MiracuCrack #N8: First Times Are Always Awkward
(Timeline: In between the two Origins episodes, just after their first battle with Stoneheart.)
Alya Césaire arrived home feeling excited like she had never been before. And why not? This afternoon had been like nothing she'd ever imagined.
What a STORY! Paris got its first supervillain AND its first two superheroes, and I was right there to record the whole battle on my smartphone! she thought. Ladybug even saved me personally! I HELPED them spring their trap!
She sat down at her desk and called up the video that she'd recorded. Alya, girl, this could be your ticket to becoming a real journalist. Right there, embedded in the action, fearlessly recording the facts and informing all of...
Paris...
Oh...
Oh, boy.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng trod slowly up the steps of Collège Françoise Dupont, her worries consuming her.
I told Tikki that I wasn't cut out to be a superhero, to be this Ladybug... and I guess I was right all along, she fretted. The morning news showed all these frozen Stonehearts all over Paris, and Tikki told me how my forgetting to capture the Akuma caused that. What a disaster!
She stared down at her purse, knowing the precious cargo that it contained. The earrings had caused more trouble than anything else, as far as Marinette was concerned, and she'd simply have to find someone else who was more qualified to use them.
But who? she wondered. Ms. Bustier, perhaps? Maybe Rose? She's a really positive person. Maybe Mylène, so that she can try to rescue Ivan?
I'll have to think about - YIPE!
Marinette took one step inside the front door of the school, and was instantly yanked to the side by someone grabbing her arm. "What the heck?" she gasped.
"Shhh. It's me, Alya. We have to talk. In private. Right now," a voice hissed at her.
"Alya, what are you doing? We have to get to class or we're going to be late," she protested.
Alya stepped forward slightly, with an intense expression on her face. "Nothing in your life right now is more important than this... Ladybug," she whispered.
With a look of shock on her face, Marinette followed along meekly, her ears ringing with Alya's last statement.
HOW did she find out? she screamed in her head. I mean, now that I think of it, my costume didn't really cover my head very well, but I didn't think that it was THAT obvious...
Alya pulled her through the hallways in search of a private spot, and settled on the back of the library. As they darted into a secluded corner, Marinette scrambled for words to say that would make sense. "I... I don't know what you saw, or what you think you saw yesterday, Alya. But I saw that Lady... girl and the catboy on TV, and maybe she does look like me a little bit, but..." she stammered.
Alya gave her a dismissive look. "You're really going to tell me that that wasn't you out there?" she replied, with a grim smile. "You won't in a minute. Trust me."
Marinette changed tactics, figuring that denial wasn't working. "Okay, so maybe I was. But I don't know what you want from me, and it won't matter soon anyway, because I'm not going to be Ladybug any more," she ventured.
Alya's startled voice surprised Marinette. "Wait a second... you're not?" she gasped. "But why not?"
"Well, you were there, weren't you?" Marinette asked, sounding very down on herself. "I was terrible at it. I was nearly too scared to act, then you almost got hurt by that flying net. We only stopped him with a lucky trick, and I even messed that up, and now the streets are full of Stonehearts waiting to be activated."
Alya leaned down, looking very concerned. "No, honey... no! That's not what I saw at all! You were new at this, but you were so brave, so creative... but we can talk about that later! There's something that you absolutely have to see."
"What's that?" sniffled Marinette.
"Just watch this video."
Marinette watched as Alya clicked the Play button on her phone. It seemed strange to see the battle-about-to-happen through someone else's perspective.
"Okay..." mumbled Marinette, watching Stoneheart make his appearance. "I remember seeing that... and there's Chat Noir. But..."
Her jaw dropped.
"Um..."
Alya whispered, "Oh, keep watching."
"Alya... what kind of app did you use to record this? Did you edit this? Because I know this isn't what it looked like," gasped Marinette. "You were there! You know what he looked like!"
"Of course! He had his black leather suit, and those little ears on top of his head. He didn't look quite like that. Not... that it's a particularly bad look for him, wouldn't you say?" grinned Alya.
"I don't know if I can... we shouldn't be watching this, Alya! He's... he's that new classmate of ours, and he's -"
"Okay, right about now. This is where you came in," Alya noted.
Marinette watched, intently... and had to suppress a scream when she saw herself.
"ALYA! Why am I..." she cried out.
"...in the stadium, leaping around like a jumping bean, throwing a yo-yo and fighting a rock golem? That's a good question." Alya continued, "...But I'm guessing you're more worried about the other thing."
"Why are Chat Noir and I NAKED?"
Alya wrapped her arms around her new friend, consolingly. "Marinette, no one else has seen this. I haven't shared it with anyone, and I don't intend to! But you had to see it before I erased it, or you'd never believe me," she said.
"I don't... I don't... Why am I naked in that video, Alya? You saw me there! I was fully clothed and masked the whole time! I know I was!" Marinette panted.
"I know you were! I saw you with my own eyes!" agreed Alya. "You and Chat Noir were costumed from head to toe. I'd hardly believe that you were some kind of super-acrobat if you were just you, you know? But the camera... the camera says otherwise."
"I don't get this at all," panicked Marinette. "Was this some kind of group hallucination? It can't be. How could we all have had the same dream?" She shuddered, then came to a decision, and reached into her purse for the mysterious black box. "You know my secret now, anyway, so it's not like this is blowing anything..." she added, putting in the earrings.
Alya stared at her, waiting for a change that didn't immediately happen.
"Tikki..." Marinette said, "come out here, please. We need to talk, right now."
A tiny voice in her purse replied, "Marinette, you know that other people aren't supposed to know about -"
"Tikki... get your tiny red ass out here NOW."
After a brief round of somewhat shocked introductions, Tikki viewed the footage and shook her miniature head, worriedly. "Okay, this is... this is bad," she conceded.
"You think?" snapped Marinette. "If news crews had reached that fight in time, my bare butt would have been on the eleven o'clock news! And a lot more than that! And Adrien's... well, never mind what of Adrien's!"
"You're blushing, Marinette," Tikki replied. "Don't tell me that you've never seen one of those before..."
"I'm trying not to see this one. Tikki, what the heck happened? Explain this, if you ever expect me to go out in costume again!"
Tikki flew in little circles, trying to make sense of things. "Okay. First off, the costume is real. You weren't really naked out there, so there's that much that's right. But..."
She stared at Alya's phone, looking curious. "This is some kind of a computer, right? With a camera attached to it? Recording without any film, somehow?" she asked.
Alya nodded. "You've never seen one before?"
"The last time I was out of the box and transforming a host was nearly a hundred years ago! We didn't have these... computer cameras then," Tikki tried to explain. "Kwamis - that's what I am, Alya, I'm called a Kwami - can't be photographed or recorded. So when you transformed to Ladybug, my magic made that happen; I'm kind of part of the costume. And that means that if people see you with their own eyes, you look like Ladybug. But if you're recorded on camera..."
"...I'm the world's first naked super-gymnast. Lovely," whimpered Marinette. "Is there anything that we can do about that?"
"I'm not sure!" Tikki worried. "The magic is pretty thorough... it transforms everything you're wearing into the costume, and then changes it back when you're done. I'd need to speak with my master and see what he knows about these things, and you're not ready to meet him yet. Especially if you're thinking of giving me up."
"I... Tikki, I don't know what I'm doing yet, okay?" she replied. "I'm scared. I'm really scared. My life has been turned upside down in twenty-four hours, I put all of Paris in danger by not capturing the Akuma, and I was nearly full frontal in all the morning newspapers. I need to think about this!"
"They wouldn't put... that in the newspapers, would they?" wondered Tikki.
"Welcome to France," chuckled Alya.
Tucking Tikki away for now, the pair headed for their first class, making up a somewhat unconvincing story as to their reason for lateness. To their relief, Ms. Bustier shrugged it off this time.
Marinette, for some odd reason, couldn't keep her mind on her studies. It didn't help much that halfway through class, there was a very strange disturbance. Somewhere in the area of Adrien's messenger bag, the most curious thing happened; it sounded like a tiny voice shouted "...What?", followed by a round of loud and hearty laughter.
When Adrien checked his bag, however, he found nothing unusual. In fact, he found an absence of something unusual... but it wasn't really the time or place to ask if anyone around him had seen it.
At the end of class, Adrien stepped out into the hallway, only to be stopped by Marinette and Alya. "Hey, um... it's Adrien, right?" Marinette asked. "We have something that you're really going to need to see. Can you come with us for a minute?"
"Uh... sure?" said Adrien, a little relieved that the pigtailed girl was speaking to him again, but also confused. "But can it wait 'til lunch, maybe? I do need to get to Physics before the bell rings."
"Trust us, kittycat. This is more important," Alya smiled.
Kittycat?
"Lead on."
Adrien looked as pale as a ghost. "So you're telling me that I'm like that... through the whole video?" he asked, haltingly.
"You are," Alya confirmed. "And so was Ladybug, but a gentleman wouldn't ask to see that part of it, would he?"
"Um... n-no! Of course not," he stammered. "Not that there'd be anything to be ashamed of... I mean... nothing I wouldn't want to see, if we were... but... I'll shut up now."
"Thank you," blushed Marinette. "I'm just as horrified and embarrassed as you are, trust me."
"So what do we do now?" asked Plagg, popping into view. "I mean, now that we're all aware of this little naked thing."
"It wasn't that litt-"
"ALYA!" gasped Marinette. "Stop! Seriously. I don't even want to think about..."
"Moving on," mumbled Adrien, as red as a fire truck.
"Okay! I understand that emotions are running high right now. I'm sorry about that," apologized Tikki. "But we do have something to consider. If Ivan gets sad or angry again, all those Stonehearts in the streets are going to wake up. We're going to need a Ladybug and a Chat Noir, clothed in front of the world or not."
"Can we count on you two?" Plagg asked them.
Marinette swallowed hard. This would be the ultimate humiliation... but can I live with myself if I don't, when all these lives are at stake?
She opened her mouth to speak, but Adrien spoke first. "Let me put it this way. Personally, I'd be willing... if it would help save Paris, I can live with those consequences... except that if I'm recorded starkers in public, the paparazzi response would ruin my father's company. I have to think about that too."
He looked over at Marinette, and added, "And I'm sure that this brave young woman would be the best partner I could ever ask for, but I'd never ask her to sacrifice her dignity like that."
Marinette smiled at him. Maybe... he _wasn't_ lying about the gum on my seat, after all, she thought. He doesn't seem like that kind of person after all.
"If I have to... if it's really that desperate... I would do it," she allowed. "I'd hate it... I'd have to move to another continent afterwards, under an assumed name... but I'd do it. But is there really no alternative?"
Plagg scratched his head. "Well... there is one thing we could try..."
"There is?" Tikki asked.
"If you two knew two other people who could take on the roles temporarily, just this once, and we could sneak the two Miraculous back from them afterwards... people who wouldn't mind being exposed like that?" Plagg ventured. "Who'd be happy to be in the public eye?"
"You know... I just might," said Adrien, thinking hard. "Someone my father's worked with a couple of times. How about you, Marinette?"
She grinned an evil, evil grin.
"I know just the girl."
Marinette and Adrien stood side-by-side in the crowd at the press conference, as Parisians celebrated the first outing of their city's two new superheroes.
"ROCK AND ROLL!" shouted Chat Noir, holding his guitar in the air proudly. "HELLO, PARIS!"
"I can't believe you knew Jagged Stone!" giggled Marinette. "And that he'd agree to this!"
"Like I said, I don't know know him... but I knew enough about him that I didn't think he'd care. 'All publicity is good publicity' in the music business, you know," Adrien grinned. He added, "You know, I meant what I said earlier. Once this mysterious benefactor adjusts the magic so that the costumes will show up on camera, I think you'd be an amazing partner in this. Do you think that you'll keep doing it?"
"I think I can handle it," Marinette smiled. "It'll actually be easier with our knowing our identities like this. We can help cover for each other, when we need to get away..."
"Yes, hello, Paris!" beamed the young woman standing next to him, proudly waving to the crowd. "My name is Chloé Bourgeois, and today, I am your Ladybug!" She pranced and posed for the sea of cameras, with lights flashing and reporters barking out questions. "Please, please, one at a time!" she told them. "I'll be happy to speak with all of you. I think this is my most photogenic side, don't you?", she added, striking a heroic pose.
"Well, Chloé finally got what she always wanted... to be a superstar," smiled Adrien. "And I don't think Paris is ever going to forget her name after today. Especially after..."
He paused, doing some mental calculations, then turned to Marinette. "You... did tell her, right?"
Marinette whistled innocently...
~fin~