I like soul bond stories, time to time. And I enjoy In Your Eyes, a movie where two people share a unique mental bond. They can share, to a degree, their senses and tend to use it mostly as a kind of mystical telephone. Of course, the habit of speaking to people who are not there looks suspiciously like being insane to outsiders. This is my take on what if Marinette and Adrien had a In Your Eyes style bond.
When Marinette Dupain-Cheng was two, nearly three, she was in the kitchen while her mom cooked. And like a lot of children that age, she learned not to touch something hot by burning her fingers. Meanwhile, Adrien Agreste was playing with some toy cars while his mother watched him. He suddenly jerked back while yanking his hand to his chest and began to wail. He claimed his toy car felt really hot.
When Adrien was four, he was running around indoors and took a bad tumble down a staircase. Across town, Sabine heard something hit the ground and was distressed to find her daughter sprawled on the floor knocked out cold.
Adrien had an imaginary friend, a girl he named Marin. Which Gabriel could have accepted had the boy not behaved so strangely in public. When he overheard the servants whispering, saying how his son might be a little sick in the head, he discreetly acquired the services of a psychologist to assess the boy. By the time he was six, he was being medicated - which seemed to help a lot and made him more normal again. It took a couple years to get the drug and dose right, but by the time Adrien was eight, he stopped talking to his imaginary friend Marin. He would have had other imaginary friends, the more normal kind, if he hadn't been made afraid of having any, in fear of being abnormal and afraid of disappointing his father.
Marinette was a happy child, with an imaginary friend she referred to as Adri. Sometimes, she would say that Adri was far away today. Oddly, there was the day she claimed he left. She was very sad, but came to be happy again after a few days. Though, time to time, she would miss that imaginary friend. What confused her parents was why did she imagine that her imaginary friend had left and then miss it? But little kids often have strange notions, and she made up other imaginary friends in time. She had forgotten all about Adri when she grew to be a teenager.
Adrien struggled to be the son his father wanted, but he desperately wanted to make new friends and get out of the house. So, one year, on the first day of classes at a school nearby, he snuck out. He hadn't thought it through, as he wasn't actually registered at the school, but had expected that he could just show up and join his friend's, Chloe Bourgeois, class. He didn't make it in that day, but he did make a new friend still. "Hi, I'm Plagg." Plagg was a kwami, a sort of magical mascot for superheroes. Plagg, haphazardly, explained some of what Adrien needed to know, such as how to transform.
"When you're ready to transform, just say 'claws out' and I'll -"
"Plagg, claws out!"
"Not yet! I'm..." Plagg got sucked into the silver ring on Adrien's right hand, cutting off whatever it was he was going to say. The signet ring turned black (with a paw print insignia) as Adrien's clothes was replaced by a superhero's costume. The transformation did a lot to Adrien. It increased his strength, speed, stamina, flexibility, and endurance as well as improving his senses. His durability and ability to resist damage was enhanced. It also cleared out foreign substances from his system, such as the medications he was on. Adrien didn't realize it at that moment, but a long, unused part of his mind was waking up again.
Meanwhile, Marinette was meeting a kwami of her own. But where Adrien gladly took to being a superhero, as it would help him escape the misery of his life, Marinette was unsure. She felt intimidated by the prospect, lacking confidence in herself. But she was willing to try, so she told her kwami, "Tikki, spots on!" Seeing, on TV, Alya in pursuit of the monster, and worrying for her new friend, as well as needing to duck from her mother, she went out onto her roof and made an attempt to use her yo-yo as a grappling line. She tossed it across to wrap on a gargoyle and awkwardly swung into the air.
For a brief moment, Marinette saw, instead of a red gloved hand holding a yo-yo string, a black gloved hand holding onto a silver baton. And in that moment, Adrien, who was thinking of laying his extendable baton like a high-wire, instead saw himself soaring through the air.
"Huh?" He exclaimed.
"Who said that?" Marinette panicked.
The surreal mental break was beginning to bother Adrien. 'No no no,' he thought. 'Father is going to lock me away for sure.' Then he noticed, through the altered perception, that the person in his head was about to swing into a building. "Look out!"
Marinette started at the warning, breaking their connection, and noticed her predicament at the last minute. She tried to change course but managed to bounce off a building before falling, flailing, through the air.
Looking up, Adrien realized he could see a red-clad girl, hair whipping behind her, plummeting towards the ground. He reacted, immediately using the baton to vault himself at her, catching her in mid-air. But he didn't have a landing strategy. Though it wouldn't matter if he had, because all thought fled his mind at the sudden weirdness of grabbing onto someone and feeling he was being grabbed onto, and also the sensation of being the girl who he was grabbing and whom was grabbing him. They tumbled to the ground, and both were pleasantly surprised that they were uninjured by the fall.
"You must be the partner Plagg told me about." Adrien helped the girl to her feet. Marinette blushed, embarrassed by her less than graceful entrance. "Hey, it's alright. I'm learning the ropes too. Though I could have used a warning about this strange telepathy between partners."
Marinette nodded. There was just something so familiar about him, something that felt a little like deja vu. "Sorry!"
Adrien smiled. "I'm ... Cat Noir."
"I'm Ma ... madly clumsy." She had wanted to say more, but a building had collapsed, drawing attention. The boy in black turned to run in that direction. "Hey, wait! Where are you going?"
"We're superheroes now, right? Come on, duty calls."
"I wish I had your confidence," she whispered to herself.
She was surprised she could hear his voice, soft and warm, as he was already vaulting away. "Just fake it until you make it. That's what all the photographers tell me." Hesitantly, she threw her yo-yo to try swinging off again.
They had caught up to the hulking stone monster at a sports field, where it was attacking Marinette's classmates. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed Alya had managed to get herself onto the scene as well. She heard Cat yell, "Where are you, partner?" It was a little odd as she heard it twice, sort of like a chorus that was slightly off.
Looking at all her friends, in danger, and Cat Noir trying to stop the monster, she felt another pang of insecurity. "I can't. I don't know what to do. I won't be able to do this."
"Me neither," she heard his voice even though he was already out on the field dodging and attacking. He must have been distracted, because he got caught by punch and at that exact moment, she felt like she had been punched, the pain lancing through her as all of her muscles contracted and she fell backwards.
Marinette tried to catch her breath. Shaking the daze out of her head, she got up to find her partner returning to his feet.
"Girl!" Alya called up to her, "Come on, the world's waiting for you."
She had only paid the bystander minimal attention, thoughts instead wondering what had happened and full of worry for the cat themed boy superhero. She leaped down to join him by the goal. "Hey, you alright? Did he hurt you? Sorry I took so long."
"I'm fine, Wonder-Bug. I'll be feeling that for the rest of the day, but nothing broken." He flexed his fingers. "I'll just have to use my special power. Cataclysm!" His hand was imbued with a dark, bubbly aura.
Marinette eyed the hand. "What does that do?"
"Destroy stuff. See." He then touched the goal, rendering it to ashes. "Alright, let's cut this guy down to size," he yelled as he ran towards the stone giant.
"No, wait!" Marinette called, only to watch him fail and get knocked back. She was prepared and expecting the pain, so she didn't flinch much. "You only get one shot, and now you have five minutes before you transform back to normal."
"Thanks. I guess I missed that part. What's your power?"
"Lucky Charm!" Marinette tossed her yo-yo up and down came a rubber wet suit. "What am I suppose to do with this?"
Cat Noir shrugged. "I'll go distract him while you think of something."
"I got it. Hey, trust me." She then used her yo-yo to launch him at the monster, who promptly caught him. She sealed the suit around the garden hose and threw herself at the giant. In grabbing her in his other fist, he dropped what he was holding. "Hit the tap," she called to Alya, who turned the water on. The suit inflated, breaking the monsters hold on Marinette, allowing her to break the akumatized crumpled paper causing Ivan to revert back to normal.
And as natural as breathing, she found herself in a fistbump. "Pound it!" the duo exclaimed over a job well done. An oddity as Marinette wasn't prone to fist bumping to begin with.
When she went to talk to Ivan, she heard Cat say, "This girl is madly awesome," in a fond voice full of admiration.
Later, Marinette was in her room watching Alya's amateur footage. As it came to an end, showing her declaring herself to be "Ladybug", she felt pride and excitement in a job well done as he and Tikki cheered. But after, while she was having dinner with her family, the news reported that more stone monsters where appearing all over Paris. She escaped to her room, top find her kwami.
"Why is this happening, Tikki?"
She heard Cat say, "Yeah, I want to know that too." She glanced around her room, but only herself and Tikki were there.
"Huh, Partner? Is that you?"
Tikki looked at her in concern. "I guess you can say I am your partner ... but, is something wrong?"
"You didn't hear that?" Marinette asked Tikki.
But she heard yet another voice ask, "Did you capture the akuma?"
"No, I didn't," Tikki replied at the exact same time Marinette said the same thing.
"Were we suppose to capture the akuma?" Adrien asked Plagg.
Marinette screamed as she brought her hands to her ears. "Too many people talking at once! And where are you?"
"Marinette? Are you OK?" Tikki wondered.
"I'm home, where are you?" Adrien answered.
"Shush, everyone!" Marinette commanded. "Alright, one at a time now."
But she heard Plagg say, "I'm right here in front of you. Adrien, are you feeling alright?"
"And tell your kwami to be quiet, too." Marinette was at the end of your rope. "One crisis at a time. First up ... why am I hearing Cat Noir's voice in my head. Tikki, you answer first."
"I don't know ... are you hearing voices, Marinette?"
Marinette was afraid to say yes; she did not want Tikki to think she was crazy. "So this isn't normal for superheroes? Cat, it's your turn. Why are you in my head?"
"I don't know. This started after I used the Miraculous." Though, he had a strange sense of deja-vu. "I thought it would only be active while we were powered up. Plagg? Are telepathic bond a thing between partners?"
Plagg hummed and muttered as he peered closely at Adrien through slitted eyes. "No, it's nothing I'm doing or ever done. And, as far as I know, hearing voices that are not there is never a good sign."
Adrien sighed. "Yeah, I know. That's what the doctors told me when I was a child. I'm taking meds for this." He then sighed.
"Meds?" Marinette dropped into her desk chair heavily. "Am I going crazy?"
"Oh," she heard Plagg say. "When you activate your powers, things like medications gets flushed out of your system."
"Marinette, what's going on?" Tikki's voice was warm and motherly.
Marinette didn't answer right away, as she looked away from Tikki.
"I used to hear voices," Adrien started telling. "I had this imaginary friend. But Father wasn't happy, so he brought me to the doctors."
"But I'm not imaginary," Marinette muttered, tears forming in her eyes. Her eyes fell upon a picture frame she kept on her desk. It held a drawing she made in crayon when she was six. It was a drawing of her and a drawing of what a six year old would draw of an invisible person.
Adrien looked away from Plagg, down to his feet. "I would cry as if I was hurt. Or see things that wasn't there. And always, I was talking to this girl. My best friend."
Marinette traced the drawing with her eyes, roaming the colorful scrawls as her eyes rose to the words she knew would be written on top.
"So you had an imaginary friend," Plagg scoffed. "Everyone does."
"If that is the case," Adrien pressed, "then how is it I met her? Ladybug isn't imaginary if she's on the news."
There on the drawing, scrawled messily, were two names. Marinette gasped. "Adri?"
"Marinette? Talk to me," Tikki nuzzled the young girl on her cheek.
Adrien frowned. "Is that your kwami? Is your name Marinette?"
Plagg headbutted Adrien to his attention. "Focus, kid. We still have an akuma to defeat."
Marinette turned teary eyes to her kwami. "I failed. This is all my fault. I told you I would be no good as a hero. Now Paris is in danger."
"Don't talk like that!" Adrien shouted. "So we made a mistake. We'll keep going out there until we get it right."
Plagg nodded. "That's the spirit ... though you could talk to me a bit nicer."
"It's my fault. I don't deserve to be Ladybug. Cat, you'll have to do this alone."
Tikki shook her head. "Don't you think you're overreacting?"
"Do it alone?" Adrien repeated.
Plagg shook his head. "Naw, kid. You can't do it alone. Only Ladybug can purify the akuma."
Marinette growled. "Then just find yourself another Ladybug."
Tikki sighed. "Marinette. Come on. You're not being reasonable."
"I don't want another Ladybug. You were awesome," Adrien pleaded.
Plagg shrug. "If you're going to argue with the voices in your head ... think you could get me some cheese?"
Marinette reached for her earrings. Tikki shouted in alarm, "Marinette! Wait-" Then she disappeared as an earring came out.
"Sorry, Tikki. It has to be this way." The other earring was removed.
Adrien frowned. "What way? Talk to me, Ladybug."
Marinette cried. "You're still here? but I took the Miraculous out." Then she ran to her bed and imagined closing a door, dulling the connection.
Adrien grumbled as he leaned back on his couch. "Women!"
