nodded. "adds spice to life." Adrien opened the painting to see the safe that was hidden behind it. 

"Ooh! Go on! Open it! Open it!" The two kawamis urged on. 

" I can't do it. My dad wouldn't like me going through his stuff. Besides, I don't even know the code, and my fencing class is about to start." 

"Not to mention how much trouble we'll be in if we got caught." Y/n agreed. 

"You're such a party pooper," Plagg said as the two phased through the safe door. 

"Plagg/Alpha, No!" The teens exclaimed. 

" My, my, what have we got here?" Plagg's muffled voice was heard. 

"A book on Tibet, an old flyer from a hotel, a load of junk," Alpha was heard after. 

"Come on! Where's the good stuff?" The safe door was cracked open as the two glanced at each other before opening it to see the two kawamis looking through a paper before knocking over a book, Adrien quickly catching it as they looked at the cover.

"I've seen this book somewhere before," Plagg said. "But who cares? I'm famished! I need Camembert!" 

"Why is my dad keeping this locked in a safe?" Adrien questioned, flipping through before stopping at a page with Hawkmoth on it. "Hawkmoth? What's this monster doing in a book about superheroes?" 

"We aren't sure if it's the Kawami's fault for the user's evildoings though," Y/n said. 

"Cheese!" Plagg interrupted. "Didn't you hear me?" The two gasped at the sounds of footsteps and Adrian stuffed the book in his bag as Y/n closed the picture just as Natalie and their bodyguard entered the room. 

"Adrien? Y/n? You're going to be late." Natalie scolded. 

"We were. . . looking for my homework." Adrien nervously chuckled, Y/n quickly nodding with the lie. 

"Gosh, I keep telling you to stop misplacing it so much." Y/n laughed along. 

***

"Can you believe Lila knows Prince Ali?" Rose exclaimed, Marinette passing by at Juleka and her conversation before looking at Chloé make her next tantrum as she passed her. 

"Why did Jagged Stone write a song about Lila when he could've written about me?" She grumbled, walking off with Sabrina trailing behind her with both their things in her arms. 

Nino soon passed by her talking to a few people from class, "Lila knows all of the Hollywood directors. She promised she'd mention me to Steven Basielberg himself!" 

"Lila?" Marinette asked, after catching up with Alya. 

"Yeah, she just started at our school." Alya pointed to Lila, who was on the second floor with Adrian. "She even gave me an exclusive interview for the Ladybug 'cause Ladybug saved her life once! Watch!" She showed Marinette the video of Lila in her blog. 

"She also said she's been friends with Lady Wolf too," Maya said, overhearing them and joining their side. "She offered to try and get an interview of Lady Wolf for me, how cool is she?" 

"Why is she with Adrien alone? I thought Y/n usually walks with him to class?" Marinette questioned. 

"Y/n was just with me, she had to go to talk with her biology teacher before class." 

Alya and Maya soon walked off to talk about some future collaboration as Marinette stood in suspicion, watching Adrien and Lila go in somewhere alone. 

"What's going on? I mean has this Lila girl hypnotized everyone or something? What if she's trying to steal Y/n's boyfriend now!" 

Marinette ran after the two to be led inside the library to see Adrian sitting alone at a table as she headed behind a nearby bookshelf. 

"Where is she?" She mumbled. Adrien took the book from his dad's safe out of his bag and Tikki gasps and left Marinette's purse. 

"Marinette, Adrien's book! I need to get a closer look at it." 

"Why are you so concerned about his book?" Marinette stopped talking to see Lila head to the table. "Hide, Tikki!" Tikki flew over to a bookcase right next to Adrian. 

"Now were can get going on our history homework. it's so much more fun doing it together, don't you think?" Lila noticed Adrien's book and grabs it under the book he was using to hide it. "What's that?" 

"Uh, nothing! Just stories about superheroes." Lila then put her hand on Adrien's. 

"I love superheroes!" 

Marinette gasps, "I knew it, she is trying to steal Y/n's boyfriend—   " She accidentally bumped into a book cart, pushing it by accident. Tikki watches Lila as she flips through the book turning to the page on Lady Wolf. 

"Lady Wolf!" 

"She's amazing." Adrien smiled, thinking back to their last date night.

"A girl doesn't need to wear a costume to be amazing, you know." She said, scooting her seat closer to Adrien who broke out of his daydreams from the sudden uncomfortable feelings. 

"Uh, I don't know—I mean, I— " 

"So you got a little soft spot for the wolf, huh?" 

"Me? I mean she's great, but no-no-no." 

"You know I happen to be very close friends with Lady Wolf." 

"Really?" Adrien asked, slightly confused. He'd have to ask Y/n about this later. 

"We can chat about it if you want. Not here though. Why don't we meet up at the park after school and I'll tell you everything." 

Adrian soon got an alert on his phone, "I gotta go! I've got a lesson in 58 seconds." Amid his rush, Lila caused him to drop his bag. 

"So the park?" Lila asked, pushing the book on superheroes away from Adrien's bag with her foot. 

"Uh, Sure!" He ran out before another word could be said as Lila picked up the book, opening it to a page on a fox-related heroine. 

"A vixen superheroine? Hmmm, interesting. . . " She left the library with a scheme in mind. 

"Marinette!" Tikki ran back to her. 

"I know. I gotta talk to Adrien before he meets up with Lila in the park. He has to know that she's a total thief." 

"No! You can't say anything to Adrien. I need a chance to check out the book first. If it's the one I think it is we have to get out hands on it!" 

"I don't get it? Exactly why would we need it?" 

"I'll explain to you once I know for sure. Please, we mustn't let Lila out of our sight."

***

"Lady Wolf and me?"  Lila grinned, Marinette watching the latest video on the Wolf Blog Maya hosts. "We're like this." 

"I bet she's lying about that."  Marinette huffed, "Does Lady Wolf even know about this?"  

"Lady Wolf know about what?"  Marinette let out an 'ah!' and jumped to the side frightened by the sudden arrival of her dear friend Y/n who was peeking over her shoulder.  

"Y/n! hey!"  

"Well. . .?"  

"What's Lady Wolf got to know?"  

"You haven't seen the video yet?"  

"Video? Oh, you mean Maya's blog. I saw the notification but I hadn't seen it yet."  Marinette handed over her phone to Y/n, playing back 10 seconds. ". . .wow."  

"She's been lying all over the place!"  Marinette let out her fusterations. "Do you actually  think she's like this?"  Marinette crossed her fingers. "With Lady Wolf?"  

{Y/n's POV} 

I haven't even met this girl as Y/n. How would Lady Wolf know her? This I gotta investigate. Marinette started looking back nervously as I glanced, realizing she must be following her. 

"oh wow I'm real late, I uh, gotta go."  Marinette sheepishly smiled pointing forward. "See you tomorrow!"  

"Wai- " She ran off before I could stop. I sighed as Alpha peeked out from my bag. 

"Didn't know you had a new BFF. Who's gonna tell Ladybug you're already cheating on her?" 

"Oh, hush. Nobody's cheating. What I'm more curious about, is why she wants to lie about this?"  

"Humans do things for popularity. That's something that hasn't changed about humans for centuries. Like that one time in the 9th century in Europe, there was this one criminal who had- " I stuffed a brownie in his tiny mouth before he can go on a long 2-hour rant about who knows what. 

"Let's just go find a place to transform."  I ran to the nearby park and went straight toward the portable bathrooms. 

"Oh c'mon, isn't this a tad dramatic? I mean there isn't even an Akuma. This is just an abuse of pow- " 

"Alpha tails out!" 

I peeked out the door in case anyone was there before sprinting out and climbing up a nearby building and bringing out my baton. If I could remember  Marinette was headed to the park, so that girl must be here too. The top of my baton slid open to reveal a screen as I used the telescoping feature to zoom in and look around the small park to see Adrien walking toward the girl. What's he doing there? I looked closer at the girl to see her through away- isn't that the miraculous book? They chatted for a while before she showed a necklace that looked awfully like the one that one superheroine had in the book. Does she plan to fake an identity? Or. . .is that real? 

Not much longer Ladybug swooped in, surprising me further. Whatever Ladybug went on about left Lila in tears before Ladybug left. I closed my baton and leaped after her. 

"Ladybug!" I called out, making her stop in confusion. 

"Lady Wolf? What are you doing out here?- Did you come out because of that blog video?" 

"Yeah, but you seemed to have handled it, a bit harshly too,"  

"I don't put up with lies." Ladybug frowned. 

"Yeah but, you left her crying. I don't think she deserved to be stomped on like that. You could have gone softer. After all. Aren't we supposed to preserve positivity in Paris? With Hawkmoth out there, a broken heart is dangerous." 

". . You're right."  Ladybug sighed. "I have to go now. See you next time." 

"Try to soften things up next time you have a run-in,"  I suggested as she swung off. I watched her before turning around to head home myself. Right before I could reach my room a meteor suddenly came in, closing in. "A meteor!?"  I exclaimed. Quickly made my way towards it only to see a flash of orange go by, a girl grabbing the meteor and sending it back out of the atmosphere. What strength. . . 

"I am Volpina!" The girl in a fox suit proclaimed out to the crowd. "The only superhero Paris needs!" 

"Volpina?" Ladybug questioned, landing next to me. 

"Looks like we've got a new partner."  Chat said, dropping on my other side. 

"Don't you think it's weird this superhero just appeared out of nowhere?"  

"Well, at least she got the job done." 

"I could have easily stopped that meteorite myself." Ladybug crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at Chat. 

"Volpina is giving me very. . . odd vibes. She doesn't seem like a team player either." 

"Hey, guys." Volpina suddenly intruded, standing before us. "Glad you dropped in. I need a hand. Come on."  She suddenly ran ahead, the three of us exchanging confused looks before following after her. Only to lead us to a shock. 

"I can't believe it." Chat Noir stared amazed. "It's Hawkmoth, in the flesh." 

"He never shows up. Something big is going on." Ladybug said. 

"We can take him down, but it'll take all of us."  Volpina encouraged. This whole thing seems a bit rushed to me. a meteorite suddenly almost crashes, Hawkmoth is standing right there! Something tells me this little fox has something to do with it. "We better make the most of our individual talents."  

"Count on us." Chat nodded, I love him. I do. But he's too trusting. 

"Very nice to meet you, Chat Noir." Volpina suddenly got close to him, ticking me. "Cool outfit."  

"Why thanks." Chat rubbed his head bashfully. "You too." 

"Why thanks, you too."  I quietly mocked under my breath, Ladybug gagging in response. 

"First the meteorite, now Hawkmoth appearing." Ladybug listed out. "Both on the same day? Isn't that unusual?" 

"That's what I was thinking."  I agreed. 

"Why would you say that?" Volpina chortled. 

"I was asking my partners." 

"I'm finding you unusual today, everything okay?" Chat Noir asked. 

"I don't know kitty." I stepped by Ladybug's side. "Everything seems a little suspicious." Especially how that girl should be akumatized, she was crying. Hawkmoth wouldn't give up that prime chance.

"I'm fine." Ladybug reassured, before going up on Volpina. "Say Volpina, what's your miraculous?" 

"My necklace,"  Volpina answered. 

"What power does it give you?" 

"Flight and super-strength." Volpina looked over our shoulder and gasped. "He's getting away!"  Volpina flew after Hawkmoth, us catching up to see him on top of the Mayor's mansion. "Ladybug go left. Chat Noir goes right. Lady Wolf keep an eye on Hawkmoth from here, I'll come from behind." 

"No! I'll go right." Ladybug corrected. "Chat Noir and Lady Wolf from behind, and you. . . go left." 

"Fine." Volpina smiled. "No difference to me." 

"Good." Volpina leaped off to engage from the left. 

"Can you chill out?" Chat asked. "She's one of us." He left, I offered an apologetic smile before following after him. We snuck up from the right only for him not to be there. "Where did he go?" 

"There,"  I whispered, pointing to the building across from where he was. 

"I'll take him."  Chat extended his baton to go after him. 

"Wait- ugh."  I jumped after him, both of us chasing Hawkmoth. Suddenly Ladybug rang us, and we both answered into a three-way facetime. 

"Is Volpina with you guys?"  Ladybug asked. 

"No, we can't find Hawkmoth either."  Chat answered. 

"Forget him, he was never there in the first place."

"What? But we saw him?" 

"Unless it was an illusion,"  I answered. "It makes sense. The meteorite starts crashing, miss hero swoops in, and then suddenly Hawkmoth shows his face? It's too good to be true."  

"That's right. Volpina creates illusions. The Hawkmoth you saw wasn't real." 

"What are you saying?" Chat Noir looked confused. 

"She's not a real superhero, she was akumatised by Hawkmoth." We both clarified at the same time.  

"I don't get it. Why?" 

"I think it's my fault." Ladybug looked away guilty. "I humiliated her in front of a guy she liked."  

"Lila?"  

"Like?"  I raised an eyebrow, side glancing at Chat Noir who swung his arm as if trying to express he could explain. 

"She is going to his house." Ladybug cut in. "I'll send the address, meet me there."  

"You got it." Chat said as I nodded. 

"So you were spending time with a girl who likes you?" I questioned as we started heading over to the Agreste Mansion. 

"I swear I didn't know! I mean yeah I thought it was a bit weird she was getting a little close and stuff- " 

"A bit?" 

"Okay, a lot. but you know I only have eyes for you."  I sighed, I can't blame him. He's too trusting after all. 

"I'll overlook it, this time." 

We jumped into the open window in Adrien's bathroom as he changed back. 

"Wouldn't Chat Noir be more useful in this situation?" Plagg questioned. 

"If Volpina's got a thing for me, I can make her see sense."  He reasoned. 

"What, you going to do true love kiss or something," I mumbled. 

"Aw, jealous?"  Adrien started petting my ears, my tail starting to swag before I swat his hand, embarrassed. "I'm just gonna try to talk her out of it, nothing past that. Promise." 

"You really think you can take down Volpina without your powers?" Plagg doubted, "Without me?"  

"Hide, Plagg. She's coming." Adrien opened his unbuttoned shirt to let Plagg hide inside. "You too, mon chéri." I felt my cheeks start to warm at the nickname before going to hide in the bathroom to overhear and come out if I had to. 

"Adrien!" Volpina exclaimed. 

"Hey,"  Adrien awkwardly waved. "Who are you?"

"Do you remember this necklace?" Volpina lifted the pendant. I didn't know how to tell you the truth but at least this way you can see for yourself that I'm not lying. I am a superhero." 

"Lila!?" Adrien faked his surprise. 

"You can call me Volpina." 

"I'm sorry about the scene in the park earlier. Ladybug's jealous because she's not as powerful as me."  I continued to listen before my baton started to ring from my waist I hastily went to answer it before it gave me away. I moved far from the door. 

"Yeah?" I whispered. 

"Where's Chat? He's not answering?"  

"Oh um. I don't know. He disappeared on me. He'll show up soon probably." 

"Well, I'm going in the Agreste Mansion and Volpina is in here, get here now." 

"Well, actually I'm already- " Ladybug already cut off before I heard her voice in the room. 

"See what I mean?" Volpina glared. "She's jealous of me, of you, of us!" I irked at the obvious flirtation in her words. Doesn't she know he's taken? I left through the bathroom window and circled to the open window to join Ladybug. "But this time you won't ruin our date, Ladybug. And neither are you, Lady Wolf!" 

"Excuse me but it wasn't really a date. . ."  Adrien tried to correct, noticing my visible annoyance. Adrian got more nervous when Volpina turned to him. "I mean what I meant was you know I have a girlfriend and not a cheater, no need to get angry we all have miscommunications right?" Adrien finished his nervous rambles trying to keep her from pointing her staff at him. 

"Excuse us," Ladybug interrupted. "We need a chat with Super-Liar."  With Volpina distracted Adrien ran into the bathroom. "You! Stop thinking your illusions are reality!" 

"Being a homewrecker is frowned upon you know?"  I retorted. Ladybug swung her yoyo at her as Volpina jumped out of the way, sliding down Adrian's skateboard ramp. 

"Sorry, I'm late." Chat was heard behind us as he jumped in. "I had trouble finding the place." Volpina played her flute before making multiple illusions of herself. Ladybug swung her yoyo to realize they were all fake. 

"Illusions." Chat awed, seeing it first hand. 

"Chat Noir, she's taken, Adrian!" Ladybug pointed to the window. 

"That's an illusion too." Chat and I said. 

"How are you so sure?"  

"Uh, My feline sixth sense." Chat made up. "It's legendary."  

"Canine instinct, we're emotionally intelligent. Can sniff out a lie from a mile."  

"Really? You don't say."  Ladybug threw sarcasm as she opened the bathroom door. "Adrian's gone!" Ladybug rushed out as Chat sagged his shoulders with a defeated look. 

"I'm not gonna try to get outta this." 

"At least I believe you." I comforted, patting his back before going to follow after Ladybug. We found Volpina on top of the Eiffel tower, holding 'Adrien' with one hand, ready to let him fall to his doom. 

"Give me your Miraculous now, or I will."  Volpina swung up around as 'Adrien' yelled out of fright. 

"I thought you loved him!" Ladybug questioned. 

"Not as much as seeing you three defeated. No hard feelings, right?" 

"You're bluffing." Chat shouted. "It's another illusion."  

"You wanna bet on that?"  Volpina slowly let go of two fingers as Ladybug shouted, 

"NO!"  

It almost felt like an over-dramatic soap drama with how fake everything was. Not to mention the comedic point that the Adrien she thinks she has is right here as Chat Noir. And yet Ladybug was the only one agonizing over this whole ordeal. 

"Don't do it!" I shouted, stopping her before she can take off her miraculous. Chat threw his baton, making the illusion of Adrien disappear. 

"There she is!" Ladybug pointed. We climbed up to the top of the tower after her as she blew her flute, making more illusions of herself. "Lucky Charm!" A chocolate ice lolly fell into her hands, she unwrapped it wincing at the brightness of the silver inner wrap. "I've got an idea to take down Volpina."  

"With a chocolate ice lolly?" 

"Trust me." Ladybug said, she nodded at Chat. 

"Cataclysm!"  He shouted, jumping up to touch some parts of the metal tower as Ladybug lifted the wrapper open for one of the Volpina to wince, enough time to trap her in the deteriorated metal pieces. 

"Trapped, like a fox." Ladybug taunted as I grabbed the pendant from Volpina. 

"The honors?" I held it out for her. 

"Thank you."  She took it and smashed it on the ground. "Your days are over, Akuma." I stepped back to watch Ladybug open the yoyo to do her thing with a grin. "Time to de-evilise!" She captured the Akuma. "Gotcha! Bye-bye, little butterfly." We watched the pure butterfly fly away. "Miraculous Ladybug!"  Everything turned back to how it was before. 

I gestured towards the recovered Lila, letting Ladybug take the hint as she nodded. 

"Lila?" She called out. 

"Ladybug?"  

"I totally overreacted." Ladybug kneeled, touching Lila's shoulder. "And never should have spoken to you like that, I'm sorry." 

"Forget it Ladybug, you were right. We'll never be friends."  Lila shoved her hand away and picked up the repaired pendant, leaving. 

"Ouch."  Chat frowned.

"There's one problem we still have to solve." Ladybug said. "Where's Adrien?"  

"Ehh, everything's been put back to normal, so he must be back at home!" Chat tried to explain. 

"I should check to make sure!"  

"Uh no!"  I stepped in. "You both are about to change back soon, I still have time. I'll check on him and let you know."  I offered. 

". . . Okay." Ladybug sighed as her earring gave a warning beep. "I trust you."  She swung off in a different direction as the two relaxed. 

"Let's get home before you change back."  I said, "Hate to have to carry you home."  

"I don't know, I might like that." 

"And smell like rotting cheese? Please."  I extended my baton to leap off the tower, heading home. 

"It's not me, it's Plagg!" 

*** {Third POV}*** 

"I'm not going to be returning this, am I?" Marinette sighed, the book opened on her lap as Tikki looked through it. 

"I'm really sorry, Marinette. But its information is invaluable."  Tikki apologized. 

"Information? But it's all written in code."  

"Someone's been looking for it for a long time. He knows how to decipher the codes." 

"So what exactly is so special about this book?"  

"It contains all the secrets of the Miraculous powers. Sacred, and extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. He needs it back." 

"I don't get it, Tikki. Tell me what's going on. Who is he?" 

"The Great Guardian. And I think the time has come for you to finally meet him."  

***

"Did you take my father's book, Plagg?" Adrien turned to Plagg who was enjoying the mountain of cheese on the coach. While Adrien on the other hand was dumping out his bag. 

"Of course not."  

"If he finds out it's missing, we'll have a lot worse than Hawkmoth to deal with."  

"I'm sure we'll find it,"  Y/n reassured, helping him look around. Mostly because they'd both be in trouble. They did break in together after all. She was about to keep searching before it hit her. "Wait, I think Lila threw it in the trash back at the park." 

"Really?" 

"Yeah."  

"How do you know for sure?"

"Miss girly was getting all jealous about your date and decided to spy on you from afar!" Alpha replied from the armchair as he gobbled down another brownie. 

"I was not spying! I was just. . . concerned."  

"Let's just hope it's still there."  Adrien groaned.

***

Marinette stood at a door nervously, holding the book tightly to her chest before opening the door to see an old man, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt, a man she recognized to be the one she helped all that time ago.

"Hello, Ladybug."   

A/n: 

and that concludes the first season of the show! This one took some time for me to bring out due to unforeseen circumstances. But I haven't given up on you all yet! You must have noticed I skipped episodes here and there. I plan to cut off parts that aren't important to the main plot of this book. 

Now that the main couple is together. They have new problems to face. I have been coming up with plans and such, and I'm excited to introduce Luka and build into the other superheroes that appear in the future seasons. 

What would be your favorite moment thus far and why? How do you all feel about Alpha? And what are something you look forward to in this book? I love hearing from you all. 

TAGLIST: (crossed out if the tag wasn't working, please let me know.)

@laic2299 , @oddobbessionbutotay

#Chat Noir x reader #miraculous ladybug #Chat Noir #marinette dupain cheng #Lady Wolf #XReader #volpina #adrain agreste x reader

[the-camembert-king]

Plagg, what is your 2nd favorite type of cheese?

What an excellent question.

When we lived in Tibet with Fu, I ate a lot of cheeses I may never again eat, but the kind I miss the most is Shosha. It's soft and it's smelly and it filled my tummy with pure bliss. While I am a lover of all cheeses, this is the only kind that comes even close to matching my adoration of Camembert.

[image description: Tibetan cheeses, which are large and cone shaped]

#Plagg's asks #cheese #shosha #tibet #sometimes i miss tibet #but life in france ain't so bad #when it comes to cheese the smellier the better #that's what i always say

[quicksilversquared]

There’s No Camembert in Tibet Outtakes: Chapter 7

Adrien: Future

Adrien loved having his mom back.

It wasn't all smooth and easy, not by a long shot. She had a lot to deal with in order to get reintegrated into the life that she had been pulled from. She wanted to spend time with him, of course, since she had been missing for a year, and she wanted to get to know all of his friends and other classmates, but she couldn't just do the fun stuff. She had to talk to police and tell them what had happened when she went missing, and catch up with what was going on with the company, and then deal with the reporters that kept clamoring to know what had happened.

And then, of course, there was the whole need to deal with his father. She hadn't told him what had gone down during her visit to the prison, but she hadn't seemed very happy afterwards.

But his mom was getting along with his friends really well, and she seemed to adore Marinette already. Adrien had definitely heard the two of them discussing how they might renovate the front hall area to make it not so intimidating, and she seemed to really listen to what Marinette had to say.

...Adrien was a little concerned that he and Marinette wouldn't get any time to properly relax together, between them simply spending time with his mom, meeting up with their other friends that they hadn't seen for the first half of the summer, and doing all of the shopping for the impending redecoration. His schedule had already started up again with fencing and basketball and piano and photoshoots, keeping him busy for several hours each day almost five days each week. His mom had agreed to not resuming his Mandarin classes as long as he spent some time chatting with Mrs. Cheng every week, so he didn't have that, but still.

At least she had agreed to let him continue going to public school. Otherwise, Adrien probably would have had tutors starting to come in on top of everything else, and his summer would be done for.

(To be fair, she hadn't even argued that one. It was just automatically a given that Adrien would be returning to school, it seemed.)

"Sitting around doing nothing isn't all it's cracked up to be," Marinette assured him one day as he was practicing piano and she was listening, perched on the bench next to him. "It gets boring. I know Nino was talking it up, but he probably lasted for all of one full day before needing to do literally anything else at all."

"He's not gotten his full day of relaxation, either. He texted me grumbling about it." In fact, out of all of them, only Chloe hadmanaged to sit back and fully relax. Alya had had to babysit her sisters, Nino had been put in charge of his little brother Chris, Master Fu had re-opened his business, Mrs. Cheng had been working in the bakery again filling in for a worker that had come down ill right after her return, Adrien had had his activities, and Marinette alternated between designing, helping in the bakery with especially large orders, and helping his mom with redesign and renovation plans. "Maybe once we're back in school we'll get a Saturday free or something."

"And we've had half days here and there to hang out," Marinette pointed out. "Even if there were some very noisy kids around."

Adrien winced at the memory of Chris, Ella, and Etta running around screaming at the pool on top of the Grand Paris on their last afternoon out. If it hadn't been for their connections to Chloe, Mr. Bourgeois probably would have tossed them out right away.

(If Chloe had actually been there and not on a shopping spree, she would have probably kicked them out herself, friends or no. They had gotten the kids to calm down after a bit, but they were still a bit splashy.)

"Maybe we can go on a date this week and have an afternoon and evening to ourselves," Adrien suggested, finishing up the song with a practiced flourish and sitting back. "Not to do anything fancy, but maybe pizza and a movie? Or go to the arcade and trounce everyone's high scores."

Marinette beamed at him. "Oh, I'd like that," she agreed. "We can maybe start with one and move to the other after dinner, depending on when shows are playing and how late the arcade is open. Will your mom let us be out that long?"

"She's being strangely lenient about me being out and about." It was surprising, really. Adrien had prepared himself to be coddled to the point of nearly being smothered, but instead he had nearly as much freedom as he had had with Nathalie and the Gorilla watching him. Nathalie had warned that it probably wouldn't last forever- his mom probably felt guilty about leaving him on his own and about all that he had had to go through while she was gone, and was still trying to figure out where to set new boundaries now that he had gotten used to more freedom.

Adrien was going to enjoy his freedom while he still had it. Once his mom set new limits, there was a possibility that some of the stuff that he had taken for granted over the past couple of months would be off-limits until he turned 18- or until after he had graduated university and moved out.

The sleepovers were already out-of-bounds, they didn't even need to ask to know that much- and Adrien didn't want hangouts in the park to be next, just because some fangirls (and fanguys) didn't understand the concept of leaving him alone and his mom was worried about them harassing him.

"Right, so let me check my calendar." Adrien pulled out his phone, hoping that his mom wasn't going to come investigate if she didn't hear piano music for a while. He knew that he was meant to be practicing, and he did have a lot of ground to make up after not playing much after his father's arrest and not practicing at all for the first part of the summer, but his girlfriend was right there. After being together all the time on the trail, their separation back in Paris was jarring. So sue him if he maybe wanted to set practice aside for a little bit to figure out when they could have another proper date before their evenings filled up with homework and projects again. "Ooh, it looks like most of my photoshoots have passed! I only have one this week."

"More fall stuff?"

Adrien winced at the reminder that he would have to get dressed up in clothes that were far toowarm for the hot Paris weather. "Ugh. Yeah. Promise you'll come rescue me?"

"I can bring iced lemonade again. Does that work?"

"That sounds purr-fect, my Lady."

  "Oh, we're getting dirt all over the floor!"

Adrien grinned at his mom's distressed exclamation. "Mom, we have a broom. And a top-of-the-line vacuum."

"And mops," Marinette added, trying to push her hair out of her face without actually touching it with her dirt-covered hands. She wasn't entirely successful. "It'll all come up! We knew it would get messy! That's why we didn't put the rugs down yet."

"Oh, but still." Mrs. Agreste scanned the footprint-covered floor. "I know we wanted the entry hall to look lived in, but this is going a little too far."

Adrien caught sight of Nathalie peeking out of the office at the mess and wincing before vanishing back into the room. He grinned at that. Nathalie wasn't used to seeing the mansion in anything but perfect shape, and right now, in the middle of their redecorating, the front entry hall was anything but perfect. The couches, chairs, tables, and rugs that Marinette and his mom had found for the space on one of their little outings were shoved together and piled up in one corner, waiting to be arranged. Another corner was filled with their new curtains, the light, airy fabric draped over the banister of the stairs and trailing across the floor in anticipation of being hung later on.

And in the middle of the space, almost every centimeter of floor was covered by planters, pots of plants, and bags of dirt. Marinette had come up with the idea to replace the old planters, formerly filled with dark red plants, and replace them with a number of new ones, light and fun instead of dark and businesslike, and then fill them with a more playful arrangement of plants. Ferns and bamboos and palms and orchids and all sorts of plants Adrien didn't recognize were scattered around them, waiting to be planted and arranged around the room, making his mom and Marinette's vision for the space a reality.

Of course, before they could get planted, they needed to actually fill the planters up with dirt. That...was taking a while.

Mostly because Marinette was the only one out of the three of them to really be willing to get elbow-deep in dirt and fertilizer. Adrien was doing his best, he really was, but he wasn't used to the feeling of dirt under his fingernails, and his mom was fussing over the dirt that was getting on her clothes and on the floor. Apparently she was willing to put up with a little dirt while camping, but not at home in Paris.

Adrien could relate, honestly. He felt the same way.

Things got sped up when the Gorilla came in, saw Marinette wrestling with a heavy bag of dirt just as big as she was, and heaved a sigh before helping them get all of the containers filled properly in no time at all.

"Okay, arrangement time!" Adrien's mom said cheerfully once the empty bags were cleared away. "Marinette, dear, what were you planning on doing?"

As Marinette and his mom planned which plants would go where, Adrien became the muscle, rushing around to get the plants they pointed out and placing them in front of their designated planters. There was a bit of back-and-forth before they settled on their arrangements, making notes to go back and out and buy a couple more of certain types of the plants, and then it was time to actually remove all of the plants from their flimsy plastic pots and get them in the planters.

By that time, the Gorilla had managed to return with a couple hand trowels and gardening gloves. Adrien pulled his on eagerly, grinning at the cat pattern that ran across the back of the gloves. His mom cooed over her own ladybug-spotted gloved before diving into the work with renewed vigor.

"This place is going to look so nice once we're finished," Mrs. Agreste said eagerly as they started arranging things in the first of their planters. Now that they were past the step of wrestling with heavy bags of dirt, her cheerful mood had returned. "Just switching out the painting already has changed the mood of the room!"

Adrien nodded, glancing up the main stairs. Up on the landing, overseeing the entire room, the dark portrait of Adrien and Mr. Agreste had been replaced as soon as possible with a colorful painting of flowers and butterflies. His mom hadn't been sure about having butterflies in the picture at first, but Adrien and Marinette had eventually convinced her that not all butterflies were bad, so there was no reason why she should avoid them.

Besides, there were no purple butterflies in the painting.

"And then the electrician is going to come in this afternoon and switch out those ugly light fixtures," Mrs. Agreste continued, absentmindedly stroking the fronds of a fern. "And then- what else will we have to do, Marinette? There's so much."

"All of the rugs and couches and everything will get put out," Marinette reminded her, patting the dirt down firmly around a plant with trailing vines. "And the curtains will go up. It's not that much, really, it's just bulky."

"Can you really call them curtains if they don't really block any light?" Adrien mused, handing Marinette a plant with silvery leaves. "They have about as much substance to them as a wisp of a cloud. Not that I don't like them, of course, I trust your vision, but..."

Marinette giggled. "They're just for show. Fabric makes softer lines."

"We're all going to get a good night's sleep tonight, that's for sure," Mrs. Agreste announced. "And- oh, this plant won't come out!"

It took them nearly three hours just to get the planters all finished, though a couple had small notes on them with what needed to be added in the future. The three of them headed in for lunch with growling stomachs and dirty hands, and it was only Nathalie catching them at the door that made them remember that they had to wash up first.

As they ate, Adrien couldn't stop smiling. It never failed to make him amazingly, stupendously happy when he saw how well his mom and Marinette got along. He had worried about it at first, of course- if his mom would feel like Marinette was taking up too much of Adrien's time, or if she might not like Marinette simply because she felt that he was too young for dating, or- well, anything, really. He had read so many stories and seen so many shows where the main character had to deal with a disapproving family, and Adrien had been so, so worried that he might have to deal with something similar.

Thankfully his mom didn't seem to have any problems with him dating- she was quite supportive of it, it seemed- and she adored Marinette. The two of them had hit it off right away.

She would love Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng once she got to spend more time with them, of that Adrien was sure. They had only had time for a few short meetings so far, since both families were understandably busy, and, well, so far, so good.

Lunch went by too fast, and then they were back out in the front room, moving the planters into place. Thankfully they all had tiny wheels on the bottoms, making it easy- well, easier, the planters were still heavy- to get things into place. The white planters and colorful plants filling them hid a lot of the dark marble and filled in a bit of the empty space around the room, already making it feel a lot nicer.

"We were thinking of doing a hanging herb garden over that bit of marble so that the cook could use fresh herbs without having to get them from the store, but the hanger hasn't arrived yet," Marinette told Adrien as they maneuvered the last of the planters into place. "And there'll be air plants around the room, too, but we're still trying to figure out where."

"It'll be easier to tell once we have everything else in place," Mrs. Agreste told them. "There's no point in overdecorating and making the place feel cluttered."

Their maid appeared out of thin air to help them clean up all of the dirt on the floor, sweeping and vacuuming and then supervising Adrien and Marinette as they mopped up the last bits of dirt. She made sure that the floor was dry enough for them to not slip and fall before vanishing again, taking the cleaning supplies with her.

"Rugs next?" Mrs. Agreste asked. "Maybe the large one first?"

Wrestling the large entry run into place was a hard, sweaty task, but it was so worth it once it was settled. It covered the large black-and-white motif on the floor and made everything not feel so empty. There were a couple more smaller rugs, ones that would go under the tables and chairs, and one fun little mat that Marinette had made for their shoes.

That one got tucked behind the planters at the entrance, mostly hidden from view but still fun.

The rest of the day went by in a rush of sweat and sore muscles. The electrician came, switching the light fixtures in the entry area from straightforward and functional to more artsy and brighter, switching the light's tone from cold to warm. The Gorilla helped them hang the light, airy curtains, softening the windows. A few smaller paintings went up around the room, adding color to the space without tearing anything out.

Adrien's personal favorite, though, was the several comfy benches and chairs posted around the space, some obvious and others tucked away behind the planters. Near them, a couple tables had been arranged and decorated with warm lamps. Per Marinette's idea, baskets with blankets in them had been tucked under the tables, in case anyone wanted to curl up in a corner with a cup of tea and a book.

His mom had forbidden the two of them from using the hidden chairs to make out. Whether or not she was being entirely serious, Adrien wasn't sure.

"Well, I think we did a good job," Mrs. Agreste said once the last of the tables was in place. She pushed her hair off of her face. "I don't know about you, but I need a shower now. We have showers in the guest rooms," she added, looking at Marinette. "And Adrien has plenty of extra soap, or you can use some of mine if you want. Then maybe we can have some ice cream and plan what room to attack next?"

"Are you trying to steal my girlfriend away again, Mom?" Adrien joked. "Maybe I wanted to spend some time with her."

His mom giggled. "How about we keep the planning under an hour, and then I can give you money for the two of you to go out for dinner?"

Adrien pretended to think it over. "Hmm. I suppose."

"That sounds lovely," Marinette told Mrs. Agreste. She playfully poked Adrien in the side. "Adrien can share for a bit longer."

Adrien could only laugh.

  Adrien had messed up.

He hadn't meant to freak his mom out, he really hadn't. But he had spoken without thinking, talking about his relationship with Marinette as though he were in front of Tom and Sabine instead of his own mom, who didn't know the whole picture. Who didn't know that he and Marinette had been close as Ladybug and Chat Noir before finding out each other's civilian identities. Who thought that Adrien and Marinette had only been friends for a couple months before they started dating, because that was what Nathalie had told her and several of their classmates had apparently said the same thing.

So yeah, in hindsight he could see where his mom would maybe not take him casually mentioning that he fully planned on marrying Marinette in the future well. But hindsight wasn't going to help him now.

Nathalie had warned him that his mom would likely get strict again, setting boundaries that he didn't much like because he was used to getting free rein. Adrien just hadn't expected the change to be so sudden, rules materializing overnight even though there hadn't been any issues before.

His door couldn't be closed if Marinette was over, and they were meant to do homework together in the dining room instead of his room. He had to let his mom know if he was going over to Marinette's house and for how long and if they would be supervised. She had to know when Marinette came over to visit him. Dates had to end right after dinner, and wouldn't it be fun if they did group dates instead of individual ones? When Marinette did come over, it seemed like his mom always just happened to get off work early to come home and watch them together.

In short, he was being heavily oversupervised.

His mom had apparently talked to Marinette's parents at one point, right after his accidental slip-up, but they had only had a few minutes to chat since the bakery was so busy. It seemed that their chat had only made his mom more anxious, though, since Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng hadn't seemed that surprised about Adrien's declaration and clearly had a bit more relaxed parenting style.

His mom didn't really like it when he went over to Marinette's house for exactly that reason, actually. She didn't think that they would be adequately supervised.

"My parents have Sundays off," Marinette told him as they ate lunch together on the school steps after two weeks of Mrs. Agreste's hovering. "Maybe she can sit down and have a proper conversation with them then? Because I don't think they gave off a very good impression that one time when they were super busy and your mom came over in a panic. I can ask them to invite her over this weekend, and then maybe you can have some of your freedom back."

"We can stop having her hovering over our shoulders, you mean?" Adrien dropped his chin onto the top of Marinette's head, giving in to the urge to cuddle despite the still-warm early fall weather. "Yeah, I liked it better when we could just hang out and she was encouraging us to go on dates instead of making sure that there was someone around all the time so that we don't rush anything."

Marinette nodded. "Yeah. And maybe no more comments about getting married," she added, giving Adrien a Look. "Or else she'll still be following us around and making sure that we're behaving when we're in university. We won't get to do anything except cheek kisses ever again."

"I probably shouldn't tell her that you've already come up with names for our kids, then?"

"Adrien!"

  Adrien and Marinette didn't get to sit in on the Sunday morning meeting between their parents. Instead, they were sent off to the park with a picnic basket of pastries and fruit.

It would have been easier to enjoy their breakfast if they weren't worried about what was happening in the Dupain-Cheng kitchen. Adrien was mostly worried about the Dupain-Chengs accidentally saying something that would make his mom really not trust them and not want him around Marinette any more.

If they let on that Adrien had slept over before, that would be it. He probably wouldn't be able to date again until he turned 18- or worse, until he was through with University.

"I wish she would trust us more," Adrien said quietly as they sat back against the trunk of a large tree- or, rather, as Marinette sat against the tree and Adrien reclined with his head on her lap. "Like, I can see where what I said might have freaked her out, and then Nathalie told me that it wasn't helping that your family was my main support network when I found out about Father."

Marinette frowned. "Wait, why?"

"Because I wouldn't want to break up with you and lose them, too." Adrien squeezed Marinette's hand. "But I know that your parents wouldn't just stop talking to me if we broke up, as long as it wasn't messy. That's just not their style."

"They adore you." Marinette rested against Adrien's side. "Hopefully they'll tell her that and she'll believe them. They'll probably still be more lenient with us than your mom will after their meeting no matter what, but she doesn't know about the kwamis. And the kwamis are why they're fine with us being in my room by ourselves."

"I don't mind keeping my door open. I understand that, and Nino and Alya both said that their parents enforce that as well. It's the constant supervision when we're just hanging out." Adrien groaned and stretched. "Constant parental supervision, that is. Tikki and Plagg are different."

"Yeah, because they're off doing their own thing half of the time." Marinette ran a hand through Adrien's hair, drawing a purr out of him. "I can understand where your mom is coming from, really, it's just..."

"She overreacted?"

"Yeah."

It was a full two hours before Marinette's phone dinged with a text to let them know that they could come back up. It didn't say how the parent meeting had gone, so both teens were a bit anxious as they headed back across the park towards the bakery.

They found three smiling parents at the door.

"See, I told you they wouldn't be long," Tom said with a laugh, reaching out to usher them in. "Don't look so worried, you two. We had a good chat."

"We cleared up a couple misunderstandings," Mrs. Agreste chimed in. "And came up with a revised list of rules."

Adrien and Marinette turned their expectant, hopeful looks on her.

"I'll stop hovering," she told them. "Though I still expect the bedroom door to be open when you both are in there."

Adrien and Marinette nodded in unison. They had expected that. It was fairly standard.

"And I still want you to text when you're going anywhere other than home or your regular activities," Mrs. Agreste continued. "Just to know where you are, in case you lose track of time or something comes up. That's just a safety thing."

Adrien nodded. "Yeah! That sounds reasonable."

"And we can discuss curfew times after dates later on," Mrs. Agreste told them. "We want to be reasonable, of course, but you're both young. It's not smart to stay out super late, we all agreed on that."

"In the past, we've always aimed to get home by nine," Marinette told her. "Unless there was a movie or concert that we wanted to go to that ran later, and then we discussed it with Nathalie and my parents beforehand."

Mrs. Agreste perked up. "Oh, that is very reasonable."

"And we made sure not to do late movies on nights when either of us had something we needed to be up for early the next morning," Adrien added. "And it's a once-a-week thing. We're not going to go overboard with it."

"I know." His mom reached out, pulling him into a hug. "You two are smart. I just- it's a lot to take in and adjust to."

Adrien nodded. He knew that. He could see the strain that everything was taking on her- from getting back into her job to getting to know his new friends to dealing with the whole deal with his father (the divorce, the new charges against his father's continued planning to get the Miraculous, all of the reporters wanting to get an inside scoop). Even if he didn't like it, it made sense that she might try to control what she could.

He was just immensely grateful that Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng could get through to her and talk her out of going too far with her overprotective parenting.

"It's a learning process as the kids grow up," Mrs. Cheng said fondly, patting Marinette's shoulder. "You want them to stay young forever, but they don't. All you can do is make sure that they have the support and the knowledge that they need to grow and fly."

"It's the letting go part of that I'm having trouble with," Mrs. Agreste said wistfully, though there was no disagreement in either her voice or her face. "I liked the ten-year-old stage. They're still cute but can take care of themselves, but there's no dating to worry about."

Adrien gasped, playing up the wounded look. "You don't think that I'm cute, mom? I'm hurt! Marinette, you still think that I'm cute, right?"

That broke any lingering tension and they all laughed. Mrs. Agreste shook her head as she giggled, ruffling Adrien's hair.

They stayed for another half an hour, chatting idly about what was going on at school and around Paris, and then Adrien and Mrs. Agreste had to leave to go meet up with an old friend of hers.

"See you at school tomorrow," Adrien told Marinette, dipping in for a quick kiss before pulling back. "I can send you my schedule tonight and we can figure out when we can get together with Max and work on our group project."

"That sounds good." Marinette returned the quick kiss and beamed up at him. "Can I text you later if I have any trouble on the Chem homework?"

"You bet. Even if you don't, we could Skype and work on it together."

Tom laughed. "You haven't already gotten it done? What were you doing for the past couple hours?"

"Breakfast in the park and worrying about what was going on up here." Adrien grinned cheekily. "We're expert worriers."

Sabine rolled her eyes. "You guys have no faith in us, honestly. There was nothing to worry about."

It didn't take long for them to get out the door, and then it was just Adrien and his mom again as they headed back up the street towards home. It was one of the last nice days of the season, so they had opted to walk instead of having the Gorilla pick them up.

"I'm glad that I had a chance to properly sit down with Marinette's parents and talk," Mrs. Agreste commented as they rounded the corner and headed past the park. "They're lovely people, and I would have hated to be at odds over me misunderstanding them before. We had never really talked about boundaries in your relationship before, just about... well, everything else."

Adrien nodded. That was understandable. He knew that his mom had been really concerned about what he had gone through and how he had grown so much over the past year. Figuring out the dynamics of what had initially seemed like a normal teenaged relationship was naturally pretty far down on the list of things to do. "And then I seemed too serious, too soon."

"Right. It didn't help that I was a bit anxious about what the effects of a break-up might be like," Mrs. Agreste added. "I've seen people get married young and then divorced shortly afterwards, and I've been finding out just how much a pain in the rear it is to get a divorce. It's not just a matter of signing a paper and being done with it."

"I'm not going to rush into anything," Adrien assured her. It was true, more or less. They weren't rushing at all, but to an outside view, it might appear that they were. "We didn't when we started dating, because we knew that there was no reason not to wait a month or so for everything to settle down and for me to be properly ready. It wasn't going to be healthy to get into a relationship when I was still coming to terms with- well, with everything."

His mom's smile grew. "Yes, I heard about that! I hadn't known about that before. Given the timeline I had been hearing about, I had assumed that you two had started dating either right before or right after Gabriel was arrested. And Marinette's parents said that they had already talked with you guys about not rushing into marriage?"

"Not rushing into marriage or anything else," Adrien agreed. Yeah, he wasn't going to forget that conversation any time soon. He was pretty sure that he hadn't been able to look Mr. Dupain or Mrs. Cheng in the eye for several days after that, but he couldn't deny that the conversation had been an important one to have, and was pretty informative to boot. "They said that it's important to build a good foundation instead of rushing to hit milestones. There'll be time for that stuff later on."

"They're very wise." Adrien could see the look that his mom was giving him out of the corner of his eye. "You seem to have paid attention to what they told you."

"Of course, they've been happily married for ages!" There was no doubt that Marinette's parents were excellent role models and had a stable, loving marriage. Adrien wanted to have a marriage like that- well, when he grew up and was old enough, that was. If they were willing to share any of their advice, Adrien was going to sit up, listen, and take notes. "They clearly did something right."

"What else have they told you?"

"Besides not to rush?" Adrien thought about it. "Communication! They're big on communication. Letting the other person know when something is wrong and then listening. Not waiting until something becomes a big issue to address it. Making sure that one person isn't putting in all the effort in- well, in the relationship, in a household, whatever- while the other person coasts by." He grinned. "They've been teaching me how to do things like dishes and laundry and cooking and cleaning. And baking, of course."

"You're probably a better cook than I am, then," his mom admitted with a laugh. "I haven't in years, since we have a chef."

"I can teach you! And Marinette can help. She's really good at stopping me before I can make too many mistakes when we cook together-" Adrien caught himself. Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng had suggested that part of his mom's concern might have stemmed from how attached he and Marinette were. They did a lot of stuff together, preferring to attack things that they had to get done as a team. It might be nice to have some things reserved for mother-son bonding only. "I mean, if you want to."

"I'll... think about it."

  Things improved a lot after that. Mrs. Agreste was supportive of Adrien and Marinette's relationship, but not to the point where Adrien was wondering if the pod people had taken her over. She didn't hover, letting them have their privacy as long as they didn't abuse the privilege.

She didn't tease them like Tom and Sabine did- she still wasn't as laid-back about their relationship as Tom and Sabine were- but that was okay. It was understandable. She still had a different parenting style than they did, and she didn't know that they were Ladybug and Chat Noir, the Heroes of Paris.

That was okay, though. Mrs. Agreste was giving them enough freedom to have a comfortable relationship now, and she was talking to Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng on a regular basis. There wasn't any tension between her and Marinette like there had been after Adrien's marriage comment, and questions about their dates had gone back to sounding like a curious mom, rather than tense interrogation.

No doubt there would be shifts in the future, times when she felt like Adrien was growing up too fast and she would overreact about it, and he would have to push back. For now, though, they had found a good balance.

For once, Adrien could have it all- a parent who was there and present, a fantastic, supportive girlfriend, and a whole army of friends. It didn't matter that his father was going to trial again on continued conspiracy to steal the Miraculous and change the timeline to get out of jail, or that there were still reporters who occasionally tried to stop him or his mom on the street to get an interview. They were inconsequential details, really, unable to permeate the bubble of happiness that had surrounded Adrien in one form or another, ever since his mom returned to Paris.

And to think- it was all because Plagg had wanted more cheese.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #There's No Camembert in Tibet #last chapter!!!

[selenityshiroiml]

So...I’ve seen somewhere that, at some point, Chat Noir will not be a part of the show for a bit. And I started to think of a scenario where it would work, but I’m not a massive fic writer and all my ideas are building up into a huge plot but with no major desire to write it. So...massive post-Gabriel/Hawkmoth story idea under the cut

So, I had the idea that the miraculous crew (all reunited for the big event) would find out Gabriel was Hawkmoth and quickly work to take him out. And, yeah, Chat Noir was a bit off during the take down but at least they all stopped Gabriel and got him and Nathalie arrested and they got back the Peacock Miraculous (but the Butterfly got knocked off and is still missing because Butterfly User Lila).

And the crew are all ‘oh shit...what about poor Adrien (who none of us know personally of course) he wasn’t here at the mansion when we ruined his life so we should all split up and go look for him’

(Nino finds him crying on his doorstep)

But then the next day Adrien kind of closes off and goes off radar for a bit because comatose Emilie was found and he’s now splitting time between the hospital and trying to make sure Agreste Fashion doesn’t tank and take all it’s innocent employees with it and a hotel because he is not going back to that mansion. And all his friends are giving him space because they love him and know he’s gone through a lot with his dad and psudo-stepmom being magical terrorists. And maybe they also don’t want to push because they also feel a little guilty for slapping the cuffs on.

In the meantime Chat Noir and Ladybug are still looking for the missing Butterfly but Chat is still off and he asks Ladybug if he can take some time for personal reasons. And Ladybug is all ‘what??? is something wrong?’ and he tells her that a family member is has been ill for a long time and they might need to be transferred for specialist medical treatment. But he’s being sufficiently vague enough that Ladybug assumes he’s been taking care of a family member with cancer or something and ‘OMG how long has he been struggling, was this happening before Hawkmoth??? Did he put off telling her or asking to take time off because he was worried about leaving her alone to deal with the akumas and everything???’

So she’s all ‘of course you can take some time you are my friend and partner and I care about you and I know you’ll be back as soon as you can and I hope everything goes well in your real life’

But what’s really happening is that the Guardian Temple has been in contact with Adrien and are all ‘we can help heal your mother...come to Tibet’ and Adrien is all ‘well...I can’t take the Black Cat Miraculous to Tibet with me because Ladybug might need it to protect her’ so he sends Plagg off with the ring and tells him to take it back to the Guardian (he isn’t truly renouncing it, he’s just being a selfless moron).

Of course, Marinette gets home from school and finds Plagg hissing and spitting at all the Kwami in her room and she realises Plagg is there with the ring and they are both so angry and upset at Chat Noir because ‘how fucking dare he’ and she refuses to put the ring away and no way in HELL is anyone else wearing it. She puts it on a cord around her neck and keeps it under her shirt at all times.

And then a few days later Adrien (who has slowly started messaging his friends back and thanking them for their support) shows up at school to say goodbye for a bit because he’s taking his mother to a specialist in China and everyone is all sad face but hopes everything goes well. (and obviously no one thinks twice about the fact that Adrien is leaving Paris not long after Chat Noir stopped appearing) And Tikki is shoving cheese scones into Plagg’s mouth whilst they hide in Marinette’s bag because she’s afraid he’s gonna shout out for his kitten before he drives off.

But then he’s gone and Marinette misses Chat Noir like anything and she misses Adrien and Alya is all ‘sooooo...can we borrow the ring?’ and Marinette and Plagg are both ‘OVER MY DEAD BODY’.

And then at some point a weird Miraculous user turns up with another strange user acting as a Mandarin-French interpreter and they ask Ladybug for the Peacock to heal Emilie Agreste. And she is all ‘wt actual fuck???’ and is all ‘let me think about it’ because Plagg is hidden in her hair whispering ‘you can trust them...especially the young one’ and she says to come back the next night and she’ll give her answer.

So she does the only thing she can think of to get answers as to why the Peacock might help Emilie. She sneaks into jail and asks Gabriel. And Gabriel, who has had time to think about his defeat and add 2 and 2 together to make 4 has realised that she is Marinette (he’s also worked out that Chat Noir is his son but he’s keeping quiet) and is open with her about how Emilie fell into a coma because of the Peacock and that, yes, it might be used to help her recover but he has no idea how. He also asks pointed questions about Sentimonsters and how she treated the Ladybug Sentimonster as a living being because maybe there might be a repercussion you aren’t willing to be responsible for.

Ladybug agrees to give the Peacock Miraculous to the Guardian Temple representatives on the promise that it is returned to her via Adrien and Emilie Agreste when they return, safe and well, to Paris.

In the meantime the Adrien-less plot ticks away with new Akuma victims showing up (showing that some asshole really DOES have the butterfly) but the motives seem to be less ‘bring me their miraculous’ and more ‘fuck everyone in Paris because i’m angry and upset because no one believes in me or gives me the attention i want’ because fucking Lila.

And at one point Nino, Alya and Marinette go and check out apartments on behalf of Adrien who has shortlisted places from China but wants his friends to check them out physically for him because he trusts them (and they are all ‘oh shit...this is an apartment but it’s like three times the size of all our places combined why is our friend so rich...) because I think that would be cute.

Until one day the news breaks out that Nathalie has disappeared in jail and all that is left is a feather, mostly white but with tints of blue at the edges. Marinette is all ‘shit...that’s an amok thing’ and manages to convince the police to give Ladybug the feather. She purifies the feather and on the otherside of the planet Emilie Agreste wakes up.

(Because Nathalie was a sentimonster that critically ill Emilie made and was filled with her desire to look after her husband and son and the reason why Gabriel didn’t try to destroy Nathalie to help Emilie is because by the time he realised what Nathalie was she was already a real person in his eyes, like the Ladybug Sentimonster, and also she was a part of Emilie and he didn’t want to risk destroying her if it wouldn’t help because she was all he had of his wife and he’s actually sad that Nathalie might be gone, even if it means Emilie wakes)

And then Adrien comes home and Emilie is still weak but hey at least she is there and she pays attention to her son which is more than Gabriel ever did (and it’s kind of weird that she seems to know things that only Nathalie knew...it’s like she saw her son grow up as if watching a movie).

And then Adrien sneaks up on Ladybug whilst she’s out and about (because he knows all her normal patrol spots) in order to return the Peacock. And Ladybug has spent the last while swearing to Plagg that when Chat comes back she is going to say fuck it to the hidden identities because she is going to shove the ring back on his damned finger herself and never let him take it off again. So Plagg has no qualms about zooming out of Ladybug’s hair and smooshing straight into Adrien’s face screaming ‘IF YOU EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN I WILL COUGH UP A CAMEMBERT FLAVOURED HAIRBALL DIRECTLY INTO YOUR MOUTH YOU RAT BASTARD’

And that isn’t how Marinette or Adrien expected the reveal to go but whatever.

(alternatively they could hold out on the reveal and just have a cute Ladrien scene of Adrien thanking Ladybug for helping his mother heal whilst she is all awkwardly all ‘sorry I got your father arrested’ and then when Marinette gets home Plagg is all ‘wow...will you look at the time, I think Chat Noir might be mysteriously ready for me to take my ring back to him’ and then he flies off and two days later Ladybug finds Chat Noir on top of the Montparnasse Tower and she tackle hugs him off the side of the building and they have to quickly stop each other from falling to their deaths via yoyo and staff and they end up tangled together whilst ugly crying because they missed each other SOOOOOO MUCH)

#ml speculation #ladynoir #i have actually written certain scenes of this #but i know it would take me so long to write the whole thing that the show would joss it before i completed it #but i genuinely believe something must be up with emilie and nathalie #and also that there was a reason we saw a sentimonster being treated like a real person worth having their own existance #mostly i want marinette and plagg mourning adrien being gone together #marinette alternating between 'i miss the love of my life' and 'i miss my kitty' and in a sadness spiral #sobbing into their icecream whilst tikki and alya are all 'there there' #and no one (other than tikki plagg and gabriel) realising that chat and adrien are the SAME PERSON #even though they mysteriously left at the same time

[18-fandoms-unite-08]

I didn't know I needed you until you needed me pt. 5

Pt. 1 ~ Pt. 2 ~ Pt. 3 ~ Pt. 4 ~ Pt. 5 ~ Pt. 6

Enjoy!!

~~

Marinette was not panicking.

Nope, no ma'am. It wasn't like there was a very very deep gash along her side. Oh no, she wasn't losing that much blood.

Oh kwamii, what had she gotten herself into this time?

So, rewind to a couple of hours ago.

Marinette had just closed up her boutique for the day. Tired as she was, she was feeling rather productive. Turning to find her companion, she asked,

"Tikki, would it be wise of me to go on patrol again, tonight?"

To which Tikki replied, "If you feel like it Marinette! Though, we do need to determine the source of the Lazarus pit's dark aura around the city."

"Alright then, tell Plagg we're leaving in 5."

Going upstairs, she waited by the window for the two kwamii to show up.

"Alrighty, " Said Plagg, gulping down one last piece of cheese. "Let's make this quick. I have an appointment with another wheel of camembert later. "

Softly chuckling while Tikki slapped Plagg upside the head, she opened the window.

"You guys done?"

With nods from the both of them, she checked to see if the ring was still on the chain around her neck before saying, "Spots on."

She could feel the gentle caress of the night's breeze. There was always such a peacefulness to running around this high up, jumping and occasionally, swinging from one roof to another. She loved it. The thrill of it all just gave her a sense of calmness. Something to ground her in the here and now.

It felt weird, to be here. Enjoying herself. Never mind that she was still making sure all was normal. Maybe she should make a visit to her kitty soon. Kwamii knows it's been so long.

Deep in her thoughts, she almost didn't hear the call of help coming from the alleyway below her.

Stopping on the rooftop above, she crouched low, edging her way to the side, trying to assess the situation. She wasn't dumb enough to go in blindly just because someone had desperately called for help. It could've been a trap for all she knew.

This was Gotham they were talking about.

But before she could do anything, she felt a presence behind her. She whipped around, immediately rising from her crouching position.

However, she was but a few seconds too late to realise that there was something wrong with the air.

Hallucination gas

Should've known!

She could barely register the press of the knife piercing her side just below her heart.

Her attacker seemed to underestimate her strength after giving them blow. True, it could've proven fatal. Fortunately, she had a bit of an experience of getting wounds like this during her time in Tibet. She braced herself for the pain she knew she would feel and kicked around blindly in an attempt to buy some time and swung away with her yo-yo. Her free hand used to put pressure on the wound.

As she was swinging, the only coherent thought she could form was that she really needed to call for help.

Ladybug was exhausted. She landed on a roof and stopped, bending on her knees to catch her breath. She winced when her action put more strain on the stab wound.

Just a little bit further.

Preparing herself, she stumbled slightly before continuing on her way.

Thoughts muddled from the blood she was loosing, she didn't stop to assess her surroundings before she realised she was on her knees, a random building nearby.

She focused on her breathing. Trying her hardest to avoid passing out. That wouldn't be too good.

Unfortunately, she was loosing too much blood and getting weak.

Blacking out, the last thing she saw in her blurry vision was a man running up to her.

~~

I apologize for being late. :)

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Tag list is still open! Sorry if I missed anyone!

---

All my fics are under the tag #18fandomsfics

#maribat #maribat discord #maribat soulmate au #ml fic #mlb x dc #fanfiction #marinette x damian #maridami #damian x marinette #damienette #daminette #damimari #soulmate bond #soulmate au #soulmate #18fandomsfics

[2manyfandoms2count]

You can count on me (I will be there for you)

Hi, I’m Elle, and I have absolutely no idea how you can hack into a computer beyond the usual *typing sounds* “I’m in” you see in movies. I have therefore decided to leave Max and Markov do their thing backstage while I focus on a little mother-son moment (which there’ll be more of later, of course). Enjoy! xx

Also, small warning: there’s swearing on the last line. I think it’s justified.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | AO3

---

Chapter 7

Ladybug shivers as they step out of the Voyage portal. Chat Noir pinpointed a blind spot area in a corner of the Mansion’s lobby from which they could hack into the house’s elaborate security system, and Max managed to get all three of them in exactly the right place. Apparently Gabriel Agreste didn't think much could happen beside the grand staircase; remembering the time she'd had to transform there, the spotted lady thinks it's just as well.

While her travel companions huddle around Max’s computer to deactivate the cameras, she takes a look around the space, making sure to stay within the boundaries Chat Noir indicated. How Adrien managed to grow up into the warm and vibrant person he is, while living in this austere place will always be beyond her. Whoever thought that displaying a giant mourning painting in an already colourless room was a good idea clearly doesn’t live here. She supposes it could be alright, were the place a museum, but as a house? It doesn’t help the large volumes feel homey in the least.

“Alright, cameras are looped, we can move around now.” Pegasus closes his computer and stands a little taller. “So, what exactly are we looking for, and how should we go about it?”

“Physically, purple butterfly-themed stationary, and anything that could compromise Ladybug or suggest a tie with Hawkmoth,” Chat Noir lists. “Even though I think we have a better chance of finding the latter two on a protected file. It’s not like my- Mr Agreste to leave things lying around in the open.”

Ladybug nods along. “Where do you think we’re most likely to find those?”

“My best guess would be Gabriel’s atelier, and Nathalie’s room. She’s been keeping quite a lot of paperwork there, since her illness a couple of years ago.” Her partner shrugs. “And I think anything numerical would definitely be on Gabriel’s computer.”

“If that's okay, I think I'll try to access the data from Adrien’s computer, if he still has it in his room? I seem to recall seeing some links last time we connected to it, and there’ll probably be less security to bypass.” Max suggests.

“And less risk of leaving fingerprints, or anything that could make Gabriel suspect anything was touched during his absence.” Chat Noir muses. “Good call, Max. How about you go to Adrien’s room with Markov, LB, you go to Nathalie’s room, and I check the study?”

“Sounds good to me.” Ladybug smiles.

“Perfect.” Pegasus nods. “Should I detransform?”

“Maybe that would be wise. Let’s give Kaalki some time to recharge so we’re good to go later on.” She nods, and hands him a box of macarons she managed to ‘steal’ before they left. It’s not the Kwami’s favourite food, but it will have to do.

Chat Noir watches the both of them run up the stairs and separate at the top, smiling as Ladybug’s newest costume addition flutters with her movements. Tikki must have really liked the veil for it to stick through the transformation. It looks good, and it’s a good reminder that they don’t have all the time in the world.

He takes a deep breath and opens the double doors that lead to his father’s study.

The room hasn’t changed over the years. Some designers, Marinette included, like to sprawl their ideas out in giant mood boards, pictures, sketches and fabric swatches gradually invading the walls as their collection takes shape. Gabriel Agreste isn’t one of these people. The decoration is as stark as ever, despite an upcoming fashion show, pictures of Adrien pulled up from different ads, and marble statues seemingly being the only personal touches. The only real spark of colour is his mother’s golden portrait, at the far end of the room. He often wondered why it hung there, and not on the mantelpiece, or anywhere else in the room where his father could see it while working. He can’t see her not being a source of inspiration.

He walks up to the painting and swivels it to reveal the family safe. It seems like a good place to start.

“Plagg, claws in.” He whispers.

The dark figure swirls out of his ring and spins around a little, taking in his surroundings.

“Gotta say, kiddo, I’m glad that we’re moving out soon. This place always gave me the creeps.” Plagg floats up to the pictures lining the walls. Adrien can’t tell if there’s a hint of nostalgia in his eyes as he takes in the shots of him that were taken around the time they met.

“I thought the Spirit of Destruction knew no fear?” His lips curl into an amused smile.

“I didn’t say I was afraid, just that I didn’t like this place.” Plagg refrains himself very hard from knocking over, or straight up Cataclysming, Adrien can't tell, a frame showing a very proud Gabriel, probably at the end of one of his first fashion shows. “Anyway, what are you doing, detransforming in the middle of you top secret mission? What if your lover walks in?” He asks mischievously.

“She’s my wife now, actually.” Adrien grins, still giddy at the thought.

“I know, just wanted to give you the satisfaction of saying it out loud.” He grins back. “Consider it your wedding present from me; you get to be sappy for the day. Not too much, though, or I’ll end up retching on your father’s stuff.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t come to that. I just need you to open the safe, like you did that one time? Then I’ll retransform, on the off-chance Marinette does decide to come and check on things.”

“No problem.” Plagg zoomed through the heavy metal door, and was back out again a couple of minutes later. “Whew- I don't know if it’s because I’m getting old, but it felt a lot easier the first time around. Got a little Camembert for my troubles?” He pouted.

“That’s weird.” Adrien frowns as he pulls out the cheese box from his suit pocket and tosses him a piece.

“Eh, I wouldn’t sweat it. It was, what? Ten years ago? More? I lose count.” The Kwami catches the cheese and gobbles it down. “Anyway, technologies have evolved since then, and you know your progenitor likes to keep up.”

“True.” Adrien replies pensively as they take a look at the contents of the safe.

The contents looks pretty much identical to the last time they’d broken into it. The same books are stored on the lower shelves, with a couple wads of cash. At eye level, the book about Tibet still sits next to his mother’s picture. The Miraculous Grimoire that had gotten him into so much trouble is gone, he notices, but he doesn't worry too much about it. It could just mean that his father is using it for his next collection.

There’s something else missing, though. He seems to recall that there was a flash of colour around his mother, but maybe he’s remembering it wrong.

He shakes his head to clear the feeling that it's something important as he closes the safe, and calls his transformation phrase.

Swivelling the panel back to its original place, he sighs as he takes in Emilie’s portrait once more.

“Oh, Maman, I wish you were still here.” He says softly. It breaks his heart, but the more time passes, the less he can remember her face. Sure, the paintings and pictures remind him of what she looked like, but picturing her spontaneously in his memories is becoming a struggle.

It’s actually this painting he generally sees when he thinks about her. It’s vibrant, warm, solar, just like she was. He wishes she could have met Marinette. She would have adored her, he knows. She would’ve treated her like the daughter she never had.

“If only you could’ve seen us today. I’m sure you would’ve been a much easier guest than Father’s turning out to be.” He lets out a nervous chuckle, and gently touches the painting’s surface. It’s something his father always forbade him from doing, but he isn’t there, it’s his wedding day, and one of the most important people in his life isn't there to celebrate with him.

As he slides his fingers over the elaborate dress, wondering if she ever wore one like this, and if so, if his father kept it, he notices that there are some spots which are smooth, almost cool, in the midst of the paint asperities. He frowns, and touches them again; they’re definitely metal, glinting a little in the afternoon light.

Tentatively, he pushes down on one of them. The button sinks below the surface, but nothing happens.

He tries pressing on two groups, located approximately at eye level. This time, there’s a slight whirring sound, and he feels the ground move under his feet.

He’s too stunned to jump out when he starts to descend below ground level, his hands automatically slamming to the sides of the tube, eyes widening in panic.

“Chat Noir!” Ladybug and Max burst through the doors just before he is completely engulfed by darkness. She’s pale as she watches him disappear, clutching purple envelopes and something else in her hands. Max doesn’t look too good either.

“Shit” is the last thing he hears as he travels to whatever dark corner of the Mansion the tube is taking him to. He's not sure who said it, but something tells him they all did.

#angst is coming #but also the happy ending #miraculous ladybug #the miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir #mlb #miraculous fanfiction #miraculous fanfic #ladynoir #adrienette #adrinette #fake wedding #one-sided reveal #aged-up characters #max kante #inspired by fanart #elle writes #yccom

[chocoluckchipz]

The Other You - 8

Read it on A03, FF.net, WattPad

< Previous

Before he was cursed with the sinking ship of his father’s company, Adrien loved to sleep in on the weekends. Now, he was lucky to get even half of what he’d usually slept, considering that in addition to his work at Gabriel, it was also the end of the spring semester at his school and the workload was overwhelming. Just a little longer, though, and he’d be free to focus on his ‘help Marinette and finally atone for your sins’ mission full-time. Adrien could hardly wait, which was a little weird considering how much stuff he’d have to learn and do to make that happen.

“What are you grinning about?” Plagg yawned, floating out of his bed-bucket.

Adrien stretched. “Nothing in particular. Just that things are finally starting to look brighter.”

“Lying to your girlfriend to get food out of her is bright?” Plagg scoffed, flying away to the kitchen.

“I haven’t told a single lie, and she isn’t my girlfriend.”

“You kissed her, and you liked it.”

“Can you let it go, Plagg?  We’ve talked about this. It wasn’t—”

“Man, she’s going to hate you even more when she finds out who exactly was kissing her.”

Adrien glared at the pesky creature. “That’s why we aren’t telling her, Plagg.”

“She’ll find out eventually,” the kwami shrugged, stuffing his mouth with his morning dose of Camembert. “Better get ready for it instead of denying the obvious.”

With a growl, Adrien flopped back into his sheets. Pushing Plagg’s words aside, he closed his eyes, trying to focus on his schedule for today. First work, then lunch with Nino, and then… more work. He couldn’t afford to have his weekends off anymore.

“Oh, I know,” Plagg mumbled, finishing his wheel of cheese. “Your high school crush on Princess is coming back. That’s why you’re making dumb decisions—"

“I did not have a crush on Marinette,” Adrien said, sitting up. “I’ve always loved Ladybug.”

“Sure,” Plagg smirked. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“That’s the truth.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Plagg countered, his arms on his hips. “You could afford all the croissants in the world, yet you kept abusing your powers and going to her balcony for treats.”

“That’s because her pastries were amazing, and Marinette was a great company. But that doesn’t mean I had a crush on her.”

“Sure. That’s why you tried to spend as much time as possible with her. And not as Chat only, but as Adrien as well. Ugh! All those blushes and cutesy stuff.” Plagg shivered. “Disgusting.”

“It wasn’t like that, Plagg. We were just friends.”

“And don’t get me started on this whole ‘helping her’ business,” the kwami continued to grumble. “I told you it was insane even then, didn’t I? But no! You had to risk everything for her. Look where it got you. And how did she thank you? She took your heart and trampled it under her feet.”

Adrien fell silent.

“That’s why you didn’t try hard enough to reach out after they cut you off. It wasn’t only your pride that got bruised. Your heart got broken as well.”

“You can think whatever you want,” Adrien mumbled quietly, getting out of bed. “But having a close friend doesn’t mean I have a crush on her. My heart has always belonged to Ladybug.”

Plagg groaned in exasperation and flew off. Adrien went about his morning routine, pushing aside Plagg’s ridiculous claims and letting his thoughts race back to Nino. The prospect of meeting with his former best friend left him confused at best. Thrilled? Not exactly. More like nervous? Anxious? But nevertheless, kind of glad because the rejection and the refusal to let him at least explain himself still stung. Adrien spent years being bitter and resentful about that and had a lot to say. And today he was going to say everything because he didn’t really care about the way this meeting would go. He wasn’t looking to renew the friendship. An explanation, closure and the strength to move on: that was all Adrien wanted.

The day went by tortuously slowly. Hiring a new assistant for Marinette was Adrien’s top priority, but it was proving to be rather difficult. She needed someone highly experienced at this point and not a lot of qualified people wanted to work with a seemingly doomed company Gabriel had become. Scratch “a lot”. “None” would fit better. And to change that would require a ton of work, the size of Adrien was only now starting to realize. He did his best, but even he had his limits and needed breaks to stay sane. That was why, as soon as the clock struck a quarter to noon, Adrien zoomed out of his office and almost sprinted to a nearby café. Five minutes early, he wasn’t surprised to see Nino already there. His former best friend was always one to be on time.

Adrien halted his steps. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. He should have refused. Surely, he can help Marinette without Nino. No need to rip the old wounds open and let them bleed unnecessarily.

Before he could change his mind though, Nino stood up, looking his way. Awkwardly, the pair watched each other for a few moments from a distance until Nino motioned Adrien to sit at his table.

“Do you want small talk, or we could just—”

“Let’s skip it,” Adrien shrugged, settling in the chair.

“Straight to the issue?”

“Why not?”

“I’m all for it.”

“Me too.”

“Would you like to order?” a waiter interrupted.

Both men nodded in unison and took their time placing orders. After the waiter left, no one rushed to break the silence.

“So,” Nino finally gave in. “If we aren’t holding back and telling as it is… I still think you acted like a jerk, but I do owe you an apology because your intuition was right. Working with your father did ruin Marinette’s life. And that…” Nino inhaled deeply, “might actually be an understatement.”

Adrien sighed. “I saw tragedies happen too many times to do nothing. People had nervous breakdowns over a stupid deadline that was set a few days earlier than the actual one anyway. Or over an outfit that was added to the collection at the last minute and the fabric had to be personally flown in from Tibet. Many were doing the work of two or three on a tight schedule because their assistants couldn’t take it anymore and quit. So, just thinking that one of my closest friends could end up in that place… I couldn’t let that happen to her.” Adrien paused, his eyes focusing on the napkin he fidgeted with. “I only tried to protect her from that hell. Nothing else.”

“I can see now why you wanted her away from Gabriel, but you could’ve gone about it a different way, one that didn’t involve sneaking behind her back.”

Adrien nodded. “That’s on me. I should’ve done it differently. But you should've let me explain instead of cutting me off without warning.”

“What are you talking about?” Nino quirked an eyebrow. “You were the one who didn't want anything to do with us.”

“If by me trying to reach you for weeks, begging to let me explain and apologize is what you consider—”

“Let me stop you right there,” Nino interrupted, raising his hand. “What weeks are we talking about here? You sent us a single message in the chatroom that same day before quitting it, and in it, you spelled quite clearly that you had neither desire nor time for such ‘crappy friends’ as us anymore because apparently we neither did nor could understand and support you. Why do you think I never contacted you in all those years? Yes, I was angry with you, but all I needed was time to chill down and think. I would’ve reached out for that explanation eventually. You were my best bud, Adrien. I would’ve never just cut you off like I did unless you wanted that. Unless you asked me to do that, ‘lest I accidentally stumble upon an unwelcome reminder’ if I didn’t block you on all platforms.”

Adrien stared at Nino in confusion. “What are you talking about? I never sent any of you anything like that. I never quit the chatroom. You kicked me out. The three of you were my best friends, and you know how few of those I had. Why on Earth would I ask you to cut me off?”

“Your food, gentlemen.” The waiter placed plates before the men, giving Nino time to reach for his cell phone, open it on a particular screen and pass it to Adrien.

“Take a read for yourself. I’m sure you remember this. No one but the four of us had access to this chatroom, and the message is clearly sent from your account, following the notification that you left the chat.”

Adrien froze, his eyebrows slowly knitting into a frown as he read the words on the screen. Once done, he blankly stared at the device for a few moments before leaning back into his seat. “I didn’t write this. I didn't leave on my own. There has to have been a mistake.”

“Like what? Someone hacked you?”

“I can’t really say,” Adrien frowned. “From my end, I was just kicked out of the chat and blocked everywhere that same evening. Though, I hadn't discovered it until a bit later since I thought giving you time to calm down was a good idea.”

“So you knew we blocked you and still claim you were trying to reach out?”

“I hoped that at least one of you would unblock me eventually and I’d be able to explain.”

Nino huffed. “Why didn't you just seek us out in person?”

“I was busy moving out and working, and Chloe said if you didn't want to talk to me online, you wouldn't want to see me in person.”

Nino raised an eyebrow. “Chloe?”

Adrien shrugged, looking away. “No one else was around to give me advice, and it’s not like she sounded unreasonable.”

They fell in silence for a moment. Nino picked up his fork and started to eat, Adrien following his suit. A few minutes later, Nino asked, “Ever left your phone around her unattended?”

His thoughts rushing back to the past, Adrien nodded. “Never had a reason not to trust her that much.”

“Does she, by any chance, know your password?”

Adrien shrugged. “I never personally gave it to her, but it's not like I hid it either.”

Nino waited until he finished chewing his next bite to comment. “We both know Chloe is capable of sending those messages and quitting the chat on your behalf. She never liked us being friends, and it was awfully out of character of you.”

“That’s a valid possibility.”

Nino focused on his meal for a few more moments before asking, “ You swear you didn’t send those?”

Adrien leaned backwards in his seat. “On my mother’s name.”

Sighing heavily, Nino closed his eyes. “This is so messed up. This whole situation is just… so messed up. And what do we do now?”

"I don’t know," Adrien murmured, looking to the side.

“I guess I owe you another apology.” Nino cleared his throat. “I won’t apologize for getting angry at you. For the way you went about the whole Marinette thing, you deserved it. However, I am sorry for believing you could have sent that message and cutting you off without giving you a chance to defend yourself. I should’ve known you better than that.”

“Fair enough,” Adrien replied. “I do admit I could’ve used a better way to protect Marinette, and I guess I should’ve tried harder to reach out too, instead of assuming you abandoned me at the first opportunity. I’m sorry as well.”

“I appreciate it.” Nino shifted in his chair, picking up his coffee mug. “So, what next?”

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, leaning back in his seat. “I don’t know? Maybe, let’s start with why you contacted me all of the sudden after all those years? I assume you need info on Marinette?”

“I did, but it doesn’t matter anymore.” Nino shrugged. “Alya’s finally gotten through to her, and they’re having lunch as we speak.”

“So technically we didn’t have to meet?”

“Technically no. But since you already agreed to come, I wanted…” he paused to muse for a second before giving Adrien a shy smile. “Actually, I'm not sure what I wanted, but I was curious to see you again.”

“I hope your curiosity was satisfied?”

“My curiosity is wondering why you look so exhausted on Saturday afternoon?”

“Got a little more than I can handle on my plate at the moment.”

Nino hesitated but still asked, “Need some help?”

“I wish you could help me,” Adrien chuckled. “Thank you, but unless you know how to run a fashion empire, I don't think that's a viable option.”

“I am a quick learner. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

Adrien swallowed. He hadn't been looking for a renewal of their friendship when he was coming here, but… Sitting here, talking to Nino again after all these years, seeing how little he had changed, how caring and understanding and just cool Nino still was… Adrien wondered. “I can always use a friend. I still don’t have many of those… If you want to of course.”

Nino smiled. “Even after everything?”

“I don't think I ever got over you,” Adrien dramatically sighed.

Nino chuckled. “You’re too kind for this world, Adrien. I hope you know that.”

“I did have a friend who used to tell me that all the time. Without him in my life, I haven't heard this in years.”

“I can fill his shoes again if you’re really sure about this.”

“I’m not delusional to think this would be easy. Rebuilding something is bound to have its own issues, especially in our situation.”

“But we can always try.”

“We can.”

Nino stretched his hand to Adrien. “I missed you, bro.”

A smile on his face, Adrien accepted the handshake. “I miss you too, Nino.”

***

With his unexpectedly successful lunch the previous day on his mind, Adrien wanted nothing less than to spend his Sunday visiting the mansion. He’d stalled as much as he could, shopping for groceries, doing his laundry, and even visiting work for half a day. Once the evening drew near, though, he couldn’t excuse himself anymore. An hour’s walk along the Seine helped Adrien come to grips with what he had to do, and soon, he was standing in front of the house he once called home.

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it,” Plagg grumbled from his collar.

“I promised Marinette. I have to.”

“Then do it and stop whining.”

Adrien groaned. “You aren’t any help, Plagg.”

“Being helpful isn’t in my job description,” Plagg muttered and relocated to Adrien’s bag. “Wake me up when you’re done standing around, pointlessly staring at the front door.”

Adrien’s shoulders slumped as he sighed dejectedly. Fishing the key out of his pocket, he forced himself to open the door before he could change his mind.

He hadn’t visited ever since he moved out. When his father was alive, it was out of the question. They never reconciled. And after Gabriel's death, his lawyer handled all the necessary procedures without the younger Agreste having to take a single step inside the mansion. It would be put up for sale soon, but for now, Gabriel's possessions were still untouched in the places he’d left them.

Adrien quickly walked through the empty, cold hallway to his father’s office. It hadn’t changed at all: minimalist furnishing, clean design, barren of any comfort and warmth. He paused at his mother’s portrait, making a note to claim it for himself. It was a beautiful piece. His sight shifted to his father’s desk. A few folders and a couple of random things lying atop it. A dead plant in the corner right behind.

Adrien sat in his father’s chair and looked through the folders. None of them were what Marinette needed. He reached for a drawer in the table. Inside were more folders and a slim white box. Pushing the box out of the way, Adrien took the folders out. To his relief, three of those were exactly what he came here for.

“Perfect.” Adrien exhaled and tried to shove the remaining folders back into the drawer. Something was obstructing them. He reached in and pulled the white box out. It was nothing unique, really. A regular box his Father used for his jewelry collection… Yet, even after the files were back in their place, Adrien couldn’t take his eyes off it. Something about the box was just so enigmatic. Something drew him in. Something he couldn’t explain.

He carefully took the lid off.

A bright electric orb exploded in front of him, and a little purple kwami with wings emerged. At first, its eyes were lowered to the floor, but once the creature looked up they widened, mouth falling open.

“Ma-Master?”

“Nooroo! Old pal!” Plagg zoomed out from Adrien’s bag and crushed the little guy in his embrace. “So that’s where you were hiding all this time?”

“Plagg?” Nooroo squeaked.

“Nooroo?” Adrien echoed.

“Yup, my old pal, Nooroo,” Plagg punched the purple kwami’s shoulder. “Hawkmoth’s kwami.”

Adrien sharply inhaled.

Nooroo looked at him and quietly asked, “Where is my Master?”

Adrien could hardly breathe. “What’s the name of your Master?”

"We can't say the names of our wielders to others,” Plagg answered instead. “Some magic stuff I don’t really care about.”

“Can you point to his picture?” Adrien whispered, staring at Nooroo in shock, dreading to hear the answer he suspected he already knew.

Nooroo nodded and stretched his tiny hand in the direction of their family portrait. “The older man,” the kwami said quietly as the world shuddered beneath Adrien’s feet.

Next >

#miraculous ladybug #marichat #ml fanfiction #adrien agreste #Nino lahiffe #nooroo #the other you #adrienette #Aged-up #angst with a happy end #myart #my art

[thewritewolf]

Adrien, Agreste No Longer: Chapter 2 - First Impressions

Marinette struggles with disappointment. Chat Noir makes some new friends.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 (Final)

Read on Ao3

“I’m really sorry about this, Marinette.”

“N-no! Don’t be! It’s not like you wanted this to happen, right?”

“Definitely not,” he replied with a conviction Marinette could feel in her heart. “But you know how my father gets.”

“R-right,” Marinette said in a whisper. How she could have ever looked up to that man as a fashion role model as beyond her. The more she found out about him the more broken that pedestal became. “So… I guess I’ll see you at school then?”

“Yeah,” Adrien said wistfully. “At least I’ll see you there. Good night, Marinette.”

“Night, Adrien.” She hung up and set her phone down. With a groan she face planted into her bed and curled up into the fetal position.

They had such big plans for that night! It would’ve just been the four of them having a blast, doing some good work. Maybe that was going to be the night she confessed. And maybe they would have started dating from there. But if even that plan, so long in the making, had been foiled, was there any hope for them after all?

Now, more than ever, their three kids and a hamster never felt further away…

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Marinette raised her head to look up at her kwami. “I just… How can Mr. Agreste be so callous? You should have heard how disappointed Adrien was.” She sat up, still clutching a pillow to her chest like a lifeline. “And the way he said it! It was almost like he was used to his father being so cruel.”

“No arguments here.” Tikki settled on Marinette’s shoulder, rubbing comforting circles on her chosen’s cheek. “Living under Gabriel’s roof must be plain awful.”

Marinette shook her head in disbelief. “How can such a mean man raise such a sweet, kind hearted boy?”

“Who knows? Maybe the good in him is stronger than the evil around him. But look on the bright side!” Tikki flew in front of her. “Adrien might not be able to go, but you and Alya and Nino still can! This might be your chance to meet your idol!”

“Do you think so?” Marinette slowly let go of her pillow as a smile spread across her face. “That would be so cool! Barbie has had such a huge impact on the fashion world over the years, it would be an honor to meet her.”

“And even better if she sees what great work you’ve done on your own clothes!”

Marinette gasped. “That reminds me! I need to get to work on that skirt if its going to be ready by then!”

“Then let’s get to it! You’re going to knock Mrs Roberts off her feet with these designs!”

“Thanks, Tikki,” Marinette said with a giggle. “I’d be happy with just a passing compliment. Let’s work on just getting it done first, though.”

---------------

After calling all of his friends, Adrien just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be doing any homework. He didn’t even expect anyone to actually check in to see if he had made any progress anyway, so what was the point? Instead, he found his eyes being drawn to the wide open window in his room, and the sun sinking below the horizon.

“You wanna go for a run, kid?” Plagg spoke up from a spot on his desk and with one final gulp finished off the last of his camembert wedge. “You look like you could use it.”

“Do you… do you think Ladybug might be out there?” Adrien sure could use someone to talk to. Someone that he hadn’t disappointed today.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out, right? Besides,” Plagg added with a smirk, “you’re the hero of Paris during the night. This is your time to shine, kid.”

After tapping his pencil against the desk at a breakneck pace for a few minutes, it came to a sudden stop. “You know what? I think I could use a few hours of not being Adrien. Plagg, claws out!”

The familiar rush of power flooded through him and he leaped from his window into the waiting city. These runs were becoming more and more regular as his father became more and more controlling. They were a great way to burn off his frustration as he bounded across rooftops and soared across the city with swings of his staff. But even with his superhuman strength and endurance, he couldn’t run forever.

He perched on top of a street sign and watched the meager traffic flow below him. This late at night, in this part of the city, there weren’t many people on the streets, and even fewer people with their eyes looking up. With no sign of his lady, it looked like Chat Noir was alone tonight.

Or, at least, that’s what he thought until a voice called out to him from the street.

“Hello? Chat Noir?” The female voice was clear and cheerful, like the ringing of a silver bell. He looked down and easily found the source - a middle-aged blonde woman who was looking remarkably fashionable in a bright pink outfit. At her side was a man of a similar age wearing a white shirt with bright blue stripes.

“Good evening!” Eager at the chance for company, Chat jumped down to street level. He gave a playful bow. “How can the famous Chat Noir help you this fine night?”

“Oh! Nothing in particular,” she began. “I was just so happy to see you! We’ve only just arrived in Paris, but we’ve heard all about you and Ladybug.”

“I’m just as excited as you, Barbie,” the man added with a big smile as he squeezed the woman close. “Seeing one of the heroes after being here for just a few minutes is one heck of a great sign!”

It all suddenly clicked for Chat. “Barbie…? As in, Barbie Roberts?”

With a radiant smile, Barbie nodded. “The same! I’m glad you’ve heard of me.”

Chat snorted. “It’d be hard not to hear about you, with everything you’ve done.” His eyes widened as he frantically began patting his pockets. “Shoot, I wish I had something for you to sign. One of my friends is a huge fan of yours.”

There was a knowing smirk on the man’s face. “I think I can guess who. By the way, I’m Ken.” He held out his hand.

“There was no doubt in my mind about that, sir,” Chat said as he took his hand. “I can’t imagine anyone else being as close to Barbie.”

Ken laughed. “That’s a bigger compliment than you know, kiddo! Anyway, we wanted to tell you what a great job we think you’re doing fighting the good fight.”

“We’re doing what we can, but…” Chat’s ears drooped. “I don’t know when we’ll ever get to Hawkmoth himself. He’s really good at staying hidden.”

A look passed between Ken and Barbie. Ken placed a hand on Chat’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’re in your corner one hundred percent. We’ve got our own beef with that man.” Anger fluttered across Ken’s normally sunny expression.

“Really? What did he do to you?”

Barbie’s smile was gone when she replied, “It was about fifteen years ago, in Tibet. We had a run in with him. We think he stole… something very important to us. We’re hoping to bring him to justice and get back what’s ours.”

“Oh no… I’m so sorry.” Chat frowned. Who would possibly have something against the Roberts? They were such kind people - it was unthinkable! Squaring his jaw in his best imitation of a heroic look, he added, “Ladybug and I will double down on trying to find Hawkmoth! You have my promise!”

Their smiles were warm and genuine. Barbie surprised him by wrapping him in a tight hug. “That’s very sweet of you, Chat. And let me make a promise in return.” She took a step back, but left her hands on his shoulders. “We will do everything in our power to help you. Just say the word and we’ll be there for you two.”

Chat’s heart swelled. They said their goodbyes and he rushed home.

Now he really wished he could talk to Ladybug and let her know the good news. He frowned in thought as he landed in his room. Something about Barbie’s story - the time, the location - felt incredibly familiar. Maybe Ladybug would know when he brought it up during the next patrol.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #Adrienette #Chat Noir #Plagg #Barbie #Ken #barbie: life in the dreamhouse #ml fanfiction #my writing #Adrien Agreste No Longer

[my-miraculous-headcanons]

Maximilian’s Fic Recs

My personal recs for the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. I’ll be rating each story out of 5 stars for both angst and fluff. Honestly, I’ve read a whole lot of stories that I just absolutely love, but these are the top ones that I remember.

I should make a point of saying this— Not all of these are romance fics. In fact, most of these are probably not going to be romance fics. My favourite fics tend to be ones that don’t focus strongly on romance. 

I’m also going to try to be as vague as possibly in my reviews so I don’t spoil anything too much. If you want anything more specific, you should check the summaries the authors put up on their stories, as well as the maturity ratings.

Incomplete and/or Ongoing Fics

Through A Doll’s Eyes — Incomplete Angst:✦✦✦✦✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✧✧ Review: This story is simply phenomenal. It deals with the idea of inanimate objects having a sort of a soul, specifically objects hand-made with love and care. There were many instances in this story where I was close to tears. I loved it, I loved Marinette, her perseverance, and heart of gold. The way she watched over her families over the years and cared so whole-heartedly. I’m upset that there wasn’t more. Unfortunately, it hasn’t updated in a long while, and I don’t think it will in the future.

Red For Fortune — Incomplete/Ongoing(?) Angst:✦✦✦✧✧ Fluff:✦✧✧✧✧ Review: REALLY loved this!!! Honestly, I love any fics that touch on Marinette’s biracial heritage, but this one seriously takes the cake. And I like that this is one of the stories where they don’t make the nice white friend somehow knowledgable of racial issues. They don’t understand what’s racist and what’s not, they don’t understand why Marinette’s so upset, and they need to figure out why they’re wrong on their own. They’re ignorant, aren’t excused for their ignorance, and aren’t portrayed as being a horrible human being at the same time. They fucked up and need to learn a lesson, simple as that.

Voyance — Incomplete/Ongoing Angst:✦✦✦✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✧✧✧ Review: I honestly wasn’t expecting to get so enamored with this story when I first clicked on it, but it quickly dug its way into my heart and planted itself there. It’s an ongoing story that is truly satisfying, to say the least. Characters are told point-blank what they’re like and how they need to improve, and no matter how indignant the character is, they always leave respecting the tarot reader’s abilities. (Except maybe Alya, but that’s for a reason.)

#BonAnniversairePrincess — Incomplete Angst:✦✦✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✧ Review: Truly one of the sweetest fics I’ve read. Marinette being treated like the princess she deserves to be is one of my favourite things to see in fanfic. (If it wasn’t obvious already, I REALLY love her.) 

Missing — Incomplete/Ongoing Angst:✦✦✦✦✦ Fluff:✧✧✧✧✧ Review: No fluff to see here! A good, angsty Marinette-centric fanfic without really focusing on Marinette’s point of view too much, which is something I love quite a bit. The Lila salt is strong in this one, too, which basically makes me love it more and more. I’m anticipating each and every update.

#No R-Agrestes — Incomplete/Ongoing Angst:✦✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✦ Review: Honestly Marinette is an absolute walking, talking natural disaster in this and I need you all just to read it please it’s just. So funny and good. 

Complete and/or One-shot Fics

Oleanders and Belladonas — Complete Angst:✦✦✦✦✧ Fluff:✦✦✧✧✧ Review: This is a fic with an akuma that’s treated like a legitimate murder mystery, and I’m in love with it. I’m a HUGE fan of murder mysteries, but I’m also not a fan of children dying or there being too much gore. This is not a terribly gory story and still manages to give you a sense of suspense and thrill, satisfying all my wants. I was positively giddy through a lot of this, and not because it was funny. It was just that good. 

What The Cat Dragged In — Complete Angst:✦✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✧ Review: I’m usually not crazy about crossover fics, but this was done rather beautifully. Many characters truly shine in this, both in personality and intelligence, and I sincerely loved every word. Every part of this story is engaging and fun. 

Girl’s Night Out — Complete Angst:✧✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✧ Review: This is honestly just one of the most hilarious fics ever. Marinette is a badass, Adrien doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, and everything is practically burning down around them. I couldn’t ask for anything better even if I tried. 

The Second’s Lament; Walking to Paris — Complete/One-shot Angst:✦✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✦ Review: This story honestly is just straight up adorable. It’s sweet, long, and calming. It’s just absolutely beautiful, and I wish there was more. I have a soft spot for unusual scenarios like this. I also have a MAJOR soft spot for friendship bordering romantic Marichat. This story encapsulates EXACTLY everything I want in Marichat and I’m just ecstatic about it.

Elephant — Complete Angst:✧✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✧ Review: Another absolutely hilarious shenanigans fic that I will NEVER forget. I’m particularly happy over the fact that there’s two endings you can pick from, which is weird because I’m not one to like multiple endings. I suggest reading this when you need a laugh or a pick-me-up, because this will certainly do the trick.

Welcome to WC — Complete/One-shot Angst:✦✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✧ Review: Honestly this is so funny and cute at the same time. The fact that these two idiots just ignored everything around them was so funny I can’t even describe it. I found myself struggling to keep quiet. 

Botched Blind Dates — Complete Angst:✧✧✧✧✧ Fluff:✦✦✦✦✦ Review: This is just wholesome all the way through, and also pretty hilarious. I love the whole blind dates trope, especially in AUs, but this concept, which expands on Nino’s interest in film (which I’m VERY happy about), is even better and much more engaging. I also love that Chloe is considered a friend and good person without sacrificing her key characteristics. 

Series

I won’t be putting an Angst/Fluff rating on these since the different stories within the series can have varying levels of angst and fluff.

Unconventional Scenarios — Incomplete/Ongoing Review: I had fun reading all of these stories. At some points it was depressing, in others it was super funny, and sometimes it was just super sweet. 

Allez Savoir Pourquoi — Complete Review: Honestly one of the most well-written soulmate AU’s I’ve read in a while. Marinette and Adrien are adorable in this, and Adrien’s STILL a Big Dummy which I am happy about, because that’s my favourite characteristic of his.

Miraculous: Tales of Littlebug and Chaton Noir — Incomplete/Ongoing(?) Review: I have nothing to say other than you should do yourself a favor and READ THIS. I think about it all the time. Every day. Nothing can possibly top how cute this series is. I daydream about it and giggle randomly sometimes when I remember it. It’s just,,, SO ridiculously cute.

BAMF Mari — Incomplete/Ongoing(?) Review: I honestly love any story where Adrien realises that Marinette’s a badass, and this series takes that idea and ramps it up to a million. It’s funny, awkward, and adorable. I love that it almost entirely switches up the dynamics- Marinette’s calmed down and Adrien’s a total ball of anxiety and teenaged hormones. It’s brilliant. I guarantee you’ll be smiling throughout the whole series.

It Was Only Meant To Be A One-Shot — Incomplete/Ongoing Review: I very recently read this and I loved absolutely every minute of it, and I can’t wait to see the next installation to the series. Every character gets their moment to shine (with the exception of Gabriel), and this includes Emilie Agreste, who isn’t treated as a flawless human being. There’s No Camembert in Tibet, the sequel to the first fic, Plagg and the Butterfly Costume, was completed about two days ago, and I’m very satisfied. And super excited!!!

Some of my angst/fluff ratings may not be totally accurate because I haven’t had the time to reread every fic, but I believe it’s still accurate enough.

This list will definitely be updated in the future.

#Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain Cheng #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Marichat #Ladynoir #Adrienette #Adrinette #Ladrien #ML #Miraculous Ladybug #Chat Noir #Ladybug #Fic Recs #Gabriel Agreste #Nino Lahiffe #Alya Césaire #Chloé Bourgeois #Lila Rossi #Felix Agreste

[alicepink-me]

The New Guardian

Story Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng is an adult in the real world, guarding the Miracle Box in Master Fu's place. She's in love with Chat Noir, but refuses to tell him her feelings. New holders appear to fight the duo and shake up their lives. Marinette makes a tough decision about her future as Ladybug.

Chapter 18: Home

One Week Later:

"Are you two finally leaving?" Min Jee groaned, rubbing her eyes. She stood in front of the temple doors, dressed fully in pajamas with her hair loose and messy. "It's eleven in the morning and I am not scheduled to leave for my next mission until tomorrow, yet here you two are, disrupting my well deserved sleep."

"I promise we're leaving." Marinette smiled. "It's about time that we get back to Paris anyway." She looked up at Adrien.

"You'll be missed." Min Jee yawned. "You've only avoided this day for like a week so that you and your boyfriend can linger a little longer, but when your friends here have to get back to their lives, so do you. You two are just lucky that I'm strong enough to transport you without fully transforming. If I had to transform this early on my day off, I might actually kill someone."

"Don't pretend our friendship wasn't worth it." Marinette laughed, placing her hand on Min Jee's shoulder.

"Don't act like I won't force you two to walk back to France." She turned to Marinette. "The joy of watching you two suffer might be enough for me to forgive you for waking me up this early."

"Please." Marinette requested. "April set the temple up so everything can go back to normal-normalish and I'll be out of your hair for a bit. I promise."

She sighed. "Fine, I'll teleport you." Min Jee held out her hand. "But "a bit" better be longer than a week. I'm not a taxi." Marinette's smile returned.

"Hey, Marinette . . . " Adrien pulled her back a step by her sleeve. "I've gotten on a lot of your friends' bad sides here, so maybe we should speed this up a little bit." He picked up her suitcases off the ground.

"Okay." Marinette grabbed his free hand and reached for Min's. "Let's go." She looked up at the tall building with a smile and sighed. "Goodbye temple."

Min Jee closed her eyes and squeezed Marinette's hand, her turquoise ring glowing. The temple faded in front of them before turned to a dark room. The ground beneath Marinette and Adrien's feet began to disappear and they fell, hitting the hard floor with a bang. Every bag and suitcase that Adrien carried flung across the room.

"Sorry, I'm tired." Min said, moving around the room.

"It's dark. I can't see anything." Adrien said, picking himself off the floor.

"Oh, what a pity." Min Jee retorted. "Here you go, Marinette. We're back at your dark and dreary apartment." She threw open the curtains, shining some light in. "You both can return to your dull lives now."

"Thanks." Marinette said, brushing herself off. "Would you like something . . . to drink . . . " She looked up, but Min Jee was gone. "Well that's one way to say goodbye." Marinette moved across the room and turned on the lights. "But it's good to be back." She sighed.

"Where exactly is your apartment?" Adrien looked out the window. "How far would my father's mansion be?"

"Less than an hour. We're still in France, but I needed to keep my distance from the bakery." Marinette dragged her suitcase to the bed and unzipped it. "I live on the outskirts of Paris, but I can still see the tip of the Eiffel Tower."

"Why would you want to stay away from home?" Adrien asked, scrunching his eyebrows.

"I'm the guardian, so it's my responsibility to keep the miraculous and the kwamis safe." She pulled out the Miracle Box. "All of my life, my space was shared with everyone else. My friends could visit or ask for favors at any time and I never minded, but I can't have that anymore. I have to stay away to keep this power hidden from people."

"Wouldn't that drive you mad? Staying locked up like this?" Adrien walked up behind her. He knew the feeling all too well. "Do you at least stay in touch with everyone?"

"Not really." Marinette held the Miracle Box in front of her and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and firmly held the sides. Suddenly all the kwamis reappeared in the room.

Adrien's eyes widened. "How did you-"

"Marinette!" All the kwamis cheered, hugging her at once.

"You've brought us back?" Wayzz questioned.

"And Adrien's here!" Trixx exclaimed.

"Finally!" Mullo shouted.

All the kwamis squealed.

"Maybe she finally told him." Pollen suggested.

"I'm sure our Master wouldn't bring Chat Noir here to meet us unless she was truly in love." Wayzz smiled.

"Of course she's in love." Sass insisted. "These two are true soulmates."

"She did memorize his schedule in high school." Roarr added.

"Okay guys." Marinette blushed.

"She would follow him all the time." Trixx added.

"Not that it was any better with Chat Noir." Nooroo stated. "How many duel patrols did Marinette call without any real reason?"

"Okay everyone!" Marinette hushed them, Adrien laughing. "We aren't here to reveal every personal detail about my love life."

"I'm glad you're well, Marinette." Tikki said, flying over.

Marinette looked down, the guilt sinking in. "I'm sorry, Tikki . . . for everything. I hope you can forgive me after I betrayed you."

"Each path you take, good or bad, will shape your life, Marinette." Tikki started. "Just because you strayed away for a little while, doesn't mean you've ruined anything. Certain events form your personality and must be experienced. And after all that . . . you seem better and happier." She smiled. "And I'm proud."

"Thank you, Tikki." Marinette looked up. "I was worried this whole time of what you might think of me or my actions and now that I know you aren't disappointed, I'm grateful."

"I could never be disappointed, Marinette. I only want the best for you." Tikki hugged her cheek. "And no matter what decisions you make, I'll always be here for you."

"You know, I've only ever seen a few of you kwamis before." Adrien said, observing each one. "I don't even remember what each of your powers are." He pointed at Pollen. "Queen Bee's kwami?"

"Was it the stripes?" Pollen asked.

"Guess you threw away at least one of our lessons." Marinette rolled her eyes before turning back to the kwamis. "Now I know I just released you all, but I must renounce you again. I've . . . come to realize some of the insanity in my ways, such as keeping you all here with my power. I want to tell you everything and make sure you know that there's nothing to worry about before I renounce you."

"We don't need to know the details." Wayzz said. "It's the right thing to do, Master."

"We understand." Nooroo announced.

"You guys are too generous." Marinette smiled. "I was kind of selfish to keep you here in the first place." Adrien hugged her from behind, resting his chin on top of her head. "But I'm glad to be back. I made new friends, strengthened my powers, and finally confessed to Adrien and Chat Noir. No more enemies from the temple should visit Paris since their order has been reformed, so we're safe." She smiled. "My life is in order so now I can straighten my life in Paris."

"That's all we needed to know, Marinette." Mullo said.

"Yes, we trust you." Trixx said.

"We wish you the best of luck." Duusu squealed.

"We're ready now, Master." Wayzz said. "The time for goodbyes is over, for we'll meet again in the future."

"Alright." Marinette sighed, taking a step foreword. She picked up the Miracle Box and pried it open. "I . . . renounce you." Every kwami except Tikki and Plagg flashed into the box, their jewelry shining in the process. Marinette closed the box and hugged it to her chest as she turned around. "It's done now."

Plagg flew out of Adrien's jacket. "Finally! I'm starving. Do you have any camembert?"

"Plagg, you didn't come out to say goodbye?" Marinette asked.

"I'm not one to enjoy social gatherings. I'm more for the after party inside the Miracle Box." He answered. "So . . . do you have cheese or not?"

"Plagg!" Adrien complained.

"I don't think I have any food at all if I'm honest." Marinette said, setting the box down on her bed. "Any ingredients I might have had are probably spoiled."

"So let's go out." Adrien grabbed her hands. "A date?"

"To the store?" Marinette grinned.

"A shopping date." Adrien corrected.

"Maybe we'll get some ice cream afterwards, but happily ever afters don't come so easily. We should settle in first." Marinette suggested. "It's best not to rush anyway. That usually ends in disappointment."

"We were in Tibet like ten minutes ago." Adrien chuckled. "Today isn't a regular day. We've had one eventful week. We just got back and . . . we can go against all odds at whatever pace we want. Tomorrow is when we return to routine. For now . . . we have the rest of today." He leaned forward and kissed her lips delicately and smooth. Both smiled to each other.

"I need to make a grocery list." Marinette said, moving to her bed and grabbing her purse out of her suitcase. She slung it over her shoulder as she grabbed a pen and walked to the door. "Shall we get going? Our shopping date awaits us." Marinette took Adrien's hand as he followed and looked up at him in awe.

#miraculous ladybug #MIRACULOUS: TALES OF LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR #marinette dupain cheng #Adrien agreste #ladybug #chat noir #ladynoir #fanfiction #alice pink #alicepink-me #the new guardian #fanfic

[thescarletofarose]

The Consequences of His Actions

Chapter Five

The sound of cutlery hitting fine china clinked through the dining room. The atmosphere was as tense and awkward as the car ride, occasionally broken by the polite comment or observation. 

“How are you enjoying the dish?” Adrien asked.

“It’s delicious,” Marinette responded. “Are you enjoying your meal?”

“Yes, it’s great.”

The conversation trudged on in a similar fashion throughout the courses. Oblivious to the tension or just ignoring it, Emilie had requested a formal meal to show optimal hospitality. Dessert finally replaced the salad plates, and Emilie observed the kids with amusement as they sighed in relief. She took a sip of her freshly given coffee to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips.

“Marinette, I hope you don’t mind that I chose dessert for you,” Emilie said, setting the cup down. She delicately brought a bite of parfait to her lips. “I tend to prefer sweets over cheese.”

“Of course not. My parents run a bakery, so naturally I’m fond of sweets as well.”

“Excellent.” Emilie’s eyes slid to the silver plate being placed in front of Adrien. “I heard that you’ve become quite fond of Camembert, Adrien. I asked the chef to swap your dessert for it.”

A pungent smell erupted from the platter as the gooey aged delicacy was revealed. Adrien’s stomach clenched as he held back a gag. With a strained smile, he turned to his mother, “Y-you recognized? How thoughtful...”

Ever so slowly, Adrien brought a small bite up to his mouth. He willed his facial features to not betray him as he slid in the cheese. The tough exterior gave way to an explosion of unwelcomed flavor. A whine escaped as he chewed, and Adrien had to force his grimace into a smile as the two ladies gave him a questionable look. He swallowed hard and held up his thumb. “Delicious as usual, mom, but I think I’ll have to hold back. After all I am a model, so I should watch what I eat.”

Emilie nodded and the plate was immediately removed. Adrien watched the hired hands remove the cheese, not yet used to their new presence. Since Nathalie’s indefinite departure, his mother had brought on a small team of people to take care of the abandoned duties. Adrien felt a twang of sadness. He and Nathalie had not been especially close, but he had hoped she would have said goodbye first. 

“So Marinette,” Emilie began, waiting for the targeted girl to finish her bite of dessert, “tell me about yourself. What are your plans after school? Will you be getting a government job?”

“I’m hoping to be able to pursue a career with fashion. I really enjoy designing clothes and making them,” Marinette answered. Her eyes brightened and her cheeks lightly colored. “I think it would be great to even come out with my own fashion line one day.”

Adrien watched Marinette’s reaction with a soft smile. He absentmindedly thought about what kind of clothes she would design. Would she wear her own designs? Would she create men and women clothing? What if she made a matching sweet-heart line for couples? Adrien felt his face warm at the thought.

“What are your intentions with my son?”

Adrien nearly fell out of his seat. He glanced at Marinette who was doing her best to not choke on her dessert. Emilie gently dabbed her face with a napkin, mercifully allowing them a moment to recompose.

“I-I…,” Marinette stuttered. Her face was the same color as the strawberries within her parfait. Adrien was sure his face matched.

“Mom, I really don’t think that’s an appropriate–”

“Nonsense, Adrien. As your mother, I should know the type of people with whom you’re associating. Isn’t that right, Marinette?” Emilie asked. She fought the urge to grin at the sight of the girl squirming in her chair uncomfortably. Watching their awkward and strained interaction during the dinner made it clear that the girl had feelings for Adrien. The effortless control she had could have made her purr. Emilie blinked innocently. “I’m sure your mother would do the same for you.”

Marinette squeaked in agreeance. Her face was so red, it was unclear if she was breathing or not. Emilie’s lips twitched and she decided to be merciful. 

“Speaking of, I understand your family runs a bakery?”

Emilie threw the question as a life preserver and like a drowning victim in turbulent waters, Marinette latched on with desperation.

“Yes! Both my father and mother.”

“Oh? How nice, and what are your parents’ names?” Emilie asked, slowly reeling the unsuspecting girl into her boat.

“Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng.”

Adrien sipped his coffee while watching the interaction, feeling more relaxed now that the topic of conversation had veered. He could still feel his heart racing, and he hoped he didn’t look as frazzled as he felt.

“Cheng. That’s Chinese, yes? If you don’t mind me asking, have you always lived here or have you been to China?”

Marinette gently pushed her now empty dessert glass to the side. “I’ve always lived in France. My mother lived in China though.”

“Really?” Emilie brought a hand to her cheek in feigned surprise. “It must have been so long since she’s seen her family then.”

Marinette shook her head. “Not as long as you think. She actually visited home a couple years ago. I wasn’t able to go because I was busy with school.”

Emilie leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. She regarded Marinette coolly, concealing the glee within her. “Interesting. Did she go alone?”

Marinette furrowed her brows in thought. “I think she went with a friend, but I really don’t remember.”

“Mom,” Adrien chimed in, “didn’t you go to Tibet a couple years back as well?”

Emilie waved off his question, her jovial mood quickly disappearing. She could feel a headache beginning to form. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. China is large.”

“Actually, Tibet is where my mother’s family lives,” Marinette said. “Why did you travel to Tibet, Mrs. Agreste?”

“Work,” Emilie replied, resisting the urge to clench her teeth. A sharp pain began weedling its way through the right side of her temple. She dug her nails into the back of her hands and gave a tense smile to the young girl. “If you will excuse me, I suddenly feel unwell.”

Adrien got to his feet, his brow knitted in worry. “Are you okay? Should I do anything to help?”

Emilie held up a hand, and Adrien sat back down. She fought to keep her smile from slipping into a snarl. “No need, just ensure that your friend gets home safely.”

“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Agreste,” Marinette said as Emilie stood up. “Thank you for having me over for dinner.”

Emilie chuckled and made her way to the door. “Believe me, dear, the pleasure was mine.”

Silence fell once more as the two seemed to remember the events leading up to the dinner. Marinette fiddled with her napkin, her mind going wild. It felt like a dream; Adrien had asked her to his house for dinner. It was something she had wanted, Adrien approaching her first, but had resigned to the fear that it would never happen. Though he had introduced her as his friend to Mrs. Agreste, Marinette’s heart couldn’t help but hope. She made eye contact with Adrien, and her face heated up. Guilt immediately began eating away at her. Turning away, she bitterly laughed and said, “I should get going. It’s getting late, and I’m sure my parents are expecting me.”

When his mother left, Adrien had wanted to continue talking, but he couldn’t help but feel doubt upon noticing her uncomfortable expression. Instead he fell into the awkward silence, unsure of what to say. He watched her squirm in her chair, each quiet second a punch to his gut. Marinette had accepted his offer to dinner, but that didn’t necessarily mean she had wanted to come. She made sure to go out of her way to check on him after his father’s arrest and has been nothing but caring and supportive. Agreeing to dinner could have been her just trying to be kind despite feeling uncomfortable. Adrien bit his lip, nauseated at the idea of having taken advantage of her kindness.

“Of course,” Adrien muttered. The two got up, and he led Marinette to the family car. He held the door open for her before going around to the other side. Buckled up, both looked out their respective windows, and the ride began in an unsatisfying silence. 

“I feel like I should apologize.”

Marinette and Adrien blinked in surprise, not expecting the other to say the same. Marinette opened her mouth, but Adrien held up a hand.

“Let me go first,” he said.

Adrien wasn’t sure how comfortable Marinette was around him, but he had to at least tell her he was grateful. “Marinette,” he said, “I feel like I’ve been taking advantage of your kindness.”

Marinette frowned, caught off guard. “Why would you think that?”

“You’re such a kind person. You have always been ready to help those in need, no matter the problem. You gave me the courage I needed to return to school after my father’s… arrest.”

Marinette’s cheeks pinkened as he continued, “I asked you to dinner because I wanted to spend more time with you, but I didn’t consider if I was asking for too much.”

Adrien stared intensely into Marinette’s eyes, desperate for her to accept his gratitude. “I like spending time with you, Marinette, and I want to spend more time with you.”

Marinette’s eyes widened, her mouth flopping open like a fish. “I-I…” she said, trying to pull herself back together, “I like spending time with you too.”

“Really?” Adrien visibly relaxed, a relieved smile slowly forming. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

Seeing his happy face, his eyes lit up and looking only at her, Marinette’s heart warmed. She found herself continuing to talk, wanting that expression to last forever. “It’s true. I felt bad because I knew you were hurting. While I was getting enjoyment out of the time spent with you, you were needing someone supportive. I felt like I was taking advantage of you…”

Adrien shook his head, laughing. “I’m glad we had this talk, Marinette.”

“Me too,” Marinette said. She nervously bit her lip and meekly asked, “Does this mean we’ll spend more time together?”

Adrien grinned. “I hope so. When would you like to hang out again?”

“I’m free tomorrow,” Marinette blurted. Her face turned a bright red. “U-unless that’s too soon.”

The car slowed to a stop. The teens looked out and saw the white building of the Dupain-Cheng household and bakery. Marinette reached for the handle, but Adrien gently grabbed her hand, stopping her. 

“I have a photo shoot at the park early tomorrow morning. We could meet up there once it’s done?”

Marinette smiled, her heart fluttering at the touch. “Yeah, I’ll see you there.”

Marinette climbed out, thanked the driver, and watched the car pull away in a daze. Once it was gone, she entered her home, feeling light-headed and giddy. Her mother was in the kitchen, and turned around to greet her when she entered. 

Sabine had a cup of coffee in her hand but set it down to hug her daughter. Pulling back, she saw the goofy grin on Marinette’s face and smiled knowingly. Teasing, she asked, “How was dinner?”

Marinette sighed. “He wants to see me tomorrow.”

Sabine chuckled and opened a cabinet to grab a second cup for Marinette who plopped onto a stool. “I’m guessing that means it went well?”

Marinetted nodded, fondly remembering the car ride home. “It was a little awkward at first. I didn’t expect to meet his mother, but she was really nice. Once we got to talking, everything got much better.”

A crash startled Marinette out of her daydream. She jumped up to see broken porcelain around her mother’s feet. ‘Mom, are you okay?”

Sabine stared at her hands, seemingly not registering that the cup had fallen. Marinette darted over and began picking up the pieces. The movement jerked Sabine into action, and she stopped Marinette. “Don’t,” she said, “you might get hurt. I’ll get a broom.”

Marinette threw the shards in her hands away and sat back down while her mother cleaned up the mess. Sabine focused on the repetitive movements of the broom, oblivious to her daughter’s concern. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Marinette asked as Sabine dumped the remaining pieces into the trashcan. The older woman feebly smiled.

“I probably just had too much coffee.”

Marinette hesitantly nodded, accepting her mother’s excuse. 

“You should get to bed, dear,” Sabine said, kissing the top of her head. “You were out late tonight.”

As if on cue, Marinette let out a yawn. At the mention of her bed, her body immediately felt heavy. She sleepily hopped up and hugged her mother goodnight before trudging upstairs. 

Sabine watched her go before sitting down. An unpleasant feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. She ran a hand through her hair, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. Her hands were shaking as Sabine picked up the mug she had been using and took a sip of her coffee. It was cold.

#miraculous #miraculousladybug #miraculous fandom #miraculousfanfic #miraculousfanfiction #ladybug #chat noir #LadyNoir #ladrien #marichat #adrinette #chapter story #chapter five #TheScarletofaRose

[toujoursmiraculous]

Mayura Over-Analysis! (Heroes Day - Part 2)

We start off with Ladybug worrying that Hawk Moth’s clearly had time to come up with such an elaborate plan, yet they’re completely unprepared. And Chat Noir does what he does best and reassures her that they can do it. Both Marinette and Ladybug have doubts and fears that they express, and Adrien and Chat Noir are always there to remind her of how amazing she is and she can do whatever it is that’s troubling or worrying her.  Hawk Moth seriously had Guitar Villain and Frightningale perform some pretty bad-ass music for the fight. What a mood. Carapace saving Chat Noir makes me so happy. Neither knew that the other’s their best friend. Please let these two become closer in S3! Rena Rouge calling Queen Bee “Chloe” and her remark of wanting to be called Queen Bee amuses me. Using Chloe’s identity as a weak spot to start dismantling Team Miraculous was smart. And it’s really nice to see the consequences of an identity being revealed. To those that think the reveal should happen just for the sake of a reveal, this is why it hasn’t come yet. Chat Noir launching Queen Bee, idk why, but I love it. Using Dark Cupid as fuel for akumas was so brilliant! To utilize him in such a way was something that I’m sure most, if not all of us, ever thought to do. Imagine all the possibilities with fics now. Team Miraculous working together is honestly the coolest thing ever. They work so well despite it being their first time as a group. RENA ROUGE TAKING AN ARROW FOR CARAPACE AND HIS REACTION ;-; Queen Bee jumping in to protect them is just beautiful. No hesitation. no words other than to say she wasn’t going to break... Carapace’s scream when Rena Rouge got akumatized. MY HEART CAN’T HANDLE THIS. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Just the fact that Nino gets akumatized because he’s upset over things that happen to people he cares about says all you really need to know about Nino Lahiffe. The fact Prime Queen thinks Ladybug and Chat Noir ultimately killed themselves to escape the akumas is hilarious. YES THEY TOTALLY DESTROYED THEMSELVES AND GAVE UP. /sarcasm Plagg sharing his cheese <3 Plagg loves that Camembert more than anything we’ve seen, but he actually loves Adrien more. x3 Now we see Adrien comforting Marinette (though no identity reveal!) again and reminding her of her words of hope. As they’re on opposite sides of a wall. The parallels in this show are truly one of my favorite things. “Well it’s the return of the working formula, a duo. You and I against the whole world!” TOTALLY NOT CRYING AT THIS Also remembered Tikki and Plagg know the identity of LB and CN. I wonder what they thought during this scene. ADRIEN AND MARINETTE JUMP OFF A SEVERAL DOZEN FEET/METER DROP. TOGETHER. WITH THEIR EYES SHUT. AND TRANSFORM MID-AIR. TOGETHER. WITHOUT A DOUBT THE MOST EPIC SCENE IN THE SHOW SO FAR. They said “detransformation” and I gasped. For that split second, even though I knew deep down they wouldn’t actually reveal themselves, I got scared. Even akumatized, Rena Rouge and Carapace stuck together. Awwwwww x3 VIVE LA FRANCE ! Citizens taking charge and being heroes for a day and helping Ladybug and Chat Noir! How beautiful is that? Leading the front line: Marc, Luka x3, Nora, Alya’s mother, Luka and Juleka’s mother, Marinette’s parents and grandmother. YES. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL LINEUP. OMG Manon is there too. She’s fighting to save her mother! Gina helping Ladybug up is so aww. And Alya’s mom telling her they’re so glad to see them again, and will fight to slow them down to give Ladybug and Chat Noir time save the day. These citizens are proving you don’t have to have superpowers to be a hero is such a wonderful message. The pilots circling Gorizilla like that are seriously sacrificing themselves. How easy it must be to make a mistake and crash. “Are you sure you’re not making a huge mistake? That the wish I want to make won’t be a huge benefit?” Wait, hold up. I remember seeing a picture taken in a studio of Gabriel and Ladybug in the room that holds Emilie, before we ever saw the room in Gorizilla so it was certainly not edited. What if somehow there’s some kind of truth to what he’s saying here? What if things aren’t quite as black and white as they appear? Hmmm..... “Whatever may be your wish, it must be evil seeing the chaos you’re creating.” Chat Noir being the one to say it. Wow, if only you knew you precious boy. When you think that it’s Marinette and Adrien fighting Gabriel. These two look up to Gabriel so much, and Gabriel genuinely cares about both of them. Ahhh the drama that’ll arise from this someday. Lila being stuck on the Eiffel Tower again XD Hawk Moth saying he’s a man that has nothing left to lose doesn’t sit well with me. Especially as he BEATS UP HIS SON. “Unable to stay in your form after using your powers.” So Hawk Moth clearly can, but they can’t. Yet.

CARAPACE TO THE RESCUE! Their poses together. So cool. I wonder if after all of this, Alya and Nino will start to see Chloe even slightly differently. Whoa, Hawk Moth’s actually worried about Nathalie’s well-being to beg her not to do what she’s about to do? Still unsure about her powers. Clearly they were used to protect and distract but who knows what they’re capable of. Nathalie risking her life to save him, and being appreciative of it? We’ve now learned the Miraculous is damaged, and causes harm to the holder if they wield it. I’m now thinking that happened to Emilie, and that’s why she’s in the state she’s in. He seemed to know very well how dangerous it is. But this bodes the question: What were Gabriel and Emilie doing in Tibet to try to find the grimoire and Miraculous? Did they simply crave power, or did they have another motive? Did this motive have to do with Adrien, and is that really the reason why he’s always been so sheltered? I’m not sure I understand Lila’s anger here. She sees her class together, eating and enjoying each other’s company. She could’ve had that if she didn’t mess everything up for herself. I also feel bad for Sabrina that Chloe hurt her feelings, but you’d think by now she’d know Chloe won’t eat anything homemade and is especially picky. Chloe could’ve handled it a lot better, but also Chloe handled it better than she normally would have so I’m not sure what to think. Alya’s “Nope, can’t sit here, Adrien. Nope, not here either. But why don’t you sit over there next to Marinette?” scene was awesome, and Mylene warning Marinette that he was coming was such a small thing, but very appreciated! The fact Adrien remembers EVERYTHING MARINETTE’S DONE FOR PEOPLE, and then calls her their everyday Ladybug was the best compliment Adrien could have ever given her. The love and respect he has for Ladybug, to compare Marinette to her means so much. I know Adrien said “You get to be my Ladybug” to her in Evillustrator, and that was significant as well, calling someone else “his Ladybug” but this really shows where he stands when it comes to her. Then calling her “Super Marinette”. YES MARINETTE, YOU GO GET HIM, GIRL! And of course, gotta be your clumsy self but the fact that the entire class was like in shock that Marinette was actually going to do something AND THEN SHE DID. Finally kissed Adrien! On the cheek. But it was amazing! The boy’s in shock, but he’s happy about it so this is a lovely start! The entire class is still just sitting there in shock like “Did she really just do that?” *cheers erupt* Max is still like “What?” and Kim’s the most ecstatic, it would seem, about Marinette kissing Adrien. Maybe he’s secretly a hopeless romantic. Or he really cares about Marinette’s happiness. Or both. Either way, that was sweet. And Chloe doesn’t even seem upset or anything, so that’s a bonus. Then she realizes she stepped in the pie, and pretends like she hadn’t as she watches Adrien leave and the class continues to cheer, while fireworks begin going off and the season comes to an end. This episode was way more than I ever expected it to be. I loved being shocked and surprised, seeing the different kinds of relationships and bonds, and watching the team finally work together. This episode made me genuinely happy, looking forward to more, but not leaving off on a cliffhanger that has me frustrated to know what happens next like S1 did. Instead of a direct continuation from the same day from the end of S1 to the beginning of S2, there could be a small amount of time in between S2 and S3, making them distinct, and I like that. Also, I know we live in a time where people are encouraged to be independent, not to need to rely on anyone, and not to need anyone for any reason. Ladybug and Chat Noir show that separately they can do great things, but together, they’re a force. They are at their most powerful when together, and they provide each other with what the other lacks. Mayura really showcased that, and it’s certainly going to lead into S3.

#ml #miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml season 2 spoilers #ml spoilers season 2 #mayura #mayura spoilers #overanalyzing #team miraculous #ladybug #chat noir #queen bee #carapace #rena rouge #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #chloe bourgeois #hawk moth #catalyst #nathalie sancoeur #heroes day part 2

[ao3feed-ladynoir]

There's No Camembert in Tibet: Outtakes

There's No Camembert in Tibet: Outtakes by quicksilversquared

Sometimes a lot can change behind the scenes between stories.

(Assorted side stories/outtakes from before/after There's No Camembert in Tibet)

Words: 5529, Chapters: 1/7, Language: English

Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Chloé Bourgeois, Emilie Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur, Plagg, Tikki, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Additional Tags: more TNCIT-verse, stuff that got skipped over

Read Here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/16889259

#AO3 Feed #FanFiction #AO3 Adrienette #💚 #💖 #❤️ #Adrienette #Miraculous Ladybug #♥ #R:G #A:Quicksilversquar

[quicksilversquared]

There’s No Camembert in Tibet: Chapter 22

Emilie Agreste was the first person up when the seatbelt sign went off at the gate in Paris. Her aisle seat meant that she didn't have to wait for anyone else to get up, and then she was one of the first people off the plane.

Traveling light had its merits, she had to admit. She didn't have to try to wait to wrestle anything out of the overhead bins, since she only had her Ladybug-patterned duffle bag with her. It contained two changes of clothes, the paperwork that the lovely officers in Lhasa had gotten for her, a bag of toiletries, the money that Nathalie had had wired to her, a temporary phone with Nathalie's and Gerald's phone numbers plugged in (also courtesy of Nathalie's arrangements; unfortunately, it was a very basic phone, and it didn't have Adrien's number at all) and the two books that she had purchased at the airport. The bag bounced against Emilie's leg as she hurried thought the Paris airport, taking the fastest route she could find towards Customs. Once she got through, she wouldn't even have to wait for any luggage to arrive before heading right for the waiting cars, where Gerald would be waiting with the car.

Then she could go home and see her son and actually get to catch up with him. Emilie couldn't deny that she was a bit worried about Adrien, because if the magazine articles that she had deigned to read about her son were correct, Adrien hadn't really been seen out and about since Gabriel's sentencing.

Except now that she thought about it- how was that possible? Nathalie had said that Adrien was doing just fine, and he was out and about with his girlfriend and taking her on dates. It was more likely that Adrien was trying to avoid the nosy reporters- and if they dared approach her to try to harass her for an interview, they would regret it- and so they were retaliating by making it sound like Adrien was ashamed to be seen out in public.

She would set them straight. She and Adrien would go out on walks every day, if they could, to catch up and have treats from the cafes around the city, and so she could meet the friends that Adrien had made. They would show the world that they were Agrestes and would not hide away just because Gabriel made a terrible decision.

(No, that wasn't right. He didn't make one bad decision. Once couldn't become a supervillain with only one bad decision. It was a whole pile of bad decisions, one after another, and to make it sound like only one terrible decision was minimizing it.)

As Emilie reached the end of the hallway and turned to head straight for Customs, she spotted another gate, where it was clear the plane had just finished disembarking. She recognized the plane as the other Chengdu plane bound for Paris, the one that had been delayed for hours on end and had only left just as her plane started boarding. Emilie couldn't deny that she was glad to not have been on that plane, because she would have been bursting with impatience with each delay. It was better to be on the flight that was later to leave to start with and that left right on time.

Once Emilie had joined the queue to go through Customs, she pulled out her phone and turned it on, waiting impatiently for it to finish starting up before sending off a text to both Nathalie and Gerald, telling them that she had arrived and was waiting to go through Customs. It probably wasn't necessary- Nathalie no doubt knew exactly when the plane touched down to the minute already- but it was polite, just in case she was distracted at home.

Surprisingly enough, getting through Customs was a breeze, even thought she had been listed as missing for a year. Nathalie had clearly done her work well, presumably getting a police report dismissing her case even without Mrs. Agreste being there in person. Emilie was sure that there had been all sorts of tangles in the case, since it was clear from the arrest of her husband that her disappearance was mired in magic. But if the superheroes mentioned to the police before leaving that they were looking for her, maybe, then perhaps the paperwork had gone more smoothly.

(That didn't mean that she didn't get strange looks when she had to explain that yes, she was coming home from another country after over a year with only a shoulder bag. But as soon as they looked at her last name again, all questions were swallowed and she was waved through.)

Emilie left the Customs area, following the other travelers towards baggage claim. She only spared the area a glance before heading to the doors. Just outside, she spotted the familiar sleek grey car with Gerald sitting almost directly outside of the door. He was frowning down at his phone, looking concerned about something. She tapped on the car door and he looked up, smiling widely and hopping out to open the car door for her.

(That was completely unnecessary, of course- she could open her own door- but it was kind of him.)

Once she was settled, Gerald pulled smoothly away from the curb, carefully steering out of the airport area. Emilie watched as the familiar cityscape went by.

It was strange, really. She had been gone for over a year, but to her it had felt not much longer than usual. Logically, she should feel no more anxious to get home than she would on any of her other trips to Tibet, since for her it hadn't been any longer, but she was. Emilie wanted nothing more than to see Adrien again.

Maybe it was just because she knew how anxious and worried he must have been about her, and then he had been alone without her for his father's arrest, and of course Gabriel more than likely had been a less than fabulous parent during that year. She wanted to check in on Adrien more than anything, even if she was exhausted from the trip.

Airplane seats were far too uncomfortable to do any good sleeping in, and she had been too anxious about getting home to actually drop off to sleep properly. There had been a few minutes here and there where she dropped off- maybe even a solid hour- but she was going to sleep like a rock once she had seen Adrien and had gotten to talk to him for a bit.

Brake lights glowed ahead, and Emilie groaned as the car slowed down in the rush-hour traffic. Gerald looked a bit frustrated as well as they inched forward, well below the speed limit.

Emilie swallowed the urge to ask if he was sure that there wasn't a faster route home. Gerald was fantastic at his job, and if there was a faster route, they would already be on it.

She would just have to be patient. She would be home soon, and that was all that mattered.

  Thankfully their luggage didn't take long to come. That was pretty much the only thing that had gone right for them on the trip back, really.

"I saw the Gorilla's car pull out," Adrien told Marinette as they searched for a good spot to transform. "I would text Nathalie about where we are, but we don't have the time. He can only delay so long."

Marinette only nodded, trying not to stagger under the weight of her backpacking bag as they headed for an out-of-the-way section of the parking garage. Once they got there, she glanced around, kneeling behind a large car.

"There aren't any cameras," Tikki reported, phasing out through Marinette's backpack. "Go ahead and transform!"

"Transform me!"

Seconds after the last of the sparkles of magic faded from the air, Ladybug and Chat Noir glanced down at the backpacking bags that they had set down next to themselves and groaned.

"We should have transformed with those on and then put the small backpacks on over our costumes," Ladybug said, running a hand over her hair. It had magically gone back to pigtails with the transformation. "But if we de-transform and re-transform..."

Adrien shook his head. "The kwamis haven't re-charged in a while, though. I don't know if they would be able to do that and then keep up the transformation all the way home. We just need to carry these."

Ladybug winced, but they had no time to try to find any food for Tikki and Plagg. She and Chat Noir hurried to pull their backpacks on, and then they were flinging themselves off of the parking ramp.

"Oh, gosh, I can't wait until we get to proper city again," Ladybug gasped as she had to lash her yo-yo out to bridge the gap between the airport buildings and the closest structure. "There's almost nothing out here!"

"Do you need a hand, my Lady?" Chat Noir called over his shoulder. "I could try piggybacking you until we get a bit further."

Ladybug just shook her head. It would be too hard to pull that off with their backpacking packs in the way. "I'll manage. You go ahead, you need to get home. I can be slower."

Chat Noir whined. "I'll get lost! I don't know the city as well as you do!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Ladybug snagged the railing on a bridge and swung under, skimming over some of the driving cars. She could reach a building after that, and then a bridge.

Bridge, building, another building, under a bridge, snag a highway light and swing from that.. The heavy, unwieldy backpack made her normally easy swings harder, throwing her slightly off and forcing her to compensate. Chat Noir seemed to be having the same problem, and it was slowing them down.

They didn't need to be slowed down, not when they were in such a hurry. It normally took an hour to get from the airport to Adrien's house by car, especially when there was rush hour traffic like there was now. That was a pretty long trip and they had to keep in mind that their kwamis weren't exactly fully charged up.

The street lamps weren't the best for swinging- they weren't nearly high enough for Ladybug to reach her top speed- but they were good enough. The two superheroes sped along the highway, leaving the airport behind as they headed directly for central Paris. The buildings got larger and closer together, and finally she and Chat Noir could take to the rooftops.

"Traffic jam ahead!"

"Oh, we're lucky we didn't try to take the bus or something," Ladybug commented, wincing at the sea of brake lights on the highway. "We'd be stuck."

"A cab would know how to avoid the worst of that," Chat Noir called over to her as they ran. They were actually overtaking cars now, which- well, it was promising. "And the Gorilla would, too."

Ladybug frowned. "Don't you think that he would purposefully take the slowest route possible, if he knows that you haven't gotten home yet? Nathalie would have probably asked him to delay as much as possible to give you a chance to get home."

"That's true," Chat Noir admitted. "Oh, she's gonna be freaking out right now. I'm sure she's tried calling my phone to see what I'm doing, and not being able to get through is going to drive her mad."

"Right, because you would be able to answer if you were on a bus or in a taxi." Ladybug snagged a tall building and whipped past, trying not to accidentally bump into the building on her way past. She would rather that her return to Paris not be announced via an article about her accidentally breaking a window as she swung by. "Hey, we can shortcut here!"

They pressed on, pushing themselves forward to go as fast as possible. It was taking a bit to get used to traveling in the city again, using buildings and bridges and lightposts to swing from instead of trees or rock outcrops. By the time they reached the edge of more familiar landmarks, both Ladybug's earrings and Chat Noir's ring had given a single warning beep.

"I see the Gorilla's car!" Chat Noir yelled, pointing. Sure enough, the sleek grey car was waiting at a stoplight, with Adrien's bodyguard's familiar hulking shape behind the wheel. "She'll be home in ten minutes, tops. Let's go!"

They pushed even harder, making sure to stay out of the car's line of sight. Over a building, across several roads, shortcutting across a park, and finally, finally, the Agreste mansion came into view.

"The second bathroom window," Chat Noir panted as they dropped out of the sky in unison, bounding over one more rooftop before they arrived at his house. "The lock is loose, I should be able to break it."

"Nathalie is going to be so confused," Ladybug managed with a little laugh. "We're going to be coming in via your room instead of the door. Got any good excuses?"

"Honestly? Let's stick as close to the truth as we can. We called up Ladybug and Chat Noir to haul us back across town." Chat Noir landed neatly on his bathroom balcony and held up a claw, inserting it in the side of the window and dragging down. The window popped open with a click and he hopped in, Ladybug close behind. They made a dash for the bedroom, detransforming as they did.

"We both smell like plane," Marinette groaned as they made it partway across the room. "And we're all rumpled, and- Adrien! If your mom comes in here, the backpacks-"

"We'll put them in the closet!"

"The clos-" Marinette skidded to a halt and glanced around, puzzled. "Where is your closet? Adrien, where do you keep your clothes?"

Adrien's laughter was a little breathless as he headed over to his rock climbing wall. "Funny story, actually, but that's for later." He pushed at several of the handholds and then twisted another, and the wall sank back and split apart to reveal a ridiculously large walk-in closet. Adrien grinned at Marinette's expression, then grabbed her big backpack and tossed it in with his.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Marinette managed, still wide-eyed, but Adrien wasn't giving her time to recover.

"I need to change out of these clothes so I don't look like I've just spent the last month traveling," Adrien said, snagging a fresh change of clothes off of the shelves. He gave Marinette a quick once-over and then grabbed another shirt to toss to her. "And your shorts look fine, but you look like you slept in that shirt."

"I could just go home," Marinette pointed out, following Adrien back to the bathroom. "You're home, I can swing by tomorrow-"

"Please stay?" Adrien pleaded quietly, pausing mid-reach towards a washcloth in the bathroom to give Marinette kitten eyes for a moment. He grabbed two and passed one to Marinette before shucking his shirt and starting a fast sponge bath. "I'd love to introduce you to my mom properly, and it would be nice to have, y'know..." Adrien trailed off and there was no way that Marinette was going to say no to that expression, not that she had been planning on just going home after Adrien asked her to stay.

So Marinette took the washcloth, got it wet, and shucked her shirt as well so she could wash all of the plane smell off. Next to her, Adrien had finished washing himself down and was frantically changing clothes as fast as he could. Marinette tossed her own washcloth down next to his and pulled on the borrowed shirt. As she did, a thought occurred to her- there was no way Mrs. Agreste would miss the fact that Marinette was wearing Adrien's shirt, and she was sure to come to some not-so-great conclusions about why.

"We'll tell my mom that I accidentally spilled something on your shirt earlier so you're borrowing one of mine," Adrien said, almost as though he was reading her mind. He pulled a fresh stick of deodorant out of one of the cabinets under the sink and applying it in two quick swipes before wiping it off and passing it to Marinette. "If she even notices."

Marinette snorted. "We definitely aren't the same size, Adrien. I doubt it would be the first thing she notices, but I bet she'll notice. Nobody who's lived around fashion would miss something like that."

"True, true."

"They're here!" Tikki squealed, zipping into the bathroom. "The gate just opened!"

Adrien yanked a comb through his hair a few times, tidying it back up into as close of a representation of his normal style as he could. It was a bit on the long side- he was well overdue for a cut- but it would do.

As soon as Marinette's hair was tidied back into her trademark pigtails, they bolted for the door. It slammed open, startling a very frazzled-looking Nathalie waiting at the top of the stairs.

"Hi!" Adrien announced, grinning wildly. "We're home!"

  Nathalie's Day of Stress had first started when Adrien's flight was delayed. She had known then that the weather conditions causing the delay were unlikely to be resolved very quickly, and so the subsequent delays hadn't surprised her at all.

They had, however, made her very, very worried. She ended up sitting up all night, watching the tracking information for both Adrien and Mrs. Agreste's flights. Nathalie texted Adrien after the first delay, letting him know that his mom was going to be in the same airport as he was for their stopovers and that he was not to let her see him under any circumstances. After Adrien promised to stay out of sight- she hoped that he was kidding about hiding out in the men's bathrooms for the entire stopover- she looked up weather patterns and how likely it was that Adrien's flight would be able to leave before his mom's. She looked up stats on both planes, looking at their flight speeds (they were exactly the same). It wasn't until both Adrien and Mrs. Agreste texted her confirmation that they had successfully boarded that Nathalie finally fell asleep in one of the guest bedrooms, phone alarms on full volume in case anyone needed her.

She didn't sleep well. The two planes had taken off within half an hour of each other, which did not give a whole lot of time for wriggle room.

Nathalie was up and pacing several hours before the two planes even landed. There was no actual work getting done today, that was for sure. She thanked her foresight for having the maids do a thorough cleaning of the house the previous day and for getting everything that needed doing done before the whole flight fiasco.

The text from Adrien was welcome. Landed in Paris. Getting off plane.

Unfortunately, his plane had not gotten ahead of their revised schedule. There still wasn't much time for him to get through the airport and Customs and then- what? Nathalie had told Adrien that he would have to find his own transportation home, since Mrs. Agreste had asked for Gerald to pick her up. Surely Adrien knew that a taxi would be faster than the bus.

She texted him, just to make sure. She didn't get a response.

Mrs. Agreste had texted her as she went through Customs, and Nathalie suddenly wished that she hadn't done quite as good of a job of paving the way for Mrs. Agreste. Even a small hold-up at Customs would have bought them some time, and they could use every minute that they could get.

She should have asked Gerald to take his time going to the airport so that Mrs. Agreste would have to wait a little before heading back to the house. Not long, of course, but just a bit. Hopefully he could refrain from taking his shortcuts on the way back, because otherwise she would have to come up with some sort of excuse as to why Adrien wasn't home at all.

Nathalie watched the car's progress on her tablet. Mr. Agreste had insisted on having a GPS installed on it and linked to her tablet and it really hadn't come in handy that much before. Now it just made her more and more worried.

They had left the airport fairly quickly, and were zipping along the highway. Nathalie groaned and tried to come up with an excuse.

Nothing came to mind. She texted Adrien again.

Nathalie: Where are you? Your mom is on the road back.

Nathalie: You have my permission to bribe the taxi driver to go above the speed limit.

No response. Nathalie checked the tablet again and was pleased to see that the GPS on the car had slowed considerably. A couple quick clicks confirmed that the car had run into some traffic that would slow their trip home considerably.

She would say that that would help, but no doubt Adrien was also stuck in traffic. Speaking of which- why wasn't he responding? Nathalie punched in his number and called, anxiously holding the phone up to her ear. It went straight to voicemail.

Seriously, what was that boy doing?

Nathalie paced across the floor, trying to think of an excuse. Maybe she could say that she had sent Adrien over to his girlfriend's house so that he wouldn't be driving her mad with nerves and he must have had his phone die and lost track of the time. He was meant to come back after Gerald headed out to pick her up, and she didn't want to leave the house in case something happened. She had assumed that Adrien would come back in time, naturally, but maybe she should drive over and check on Adrien and Mrs. Agreste could stay and freshen up a little first?

Except that would never work. Mrs. Agreste would insist on coming along, freshening up be damned.

Nathalie paced and paced, resisting the urge to tug on her hair. The blinking red dot of the car inched steadily closer, and Adrien's phone remained stubbornly off.

Maybe it had died or something and Adrien was on his way. She had to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Back and forth. Check the tablet, check her phone. Again and again and again. Now the car was only a couple blocks away, and closing in fast.

Nathalie resisted the urge to chew on her nails. She had to look put together and unflustered, or there was no way that Mrs. Agreste would buy any excuse that she made.

Two blocks. One. The gates to the courtyard.

Nathalie wondered how suspicious it would look if she were to simply pass out from nerves on the steps.

And then Adrien's door flew open and he shot out, a little wild-eyed but that didn't matter, he was here and Mrs. Agreste wasn't going to kill her.

"Oh, thank goodness," Nathalie breathed, finally able to breathe for the first time in over an hour. Then her eyes flashed to Adrien's open door and her mind let out a flat what. "How did you get here before your mom? You've only just beat her! And why didn't you respond to my calls? You've made me mad with worry!"

  Adrien winced under Nathalie's exasperated expression. He couldn't blame her for being upset, because he could hear the Gorilla's car as he pulled up to the front steps. His mom would come bursting in any second now, and if he had been much slower then she would come in. In the face of guardian disapproval, Adrien floundered. "Uhh..."

Thankfully, Marinette came to the rescue. "We called up the superheroes," she explained, making Nathalie startle slightly. Apparently she hadn't noticed Marinette bursting out after him, which- well, he couldn't blame her. Nathalie had been under a lot of pressure. "We figured that that would be the only way we could get an edge. We contacted Alya, actually, and then she contacted the superheroes, all when we were still waiting to get off of the plane. They grabbed us and hauled us across town as soon as we had our luggage."

"They must have come in on your mom's flight," Nathalie said with a nod, and Adrien stiffened. He had forgotten that Nathalie would probably know about the superheroes' involvement in freeing his mom. She seemed to accept the excuse, though."And how did you get in?"

Adrien winced. "The lock on one of the bathroom windows is broken."

"And you didn't tell me that before? I'll get that fixed straight away." Nathalie massaged her temples. "I need a vacation from you people. You stress me out."

Adrien resisted the urge to mutter that having a broken window latch was perfect for him being able to sneak back in. Something told him that Nathalie might not appreciate that much, either.

"Oh, and by the way- I don't know if you two were dating before or not, but you are now," Nathalie added quickly as the sound of the car engine cut out. "And you just had your two-month anniversary. That's what I told your mom."

Adrien blinked, a little puzzled by that sudden instruction. "O...kay?"

There was the sound of footsteps flying up the front steps, and then the tall doors flew open. Mrs. Agreste bounded in and her eyes immediately fell on Adrien. She lit up. "Adrien!"

Adrien couldn't resist anymore. He flew down the stairs, right into her open arms. "Mom!"

His mom's arms wrapped around him, and for the first time in over a year, Adrien was able to sink into one of her fabulous hugs. Her cheek pressed into the top of his head, and Adrien's eyes closed in happiness.

His mom was home, and he didn't need to hold himself away from her anymore.

"Oh, my sweet boy," his mom was crooning, smoothing one hand over his hair. "Oh, my darling. I'm so sorry. I never meant to be away from you, sweetheart."

Adrien sniffed- and when had he teared up? Why? He had known that she was safe and on her way home for a week and a half now, and he had seen her during all of that time- and buried his face in her shoulder. She pulled him closer and they stood there for several minutes. By the time Adrien was ready to pull away, he was aware of his mom gently rocking the two of them back and forth.

"I'm home, Adrien," Mrs. Agreste told him, beaming at him. She looked a bit misty-eyed as well as she pulled him back into another hug. They pulled apart slightly, and then her eyes slid to his side and she lit up. "Oh! You must be Adrien's girlfriend! Nathalie told me about you!"

Marinette grinned, beaming up at Adrien. She reached up to wipe away the happy tears that had escaped from his eyes and he leaned into her touch, not at all embarrassed.

After all, Marinette had seen him at his worst, after his father had been arrested. She had hugged him close when he was terrified that the spell to free his mom might not work, and held him when he had wanted nothing more than to rush over to him mom and couldn't. She wasn't going to judge him for getting emotional during his official reunion with his mom.

"This is Marinette," Adrien confirmed, still a little choked up. He cleared his throat as Marinette wound her arm around his waist and beamed down at her. "She keeps me sane, really. I'm so lucky to have her."

"It's great to meet you!" Mrs. Agreste told Marinette at once. "I'm so looking forward to hearing about all of Adrien's adventures while I was gone. And how you got together, and- everything, really. Do you want to stay for dinner and catch me up on the past year? I want to hear all about it!"

Marinette glanced towards Adrien and he pulled her close, silently asking her to stay. He wanted to spend time with his mom, of course, but he couldn't help but keep Marinette close like a security blanket. She would help keep the conversation from petering out and stop him from saying anything he shouldn't. She gave him a slight nod, letting him know she understood, and then she turned her dazzling smile on his mom.

"Of course! I would love to."

"Come on, then! Let's go to the sitting room and hang out there until dinner, and you can tell me all about how you two got together!" Mrs. Agreste wrapped one arm around Adrien's shoulders, pulling him close to her side. Adrien leaned into her, so, so glad to have her back. "Nathalie, can you tell the chef that I'm back and we have a guest? And I am starving."

Nathalie was smiling, too, relief clear on her face. "Of course, Mrs. Agreste."

"Okay, now- tell me everything," Mrs. Agreste told Adrien as they headed into the downstairs sitting room. She settled down right next to Adrien on their large couch, leaving Marinette to sit on Adrien's other side. All of her attention was focused on him, and boy had he ever missed that. "Nathalie said that you've been going to school? And that you've made friends there? I can't wait to hear all about it!"

As Adrien grinned and started from the beginning, telling his mom about his first days of school, he couldn't help but be completely unable to regret anything that had happened in the last year. Sure, things weren't perfect- his father was still in jail, the future of the company was uncertain, he had no idea how much or little freedom he would have going forward, and Adrien knew that he would never be able to tell his mom about the Chat Noir part of his life- but they were good, and for now, that was enough for him.

#Miraculous Ladybug #There's No Camembert in Tibet #My writing #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng

[perditaalottachocolate-blog]

“I Am Alive” - 3. A new threat

Adrien Appreciation Week @wearemiraculous , Day 5: Patrol

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

AO3 / fanfiction

There was a new threat, Ladybug said. Something far more dangerous than his Hawk Daddy, or any other villain in possession of miraculous. Adrien wondered if magical poacher wasn’t the best term here. What other words could be used to describe an alien entity that was drawn by the energy of the miraculous jewels? That hunted the holders and the kwami? As Chat Noir he placed himself near the top of food chain, but it turned out that soon every holder could be at risk of becoming prey.

When there are many miraculous jewels stored in one location, without special precautions, they distort the space-time continuum, they curve the quantum magic field, making them shine like a beacon for anyone who’s searching. Master Fu had created such a beacon by bringing the jewels to Paris. Hawkmoth had helped him, by forcing the old Guardian to activate two most powerful of the jewels. Hand in hand they brought this threat upon their heads, as well as Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s.

This new danger meant a few things for them.

‘No more patrols,’ Ladybug ordered.

‘Sure, no more solo patrols,’ he agreed, already looking for a loophole. ‘But if you or Rena join me-’

She dropped her gaze to her lap. ‘Rena won’t be joining us for a while, Chat,’ she murmured sadly. ‘Master Fu is taking all the remaining miraculous away.’

‘B-but… what about Hawkmoth? Aren’t we going to finally stop him?’ he asked.

The thought that this could still drag for some time hadn’t occurred to him. When he discovered his father’s secret he kind of had been bracing himself for a final solution as soon as possible. They had been fighting for so long after all. Paris deserved to be a supervillain-free city.

Ladybug shook her head. ‘The guardian already left for Tibet this evening. He left us both messages but-’

‘-but I was unavailable,’ Chat finished. ‘Yeah, perfect timing,’ he added bitterly.

‘From what he said this is serious,’ she explained. ‘He wants to take the rest of the jewels to the old temple of guardians. As I understood it, he’s doing this to draw attention away from Paris and buy us some time. And the temple had some screening devices or spells or something, that will hide the miraculous from this entity. Fu is either going to bring the device thingy back here, or secure the jewels there.’

‘But he’s leaving us here on our own,’ he chewed at the inside of his cheek. ‘With Hawkmoth and this new enemy.’

Ladybug put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We can keep Hawkmoth at bay. We’ve been doing this for so long. And with what you’ve discovered maybe we can at least prevent him from akumatizing people for some time?’ she suggested. ‘First thing that comes to my mind is that you can keep him busy so that he can’t release akumas? But I’m sure we can think of something more sophisticated, before we come up with a plan to stop him entirely.’

‘I honestly thought Fu would help us with this,’ Chat sighed.

‘You have to remember, that now us and our kwamis are at risk,’ Ladybug said. ‘Master Fu said there’s nothing more important that keeping the miraculous safe. Those without holders can’t protect themselves, like we can protect Tikki and Plagg.’

‘And Hawkmoth,’ he realized.

‘What?’

‘You said miraculous holders and their kwami. Father has the moth miraculous and a kwami,’ he pointed out. ‘He’s at risk too.’

Ladybug inhaled sharply. ‘Crap,’ she cursed, and instantly covered her mouth. ‘Sorry!’ She mumbled.

‘We have to take that miraculous away from him,’ Chat stated. ‘Otherwise we can’t guarantee the safety of his kwami nor his.’

His partner sighed and rubbed her eyes. ‘Why does everything always happen at once?’ she complained. ‘I’m too tired to think straight right now. Too much information to process, I guess.’

Now it was his turn to squeeze her shoulder. ‘I agree. This is too much for one evening. I suggest we regroup, have a rest and come back to this tomorrow.’

‘Right,’ Ladybug nodded. ‘We need to think what assets do we have at hand.’

That reminded him of a shortage of a very important cheese. ‘Speaking of assets, has Master Fu left anything for us? I’m out of my special camembert again,’ he admitted, wincing.

Ladybug giggled at his sour frown. For the last two years he’d been complaining a lot about the form in which his special powers were stored. She got cute little macarons, that after a few months were still edible, if a little stale. He was stuck with stinky rainbow cheese. It was easier to store than the usual kind, the ingredients possibly making it last longer, but the inevitable result was still a colorful mold of rotten milk that smelled as if something had been living and then died in there.

‘Fret not,’ his partner smiled. ‘I was told a fresh batch of Plagg’s treat is waiting for you.’

‘Yaaay,’ he whisper-cried in mock enthusiasm.

‘Let’s meet at Fu’s tomorrow at eight. He gave me a spare key,’ Ladybug said stretching her arms and yawning. ‘I’m sure we’ll have better ideas after a good night’s sleep.’

Chat slumped at that. He didn’t want to go home. He felt Ladybug pressing herself into his back. Her hands snaked their way around his waist and she put her chin on his shoulder.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘We’ll handle this together.’

‘I know, Buginette,’ he turned to her bringing their foreheads together. ‘Will we talk about this too?’ he added stealing a quick kiss. His heart skipped a beat when she didn’t pull away, but snuggled closer. It was a nice distraction. Something he really could use right now, to postpone the thoughts of coming back to his house.

‘Something tells me, you would want to do other things than talk, Chat,’ she murmured, tapping at his bell.

‘I might,’ he admitted with a grin. He could feel the heat from her face and briefly wondered if his was similarly warm.

‘Then we really need to talk first,’ Ladybug bopped him on the nose and finally withdrew.

He chased her with puckered lips. ‘Hey! Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’ he pouted.

‘Tomorrow,’ she offered.

Chat fluttered his eyelashes and scrunched his nose.

‘Not the kitten eyes!’ Ladybug gasped dramatically, but he didn’t need his night vision to see the flush right under the edge of her mask.

‘Purrety pawlease?’ he threw in a pair of begging paws for better measure.

‘Hmmm,’ she narrowed her eyes as if considering his plea. ‘Since you’re asking nicely…’ she grabbed him by the bell and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. She was already a step away before he could even think about reciprocating.

‘Night, Adrien,’ she breathed. ‘See you in a few hours.’ And with that she took off.

The memory of her breath on his face, and the touch of her lips on his, stayed with him on his way home, making the journey and the arrival almost bearable. But they didn’t manage to chase away the dark thoughts that the night brought. He barely slept a wink listening to any suspicious sounds or footsteps. Logically he knew he was as safe as every other night for the past three years, but his stomach was still clenched and twisted. He was actually glad for the sunrise to come, so that he would finally get out and do something.

That’s how Adrien found himself on his way to Master Fu’s massage parlor half an hour earlier than he should. Ladybug promised to meet him inside the shop, transformed. Fu had equipped her not only with a spare key, but also with instructions as to their special treats’ whereabouts. They were supposed to come up with a plan of getting to Hawkmoth without putting either of them at risk, so Adrien was trying to think of every useful fact about his father he knew. Anything that could give them an edge. Despite Ladybug’s warnings from their last encounter he had not been paying enough attention to here and now.

The mental pressure hit him as soon as he turned the corner to Master Fu’s street. As if he walked into a rubber wall, he bounced off of thin air and looked around confused. His head started hurting and his vision blurred. Adrien did his best to focus on what was happening and power through the strange sensations.

There was a figure standing in front of the parlor, as tall as a grown man and vaguely human in shape. But it didn’t look like anything Adrien had seen, in real life or in digital world of games and anime. The best he could come up with was a curved space, that somehow seemed more dense and darker in the place the figure occupied. He stared dumbly at the apparition, until he registered the mad jolting in his pocket.

Plagg was bumping into him and tugging at his shirt. ‘That’s the bad guy, kid,’ he hissed. ‘Snap out of it and run!’

But Adrien couldn’t run. Not when he noticed who the entity dragged out of the shop. Not when he saw her fighting fiercely to break free. Not when his blood froze with the horror of seeing the creature tightening its hold on her. The boy pushed into the rubber wall and the pressure lessened, allowing him inside. But he couldn’t move faster than a snail, as if he was wading in jelly.

She caught his eye and shook her head, signaling him to not come closer. Her hands went to her ears and he saw a flicker of light as two small black items slipped to the pavement and rolled to the side. Her gaze went to the place where they landed, and then to him to check if he understood.

‘Run!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs and stopped resisting.

Adrien doubled his efforts to move to her, but the entity was much faster. It disappeared before he even got to the earrings lying on the ground. Ladybug saved her miraculous, but this time she couldn’t save Marinette as well.

#Adrien Appreciation Week #We Are Miraculous #Day 5: Patrol #perdita writes #I Am Alive #ladynoir #adrinette #Adrien Agreste #Chat Noir #Ladybug #Marinette Dupain Cheng #ml fic

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There's No Camembert in Tibet

There's No Camembert in Tibet by quicksilversquared

With Hawkmoth defeated and school out for the summer, it's time for Ladybug and Chat Noir plus their newly-assembled team of superheroes to head to Tibet to try to rescue Mrs. Agreste. Hiking, magic, and adventures await them, and hopefully at the end, they'll be returning to Paris with Mrs. Agreste in tow.

Words: 6169, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Side Effects of a Cheese Hunt

Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Gen

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sabine Cheng, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Master Fu, Chloé Bourgeois, Emilie Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe

Additional Tags: sequel to Plagg and the Butterfly Costume, adventures in a foreign country, post-reveal relationship, assorted Miraculous lore, not particularly compliant with the latter part of S2 but oh well

Read Here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/16533833

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