It's been years since I died. News reports showed pictures of my face, children crying, flowers, candles, stuffed toys, incense, and umbrellas. People standing at my public memorial, placing flowers at the base of a statue honouring the Paris' greatest hero - or one of.
One eye captured a lonesome figure, crouched on a rooftop, hanging sideways from an antenna, unmoving. A cord of leather snaking it's way down the tiles and dripping water from its tip onto the ceramics, limp and pathetic - reflective of its owner. The man, the boy really, drooped. His shoulders trembled in either the cold, or grief, I'm not sure, but they were hunched and tight.
His name, my partner - Chat Noir. My other half. The black to my white. The unlucky to my lucky. He would miss me, I knew. He would probably cry, scream. He would attack something, probably a wall or punching bag. Maybe a villain, but maybe not. He would crumple publicly, or withdraw into himself. He would act cold, or maybe he would strive to protect people better, working himself into exhaustion. Perhaps he deserved to be tired. The same way I was tired.
His grief could consume him. I knew he loved me, and in a way, I loved him too.
Perhaps a different love to his, but love nonetheless. He was my best friend, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. I wouldn't spent that time differently, even knowing this outcome. I would rather die than lose those peaceful days in my memory. Which, in a way, I now have.
The tribute to my name was a stone statue of my figure, muscled and imposing. A hunting yoyo on my hip, and a confident smile on my lips. My costume hugged my feminine figure, something I'd been self-conscious of at first, but had grown accustomed to. Too accustomed to. It was strange now without it. My hands rested on my hips - and there were my signature twin ponytails.
I was running, in the sculpture. Frozen forever in a picture of confident action. A good impression to leave behind, I suppose, but it was still not entirely true. I was not truly confident all the time. Never had I stepped into the field of battle prepared to face terrible danger and possibly my own death - or worse, Chat Noir's death.
I couldn't possibly imagine how he was feeling, but I didn't regret dying. I didn't regret choosing to leave him behind. Yes, he would grieve, and yes he would tear himself apart, but he would heal in time. He would get a new partner. He would fall in love again. He would forget me eventually, as I would, him.
I stepped backwards into the shadow that day, eyes still on the monument for my own death. Strange, I had mused, to see the reaction to your own passing. Stranger, to not regret faking my own death.
Ladybug, my alter-ego, was dead, true. She was gone. Not I, nor anyone else would see that woman again. She was someone seperate from me, but she would always be attached to me, be it by my memories alone. However she would not appear as a mask over my body again. In that instance, I killed her. I died.
Chat Noir would probably hang up his suit over this. Perhaps he deserved that. The break. The peace. Why did we have to deal with the city's messes? There are police for that. Other cities manage, why wouldn't this one?
This was all years ago. Almost a decade. Eight years. I had commit my murder, left home, started working, and abandoned that life. I'd left it to die. I didn't regret that, even seeing my best friend's grief. Perhaps a tiny part of me enjoyed the heart-wrenching sadness that he felt.
Perhaps I still felt a sadistic appreciation for his trauma knowing that maybe, just maybe, he deserved it. I knew this wasn't right, but it was a feeling that surfaced every now and then as a bitter surge. He lied to me. My sweet, charming Chaton. My charismatic, flirtatious, and generally flamboyant best friend, had lied.
I don't know how to properly explain what I went through the day I found out who he really was. But I can try.
Chat Noir meant a lot to me. He was a rock. A more solid foundation to my existence than even Alya. Chat Noir made up one half of my existence, and that half was the one I appreciated most about myself. It may have been composed of lies, half-truths, and illusion, but the mask I wore made me feel like I was a better person. More complete, more... good.
It made up the part of me that I liked best. Confident, balanced, helpful. I was a better person as the superhero Ladybug than I was as the civilian Marinette. And Chat Noir was a significant part of that. He was an influence, a presence I couldn't even deny. Chat Noir helped make that lie in my personality, the falsehood of my split existence. And I didn't mind.
He made my lies solid and tangible. He made them a reality. He was a rock that I built that world on. And when I found out his civilian identity was closer to home than I'd ever imagined, I freaked.
It was an accident to be honest. He didn't mean for me to find out. We accidentally ended up in the same alleyway one night, myself hidden, and him in the open. Nobody was in sight, we were alone. And he detransformed.
My best friend, the cheeky, pun-loving masterpiece I loved, was the boy I'd spent my entire life admiring. Chat Noir, that beautiful entity that made up a perfect image of energy, confidence, and balance, the person I rested my own illusions upon was a lie himself.
Adrien Agreste. My childhood sweetheart. A shy, wise, mature, and collected boy. A quiet persona. The exact opposite of his funny, charismatic alter ego.
It wasn't the difference that threw me for the loop. It wasn't even that I liked one over the other. I didn't hate Adrien, don't get me wrong. I never hated him. And it most definitely wasn't that I disliked Chat. It was because the difference was too great. I loved them both, and that was what I freaked out over.
Two different kinds of love, seperate and distinct in their difference.
Chat Noir, a friend before anything else, never even considered as something more. Adrien Agreste, a crush that was based on romantic intentions, never seen as anything less. Suddenly, they collided in a violent maelstrom of different images and intentions that warred with one another. They were too... different.
It wasn't a question of 'which do I prefer?'; just because you love a man doesn't mean you will give up friendship with another; it was a question of which was true. Was Adrien or Chat the real person? Which persona was the alter-ego? Which one was the mask?
I was less Ladybug than I let on. She was simply my illusion. The lie I told myself and the world so I could keep myself in high self-esteem. I needed to tell myself and others I was powerful, strong, athletic, needed. How could the two people I knew as Adrien and Chat Noir be any different.
I cried that night. I bit my lip until it bled to stop from sobbing aloud and alerting him to my presence, and when he had strolled ever so casually out of sight I jumped a fence and ran. I ran, and ran, and ran. So long as it was away from those two people I didn't care.
I felt betrayed. My rock, Chat Noir; and my aspiration, Adrien Agreste. The same person, but so entirely different. The concept of them being the same never even occurred to me; the contest between their actions was too drastic.
And so, I faked my death. I went to the man who gave me my powers and asked him to grant me the power of illusion. We argued ethics, morality, and all those good things, but I'm stubborn. I won him over eventually. He reluctantly gave me temporary control over the ability, and warned me what I planned would not be without consequences.
I didn't care. Consequences were required. He deserved it, and perhaps more importantly, I deserved it. How did I expect to get away with my lie without any punishment? This was punishment for both of us. The personally dealt retribution for our sins.
I destroyed my self-image. I shattered my relationship with both the boys I loved, and I fled. I cut ties with Alya, Adrien, my parents, all my school friends, and anyone I'd ever known as a civilian. I killed my persona viciously. I poured all my conflicted and powerful feelings into the murder of my own lie.
Chat's whimper - it was not a cry nor a yell, shout, or scream - as the woman he loved died in his arms echoes in my mind still. The sound of someone vitally important to you being lost. Both ways. Both he and I lost something vital important that day, but I believed - believe - it necessary. There was no way I could stay and pretend nothing was different.
My heart was broken. For Adrien. For Chat Noir. For Marinette. For Ladybug. For all the lies I had needed to stay alive for years. I didn't know when I had come to rely on illusions to maintain stability, but I needed to kill her to figure out who I truly was.
I needed to kill my own feelings. I stabbed Ladybug in the chest with my own hands. Making myself look like a villain, and my final appearance as Ladybug fashioned from a life-sized doll I'd bought earlier imbued with the red fox's magic. One final illusion to dispel all illusions - and with my alter-ego, died the sentimentality I had for superheroes.
New characters have popped up since. Chat Noir disappeared from the public eye. He left his mantle to another group of heroes. Perhaps he felt he needed his own retribution. Not for his lies, but for his inability to save me. Her. Ladybug.
Superheroes still live, and still help, but I've lost all respect for the illusions they cast on themselves to maintain their powers. Bitterness grew within me since then. My feelings mellowed, and my heartache deadened. I knew what I was doing when I cut ties with both my past lives. This is my punishment.
I returned my illusionary power to its bestower, but the old man would not take the magical earrings that started the lies. I didn't take them out, abandoning the final person I had tied to my split lives, for more than one reason:
One, Tikki, the tiny, demi-god who appeared before me knew both personalities I owned. She was never lied to, nor lied to me. I had not hidden any part of me from her, and it made me more comfortable with the fact that at least her, at least Tikki had not been a victim to my deception.
The second reason was guilt. I hurt people when I killed Ladybug. People respected her, and I destroyed their expectations. Chat Noir, no matter how disillusioned, had loved her, and no matter the bitter feelings I was growing, he didn't ask for my retribution on us both. It was harsh, and I was prepared, but he did not need to, perhaps, watch the woman he loved die. Tikki became the symbol of all those innocents who would mourn Ladybug. I couldn't ignore what I'd created, and I knew Tikki would voice their grief.
I left Tikki floating around my head and whispering in my ear. She served as a reminder of all if left behind, and perhaps that was the worst punishment of all. She reminded me of all I had thrown away.
Perhaps the most important reason for not discarding her into a jewellery box was the simple duty I felt I owed her. Did she deserve the retribution I enforced on myself? Did she deserve to be forced into hibernation simply because I did not like the lifestyle she influenced upon me? So I kept her awake, conscious and telling me to go back, to apologise, to sort things out.
She told me what I did, though understandable in a somewhat twisted way, was wrong, and I needed to fix this before I could never go back.
But she was wrong. It was already too late. Chat - Adrien, both thought I was dead, and saw me leave as a crying, heartbroken teenage girl, running from outstretched arms, as well as sobbing friends and family. It was far too late to go back. The moment I killed myself it sealed this path before me and all the other potential paths behind me. There was no room for hesitation. No perimeter for regret.
I was far away from those troubles, now. I could live the rest of my days out as a normal person, not keeping any secrets, never lying, and never disillusioning anyone.
I am Marie now. A French seamstress living in Nice. I still don't regret my choices. I have work. I have friends. I have a cat, a cheeky black kitten that is another reminder of someone else just as cheeky in black.
My life is almost stable now. There's a rhythm to everything. A timetable. A schedule.
It never occurred to me that a little chaos is required in life sometimes. A little chaos by two names.
It was late in the afternoon now. Eight years on from Ladybug's death. I was putting a bolt of cloth back on the shelf when the bell on the door to my small seamstress' shop chimed. Busy with the action, I called out. "I'll be there in a moment!" And continued to search the shelf for the next colour I needed.
The person I was designing for was a rather spoiled, but still positively adorable little girl who had her parents order her a gown fit for a princess to wear as an early birthday present for the big day.
Caught in these thoughts as I was, even when I turned around to attend to the young man who had entered, it wasn't until he had spoken that I recognised him.
"Marinette." He breathed, reverently. And with that one word, not spoken for nigh on five years, I felt my heart wrench open anew.
I stared into the blond boy's eyes, coldly. I would not show him anything. He, no matter how I had loved him - both as Adrien and Chat - was not a part of my life anymore. I didn't know why he was here, but I wanted him gone. Quickly. Before I broke down again. Before my rigid, brutally honest lifestyle gave way to more deceptive lies.
The expression I pelted him with made the man take a half step back. His mouth opened, but no noise came out, and he looked as though he had expected something else.
"You are... Marinette, right?" He sounded hesitant, confused.
"My name is Marie." I said harshly. More harshly than I intended, to be perfectly honest. "Especially to you, Adrien."
Adrien watched me for a moment, with an expression that was hard to read. A moment, longer than a lifetime, hung in the air. A breath escaped his lips, held tight and full of anxious anticipation. Perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, his face cracked into a very Chat Noir grin.
"I finally found you."