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mlwritersguild · 11 months

Text

murder face, by @alexseanchai

A fic inspired by the heliotrope flower

AO3; temporary character death, hawkmoth defeat, marinette needs a hug, angst with a happy ending

Summary:

shout from the hundred-square-femtometre rooftop — Yesterday at 8:21 PM please, I don't even need to be asleep to have nightmares source: I can hear my sister screaming like her cat just died my sister is two continents away save a vespa, ride the métro — Yesterday at 8:23 PM You hear it too? Everyone who was here on 1 Sep 2014 says it's Ladybug

Lady Noire storms inside Tour TVi, a dark blue blanket with two thin red stripes over her shoulder, a phone clutched so tightly in her hand she must be leaving claw marks on its case. Those few people in the lobby at this hour scatter away from her path at the first glimpse of her face: cold and pale as death.

"Warn Nadja Chamack I'm taking over as tonight's guest," Lady Noire snaps.

Somebody calls Arlette. Side by Side is live, but no one wants to find out if, with the Black Cat Miraculous, Ladybug's looks can kill.

---

shout from the hundred-square-femtometre rooftop — Yesterday at 7:43 PM I can stay up past 03:00 if I want, it's Labour Day, we're closed no dying on this hill — Yesterday at 7:45 PM Irrelevant. Zoé is correct: schedule your system maintenance or your system maintenance will schedule you. shout from the hundred-square-femtometre rooftop — Yesterday at 8:21 PM please, I don't even need to be asleep to have nightmares source: I can hear meimei screaming like her cat just died meimei is two continents away save a vespa, ride the métro — Yesterday at 8:23 PM You hear it too? Everyone who was here on 1 Sep 2014 says it's Ladybug

Ladybug speaks softly, carries her partner's stick @CometHeliotrope Bonjour Monarque. C'est après minuit. Sais-tu où est le Prince Charmant ? Oh regarde, c'est ton alliance. Translated from French by Googol Hello Monarch. It's after midnight. Do you know where Prince Charming is? Oh look, it's your wedding ring. [image: Lady Noire sitting on one of Paris's slate rooftops, toying with a platinum wedding ring and glaring into the camera.] 9:13 PM · 29 Apr 2017

Alya Césaire, photojournaliste citoyenne de la Ville miracles @ladyblog_paris This is legit. Source: personal communication with Ladybug. 9:17 PM · 29 Apr 2017

"Warn Nadja Chamack I'm taking over as tonight's guest," Lady Noire snaps.

Somebody calls Arlette. Side by Side is live, but no one wants to find out if, with the Black Cat Miraculous, Ladybug's looks can kill.

---

Zoé runs up the spiral staircase and skids to a stop outside the Césaire apartment. Nino opens the door at the first sound of the doorbell. "Comrade Moutarde de Dijon!" he exclaims. "Good to see you—have you heard from Comrades Mayo, Bechamel, or Sweet and Sour?"

"Comrade Bechamel is going to strangle me enough already without inviting Comrade Sweet and Sour," Alya calls from the living room, where she, Max, Kim, Rose, Juleka, Ivan, and Mylène are gathered around the television, currently playing the latest advertisement for Alliance rings. At second glance, Zoé does recognize the person hovering awkwardly near the dining table: XY Roth.

"I may mean that literally," Alya adds. "She might wring my neck with her bare hands."

"…What's wrong? Should we be heading for the TV station?"

Alya's group text didn't say. All Zoé knows is it's a problem for the Resistance.

---

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news! Hi, I'm Nadja Chamack, and this is Side by Side. Today, I'm joined by our own Ladybug!"

"Lady Noire," she corrects Nadja, who is far too familiar with interviewing akumas to flinch. Well. To flinch much.

"…This is the third time you two have swapped Miraculouses, I believe?"

Lady Noire nods, a stiff, sharp motion. "The question you should be asking is, where is my partner?"

Nadja gulps. "Yes. Where is your partner?"

"The same place as Prince Charming."

It's a Tsurugi brand phone, from the sound it makes when turning on. Lady Noire blows on the screen, angled so only she can see the display, and zips her knuckle tip through an unlock pattern. "No missed calls," she tells the Side by Side camera. "A couple of text messages from friends, but not one from family. Most of them may be asleep at this time of day. Monarque might be too busy trying to magic his hand back on to pay attention when I'm talking about his son."

Silence rings through the room, through the city, as piercing as her earlier sobs.

"I will be more generous to Monarque than he has been to my partner and me," Lady Noire says, her voice shaking with rage. "You have until midnight to contact me to arrange the handover of every Miraculous you have. Every note and every artifact that you have even the slightest inkling might be of interest to me or my team. Every name you know of someone else who has chosen to help Monarque, or who has known his secret identity and kept silent. If I have any reason to believe that you are withholding something, if I have any reason to believe that you are trying to escape, you will not like what happens to Monarque's son."

Nadja shudders. Breathes. Asks, "What happens after midnight?"

"At midnight," says Lady Noire, "I name Monarque on air."

---

"I have no proof that will satisfy a court of law," Lady Noire tells Mme Chamack, Paris, the world. "But the man he is in the rest of his life does have a… professional reputation to protect. Perhaps I am framing the man I will name. Why would I do that? Paris wonders. What skeletons might they find in his closets, if they try to figure out what this man has done?"

Her arms are wrapped around the bundle of fabric she brought. Possibly only the fact that her claws can't pierce her armor is keeping her forearm from bleeding.

A ringtone. Mylène reaches for her phone, only to stop when Lady Noire thumbs the phone she's holding, silencing the sound.

"Come on, dude, pick up," mutters Nino into his Alliance ring.

The ringtone again. This time Lady Noire answers. Someone turns up the TV volume, but it doesn't pick up the phone call audio.

"You must be Mayura!" Lady Noire says, cheerfulness ringing painfully false. "It's good to know you're alive. Chat Noir was afraid something had happened to you after we stopped seeing you around—you know him, such a bleeding heart."

She taps something. "—do with him?" snarls the caller on speakerphone.

Nino growls, "Mayura."

"What do you think I did with him?" Lady Noire shouts. "I told Monarque I'd make him regret this. He took my partner away from me!"

"Where is my son?" Mayura demands.

Lady Noire blinks twice, opens her mouth, and closes it again. Then shakes herself and drags in a breath. "You know him," she says, voice softer now but no less terrifying. "If I told him he needed to jump off a bridge to help stop Monarque, do you truly believe he'd hesitate?"

"She's bluffing!" shouts Monarque. "My son, come home at once, do—"

A strangled sound. "She may be bluffing," Mayura says. "I'm not. Nooroo, wings rise!"

"I thought so," Lady Noire says. To the TV crew, she adds, "Cut to commercial."

Adrien's latest perfume ad plays.

Mylène is the first to speak. "You don't…really think Ladybug would hurt someone, just because he's Monarque's kid. …Do we?"

"I think," says Alya, typing furiously with one hand shielding her Alliance projection from view, "Monarque thought that if something happened to Chat Noir, Ladybug would lose control. Marinette, pick up your fucking phone."

---

The original guest on tonight's Side by Side is back on the sofa, almost managing to act as though whatever movie she's starring in is still the headliner of the episode. Or so Nathaniel says. Kagami is mostly not paying attention to anything but which way to the bakery and how fast to jog so she doesn't leave him, Marc, and Sabrina behind. A beep signals a new notification on her Alliance: an email from Nathalie Sancoeur, which can wait until Kagami has spoken to Marinette. She thinks highly enough of Chat Noir that tonight must be frightening.

"She's out with Adrien," Cheng-san tells them. "Is it something I can help with?"

"Maybe?" Marc glances at Nathaniel's Alliance projection and winces. "If she's with Adrien, she's probably okay but she won't be coming with us. So the next part of our plan is to head to Tour TVi with paint guns, in case Lady Noire needs backup—"

A car turns the corner. Adrien's car, specifically. Or not Adrien's, of course. Kagami starts toward it; Adrien's bodyguard gets out, alone. Kagami catches a glimpse of the interior: no people, only suitcases and messenger bags and reused grocery boxes.

Cheng-san hurries outside. "You're not with them?" she asks.

Adrien's bodyguard hands Cheng-san a locked tablet and holds out an unlocked phone. " 'Sign here to verify receipt of these documents'," his Alliance's digital Kagami doll reads aloud. " 'Review these documents at your leisure. If neither of you sign these documents, nothing will change. I believe it is in Adrien's best interests if you both sign; if either of you do, they will go into effect at the time of receipt.' "

Cheng-san narrows her eyes. "Is it in Marinette's best interest? Does your idea of Adrien's best interest agree with Adrien's idea of Adrien's best interest?"

Adrien's bodyguard signs the phone with a swipe of his own fingertip, locks it, and gives it to Cheng-san.

"This had better not be a trick!" shouts Cheng-san at the departing car.

---

"Sorry to interrupt," Ladybug says, reentering the camera's field of view entirely unapologetically. (It is Ladybug, now with the blue blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape; while out of sight, it seems, she switched back. There's going to be an akuma at the studio any moment now, and Nadja is very glad she called Lila and spoke to Manon while Ladybug and Mayura were negotiating terms.) Ladybug holds up Monarque's son's phone. "Mayura will be arriving momentarily, with a few people whose names and faces you'd love to be the first to publish. We're waiting on a signal from a third party before we reveal those—Monarque's son is not the only one in danger, and we're making sure the others are safe—"

Half the studio lights go out. The starlet Nadja is in theory interviewing bolts for cover. Nadja scurries over to one of the cameras, ready to flip to breaking-news-reporter-on-the-scene mode.

The other camera operator swivels that camera toward the opening door. Only two of the eight people who enter have any identifying characteristics at all: her Butterfly armor resembles a purple evening gown, and he must be the man under the Monarque mask, akumatized and vaguely familiar. The other six are different sizes of blur, with a superficial resemblance to Oblivio; two flicker between blue and green, and four between purple and red.

"The matters you don't wish televised are being delivered to someone I know you trust," Butterfly-Mayura says, brisk and businesslike. "These two are minors. I cannot imagine Chat Noir will want their lives destroyed; I am certain my son does not. These four have known about our Miraculouses for twenty years or more; though Monarque has been threatening their children in order to keep them silent, I cannot imagine either of you or my son will think that is enough to forgive them their silence." She pauses, considering a drawstring bag in her hand. "My son's mother will not."

Ladybug exhales. "I was wondering if this was for her," she says, very soft, but registering clearly on the audio pickup nonetheless. "If she's half as much like—your son—as his father says… No, she wouldn't think her life is worth the price."

The akumatized Monarque glares sullenly.

Monarque's son's phone rings.

"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug exclaims, hurling her yo-yo into the air and catching a magazine in a red-and-black plastic sleeve. "Mode, Septem—very funny," she tells the air, unamused. The phone rings again. "Heeeey there, friend!" Ladybug answers, bright and awkward, not unlike Manon lying through her teeth. "He can't come to the phone right now, we're a little busy—"

"I bet you are—"

Alya Césaire's voice stops.

"Please do not tell me this is that signal," Alya says faintly.

Ladybug rolls up the magical copy of Mode, takes five strides, and breaks Monarque's nose.

"Oh my god Gabriel Agreste is Monarque."

Alya sounds horrified. Manon adores Adrien; Nadja doubles her hope that Ladybug is bluffing. Or that Alya is wrong.

"Ladybug, where's Adrien?"

"Heh heh heh, funny story—" Ladybug hangs up.

"Madame Chamack," calls Butterfly-Mayura, getting Nadja's attention just in time for Nadja to catch the drawstring bag. "One for each of these seven; break it to remove the mask. Perhaps wait until Ladybug and Chat Noir have left?"

Nadja swallows and nods.

The purple butterfly slides out of the akumatized Monarque's visor and flickers to white. Violet-black magic bubbles over him, leaving a seventh blob, blood-red.

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

She whisks the blanket-cape off her shoulders to hide the person her magic brings her. He takes it as an attack—of course he does, the last thing Chat Noir remembers must be fighting for his life—

"Stop thrashing or I'll tell your girlfriend you want to PvP her in Ultimate Mecha Strike!" Ladybug hisses. "Twenty-five thousand nine hundred and thirteen to eleven is clearly not thrashed enough!"

The boy under the blanket goes statue-still.

"What did you just say?" asks Chat Noir.

"I said put your mask back on, kitty."

"That's what I thought I heard," Chat Noir mutters. (From the look of the audio meters, the audience didn't catch that.) One pale hand emerges from the blanket; Ladybug slaps something into his palm; with a flash of green light, Chat Noir reappears in living color.

Ladybug grabs him by the jingle bell and drags him down into a gasping, sobbing kiss.

"—My lady, I have a girlfriend," Chat Noir reminds her the moment he breaks free. "I will be telling her someone kissed me—" He stops, taking in the rest of the room. "What are you calling yourself now, Mayura, la Papillon Reine?"

"I believe I'm calling myself a poor excuse for a second mother," Mayura answers. "Ladybug. Our agreement."

"I believe I said it's his decision whether he even ever wants to think of you again," Ladybug retorts. To Chat Noir she says, "Or of me. I did kind of just convince all of Paris I did the same thing to Monarque's son that Monarque did to you. I've got six Miraculouses and two Alliances in my pocket, Carapace just got delivered a bunch of interesting things including at least seven more Miraculouses, I don't think either of those green blobs is Argos so it's probably only seven, the Ladyblogger has all sorts of fascinating documents to dig through, and Nathalie Sancoeur will be handing over the Butterfly Miraculous any moment now."

That all came out in one breath.

"…What," says Chat Noir.

Ladybug tilts forward and faceplants into Chat Noir's chest, mumbling something. He softens, holding her close.

Then stiffens up again. "Nathalie Sancoeur?" He snatches the yo-yo from Ladybug's waist, captures Mayura—she makes no effort to resist—and plucks the Butterfly brooch from her bodice.

Nadja wouldn't necessarily recognize Nathalie Sancoeur if she passed her on the street. Neither, most likely, would anyone in the room, and if Nadja could get her breaking-news-reporter hat on instead of watching in stunned silence like the rest of the world—

Chat Noir takes a deep breath, clutching Ladybug like a lifeline. "Ah," he says, retracting the yo-yo. "Gabriel Agreste isn't planning on sending Adrien to London because he thinks that will keep him safe from the terrible influence of friends Gabriel didn't pick out for him and a girlfriend Gabriel can't intimidate. Though I'm sure he wanted Adrien to keep thinking that. It's because Adrien only has two living adult relatives, one lives in London, and the other committed suicide back in September and he expects it to finish killing him soon."

One of the red-violet blobs shakes. Chat Noir glares at his own Miraculous. Nadja has a sudden horrible suspicion that Chat Noir spent the months of Monarque's silence believing he'd killed a man.

"I would have handed that over myself," Nathalie Sancoeur says. "And this, to Adrien, so I know he's alive."

'This' appears to be the wedding ring on her own hand.

"Ladybug keeps her promises," Chat Noir tells her.

Sancoeur slumps and nods. "Tell Adrien I'm sorry I lied. This is what killed Emilie. And for what little it's worth, Emilie wanted none of this. Tell him the unlock PIN on her phone is the year she first heard her favorite song. When he watches her videos, he should have Marinette with him." She removes the ring. "When you give Adrien this—" She hands it to Chat Noir. "—tell him he is never to let anyone but himself touch either half of his amok."

Ladybug whirls on her. "Excuse me?" she and Chat Noir demand in unison.

"—You didn't know." She folds to the floor. "You didn't—how did you get Adrien's cooperation?"

"You know he threw himself off a skyscraper for me and you're still asking that?"

If Nadja can see Ladybug's about to fall to pieces…

"So did any part of your brilliant bluff involve Marinette thinking her boy-toy died?" Chat Noir asks, steering Ladybug out of the studio. Nadja doesn't catch her answer; Chat Noir sighs. "Well, we had a good run, my lady. I promise I'll take good care of the miracle box after she ends you."

The studio door slams shut behind them.

Nadja stares at the drawstring bag in her hand. It contains seven marbles, each colored to match one of the blobs and labeled with initials. CB and LR on the blue-green, GA on the deep red, and TT, AG, AB, and RR on the red-violet.

Then she remembers she's on the clock and on camera and has to figure out something to say about this.

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news!—"

---

"Marinette helped," Ladybug murmurs. Chat Noir's warmth is the only thing that feels real right now. "It turns out she's really easily bribed, in the right circumstances. All I owe her is your life."

"She is plotting your doom as we speak."

"She is trying to figure out how to get the love of her life to stop talking and start kissing. It will probably help if we catch Argos, since apparently it's possible for a senti not to know it, and if your cousin really wanted to help you—!"

Chat Noir stops on the nearest rooftop to set her on her feet and stare at her. Tonight feels like it should be a full moon, but there's a slim crescent nearing the western horizon, with a breeze flicking at her bangs and a few bold stars visible above the city lights.

"But maybe I am just going to sleep by myself and probably have nightmares about half your father's arm falling off when I grabbed him. I don't know. That's up to you, probably. Did you know his Alliance assistant looks just like your mother?"

"Marinette is with her boyfriend right now," Chat Noir says slowly.

"And my partner is with me. Keep up."

Chat Noir shakes his head and sweeps her back up in a princess carry, leaping to the next roof and the next. "Years I was trying to catch your attention. Years, Ladybug, and all I ever had to do was look behind me."

"I love you too."

Chat Noir misses a stick-hold and narrowly avoids smashing them both into a wall.

---

Zoé's mother is being arrested. For accessory before and after the fact to Monarque's hundred-mile list of magical terrorist acts.

She leaps up when Alya's apartment doorbell rings anyway. Zoé and XY are the only people here not enthusiastically digging through the small mountain Adrien's bodyguard delivered. Even Rose and Juleka are alternating between sitting with Zoé and trying to smash open the glass bubbles with their kwamis inside.

It's Adrien, with a sleeping Marinette draped over his back. "Hey," he says, sheepish. "Can we kick Alya out of her bedroom for a few hours? Marinette needs a catnap and I don't think she's planning to let me go, uh, possibly ever."

Behind Zoé, all sound halts.

In the exact same tone of stunned and dazed by the now obvious as when she realized who Monarque is, and with exactly as much explanation, Alya says, "Oh my god it genuinely is a funny story."

#ml writers guild #april event 2023 #alexseanchai #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fic #ml fic #mlb #ladynoir #ladybug x chat noir #lovesquare #lovesquare fic #ladybug #ladynoire #chat noir #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #cn: death

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