A/N:

Disclaimer - I don't own Miraculous Ladybug or any of its affiliates, nor am I attempting to make money from posting this story.

I ended up posting this super late eue but French people apparently don't start wishing each other a happy new year until after the year's started, so I'm not that late, right? :'^) Anyway, researching for this story was actually pretty fun (since I'm always a slut for accuracy :U ) - although I'm still nervous I screwed something up or made it too American and not Parisian haha. If any native Parisians or such notice anything inaccurate, please let me know!

Peter always came home to the best daughters in the world, he thought.

He would arrive late at night hungry and exhausted from a ten-hour work day, no less poor than the day before, to a flat that so often felt like a dirty shack compared to other homes even only a few blocks away.

But his younger daughter, Lucie, was always there, working tirelessly on homework or studying, to look up and smile and hug her father like he had come home with a million euros. And Camille, his oldest, would be ready with one of the microwave meals for him to eat, always remembering that he would be starving after work from a lack of lunch.

They were the joys of his life; his wife had left him a few years after Lucie's birth, which had been the catalyst that plunged them into poverty.

However, the Christmas season had finally rolled around, and Peter again found himself at a loss this year with such a tight budget.

"I'm sorry," he finally told them, "but we won't be able to afford presents this year again."

Lucie and Camille took the news well, Lucie only nodding and smiling weakly before going back to a borrowed book that she was reading, while Camille reassured her father that it was all right, they didn't need presents anyway. He didn't need to worry about them being unhappy because it was all right, they understood.

Their reactions only made Peter more upset, although he kept this fact to himself; his children shouldn't be used to this, to cutting corners and buying less for themselves. They were children.

But he was used to this as well.

The day after Noël, Peter arrived home to find Lucie absent from her usual spot near the door. Camille was still in the kitchen, as normal, and silently pointed her father to the room that she and Lucie shared.

Lucie had come home bruised and with bloody knuckles, her clothes bearing new tears in them. A few of her classmates bullied her regularly, the wealthier ones who were constantly upset that they weren't quite wealthy enough to be somewhere other than a public school. Peter had tried to do something about it before, when the problem had first begun, but discussing the matter with the school had proven to be frustratingly ineffectual and eventually he had just given up on that front.

Apparently, they had struck again today after coming across her while on the street, teasing Lucie about her shabby appearance and then her assumed lack of gifts. By the time they had started insulting her family, Lucie had attacked, managing to punch one of them in the mouth before being taken down and beaten. She'd been lucky that the other kids had been too nervous about hurting her badly in broad daylight to do more than kick her a few times before leaving her on the side of the street.

"They even hit me with some of their new toys," Lucie whispered, sniffling and trying to hide her tears even though only her father was there to see.

As Peter comforted his daughter, he grew angry at the thought of children like those being able to receive gifts when his could not, and during a season when naughty children weren't supposed to receive anything, too.

The unfairness of it all infuriated him. But, just like his tight budget, Peter was used to that as well. He didn't find himself boiling over until it was early evening on New Year's Eve and he was walking home, work blessedly allowing him to leave a few hours early for the holiday.

Peter walked down the street lined with high-price stores and saw countless well-dressed people spending money on themselves extravagantly, climbing into their expensive cars with up to a dozen bags hanging off of their arms, and suddenly, Peter felt as if he was about to explode from all of the outrage and envy that had appeared in his gut.

He sat down on a bench, holding his face in his hands and trying to calm down.

People tended to become evil when they were experiencing extremely negative emotions - he remembered learning that from a news story discussing Ladybug, Chat Noir, and the 'akumas' during work several months ago. But the thought was quickly pushed aside by the memories of seeing others' lavish spending sprees and the purpling bruises on Lucie's face, that shouted at Peter that the wealthy were supposed to give to the poor during Christmas - that politicians, always so rich, were meant to help the public, and yet did so little, even doing worse, while they enjoyed spending so much on themselves.

It's quite unfair, isn't it? The affluent can afford whatever they want and more, no matter how they treat others - while you and your children deserve so much more but do not receive.

I can grant you the power to punish all of those wealthier than you who have done wrong, and to give away what they owe to people like you–

But for a price.

—

The doorman finished smiling at the pair of gracefully dressed politicians that had passed and moved to look at the next arrival. He nearly gaped in stunned recognition, almost tripping over his next words, but to his credit, he recovered quickly. Most of the people at the venue, even the employees, knew that two very special guests were supposed to come - it had been heavily publicized ever since they'd first accepted the invitation. The doorman himself knew how hard it had been to keep photographers and the like from the hotel entrance.

"M- Mademoiselle Ladybug," he greeted, unable to help a small bow toward her. "May I see your invitation?"

Ladybug smiled at him, secretly relieved that he didn't seem to dislike her dress, which she had designed herself. "Of course," she replied, and opened the yo-yo slung around her waist with a finger, reaching into its glowing white depths before pulling out a gold-trimmed white card.

Mayor André Bourgeois, it read in elegant script, cordially invites Mademoiselle Ladybug and Monsieur Chat Noir to a masquerade ball at the Hôtel Plaza Athénéé, Paris, on New Year's Eve from 19h00 to midnight.

She handed it over. "This is it, right?"

"Yes." The doorman glanced over it, mostly as a formality - surely no one would impersonate Ladybug just to get into the party - before placing it with the other invitations he had received. "Are you not cold, Mademoiselle? I see no coat."

Ladybug shook her head. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you."

The doorman paused, deciding to ascribe it to her superpowers. "I see. Is Monsieur Chat Noir not coming?"

Ladybug grimaced. "Oh, he is," she said. "He's just late."

"Do you wish to wait here for him, Mademoiselle?" the doorman asked, intensely curious; it was a popular debate, the true status of Ladybug and Chat Noir's relationship.

She hesitated.

As if sensing her concern, the doorman added, "Most of the invitees have already arrived, Mademoiselle. You shouldn't need to worry about attracting too much attention here."

Ladybug relaxed. "Okay. I think I'll wait here then, if it's no problem for you."

"Of course not, Mademoiselle."

—

Adrien waved goodbye to yet another party attendee, mentally ticking another person off of the list of people he was required to greet and talk with as the son of Gabriel Agreste. It was exhausting, the number of people his father had to remain in good graces with; why did he so often have to use his son to talk to so many of them? Adrien might be the heir to the Agreste family's corner of Paris's fashion industry, but it would be decades until his father was old enough to hand over the business to him. Surely he wasn't that important yet.

"Agh," Adrien groused softly as he glanced at the time on his phone. "Ladybug's got to be arriving by now."

After a brief moment of hesitation, he decided that the last few people on his mental list could forgo never being spoken to; he'd done this often enough that he knew which people were important enough to prioritize, and if Adrien's father somehow had a problem with it anyway… he could deal with it. Chat Noir's obligations came first.

The masquerade party was being hosted in the ballroom at the Hôtel Plaza Athénéé, which was large and floored with carpet, several elegant, ornate glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and illuminating the room in soft white light. Masked and well-dressed attendees, along with the occasional server, filled the chamber until nearly the only space that remained was buffer room. Mayor Bourgeois had also apparently hired a string quartet to play for the night; their music was humming quietly in the background.

Adrien examined the area for anyone who was looking in his direction so that he might slip away. Unfortunately enough, he also spotted a familiar figure of blue and green only a few meters away - and it was heading towards him.

He glanced frantically around for an escape, but by the time that Adrien could think of one, Chloé had already arrived at his side.

She was dressed in a peacock-themed mermaid dress, shimmering in shades of royal blue and emerald green. The dress even had a small train of actual peacock feathers that nearly grazed the floor - and, to be honest, Adrien wouldn't have put it past her to make sure that they were genuine ones.

"Adrikins!" Chloé took his arm without waiting for him to offer it, looking up at him in annoyance through her feathered mask of sequins. "You left me!"

"Sorry, Chloé." Adrien damped down the frustration that was rising within him before it could leak out into his voice; if he didn't get away from Chloé, she would latch onto him and never let go, and he needed to get out of sight soon so that he could transform into Chat Noir. But it wasn't her fault.

"Some of Father's friends ended up distracting me after I went to get us drinks," he finally added, a half-truth.

Adrien had initially escaped with the latter lie after he and Chloé had first arrived together at the party; they'd met in the hotel lobby before passing through the ballroom entrance, where a decorator had apparently seen fit to hang a clump of mistletoe from (he suspected Chloé of having something to do with it).

She'd been quick to point it out and, predictably, tried to kiss him. Painfully aware of the circumstances, Adrien had turned his head so that her lips only met his cheek instead, before quickly getting themselves out of the doorway and into the party proper. While untangling himself from her arms, he'd distractedly tried to appease her with excuses and then managed to free himself from her side with the pretext of going to get drinks.

He'd felt guilty about how he'd treated her afterwards; even though Chloé could act ridiculous and even petty sometimes, their families were close, and she'd been one of the only people Adrien had been able to talk to as a friend for years, after his mother disappeared.

The attachment was one of the few things even Nino, his best friend, still couldn't understand about him. But then, Nino had never been there when Chloé had first cried into Adrien's shoulder about her own mother, during the days when she'd be forced to go down to the Hôtel Plaza Athénéé's lobby just to escape her parents' shouting; when she was ten and her parents had finally filed for a divorce, sitting through numerous tension-filled legal discussions; and then the last day she'd seen her mother, when the woman had had a last, fierce shouting match with her ex-husband before leaving Chloé's life forever.

Adrien could still remember that day well - seeing the hand-shaped bruise on her forearm from being gripped too tight, pecking it with his lips like the innocent child he'd been to make it feel better, like his own mother had done with his little injuries before she too had vanished forever.

Simply put, having to treat Chloé like some sort of bothersome fly pained him. But obviously, he couldn't tell her the truth.

Luckily for his lies, Adrien had a full cup of juice in his hand; his attempts to quickly go through his father's party requirements left him no time to actually drink from it. He held it out to Chloé in a wordless plea for forgiveness.

After a pause, she accepted the cup. "Okay, but you're not leaving my sight again tonight," she said, tightening her hold on Adrien's arm. "We are supposed to be dates, after all. And Ladybug's going to be here tonight! You haven't met her yet, right? I have to introduce you to her; did you know I've talked to her? We're practically best friends! I even got selfies with her once."

Adrien forced a smile on his face. "Of course, Clo," he said, pulling his arm away before her grip could get any stronger. "Just let me use the restroom first, okay?"

Before Chloé could voice any kind of objection, Adrien slipped away in between two groups of adults deep in conversation and came out the other end searching for the hall that led to the restroom. Spotting it quickly - he'd been in this specific room many times before, although not recently - he headed towards it with a brisk stride. Pausing briefly to greet one of the untalked-to people on his mental list as he passed them by chance, Adrien soon reached the hall and went through the door.

He passed by the first set of restrooms, not willing to risk the possibility of anyone already being there or entering while he was inside. Looking back at the doors to see if anyone else was following, he glanced around the hall for any possible surveillance cameras.

Eventually satisfied, Adrien quickly ducked under the rope blocking off the rest of the hotel floor and hurried down the hall until he could round a corner, doing so in order to disappear from the view of the doors. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Plagg," he whispered.

There was no response.

"Plagg," Adrien hissed more insistently.

Finally, the black kwami floated out from somewhere behind him, gnawing on a bite-sized block of cheese snatched from one of the serving trays. "Yeah?"

"Dang it, Plagg, you almost had me thinking you'd stayed back at the party for the cheese."

"The idea did occur to me," Plagg agreed. He then swallowed the rest of the cheese block, letting out a burp. "All right, so you want to transform now?"

Adrien hesitated, suddenly considering another idea. "No, not yet," he said finally. "You know all the information on my baton, right? There's a map of the hotel on it. Can you get us to another restroom around here?"

"Eugh, navigating on an empty stomach?"

"You just ate an entire block of cheese."

"One, tiny block of cheese. And low-quality cheese, too. Honestly, I don't understand how the humans here can consider this party high-end when they're not even serving the high-end cheeses." Nevertheless, Plagg's ears swiveled along with his glowing eyes as he looked around. "All right, kid, just follow me."

He flew away at a swift pace, forcing Adrien to keep up quickly as Plagg led him down halls and around corners for over a minute before they reached the other restroom, now on the other side of the hotel floor.

Adrien slipped inside, moving until he stood in front of the mirrors.

He looked surprisingly unremarkable for a masquerade party, having only dressed as the titular character from The Phantom of the Opera despite the limitless possibilities he could've been as Gabriel Agreste's son. Even his father had been extremely skeptical of the choice, but Adrien had managed to convince him otherwise - a success that he was still perplexed over even now.

But no matter what he told his father, the real reason was that he would be easier to miss at the party if he looked ordinary or similar to other people there; and besides, Chat Noir was already going to be attracting enough attention for both of Adrien's personas.

"This is going to work, right, Plagg?" he asked, tugging on his cuffs nervously.

"Oh yeah. When have I ever lied to you?" Plagg assured and sat atop Adrien's head, forcing him to look at his kwami with the mirror.

Adrien wanted to point out an incident just because it was Plagg, but of course, he couldn't actually think of a single time his kwami had lied to him.

"Right," he finally said, exasperated.

Obviously, Chat Noir couldn't wear only his regular suit to a masquerade party this important, but neither could Adrien wear the same thing as his alter ego or afford the time and excuse to bring it a different outfit in and then change into it later. After first being invited as Chat, he'd been nearly tearing his hair out over the dilemma until he'd finally gotten the chance to talk to Plagg about it.

Surprisingly, his kwami had actually had a solution. What, don't you think we kwamis've had to do this kind of thing before? Plagg had teased.

And so, a few hours before the party had been due to start, Adrien had transformed into Chat Noir before donning his alter ego's outfit for the night.

Designing it with his specific persona in mind hadn't been too tough - he'd learned a lot of things through sheer osmosis - but actually getting the materials and finding a way to make it, without betraying his secret identity, had been much harder (but that was almost another story entirely).

Once Plagg had gotten a complete look of him wearing it, Adrien had then de-transformed, the outfit disappearing along with his usual suit in the resulting blaze of green sparks.

It was supposed to reappear on him the way Plagg had seen it - sans most of his normal getup - through some kind of kwami magic, but Adrien was still anxious that it wouldn't work somehow. He wanted to make sure that it looked right.

He took a deep breath and held up his right hand, the silver ring on it glinting in the mirror.

Suddenly, he remembered something. "Shoot," Adrien breathed, reaching into his pocket and taking out a thin, wrapped box. He set it aside on the restroom counter so that it wouldn't disappear into the transformation. "Almost forgot about that."

Plagg snickered, floating back up into the air. "Can't lose your present for our Lady-friend, right?"

Adrien ignored him and raised his hand again. "Plagg, transform me!"

—

Ladybug stood just inside the hotel lobby, her arms crossed impatiently at this point. She would've been tapping her foot as well if her flats wouldn't have noisily clacked against the wooden floor. The doorman stood beside her a bit awkwardly, some of her emotions slightly infectious as he glanced at the glass doors of the lobby entrance every few seconds for a sign of any late arrivals - especially one Chat Noir.

If he doesn't get here in five minutes, Ladybug thought, irritated, then I'm going in by myself no matter what everyone's expecting.

Despite her anxiety over mingling with politicians and fashion designers alike while dressed in her own design, she was eager to get into the party; not just because of the importance of the event itself, but because it would be the first time she ever attended anything of this stature - there were impressions to be made and essential experiences to be learned.

And then, of course, there was the fact that Adrien Agreste was almost certainly here, attending the party with his father. Ladybug's - Marinette's - nerves fluttered at the thought of seeing him dressed up in person.

"Come on, you stray, where are you?" she muttered. Her left hand anxiously fingered her yo-yo, sorely tempted to try and call her partner.

As if finally in response to her concern, there was a muffled noise and a green and black shadow suddenly dropped down from somewhere above to land right outside, standing behind the glass doors. The figure waved a black-gloved hand at her and bared a white-toothed grin.

"Finally," Ladybug exclaimed in a breath, forgetting herself for a moment and striding over to the door, accidentally cutting off the doorman.

Seeing Chat Noir clearly for the first time, however, she started before she could even touch the door.

She and Chat didn't need to dress up as something entirely different; as Ladybug and Chat Noir, the two were already walking masquerades. To dress in themes that didn't match their superhero personas would only end up being confusing. And yet Ladybug still found herself surprised.

Chat was dressed in a suit, of course, but that did nothing to prevent absolutely everything about him from still being so Chat; his black tailcoat, whose tail was split distinctly into two, was plainly open, displaying a waistcoat of green that complemented his eyes, over a white dress shirt. Instead of a bow tie, Chat wore his customary golden bell, and he had suspenders dangling freely from the waist of his black trousers instead of on his shoulders. His normal black mask was still there, as well as the cat-ear clips in his usual messy blond mane and the belt-tail; nothing had changed about them.

Nevertheless, the outfit suited Chat well, and despite herself, Ladybug thought that he actually looked almost… handsome in it.

Chat's smile had faltered at the sight of Ladybug, his eyes suddenly scanning her up and down in - shock? Awe? He looked like he was barely managing to keep his mouth from falling open.

Feeling a bit embarrassed and even awkward at the attention he was giving her - and suddenly remembering that he had never seen her, supposedly the girl he loved, in a dress before - she finally opened the door for Chat and said lightly, without thinking, "You dress up nicely, kitty."

Why, oh why did I just say that? She was supposed to be discouraging his advances, not encouraging them.

"T- Thanks," Chat stammered out after a moment, finally looking away from her and stepping inside. She couldn't miss the slight daze that had permeated his words, or the faint blush that now appeared on his cheeks. As if finally remembering himself, Chat took Ladybug's hand and bowed over it, grazing the knuckles with chapped lips she thought she could feel through her own, thin gloves.

"You look beautiful, my Lady," he said softly, glancing up at her with some surprise - she had never let him kiss her hand before without interrupting it somehow - before straightening up again.

Ladybug cleared her throat, painfully aware of the doorman nearby who was watching them with no small amount of interest. "Thank you, Chat."

Finally sensing something, Chat raised his eyebrows slightly and looked, seeing the doorman for the first time, who only tipped his head silently, trying to hide his amusement; based on Ladybug's actions, he'd already judged him to be the real Chat Noir, and he certainly didn't want to interrupt them.

Chat's blush from earlier, which had started to fade, returned again. He cleared his throat too, mimicking Ladybug. Finally, he said, "Shall we grace the party with our presence, my Lady?"

Ladybug flashed a bright smile. "I thought you'd never ask, silly kitty."