It was a beautiful morning in Paris. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the smell of fresh bread on the breeze… Everything, everywhere, was perfect.
Well.. Almost everywhere.
"Ughhhhhh. So hungry…"
"Really Plagg? I just gave you a piece of camembert fifteen minutes ago." Adrien rolled over in his king sized bed, that in his honest opinion, was way too large for a single fifteen year old who didn't need anywhere near that much space.
"Yes, but that was then. I'm hungry now." The kwami groaned and floated over to Adrien's head. Adrien scoffed.
"Can't you just… I don't know, not eat camembert when you don't need recharging? I am tired of smelling like old socks. The people at yesterday's photoshoot were getting pretty suspicious." He shot a weak glare at Plagg.
"What do you mean? I think that smelling like cheese is honestly an improvement!" He floated a few feet away and turned back. "What is it with you humans and smelling like flowers anyways? None of the previous Chat Noirs ever smelled like a garden without getting their ears chewed off by society."
Adrien sat up and sighed. "Plagg, you know it's getting to be too much when the photographer, who has worked with me since I started, was not so subtly hinting that I need to change deodorants. Not only that, I think Nathalie might be getting worried about my food intake. They're cutting down the amount of other things I can eat. To account for my 'daily excessive cheese intake' she says."
Plagg opened his mouth but a fairly acidic glare from his charge stopped any words from coming.
"Forget it. You have cheddar for brains. You wouldn't understand anyways."
Across the city, a relatively large cheese shop was having its health inspection done. The owner waited anxiously outside with crossed fingers. He was worried. For some reason, a certain A. Agreste was ordering obscene amounts of the runniest camembert imaginable on a nearly weekly basis. He wouldn't want to be near that guy, making it was bad enough. He held his breath as the inspector walked out and asked to speak with him.
"Monsieur, eum, quite frankly, your entire shop reeks of old socks. Not only that, some of your customers have said that even the cheese that is kept on the other side from the camembert is beginning to stink and even taste like it. I'm sorry, sir, but for health and safety reasons we cannot risk the spread of the mold to other cheese. You will have to shut down your shop."
The man was floored. Why him? Why did this person always get the same, stinking camembert from him? His family has owned this cheese shop for nearly five generations!
Swallowing, the man nodded his head in a resigned fashion and stared blankly at the ground. It was all over. Everything. And it was all the fault of Adrien Agreste.
Adrien, quite unaware of the poor cheese maker on the other side of the city, walked happily to his class. He had patrolled with his lady last night and he was still euphoric.
She had given him a hug. Him. Chat Noir. Of her own free will. He almost skipped the rest of the way to his class.
(Granted, the akuma, Miss Embrace's powers were to make people embrace the closest person to them, so it might not have been completely voluntary, but he didn't mind. A boy can dream.)
He made sure the still groaning Plagg was hidden before opening the door and making his way to his seat. Nino waved at him.
"Hey dude, how are you?"
"Pretty good, you know, the usual." Nino raised an eyebrow. His friend usually wasn't anywhere near this happy. Except for that one time there was a glitch with his schedule and he thought he got a whole day free from everything. Nino had been right there cheering with him, until he got told it was just a glitch and, yes, he still had to go do everything.
The two were still mourning the loss of their overnight gaming marathon to this day.
Right as the bell was ringing, Alya and Marinette stumbled into the room. Now, Marinette was clumsy on any given day, but Adrien could have sworn that it was worse for some reason. She was stuttering and looked very flustered, but he supposed it might be the relief of making it to school on time.
(Vaguely in the back of his mind, he remembered that she lived literally across the street.)
He shot her a smile as a form of congratulations for making it on time. All she did was trip over nothing and faceplant on the way up the stairs. Alya laughed and helped her up.
"Oh, girl, what am I ever going to do with you?"
Adrien turned to Nino.
"Hey, Nino?"
"Yeah?"
"Has Marinette ever worn glasses?"
"Why are you asking?"
"Well, she keeps tripping, so I thought…"
"You think she has vision problems?" Nino had an amused smirk on his face.
"It would explain the clumsiness…"
Nino just burst out laughing, stopped for a second, shared a glance with Alya, and then they were both in hysterics. They shut up the second Mme. Bustier walked in.
A round window slowly opened to reveal a strangely dressed man with a cane. A small white butterfly landed in his hands and turned into a sickening purple. The man laughed as the butterfly flew out the window and off into the city of Paris.
It came upon the trembling cheese maker who stood outside of the shop as the inspector was shutting it down. The butterfly flew into a container that he held.
"Le Fromagier, I am Hawkmoth. You are angry at this boy for ruining your family legacy. Angry that he cannot appreciate any cheese but the moldy camembert. I can help you, but you will need to do something for me in return. You must get me the Miraculouses of Ladybug and Chat Noir."
"Gladly."
After enduring another grueling science lesson from Mme. Mendeleiev where they discussed the chemical reactions of certain elements, Adrien had never felt so relieved to leave the room. Nino walked up behind him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"Dude, you've got it pretty good. You have Alya and Marinette in a group with you. I have some pretty crappy luck today." Nino sighed. "I still can't believe I'm in a group with Juleka and Chloe."
Adrien smiled sympathetically at him. He was still friends with Chloe, but she did get on his nerves with her clinginess.
"Well, for what it's worth, good luck. I guess…" He shot his best friend a hopefully reassuring smile.
"Yeah."
"I just hope that Marinette and Alya are able to work with me on this tomorrow. Tonight's schedule is jam packed with photoshoots and lessons. And even then, I'll only be able to come out after fencing is over. I'd just feel bad if they had to do all the work."
Adrien watched as the Gorilla pulled up with the limo. He waved goodbye to Nino and got in the car. As he looked out the window, he saw Alya and Marinette laughing at something Nino had said to them just after he had left. He frowned.
"Plagg," he whispered, "do you think that there's something wrong with Marinette?"
"What do you mean? I see nothing wrong with her."
"She keeps falling. I just thought that she might seriously hurt herself one of these days."
Plagg hummed thoughtfully for a moment and then shrugged. "I'm a kwami. I really don't know what is with you humans, but I'd say she has a lot of cheese on her mind."
Adrien raised an eyebrow. "Cheese." He said disbelievingly.
"Cheese." Plagg confirmed. "I mean, what else could it be? I don't know any other reason why someone would act that way. I wonder if she likes camembert…"
"Why would you care if my classmate likes camembert?" He asked suspiciously. "And she always smells like cookies, so I doubt it."
"Why would I care?" Plagg sounded appalled. "Why, we could create a cheese lovers club, and I might be persuaded to share some of MY camembert with her. She would probably like me more than you, at any rate."
Adrien scoffed and fell silent for a minute, contemplating Plagg's words.
"Wait a minute! First of all, did you just admit to wanting to share that disgusting cheese with my classmate? Second, why would she join a club with you if you're supposed to stay a secret and third, what do you mean like you more than me? She would probably be disgusted by you!"
"Meh." Plagg scoffed. "You're just jealous of our awesome cheese club that you are not allowed to join!" He paused for a minute.
"Although I might be persuaded to let you, if you get me double the camembert for next week." Plagg said with a sly grin. Adrien just frowned and then smiled awkwardly at the Gorilla who had opened the door and was waiting for him to get out of the car.
"Sorry, I'll make sure to pay attention next time." Adrien stepped out and sighed. He glared at the spot where Plagg was hidden. This is all your fault.
(He was still somewhat irritated with Plagg's notion that his clumsy classmate could ever like camembert. He was not sour at all that Plagg insinuated that Marinette would choose Plagg over him. Not one bit.)
…..
(Okay, maybe he was. Just a little. Not that he would ever admit that to Plagg.)
He took a deep breath and smiled. He had a photoshoot to do.
Le Fromagier laughed maniacally as he swept his hands over the streets and buildings of Paris.
"Let's see how he likes it now! Would this be enough? Is this enough camembert for you, Adrien Agreste?" Le Fromagier howled. One by one, everything he touched turned into different cheeses, but most prominently camembert. The stinkiest and runniest camembert imaginable. The kind of camembert that no one but Adrien Agreste ordered. People were beginning to collapse from the noxious fumes that were wafting off of the cheese. Some people were trapped inside their houses as the buildings were turned into cheddar, boursin, roquefort and of course, camembert.
Alya was on the scene, filming and a gas mask over her face so that she could still breathe.
"Oh my gosh! I can't wait to see what Ladybug and Chat Noir will do to deal with this one, and I'm sure you can't either Ladybloggers!" She said as she started the livestream. Of course, even with the mask she still couldn't ignore the pungent odor of all the different kinds of cheese that surrounded her.
"Let's just hope that they fix this one fast. I mean look at this! I know that France is famous for it's cheese, but I never imagined we'd have to live in it!"
Adrien noticed something was wrong pretty quickly. Of course, it was probably due to the very distinctive smell of camembert and the very loud noises coming from somewhere to the east. That and he could swear that someone, somewhere was cursing his name. On his break, he pulled up the Ladyblog and noticed that there was indeed, an akuma attack in progress. With this piece of information, he looked to find Plagg so he could go help his lady.
"Plagg? Plagg?" He inwardly cursed. Where was that kwami? He took another glance at the Ladyblog and noticed that Ladybug had already engaged the akuma.
"Oh man, is it stinky over here!" Came Alya's voice from the livestream. "I don't know how Ladybug is standing it at the moment. And I don't even want to think of how Chat Noir would take this. It smells absolutely putrid. Be glad that you aren't in the thick of it!" He watched as Le Fromagier began hurling Epoisses at her that would explode on contact.
"Come on Plagg," he whispered desperately, "Where are you?"
He soon found his answer.
(And to be perfectly honest, he really should not have been surprised in the least.)
Marinette was tiring. Holding her breath for a long time and only breathing when her lungs screamed at her was taking it's toll on her stamina. Each time the cheese got closer and closer to hitting her.
'Come on…' she thought, 'Where are you, you stupid cat?'
She was getting light headed and her vision was going blurry. That wasn't good.
'I can just picture it now, 'Ladybug, Paris' superheroine, killed by flying cheese.' That'll be tomorrow's headlines at this rate. And Marinette, the ordinary schoolgirl will have been killed somewhere in the crossfire. Probably under a mountain of brie.'
She just eventually gave up. Screw only having five minutes after. She needed this to be over ten minutes ago. "Lucky Charm!"
She found herself staring at a gas mask. 'Finally!' She thought as she fastened it around her face. 'Something that I know exactly what it is for.'
She was preparing to launch her counterattack, when she had to leap to avoid another Epoisses bomb.
Adrien was running as quickly as he could towards the akuma battle. He just hoped he got there in time.
Alya was also doing her best to avoid all the cheese that was oozing all over the streets that had been turned to Gouda. She knew she would stink for weeks afterwards, but getting the scoop on Ladybug and Chat Noir was worth smelling like dead animals. She paused as she saw something strange and focused her video on it.
"What the heck is that?"
Adrien heard Alya say over her livestream. He looked at the strange black dot in the middle of the video as he kept running.
"This is going to so many levels of messed up." He grumbled.
Marinette also saw the strange thing, but unlike Alya, she knew somewhat what it was. It seemed to be vaguely catlike….
It struck her then exactly why her feline partner hadn't shown up yet.
Plagg had just trusted his nose, and followed the delectable smell of cheese. So much cheese…
He thought he had died and that this was his happily ever after, a world full of cheese. Of course, if Tikki were there, it might be slightly better, but he wasn't complaining. But there was one smell that stood above the others.
Camembert. Lots and lots of it.
'Oh man,' he thought, 'if this is the cheese that Adrien was supposed to get me, he can join that club with me and Marinette any day!'
Taking bites of several different cheeses at once, he was praising his (for once) good luck. But then he smelled something even better.
He immediately gravitated towards the one piece of camembert that the akuma held onto as if it were treasure. Well, in his eyes, it was the most precious treasure he had ever smelled.
So naturally, he went right up to it, and swallowed it.
Marinette just stared in shock as the kwami (who she rightly assumed belonged to Chat Noir) ate the akumatized piece of cheese.
Alya's jaw had fallen open. Not that you could tell with the mask on anyways.
Adrien had just reached the cheesy battle site and watched as Plagg just ate it.
Le Fromagier screamed and began to curse Adrien Agreste for depriving him yet again of his precious cheese.
All the viewers of the Ladyblog consecutively held their breaths.
And Plagg? He just smiled and burped up the akuma.
Not missing a beat, Marinette purified it and returned everything to normal with a cry of "Miraculous Ladybug!" And then, since she was going to detransform in less than a minute, did not stick around and completely missed the look of shock on Adrien's face.
The next day, Adrien walked into class and Alya cornered him.
"I want all the details, Agreste. What did you do that pissed off that man so much? Why cheese? And what the heck was that thing?"
Adrien tried his best to push off the questions and quietly sit down.
(He had decided, after speaking with the man, that it was all Plagg's fault.)
Remembering the topic of his discussion with Plagg, he turned around and smiled at Marinette.
"Marinette?" The reaction was instantaneous. Her face had turned as red as a tomato.
"Y- ye- yes? Adrien!? Hi, yeah, what is it?"
"Do you like cheese by any chance?" Something must have set her off. Her face contorted into a grimace.
He took that as a "no".
(Plagg was moping for a good week. He said his dreams of a cheese club were ruined. Adrien tried to comfort him, but he just demanded even more cheese.)
(He would also never admit to being dismayed that the cheese club would never be a real thing. He did not need Marinette to have Plagg as an influence. Even if it meant he could get to know the quiet girl better.)
(In the end, it was Plagg's love for cheese that got them into that mess, he supposed, but it also got them out.)
La Fin
So yeah. My first Miraculous fic and one to let you know that I am, in fact, not dead. (Although I did come pretty close last week.)
Please let me know if you liked it/if I should make a sequel. (Hint hint!)
À la prochaine!
Kelpie