#What is the true nature of Adrien and Kagami been made for each other from the get go for Gabriels and Tomoes plan? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sairenharia · 3 years

Text

Sentimonster Adrien Theory 2

Spoilers for all of Season 4 as of 8/31/21

For my previous thoughts, and the validity of at least SOMEONE on the cast being a Sentimonster, refer to: Here

As a note, my previous theory was written after Ladybug and BEFORE Chat Blanc, and Felix. I will be retreading ground for Adrien specifically, but basic belief in there being a sentimonster is there.

Something I just want to say, I don’t think Adrien being a Sentimonster negates the abuse Gabriel inflicted on him. What it does is explain why GABRIEL is able to justify it, but seeing where someone is coming from does not excuse them of their actions. Gabriel has to repent. The fact is Adrien is a person even if Senti!Adrien is true, and that doesn’t change just because he’s not human. Treating someone who can think and feel cruelly is never a good thing.

That being said, evidence and why I think Adrien really might not be human.

A: The Wish

We know Emilie is in the basement. She is in some kind of stasis. We know the Wish involves her.

We do not know Gabriel’s wish. We very deliberately do not know Gabriel’s wish, because we, the audience, hear him talk about it a lot, but only in vague terms. He wants his wish, he wants to change time, he wants to achieve a goal.

But he’s never said he wants to wake Emilie up, fix her, bring her back. He wants to do something for her sake, but its not the most obvious thing.

So its NOT the most obvious thing. There is no reason to be vague about this unless its to elude to a deeper meaning. The obvious wish is too obvious to be obtuse.

And more importantly, we know Emilie and Gabriel wanted something fifteen years ago thanks to the Shanghai special. Something to do with the human virtues, potentially.

We know Marinette is fourteen now. So Adrien’s birthday in Bubbler was his fourteenth birthday.

The want for something started around the time Adrien should have been conceived.

B: Ask for Forgiveness, not Permission.

Adrien doesn’t like to ask his father for things. We see this over and over again with him sneaking out to things like the Startrain, or say he’s going to fencing with Kagami, and other excuses. Sometimes he does try to do things in the straight forward way, but when there are things he really wants to go to, things he doesn’t want to have to accept a no, he sneaks out.

Like the class trip. Like going to see his mother’s movie.

And when Adrien is told directly ‘no,’ he will often listen. For Adrien. Chat Noir, however, is a different entity, and he often uses it for a reason for why he can go out. Chat can, Adrien can’t.

To date, the only time Adrien has gone against a direct order from Gabriel is in regards to going to school.

And Chat Blanc.

I’ll get to Chat Blanc.

Adrien was told he could not attend school, and he accepted that. Until he became Chat Noir and only then did he rebel. Interestingly, when he was pulled from school after the book incident, he didn’t plan to just run away again. We know he was willing to disobey to attend, so why did the ban take this time?

Perhaps because Gabriel made it a thing that was allowed. It wasn’t an outright rebellion, it was a thing earned and then lost.

C: What Is The Amok?

Its the rings.

Not ring.

Its BOTH RINGS.

Which may or may not be magic items in of themselves, but there is not enough information for that.

When Gabriel transforms, there is a distinctive beep. When we first see the basement, we hear that beep again. We we see the rings in Felix, we hear that beep yet again. This beep is a sound cue of significance in regards to Gabriel and Emilie.

And here is the thing. If Adrien is a Sentimonster, he’s meant to be their child. Which comes into some questionable things, ethically speaking, for his free will. They don’t want Adrien to know he’s a Sentimonster. They could tell him to always hold onto his Amok, but he’s the son of very wealthy people. Even without being a model, there is every chance his Amok could be stolen because he’d be a target for theft.

But just having the Amok sitting somewhere is dangerous.

And what if it gets broken?

The only way to keep Adrien’s Amok safe is for one of his parents to have it....or both.

Crocoduel has shown us an item can be Akumatized and taken apart at the moment of enchantment and exist as two separate things. And a bonus, the item has to be put together and THEN broken to break the magic.

And here are the twin rings that are perfect copies of each other and get clean together really nice and maybe they attach a little bit? Having two rings stay together that well while cleaning is quite the party trick if there isn’t something to that. But visually speaking, it tells us, the audience, these are two halves of the same whole.

And it allows a little bit in the form of free will. Because if someone does not possess BOTH rings, they cannot control Adrien completely. Its still incredibly hard for Adrien to resist, but he IS capable of disagreeing at the very least.

Of course, when combined with the home atmosphere, his ability to resist doesn’t account for much without extreme circumstances, but still.

We can see this with Sentibubbler. The moment Ladybug had the coffee cup, he changed tracks without a sign of hesitation or confusion. Because he just had the one item. Even though Ladybug was ordering him with more autonomy then Shadow Moth. (I will also get into that.)

This is also why in Felix, Gabriel immediately goes to retrieve Emilie’s ring to wear. Sure, accusing Felix of stealing the ring gets into a whole legal lawsuit that makes it complicated and would make it difficult to retrieve the ring. Its a whole hassle, but it doesn’t explain why he needs to wear Emilie’s ring.

Except Felix has the ring that is one half of Adrien’s Amok.

Gabriel HAS to wear the ring, because Emilie cannot influence Adrien in any way, but Felix can. Gabriel has to balance out whatever Felix may do to Adrien, so he takes his wife ring. And its why he can’t get into the legal battle because he has to wear the ring to protect ADRIEN, and if they see him with the ring, there will be questions he can’t answer.

This also may explain Gabriel seems even more harsh to Adrien after Emilie’s disappearance despite some oddities.

Adrien wasn’t allowed to go to school while Emilie was around. But Gabriel granted it. When Adrien wants for things he wasn’t allowed before and is willing to fight for it, Gabriel grants it.

I don’t think Gabriel’s authoritative nature has truly changed that much. I think what changed was Adrien’s PERSPECTIVE of it. Because before, Emilie was a constant counter to his need to obey. Now he doesn’t have that, so being told what to do feels more absolute. I think the thing that truly changed was how much time and affection Gabriel was willing to show Adrien in his pain, not how much he restricted him.

Which still ain’t great.

Though that is a thought. Maybe Gabriel avoids Adrien because he knows he’s a commanding sort and he’s trying to not do overly much. Which is why most of his time around Adrien is when he can critique him, because it gives him a focus for orders? It would be a twist.

D: What About Chat Blanc? Or rather, what about Plagg.

So I’ve heard people say Chat Blanc disproves this theory because that is certainly a time to command Adrien to obey with his Amok! Which true, except for two things.

One, the end of Felix has little reason to change in the new timeline. Adrien and Marinette dated for at least a little while which was shortly before Felix happened. Felix still visited.

What might have changed was what kind of terrorizing Felix did on Adrien.

What has no reason to change is Felix stealing the ring.

Which means Gabriel DIDN’T have the means to absolutely command Adrien to do anything, we only had half the Amok.

And the fact the Amok was in two pieces is why Chat Blanc didn’t destroy himself if Gabriel’s ring was still capable of being destroyed while he was transformed, and if London still got wrecked. We saw in Crocoduel the item has to be COMBINED and THEN destroyed. Destroying both at once doesn’t count.

And it would explain something in Chat Blanc.

We know the move he TRIED to do was kill himself. He engulfed himself in the power before it went out of control.

We also know, officially of Guilt Trip, that cataclysm DOESN’T KILL SENTIMONSTERS. It makes it so the Amok doesn’t control them, usually go crazy. We saw Chat Noir get Cataclysm’d in Miraculer, but he didn’t turn to ash. We don’t even know if he truly died. He was suffering, to be sure, and we see Sentimonsters take damage. He could have been damaged.

But Chat Blance is a Sentimonster AND an Akuma, so he was able to take the damage more and went absolutely off the rails instead, and instead of blaming Gabriel, like he should have...

He blamed Ladybug.

Because he was no longer connected to what gave Gabriel control over him. The only ‘control’ over himself he recognized was Ladybug’s influence and his own love.

And then there’s Plagg’s influence, which ties into Cataclysm. Sentimonsters cannot be killed by Plagg’s magic, but they can be FREED of control thanks to his magic. As I said in my first post, the one time we see Adrien disobey as direct order, its after he meets Plagg and goes to school. He uses Chat Noir as a means to disobey all the time.

In being bonded to Plagg, Adrien is given genuine free will and freedom, over the manufactured version that his parents made with a split Amok. He is able to decide things on his own, because he has the chaos magic that grants him the ability to SAY NO. To develop his own means of rebelling.

Ask for forgiveness over permission. And sometimes, learning to say no anyway.

This doesn’t change the conditioning Adrien has been through. He’s obedient to a fault because that is all he’s ever known. Its just instead of fear and gaslighting having trained this into him, it was magic. His parents never NEEDED to be cruel, Emilie COULD be as kind as Adrien says, because they never needed to use negative reinforcement on him.

They had magic.

And that was able to do the job just as well.

Plagg is able to naturally counter the magic. And he’s giving Adrien the unconditional love and support to help him learn, but Adrien is still a person, still has a personality. And the mental bars he has around his head are just as effective as the magic ones were.

E. Shadow Moth vs Mayura

There is something I’ve noticed between how Shadow Moth and Mayura operate.

Mayura made Sentmonsters for others, but she did make one for herself: Ladybug. But here is the thing about Sentibug, she gave her orders. Gave her a general guideline. And then she let Sentibug take those orders and just go.

Shadow Moth, when he makes an Amok, does not do this. He allows others to control Sentimonsters as they will, and often Sentimonsters are just given general guidelines, but not Shadow Moth’s Sentimonsters. Sentibubbler, SentiNino, SentiAlec are Sentimonsters Shadow Moth made.

And he didn’t give them orders. He didn’t give them guidelines.

They were Literal Puppets.

He controlled their movements. He SPOKE THEIR WORDS FOR THEM.

Out of all the Sentimonsters, Gabriel is literally the only one who has used his Sentimonster this way.

And I think there’s a good reason for it. I don’t think Gabriel is capable of making an entity that can act on its own, but is still a complete slave to his will and be okay with it.

Because what does that say about Adrien?

Akumas are fine because those are PEOPLE. People he manipulated and coerced, people he threatened, but they are still people. They can still refuse him and he knows it.

Puppets are find because that’s all they are, puppets.

But this middle ground that Sentimonsters are, that is what Adrien is. And Gabriel is unable to cope with that because it means seeing his son as a tool and despite how much of a genuinely terrible person Gabriel is, that is not something he’s willing to see in himself.

So he hyper controls the Sentimonsters and Does Not Think About It.

F. Wishmaker.

Listen, its valid to have a wish as a child to be what your parents wanted to be. Depending on parents, it could be a perfectly healthy wish.

Here’s the thing.

Everytime Wishmaker granted a wish, we saw people at the age they wanted that wish granted. They were children when they had this wish.

ADRIEN WAS AN INFANT.

And here’s the thing.

Infants don’t think of others. Infants are a bundle of vulnerability that is very curious about the world and don’t want to die and is trying to figure out how to make its wants known. Infants are selfish beings because they are just trying to survive in this world they’ve shown up in.

An infant doesn’t think about what its parents want.

Adrien should not have been CAPABLE of having that wish as an INFANT.

Not unless he wasn’t human.

A Sentimonster sure does want to do what its Amok holder wants.

And what his parents wanted was a son. What they wanted was Adrien.

So that’s why Adrien appears as Adrien for the wish, because for all he has doubts, the Sentimonster in him knows that is what they wanted.

F2. Gabriel and Emilie’s eyes.

....idk, fam. The fact their eye colors were switched FEELS important and we’ve supposedly seen Emilie at seventeen with green eyes and her sister has green eyes, so what’s up with that is wei-

F2. GABRIEL AND EMILIE’S EYES, A THOUGHT I LITERALLY HAD RIGHT NOW.

The Amok is both rings. Gabriel and Emilie have their own rings. The rings they have always worn as their own.

Felix, with green eyes, has Gabriel’s ring.

Gabriel, with blue eyes, has Emilie’s ring.

The reason the eyes are switched in Adrien’s memory is because he associates the eyes with the ring and the current holder of the specific ring have THOSE EYES. He knows the faces they SHOULD be, but the eyes are DIFFERENT because the holders are DIFFERENT.

G. Allergies.

Its still funny if a boy made out of a feather has a feather allergy. It may also be a defense mechanism put in. Logically, any peacock user will have feathers. Maybe he’s allergic in case they ever lose the peacock, he’ll avoid the holder while they’re transformed at least. Maybe it could even distract the holder from noticing anything off about him.

H. Obedience.

Adrien is obedient. Which is one of the reasons he’s a suspect Sentimonster. I won’t go into this because I already talked about his Permission versus Forgiveness thing.

I. Taking Charge

I talked about before about Adrien taking charge and struggling with it, but I also have another point about it.

The thing is, we see Adrien excel at second in command....but also when he’s Chat Noir.

Adrien did BADLY as Mister Bug and as Aspik. But the thing is, Plagg wasn’t there at the time. As Mister Bug, Plagg was with Marinette. As Aspik, the ring is in the weird pocket dimension things are bamf’d away and while Plagg is around, his power isn’t bonded to Adrien.

Adrien has proven able to figure out Ladybug’s plans with minimal instructions. The fact Mister Bug couldn’t even get to step one is weird.

He tried being Aspik for months and was unable to figure out what he needed to do, focused solely on the objective of protect Ladybug. Unable to step back and think beyond his goal. Three months is a long time to not come up with ANYTHING.

Its like Adrien’s ability to decide things on his own was compromised. Like his free will was stripped away, hindered by the rings that control him. He could try to focus on protecting Ladybug, but he couldn’t figure out a good way to take down the enemy on his own.

His father didn’t want him to.

We do see Adrien can lead well. When he wanted to talk to Juleka in Guilt Trip, HE was the one making the right decision. But he was unable to overtake Marinette’s charisma, so even if he could think of what to do, how to handle the situation, he doesn’t have the force of personality to overtake a true leader.

We see Chat Noir have plans and direct a crowd.

With Plagg granting him agency, he’s able to make good decisions, good calls, able to use that brain of his well. Its when he loses Plagg he struggles the most.

J. The Need To Be Useful

Adrien thinks he needs to be useful. He needs to be good and perfect. And yes, this is reinforced by Gabriel’s treatment of him, always criticizing him, but it is a kind of curious fear.

Adrien has two great fears.

The fear of trapped isolation and the fear of rejection.

The fear of trapped isolation is the one Gabriel has reinforced. Adrien has only shown a fear of his father rejecting him once, during Christmas, when he was frustrated in the idea Gabriel would not spend time with him, and even then, Adrien chose to make it a reality on his own first.

And its very likely Gabriel was affectionate when he was younger.

I think the fear of rejection from Gabriel is a newer one that Adrien is aware of. After Gabriel has refused to be around Adrien.

But I think the fear was ALWAYS there. Because he is an Sentimonster. If a Sentimonster isn’t useful, then they have no reason to exist. And the thing is, while Adrien fears this, there is also a strong part of him that is RESIGNED to it.

Which makes it even weirder in that Gabriel’s behavior should make this a NEWER fear...unless it was part of Adrien’s natural existence. One of a Sentimonster. He’s afraid of it, because he wants people, he loves people, but there is a part of him that just....accepts it as a natural consequence.

One that isn’t worth fighting.

Like he isn’t in season four right now.

K. Memories

Adrien couldn’t remember having childhood dreams. We know he used to play with Chloe and...that’s it. There’s even implication his modeling is a Newer Thing instead of being a child model.

We know he didn’t have a childhood dream. He never had a childhood wish. Which is weird because Adrien is the biggest romantic dreamer of the series save for ROSE. He never thought about being a charming knight, a magical girl, even just being a superhero? He was all on board with being a superhero when offered, like he’s thought about it a lot!

But it wasn’t something he called a childhood dream.

But you know who probably did have being a superhero as a childhood dream?

Chloe.

If Adrien has two Amoks to make a facsimile of free will, it may have been impossible for him to truly ‘dream’ in the sense Wishmaker was talking about. It was too deep of a want for him to truly conceptualize enough to count.

But he played games with Chloe, he still saw the wishes and dreams and fantasies that he could enjoy with her as a proxy.

Perhaps that is why they were such good friends. Chloe wanted things so fiercely that for Adrien, who struggled to want, he was able to figure out how to do it with her influence. Not enough for a childhood dream, but enough to know how to want enough that it gave him a love for people. A need for more in his life beyond the perfect son.

L. Emotions.

Adrien is the heart of the Ladybug and Chat Noir duo. The Peacock is the Miraculous of Emotions. Adrien has shown a difficulty at controlling his own feelings. He can control his REACTIONS, but its hard for him to figure out what to do about his feelings beyond ‘conceal, don’t feel.’

Which is weird, because he’s extremely empathetic. He’s very good at judging others emotions (save for Marinette ‘Just A Friend’ Dupain-Cheng.) He can offer comfort and figure out is they need space or help. The fact he struggles with his own says maybe his are just too strong.

Like he’s a being Made Of Emotions.

M. Narrative Foreshadowing.

Just saying it again.

It comes up a lot with Adrien becoming some kind of puppet, copy, impostor. It happens so much. SO MUCH.

Also he was the first one to think Sentibug was a Real Person.

Then there is the end of Mega Leech.

Could it just be another example of Adrien being emotionally abused? Sure.

However, considering how often this series genuinely glosses over abuse (Adrien, Chloe, Kagami, even Zoe to an extent), its weird to just throw that in at the end of an episode that, frankly, barely involves Adrien’s emotions.

Save one.

Adrien was told it was a perfume commercial. He was Lied To. He was told One Thing was Another.

And there is the framing. There is the double focus on the ring, the focus on the words. There is so much focus on this being a command that could not be denied, and that doesn’t need to involve the ring AT ALL if it was abuse.

Unless, of course, the ring was an Amok.

Then the visual cues make a whole lot more sense.

N. The Wild Mass Guessing.

Now what is the wish.

Clearly Emilie’s use of the peacock is what made her sick and it made her sick for years. Now whether the peacock was ALREADY BROKEN or Emilie broke it is up in the air. Either way, we know she used the peacock longterm. Since there is no talk of supervillains or previous superheroes, it seems highly unlikely she was granting people super powered monsters.

So, her use was for a Sentimonster. Perhaps trying to split the Amok broke the peacock. Perhaps that one use was enough to make her sick, but because it was just the one time, it took years for the magical sickness to take her down. That is all up in the air.

What we do know, the crux of the wish is fifteen years ago. Which means it involves Adrien’s existence in some way. It likely involves rewriting time a bit.

And here is the thing.

Gabriel loves Adrien. He does. He’s a trash person, he’s toxic at best, abusive at worst, but HE LOVES ADRIEN.

What if the peacock was broken when they found it. What is Emilie DIDN’T break it?

‘I wish the Peacock was never broken.’

Fifteen years ago, Gabriel and Emilie were trying to have a baby. But they were unable to conceive. Amelie had her own baby boy, and he’s beautiful, and Emilie and Gabriel just hurt more at their inability to have a child.

(This is why adoption should be seen as more valid, folks, but that’s neither here nor there.)

But Emilie’s family knows of magic. Because let’s be fair, there is something truly suspicious about that lot and it screams they know magic stuff. Emilie has heard of grand artifacts and magics and maybe there is away around this limitation.

They explore the world, research magic artifacts, until they finally find the Peacock and Butterfly Miraculous. They are able to learn what they can do, either from Nooroo and Duusu. Clearly an Akuma does nothing for them, but a Sentimonster?

That had possibilities.

But the Peacock is broken.

Emilie doesn’t care.

They experiment. She uses the Peacock more and more, but she figures out the trick. She figures out how to make a child, how to make him SAFE.

Adrien is created, using the sign of their union, and the Miraculous are locked away.

But Emilie is still sick from figuring out how to create Adrien. And the years go by and she doesn’t get better, but she doesn’t care. She has her son. A son both her and Gabriel love, but they have to be careful. He’s not human, after all, just a little off.

Let him meet Chloe, because the Bourgeios are hardly normal. Slowly socialize him. Keep him inside so no one sees how odd he is. Keep him safe. He grows, happy enough, independent ENOUGH to believe.

Then Emilie collapses.

And doesn’t get up.

Gabriel is the only one with active control. He keeps Emilie’s ring on her finger and hides her away, but now, he’s the only one who can order his son. He doesn’t want to destroy what independent thought Adrien has achieved, doesn’t want to destroy HIS SON, so he keeps his distance. He only interacts in ways where he can be silent, or criticize what he has always criticized. Doesn’t even dare to get him a gift for his birthday because what if that becomes far too important?

As Adrien shows a rebellious streak, does things for himself, asks for things HE wants, things that Gabriel will sometimes give if its deemed safe, and Gabriel tentatively shows a little more attention. Goes to a few events, goes on a few trips. Not for long, brief amounts of time, hoping that Adrien keeps being Himself.

Because he can’t take off the ring.

Taking off the ring means leaving Adrien vulnerable.

And he fights Ladybug and Chat Noir for his wish.

If the Peacock wasn’t broken/didn’t break, then Emilie wouldn’t have gotten sick. She would wake up and Adrien wouldn’t be erased by his sole control. Maybe if he’s bold enough, he can just make sure Adrien was never at risk of being a puppet again. Take the Amok’s out of the equation, make his son real.

And if time is altered then....then it doesn’t MATTER if Adrien is hurt NOW. If he hates being alone. If Gabriel fails, at least he doesn’t erase what little will his son has left. If Gabriel wins, then literally nothing done matters!

Sometimes he forgets that. He sees Adrien in danger, and he feels that fear, that need to save his son.

Sometimes he remembers, tells himself if he wins, then any harm he caused Adrien with Riposte, with Style Queen, WITH CHAT BLANC, will no longer matter. He just had to win, he has to win, he has to win because it will return Emilie, and it will ensure his son is never lost in the magic that makes his soul.

It doesn’t matter who he hurts. It doesn’t matter how villainous he becomes. None of it matters as long as he achieves his end.

Once, he even thinks of explaining it to Adrien. Tell him he’s Hawk Moth. Tell him he’s a Sentimonster. He knows the distance hurts his son, but if he knew why, then Adrien would understand just how much he loves Adrien.

He keeps his distance so he doesn’t accidentally change Adrien.

He’s Hawk Moth so he can save Emilie and Adrien.

He will fix everything once he wins, and he regrets how often he had hurt Adrien until then.

And then Adrien talks about how he’s noticed Gabriel and Nathalie becoming closer and Nathalie has the Peacock. Adrien is switching his loyalty from Emilie to Nathalie, he’s changing due to MAGIC and Gabriel is furious because he’s been too lax, been too kind, he needs to WIN.

When the Peacock will no longer hurt, when Nathalie will stop fighting him on him using it, he takes it. To keep Adrien from changing more due to magic.

There are times where Gabriel’s heart remind him of his love. He can’t hurt his son then.

There are times where he remembers his goal. If he wins, whatever harm he caused Adrien doesn’t matter, and he HAS to win.

And he throws himself more and more and more into the fight, into winning because if he can win, then he can save everyone important to him.

What does it matter if Adrien suffers now as long as its undone?

#ml-spoilers #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #nathalie sancoeur #emilie agreste #sentimonster #sentimonster theory #senti!adrien #ml season 4 #cw: child abuse #cw: toxic relationship

55 notes · View notes

yannowhatigiveup · 3 years

Text

My One And Only - Chapter 7

Previous | Next

When I originally finished the chapter, I was surprised at how far I was able to reach in writing it but I had barely even begun to start writing the good parts. Anyhow, thank you for all the support on this story! It makes me happy knowing that people actually enjoy reading it. Also this is another one of the shorter chapters Ig, sorry.

The TV showed a peaceful and quiet Paris, not like the one you would expect if it were labeled under 'critical'. Tim was so confused he began to type a message but noticed that Damian had signed off. Dick, seeing Tim's confused nature, came over to look at the computer. "What was he referring to? What the hell is going on?"

————————————————————

Alya had examined Marinette's nature the whole day, taking mental notes along the way. As the end of school neared, Alya recounted all of her mental notes. 'Cheerful but not trying to be not the centre of attention, In a dream state but not zoning everything out and I'm sure I heard her making plans out loud. Yep this girl's got a crush but I still have zero idea who it is' the aspiring reporter sighed while recounting the conversation she had with Kagami last night.

"That isn't what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to find out is who does she is love now?"

"Well I also want to know but isn't that her private information?" Kagami asked.

"Wel- Yeah but- What I'm to say is that what if the guys a bad person? What if she's really in love with this guy but too scared to ask him on a date? Us girls got to stick up for each other, girl!" Alya replied.

"When you put it that way" The bluenette then cracked her knuckles. "I wish to duel this boy, to see if he's worthy of her love"

"Great! I'll try to find out more tomorrow!"

True, she had discovered many things but nothing about the boy's appearance or name. Alya sighed. Marinette picked up the fact that her best friend was dismayed, through her sigh and her negative aura. The bluenette discovered that there was other people who could sense auras but it was incredibly rare to bump into one, Marinette had been one of the lucky few. Though since she was the true user of the Ladybug miraculous, she got a boost. "Alya is something wrong?"

The girl then realised that she didn't have a proper excuse with the way she's acting so she just made one right there on the spot. "I'm just tired" Alya yawned. 'I'm tired of tryna find out who your crush is girl! Since when could you keep secrets so well?'

"Well you should get some rest when you get home then"

"Alright, are you free today? We're gonna go get ice cream from André" 'If there's anyone who can give information it's André. Please say yes girl'.

"Well I have to go somewhere first but I'm free after that" the bluenette said, oblivious to what Alya had in mind.

'Thank you universe!' "Great! We'll meet you at 4:30?"

"Sure!" Alya was more excited than she wanted to, she didn't want to stalk her best friend but she wanted to be more supportive than needed. This trip would tell exactly what this certain boy was like. "Oh who's coming?"

"You, Me, Nino, Adrien and Kagami"

'Looks like I'm gonna be the third wheel...' "Ok!" Marinette said enthusiastically.

~~~

Marinette had dropped off her designs at her uncle Jagged's hotel room and was ecstatic when Jagged said he had a surprise in plan just for her to say thank you. She still had no idea what it is and Jagged said he would text her the moment he got approval. Right now she was on her way to meet up with her friends, and to be the third wheel. If Damian wasn't busy, she would probably be in his hotel room. She blushed slightly at the statement, if it were taken out of context she would be under suspicion by her friends. "Tikki do you think they suspect me now?"

"I have no clue Marinette" the voice from her bag said. "But it would make sense if Alya was already onto something"

Marinette sighed. Soon her friends came into view, Kagami was showing Adrien some better stance in fencing while Alya was quietly discussing something with Nino but stopped when Marinette came into view.

"Hey girl!" Alya shouted, gaining the attention from the rest of the group. "Wanna get ice cream now?"

"Sure!" First Alya and Nino went to get their ice cream. They got the usual. Next was Kagami and Adrien. Kagami and Adrien got their ice cream, Kagami and Alya exchanging a glance, the bluenette was oblivious to this. Then Marinette went to get her scoop.

"Ah! Marinette! You having ice cream by yourself are you?" André asked with something in mind.

"Yep, I'm just here to watch the lovebirds really" Marinette whispered the last statement to André.

"Well how's this? A scoop of dark honey, a scoop of lime with dark lime zest and a scoop of rose ice cream" he said proudly while scooping each flavor and onto a cone-cup for the bluenette.

"Sounds great André!" Marinette exclaimed. She had never tried those flavors before and they all in some way reminded her of Damian.

"I know everything Marinette, I believe I have finally found a perfect blend for you" he whispered.

"T-thanks André!" She said with a slight blush in her face. She then sat on the edge of the Seine. Marinette sat by herself, Adrien sat next to Kagami with Alya on her side and Alya sat next to Nino. Unbeknownst to Marinette, Kagami and Alya were whispering to each other about what her ice cream flavors meant.

"So the rose means he can be romantic right?" Alya whispered to Kagami.

"I thought that meant he could be flirtatious but sure. I think the lime means he has green eyes" she whispered back.

"Yeah that makes sense what about the honey flavor though?"

"It was dark honey, it's known to have a much stronger taste but it's still sweet" Kagami stated in a matter-of-fact way.

"So he has green eyes, he's strong but still very nice and he's romantic/flirtatious. Doesn't that all point to Chat Noir?" Alya whispered to Kagami.

"I guess it does but he never struck me as his type, also, since when do we know so much about ice cream flavors?"

Alya thought for a moment. "I have no clue"

~~~

Marinette had smirked at the lovebirds before waving goodbye to her friends. She had asked Damian via text if she could come over which he said it was fine. "Do you have any idea what Uncle Jagged has in mind, Tikki?"

"I'm still stumped Marinette" the small kwami said while chuckling. The kwami then noticed a notification on her user's phone. "Marinette you might find out, Jagged Stone just sent a message!"

"Really?!" She scurried for her phone and took a deep breath before reading the message.

Uncle Jagged: Nettie! I got everything ready. Wanna record a bonus track for my new album?

'Oh god'

———

Taglist: @little-bluestar, @miracleofadisaster, @frieddonutsweets, @jjmjjktth, @genderfluidmoma

#daminette #damian x marinette #marinette x damian #maribat #maridami #mlb x dc

153 notes · View notes

immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

Text

IOTA Reviews: Gang of Secrets

Well... I'll give this episode one thing. It's better than what we got from both “Truth” and “Lies”, and it did do one of the things I hoped the writers would tackle this season. That's not saying much, but I'll take what I can get.

Let's get into the fourth (chronologically the third) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Gang of Secrets

We start off right after an Akuma battle, and while Cat Noir is eager for their victory fist bump, Ladybug seems to be on edge, insisting that they go on patrol. Cat Noir thinks of a place that they can relax at without talking... and he chooses to take Ladybug to see a romantic comedy.

We're not even a minute in, people, and it already looks like Ladybug is considering using her authority as Guardian to take away Cat Noir's Miraculous.

Ladybug goes on a brief tangent summarizing what happened with Luka (which conveniently happens to reflect the events of the movie), and naturally isn't happy with the movie. Gee, it's almost like Cat Noir's plan was a bad idea. He seriously tries the whole “pretend to yawn as an excuse to put his arm around Ladybug” trick, so you can't tell me he didn't have romantic intentions here.

Why Kagami couldn't accept Adrien's “true self” is beyond me.

After storming out of the movie theater, Cat Noir tries to emphasize with Ladybug (key word being “tries”) by going on about how “he knows what a broken heart is like”. At least he didn't ask if she was single now. Ladybug decides to go for a swim, but we cut back to Marinette's house, with Ladybug in her aqua form, implying she went to the pool while still transformed. And here's a big problem with the episode. In theory, I like the idea of Marinette stressing over her new responsibilities, as it could lead to some interesting plotlines. The problem is that when we get something like that in this episode, it's played entirely for laughs. At one point, Alya mentions hearing Marinette crying in the bathroom because of the stress she's been going through. And instead of being a dramatic scene, she just runs out in some Groucho Marx glasses for some reason, because according to the writers, we're supposed to laugh at Marinette suffering from a potential mental breakdown.

This just raises several questions about the way we're supposed to treat Marinette's behavior in this episode. Are we supposed to take this seriously? Not completely, because of how a lot of the “jokes” in the first act of the episode revolve around Marinette's anxiety being driven up to eleven. Are we supposed to see all of this as a joke? Not completely, because the end of the episode is when the writers decide to take Marinette's inner demons seriously. It leads to a very conflicting picture the episode is trying to paint with the way Marintte's conflict is portrayed.

We then cut to what seems to be the only thing the writers like to do with this character now, Alya acting like has control over Marinette's love life.

Of course those are the only pictures Alya got of Marinette.

Uh... Alya? Honey? Have you even considered the fact that maybe Marinette didn't tell you about Luka because that's none of your damn business??? What gives you the right to know every single detail about your friend's life? I understand that you're a hardcore Adrienette shipper (and an unintentional metaphor for how obsessed the writers are with the Love Square), but why would Marinette be obligated to tell you about Luka?

I know that I asked Marinette if she told Alya about Luka in my “Truth” review, but that was because she continued to force the belief that Marinette still liked Adrien onto her. Yeah, I'm still confused as to why Marinette didn't tell Alya, but the difference is that I was more confused at her not explaining it, and felt it would have made the conflict in the New York special a lot easier. I don't think Marinette has to tell Alya, I just think it would make some things easier between them with how much Alya wants Adrienette to be canon. Marinette has no obligation to tell Alya anything about who she's dating. What goes on in someone's love life is a private matter, and we'll see that Alya has no regards for privacy.

Alya, along with Juleka, Rose, Mylene, and Alix, devises a plan to give Marinette a friendship bracelet to show their support for her. And as usual, Alix has the simple idea to talk to Marinette about what's going on with her, and of course, she's ignored. Sorry, Alix, but this is an Alya episode, where smart choices don't fly here.

We cut back to Marinette's room where we get a pretty good scene where Marinette confides to Tikki about how she knows she has no chance of having a love life. She points out how she had to end things with Luka because of her secrets, and knows that even if she worked up the courage to talk to Adrien, she couldn't do anything because of the same secrets. She can't tell her parents or friends about her secrets and is forced to lie to everyone all the time. The voice actress gives a good performance, and the animators did a good job rendering the red eyes Marinette gets from crying.

And then we get back to the stupid stuff, where Marinette decides to transform into Ladybug and demands Hawkmoth (even though he's Shadowmoth at this point) show himself. This is really just an excuse for the Girl Squad to barge into Marinette's room, where Rose sees the dollhouse Marinette uses to hide the Miracle Ball. Marinette quickly runs back in and tries to hide the the Miracle Ball from her friends, who confront her about her “problem”.

No, real friends respect boundaries and don't demand to know every single detail about someone's life. They understand that there are secrets they don't have the right to know about. If Alya found out that Alix still needs to sleep with a nightlight and told everyone, would you really be surprised if she got mad at Alya for exposing this secret of hers? Right now, Marinette is clearly uncomfortable about telling her friends about a secret she has, and rather than understand she doesn't want to, they just keep pressing on, and don't care how unhappy she looks.

Unsurprisingly, Marinette tells them all to get out, saying she doesn't want them as friends anymore. Okay, so we're in every salt fic ever written now. Again, we get a good scene where Marinette feels remorseful for what she said (as understandable as it was), while the girls leave with their heads down.

Shadowmoth sends out an Akuma for the friendship bracelet, and because the object had personal meaning to all of them, Alya, Juleka, Rose, Mylene, and Alix all get akumatized into their previous Akuma forms, Lady Wifi, Reflekta (yet again), Princess Fragrance, Horrificator, and Timebreaker respectively. Shadowmoth calls them the “Gang of Secrets”. But they were akumatized because of secrets. Wouldn't a more accurate name be something like “The Honesty Brigate” or “Truth Troop?”

When I reviewed “Felix”, I had talked about how the motivations for the three Punishers weren't didn't reflect their Akuma forms, which were twisted versions of what they were feeling like at the time. While the same thing applies here (as well as “Heroes' Day”, now that I think about it, though I always thought it was like a drawback to Scarletmoth's powers), the titular Gang of Secrets is actually a pretty good lineup.

I think my main problem in “Felix” is that we didn't get to see the three Akumas working together much because the writers were trying to prioritize Felix as the primary threat of the episode and failed miserably. Here, we get to see a lot of interesting combos and strategies I never really thought about. Lady Wifi uses her powers to freeze some civilians while Timebreaker skates by and absorbs their energy for her skates. Reflekta zaps some other civilians while Princess Fragrance sprays them with her perfume to brainwash them into looking for Marinette, even if it’s the only time this episode that we get to hear “At your service, Princess Fragrance~!”. Horrificator intentionally goes around scaring people while growing in size, acting as the muscle (even though she doesn't do anything in this episode). They all work surprisingly well together, acting like Ladybug and Cat Noir's own Sinister Six.

After making a new safe to hide the Miracle Ball, Lady Wifi breaks into Marinette's room again, so Trixx, the Fox Kwami, uses his power to create a mirage to distract her. But like when Plagg used his Cataclysm in “Style Queen”, it has a little drawback.

The funny thing is that this doesn't even crack the top 5 in terms of weirdest things to happen to the Eiffel Tower in this show.

We cut to Adrien's room so the show can remind the audience he exists before he transforms into Cat Noir. The two don't meet up in person, but Ladybug tells Cat Noir to keep Timebreaker busy so she doesn't travel back in time while Ladybug goes after Lady Wifi. Of course, she doesn't have the friendship bracelet, but that wasn't Ladybug's plan in the first place.

Her actual plan is talking to Lady Wifi in an attempt to get Alya to break free of Shadowmoth's control. It's short, but it's a nice scene, with Ladybug explaining to Alya that even though they can't know everything about each other, they're still friends. So against all odds, Alya manages to reject the bond with Shadowmoth.

Oh yeah, it's not like we saw Chloe reject an Akuma in “Miraculer”, right? And Chrismaster giving up his akumatized object for Ladybug to purify? That didn't count either. Alya is clearly the first person to ever do this, and this is why you should immediately accept what happens later on.

Alya tells Ladybug where the Akuma is, and in response, Ladybug gives Alya the Fox Miraculous, which she uses to transform into Rena Rouge... even though she was already benched in “Feast” for endangering herself by uploading a video about the history of the Guardians to the internet, just like how Queen Bee and Ryuko were benched earlier for similar reasons, and the latter only appeared again because Ladybug wanted to get Kagami away from Adrien. Because I guess we're just going to ignore one of the biggest plotpoints of “Miracle Queen” now.

The other Akumas have Cat Noir at their mercy, so Rena Rouge uses her Mirage to create an illusion of Marinette to distract them. Timebreaker goes off to chase the illusion, and while Horrificator, Princess Fragrance, and Reflekta are about to take Ladybug's Miraculous, Rena Rouge and Cat Noir are the ones to break the object. Overall, a really clever climax to the episode.

So after Alya returns her Miraculous to Ladybug, we cut back to Marinette apologizing to her friends, who never apologize for invading her privacy. And while she mentions Luka, Marinette suddenly talks about how hard is to confess her feelings for Adrien, something that was never mentioned in this episode, because the writers are desperately trying to encourage the audience to ship the Love Square again brutally shooting down Lukanette and Adrigami. And after all this, Alya goes back up after everyone else leaves because she can just tell Marinette has another secret. How does she know this?

youtube

Okay, fine, Alya can be supportive of Marinette, and even her worst moments like the New York special were motivated by what she thought would make Marinette happy. A little misguided, and yeah, her teasing can be annoying at times, but she's ultimately there to help push Marinette to be honest with her feelings. “Reporter” is stretching it a little. No matter what the show likes to say, Alya isn't a good reporter. She barely verifies her sources and just posts things online. I'm sorry, but the Ladyblog is basically the superhero equivalent to TMZ. Alya probably doesn't even know who Joseph Pulitzer or Edward R. Murrow are, because rather than reporting the news to the public, she just wants to find things that will get her clicks on her website. Alya's biggest flaw as a character is that she is incredibly impulsive, but like everything else in the show, this flaw is never acknowledged, and is basically rewarded. Why do I say that? Well...

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this scene. On the one hand, it's very well acted, and the interaction genuinely highlights Marinette and Alya's friendship. Before she tells Alya, Marinette is just opening her heart out to her friend, and the grievances are played completely seriously. Even the reaction Alya gives when she finds out is very subdued, simply showing her shocked face before she gives Marinette a hug, with no dialogue. It's a very profound moment, and it's arguably one of the best in the entire series. Even the ending card doesn't show an action scene, but rather, it continues to focus on the hug while the Kwamis watch.

And thankfully, the episode doesn't end with the standard upbeat “Duh dun dun dun dunnnn, DA DA DA DA~!” track that almost every episode, no matter how depressing, usually ends with. It's just a really great moment, and a good way to end the episode... on its own.

When you think about previous episodes, like what I've mentioned with Alya, it's just strange that despite all the times she has shown herself to be bad at keeping secrets (like the aforementioned scene in “Feast”, posting a picture of her and Cat Noir kissing on the Ladyblog without her consent, and invading her privacy in this very episode, demanding to know her secrets), Marinette suddenly decides to give Alya a chance. Even worse, she had just said that she wasn't going to force her to tell her anything, which seemed like a strong character moment for her, but then the writers go back on the lesson and have Marinette do what Alya was trying to do the whole episode and tell her she's Ladybug.

Sure, Ladybug told Alya she was the Guardian and to keep it a secret earlier, but this lesson in keeping secrets should have stuck when she first became Rena Rouge in Season 2. I don't have a problem with Alya being Marinette's confidant (lord knows she needs one at this point), but I just don't think Alya is ready for this. It's the same thing with what happened with Adrien in “Syren”, by saying him immaturely threatening to quit being Cat Noir because of Ladybug's secrets was meant to show how he was ready to meet Master Fu even though it showed how selfish he was and was anything but ready. How is an episode where Alya tries to force Marinette into telling her everything she's keeping a secret meant to show she's ready to learn Ladybug's identity. Maybe if this episode kickstarted a character arc for Alya where she learned about why people keep secrets and that getting the truth isn't the right thing to do, culminating in a later episode where Alya learns Ladybug's identity, I'd be fine with that. As it is, this just had some poor timing and was the result of the writers not really thinking this through.

I guess I'm still interested to see where this goes, and how Marinette and Alya's friendship will change as a result of this. Maybe Alya can help Marinette get away to transform, or worry about her safety after an Akuma fight. Although the worst case scenario is that if Cat Noir finds out about this, he'll use it as an excuse to bitch and moan about how Ladybug is still keeping secrets from him and of course, she'll be blamed for whatever happens as a result of that.

Though I can't help but feel like I'm forgetting to mention something. Wasn't there someone else who wanted to know the truth about Marinette?

OH YEAH, I FORGOT ABOUT HIM JUST LIKE THE WRITERS DID.

This is what really kills the episode for me, just how it goes back on everything established in “Truth”. The whole reason Marinette broke up with Luka in the first place (which motivated the conflict of this episode) was because she realized keeping secrets from him wouldn't lead to a healthy relationship. As much as it pained her, it was a necessary evil Marinette had to do in order to protect her identity.

But now you're telling me that it's okay for Marinette to tell Alya her secret? WHY? How is this any different from what happened with Luka? Like Alya, Luka also wanted to known the truth, but the only difference was the way he confronted Marinette. He calmly asked her about what she was hiding, and even though she couldn't tell him, he respected her boundaries, and they both managed to end things on good terms.

Alya, who has a history of exposing secrets to the public, who barged into Marinette's room and demanded she tell her all of her secrets, is more trustworthy than Luka? This is why I don't buy the writers making Alya Marinette's confidant. I get that they want to give her some more story presence after how she had mostly faded into the background in Season 3, but this just isn't the way to do it.

Barring that, what did I think of the episode?

youtube

Yeah, it's just... it's just okay at best, mediocre at worst. There were a handful of decent moments in the episode, and some creative action scenes. Even stuff like Cat Noir's forced movie date and Alya violating Marinette's privacy isn't anything new, and unlike other episodes, the latter actually seems to apologize for that. The problem, as I already stated, was the ending. I think maybe the ending could have worked if Alya had found out Marinette's identity, but decided to keep it a secret. That way, it would make for an interesting dynamic, with Alya learning to be more responsible while secretly helping come up with ways for Marinette to get away to transform.

But as it stands, the episode is alright, but mostly forgettable if not for the ridiculous ending.

128 notes · View notes

miraculouswolf99 · 3 years

Text

The Language of Flowers

I love Chloe Salt and while this is not the most action-packed of one-shots, I hope you all appreciate the effort that I did to research each and every meaning of the flowers.

*****

Lyon and Vallia Garden.

The first, a teen that would be described as having a heart of ice and a gaze that could freeze you solid. His twin sister, on the other hand, was pretty much said to be a flower garden made human with tree sap instead of blood.

Yet the two stuck to each other as if they were one of those pairs of conjoined twins. The two were opposites in personality, style, and even how they talk. But even then, they were as close as a brother and sister could be.

Nobody in Ms.Bustier's really had any idea about the two foreign students in their class. Of course, they knew that it was part of a program for students of different countries to experience other cultures. But it was almost like having two ghosts in class. They would come and go each day, silent as ever, and it was like they were never there at all.

There wasn't really much of a problem with them, especially since the first day they were there was pretty much the only time they had ever spoken. But they spoke only to give the class brat, Chloe, a good tongue lashing that they all thought she deserved when she tried to make the two as submissive to her as Sabrina. But since then, the two were so silent that most people that were not in the classroom thought that they were mute.

"They two of them are such a mystery," Nino says, a lot of the class hanging out in the classroom during a break since an akuma attack was recently stopped.

The twins were not in the room for reasons no one else knew.

"A mystery wrapped in an enigma and stuffed into a riddle," Alya added, the reporter in her really frustrated.

"They are not as bad as you guys think," Adrien tells them, a bit tired after his fight as Cat Noir.

"How can you be so sure," Alix crosses her arms. "They don't talk to anyone but each other and never in a language we understand."

"I've seen Lyon at his archery practice sometimes when Kagami and I are at fencing," Adrien says. "He probably just has high expectations expected of him like Kagami and me."

"It is probably the same for Vallia, as well, then," Marinette agreed.

"They could, at least, make an effort with us," Kim said.

"My calculations say that there is a less than five percent chance that the two will speak with any of us," Max says.

"They need to learn their places," Chloe sneered. "Bowing at my feet."

"Why are you even here, Chloe," Alya put her hands on her hips. "Everything that ever comes out of your mouth is about as trashy as that dumpster akuma last week."

It had been a garbage man that was having a bad day. Apparently, his daughter was sick, his partner in the truck would not stop singing opera, and then one grosser bags he was trying to put in the truck ripped open. All that combined made him a prime target for Hawkmoth. Luckily, Ladybug, Cat Noir, White Wolf, and Beautifly managed to stop him from turning Paris into one giant landfill. Which, ironically, was his villain name. Landfill.

"My father will hear about..." Chloe tried.

"Shut up, Chloe," Marinette yelled. "Maybe the reason they don't talk to us is that they think we are all just as under your pathetic thumb as Sabrina."

"I'd rather be turned back into Timebreaker than be her minion," Alix stated.

"Adrikins, you going to let them talk to me like that," Chloe tried to whine.

For once, Adrien didn't even try to defend her. He turned away from her, shaking his head. To say that the young model was sick of her never-changing attitude would be the understatement of the century. He did a lot of thinking after the Despair Bear incident. Chloe would never change how she was. She has gotten away with it for too long to ever even want to change. She especially didn't change after being turned into Queen Wasp not too long ago.

"They've only been here for a little over two weeks," Marinette reminded them. "Maybe they just need more time to adjust."

"Having friends would help them adjust, girl," Alya put her hand on her best friend's shoulder.

"There is an 86.5 percent chance of them adjusting better with friends by their side," Max said, Markov floating by his head.

The class would have talked more, but they heard the sounds of two people chattering away in a foreign language coming toward the classroom. And since Lila was still MIA since her first day in class, that meant that it had to be the twins. Everyone quickly scrambled to get into their seats and not look like they had a class meeting without the entire class.

When Lyon and Vallia walked in, the silence that had fallen over the classroom seemed to be a lot worse than being caught in a class meeting. But the Greek twins simply walked to their seats in the back and sat down for class to start up again.

"Vríkate ta sostá louloúdia," Lyon whispered to his sister. Translated: Did you find the right flowers.

"Me píre lígo, allá to ékana," Vallia whispered back. Translated: Took me a while, but I did.

The two silently had smirks on their faces.

*****

The next day, the class was unbelievably shocked by what they saw when they walked into the classroom. There were bunches of flowers on all of their desks. A different flower was on each of them. No two desks had the same flower. Except that Ms.Bustier's desk seemed to have a flower bunch with one of each blossom in it.

"Geia," the Greek twins greeted them, standing at the front of the classroom.

Most of the class was too shocked by the flowers to notice that the two of them had actually talked to them.

"Was there some type of flower akuma and we didn't know about it," Alya looked disappointed that she might have missed an akuma attack for her blog.

"Pardon," Lyon crossed his arms.

The class suddenly realized that the twins were talking to them. The two of them were also each holding a few roses in their hands.

"Are you two actually talking to us," Alix asked.

"Eínai tóso dýskolo na eísai oraía," Lyon says to his sister. Translation: They make it so hard to be nice.

"Páre, aderfí," Vallia responded. Translation: Behave, brother.

"Class, sit down," Ms.Bustier instructed. "Lyon and Vallia have some things that they have collecting in order to share with us."

"Flowers," Max asked, confused.

"We basically grew up surrounded by nature," Vallia says. "Plants can be a language all on their own. You just have to know how to use them."

Lyon took a small sniff of the roses he was holding.

"Take roses, for example," he said. "They perfectly describe us. Roses are said to represent people that are quiet and traditional. Quite fitting for the two of us, isn't it."

The class all sat down in their respected seats. Adrien and Marinette were probably the most interested ones of the class, even if they were all curious. Except for Chloe, of course.

"We spent these last couple of weeks getting to know you guys from a distance," Vallia explained. "It is one of our family traditions to give flowers to someone when they enter the family. By marriage or birth."

"We decided to take that tradition and make a classroom version of it," Lyon says. "Each of you has been given flowers that match your personalities. It took us a while to find the right ones and get them here. Luckily, we have a very wide range of flora at our family sanctuary."

"You spent over two weeks getting us flowers," Alix raised her eyebrow.

"Can there really be a flower for each of us," Mylene wondered out loud.

"You have them all in front of you," Lyon looked a little annoyed.

Vallia did have to admit that she was a tab annoyed as well. While they did not know just how much nature meant to them as a part of their lives, the doubt was still annoying.

"We figured this would show that we are more than two foreigners that like to keep to themselves," Vallia says.

"Keep in mind that I still like to keep to myself most of the time," Lyon said, Vallia knowing how much her brother likes the quiet.

"So, what do these flowers mean," Adrien asks.

To his surprise, neither of the twins pulled out a list or anything that could help them remember all the information. They must really know their stuff.

"We can start with Mylene," Vallia says, the small girl blushing. "We gave her peony flowers. They represent those that are kind and also like small gestures."

Ivan was particularly shocked by that. He had only gotten together with Mylene because she read his song as a poem after his second time being akumatized as Stone Heart. She was not up for the big-time rock and roll version he wrote it as, and just liked it as a simple poem or soft song.

"Ivan's was simpler to find," Lyon said. "The carnation flower has always been used to describe down-to-earth people. Ones that are very grounded."

The other members of Kitty Section looked at Ivan, knowing how that was very true. Ivan had always been the first to calm down any fame that might go to their heads after the Captain Hardrock incident and their performance. Well, after Luka that is. Juleka's brother was basically a saint when it came to being cool, calm, and collected.

"We chose poppies for Alix," Vallia explained the red flowers in front of the skater. "The traits that they represent are those that are creative and bold."

That was definitely Alix to a "T." Her art was a mix of both since she did spraypaint street art. And her natural athletic abilities did make her do some pretty bold things.

"Max and Kim, I thought, were the easiest to match," Lyon said. "Max has the aster flower, which represents those that are smart and devoted. Kim has hydrangeas, for those that are athletic and team players."

The class was starting to see just how much the two had worked on their "project."

"I, personally, liked to say that I enjoyed finding flowers for Rose and Juleka," Vallia smiled. "Mostly because I am holding one of their names."

That got a giggle out of the pink-dressed blond and an eye roll from Lyon.

"Get on with it, Vallia," Lyon says. "We still have actual classes to attend, sister."

The class had to hide groans, especially since Bustier was in the room and they did not want to insult her by accident.

"Fine," Vallia sighed. "I thought that tulips matched Rose because they are for the bright and cheerful. Juleka's are also my personal favorite flower, the lily. They are for ones that are quiet but also inspirational to others."

Juleka tried to hide her face in her hands, knowing that she was blushing. Rose was over the moon, for herself and her best friend. If there was any flower that was spot on for anyone in the class, it would be the one that Rose got.

"Nathaniel and Adrien ended up having the flowers that tie as my favorite," Lyon admitted. "I chose the iris for Nathaniel because it is a flower for daydreamers and the imaginative. Orchids are Adrien's because they represent those that are sophisticated, refined, but have good hearts."

Both mentioned boys blushed. While Adrien did have more friends than Nath, both of them were naturally quiet and not used to such praise. Yes, Adrien is a model, but it be a miracle to hear any sort of praise from his father. And Nath was only just starting to come out of his shell thanks to Marinette.

"Sabrina was a tad bit more difficult to match," Vallia almost did not want to admit. "But when you learn about who she is, she is optimistic and also tends to be a morning person. Those are the traits of the daisy."

Sabrina was shocked, as were most of the class. As usual, Chloe didn't care. She had been sneering at the flowers in front of her since she had sat down. Sabrina was internally jumping up and down in excitement. No one had ever tried to get to know her, especially after she became friends with Chloe.

"Alya is a very modern person while Nino also very much in the tech universe, so they were also a little difficult to translate to our olden tradition," Lyon says. "But we did think that Alya best matched with the daffodil. It represents those that are very social and also love friends and family. Nino's flower is the sunflower, a blossom for the warm and those that tend to be very happy-go-lucky."

Both of those descriptions perfectly matched the two. Alya was probably the most social person in the entire school. She had to be to run Paris's most popular blog.

"I thought that Marinette's was very much telling about who she is," Vallia says, Marinette a little embarrassed. "The calla lily is for hardworking people, but also represents people that can be said to be quite rare as well."

Marinette was now bright red as she hid her face in her arms, Alya patting her back. But you could see the look on the blogger's face that she was enjoying someone telling Marinette how special she was. The girl was too humble for her own good.

"And last, Chloe," Lyon did not look happy about it being his turn to talk when it came time to tell the brat about her flower.

"Saving the best for last," the blond ruined the nice moment the twins had created. "About time you two start giving me the respect I deserve."

That was when Lyon got the most ice-cold look on his face that the class had ever seen. Rose even shivered a little bit, as if she was actually cold from the look he gave the brat.

Adrien remembered seeing him give that look only once more. It was last week when he was at a photoshoot after school. Lyon and Vallia had been in the same park as the shoot and had heard the photographer becoming rather aggressive with him. After a few words about acting like a model should and not a teenage boy, Lyon got in the photographer's face and gave him that very look. He had not said one word, but that look was enough to make the man weak in the knees. He had not spoken to Adrien again the entire shoot and a different photographer was assigned to him soon after that day.

"Alright, here is what your flower says about you," Lyon's voice could freeze the Atlantic. "The gardenia flower represents those that like living in a life of luxury. Those that like the lifestyle of the one percent..."

Chloe seemed to be happy with that, but Lyon almost smugly popped her bubble.

"Basically, it's the flower for spoiled brats that need to get taught the meaning of the word 'no," he finished.

#ml salt #chloe salt #i hate chloe #original character #miraculous fandom #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #class sugar

64 notes · View notes

martasaur · 3 years

Text

My Over Analysis on Miraculous. Part 3.

Season 4

“Truth”

“Now that I’m the guardian, I have to keep my secret now more than ever.” Marinette says. I find this line hilarious because both Alya and Luka know her identity now and I wouldn’t be surprised if more people find out (we know bunnix knows her secret, who else is going to find out?).

CN is upset that LB forgot about their patrol and she tells him, “I promise I won’t ever forget our patrols ever again.” It’s all downhill from here.

Now Ivan knows Marinette is in love with Adrien. Besides Nino, I don’t believe any of the other guys in class knew about it.

“Don’t worry! I’d never claw a secret out of you, M’lady.”

LB to CN, “What do you think of my new role as Guardian?” “As long as it doesn’t change things with us, then I'm good.” :(

Hawkmoth at the end of the episode says, “Truth is underway, Ladybug. And nothing can stop it.” The reveal is going to happen soon (I hope).

“He can change his name as much as he likes, he’ll still never win.” “You can count on me and my jokes, Bugaboo.”

“Lies”

When Plagg tells Adrien to sample different cheeses (in the love department) we cut to a scene where there are two different cheeses in front of him. He isn’t just explicitly falling for Kagami. He was always falling for Marinette as well!

When Kagami is trying to sketch Adrien and he makes the Chat Noir pose, she says;“You’re not at all natural.” “Yes I am. I promise this is me!” She can’t accept the other side of him, she doesn’t even acknowledge that it exists. Marinette will! I’m sure of it.

Adrien was hesitant to kiss Kagami. In Truth, we see Marinette and Luka are both on the same page, but Adrien with Kagami looks very uncertain.

“And what if everything in our world is just a lie?” Why would Hawkmoth say that? It could be nothing, but it feels so out of place I can’t help wondering what the writer's intentions were?

That’s the second time Marinette’s lucky charm has been akumatized.

CN to LB before he falls into the beam “No, don't do it! What if I fail?!” “You know what? I trust you.” This show really does make sure to let us know that no matter what, Chat Noir always believes in Ladybug.

LB to CN after she fixes everything, “Seriously! You have got to stop doing this to me!” “Yeah, but I can’t resist this angry little pout of yours when you bring me back.” Aww, definitely feels like foreshadowing.

“We keep secrets, and lie. But we always trust each other.”

“Gang of Secrets”

When CN says “Pound it!” She’s distracted and doesn’t right away. This is the start of them becoming more distant.

“You know, if you ever want to talk about anything I’m here for you.” CN says to LB as they leave the theater and she completely ignores him and ditches him.

The girls have a “Rabbit Check”. That’s interesting.

Alix is also the only one that doesn’t immediately give up. She says “It cannot end like this!” while all the other girls gave in. Might be nothing, just find it interesting.

“You’ve made mistakes before, Ladybug. And you’ll make them again, and then I will discover your secret.” There’s a heavy motif of mistakes and choices in this season. This is the beginning of it.

“Mr.Pigeon 72”

Adrien is specifically allergic to pigeon feather in this episode. Previously he was allergic to all feathers. Could his allergy to feathers be a red herring in the series?

Alya’s Grandma always says, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” When things go aerie, we have to learn to overcome them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there it is! Finally! Adrien, Marinette and a red rose all on screen at the same time. As Adrien and Marinette are falling into the pool together, there is a pigeon carrying a red rose. It’s framed so that the pigeon is behind Adrien, signifying that he loves her, he just isn’t aware of it yet. I really hope this is the season Marinette reveals her true feelings for Adrien!

Plagg and Alya both tell Adrien and Marinette that they're insane. I just think that’s a cute parallel.

I'm starting to notice a motif of Adrien flying. It’s pretty constant throughout this season too.

When Marinette is helping Kagami meet Adriens gaze, it’s stated that Adrien thought he saw one of his friends from school. Kagami goes to a different school, he was looking at Marinette.

Marinette says to Kagami, “It’s because you're too far apart! It’s when you’re really close that you feel it!” Is this a metaphor for the wall between them?

Marinette to Kagami, “We haven’t gone back far enough in time to the moment you fell in love!” Hmmmmmm. When Marinette is able to give back the umbrella, will Adrien too realize his love for her? Or is it more literal than that?

“Yes! Create. The only limits are the ones you put on yourself!” Oooo.

When Marinette is offering back the umbrella she says, “I can finally give it back.” But Adrien isn’t ready to accept it yet. The umbrella is a symbol of love in this show, so once he gets it back.. “Keep it, you’re going to need it to get through all of this.” I know in the scene he’s referring to the rain, but there is definitely an undertone of something much bigger. Not only that, he could have easily said, “Keep it, you're going to need it to get through the rain.” But he doesn’t. He says ‘all this’ referring to the storm that’s coming. But they shared the umbrella for a brief time. She’s going to need him too to get through everything.

I think there’s going to be a moment where Adrien has to choose between his father, and Marinette, but the next time he’s going to choose Marinette. However as LB and HM, he might just start by choosing HM (as indicated by him getting in the car). The fact that he looks back though, means he’d rather be going with her.

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.”

In the end card, Adrien has Marinette’s scarf on for 3 of the 4 pictures. While Ladybug’s eye’s look lovingly at them from the background, and Marinette dancing in the rain. Will the scarf come back and play an important role? Maybe the scarf to Adrien will become what the umbrella is to Marinette.

“Furious Fu”

When Marinette is telling the Guardian she doesn’t know who the owner of the cat miraculous since they are, “supposed to keep our identities a secret”, the Guardian looks at her confused but says nothing. That rule must have been implemented by Master Fu, and not a core rule of the Guardians. We know both Alya and Luka learn that Marinette is Ladybug, so maybe we will continue to see her open up and trust others with her identity too.

CN says to LB “Trust yourself, Ladybug. Like I do.” He really always does believe in her.

CN is so afraid of losing LB, he’s willing to stand up to the Guardian. Hope he show’s some of that same when he faces his dad.

HM says to his butterfly, “A scorned authority, a confused man defeated.” Is this foreshadowing to Adrien standing up to his dad, as well as CN standing up to HM?

CN cataclysms the soccer ball. The miracle box has had a lot of parallels to the soccer ball in this episode. Hope it’s not foreshadowing.

HM says, “Be careful with that box, you wouldn’t want to lose it again.”

The Guardian says, “Your natural instincts tell you who you can trust.” Even if CN goes rogue in this season, I think she will always trust him. He will always be a good guy.

The Guardian tells Marinette that he cannot imagine what would happen if the miracle box were to fall into the wrong hands, but that he’s trusting her to take care of it. A lot of allusion to Marinette losing the box in this episode.

“Sole Crusher”

“Sorry, Chat Noir. I got held up.” LB says it so nonchalantly that I didn’t understand it was a pun until the second time I watched it. Good writing.

The end card hints at Chloe becoming Queen Banana.

“Queen Banana”

The colors of the costumes immediately stand out. The green one for creation, and the red one for destruction. The colors are opposite to that of LB and CN. So which one does Marinette see herself as? In the next scene we get our answer. When the reporter is talking about costumes it pans to Alya (who is holding up the green costume) and Marinette who is holding up the red costume. The play that pans out directly parallel that of LB and CN, even if they say it’s not (as Marinette tell’s the kwamis it’s a movie, make belief).

(Alya holding up the green costume might signify that she’s on equal footing to CN and she’s going to be equally as important to the events. But I’m not as certain of this as the other stuff. Thought it was an interesting point regardless.)

Zoey says (as she is in the green costume) while practicing her lines, “You may hate me, but I will always love you.” This line is said four times throughout the episode, making it very important. The line is very Chat Noir in nature, and the fact that we have already seen Marinette holding up the red costume (to signify her role in the events) we can conclude that this is what Chat Noir is going to be saying to Ladybug regarding this big event. There is another hint at this in another episode we haven’t talked about yet. But I will point it out once we get there.

“You may hate me but I love you, and I always will.”

In the film, the entire population has been put into an enchanted sleep. But why? The only other time we see a character in "an enchanted sleep" is Emilie. Could this foreshadow that in order for Emilie to be brought back, everyone else will fall asleep?

When Chloe is getting mad about her role, Nino says, “But those two roles are equally as important.” We can’t forget there would be no LB without CN.

Marinette is the one who puts Adrien in the cage after Chloe orders a better challenge for her. “My father said it was for the good of the film.” So once again Adrien is trapped thanks to his dad. Marinette also takes charge and says “The first thing we are going to do is get Adrien out of that cage!” Foreshadowing? She may have led Adrien into his fathers grasp, but ultimately she’s also the one to get him out.

Zoey hits Mylene with a beam and Mylene drops to the ground (I also want to note that the sound that is made when Mylene is hit by the beam is the same sound that is used for Hawkmoth’s transformation. It’s also another allusion to LB getting cataclysmed, we've seen this hinted at a lot but whether it actually happens is another thing. The sound used to revive Adrien is different.) It’s interesting that Adrien was brought back by his movie counterpart. I wonder what that means for Adrien and Chat Noir?

“You may hate me, but I love you and I always will. Even if the whole world hates you.” Big foreshadowing.

The end card still shows Chloe in a purple aura, no one else has any other color change. Hinting at another akumatized Chloe, possibly the finale?

“Mega Leech”

Gabriel says to Andre, “When one fights for a good cause, one always finds a solution.” Gabriel believes his cause is good so maybe he will succeed?

“Buy us some time, Kitty!” “How come I’m always the one who has to buy us time” He says it with a smile, but that distance between them is growing and CN is showing it.

CN may have been possessed, but he did try to take her miraculous. This is a running theme in the show (It might not be hinting at anything bigger, but I'll put it here as a note anyways).

CN says, “Hey guys, wait up! Group pose!” He’s the last one in the frame, he’s being left behind.

This episode is also particularly interesting as it is the first time LB was able to defeat an akuma WITHOUT the use of CN’s powers. Not a good sign.

Gabriel and Adrien talking at the end of the episode, “Adrien, you took a stand against me today.” “I didn’t take a stand against you, father! I took a stand against a project my friend said was bad for the plane--”. Gabriel raises his left hand to stop Adrien. It completely engulfs Adrien and we get a good glimpse at Gabriel's ring. “Adrien. Go to your room.” Adrien obeys without any arguments. Gabriel plays with his ring behind his back while staring up the stairs squinting ever so slightly. There is obviously a connection between Adrien and those rings.

“Guilt trip”

When Gabriel is talking to his akuma he says, “Oh how well I know that feeling of loneliness. That anxiety no one else can share, and that only an Akuma can ease.” That’s so sad. But Gabriel does it to himself.

Marinette falls into Adrien and they stare at each other for a moment while the background changes to pink bubbles (signifying love) and he smiles softly at her. I’m starting to wonder if Adrien likes how clumsy Marinette is. If Adrien’s love language is touch, then he sure does get to touch her a lot, haha!

“Don’t feel bad about telling us, Juleka. You held out as long as you could, but it was just too much to bear alone.” This line parallels Marinette and Alya, but I wonder if it will also parallel Ladybug and Chat Noir by the end of the season?

When the gang is able to help Juleka overcome her loneliness, HM says; “Impossible! How can an abyss of loneliness just vanish?” It cuts to a wider frame so the audience can see just how alone HM is…

When the class goes to find Juleka after she runs away to the bathroom, Chloe, Sabrina and Lila are the only ones that don’t get up. Not really a surprise but i’ll note it anyways.

When Nino is inside the sentimonster he says, “I can’t even help my best bud stand up to his old man.” I think he will though, in the season finale. With the help of Marinette, of course!

CN says, “We should just give him our miraculous”. Then LB says, “Chat Noir, you have to think positive! You’re the greatest partner anyone could have!” She means it, but has a hard time showing it via her actions because she’s so afraid of revealing her identity to him. “Ladybug, do you really mean that?” “Yes! I probably don’t tell you this enough, but I couldn’t do this without you! And it would be a lot less fun too.” Chat Noir is able to break free from the bubbles and start cracking jokes. But. There is still. One. Purple. Bubble. Left. On. Him. He still has his doubts and it’s going to show later on in the season.

“Pigella’s powers shows the person it affects their hearts greatest desire.” I didn’t think much of Pigella’s powers the first time I watched this episode. I wrote it off as lame. But now rewatching and overanalyzing the series, I think she’s going to play a big role in the future. Whether she uses her powers on Gabriel, or Chat Noir.

“We don’t always need a spectacular fight to succeed.” LB says to CN.

“Crocoduel”

Shadowmoth says, “A group of friends are surprised to find out that ‘two’ of them have been keeping secrets.” This is 100% in reference to Marinette and Adrien keeping their identities. However, when the group finds out it’s a very positive reaction. They’re fears are for not!

“A young girl whose biggest fear has come true! What could be worse than not being loved by your own father?” Is this in reference to Chat Blanc? Or maybe CN turning on LB?

“Bugaboo, promise me we won’t be a couple like that when we get older?” “In order for that to happen we’d have to be a couple first, Kitty Cat.” She’s not full on rejecting him anymore.

“Optigami”

Adrien keeps smiling sweetly at Marinette when she’s being weird now. It’s really sweet and shows how fond he is of her now.

Style Queen to Shadowmoth “And I’ll get you the two trinkets you’re so obsessed with.” They're not the only two trinkets he’s obsessed with.

When Marinette and Adrien get stuck in the elevator, Marinette very sure of herself says; “I’m sure Chat Noir will be along to save us!” He replies, “Yeah or… Ladybug.” He however, doesn’t sound nearly as sure of himself, again showing the distance growing between them.

Even though we know Adrien is afraid of being trapped, he seems okay in the elevator because Marinette is there.

When Rena Rouge comes to save Marinette, she quite literally removes Chat Noir from the picture.

LB and CN banter, “To know me is to love me.” “On second thought.” She laughs. She doesn’t fully reject him though!

When CN asks LB how she knew the Akuma was in the miraculous she says,“Thanks to my lucky charm, Kitty Cat. It always shows me the right way. Except this time, I had gotten the villain wrong.” This feels like foreshadowing.

On the end card, it show’s Rena Rouge basically engulfing the screen, while CN is tiny in comparison. LB is pushing CN off to the side, not on purpose but it’s clearly happening.

“Sentibubbler”

In Marinette nightmare, it reveals all her biggest fears. Alya betrays her trust, Shadowmoth with the miracle box, Chat Blanc. What if all these things end up happening? Chloe is there too talking about how ridiculous keeping secret identities are. Could she be the voice of reason for once? Haha.

When Marinette goes over to Alya she says, “Not even Chat Noir can know” (in regards to secret identities). She needs to open up and trust Chat Noir more. That’s one of her biggest mistakes, and this whole season's motif is about mistakes and how to fix them.

“You were right to give me a miracu--grr!” Alya doesn’t finish her sentence. This gives me ominous vibes.

Tikki to Marinette, “ Trust Alya, Marinette. She’s never let you down before.” Yet! “ You’re right, plus I'm sure Chat Noir will show up soon.”

Marinette to Tikki once she sees Alya needs ‘help’, “Then Chat Noir is our last hope.” I think so. It reminds me of the movie they made earlier in the season, and how Zoey (in the green costume) saved everyone.

Alya’s Illusion “I’d never betray you, Ladybug.” Hmm.

Ladybug to Chat Noir, “This could have been the end of Shadowmoth.” “ You know, I really thought today was the end of Chat Noir, but you guys had it under control.” He doesn’t just mean the end because his miraculous was taken. He feels like it’s the end of their teamwork.

Gabriel talking to Natalie, “Ladybug never makes a mistake!” “Don’t give up. Everyone make’s mistakes. One day, she’ll make one too. And when that day comes, your wish will come true.” There’s the motif of mistakes again. I think Natalie is right. Ladybug is going to make a mistake, but how she fixes it will be important too.

“Rocketear”

In the movie theater Nino and Alya are watching the LB and CN animated film. There’s a particular line that is said between LB and CN, “Chat Noir, come back!” Is this a hint that he’s going to leave the team? “I’ll always love you, Ladybug!” And there it is! The line that confirms what I speculated in Queen Banana. “I love you, and I always will.” I think they make these moments very missable on purpose. If you’re not paying attention, you miss it really easily. I know I sure did before this over analyses.

When CN and Alya are talking on the rooftop and Alya laughs at CN she says, “Besides, I don’t know your real identity. I could never fall for someone I didn’t know.” This might be a slight at Marinette and Adrien. Until they know who the other really is, they’ll never be able to fully give themselves to one another.

When Nino tells Adrien that Alya and him know each other's secret identity, Adrien looks so hurt. “Ladybug would never allow that.” “She’s the one who gave us our miraculous at the same time.” “No that’s… Impossible.”

Alya and Rocketear, “I can’t believe I ever doubted you..” “I can’t believe I ever chose to do something over spending time with you.” “I’m so sorry..” He said as he cries a tear. Alya wipes the tear, paralleling the scene in Chat Blanc. If Alya can help Nino overcome being Rocketear, then LB can help CN overcome Chat Blanc.

“Love and secrets don’t mix, Ladybug. I’m sure you have many secrets too.” Shadowmoth says at the end of the episode. She has to be honest with Adrien if she ever wants a chance of being with him.

“Everyone has doubts now and then. Even me...” Chat Noir says as a huge poster of Adrien is staring at LB, almost disapprovingly. When CN and LB depart after, he looks so sad. I really feel for this boy. Everyone he loves is keeping him in the dark at this point.

“I can’t hide it from you, Nino. Because I love you, and we share everything.” Alya and Nino embrace. That’s how it should be. Ladybug has to find the courage to be honest with Chat Noir too, or she will never overcome Shadowmoth.

The end card is foreboding. With Chat Noir looking up at a bubble that looks like the moon. One of Marinette's biggest fears may be closer to coming true than she realizes.

“Wishmaker”

The art teacher tells Chloe, “ You know, Chloe. People are defined by their choices, and what they do with their lives.” This goes pretty hand in hand with the mistake motif of this season. We might make mistakes but it’s how we choose to overcome them that makes us who we are.

Plagg and Adrien talking, “Don’t you want to continue to be a model?” “I don’t think so, Plagg. I’m only doing it now because my father asked me to.” We all know how obedient Adrien can be when it comes to his father… “I realize now I don’t know what else I want to do. I never asked myself that question.” :( “Since Ladybug keeps handing out miraculous, the day will come where she won’t need me anymore.” There is no Ladybug without Chat Noir.

As Marinette is struggling with figuring out what she wants for her future, Sass begins floating in front of her and says; “Marinette. What is the real important thing that will bring meaning to your life?” He asks her as he hovers in front of a photo collage of Adrien.

When Luka is talking to Marinette and Alec by the beach, Marinette tells Luka, “You definitely have a gift for finding the right words at the right time.” As Adrien sutley enters the background behind her. She too will find the right words for Adrien when the time is right.

Not really a note, but can we talk about how romantic and amazing Luka is? Too good for this world, haha!

Adrien while talking to Luka and Marinette, “If I don’t figure it out, my father will decide for me once again.” “I thought I’d be content doing whatever my father wanted me to do.” “My father arranges it all for me, but if I think about what I want to do… Nothing! My mind’s empty.” These lines really hurt my head. He’s so clearly being controlled by his father, but something along the way has changed. He is no longer satisfied doing what his father wants him to do.

Luka tells Adrien, “Your song, Adrien, sounds like it’s being muffled by someone playing a sad piano tune. But your true melody is a happy one.” Once Adrien can overcome his father, his true nature will be revealed and he will become the happy boy we all know and love him for.

Alec gets sad and says, “I’ve been making the wrong choices all my life.” There’s that motif again.

“He’s mistaking dreams for reality.”

LB and CN bantering, “The knitting fairy? Seriously?” “What about you? What did you wanna be when you were young? You’re making fun of me, but you’re too embarrassed to tell me.” “Actually, I don’t know what I wanted to be..” “You probably wanted to be a fireman, or a magician.” Trait she sees in CN. Having fun, and being brave. But I can’t help but think, didn’t Felix also want to be a magician?

CN to Wishmaker, “Don’t waste your breath. I didn’t have any (in regards to dreams).” “Every child has a dream.” Unless… he skipped that phase of his life?

When CN gets hit, he goes directly under the picture of his mother. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be what my parents wanted me to be!” And then it’s just Adrien. So who is Adrien Agreste? Is Adrien truly Adrien? Or is he modelled after someone else?

Adrien is going to start looking forward to the future and forget about the past. This reminds me of a famous quote, “I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you choose to do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” -Mewtwo from Pokemon the First Movie.

First (link)

Previous (link)

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #ladybug #ml #mlb #ml spoilers #mlb spoilers #chat noir #over analyzing #over analysis #discussion

23 notes · View notes

miraculousluvbug · 3 years

Text

WINGLESS | Ch. 7

***New to Wingless? Start at Chapter 1!

CH. SUMMARY: After Chat learns Ladybug told Rena her identity, Plagg's solution is simple: tell someone he's Chat Noir so they're even! Duh.

Unbeknownst to the three wicked stooges, Paris’s favorite cat boy sat perched upon a rooftop adjacent to the mansion, ogling the interaction between his father, his trusted assistant, and his absolute least favorite person in the entire world.

Next to Hawk Moth, of course.

As they tittered and conspired in the darkness, Chat Noir narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t help but find the whole thing . . .

Shady.

“Claws in.”

Plagg whizzed out of the ring and looked up at his holder with sad kitten eyes. Adrien avoided making eye contact, practically drilling a hole into the ground with the intensity of his glare. He hugged his knees to his chest and picked at his shoelaces.

“That was pretty rough, kid.”

Adrien sniffled and roughly smeared away his tears with the back of his hand.

“I was hoping her explanation would make me feel better, Plagg.”

Adrien hugged his knees tighter.

“But it made me feel so much worse.”

“Oh, Adrien,” Plagg crooned, shoulders drooping. He hesitated for only a second before flying to Adrien’s shoulder and nuzzling his holder’s neck.

“She doesn’t want to know me, Plagg. Am I really that bad?”

“Not at all. I already told you that no other Chat Noir could be you. I meant it. You’re the best Chat Noir I’ve ever had.”

Adrien’s sniffles quieted, but the tears persisted. He had no idea how to stop them now that they had started. With gut-wrenching envy, Adrien watched the person he hated most engage in chit-chat with his father as if it was the most casual occurrence. The man even went as far as sharing whatever was on his tablet, a feat Adrien had been trying to accomplish since before he could remember. His father always claimed to be private, unwilling to share any kind of imperfect designs with his own son.

But there Lila was. Conversing with his father more than he himself had in the past week.

And Ladybug had given her most sacred secret to Rena Rouge.

Was he invisible?

He felt so small.

Lost at sea.

A blip in the turbulent waters that no one knew was missing.

He was a boy overboard with no life raft. And no one knew to look for him.

His soul was cold and his heart felt numb.

“You know what?” chirped Plagg suddenly, snapping Adrien out of his spiral. “Ladybug is the new Guardian, right?”

Adrien nodded hesitantly. Where was he going with this?

“What’s her only rule?”

“We can’t know each other’s identities.”

Plagg hovered in front of Adrien’s eyes and flipped onto his back, making a show of nonchalance. If this was gonna work, Plagg had to make the kid think it was kind of his own idea. “Who can’t know each other’s identities?”

Adrien was unamused. To him, Plagg was beating a dead horse.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

Plagg popped open one eye. He didn’t need to open both for Adrien to see the blatant impishness in them.

“So Ladybug and Chat Noir can’t know each other’s identities. What about . . . other people?”

The blonde ball of despair perked up, hair bouncing into his eyes, though they immediately narrowed at his Kwami’s scheming.

“But Master Fu--”

Plagg interjected, “--who isn’t the guardian anymore.”

Adrien blinked.

Kwamis, Plagg was so close to convincing his kid to be selfish for once. He just needed a push! A hefty, premeditated shove off the Fu-forsaken cliff!

“It’s like I’ve always said. Beg for forgiveness, not for permission.” Plagg folded his little paws across his chest, floating right up to Adrien’s nose. Adrien went cross-eyed trying to maintain eye contact. “Ladybug told Rena. So the question is: who’s Chat Noir going to tell?”

“It’s--” Adrien spluttered. “It’s risky, Plagg!”

“And so is being depressed,” Plagg snarled back, surprising Adrien. “Any other person gets minorly inconvenienced and akumatized, who saves them? You--” the Kwami jabbed a paw into Adrien’s nose “--and the bug. But you or Ladybug get akumatized, who saves you?”

Plagg saw the cogs turning in Adrien’s head. He briefly speculated who his kid might choose. Nino would be the obvious choice. He wasn’t as close to Kagami any more, but telling her the secret that had broken them apart would certainly be one hell of an apology. It could even, say, potentially repair what the secret had fractured.

There was also the off chance Adrien might choose Pigtails, who coincidentally doubled as Ladybug. Plagg would have to raid the Agreste kitchen for popcorn if that happened.

“If . . .” Adrien began.

Yes? Plagg internally coaxed.

“If I were to choose someone . . .”

Come on, Adrien.

“I think it would be . . . Nino.”

Yahtzee.

Plagg clapped his paws together over and over, rousing Adrien from his feet like a drill sergeant. “All right, then! Let’s go, let’s go! Hustle, bell boy. We’ve got places to be!”

Adrien reached into his pocket and pulled out a squishy triangle, letting loose the most intoxicating aroma Plagg ever did smell. It circled the pair and made Plagg salivate. “Don’t you want this first?”

Did I really forget about camembert? Plagg wondered incredulously.

“I--” Plagg scrambled for an excuse to atone for the touchy-feelies interfering with his one true love, but he came up short. “Of course I want that!”

Adrien smiled fondly at his Kwami and threw the camembert into the air. Not one to miss a beat, Plagg zipped and caught the cheese in his mouth, devouring the thing in one fell swoop.

“Now we can go!” said Plagg, belching remorselessly. Naturally.

Adrien chuckled. When he opened his mouth to say the transformation phrase, however, he faltered. Was he really going to do this? It . . . It felt disobedient, like he was betraying Ladybug. But could she really hold it against him, if she had needed to do the same?

Would his partner reveal herself to be a hypocrite?

The budding consequences of revealing himself to Nino weighed so heavily on his shoulders that he wasn’t sure how he would manage batoning into the air once transformed. The aptitude for disappointment just felt so tangible to him, as if it were physically chaining him to the rooftop, a meaty claw so solidly wound ’round his ankles it threatened to pierce his skin.

The thought that Nino might hate him for keeping the secret in the first place made home in Adrien’s cerebral cortex, further immobilizing him. It pulled up a chair and opened the morning newspaper like it was meant to be there, meant to remind him that not everything was just simple. Straightforward. Without fallout.

A tender paw touched his cheek, wiping away a runaway tear.

“Kid,” whispered Plagg. His eyes were misty.

Is that . . . because of me? Because he cares about me?

Holding his gaze a moment longer, Adrien uttered the words that once changed his life forever and seemed to be forever following him with new and improved ways to spice up his routine.

“Claws out.”

The energy washed over him like a cold shower, springing him into action. The need to move, to run, to fly nipped at his heels and before he knew it, he was vaulting to his best buddy’s.

If Adrien was honest, telling Marinette, his dearest friend, was his first instinct. He gripped that realization like it would fly away at a moment’s notice, at the slightest spook (he was on the precipice of truly understanding what his good friend Marinette really meant to him). But he had heard from Nino that Alya and Marinette were holed in for a “girls’ night,” so . . . Nino was the next best thing.

Nino was far from second place, however. Sharing the burden of his greatest secret with the guy who got mad at Gabriel Agreste on Adrien’s behalf was like a breath of fresh air. More than that, it was like Adrien would finally be able to steady his head above the tide.

(Telling Marinette would have been like sprouting gills and uncovering the mystery of the sea up close and personal, but Adrien didn’t want to unpack that particular conclusion yet.)

Wasting no time, Chat Noir landed nimbly on Nino’s apartment balcony and tucked his baton back into place. Giving himself just one more moment before life as he knew it was spun upside down--for better or for worse was yet to be determined--he raised a gloved claw to the sliding glass door and timidly knocked.

Nino’s balcony wasn’t decorated like Marinette’s. A few bikes of various sizes loitered against the railing, collecting dust. A few helmets hung limply from their handlebars, occasionally shifting to and fro in the passive wind. Chat could discern by the light-up training wheels which bike belonged to Nino’s little brother, Chris. The bike--which Chat realized must be new since his last visit--sported black spots against its red frame.

Chat shook his head fondly.

Someone obviously developed an appreciation for the bug after their last akumatization. But as the evening breeze softly twisted the helmet, the vision before him melted him into a puddle of endearment. Nino’s kid brother apparently also had a thing for Chat Noir.

The evidence?

A black helmet topped with an acid green paw print and two plastic cat ears to boot.

Un-fur-tunately, as much as the sight was incredibly thera-paw-tic, it also made his heart throb. His body ached for a larger family, from head to toe and down to his bones.

Adrien didn’t dream often in his sleep, but when he did . . . Oh, when he did, he was blessed with visions of him entering a cozy one-story home (his) and immediately being greeted by giggling and the blinding smiles of three faceless children (also his).

While his hopelessly romantic heart yearned for Ladybug to be his other half in that tender fantasy, lately his subconscious had a habit of inserting a particular blue-haired classmate. It baffled him at first, but he figured seeing her family photo that one time during Animan in addition to experiencing the Dupain-Chengs’ bolstering hospitality personally as both Adrien and Chat Noir made Marinette a safe space for his lonely imagination.

Whoever she married would be one lucky bastard, that was for sure.

The curtains behind the glass door swept dramatically to the side, revealing a bewildered Nino in Rena Rouge-themed pajamas.

“Chat Noir?!” he exclaimed. The glass between them muffled his voice.

A quick scan beyond Nino told Chat that his friend was home alone, but he knew he needed to be certain. “Are you home alone?”

Nino paled before realizing that a superhero asking that question wasn’t as bad as some random adult looking for an easy target. He exhaled, chuckling nervously. “My family went to the ice rink, but skating’s so not my jam.”

So he stayed behind. Good. This was gonna be a piece of cake! Adrien pointed at the door handle and raised his eyebrows in question.

“Oh, right. Sorry, dude!”

Nino clambered to unlock the door and wrenched it open. The smell of broth and herbs hit Adrien square in the nose. His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since lunch. “What brings you here? An akuma?”

Stepping over the threshold, Chat tried to make sense of Nino’s question. Why would he come to a civilian if there was an akuma? “No, no akuma, Nino.”

“Oh, good, ’cause I-- Dude, how did you know where my room is?”

If Chat weren’t there to reveal his identity, he might have had a heart attack over accidentally bee-lining to Nino’s room like he’d been there before. He probably would have said something fishy like “In a house like this, it’s a given!” But he didn’t have to make up some ridiculous excuse. He wouldn’t ever have to lie to his best friend.

Never again.

“Because . . .”

Nino eyed Chat expectantly. His room was a mess. He really wasn’t expecting any visitors and his laptop was still open, his music and film ideas scrawled onto random pieces of notebook paper and scattered across his desk like a madman. Or an artist. Was there really a difference?

“Because . . .” Chat began once more.

Oh, gosh. This was it. He was going to do it. He was going to do the thing! He was alone at sea and no one from the boat had noticed him falling overboard. But maybe, just maybe Nino was the Coast Guard. Maybe Nino would throw him a buoy.

“Because claws in.”

Nino’s entire body went rigid. Crap, crap, crap!

“No, wait--!” Nino shouted, closing his eyes instinctually and reaching for Chat Noir. He had to pull him away from his laptop’s camera field! Had to get him out of sight! Why did he choose now to share Paris’s most coveted secret?!

But . . . he was too late.

The light had already dimmed behind his eyelids by the time his hands were closed around--

“Adrien?” Nino whispered, peering up at his best friend. The duckling he had sworn to protect and teach the ways of life was standing where Chat Noir should be.

Adrien smiled and opened his mouth to respond, but a high-pitched laughter rang out and the joy he felt was quickly replaced with sheer terror.

Nino grinned sheepishly.

“Uh haha, you remember my girlfriend Alya who I sometimes Skype with while working on scripts?” Clumsily, Nino rubbed comforting circles into Adrien’s arms as if he could rub away the embarrassment.

“You said you were home alone.”

“Actually, I said my family went to the ice rink.”

Adrien’s eye twitched.

Plagg, who couldn’t have foreseen this turn of events, hovered off to the side and figured if he didn’t move, he could pretend he was invisible.

Sure enough, Adrien craned his head to find an unhinged Alya screeching like a fox (he had seen a video of them laughing once on YouTube; they were so adorable!) from Nino’s computer screen. Behind Alya was a familiar cork board of friends and, well, lots of himself. The walls were pink. She was at Marinette’s like Nino said she would be.

Adrien had expected gasps. Finger pointing. A million questions. What he hadn’t expected was Alya laughing like he was the butt of a joke.

After a good minute of cackling and awkward waiting from the boys, Alya sighed and wiped a tear from her eye. Then she spoke, a dazed smile on her lips.

“I cannot wait to strangle that Hawaiian-shirt-loving Master of Unnecessary Manipulation.” Her words were completely contrasted by the amusement in her voice.

Adrien tried not to faint.

-----

We're now caught up with AO3 here on Tumblr (AO3 is where I first started posting this). Yay! :D Also, was anyone expecting Rena to be there? 😌I wasn't. 😳 Follow me for updates and check out my Instagram where I post art!

(7/?) Previous | Next

42 notes · View notes

sassyduckqueen · 3 years

Text

Miraculous: Rise of Anatis 59

Oh damn! This has been a great chapter to write and I managed to work in Dark Bee!! Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this roller coaster ride of a chapter and get ready for more. It's Miracle Queen next and things are about to get even more crazy! Just as a heads up, Lila's take down won't be in this chapter. I'm sure I've said this before but I intend to have her full take down in my adaptation of Truth which will be my 'season 4' finale so chapter 80. I know it's far away but i promise it will be worth the wait. Anyway, that doesn't mean that Anatis is going to ignore Lila's actions. He is gonna be watching her like a hawk after this and searching for solid evidence to be able to take her down once and for all. I just wanted to let you guys know that so you can read Miracle Queen without been disappointed when a lila take down doesn't occur. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :D Oh, my miracle queen redesign will now be marked as non spoiler too since she has been revealed in this chapter

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

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Loveater (1/2)

~One Week Before Princess Justice~

Marinette frowned to herself as she sat in the park alone. She had tears rolling down her face and had been crying for a good few minutes. She was so tired and hurt that she didn't even care that it was raining or that she was soaked. It didn't matter. Not anymore. Her whole life was about to be destroyed and she didn't know how to save herself. Lila had been going on and on about how successful she was and of course, Marinette had gotten annoyed and pointed out her lies. Given they were obvious ones this time, she thought her classmates would finally realize but then Lila started to cry and accused Marinette of hating her and having a grudge against her. Marinette pointed out that she wouldn't have a problem with her if she didn't lie. That only made Lila worst and she began to cry so dramatically, it made Chloe look normal when she threw her tantrums. However, it worked on the class. Almost instantly, they began to berate her and tell her not to 'bully' poor Lila. Marinette tried to argue that she wasn't bullying her. She was simply trying to disprove her lies. That's when Miss Bustier told her to go to the principal's office. Marinette did in defeat and was given detention even though she explained she was just trying to help her friends. After that, lunch time came and Adrien came up to her. She naturally blushed and stumbled her words but he told her she shouldn't accuse anyone of lying without solid proof. Of course, that hurt Marinette more then he realized. He thought he was giving her advice, telling her to collect evidence and then show it to her classmates but Marinette saw it as him telling her off and berating in the same way as the rest of the class. Alya had already told her on several occasions that she needed proof that Lila was lying yet she never once verified her source when Lila claimed to be Ryuko's best friend and Aspik's girlfriend. It was so obvious she was lying yet it felt like Marinette was the only person who saw it. After Adrien's "advice", she excused herself and headed to the bathroom to cry. Unfortunately, Lila had seen her and followed her. She tried to be nice to her and worm her way in but when Marinette didn't relent, Lila showed her true colors and threatened her, giving her til the end of the day to bow down to her. That's why Marinette ended up in the park. She ran as fast as she could out of the school and to one of the only places she felt slightly safe. It was odd that she felt safe in the park but she could hide in the merry-go round, which is what she was doing. She jumped as her phone vibrated, causing her to look at it. She opened it and saw it was the group chat that her class had. She opened it, wondering if they were trying to reach her but it was just them spamming it with memes and other crap. Marinette sniffed and wiped her eyes as she realized no one had actually texted her to see if she was ok. She didn't expect her parents to because they were busy and some of the class she knew had issues with texting or phoning people. Juleka was one of them as was Nathaniel so she didn't expect them to but she thought Nino or Alya would have. Yet they had done nothing. Looking at the time, she decided to get up and walk back to the bakery. She needed to change her clothes anyway. She wiped her eyes off her tears and walked with her shoulders slumped towards the gate, failing to notice the purple butterfly fluttering towards her. However, as she literally stepped out, a bike pulled up next to it.

"Marinette?" A familiar voice asked, making her look up as Juleka's brother, Luka, climbed off his bike. His expression was one of concern and worry. "Are you ok?"

She blinked and automatically put on a small smile. It was a mask she had gotten so use to wearing.

"Yeah, I'm fine," She lied but Luka didn't look like he believed her. His expression became even more worried as her song didn't match her expression. Seeing him look at her with worry and concern shook her and the dam broke. Her shoulders shook as she felt tears in her eyes. "A-actually, no! I'm not fine at all!"

She covered her face and turned away from him, not wanting him to see her tears. He would just ignore it anyway. That's what everyone did. She began to sob, feeling alone again as the butterfly fluttered closer but then she felt an arm move around her as Luka gently pulled her against her. He was holding his bike with his other hand and she couldn't help but cry as everything she felt came out.

"I'm so tired, Luka!" She gasped, shaking as she cried. The butterfly fluttered closer to her. "Of all these responsibilities. Of having to put up a front all of the time. Of not been allowed to be who I truly am!"

"It's alright, Marinette," He stated as he gently moved his thumb up and down on her shoulder, trying to comfort her as she cried. It slowly worked as the butterfly just hovered nearby. "You can tell everything or nothing if you prefer. You can be yourself around me you know... just yourself,"

She looked up at him as he looked back at her before leaning against his chest, causing him to let go of his bike. It crashed to the floor as he wrapped both arms around her, causing her to close her eyes. For the first time in ages, she felt... warm and safe and for a while, they just stood there. Neither noticed the butterfly fluttering away to find a new victim. Instead, it was just the two of them and the world could wait before she sniffed and wiped her eyes, looking up at him sadly before reality seemed to catch up with her. She quickly pulled away, embarrassed as she blushed.

"I-I'm so sorry, Luka," She gasped, trying to not to freak out too much. "I didn't mean to break down-"

"It's ok," Luka smiled, making her smile shyly and her heart flutter a little. "You don't have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders but if you don't want to tell me-"

"I'm been bullied," She stated, making him blink as she looked down. "There's this girl in my class. She lies like it's second nature to her and I realized what she was doing. I tried to call her out to protect my friends because she's promising them everything but no one believes me. Alya keeps telling me to not to be jealous of her and Adrien told me to not to accuse her if I don't have proof and I don't know what to do, Luka. She threatened to destroy my life if I didn't-"

"She threatened you?!" He gasped, shocked. "Marinette, you have to tell a teacher!"

"I can't, Luka," She whispered, making him frown."They do nothing... Chloe bullies everyone but none of the teachers do anything because her father is the mayor and Lila is the daughter of the italian ambassador or so she says but the point is the school believes her and they don't bother rich parents,"

She looked down with a broken expression.

"It doesn't matter anyway," She stated, looking sad. Luka went to argue but before they could, an explosion got their attention before Ryuko and Aspik landed in front of them. They grabbed them and carried them away as a building landed where they had been standing, causing Luka to look back. His eyes widen in surprise as he saw some kind of monster in the dust but before he could question it, he was dropped off near his home and was alone. Aspik had taken Marinette back to hers. He sighed and dropped her a text, telling her that he was there for her if she needed him. She replied with a simple thank you. Neither of them expected their lives to change one week later when Princess Justice's reign began and Anatis was born...

~The Dupain-Cheng Resident, Current Time~

Marinette hummed to herself as she sew the final part of her gift to Anatis. She stopped and stretched, glancing around her room. Plagg was curled up in his bed, sleeping off his food coma. He had stuffed his face with a cheese danish while she had been working and was now snoring a little. She smiled and shook her head as she went back to her thoughts. Tomorrow was exactly one year since she had became Princess Justice and Anatis had turned up to save Paris. However, she wasn't upset about it been the anniversary of her akumatization. Quite the opposite actually. Since she had became Princess Justice, her life had changed dramatically. Most of her class knew that Lila was a liar, even if some people were still in denial. Though Alya was getting the memo now and definitely started to act carefully around the italian. She had build friendships with people she never thought she could be friends with. Kagami was one of them and so was Chloe and Sabrina. The two girls had turned out to be pretty awesome and then there was her friendship with Adrien. Since she had completely moved on from him, she no longer stumbled over her words or acted like an idiot. She was fully supportive of his relationship with Kagami as well. They made each other happy and she was happy for them. She had also befriended Kitty Section and grown so much closer to Luka. Sure, he had always been there for her before but their friendship was so much stronger now. Even the students at their school had noticed and began referring to them as the everyday Anatis and the everyday Lady Noir. The irony that she was Lady Noir made her chuckle when she heard it. However, she saw why they called them that. She generally considered him her best friend. They were quite the duo too. Luka was always willing to help others and Marinette was kind of his partner in crime so to speak. Of course, she wanted to be more then just his friend but this wasn't like how she was with Adrien. She had realized that what she felt for Adrien was a crush and an unhealthy one at that. She wasn't in love with him at all. She fallen for the person she thought he was but she had him on a pedestal and she was determined not to do the same with Luka. She wanted to truly love him for who he was, faults and all. She also intended to give him a gift for the anniversary as he had been there for her no matter what so she had made two gifts. One for the boy who had always supported her and stayed at her side and one for the hero who had stepped up and saved her from herself. Without Luka and Anatis, she wouldn't be here. She jumped a little as she heard a thump on her balcony, making her smile a little before she got up and picked up the gift she had made Anatis. It wasn't anything fancy. She had made him a scarf with a ladybug pattern as it would be getting colder soon and she didn't want her partner to get cold. She grabbed the small bag of cookies that she always kept on the side before climbing up to the balcony. Anatis was leaning against the balcony, looking out to the city as the light sparkled. He had been pretty quiet on their patrol earlier so she had a feeling he might come to visit her as her civilian self.

"Hello stranger," She stated, making him look over and smile a little. "It's been a while since you came by,"

"It has, hasn't it?" He replied, smiling a little. "I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to come back given that your father probably still hates me,"

"Don't worry. Papa has let it go," She replied, walking over to him. "It's nice to see you again though,"

"Likewise, Princess," He smiled before shaking his head. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't call you that..."

"I don't mind," She mumbled, moving a little bit of her hair behind her ear. "So what brings you to my balcony tonight?"

"I wanted to check on you," He admitted, playing with his hands. "Tomorrow is exactly a year since-"

"I became Princess Justice and you became Anatis," She stated, making him nod. "And because you're a wonderful bug, you wanted to check on me in case I'm feeling upset?"

"Y-Yeah," He muttered as his cheeks went a little red. "I-Is that ok? Or am I been too intense? I can go-"

"Stay," She replied, making him look at her in slight surprise. "I'm not in a bad mood but I like your company, Anatis... you saved me. I actually have something for you,"

She held out the scarf, making him blink and pick it up as he looked at it.

"It's a thank you gift for de-akumatizing me," She replied, looking down to the ground. "You were one of the only people who tried to save me and cared about me. I don't know how I could have come back from that place without you or Luka,"

"L-Luka?" He asked, looking at her in surprise. She nodded as a small smile appeared on her face and a light blush came across her cheeks.

"He saved me too," She replied, making him look at her with more surprise. "Not in the same way you did but... he believed me when no one else did and tried to help me. I know I failed both of you by falling prey to Hawkmoth but even after that... he was still there by my side. Without you two, I'd be lost,"

"You didn't fail us, Marinette," Anatis stated, making her look at him as he stepped closer to her. She expected him to say something else but to her surprise, he didn't. He just simply placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, making her blush as he did before he looked at her with a gentle look. "I think I can speak for both me and Luka when I say we will always been there to help you find your way home,"

"Anatis..." She whispered as tears came into her eyes. She hugged him, causing him to wrap his arms around her shoulders. "Thank you,"

"Anytime, Marinette," He replied as she leaned into him. He gently pulled away and put the scarf around his neck. "Thank you for making this for me,"

"It's the least I could do," She replied, blushing a little. "I thought a scarf would be nice since it's gonna be winter again and I don't want you to get cold. Ladybugs don't do well in the winter,"

He chuckled and smiled as she gave him a small smile before she took out the bag of cookies and macarons as well.

"And these are for Tikki," She smiled, making him smile back.

"Thank you," He smiled, taking them from her. "She'll be over the moon with these,"

Marinette smiled as Anatis sat down next to her. The two of them remained in silence for a few minutes as Anatis played with his hands while looking out to the city. Marinette frowned a little as he seemed nervous before deciding to break their silence.

"Are you ok?" She asked, making him look as he stopped playing with his hands. "You seem... nervous?"

"I was invited to an award ceremony," He admitted, making her blink. "Something about the mayor wanting to give me a medal for my bravery and to name the day after me... I guess I don't really get it. I'm not brave-"

Marinette snorted at that, making him look at her.

"What?" He asked, smiling a little.

"You're not brave?" She asked, making him nod. "Anatis, you're the literal hero of Paris. You face dangers every day and fight supervillains to save us from some mad man with evil butterflies,"

"That's not bravery," He replied, surprising her. "Bravery is standing up against those who wish to harm others without mask,"

He gently tapped the side of his mask.

"I have a mask," He replied, making Marinette shake her head.

"That doesn't make you not brave," She replied, looking over to the city. "I think you're brave. When it came to getting your powers and taking the responsibility of saving Paris, you took it in your stride. You could have freaked out, turned evil or just cowarded away but you didn't. You're not just a hero to me. You're a beacon of hope and a light in the darkness. When it felt like I was drowning and no one was trying to save me, you reached in and pulled me out of that and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that way. That's why the mayor wants to give you a medal and name a day after you,"

"Marinette..." He whispered, making her look at him. He smiled softly. "Thank you..."

"Anytime," She smiled. "So are you gonna attend?"

"I don't know," He admitted, looking down. "I think if I do, Lady Noir should come with me. She deserves as much recognition as I do. I'd even say she's way braver than I am,"

"I think it's adorable how you talk about her," She smiled, making him blush a little. "It's obvious you admire her a lot,"

"I do," He nodded, leaning against his hand. "She's my best friend and I like to think I'm hers,"

"I think so," Marinette smiled, making him smile. Of course, she considered him her best friend but he didn't know that. She smiled a little again before gently leaning against his arm. He looked at her and gave her a soft smile. "Thank you for checking on me,"

"Thank you for listening to me drone on," He replied, making her chuckle a little before the two of them looked over to the city once more.

~The Next Day~

"Yes, Papa. I do know where the Grand Paris hotel is," Marinette stated as she held her mobile with her shoulder as she placed the last of the lemon and vanilla macarons into the boxes. They were part of the buffet for the Rossi's wedding anniversary. She didn't really want to be at the place, giving that it was Lila's family but her parents asked her to help bring the food to the venue then she would be free for the rest of the day. She closed the box and moved her hand to her phone as her father told her not to be late. "Me? Late? I won't be this time, Papa. For sure! I promise!!"

"Ok then," Tom replied before he hung up. Marinette put her phone away and picked up the boxes before picking up the boxes and headed to the door. She almost tripped up on the small step but caught herself and didn't drop a single box. She let out a sigh of relief as she heard Plagg snigger at her before she carefully made her way across the shop floor and out of the door. It was a bit difficult but she manages to get out without dropping a box. However, a bike bell made her jump as someone pulled up next to the shop, causing her to accidentally throw the boxes. Luckily, the person on the bike caught them as she recovered from the surprise. She blinked and saw Luka there, making her smile.

"Luka!" She asked, smiling as she walked over. "What are you doing here?"

"I was working on a new song for you actually," He replied, handing her the boxes. "One that matches you completely and I think I've found it at last. Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes please," She smiled, making him smile back before he reached for his guitar and moved it into his lap. He began to play, causing her to cheeks to flush as she listened to it. It was really beautiful and making her heart flutter as he played. He came to a stop, making her blink as he looked at her. "T-that's me?"

"Yeah," He replied, nodding as she blushed more. "What do you think?"

"Wow, it's... it's incredible!" She gasped, making him smile a little before he pulled a thoughtful face. "I-is something wrong?"

"It's still not quite right," He sighed a little, making her blink before he smiled. "I can do better. I'm gonna work on it some more,"

"Will you play it for me when you work it out?" She asked, making him smile and nod before her phone rang. She picked it up and answered it, causing her father to ask her if she was on her way. "Yeah, Papa, I'm on my way,"

She hung up and turned to Luka with a little frown.

"Sorry," She muttered, looking down a little. "I have to go,"

He put his guitar back and pulled out a second helmet, handing it out to her. She blinked in surprise.

"Are you sure?" She asked, surprised.

"I don't mind," He smiled and kicked down part of his bike so it could stand on it's own before getting off it. He walked over to Marinette and took the boxes off her, securing them onto the back of his bike as she put on the helmet before he got back onto the bike. Marinette sat behind him and held onto his waist as he kicked the rod back up and began cycling again. "Where to?"

"The Grand Paris hotel," She smiled as they did a u-turn and began to cycle there. Once there, Luka brought the bike to a stop and held it still. Marinette jumped off and took off the helmet, handing it back to him before she got the boxes and moved around to the entrance. "Thank you for the lift, Luka,"

"Anytime, Marinette," He smiled before she gave him a shy smile and gently kissed his cheek. Though she had kissed his cheek on several occasion, it took him by surprise because it felt different. Or more precisely... she felt different when she did it. Her previous kisses were gentle and the kind you expect off a friend but this one was bold and he could feel her intentions. She intended it to be romantic, completely surprising him. However, he shook his head and just put it down to his imagination before returning the smile. "I'll find the perfect melody for you,"

"I can't wait to hear it," She smiled, making him blush a little. "I better bring these up before Lila sees a chance to make me look bad again,"

"Lila?" Luka asked, making her nod.

"It's her parents' wedding anniversary and for some reason, they booked the bakery to do their food," She sighed, making him nod. "Mama and Papa told me I only have to bring the food to the venue then I could leave and have the rest of the day off,"

"Do you want me to come up with you?" He asked, surprising her. "In case Lila tries anything,"

"That would be nice if you could," She admitted, blushing a little. He smiled and moved his bike over to the parking area. He locked it up and took off his helmet before walking back over to Marinette and grabbing three of the boxes. She smiled and headed to the lifts. "You're not gonna get in trouble at work are you?"

"Oh no, I finished my shift before I came by the bakery," He replied, making her nod as they stepped inside.

"What if Lila clings to you?" She asked, making him look at her as she felt bad about accepting his offer. She didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable or put him in a situation that he was uncomfortable with. "You know if you want-"

"I'm not gonna leave you alone in the claws of that faker," He stated, making her smile. "And if she clings on me, I'll remove myself from her claws. Of course, if she happens to get hurt... well then that's her fault,"

"You're the best," She smiled, reaching up and kissing him on a cheek again. "A good side is that Kagami and Adrien are here since their families were invited,"

"Ah, I'm not surprised," Luka mumbled, nodding. "Isn't Lila's mother an ambassador for Italy?"

"She is and her father is the Public relations manager for Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Armani and Versace," Marinette replied, making Luka look at her in surprise and shock. "I know! It turns out she wasn't lying about her mother's job and her father works with the famous,"

"So her stories might have a bit of truth," Luka muttered as the lift pinged. Marinette nodded as he frowned. "That explains why she finds it easy to tell them and make them slightly believable. Though she really shouldn't lie so much, even if her mother is part of the government and her father works with the famous,"

"Agreed," She replied as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened. "Some of her stories are so over the top,"

"That's true," Luka smiled as they walked out of it. Luka glanced around as they walked across the room. They saw Adrien and Kagami sat by Tomoe and Adrien's bodyguard and Lila herself was leaning against the lift. She noticed him and gave him her best smile but he ignored it and walked past her, causing her to frown. Marinette strolled next to him but cried out as she tripped and fell. Luka rushed over to her as Lila smirked, causing him to glare as she walked away. To his surprise, Kagami and Adrien rushed over as well.

"Are you ok, Marinette?" Kagami asked as Luka helped her to her feet and Adrien picked up the boxes she dropped.

"I am," She replied, nodding. "Lila just... urg..."

"She tripped you up, didn't she?" Adrien sighed, shaking his head. "Honestly, you'd think she would lay off for her parents' wedding anniversary,"

He glanced over to the couple and the crowd, causing Luka to look over at them as well. Mrs Rossi was fairly pretty but strict looking. She had the same colored hair as Lila but it was styled in a bun. She was wearing a very beautiful dress that had a silver and gray top with gems across it and a deep green skirt. Her husband wore a matching suit. It was dark gray with deep green detail. His shirt was a light gray and his tie was green. He wasn't anything really special to look at and it was obvious he had some sort of plastic surgery to make himself look younger then he actually was. His hair was clearly dyed and he had some very expensive accessories such as his rolex watch. Seeing him in person, Luka could see that Lila took after him in looks. He had a similar face shape with a rather large forehead and his eyes were the same olive green as hers. However, what caught Luka's attention more than anything was the awkwardness between the couple. It was clear that neither wanted to be there. They were refusing to meet each other's eyes and Mrs Rossi had her arms folded. Her expression was one of annoyance and disappointment. Mr Rossi was completely ignoring her and looking far from her. However, the guests stopped chatting as an usher clapped their hands, getting their attention. It also caused Luka, Marinette, Adrien and Kagami to look over. To Luka's surprise, Mr Agreste's assistant was there, holding her tablet. Noticing his confused look, Adrien leaned over to him.

"Father has created a very special gift for their anniversary," He whispered, making Luka nod as Mr Agreste cleared his throat.

"Maria and Marco, on this most solemn day in celebration of your ten year wedding anniversary," Gabriel Agreste stated as everyone watched. "I am delighted to offer this magnificent gift I personally designed for you,"

Luka rose an eyebrow as Lila walked over to the Gorilla and Nathalie who passed her a box before she walked on stage and presented it to her parents.

"My dearest Mr and Mrs Rossi," He stated as they opened the box and took out the gift, putting it on. "I hereby present to you the Gabriel couple cloak, a symbol of eternal love and bonds of marriage,"

"Ouch!" Mr Rossi growled as his wife knocked into him. "Are you trying to trip me up?!"

Mrs Rossi ignored him as she turned to Nathalie and Mr Agreste.

"Thank you, Gabriel," She smiled falsely. "It's wonderful,"

"Yes, quite fantastic," Mr Rossi replied, smiling false as well. "Truly it's a piece of art... even on someone as strict as my wife. You know I told her to let her hair down for once but she insisted on having it up in a bun. I admire her for it though. It takes a very special person to not care what people think. I think that's part of the reason why she's so successful in her job... that and everyone's scared of her. To my wife!"

The adults held up their drinks and called out Mrs Rossi's name as if giving a toast to her, making her and Mr Rossi smile a little but it made Luka frown deeply. He knew a back compliment when he heard one and he could feel the hurt that she felt. Marinette frowned as she looked at him before gently poking his arm.

"You ok?" She asked, making him nod as Lila returned back to her original position. "You sure?"

"Yeah," He replied as the four of them walked over to Tom and Sabine, placing the boxes down. "Hi, Sabine. Hi, Tom,"

"Hello, Luka. It's good to see you," Sabine stated as Tom waved before she turned to Marinette. "Before you go home, could you just get rid of these trays for us?"

"Oh and grab us some cocktail umbrellas," Tom added in, causing her to nod as she and Luka automatically grabbed some of the trays. To her surprise, Adrien and Kagami grabbed some too.

"You guys don't have to," She stated, making them blink. "You should enjoy the ceremony,"

"We're good," Adrien smirked as they walked to the kitchen. "It's so boring and we're more then happy to help you,"

"Well... thank you," Marinette smiled as Luka placed down the first set of trays. Marinette placed hers on top and began to look for the umbrellas. She found them and smiled before heading outside as Adrien and Kagami picked up some of the utils and began to play fight. Marinette came back a few minutes later and turned to Luka. "Well, I'm free for the rest of the day-"

Adrien's bodyguard suddenly burst through the door, causing the two of them to look at him. They both noticed that Adrien and Kagami had ducked down so they couldn't be seen. He was looking around, causing Luka to blink.

"Can we help you find something?" He asked, making the Gorilla frown before he left. Marinette let out a sigh as Adrien and Kagami popped back up.

"Thanks, you two," Adrien smiled, causing them to look at him before a mischievous look came on his face. It was quickly matched by Kagami's expression. "Could we ask a favor?"

"Could you help us escape?" Kagami asked, making both Luka and Marinette blink. "We don't want to be here and it's not often we get time for ourselves... oh you could escape with us!"

"Um I mean my parents have everything covered and I don't want to be here much longer with..." She glanced at the door, making everyone understand who she meant. "But the only exit is out there. Your families will see you sneak away,"

"That's a good point," Adrien sighed before looking out the door. "The biggest issue is getting past the Gorilla. He's stood by the doors as well,"

Luka looked over, frowning before looking around the kitchen. His luck vision lit up some aprons and chef hats. He grabbed them and handed them to Adrien, Kagami and Marinette before putting one on himself, making Marinette smile before the four of them left the kitchen and walked past the guests. Luckily for them, the Gorilla was looking the other direction for them as they walked by. Just as they got halfway across the room, he looked over and began to move over, causing the four of them to run out of the exit. They ran up the stairs and dropped the disguise, causing them to land on the Gorilla as he followed. The four of them burst through the last fire escape and rushed onto the roof, running down the steps and past the ball pool. Adrien and Kagami looked around, trying to work out where to hide as they heard the fire escape door open. Luka suddenly pushed them into the ball pit before grabbing Marinette's hand and jumping in with her. Seconds later, the Gorilla rushed by and looked for them, frowning as he couldn't find them. He looked under the tables but gave up when they weren't there. He walked over to the lift and took it down, causing the four of them to look up.

"Luka, that was genius!" Marinette gasped as Kagami and Adrien nodded.

"Been disobedient is entertaining," Kagami smiled, clearly enjoying herself. "I've never had so much fun in my life,"

"Really?" Luka asked, surprised before Marinette playfully threw a ball at her, surprising her and making everyone laugh. Luka ducked and grabbed a couple as Adrien tried to aim at him before throwing them towards him and kagami. Marinette laughed and moved over to him, using his height to hide behind him as she threw them at Adrien and Kagami. Seeing a chance, Kagami drove underneath the balls and pulled Marinette under before resurfacing and laughing. Marinette resurfaced, laughing as well but her pigtails had come loose, letting her hair down. For a second, Luka was completely taken back at how beautiful she looked, allowing Adrien to him with a ball. He blinked and shook his head before looking to Marinette again. "Wow..."

"Huh?" She asked, confused.

"It's the first time I've seen you with your hair down," He smiled, making her blush and dive under to find her hair ties. Kagami giggled as she tried to find them, causing Luka to help her. Marinette luckily took the joke well and laughed as she tried to find them.

~Back to the Party~

Lila frowned as she saw all the attention of her parents. However, her phone buzzed, causing her to look at it. She smirked as she saw a text from Hawkmoth, telling her to do what needed to be done. She smirked to herself and put away her phone. For the last couple of weeks, she has been causing problems for her parents. There were just small things but she had done things like cancelled flowers, helped her father choose the wrong thing, got rid of some of her mother's work so she had to work late and had been driving a wedge between them. The worst part is it was working. Throughout the whole morning, she had been dropping snide remarks or redirecting things. The best part was when her mother told her off, she would just cry and claim that she was trying to help which in turn made her father coddle her and snap at her mother. However, she wasn't done yet. The pièce de résistance of her plan was the cake. She had already messed with it, changing flavors and icing but somehow it managed to remain the way they wanted it too. She wasn't bothered by that though. She had a plan to use it as the final nail in the coffin so to speak and all was needed was to literally topple it. She knew it would be enough to push her mother over the edge and start one of her infamous arguments. Lila glanced over as Tom began to wheel the cake over, causing her to disappear over to the cart. He walked away to go and get the knives in order to cut it, causing her to smirk and carefully move it to the edge. It was just enough not fall right now but it would the moment anyone put pressure it. With that done, she moved as close to the entrance and typed a message to Hawkmoth, telling him to get ready. Tom returned and her parents walked over. Her father was holding the cloak as they walked over. Lila smirked as they reached it and took one of the knives from Tom before he stepped back. They held it together and placed it on the side of the cake, causing it to wobble and fall. They managed to jump away so it fell onto the floor, making her mother gasp in annoyance before she turned to Tom with a glare in her eyes.

"You idiot!" She screamed, surprising everyone but Lila. She knew her mother kept a tight lid on her emotions but would explode like a volcano if the right buttons were pushed. "What the hell were you thinking putting that damn cake close to the edge like that, you useless orge?!"

"Darling, calm down," Her father gasped, making her smirk as her mother turned to him.

"Calm down?!" She screeched. "You useless imbecile! I won't calm down!! Give me that!"

"What?! No! You don't deserve this piece of art!" Mr Rossi shouted back as she yanked at it. "You're been ridiculous!"

"I'm been ridiculous?!" She screamed, making him blink. "No, you're been ridiculous! And this whole thing is ridiculous! That stupid cloak is! That dumb baker is! Why don't you just go back to Italy like you always do?! Hell, I'll paid for the seat for you!!"

"Gladly and I'll take Lila with me!"

"Oh no! You won't!" She screamed, making him growl. "You're a useless father!"

"I'm the useless parent?!" He screamed back. "You're never there for her!"

"Oh and you are!!"

Lila couldn't help but smirk as they kept on arguing, making the guests blink as they were unsure what to do. Lila smirked even more as she saw the akuma fluttering into the room and straight into the cloak as her phone vibrated. She looked at it and smirked again before disappearing through the fire exit as her parents accepted the akuma and transformed into whatever monstoriaty Hawkmoth had turned them into.

~Back to Luka, Marinette, Adrien and Kagami~

Kagami smiled as she watched Adrien play the piano while Luka sat on the edge of the ball pit. Marinette was still finding her hair ties. She managed to find them and moved over to the edge, looking to tie her hair back up. Luka looked over at her and gave her a soft smile, making her blush.

"Your hair looks beautiful," He stated, causing her cheeks to heat up even more but before anyone else can could say a thing, the lift bell rang as two girls ran out of the lift. Luka frowned as he recognized one of them as Renée Marcel. However, her song and expression was one of panic. She glanced around and knocked down a table, dragging it to the lift and blocking it, alarming Luka even more. He stood up, causing Adrien to stop playing as the girls backed away from the lift. Marinette looked over to him.

"Luka?" She asked, causing the girls to look over and gasp. They rushed over to them as he frowned.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"T-There's a monster!" The other girl gasped as Renée rubbed her arm. "I-It ate my father!"

"What?!" Adrien gasped, jumping and going to run over to the lift but Luka suddenly grabbed him as the table went flying as the creature burst from the lift.

"Under the piano!" He hissed, pushing Adrien towards it as the six of them ducked underneath. Renée gently held the other girl as she shook and Marinette looked at Luka as he frowned. They all held their breath as a snake like creature slithered by.

"Come out, children," A female voice hissed, sending shivers down their spines.

"We only want your love!" A male one replied, making Luka frown. The girl in Renée's arms shook as tears rolled down her face, causing Luka to frown. It was clearly an akuma and they needed to escape before it caught them. He glanced around before one of Marinette's hair ties lit up, along with a cake. He quickly grabbed it off her, making her blink at him before he grabbed the cake and used it as a slingshot, firing the cake across the pool and near the lift. It hit something, making a loud bang and getting the monster's attention. It hissed and moved over there. "There you are!"

Luka pointed to the fire escape, causing everyone to nod and jump out. They ran over and through the door, slamming it behind them. They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, rushing into the restaurant area. However, the creature burst through the door a few minutes later. It was truly terrifying to look at it. It resembled a snake person but it was pink. It was wearing an outfit that resembled the couple cape given to Mr and Mrs Rossi, making Luka gasp as he realized it had to be them. It had four arms but the creepiest part was it's head. It appeared to spin and switch between Mrs Rossi and her husband. Currently, it was Mrs Rossi looking around but Luka could see her husband's face on the back off it's head. Her face had a massive frown on it, framed with heart shaped lips and jagged teeth. Her eyes eyes narrowed as she stared at Luka.

"This one has so much love," She declared, licking her lips before her head twisted around to reveal her husband. Like her, he had jagged teeth but instead of a frown, he had a massive grin.

"Yes, it's making my mouth water thinking about it!" He declared as his eyes glowed.

"Luka!" Marinette screamed, pushing him out of the way as they fired a pink beam at him.

"How romantic! It makes me sick!" Mrs Rossi snarled as she took back control before firing beams at them again. However, Kagami threw a cake at them, along with Adrien. Renée and her friend were curled up, holding each other as the creature turned to them. Luka jumped onto his feet and helped Marinette up as Kagami and Adrien dodged the beam of the creature. "Stay still brats!"

"Get out of here!" He gasped, pushing her towards the exit before he rushed over to Renée and her friend. Renée jumped up, just as Kagami got hit by the beam and turned into a heart. Luka looked in horror as the creature's head spun into a male face and ate the heart. Adrien screamed and charged at it, causing it's tail to hit him. It turned on him, causing Luka to shake his head. He scooped up Renée's friend and ran out of the cafe with her. Luckily, Marinette had gone ahead but with Adrien and Kagami gone, the creature was following them. Luka ran as fast as he could while holding the sobbing girl and Renée ran with him. He ran up some stairs and into a new hall.

"Luka!" A voice shouted, making him look over. Chloe was stood in a door and Sabrina was gesturing towards him. He ran over and pushed the crying girl inside as the creature clashed through. Renée tripped and fell, causing the creature to go and fire a beam at her as it's head spun back to Mr Rossi. Luka rushed over and grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the way in time. She looked at him in surprise as he pushed her into the room. He went to enter the room as well but the creature's tail crushed the door frame, causing bricks and debris to block the way. He managed to dive out of the way and backed up as the akuma turned to him, licking it's lips. It's head spun around back to Mrs Rossi as he backed away from it.

"This boy is full of so much love for his family, for his friend and for the girl who stole his heart," She gasped, licking her lips as she leaned closer to him. Her eyes began to glow as she literally drooled at the idea of eating him. He shuddered a little at the thought of it. "You will make such a delicious meal!"

Luka manage to jump out of the way before the beam hit him and rushed out of the escape door, running back up the stairs. He burst through the door and ran across the roof, making the creature follow him. Despite its size, it moved extremely fast and managed to catch up with him. It went to grab him but before it could, Lady Noir jumped down in front of them and slammed her hand onto the ground.

"Cataclysm!" She yelled, causing the floor to crack. It gave way beneath akuma's weight, causing it to fall through. Seeing her chance, Lady Noir turned to Luka and picked him up. "Hold on,"

He did as told as she ran to the edge and jumped across the roofs before landing by the bridge near the Eiffel tower. She put him down and looked at him.

"Are you hurt?" She asked, making him shake his head. "Good, please stay here. I have to go see if anyone else needs rescuing before engaging the akuma,"

"There's four girls possibly trapped in Chloe's room," He stated, making her nod. "But thank you for rescuing me,"

"No problem, Luka," She nodded before jumping off. As soon as she was out of sight, he hid under the bridge and transformed into Anatis. He ran out and threw his yoyo, returning to the hotel. He landed on the rooftop and glanced around, not seeing Lady Noir or the akuma. He did see Renée and her friend huddled under the piano but Chloe and Sabrina weren't around. He walked over and knelt down, making them look at him. Renée was holding her friend as she shook.

"Are you ok?" He asked in a gentle voice.

"T-The monster got Chloe and Sabrina," The shaking girl gasped, making him frown. "They were trying to get us out of here but the monster has destroyed anyway to get out so we headed up here and it attacked us but Chloe and Sabrina sacrificed themselves so we could escape. The creature was hunting us but it suddenly up and left..."

"I think it was talking to Hawkmoth," Renée stated, making him frown. "It jumped off the building,"

"Ok," He nodded, taking out his yoyo and checking the news report. It showed Loveater attacking people down the street but Lady Noir wasn't there. He frowned but maybe she was tailing it and decided not to engage with it until he was around. A wise choice. "Do you know who it is?"

"Mr and Mrs Rossi," The shaking girl gasped, making him frown as it confirmed what he thought. "It's their 10 year wedding anniversary today but everything went wrong then they turned into that monster when the akuma flew into the cloak Gabriel had given them,"

"Alright," He nodded. "You should stay here. Loveater isn't in the hotel anymore so you should be safe to hide here. Just be careful of the debris ok?"

"Ok," Renée nodded before gasping. "Our friend Luka-"

"He's safe," He smiled, making them both breathe out. "Lady Noir managed to rescue him,"

"Oh thank goodness," Renée sighed with relief as they crawled from under the piano. "Come on, Elise,"

Elise nodded and walked over to an area of the roof that wasn't destroyed as Anatis jumped off the roof and swung over to where Loveater was rampaging. He jumped down and noticed Lady Noir on a roof, watching it. He jumped across and landed next to her.

"What have you observed?" He asked as she looked at him.

"It's obsessed with destroying love and it moves very fast," She replied, making him nod. "I think we're gonna need help,"

"I think so too," He muttered, nodding.

"Do you want me to engage it or just keep an eye on it?" She asked, making him think.

"Keep an eye on it," He replied, pressing the dot on his yoyo. It lifted up, allowing him to take it out and put it in his ear. "And let's keep in contact too,"

"Ok," She nodded, taking one from her baton and placing it in her ear. He nodded before jumping away and swinging towards Master Fu. He jumped across the rooftops as he got closer but he suddenly fell and landed on the ground as a wave of illness came over him, making him frown and look around. On the roof opposite to him, he saw someone perched. He narrowed his eyes as he saw the blue and purple colors.

"Mayura," He muttered, throwing his yoyo up and jumping across the roofs, leading her away from Master Fu's. He managed to shake her off by hiding behind another roof. He looked over as she looked around before she lifted her fan.

"Hawkmoth, I've lost him. He was just passed the rooftops of the Arènes de Lutèce," She stated, making him frown. A few minutes later, Hawkmoth himself landed next to her, causing him to look around and smirk.

"He's here somewhere" He stated, making him frown as Hawkmoth looked around. "Come out wherever you are, Anatis,"

Hawkmoth continued to look around before he jumped down and ran over to the roof. He swung off, causing both Hawkmoth and Mayura to chase him so he pressed his ear piece.

"Kitten, can you hear me?" He asked.

"Loud and clear,"

"I need you to go to Master Fu's instead," He stated, sensing the frown as he passed the Eiffel tower. Hawkmoth and Mayura were gaining on him. "Hawkmoth and Mayura are following me,"

"Do you need back up?"

"No," He replied, landing on the very top of the tower. "I'm gonna take them keep them distracted. You head to Master Fu's and get the Bee miraculous. That's the one we need,"

"But I don't know who Abeille is," She gasped, making him frown.

"Don't worry about that right now," He stated as Hawkmoth and Mayura raced up the tower. "Get the miraculous and I'll meet you soon,"

"Ok," She replied as Hawkmoth and Mayura landed on either side of him. He glanced around and smirked at them as he took out his yoyo. It just happened to be quite the foggy day today, meaning most of the Eiffel tower was surrounded by a deep fog.

"Catch me if you can," He replied before dropping off the Eiffel, making both Mayura and Hawkmoth gasp as he disappeared into the fog. He threw his yoyo, wrapping it around part of the tower and swung underneath. He threw his yoyo up and summoned a lucky charm, getting a box of washing up soap. He glanced around as his luck vision highlighted the fire hydrant. He rushed over to it and opened it, pouring the soap in it. Within seconds, it exploded, cover the area in a high amount of soap foam that covered him. He heard Hawkmoth shouting in annoyance.

"Where is he?! I can't see him!!" He growled as the foam kept growing. Seeing his chance, Anatis carefully moved over to a manhole and opened it as he heard Mayura trying to look around.

"He must have used a lucky charm!" Mayura gasped as he climbed into the manhole and re-covered it. He ran through the sewer as quickly as he could. He frowned to himself as he heard the manhole open again, meaning one of them was following him. He came to a ladder before he climbed up and pushed open the other manhole, climbing out of it and into an alleyway. He moved over to the edge and saw nothing was around so he ran out and over to the Metro. He ran down the stairs enough to hide but to be able to spy on the alley he had come out of before detransforming. He caught Tikki and gave her a cookie as he waited for the person who had followed him. It took a few minutes but Mayura came out and glanced around, frowning. She lifted her fan to her mouth. "Hawkmoth, he's gone and I can't sense him either,"

"Damn it," He heard Hawkmoth's voice echo. "Return back to me. We just use Loveater to capture him,"

"Of course, Hawkmoth," She replied, folding up the fan and jumping up onto the roofs. Luka narrowed his eyes as he watched her run off before turning to Tikki.

"That was close," She gasped, making him nod. "It was a good thing you noticed them,"

"I know," He replied, frowning. He was deeply concerned with the fact that Hawkmoth was out and about. He sighed and turned to Tikki. "Are you fully charged?"

"Yep!"

"Good," He smiled before swiping his earrings. "Tikki, spots on!"

He re-transformed and threw his yoyo up, pulling himself onto the rooftops before running across them. He checked Lady Noir's location on his yoyo before heading to the Pont des Arts. Before he landed next to her, he made sure that Hawkmoth or Mayura had followed him.

"It's attacked almost everyone in it's path," She replied, making him frown. "Did you lose your tail?"

He glanced over, just in case before nodding.

"Did you get it?" He asked, making her nod and showing him the bee miraculous. He smiled and gently patted her head, causing her to smile and purr a little. "Good job, kitten,"

"So what's the plan?" She asked, making him frown. "Are you going to get Abeille?"

"No, it's too dangerous with Hawkmoth about," He replied, making her frown. "If I go to find her, he might try to follow me again and that would directly lead him to one of our allies. I'm afraid this time we won't be able to get help,"

"So what do we do?" She asked, frowning. "We need the bee to succeed as it will paralyse the akuma,"

Anatis bit his lip before he sighed.

"We only have one other option," He replied, making her look at him. "One of us has to merge the bee with our miraculous,"

"I'll do it," Lady Noir stated, making Anatis to look at her in surprise. "They'll expect you to be the one to do so but they don't see me as important or as intelligent as you. Sure, they want my ring but we all know they see me as the sidekick,"

"Lady Noir..." He stated as she gave him a weak smile. "I don't think of you like that. You're way more brilliant then I am and I know I've said this before but I couldn't do this without you. You're amazing and my best friend,"

"I know," She smiled, gently kissing his cheek. His cheeks flushed a little. "But I also know Hawkmoth doesn't see me as a threat so let's show him what this cat is truly capable of,"

She placed the comb in her hair, causing Pollen to manifest.

"Hello, my queen," She smiled, bowing before turning to Anatis. "Hello, my prince. How may I be of service today?"

"Pollen isn't it?" Lady Noir asked, making her look at her as she nodded. "I'm Lady Noir. We need your help to defeat Loveater,"

"Of course, my queen," She bowed again, making Lady Noir coo at how cute she was before she shook her head and looked to Anatis.

"How do I merge them?"

"You have to say the name of the kwamis and unify," He explained, causing her to nod and take a deep breathe but he gently grabbed her arms. "But if it gets too much, don't hesitate to tell me and divide them. Merging these are dangerous and I don't want to see you hurt,"

"I'll be fine," She smiled, gently placing her hand on his before she pulled away. "Ok let's do this. Plagg,"

She held out her left hand.

"Pollen," She stated as she held out her right hand before she closed them together. "Unify!"

A golden light engulfed her before disappearing, revealing her new form. Her hair was no longer in a braid but was tied up in a curly ponytail with yellow and green on the curls. She had a yellow ribbon tied around the top that resembled bug antennas. Her mask was no longer completely black but had a yellow strip below her eyes, which still had green irises but her scleas were yellow. Her full suit had changed as well. The top half of her suit was yellow with black strips on her upper arms and stomach. The second half was black with yellow stripes on her thighs. Her boots were black with yellow stripes on the calf and yellow heels. Her gloves were similar in design as they were mostly black with yellow stripes. Her spintop was hooked around her waist and her baton rested against her hip. She still had her cat ears on top of her head. She took out the spintop and opened it.

"User manual," She stated, reading through her powers as Anatis checked the news. She closed it once she had read it before looking at him. "So what's the plan?"

"Loveater is rampaging by the Arc de Triomphe," He stated, making her frown as he closed his yoyo and threw up in the air, calling for a lucky charm. He sighed as he got a rolling pin. He glanced around before sighing. "I can't see anything yet so let's focus on me luring it to you. Our best bet would be the Eiffel tower. The foam I created should still be there so it would provide a sort of smoke screen and it's still a pretty foggy day,"

"Alright so I lie in wait there and you lure it to me and then hopefully we can use the lucky charm," She stated, making him nod. "Ok! Sounds like a plan to me!"

"Alright," He smiled, nodding. "Be careful, Lady... Lady Bee?"

"What? Oh," She grinned, realizing he meant her new form's name. She grinned before placing her hands on her hips. "Call me Dark Bee,"

"Dark Bee?" He asked, making her nod. "I like it. Alright, see you soon, Dark Bee,"

He threw his yoyo and pulled himself onto the rooftops, leaving Dark Bee alone. She took out her spintop and threw it, using it to pull herself onto the roofs and swing through the city, whooping as she did. She landed on the rooftop opposite the tower before glancing around.

"Dark Bee, can you hear me?" Anatis asked in her ear.

"Loud and Clear, bug-a-boo," She stated, causing him to chuckle.

"Alright. I'm bringing our guest towards the tower," He stated, making her nod. "Oh!"

"Worked out the lucky charm?" She asked.

"Yes," He replied. "There's a small stand near the tower that sells all kind of things including rolling pins and different types of balls. I need you to cataclysm it.

"Got it," She replied, seeing it in the foam. She rushed over and summoned her power before slamming her hand on it, causing it to break and releasing all the rolling pins and sports balls across the floor but no one could see it because it was covered by the form. She threw her spintop up and pulled herself into the tower as Anatis swung near by. "Be careful. All of the stuff is on the floor,"

"Perfect," He replied, swinging by and landing on the part below her as Loveater rushed over. Almost instantly, it slipped and fell onto it's back. "Dark bee now!"

"Venom!" She cried out, twisting the spin top and grabbing it. A yellow stripped energy wrapped around her hand and she dived down, slamming it into the middle of the Mrs Rossi face, just as it got up and was about to fire at her. She backflipped away as Anatis landed next to her and threw his yoyo at them, cracking one of the brooches. The akuma fluttered out, allowing him to throw his yoyo and capture it before he pulled it back to him and released the purified butterfly. He unhooked the rolling pin on his hip and threw it up in the air.

"Miraculous ladybugs!" He called out, throwing it up into the air. It burst into the swarm and moved around Paris, restoring everything and everyone that had been destroyed or eaten by Loveater before returning to the Eiffel tower and getting rid of the foam and restoring the little stand before it burst into the sky, disappearing. Dark Bee grinned before a sudden wave of dizziness made her stumble. Anatis rushed over to her and held her as she blinked, feeling very tired. "Dark Bee, are you ok?"

"I'm f-fine," She whispered, giving him a smile. "Plagg, Pollen... divide,"

The golden light appeared again as Pollen reappeared, causing Lady Noir to catch her. She took out a chunk of cheese and gave it to her. Pollen ate it quickly before hiding into her hair. Anatis still looked worried but she gave him a smile before nodding towards Mr and Mrs Rossi.

"W-what happened?" Mrs Rossi asked as she looked around before gasping as she spotted the heroes. "Anatis? Lady Noir?"

"You were akumatized," Anatis stated as he walked over and helped her to her feet as Lady Noir did the same with Mr Rossi. "But it's ok now. We deakumatized you,"

"Do you remember why you got akumatized?" Lady Noir asked, causing Mrs Rossi to explain about all of the things that had gone wrong for the last couple of weeks. Both heroes frowned as they listened before she tearfully turned to her husband and apologized. He began to tear up himself and apologized to her as well before they embraced each other. Anatis frowned as his earrings beeped, along with Lady Noir's ring. He turned to her with a concerned expression on his face.

"Recharge and meet at Fu's," He stated before throwing his yoyo and swinging off with Lady Noir going in a different direction.

~At the Grand Paris Hotel~

Lila growled in annoyance as she watched the miracle cure spread through the city, fixing everything. That stupid bug and his mangy sidekick had managed to defeat Loveater, meaning she had failed. She kicked something in annoyance as Hawkmoth and Mayura landed near her, making her turn around.

"I was sure he wouldn't be able to defeat them," She gasped, making Hawkmoth chuckle. "I failed,"

"No, you didn't," He replied, walking over to her. "You did exactly what I asked you to. You have proven yourself to be a good ally and so I wish to reward you,"

"Oh?" Lila asked as Hawkmoth tapped his cane, releasing an akuma. Almost instantly, she grabbed it and placed it into her fake fox miraculous, making him smirk. He didn't even need to convince her. "So what powers do you have for me this time?"

"Miracle Queen, I'm giving you the power to control the entire city including our heroes with your music and of course, you'll still have your illusions," Hawkmoth smirked as Lila allowed the dark smog to over take her. When it disappeared, it revealed an upgraded version of Volpina in her place. Most of her outfit was exactly the same. However, she gained a crown on her head, golden gauntlets with orange diamonds on her forearms, matching armor on her calves and shoulder armor that was black with gold trimming. Hawkmoth smirked before doing a mock bow. "My Queen, why don't you show these heroes what true royalty can do?"

"It will be my pleasure, Hawkmoth," She smirked, taking out her flute and playing it. An orange ball appeared on the end before she threw it up into the sky. It exploded, sending the sound of her music around the city as it caused anyone who heard it to fall into a trance. "Anatis! Lady Noir! Come and serve your queen!"

~At Master Fu's~

"Is everything ok?" Master Fu asked as Lady Noir gave Pollen a little hug before she took out the clip in her hair and placed it in his hand. Anatis was pacing around, clearly worried. He frowned as he took the comb from her and returned it to the miracle box. Once it was back in the box and hidden in the phonograph, Master Fu got up and made them both some tea. He handed a cup to Lady Noir before getting Anatis to stop pacing and made him sit down, giving him a cup of tea as well. He poured one for himself before sitting down and sipping it. "Tell me what's on your mind,"

"Hawkmoth and Mayura followed me today," Anatis explained, causing Master Fu looked at him in surprise. "That's why Lady Noir came here instead of me,"

He ran his fingers through his hair as Master Fu frowned.

"I lead them on a wild goose chase but I'm concerned, Master," Anatis sighed as Lady Noir frowned. "The only time Hawkmoth has came out in public was Heroes Day and today is the one year anniversary of me becoming Anatis. I think he has something big planned,"

"This is most concerning," Master Fu frowned.

"That's not the only thing," Anatis stated. "Lady Noir asked the akumatized victims why they got akumatized and what they told us gave me a very bad feeling,"

"What did they say?"

"For the last couple of weeks, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong for Mr and Mrs Rossi," Lady Noir stated, making Fu frown. "Even things that shouldn't have gone wrong and then today... their ten year anniversary... things continued to go wrong and they end up akumatized..."

"What are you saying?"

"Hawkmoth has been planning this akuma for at least two weeks. There's no way this akumatization was just chance," Anatis stated, making Master Fu frown. "I would bet that Lila Rossi is somehow helping Hawkmoth and has been making things go bad to turn her parents into akuma bait,"

"But they're her parents?!" Master Fu gasped, surprised. "Surely, she wouldn't get them akumatized on purpose?"

"We suspect that she took an akuma on purpose and she tried to stop Lady Noir from helping me against Big Mama and Little Sister," Anatis stated. "And she is indirectly responsible for reverser as she influenced Alya into trying to claim that diary,"

"Not to mention she has caused two akumas through framing and bullying," Lady Noir added in, making Anatis nod. "I wouldn't put it past her to help Hawkmoth akumatize her parents but what could he achieve with that particular akuma?"

"That's what concerns me," Anatis sighed. "Sure, it was a difficult akuma so I had to get help but he could have just had Mayura follow me. Why is he out and about? It just seems... I don't know... maybe I'm been paranoid,"

"Maybe but your instincts have been right before," Master Fu stated, making Anatis nod. "So what do they tell you this time?"

"Honestly... this all feels too... easy and doesn't add up..." Anatis stated, frowning. "It feels like the battle isn't over yet and that this akuma wasn't Hawkmoth's master plan. I think he's trying to distract us. Even him following me feels like a distraction. I feel like he wants me to focus on that he's looking for who I get the other miraculous from because that will somehow stop me from seeing the full picture and yet at the same time, I feel like I'm missing something. Like there is something very obvious in front of me but I can't see it yet. Something doesn't feel right,"

"Then I suggest you follow your instincts, Anatis," Master Fu stated, making him. "Be on your guard,"

"Yes, Master," Both Lady Noir and Anatis stated, standing up and heading to the window. Lady Noir reached over and opened it, causing the sound of the city to echo in but among it was the sound of a flute been played. The three of them felt their minds turn blank and empty as they heard it. Their arms dropped to their side and their eyes turned a glowing orange as they stared out at the city before a voice echoed in their minds.

Anatis! Lady Noir! Come and serve your Queen!

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

Next Chapter: Chapter 60

15 notes · View notes

little-lizziej · 3 years

Text

"Will you talk to him?" Alya asks Marinette as she takes a seat on her chase, the soft cushions support Marinette's back as she talks with Alya.

"No" the bluenette shakes her head. "I broke them up, I'm the reason his heart got broken." Marinette lets out a sigh before lifting her legs and hugging them. "How am I supposed to even look at him?" She asks.

Alya looks at her best friend with pity, she had earlier said that out of everyone Adrien deserved love the most, but she had been wrong. She deserves it the most. Marinette deserves it the most. "It's not your fault Marinette" Alya shakes her head.

"Yes it is" She whispers, cutting her best friend off.

"No!" Alya exclaims and stands up from the chaise frustratedly. "It's Kagami's fault, yes you liked him! You loved him! But you also respected him...and her!" She yelled as she started pacing around the room. She just couldn't believe it, Kagami managed to make her best friend believe this was her fault when it wasn't.

"A relationship isn't made out of three people Marinette, and she shouldn't have talked to you about it, she should've talked to her boyfriend about it. You don't owe anything to her, he does. Because he is in the relationship"

"I was still a bad friend! Maybe I'm not in the relationship but I am her friend...and friends don't do that. I had to respect her and her boundaries because of our friendship and that's final"

"A friend?" Alya asks with a scoff. "You think what she did was friend-approved?"

Marinette stays silent, she knows Kagami was indeed a bad friend. Friends don't make them ignore their feelings or friends, they don't hurt each other. They encourage and respect each other's feelings.

Marinette shrugs her shoulders as she lets out a tired sigh. "She was a bad friend" She whispers with a nod, "but she liked him...and I know better than anyone that love makes you do crazy things"

"You also know how to love" Alya narrows her eyes at the wall as she sits beside Marinette. "You know how to love your friends"

"I think she's just confused"

"I don't care" Alya grits out, "you hate being selfish so I'll be selfish for you. You were here first, you liked him first. You loved him first"

"I don't even know what love is" Marinette cuts her best friend off. "Maybe I wasn't in love with him...maybe I just loved him as a friend"

...

"Kagami stop" Adrien clenches his jaw as he watches his ex girlfriend approach him once again. He takes several steps back and tires to maintain the distance between them.

"Adrien please!" She whines, "I-I made a mistake!"

"No Kagami!" He yells without a care about who listens. "You hurt her"

"So what if I did? She's just Marinette!"

"Just Marinette? She's the nicest and most caring girl I've ever met. She has done absolutely nothing to you!"

"She loves you!" Kagami yells and instantly regrets it. He didn't know that. Adrien didn't know that.

"No she doesn't!" The young model shakes his head in denial.

"Stop being so oblivious Adrien! Why do you think she made you that scarf on your birthday? Or why she has so many pictures of you on her wall? Or why she stutters and gets super nervous when you're around? She's in love with you!"

"She made that scarf?" He asks her unable to think about anything else.

"That's not important!" Kagami rolls her eyes and hears him approaching.

"Yes it is!" Adrien yells as he grabs her softly by the shoulders. "Kagami we are not getting back together"

"Fine" Kagami whispers after a few seconds, she opens the door of his room and looks back at him. "It's your loss anyways" she grins before slamming the door closed.

Adrien lets out a sigh as he sits down on his bed with his hands pulling at his hair. "Grr I swear if you had just let me at her!" Plagg exclaims as he comes out of his hiding spot. "I hate that girl!"

"Why do you hate her?" Adrien asks.

"She hurt Marinette, no one touches my princess" the black kwami growls. "She makes the best cheese puffs!" He adds before letting out a dreamy sigh.

Adrien stays silent, he can't help but think about Kagami's words. She's in love with you. She's in love with me. Those two sentences keep repeating over and over in his head. Plagg glances at his holder and tilts his head to the side in wonder. "What are you thinking about kid?" He asks him.

"Do you think Marinette is in love with me?" He lifts his head and watches Plagg.

Plagg's eyes widen as he takes another bite put of his Camembert cheese. He swallows before taking a deep breath, "well..."

"What?" The young model asks him with a frown.

"I need more cheese" Plagg groans. Suddenly, a shoe flies his way. Plagg dodges the shoe and places his hand on his chest. "Well someone has issues" he mumbles under his breath before letting out a laugh. "Oh I'm so funny!"

"Plagg!" Adrien exclaims.

"Ok ok!" Plagg yells as he throws his hands in the air. "I think she is in love with you...can I have more cheese now?"

"Ugh" Adrien groans, "this just complicates everything"

"I thought you already knew?"

"I knew she liked me! Not loved me!"

"Potato, poTaTo it's the same thing" Plagg rolls his eyes and shrugs. He just couldn't believe his holder was complicating things so much. If he was in this position with his Camembert he would just eat it. He wouldn't complicate his life so much.

"It's not! You don't get it Plagg, my father has never said he loved me! The only person that's said it is Kagami. How am I supposed to know how to feel?"

"You love her kid" Plagg sighs as he approaches Adrien and sits on his shoulder. "Just don't hurt her"

...

The classroom is filled with chatter as usual, only this time there is only one topic to talk about. Why did Kagami and Adrien break up?

Maybe it's none of their business, but they can't help but wonder why? And how it affected not only Adrien but a certain bluenette. To say they're worried is an understatement, said bluenette has been there for every single person in the class, even Sabrina and Lila.

It's only natural for the class to feel worried about their friend, she's always supported and helped them in every way possible. She's always been an amazing person to count on, and although they do like Adrien, the place Marinette holds in their hearts is far bigger.

"Hey guys!" Greets Adrien as he walks into the classroom. Everyone immediately quiets down and stares at him.

"Hey dude" smiles Nino and holds out his fist. With a smile, Adrien bumps his fist against Nino's. "How are you feeling dude?" Upon te question everyone listens in, eager to know how their friend has taken the break up.

"Surprisingly ok" Adrien chuckles with a shrug. Everyone lets out a sigh of relief but doesn't stop worrying. There is after all a certain designer who is yet to confirm her feelings.

"Adrien" Alya greets him with a nod, she isn't sure how to feel, a part of her is happy for him. Maybe the model hadn't realized it himself but...his relationship had started becoming toxic.

Without a doubt many had noticed, but said nothing. Their opinion hadn't been asked and Adrien looked happy. They, however, couldn't stay out of it anymore. Adrien wasn't only getting affected by this, but Marinette was too.

The young designer knew how much her friend deserved, and to see the way his own girlfriend and father treated him killed her.

"Good morning everyone!" Said Ms.Bustier as she walked through the door. Everyone greeted her back and sat down in their respective seats.

"I'm here!" Marinette yelled as she ran inside the classroom, late true to Marinette's fashion. "I'm sorry madam!" The bluenette ducked her head as she apologized and made her way to her seat.

Because her head was firmly on the floor, Marinette didn't catch Adrien looking at her dreamily.

"It's alright Marinette just don't let it happen again" Ms.Bustier sighs knowing very well it will happen again.

"Can I talk to you after class Marinette?" Asks Adrien after he turns to look at the bluenette. Marinette's eyes widen before she quickly nods and shifts her gaze away from him. "Great" Adrien says with a grin.

Eventually the class ends and the classroom empties, "where uh...do you want to talk?" Marinette asks Adrien refusing to meet his eyes. Although it cant be further form the truth, Marinette couldn't help but firmly believe that in just a few seconds she'd be blamed for her friend's broken heart.

"I'm sorry Kagami made you feel that way Marinette" Adrien apologizes and reaches for the blunette's hand. He laces his fingers with hers as he lightly tugs on her hand pulling her closer. "I never ever want to loose you" he whispers.

"It's all my fault" Marinette mutters looking away from him, "you shouldn't be apologizing"

"It was never your fault" Adrien denies as he shakes his head. "Kagami shouldn't have done that, she shouldn't have gotten in between our friendship"

"Did you get hurt?" Marinette whispers making the model chuckle and shake his head once again.

"You ignoring me hurt a lot more than Kagami leaving me" he smiles as he grabs Marinette by the waist.

"Really?" Marinette asks finally looking at him.

"Yeah" Adrien whispers, "did you make that scarf for me on my birthday?"

Marinette's eyes widen as she recalls the blue scarf. "H-how did you-"

"So you did" Adrien interrupts her. "Why didn't you tell me?" He asks.

Marinette shrugs and squeezes his hand, smiling when the action is returned. "You looked so happy and I...I didn't want to take that away from you"

Adrien looks at Marinette with wide eyes, no one had ever cared about him so much. A warm feeling takes over him as butterflies appear on his stomach making him feel all kinds of ways.

"Do you love me Marinette?" Adrien asks feeling hopeful.

"I-I used to, but I shoved those feelings away when Kagami and you started dating"

"So not anymore?"

"No" Marinette shakes her head, "not anymore"

Adrien's stomach sinks at her words. It's such a shame he finally realized he loved her just as she stopped loving him.

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Start

#adrienette #fiction #kagami x marinette #ladrien #ladynoir #luka x marinette #lukanette #marichat #miraculous chat noir #miraculous fanart #adrien agreste #miraculous adrien #miraculous marinette #miraculous ladybug #ladybug and chat noir #miraculous les aventures de ladybug et chat noir #tales of ladybug and cat noir

29 notes · View notes

marrys-dream-world · 3 years

Text

if we’re bound to be something, why not together? (chapter ten)

Read on AO3

First / Previous / Next

Notes: Content Warning: there's discussions of a canon-compliant suicide/self-harm attempt on s4ep11 Guiltrip. It's nothing graphic or even explicit that they talk about, but if this is a hard topic for you, it's better to avoid it. This will be under the cut for that reason too.

Day 10: Moonlight. @ladynoirjuly

Some miraculous powers left lasting consequences, but Chat Noir had felt none as acutely as he did Pigella's jubilation.

He knew that, on paper, her power was "Gift", the ability to show the person it was used on whatever they wanted the most. It was one of the most terrifying ones he had ever seen, along with the butterfly's akumatization and the cat's cataclysm. The power to show someone's deepest heart's desires, no way to hide them, made his skin crawl. It certainly left him feeling grateful he wasn't her enemy (and also reminded him to never get on Rose's bad side).

However, the pig miraculous either had its own aura or amplified Rose's natural one, because Pigella by herself exuded jubilation. Just staying by her side gave him more energy than drinking five cups of coffee or even seeing his lady's smile. He left the battle against Guiltrip and a reluctant Reflekta absolutely high on joy, playfully teasing Chloé and joining in on the class's reassurance to Rose. Adrien felt invincible, laughing along with Marinette and Nino as Alya tried to guess who Shadow Moth was after school (the reporter was particularly stuck on Bob Roth and, after seeing how he riled up Mr. Ramier during the shooting of the apple juice commercial, he wondered if maybe she had a point). Adrien felt like he was flying.

That only made the fall harder.

It happened too fast, first he was giddy as he went to his fencing class, then he felt like all his energy was powered down and he was left hollow before even getting out of the car. Adrien performed horribly in class, Kagami breaking through her post-break up self-imposed distance to ask him if he was fine or needed to go home. He answered that he was okay, before getting his ass kicked so hard by her in a match that the teacher made him sit out the rest of the day.

Chat Noir arrived at the patrol meeting spot already exhausted. He leaned against the railings of the bridge he and Ladybug agreed on, looking down on his reflection, illuminated by the moonlight.

At least I don’t look as awful as I feel. He thought, being seen by his lady as a complete wreck was the last thing he needed today.

"My lady!" He half-forced a smile when he saw her. She didn't look as affected as he had, just a bit tired. "Wanting to meet me by the river under the moonlight? How romantic."

"Chat Noir." Ladybug said seriously and his smile fell off his face. "What was that today?"

He frowned. "The Sentimonster? I thought we did fine."

"No, when he got you and you activated cataclysm and…" Her voice got quieter and quieter until it disappeared. Her lip trembled. "What was that?"

Chat Noir swallowed hard. He had hoped Ladybug wouldn't have noticed that.

"It was nothing, bugaboo, really." He tried to stay light-hearted, but her distress didn't seem to be waning. "It was just the Sentimonster."

"No one else did anything like that." She insisted firmly. "Please, Chat Noir, talk to me. Didn't we promise to be honest with each other?"

He sighed heavily, caught. It's not like Ladybug could or even would force him, but the exhaustion he was feeling was clouding his mind and a promise was a promise, wasn't it?

"When I was young, my parents used to go on trips all over the world. They said I was too young to go with and I hated being left behind, but by the time they came back with souvenirs and stories, I didn't really care anymore." Chat Noir said. Ladybug looked admittedly confused, so he chuckled. "I promise this will make sense by the end. Let me finish?"

She bit her lip and nodded, gesturing for him to go on. He took a breath, shakily.

"Once, they came back from South America and my mother brought back a bunch of stuff, mostly stories. She knew they were my favorite." His mind drifted back to sitting in his mother's lap and he could almost feel a ghost of her hand combing through his hair. "The one that stuck with me the most at that time was about this girl that wanted to become a star. Sometimes, the moon would choose beautiful girls from her people to become stars and it was that girl's biggest dream to be chosen. But when her time came, she wasn't and she fell into despair. She went mad with a fever and jumped in the river, chasing after the moon's reflection, and drowned. The moon took pity on her and turned her into a giant water lily, so she could become the one star in the water."

Chat Noir paused, taking in his partner's blue eyes shining with concern (for him).

"I really didn't get it at the time, how someone could want something, miss something, so much that they would just give up everything. That she would just jump in the river like that." He said so to his mother at the time, even. You'll understand when you're older, baby. She had said. "I think I get it now. Sometimes, I think if it was to be with my mom, I would…"

Embarrassingly enough, his words were cut off with a sob. Before he could even blink, Ladybug enveloped him into her arms, squeezing tight like he would jump into the moon's visage in the river and disappear.

"I-I don't really think about it a lot o-or anything." Chat Noir stuttered between sons, hot tears falling from his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to care that he was crying in front of partner, her arms felt too comforting for that. "But that Sentimonster was really powerful and I'm just so tired."

I can't even help my best bud face up to his old man…

It had been his fault that Nino was feeling that. Both as Adrien for being the source and Chat Noir for not protecting him from Guiltrip. In that moment, coupled with his father's apathy and Nathalie and mother too far for him to grasp, it was suddenly too much.

"S-sorry for putting this on you." He apologized, but shamefully didn't let go.

If possible, she tightened her arms around him even more. It left him with an ache in his bones that didn't bother him at all.

"I want you to tell me these things, Chat Noir. You're my partner and I love you, of course I want to know." Ladybug said, voice wet. "You can lean on me, you know."

"I know." He said, voice sounding hollow. It wasn't that he thought his lady was a lia,r it was just… hard to do that. Being well and truly seen.

"It's okay if you can't tell me, I know I can't be around all the time." She continued. "You can lean on your family and friends too, Chat, I promise that they'll understand."

Then you don't know them. He bit back this response. It wasn't fully true, anyways.

"I-I can't talk to my family about this." His father was half the problem, after all.

"Talk to your friends, then. You sound like you really care about them, Chaton, they can help you."

He wanted to make up excuses and vague promises to Ladybug. He wanted to explain that it was because his friends were great that he couldn't burden them. He just felt so tired, though. The idea of going back to pretend everything was fine, to going back to his cold room and lonely nights made his skin crawl.

"My friends…" He whispered.

Nino and his caring personality. Marinette and her drive to help others. Kagami and her concern for him even after he broke her heart. Alya and her unstoppable sense of justice. The class's obvious love and care for a distressed Juleka and a sick friend. Rose herself, always sweet and optimistic in face of trouble.

"I… I'll try, my lady." It wouldn't be easy, but he would. He had to.

She deflated and it was the first time he noticed how tense she had been.

"Thanks, Chaton." The skin of his neck felt wet.

They stayed there under the moonlight, patrol forgotten.

#ladynoirjuly #ladynoirjuly2021 #ladynoir #ladybug #chat noir #ml fic #my stuff #if we're bound to be something why not together #cw: implied suicide attempt

14 notes · View notes

feminaexlux · 4 years

Text

All That Matters (Pt 1: I Got Chills)

Happy Valentine’s Day! This is my @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers exchange fic for @nobodyfamousposts. Find this on AO3 here!

Summary: What if Miracle Queen happened 6 months later in the dead of winter?

Part 1 of 3, probably.

⁂

"Ladybug?"

"Yeah, Chat?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"Oh! That's wonderful, congratulations!"

Chat Noir looked… confused, which was odd given the news that Ladybug just got. "I thought you'd be jealous," Chat said eventually. Part of him sounded chagrined, but another part of him sounded a little relieved.

Ladybug tilted her head. "Why would I be jealous? I'm happy for you!"

"Thanks," Chat said with a small smile. "It's new for me, you know? I've never done this before. I feel like I'm going to mess something up."

Ladybug laughed. "You're a good guy, Chat. I think all relationships are going to be hard and there will always be ups and downs. But I think you'll be fine if you work together on the problems." Ladybug then had a concern. "You're not dating her as Chat are you?"

"Pfft, no, no my Lady, the real me is doing that part," Chat laughed.

"Okay, good. Remember you can't reveal your identity to anyone."

"I know, my Lady, I know." Chat sighed. "I wish I could, sometimes. It sucks having to leave her without a good explanation, you know?"

Ladybug paused and considered. "Can I ask how you deal with that?"

"Luckily for me, my fath-- uh, family has a pretty tight leash on this cat. I say that they need me and… she understands." Chat leaned forward and pulled up his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "She's… sad whenever that happens so I try to make it up to her."

Ladybug laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "That's good. It sounds like the sooner we can take down Hawkmoth, the better."

Chat turned to her and nodded. "Yeah. Agreed."

Ladybug took her hand off his shoulder and rested it back on the roof of the building they were on. They had done some patrols and met back up again to report nothing out of the ordinary. They sat together watching the sunset as they did on the good days.

It was partly cloudy and chilly in the early days of winter. The freezing cold hadn't yet settled in but Ladybug knew it was coming in soon. She'd noticed in the previous winter that part of her felt sluggish and her body felt more lethargic in general, even in her powered up super suit. Tikki had said something about how ladybugs didn't do well in winter, and maybe that was why? Okay, sure. Ladybug didn't want to be any sort of liability to Chat or to the city of Paris when it got cold so she was able to convince Master Fu to lend out the other Miraculous on a semi-permanent basis.

Rena Rouge and Carapace were more than recurring heroes now. Ladybug had entrusted the Miraculous to Alya Cesaire and Nino Lahiffe after they promised to protect their identities, each other, the city of Paris, and to not misuse the Miraculous powers for personal gain. She’d done the same for Pegasus, Ryuuko, and Viperion. Ladybug didn’t know who King Monkey was so she had enlisted Fu’s help in tracking him down.

Queen Bee was… on an as-needed basis. Chloe Bourgeois was still an unknown. She had her moments of true selflessness but they'd been rare and unpredictable and that wasn't an ally Ladybug or Chat Noir could trust. They tried explaining that to Chloe once, but it ended when the mayor's daughter threw them out in a fit of tears. They still gave her another chance but the last time Queen Bee was used was with HeartHunter and Ryuuko had to bail them all out when Queen Bee stopped listening to them.

It wasn't going well.

"How are you doing, 'Bug?"

Ladybug snapped out of her thoughts and turned to face Chat. "I'm… okay. It's starting to get cold."

"Maybe you need to find yourself a boyfriend and get some warm snuggles," Chat grinned. "What about that boy you love?"

Ladybug closed her eyes. "He's found someone else," Ladybug said softly. She had a small smile on her face, remembering how it felt to see Adrien and Kagami together. Kagami fit in to his life so seamlessly and Adrien looked happier than Marinette had ever seen.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Ladybug sighed, looking back out at the sunset. "I think he's happier now." And now Marinette wasn't feeling like the universe kept pushing back. It hurt a little bit to know nothing was going right with Adrien and there wasn't anything she could do to change it. She finally made the decision to stop feeling hurt all the time and allowed herself to let him go. "And I think I'm happier too."

"Okay," Chat smiled, sighing in relief. "That's great to hear. I'm sorry it didn't work out but I'm glad that you're happier. A happy Ladybug is always good news."

"And a happy Chat Noir is always good news as well," Ladybug giggled. "Thanks for letting me know."

"Of course. You're my best friend, Ladybug. I want to tell you everything, but…"

"You shouldn't tell me. It's to protect us," Ladybug stressed. "But… you know you're my best friend too."

⁂

One good thing about no longer obsessing over Adrien was that Marinette had less to worry about. The GirlSquad was no longer a pain in the proverbial butt about getting her to ask him out either. Instead Alya had fixed her sights on improving the LadyBlog and tracking down interviews with the other semi-permanent heroes, though (for obvious reasons) she had way more articles about Rena Rouge than any of the other Miraculous holders. It didn't seem like it was for personal gain as Alya had styled the interviews as asking the heroes advice to inform all of her blog readers how to defend against or prepare for akumas, so Marinette decided she'd let that pass for the greater good.

The only thing that felt a little weird about the GirlSquad sometimes was that Juleka seemed like she kept wanting to talk with Marinette and then backing out at the last second. That probably meant Juleka still felt confused about Marinette dating her brother.

Marinette knew it looked kinda bad to date someone else soon(?) after giving up on Adrien, especially since Adrien started dating Kagami(!), but it just happened so… naturally. Marinette had been the one to keep visiting Luka at the Liberty. Luka had kept inviting her to watch movies with him. They'd just felt like having lunch together often. After months of not-dating Marinette had finally asked, flustered and tripping over her words, if they actually were. Or… If he had wanted to.

"If you want to, I'm game," Luka had said casually, but Marinette had seen the faintest blush on him.

They had both been surprised when she said "Yes."

Their relationship was nice and easy. They had taken it slow. Most of their "dates" were just hanging out, low key chilling around each other, listening to music or working on Lycée homework. He would lend an ear to whatever she wanted to talk about and offered his thoughts and commentary. She'd given him small gifts here and there. They'd gone out ice skating and met up with other friends a few times. She had been worried that she'd been a pretty boring girlfriend overall but he said "If you wanna be here with me and I wanna be here with you, that's all that matters."

Whenever she and Luka were together during an akuma attack Luka did have the penchant for staying with her for as long as possible. He did eventually give an excuse of having to check up on Juleka or his mom and left Marinette to run out as Viperion… and then she would transform into Ladybug and follow after him. If anyone caught on that Ladybug always came in right after Viperion, the other heroes were smart enough to not comment on it. Nor comment on how they always left at the same time. Luka had, after sprinting back to her, breathlessly apologized the first few times for leaving her but Marinette had said it was so brave of him to look out for his family's safety and that'd been enough. Marinette did have to admit to herself that dating another superhero was actually pretty convenient. Chat would never let that go if he found out.

On the bad days it'd been so good to melt into his hugs when she felt the weight of the world press down harder on her. He'd been the calm in her life she so desperately wanted. It hit her like a ton of bricks just how much she needed him when he got taken from her.

⁂

Marinette and Luka were hanging out at Place des Vosges having coffee together after defeating yet another akuma. It had gotten much easier dealing with Hawkmoth most of the other heroes helping out, and the fight was over in practically no time at all. Just when everything calmed down again she and Luka heard screaming nearby and saw people running away from… a swarm of wasps?

They got up and started running, but they were too slow and the wasps were catching up. "Aw crap," Luka yelled. "Marinette watch out!" Luka pulled her into his arms and shielded her from them, getting stung in the process.

"Luka!" Marinette felt his arms drop from her shoulders and she looked up to see his face devoid of any emotion. His eyes turned a weird shade of yellow and he wasn't responding to her shaking him. "Luka!" For one tiny moment he blinked and looked down at her with concern, then his face went slack again. "Oh no, what happened to you?" He turned away from her and started walking off. "H-hey! No! Don't go!" She took his hand and tried to pull him into the bakery but he resisted and kept walking. Another swarm of wasps was closing in on her and Marinette cried out in frustration, letting Luka slip out of her grasp.

Wasps… wasps? Was this Chloe?! Oh no, Marinette thought, turning on her heels to sprint toward the Seine. She transformed while diving in, making sure to use her aqua powerup. She plunged into the river and then looked back up to see the swarm hovering above the water and eventually disperse away. She pulled out her yoyo and slid the cover up, checking if any of the other Miraculous holders were active.

Oh no. None of the other heroes were showing up on her communicator. At least not yet. Oh no. Ladybug let the communicator close and swam in circles, wondering just how she'd be able to handle this on her own if she had to. Suddenly she got a ping and Ladybug whipped out her yoyo, franticly checking which of her allies was nearby. Oh thank goodness Chat Noir was alright. Okay. She swam to meet him as he was heading in her direction and they met up halfway. "Chat! I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Yeah, I'm definitely glad to see you, 'Bug!"

"Th-this is… this is Queen Wasp again, isn't it?" Ladybug fretted and pulled her hair in a mix of frustration and guilt. "I… I thought…"

"We beat her before and we can do it again," Chat said, squeezing her shoulder with his hand. "And… and I have this, if we need it," he said somewhat sheepishly, pulling out what looked like a necklace. It was a choker… a very familiar choker. One she had given to Kagami Tsurugi to keep for the time being. What was Chat doing with the Dragon Miraculous? "I… found this near… a girl after she got stung by one of the wasps."

Ladybug blinked at the choker a few times. All she could think of was the dread she felt when the wasps were after her and Luka. What had Chat Noir gone through? And he had been conveniently nearby Kagami and the Dragon Miraculous and recognized it fast enough to grab it? "We might be able to use this." Ladybug closed Chat's hand over the choker. "You keep this for now, let's make a plan. None of the other heroes show up as active on my locator yet--" As soon as she said it she got a series of pings on her yoyo that indicated that most of the other Miraculous holders were becoming active, all but Ryuuko, and all at the same time and location.

Even Viperion showed up on her locator… she knew that Luka had been taken. Which could only mean…

"This is bad news." Ladybug bit at her bottom lip. "I personally saw that… one of the holders got stung. This means they've captured everyone else with a Miraculous and we're on our own. We'll have to use the Dragon and get any edge we can." Chat nodded at Ladybug and she sighed. "This is going to be tricky. We need to take Viperion out first."

"How are we going to do that?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir looked at each other in silence for a bit. "We have to split up and you have to use the Dragon Miraculous. You can't be caught by the wasps or Pegasus if you're in Wind form and I don't think it's safe to do a frontal assault with Viperion working against us."

"And what about you? What are you going to do?"

"I'm… going to use the Mouse. They can't capture all of me that way… hopefully."

Chat looked pained. "This sounds dangerous, 'Bug."

"Do you have another idea?" Chat shook his head. "Then let's do this for now. We'll have to play this by ear." Ladybug called her Lucky Charm and got a scarf, now waterlogged with Seine water (ew). "A scarf? What the heck am I supposed to do with a scarf?!"

⁂

To be continued (insert Jojo music here)

Actually j/k it's right here

#fxl fic #lukanette #lukanette endgame #endgame lukanette #lbsc exchange fic 2021 #ladybug #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #lbscexchange2021

36 notes · View notes

adrinoir · 4 years

Text

Adrienette is....interesting

Ohhh boy. Here is my last analysis for the love square ships!

I hate to say Adrienette is my least favorite in the square - but it is. It’s ironic that I’m ranking them in the first place considering it is two of the same people for all 4 ships.

I feel like there is SO much to unpack with this. So let’s get into it.

How it got started

Marinette stupidly thought Adrien wasn’t a good guy at first. Chloe’s friend = bully. There was that miscommunication of Adrien taking the gum off of Marinette’s seat, but she thought he was putting it ON the seat.

Then the classic umbrella scene happens after Nino pushes Adrien to talk to Marinette.

Master Fu creepily watches them from afar and is like These two are made for each other.

It’s cute and wholesome because Adrien giggles at her and is so happy he finally has a new friend.

“She’s just a friend”

Shut up, Mr. Adrien “she’s just a friend” Agreste.

Thomas ass truck obviously likes to annoy the fandom here and there and one of the most annoying things is HOW MANY times Adrien feels the need to confirm aloud that Marinette is just a friend.

Despite the amount of times Adrien says this, there’s a good chance that he doesn’t realize he has feelings for Marinette since he’s so wrapped up in his infatuation for Ladybug.

Adrien hasn’t had too many friends but I like to think either he’s not clueless enough or not on the aromantic spectrum to not know the line between friends and lovers. Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit and he IS super oblivious.

It’s clearly in Adrien’s personality to be caring of others, very much so of his friends. However, he seems to just randomly really care a lot about Marinette even though they aren’t really super close friends. He also does things that cross the line into being more so romantic, and that’s why he likes her as more than a friend.

He has slow danced with her TWICE now, and not awkwardly as if she’s “just a friend.” Very tightly and romantically.

He cuddled with her on the train when she was sleepy when he easily could’ve just pushed her away.

He smiled a lot when she thanked him and kissed him for calling her “their everyday ladybug”.

He STARES at her very longingly.

He was willing to kiss Marinette for Nino’s short film (but not even Chloe).

He compliments her a lot, he can be overprotective of her, he’s willing to help her when she needs it, he’s asked HER for advice, he’s silly and has playfully teased her on multiple occasions.

In the Oblivio episode, he didn’t even REMEMBER who Marinette was but assumed she was his girlfriend. And he realized a bunch of reasons WHY he loved her when they spent time alone in the tower together. To not even know her and realize he loved her just says it all.

In Chat Blanc, there was the timeline when he actually DATED Marinette. Like I said in my Ladrien analysis, we could speculate a couple different things, but it is certainly possible that he DID realize he has liked her all this time.

And truthfully, we know how he treats her as Cat Noir, which is very telling - the flirting, how he carries her to a safe place when she’s close to an akumatized villain, how he confides in her.

I know I’ve said it in two of my analysis posts already, but it works here too - Adrien cares enough to ask Marinette how she feels about Cat Noir. He wants to know if she likes him for his true self.

There’s definitely even more signs than what I listed but even what I wrote is a long list (and it’s just moments I remembered all off the top of my head!) Adrien is just so sweet to her and I love it.

Thomas has made Marinette too creepy

You don’t even have to watch the show to know Marinette is hardcore crushing on Adrien. Similar to Adrien/Cat Noir’s feelings for Ladybug, she’s infatuated with him and doesn’t know about Adrien’s raw personality (well, knows it but thinks Cat Noir is a completely different person.)

The show centers a lot around Marinette’s crush on Adrien and it is obsessive.

In the first season, I thought Marinette was weird for having his whole schedule, having pics of him in her room, and stealing his phone, but I still liked her character. However, Thomas has made Marinette progressively more and more obsessed with Adrien in the unhealthiest ways possible.

She has reached full-on stalker level behavior at this point in the series. The one I think of is when she went as far to stack up trash cans to get over the fence to Adrien’s house when Lila was there, and then crying to the firefighter nearby when she couldn’t get in. Or, when she revealed that she has an ENTIRE chest filled with presents she made for Adrien for like the next 50 years. Or, when she tried kissing the “statue” of him. It’s gone too far.

I mean, I HOPE Thomas Astruc doesn’t think this is normal behavior. I’d like to believe he’s just writing it to exaggerate Marinette’s feelings for Adrien and make it more ridiculously silly for the kid portion of his audience. But it’s hard to say for sure. No matter what, it still shouldn’t be in the show because it could be normalizing this behavior for the younger kids, and I know for a fact it’s just making the teenage/adult audience feel uncomfortable and cringy.

Will Marinette make good progress?

Well, possibly. The show has had its share of issues with continuity in character development, but to be fair, in some ways we have seen Marinette progress.

Despite still being awkward at times, she’s able to have more conversations with Adrien without stumbling over her words. Where as before, she could barely get a proper sentence out.

She’s also kissed Adrien on the cheek and given him notes and gifts (even though they aren’t signed except the one that was Master Fu’s stool prescription).

And - even though Marinette was acting a bit over the top about it - she at least made a little bit of effort to see if she could drop her feelings for Adrien. Naturally, she couldn’t. It can be difficult to get over romantic feelings for someone, especially if they’re a friend you interact with a lot.

Additionally, Alya deserves a lot of credit for creating situations for Marinette to talk to Adrien and literally pushing the two of them together. I could name the things she did but she does this in just about every other episode. Even though the success rate hasn’t been fantastic, Alya is still the real MVP for helping Marinette (and just putting up with her in general.) There’s a lot of things that wouldn’t have happened without that extra push from Alya.

But, for Marinette to make better progress with Adrien, she needs to learn to stop being so weirdly obsessive and jealous, and to just go for it. Take the risk and confess to Adrien. Tikki has told her “there will never be a right time!”

It has been 3 full seasons and Marinette still has yet to confess to Adrien. Ugh.

And, just my own feelings, but Marinette should start to grow an attraction for Cat Noir’s personality as well, seeing as how it’s Adrien’s true self. Because, as of right now, she’s liking him based off of his timid, more model-like facade and not his silly, charming self.

Or, she also has the option to date Luka, same with Adrien and Kagami. However, both of them can’t decide on the right thing to do and just kinda lead Luka and Kagami a bit. So decisions need to be made to progress, too.

Will Adrien make good progress?

When he sorts out his feelings and understands how he feels about Marinette, yes.

Adrien’s not really creepy or jealous, he just seems like the type of person who acts on how he feels but doesn’t pick up on it.

He hasn’t done anything to hurt Marinette and would never intend to. It hurts Marinette that he MIGHT like Kagami, but he’s obviously not intentionally doing it to make her jealous (even HE is unsure of his relationship with Kagami.)

Like I said, the boy just needs to figure it out. Then things could start to move forward.

Final Thoughts:

1. Adrien has feelings for Marinette (but can’t recognize it), Marinette likes him but is too scared to say anything - they both just need to sort their feelings out in a healthy manner in order for it to work.

2. Some progress between these two is there, but it should move quicker - it’s been too many seasons of Marinette having failed attempts to confess.

3. The ship will be more wholesome when they DO sort their feelings out, and Marinette becomes less obsessive and jealous, and likes Adrien’s true personality.

If you read this analysis, if you’ve read my others, thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed them! I had a really great time writing them all.

#miraculous ladybug #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculers #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #adrien x marinette #i ship them #miraculous #the umbrella scene

42 notes · View notes

hateswifi · 5 years

Text

Rising from the Ashes: Of Bullies and Best Friends

So this story is based on this post by @legendaryhumanskeletonkid I took this idea and kinda changed it without further ado... Part 1. Master List

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

“All of Paris is invited to a gala that will be held at the hotel this Saturday from six-thirty to ten o’clock. This is a fundraiser gala for natural disasters and a partial celebration for the defeat of Hawkmoth Paris’ previous tormentor,” Mayor Bourgeois announces, looking over the crowd.

Marinette had been sitting on her family’s couch designing as the mayor finished his speech. She had been invited as Ladybug and wouldn’t be attending as Marinette. She did not need to make a dress and had already changed her costume for a more grown-up look.

A year or two after she started being the spotted hero, she decided to change up costume as of now her costume was red from her hips to her shoulder blades with black spots strategically placed, along with black knee-high boots that had three spots on her knees, her hand were adorned with fingerless gloves with one red spot on the back of each hand, the rest of her body was covered in her original red with black spots. She had also started putting her now mid-back long hair up in a bun to keep it out of her face as she worked or as her superhero persona. Needless to say, she loves her new look.

By this point in time, Adrien and Marinette became best friends, especially after the reveal. Adrien is happily dating Kagami after Marinettehad set them up. She is one of the few people who knew about Kagami and Adrien’s relationship and is happy for both of her friends. She had lost feelings for Adrien when he had told her to take the high road with Lila’s lying problem. He stopped talking and pushing to take the high road bull after he had to comfort Ladybug to stop her from getting akumatized. He realized someone was getting hurt and it was his Lady, his best friend.

He couldn’t directly stand up to her due to his father, but he would point out a lack of consistency in her lies. He was also an emotional support system for her during the times when Lila was too terrible. He always has Marinette and Kagami’s favorite ice-cream in the mini fridge-freezer combo he had in his room. He also has a playlist of movies for the group watches when they get together. Marinette, Kagami, Adrien, Chloe, and Luka have become family in everything but blood.

Marinette sighs, being brought back to the present by her parents entering the kitchen.

“Hey sweetie, what was the mayor’s announcement?” Sabine asked, sitting down next to her petite daughter.

“He is holding a fundraiser gala as a celebration for Hawkmoth’s defeat and for other natural disasters. All the heroes are invited as a thank you and probably to help raise more money,” Marinette summed up while her mother hugged her.

“That’s great, sweetheart! Are you going to go?” Tom asked, sitting down on the other side of his daughter.

“I haven’t decided yet but I don’t think I will,” Marinette answered.

“Why not sweetie?” Sabine asked, looking at her daughter, eyes filled with concern. Sabine had noticed her daughter's classmates had stopped coming by the house and she is worried for her daughter's social life.

“I don’t know I just don’t want to go to a stuffy gala,” she answered, standing up. “but don’t worry about me, you guys go have fun. Enjoy yourselves, you both deserve it."

“I think we will, what day is it?” Sabine asked, standing up as well.

“It’s this upcoming Saturday,” Marinette answered.

“But today is Thursday. That doesn’t leave us much time to find and wash the formal clothes,” Tom said, standing as well.

“Ok mama and papa I’ll leave you to that, I’m going to head to bed. Goodnight I love you both," Marinette said, leaving to go upstairs to her room

“Tikki, are you ready for patrol?” Marinette said, looking for her little red friend.

“Let’s go Marinette!” Tikki said, coming down from the bed Marinette had made her.

“Tikki, Spots on,” Marinette said, going through her transformation. Then she jumped out of her balcony trap door and flew across the rooftops towards the set meeting place, the Eiffel Tower.

“Hey Chaton, Queenie. Sorry that I’m late, my parents were asking about the gala,” she said, landing beside her partners.

“It's fine LB you deserve a break after today though,” Queen Bee said, looking at her once rival turned friend.

“I’m fine,” Ladybug started before Chat cut in. “No, you shouldn’t have to be fine. You should be feeling great I can’t believe she accused you of such a thing,” Chat pouted, crossing his arms.

Ladybug sighed and looked over the city thinking back to what had happened earlier that day in class.

Lila had walked into school with a black eye and bruised cheek, probably makeup. Once she had everyone around her and Marinette, who had made it a habit of arriving at class on time, walked in Lila started crying her crocodile tears. “M.. Marinette how co.. could you show your fa...face after what you did to me?” Lila stuttered out between the crocodile tears.

“What do you mean?” Adrien asked before Marinette could respond to the accusations.

“She was jealous over our friendship, Adrien, so she attacked me after we hung out yesterday,” Lila cried, hiding her face in Alya’s welcoming embrace.

“By ‘hung out’ you mean you hanging all over me during the photoshoot I was forced to go to,” Adrien deadpanned, putting air quotes around ‘hung out’.

“Adrien, how could you say that when she’s in this condition?” Alya raged, looking at Marinette and Adrien as she continued to rub Lila’s back comfortingly. “Marinette you gotta stop being so jealous!”

“That’s funny because Marinette and I went out for ice cream with Adrien, Luka, and Kagami after Adrien’s torture his father calls a photoshoot,” Chloe stepped in.

“How do we know you aren’t lying?” Alya asked, standing tall. “You, Chloe, are just as much of a bully as Marinette is.”

“Because,” Marinette stepped in. “We saw you there yesterday. Remember? You and Nino had a date.”

“That is true, babe as we were leaving they were just getting there,” Nino stated towards his girlfriend.

“Then you must have slapped her after that because we all know you have a huge crush on Adrien,” Alya defended a smirk spreading across her face.

“Alya, if you had talked to me sometime in the last two years without yelling at me then you would know that I see him just as a friend,” Marinette said, crossing her arms.

“Awww, Buginette, I thought we were best friends,” Adrien pouted.

“Not the time, Adrien,” Chloe said. “Also why would Lila just bring it up now? Why didn’t she talk to the principal before this?”

“I..” Lila started then cried more while answering. “I thought she would do something worse.”

“This girl wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Adrien defended, knowing that not to be true. He had seen her do some serious damage. The bell rung before anyone could say anything else but by the glares that Marinette kept receiving she could tell people weren’t happy with her over the accusations.

“Buginette, are you sure you’re ok? Queenie and I don’t mind taking this patrol by ourselves,” Chat offered, looking at his long-time friend.

“Mar, you can tell us what the matter is. Even with Hawkmoth defeated we’re still here for you,” Queen said, patting her shoulder.

“I just don’t understand how they can trust someone they barely know over me, their childhood friend,” Ladybug answered, looking into the distance.

“Her lies seem as sweet as honey, but they’re going to sting when the lies bumble,” Queenie punned. Chat looked at her in astonishment.

“Did you just—?“ Chat started.

“Nope Chlo you can’t join him. There are only so many puns people can deal with,” Ladybug said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to see the day her lies will fall.”

They sat there for the duration of the patrol, Paris would be safe for the night. Ladybug needs the heroes’ help more. After her friends had helped her relax she had fallen asleep, Chat took the liberty of taking her home. She needed more sleep with the stress of school, Ladybug, and now going to the gala. Adrien wasn’t going to go as Adrien, but as Chat Noir. He was personally invited as Chat, which he’s thankful for. He can now spend time with his girlfriend and not have to deal with Lila.

As Adrien put his Buginette in her bed and tucked her in he stared for a moment and thought back to a day not too long ago when he thought he had lost her.

It had been a long fight every one of the heroes, even with their strong stamina, were becoming tired. Especially Marinette taking more hits than any of the other heroes, not wanting them, rest of her friends, to be hurt. After hours of fighting, they were in Hawkmoth’s lair now at this point after he had run near the end of his transformation. This had led them to his own house at that moment he knew his lady had been right almost three years ago.

His friends turned to look at him. He looked at them and felt the bile rising in his throat, his father. His goddamn father! He had done this to them. Kagami had been stabbed in the shoulder but she was still fighting. Marinette had received a bad blow to the stomach. Everyone has excessive bruising most of the team had dried blood on them and their costumes were torn. He fell to his knees and threw up.

“My god,” he whispered, wiping his mouth. “Why him? Of all the loners and messed up people, why him?”

“Chaton, you could have not known,” Ladybug said, rubbing his back.

“Adrien, this isn’t your fault,” Kagami said, hugging him.

“Look at you guys!” He said, standing up swiftly. “You all look terrible! He hurt you are all so bad.”

“Thanks,” Queenie answered sarcastically, crossing her arms.

“You don’t look so hot yourself though,” Viperon said, trying to calm down the blonde.

“Viperon, is right we all look bad but this is what we signed up for as soon as we took the miraculous. Ya, it sucks that the troubles of Paris are placed on the shoulders five teenagers, who are still in high school, but the adults here are morons,” Queenie said, hugging Adrien. “You gotta calm down. I.. we won’t be able to fight you too.”

“You’re right,” he said, hugging her back. “Let’s go get ourselves a bastard.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ladybug said, giving him a fist bump.

They jumped to where they saw Hawkmoth enter. Ryuko offered to go in first, well not offered but barged in first. “Gabriel! You have some nerve!” Ryuko screamed when she saw the dark figure.

“Ahhh.. finally I’ll have what is truly mine your miraculous. It’s finally time to get rid of you, pests,” Hawkmoth monologued hiding in the shadows.

“Father! Stop this craziness! I don’t know why you’re doing this, but it must end!” Chat pleaded.

“Gabriel, we don’t want to fight you anymore. We just want the butterfly and the peacock miraculous,” Ladybug reasoned.

“and I just want my wife back,” Gabriel said, turning to the heroes. “Don’t you want the same, Adrien?”

“I.. She’s gone, Father. I’m going to be gone too if you don’t stop! I miss her as much as you do, but I moved on because it’s healthy! This isn’t healthy and would she want to be brought back like this? All this destruction, chaos, and pain? Would she even be able to look at you the same knowing that you’ve hurt Paris, my friends, and your only son?” Chat asked, stepping forward as Gabriel fell to his knees. “Please, Dad stop this.”

“Under one condition,” Gabriel asked, looking up at his son.

“Depends on the condition old man,” Queenie said from behind Chat.

“I want to be able to stay here with you and try to make up the time I wasted. Also please don’t tell the public who I am, the media would tear you and the company to pieces. You would probably be seen as an accomplice and wouldn't be trusted most likely anywhere,” Gabriel pleads, grabbing his son’s hand, the one without Chat’s miraculous.

“Group talk, huddle up,” Viperon said, beckoning everyone in.

“We could make him do stuff like community service, but subtly so it doesn’t raise any suspicion,” Ryuko reasoned, once everyone had gathered in the huddle of heroes.

“What would we tell the public,” Queenie asked, looking around the circle.

“After Hawkmoth ran, we found his miraculous that he had left on a rooftop,” Ladybug started a plan forming.

“When we went to find the civilian Hawkmoth he had already run,” Chat finished.

“Good enough for me,” Viperon agreed.

“What if we make him start a foundation,” Queenie suggested. “I could help since I am the Mayor’s daughter and have connections”

“He caused a lot of chaos, what if we make him start a disaster foundation? Natural disasters because those are a common thing here. Fires and floods, simple things,” Ryuko added.

“Ok we have a proposition then,” Chat said, breaking the huddle then looked towards Gabriel. “Father we came to a decision you can be unknown from the public, but you have to start a natural disaster foundation. Also something I’m adding get your mental health checked along with weekly therapy. If you choose these conditions you can stay at home as Gabriel Agreste and Hawkmoth will never be you again. If not we can take you into the police station right now.”

Needless to say, Gabriel had accepted the heroes’ gracious offer and handed over the butterfly and peacock miraculous, which was brought back to Master Fu. He had given her the Miracle Box because he wanted to retire soon after the defeat of Hawkmoth. The public was angry at first due to the fact they wouldn’t know the identity of Hawkmoth, but they thought the heroes didn’t know so they were less angry. Adrien sighed and jumped onto her balcony and headed home.

When Marinette woke up the next morning she looks around dazed for a moment or two this had been one of the first times she had gotten a full night's sleep in awhile. It was all thanks to her partners, she hadn’t even woken from a nightmare. She also woke up a bit earlier than her alarm, so she got up and put her hair in a bun, did some light makeup. She put on a white shoulderless short-sleeved shirt with little flowers near the neckline, a bubblegum pink flowy skirt, and a pair of darkish grey tights. She then finished the look with the same bubblegum color of her skirt for ballet shoes. When finished getting dressed she put cookies in her signature purse. She climbed up the ladder leading towards her bed to wake up her kwami.

“Tikki, time to wake up,” Marinette said, quietly.

“Good morning,” Tikki yawned. “You look nice this morning!”

“I got up early. I must’ve fallen asleep on patrol,” Marinette said. “I woke up on time and I didn’t have any nightmares.”

“That’s so good! You haven’t gotten enough sleep lately,” Tikki said, flying up out of her bed.

“Marinette! It’s time to leave!” Sabine shouted from downstairs. Marinette checked her phone and saw that it was true so she went downstairs. “Sweetie you look extra beautiful today! Did you sleep better than normal?”

“Yes, I slept well, love you mama see you after school!” She kissed her mama and left for school.

As she arrives Adrien’s car pulls up and she sees Chloe waiting by the bottom of the steps near the entrance of the school. Chloe is wearing her hair down straight but with the top part of her hair pulled back and held in with her miraculous. She is wearing a black pencil skirt that ends just above the knee, a flowy light yellow shirt, and paired with black flats.

When Adrien and Marinette meet Chloe they give both give her and each other a hug. They then walk inside to be met with the mess known as Lila and her posse. They meet in the courtyard where Alya and Lila try to get an apology out of Marinette.

"Lila, I didn't hit you. There's enough proof to say that I didn't, but yet you continue with your web of lies. Why would I want to hit you?" Marinette asked, crossing her arms as Adrien and Chloe stand behind her.

"Because you are jealous that I'm dating Adrien. I'm sorry Adrihoney that I told her our secret," Lila cried. "I just can't take her jealousy or torture anymore."

"Lila we're not dating..." Adrien started but was cut off again by Lila sobbing louder.

"You don't have to lie to them, they already know the truth. I can't let you hide your feelings for me anymore," Lila sobbed.

"Lila, what truth did you tell them the truth or the truth you want? I would never date you, Lila. You are too clingy, annoying, and you're always lying. Plus I'm happily dating someone; I'm pretty sure I love her," Adrien finished.

"Marinette, you slut, you're sleeping with Lila's boyfriend when you know that they are happily together," Alya raged, rubbing Lila's back.

“It’s like I’m not even here!” Adrien said, throwing his hands up in defeat.

"First of all, Adrien is just a friend. Second of all, how dare you call me or his actual girlfriend a slut and last Adrien's girlfriend could take Lila down in a heartbeat," Marinette said, stepping forward. "Adrien's girlfriend may not be the kindest at first glance, but what I wouldn't do to help one of my best friends."

She then walked to class with the two blonds glaring at the rest of the class following behind. The rest of the day was filled with excited chatter for the upcoming gala. Lila was bragging over the fact the uprising star, who she ‘helped’ found MDC's talent, made her dress just because Lila is so nice.

"MDC, he is so incredibly nice and handsome. He has milk chocolate hair and the brightest blue eyes you would ever see. It was love at first sight when he had first seen me. It was just after I had saved Jagged Stone's cat from the airport's terminal. MDC was with Jagged because he is Jagged's lost nephew," Lila started then her face fell. "I couldn't stay with him though, I was getting ready to fly to Gotham to be with my childhood sweetheart, my Damiboo. I'm sorry or as you would know him, Damian Wayne."

"Seriously! you've met the Waynes and Bruce Wayne's heir is in love with you?!?" Alya exclaimed. "You have to get me an interview with them!"

"Next time I visit my Damiboo I'll ask him, but he's kind of shy," Lila smiles, looking at all of her adoring followers.

Marinette sighed as the bell rung thankful for the end of her lies even if only temporarily. After her class, which was uneventful, she headed home to help her parents finish up in the bakery and eventually helped them close it. She saw that they had dragged out there nicer clothes.

"Sweetheart, would you be a dear and fit and fix my dress," Sabine asked, looking back at Marinette as she cooked.

"Of course Mama I'll fix it up after dinner," Marinette said as she was finishing up her homework.

They had a nice peaceful dinner after plates were cleaned, and leftovers were put away Marinette and her mother headed upstairs to fix her mother's dress. "Mama you look beautiful," Marinette said looking over the traditional Chinese red cheongsam.

"Thank you, Marinette," Sabine pauses, looking at herself in the mirror. "Pretty soon I'm going to give it to you. It was your grandmother's and I think you deserve it."

"Thank you, Mama," Marinette smiled, fixing the tear near the hem. "It's all fixed Mama. You look beautiful. I hope you have a great time tomorrow."

"I just wish you would come with us," Sabine sighed, hugging her daughter.

"I would but I had already made plans with Adrien, Kagami, and Luka," Marinette told the decided upon story.

"OK have fun at least," Sabine smiled before heading downstairs to show her husband.

Since it was Ryuko and Viperon's turn to patrol she went to bed early.

#ml salt fic #alya salt #lila salt #marinette x damian #damianette #maribat #batfam #ml New Life AU #ml x dc #wifiwrites #miraculous salt #marinette dupain cheng #marinette x batfam

1K notes · View notes

yannowhatigiveup · 3 years

Text

My One And Only - Chapter 14

Previous | Next | Master List

This chapter is the longest one yet with 3000 words so I hope you enjoy reading. Also thank you so much for all the notes and reblogs! I just realised that I’m not far from 100 followers and can’t thank you all enough!

TW: Injuries at the end

The cat-themed hero sat on the floor, Ladybug sat in front of him and after a big breath, he spoke. "Ladybug, I- I don't think I'm the true holder of the Black Cat miraculous"

————————————————————

Ladybug looked at her partner wide-eyed. "Wh-what?"

Chat Noir sighed. "Plagg told me that true holders gain side effects. He said that you already have yours"

The spotted heroine nodded slowly.

"From what he said, true holders get the side effects around the same time, when they acknowledge each other in a way. Plagg also said that if you weren't a true holder, using the Ladybug miraculous or the Black Cat miraculous would be...dangerous and would do more harm than good to the user" The cat-themed hero scratched the back of his neck nervously, trying to avoid eye contact with his partner.

"Okay...what does the 'more harm than good to the user' part mean?" She asked, her voice faulty in worry for her friend. Then Chat Noir looked at her in the eye, he seemed saddened and disappointed in himself.

"I... I haven't been myself. I've been treating people who are close to me as if they were...objects. Options. As if they weren't their person. And I feel horrible because of it." Ladybug reached her arm out to hold Chat Noir's shoulder, showing that she didn't judge him for it. "Plagg says it's the destruction from the miraculous, it's not natural for me"

"So you came to tell me" she concluded and the blonde hero nodded.

"I don't want my emotions to spiral out of control, I-I don't want to hurt you because of it so..." his voice trailed off. Ladybug tensed to hear what he had to say next. "I came to renounce the Black Cat miraculous"

Her eyes glinted in realisation "Y-you're sure?"

He nodded solemnly. "I don't want to risk hurting you or anyone else"

She sighed while nodding in understanding, she got up and motioned for Chat Noir to do the same.

"Plagg...claws in" Chat Noir mumbled with a heavy heart, it would be the last time he was ever going to say those words. As soon as he did, his transformation dropped gloomily, almost slower than usual. There stood Adrien Agreste, one of her best friends. He looked dejected and worried, looking at Ladybug for her approval. "Hey....bugaboo"

"Wow...you acted much more...freely as Chat, Adrien" The blonde let out a sigh of relief after seeing Ladybug's approving smile before noticing her face turned solemn in understanding once again. "I'm guessing you two want a moment to say goodbye" she glanced at Adrien and the kwami while stepping back to make space for the two.

"I guess this is goodbye, Kid" Plagg floated in front of Adrien's face, looking sadder than the blonde has seen in his entire time being with him. The kwami floated closer to hug Adrien's cheek.

"Thank you Plagg, for being my friend all this time" The blonde choked out.

"No, thank you, kid. You were one of the best Chat Noirs I've ever met" he hovered back in front of Adrien's face. "You're a good kid, Adrien. Don't forget that"

He took a shaky breath. "I won't...goodbye, Plagg"

"Let's get this over with now, or we'll make it rain" the kwami blurted out, but his voice was heavy with sadness. Slowly, Adrien pulled off the ring on his finger, watching as it turned black when Plagg got sucked in. He then handed the ring to the spotted heroine, surprisingly she took it hesitantly. She brought out her yo-yo, opened it and put the ring inside. She then looked back up to Adrien.

"Thank you" her voice was mournful. "For all, you have done as Chat Noir, all of Paris will grieve over your...retirement" She then took a deep breath trying to lighten the mood. "We need to think of a cover story that will be able to convince the Parisians as well as Hawkmoth"

The blonde put a finger on his chin. "Why don't we say that I got injured in the most recent akuma attack?"

The spotted heroine shook her head. "Hawkmoth would know that's a lie" Ladybug hummed while thinking for a valid reason which even Hawkmoth would fall for. 'Dami has good ideas, but he isn't here right now...what would he suggest?' She snapped her fingers. "I think I got it!"

"Well, what is it?"

"Let's say that as the akuma in the most recent attack had used his power to cause a defect with the Cataclysm, it was Sandboy, so that makes sense. The defect caused some damage with the Black Cat miraculous that wasn't fixable with the Miraculous Cure thus causing Chat Noir's miraculous to malfunction. This malfunction caused some physical damage to you and made you no longer compatible to use the miraculous without causing further damage, henceforth refraining you to be Chat Noir any more and forcing you into early retirement" 'If that isn't a good idea then I don't know what is' she took a deep breath. "What do you think?"

Adrien blinked once, twice before answering. "Sounds perfect M'lady". It wasn't said in a flirtatious manner he would normally use. 'No, Chat Noir used it in that way. Adrien doesn't need to any more, well at least not to me any more. Kagami probably'

"Well" Ladybug breathed in. "I'll drop you at your mansion then? I won't let my former partner walk all that way when I can easily help you get there"

Adrien flashed a friendly smile. "Yeah... I'd like that, thank you Ladybug"

~~~

A few swings later, Ladybug and Adrien arrived in front of Agreste Mansion, she settled the boy down gently on the ground.

"This is where we must depart, can't thank you enough for all that you've done. For all that you've done for Paris and for all that you've done to help me" Ladybug pulled the blonde in for a cordial hug before pulling away and looking at him in the eyes. "Just because you can no longer be Chat Noir, doesn't mean that you'll be excused from this battle permanently. If you want to, tell me now"

Adrien didn't hesitate to answer. "No, I joined the fight wanting to unmask Hawkmoth. I won't stop now just because I'm not paired with the right miraculous"

The spotted heroine smiled at the determination in her friend's voice. "Well, you can help behind the scenes. You can help the citizens out of the way of the akuma, that's all I ask of you for now. But that doesn't mean that I won't give you a miraculous if things get too out of hand. Right now it's best to focus on channelling out the destructive magic in you. Take a break from all of this" She used her arms to gesture fighting akumas and Adrien laughed.

"Don't worry I will just-" he paused. "Don't hesitate to find me if you need help, kay?"

Ladybug smiled and nodded while reaching for her yo-yo that was wrapped around her waist. She launched it at a nearby building and rugged on the rope before turning to Adrien and saying "Goodbye, Chaton"

~~~

Alya briskly walked the streets of Paris, her fingers fiddling with her phone as she was itching to talk to Ladybug. During the most recent akuma attack, while hiding from Sandboy, Alya noticed that Chat Noir seemed...unlike himself. He wasn't goofy or flirty and he wasn't cracking any puns like he usually did. The black cat-themed hero seemed worried and on edge, the aspiring reporter desperately wanted to find the spotted heroine to ask about this. As if by luck, Alya noticed a familiar figure swinging from rooftop to rooftop.

"Ladybug!" Alya called out, reaching to press the record button on her phone. "Can I ask you a question for the Ladyblog?"

Ladybug's yo-yo wrapped around a pole near the reporter which helped her gracefully land in front of the girl. "Sure, I've got time"

Alya hit the record button. "Ladybug I couldn't help but notice that Chat Noir wasn't himself during and after the latest akuma attack, is this something to be worried of or am I just overreacting?"

'I knew I had to talk about this eventually, I just didn't expect to talk about this soon. Alya would be able to spread the message clearly though' The spotted heroine took a deep breath. "During the most recent attack, something unforeseen and irreversible happened"

Alya, noticing the extra seriousness in the heroine's voice, straightened and projected the same seriousness in her own eyes.

"When Chat Noir called on his cataclysm, he was hit by one of the akuma's attacks. He and his miraculous were damaged in the process. Though I managed to fix the miraculous, Chat Noir wan't healed, even with my cure. He is currently recovering and he will no longer join me in battle. For how stable he is currently I... cannot say. I hope you understand that Chat Noir did not want to give up fighting Hawkmoth. Please do not be saddened by this as he is still helping me from behind the scenes. I hope this answers your question."

"Yes... it does. Thank you for spending your time with me today. Please send my regards to Chat"

"I will" she smiled solemnly as Alya pressed the stop record button before it morphed into a more cheerful one. "I hope you don't mind if I ever have to call you to help in an akuma attack, with Chat not being able to physically it'll be more... difficult to say the least"

"I'll always be here to help you out Ladybug!" Alya smiled proudly at the trust that Ladybug was showing her, she was one of, if not, the first to join after the original duo.

"Well I'm glad to have you as my personal reporter. Bug out!" The spotted heroine used her yo-yo as a grappling hook, leaving the stunned reporter.

'Oh my god..she called me her personal reporter! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod-'

~~~

Gabriel had a hand on his chin, smiling maliciously as the video ended. Mademoiselle Césaire has been known as Ladybug's go-to reporter, this video just proved it. Though that wasn't what the fashion designer was thinking. 'With Chat Noir out of my way, we can finally begin this experiment' The video had worked too well, Gabriel truly believed it enough to start trying a power up his miraculous had. He managed to translate a page the grimoire, and he was ready to test it out. 'Now would be the best time, Ladybug is at her most vulnerable'.

He saved the project he was working on previously before calling for his assistant. "Nathalie"

"Sir?" She entered the room immediately, expecting something to happen considering she just finished watching Alya's video which was currently the number one video trending in Paris.

"I believe it's time to move onto phase two" he answered with a smirk as he turned towards the painting of his wife.

"I shall make sure Adrien is safe in his room" Nathalie concluded before turning to leave.

Gabriel's hand brushed the portrait, reaching the familiar buttons that would lead him to his lair. 'Today will mark the beginning of your doom, Ladybug'

~~~

Marinette was sitting on the sofa in Jagged's hotel room. She had just been briefly told how Bob Roth was no longer Jagged Stone's manager and how Penny was now assuming the role. He was caught stealing from Kitty Section and was now working with XY, truthfully, Marinette was glad he was gone. Currently, she was discussing titles for all the songs that were in Jagged's up coming album, including the one she would be in.

"Marinette, have you got any ideas for your song yet?" Penny asked while setting down her clipboard. She had actually already had an idea thanks to Damian.

Marinette sang a bit of the song she wrote unknowingly. She asked Damian to skim through the lyrics sometime they went to bed and somehow she was singing the chorus. She only realised what she was doing when she felt arms wrap around her waist from behind and a husky voice whisper in her ear.

"You sing angelically, mon amour" Damian pressed his face in the space of her neck.

"You really think so?" She asked, she wasn't as tired as Damian was at that moment so she made sure to talk in a way that would soothe him to sleep.

He hummed. "I have a suggestion for a title" he murmured into her neck. "Dernière Danse"

Marinette blinked, slightly unfocused considering the fact that she could feel her boyfriend's breath on her neck, she liked the feeling. "Yeah... I like that"

She hummed and turned to face the sheets of lyrics in front of her, all of which still needed names. "Dernière Danse, Damian helped me decide last night"

"That's rock'n'roll Nettie but-" he had a knowing smirk on his face. "Who's Damian?"

'Damn, nothing gets past him' "Is he your boyfriend?" Penny asked, fond of her honorary niece. The two adults looked smugly at each other after being met with silence, practically confirming Penny question. "What's his name?"

"The sooner I find that out the sooner I can threaten that boy with Fang-" A look from Penny shut the rockstar up.

"You're not gonna threaten him anytime soon" the bluenette only continued after hearing a huffed 'fine' from Jagged. "And his name is Damian... Wayne" her voice veered of at the end and she looked to anywhere but the two adults.

"Wait Wayne? As in Brucie's youngest?!" Jagged exclaimed.

"You know his father?" Marinette tilted her head in curiosity, her honorary uncle had never mentioned him before.

"Yeah we were good friends back in the day, been a while since I've seen him actually" he smiled wistfully.

Marinette looked at the time. "Well I better get going. Bye Uncle Jagged! Bye Auntie Penny!" She turned to leave and reached the door but before she turned the handle, she turned to face Jagged and Penny, well, Jagged specifically. "Please don't tell anyone yet, Damian and I only recently got together. And no threatening him"

"I won't tell anyone" he crossed his heart with her fingers but he didn't confirm whether or not he would threaten the boy.

Marinette glared at her honorary uncle until Penny spoke up. "I'll make sure he won't do anything"

The bluenette smiled as she waved goodbye and left the room. She sent a quick text to Damian before she got on the lift and when she did, she pulled the silver ring out of her purse. It laid in the palm of her hand, Marinette glanced at it with a quizzing look on her face.

Tikki then made her presence known. "You have to find someone to use the miraculous soon Marinette" she flew in front of her holders face. "You can go without it for a few battles but then a new user has to be found, you can't fight alone"

She sighed and looked at the kwami. "I know Tikki, I'll ask Plagg if he can sense for any chosen users later"

She soon reached the floor and knocked on her boyfriend's door. He opened up immediately, the bluenette went inside and sat on the sofa. He sat next to her, wrapped his arm around her waist and gave a tender kiss on her temple.

"What happened? With Chat Noir I mean" Tikki then flew out of her owner's purse with the ring in her hands.

"Chat Noir was never destined to use the Black Cat miraculous" Tikki stated matter-of-factly "Luckily he was able to renounce Plagg before the magic corrupted him entirely"

Damian nodded slowly he opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a loud crash in the distance. On instinct, they both rushed to the balcony to see what was going on. Channeling her energy, Marinette recognised the aura of an akuma. She ran back inside and Tikki placed the ring on the coffee table before joining her holder.

"Tikki, Spots On!" The bluenette was then engulfed by a bright light and when it subsided, there stood the spotted heroine. She walked back onto the balcony and before she used her yo-yo, she turned to her lover and spoke in a teasing manner. "Don't lose the ring"

He nodded. "I won't and-" he stared at her in the eyes. "Go show Hawkmoth whose superior"

She smiled and and yo-yo'd away. Damian sighed and went back inside, closing the balcony door behind him. He still hadn't updated the file he was working on, he knew his father and his imbecilic brothers would be on his back so he decided to do just that. He sent a quick text to the group chat he was in to buy him some time. It didn't take long for him to finish and he decided to watch the battle between Ladybug and the Akuma, he had the LadyBlog up on the flatscreen as Alya was streaming the fight. Luckily from a safe distance. Damian didn't doubt Ladybug's ability to fight, in fact, he was impressed. He just wanted to watch his girlfriend take the villain down.

As he turned the television on, he observed as Ladybug and the Akuma, who called itself 'Guerrier', fought. He noticed how incredibly aware the spotted heroine was of her surroundings. She was great at multitasking as well whenever a civilian was in danger. And how she would easily switch from offensive to defensive. It appeared that she had the upper hand. Unfortunately for him though, that would soon change.

~~~

Jason felt very tempted to switch Tim's cup of coffee with the cup of decaf that he had. He was about to do just that when his phone dinged, Tim noticed it too. Huffing at the lost opportunity, he picked his phone up. "It's the demon brat" he scoffed.

"What he say?" Dick asked.

"That there's currently an attack and we can watch it if we wanna, Dickhead" he retorted.

"Tim?" Dick ignored Jason's comment and turned to where Tim was a few seconds ago, though there was only an empty seat.

"Done" Tim's voice came from the living room. 'Where the fuck did he get that energy from-'

The two eldest sons went to the living room and found Tim sitting in front of the television with a live feed from Paris displayed on the screen. There were two figures that stood out. One was in a matte black fencing suit with a long black blade. The other was a red and black spotted heroine which all in the room presumed to be the hero. They watched as the heroine, now identified as 'Ladybug', fought the villain. She was graceful, skilled and tactical. As the battle got slightly closer to the camera, Dick noticed something.

"She looks so young!" He exclaimed. "Like fifteen!"

"She got mad skill for a fifteen year old" Jason commented, slightly unnerved at the realisation of how young she was. After those words were said, the spotted heroine back flipped over the villain to avoid the blade. Ladybug gracefully landed behind him and gave a powerful kick from behind, launching the villain forward and onto the ground. Jason whistled.

The spotted heroine seemed to be in control of the whole situation, it also seemed that way to the men until the villain did something completely unexpected. His body twisted in an inhuman way to get out of Ladybug's grip. Taking advantage of the situation, the villain used his sword to impale the young heroine. The sword went deep into her chest, the handle nearly reached her back. It stabbed through her body with a horrifying and repulsive sound. The three men in the room flinches at the image, they've seen more revolting images than this but this seemed much more different. The sound the blade made, the way the heroine's body was twisted, the fact that she was so young and this was happening and all the screams and shouts in French adding to the atmosphere.They notice her face twist in surprise, pain and pure determination.

The situation in Paris was much, much more serious than they assumed.

———

Taglist: @little-bluestar, @miracleofadisaster, @frieddonutsweets, @jjmjjktth, @genderfluidmoma, @starlit-dreaming, @icerosecrystal, @lolieg, @kashlyn, @mochegato, @eggadoodle, @walkingthroughonautopilot, @toodaloo-kangaroo

#daminette #damian x marinette #maribat #maridami #marinette x damian #mlb x dc #ml x dc #damianette

102 notes · View notes