It had started as a typical day for Ladybug's and Cat Noir's alter-egos. At least, at first glance. This day would actually go down in history for the duo, and for their fans. And it was all thanks to an annoying tune.
Marinette and Adrien had been talking after school about a group project. Suddenly, a black blob had tickled Marinette's peripheral vision. They had both snapped their heads to the side identically to see an akuma floating by them. Their twin expressions would have been almost comical in another setting. The color had drained from Marinette's face. Lame excuses had been made, and they both had sprinted off in their separate directions….
….Just to arrive exactly in the same place at the same time, again.
Ladybug flipped onto a rooftop neighboring her fellow superhero. "Wow, Cat Noir," Ladybug grinned, eyes crinkling in amusement. "You certainly do have a sixth sense about where the akumas are going to turn up."
"We do seem to be on the same wavelength, huh, My Lady?" Cat Noir purred, eyeing the bright blue irises of his beloved bug. Ladybug rolled said eyes. The Cat pawed at his hair in confusion, trying to work through the haze the Ladybug miraculous cast his mind into whenever he tried to think of her true identity. "I'd say we're at least getting our information from the same place! And that means…"
"Muahahahaha!" A shrill cry split the air. It was the kind of voice that could break glass, literally. "I'm The Soprano, and you'll all be listening to MY music soon enough!" the voice shouted from half a mile away.
The blue eyes widened, then narrowed. "Cat! We can't waste time on musings right now! After her!"
"DududuDU, dududuDU, dududuDU, du DU, du DU du!"
"Wow, that is beyond annoying," Ladybug rolled her eyes. "Why'd we have to get stuck with a singing villain?! A guitar villain was bad enough."
They navigated the rooftops at top speed, watching as The Soprano shrieked her way through the streets of Paris. Her super-powered voice was merciless, creating almost visible waves as the sound passed. It broke windows of stores and shopfronts, and the blocks in her wake were already abuzz with activity.
As the pair overtook the akumatized victim, they tried to reason with her. All they could get was a, "he will NEVER say anything mean about me… or my voice! AGAIN!"
After a fierce bout of sparring - and mostly dodging - the two superheroes met up behind a statue for cover.
"You have any idea who this one is, Cat Noir?"
"Not a clue," he replied sadly.
"Well, we know that she's a singer. She's very upset about something someone said-"
"Ladybug! Have you ever noticed that we either both seem to know who the villain is, or neither of us knows him or her?" Cat mused.
"Cat!"
The statue above them crumbled and fell -
-They simultaneously wielded their weapons in a blurring fast motion, deftly keeping the debris off of themselves.
Cat Noir was suddenly almost physically struck by a memory as Adrien. "LB…" he started softly, sincerely. His cat-eyes, unsettling to strangers, but familiar to her, searched her face. She widened her yo-yo's path to cover both of them as his twirling staff stalled. Once the debris stopped falling, they both crouched low in the rubble. He whispered in her ear, "I think this woman was the lead at the new Opera debuting this past weekend. Her voice is pretty unusual, and it caused a big stir. She got a terrible review in the paper this morning." Ladybug tried earnestly to concentrate on the revelation and to ignore the fact that he was so close.
"DududuDU, dududuDU, dududuDU, du DU, du DU du! MUAHAHAH! Where are you, my little kitty?" The Soprano sang.
Ladybug gritted her teeth together. A Cat Noir fan, too? How much more annoying could this woman get?
"They called my falsetto warbly, and my singing style childish… I will SHOW them childish!" she yelled. Regardless of whether the female could sing in real life, her superpower now was terrible to listen to.
"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug called from her hiding spot. "Earbuds?" She groaned as the headphones fell into her lap. They were the kind you could plug into your phone or tablet and listen to audio with.
Cat Noir cackled. "Even your Lucky Charm doesn't want us to listen to her!"
His other half's face was drawn tightly in grave lines. "Maybe it does want us to…"
Cat bought his Lady some time. She plugged the earphones into her compact and searched for the unfavorable review. After reading it, she listened to a clip from the opera in question. The singer was actually a mezzo-soprano, with a warbling falsetto. Her voice was actually quite beautiful. There had been good reviews along with the bad.
"Cataclysm!" Her black-clad partner shouted, dropping the ground beneath The Soprano and temporarily trapping her.
"Cat!" Ladybug shouted. "Come listen to this." She started the clip of the singing at the beginning and tossed him her communicator with the earphones. She could feel that this woman wanted some empathy.
"Soprano," Ladybug called haltingly to the akumatized victim. Her earrings were beeping in earnest. She thought she had less than three minutes left. "I don't understand what it's like to have a stranger criticize my voice. But I do understand what it is like to have your work reviewed, and how nerve wracking that is. You must have been pretty excited to get the leading role, right?"
The Soprano paused. "Yes. I was ecstatic. It was my big break."
"Well, don't take it to heart. Did you see all the good reviews along with the bad one?"
"Opera has changed over time, you know," Cat Noir piped up from next to her, one earbud dangling from beneath his blond mane - she assumed he did have actual human ears under there, even though she had never seen them. "And the definition of beauty has always changed over time." He surprised Ladybug with his cool sophistication. The mood was somewhat broken by his ring beeping. Ladybug was reminded that he had used his power shortly after her, and her pulse sped up. It was time to end this.
"You don't have to do this out of spite, Ella," Ladybug begged, chancing using the singer's real name. Most of the time, the akumatized completely rejected their actual identities, the dark magic holding them strong - but it felt different this time. Something in the woman crumbled, and she hesitantly clutched the place her akuma was hiding - a program to the opera showing.
"NO!" Hawkmoth shouted, the familiar butterfly pattern showing up around her face. "Grab their miraculous, don't give away your power!"
Cat Noir tensed as tight as a compressed spring, ready to pounce. "Ella, now!" Ladybug shouted in return, panic coloring her voice. She closed the distance and held out her hand…
...and Ella ripped up the paper.
It was over.
It was a close call, as usual (what were the creators of the Miraculous thinking, only giving them about five minutes after using their special powers?). Ladybug had to sprint away from the scene as soon as she threw the headphones into the air. Cat Noir didn't linger either, but made sure the opera singer was okay first. "So you'll be returning to the show?" He smiled.
"Definitely."
Later, life returned to normal, as it always did. Marinette and Adrien mysteriously both turned up to the library again within five minutes of each other. Her brain didn't make the connection that that might somehow be more than a coincidence, steered away from the thought by the power of the Cat miraculous. Likewise, Adrien's mind was affected by the Ladybug's power to not make the connection either.
"Oh," Marinette started, embarrassed. "Sorry about that. When I saw that Akuma-"
"You had to go alert the authorities, of course," Adrien cut in smoothly, a small reassuring smile on his face. He looked positively angelic to her. "Don't worry about it, Marinette, I did the same thing."
"Oh, yeah! I know you're friends with Cat Noir."
"Yep!"
The subject awkwardly died and they went back to their project.
The next time the two superheroes encountered each other, Cat Noir had messaged Ladybug to meet up. They split up patrolling on off-days, sometimes going together, and sometimes alone, and sometimes neither patrolled. They also made sure to at least transform twice a day to check their messages from each other, just in case.
It was Cat's night tonight. Ladybug tried to be fair with the patrols, but he seemed to want to do them more than she. She had a feeling, after knowing him for a while, that he liked being Cat Noir better than he liked being his real, human self, whoever that was. Diligent as ever, Marinette had checked her voicemail for the evening, looking for any new messages from her feline friend. "Ladybug, meet me by the Fontaine du Palmier, ASAP." Sent 17:32. It was currently 18:30!
When she finally reached the fountain, she was out of breath, heart in her chest. "Kitty?" She called. "What's the emergency?"
"DududuDU, dududuDU, dududuDU, du DU, du DU du!" yowled Cat Noir.
An angry flush crept up the back of Ladybug's neck and up to her hairline. Thankful for her suit's thick turtleneck to hide the color from behind, she seethed. She could feel Cat laughing at her. "You're. Telling. Me," she spat, "That. This. Is. NOT? anemergency?!"
"Miraculous! Simply the best! Up to the test when things go wro-ong!" Cat sang. Ladybug froze in her anger, shocked.
"Miraculous, the luckiest!"
Ladybug's angry flush died as Cat continued, replaced by her normally smooth peachy complexion.
"The power of love, always so stro-ong!"
Ladybug turned around suddenly, staring at Cat. Really? She thought. His eyes were closed, perched on an upper level of the fountain and one hand on his heart, the other extended dramatically with a flourish. So like him.
"MIRACULOUUSSSSSSSS!" He finished, yowling. Ladybug had to fight hard not to giggle. She had heard Cat's singing before, of course, and it wasn't half bad. Now he was having fun though, she suspected to keep from getting too embarrassed.
She clapped loudly and sat down gently on the wide bottom lip of the fountain. Cat Noir joined her soon after. Ladybug could only silently survey her partner-in-crimefighting for several long moments.
Slightly uncomfortable by this point, Cat Noir looked at her askance. "Was it that bad?"
"No!" She giggled. "No, I wish I could say it was bad. That would be easier." Her face smoothed into a somber mask. "Did you really write that?"
"I…. yes," he responded, at a loss as to where this was going.
"That was really sweet," Was all she could manage. Cat Noir was ok, had always been ok, with Ladybug being the main character. His Lady. He protected her fearlessly, and put her first, and it showed in his lyrics. "I think it's beautiful."
"You might even call it… purrfect?"
"Ugh."
"Sorry, it's almost reflexive at this point," He narrowed his eyes ruefully with a sheepish grin.
Ladybug laughed in response. Whatever else, she thought, we always do have a great time together. It can be terrifying sometimes, but he's really an excellent partner to have.
"Plus, there's something else," Cat said vaguely.
"What?"
"The Ladyblog is going to love this!"
The theme song was a hit. LadyNoir shippers were exceptionally excited by the song, and especially by Cat Noir's obvious devotion to his Lady. It wasn't long, however, before other versions of lyrics to the same tune cropped up. Marinette thought it was interesting how popular the annoying tune became.
And she wouldn't be caught dead humming it anytime soon. Well… maybe singing it in the shower would be permissible.
"I won't tell anyone, Marinette," Tikki giggled at her human. Marinette groaned.
It really was catchy.
The End
A/n: This is a little story that's been bouncing around in my head from time to time. I thought it would be funny to explain a way the theme song could exist in the Miraculous universe. I do love LadyNoir and MariChat, especially, in addition to my recent Lukanette love. Please drop me a review if you don't mind, and stay tuned to my page for more works, if you'd like :) See you soon!