Welcome to my story! Thanks for reading! I know there's a ton of Miraculous!Nathanael stories out there, so I really appreciate you dropping by to check out this one!

This chapter's pretty short, but don't worry; all the upcoming chapters will be longer!

~anipwrites

EDIT: ADDED MORE TORMENT FOR RAMONE. NEW CHAPTERS COMING EVENTUALLY. THANK FLAUTIST4EVER FROM TUMBLR FOR THE ADDITIONAL STUFF.

He really hated this job. He never wanted this job in the first place, why the hell was he doing this?! He looked ridiculous. Which, hypothetically, was his job, look ridiculous and make people laugh.

Problem was, he wasn't a very funny guy.

But whatever. The job payed, so he took it. Which is why he was standing at the front door to some dumb house dressed up in full clown costume. He'd never been in this section of Paris before, it was more on the outskirts if anything. But he could tell he was at the right house by the ridiculous amount of balloons tied to anything and everything. The client still hadn't freakin' answered yet, so he knocked for the fourth time. His hands balled into fists and he hopped up and down, psyching himself up.

'Alright, Ramone, you got this. All you gotta do is impress a few dumb kids and you're home free with cash in your pocket and-I forgot the nose again, didn't I.' God, he hated that dumb clown nose, but it was part of the costume. He fished in his pocket and found the damn thing and put it on his nose. It was a bit hard to breathe, but it would all be worth it once he got paid.

The door opened and he found a woman standing there. He could already hear the ear-shattering shrieks of six year olds when she cracked open the door. She looked him over and scowled.

"Are you the clown?" she scoffed with a roll of her eyes but let him in anyways. He stepped inside and found exactly what he was expecting; a bunch of running, screaming six year olds charging into everything and destroying the house with party hats on. With a sigh, Ramone let the lady-probably the lead mom of this wreck-lead him to the living room before calling all the kids up.

And that's when he panicked. Just because a few pals of him thought he was hilarious when a few beers had been passed around didn't mean he could entertain a buncha kids. He'd made a huge mistake. He'd just have to improvise.

Lead mom turned to one of her friends-a subordinate mom?-and said "I'm going to the bathroom, and then I'm gonna make sure the blowups are setting up properly. Keep an eye on this clown." wow. Was that supposed to be a reference to his current job or to his character? He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be offended or not.

"Sure thing, Helena." the woman turned to him once her friend left and raised an eyebrow before sitting down on the couch with a few of the other moms. Guess that was his cue to start.

He cleared his throat before starting with his best goofy voice. "Ahyuck, hiya kids, I'm Happy the Clown! Who's the lucky kiddo, who's the birthday kiddo?!"

The kids all kind of just stared up at him in shock before one of the brats scoffed and raised his hand. A few of his friends snickered.

"Check this out! Look at this coin here!" he held up a glistening Euro for the entire crowd to see. No one looked particularly impressed by it, but he hadn't done the trick yet. He pretended to move the coin into his left hand, but in reality snuck it down his shirt sleeve. "And now, I'm gonna-"

"You're gonna pretend you found a quarter behind my ear, right?"

"Aye, shaddup, lemme finish!"

"Excuse me, sir?!" Subordinate Mom muttered. He couldn't help but wince. Okay, so back-talking the kids seemed against the rules. He blew into his clenched fist and revealed it was empty. No one was very impressed.

Things took a bad turn when he went over to pretend to find the Euro behind the kid's ear. All his little gags and tricks fell out of his sleeve-about ten Euros, a deck of cards, a pair of die, a pack of cigarettes, you name it, it probably fell on the kid's lap. His friends laughed. At least he was getting laughs…?

"Alrighty, kiddos, wanna hear some jokes?" he got no response from anyone. He'd gone back to his goofy dumbass clown voice and everything, and he got nothing. He saw one of the moms on the phone with someone in the kitchen, hopefully not with the company he was working for at the moment. Geez, he really needed to recover from this. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" silence again.

"Why?" one of the kids finally said.

"Because…" fuck. How did he usually end this joke? Oh, right! "Because it was a suicidal chicken!" no laughs. The moms on the couch scowled, and the one in the kitchen continued fussing into the phone about his performance. If he was lucky, it was just some friend of hers, and the conversation would simply make it harder to get hired out and not result in him getting fired entirely. "Alright, alright, alright, here's a better one! Why was the little girl sad?"

"Why?" the same kid said, snickering.

"Cuz her friends and family died!" no laughs. A girl raised her hand.

"What is 'died'?" she asked.

"Well, ahyuck, you see, kids, death is basically-"

"Excuse me, sir?!" the mom snapped, covering the mouthpiece of her phone to send him a glare. Subordinate Mom sent a text, probably out to Leader Mom. Okay, fatalistic humor-good for buds at the bar, bad for six year olds. What did six year olds even like these days?

"You kids want some balloon animals?" that elicited a few excited cheers from a few of the kids on the younger side, which was good enough for him.

"I want a snake!" one of the girls shouted. Alright, great, snakes were easy enough, right? Just a straight-

"No, no, sweetie, why not get something else, like a poodle or a princess, or a-" one of the moms began to suggest.

"But, mommy! I want a snake!" the little girl began to wail. Well, he wasn't going to get in the middle of that mess. A snake was easier anyways.

Ramone reached into front pocket to get the balloons and ended up dumping half his balloons, a few whistles and other toys, and… was that an old condom? The kids were laughing. He quickly swiped out the contents of the pocket before finding a green balloon and beginning to blow it up. He just had to get enough air in it, not too much-what was too much for these things again-

The balloon popped in his face, sending the little girl crying and running back to her mother. The rest of the kids were startled before they began to laugh as well-whether at him or at her, he wasn't quite sure and didn't quite care. He was getting laughs. He could manage this. Just… just another hour of this. Shit.

"Okay, uh… check this out, kids!" he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a string of hankies all tied together. He managed to pull out three before it came loose, and he had to reach back for the rest. Hankies four through nine were okay, even if the sixth had a weird stain on it.

Hankie number ten had a cockroach in it.

The little girl who had asked about death and her friends all screamed first. Next thing he knew, the huge pest was skittering towards the couch-and therefore them-and the pack of brats were all running away with a scream as far away from him as they could. No no no, they couldn't run away, or he wouldn't get paid, he needed that money!

"Hey! You little brats get back here before I knock your teeth out with a baseball bat, huh?!" he shouted, a hand balling up into a fist as he shook it in front of him.

"That'll be quite enough, sir, now get out of my house!" uh oh. Leader Mom was coming in from outside, and she looked pissed. Yeah, he had messed up a bit with threatening the annoying twerps, but give him another chance, man! The woman forced him out of the door and off the porch before storming up to to her door again.

"Hey, wait, ain't ya gonna pay me?!" he shouted after her, only to have the door slammed in his face. It was drizzling outside, and she had pushed him into a puddle in the sidewalk. Well, dammit, he didn't need to work for some prick and her loud-ass kids anyways! With a grumble, he picked himself up off the sidewalk and walked off. The white paint was melting off his face and dripping onto his costume. He was tempted to wipe it all off on his sleeve, but knew he'd might have to break out the stupid costume again and service some more dumb kids. Plus, this thing was a rental.

The rain started coming down harder. Fuck, he didn't have his fucking car anymore. Today was the absolute worst, could it possibly get any worse-what the fuck was that black butterfly doing flying at him-

A purple haze overtook his vision when the butterfly seemed to just disappear into that dumb-ass clown nose, and he heard a voice.

"Night Jester, I am Hawkmoth. The people of Paris don't appreciate your skills, but I do. Not everyone appreciates clowns like we do. Let's show them how? I can help you get your revenge on all of those kids; all you have to do is retrieve a few items for me." a dark voice said. A grin stretched across his face at the thought of getting revenge on those twerps.

"Yeah, sure, show me what you got, Hawkmoth." he was ready for anything this guy threw at him. Grab some dumb pieces of jewelry and get powers? If that wasn't a good deal, then what was?!

The Night Jester was gonna get these Miraculouses. And nothing was gonna get in his way.

The next chapter or two will be up soon, since they're already written and this one is so short! Thanks for reading this far!