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aliensunflower-fics · 4 years

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Corruption: A Prompt

[ Hey guys sorry for the sudden extreme bout of inactivity! I moved to europe and its been really rough on me! Ive been sleeping and dealing with a whole new language but I hope to be able to write more soon! ]

So, ive seen several Miraculous Ladybug fans suggest the idea that due to the way Gabriel is using the miraculous he is actually corrupting himself hence why his behaviour at the begining of the series toward Adrien is so vastly different then the recent seasons. This gave me a wickedly evil idea. What if, using the miraculous the way he is ISN’T just corrupting Gabriel but also corrupting everyone whos been akumatized.

Everytime someone gets possessed by the power of Hawkmoth’s akumas they give in to their deepest darkest desire for power, even if their intentions are good the fact of the matter is they are giving over their will to Hawkmoth in exchange for power and so even when the item is broken, even when Ladybug shout’s “miraculous ladybug” their’s just this tiny little bit of corruption that remains within.

It’s hardly noticeable for those only akumatized once or twice, for a week or so AFTER the innitial akumatization they are more easily angered more jumpy and paranoid but then it passes and the corruption eventually leaves. But the more you get akumatized the more you get... Corrupted. Slowly it builds within you, causing you to be a little quicker to anger, a little more envious, more paranoid, entitled, demanding, pushy, it feeds on those negative feelings growing you can fight it of course by being aware by not indulging in those negative thoughts because if you do someone who’s only be akumatized even once or twice can start to become twisted by the corruption. Perhaps Marinette see’s it in the people who get akumatized several times, or even some of the friends she’s made she doesn’t understand the cause of the change but she notices that when shes near them she feels this uncomfortable buzz in her head and this strange sense of something being out of balance even if she can’t understand it.

Enter: One Liar Rossi.

Lila, is naturally quick to be akumatized, her lies and self importance make her a perfect target to akuma’s and Hawkmoth is fine using the same girl over and over again because her hate for Ladybug makes for some truly disasterous akumas. Its simple bussiness really, nothing personal. Nooroo tries to warn Gabriel of course he does! But why would he listen now? So now Lila has a fair bit of corruption within her, and she keeps feeding it, every time shes jealous or worried about her lies coming to light, every time she thinks of Adrien as an object, or her new ‘friends’ as tools she feeds that little bit of corruption and each akumatization ads to it. Until its not so little.

At first the impact to her behaviour is harder to notice, shes a bit more ruthless with Marinette, a bit clingier to Adrien, a bit pushier with her lies and demands, but then it starts escalating, Adrien gets visible nail marks in his skin and she starts to scare him with how she looks at him, Marinette gets pushed down the stairs and breaks an arm, Lila manipulates the class with fear and starts getting others to feed their own corruption. Hawkmoth meanwhile is noticing that even when he sends out an akuma for someone else they are sometimes drawn to Lila who is mildly upset at best.

But it only continues to grow and fester, Marinette notices that the buzzing she would sometimes feel in her head around certain people is like full blown static when she’s around Lila it’s so distracting and bad that when one day Lila is ‘confronting’ the girl about some lie, Marinette suddenly holds her head and collaspes causing Adrien to go full blown crazy panic. The blonde feels crazy insane protective about Marinette following the incident Plagg tells him its about time his ‘Instincts’ kick in citing that it only took so long because Adrien is blind and apparently needed to ‘see the threat with his own eyes’ but refuses to elaborate further so Adrien just assumes Plagg is talking about how Adrien had been away at fashion week during the stair incident and not that it has to do with his being Chat Noir and his very good FRIEND being oh so similar to Ladybug.

As Lila continues to grow worse she starts to behave oddly to even the class, she becomes paranoid anyone who shows even a little doubt causes her to panic she thinks they ‘know’ about her working with Hawkmoth and her lies. She goes from happy to angry if even the smallest thing is done to upset her, poor Rose finds her phone smashed against a wall and coffee dumped on her after she ignores Lila to talk with Juleka instead, suprising everyone it was again Lila who got akumatized instead of Rose. Lila can no longer control her lies, instead they spew out of her begging for attention and power and fame, it gets to the point where even Alya is questioning it but to afraid to speak up for fear of how Lila will react.

In fact everyone is scared of Lila now. They don’t know when she’ll snap, what will set her off next, their forced to play nice with her just because their scared of what she will do next. And Gabriel is even scared to akumatize the girl because several of her akumatizations have resulted in Ladybug being forced to carry Adrien across Paris, at this point Gabriel would be fine with his son marrying the heroin just to thank her for how often she’s had to keep the blonde safe. Likewise Marinette has found herself in Chat Noir’s arms more times then she can count all because she rolled her eyes at one of Lila’s claims. Or dared to stutter out a thank you to Adrien for complimenting her, Marinette is very torn because on one hand ever sense Adrien started acting as her knight shes fallen even harder for him, but lately the strange soft looks Chat Noir shoots her and how he frets over her safety is making her heart feel dizzy [Adrien meanwhile doesnt know whats going on only that he feels like if anything bad were to happen to Marinette he would kill everyone in this room and then himself]. Hawkmoth soon notices however that even when he sends akumas to the other side of paris the dark butterflies refuse him and go to Lila, soon the girl is being akumatized even when she’s perfectly fine. And her claims of having ‘extreme empathy that makes her more sensitive then others’ is suddenly not covering it.

People are muttering that the itaian might be a physchopath or mentally troubled. Bustier and Damocles eventually have no choice after ignoring it for so long. They call on Lila’s mother [after finding the real number through a rather complex search] and inform the woman about everything. In the end Hawkmoth cant send out akumas for 2 months for fear of them targeting Adrien, and Lila ends up going home to Italy to attend a private school for troubled youth and meeting with a professional physchologist.

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#my fic #lila salt #ml salt #class salt #ml prompt #ml theory #adrinette #marichat #ladrien #protective adrien

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

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Snapped Wrist, Broken Lies

After a scuffle over Marinette's lucky bracelet from Adrien ends with Lila getting a broken wrist, Marinette is positive that she's going to end up in trouble. But this might just end up being the opportunity she's been waiting for to end Lila's reign of lies.

links in the reblog

Marinette's bracelet from Adrien was one of her treasured possessions and had been ever since she got it. Maybe it wasn't expensive or particularly valuable in other people's eyes, but- well, that didn't mean that it couldn't be special. Adrien had made the bracelet specifically for her, because of the lucky charm she had given him. He had picked out the cord and the beads and sat down and made it while thinking about her, so of course it was special and Marinette didn't want to lose it.

And of course Lila would pick up on that and try to steal it, snatching it from Marinette's fingers after she had pulled it out of her pocket. Marinette looked up, saw the evil smirk that flashed across Lila's face, and immediately visions of Lila destroying the bracelet flashed in front of her eyes, the beads rolling across the hallway and getting lost between people's feet and dropping over the edge of the walkway to the courtyard below, never to be found again.

And Marinette saw red.

"Give it back," she snarled, lunging straight at Lila and latching on to her closed fist with both hands. There was one goal in her mind, and one goal only, and she wasn't going to stop until her bracelet was back in her hands.

Get it back get it back get it back get-

And then she could feel the familiar shape of the beads against her fingertips as she pried Lila's fingers open one by one, a welcome relief even as Lila's fingernails dug into her fingers, but she wasn't safe yet. Another half-yank half-push and she was almost there, she almost had it, her grip shifted and she yanked again-

-and then there was a crack. Lila abruptly let go of the bracelet and Marinette snatched it away with a gasp, backpedaling back a few safe paces to look at the precious bracelet because that must have been what snapped, surely-

But it was fine, the cord in one unbroken piece and the beads all in place, none the worse for the wear.

Marinette blinked, puzzled- maybe she had imagined the crack, because she had been imagining the worst?- when a cry broke the air and she looked up quickly, expecting to see Lila charging at her.

Instead, Lila was practically doubled over as she clutched at her wrist, which was pointed in a decidedly not-wrist-like direction.

Or, to be more accurate, her wrist was just fine. It was the bone a few finger's-widths away from the wrist that was pointed in a strange direction instead of- well, instead of being straight. And it was the wrist of the hand that Lila had been holding the bracelet in.

Marinette had done whatever she needed to do to get Lila's fingers open and open fast, before Lila could try to pull away. Apparently her whatever she needed to do of choice had been to bend Lila's hand back until she let go, which had taken enough force to actually break it.

Or maybe it hadn't needed that force and Marinette had just dialed things up from two straight to eleven in her effort to get her lucky charm back in one piece and- because she was a superhero- her eleven was, well, maybe a bit on the strong side.

Whatever had happened, it had ended up with Lila crumpling in pain to the floor, for once not faking it as she cradled her wrist and sobbed. Her face was screwed up in genuine pain, red and splotchy and not at all attractive, a far cry from what she usually looked like when she 'cried' to get sympathy.

"What is going on here?" Madam Mendeleev demanded, appearing through the crowd of students that had gathered. They parted for her at once.

"Lila stole my bracelet, and I was just getting it back," Marinette said at once, before Lila could try to spin a story to make Marinette look like a villain that had just attacked Lila out of nowhere. She held up the bracelet. "I thought that she was going to break it, so I was just focused on getting it back. We- we must have yanked in opposite directions at the same time." Because that was what had to have happened, right? Marinette had yanked hard in one direction and Lila had yanked back and that- combined with the slight twist Marinette had had going on to make her let go of the bracelet- had been enough to snap Lila's wrist.

Madam Mendeleev frowned. "Enough for- oh, that is definitely broken. Lila, we'll have to call up your mom and you'll have to go to the hospital."

Lila could only whimper. Apparently the break hurt enough that she couldn't manage her usual manipulative theatrics.

Good. Maybe she would think twice about trying to make a grab for Marinette's stuff in the future.

"Marinette, we're going to have to file an incident report," Madam Mendeleev added. "Just because there's been an injury. That doesn't mean you're in trouble- we're going to have to confirm what happened before making any judgements."

Marinette muffled an internal groan. No doubt Lila would make something up to get Marinette in trouble as soon as she managed to compose herself enough, and it was unlikely that anyone in the hallway had been paying enough attention to Marinette and Lila to be able to confirm that Marinette was the one telling the truth. That, combined with the fact that Lila had been manipulating things to look like Marinette was out to get her for ages, meant that Marinette would probably get in a lot of trouble. And once again, Lila would get off scot free.

Except she wasn't off scot-free. Lila would have to deal with the broken wrist for several weeks while it healed. And-

-and her mom was getting called. There was no way that they would give up on contacting Mrs. Rossi this time around, not now that Lila had a broken bone. Even if she was busy, there was almost no way that she wouldn't put everything aside to come over.

And then, with any luck, the teachers would mention one of Lila's ridiculous lies about traveling or meeting celebrities or having a million diseases and afflictions and Mrs. Rossi would deny them and everything could go back to normal.

….that was probably wishful thinking, honestly. Given Marinette's track record with Lila, she wouldn't be surprised if she ended up on the receiving end of a lawsuit that would destroy all of her dreams of being a designer and force her to switch to a different school.

Madam Mendeleev hoisted Lila to her feet- "Stop collapsing, young lady, it's your wrist that's broken and not your legs, there is no need for anyone to carry you!"- and they headed to the office. Marinette kept a tight grip on her Lucky Charm, hoping that it would bring her a little luck and she wouldn't end up expelled and sued. Mr. Damocles was already in his door, alerted to the commotion and frowning at the students who were lingering and gawking at the sobbing Lila. Alya was inching forward with her phone in her hand, clearly ready to delve into investigating whatever the commotion was, but a dual look from both Mr. Damocles and Madam Mendeleev had her lowering her phone and taking a step back. Nino was next to her, glancing between Lila and Marinette, his brow furrowed, and the rest of their classmates weren't far behind.

Marinette tried not to groan at the thought of what rumors would no doubt be flying around as soon as the office door had closed. She doubted that anyone would try to claim that she had purposefully hurt Lila, not without Lila's influence, but- well, she supposed that it was possible that Lila had planted enough rumors and lies that someone would entertain the idea briefly.

The office door shut behind them, cutting off the staring eyes.

"Okay, how did this happen?" Mr. Damocles asked tiredly, settling down at his desk and pinching the bridge of his nose. Marinette spotted the corner of a magazine hastily stuffed into a drawer; clearly they had interrupted him in the middle of his comic time.

Marinette had to wonder if he was really supposed to be reading comics while on the clock.

"Marinette reported that Lila took a bracelet of hers and was just trying to take it back before Lila broke it," Madam Mendeleev reported before either girl could say anything. "And that Lila's wrist somehow got broken in the tussle." She turned to Marinette. "Can I see the bracelet in question?"

Marinette held it up. "It was a birthday gift to me from Adrien," she told them when both teachers looked exasperated, probably because- well, to anyone else, the bracelet probably wouldn't look like anything worth brawling over. "Because I gave him a similar one before, 'cause it was my lucky charm while playing video games."

"A sentimental gift," Mr. Damocles said at once, nodding wisely. "Of course, of course. It's understandable that you wouldn't want to risk it getting destroyed. So, uh, what made you think that it was in danger?"

"Lila ripped it out of my hands when I had just pulled it out of my pocket to look at it," Marinette said quickly, taking advantage of Lila's uncharacteristic quiet- or, well, not quiet exactly- she was still letting out little gaspy sobs and was clearly attempting to speak, but the shock was just too fresh. "Just for a few seconds. I wasn't trying to, like, flaunt it or anything. And when I grabbed for it, she refused to give it back- she just held on tighter and tried to pull her hand away instead of just giving it back like someone would if they had just been curious and hadn't realized that I would object."

"I see." Mr. Damocles turned his attention to Lila. "And Lila- oh, I suppose that can wait until after your arm is set. I'll call your mom up at once. I should have started with that, I suppose."

Lila sniffled, a flash of realization and panic flashing across her face for a moment. "N-no, b-busy-"

"Nonsense. No mom wouldn't want to know that her daughter will have to go to the hospital with a broken wrist." Mr. Damocles reached for his phone as he tapped a few things into his computer, pulling up Lila's file before dialing a number and holding it up to his ear. It only took a few seconds for someone to pick up. "Hello? Yes, this is Mr. Damocles, the principal of Françoise Dupont. Is this Mrs. Rossi? Yes, yes. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there was an incident just now and Lila has a broken wrist and needs to be brought to the hospital- yes, we're positive it's broken, the bone isn't exactly straight where it's meant to be- can you come to the school? You're right in the neighborhood now? Fantastic! Yes, we'll see you in a couple minutes- no, it wasn't a bullying incident, we're investigating it now- Madam Mendeleev, can you go out to the hallway and see if there's anyone who saw the whole incident from start to finish? Thank you- yes, yes, we'll have someone to let you in at the front door. I'll alert our hall monitor at once. Yes. Bye."

Marinette swallowed hard as Mr. Damocles hung up. Mrs. Rossi was going to be there in only a few minutes, and- well, no one had met her before. What was she like? Was she going to blame Marinette and refuse to hear a word against Lila? Surely she would be furious- after all, a broken wrist, and a broken dominant wrist at that was a big thing, a huge inconvenience, and not something that was supposed to happen at school.

She could only pray that someone else had seen Lila grab her bracelet, so it wouldn't be Lila's word against Marinette's.

"Okay, Lila, your mom is on the way," Mr. Damocles said, turning to the still-sniffling Lila. "Now can you tell me what happened?"

Lila sniffled for a minute, making several false starts as she tried to pull herself together, and- oh, Marinette could see that some of her acting was starting to slip back into place as the shock slowly faded. "She- she's lying, I d-didn't take her b-b-bracelet, she just a-attacked me out of nowhere when I a-a-asked what she had! I never took anything!" She gulped and let out a sob, wiping her face. "I-I-I just don't know why she's so mean to me!"

Mr. Damocles paused, his eyes darting between Lila and Marinette. Clearly he had been hoping that their stories would line up, that Lila would admit to taking Marinette's bracelet. "Uh…"

"S-she's hated me ever since my c-condition acted up and she got in t-trouble," Lila continued, clearly trying to put on a brave act. "And it's not my f-fault, I can't control it-"

"I have not," Marinette snapped, because it was true- she had hated Lila long before the expulsion incident. "And this has nothing to do with that- if you hadn't grabbed my bracelet, everything would have been fine."

Lila gasped. "And you're still trying to blame me, when-"

"When you're entirely to blame and I was only defending myself and my property? Yes!"

Lila opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by a knock at the door. A moment later, a woman that must have been Lila's mom swept into the room, concern written across her face. Her eyes slid across Marinette and went right to Lila. "Darling, are you okay? Let me see your wrist- oh my gosh." Her eyes flashed up, then over to Marinette. "How did this happen?"

"Marinette attacked me-" Lila started, her voice full of tears (more tears welled up in her eyes- whether or not they were real tears was, for once, actually debatable), but she was cut off by Mr. Damocles.

"We have two conflicting stories, so we're suspending judgement until we can talk to the students in the area," Mr. Damocles announced, his smile tense. "We'll keep you updated, of course, but I suppose you want to get Lila to the doctor's right away- do you have a car, or should I drive?"

Mrs. Rossi was frowning. "I have a car. Let's go, Lila. You can tell me what happened on the way."

Lila sniffled and nodded, standing up. Marinette watched, a sinking feeling in her gut about how this whole thing was going to go. Just as she had worried, Mrs. Rossi was going to come in and out of the school without discussing any of Lila's claims. Lila was going to feed her mom her side of the story on the way to the hospital, and unless there was some serious evidence in Marinette's favor, she was going to get hit with some serious consequences she definitely didn't deserve.

So Marinette decided to give the whole situation a little nudge.

"You know, maybe Lila can get a doctor's note for her other afflictions while she's getting treatment for her arm," Marinette piped up in her best 'helpful' voice. "I know that Lila's said that you've been too busy to go in, but maybe while you're there anyway…."

Mrs. Rossi frowned at her. "What?"

Mr. Damocles perked up, just as Marinette had hoped he would, and turned towards the Rossis. "Ah, yes! Perhaps not in the emergency room, since I'm sure that they're quite busy and rushed, but they'll require follow-up care with your primary physician and you can do it then! We've been making accommodations without, I know, but really we should have notes on file for the- let's see- " He spun towards the computer again, scrolling through Lila's file. "Ah, the tinnitus, the weak wrist, the arthritis, Lila's allergies- I know she's mentioned several, the teachers didn't remember to write down what exactly what it was at the time, the, ah, disease that causes compulsive lying- that one in particular, I don't know if there might be some sort of action plan that we should be implementing? And if there's anything else we need to know about-"

"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Rossi demanded, whipping around to face him, then glanced at her daughter. Lila looked like she was strongly considering screaming, and Marinette smothered a triumphant grin. Her nudge had gone just as she had hoped. "Lila doesn't have any conditions at all! She's in perfect health- well, other than her wrist now, but that's a temporary thing. Where did you get the idea that she was ill at all?"

Mr. Damocles blinked at her. "Ah, from Lila herself? She's been telling the teachers when she needs accomodations, primarily Ms. Bustier, and I asked her to keep a log of what afflictions Lila has so that we could try to follow up to get paperwork, but we've not been able to get in contact, the calls never went through before-"

Mrs. Rossi frowned. "Wait, so you were trying to get in contact with me when you weren't akumatized?"

Marinette sat back and watched as Mrs. Rossi and Mr. Damocles pieced together what Lila had been telling everyone and what the actual truth was while she and Lila watched. Lila was clearly torn between seething and being coldly furious, but there was nothing she could do to stop all of her lies from being exposed, torn down one after the other.

It was incredibly satisfying, really. And then the office door banged open and Madam Mendeleev marched in with several students trailing behind her, Adrien among them. She took one look at the scene, clearly disregarded it as being less important than her news, and then opened her mouth.

"I've talked to the other students as requested, Mr. Damocles, and I have five students who saw the entire incident from start to finish." She frowned at Lila. "And it turns out that Marinette was telling the truth. All of them saw Lila grab the bracelet from Marinette and refuse to give it back. All of them are willing to go on record to say as such."

"Ah, good, good." Mr. Damocles nodded, short and uncomfortable. "Yes, I suspected as much at this point- if I could get names, I would like to speak with everyone after school since we have a bit of a situation to deal with right now. Yes, you can return to class- yes, you too, Marinette," he added at Marinette's inquisitive look. "Just don't leave after school without checking in first. I'll see you all later."

Marinette let herself be ushered out of the office alongside the other students, the heavy door swinging shut behind them. Even then, she could still make out Mr. Damocles' next words.

"Now, about the trip that Lila claimed to be on for several months-"

"The WHAT?"

It was several days before Lila returned to school, her wrist in a cast and a scowl on her face. The other students gave her a wide berth, even the ones in her own class. Even though she was actually injured now and struggled a bit with carrying her bag and writing, no one stepped up to help. They had been needlessly taken advantage of too many times already, so now Lila could lie in her own bed and deal with the consequences of lying before.

She wasn't going to be staying at their school, that was common knowledge. But the transfer to a correctional school was taking a bit of set-up, so Lila would be staying at Dupont until the last of her paperwork went through and her new teachers had been fully briefed.

Really, it was a punishment for her more than anyone else. Without her popularity, without people falling over themselves to help, school wasn't particularly pleasant for Lila. Add in the fact that everyone was giving her the cold shoulder for the lies she had spread and stunts she had attempted, and no one had ever been as much of a social outcast as Lila was now.

Even akumatization- which would normally be something Lila looked forward to, because it was a chance to defeat Ladybug- wasn't as fun as it had been for Lila. Apparently being akumatized didn't take away the fact that her wrist was broken, and Ladybug had taken full advantage of that fact every single time, snagging Lila's akumatized form by the wrist with her yo-yo right away every time and yanking, sending the Lila-kuma into spasms of pain.

Maybe Lila had been akumatized half a dozen times since her wrist broke, but each time it had only lasted for about five minutes because of Ladybug's little trick.

(Ladybug couldn't help but snicker a little to herself about that. Lila had been a thorn in her side ever since her arrival in Paris, and she knew perfectly well that, had the akumatization been something that Lila hadn't wanted- if she had had to be coerced, just like everyone else in Paris- then the additional pain from the battle wouldn't stay with Lila after the Cure swept around. The fact that it did…. well, that meant that Lila had still welcomed the akumatization and thus deserved all of the pain she got.)

As for Marinette… well, she was enjoying having everyone believing her again instead of assuming that she was just jealous of Lila whenever she questioned Lila's stories. She had gotten a lot of apologies after Lila's less-than-smooth fall from grace, and most people felt pretty sheepish that they hadn't listened to her in the first place.

Marinette smiled to herself as Lila sulked past the rest of the class to her desk. Maybe she hadn't intended to break Lila's wrist in her efforts to get her bracelet from Adrien back, but it had certainly solved several of her problems in one rather quick go.

Now, if only she could somehow break Hawkmoth's wrist.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #marinette dupain cheng #tumblr why are you forgetting my commonly used tags

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tsuki-chibi · 4 years

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Marinette March Day 30: Balcony

Start from day one on AO3: Under My Umbrella

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Marinette hummed under her breath, her attention solely focused on the umbrella in front of her. Her paintbrush moved with slow, careful strokes, smoothing the orange paint onto the fabric. Eyebrows furrowed with concentration, she set her brush down and selected a smaller one. She dipped it into the black paint and leaned down again, filling in one of the eyes.

“Mari? You up there?” Adrien’s voice floated up into the room a moment before his head followed. He smiled when he saw her and she smiled back before turning back to her work.

“Just give me one sec,” she said, moving the brush to paint the other eye. Adrien climbed the rest of the way up and moved over to join her, peering over her shoulder. His breath was warm against the back of her neck and she sternly forbid herself from shivering.

“Is that for Alya?” Adrien asked.

“Yup. I decided to do a whole set of umbrellas,” Marinette replied, sitting back in her chair. She examined her work critically, but found no flaws – yet.

“It’s adorable. Alya’s gonna love it.”

“I hope so.” Marinette gently lifted the umbrella fully onto her desk so that she could stand up. Her upper body ached from being bent over in one position for so long, but painting on fabric required a close eye. Especially when you were working with as delicate a fabric as what covered an umbrella. One wrong twitch and the fox kits Marinette had meticulously sketched out would be ruined.

“I know so,” Adrien said. He cleared his throat. “So, my aunt called me today.”

Marinette paused in the midst of picking up her brushes. “Oh yeah?” She hoped he couldn’t hear the nerves in her voice. Amélie and Félix had been at Émilie’s funeral, but they had both kept their distance and neither of them had spoken to Adrien.

“She asked me if I wanted to come stay with them,” Adrien said, backing up and sitting down on the chaise.

“And what did you say?” Marinette asked, biting her lip, suddenly glad that he couldn’t see her face.

Because she would understand if Adrien wanted to go and be with his family, of course she would. Amélie and Félix were the only family that Adrien had left. She would never begrudge him that choice. But Amélie also lived in London. That meant Adrien would have to leave Paris. The thought of losing Chat was enough to make Marinette’s eyes water. She fumbled with her paintbrushes and swore as she promptly dropped them, splattering paint all over her desk – though thankfully, not on Alya’s umbrella.

“Hey.” Adrien was there before she could do much more than blink, catching her hands in his. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Marinette whispered, unable to look him in the eyes.

“My Lady, I know you better than that.” His voice was warmly amused. “I said no.”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “What?”

“I don’t want to go to London,” Adrien said softly. “I don’t even know Tante Amélie. My mother used to talk about her sometimes, but I can count on one hand the number of times she visited when I was a child. And she and Père didn’t get along so, after my mother died, she never came around. She’s a stranger to me.” He rubbed his thumbs over Marinette’s knuckles.

“You could get to know them,” Marinette pointed out.

“I could, but I’m not sure I want to. Félix is…” Adrien paused, as though choosing his words carefully, before finally going with, “Difficult. You saw how much trouble he caused last time he was here. Something tells me that it would be even worse if I went to live with them.”

Marinette had to give him that one. Félix Graham de Vanily had purposely tried to ruin things with Adrien’s friends: they had figured everything out in the end, but for a little while there Adrien’s name had been mud. She also hadn’t appreciated the way he’d acted with Ladybug. It was honestly a wonder that Chat hadn’t punted him straight off the building. She could appreciate why Adrien had no desire to spend more time with Félix.

“Besides, if I left Paris, that means I have to give up the Black Cat miraculous… and you.” Adrien lifted her hands to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to the back of each hand. “How could I leave Plagg behind? That night that Master Fu took him because of the sentimonster was horrible; he might be a little shit, but Plagg has stuck with me through so much.”

“Hey!” Plagg objected, poking his head out of Adrien’s shirt pocket. “I resent that!”

In spite of her fluttering heart, Marinette had to smile. “He’s not saying anything that isn’t true,” she told Plagg.

Plagg sniffed. “That’s a matter of opinion,” he muttered.

“It’s really not,” Adrien said. “Besides, you told me yourself that you didn’t want to have to pick another Chat Noir.”

“Really?” Tikki said from where she was curled up on Marinette’s bed. She had obviously been trying to give Marinette and Adrien some privacy, but now she sat up to look at Plagg with amusement.

“Th-that’s just because Adrien can buy me the good cheese!” Plagg sputtered.

“Sure it is,” Tikki said with a knowing gleam in her eyes. “It’s not at all because you love your kitten.”

“Of course not,” Plagg said, sticking his nose in the air. “I have standards and not everyone can afford them, that’s all.”

“Depending on what happens, I may not be able to afford them either,” Adrien said dryly.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Plagg said, squirming out of Adrien’s pocket. He swiftly flew up to tackle a giggling Tikki to the bed. Tikki managed to squirm free and fled out onto the balcony, with Plagg in hot pursuit.

Marinette shook her head at the antics of their kwamis and turned back to Adrien. “I would hate to have to chose another Chat Noir,” she confessed. “I don’t think I could do it. I’d probably have to retire the miraculous.” In fact, she knew she couldn’t. Any other Chat Noir would constantly be compared to, and come up wanting next to, Adrien. That wasn’t a fair burden to put on anyone.

“I know it shouldn’t, but it makes me happy to hear that,” Adrien admitted, his eyes brightening. He liked knowing that he was irreplaceable, she’d noticed. It was something she hadn’t told him enough.

“So… you’re staying then?” Marinette said, just to be sure.

Adrien nodded. “I already talked to Sabine and Tom. They both said it was fine with them. They were talking to Tante Amélie on the phone when I came up. Of course, that depends on whether you’re okay with continuing to share your bedroom.”

“Of course I am,” Marinette said immediately. She had already put some thought into how the room could be best rearranged to suit them both. Her chaise lounge would need to go, and in its place they could move the two desks that currently sat beneath her bed. A bed for Adrien could go in under Marinette’s bed, with curtains to give him some privacy. She was more than willing to sacrifice one of her desks to him; she knew he wouldn’t mind if she occasionally appropriated them both for design work.

His face broke out into a dazzling smile. “I’d hoped you would say that. I didn’t want you to feel like I was enroaching on your space.”

“Not at all. It might be a little cramped sometimes, but we can make it work,” Marinette said confidently. There would be days where it was hard, but Sabine had been right when she said that Alya’s and Nino’s families really didn’t have the space for Adrien. Chloé did, but Marinette had the feeling that Adrien would be a lot more comfortable here.

“I think so too,” Adrien said. “Marinette… do you know why I asked you out a few weeks ago?”

The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Marinette just blinked at him. Then heat rushed to her face. “Wh-what?”

Adrien’s cheeks turned pink too. He lowered his head slightly, eyes darting away from her. “That day… that day I first asked you to have lunch with me. We walked to the café under your pretty umbrella. You remember?”

“Of course I do. How could I forget?” Marinette said. Remembering how confused she’d been at the time made her want to laugh at how little her past self had known or understood. She and Adrien had grown a lot in the span of several weeks. Strange how much could change in such a short amount of time.

“I was nervous,” Adrien said.

“I was too,” Marinette whispered. She wasn’t wholly sure where he was going with this. They had agreed to talk about it after seeing the alternate timeline, but of course then the whole issue with Gabriel and Nathalie had come up. Love and romance had been the furthest thing from either of their minds. She didn’t know what it meant that Adrien was bringing it up now.

He cleared his throat. “I thought you might say no to going on a date with me back then.”

“I would never do that.”

“Really?” he asked, and his uncertainty made her nod. At that, Adrien chuckled. “Gosh, I sure have been stupid.”

“What do you mean?” Marinette asked, confused.

“The whole reason I asked Marinette out,” he said ruefully, “was because I was convinced that Ladybug had a boyfriend.”

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #adrienette #plagg #tikki #post reveal #under my umbrella #marinettemarch2020 #marinettelove2020

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princess-of-the-corner · 5 years

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Lady Luck AU: The Queen’s Battle Trilogy + Miraculer

In the show, these episodes deal heavily with Chloé’s plot of getting the Bee Miraculous. However, in Lady Luck, she’s had the Ladybug Miraculous since day one. So of course these episodes are going to change. A lot!

So let’s discuss that! Uh, slight trigger warning for Audrey’s shitty parenting.

Style Queen:

When Audrey shows up, Chloé is conflicted.

She still wants her mother’s love and attention, but Chloé has made actual progress toward not being a jerk.

She doesn’t want to agree with her mother’s comments, but when she tries to be nice she gets told off.

After they bump into Marinette, Chloé sticks by her instead of her mother.

They talk a little, mostly a ‘oh god no wonder you were terrible if that’s what you grew up with.’.

Mari also reassures her that she doesn’t have to be like that.

The events of Audrey getting Akumatized are the same, and Style Queen turns Adrien into a glitter statue.

Realizing that not only are they down one teammate, but that Chloé will not be at her best fighting her mother, she decides to go to Master Fu for a new Hero.

First she tells Marinette to stay and try to find Style Queen’s weaknesses. But prioritize herself over the mission.

Marinette Transforms into Fennette and both head off.

After getting the Bee Miraculous, Chloé heads to Sabrina’s house.

Their talk is a little rushed because, you know, Akuma to fight.

But Chloé is basically like “I know we haven’t been hanging out as much and sometimes I disappear at random, but I promise I have a good reason and you’ll find out after you open this box!’.

Sabrina takes the comb and minorly freaks out when Pollen appears.

Chloé explains that this is the Bee Miraculous, and Pollen is a Kwami who will help Sabrina become a Hero.

Sabrina then has a bigger freak out over ‘holy shit you’re Lady Luck!’.

Chloé cuts her off with a ‘we can discuss this later. Right now we need to go fight my mom.’

Lady Luck and Abielle go meet up with Fennette, who has done a decent job studying Style Queen while staying in the shadows

The three battle Style Queen, and it goes easier than in Canon, with Fennette making an Illusion of Gabriel to bait her, and Abielle using Venom to give them a few minutes of peace to deal with the Akumatized Object.

Plagg probably still destroys something though.

Queen Wasp

The fashion show goes off as normal, though with Chloé and Sabrina hanging with Marinette (much to the confusion of Mari’s parents and Alya)

Gabriel shows up to check on Adrien. He also low-key checks on Chloé and Marinette because fuck you that’s why.

Legit though, I do write Gabriel caring about both of them.

With Chloé, it’s because she was Adrien’s friend since they were little, so he knows her fairly well and does think of her as part of the family.

With Marinette, it’s more like ‘Hello future daughter-in-law!’.

Audrey still offers to take Marinette to New York

Marinette herself is a hell of a lot more hesitant, having seen how Audrey treats her own daughter.

Chloé is still fucking pissed. Because she’s wanted her mother’s love and attention for so long, but instead Audrey is giving that to some random girl she just met instead of her own daughter.

Then Audrey drops the ‘the only thing exceptional about you, is your mother!’ line. And hoo boy.

For Chloé, this is one of those ‘five seconds feels like five years’ type situations.

She wants to do something. To prove herself. Part of her does think about transforming into Lady Luck, and being all “I’m a superhero! Isn’t that exceptional?!”, but she realizes that it won’t be enough for Audrey, because nothing’s ever enough

And everything just kinda… clicks into place with that. The realization that nothing she does will be something Audrey considers ‘exceptional’, because the goal is always pushed further and further back.

And the realization that she doesn’t need Audrey to think anything of her.

Chloé snaps, getting this manic look that makes everyone back up a few feet. She tells Audrey that she’s going to get through to her in the only way that matters. Ruining her precious reputation.

She then heads over to the news reporters and says ‘Hey, Nadja! Wanna hear the one thing Audrey Bourgeois isn’t ‘exceptional’ at? Being a good mother!’.

Chloé goes tf off on her mother, shouting everything she’s ever felt at her. How much she’s hated everything, especially herself. How miserable she was being a jerk to everyone. How much happier she is when she’s not trying to gain the love and attention she’ll never be ‘worthy of’. How she’s stuck in this place of depression over ‘I’ll never be enough for you’ and rage over ‘why the hell aren’t I enough!?”

Audrey is trying to do bare-minimum damage control. Just telling Chloé to stop because she’s ‘making a scene’. Every time uses some variation of her name, it only fuels Chloé’s anger, and she brings it up. “Chloé! My name is Chloé! What kind of mother can’t even bother to remember her daughter’s name!

Chloé eventually brings out the ‘big guns’, AKA: Emilie Agreste. Because Emilie and Audrey were supposedly friends. She accuses Audrey of not caring about her either. After all, she didn’t even come back to Paris after hearing that Emilie was missing!

She even goes as far to ask ‘did you even pause and worry for five seconds when they told you she was gone? Probably not. Just shrugged and went back to firing your tenth assistant of the week!’.

Eventually she says something that makes Audrey angry enough to actually slap her. And while everyone else had been frozen at the fight, they start handling the situation.

First people to move are Marinette’s parents, with Tom shielding Chloé from her mother while Sabine cusses out Audrey in rapidfire Chinese

Adrien, Marinette, and Sabrina all physically pull Chloé out of the situation. Taking her somewhere safe. Maybe back to the hotel?

While Gabriel doesn’t get into the situation, he does catch Chloé’s eye and give an approving nod to her actions. (Because while Gabe is a fuck sometimes, he does care about Adrien and his friends, and tbh while he respects Audrey’s talent, he’s wanted to knock her down a peg for a long ass time.)

Chloé’s dad, however, is still frozen in shock. But we’ll get to him later.

Her friends take her somewhere safe to ride out the rest of the breakdown.

She goes through a ‘manic’ phase first. She feels great, but also full of rage. She’s grinning but wants do do something destructive. She kinda half-hopes for an Akuma so she has something to direct that at.

She apologizes to Adrien for bringing up his mom too.

Eventually she hits the full breakdown point and starts crying. This time though, she has her friends to comfort her.

‘Queen Wasp’ doesn’t really happen. Gabriel kinda decided to give her a break on this, so no butterflies come for her.

Malediktator

This picks up from the end of ‘Queen Wasp’, with Adrien, Marinette and Sabrina comforting Chloé.

At some point, Chloé’s dad shows up, already Akumatized into Maediktator.

He insists on taking Chloé with him, and the Heroes decide that it’d be better to play along for now so that they can escape and transform later.

Chloé herself is more in shock, and feels guilty over her dad’s Akumatization, knowing it probably had something to do with what happened.

Malediktator’s actions are entirely to try and make Chloé happy.

He commands Audrey to be an actual caring mother(for once), and all of a sudden she’s showering Chloé with love and affection. Telling her how wonderful and very exceptional she is.

He uses his power to make several teens(mostly the classmates) adore Chloé and wish to be her friend.

At some point the others sneaked away to transform, and when they show back up Malediktator demands that they give Chloé one of the Miraculous, as is wonderful and deserves such an honor!

At first, Chloé is still in breakdown mode. Just kind of going along with everything.

But after a while, everything just hurts more and more. Because this version of her mother that loves her? The classmates who adore her? They only exist because of a magic spell.

And while she still feels guilty about her dad getting Akumatized, it does make her feel better to know he’s just trying to help her.

Malediktator begs Chloé to tell him what will make her happy. She tells him that she just wants him back to normal.

Obvs there’s the conflict there, as Akumas don’t usually want to give up their power, but doing that would make her happy.

This distracts him long enough for Abielle to use Venom and freeze him in place.

Chloé sneaks off to transform, drop in long enough to purify the Butterfly and change things back to normal.

After all this, Chloé and her dad talk for a while.

He apologizes for everything. Like, he knew Audrey was… high maintenance. And kind of a bitch. But he never realized how bad things were for Chloé.

Like, it seemed like he’d always been able to cheer her up. Telling her she’s great anyway, buying gifts, everything. He also didn’t hear how bad Chloé had been to her classmates, because the school staff was always too scared to report her.

She understands that he tried, and reassures him that he did help. She’d probably be worse without him. Hell, she might even be the kind of person Audrey would like, which isn’t the person she wants to be anymore.

Eventually, he asks her if she’s at all happy being around her mother, if she would rather try and fix things or let Audrey go back to New York. Chloé answers honestly. She doesn’t really care where her mother goes. She doesn’t need her. She’s happy without her.

After that, he’s like ‘well in that case, time for a divorce!’.

Chloé starts to go ‘wait, no!’ at that.

But he assures her that this was a long time coming. The relationship honesty hasn’t been right in a long time. Audrey had always been…. High maintenance… but she’s gotten worse and worse and she’s never even in the same country anymore!

The only reason he kept trying to make it work was because Chloé had ‘adored’ her mother before. But considering everything that just happened? That’s it. He was highly debating divorce anyway after the fight(and especially the slap), but he wanted to ask Chloé first.

She ends up seeking comfort at Marinette’s place.

Mari’s parents kind of assume the worst at first. Like, the ‘she needs somewhere to stay now’ worst. But Chloé explains that’s not the case.

There’s a bit of venting, and Mari and her family are like ‘okay look if you need somewhere to stay, even if it’s just to get away for a while, you can stay here’.

She’s going to take up that offer a lot.

Miraculer

So, Lila has nothing to do with this plot. Because 1. Chloé knows she’s a trick ass bitch 2. there’s no issue over the Bee Miraculous.

Anyway, after the events of the Queen’s Battle Tirlogy, Chloé spends a lot of time at Marinette’s house. Because out of her close circle of friends, it’s the one she finds the most comforting.

She cares about Sabrina, but Roger kinda hates her so she feels unwelcome in her home

Adrien’s place reminds her too much of Emilie, so it hurts to be there(something Adrien agrees with).

All other friends she’s made so far are nice, but their families aren’t as ready to welcome her in all the time.

Meanwhile, Tom and Sabine saw what happened with Audrey and went ‘Where’s the adoption papers?!’.

Episode starts with Chloé at Mari’s place. Along with some of the rest of the group at that point. At least Adrien and Sabrina probably. They get a text from another friend telling them to check out the news channel.

Turning on the tv, they see an interview with Audrey discussing the divorce. Specifically, which parent gets custody of Chloé.

Audrey is playing it up in the interview, talking about how this whole ordeal has ‘made her realize how distant she’d been the past few years’. Obviously Chloé just wanted to spend more time with her mother! And full custody would help give them the time they needed!

She’s very obviously trying to control the situation. Make herself look like a misunderstood victim. And potentially, get control over Chloé again to make her more obedient and horrible.

Audrey says she’ll definitely get custody, even after the ‘incident’, because she’ll be taking Chloé to New York with her. Somewhere far away from all the dangerous Akumas.

Naturally Chloé is very distressed by that.

Not only is she finally starting to feel happy with a handful of people who genuinely care about her, but she’s Lady Luck. Lady Luck can’t just leave!

The whole thing sends her into a panic attack.

Chloé is very nearly Akumatized over it, but her friends manage to help her pull together. They’re not going to let Audrey take her away.

While she’s safe, the Butterfly heads to someone who is less ‘distressed’ and more ‘filled with righteous fury’

Sabine Cheng gets Akumatized.

I’m debating on her Akuma name. The canonical ‘Verity Queen’ fits, but I was also thinking about ‘Godmother’. Like, a ‘fairy godmother’ theme.

Sabine’s anger is half ‘How dare someone treat their child like this’, and half ‘My daughter now!’.

Godmother, naturally, goes after Audrey.

It’s a tough fight. Partly because Chloé is very tempted to let Godmother kick Audrey’s ass, and partly because Marinette is hesitant to fight her mom.

And also because even though they’re trying to fight her, Godmother is more like ‘You’re all children! How dare this responsibility be handed to you!? You’re my kids now too.”

Eventually they do defeat her, and they end up in front of cameras, with Nadja trying to get answers about Sabine’s Akumatization and Audrey trying to get Lady Luck to agree with her about how ‘dangerous’ this city is.

While Lady Luck remains somewhat calm, as she can distance herself from the situation by talking in third person, she goes tf off on Audrey again.

She explains to Nadja that the Butterfly was originally after Chloé, who was having a panic attack over the idea of Audrey taking her away from her friends and ‘real family’. That Chloé was able to avoid being Akumatized, but the Butterfly went after Sabine who wanted to protect a girl she cared for like a daughter now.

When Audrey plays the ‘it’s so dangerous here because of the Akumas’ card, Lady Luck asks ‘are you implying that we can’t do our job?’. She also points out that Heroes and Villains and Magic exist everywhere, even in New York.

Most importantly, she says “I think Chloé is far safer with the woman who got Akumatized over wanting to protect someone she cares about, than she is with the woman who got Akumatized over ‘being put in the second row’, don’t you think?’.

Oh? You’re probably wondering about Mayura. Well…. I might stretch this out into a two-parter since the Akuma took up so much.

Chloé heads back to her hotel, thankfully walking through the lobby and up the elevator instead of swinging in as Lady Luck, because Mayura is in the room waiting for her.

Chloé is hella on guard, wondering if Mayura figured out her secret identity. She doesn’t transform just yet though.

Mayura is here to offer a deal of sorts.

She explains how the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous have such amazing power. That they can do so much, give her anything she wants.

Anything, including the mother that loves her.

Chloé scoffs at that, saying she doesn’t want some magic spell version of Audrey to love her, so Mayura can take her offer and shove it.

Mayura clarifies that she wasn’t referring to Chloé’s biological mother, but the mother figure who recently disappeared.

Yeah. Basically the offer is Gabriel and Nathalie banking on the idea that Chloé wants Emilie back just as much as they do.

The plan involves first testing the waters, seeing if she’d join them for the reward of saving Emilie. If she does, then they’ll let her in on identities.

From there, they’d use her to make Akumas. Either Akumatizing her directly over and over, or having her be a jerk and cause negative emotions.

If she steals the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, then great. If she steals one of the others, then she can use that instead.

If she steals two of the others, they might let Adrien in on the plan.

Side note: the reason they’re using Chloé instead of Adrien for this is because Adrien is a bit softer, less likely to fight(as far as they know), and even more unlikely to fight on the ‘dark side’.

What they didn’t expect was Chloé judo flipping Mayura, pinning her to the floor, and interrogating her.

Mayura might be stronger than Chloé when not transformed, but Chloé had the element of surprise.

Chloé also taps into her Aura Vision stuff and finds out that the Peacock is broken.

Basically Chloé interpreted the offer as more of a ‘we know where she is and if you help us we’ll help you’ thing.

She’s turning the threat around. ‘Tell me everything you know about what happened to Emilie or I will fight you without magic’.

Mayura manages to keep her cool and clarifies that she meant it literally, the Miraculous could help bring Emilie back, no matter where she is.

Once Chloé gives a definitive answer of ‘I’m not going to become a supervillain and hurt everyone else just to bring her back to me!’, Mayura breaks out of her hold and runs off.

After making sure she’s left, Chloé texts the team, and Master Fu, to meet right the hell now.

I already mentioned the ‘Titan’s Tower’ System

Everyone shows up and she tells them what just happened with Mayura

She assures them that her identity isn’t in danger because Mayura didn’t even look at her earrings, much less try to take them.

She also asks Master Fu about the broken Peacock, what it’s effects are, and how to deal with it

Chloé also brings up the ‘Gabriel might be Hawkmoth’ thing

I mean, she never really dropped it after The Collector, but still. This is a time to bring it up. Because Mauyra specifically brought up Emilie.

Adrien reminds her that Gabriel was Akumatized, and she points out that he has Mayura, who could’ve Akumatized him.

They also come to the conclusion that if Gabriel is Hawmoth, than Mayura is Nathalie.

The team debates back and forth on this

Ultimately, they decide that while Gabriel and Nathalie are good suspects, they’re the only good suspects that they know about. There’s a decent chance that Hawkmoth and Mayura are some random people that they’ve never met and have no connection to.

They do decide to keep an eye on them though.

#Lady Luck AU

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flightfoot · 5 years

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An explanation of my stance on Adrien

Really looking over what I think of Adrien as a character, how he’s portrayed in the story, and the writing of conflicts and characters surrounding him, I think I approach the whole subject differently than most other people in the fandom do.

For one thing, I tend to draw the line between “writing that makes me dislike a character” and “how that character is portrayed in the narrative” differently. A lot of times, if a character you like does something you don’t agree with, it’s blamed on bad writing. While if a character you aren’t particularly fond of does something you don’t like, it’s blamed on them as a character.

Problem is there isn’t really a clear line of demarcation between things that you blame on the character and things that you blame on the writing, since technically anything a character does or doesn’t do is because they were written that way, and anything that occurs in the narrative that’s related to a character may be at least partly attributable to them.

So for me personally, I tend to consider “how the narrative treats the character” to be more of an example of the writing of the show, so if I don’t think the narrative is treating the character the way I believe they should be treated, I tend to consider that a case of bad writing, rather than something that’s attached to the character themselves. Meanwhile I tend to view the characters actual actions and inaction as being something that’s more attached to the character themselves, and so colors my perception of them more.

For instance, there’s the whole conflict over Adrien with several girls chasing after him, either because they genuinely like him or because he’d be a good trophy and give a boost to their social status. Most fans view this conflict with distaste. I do as well. But instead of attaching my distaste for this conflict to Adrien himself, I tend to chalk it up more to bad writing, and somewhat to the characters involved in the chasing. As has been pointed out before, Adrien could be replaced with an inanimate object for this conflict and it would pretty much turn out the same way, because while the conflict is ABOUT him, he himself has pretty much nothing to do with it and is only vaguely aware that it exists. Since he as a character has pretty much nothing to do with it, I don’t really consider it to be attached to him, and my dislike for the conflict has little impact on my feelings regarding Adrien.

It’s kind of similar to Ginny’s situation regarding her feelings for Harry in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny develops a debilitating crush on Harry, to the point that she turns red and clumsy whenever he’s around and has trouble getting her words out straight. She’s apparently very preoccupied with her crush on Harry and what he might think of her, but her attempts to do anything romantic regarding him don’t go well. She sends him a singing valentine which he finds thoroughly embarrassing, but he doesn’t actually do anything about it or anything about Ginny’s feelings for him. Ginny’s whole preoccupation with him is thoroughly in the background of the book, since her whole romantic conflict has nothing to do with him personally. It’s just something happening on Ginny’s end. It has little to do with Harry himself

Also, sometimes the direction the narrative points and the direction that the character’s actions points conflict. For instance, it’s been pointed out that when Marinette steps out of line, she tends to be called out - often by Tikki. On the one hand, her being called out and being held at least sort of accountable makes her more likable from an outside view, since she isn’t a karma houdini. On the other hand, when Tikki acts as a voice of reason and Marinette deliberately ignores her - at least at first - such as in Animaestro and Ikari Gozen, it makes her less likable because she HAD someone telling her what she was doing was a bad idea, had a moment to step back and realize it was a bad idea... and didn’t. Not until later.

(I do realize that the writers may not have intended to have Tikki call Marinette out partially for the purpose of removing some of the sting from her negative actions in those cases, but that does seem to be the general effect it’s had on the fandom.)

So like when Adrien’s treated differently by the narrative than other characters, I don’t really hold that against him as a character, since I don’t consider him at fault for it. I understand the stance of the people who do, I just don’t agree with them. My opinion on a character tends to be more independent of how the narrative portrays them (not completely independent, that would be both impossible and unreasonable and I will not claim that) than I’ve seen most other people’s opinions be.

It’s partially because of this difference in philosophy that my whole thinking about Adrien, as well as the other characters in the show (especially Marinette since she’s the main character, but my difference in opinion is most noticeable when it comes to Adrien).

But I have other reasons that I tend to defend Adrien a lot. A lot of the things that I see him lambasted for, I generally don’t consider as bad as portrayed, not in the context of the show.

I will say that I’ve been uncomfortable with the times when Chat’s made advances towards Ladybug that she wasn’t into, like some of the cases in seasons 1 and 2 when he leaned in for a kiss when she wasn’t interested,or when he’s acted like they’re a couple or are definitely going to BECOME a couple. That being said, she appeared more vaguely annoyed in most of those examples than uncomfortable, and usually set him straight pretty quickly. I think there’s also some exaggeration for comedic effect thrown in there, but with this show, it can be kinda hard to tell when and how much to account for that. He does seem to have learned and to have toned it down a lot by season 3 at least.

The biggest example of that this season was in Oblivio when he... lounged around during the original fight I guess? I’m not entirely sure WHAT he was doing in that footage honestly, Ladybug talked about him pulling a “charming kitty act” but I don’t really know what all that entailed. We just see one short segment where Chat is hiding behind Ladybug sitting down while she shields him with from Oblivio’s shots with her yo-yo since she’s the only bit of cover in the area, then it cuts to him jumping around Oblivio and getting hit. I’m not entirely sure how whatever he did interfered with the akuma fight. Ladybug indicated that it did, but I’d like to know details before holding that against him too much. Character interpretations aren’t completely reliable. Plus whenever he HAS let his personal feelings interfere during akuma attacks, like during Glaciator, Syren, and Frozer, it’s only lasted about a minute and when they weren’t in immediate danger. Once one of them was in danger, like in Frozer when Frozer targeted Ladybug, he got over it and went back to doing his job as normal. So I have my doubts as to how much his apparently messing around was actually responsible for the difficulties they faced in the Oblivio fight.

Oh, and later in Oblivio, of course. He was kinda smarmy about the kiss, but that was it. He teased her a bit about it which annoyed her, but that was about it, and it hasn’t been brought up again, at least as of yet. Irritating, but not exactly a major sin.

And as for all the accusations of Adrien being passive... well, he IS passive for the most part. I do think people over-exaggerate it at times though. Like during Chameleon. Except for his terrible advice at the end (though I do see where he’s coming from in that advice, considering his own personal experiences with his father and fans, as well as his belief that Lila is only lying because she’s lonely), I actually thought his actions were pretty good. He didn’t interfere in the initial rearrangement of the seats before Marinette stepped in, but we don’t really know how exactly that happened. Lila was apparently responsible for it, but it also seemed like she was entering the classroom for the first time when we saw her walk in, so that was kinda weird. My best guess? Alya probably has Lila’s number from the first time she was in school, she texted with Lila, and Lila suggested the seat rearrangements. Adrien walks in during the seat rearrangement and Alya informs him of why it’s happening, and he naturally assumes that since Alya is Marinette’s best friend that she got Marinette’s approval before changing her seat.

When Marinette DID walk in and it was evident that that she HADN’T agreed to it and was unhappy with the situation, he offered to move to the back in her stead. He wasn’t there for the lunchroom scene or for Lila threatening Marinette. He still tried to deal with Lila’s lies, but by asking her to stop and attempting to remove what he believed was the reason for her lies (loneliness, a belief that people wouldn’t like her unless she propped herself up) and asking her to stop. It’s not like the aggressive approach had worked, so maybe a gentler, less aggressive approach would. but he didn’t have all the facts about Lila’s actions and motives and so misread her, so it didn’t work. But he did try. His advice to Marinette about leaving Lila be wasn’t very good, but it fit with his life experience of “you make a fuss and nothing will improve for you and you and maybe your friends will be punished worse”. Plus the lies she told and their effects that he knew of weren’t that bad. It was mostly just propping herself up. And... well I’ll agree that he just generally hadn’t thought about the potential far-reaching consequences of letting her lies go. I don’t think it occurred to him.

I’m not sure I’d say that Adrien was portrayed as being in the RIGHT for the advice he gave exactly, though. It’s true that he seemed to have the last word on it in Chameleon, but I think Oni-chan gave him an indictment of that policy, with his witnessing how her lies harmed people and how terrible of a person Lila really is, culminating in his saying that she can count on him, but not when she’s hurting the people he cares about. He wasn’t able to rip into her for what she did to Ladybug because that wasn’t public knowledge, but he still held her accountable for her actions towards other people surrounding him earlier. He didn’t immediately go on the offensive like Marinette was doing, attempting to expose her lies, but he did try to cut her out of his own circle, and did subtly warn her that if her lies proved harmful to the people he cares about (which in this case I’m pretty sure includes most everyone in class) that she’d lose him as an ally, and I think hinted that she might make an enemy of him, though I’ll admit I might be reading that part in a bit. In any case, he no longer seems to believe her lies are harmless. He doesn’t seem to be actively debunking them, but it’s not like that worked before anyway.

This by no means covers my full opinion on Adrien, his actions, and everything around him, but this is quite long enough already. I hope it gives some clarification as to why I have the opinions that I do about both Adrien and Miraculous Ladybug as a whole.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #my analysis #ml analysis #I... don't think this counts as salt?#I constantly end up defending Adrien because I feel like people exaggerate his faults and minimize his good qualities #So I wanted to explain in depth where I'm coming from #Ended up going really long though

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damelicorne · 5 years

Text

Operation: Pink Cupid (chapter 4)

Hello @cataclysme-noire! Here’s the 4th chapter of your gift for the Valentine’s Day Gift Exchange of the ML Ship Fleet on Discord @mlshipfleet.

First chapter | Previous chapter | AO3 | Next chapter

Alya thought she knew Marinette perfectly well. After talking with Nino, she still thought so. Maybe did she slightly doubt, though. She knew she couldn't openly ask her friend for the truth on that particular topic, but was sure that she eventually would discover the truth. Marinette couldn't be better at hiding a secret than Alya at discovering it, could she?

She began softly, asking Marinette not-so-innocent questions at different moments. Without any success. She also tried with Ladybug, as the Ladyblogger and one time as Rena Rouge. Marinette nor Ladybug ever fell for any of her tricks, and the super heroine even grew slightly suspicious.

Eventually, the only thing Alya knew for sure was that either Marinette wasn't Ladybug, either she knew how to protect her secret identity. And, well... As tempting as the first hypothesis could be... It wasn't entirely realistic. Apart from Nino's clues, Alya now knew for sure that Marinette was hiding a secret. Which one? A little or a big one? She wasn't sure. But she had to carry on and discover the truth. Especially since time was running out, Valentine's Day arriving far too fast for her sake.

Alya complained to Nino about how she could never get her best friend to betray her secret identity. He didn't understand why his girlfriend wouldn't want to settle for what she had already discovered. But the journalist-to-be reminded him she needed proofs, real proofs. Especially on a topic as touchy as this one. What if they were wrong?

None of Alya's attempts was successful, adding to her dismay. But eventually, she was highly rewarded. Not the way she thought, though.

During an especially rough akuma attack, Carapace got sent far away by Hawkmoth's latest victim. When he finally came back, the battle was over, Chat Noir had left and Rena Rouge had already given her Miraculous back to Ladybug.

Therefore, when he gave the turtle Miraculous back, Nino was alone with the super heroine, whose earrings were loudly bipping. Relieved that Alya wasn't around any more, and stressed by her own Miraculous, Ladybug didn't pay enough attention when she answered Nino. She didn't even notice he was way too cool to be innocent.

When he met his girlfriend after that, he had a really wide smile. He thought about teasing her. But he was way too excited for such a thing.

"Hey Alya, guess what? I was right! Your ships aren't two, there's only one!" She grinned widely.

"Yes! Oh my gosh! I knew it! We must sail it, Nino! They'll be so happy together! You can't say no, now!" He shrugged. He knew it. How could he stop his girlfriend, stop her now? Besides, he didn't really want to stop her. He wanted their friends to discover that they loved each other, nearly as much as Alya did. And he wanted to help if he could.

But how could they actually help sailing the Adrinette-Ladynoir ship? A reveal between the two lovebirds would be necessary, or they'd keep on being stuck in their love square like, forever. But it would be terribly difficult for Alya and Nino to get Marinette and Adrien to discover the truth without them knowing where it came from. None of them wanted to suffer the wrath of Ladybug, if not Chat Noir's! Or even worse : the wrath of their best friends!

There were two days left before Valentine's day. Only two little days. Coming up with a good plan in so little time would be really hard... As usual, Alya was highly confident, when Nino doubted more and more. She was definitely sure that Operation Pink Cupid would succeed. How and when were just mere details, to her.

How could they help their best friends and partners figure each other's identity? The only point on which they agreed was that Marinette and Adrien should never know Alya and Nino were behind it. It made their mission harder, but far more secure.

Alya suggested creating a fake akuma with Rena Rouge's illusion power. But Nino pointed that she had her Miraculous only when Ladybug gave it to her.

Nino suggested helping Adrien realizing his feelings towards Marinette, and helping Ladybug realizing her feelings towards Chat Noir. Alya laughed. That was exactly what they had tried to do since day one of Operation Pink Cupid... without any success, most obviously...

Alya suggested making them kiss under the mistletoe. Nino pointed out that it was no longer seasonal at all. And honestly, he didn't think a kiss would do anything to change things between the two lovebirds. They were far too stubborn. They were definitely and desperately blind to half their feelings.

Alya also suggested she met Marinette somewhere, such as the bowling alley, while Nino would ask Adrien to meet him at the same place. Finally, the two of them would warn their friends that they would be late. Forcing Marinette and Adrien to spend time together. A pleasant moment for both of them, who would have had fun together while waiting for Alya and Nino to come. But Nino pointed out it wouldn't help Operation Pink Cupid any more than his own idea of making them figure out their feelings. Besides, Marinette had already been alone with Adrien in the past, without any change whatsoever.

Alya then imagined Ladybug saving Adrien. Since they were so much in love, they would definitely take the chance to kiss each other. Nino pointed out that it was almost impossible for Alya and him to cause such a situation, and that, in any case, Ladybug and Adrien would definitely not dare kissing anyway. Ladybug had already saved Adrien now and then, without any incidence on their relationship.

As hard as it would be to get their friends to aknowledge their true identities, Nino knew they wouldn't change their minds without discovering the truth.

Alya suggested leaving clues lying around, so Marinette and Adrien would solve the puzzle. Nino objected how dangerous it would be if anyone but their friends found some and guessed who the superheroes were. Way too risky.

"So. In a nutshell." started Alya after a few more ideas that led nowhere. "How do you bring together your two obtuse best friends, who love each other but stupidly don't realize it, without them noticing that you are in control, and without any unfortunate consequences? Did I forget anything?" Nino sighed in disappointment. Alya had summed it up perfectly. They were doomed.

Valentine's day finally arrived. And a new akuma, along with it. A very difficult, themed akuma. Ladybug gave her friends Trixx and Wayzz, before leaving in a hurry. She didn't pay attention to the glance Alya and Nino exchanged.

In his lair, Hawmoth was exulting. He was finally about to achieve his dream...

Well, until Rena Rouge lured his champion, Carapace hit him with his shield, Chat Noir cataclysmed his weapon and Ladybug caught the akuma.

While he was howling in rage, far from the super heroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir pounded it with their partners and started leaving.

But they faced another problem. Their Miraculous were bipping so much that they needed to go and hide, but there weren't much places they could reach in time.

"Here!" Rena Rouge shouted, pointing at a door.

"I'll come and collect your Miraculous later, you two!" Ladybug told her and Carapace. She then followed Chat Noir through the door. Alas, it was a little room with no place to hide. They exchanged a worried glance. Chat Noir immediately reached for the door but, as he tried to reopen it, they heard a click, indicating the door was now locked.

He shook the doorknob several times, but it didn't work any better. Ladybug shrieked when her earrings beeped another time. Chat Noir turned back to face her.

"I'm... I'm sorry, but it seems that I can't go out... And I used my Cataclysm, sooner..." She gulped loudly, wide-eyed.

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greenparispavement · 7 years

Text

Angst Concept story line: 1, 2, 3, 4

concept:

Marinette Dupain-Cheng gave up her Miraculous on the 9th of August 2017, after almost having it for two years.

Tikki had done everything she could to persuade her to change her mind, but she’d been met with silent, dogged opposition as Marinette went ahead with her plan no matter what the little Goddess said. It had left Tikki in tears on more than one occasion, and, more worrying still, not even that had swayed Marinette.

The girl had almost seemed like she was suddenly determined to deny ever having emotions. She was sprightly and bright as ever, smiling and laughing with her friends, affectionate and open with her parents. Tikki had on more than one occasion overheard her parents or her friends express relief that she finally seemed to be recovering from her broken heart, even if it had taken her nearly six months to get over it

Tikki knew better. Tikki knew how long Marinette stayed awake at night, methodically compiling information about all her classmates, moving on to all the people in school, searching for a candidate in attempt to avoid sleep and nightmares. She knew how often Marinette buried her face in books and school work to avoid looking at Adrien, or at pictures of herself and Chat Noir on the street. She noticed every little flinch Marinette made when the boy came close, or spoke to her. Even though she seemed ok, her stutter had disappeared and she was even friendly with him, Tikki seemed to be the only who noticed that Marinette never quite looked Adrien in the eyes, that she didn’t include him much in her conversations, that she ducked out of rooms as quickly as possible when he walked in. The boy himself simply seemed relieved she was speaking to him at all; Tikki, with all her extra knowledge, knew that Marinette was anything but over what had happened in the last few months.

Everything that the kwami said, Marinette countered with logic. The Surete investigation was dangerous. Not only did they now know that she lived in the 12th, but they had narrowed down the age group, and were interviewing families. The only thing that had saved her from any direct contact was the fact that she was under-age, and that the school - with the Mayor’s backing - had summarily refused to let its many High Profile students be bothered and harassed with such a thing. A phone-call from Monsieur Agreste had been involved, apparently, and the threat to remove Fashion Week from Paris entirely in favour of Versailles (how much clout did that man have?!) had been gently put on the table before they backed off. Lila, daughter of the Italian Embassador’s attache`, Chloe, the Mayor’s own daughter, and several other youths of note who frequented their school had all pitched in, and the national police had had no other option but to back off all schools.

This had been Marinette’s battle horse against all of Tikki’s objections and tears; they had to keep the Surete off their backs. They were dangerously, dangerously close, and finding another Ladybug would put all their investigations in disarray. Marinette had asked the Kwami a number of very telling questions that had very quickly disclosed her plan; could Tikki transform a girl to still look like Marinette was in the suite? Keep the hair and eyes and pigtails? It was vital, essential that no one would know the girl behind the mask had been switched. No one had to suspect.

Tikki had objected further when Marinette had said she would give the Miraculous away in person; this new Ladybug had to be more cautious, more careful, more vigilant. The Kwami had been sure that she’d found the weak point in Marinette’s plan - if she was captured, this new girl would give her away, put her and her family in danger, which was the excuse Marinette was giving to pass the Miraculous on.

Instead, Marinette showed her an almost perfect replica she had sewn of her costume, complete with a mask that stuck to her face with skin-appropriate glue. She said she would be meeting with the girl at different locations they would agree upon before the end of each meeting, that they would always be incognito, and that she would coach the new girl as long as she could before she decided to let her do her own thing.

They never discussed Chat Noir, or how he would fit into all this, but Tikki knew. Chat Noir could not be informed. She’d surmised that for Marinette at this point, Chat would probably not even notice or care that the girl in the costume had been switched. It pained her terribly, but Tikki realised that Marinette had mourned to the point where all she could see now was a conclusion to her pain. She’d shut her emotions in a little box, and soon, when she was alone and even Tikki was gone, she’d empty it into the Seine and never look at them again. There had been Ladybugs like this before - it was a natural consequence of finding someone adapt to use the ladybird Miraculous in the first place; good and kind, but logical and calculating. Able to keep a clear head in times of great stress and emotional turmoil.

The worse part of it all was that objectively, logically, Marinette was right, and Tikki couldn’t even refute it. They were in terrifying danger every time they transformed, their lax attitude in the past of going from Marinette to Ladybug behind a park-bench a looming shadow that had come back to haunt them. Every transformation was a paranoid experience, spent looking for hidden cameras and the securest nooks and crannies available. Every detranformation was a voyage in stress and fear, the bleeping Miraculous helping none-at-all as under-cover officers tried to tail and capture the heroin, scrutinising every person and screening the passers-by in the vicinity of where they thought she had detransformed.

It helped that the citizens of Paris had rallied, resisting the bullying from the upper-authorities as best they could in defense for their beloved heroes. All girls with dark hair wore it in pigtails, and several other girls did so anyway even if their hair was light. Half the male population of Paris dyed their hair blond with impunity. Ladybug and Chat Noir themed clothes became more popular than ever, especially shirts that read ‘I am Ladybug’ or ‘I am Chat Noir’, in open defiance of the search. Every time the police screened people after a detransformation, so many people confessed to being the heroes that the Surete had filled the Paris temporary cells to capacity the first time it happened, and it had been the only thing that had saved Marinette from being singled out.

It didn’t stop Tikki from aching in pain that her charge was going to let her go. Or from suffering as she watched Marinette shut herself off in her hunger to heal. She encouraged Alya, who had become a real social-media justice warrior, rallying people for protests and hosted protest merch on her blog. She supported Nino, Alix and the rest of the class when they joined in the cause. She went to marches herself, as herself, getting arrested and doubling down on her ideals as any normal teenager would. But meanwhile, she was thinking and watching and scheming, always on the hunt for the girl who would replace her. Tikki almost wished she could contact Wayz; Marinette would have been such a good guardian, too, if only she weren’t the perfect Ladybug.

And then finally, Marinette found her. In the space of a few weeks, it all happened. The meeting, the transfer. The lessons and coaching and cautionary tales; transferred knowledge and facts and tricks and tips, but also paranoia from one hunted Ladybug to the next. The inevitable missed meeting, which left both girls completely unable contact one another, and therefore unable to meet ever again.

And so, just like that, Marinette Dupain-Cheng passed from Tikki’s life. Marinette had met her at a protest march, this new blonde girl who hoped to be an interior decorator, and who had professed undying love for Chat Noir during the rally, attracting Marinette’s attention instantly. It was an added advantage that they did not go to the same school, that they lived in different parts of the city, that Marinette only knew her first name. It also, however, meant that Marinette could not find her new charge - possibly something she preferred, taking into consideration the possibility that she may be interrogated if the schools changed their policy on the under aged students. She was certainly not the first Miraculous holder to leave Tikki, not with as long as she’d been alive. She wasn’t even the first Miraculous holder to be alive while Tikki worked with another charge. Nor, even, was she the first one to voluntarily give the earrings up to another, coaching her and helping her through the first steps.

But those had been wartime Ladybugs. Jean, who’d given it to the bride of the French King before the English had taken her, and Collette, who’d died and given it to Baptistine, who became The Scarlet Pimpernel. Michelle Dubois, leader of the Resitance, who’d passed Tikki to Yvette, knowing she would be caught and tortured on the next mission, and unwilling to surrender the Miraculous to the Germans. Yuko, during the last dregs of the Edo period, who’d cunningly given the earrings to her daughter by pinning them to her kimono before the girl was taken away, even as the new shogun’s men swept into their village. Camilla, and her black-clad cat who pretended to be a fox, of all things, working in the background as the men fought swords and raced horses, quietly tending to Don Diego’s wounds without saying a word, and passing the Miraculous on to her child when the nobleman left her pregnant.

This was a peace-time Ladybug. The Miraculous had been invoked to fight another of their kind, and not to aid a human faction against another as usually was the case. This should not have happened; and yet, humans had found a way to drive her intended Ladybug away, and like it always did, the kwami’s heart broke a little more. Now Tikki rode in a new handbag, hid in a new set of pigtails, but she couldn’t help looking out sometimes, hunting, hoping to catch a glimpse of sweet, kind Marinette. She missed the taste of her family’s cookies, missed the smell of bread and fabric and thread. Madelaine tried her best, but Tikki could not help but miss Marinette with all her being.

She’d foregone telling Marinette that her switch would not go unnoticed by Chat Noir. At the point Marinette had reached, she would only have ignored her, and it would only have hurt her all the more. Because Chat Noir immediately saw the difference, catching on that something was amiss within the first few minutes of their first battle. Madelaine hadn’t even noticed, her adulation of the cat hero blinding her to his suspicious looks and guarded body language. Where he should have been overjoyed to find Ladybug finally receptive to his lines and advances, he was wary and somewhat unsure. Even upset.

Because when the kwami of creation and destruction chose together, they always chose a matching pair. Soulmates, or as close to that as they could find. Marinette had been the perfect match for her Chat Noir. Adrien had been the perfect match for Ladybug. Yet, what good would telling her have done? No; it would only have hurt her more, in a deeper place than the drawer she’d closed all her emotions in, to know that it wasn’t just the boy she loved who hadn’t wanted her back. It was her soulmate too.

=0=

Fun Fact: 1789 is the year marking the start of the French revolution. I turned the date on its head to mark Marinette giving up her Miraculous; it seemed appropriate.

#concept #miraculous ladybug #marichat #adrinette #ladynoir #ladrien #angst

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amynchan · 7 years

Note

prompt: marinette almost gets akuma. almost. the akuma flies away or so she thought. Throughout the week the akuma keeps coming back as different animals/ forms and keeps trying to egg her on to make her akumatized. (honestly this was a dream i had)

lol, I tried. X’D

Marinette was known for her sheer optimism. Other than that one, teeny, tiny exploitable force that she was certain only her best friend knew about.

Evidently not.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” sneered Chloe, not even bothering with a typical judgmental look. The girl, tired from last night’s patrol, couldn’t be bothered to note the lack.

“Chloe,” responded the girl as she plopped down into her seat. She was, for once, early and decided to attempt making the few precious moments before class as productive as she possibly could.

By sleeping.

Marinette put her head on her desk and burrowed in between two arms which weren’t a great pillow, but would have to do. She closed her eyes and willed the silence to last just a bit longer. Just so she could get five more minutes…

SLAM!

Marinette jerked out of her seat, her pillow of arms unfurling in order to defend herself from the sudden onslaught. Blearily, she recognized the source of the sound as an object on her desk. A ruler? She looked up.

Mme. Bustier was less than pleased with Marinette.

“Mlle. Dupain-Cheng, while I appreciate your effort to come to the classroom on time, it would be beneficial for you to remain awake while here.”

“Yes, madame…” muttered Marinette meekly. Mme. Bustier stood there for a moment before deciding to continue with the lesson, which appeared to be trigonometry. Marinette glanced over to her side to see that Alya, her one and only true blue friend who would have kept her out of this mess, was no where to be found. She glanced forward to Nino, confusion in her eyes.

Nino pantomimed throwing up and wiping his mouth. Marinette got the picture. She shuddered and turned her attention back to the front, now feeling slightly more awake.

A cruel chuckle from the right drew Marinette’s attention. She glowered in Chloe’s direction for a moment, wondering what on earth was so funny. After a few moments, the girl’s chortling died down. And then she turned and looked at her and started again. What was so funny?

“Marinette,” whispered Adrien.

Sweet, kind, perfect Adrien who had turned around and was pantomiming something at her. What was he doing with his hands? Rubbing his face? His mouth? Was he trying to impersonate a cat?

Dumbly, she found herself copying him.

And she wiped something wet from the corner of her mouth.

Shock flooded her system, rooting her to the spot.

No. No no no no no no no nonoooooo…. Marinette glanced at the desk and sure enough, a small puddle of drool sat before her, a criminal that looked completely innocent.

Nino had pantomimed wiping his mouth. She thought he had been talking about Alya still. Chloe had kept chuckling at her. She thought she was laughing at her in general.

Adrien had seen her with drool on her face.

Mortification swept through her and she hurried to hide the evidence, though the damage was done. Her reputation was shattered. Adrien would think she was a total loser and never want to associate with her again! She–

Something slid into her peripheral vision. A handkerchief? What?

Marinette looked ahead to see Adrien sitting completely inconspicuously. Completely innocent. Absolutely divine. And as though he hadn’t just passed her her one and only salvation. She glanced over at Nino to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. He simply gestured for her to take it.

And take it she did. Instantly, she felt so much better. Adrien was kind and perfect and wonderful. And he didn’t care if she drooled in her sleep–even though she really didn’t do it very often, only when she was face down.

Marinette cast these thoughts aside as she used the handkerchief to wipe her face and the desk clean as discreetly as possible. In her love-induced joy, she almost didn’t notice the little purple butterfly fluttering away from the window.

She wondered if it would be a problem for later, but she decided to enjoy the feeling of Adrien’s handkerchief in her fingers for now.

“Sorry, ‘Nette, I thought it was obvious,” apologized Nino as they left class. He and Adrien had offered to spend the time with her as her best friend was currently MIA. Nino’s presence was Marinette’s temporary grounding for Adrien’s presence.

“I thought you were telling me Alya was sick,” she said, glaring at him. Half of it was because she really was mad. Half was because she was trying desperately not to get tongue tied around Adrien.

“I was, but then I thought I’d warn you, but…”

Marinette sighed. She couldn’t stay mad for too long. His heart had been in the right place.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

The raven haired girl turned to look at Chloe, who was standing a good five feet away. It was odd, since the girl had a tendency to always get up close and personal with her victims. Still, the girl appreciated the distance.

“What do you want?” asked Marinette. “I’m trying to enjoy break.”

“I want you to get your slobbering self away from my Adrikins,” retorted Chloe. “Nino may be dirty, but at least he doesn’t drool all over Adrihoney’s head or steal his handkerchief.”

“Hey!” called Nino.

“Chloe, she didn’t steal it, I gave it to her,” said Adrien.

“Look at you,” cooed Chloe. “Still doing charity for the most pathetic people in class.”

Blood rushed into Marinette’s ears. Seriously, how dare she? Yeah, dinging on her in front of Adrien was mortifying, but dinging on Adrien in front of her was horrible!

“It’s not charity, Chloe! He’s a genuinely nice person who does genuinely nice things!”

The blonde could only scoff.

“Please. As if you would know about being genuinely nice, Maritrash.”

The girl struggled to keep a lid on her anger, she really did. But then something happened. Something absolutely awful. Something despicable.

Poop landed on her shoulder.

White bird poop.

On her hand made.

Black.

Jacket.

If she was mortified this morning, she felt positively humiliated now. Anger and shame washed through her and she wanted nothing more than to find some way to make Chloe pay. She was only aggravating the wound.

Marinette, don’t let her get to you.

The thought jarred her from her anger. How long had it been since her conscience had begun to sound like Tikki?

Nevertheless, the thought had left a small seed. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault. Yeah, she was making it worse, but getting angry would only give her the satisfaction.

Spite, fuel her, she was going to have the best day ever no matter what.

“…ot nice, Chloe. You should apologize.”

Adrien’s voice reached her ears and Marinette tuned into the conversation around her. She saw Nino holding back his laughter while looking at Chloe, who looked shocked and maybe even a bit disgusted. And Adrien… he looked upset.

Such a look on his face saddened Marinette.

“Whatever,” said Chloe as she stomped away. Confused, Marinette turned to the boys. One was howling in laughter and the other looked at her with worry.

“Do you want to…Huh, you must have already done it…”

“Done what?” asked Marinette. As an answer, Adrien pointed to her shoulder.

“Cleaned up the bird poop. That was really quick, I didn’t even see it. Is it some sort of secret seamstress knowledge?” asked the boy, his beautiful and innocent green eyes wide with curiosity.

Curiosity which Marinette shared. But rather than look to her shoulder, she decided to scan the sky for the bird that had targeted her.

And worryingly enough, the bird flew past. A deep shade of purple.

“..and then it left.”

Ladybug sat on the rooftops with her partner Chat Noir, going over her day and what she had seen. Her partner gazed at her with half incredulation and half amusement.

“And you’re sure it wasn’t just a normal bird that pooped on you?”

“I’m sure, kitty. Even if it didn’t mysteriously vanish when I felt better, it still gave off that same purple that the akumas give.”

“Well, are you sure–”

“Chat Noir, I’m sure. It kept coming back throughout the day! How everyone else missed it, I don’t know. It came back as a bird, a rabbit, an armidillio, a ferret, a dog, even as a sea-otter!”

“A sea-otter?” asked Chat. “And no one else saw it?”

“I swear on my Ladybug luck, a purple sea otter splashed me in the face, soaking my shirt in front of half my class.”

“And no one questioned it?”

“They all thought that it was a runaway from a zoo or something. Half the class was trying to stop someone from taking pictures and the other half helped me clean off.”

Chat Noir frowned. “It sounds like whatever this was was trying to make your day even worse. Make you angry, maybe.”

“I’m almost positive that’s what it is. I’m glad it didn’t follow…me…on…”

Oh no. Oh heck to the no. No way. Nope, nope, nope, nope.

“Ladybug? What’s–oh! Look, it’s a cat!” Chat Noir reached for it with a smile. “I wonder how it got up here.”

The anger that had been swiftly boiling at this thing’s audacity to turn itself into a cat broke. Confusion took its place and wrapped around Ladybug. It was right there. Chat was about to pet the thing! She grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back.

“My Lady! Hey!”

“How are you not seeing what I’m seeing?”

“What are you seeing? It looks like a black cat to me.”

“Are you sure?”

Ladybug glared at the cat which Chat claimed was black. To her, it was a mass of purple, shifting and staring at her. She took several deep breaths. She didn’t have Marinette’s problems now, she was Ladybug. Ladybug was a superhero. Ladybug should be able to fact check.

Fact check. What was something she did to akumas that wouldn’t hurt anything?

“Chat, I’m going to try something real quick. If it fails, you can pet the cat, okay?”

“Uh, sure thing, bugaboo.”

Ladybug opened her yoyo and tossed it in the cat’s general direction. Cursed with curiosity, the creature nudged itself closer to the light and sniffed.

And then Ladybug and Chat Noir literally watched an adult cat get sucked into Ladybug’s little yoyo. The lid closed on top of the entrance and Ladybug could feel the creature within being purified.

“…did it really look like just a normal black cat to you?” asked Ladybug as she stared at her yoyo.

“Yeah,” answered Chat. “And you said it’s been following you all day?”

Ladybug nodded before reaching to her yoyo. She pressed the entrance and backed away, not sure what animal would come out.

Out flew a beautiful white butterfly.

Bewildered, Ladybug could only bid it a detached farewell.

#Miraculous Ladybug #AmyNChanstories #Ladybug #Marinette #Dupain Cheng #Chloe #Adrien #Nino #Chat Noir #Cat Noir #akuma #I'm pretty sure this is crack #straight up crack fic #crack

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quicksilversquared · 6 years

Text

Plagg and the Butterfly Costume Outtakes: Ch. 10

Aftermath

Plagg is willing to do a lot in order to get more cheese. When he’s spotted one too many times en route to the kitchen, he decides that a disguise is in order. One purple costume later, and Plagg is free to flit down to the kitchen without people thinking that he’s a rat.

And then he gets caught.

(1) (2) (3) (OT:1) (4) (5) (6) (OT: 2) (7) (OT: 3) (OT: 4) (OT: 5) (8) (OT: 6) (OT: 7) ( 9 ) (OT:8) (10) (OT: 9 )

(AO3) (FF.net)

Nino and Alya hurried along the sidewalk towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery early Sunday morning. As they crossed the street, Nino checked his phone again and frowned.

Adrien hadn't answered any of his messages yet. Nino had texted him the second that he had heard that Adrien's father had been arrested the previous day, and then had texted several times since, but he had gotten nothing. In fact, according to his phone, his texts hadn't even been read yet.

Surely Adrien's phone hadn't been confiscated by the police when they were collecting evidence for whatever had gotten Mr. Agreste arrested? Nino knew that his best bro wouldn't have gotten himself involved in anything illegal on purpose. Maybe Adrien had just turned his phone off and hadn't wanted to talk to anyone, but surely he knew that they would be concerned about him.

"Anything from Adrien yet?" Alya asked over her shoulder as they hurried down another block.

"Nothing."

"Marinette hasn't responded yet, either," Alya said, glancing at her phone and narrowly avoiding walking straight into a lamppost. "She's probably still asleep. Ugh, of all the days for her to sleep in!"

"How serious do you think the charges against Mr. Agreste are?" Nino asked instead of pointing out that Marinette slept in every day that she could. He checked his phone again and refreshed the news page had had pulled up earlier with the news about Mr. Agreste getting arrested. It hadn't been updated at all yet, just a short blurb with the banner Developing Story, just like it had been since the previous afternoon. "Like, I always thought that the dude was an ass but too much of a stick in the mud to actually break the law. The most I can see him doing is maybe a little tax evasion, but would that really require arrest? I would think that there would just be, like, a court summons or something."

Alya just shrugged. "I don't know. We'll have to ask Adrien. Hopefully he'll know something. He might not, though. He might be just as in the dark as we are."

"Surely the police would tell him something," Nino objected. "He'd have to know how long his father is going to be in jail." He couldn't imagine that the police would keep something like that from Adrien. It would make his friend super-worried, and Adrien had already been off in school for the past few days, and just slightly distracted for a few weeks, though he had done his best to hide it. It wouldn't be long before Adrien's distracted behavior started affecting his grades for good.

Wait...was it possible that Adrien had suspected something was going on with his father before, and that was why he had been off before? That would have stunk, having to deal with that all on his own.

Even worse- what if Adrien had been the one to call the police on his father? Would he have even done that?

"If Marinette is still sleeping, shouldn't we just go to Adrien's house first?" Nino asked anxiously when another worried glance at his phone revealed that his messages still hadn't been read. "I don't want Adrien to think that we've abandoned him just because his dad did something shitty. We should get over to his house right away."

Alya shook her head stubbornly. "It doesn't take that long to wake Marinette up, and she'll want to be there. Besides, maybe we can get something from the bakery to bring to Adrien."

Nino grinned. "Yeah! Some croissants or pain au chocolate for my bro! He loves that stuff. Okay, but we have to hurry. I don't care if we have to drag Marinette out in her pajamas."

Alya laughed, but then stopped and scrambled for her phone as it let out a ding. She pulled it out to look at the message, and her face dropped for a moment. "Oh. Rose, not Mari- Oh! Oh, gosh!" Her eyes went wide and suddenly she shoved the phone into Nino's face. "Oh my god, Nino! Look!"

Prying the phone away from his face so he could actually see it, Nino read the message. "New Miraculous users spotted? Cool!"

"Read the rest," Alya urged.

"Near Adrien's house yesterday around the same time the police were there," Nino finished. "...uh, that is weird. And a little less cool. Do you... do you think that's related somehow?" He couldn't imagine how, really. What would the superheroes want with Mr. Agreste? "Maybe they just saw the ruckus and decided to stick their heads in to investigate."

Alya was frowning. "I'm not so sure about that. If it were just Ladybug and Chat Noir, then sure. They might be familiar enough with Adrien because of the attacks on our school to want to check in on him. But why would there be new ones joining them for that, especially when it was only the two of them for the fight right before that?" Another ding, and Alya checked her phone. "Okay, correction- one new user. Apparently it looked like a turtle and absolutely dwarfed Ladybug and Chat Noir. But my point still stands."

Nino just shrugged. Guessing was honestly probably pretty pointless. Hopefully they would be able to go to the mansion soon and would be able to hear from Adrien himself what had happened. He hoped that they would be able to get through any reporters outside the Agreste mansion, that Nathalie would actually be willing to let them in, and that Adrien would be up to seeing them, even if it was only for a little while.

"Good morning, you two," Sabine greeted them cheerily as soon as they stepped into the bakery. "You're certainly up bright and early. I don't think I've ever seen Marinette up at this time during weekends."

"She never is," Alya agreed cheerfully, hugging her. "Can we go up?"

Something like worry flickered over Sabine's face, and Nino frowned slightly. "Well... I suppose you can go up, but if they're asleep, don't wake them up, okay? The poor dear had a rough evening."

"We won't," Alya assured her, heading back past the counter. Then she paused. "Um..."

"There's a plate of croissants upstairs," Sabine told her. "Let me know if you run out."

"Okay!"

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go over to Adrien's place right away?" Nino asked as Alya charged ahead up the stairs. "Mrs. Cheng said that Marinette had a rough evening- if she's sick or something..."

Alya turned to give him a doubtful look. "She still wouldn't want to miss this, sick or no. She's run on barely any sleep before."

"That's no fun if you're sick, though."

"Then I won't barge in yelling. If she looks really sick, I'll leave her be and we'll just make off with a few croissants." Alya led the way into the living room/kitchen section of the apartment. "You coming?"

Nino considered it. Normally, he would say no right away- walking in on his sleeping friend could be creepy if she hadn't said that she would be okay with it- but he wanted to make sure that Alya didn't wake Marinette up if she looked ill. He knew his girlfriend sometimes acted without thinking things all the way through, and Alya might let her worry about Adrien blind her to how sick Marinette was. "Okay, I guess."

Grinning, Alya led the way up to Marinette's room. Nino followed, making sure to close the trapdoor quietly behind him. Alya didn't even pause before heading up the stairs to the loft, with Nino trailing warily behind.

Maybe he should have just trusted Alya and stayed downstairs. This just felt like an invasion of Marinette's privacy.

"Oh my god."

Frowning, Nino glanced up at Alya. She looked absolutely thrilled about something. "What?"

"Come up here!" Alya hissed in the same tone of voice. She beckoned frantically. "C'mon, quickly!"

Curious, Nino headed up. He glanced down at the bed, expecting to see Marinette and a mountain of tissues and maybe some cough drop wrappers...and instead saw Marinette with Adrien snuggled up to her side, his face pressed into her shoulder and her fingers tangled in his hair.

Oh.

"Well, I guess it's a good thing we didn't go to Adrien's house," Nino managed as Alya snapped a few pictures with her phone, a wide grin on her face. "And- do you think Sabine knows that he's here? Or do you think Marinette smuggled him up and then pretended that she was sick so they wouldn't disturb her?"

"Oh, Tom and Sabine probably know," Alya told him. "If they thought Marinette was sick, they would come up to check on her, not leave her alone. I bet that Adrien was over here visiting Marinette when his father was arrested, and – oh! It was probably Adrien who had a rough evening last night, and, uh- now that I think about it, we should go back downstairs and let them sleep. We'll interrogate them when they come down."

Nino nodded and led the way downstairs. Alya closed the trapdoor behind her, trotted down the stairs, and then let out a long squeal of glee. Nino clapped his hands over his ears.

"They were so cute!" Alya squealed, grabbing Nino's arms. "So cute! Do you think they're dating? I knew something was up when they started hanging out together so much!"

"Adrien's father was just arrested, Alya," Nino reminded her. "Now isn't exactly the time to go asking them about that. Not directly, at least," he added when Alya's expression dropped. "And not right away, either. There'll be time for that later."

Alya made a face, though there was still a distinct air of glee around her. "Oh, I suppose."

They settled on the couch, each snagging a warm croissant from the covered plate on the counter. Alya's attention switched back and forth between the stairs to Marinette's room and her own phone. Her fingers flew as she tried to learn more about the superhero sighting at the Agreste mansion.

"They were there for nearly ten minutes," Alya reported. "And the police arrived just before them, but didn't go in right away." She frowned as she scanned the post. "And then Chat Noir escorted them in. That's weird."

Nino frowned. A possibility was nagging at his in the back of his mind as the clues started to fall into the place, and it wasn't pretty. If it was true...

Nino didn't want to think about it too much. There was no point in jumping to conclusions.

"People weren't kidding when they said that they said that this Turtle dude was huge," Alya commented a few minutes later. She held her phone out. "Look at him! He's an absolute giant. He'll probably be able to just plow down akuma if he joins Ladybug and Chat Noir for future akuma fights, and then just sit on the akuma until Ladybug can purify the butterfly. They won't stand a chance."

Unless there weren't going to be any more akuma attacks, in which case... well, maybe the Turtle could sit on robbers and muggers or something.

Fifteen minutes and several consumed croissants later, Mr. Dupain popped into the room with a covered basket of baked treats. He smiled at the two of them as he plopped the basket down on the counter.

Nino could smell chocolate. He craned his neck, interested. He had an inkling that he would be investigating that basket as soon as Mr. Dupain headed back downstairs.

"Reading about something interesting there, Alya?" Mr. Dupain asked, peering over their shoulders. Alya grinned and nodded.

"Yeah! The superheroes were spotted out and about yesterday half an hour after the akuma attack was over, and there was a new superhero with them!" Alya told him excitedly. She waved her phone at him, but thankfully didn't shove it in Mr. Dupain's face. "And they were spotted at Adrien's place, too!"

For a moment, Nino could have sworn that he saw a flash of something- worry, maybe?- flick through Tom's eyes. But then the moment was gone and Mr. Dupain was smiling down at them again. "Oh, that's interesting. Are there, ah- are there a lot of pictures?"

Alya shook her head. "No, most people apparently hadn't paid a whole lot of attention until after Mr. Agreste was brought out by the police, and by that point the superheroes were mostly inside the house, and then they left pretty fast. There's only a few photos, and a lot of them are blurry. People haven't learned how to change up the settings on their phones and cameras to get the best superhero pics."

"I see."

"Most of the stuff I've found was just blog posts and texts from a couple of our classmates," Alya told him. "It's a pity, because the new superhero looked cool, and how am I supposed to make a Ladyblog post about the new guy if there's no information about him?"

"She's doubly sore because she also missed the other new superhero a couple months ago," Nino told Mr. Dupain. "You remember, the fox that was just here for a few fights, that everyone decided must have been a foreign user that was just in town visiting? Alya was too distracted trying to take care of her sisters to get footage, and didn't see the Fox jump right over her head, and some of her followers have been annoyed at her for it."

Tom chuckled. "Well, your Ladyblog followers just have to understand that you can't be expected to cover the entire city all the time. You can't be everywhere at once."

Alya made a face and slouched. "Tell that to my followers," she muttered moodily. "I gotta find as many sources as possible so I can make some sort of post about the turtle holder. Ugh, and if only I had stayed out a bit longer after the akuma fight was over!"

"Well, I had better get back down to the bakery. I just came up to see if, ah, Marinette was up yet," Tom said, glancing upwards. He looked over at them briefly, looking a little shifty. "Uh..."

"We know Adrien is up there," Nino informed him. "They're cuddling."

"Aha."

"Was he over here when his father was arrested?" Alya wanted to know. Nino sat up in interest as Tom suddenly looked a little trapped.

"He- yes, he was. And- oh, I think it's time for me to get bread out of the ovens! Have some snacks, leave some for Adrien and Marinette, and, uh, see you later!"

With that, Tom was out the door in a flash. Nino was impressed that a man so large could move so fast.

"Bugger, I was going to ask if he knew anything about Adrien's father!" Alya complained. She gave the door Tom had vanished through a disgruntled look. "I would go ask Sabine, but she wouldn't want to say anything in front of the customers."

Nino frowned. "Wait, why would they know anything?"

"Unless the police who came to talk to Adrien talked to him alone and Adrien didn't share, Tom and Sabine and Marinette should all know," Alya explained. "And I can't see Adrien not telling them, just to get things off his chest."

"Would Sabrina maybe have some idea?" Nino suggested. "Her father was probably involved in the rest."

"He was the one who said that the police had no further comments," Alya said. She lit up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "That's it! I'll text Sabina now."

Nino grinned and hopped up to investigate the basket of goodies Tom had left while Alya texted Sabrina. As he returned with a chocolate-filled pastry, Alya's phone dinged with a response. She scrambled to check it, and then her expression dropped.

"Her father is refusing to even tell her anything," Alya reported. "He said that he isn't sharing anything until there's an official announcement."

Nino groaned.

"I just don't understand why the superheroes would be involved in police business," Alya said, flopping against the seat and scrolling through her phone again. "Like, I know they sometimes get called in to help with runaway buses and struggling helicopters and whatnot, but to arrest someone?"

Nino just shrugged. He didn't want to suggest the worse-case scenario that he had thought of, just in case he was wrong. In fact, he was surprised that Alya hadn't thought of the same thing he had.

Maybe she had, but just didn't want to say it.

"Maybe they went through the Agreste mansion during the akuma attack and discovered something illegal," Alya suggested. "But...that still doesn't entirely make sense. Why not just tell the police and then have them go up to the door?"

"Who knows." Nino glanced towards the stairs again, then at his watch. He thought that Adrien at least was usually up by this time, but this wasn't exactly a normal day. Adrien might be asleep for a while yet. Even if he woke up, Adrien might not come downstairs right away if Marinette was still asleep.

They might be waiting for a bit.

It was a full hour and a half more before there was any noise from upstairs. Nino and Alya perked up, both setting aside their phones to stare expectantly at the stairs. It took another fifteen minutes before Marinette came down the stairs followed by a bleary-eyed Adrien. Oddly enough, Marinette actually seemed the more awake one out of the two. She spotted Alya and Nino on the couch first and paused. Adrien walked right into her back and only yawned.

"Nino! Alya! What are you doing here?" Marinette managed. Her voice had turned squeaky, and her cheeks tinted pink as she glanced back at Adrien. He blinked, looking vaguely more awake, and then his eyes slid over to Nino and Alya as well.

Suddenly Adrien looked much more awake.

"We came over to see you guys," Alya told her friend immediately. Then a small smirk slid onto her face. "Well, we came to see Marinette. We weren't expecting Adrien to be over here, too."

Nino noticed as Marinette tensed up slightly, one of her hands sliding back to twine with Adrien's. She glanced back at him, whispering something, and then nodded towards the bathroom door. Adrien nodded and then stepped back, turning to flee into the bathroom while Marinette turned to face them. Clearly she was planning on taking the brunt of the questioning, or maybe she was just stalling for time while Adrien prepared himself.

"We heard that Adrien's father was arrested," Alya told Marinette after the door had clicked shut. "So we were going to come over and collect you before going over to Adrien's house to see him, but then we saw that he was actually over here." She gave Marinette a little smirk, waving her phone with the pictures on it. "You two looked very comfortable cuddled up together."

Marinette turned bright red.

"Do you know what's going on?" Nino asked Marinette. "We've been trying to figure it out, but there haven't been any press releases or anything."

Marinette fidgeted. "It's not my place to say anything," she hedged.

"But you do know."

Marinette paused, then very, very slowly gave a single nod. She glanced back at the closed bathroom door, a concerned look on her face.

Clearly she wasn't going to tell them anything without Adrien's express permission. Nino didn't blame her. He would do the same in a heartbeat, even if it made Alya annoyed with him.

"Is he doing okay?" Nino asked quietly, so Adrien wouldn't be able to hear him from inside the bathroom. "He hasn't read any of my texts from yesterday or today."

"Well, we were asleep this morning," Marinette pointed out. "And we were, uh, busy yesterday. And I think Adrien might have turned his phone off after everything. I know I did." She glanced towards the bathroom door again. "And he's doing about as well as could be expected. He slept well, so there's that."

That was a good sign, or at least so Nino thought. Adrien sleeping meant that whatever his father had done couldn't be that bad, right? Adrien wouldn't sleep if he was really concerned about his father being in jail for a long time. He would stay up worrying himself sick half of the night and then only fall asleep out of exhaustion. He was probably still worried about his father- it was only natural- but whatever the problem was, it couldn't be that severe.

Alya was just as surprised. "He actually fell asleep?"

Marinette looked sheepish. "Weeeellll...we might have given him something to help a bit with that. I don't know if he would have slept very well otherwise."

...okay, so maybe it was serious, then. Nino just wanted to know already.

The bathroom door clicked open and Adrien slid back out. He looked nervous, though Nino didn't understand why. Did he think that they were going to judge him for his father being arrested?

That was not going to fly with Nino. Nuh-uh, no way.

Bouncing up (and brushing off the crumbs from the pastries he had eaten from his pants), Nino crossed the room to engulf Adrien in a giant bear hug. Alya wasn't far behind. Adrien first tensed, then melted into the hug.

"Dude, are you okay?" Nino wanted to know right away, releasing Adrien from the hug and resting his hands on Adrien's shoulders. "Like, what is going on?"

Adrien's smile was definitely on the weak side. "I'm doing okay, I guess. And..." He bit his lip, looking uneasy. Marinette reached over and twined her hand with his. Nino didn't miss the squeeze that passed between them. "And my father...he was Hawkmoth."

And just like that, Nino's worse-case-scenario was confirmed. Alya gasped, looking horrified.

"Really?"

Adrien just nodded.

"Dude."

"Adrien is staying here until the police figure out who is supposed to be taking care of him now," Marinette told them. She sent a shy look in Adrien's direction. "...or as long as he wants to stay, really. We're happy to have him here."

If it weren't for the circumstances, Nino was positive that Alya would have teased her friend about that. He would have teased Marinette about that, and then turned right around to tease his own best friend. As it was, they were a little too focused on Adrien.

"And here I was saying that it couldn't possibly be any worse than a little tax evasion," Nino said in complete disbelief. "I- just wow. Did the police have any idea what kind of sentence he might get yet?"

Adrien just shrugged.

"Did they have any useful information for you, then?" Alya wanted to know. "Or did they just tell you that your father had been arrested and why?"

"Ladybug and Chat Noir stopped by to break the news before Officer Raincomprix got here," Marinette told them. "So really all he told us was that there would be police at the school so reporters wouldn't be harassing Adrien there." She gave them a small smile. "It was good that the superheroes came by first, though. Officer Raincomprix isn't very comfortable with giving people bad news."

"And two untrained superheroes are better at that sort of thing than a police officer that's taken training and classes about that sort of thing?" Alya said incredulously.

"Officer Raincomprix must really suck at breaking news, then," Nino said immediately, because Alya was right. While Ladybug and Chat Noir were good at comforting akuma victims, he really didn't think that that sort of thing completely translated over to telling someone that their father had been a supervillain and had been arrested, especially when the superheroes themselves had been the ones doing the arresting. And dealing with the brunt of the damage and mayhem that the supervillain had caused.

Then again, that sort of thing required tact, and Nino wasn't entirely positive that that was one of Sabrina's bumbling father's strengths.

Marinette and Adrien shared an odd little look, looking strangely amused at that, and Nino had to wonder just how bad of a job Sabrina's father had done when he arrived. Or maybe the superheroes had just done a really stellar job, or maybe the turtle holder had been the one to talk and they just didn't want to mention him so that Alya wouldn't go into super-reporter-mode and start interrogating Adrien.

"We should probably eat," Marinette said before either Nino or Alya could ask any more questions. "It looks like Papa brought up some treats."

"They were warm two hours ago, but who knows about now," Nino said, stepping back to let the two of them through. "Adrien, dude, Marinette is rubbing off on you already. You never sleep this late."

He was glad to see the hints of a smile flash across Adrien's face. "Actually, Marinette woke up before I did. She was waiting for me for a while."

"I'm thinking maybe you should take less of the, uh, sleeping aid tonight," Marinette said with a bit of a rueful look. "Otherwise you'll be impossible to wake up on time for school." A pause. "Unless you just want to skip tomorrow?"

"Haven't decided yet," Adrien mumbled. He fished a croissant out of the basket of pastries and stuck it in his mouth. "I don't really want to have to field a million questions from everyone, but I don't really want to miss class, either."

Nino was 100% positive that he would fight anyone who pestered Adrien. He was pretty certain that most people in their class would back off if told that Adrien didn't want to talk about it- and he could probably rope Ivan and Kim into helping him keep the other students at school away from Adrien without too much effort, too. Chloe would probably be more difficult, if the fact that she had started spamming his phone with texts (presumably after not having gotten any response from texting Adrien) half an hour ago was any indication.

Literally everyone else in the class had just sent him one or two texts asking if he knew anything, but of course Chloe thought that sending thirty texts would make him respond faster. Nino was tempted to put off answering her for even longer, just to be a little petty.

"We can deal with people," Nino promised Adrien. "And if you want us to meet you guys here tomorrow morning so we can all walk together, we can do that. Just say the word."

That got a proper smile out of Adrien.

While Adrien and Marinette ate breakfast, Nino quickly texted their classmates (minus Chloe, of course, and Sabrina, who hadn't texted him at all and who would just run to Chloe with any news), telling them that Adrien wasn't ready to share with the rest of the class yet and asking that they just treat Adrien like normal.

Hopefully they would listen. Adrien looked like he needed a little normal right about now.

As he joined back into the conversation, Nino couldn't help but wonder what Adrien's life was going to look like from here on out. With his mother missing and his father in jail, was he going to be carted off to live with some relative somewhere else in the country? Was he going to stay in Paris, under the watch of his father's secretary? Was Nathalie even going to be able to take care of Adrien? If she had known about Mr. Agreste's supervillain tendencies, she might get jail time as well. What about the Gorilla? Would any of Adrien's former caretakers be free to take care of Adrien so that he wouldn't have to leave the city?

Frowning, Nino shook off the depressing thought. Hopefully the police would take Adrien's wishes into consideration and let him stay in the city with his friends. He had support here, friends and teachers and, well, whatever Marinette was (Girlfriend? Future girlfriend? Cuddle buddy?). Adrien probably wouldn't be allowed to stay at the Dupain-Cheng house long-term (since he was sharing both a room and a bed with Marinette currently), but surely he wouldn't be pulled away from them permanently.

Adrien had already been through so much in the past year. Hopefully the next few months would be calmer and he would be able to recover from everything that had happened.

Because Nino knew that more than anything, his best friend deserved some stability. He deserved guardians that cared for him, he deserved supportive friends that he could hang out with, and most of all, he deserved freedom to enjoy himself like a normal teenager.

Hopefully Adrien would get that soon.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Plagg and the Butterfly Costume #also anything ppl want to see in future outtakes?#like stuff that happens between this and the sequel #because there will be a sequel and then more like....assorted one-shots in this 'verse on the side #IT WAS ONLY MEANT TO BE A ONE-SHOT

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