Alya stared at her screen, scrolling up and down Aurore Borell's website again. And again. And again. It was very "Aurore" in that it was turquoise with polka dots and frilly little lace borders on every div and button. It was very pretty. No one had thought of designing it so the contact form could be found.
She sighed and gave up, appending every variation of "contact-me" to the website's URL until she found the correct address. The form was frilly and pretty too. There were people out there who had the knack for web design (if not ergonomics) Marinette had for fashion. So Alya typed her invitation, making sure to include a short explanation of who she was, what her blog was about, and why she wanted a meeting to happen. Then she added "P.S. : please tell your webdesigner he is very talented!". Then she hit submit.
Well. There. She had tried. It was a bit more scary than asking Alix and her brother, or Nino. Aurore was an older student (when she actually showed up to school, seeing how busy she was with her career), and a star. Then again, Alya was not easily frightened, and journalism and shyness did not mix.
Now that the email was sent, she could only hope for an answer. She was cautiously optimistic: Aurore Borell would probably be interested. She was trying to recover from her defeat against Mireille, and gathering all the press she could. A great many people had made the connection between her and Stormy Weather, and Aurore was owning up to it, making frequent appearances on television to tell her tale over and over again. "I'm so very grateful to Ladybug and Chat Noir", she would say, "and I think it's important to put all the good they are doing under the spotlight. They are saving so many people out there, including their enemies. Not everyone would have the compassion to do that, so I can't say how much I admire them and what they do". She was also vying for a position as a news anchor.
Maybe Alya's blog was not very big yet, but she had a decent following, and any publicity was good publicity. Obviously. Or Aurore would not have been parading around reminding everyone of her time as a supervillain.
She would probably say yes.
###
Adrien always sorely missed Ladybug when she wasn't patrolling with him. And the rest of the time. But especially when she was not patrolling with him. And even more especially when a flying Akuma-possessed villain appeared. It was not that Chat Noir wasn't competent to catch them. He was. He absolutely was. Sure, he had not gotten to the actual "purifying of the akuma" part (which Plagg would have to explain at some point), but it was very good at the "breaking the corrupted thing" part. As for the cleansing, Adrien figured that Plagg would volunteer the relevant information if Ladybug didn't get there in time. If the little pest did not, Chat Noir would just find a box and wait. No, he did not need Ladybug. He did fine on his own. But he missed her, and he had to admit she had tools he did not, like a very very long and very very useful rope-type weapon, which would have come in handy now that his classmate Marinette was falling to her death.
Why, why, why, why, why did the fights always have to happen at his school or around it? What was so special about the place? Did Hawk Moth suspect Chat Noir's identity, and target his friends on purpose? Alix, Alya, and Nino transformed, and Chloe and now Marinette attacked? It couldn't be a coincidence. Of course, with two Akuma possessions a week, and that just in Paris, the people he knew were bound to be impacted.
He threw himself after Marinette and tried to catch her mid-fall. What he would catch to break their fall after that was anyone's guess. At worst… He was fairly bouncy as Chat Noir. He could cushion the crash.
Ladybug, where are you?
"Don't worry, miss!" he told Marinette as he caught her.
"Nononononowhere…" she replied, barely looking at him and digging through her purse.
It was a weird thing to do while free-falling from the Tour First, but they were being attacked by Feathertail, the Gliding Possum Man, which kind of redefined weird.
"It will be okay", Adrien added, slightly louder, so she would focus on him.
Then he rolled under her, since there was nothing to grab around them. The tower's sides were sleek glass and metal. Chat Noir did try to inch closer to the building, but even then, all he could do was scratch the walls and bruise his fingers in the process. They were going way too fast. There was no way to catch hold of anything.
"I'm not using you as as a pillow to save myself!" Marinette exclaimed.
That was the longest sentence she had ever uttered while talking to him, and he definitely appreciated the sentiment, even if it was a bit useless.
"Don't worry. I always land on my feet."
"Not if I believe the videos on Alya's blog!"
Chat Noir winced.
"I'm pretty bouncy", he mumbled, wishing they had hit the pavement thirty seconds earlier. He would have preferred to die thinking his cred was undamaged. "So what is it you were looking for in that purse?"
"My qu-"
Someone threw a fire hose out of a window, and Adrien grabbed it, swinging from it and sending them crashing into a glass window, somewhere on the fifth floor. Marinette's sentence ended as a "aaaaAAAAAAH".
He made sure she was unharmed, then patted her shoulder.
"Wait for me", he said. "I have to go. I can't play possum when the villain does, can I?"
And, on that note, he ran to the broken window and started climbing to the roof.
###
Alya grabbed her phone as it buzzed, hoping for an email from Aurore Borell, and finding a text instead. Her sisters swarmed to her, trying to read over her shoulder, in case it was Nino. She had mentioned her friend once, and she was now doomed to be the lead character in her siblings romantic fantasies. The girls had not even met Nino, but he "sounded nice". Alya thought he was nice, and had told them so (because she was not a liar), but little girls had selective hearing and they did not recognize the word "friend". It was like "privacy": probably latin.
The text was from Alix.
Her brother had changed his mind.
Alya frowned. On a purely professional, bloggery point of view, this was annoying. The meeting would still include Time Breaker, and the Bubbler, and maybe Stormy Weather, and of course Lady Wifi… But the list was growing shorter, and it was more difficult to track down Akuma victims she had not seen in action. The real names of the freed "villains" rarely ended up in the news.
On a personal point of view, she was not sure she was that unhappy not to have to see Jalil again. He could be unpleasant, even when he was not trying to use her as an offering to the gods.
She snorted and swiped the notification away.
Her youngest sister froze.
###
Feathertail was easily disposed of. It was just a matter of breaking the possum keychain he was carrying. Simple enough.
Freeing the zoo employee from Hawk Moth's spell proved more difficult.
There had been some transforming back and forth. And long-winded discussions with Plagg. And some shouting. And a great many attempts at purifying the Akuma. At some point, Chat had managed to somehow transform Feathertail back into himself, and some of the damage to the city had been repaired, but not nearly all of it. As for the Akuma, it had shown a few sparkles of light, but quickly turned back to its dark, gloomy self.
Adrien had locked it in a box.
He planned to give said box to Ladybug as soon as she surfaced (it couldn't be soon enough). He would meet with her on their patrol route that evening.
She would know what to do.
"How come we haven't ever practiced this part?" he asked Plagg, who was wolfing down some green cheese Adrien had found in one of the Tour First fridges.
"Because Ladybug was already there when I picked you, and you needed to be strong where she is smart."
"She is strong!"
"You had a lot of potential for combat?"
Adrien let out a long suffering sigh.
"Please finish this quickly. I want to check on Marinette. I need to transform back."
"Can you get me more cheese?"
More cheese was found, and Chat Noir soon managed to locate Marinette, who was waiting for him in front of the tower, all of her things spread on the pavement. She was slouching, and putting everything back into her purse, item by item.
"Lost something?" he asked.
"You could say that. Are you okay? Did you manage to turn the… Butterfly normal again?"
"You could say that", Chat Noir replied, wincing behind his mask. "I can help you look, if you want."
"No, it's fine, my, err, thing is probably home."
He looked at her. She looked more dejected than he did, and he felt fairly dejected.
"I can walk you there, then. It's on my way."
She gaped at him.
"You know where I live?"
Smart, Adrien. Very, very smart.
"Your school is all the rage with Akumas lately", he joked. "I'm starting to get a good idea of who everyone is. I mean, you got Time Breaker, and Lady Wifi, and you are friends with that girl with the blog so you are on it a fair lot. And your parents ran ads on it."
"They did?"
He grin.
"They did. I should try those macarons, by the way. Shall we go, my lady?" he finished with a bow.
She flushed and mumbled an answer, and followed him.
He found a fire escape and showed her the way across the roofs for a whole five minutes. Then he swooped her off the tiles and carried her all the way to her parents' bakery, so they didn't have to trek all over the city for hours. There was some protesting, but he paid no mind to that, and she quickly stopped asking to be put back on the ground. She looked at the city under them instead, as he bounced from roof to roof.
"Don't look down!" he warned her.
She chuckled and gave him a sly, amused look.
"I'm not afraid of heights."
She was definitely more confident when she was not talking to a boy.
The flaw in that thought quickly occurred to Chat Noir.
She is definitely more confident when she is not talking to Adrien Agreste.
You idiot.
He blushed and went silent, focusing on the roofs, the chimneys, and all of the things he would do better not to crash into. She studied his face.
"I thought you'd be more talkative", she commented, looking concerned. "You never stop talking, on Alya's videos."
He stumbled and awkwardly hopped from room to roof until he regained his footing. Thankfully, she didn't panic, because any flailing would have sent them back to a free fall situation.
He cleared his throat.
"I, uh."
That sly, amused look of hers kind of multiplied and morphed until he was absolutely sure she had won whatever it was that they were doing.
"Don't say it", he warned, because he had a pun-sensing seventh sense.
She beamed.
"Cat got your tongue?"
He chuckled.
"I figured you'd be less cheeky."
"Why?"
"This, my lady, is a level of sass only reached by the masters. And this is your home, isn't it?" he said, pointing to her house.
She nodded.
"Which window?" He asked.
She pointed, and he helped her into… Pinkness. He gaped and nearly dropped her.
"Thank you!" she exclaimed. "Wait here!"
She ran out of the room, and down the stairs - he could hear her footsteps thundering down - as he looked around.
It was very pink. Tidy, too. Pretty. A thousand shades of girly. Very, very Marinette, for what little he knew of her. There were fashion drawings all over the place, too, all of them excellent. He spotted scissors, a sewing machine, needles and thread, half-finished clothes, and a few scarves that looked absurdly familiar because he owned an identical one. He had gotten the exact same for his birthday.
He crossed the room and picked one up, to check. It was unfinished, still attached to knitting needles. It looked like it had a flaw, and had been abandoned midway. The part that was done was just the same as his own. Same colors, same thread, same everything. He bit the inside of his cheeks. He remembered his birthday very well. He kind of remembered Marinette fumbling to talk to him in the morning, too. And remarking on the scarf the next day.
Maybe she sold them.
And maybe Hawk Moth was a benevolent hero and the whole Akuma situation was a big misunderstanding.
Thank you so much, dad.
Marinette raced up the stairs.
"Still here?" she called.
He grinned and turned to her.
"Yup."
"Macarons", she announced, handing him a box. "As a thanks for saving my life."
He was still smiling, but frozen into place. He didn't quite think of answering.
"You, err, said you'd have to try them?" she pointed out.
That snapped him out of it. He smiled and solemnly took the box.
"Thank you so much", he said, opening the box and tasting one of the pastries. "Wow. Wow, those are good."
She chuckled.
"Feel free to come and buy some any day. You'll get a fair discount."
He grinned, ate another macaron, then turned to the clothes.
"You make those?"
"Y-yes. I'd like to work in fashion, in time."
"Looks to me like you have a fair chance to make it. Do you sell those scarves? I kind of like them."
"Ah. No. I mean, I've sold a few simple things, but the scarves are custom made for friends, and they take so much time to knit that they would be… Cost prohibitive, that's the word."
He stared at the unfinished one.
"Some people would pay a lot for custom made clothes, you know?" he muttered, lost in thought.
Thanks, dad. Thanks.
She grinned.
"I guess I'll see that at some point", she replied. "I'm sure I have a fair chance to make it if I keep working hard."
He smiled - it felt empty - and curtsied.
"Totally agree. On that note, miss, I need to run. I'll be late for patrol and I don't want Ladybug to think I'm slacking off."
"Of course not! Thank you again."
"Don't mention it!" he replied, running to the window with the pastry box under his arm, and jumping out.
###