#the second version is the same as the one in this post except chat noir is blushing a lot

[ladybeug]

I watched Sole Crusher and I had to re-draw my favorite scene

Today @ladyblargh and I finally started catching up on season 4 eps, we watched furious fu and sole crusher, and this scene made me laugh so hard!! (We haven't seen banana queen, optigami, or sentibubbler yet, but we will)

Boy they don't give us much marichat, but when they do, its THE EXACT content I want. He shows up expecting an audience and she has NO time to indulge him. She already has this handled.

#i cant be the first person to joke about this but ive had spoilers blocked so no idea whats out there #consider this my humble addition #ml spoilers #sole crusher #theres two versions of the last panel #the second version is the same as the one in this post except chat noir is blushing a lot #my art

[mc-lukanette]

42 More Lukanette Thoughts

Marinette making a lucky charm bracelet for Luka, but being afraid to give it to him since Adrien also has one and she doesn’t want Luka thinking that he’s just a replacement for Adrien. Luka finds the gift eventually and naturally does not think that at all.

Luka being a morning person (or at least more of one than Marinette) so he helps Marinette’s sleep schedule by calling her to wake her up in the morning. This also leads to late-night calls between them where they both check if the other is sleeping at the right time (which can lead to either good or bad things; good because they’re checking on each other, bad because they clearly don’t have self-control and might just keep each other up).

Luka ends up hurting one of his hands and proceeds to avoid Marinette, knowing that his lack of ability to play music might affect him emotionally. He doesn’t want her to see him vulnerable. Marinette inevitably figures it out and frets over him while also thinking up ways to help him out.

Marinette being miserable every time she hears the ballroom music that she used to associate with her (former) love for Adrien. She was with Luka once and he got to witness her shouting angrily at the speakers playing the music that she has a boyfriend who is NOT Adrien and she doesn’t appreciate this reminder of Adrien’s existence.

Marinette struggling to confess to Luka, but then having no problem rambling off praises for him to other people.

Marinette tries on Luka’s highlights once and surprises Luka with it. He’s so caught off-guard that he reaches up and touches/feels her hair himself, earning a blush out of Marinette. Now she has to try his looks more so he’ll initiate physical contact more.

Luka getting his own version of “Copycat” (not him being jealous, but just an akuma who’s out to make him look bad). The name? Lukalike.

AU where Marinette isn’t technically into Adrien, but has been brought up/grew up to plan and schedule for the future to an obsessive degree (in line with all her scheduling in canon). She actually wasn’t romantically in love with Adrien but saw him as a viable option and he was “already in her plans” by the time Luka showed up. Marinette cut Luka off in a panic after realizing she was in love with him, but realizes her mistake later on and absolutely drops an emotional bomb on him when she reveals that she returned his feelings this whole time and had to get over her obsession for planning/organization first..

Luka still being the calm, collected individual he is, but he’s actually really excitable and “loud” over text. Marinette learns that after they exchange numbers and it’s adorable.

Vagabond (Homeless) Luka who travels all around, playing music for people. Marinette loves his music and will happily walk around to find him playing, even if she’s crunched for time. He provides lots of inspiration for her though it sure is weird how long he’s been around??? what could he possibly be sticking around for? (bonus if he sticks around so long that it leads into winter and obviously she’s not letting him stay outside)

Luka and Marinette meeting as Viperion and Ladybug, falling for each other, and they want to date but they also don’t want people to know so cue superhero dating.

AU where Juleka either wasn’t born or she and Luka simply didn’t grow up together, so Luka didn’t have to grow into the “big brother” type. He’s also bad with physical contact, as his mother isn’t a very physically-affectionate person, so he seeks out a way to be better with being touched. In comes Marinette and she happily offers to get him used to physical contact. Bonus if she starts feeling jealous at the idea of him eventually being able to touch other people and Double Bonus if she just ends up being the exception more than anything else and they’re both okay with that.

Pre-dating, Luka and Marinette knowing full well what they do to each other and going out of their way to make the other blush.

“Felix” divergence where it turns out that Marinette was still pursuing Adrien because she was convinced that Luka wasn’t actually crushing on her (thought it was her overthinking/hoping for too much because she “is used to being disappointed” by now, plus the fact that he confessed and then walked away without saying a word), but she realizes that he is when he makes the comment about “being there for her.” She explains it to him in relief and Luka’s heart is sent on a ride because he was convinced that she didn’t feel that way about him. Bonus if now Marinette is panicking about the video and will later be glad that it didn’t go through.

Sass “challenging” Marinette and teasingly saying that he’ll take Luka if she doesn’t want him. Cue Marinette being very jealous of Sass hanging around Luka all the time and she eventually gets fed up to the point of confessing to Luka outright, then being all smug to Sass who had planned this from the beginning so he’s not complaining.

Rose gets a cold, so Luka temporarily takes over as Kitty Section’s singer for practice. Marinette isn’t ready.

Childhood Friends AU where Marinette grows up believing that Luka and Juleka must have the same romantic orientation because they’re twins and she doesn’t know how orientations works. Thus, clearly Luka is gay which means that he doesn’t return her feelings obviously (she’s very wrong).

Marinette wanting a song to replace the ballroom music she remembers when she was still crushing on Adrien, so she non-subtly tries to find a song that Luka would like that they could slow dance to (either pre or post dating).

Post-battle, Viperion asking Ladybug if it’s okay for him to hang onto the snake miraculous for a little longer, then going on to explain that Marinette, a friend of his, seemed really sad that day and he figured it’d help to be visited by a hero. (Ladybug is screaming internally because she knows that she’s not supposed to let them keep them any longer than the battle but his request is so pure and sweet and he’s doing it for her--)

Viperion setting up for Second Chance. During the battle, he and Ladybug end up bonding and/or kissing, but Viperion ends up needing to go back, thus erasing it from the timeline. However, while Ladybug doesn’t seem to remember the specifics or what happened, she seems to have vague feelings that he used Second Chance and even touches her lips at one point with a thoughtful look.

Marinette learning how to do her own make-up to try and look closer to the age that Luka looks. She very much doesn’t need it to impress him/make him think that she’s pretty..

Marinette getting into bouts of being extremely lame and romantic, like texting Luka things like, “I was just thinking about you,” and then regretting it when he responds with something equally lame with no hesitation.

Fu being okay with Luka knowing Ladybug’s identity, as Luka is someone who keeps to himself, is able to keep a secret, and actively supports Marinette.

One day, Marinette accidentally catches Luka working on a love song that’s clearly written for her. He’s embarrassed for once, partly because he’d never intended for her to hear it, but she assures him that it’s okay and she’d like to hear the full thing. She shows up occasionally to listen to his progress, Luka suspecting nothing, then cut to when the full song is done and she ends up singing it alongside him without warning, essentially confessing back to him.

Event where Marinette is put in charge of selling custom-made “Ladybug Fan” and “Chat Noir Fan” T-shirts. And then in comes Luka with a white shirt and a shoddily-but-lovingly-written “Marinette Fan” on it (bonus if he tried to draw her pink flowers).

Marinette drawing something for Adrien in her sketchbook and keeps abandoning it to spend time with/visit Luka (a metaphor for her slowly getting over Adrien and falling for Luka instead). She’ll end up making something for Luka instead in the end.

At some point in adulthood, Marinette admitting to Luka that she’s been crushing on him for a long time, but was afraid of saying anything. Luka assures her that there’s still a place in his heart, but Marinette needs time to accept that (out of guilt and being convinced for so long that he’d never forgive her) and/or Luka needs time to really confirm to himself that she means it (not that he doesn’t believe her but he’s thought for so long that she didn’t like him that way). Cue awkward dorks slowly working their way into a relationship with hand touches, cheek kisses, and finally the full acceptance that they’re willing to forget about what they thought before and just love each other.

Luka and Marinette being married with kids. Whenever Marinette has to let Luka sleep, he’ll wake up later but with their kids telling him that she told them to tell him that she loves him (she also might’ve skipped breakfast because she doesn’t like having it without him and Luka will definitely be going to meet with her for lunch, complete with kisses for giving him so many feels in the morning).

someone: Marinette, don’t hide your face in your hands. [Marinette proceeds to use Luka’s hands to hide her face instead]

Marinette and Luka, having never met, being in a pet store and buying a pet mouse and snake respectively. Unexpectedly, the two pets escape from them at some point before they leave the store, and after frantically searching, they find the mouse and snake next to each other and actually seeming to get along as if they’re friends. The store owner confirms that the two animals frequently escape to see each other and they have no idea why, but Luka and Marinette acknowledge it and decide to exchange addresses so their pets can still see each other. Meeting up “just for the sake of their pets” quickly becomes an excuse.

Luka is definitely the type who wouldn’t wash off Marinette’s lipstick kisses for the longest time. Marinette ends up having to clean them off herself (which really just encourages him not to do it himself more).

Likewise, Marinette forgot her gloves once while it was cold and Luka warmed her hands for her, so she continued “forgetting them” after that.

Luka and Marinette end up getting a pet and Marinette struggling between finding Luka playing with their pet adorable and being extremely jealous because now the pet is stealing her Luka time.

Post-dating, Marinette having self-esteem issues over being as short as she is (maybe having gotten rude comments from models before). She keeps trying to kiss Luka from above and insisting on being the big spoon.

Kitty Section getting a singing game and Luka getting to hear Marinette singing for the first time. Now he has to hear it so much more. Bonus if their voices blend well together when they sing together.

Marinette wanting to give Luka promise ring but being convinced that he’d hate it because he “already has so many accessories” (as if Luka wouldn’t enthusiastically wear anything she gives him).

Luka being an exhausted rock star who flees from paparazzi and his fans. Marinette ends up seeing him and letting him hide in her house, being a huge fan of him but not getting to star-struck levels since she grew up with a famous model friend and knowing celebrities. She allows Luka to hide at her place whenever he wants and eventually worries about him seeing her as “just like his fans” when she realizes that she’s crushing on him.

Marinette breaking up with Adrien in adulthood, which starts a lot of rumors from people about how Marinette will just turn down any guy she sees because who in the right mind would break up with the sunshine model??? Then, cue Luka (who may or may not have met Marinette yet) coming in and seeing all the distance people make from Marinette (and not getting it), so he happily approaches her and strikes up a conversation because he doesn’t care about rumors or anything like that.

Marinette getting a two-seater bike for Luka and trying to be subtle about it like

Alya doing a scheme by inventing some sort of game where someone gets chosen and has to shout out the person they love because, “Girl, you blurt things out all the time! You’ll totally say Adrien’s name,” and then Marinette blurts out Luka’s name because she loves him and not Adrien, shocking everyone.

If Marinette and Luka (i.e: the “thinkers” of the hero group) were akumatized together, Paris - no, the world - would be officially screwed.

Fashion Designer Marinette and Rock Star Luka. Marinette has been trying to confess to Luka for a while, but things usually go wrong or the timing is always off. She finally says “screw it” to subtlety, and waits for them to have an interview together (as Luka wears Marinette’s clothes constantly and they’re best friends), then unzips her jacket to “get comfortable” while they’re sitting next to each other, revealing an, “I Love Luka Couffaine (yes, romantically),” shirt. The interviewer and audience notice immediately (especially due to the large screen in the background that shows an enlarged view of the interviewer, Luka, and Marinette) and then it’s just a matter of waiting for Luka to notice (probably after he stops gushing about Marinette’s amazing clothing choices).

#type: thoughts #Flower Arrangement Shipping #type: prompt set #((Was going to wait to post this but clearly you guys need it.)) #Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

[miraculouslycool]

Signs of Ladybug's crush on Chat Noir - Part 4

Your Resident Ladynoir Trash presents the final Exhibit D!

More under the cut.

Okay, before I begin with the episodes, I am going to start off with something I noticed in the intro.

Marinette trips over a black cat.

Not just anything.

It could have been anything, but they chose A BLACK CAT.

And what happens a few seconds later, Adrien helps her out by giving her her bag.

Marinette responds like Marinette would.

Translation: Marinette would/already has fallen for Chat Noir, but is blinded by Adrien.

In a show that relies heavily on its symbolism, this is a good theory.

Up next, the only Marichat moment in Chat Blanc.

I won't say that Adrien keeping the fact that he knew Ladybug's identity was a perfect decision, but he knew that Ladybug would not want both of them knowing who the other one was until she was ready.

Adrien and Marinette dated for a few months, didn't they? So when he was with her when she was Ladybug,he had to be platonic towards Ladybug. And the most important thing. MARINETTE WASN'T UPSET HE KEPT IT A SECRET. She was so happy that the person she loved and the person she trusted with her whole life was the same guy. She wasn't like "waaaa why did you date me only because I was Ladybug" like in the salt fics. She went, "Adrien is Chat?! Hold me, Chaton-" in a matter of seconds. She melted into his arms.

Nothing would ever convince me that Marinette loves Chat Noir more than that.

Ladybug is inching away from Chat Blanc, not from fear, but from WORRY.

Even in her last moments, she's leaning towards him, trying to help him even though he has become the embodiment of destruction.

Even his burn marks are edging towards her, like he was leaning towards her too.

And Gabriel just tried to protect himself.

She doesn't directly go for the attack like she would with any normal Akuma. Her first instinct is to comfort him and let him know that she is there for him.

Ladybug: “You don’t need my miraculous, Chat Noir. You need me to de-evilise you!”

 Chat Blanc: “Save me.”

Ladybug: “My poor kitty. Do you know where the akuma went? Tell me.”

And the first thing she does is grab his bell. Does she know him well or what?

Almost all her attacks against Chat Blanc are defensive and not offensive.

And the most, most important thing. She never called him Chat Blanc. Even when he was monstrous, even when he threw her into the sea, even when he threatened to destroy the universe, she still saw him as Chat Noir.

"You will always be Chat Noir to me."

And he doesn't even do anything to stop her, btw. He even gave her a clue to where his Akuma was.

She's so relieved that she got him back. Softness level: Infinity times 1000

She takes the time to hug him after all he went through and reassure him that she will fix everything.

She gave up on Adrien knowing who she was, she gave up on Adrien knowing how she FELT, she gave up on everything she wanted, all so she could save Chat Noir.

She called him so she could cuddle with him I-

In the episode, 'Ladybug' after she proves to Chat Noir that the Ladybug he almost kissed was a sentimonster, Chat has this to say about the sentimonster.

"But she's much more elaborate than what we've faced before! She's so perfect, there's nothing monstrous about her at all!"

"Sorry, kitty, but you should have known, I'm nowhere near as perfect as her."

Both Ladybug and Chat use the word 'perfect' in two different ways.

Chat uses it to describe the sentimonster as a perfect likeness of the original Ladybug, someone he got easily fooled by.

Ladybug uses it to describe the sentimonster as a perfect, flawless, better version of her.

But literally, all that is different about Sentibug and Ladybug (other than the fact that one is a sentimonster and the other is human) is that Sentibug appeared to be in love with Chat Noir.

So what is Ladybug trying to say? For her to be perfect (in the way she uses it), she would have to be in love with Chat Noir? And that is the one thing that is stopping her from being perfect like Sentibug?

"I'll always love you just the way you are, m'lady."

She takes the time to smile back at him, and to me atleast, she looks a bit relieved here, more than just flattered.

They cute or whatever.

Them falling on top of each other is occurring more frequently, and unlike Season 1, Chat doesn't stop to flirt with her anymore. Boom. Character development.

In Season 1.

In Season 3.

Boom. Character development.

When Hawkmoth throws away Chat Noir, Ladybug had Mayura in her grasp. All she had to do was grab her miraculous, and everything would have been over.

Chat Noir would have been able to handle himself. Both of them have been thrown from greater heights before, and both of them always survived.

Instead, she chose to throw away what could have been a good opportunity to defeat Hawkmoth and saved Chat instead.

Chat Noir: "You had Mayura right where you wanted her! I could have managed by myself, why did you do that?"

A few minutes earlier,

Sentibug: 'Listen to your heart.'

Ladybug: OH, listen to your brain!'

Why didn't Ladybug take her own advice?

"Because we are Ladybug and Chat Noir. Ladybug by itself doesn't sound half as cool."

When Ladybug fought Chat Blanc, he said this,

"Our love did this to the world, m'lady."

And that. That is what prompted her to say this in Loveater.

" I CAN'T be in love with you Chat Noir, you know that."

There's a pretty huge ass difference between 'not being in love' and 'can't be in love'.

Not being in love with someone is involuntary. It’s something you can’t control.

Ladybug sounds like she's telling herself voluntarily to not be in love with Chat.

That morning, she was so happy he got a girlfriend.

That very AFTERNOON,

"Is this a part of your plan to try and make me jealous?"

"Not calling me m'lady anymore?"

Chat Noir: "Are you jealous of Ryuko, right now?"

Ladybug: "What? No! Of course not!"

Sorry LB, you ain't fooling anyone. Especially since the nicknames come from a romantic place from him.

I would never deny or downplay that Luka was incredibly sweet and comforting to Marinette at the end of Loveater.

Yeah, but that's just it. He relieved Marinette of her guilt and stress, but it didn't go away. Not that it is his or her fault at all. Both of them were victims of circumstances.

When Ladybug admits tearfully to Chat Noir that it was her fault that everything was going wrong, he listens to her, and he doesn't blame her for anything.

You can see it in his face how understandably confused he is that she is doubting herself when he knows how strong and capable she is. More than anyone, in fact.

"Hey, the most important thing right now is to save Master Fu before the sentimonster destroys his shield. And we'll need a focused Ladybug for that. Forget about everything that happened, okay?"

He doesnt dismiss her mistakes, but he doesn't scold her for them either. He tells her that she is more than capable of fixing them. And at that moment, Marinette and Ladybug didn't just need comfort, she needed REASSURANCE.

And Chat Noir was the one who gave it to her.

This one scene healed me, cleared my skin and restored my faith in everything.

The camera pans out and shows that they are truly alone. They are the only heroes left. The fate of Fu and the Miracle box lies on them.

And yet, they're not alone. Because they have each other.

Chat let Ladybug break away from the hug when she felt it was right. He's one of those people who never breaks a hug first because he never knows just how much the other person needs it.

And Ladybug doesn't let go of him until she just...relaxes in his arms.

She's once again terrified of making the same mistakes again, but her face doesn't clear until she looks at him.

Gotta say, I loved how Adrien/Chat stepped and did all the planning BECAUSE he knew how overwhelmed she was feeling.

And once she again becomes overwhelmed, he's still there at her side, whether it is to fight by her or comfort her.

And she willingly leans on him for emotional support, without feeling self conscious about it like with Luka.

Think about it. Miracle Queen changed the entire premise of the show.

A,Chloe is no longer Ladybug and Chat Noir's ally.

B,Hawkmoth and Mayura have Master Fu's translated grimoire.

C,The peacock miraculous is fixed.

D,Master Fu loses his memories.

E,The identity of every hero except Ladybug, Chat Noir and Bunnyx is revealed to Hawkmoth.

F,Marinette becomes the guardian.

G,Adrien and Marinette look for other opportunities in love.

Everything has changed. That is, everything except Ladybug and Chat Noir's dynamic.

"You and me against the world?"

"As always."

They love each other so much. How could you look at them and say that they are toxic?

Instagram picture time!

I LOVE that they are free enough with each other to clown around like this.

Uh huh, sure. Deny it all you want. We know better.

They didn’t let the rain stop them from spending time together continuing patrol.

She’s so concerned for him!

And was she in that close contact with him that they BOTH got sick at the same time-

I can’t get over how he looks at her. I never will get over how he looks at her.

This picture was posted a few days after Chat Blanc and since the instas roughly follow the canon timeline, it’s lovely to see Ladybug spending more time with him and assuring him that she does care.

In conclusion to this long meta that spawned over 4 long posts - Ladybug deeply loves and cares for Chat Noir more than her own life but is in denial about it romantically. Here’s to hoping she realises it soon!

Because at the end of the day, it’s them against the world. Always.

#miraculous ladybug #ladybug #chat noir #marinette #ladynoir #marichat #signs #meta

[hanaasbananas]

Fanfic Year in Review 2020

thanks for the tag @2manyfandoms2count! This took me a while to get to but here we are!

Ok I feel like this is just gonna end up being a post where I just gush about Phantoms in the Dark but like...c'mon

This is gonna get long so i've put it under the cut:

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

Most of my stories are one shots of varying lengths, but I did actually finish quite a few so we have:

A Chance Encounter and So it Goes- both zenmaster fics for That 70s Show

Touch the Rain: I honestly forget I wrote this last year, it feels like I wrote it years ago but it's just a standard identity reveal in the heat of an argument type thing.

Ladybug Luck? What's That? The fic that really started my spiral into writing for the ML fandom, and the birth of the Bollywood Playlist series.

Post reveal, where they didn't know each other irl, Marinette sees Adrien at a Gabriel party, realises who he is, and does some property damage in the process.

our eyes speak (but on our lips is silence) At a wedding where Adrien is best man and Marinette is a guest they immediately recognise the other as their partner. Pure fluff and giddiness ensue

The Seduction of Marinette Dupain-Cheng Post reveal-Chat bets Ladybug that he can woo her as a civilian, employing good old fashioned tactics like flowers and poetry

Pink Snapshots of an Adrinette relationship. I just wanted to see if I could write an entire fic with no dialogue whatsoever, and this one got a huge surge in popularity recently so...guess I can!

Exposed Another fic where they don't know each other as civilians. When their identities are revealed in the worst possible way, Ladybug and Chat Noir hide out in a hotel room as they try to process the situation.

This Red Love My first enemies au! In which Adrien joins Hawkmoth from the beginning, but still goes to school and ends up dating Marinette. When he realises who she is, he has to re-examine everything he thought he ever wanted.

i have found someone (like a nomad finds a home) In the last one, Adrien willingly sided with Gabriel, but in this one, he is forced to after Stoneheart. Years later, he meets Marinette, who makes him feel like he isn't a monster.

Memory Chat Blanc in the aftermath when there is nothing left.

Phantoms in the Dark My biggest accomplishment last year! And the longest story I've ever written at 30k words. A historical marichat story based off my favourite poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. I'm currently working on the sequel.

I only bow down to worship (but I come to a stop when I see you) In which Adrien knows Marinette is Ladybug, and she knows he knows. However, he hasn't told her he's Chat Noir. This is just cute relationship stuff in the same vein as Pink

Collect your Courage, Loyalty, I'll never be the thief (to bring in hot scattered hell) Thought I'd branch out to other fandoms and landed on ATLA. This is a series (eventual zutara) where Zuko realises almost immediately post banishment that he can't follow in his father's footsteps and rebels.

Dancing Lessons Chat Noir and Ladybug decided to reveal their identities at age 20, and now Chat has chosen the venue as well. The only problem is he needs to teach Ladybug how to dance first.

Wish Ok I hurt a lot of people with this one but it's one where in the final fight, Adrien is mortally wounded and Marinette uses the miraculous to save his life, forfeiting her life in the process.Flashes back and forth between her death and how Adrien is coping in the aftermath.

2) Number of words written: 79663. I actually wanted to hit 100k by the end of the year but as those in the guild know, I spent most of December doing kitchen renovations and being pissed about my lack of free time lmao

3) Your most popular fic: Phantoms in the Dark. it has yet to surpass my all time most popular fic it's all a game of chance (they say in wonderland), but it's catching up

4) Your personal fav: Dancing Lessons I wrote this way back in July last year but only posted it in December and I just, it's so sweet I really like it with the flirty banter and just the two of them being SO CUTE

5) Your fav scene: The scene at the end of ch6 of Phantoms where Marinette and Chat talk after their kiss and realise they both are very much into each other.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

I am really bad at action sequences, and even though in Phantoms Adrien was out fighting people on the regular, I just sort of...glossed over them. Except for in chapter 8, where I wrote a proper duel between Chat and someone he was robbing.

What I struggled with was describing the movements, not wanting to make it too complicated whilst not having it be 'he feinted and stabbed' or something really simplistic. There was a lot of pen acting involved, but I think the end result is quite good, if I do say so myself.

7) A line of writing you’re proud of: From Phantoms (of course)

In every lifetime, in every land, we shall find each other.

8) A comment that touched you:

I love every single comment that I get, but someone left this on my musketeers fic Going Through the Motions (posted as a series on ao3 to motivate me to finish the fic but when it was done I compiled all the parts and posted it on ffnet as a oneshot lol and one of my absolute fave fics I've written-no surprise that it's historical 😅) on ffnet, which was a HUGE compliment:

"I like the way you wove dialogue from the series with your fiction. Your story gives us a more complete picture of Bonacieux and explains why Constance rejected D'Artagnan, which we did not get from the series. Your version is better. Well done!"

9) Something that inspired your writing:

I mean...I have an entire series on ao3 that is just fics inspired by bollywood songs/scenes-and those were my main inspiration for so many things. (I actually realised the other day that a scene from the movie Kalank is what inspired me to write Wonderland lmao)

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

Honestly, just writing consistently! I graduated in 2019 and in the past, I've started and abandoned so many projects and ideas, and even the first fic I posted on ao3-it took me a year to get the second chapter up and then I only finished it because I wanted to post other stuff but didn't feel like I could until I finished that one lol.

So yeah, that, and of course, actually writing and finishing Phantoms instead of abandoning it like so many of my other ambitious projects. I'm really proud of the 30k I wrote for that story because it's the most I've ever written for a single thing

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I want to finish Forgotten Promises, and the third story in the series. I have the vague plot for that one, and know what's going in the epilogue to end the series but I just need to get there.

Oh! and see 100 ways to say I love you to the end.

This was fun! I tag @theanxiouscupcake @an-elysian-tree @quarantined-fics and anyone else who wants to have a go!

#will i ever shut up about phantoms in the dark? #no. the answer is no. #lol but honestly this was fun i didn't even realise how many fics i wrote last year #my posts #ask game #writing #fanfiction #miraculous ladybug #atla #marichat #adrinette #ladynoir #2020 year in review

[quickspinner]

MLHolidays2k19 30. Endings

I really wanted to post this on the thirtieth and I just couldn’t quite get it figured out in time, but you might as well have it, even though it’s kinda mopey and maybe not my best. Sorry. I tried to make a happy version and it just didn’t work out.

The good part of the whole city being paralyzed during Miracle Queen’s attack was that there were no cameras. No news crews to record everything that went down. Even the heroes under Miracle Queen’s control remembered nothing, having woken up after the cure in the exact same place they’d been when they left.

For the sake of the secrets of the Miraculous, that was a good thing. But it did make things difficult for Ladybug.

Then again...what else was new.

Ladybug looked around slowly at the gathered heroes. Chat stood beside her, as always. The rest stood in a half-circle around her, faces solemn. She’d made the rounds this morning, handing out the Miraculous, and directed everyone to meet here at this time. It had taken her some work to find a location that would be both private, and close enough to public transit to let them get home as their civilian selves. Because her mission today was to stand there and tell them that their days as heroes were over. 

She felt she owed them this moment, this explanation. A chance to be angry.

This chance to say goodbye.

She took a deep breath. “So that’s the situation,” Ladybug finished. “Hawkmoth knows your identities, which means he can find your families, your loved ones. For your own safety and the safety of everyone you care about...this will be the last time you wear the Miraculous.” 

Ladybug flinched as the protests erupted. She looked at the ground for a moment, and then back up. Only Viperion stood silent, arms folded. He met her gaze when she looked at him, and the look in his eyes was so familiar that she half thought they were blue for an instant.

She looked away and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” Ladybug said, loud enough to interrupt all the others, who all silenced to look at her. “I want you to know this is my failure, not any of yours. You’ve all served admirably and I’m very grateful.” Ladybug took a deep breath. “I wanted to give you all this opportunity to reveal yourselves if you choose, so that you can have the support of each other. I won’t force anyone, though. You can detransform now, or you can go back home and I’ll come to retrieve the Miraculous later.” She chewed her lip for a second, and Chat put a hand on her shoulder. “I hope and believe it’s completely unnecessary to say this, but...please don’t make me take it back by force,” she said quietly. “I know this is upsetting and a shock, but I believe this to be the only feasible course of action.”

The protests started up again, when suddenly Viperion’s voice cut across them all, calm as always, but strong. “Sass, scales rest.”

All the heroes turned to look dumbfounded at him as the light engulfed him, changing his colors from teal and gold to blue and black. “Luka!” Rena gasped.

“Sass,” Luka said, cupping his hands to let the kwami rest in them. “It seems our time is up, my friend.” 

“It hasss been an honor, Luka Couffaine,” Sass said solemnly. “None know what the future holdsss, not even sssuch as we. But if this is the last time we are fated to meet--then I am glad to have known you.” Luka lowered his head and touched his forehead to the little snakes. Sass gave him a little pat. Then Luka let Sass take off, and slipped the bracelet off his wrist. The little kwami disappeared in a flash, and Luka blew out a slow, slightly shaky breath. Then he made a little noise through his nose, almost like a chuckle, and turned his gaze on Ladybug. 

She straightened as he approached her, tensing, though there was nothing but compassion in his face. Luka picked up her hand and placed the bangle in her palm, closing her fingers over it and holding her hand a moment between both of his. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said, holding her gaze. “You’ve given everything to serve this city, and we’ve always trusted you to do the right thing, to do what is necessary. If you think this is best, then I trust you in that as well. Please take care of him.” 

Ladybug brought her hand up to cover his. “Thank you, Luka.” 

He nodded, gave her hands one more squeeze, and let them slide out of his, and then walked back to his place in the semicircle. “If anyone wants to talk,” Luka shrugged, “The gang plank’s always open.” He smiled at Ladybug. “That includes you and Chat too, Ladybug.” 

Carapace gave a heavy sigh. “Wayzz, shell off.” Distantly Ladybug heard Chat suck in his breath in surprise.

“Carapace, no!” Rena hissed, but Carapace, now Nino, shook his head. 

“Luka’s right, dudes.” He looked at Wayzz. “Isn’t he.”

Wayzz nodded. “It is unfortunate, but as long as the threat of Hawkmoth remains, this is for the best. It has been my honor to serve.” He bowed his head, and then lifted his little flipper to meet Nino’s offered fistbump. Nino slipped off his bracelet, and took it to Ladybug.

One by one, the others stepped forth. Kim gave a heavy sigh as he returned Xuppu’s headband; as the newest hero, his service had been the shortest. But he gave the Miraculous up with a smile, and then shoved his hands in his pockets as he went back to stand beside Max. 

“Thank you all,” Ladybug smiled. “And I’m sorry that I let you down.”

“You didn’t,” Luka spoke up. “Never. You’ve always done your best for us, Ladybug. Anyone can hand out a Miraculous. Chloe proved that. But what she didn’t have was your mindset. Your selflessness and your strategy. She gave commands, but she didn’t lead, and that’s why she failed. The ones responsible for that are Hawkmoth and Chloe. You’ve already done more than anyone could have asked of you. It pains me that now you have to face him alone.” He tilted his head slightly and smiled. “But you’re never really alone, are you?” He turned his eyes to Chat. “Take care of her for us, Chat Noir. Take care of each other.” Luka looked back at the group of former heroes. “And we’ll do the same, right?” 

They all nodded. 

Ladybug looked at Alya. “I know it’s tempting to publish all of this now that it’s all over, but I really think it would be best if your identities continue to remain a secret outside this group.”

Alya sighed, shoulders slumping, and then straightened, folding her arms. “I understand, Ladybug.” She leaned on Nino. “Probably nobody would believe me anyway,” she muttered. 

“Well,” Ladybug looked at Chat, who nodded. “Chat and I will leave you now.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to say goodbye so...let me say instead, I’ll see you around.” She threw the yoyo, and heard Chat’s baton hit the ground behind her just as she lifted off. They paused on a rooftop some distance away.

“You handled that well,” Chat said, touching her shoulder. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

“Thanks,” Ladybug sighed. “No offense, Chat but--I think I just want to go home now.”

“Sure,” he gave a gentle smile. “Get some rest. You look tired, Ladybug.”

Ladybug mustered one more smile for him, and then swung away.

When Marinette dropped through her skylight. She went to the Miracle Box and put the Miraculous carefully away. Then she curled up on her chaise and let her head rest on her knees. “Do you think they’ll be okay? The thought that one of them might be akumatized over this makes me ill.” 

“I think they’ll be all right,” Tikki said, patting Marinette’s cheek lightly. “That was gently done, and they have each other now. But if it happens, we’ll just have to deal with it. Hopefully Hawkmoth is still licking his wounds.” 

“Like we are?” Marinette grunted, sighing. Tikki cuddled up to her neck with a matching sigh. 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there when there was a knock on her trapdoor.

“Come in,” she called listlessly, and she hadn’t thought about it hard enough to have an expectation as to who would come through, but she was surprised anyway.

“Luka?”

“Hi,” he smiled. “May I come up?”

“Of course,” she said, straightening up and putting her feet on the floor. “What do you need?” 

The question made him hunch his shoulders as if embarrassed. “Just company. I had some hard choices to make today, and I could just...use somewhere quiet to sit. Maybe with somebody else that had a rough day?”

“How’d you know?” Marinette asked ruefully, scooting over just a little and patting the chaise. 

“Lucky guess,” Luka replied, coming over to sit down next to her. “Though it seems like the odds were in my favor. You’ve been having a lot of rough days lately.” 

Marinette chose not to answer that, and instead tilted her head. “You don’t have your guitar.” 

“Yeah, I left it at home,” Luka sighed, spreading his empty hands. “I had, uh...something else to do, and it would have been awkward to take it.” 

“Are you going to be okay without it?” Marinette teased.

“I will, as long as you’re here,” he said simply, and Marinette found herself blushing. “Besides,” he added, nudging her with his shoulder. “I’m not completely dependent on it. I always have my voice.” 

“You don’t use it much,” Marinette said, giving into temptation and leaning her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her shoulders immediately and leaned into her, like he had just been waiting for her to make the first move. 

She kind of hated herself for moving closer, cuddling up to his side and putting her arms around his waist. Every time she did this she told herself she wasn’t being fair to him, yet he always welcomed her, and never said a word about it afterwards. He always accepted exactly as much as she was willing to give him. 

Except today. Today he wrapped his arms around her too and curled up around her, pressing his face into her hair. 

“Luka?” she said wonderingly. 

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I just...I think I need this today. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Marinette said, snuggling closer. “Of course, Luka. You’re always here for me. I’m here for you too.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to make things harder on you. You have so much to deal with already.” 

“So do you.”

He made a little noise that wasn’t agreement, and let it drop.

“Can I ask what you’re thinking about?” Marinette asked. 

Luka’s thoughtful hum came from his chest; she felt it through her whole body. “Endings,” he said at last. “How some things end and you wish they wouldn’t; and some things you wish would be over with just never seem to end.”

“Tell me about it,” sighed Marinette. 

He made that same hum again. “If you could end one thing, what would it be?”

Marinette thought about all the things weighing on her mind; Lila and Hawkmoth and Chat and the Miraculous wielders and Chloe. There were so many things weighing her down. If she could only stop one…

“Secrets,” she whispered. “I wish I could stop having to keep secrets.”

“I can see how that would be hard,” Luka murmured. He squeezed her a little tighter. “I can keep your secrets safe, Marinette. If you ever need me to.” 

“I know,” Marinette let herself smile, a little. “Some of them you already do.” 

He sighed, and his breath on her neck made her shiver. “I wish I could do more. I’m always afraid you’ll need me and I won’t be there. I’d be sick if anything happened to you.”

Marinette blinked, and snuggled closer. “I’m okay, Luka.”

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice was heavy. “I know. I know, Marinette. You’re strong and brilliant and you can do this. I just hate that I can’t be there for you.” 

Marinette frowned and pulled back a little to look at him. “Luka, are you...are you leaving? Are you going somewhere?”

He smiled at her, unfolding just enough to cradle her cheek in his hand. “No. Even if I can’t be there for you the way I want to, I’ll always be here for you however you want me to. I’ll be okay, I promise, I just...need to work some stuff out, I guess. Is it okay if I stay a little longer?”

Marinette nodded, and his fingers slipped back to guide her head back down to his shoulder. He curled back around her and held her, and didn’t say anything more.

#mlholidays2k19 #quickspins #luka knoooooows #lukanette #luka couffaine #i am lukanette trash i admit it #marinette dupain-cheng #ml season 3 spoilers #miracle queen #miracle queen spoilers #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug #promptfic

[silverwhiteraven]

Not a Rabbit in the Magician's Hat

Chapter 1: The Nutcracker

[A/N: Hello and welcome to my first ever chapter fic, second MLB based fic, third fanbased work, and fourth work I've worked on in earnestly in a long time!! Thank you so much for reading, and small shout to my FeliNette Discord Server peeps for inspiring me! I hope y'all like it~!! [Posted on Ao3] [Also the title is a bit of a WIP, it may change, eventually]]

[Summary: Félix is back, and with the same goal in mind as the year before. Only now, he has to plays the long game. And play a little more nice, too, except he's no longer on the playground he's used to, oh no. Now, Félix is among the heroes with a Miraculous of his own, and the playground is now a much more difficult battlefield with new pieces in play. And to top it all off, he has to deal with a whole new school and all the people inside. This is going to be tricky, isn't it? And to think, it wasn't a rabbit keeping a magician company, no, its a mouse or two keeping tabs on this master of slight-of-hand. At least it was somewhat fitting, even if he didn't like being called a rat every so often.]

Ladybug gazed over the scene before her, taking in all that she could. The Akuma, Mazer, had fused the walls of buildings together seemingly randomly, eliminating alleyways and cutting off streets, turning the city of Paris into a giant and infinite maze, much resembling a labyrinth with the Eiffel Tower at its center. Wandering between the walls of the giant maze were minotaur-like golems, chasing and trapping anyone they encountered.

Almost like a prize at the end of a game, Mazer's Akumatized object, a compass, hung in the air between the beams of the tower, surrounded by several layers of cage walls, too tightly woven to climb through and too far apart between layers to Cataclysm in one shot. 

Ladybug really didn't like this.

After long moments of quiet surveying and pondering, she did the first thing that she knew how to do best: summon her Lucky Charm for a clue.

Down from the sky and into her open palm came a Nutcracker.

She barely needed to glance around without seeing anything useful to know that this truly was a hint rather than an actual piece of a puzzle like her Charms usually were. It wasn't lost on her that there was a theme emerging. 

She looked at the maze, full of half-bull monsters needed distracted, then to the small spaces between the bars of the cages around the Akumatized object, then down to nutcracker, and lastly, almost reluctantly, up at Chat Noir beside her, watching her with silent curiosity and anticipation. She smiled with confidence in herself and her gut feeling about this.

"Chat, I know you trust me, and I trust you, too."

"Of course, Bug, what brought this on?" He tilted his head in a curious manner, a slight grin gracing his features. 

"Switching things up a bit. You're not playing decoy this time. In fact," she states almost mischievously as she stands, "you'll be finding one. I need to go get a Miraculous, and you get to pick who uses it."

She smiled as she watched him spring to his feet, excitement written all over him with the possibilities he could choose from. 

"Stay here, and don't get in trouble, I'll be back in a flash!"

She found herself curious, too, as she swung away through and over the walls of the maze, back towards home. She didn't know the right person for the Miraculous she was going to get, yet she had the feeling Chat Noir did. She looked at the Nutcracker in her hand, wondering if it would have a different meaning in Chat's eyes. 

She landed on her balcony and slid into her room through the open skylight, de-transforming and making her way below her bed to her work area, setting the Nutcracker to the side. Se knelt in front of a large box marked "Old Designs" that sat below the desk, opening it with a key hidden under her shirt. 

It was a large version of her diary's trap box, designed to keep the Miracle Box safe and secure. She pulled out the red and black Box, pressing one of the spots gently. The spot slid out, revealing a hollow, open topped tube with a Miraculous nestled into shimmering grey velvet.

She gently lifted the pendant necklace, the Miraculous of the Rat, out of its drawer. The theme she had noticed earlier had pointed rather obviously towards it. A maze, a goal where only something small could reach, and multiple enemies needing distracting by more than simply two or three heroes could provide. 

The nutcracker Lucky Charm hinted at it, too, the main enemy in the story The Nutcracker was the Rat King. But she had a feeling that it had more than one reason for taking that form.

She set the Miraculous into a round black jewelry box, which she had made to resemble the spots on the Miracle Box. She couldn't exactly reuse the old boxes from Master Fu, she didn't have enough of them, and she was guilty of wanting the smaller individual boxes to match the large one's new design. And design she admittedly didn't like very well. She wished the Box had been transferred to 'Marinette' and not 'Ladybug', but no time to dwell on that again.

Still, one of these days she was going to test if she can transfer it from her hero identity to her civilian one.

Locking the Miracle Box back up and transforming once more with Tikki, Ladybug grabbed the Lucky Charm Nutcracker and left her room, returning to Chat Noir who had loyally and wisely kept his distance from the Akuma and the minotaur golems. 

He looked to her, giddy and expectant, waiting for his instructions. She looked back at him with pride, full of joy for having him as a partner.

They had their rough patches in their first year, plenty really, but after she became Guardian and was faced with the need and requirement to know his civilian identity, things truly began to get much smoother.

She learned he was Adrien Agreste, one of her best friends, the popular, quiet and sweet model of the class. He was the boy who was so amazingly attentive to emotions that he helped her civilian self realize within a few days of meeting that she didn't have a crush on Adrian so much as a "squish": a want to be his friend. She had a feeling it was good that he spoke to her about why she was acting odd, she's quite sure things would have gotten a bit out of hand if her thoughts, emotions and behavior went unchecked. 

Learning his identity under the mask also helped to clear a few misunderstandings with Chat Noir. 

For example, Marinette had learned a few months into knowing Adrien that he was Ace. He still wanted a partner in life, he made sure to clarify that he was not Aro, and he paid much more attention to emotions because he wanted to be certain of who he wanted, who he would give himself to and who he would accept for himself. 

But his home life wasn't the best place emotionally, only getting worse after his Mother disappeared, and that followed him in his public life, too, including at school, so he didn't have many outlets for his canned affections for the people he loved and cared for. Learning this, she understood why Chat Noir would often be overflowing with energy and positive emotions, showering Ladybug in his abundance of love. 

He admitted he did consider her romantically, but only as a secondary to her status as his super-best friend. He respected her feelings, even from the start, and she appreciated it endlessly. Though she had to admit, it was rather confusing at first, and a bit aggravating when it came out at the wrong times. She didn't help much at first, either, as her attempts to be somewhat emotionally closed off and professional while behind the mask made their communication and even trust rather lacking. 

So learning he was Adrien allowed her to understand him far more, and lead her into working on herself for his sake as well, not just her own. She relaxed and allowed herself to be far more open, even invited him to outings around Paris, opening him up to vent all his pent up emotions, both negative and positive, and that in turn lead to better performances against Akuma. Chat hasn't been controlled or tapped out of existence in over nine months. 

It was truly a blessing for them for her to know, the good luck of it no longer disguised behind the stressful possibility of them becoming endangered by knowing.

In fact, barely a week after finding out, Ladybug told Chat that she knew, and offered to let him know her identity as well. He declined with the widest grin on his face, saying he wanted it to be kept secret, leave the reveal to be a special moment, or even something he might discover on his own. They laughed together, and she told him she wouldn't hide from him if he ever did decide to change his mind and take a peek behind her mask. 

But enough of that, ladybug returned his excitable grin and held out the black jewelry box and the red and black Lucky Charm. 

"Chat Noir, this is the Miraculous of the Rat which grants the power of Multiplication. You will find someone to use it for the greater good. As soon as the mission is over, they shall return the Miraculous to you, and you shall return it to me. I'm counting on you."

The sun was in his smile and the stars were in his eyes as he took the small box and the nutcracker. She just knew this was a good choice, she could feel it as deeply as their very bond ran. A bod she could feel strengthen as she trusted him with another new thing. He's her partner after all, a fellow protector of the lives of Paris, she would trust him with her own life, too, as well as the responsibility of all the Miraculous they had in their hands.

"I won't let you down, see you soon, Ladybug," and with that he was gone. She watched him go, waiting for him to disappear before she took up his spot of waiting and task or keeping an eye on the Akuma victim.

❇❇❇

It had been almost a year since Félix had last set foot in Paris. He has since mellowed out from his mischievous habits, grown aggressive around the time of his Father’s death, but it didn't stop him from still knowing and utilizing his skills when the need arose. The distance from the city however did no good for his grudges against either his family-in-law or the heroes of Paris. 

During a video call with Adrien a few months back, his cousin's father had walked in, reminding Adrien of a previously arranged engagement. He barely spared Félix a glance before leaving, yet the young Graham de Vanily still noticed a little, majorly significant detail about the old Agreste. 

A silver wedding band still sat upon his finger. 

Félix was suspicious in an instant, even going so far as to end his call with Adrien sooner than intended, and brought the revelation straight to his mother. They brainstormed together, considering the options and possibilities that this brought.

How did he have the other ring of the twin set? They thought Emilie had gone missing, her half of the set should have gone missing with her. They didn't like the churning of their stomachs that thought gave them, the Graham de Vanily pair didn't like the possibility that Gabriel Agreste could have something to do with Amélie's twin, Félix's aunt, Adrien's Mother, the man's own wife, going missing.

Félix may have had a grudge against Gabriel for having one the Graham de Vanily's family rings, but having had both while neither belonged to him, while Emilie didn't even have hers? It was unforgivable.

Trying to negatively influence the Agreste image through the use of his similar looks to Adrien was a jab at the old Agreste, but it had never been enough, especially now, in light of this disastrous news. 

Even that stunt with Ladybug wouldn't have worked well enough to knock the man down from his pegs. 

Félix had yet to tell his Mother the full extent of what had happened that day in Paris. He quickly realized afterwards that he regretted what happened, and would have regretted it still either way if he had succeeded. 

Kissing her would have gotten him nowhere with slandering the Agreste family. Ladybug seemed like the person to keep problems she had with people to herself, not make them public, so that plan would have failed anyway. Yet the kiss itself would also have been regretted. Giving his first to a hero he didn’t know for the sake of a half-baked hope to get a strike against the older Agreste, and have a little ammo against his cousin if need be, too, was a terrible idea, and there was no way he would ever attempt it, or anything like it, ever again. 

Even if it was for his Mother’s sake. 

There will always be other plans and strategies, he just needed to think of them, and think them through this time, no more spur of the moment ideas.

Still, Ladybug didn’t need to punch him as hard as she did… It was a good hit at least.

He may not hold a grudge for the strike that she was perfectly and fully allowed and entitled to do in reaction to his actions, but he certainly held one against the Black Cat. 

That stupid comment, how dare here, Félix thought. He really did non want to think about that, especially since it still hung true in spite of his better efforts. 

The young Graham de Vanily forced his attention away from himself and the past year, and instead looked out one of the dining room windows of the Graham de Vanily’s newest manor estate located in Paris, France. The city looked disheveled and unorganized, a true labyrinth maze fashioned perfectly for the latest Akuma. 

He hoped it was dealt with soon, he needed to go greet his Uncle Gabriel and Cousin Adrien at their manor later, inform them of his family’s plans to stay in Paris, hopefully without giving any real intentions away with failed attempts to cover up his seething hostility towards his Uncle and whatever he had to do with his Aunt Emilie’s disappearance. 

“Felix!” called an overly joyous and too familiar voice from behind, and the said boy, pulled from his thoughts, whipped around in alarm. 

Crouched on the dining room table just like any normal cat that shouldn't be there, a window open wide behind him, was Chat Noir, a cheshire grin and gleeful eyes locked and aimed directly at Félix. 

He decided to ignore the fact that there was an out of place, red and black nutcracker in one of the hero’s hands. His mother had joked he was just as stiff as one, once, and if he wasn’t so mean or even cold-shouldered towards people his own age, he would be just as princely as the one in the tale, too. Yes, he much prefers not to think of that at the moment.

As he looked at the Black Cat, Félix was starting to regret coming to Paris for another visit. He had a sneaking suspicion that the heroes were going to be popping up around him without warning all over again, and with more frequency now that his visit was going to be indefinite rather than limited to a day. 

Gods, he bet the Akuma were going to be showing back up to haunt him, too. Oh, what kind of luck he must have to have gotten this kind of fate.

Félix crossed his arms in a defiant, almost proud manner as he settled his weight on one foot and stared down the famous Black Cat of Paris. “What do you want, stray? I won’t have you mocking my friendships again, and I won’t be making the same mistake twice, so you can leave back out the way you came.”

Chat Noir looked momentarily shocked before hunching and smiling sheepishly, sliding off the table to stand properly on the floor. “I wanted to apologize, actually.”

Félix’s arms loosened with shock of his own, but managed to remain crossed. He looked Chat Noir up and down, looking for any signs of deceit. 

He found none, just a regular hero trying to make amends in the middle of a rather pressing Akuma attack. What odd timing.

He supposed, however, that almost a year wasn’t all that bad a wait for an apology, considering there really was no possible proper way for the hero to make an apology to someone living in an entirely different country. And he couldn't very well expect everyone to be like Adrien, his overly sweet cousin who would catch when he said something wrong before Félix had enough time to fully react and would amend himself just as quickly. He was lucky for his cousin, the least he could do was count his blessings and give others the chance to make things right as well.

Felix shifted onto his other foot a bit awkwardly and nodded once in a stern yet accepting manner. “Go on.”

The Black Cat seemed to relax at that, standing us straight and looking Félix in the eye with determination and a hint of respect. 

“Félix, I’m sorry, for what I said to you last time you were- well, last time I encountered you in Paris. What I said about your friendships was spur of the moment and defensive of the people I care for, but it was rude and mean, you didn’t deserve that. I would have apologized then and there, but the Trio of Punishers going after Adrien- well, you- arrived a bit too soon for me to do that. So I’m here now.”

The crashing steps of one of the stone minotaurs outside interrupted the black clad hero for a moment, and a look that seemed like he was reminded of something crossed the hero’s face, morphing his speech into something a bit more rushed.

“Right, anyways,” he continued, “I’m sorry, again, I really am. You don’t have to forgive me or anything, I just want you to know that I at least don't hold anything you did against you, for whatever reason you did it.”

The Black Cat then tilted his head a degree, a curious look on his face. “Though, I guess I would like to know why, I really should ask why before I do anything else.”

Félix sighed, dropping his head and shaking it gently. Of course the hero would ask, why wouldn't he. Adrien had been respectful enough not to pry, but this was a hero, a protector of an entire city, cat-like curiosity aside, he had a duty to know things and protect people with that knowledge. 

“I assume you mean my actions towards Adrien and his friends, and Hawkmoth as well. I suppose I can tell you, but I won’t hesitate to pull your tail and twist your ears if you tell anyone else besides Ladybug.”

Félix’s weight shifted once more and his arms uncrossed, hand set to his hips as he raised his head and looked the hero in his unnatural green eyes. Chat Noir mimicked his shifting around, though now his arms were the ones that were crossed, preparing himself for whatever he was about to hear.

The hero gave an accepting nod, “Not a word. Go ahead.”

Félix hesitated only a split moment before answering.

“I was after the Graham de Vanily twin rings, family heirlooms that Gabriel Agreste was in possession of. They’re important to my family, I wanted to get the one Uncle had, and give it to my mother. I had nothing against Adrien, not really, even if he did think I did. I was rather convincing in that front. No, It was all just jabs toward Uncle, even… even that rather brash and rash moment with Ladybug, which I do regret fully.”

Félix looked away for a moment as he continued. 

“I wanted Hawkmoth’s help in getting those rings, I figured he could do it when I couldn't earlier that day. I failed at that, but I did manage to get the ring from Uncle’s finger anyways before I left.” He looked back towards Chat Noir, who was considering him thoughtfully. 

“I did, however, find out some time later I failed anyways.”

That seemed to catch the Black Cat off guard for a moment. “How so? You have his ring, what could you have done wrong?”

“I underestimated him. I found out by chance that he had both rings.”

The hero’s eyes went wide in comprehension of what that could imply. The look made it clear that the Black Cat knew at least a little bit of the happenings of the Agreste family, and what a terrible thing it could possibly mean for Emilie Agreste if Gabriel really did have her ring while she was assumably missing. 

Chat Noir almost looked like he wanted to argue, to deny, and to question Félix more all at once, but he kept quiet, his mouth firmly closed. Félix let him stand there and ponder it for a moment before bringing up the much more pressing concern at the moment.

“So, Chat Noir, why are you here? Paris is currently under siege, right? Why be here making yourself on good terms with a citizen when you could be fixing that instead?”

The look of reminder crossed the hero’s face again and Félix almost wanted to roll his eyes at how many things this stray needed to keep track of. He almost felt a bit bad for him, today was clearly busy, if not a bit overwhelming.

“Right!” The hero got a look of excitement, “Now that's cleared up, I need your help! Well, want your help, but it would be purrfurrable if you did agree to lend a paw.”

“A paw.” Félix gave a mildly surprised yet very skeptical look. “What kind of, ‘paw’,” he quoted, hiding instinctive air quotes behind his back now that the cat themed hero decided to leak his puns into their serious conversation, “do you need lended.”

The smile of the Black Cat once more turned cheshire.

“Félix Graham de Vanily,” the destructive half of the Paris hero team spoke like he was a king appointing a new knight, his hand suddenly coming out towards him, a black box clutched in his fingers, “This is the Miraculous of the Rat, which grants the power of Multiplication. If you choose to accept, you will use it for the greater good. Once our mission is over, you will return the Miraculous to me, or Ladybug if I’m not there. Can we trust you?”

#félix graham de vanily #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #miraculous ladybug #ladybug and chat noir #Not a Rabbit in the Magician's Hat #MLB #fanfic #rat miraculous #ace!adrien #writing #willowbendt

[princess-of-the-corner]

Chloé as Ladybug AU

So I know some people have thought of this before but tbh now I’m thinking of it in a ‘what if this was taken seriously as a way for her to go through a redemption arc and grow as aperson instead of just using ‘she’s terrible and everyone hates her(especially Adrien)’ as the entire joke?’.

Anyway, onto the actual thing, starting with Origins:

Chloé somehow gets the Ladybug Miraculous instead of Marinette. Maybe accidentally, maybe Master Fu has some plans. IDK.

She’s super excited over the attention she would get as a Hero. Tikki warns her that she can’t reveal her identity, and she’s like ‘okay, fine, yeah that’s a superhero rule whatever.’. And since she isn’t transforming as part of her breakdown, she does stick to that.

immediately after she transforms and starts running around the city to get used to the powers/practice with the yoyo/etc.

Chloé runs into Chat Noir.

They immediately recognize eachother and are like the pointing Siderman meme

Legit though, they’re super excited to be heroes together. Bffs as Heroes! And yes, bffs, because I always headcanon them as sibling-like with Chloé faking her crush for a variety of reasons. But hey! With secret identities, you don’t have to do that!

As usual, Ivan becomes Stoneheart.

Chloé and Adrien treat it as more of a game, at first. I mean, they became Superheroes. Of course they think it’s gonna be fun. So they play it up, go ham, soak in the attention and play with the ‘personas’

They kinda realize through the fight that it might be harder than they thought. Because they are getting slammed around, and it starts to actually hurt. But they get through and win.

Then we have the later scene of ‘you remembered to purify the butterfly, right?’

Upon learning that she screwed up, Chloé snaps at Tikki. Telling her ‘how the hell was I supposed to know if you didn’t tell me? I’ve never done this before!’.

Logically, she knows that Tikki just forgot. But she feels like it was a set up for failure. And despite her ‘omg I’m the best’ persona she puts up, she is kind of scared that she’s not enough. That she’s never enough. And this brings that up.

As much as she tries to pretend , she kinda knows that she’s terrible and honestly doesn’t deserve to be a hero. And this just proves it. So she Rejects the Miraculous and Tikki disappears back into the earrings.

At school they’re all discussing the whole Stoneheart thing and Chloé kinda tries to help by saying ‘well, just don’t piss him off and he won’t go all giant monster again’. That doesn’t come out as intended.

Ivan becomes Stoneheart again, but this time Chloé manages to get out before she’s grabbed/

At first, she doesn’t join the fight. Why bother when she’ll screw it up again?

But she sees Chat Noir out there still trying(and kinda failing.) And she can’t leave him on his own.

When she puts the earrings on and Tikki comes back out, the Kwami apologizes for not telling her about the butterfly. And this… catches Chloé off guard. Because people never apologize sincerely to her.

A lot of times people refuse to apologize to her. More often than not, they are forced to apologize because she’s the Mayor’s Daughter and could ruin them if they didn’t. Sometimes, with her parents, it’s a brushed off apology. A ‘sorry not sorry’, ‘sorry you got upset by my totally justified actions’.

So to have Tikki genuinely apologize, it confuses her. Especially when Tikki acknowledges that Chloé might not be the best person, but she doesn’t have to be perfect. Still, she hopes she can be better, knows she can if she tries again.

Chloé goes to fight as Ladybug again, and this time, her version of the speech to Hawkmoth is basically ‘I might not be the perfect choice for this job, but by fuck I’m going to do it! I will never back down or give in to you!’.

Next day at school, when Chloé goes to sit down, she finds Marinette back in her seat. When she tells her to move, Marinette stands up to her, saying ‘maybe I’m not perfect like you think you are, but I’m not backing down or giving in to you anymore.’.

This has gone full roleswap. Marinette sees Ladybug as a hero and inspiration, and uses that as the courage to stand up for herself.

This, honestly, confuses the hell out of Chloé so much that she actually backs down for a minute.

There are two things that stop Chloé from retaliating immediately.

The first is what Tikki said, about believing she can be better. Part of her thinks ‘whatever. I know I’m terrible. I’ve resigned myself to that. And even if I try no one will believe or accept it’. But… Tikki is an ancient magical creature, the Kwami of Creation. She might be right.

The second thing, is when Adrien saw Marinette stand up to Chloé, he was immediately like ‘heart eyes motherfucker!’.

So, Adrien has a crush on Marinette. Though she hates him because of Chloé’s earlier gum prank. So Chloé decides to confront Marinette.

Mari is expecting a fight and absolutely squares up. But Chloé is just like ‘hey I wanna talk about the gum prank’.

Mari’s like ‘Are you… are you apologizing?. Chloé’s just like ‘oh god no that’d be ridiculous. I just wanted to tell you that Adrien isn’t a part of it.’.

She explains that while she is absolutely a terrible person and knows it, Adrien is sweet af and innocent in that.

While Mari is hesitant and thinks this might be Chloé setting her up, she does give Adrien a chance. Especially after he apologizes and she asks other students about the gum prank.

Marinette doesn’t develop her crush on Adrien. But they do become friends.

Chloé also stops pretending to have a crush on Adrien because he likes Mari, and while Chloé would never admit it, Mari is probably the one person who might be good enough for him now that she has confidence. So she actively encourages him to go for it.

In between episodes, Chloé invites Adrien over and he gets to meet Tikki, while Chloé gets to meet Plagg!

At first Tikki’s like ‘you arent’ supposed to tell anyone about the hero stuff!’, but they explain that they recognized each other immediately so, you know. It didn’t matter.

The Kwami allow it if only because it was accidental but they are happy that they can see each other whenever this time around!

Chloé gets along with Plagg very well, and Adrien gets along with Tikki just as easily. They jokingly are like ‘maybe we should switch’.

So, like, before we go on I want to talk about Chloé’s ‘Hero Persona’. Much like Adrien as Chat Noir, Chloé uses Ladybug to be different from herself. She plays into the Hero Persona bit, trying to be nice and encouraging as a Hero should be. Which is strange to her, but kind of fun.

It doesn’t always work because she isn’t used to it, and sometimes the snark comes out or her temper gets the better of her, or it turns into my ‘how valid is your reason for akumatization’ post. But honestly? The way people love her and look up to her as Ladybug is good. Almost addicting in a way. It’s not only attention but good attention of people loving her for things she does instead of hating her or pretending to love her for money/status.

This does eventually start leaking into her Civillian life, especially with encouragement from Adrien and Tikki. And Plagg, I guess. He’s a bit more like ‘eh, whatever, be salty kid.’

Okay, so, as for other episodes. Some would stay the same with the only thing that changes being it’s Chloé doing the fighting instead of Marinette, but others go very differently. So I’ll go through them.

Stormy Weather

Mostly no changes. There might be the fact that, since Marinette doesn’t have a crush on Adrien, she doesn’t go to his photoshoot and therefore she, Alya, and Manon don’t get caught in Stormy Weather’s attack. But that wasn’t too important.

The Bubbler

Both Adrien and Chloé put off hero duties to enjoy the party at first. However, once they find out that parents are getting sent to space they jump into action.

Since Marinette doesn’t have a crush on Adrien, she didn’t panic and forget to sign the present. She instead gives it to Adrien in-person, and Nathalie has to run out and buy something else to give Adrien.

The Pharaoh

Not much changes here, except it’s Chloé and Adrien going to the Egypt Exhibit instead of Marinette and Alya. Well, who knows. Those two might’ve shown up too. It’s a neat Exhibit.

Chloé wouldn’t have dropped her history book. I’m still not sure what the fuck was up with that in the show in the first place. Ladybug doesn’t have pockets! Well, actually, this version might…. Remind me to design Chloé’s Ladybug outfit sometime. Either way!! No textbook!!

Lady Wifi

Of course Alya still starts up the Ladyblog. But I had a few ideas of how this could go.

Option A is to continue the role reversal and have Alya think that Marinette is Ladybug. The problem here is that if Alya snoops through Mari’s stuff, Mari wouldn’t freak out and try to have Alya expelled.

Option B is to still have Alya on the right track with Chloé being Ladybug, and does the ‘snoop in her locker’ thing. Naturally Chloé panics and insists Alya be expelled for that. (Side note: I still insist that Chloé was entirely justified in her reaction to someone rooting around in her locker). Problem here is ‘how does Chloé get out of this one?’

Timebreaker

This goes pretty much the same. Four teenagers don’t have enough collective brainpower to think ‘a pocket watch goes in a pocket’, and Chloé comes in with the Crow Brain to look at the shiny thing. Watch gets dropped and broken, Akuma time.

There is the issue of Marinette being unable to use time travel to fix her issue of needing to be in two places at once, but either she hides from Timebreaker by going home and taking care of the problem, or Chloé(having softened up a bit and is being nice) gives a half-truth to cover for her, saying ‘oh, sorry, she was caught up in some Akuma business and couldn’t be here!’.

Mr. Pigeon

I still don’t understand what the fuck is up with this.

The Akuma part of the story is still the same, but the hat contest is probably different due to the shift in dynamics. Chloé is trying to be nicer and even if she tried to copy Marinette’s hat design, Tikki would talk her out of it.

Although, Adrien probably is really encouraging for Marinette because of his crush, and he really wants her to win.

Chloé actually does something nice, after noticing that Mari took inspiration from the Akuma of the day and added feathers. She goes up and warns her, ‘hey, Adrien’s going to be wearing the hat and he’s allergic to feathers you should use fake feathers’. Mari is a little suspicious because while Chloé’s been better lately she’s still Chloé. But since it was something simple like that and not an act of sabotage, she takes the advice.

Evillustrator

So, while Nath is still Akumatized due to his teacher being a bitch, the ‘Chloé teasing him’ goes a little different.

When she sees his sketchbook, her comment is to Adrien of ‘looks like you have some competition!’, cluing Nath into the fact that Adrien also has a crush on Marinette, and immediately bringing up some insecurities because, you know, Adrien is a literal model.

When he’s Akumatized, instead of going after Chloé for her teasing, he goes after Adrien for being a romantic rival.

However, once Ladybug and Chat Noir are on the scene, he can’t find Adrien or Chloé, so he heads over to Marinette’s house.

While that was happening, we still have the issue with Marinette trying to convince Sabrina that Chloé is a bad friend. Since Mari wasn’t interrupted by Ladybug stuff, Sabrina was actually with her and both are being held hostage by Evillustrator.

Chloé lures Evillustrator away while Chat Noir stays behind to protect the girls. It doesn’t entirely work, but Marinette offers to be ‘bait’. Both heroes are opposed to it, but she points out that Evillustrator will come back eventually.

Chat Noir goes out of his way to protect Marinette and is just overly sweet and maybe shows off a little bit and oh no now she has a crush on him. Chloé finds out about this and is fucking cackling because Adrien likes Marinette and she returns the feelings but she doesn’t know that!

After all of this, Chloé does realize that Marinette is right about the whole Sabrina situation. And as part of her ‘being better’ thing, apologizes and resolves to be a better friend. Sabrina is easily won over by just the apology, but Chloé is legit trying.

Rogercop

not sure how this would pan out tbh. The whole thing was kickstarted because Plagg stole Chloé’s bracelet thinking it was cheese. But in this AU, Adrien would be able to tell Chloé what happened because she knows about Plagg, and even if he couldn’t Chloé has Tikki in her purse so Tikki would tell her(if she didn’t already stop Plagg from being an idiot). And even if she didn’t know, Chloé wouldn’t let her bag be searched because of Tikki

Legit though this is probably the one I’m stuck on

Copycat

This wouldn’t be exactly the same. Assuming the same thing happened of Théo having a crush on this Ladybug, Chat wouldn’t be jealous of this crush since he likes Marinette, not Chloé. Maybe this one is either Chat tries to let the guy down gently that Chloé won’t like him back, but accidentally implies that he’s dating Ladybug?

Mari’s subplot wouldn’t be the same since she doesn’t have a crush on Adrien and wouldn’t leave an embarrassing voicemail.

Wait, maybe the tables are turned and in this AU Théo has a crush on Chat Noir, and Chloé is the one who pulls the ‘he is already in love with someone else’, accidentally implying it’s her. Meanwhile Chat is missing because Adrien is attempting to ask Marinette out on a date.

Dark Cupid

This is mostly the same. Kim confesses to Chloé and is rejected. She’d be less harsh in this AU, but she still rejected him so you know.

Dark Cupid does effect Friendship, so when Chat gets hit it turns against Chloé’s friendship. He honestly probably says some very harsh stuff about Chloé’s history as a bully. She pushes that aside for later.

I’m thinking that Chloé knows she needs Chat back, and decides to go the ‘true love’s kiss’ route. Which means Marinette. Who just so happened to be trying to figure out a way to get a valentine to Chat Noir.

After everything’s back to normal, Adrien apologizes for the stuff he said while under Dark Cupid’s spell. Chloé says he doesn’t have to, because he was right. While she’d been kinda edging toward being nicer, this is where it really hits her that she should try in her civilian life instead of just as Ladybug.

Horrificator

Goes mostly the same. Mylene is scared and gets Akumatized over it. Chloé is trying to help by pointing out ‘why are you in a monster movie if you’re going to get this scared by what you know is coming??’, but it comes out bad. Chloé does get a chance to apologize by the end.

She also isn’t helping by trying to set up Mari and Adrien for the kiss scene. Which confuses everyone because while they noticed that Chloé wasn’t all over Adrien they still think she’s ‘hopelessly in love with him’ and have no clue why she’s doing that

Darkblade

Mostly the same for the Akuma plot.

Chloé decides to not blackmail anyone since it’s part of being nicer. I’m debating about having her decide to give up being class representative since being Ladybug is cutting into her free time enough, but considering her stubornness and the fact that she might feel pressured into the role by her dad, she might still run but ultimately lose to Marinette who wins since there was no blackmail to hold her back.

The Mime

The Akuma plot is the same. The side plot might be tweaked in that, since Marinette can’t recreate the footage herself, she tracks down Chloé and asks for her to recreate the interview she accidentally deleted.

Kung Food

Since Chloé is actively being nicer by this point, she wouldn’t sabotage the soup. I mean, I guess maybe this could be the point where Marinette says something to piss her off and Chloé slips back into her old ways for a bit, but regrets it as soon as she realizes what she really did and that this goes further than just petty revenge on someone who insulted her.

Gamer

Possibly different. Marinette wouldn’t have a reason to enter the gaming competition, therefore Max wouldn’t lose and be Akumatized.

Maybe Marinette ends up entering anyway. Or maybe Adrien suggests that Chloé try competing too since she’s definitely good at video games. (TELL ME I’M WRONG. Adrien only had her as a friend for most of his life! How would he get good at a multiplayer game if he didn’t have someone to play against?!)

Animan

Again, the Akuma is the same but the B plot is different! Since Adrien has a crush on Marinette, and everyone besides Marinette knows it because the boy is not subtle, I’m thinking something different.

Option A is that Nino has a crush on Alya and Adrien and Marinette try to set them up

Option B is that Nino, Alya, and Chloé try to set up a date for Adrien and Marinette. Nino and Alya are very confused about what’s up with Chloé but, well, you know how it goes.

Either way Chloé absolutely goes off on the Akuma of the day. “You were Akumatized because some dumbass doesn’t understand panthers??? What the fuck my man???”

Vanisher

I know Vanisher didn’t get her own episode but that was unfair as FUCK and this would fix it!

Since Chloé is actually Ladybug, she doesn’t dress up and pretend to be Ladybug. Therefore, the original fight can’t happen.

Instead, Chloé and Sabrina fight because Chloé keeps disappearing to be Ladybug. She runs off, she spends time with other people now, and she doesn’t answers Sabrina’s late night texts anymore because Chloé doesn’t have her phone on her when she’s out on patrols.  

Even though Chloé promised to be a better friend, she’s technically been worse and is making Sabrina feel invisible.

After De-Akumatizing her, Chloé and Sabrina have a long talk, and try to schedule things out. She can’t tell her about being Ladybug, but she absolutely tries to make sure they hang out more.

Anitibug

Obviously Chloé wouldn’t get Aumatized here. However, Marinette absolutely can!

It still has something to do with Ladybug though. I was thinking maybe Chloé as Ladybug would snap at her like a reverse of what happened in the show. But you know what would be better?

Marinette finds out that Chloé is Ladybug. Think about it. The girl that bullied her for years and the girl who gave her the confidence to stand up to said bully are the same person. It not only breaks her mind, but she spirals thinking about every interaction she had with Ladybug, over analyzing every little comment and turning it into some kind of insult.

Also, her whole thing with Chat Noir? Absolutely comes into play. Marinette has him tied up and does the whole ‘hey, look, your Ladybug is actually pretty terrible. How about you get with me instead?’. Chat’s like ‘Okay I like you but this is not how I wanted this to go down!!’.

Eventually she is de-akumatized, but it’s their hardest fight yet. Chloé tries to talk to Marinette, but she doesn’t want to hear it. But Chat and Tikki are there to make her (Mari also freaks out at Tikki, but that’s explained quickly).

Chloé is like ‘look, I’ve been terrible. I am terrible. Even if I’m trying to be better, I know that. But everything I said or did as Ladybug was true. And even if it wasn’t, it meant something to you. You stood up to me and my terrible self because of that. So even if it’s me behind the mask, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re kind of amazing. Also if you tell anyone I said that I will tie you to the top of the Eiffel Tower I swear to fuck.”

This kind of really gets through to Mari that she’s trying to be better. And she looks back and sees that a lot of Chloé’s weird behavior was her either being nice or trying and failing to be nice. This starts up a tentative friendship.

Chat’s kind of like ‘Hey since she knows who you are shouldn’t she know who I am?’, but Tikki says no and bans him from telling her. Adrien is screaming because this would fix all of his romance problems real quick but no he still has to try and win Marinette over as Adrien. Goddamn it.

Puppeteer

Probably goes about the same since none of the Mari/Chloé/Adrien things caused this.

However, Chloé goes off on Nadja for the toy incident. You are given a toy to borrow for the weekend, but forbid it because ‘your kid has too many toys’? What the fuck lady? It’d be one thing if your kid was begging to buy an expensive toy but this is a free gift she’d return after like a week!

Relfekta

since Chloé isn’t being mean, this probably happens differently. Maybe it’s a ‘slipping back into her old habits’ thing while trying to help get Mari next to Adrien, but she probably didn’t go as far. It was just Juleka’s curse that happened.

Guitar Villain

Happens the same, really. Can’t go wrong with a pet dragon.

Pixelator

Pretty much the same, except Adrien and Marinette get trapped together and Adrien is still dying inside because he can’t just transform to get them out because Tikki will kill him. (He does not want to anger the tiny god thing!)

Princess Fragrance

Instead of being a bitch, Chloé brushes off Rose’s request of delivering a letter to Prince Ali because she’s concerned about Tikki being sick.

Simon Says

Pretty much the same, except for two changes:

First, when Adrien snaps at his dad, Chloé’s like ‘nah he deserves it! Fuckin go off since you can without repercussions!’.

Secondly, when Chloé finds out why the guy got Akumatized, she points out it’s the fault of the showrunners for deciding ‘we’re going to call a person at random and if they refuse to participate you fail automatically bye bitch!’. Which gets the Akuma to be like ‘wait, you’re right. Hold that thought.’

Volpina

Hoo boy! This is fun!

So, Chloé actually pays no attention to Lila. She knows Lila’s lying, but she doesn’t care. It ain’t hurting her, and she’ll be found out soon enough. If she does try something, then she can easily give an interview as Ladybug to disprove her claim of friendship. (She wants to do it anyway because she’s salty but she refrains.)

Marinette picks up on Lila’s lies about knowing Ladybug, since she knows Chloé is Ladybug and Chloé doesn’t know Lila at all. She still does her thing of following Lila.

Adrien still finds the Book of Miraculous Bullshittery, and he tells Chloé to meet him in the library to discuss it. They start up, but are interrupted by Lila. The three look at the book, but Chloé takes it with her at the end of the conversation.

Lila still saw enough of the book to buy a fake Miraculous for later. Marinette still following her of course.

However, at the park scene, it’s Adrien who calls Lila out on her lies(Mari wants to, but she can’t prove anything since she isn’t Ladybug). Adrien’s obviously nicer, but he’s still like ‘I know you’re lying about knowing Ladybug and being a Hero, but why?’.

This pisses Lila off because she ruined her chances with him. She becomes Volpina of course.

Adrien and Chloé obviously put together that this is an Akuma and not another hero. When Adrien explains what happened, Chloé gets very upset that this girl tried to manipulate her best friend like that.

After defeating her, Chloé tentatively offers to give Lila another chance, since Adrien talked her into it. But Lila’s like ‘fuck you!’.

Christmas Special

So, like, since Chloé knows that Adrien’s Chat Noir, and knows he’s fine after he disappears, she doesn’t show up to kick santa’s ass. So something else probably happens.

So, I kinda stopped properly watching episodes after Season 1, but I know what happens and such to the point where I’ll talk on them. Not every episode, but ones where I know something would change.  

The Collector

Chloé goes to meet Master Fu, and she takes Adrien with her. There is a lot of mixed feelings over suggesting that Gabriel could be Hawkmoth that get discussed right then and there.

While Master Fu thinks Gabriel can’t be Hawkmoth since he was Akumatized, Chloé says they can’t rule him out. She knows manipulation tactics. And Gabriel becoming an Akuma right at the moment when they were investigating him? It’s suspicious. She lets it go for now, but she doesn’t rule him out. Adrien honestly agrees.

Despair Bear

Sine Chloé is already being nicer, there is no need to threaten her with the bear. And she wouldn’t be upset at Mari and Adrien dancing together. Not sure how/why the butler would be Akumatized. Maybe the butler doesn’t know shes being nicer and is trying to do this to help, but misunderstands her excitement over the dance as jealous anger?  Idk

Prime Queen

Since Chloé and Adrien are 110% platonic, when Nadja asks about the ‘supposed romantic relationship’, they laugh for a good two minutes before going ‘wait you’re serious??’. They explain that they’re not in a romance, they’re just good friends who trust the fuck out of each other

Riposte

Since Marinette isn’t joining the fencing club to impress Adrien, we have to do something different. Maybe she tries to join for other reasons. Either Adrien asks as a way to spend more time with her, or she joins because now that she knows about Chloé being Ladybug, she wants to help fight.

Gigantitan

Instead of everyone trying to get Mari to ask out Adrien, they’re trying to get Adrien to ask out Marinette.

Dark Owl

Chloé and Adrien already know each other’s identities, so this isn’t an ‘almost reveal’.

Glaciator

Since Adrien has a crush on Marinette and not Ladybug, he wouldn’t miss the ice cream date. The guy might get Akumatized when Marinette is disappointed that her ice cream isn’t Chat Noir flavored. (Okay, I wrote that at like 4 am and now that I’m coming back to it I am concerned at my wording.)

Sapotis

While Chloé is working on being friendly to all classmates, and Adrien is already close to Alya, she wouldn’t be their first choice for another Miraculous.

Instead, they give the Fox to Marinette. Not only does she already know about Chloé, but both of our heroes agree that Mari is Hero Material.(She really is. Even in this ‘she never got a Miraculous the first time AU, she still is!).

Chloé refuses to take the Fox away from Marinette. After all, it’s not fair that the Ladybug and Cat are out all the time. Not to mention that Mari can’t get any good practice in without the Miraculous. That and they don’t want to separate Mari and Trixx.

Also, Trixx teases the hell out of Tikki for having her Chosen be the first to screw up the secret identity thing.

Zombizou

As Chloé is nice here, neither Marinette nor Miss Bustier are in danger of being Akumatized because of her.

However, I have ideas for Miss Bustier’s Akumatization based off what was going to happen in my old fic The One Where Chloé Knows. I plan to continue that eventually, so skip this if you don’t want spoilers.

Basically, Miss Bustier is in some trouble with the school since most of the Akumas have come out of her class. She just wants to do her job and keep her students safe.

Syren

instead of being upset at Ladybug keeping secrets, since Chloé doesn’t do that, Adrien gets frustrated that he can’t tell Marinette who he is. Other than that this episode is pretty much the same.

Frightengale

instead of ruining Clara’s music video out of petty jealousy, Chloé does it to try and help protect Chat Noir’s secret identity. It backfires, of course, doubly so because she can’t tell Marinette why, but everything works out in the end.

Troublemaker

Mari doesn’t have a photo wall of Adrien. Maybe she has a wall of Chat Noir, but probably not since there aren’t as many printed pictures of him to collect.

Anansi

I’m debating on whether or not to do something with the Turtle Miraculous.

Option A is to keep it as is, giving it to Nino. This would be Adrien’s decision since he knows Nino best.

Option B, is to have Chloé give it to Sabrina, especially since she still feels guilty for not spending as much time with her.

I’m debating about it because while Option B makes some sense, Sabrina isn’t really Hero Material. Not yet at least. But Nino is.

Frozer

Marinette starts to get over her crush on Chat Noir, convincing herself it was just a ‘hero crush’ type thing. She decides to try a date with Luka. Adrien, believing he’s lost his love to him, tries going out with Kagami. Both end up wishing they were with each other instead.

Style Queen

Since Chloé is already Ladybug, she can’t be the Bee. She gives the Bee to someone else. Possibly Alya, to keep the original Quintet intact. But maybe someone else.

Instead of turning into a superhero out of jealous rage, Chloé snaps at her mother and nearly gets Akumatized before Adrien and Marinette manage to calm her down. This does get through to her mother, who realizes how much she’s been fucking up by being absent.  

Malediktator

Since Chloé is being a better person she would have no reason to leave Paris. I think her dad would probably get Akumatized due to Chloé’s near-breakdown in the previous episode, realizing how much he fucked up in raising her too.

Heroes’ Day

I wanted to say something would be different, but other than Marinette being re-akumatised instead of Chloé, not really. I guess the ‘good deeds’ speech would be different.

Backwarder

Since Marinette isn’t trying to deliver a love letter to Adrien, and likely isn’t the one doing any deliveries at all, the letters don’t get mixed up. Not sure how this would go down instead.

Weredad

A few things are different. Firstly, Mari wouldn’t have a secret identity to hide since Chat Noir knows she’s the Fox.(I guess I could go back and say oh, no, only Chloé knows, but not only was it a group decision to give her the Fox, but Chloé wouldn’t put them in a love square so help her!)

Marinette also does actually have a crush on Chat Noir in this AU, so it wouldn’t be a panic-fueled lie.

Even if Mari confessed to liking Chat Noir to distract him, Chat would be delighted instead of saying ‘I’m in love with someone else’. However, he might say ‘sorry, as much as I do return your affections, we can’t be together right now due to the secret identity’

Chameleon

When Lila tries to manipulate the class into loving her, Chloé calls her out on it. At first people think it’s Chloé going back to her old ways and/or trying to shift the hatred to the new girl.

Then Marinette chimes in with the stuff she eavesdropped on back in Volpina, and Adrien hesitantly backs up the claims that Lila did try to lie to get him to date her.

Everyone agrees that Lila might’ve lied about that, but there’s a chance she’s not lying about other things. Still, they now take what she says with a grain of salt.

Lila confronts Chloé in the bathrooms this time, telling her the usual ‘stay out of my way or I’ll ruin you’. Chloé tells her ‘go ahead and try. They already hate me. I have nothing to lose!’.

Chloé has a minor breakdown after Lila leaves though. Because while she said she has nothing to lose, she kind of does. Because people are starting to genuinely like her now that she’s being nice. And if Lila ruins that…. Well, Chloé almost gets Akumatized over it, but she pulls together knowing that Adrien and Marinette would never believe Lila.

Lila then becomes Chameleon and causes chaos though. Lila still has a hatred of Ladybug, but she also hates Chloé and Marinette as much. Only reason she doesn’t hate Adrien is because if she can get him, then it will be a big fuck you to Chloé and Marinette.

Animaestro

Since Marinette and Chloé aren’t fighting over Adrien, they don’t have a problem.

Bakerix

There’s mostly no change except for the fact that Chloé puts together that this might not be about bread recipes….

Oblivio

Since it’s Chloé and Adrien getting memory wiped, their assumptions are different. I could go for comedy and say they also assume they are a couple and get grossed out later when they regain their memories, but I think they assume they’re siblings since they obviously trust each other but don’t have a romantic spark.

Stormy Weather 2

Chloé’s not a jerk anymore, so she wouldn’t be picking on Aurore. Idk what happens I’m tired it’s fuckin 5 am as I’m typing this now.

Onichan

I doubt that Adrien would be allowed to be alone near Lila after what happened in Chameleon. While Chloé and Marinette would be willing to give her a chance at redemption, Lila has shown no sign of doing so and would not trust her until she does.

Adrien might end up forced by something else to spend time with Lila. Or maybe he’s just too nice for his own damn good.

However, he gets very cold when Lila pulls the kiss picture, and decides ‘no. No way. You want another chance you gotta go through someone else first’.

Miraculer

Since Chloé is the Bee, and none of the other Heroes identities are known, and they get to keep their Miraculous 24/7, this doesn’t really happen.

I feel like this could be a time to change the entire episode plot. Say, for example, Chloé finally gives in to her insecurities and fears over being never enough and gets Akumatized. She manages to take off the Miraculous first, and Tikki zips off to find one of the other heroes to be Ladybug for the day. She absolutely chooses Marinette for the cookies.

Timetagger

FUCK IT I’M GIVING ALIX THE SNAKE INSTEAD OF THE RABBIT FUCK YOU SHE HAS SNAKE DESIGNS ON HER SLEEVES GODDAMNIT.

Sorry it’s 5 am and I’m salty. But seriously.

I don’t think Gamer 2.0 would change, and that’s the most recent episode as of typing this so fuck it this is going right into the void tomorrow and then I can go back to working on fuckin fullmetal alchemist and all that other gay shit.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Chloé Bourgeois #Adrien Agreste #marinette dupain cheng #Marichat #Adrienette #Chat Noir #Lady Luck AU #I'm not gonna tag everyone but those are the main players so they're getting tagged

[homestuckexamination]

Homestuck: Timelines and Time Flow

@crowdcontrolhs asked:

can you try to explain how time and timelines work in homestuck? i could never really grasp all of the convoluted time stuff. hope this isn't too vague lmao.

It’s not vague at all! It is confusing, but not because the system itself is complicated. It’s actually straightforward enough, but the issue is that at any given time there’s like, five or so different flows of Time interacting with one another.

Obvious spoilers for the ENTIRETY of Homestuck under the cut.

Okay so to start with, Timelines in Homestuck work under the assumption that Parallel Timelines exist- Timelines where you took a different route, you chose something differently, and produced a deviation. However, Homestuck also says there exists an Alpha Timeline, a Timeline that’s considered as the True Path, what should be happening in the end, and considers any deviation from this path to be Doomed. A Doomed Timeline is, thus, a series of events deviating from the Alpha Timeline that Paradox Space considers redundant. No matter how far that Timeline goes, since it’s deviated from the Alpha, it will never be relevant, and as such, it needs to cease existing at some point. We see this actually happen with Davesprite’s Timeline. Rose falls asleep, the last Player Character left in the Timeline gives up, and everything around her just... Disappears, before erasing her very existence. It’s as if that Rose had never existed in the first place. (Except of course, Alpha Rose manages to assimilate this Rose’s memories, likely either a Seer or a Light or a Seer of Light thing)

So this is straightforward enough. But this is only the first layer. The next layer are Time Loops. And this is the thing Dave, and every other Time Player needs to deal with. Whenever they use Time Powers to travel back in time, they’re travelling back into the Alpha Timeline. But now imagine that the ‘you’ from the past sees the ‘you’ from the Future, and decides that they don’t want to go back in time. Given that the Alpha you never went back in time, the one ‘you’ that did travel in time became Doomed, they are redundant, and are fated to die. So if you don’t want your Session to fill with Dead Copies of yourself, you need to travel back in Time. As such, you may see your future Self warping back in time, and then you know if you don’t want that ‘you’ to die, you need to travel back at some point just like that, closing this ‘loop’ and avoiding the creation of a Paradox.

Still with me? Okay! Because that’s only Timelines within a Session. Now is when we get to the spicy part of Cross-Dimensional Timelines. Already within the same Universe, there’s several elements that interact from different points across the Timeline. Let’s take the moment the Player Enters SBURB and consider it the Present. Before the Present, the only thing that exists within SBURB is Prospit, Derse, the Veil and Skaia. The Battlefield is unprototyped and locked in an eternal Stalemate, and even then the existence of all of this is only confirmed by the Players’ Dreamselves being able to Wake Up prior to the Entry of the Lands, implying that at LEAST the Moons and Skaia do exist. When we reach the Present, a Land is created. This Land has history, inhabitants, that act as though they had always been there, however as we see from the Entries of the Kids, this is false. The Lands come into being the second the Players enter, in the Present, but they are pre-programmed with a history.

Now within the SBURB Session in the Present, there’s the Veil. The Veil is the Asteroid Ring surrounding the Session, and it contains Ectobiology Laboratories, as well as the Frog Temple (Only one per Planet, so arguably only the Kids’ Session would have this, but for argument’s sake, let’s say every Fan Session is a ‘Main Session’ and has the Frog Temple in it). When the Reckoning begins, the Veil’s Meteors are sent towards the Battlefield, and in an attempt to protect it, Skaia opens defense portals that send these Meteors to various points in the history of the Planet. Now, inside of the Frog Temple, there’s a Time Capsule. A Stasis Device that allows anything to remain inert for Millions of years. So when something is put in the Capsule, it travels with the Frog Temple to the FAR past of the planet, and spends Millions of years isolated inside of it until it blossoms and allows it out. This connects the ‘Present’ of the Session with any point in the past of the Planet, allowing for items, people, weapons, anything to be put in there in any point in the future that will be retrieved at any desired point within the Planet’s lifespan.

Conversely, the Meteors that Land in the Present causing the End of the World, eventually become Exile Stations. At some point within the Session, one, or both Kingdoms are going to end up ruined, and Carapaces are going to lose their homes, their way of living, and their lives. The survivors will abandon the Kingdoms and fly through the Meteor Portals to create a new civilization on the Planet. And when these Stations appear, they allow the contact of the surviving Carapaces with the Present of the Session. With Sendificators and Appearifiers that allow them to take and give items at will, Command Devices to communicate directly with the Players, and even more complicated Devices I’ll get to in a little bit.

This way, the Future is linked with the Present through the Exile Stations, and the Past is linked with the Present through the Time Capsule, allowing for all sorts of Cross-Timeline Shenanigans. Got that? Good. Because now we’re talking about the Scratch. In the SBURB Session, in the Land of the Time Player of the Session, there’s a Device. The Scratch Construct. They tend to be shaped as methods of storing music- At least the two we’ve seen were, a Music Box and a Record- And contain vast amounts of Time and Space Energy. Raw power. And if this Device is Scratched in such a way that it releases the vast amounts of energy carried within, Skaia will take this event as a Signal, and begin a Soft Reboot of the Universe. Skaia will take the Energy from the Scratch Construct, and retroactively alter the Time the Meteors were sent through the Portals. Given the Meteors carried the ectobiologically created Players of the Session, changing the Time at which they arrived effectively Alters the Timeline.

But the Scratch is no mere Time Loop or Alternate Timeline bullshit. No, the Scratch is more than that. It’s a reset button. The vast Spacetime Energy of the Scratch Construct isn’t used to switch the Portals. It’s used to delete the Timeline. It doesn’t create a new Timeline, it overwrites the one that was there already, and as such, everything within the Session simply ceases to exist when the Scratch happens. However, as I said, the Scratch is overwriting the Universe. Paradoxically, what happened before the Scratch STILL Happened, and by being outside of the Session, outside of the Universe, when the Scratch happens, people who once inhabited the Universe can survive and live on beyond this reboot.

And this new Reality that is created, this new Timeline with the destination of the Meteors changed, exists as if it had always been there, and in fact, it always has, because even though the new Planet will have a New Frog Temple, they still occupied the same Universe, and the Frog Temple has a sendificator that connects Pre and Post Scratch versions of the Universe, which as we see in Canon with Jade and Jake, has kept the two in contact from the very beginning! In addition to this, it would seem as though Pre and Post Scratch versions of the same Universe’s Sessions are connected through the Fourth Walls present in the Archagents’ office, connecting with an extra-dimensional Space where the author of the Webcomic himself inhabits, buuuut let’s not talk about this too much okay? So. We have the way a single Timeline works, we have the connection between the Session and the Planet, and we have the connection between Pre-Scratch and Post-Scratch Realities. 

Now let’s talk about other Universes. The purpose of SBURB is to create a New Universe, this is the Genesis Frog, and the result of breeding the Genesis Tadpole, winning against the Black King to stop the Reckoning from Destroying the Battlefield, perforating the planet, feeding it the Grist Hoard to make it fertile, and casting the Tadpole from the Forge by burning the Queen’s Magic Ring in it in a process very reminiscent of a sperm cell getting to an egg. Once you create this Universe, a Gate is created that connects your Session with the new Universe, and allows you to travel to it and claim your place as the God of the new Reality. And as we see in the post-Credits Snapchats, the Door that connects the Session and the Universe is Permanent if not destroyed. Jack Noir and the Felt travel through it 5000 years after the Kids won the game from the perspective of the new Universe, or maybe not 5000 years but they use Felt Time Juju Shenanigans to get there exactly 5000 years afterwards? Hard to tell. The thing is, however, that Terezi comes back to the Session, and to the Crumbling Paradox Space a year afterwards, implying that yes, wherever the Door actually leads, there’s a permanent portal connecting the Session that made the Universe and the Universe itself. And in the same way, the Exile Stations that will appear in the Planet of said Universe have devices that can send things and people to the Session that created it, seen specifically sending a Prototyped Jack Noir to the exact instant the Trolls were about to claim their reward for winning the game.

Adding upon the devices SBURB itself uses to connect points in the Timeline, we also have Trollian. Trollian is a Highly Advanced Chat Service used by the Trolls that can connect you, not just to anyone from another Chat Service as long as you have their address, but it does this across any point of the Alpha Timeline, and across multiple Universes. With this, the Trolls can connect and speak with the Beta Kids of the Universe they created, through their entire lives up until the point of the Scratch, and it allows Calliope, who lives millions of years in the future of the Universe the Alpha Human Session creates, to chat and interact with both the Strilondes that live 413 Years in the Future of Post Scratch Earth, and with Jake and Jane who live in the Present of the same Planet. It seems that Trollian loses contact with any Timeline that is Doomed, as seen when they stop talking to the Kids after John dies in the Davesprite Timeline, but as we see in some of the Trolls’ Screens, it does allow to talk to multiple versions of the same person within the same Timeline, such as the various Daves doing time loops through the Session.

SO we have the Timeline within a Universe, the connection with it and SBURB, the connection between the two Pre and Post Scratch Realities, AND also the connection between different Universes! That’s it right!? There’s NO way it can’t get more complicated than this!

And that, my friends, is where the Furthest Ring comes in.

The Furthest Ring is the Space Between Universes in Homestuck. It’s the great Beyond, it’s where the Eldritch Lurk. The Confines of Space-Time. It’s Homestuck’s Version of that unknowable extra-dimensional Space where the Eldritch Inhabit that has been described before in all sorts of media. This is a realm inhabited by the Horrorterrors, Immortal, Eternal, Chaotic Beings opposed to the forces of Creation, presumably because each time a new Universe is made a Bubble pops in their turf and they don’t want neighbours. They’re actually pretty chill all things considered. The important thing about the Furthest Ring, however, is that there’s no Time or Space in the Furthest Ring.

It’s a Space outside of common dimensions, and its fabric is permeated with the 12 Aspects of the Homestuck Universe. Sometimes walking a distance will send you back in time, or staying still make you change locations, there’s few ways to map or predict a journey through this Space, both Where and When you will end up. Only through Frames of Reference created by the Cracks Lord English creates with his mouth lasers, destroying reality itself, through Foresight, such as Rose’s Seer of Light abilities telling her where to go, or through Willpower alone, with the Furthest Ring guiding you to where you need to be the most, can you actually navigate it. And so, once you leave the Universes or the Sessions and find yourself in this weird plane of existence, all Timelines converge because, no matter where you come from, everything is fair game out there.

Not only that, but after Feferi requests the Gods to blow Bubbles for her and their friends to Dream and remain as Souls, effectively becoming the Homestuck Analogue of the Afterlife, the Bubbles become a cauldron of Information from every single Timeline, Doomed or otherwise, and all three Universes the story spans. The Alpha Trolls, the Beta Trolls, the Beta and Alpha Humans, Lord English, Calliope, Alt Calliope, Bec Noir, PM, the Felt, everyone ends up in the Furthest Ring at some point, Dreaming or Dying or passing through Physically, and as such, all events in Homestuck mix together outside of their respective Timelines.

And yet there’s STILL one more thing. Beyond the In-Universe Mechanisms and the Extra-Universal Bullshit, past Alpha and Beta and back to Alpha, A, B or C, there’s still one thing that makes Time even more of a Mess in the realm of Homestuck. The Retcon.

It’s hard to say exactly what John’s powers are- If just an amplification of his own powers as the Heir of Breath, or a new Power Caliborn’s Juju grants him. Whichever the case, one thing is certain, John becomes effectively unstuck from the events that transpire Homestuck. The Alpha Timeline becomes meaningless to John, distance and time become irrelevant- Or it would if he could actually control his God Damn powers properly. But of course this isn’t the case.

See, John’s powers are very special in the sense that they grant him control over the more Meta aspects of the comic. Narrative coherency goes out the Window, because John has, effectively, left the Story. So when he goes Back in time, he’s not creating a new Timeline. He’s editing the Story. He’s inserting himself into another point of the Narrative Timeline. This makes him not actually need to follow any Loops, and not create Doomed Timelines. He’s Changing the plot. Most of these uses are gags, with him being unable to control When or Where he goes, he just appears at random during events that happen in the story, and leaves marks such as his arm poking out, the glow of his body, or a stain of ink. But there’s one thing he does manage to fully Retcon, and that is the Game Over Timeline. Following Terezi’s instructions, he alters the plot to bring Vriska back. He brings Roxy and his Land with him to the new Session he created by bringing Vriska back, and carries the Ring from another Timeline for Roxy to revive Calliope.

However even this Canon-Breaking power is something defined within the Narrative of Homestuck. It changes the plot, but given Homestuck knows and plays with the fact it’s a story, it also plays with the fact that this power has its limitations, and its consequences. For one, the Retcon Powers are necessary in the first place for Lord English to be born, which, as stupid as it sounds, makes the power to change the plot actually necessary to complete the plot. Second, even though John can change virtually anything in the story, every change comes with a price.

This is seen in the Timeline he creates by reviving Vriska. Since he’s carrying himself, Roxy, and a couple of Sprites to the new Timeline, the John, Roxy and Davesprite of that Timeline are Doomed to Die to make room for them. Curiously, this doesn’t seem to apply to everyone- In the End, there’s two Nannasprites going around, implying that either Sprites are seen as ‘irrelevant’ enough by the Timeline to allow duplicates, or that by the End of Homestuck we’re not even following the true Alpha Timeline, and instead just the ‘Changed’, idealized version John has created to escape the Alpha Timeline.

In this way, the Retcon Powers work similarly to the Scratch, where things technically are Changed, Reset, but there’s still ways to escape its influence. John stops Terezi from killing Vriska, but the Dead Vriska from the original Timeline still exists, because she’s in the Furthest Ring. And as there’s no proper Space or Time flow in the Furthest Ring, she exists outside of the normal parameters of the story.

And THAT is how Timelines work in Homestuck. Again, by itself, each part isn’t that complex, but given the story of Homestuck happens across 3 different Universes, several pocket Dimensions, the Furthest Ring, and has things such as the Scratch and the Retcon, it gets incredibly convoluted the further you get into it.

Hope this cleared something up! Or... Maybe it made you more confused.

#Homestuck #Class #Aspect #Time #Space #Furthest Ring #Horrorterrors #Alpha Troll Session #Beta Troll Session #Alpha Human Session #Beta Human Session #Cherub Session #Medium #Skaia #Prospit #Derse #Veil #Ectobiology #Scratch #Meteor #Yard #John #Retcon #Reckoning #Genesis Frog #Roxy #Davesprite #Nannasprite #Vriska #Terezi

[jungnoir]

amour chassé-croisé;

⇢ summary:  by day, you’re just a normal teenager in love with a popular model that goes to your school: jeon jungkook. but by night? you protect the city of paris under the alias ladybug, assisted by the ever elusive, ever anonymous, and ever so flirtatious, chat noir. you’ve always wondered who chat noir really is under the mask, but he may just be closer than you think.

⇢ relationship: jeon jungkook/reader.

⇢ genre: miraculous ladybug!au, romance, angst.

⇢ words: 9.6k (i am so sorry) (even more sorry because I rewrote this so I tacked on about 700 more words)

⇢ warnings: violence, some swearing of course

a/n: highly indulgent fic. i realized that adrien and jungkook have a lot in common, and god damn it, if i didn’t write it, who would? 🐞

Let’s get two things straight: one, you didn’t ask to be one of Paris’ only hopes against evil butterflies possessing everyday people, turning them into mind-controlled villains that want to kill you for a power you did not want nor ask to have. And two, you didn’t ask for Paris’ other only hope to be monumentally bad at making puns.

“We really are in a pickle, right, my lady?” Chat Noir manages to ask you, dodging out of the way seconds before a weaponized cucumber could stab him in the abdomen. 

You’d roll your eyes right out of your head if you didn’t need them to guide you across the rooftops of the city in one piece, “Could you maybe focus that energy you spend on making jokes to stop said pickles?”

This was the game every other day. That asshole Hawkmoth would find an innocent, mildly upset citizen and turn them into a murderous villain who, by the way, couldn’t be stopped by anyone except you and your partner. A city’s worth of police were virtually no match for what Hawkmoth could cook up. If being the only two people capable of saving the city whenever something supernaturally criminal happened wasn’t enough, Hawkmoth just had to stir up trouble right before a really important exam. You had spent four hours cramming every bit of info you could on the invasion of Normandy into your head last night, and you’d be damned if you didn’t get a chance to ace that test.

“What kind of grocer has this much pent up aggression? I swear, that last head of cabbage he threw at me felt personal.” Chat visibly shivered under his skin-tight suit, leather tail flapping in the wind behind him as he leapt to catch up with you. Despite the perfectly sunny, otherwise peaceful spring day in Paris, you found it hard to be positive about coming out of this fight unscathed. This villain was, strangely, a much better shot than past villains had been… and you two had fought a damn medieval knight once, for God’s sake.

You feel something squash against your back, and the faint smell of tomato fills your nose just before you can swear at the sky, “Tomatoes? Really?” 

“At least you’re wearing red, my lady. It blends in.” Chat remarks unhelpfully from beside you, moments before a banana boomerang is hurled at his side, slicing his arm in a clean cut. You could only hear him hiss under his breath before he was grabbing his baton from his belt and looking over at you, “I’ll provoke him, send him away from the citizens. Follow me and be ready.” 

It was rare for Chat to ever give orders, as he was usually the one taking them from you, but you could tell from his tone of voice that the situation’s severity was becoming obvious even to him, and his joking nature had to be put aside for now. 

Nodding an affirmative, you trickle off to the side, watching as Chat turns and begins taunting the villain down below. Meanwhile, your mind runs a mile a minute, like it always did in the heat of battle. And you weren’t always like this, either.

You still vividly remembered the day you had come home to a strange looking jewelry box laying on your bed three months ago, one your parents claimed they had never seen before. They’d offered that maybe it was from Hoseok, and that he’d stopped by while they were out of the bakery to leave you a gift, but for what occasion was beyond all three of you. Your confusion had only started to mount when you’d texted him and, no, it wasn’t from him. No one else had a key to your place.

Part of you had warned you not to touch the box, that you should have just chucked it as far as you could into the ocean and never look back, but another part of you… felt like it was fate.

Fate had come in the hands of a small, red fairy named Tikki (who referred to herself as a kwami, as if you knew what that was). You had promptly screamed at her and threw the jewelry box she sprang from across the room before she could explain that no, you weren’t hallucinating. After a lot of coaxing, you had listened to Tikki tell you that you had been chosen as the holder of a “miraculous”, better known as a pair of polka-dot earrings that looked completely ordinary. That was, until you put them on. 

You had transformed into something out of a comic book. Tikki had morphed into a red and black super-suit and mask, along with a palm-sized yo-yo strapped to your hip that could literally create anything from thin air. Tikki had explained that you had possession of the Ladybug miraculous, and that you now had the power to create: a power that, according to Tikki and Hawkmoth, was one of the two most powerful miraculouses to exist. The other of the two belonged to Chat Noir in the form of a ring, and it had the power to destroy whatever was graced with his claws. You could see now how dangerous it was to be waltzing around high school wearing that much power as a quirky fashion accessory, but it wasn’t like there was a “return-to-sender” option anywhere.

One way or another, you’d been chosen by a higher power to guard Paris and everyone in it. Whether you liked it or not wasn’t really up for debate, because you had a job to do.

Taking a deep breath, you centered yourself in the moment, focusing on the situation. Chat had managed to lead the villain toward an empty park, and you mentally thanked him for keeping the damage controlled before stepping over the ledge of the building you were on and letting yourself descend. Unclipping your yo-yo from your side, you threw it toward a nearby lamp post and jolted as your body was yanked from meeting the concrete and back into the air, swinging with precision toward your destination. 

You got a clear view of Chat battling the villain who seemed to be gaining the upper hand. You knew it wouldn’t be long before Chat’s energy completely diminished, so you had to think quick. 

Landing a few feet behind Chat, you whispered a quick prayer to that aforementioned higher power before tossing your yo-yo to the air and yelling “Lucky Charm!”

What came down was a large plastic bag, and you couldn’t hide the exasperation in your face as you looked over at Chat. He looked just about as irritated with your puzzling super power as you did, his baton poised in front of you to bat off any incoming projectiles while you figured out how to stop the villain. The upside of your power was that it almost always took out the villain in one go, but the downside was that you only had so long to pull it off. Your super power was especially strenuous on Tikki, and she’d only last a few minutes at least before you lost your power and suit and your identity was revealed.

Shooting Chat a fleeting glance, you muster the best smile you can and start looking around for clues to help you. “Good luck, Sherlock.” Chat salutes you with one clawed hand, shooting you a reassuring smirk. Somehow, that look of confidence in his feline green eyes had given you the assurance you needed to figure this out, and you couldn’t have been more thankful for your partner in that moment. You would have never believed you would’ve trusted someone this much three months ago, especially when you didn’t even know their real name.

But it was better this way. He didn’t know you in real life, and you didn’t know him. If anything went wrong, God forbid, your identities and lives were safe. It was less dangerous if you didn’t know each other. It was… professional, as it should be. 

It was better this way, right?

Your head slumps into the break between the two pages of your biology book, the sleep that you’d been roused from not twenty minutes ago still clinging to your mind like delicious, sweet honey… the kind you would use to sweeten your Sleepytime tea, right before bed, collapsing into a plush oasis of cotton and plushies and-

“Wakey, wakey sunshine! It’s another glorious day of high school.” You hear a familiar voice sing by your ear and when you look to your left, you see your best friend—Hoseok—smiling beside you. Thankfully for him, his appearance is all the more pleasant when he’s holding two strawberry cream cheese bagels in hand, one desperately calling your name. You snatch one as he snickers and slides into the seat beside you as you start munching away and recognizing the familiar recipe of your parents’ bakery. Nothing was more comforting than home-baked bagels. Except maybe the cupcakes.

“You won’t believe the awesome footage I got of Ladybug and Chat Noir yesterday.” You nearly choke as Hoseok brings out his camcorder, the moment ruined as a giddy smile lights his face. He scoots you close enough to look at the screen. There you see a smaller, recorded version of yourself nabbing the grocery store owner in the plastic bag, effectively turning his magical veggies and fruits to rot and rendering him completely useless.

You watch as you just manage to disarm and turn the villain back to normal before you watch yourself darting out of the shot, undoubtedly at the same time that Tikki had started to wear out on you. You had just managed to make it around a corner before you de-transformed, and thankfully, Hoseok hadn’t caught any of it.

Breathing a slight sigh of relief, you smile at your best friend and pat his shoulder, “You’re getting pretty good at this, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ladybug follows your blog about her and Chat. Maybe one day Ladybug will give you a personal shoutout while she’s gallivanting around Paris.” You grin as Hoseok’s eyes light up.

“Don’t say stuff like that so casually! I might actually have a heart attack.” He scolds you and puts away his camera, but he can’t hide the embarrassing large smile on his face as he inevitably dreams about meeting his all-time idol. 

You weren’t sure what had Hoseok so obsessed with Ladybug, but you couldn’t deny that you liked to use it to your advantage whenever you could. You’d attempt to fluster him whenever “Ladybug” had to do interviews, specifically mentioning how you had things for dancers with orange hair, or how you were totally crazy over (insert new video game here) that Hoseok had talked your ear off about the night before. It was always worth the cherry red blush on his cheeks when you did, and you liked making your best friend happy. So long as he never found out your secret, you’d be fine.

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust Hoseok with the secret either, but you had been keeping said secret from everyone for so long that you had no idea what was safe to tell anyone. If anyone found out that Hoseok knew Ladybug’s true identity, his life would immediately be in danger, and you would die before you ever let that happen. Even if it meant lying to the people you loved in your life, you had to. 

But, when it came to Chat, was the reason still valid?

Your mind had been playing a game of tug-o-war for the last few weeks, mulling over the heavy question at any moment of mental rest. It was difficult to answer, even more difficult when you recognized that you and Chat had no one to look to regarding how this whole superhero thing was supposed to go. You still had no clue who had left you those earrings, and even less of an idea of the mysterious past that swirled around your identities. Tikki only warned that you’d find out in time, but how long was long enough?

While you waited for class to start, Hoseok gushing over his blog beside you, you felt the air in the room comically change. It might have been cliché, but you had a natural instinct for when Jeon Jungkook stepped on the premises. 

You often mused about how someone could look that perfect everyday, but being a model and the son of a renowned fashion designer instantly made Jungkook the best looking guy in all of Paris- nay, the world. He always managed to have weightless, wavy brown hair that looked impeccably styled every morning, with a fresh, nearly poreless face and only the highest-end wardrobe. You’d never seen a guy dress as neatly and cleanly as Jungkook did, and, granted, he sort of stuck to the most plain outfits he owned, but there was no doubt that each fiber cost your parents’ mortgage and then some. 

Jungkook’s natural charisma had even tricked Hoseok into buying a moisturizer for the first time in his life, and you knew it was still collecting dust in his closet along with the millions of other things Hoseok had been inclined to try throughout his many, many phases in high school.

But what made you like Jungkook so much was the fact that he, despite being the most popular and most handsome guy in school, was stunningly kind. Whether to professors, staff, or other students, he always showed a genuine care toward anyone he came in contact. By extension, he always managed to say hello to you when he saw you. In fact, you nearly missed his timid wave as he and his best friend, Taehyung, walked up to the desk in front of your own. 

“Hey, (Name), Hoseok!” Jungkook greets the both of you as he drops his backpack to the ground by the seats in front of you. You wave back and try to keep a nonchalant expression until both he and Taehyung have turned away from you, before you let out a soundless squeal. 

“Did you see that?” You whisper to Hoseok, your excitement getting the best of you.

Your best friend rolls his eyes playfully, nudging you with his arm, “Why don’t you just talk to him, you moron? It’s not like he’s gonna bite… unless you’re into that type of thing-” A furious heat overtakes your cheeks as you bat Hoseok on the shoulder, the boy unable to contain his snickers.

You had to admit, you would have never imagined you’d feel this way for Jungkook after your somewhat… rocky beginnings. He was instantly consumed by the popular crowd when he first came to your school, a crowd which consisted of one of the biggest headaches in the school: Chloe. Chloe, being the daughter of the mayor, often liked to tease those who were less fortunate than her, and you and Hoseok often fell under that category. As soon as you had heard that Chloe had known Jungkook since they were kids however, you had assumed that Jungkook was her equal in everything, including asshole-ness.

But then… he wasn’t.

Jungkook didn’t trip you in the hallways, or leave gum in your seat, or berate you about how your clothes were out of style and your family’s business would run into the ground one day. Jungkook didn’t scoff when you got an answer right, and he didn’t purposefully send out minions to taunt you when he was bored. No, Jungkook was good. Too good, in fact, for anyone like Chloe.

And too good for you, too.

As if on cue, Chloe bursts into the room with her favorite slave Sabrina in tow, headed straight for Jungkook. Her pristine ponytail sashayed with every step, and you watched as Jungkook lowered his head, his eyes squinting shut as his impending doom awaited. Your heart panged with pity. 

“Jungkook!” She squealed, not paying Taehyung any mind as she scooted the other boy away from Jungkook by slipping into the space between their seats. The boy tumbled awkwardly off his chair and into another as per routine before she stole that spot, her veiny fingers resembling something like Chat’s claws when she gripped Jungkook’s shoulder. His wince was immediate, and when Chloe looked down, her eyes widened in shock. 

You had barely noticed when he had walked in, but there was a sliver of a white bandage wrapped around his upper arm. It was crudely wrapped and you assumed he had done it himself (a fact that puzzled you. someone like Jungkook surely had access to the best medical care in the nation; why would he tend to his own wound so badly?) and wore slightly longer sleeves that day in hopes that no one would notice it. Chloe was appalled. “Are you okay, Kookie? What happened to your arm?”

“N-Nothing, Chloe. I just hit it on something. Don’t worry about it.” He quickly assures her, softly batting her hand away from his arm. Your lips turn down in a small frown as you examine it from your place behind, your mind tickling with a small memory you couldn’t quite place. Hadn’t you seen a wound in that same place before? It was familiarly placed, but you couldn’t quite guess…

“Hmph, alright. You know, you haven’t answered my texts lately. I’m starting to wonder if you’re too busy to hang out with your best friend anymore.” Chloe purrs.

Jungkook doesn’t mention her wild miscalculation of being his best friend, only gives Taehyung an apologetic look over her head, “Sorry, Chloe… I have been super busy.” 

At this, Chloe raises a bleached eyebrow and leans in closer, her lips turning into a smirk, “Busy with what, exactly? Is your dad finally letting you leave France for summer vacation? OMG, you should totally come with me and my daddy to our Italian villa this year. It’s a beautiful house on a hill, and we can stroll through the gardens, pick grapes together, share a little pasta… steal a few kisses-” 

“Chloe, I thought I told you to keep a ten foot distance between you and Jungkook.” 

Your shoulders sag in relief when your teacher enters, and Chloe grudgingly gets up and moves away, her eyes lingering on Jungkook in hopes he’d give her the signal he’d talk later, but Jungkook keeps his nose buried in his textbook to your great pride. You decide to keep your gaze focused on the teacher from that point on, the tension from having Chloe so near having made you stiff in the spine.

At least, you had meant to focus only on the teacher. “Why don’t you just turn her down and get it over with?” Taehyung admonishes when he reclaims his seat again, his voice low enough that only you and Hoseok could possibly hear. The teacher begins scribbling notes on the board, and even though you try not to eavesdrop (read: you didn’t try at all), your ears get the best of you.

“Sorry man,” “sorry” was such a commonplace word in Jungkook’s vocabulary that you actually started to worry if he knew many other words, “on top of school and other stuff, I can’t find the time to even start thinking about talking to Chloe.” 

“You’re in high school, dude. I know you’re France’s golden boy, but your dad is seriously working you to the bone. What do you do so much that you can’t find time to think anymore?” Quietly, you can hear the more laidback of the two flipping open his tattered book with a tut under his breath. 

Your eyes manage to tear away from the chalkboard to catch Jungkook’s reply, but his eyes are already on you. Shit, he’d caught you spying! You quickly shuffle your gaze back to your own book in hopes that he might forgive you for the intrusion of privacy. A few seconds go by of utter silence between the two of them. “It’s more important than you’ll ever know.” Is all Jungkook can reply. You don’t feel his eyes leave you for a beat longer.

Finally, you can breathe (and look up) again when he looks away, his shoulders hunching as he starts copying the teacher’s notes down. He doesn’t look at you again for the rest of the day.

“Awfully quiet tonight, my lady.”

You jump, and had you not been so accustomed to hanging off the sides of rooftops, you might have plummeted to your death at the scare. But you knew his voice anywhere, and he took care to place a clawed hand at your waist, gripping a little to make sure you didn’t fall before he spoke. You hadn’t realized he had found you, or that he had been comfortably leaning beside you before announcing his presence until you noticed a half-eaten bag of gummy worms in his lap. He raises the bag toward your nose with a smile, an offer, and you take a few with a quiet “thank you”. You don’t bother asking him how he’s found you; you both know each other’s habits well enough by now.

“It is pretty quiet, isn’t it? I guess even Hawkmoth has to wash that vengeful ass of his everyday too.” You snicker, biting off the head of a worm.

“I meant you, my lady.” Chat replies casually. You turn to look at him in surprise, and those unnaturally green eyes squint up when he laughs. “Something on your mind?”

Chat Noir wasn’t your partner for nothing. You both could read each other better than your favorite stories. Dropping your shoulders and folding your arms across your chest, suddenly shy, you look away from him to survey the sparkling French city, “Just thinking about… who I can really trust.”

“Deep.” Chat whispers, crinkling his snack bag as he meticulously picks the next worm to eat. “Why? Did someone hurt you? Do I need to give someone a super wedgie?” You can’t stop yourself from laughing as Chat nudges you, his own smile showing when he manages to get you to do the same, “I’m serious, my lady. I will hang them from the top of the Eiffel Tower until they apologize to you.”

You push his chest lightly, “Isn’t that a bit dramatic? That’s like hiring a hitman. A hitman who likes scratches behind his ear.” To further prove your point, you reach up to the pair of synthetic black ears poking out of his dark hair and scratch, making his foot stutter against the rooftop. He quickly pushes your hand away with an embarrassed blush. 

“It’s the kwami that likes that by the way,” he reminds you, leaning back on his elbows with a pout, “not me. But anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Did someone hurt you?”

You don’t miss the sudden change in tone when Chat asks you again what’s wrong, and your heart involuntarily thumps a little harder when you realize his unabashed care for you. He wasn’t simply asking to ask; he wanted to know. It only made you feel that much worse, however, when you considered the fact that he was the root of the distrust in the first place.

“No. There’s just… someone close to me. We know a lot about each other, but not everything. I want to tell them… something, but I’m scared it could come back to hurt us in the end.” 

“That’s awfully vague, my lady.” Chat replies, his voice taking on a softer, quieter feel as he scoots a bit closer to you. “Perhaps... is it because it’s about me?” 

Chat chances a glance at your face, and when you don’t react except for the twiddling of your thumbs, he heaves a large sigh. “You know how I feel about this situation we have. I’ve told you time and time again-” 

“I know, Chat-” 

“-and I know it’s for safety reasons, in case one of us gets turned into a villain at some point and the other’s life is in danger, but… we risk our lives for each other everyday. I can read how you feel without a thought, and you can always tell where my weak spots are. We’re practically one in the same, and yet you don’t trust me to at least know your real name?”

“It’s not safe.” Is all you can manage, very weakly. Your heart always hurts when Chat’s voice rises higher, almost pained. He’s crowding in on you as he tries to get you to look him in the eye, but you don’t, in fear that you might look at those safe eyes of his and spill everything. You can’t, you wouldn’t.

Chat rolls his eyes behind his mask, turning away from you in exasperation, “Not safe. Not safe, my ass. What if something happens to one of us, then, hm? How will I know you’re not dead or kidnapped if you decide not to show up for a few days? How will I know to look for you, if I should look for you? My lady, I can do a lot, but you’re the only one who can truly save the day. You’re the only one capable of breaking villains out of their spells, and that’s for a reason. It’s not about me—none of this has ever been about me—it’s about you. And If I- if Paris loses you… we’re all doomed. So the least you can do is tell me where I can find you if I need to. Please. Tell me you trust me as much as I trust you.”

The itch to just de-transform and show him the real you is far too strong, so strong that you have to sit on your hands in fear of saying those magical words. At times like these, you wish Tikki could talk to you, to give you advice. The little kwami always did a good job of showing you what you really wanted and making it clear you knew it all along. But you couldn’t. You felt like you could practically hear her egging you to trust your gut, trust Chat, in your head. It was just that fear that-

“Do you even trust me?”

His question rings through the air like the brunt of a sword impaling you in your tenderest wound, making your head begin to fog at the implication of his words. He doubted you; he trusted you completely with everything about him, and you couldn’t return that. You had no doubt in your mind that if it meant saving you, he would sacrifice himself to the wolves for you, and you wanted to say you could do the same, but... “Chat… I trust you with my life.” You say softly, finally looking at him.

His eyes are downcast, claws balled into fists against the concrete you sit on as he considers your answer. You tentatively reach out to touch his wrist, but he pulls away. “Not all of it, though.”

And then he’s standing, extending his baton and flying off the rooftop, jumping from lamp posts to mailboxes and parking meters, growing farther and farther away from you until you could no longer see him. You let the first frustrated tear fall from beneath your mask.

You don’t see him for days.

It starts with some simple work rounding up jewelry thieves, and that you can handle. You’ve got them tied up and hanging from a pole by the cord of your yo-yo by the time police come and take them away. You think that maybe Chat didn’t think it was too much of a problem and didn’t come help. That was fine. You could handle that.

The second time however, you start to wonder if he’s punishing you.

Another villain is akumatized by Hawkmoth, and it’s a little girl with an army of evil dollies. You have a few close calls, but you take care of the situation. Yet, still, in the heat of battle, you couldn’t stop hoping that Chat would come help you. Every time a doll got too close to biting off a finger, you wondered if that was when Chat would drop in with another stupid pun and help you save the day. He didn’t, and even when the akumatized girl’s mother thanked you for returning her daughter to her, you felt empty at her thanks. It didn’t feel right, being the only one receiving the praise. Chat should’ve been there, beside you, preening at the attention like always. 

Hoseok had even noticed your change in mood, and had wondered if the absence of Chat Noir had affected you the way it had affected everyone else. It wasn’t just fans like Hoseok that cared about Chat Noir’s presence. You had received many questions about your partner’s whereabouts, and it took all you could not to break and issue a nationwide amber alert for him.

He felt betrayed, maybe rightfully so, and if he wanted to take a hiatus then perhaps he had a right to that as well. You only hoped that the hiatus didn’t last long, because you were starting to crack under the pressure.

“None of this has ever been about me.”

It was a known fact that the only person capable of undoing Hawkmoth’s damage on civilians was you. Your power alone aided you in a way that Chat just wasn’t capable of, and for that, Chat had always been vocal about your importance to the cause. It was easy for him to get down in the dumps about his place beside you, but he never willingly let it show. He was always your enthusiastic cheerleader. He wanted to help you in any way he could, pouring his soul into his work to make yours less stressful. You had always known that being Ladybug wouldn’t work without your little chaton, but it became abundantly clear without him around.

Without Chat’s help, you had to do twice the patrol as usual, which meant more meaningless lies told to your family about having to do a project with friends or staying the night with Hoseok. They didn’t mind much, just asked that you could be home on time, and you managed it just by the skin of your teeth. It was becoming more and more difficult by the day, however. There were several times where you felt that a fight would be your last. The only thing that kept you going was hoping he would be right around the corner, cheering you on from the shadows.

Similar shadows enveloped you tonight, as well. Strolling through the dark streets of Paris, you stick to the darkness, surveying the area for any suspicious activity. It seemed that with the obvious absence of your partner, Hawkmoth and Co. had started getting brave. You wouldn’t be surprised if there was an akumatized villain waiting around the corner to jump out at you soon.

But you didn’t find a villain when you turned. No, you found Jungkook.

You run smack dab into his chest, the sheer impact pushing Jungkook backwards. He throws his arms out to steady himself, but you’re quick to hook yours around his waist to stop him mid-air, holding him in a manner similar to a ballroom dip. He throws his arms around your neck when you grab him, his eyes shut cutely and face scrunched as if prepared for a fatal tumble, but you hold fast with an amused smirk, “What’s a kid like you doing out here alone at night?”

Jungkook’s eyes open and widen when he realizes just who he’s run into. It’s almost criminal how hard it is to hide a laugh as he scrambles to stand again, brushing his clothes off for imaginary dirt as he clears his throat. “L-Ladybug! It’s nice to finally meet you!” He says, extremely flustered. He’s thrusting his hand toward you before you can say anything about the furious blush coating his cheeks.

Taking his hand firmly, you shake it, “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?” You can practically hear Tikki laughing in your mind at you pretending like you don’t scribble his name in your notebooks during class every week day, or search up his latest photoshoots on the internet in your spare time. This is one of those times you’re glad TIkki can’t talk to you in this state.

“Jungkook, my l- I mean, Jungkook. I’m Jungkook.” He tells you with an awkward smile, his hand still clenched around yours despite you having finished shaking it a while ago. You don’t make a move to let go first, relishing in the warmth of his palm against yours. You realize that this is probably the first time you’ve made actual physical contact with Jungkook, and it takes all of your strength not to squeal out loud. You wouldn’t want to scare him, after all.

Not that he didn’t already look like he was gonna piss his pants, he was so nervous.

When he notices that he’s still holding your hand, he pulls back as if he’s been burned and carefully gives you some space, his eyes raking up and down your figure a few times in quiet disbelief. You had seen Jungkook a few times as Ladybug in passing, sure, but this was the longest you’d ever spoken to him in uniform, and it felt oddly… satisfying. 

You were no longer clumsy, nervous (Name). You were Ladybug, everyone’s hero. You were on equal, if not higher, ground with Jungkook for once. And boy were you going to milk the hell out of it.

“You didn’t answer my question from before.” You state, sauntering a little closer to Jungkook. His wide eyes widen all the more and his feet stumble to bring him back some, but you just keep coming. “What are you doing out here so late? It’s nearly eleven at night.”

“I… um… I had to clear my head.” Jungkook tells you, stopping his slow descent away from you as he gets cornered by a nearby wall. His eyes don’t find yours, but instead, focus on the busy streets that are starting to empty for the end of the weekday. Only the night owls remain, few and shady. “Why are you out so late?”

You’d been doing good with the Chat problem so far, deterring those from asking invasive questions and never giving a direct idea that you had no clue where he’d gone. But the reminder of why you had to patrol so often these days had only rendered one response in your mind: I hurt one of my best friends, the only person who understood me on a much greater level, and now I can’t find him when I need him the most. 

Of course, you don’t say that. “Chat’s busy, so I have to pick up some of the slack for now. It’s no biggie, it’s what I do.” You shrug, attempting to put on a convincing smile to hide behind, but to no avail. 

Jungkook doesn’t look all that convinced, “Busy? Or gone?”

You have to bite your lip to stop yourself from swearing aloud, your arsenal of good excuses coming to a dead end in his presence. Jungkook had a similar disarming quality to him as did Chat, making you feel exposed even when ever inch of you was disguised to perfection. What could you possibly say on Chat’s behalf? What if you provided a temporary answer for a permanent situation? What if… “I… don’t know.” 

“You don’t know where he is?” Jungkook’s hands shove into his pockets as he asks. He doesn’t sound condescending or accusatory, just curious. You watch with slight shock as he sighs, “…He should really get his act together. You’re working double time and he’s MIA.” 

Despite how badly you want to agree with Jungkook, you can’t help growing defensive in place of your partner. After all, you felt personally responsible for his disappearance in the first place, the least you could do was try to save his reputation. “Actually, Jungkook,” you start, and Jungkook blinks at the sudden tenseness in your tone, “Chat didn’t choose this life. Neither of us did. He isn’t obligated to do it, despite it being a nice thing that he does anyway. Whether he’s taking a break or giving up completely, Chat has dedicated a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make sure that Paris is safe. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for that, and if his absence says anything to me, it says… it… it says that…” 

Your words trail off as the guilt hits you full force. You have no idea what Chat’s real life is like, or what he may be struggling with. Being Chat Noir might’ve been his only healthy outlet, and all he had wanted was to make sure you were safe. In the end, that was always why Chat pressed about sharing identities. You, just possibly, might have been the only person he could trust.

“I’m sorry, Jungkook.” You whisper, “I… I have something to do. I have to find Chat.” You say, and before Jungkook can reel you back in, you’re flinging yourself onto the nearest rooftop and speeding away into the night, leaving a flustered teenage boy behind. 

With his back turned to the street, Jungkook carefully fishes his napping kwami from its spot in his pocket, the tiny fairy waking with a glare. Before it can snap at him for disturbing its peace, Jungkook dashes into a nearby alleyway, whispering to the kwami that it was time to stop hiding.

Your legs burn, and your eyes sting in an attempt to not let out frustrated tears, but you don’t stop running until you get home. Your parents both shoot you concerned looks but you don’t mind them, rushing up the stairs and into your room as quickly as possible. You’re throwing your bag onto your bed (thankfully, Tikki had flown out before you could) and darting toward your computer, your fingers typing fast as lightning. You try to locate Hoseok’s blog quickly, ideas crowding in your head the longer you stay idle. You didn’t have many choices, but the ones you did, you would try.

Your first and best bet was to get Hoseok to let his followers demand Chat back. Either with videos on the internet or trends on Twitter, you didn’t mind. You just had to let Chat know, wherever he was, that he was needed. That he was missed. That you trusted him.

It surprised you how easily Jungkook’s words had triggered that realization in you. And then again, it kind of didn’t.

Maybe you knew all along that you trusted him that much, maybe you knew all along that if anyone could be trusted with every bit of you, it was Chat. He hadn’t wanted to know who you were for selfish reasons; he cared about your safety. You had hurt him, but now it was your chance to get him back. In whatever way you could make that work.

“(Name)…” You hear a soft voice call your name from the bed, but you’re too busy typing a message to Hoseok that you can’t be bothered to look back. 

“Sorry Tikki, this is important. I have to find Chat.”

“But… he’s at your window.”

And sure enough, green feline eyes are staring at you through the glass of your uncovered window, a small smirk on the cat’s face as he taps the glass with a claw. 

Quickly, you shoo Tikki into your purse, hoping that he hadn’t seen, and then move toward the window, carefully opening it wide so as to not knock Chat over. He stays perfectly balanced, hanging off the pipe running along the side of the building with one hand while the other waves at you nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t been completely missing for the last week and a half. 

You try to hold in the choked gasp at your lips but to no avail. You hope you can pass off your elatedness at him being okay as being shocked that a superhero was hanging outside of your window like a modern day Romeo. “C-Chat Noir? What are you-” 

“I was prowling the area when I saw a familiar head of hair rush right past me and into this building. I had to check and make sure it was you, and when I was sure, I thought I could stop in and say hey. So… hey.” 

You’d never wanted to punch Chat Noir more.

You want to punch him for every hour you’ve lost sleep thinking about him, for every double glance you’ve taken in the midst of battle, hoping to find him about to spring in to help, for every skipped heartbeat when you heard a laugh familiar to his in the halls of your school. But you can’t, you just hug him.

Chat nearly loses grip of the pipe, but your arms are strong around his middle and he can only awkwardly wait for you to let go, his hand coming down on the crown of your head to softly comfort you. You’re holding him so tight, he thinks you might break him in half, but he can’t help appreciating the warmth of your touch on him. 

When you come to your senses, you wrench back and quickly wipe at the bottoms of your eyes, fidgeting in place, “Oh… uh… sorry, come in. How do you… remember me?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten when I saved you and half your class from getting run over by that akumatized fireman a month back.” He laughs, sliding into your room with the grace of his persona. How could you forget? The majority of the attack, you had been unable to transform without someone catching sight of you. Remembering how amazingly Chat had handled the attack all on his own only made your heart ache more. You had so much to thank him for, and all of it so long overdue. “I noticed you looked familiar, and you were running home so quick I thought there was trouble. But you seem fine so… good. I’m glad.”

“Where’ve you been?” You can’t stop yourself from inquiring, the need to know practically eating you whole before him.

“Had to call into work sick.” He vaguely says, avoiding your eyes and sticking close to the window as his feet kick at the rug under his shoes. 

“I’ve been looking all over for you.” When Chat squints at you, you quickly recant, “b-by I, I mean… you know, Ladybug and Chat fans.” 

“Fan? So you’re a fan of me?” His tail rises from behind him with an inviting curl, his mouth turning up into another classic smirk of his. 

His clawed hand holds onto the ledge of the window while the other rests on his hip, eyes alight with mischief. A cool breeze blows through the window and ruffles his brown hair, and when your eyes catch the movement, you can’t help feeling like you’ve seen something like it elsewhere. 

“Almost a former, if you hadn’t showed up tonight to prove you were still alive. Did you tell Ladybug where you went?” You secretly want him to spill the truth to you, though he has no obligation. You secretly want him to have missed you, to have missed the thrill of catching bad guys and saving the city, to have missed… still, you. 

With the sudden sad glint in his eyes, you get your answer. “‘Fraid not. Needed a little me time, but… that was pretty selfish of me, wasn’t it? She’s been doing all of this alone, and I left her-” 

“No, don’t talk like that… I’m sure Ladybug knows that even superheroes need a break.” You try to assure him.

But he looks inconsolable at the moment, even as he smiles at you, “You’re pretty cool, you know. I should hire you as my personal cheerleader. Gotta say though, I can only pay you in fur balls.”

He’s trying to get you to laugh, and though your emotions are in a turmoil, you do. It’s airy and relieved and the most real laugh you’ve laughed since he’d left. Your feelings start bubbling to the surface and you feel wetness coat your cheeks once more, but you can’t stop laughing, even though you probably look a fool.

Chat wastes no time pushing himself toward you the minute he realizes you’re crying. One of his gloved hands takes your cheek while the other gently wipes under your eyes, careful to mind his claws. He successfully clears the tears with a gentle touch, tone soft, “Are you alright?” He must’ve thought you were crazy, seeing you laugh and cry and hug him all in a time span of five minutes, but he doesn’t mention it. Because it’s Chat, and he’s more special than anyone could ever know. He’s always been special.

“Yeah… just a little… overwhelmed tonight. You should get going, I’m sure Ladybug is still out driving their self crazy looking for you.” You hum, softly pushing his hands away and back to his sides. He still stands close though, his eyes never leaving yours.

“I have a pretty strong feeling Ladybug is gonna rest easy tonight.”

Before you can ask how he could possibly know that, he’s climbing out of your window and disappearing into the night with one final wink your way.

This, by far, had to be the most gruesome fight you’d ever been in. The fact that you were still alone made it even worse. Why did it have to be a knife-thrower’s bad day today?

You skirt out of the way before a particularly sharp knife embeds itself in the spot you’d just been in, disintegrating the gravel around it with the red hot blade fading to cool. As if knives weren’t enough, they just had to be on fire.

“Can’t we just-” shing! “-talk this out? Fellow costume lover to costume lover?” You ask, attempting a shaky smile as you slip out of your hiding place, but the angry circus performer only heaves a few more knives your way in retaliation. 

“What I do is an art! How dare the people of Paris look down on me? I’ll show them!” He yells, flinging a bowling pin your way, and you dodge just in time for it to destroy a shop window. The glass shatters behind you as you wince, your feet carrying you further down the street in hopes of getting him further away from civilization. He follows, although reluctantly, due to your taunting.

Your mind is a mess of warnings and precautions, your body wanting to do everything and nothing at once in the hopes that the akumatized villain could just go away. Your patience is wearing thin, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to his plethora of weapons. If you used your lucky charm now, there was no guarantee it would stop him, and you’d have to wait a while for Tikki to restore her energy before you could transform again. Who knew how much damage the villain could deal to the city (and everyone in it) by then?

You heave a particularly heavy sigh, your eyes darting for anywhere, anywhere, that you could lead him to before he did anything else. 

The sudden frustrated yell from behind you draws your attention back to the villain, his anger growing the longer you divert his attention. The villain is readying his flaming knives once more, and you’re losing energy and breath too quickly.

You manage to miss a few of the knives, and you think you’ve just narrowly avoided the last before you feel an excruciating pain across your back. You see red splatter into your view and you know you’ve been hit by one. Thankfully, this one wasn’t on fire, but it was still a knife. A low, pained moan breaks past your lips.

“(Name)!”

Through the mind numbing pain, you hear someone yell your name from a distance away, but you’re already falling to your knees, your gaze unfocused as all you can feel is the burn on your back. You know you’re vulnerable now, with the villain just before you, smirking as he moves to take you down for real. “No one can save you now.” The villain snickers ominously, and begins to raise his next knife, aimed straight for your head. 

Quietly, you close your eyes, fisting the gravel at your feet as you mutter the only thing you can with a pained breath, “Chat…”

You hear a sharp sound, the sound of metal meeting metal. You raise your head weakly when you don’t feel the knife make contact, and when you see black overtake your sight, a stunned gasp falls from your mouth. 

There is Chat, with his baton raised in defense between you two and the villain, and the knife the villain had been holding a few feet away. “No wonder your audience doesn’t appreciate your circus acts. You keep trying to kill them.” Chat hisses, twirling his baton in one hand as he turns to look over his shoulder, “You alright, my lady?” 

“You’ve no idea how glad I am to hear your lame jokes again.” You whisper, managing a laugh. His smile is genuine when he beams at you, before he’s turning his attention back to the villain and raising his weapon to strike.

“Bad kitty.” The villain says, and though he means to sound condescending, you can hear the sudden nervousness in his tone, and your lip turns up into a smirk as you regain your bearings, taking a strong stance next to Chat.

Grabbing your yo-yo, Chat chuckles, “You tried to hurt my lady. If anything, you should’ve seen this coming.” 

You spring into action as soon as Chat throws himself at the villain, bringing his baton down in a firm strike as you activate your lucky charm. It seems your power is on your side today, because when you receive the long, satiny ribbon, you’re already sure of what you need to do.

“Chat!” You toss him the other end of the ribbon and pull it taut, motioning to the villain’s feet as he recovers from Chat’s blow. You two move as one, at the speed of light, and successfully tie up the villain’s ankles in a smooth finish, just before you pull the end of the ribbon up with you into the air to tie it around a flagpole.

While disoriented, you make quick quick work of bringing him back to his senses, and when the confused man comes back to himself, you let yourself slump against a wall with the last of your effort. Chat is immediately at your side, his hands finding your waist to support you. “Are you okay, my lady?” Chat asks.

You can only weakly nod, leaning into him as your tired body seeks his for help. He doesn’t say anything more, gently hoisting you onto his back. “You can hold on, right?” He asks softly, and you nod, tightening your arms around his neck. Pushing off with a strong start, he propels you both into the air in search of a safe place to leave you, the crowd of applauding citizens singing your names in the wake of the aftermath. The last thing you recall thinking, with Chat’s hands wrapped under your knees and the scent of him in your senses, is that you couldn’t be happier to have your partner back.

You weren’t aware you’d been moved from Chat’s shoulders until you close your arms in and find yourself hugging a pillow instead. With a soft groan, you open your eyes, attempting to survey the area you’ve ended up in, only to be surprised to see that you’re…

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Jungkook says from above you, a gentle expression on his face as he leans over you. You can recognize your surroundings as your own bedroom, but you can’t fathom why Jungkook, of all people, would be there with you. At the most, the only boy you’d expect to be in your bedroom is Hoseok.

You move to sit up, but your head throbs from the sudden movement and Jungkook is gently pushing you back down by your shoulders, watching your face with increased attention when he sees your scowl of discomfort. You feel the pain in your back, so you make sure not to roll off your side. Had you had all of your energy, you might’ve been visibly panicking about having Jungkook actually in your room, and you can only hope that he hasn’t seen your posters of him. Oh god, the posters… “How…” 

“I brought you here. I made sure to de-transform before I did though, I didn’t want to freak out your parents or anything.” 

“Oh… wait, what?” You frown, your eyes narrowing in on Jungkook as he grins sheepishly. You start to ask if you’ve heard him wrong, that maybe the ringing in your ears was turning into voices and you were going crazy, but then Jungkook reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out a… oh.

The small kwami is looking at you with those same green eyes you always see of Chat’s. No, this was Chat. In your room. In the hands of- “I thought it best I didn’t keep the secret anymore. It was only fair, since I found you out first.”

This day was just getting weirder and weirder.

When you’re sure you have the power to do so, you grab Jungkook’s hand, and he carefully helps you up into a sitting position. He looks you over in concern, despite the reassuring look you try to give him, “Um, so, just to be sure I’m not going crazy and that that little black thing in your hand isn’t an illusion,” you hear a high-pitched, offended voice yell “hey!” from between you two, “you… you’re Chat Noir.”

Jungkook nods.

“And you were the one that called my name, when I fell?”

Jungkook nods again.

“And you know that I’m Ladybug?”

Again, Jungkook nods, this time a bit shyly. “Trust me, I didn’t go snooping deliberately trying to find out. I respected your choice not to tell me. I found out by accident and it was just… it was eating me up inside for so long but I didn’t know if I should bring it up to you, if it would make you uncomfortable. I always wanted to know because you trusted me to know, not by accident. I know that me up and disappearing isn’t an excuse either, which I’m so, so sorry about. I’m really sorry… no one else knows either, I haven’t said a word. All your parents know is that you got caught in the crossfire of the attack and got hurt and I was the one to find you. I swear.” Jungkook is hasty to explain himself, his eyes practically begging you, saying believe me, believe me. 

And you can’t be angry at him. There was no way this could have been avoided. You had passed out after using your lucky charm, and Tikki couldn’t hold out anymore. At best… this was long overdue. The fact that he’d even kept your secret or the fact that he knew your secret under wraps for so long wasn’t that much of a surprise either. You knew he was a good person. Jungkook and Chat.

“I… sorry.” You say finally, and Jungkook laughs awkwardly, his nose scrunching up at you. 

“Why are you sorry? I should be sorry. I found out your identity and didn’t even tell you.” 

“I don’t blame you. There’s no simple way to start that conversation.” You chuckle, hoping to ease Jungkook’s worries. 

Looking at him now, you see the similarities that had been so distant in your mind before. The hair, the scar on his arm, the laughs… it had all been there, all of that time. You could suddenly understand the frustration he felt, wanting you to be honest with him about your identity yet already knowing. All he wanted was for you to trust him.

“This actually makes a lot of sense. I never really thought about how you weren’t around during that fireman incident.” You say, scratching your head in thought. “When did you find out I was Ladybug?”

Jungkook blinks, “I uh… saw you transform into Ladybug and fly away to avoid gym class once.” 

You grab a nearby pillow and hide your face in it in shame, much to Jungkook’s amusement. When you let out an annoyed groan, you feel his fingers wrap around your wrist and your breath hitches as he pulls the pillow away from your face. He’s gentle as always, the smile on his visage meant to comfort and not patronize. 

“So… where do we go from here?” You ask. 

Jungkook’s shoulders rise and fall in a quick shrug, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck, another habit you hadn’t realized Jungkook and Chat shared. You had a feeling you wouldn’t stop finding their similarities for a while. “Well… how about we start it with a date? I’ll head downstairs and get us your favorite. I think you mentioned how much you loved the cupcakes, right?”

“A d-date?” Your cheeks burn under his playful gaze, his head falling to the side as he smiles at you.

“Yeah, Hoseok came by earlier and let it slip that you liked me when he saw me in your room. Also, the posters.” He motions lazily to the room. Your body slinks further and further under the covers in embarrassment, your mind already formulating a plan to completely obliterate Hoseok next time you see him.

Just before you can slip fully away from Jungkook though, his hand catches yours again and he squeezes with a smile, “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I liked you first, anyway. So, want that cupcake to go with that sweet face of yours, my lady?” 

“Your jokes are still corny even if I do have a crush on you, Jungkook.”

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