Hello all! So sorry it has been…TOO LONG since I have posted ANYTHING. And now I've posted something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with any of my other stories.
This little thing here starts and ends with what you see. I don't really have time to commit to a story – especially since I have a few that need some tender love right now anyway. That said, enjoy this creative project of mine!
Six years. She had been doing this for six years.
It had been fun, at first. Beat the bad guy, save the day, play the hero. It had been new and exciting. She had a new friend, her little Kwami, Tikki, and she was wonderful, insightful, and the moral compass when she desperately needed it.
There was strain, of course, living two lives. That first year had been the worst as she had tried so hard to keep the two separated as best she could, and at the first sign of one bleeding into other she would freak out as if the world itself was about to end. Yeah, she learned to handle both lives, eventually. The silly, klutzy girl and the brave and confident superhero, living as one and yet not complete.
In retrospect, that first year had been easy. The villains had been simple enough to handle, their problems small in the grand scheme of things. And there was usually one at a time, hardly worth a sweat.
And if things ever felt like they were too much for her to handle, well… that was what Chat Noir was for.
Her partner. Her best friend in the world, eventually. A man she still had never seen his face without the mask.
That was the way of it.
She didn't need to know what his day job was to trust him. He was her partner, always would be. Always was, she'd come to learn, six years later.
The second year, at the ripe age of sixteen and a sophomore in high school, she had come to better terms with two lives, with Chat Noir, and with the greater intricacy of her villains. That second year hadn't just been trying to find and destroy Hawk Moth. Illusive and impossible the man was, but the worst was the five villains that had taken up the mantle of the villainous group the Royal Flush Hand. They used playing cards like it was going out of style and five again two was not fair, not at all. It had taken nearly the whole school year for Ladybug and Chat Noir to defeat the bad guys, slowly taking each member down and finally purifying their Akumas. Eight grueling months, but eventually and together they had limited themselves to just Hawk Moth once again.
And then summer had come, and she and Chat Noir had stuck close the whole time. There was a moment, after a terrible battle when she had almost disappeared as the Akuma had tried to delete her existence from history – a librarian with a hard spot for inaccuracies had decided she was worthy of rewriting history. Chat had to do the saving that day. And had avoided her for nearly a week until one day he was back as if nothing had changed between them.
If he were more affectionate than before, touching her more often, in small and insignificant ways, she wasn't going to point it out. She knew he cared and the thought of her never existing had most likely scared him. They were partners, friends. So she let him touch her shoulder as they discussed their game plan, let him stroke her hand with his thumb when she handed his weapon back, let him bump his shoulder against hers when he wanted to cheer her up. She let him in, closer and closer. She trusted him, cared for him just as much as he cared for her.
They were a team, one never without the other.
She should not have waited so long to share the teacher with him.
During her last year in high school, she had taken Chat to the teacher. He had been helping her decipher the strange book she had stolen from Adrien so long ago, and because she wasn't entirely sure how to explain it all she had kept the two separated. But it wasn't necessary, he was her partner.
However, she underestimated how upset Chat had been. Being left out – left behind, he had called it. She had to make it up to him. Three months later, she got her chance. She took the brunt of an attack from an Akuma intended for Chat. Their movements had been out of sync since her betrayal, as he called it, and in one foolish move Chat had left himself vulnerable. And Ladybug had jumped in without a second thought. There had been blood. The only chance she had in purifying the evil butterfly had been with Chat holding her in his arms as he threw her yo-yo, caught the Akuma, and let it go as she spoke the magic words.
And he had forgiven her without hesitation after that. And if he had started touching her more, holding her close in battle, taking the worst of the blows because he could take it while she worked out a plan, well, neither talked about it.
Hawk Moth was never closer in their grasps until her high school graduation day. He had his minions possess six people – her middle school teacher, a child, a janitor, a business woman, a fellow student, and once again Volpina had made another appearance after staying silent for nearly four years.
Each victim, excluding Volpina, had been left behind by someone: a failing marriage, left alone at home while the parents went to work, a dog that had passed away, left behind by a co-worker moving up in the business world, and not making the marks to graduate with everyone else. And the six had tried to leave Paris alone without Ladybug and Chat Noir.
They had managed to exercise the victims, but it had taken days as they kept needing to recharge after each one had been saved. And eventually Volpina had led the heroes to Hawk Moth's lair – one of his many she soon found out.
The battle had been awful. Volpina's illusions and Hawk Moth's lies were almost too much for them. He had the unnatural ability to see through their hearts, find their darkest weaknesses, and exploit them with the most pain inflicted imaginable.
She thought she had lost Chat that day, her teammate, her partner, her friend. He had let himself be possessed so he could get close to Hawk Moth, managing to keep the man away from his darkest and most private thoughts. Chat Blanc, the white cat. And when the most opportune moment had come, he turned on the villains and helped Ladybug take down Volpina and almost had taken Hawk Moth, too.
But he was crueler than they both realized.
He hurt Chat, with the evil butterfly inside him. He had fed her friend images of Ladybug turning on him, leaving him behind, no longer needing him. And the monster had relished in the man's despair.
So he had given Ladybug an ultimatum: save Chat Noir and let him go.
It wasn't even worth a second to think about. She had let the monster go, to terrorize and hurt more people. She had to live with that decision every day, but she wouldn't have ever changed the past.
She needed Chat just as much as he needed her.
After graduating high school, with her one life in darkness – touched by the cruelness of her reality in a way she had never known before – Ladybug had tried to salvage her other life, untouched by life's pain. She had grown so close to Adrien, getting over her nerves as the novelty of the average girl's life started to drift farther and farther away. Her projects in school managed a mighty fine resume for her to attend a local college for fashion. It wasn't prestigious by any means, but it was a start and the university offered to pay for almost all it.
Together she and Adrien worked on her dream of becoming a fashion designer; with his insider knowledge to the modeling world he was a great help. After the summer of their junior year, Adrien had started hanging out with Marinette more and more on his own terms. He had asked for her to be his partner more often than not, and it probably helped her nerves knowing he wanted to spend time with her. Even though they didn't have many of the same classes in their senior year, he always seemed to make time for her – and she was more than grateful.
He had a change in career choice during his sophomore year, choosing to become a detective and no longer a model, but he confessed his dream to her one night while they stayed up too late on the phone during their senior year.
His dream had inspired her, and when he was too afraid of his father to tell him about it, Marinette had taken it upon herself to defend her friend, her first love. It had been a complete disaster as she exploded at the dinner table at the sixth time Adrien had asked her over. His father, who rarely joined them, had said some off-handed, thoughtless comment about controlling his "wild son" and Marinette could not hold herself back. The words she had said that night…she had regretted most of them, but not for defending Adrien and his dream.
Two weeks later he had told her his father and he had sat down and actually talked about his future. He was starting criminology dual-credit classes within the month.
And if he started getting closer to Marinette, touching her more often like they were life-long friends, spending more time together for seemingly no other reason than to see how her day was going or to grab a bite to eat, then she was by no means complaining. In fact, she was the happiest she had ever been in those next months.
After graduating, he was also attending a local college, which she could not understand when he had the money for the big, oversea universities, but he said he was taking online classes as well and even though he wasn't serious about modeling, he still did the odd job here and there when his father asked it of him.
After the horror of almost defeating Hawk Moth, Marinette had tried to pull away from Adrien. She had wanted to close the world off and never let a single soul touch her. Her actions let Hawk Moth hurt many more people and she hated herself for it. Not for choosing Chat Noir, because there wasn't any choice in the matter – he would always win – but for not thinking of a solution where everyone could have benefitted.
Adrien wouldn't let her despair. With surprising skill, he climbed to her window above the bakery, as her parents let her stay with them as she attended college. While she wept he held her close. He never asked, never brought it up again except for once and only told her that if she ever wished to hide away from the world, she should run to him first. And he promised he would hold her until the feeling passed, no matter how long it took.
He had held her, had stroked her hair and back, had comforted her like a child, chasing away the nightmares, and he had stayed with her after her tears had exhausted her to sleep, and when she woke in the middle of the night he was still there to kiss her forehead and quiet her fears.
There were never going to be enough words for her to express how profoundly thankful she was for his silent comfort. And her love for the man deepened to an ocean, beyond any high school crush, beyond words or cards or gestures. She loved him. Would always love him.
Within the next two years the villains kept coming and Ladybug and Chat Noir were there to stop them. But as the duo matured and grew from their fifteen-year-old originals into adulthood, the Akumas also matured. A woman who had been beaten by her husband had tried to destroy all the men in Paris, and would have continued on to the world if they hadn't stopped her. A young boy bullied at school had tried to kill his oppressors, mere children, and would have succeeded too if they hadn't stopped him. A homeless man tired of being ignored started to steal and turned terribly violent when it didn't satisfy the void the Akuma had filled, and they had stopped him.
Ladybug let her innocence go with each and every terrible story of each victim like white butterflies. And her sorrow and pain grew to a knife's edge that left her almost bitter. Chat's jokes had stopped and he too suffered from the way the world treated its lambs. He still tried to make Ladybug smile, still called her his "Lady" and still flirted with her. The puns became a rare treat and only then did Ladybug realize how much she missed them.
It is here where we find our heroes, inside the teacher's house as he waits for them, as he always does, because the bonding with the Kwami has grown strong enough that the dreams are starting and they need answers he can give. And he knows that Marinette may not like all the answers she seeks.