Brilliant Spectrum
By Eurazba
Chapter 1: Rouge
Being Chat noir was an incredible feeling, a feeling of freedom, power, and joy beyond anything Adrien had ever felt before; and it was amazing not only for those feelings, but for the newfound ability to see color.
It wasn't every color humans see in the spectrum, Plagg later explained. When transformed, Adrien was able to see the colors that a cat could see, yellow, green, and purple. But the limited colors didn't matter to Adrien, what he could see was incredible, and brilliant, he never wanted those colors to go away. Unfortunately when he released his first transformation, they did.
Or at least, they had changed from what he could see before.
He turned to Plagg and asked if they were soul mates.
"Well..." Plagg paused, mulling over the question for a moment, "In a way, yes. You were chosen to wield the cat miraculous and in every time you transform, our souls are linked." He answered with a shrug.
Adrien took the time to observe his room without his transformation, it was so different from the constant shades of white, grey, and black he had known all his life, and now he had time to appreciate the new colors before him. He stared at the book sitting upon his desk, he hadn't seen this color as chat noir, but it was brilliant. Slowly stalking over to the book, he picked it up and read the little label that defined its color.
Red
He continued staring, taking in everything he could about red from the book's cover. He remembered what was said about red: red was the color of blood, roses, and fire. It was most allegorically used to represent anger or love. I love this color, he thought with happiness spreading through him. A smile crawled its way up his face at another thought, ladybugs were red, in a flash he turned towards Plagg.
"I-is Ladybug my soulmate?" He gasped out excitedly at the sudden realization.
"You didn't figure that out before?" Plagg chortled, flying about to find something to munch and regain his energy on, "I figured you would have known right as the transformation wore off and you could see the full color spectrum instead of just half," He continued matter-of-factly.
"..." Adrien frowned at Plagg statement, "But, I can't see the colors Chat Noir could see," he whined.
"...What?" Plagg zipped around and scrunched his face at the concerned-looking Adrien before him.
"I can't see green anymore," he stated nervously picking up the pen next to him labeled "green", green was the color of life, and everything that grew, Adrien recognized that much when he first saw green as Chat noir. He had loved seeing it, but now, "It's just grey again."
Plagg said nothing and continued to stare at Adrien with the weird look on his face. They both stayed still until Plagg seemed to come to a realization and relax his face. Adrien immediately jumped forward with curiosity.
"What? What is it? Is something wrong with me?" He cried out at the kwami.
"No, no, kid," Plagg reassured him with a curious grin, "Do you have a color scale to check which colors you can, and cannot see?"
"Yes, of course," Adrien scooted to his computer screens.
He lit them up revealing the rainbow blended background, one end of it lit up while the rest remained oddly less colored. He recognized the red like his book, it blended into another color he didn't recognize, and dulled into a color that looked similar to one he had seen before as chat noir. All compulsion to continue what he was doing was lost as he admired the colors before him and how they blended so nicely together. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"...Kid?" Plagg asked drawing Adrien out of his stupor.
"Right, right!" He yelled before pulling up an online color test.
A few clicks of the test and Adrien learned that he could only properly see one color from the whole light spectrum, red, the rest were faded hues of red apparently, such as orange and almost yellow. He frowned, why could he only see half of the colors he should be able to after meeting his soulmate? What did it mean? Was something wrong with him? Leaning back in his chair, Adrien pouted over the thought; that certainly wasn't fair, was it? He leaned forward and tapped his question into a search engine. The computer refreshed itself to reveal large amounts of articles on the topic of only being able to see a limited spectrum. Two words caught his eyes immediately as they were plastered on every source: multiple soulmates.
Adrien nearly fell out of his chair, multiple soulmates? As in more than one person he was destined to spend his life with? Could he really be so blessed in his life, to be loved by more than one person? It was unbelievable, it was incredible, and it was a terrifying concept. He couldn't wipe the smile from his face.
Adrien turned back to Plagg who was looking at the screen before looking at the disbelieving teen before him.
"Not very common among miraculous wielders. You and Ladybug are pretty lucky. 'Wonder who else it could be." Plagg pondered.
Adrien jumped up at Plagg's words, "I-I need to tell Ladybug!" He yelled running around.
"Not before you get me something to eat kid!" Plagg grumbled floating over to the antsy teen. "You won't be able to find her like this, she doesn't know who you are yet,"
"RIGHT AWAY! WE NEED TO SEE HER AGAIN AND TELL HER RIGHT AWAY!" Adrien grabbed Plagg with excitement, squeezing him in his hand, before launching out of his room to get proper food.
Being Ladybug was weird, it was responsibilities, magical nonsensical stuff, and more of her bad luck getting the best of her.
Not only that but Marinette could no longer see color, she apparently saw what a ladybug could see, black and white, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, just, weird. She had always been able to see some colors, she had known Alya since she was a baby, and met Nino only shortly after in their primary school.
The thought had never occurred to her before that this is what most people had grown up in their life seeing. Marinette sighed falling onto her bed, eyes shut and rubbing her temple, while listening to Tikki's congratulations and munches on the cookie Marinette had out. She was trying to keep her mind focused on the more pressing superhero incident at hand. She turned to look at Tikki ready to question her but stopped when she actually caught sight of the kwami.
Marinette gasped before launching herself towards Tikki and getting a better look at her. The kwami was a color Marinette had never seen before, the color Marinette knew she could not see for so long. Tikki was red.
Red! The color Marinette had been waiting years to see, the color that her, Nino, and Alya's "other", their final soulmate, would give her.
Oh and what an incredible color it was! Bright and blending with everything in her room, Marinette couldn't believe the one color she had been missing out on was so beautiful.
"...A-" Tikki began before Marinette interrupted her.
"You're red!" She squealed.
Tikki was taken aback by the outburst but smiled brightly once the words sunk in, "Yes, yes I am! You can see color now?"
"Ohlala! This means...this means..." Marinette repeated trying to keep her thoughts straight.
"This means Chat Noir is your soulmate!" Tikki filled in happily, "It's happened before, Ladybug and Chat Noir miraculous wielders tend to have linked souls throughout their many lifetimes."
"This means..." Marinette continued, barely listening to the second half of Tikki's explaining, "Chat Noir is our other..."
"Yes-eh," Tikki stopped and looked at Marinette in confusion, "'Our?'"
"Alya and Nino, my other soulmates," Marinette explained as her face dropped, "H-how am I going to explain this to them?!"
"You have... more than one soul mate?" Tikki was unable to move on from the fact.
"Yes, three, Alya, Nino, and now... Chat Noir," Marinette breathed, "But-how am I going to tell Nino and Alya that I found our other? And that he and I are the new superheroes when we're supposed to keep it secret. And how do I tell him about his other soulmates without giving away my identity? I... I only just met him! I can go and spoil the whole of our secret, th-there are too many risks!"
"Marinette please calm down!" Tikki yelled, effectively cutting off Marinette's rant and leaving her as a panting mess.
"Tikki, this is all too fast, what am I supposed to do?" She murmured.
"I've never encountered a problem like this," Tikki answered regretfully, "What you decide to do with your soulmate-sss, is entirely up to you, I cannot intervene in that fate."
Marinette brought her arms over her head, that was not the answer she wanted. This was too much! This was too fast, meeting their other was one thing, and being Ladybug was one thing, but her and him being superheroes and needing to keep their identities secret from each other and their soulmates was an entirely different thing. It was something she could not handle.
Marinette's thoughts were cut short by her phone dinging with a message from Alya, along with several others that had been sent since the start of her Ladybug business. The guilt of keeping this level of a secret crawled through her as she slowly picked up the phone and unlocked it. The background picture of her, Nino, and Alya together lit up the screen. She stared at Nino's hat in the picture, it was red. The same red hat he had worn for years with the promise that when she met their other she would be able to see something red and know it was red.
She turned her gaze to the matching blue, green, and red bracelets they all wore together, the three visible light cones that they've yet to see. The three visible light cones that their other, the Chat Noir, would give to them, and they to him in return. There was a hope that they would all meet their other together at the same time. But now that hope seemed foolish in comparison to the way things had actually happened.
She pulled herself from her thoughts and opened Alya's messages. There were so many, all in capitals, all about Ladybug and Chat Noir and only occasionally broken by videos she had caught of the two in action. Marinette scrolled through the onslaught of messages to the most recent one, a video where she could clearly see Chat Noir standing next to a reporter. She read over Alya's caption, "They're soulmates and just met isn't that adorable!" Sighing, Marinette clicked the video already sure she knew what it was about.
A/N: First time writing a soulmates AU, this one's going to be really fun but really short too. I came up with this and wrote it before I even saw the origins episodes and thought it too much effort to change the story to fit canon, so, Alya and Marinette have known each other since they were children, Adrien doesn't go to public school yet, and who knows what else. Also this is going to be short, maybe 5-6 chapters. I know this story has a lot of potential for Alya and Nino becoming miraculous wielders, but, spoiler, they don't. I'm lame and didn't write the story that far.
I've done a lot of research on the visible light spectrum and eyes and what colors they can see and register, in general and specifically for this fanfic. Much of the second chapter will explain these technicalities.