Historian's Note:

While not required reading, these events take place a few months after those detailed in Elegy for a Chat and in the gray area of time that may or may not have existed between the second and third seasons of Miraculous. As this is essentially a continuation of the universe created by that story, you might find it beneficial to review it prior to tackling this adventure.

This story was written before the third season of Miraculous had been released in the United States; though the author attempted to avoid spoilers at all costs, they did become aware of a few plot points that were planned as part of that season but not before a substantial portion of this story had been completed. Any similarity of this tale to episode(s) that aired in the third season are purely coincidental and more due to logical intuition on the part of the author based on what had aired up to season three.

I stared at my cell phone, the screen having long since gone dark, replaying the conversation I'd just had with Father. Once again, he'd decided to insert himself into my social life "for my own safety."

"Absolutely not," he'd told me in that firm but distant way. "You have an important photo shoot scheduled for Sunday morning at the park and I need you rested and looking your best. Besides, there's no telling what mayhem might be unleashed on the city that night – I don't want you out and about if there's even a chance you could get caught up in any danger."

"But Father -" I tried.

"No, and that is final." He ended the connection at that point, preventing me from explaining anything.

Like, how everyone I cared about was going to be there, and that once again, Adrien would be the odd guy out with his absence. It was just one more way to prevent me from connecting with anyone. I leaned a shoulder against the wall of the school's courtyard, off in a far corner I often used when I needed a few moments alone (or, in some extreme circumstances, a place to transform in a hurry).

I smiled a bit at that. It was tempting to switch to Chat Noir and escape. But that would be a selfish move, and neither part of my personality would allow for it. Plagg made a sudden movement in my pocket, but footsteps were approaching me and he thought better of making an appearance.

There was no need for me to turn around. "Milady," I smiled.

Marinette ran a hand over my shoulder and rounded me, smiling expectantly, dressed perfectly as always and carrying her sketchbook in her arms. "I'm off to the park for a bit of inspiration," she said. "I'm trying to come up with the finishing flourishes for my Sweethearts dress." She paused, smiling slyly. "I'm open to feedback while I design it. Want to join me?"

"Would I ever," I replied a bit forlornly. "But I'm due for Fencing, I'm afraid."

She caught my wistful expression and reached out. "What's wrong?"

I put a hand on her hand. "The answer was no," I said simply. "I didn't even get a chance to tell him who I was going with."

Marinette's face lit up in shock, then anger. "That's not fair!" she said. "It's the highlight of the semester! He can't deny you that."

"As it turns out, he can," I sighed. "I'm sorry, Princess. I was looking forward to going with you and taking the next step in our public 'relationship.'"

I could see the anger hadn't completely abated from Marinette's face, and completely understood. We'd worked for months to sow the seeds to our friends and classmates that our relationship had started to evolve out of the friend zone and into something more significant; appearing at the dance together had been our long planned grand finale that would cement Marinette and Adrien as an official couple.

Not that we weren't actually already a couple. I had inadvertently discovered Ladybug's identity during a particularly bad time a few months earlier when I very nearly lost my ability to be Chat Noir – and, for that matter, the ability to even be Adrien. We'd made it through that together but not before my own secret identity had been exposed to Ladybug. Suffice it to say, once we realized that we had both actually been pining away for the other unknowingly, we'd made up for lost time – at least, as Chat Noir and Ladybug.

Paris had pretty much assumed those two were a couple anyway, so it hadn't been much of a stretch to play to our audience. But our alter egos had never gone further than being in the friend zone; having us one day walking arm-in-arm through the school would have raised a few too many red flags. Master Fu gave us a little guidance and that led to Marinette creating one of her typically over-the-top plans to get us from "friend" to "couple" in a slow but methodical way.

A few opportunities had fallen our way naturally – homework assignments that required us to work at her place or at my mansion; school outings where we were paired together. We extended it little by little, starting with a volunteering stint at the food back together over the holidays. That progressed to inviting her to help design a vest for one of my photo shoots (and thereby re-introducing her to my father), followed by shopping for a few of her elderly neighbors who just didn't get out to market as easily as they had before. Slowly but surely, we became seen together often and frequently, enough that it became natural for our schoolmates and respective families to assume we were getting ever closer to being a couple.

I put a hand under her chin. "We'll come up with a new plan," I said cheerfully. "In the meantime, it is date night. Dinner at the usual place?"

She smiled at that. "Of course."

After making sure the coast was clear, I quickly kissed her to seal the deal. "Until tonight, milady."

I watched her head out the main doors and into Paris, on her way to her favorite sketching spot. The thought of her working halfheartedly on a dress that she might not now wear tore me up enough that it was the final inducement to blow off fencing practice. I opened my shirt and Plagg flew out.

"I think we might start the evening early," I said. "Top off your appetite, my friend."

Plagg frowned. "You've gone all sappy again, haven't you." It was more an observation than a question.

"Yes," I said as I pulled out my phone and texted Nathalie.

School work this afternoon; can't go to practice. I'll call when I'm ready for a pickup.

She replied promptly. Okay. I'll let your father know.

As I put the phone back in my pocket, I smiled at Plagg. "That was easier than I thought."

The cat kwami smiled back at me. "You'll never be as good as me," he winked, "but not bad."

I held out my Miraculous. "Plagg, Claws out!"

A moment later, I was helicoptering my way over Paris, ensconced behind my Chat Noir persona. Not that I was a stalker per se, but it was just possible that Chat Noir had a particular perch he had come to use when he knew that Marinette was in her usual sketching location. I gently landed on the parapet that overlooked said spot and was rewarded by seeing a familiar head bent over a sketchbook, busily drafting something.

I smiled. My feline-enhanced eyes allowed me better distance vision, and I caught a glimpse of what she was sketching out. Not much, but enough to know that it was another winner in a long line of brilliant designs she had come up with. The day was pleasantly warm, with a few trace clouds and just a very gentle breeze. Owing to the hour, though, there were few pedestrians, so Marinette was essentially alone.

Hmm, I thought. This kitty's feeling a bit frisky.

I leapt over the edge of the roof and, using my claws as little as possible, stealthily shimmied down the façade of the building. Marinette had her back to me and was unaware of my presence still, so I pressed myself down into a full-four-paw cat stance and snuck up behind her. Once beside her, I leaned directly into her non-drawing arm and let out a series of contented purrs.

"About time, Chat," she said with amusement. Clearly, I hadn't caught her as unguarded as I thought.

"Whatcha doing, Princess," I said as I folded myself into a sitting position beside her.

"Shouldn't you be... somewhere?" she asked, looking sideways at me.

I feigned ignorance and made a show of cleaning a paw, something that I only did in front of tourists (such as the two who had started pointing at us and taking photos). "Not till this evening, ma'am. Until then, I am free as a cat."

"I think the line is, 'free as a bird,' Chat."

"Really?" I paused, angling my head in a thoughtful way (still playing to the cameras – once a model, always a model). "I've never thought of them as free. Tasty, maybe, but have you seen the prices lately? Definitely not free."

That garnered the pencil flying off of my head. "Ow! What was that for?"

Marinette leaned over me to retrieve the pencil, and whispered in the process: "You're pushing it, kitty. These two aren't supposed to be a couple, remember?"

I sighed dramatically, hand across heart. "If only there some way our two worlds could align, Princess."

She sat back again and I made a show of putting my massive shock of hair between her and the image. "Chat!" she exclaimed, becoming a bit frustrated at my over-the-top cat antics. "I'm trying to work here!"

"Oooh," I said genuinely. "Now that is a dress..."

The design was all Marinette, with nary a ruffle out of place. I could see the waves of fabric in my mind, and easily visualized how it would settle on her attractive form. But it was clear she was having trouble with a little motif that was to be woven at the lower left side of the waist. She'd erased it several times already, leaving an unfortunate black smudge in its wake.

"What goes here?" I asked, using a claw to point out the smudge.

Marinette groaned. "The dress is ready, save for this last part I've been working on," she said, a trace of frustration tinging her voice. "I'd hoped Adrien could offer some advice, but he had fencing practice," she said, emphasizing where I should actually have been at that moment.

"Well," I said cheerily, "good thing I came along then."

She rolled her eyes. "And what would you, as a cat, know about fashion?"

"Plenty." I leaned across her lap, stretching luxuriously. "In fact, I designed this outfit myself."

Marinette tried to hide the smile that was quirking at her lips. "Including the bell?"

"Especially the bell," I said, as I regrouped on the other side of her. "In fact, it might look really good right there."

Something flashed in her face, and her eyes lit up. "You're right," she said suddenly. In a flourish, she added a stylized version of my bell to the sketch and held it out to me. "What do you think?"

It was beautifully done. "Purrfect," I said, then pouted. "Too bad I won't get to see you wear this."

Her eyes twinkled. "Never say never, kitty."

I was about to remind her about making promises she couldn't keep when we both heard screaming coming from across the plaza. My feline ears twitched and homed in on a mother and child along the edge of the river walk. The mother was waving frantically at anyone.

"I'll check it out," I said, "stay put, bugaboo."

I leapt up and started to bound across the plaza, oblivious to whatever Marinette had tried to say. The rational side of my brain kicked in and I slowed down just a bit, realizing in my haste I hadn't taken in the whole situation.

The plaza was completely empty, save for the mother-and-child combo. The mother had stopped screaming, however, and appeared to be covered in something. That was unusual enough that I slowed down further and started to crouch, baton at the ready. A split second later, I whirled the baton and fended off a spray of some sort of thick, viscous liquid. The force of it pressed me back a half step, causing me to shift the baton slightly; a glob got past me and landed over my right boot. I tried to step back again and discovered I was held fast by (I sniffed)… caramel?

Oh, beautiful. Of all the times to be cutting sugar from my diet.

"Great! Do you know how long it takes to polish these?" I yelled, continuing to beat back the stream while attempting to locate the source.

The flow pointed toward me dissipated as I heard a voice cry out in glee: "A caramel kitty! And one that provides its own stick! Confiseur will turn you into a glorious creation!"

What...? He's a candy maker? He's going to make me into a candy?!

My eyes finally landed on a tall form standing on the first set of steps leading away from the plaza; rotund and with a wild-eyed expression, he was wearing a chef's uniform splattered with a confetti rainbow of colors. One hand gripped a mixing bowl, while the other was pointing a wooden spoon at me. I watched as he dipped the spoon into the bowl, and then quickly whipped it back in my direction.

The caramel came faster than I expected and knocked the baton out of my hand; I watched helplessly as it bounced with a metallic clang! away from me, well out of reach. I ducked as best as I could, but was limited by how far I could rotate around my stuck boot. It was a losing battle; another glob hit my left foot and trapped me in rather uncomfortable wide stance.

"Look, Confiseur is it?" I said, yanking mightily and not making much progress at freeing either trapped foot. "I like sweets just as much as the next cat... but this is a little ridiculous."

I was rewarded with another cackle and massive stream of caramel that buried me up to my waist.

"Now would be a good time to appear, Ladybug," I sang out, looking around but not seeing my partner anywhere.

I looked back at Confiseur, who was moving steadily closer. The less movement I was able to make, the more confident he was becoming. I only had one last card to play, and past experience had taught me to be very, very careful at timing out my use of Cataclysm. While I was sure I could use it to get unstuck, that left me with no options to deal with this crazy chef.

Frantically I scanned for Ladybug again. "Really, milady, now would be a good time..."

Confiseur was now just ten yards away from me, and had dipped his spoon back into the mixing bowl. Forewarned, I reached up and began to call out: "Cata-oomph!"

An expertly aimed glob hit me in the face, effectively muting me, while another, my raised ring hand from the below the elbow to the wrist. For all the world I must have looked like a disco dancer frozen in time. I tried to pull my arm back but the caramel had hardened enough to immobilize it.

He was now within arm's reach of me, and the smell of sickly-sweet sugar was overwhelming. I thought about the witty things I could have been saying to try and distract him while he fell for my master plan, but that seemed to be coming up short, too. Yet, Confiseur just continued to stand there, staring at me.

Normally this was the point when Hawkmoth spurred them onward to the Miraculous, so the pause was unsettling. I was able to draw my hand down into a fist, though it was anybody's guess how long I'd be able to prevent him from peeling back my fingers. And then it dawned on me: I was the fly trapped in amber, but not the main event.

Ladies and gentlemen! It's two-for-one day in the Miraculous aisle!

Now I understood why Ladybug hadn't appeared. If she were here (and I fervently hoped that was true) she'd likely come to the same conclusion and was mulling over how to extricate both of us. Even now, despite having worked side by side with her for as long as I had, I still tended to be the one who ran directly into the burning building before thinking through all of our options. She hadn't had to save me from myself for more than a month (that was a record!) but if I were being honest, this was going to go into my permanent record.

I wriggled my tail in frustration. Then realized I had wriggled my tail. My back was to the sun, and it was apparently softening the caramel on that side of me. I could use that.

Carefully, so as not to draw any attention to it, I shifted my still-free arm slightly back and drew a claw along the edge of my thigh. I felt it sink into the caramel and cleanly cleave it away from my costume.

Interesting.

I wasn't going to be able to scratch my way out, but I thought I might just be able to back out of the cocoon around the bottom half of my body. It was working in my favor that Ladybug was absent; the longer Confiseur waited for her, the more likely I'd free myself. I tried shifting my left foot, pulling it strongly backward and then pushing it forward; on the third set, I felt it give way slightly. I repeated the action with the right foot, all the while continuing to stare down my adversary (and trying not to groan around the gagging caramel). Though it felt like hours, in a little under a minute I'd managed to wriggle myself backward a few inches; the more I moved, the looser the caramel was getting.

One final burst and I fell backward out of the cocoon, which released me with a sickening plop! noise. I wasn't expecting it just then, so I landed on my back rather inelegantly, but continued into a flip to wind up in my four-paw crouch. Technically, it wound up being a three-paw crouch, since my ring hand was still stuck.

Confiseur was not amused and started back at me with his spoon.

I rolled out of his first burst and leapt around the plaza randomly, all the while heading back toward my baton. One burst nailed me on the back, but not enough to prevent movement; another nearly glued my tail to the stonework, but I managed to yank it out before the glob solidified. I started to say something snarky before realizing I was still on mute.

Pausing in the corner of the plaza, I dragged a claw across my mouth and peeled away the mess; then ran several claws over my immobilized arm, running for the baton as I did so. I'd managed to free most of it when I dove and rolled for my trusty device, nabbing it before springing it open and using it to vault toward the block wall ringing the staircase.

Surprisingly for his bulk, Confiseur was moving quickly toward my new position, ranging with caramel as he approached. I vaulted over to the opposite side of the stairway just to annoy him a bit (and, frankly, to give myself a few more seconds to come up with a plan). Where was Ladybug? Now I was starting to get worried. I scanned the plaza again, but Marinette wasn't where I'd left her.

A glob landed a foot from my still-sticky boot, refocusing my attention. The proverbial lightbulb went off, and I quickly snapped my baton into two pieces, stepped backward a half step, and hurled them toward Confiseur, catarang style. They were fast enough that he didn't have time to react, with one clobbering the spoon out of his grip and the other whacking the hand holding the bowl, releasing it to the plaza with a metallic clang.

I'd already leapt down to the stones and was sprinting toward Confiseur when the baton regrouped into a single piece and flew back to my raised hand. I had a dilemma, though. The akuma had to be in either the spoon or the bowl; I was only going to get one shot at breaking the spell, and it was literally a fifty-fifty proposition. But regardless, once I freed it (assuming I guessed correctly), I had no way to de-akumatize it. That was exclusively the province of my still missing partner.

I closed the distance rapidly and made a calculation, raising my ring hand again. "Cataclysm!" I cried, and was rewarded with that strange tingle in my hand. Confiseur had regrouped and was starting toward his cooking utensils; I leaned down and skidded across the stone, using my other hand to control my direction, feeling the sparks rise up from my claws as they gouged their pathway.

I've never been able to explain to Ladybug what it feels like when I use my super power on something. But whatever it was, I felt it again as I ran my fingertips across the spoon, watching it turn several shades of black and disintegrate into dust. My skid took me beyond and toward the bowl, which I nabbed with my other hand, then jammed my toes into the stone to come to an abrupt halt.

The purple akuma fluttered up and away from the spoon.

I leapt, holding the bowl out, and rammed it down on top of the butterfly, hoping beyond hope it couldn't re-akumatize its victim with the bowl alone. I waited a breath, then two, and when I didn't immediately see anything, started to feel like my luck might be holding. I maneuvered to perch atop the bowl (no small feat, I might add), and watched with fascination as Confiseur de-akumatized into the owner of the sweet shop three blocks from Marinette's bakery. He looked a bit puzzled, as they all did.

"Where am I?" he asked as he sat up. His actual chef's outfit was splashed with colorful accents, presumably from the confections he'd been working on when he'd been caught by Hawkmoth.

"Bad day in the kitchen?" I asked pleasantly, as if it was completely ordinary for me to be chatting with him while sitting there on a metallic mixing bowl. "I've been there. You should see my toast."

"How did you know?" he replied. "Nothing I was making was turning out close to what I wanted! And to top it off, the Grand Hotel cancelled my contract to cater for the Sweetheart Ball – our shop has done it for three generations!"

The bowl jiggled under me. Uh oh.

"Tell you what," I said. "I happen to know the mayor, and his daughter for that matter. Maybe I could put in a good word for you?" Despite your trying to make me into a cat treat, I didn't add.

"You'd do that?" he asked, incredulous.

"Absolutely," I said, as the bowl stopped jiggling.

He stood up and reached for my gloved hand, which he pumped furiously. I tried to keep my claws away from his palm as he said: "Thank you, oh! Thank you, Chat Noir!"

The chef wandered away from me and (presumably) back toward his shop. I smiled as he walked away, trying to look cheerful but starting to seriously worry about Ladybug's absence. I reached for the baton and clicked it into phone mode, speed dialing Ladybug. She didn't answer, but my feline ears finally picked up the telltale zing of her yo-yo. A moment later she dropped down beside me.

"Look what the cat dragged home," she said, forcing a cheerfulness that didn't extend to her eyes.

"Are you okay?" I asked flat out, knowing my eyes had narrowed unintentionally with the question. "What happened? I saw you were gone and leapt to the worst-"

"I'd rather not talk about it right now, Chat," she snapped. "Let's take care of business, shall we?"

"Of course, milady," I replied, automatically falling into Superhero Sidekick mode – not a zone I enjoyed inhabiting.

I rolled off of the bowl and tipped it upward, releasing the butterfly. Ladybug quickly caught it with her yo-yo and did her Miraculous thing, but at that point I'd checked out. So much so that she had to prompt me for our traditional fist pump. "Chat?"

"Uh, right. Pound it!" I said unenthusiastically, then I turned on her. "Seriously. What happened? You look like you are ready to go three more rounds with an akumatized villain."

She looked uncomfortable, to say the least. "Chat, you've got to go," she warned, as my ring chirped it's three-minute warning.

"Fine," I said, trying to hold tight to my frustration. Weren't we past this already? "But we're still on for tonight, right?"

"Yes," she said, as she leaned in to kiss my cheek. "See you then."

I extended my baton and said as I rode up into the sky, "I'll be there with a bell on."