"How complex does this thing need to be?" Marinette muttered to herself while struggling with the tangle of ribbons behind her head. "It's like something designed to trap my fing-ach!" Her index finger had been trapped in a tight knot. She tugged her hand out of the web of red ribbon and let it fall to the roof at her feet.
Marinette sighed as her hair fell back to settle around her shoulders and she sat back on her haunches above the night-time landscape. The city looked beautiful. Like a vast patchwork of red and gold thread and gems of bright white gently blinking away into the horizon, eventually obscured by the smog leaking from the chimneys and factory stacks around London. Marinette barely looked at the view; she took a bigger sigh and poked the small pile of ribbons with the toe of her shoe sullenly. After some short moments of still silence she rocked back on her heels and mumbled a few curses before jumping to her feet.
"I'm ladybug!" She snapped. "I don't need to worry about my hair. Or my reputation as a hero in this city. Or what people at school of think or treat me. I help people, and I always win, even if it's hard for me alone and I'm fighting someone I love and I'm too clumsy to avoid getting soaked when it rains and I can't tell anyone about these nights in the city." Marinette took a breath of cold air and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Even if my hair falls in my eyes when it's windy."
She turned back to the city scape and shook her head. "I need to help this city because I'm the only one who can. It's 1881; I can afford to change myself a little to adjust for the situation." She stood up as straight as she could as she crept to the edge of the rooftop to look down at the almost empty street. The streets were almost empty at this time of night, only a few carts ambling from one end of the road to the other driven by men in dark worker's clothes and some drunks stumbling over the curb to walk their way home from the pubs along the centre of the road. The scene seemed peaceful in comparison to the city during the day with the constant chatter of the workers and clatter of the carriages, Marinette relaxed at the thought of the change in London's scenery but after a moment her restlessness got the better of her.
"The deeper the city gets into night-time, the more likely it is I'll be needed. I should get moving." Marinette said to the empty air and leapt from one building to the next one across the road with ease, pausing on the second roof to flick her fringe from her face and grumble another curse before hopping from one rooftop to another until she had lost her place in the glimmering smoky city. Her black hair formed a sort of cloud around her face making her look a bit like a chimney broom, she thought, as she flew into a group of soot-stained neighbourhoods. She made a note to herself to find a large enough clip to hold her hair away from her eyes once she got home or to cut it much shorter than last time, one or the other.
Before she knew it, Marinette found herself near the city centre, as if she had been draw like a magnet to the foul-smelling brown river and prison-esque government houses. Marinette smiled at the collection of buildings like she had never seen a parliament house before. She had, many times, but she thought to herself over and over that when the street lights along the river reflected into the river and lit up the opposing side of the river, the whole building looked almost regal, like a palace from one of her fantasy books.
She hopped down from a low balcony into the street and walked to lean against the wall between her and the Thames. It was low and grime covered but Marinette rested her folded arms and chin on it comfortably as she gazed down at the water rushing past beneath her. Absently she wondered if she would ever have to chase an akuma into the river. She hoped not, the water was notoriously filthy and not to mention, Marinette had never learnt how to swim. Her family was nowhere near wealthy enough to afford lessons for her, let alone a pool for themselves. The thought left Marinette gloomy so she turned her attention to the street behind her.
Again, it was almost empty, save for a carriage loading boxes of apples and bags of flour a few hundred paces away and a chattering couple walking away from Marinette, giggling quietly behind a lacy fan and gloved hands. Marinette looked forlornly at the gown the smiling woman was wearing, a rich blue thing with strings of pale blue pearls wound around her waist and a spattering of silver crystals on her bodice. The vision of the dress worn by the stranger lingered in Marinette's mind as she imaged what the headdress must look like up close, perhaps a small delicate structure created to look like a crown of glass, or ice. Or maybe a great frilly one, with rich blue feathers falling down over her face like a waterfall and dripping pearls onto her jaw.
Marinette caught herself mid- design and let her smile drop from her face. The chances of her finding the opportunity to follow the dreams of dresses and coats and hats and shoes floating around her mind were so small Marinette could imagine threading them through a needle. She looked down at what she was wearing; a red coat and matching pair of worker-style trousers, so dirty the bright crimson fabric had darkened into a deeper colour not un-similar to the colour of blood. She let a long breath out and looked away from her clothes. She believed that if she was seen from behind she may be thought of as a man of small build and may not even gather any more attention, as long as her mask was not seen.
She touched her hand to her face as she thought it; her fingers meeting the unfamiliar sensation of leather over the area around her eyes and nose, reaching all the way up to her hairline and down to her cheekbones. The texture was smooth but cold to the touch, causing her skin to prickle and to send a small shiver along her scalp as she traced the slope of the mask with her index. She dropped her hand to her side and smiled as she looked up at the sky to see nothing but a dull navy permeated by the golden glow of the streetlights. It is beautiful, she thought, in a filthy smelly way it is beautiful.
Suddenly a rumble and loud booming noise shook Marinette out of her thoughts. She instantly recognised it as an explosion and span around on the spot to find the source of the sound. It didn't take long; a ribbon of smoke was rising from a place only a few blocks away from the river to the north and Marinette thought she could hear some voices shouting over the noise of her own hiccupping heartbeat.
Quickly she jumped from the street over to the nearest building to land on a balcony and up to the rooftops to get a look at the scene.
She almost cried at the sight. An entire building had been destroyed in the explosion, clearly not accidental from the strong smell of gunpowder in the air. The first and second floors were filled with flames, unusable as entrances, while the upper floors were mostly destroyed and gushing smoke from their windows and shattered walls reached up into the air in grey fingers. Both buildings on either side were being encroached upon by the fire and there was already a small group of panicking civilians gathering in the street below, from the neighbouring buildings and those who were lucky enough to be outside the building at the time.
Marinette coughed as she searched for a way into the building but could only see bright dancing shapes of yellow and white as she squinted into the windows of the upper floors. She forced herself to look away as her head pounded with the brightness and heat of the blaze.
"Hey! Up there! Help them, you're a hero right?" A voice cut through the noise of Marinette's coughs and the roar of the fire. "It's the ladybug! Up there, I can see them."
Marinette flinched at the sound of her name and looked down to the street below. The voice had come from a girl around her age in a dark red shirt with long brown hair flowing loosely past her shoulders. She looked up at Marinette like a child would a moving film or a circus performance. With anticipation and absolute adoration.
She took a breath to steady herself. If she was going to play the part, she would at least let watchers know that she knew what she was doing. The city knew her as a hero, albeit an unreliable one, a solitary one, and if you hear it from most mouths, a male one, Marinette had always been set on maintaining the image of the hero, for the city needed it. God knows she needed it too.
Marinette puffed out her chest and declared to the street below, "As an act against the peace of London, this is unacceptable. I, Ladybug-" Marinette cringed at her own words; "-Ladybug will save the city from chaos and return your loved ones."
A small cheer went up from the crowd, now growing into a proper-sized audience. Marinette quickly jumped from one roof to the other then into the haze of smoke and embers, all that was left of the top floor of the building before she could see sense and change her mind, earning another cheer from the street.
The whole floor had been blasted out into the night air by the explosion, the walls of the rooms knocked down into rubble and the roof had seemingly vanished from above Marinette's head. Everywhere she looked the place was burning, smoke filling her vision was all angles and the foul smell of gunpowder and burning plaster seeping up from the floor. To her right a cabinet of books and unrecognisable trinkets collapsed into charred timber.
"This is stupid." She muttered. "There can't be anyone left here, and if there is there is no way in hell I can help them in this inferno of a building."
As she said it a burning rafter fell past her ear and crashed into the floor causing a portion to collapse. Marinette shrank away from the large hole in the ground, now belching out bright white sparks smoke which stung her nostrils, and tiptoed to the stairs leading to the next floor down.
The air was becoming almost unbreathable now. She narrowed her eyes and pulled her sleeve over her nose in an attempt to stifle to burning sensation in her throat as she looked down at her path. The route from where she was and whoever was left in the building looked easy enough as long as Marinette kept an eye on her footing and didn't breathe in too much of the smoke. She gingerly placed her foot down on the first step to test her weight and was immediately greeted by a huge blast of burning air and flakes of white-hot embers bursting into her face from the floor below.
Marinette leapt away from the stairs, pressing her face into the wall and squeezing her streaming eyes tight shut. She took some shaky breaths through her sleeve covering her nose until her head stopped pulsing in time to her heart beat.
After a few seconds she raised her head. She was suddenly aware that there was someone standing behind her, her senses were still sharp enough to tell that much. She didn't turn around, only waited until the stranger spoke.
"You'd better watch out there. You could get hurt."
The voice was unfamiliar. She recognised it as a confident almost singsong undeniably male voice coming from directly behind her.
"Why? I can fend for myself. You should get out of here if you can talk that confidently." Marinette kept her voice low enough so to sound perhaps enough like a man to fool the stranger.
"You're standing in a burning building." said the stranger with an edge of laughter to his voice.
Marinette turned around to take a look at the newcomer. Her eyes still stung from the smoke and what little she could make out through her blurred vision was distorted further by a curtain of smoke. The figure was dressed in black, that much she was sure, and once the stranger had shifted his weight after a moment she could see a mess of blond hair above his masked face.
A mask. That's strange.
"What's strange?" The stranger asked, confused. Marinette realised she had spoken her thought out loud. Maybe the smoke was getting to her head.
"Err, I was thinking that this fire can't be accidental." Marinette said.
"Clearly. What are you? Some sort of suicidal superhero? Or perhaps a detective?"
"I would like to point out that you too are also standing in the burning building." Marinette said while clearing ash from her throat.
The stranger laughed wholeheartedly and moved closer to Marinette allowing her to see him clearer.
"Ah, but I do the whole 'hero' thing much better than you do, I'm sure."
"And how are you so sure of that?"
"To start off, I don't go running around London in drag."
Marinette's eyes snapped forward to meet the stranger's. "Are you going to stop me?" She stood up to her full height to face him. She was barely taller than him.
"Not at all, my lady. I've heard plenty of 'The Ladybug', enough to know I may not even be needed."
Marinette stared unblinkingly at the stranger.
"Although, I'm sure I could be of assistance in this situation." The stranger shifted his weight again casually and tipped his head towards Marinette. He was starting to infuriate her. "There are two children trapped in the floor below us and one older man in the basement, I intend to rescue all three of these civilians without any hitches. Do you have a problem with my plan?" The stranger took another step towards Marinette and raised an eyebrow.
"It's not much of a plan."
"Let's hear yours then, my lady." The stranger threw a challenging look at Marinette as he lifted a hand to gesture to the flight of stairs of which she was still standing at the top landing.
Marinette glowered and stepped out of the path to the stairs to allow the stranger to stand next to her, looking down at the burning stairs. "I haven't performed in a burning building before now, you should know." Marinette said carefully, keeping her voice at a similar level of confidence as the stranger.
"Well, first things first."
"What?"
"I would recommend tying up that hair of yours."