Disclaimer:

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is not mine. I'm only a fangirl, dying for Season 2 to begin. Enjoy my attempt to console myself while we wait.


Chapter 2: Heartbroken

Adrien was extremely uncomfortable. Chloé Bourgeois had practically jumped him at the door when she'd seen him walk into Le Grand Paris, the hotel she and her father lived in and the place where tonight's charity banquet was being held. She'd slipped her cold hand into his and said, "You look dashing, Adriekins. You're sitting with me, of course." Then she'd dragged him to a giant ballroom and through a traffic jam of guests to a table marked "1" at the very front. Now he was trying to get through the salad course while she chewed his ear off about things he didn't care to discuss.

"Are you sure you don't want to come back to school, Adriekins?" she was currently saying.

"No," he said flatly.

"But your seat is so lonely without you in it," she drawled. "Every time I look across the aisle in class, all I can think about is how much I wish you were there."

He imagined what school would have been like for him if every time he looked across the aisle, Chloé's seat had been empty. Better, probably. Not that it mattered. He couldn't go back.

She clutched his arm. "Are you and your father still getting those scary and terrifying threats?" she asked, her voice just low enough to emphasize how dramatic this was, but still loud enough for half the table to hear.

That was especially a subject he didn't want to talk about. Gabriel Agreste was famous in the fashion world, but not for his compassion. There were a lot of people he could have rubbed the wrong way through the years with his stuffy demeanor, and this summer a disgruntled someone had made an appearance in their lives. Whoever it was had threatened Adrien to get to Gabriel, and the next thing Adrien knew he had two bodyguards that were constantly watching him. If he hadn't given up on Chat Noir by then, he'd have been seriously screwed. As it was, his bodyguards proved to be extremely effective at deterring any threat coming his way. So whoever it was went after Adrien's friends instead. And found Marinette, of all people. The reminder of it all made his stomach sour.

"I can't talk about it," he said shortly to Chloé, who nodded at him with over-exaggerated concern.

"I completely understand, Adrien." She petted his arm. "Poor baby. You must be so traumatized by everything. And you don't need school, anyway. You have Chloé to keep you updated on everyone."

She went on, and he went back to skillfully ignoring her while she talked at him. His main course had just arrived. It was a pasta dish. He went to work on it. Normally, he thought Le Grand Paris had pretty impressive catering abilities, but lately, nothing he ate tasted right. He chewed on a noodle. It felt like slippery rubber in his mouth.

"…and you should see Marinette. She's completely changed. She cut her hair hideously short, and she's wearing these outfits that look like absolute bags on her. Although maybe that's just her old clothes. I swear she gets skinnier everyday, and she's still constantly late to class." Chloé flipped her hair back. "Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if we find out she's got some kind of awful disease."

Tonight's charity banquet was being held on behalf of a children's hospital. Some of the people at their table were young adults who had been very sick as kids and were here to give speeches about what the benefactors of the children's hospital had meant for their lives. Adrien tried not to groan out loud at Chloé's comment.

"I know it's just a dream, but I wish she would drop out and you would come back. My life would be so much better that way!"

Adrien set down his silverware and put his napkin on the table. He looked straight at Chloé for the first time all night. Her dress was designer, but it was cut way too low and it was an awful shade of gold. Her signature lipstick was even paler tonight, and it made her lips look plastic. She fluttered her eyebrows at him like she was trying to flirt.

He stood up. "Marinette is one of the best people I know," he said, and he only narrowly escaped adding "and you are one of the worst" before he walked away and headed to the men's room in an angry haze. He didn't feel his head start to clear until he was leaning against a sink, looking at himself in the mirror. His clothes would have been hanging off him, too, if his father hadn't required a "wardrobe refresh" after he'd noticed how much weight Adrien had lost. His father also grilled him about whether he might have an eating disorder ("a lot of male models do, Adrien"), and Adrien had not missed how closely his father's personal assistant, Nathalie, watched him when he ate these days. He did not have an eating disorder. He had a depressing life.

"Well isn't she a joy," a sarcastic voice said from his tuxedo pocket.

Adrien moaned. "Plagg, I told you I didn't want you sneaking into my pockets anymore."

Plagg, his very unhappy kwami, popped out of Adrien's pocket, jumped onto the sink and then hopped up to stand on a ledge below the mirror. "And I told you that you don't have a choice," Plagg retorted. "You're the chosen one, whether you and I like it or not. You're stuck with me." He made a rude noise. "And I'm stuck with you."

Adrien shut his eyes and hung his head, and then the noise of a crowd panicking in the ballroom made his eyes pop back open. He grabbed Plagg, stuck him back in his pocket, and stepped cautiously outside the men's room again, where he immediately had to flatten himself against the wall to avoid a stampede. A man wearing green-striped pants and a gaudy white jacket was following the crowd. He pointed a walking stick at guests as they ran. A victim passing Adrien got hit by a bolt of green light coming from the walking stick, and in an instant, the man's wallet had been yanked out of his pocket and was flying back to the obviously akumatized villain. The villain dumped the wallet's contents into a green money bag.

"I am the Fundraiser!" he bellowed. "You greedy fools! You keep your cash to yourself and look the other way when someone needs you. Cheap bastards! Most of you are only here because your company pitched in, and you wanted the free dinner. Now's your time to pay your dues!"

Adrien sucked in a breath and held it.

"You have to do something, Adrien!" Plagg said urgently from his pocket. "It's your responsibility! Quick! The men's room! You can transform there."

"No, Plagg! It's my responsibility to keep Paris safe," Adrien hissed back at Plagg. "And I'm doing that by not transforming!"

"But Adrien-" Plagg begged as Adrien shot into the crowd and followed the flow to the exits.

He was almost there when someone behind him yelled, "Look! It's Ladybug!"

Adrien couldn't help but turn to look with the rest of the crowd. Sure enough, Ladybug had just whipped in from what seemed like nowhere. The sight of her made his heart race and his stomach flip. He hadn't seen her in real life for months. He always tuned in when there was live coverage of her on the television. He could never help that either. As sure as he was that she didn't need him, he worried about her every second she fought alone. So he watched her like everyone else did, praying that she would be okay as a one-woman show. Now, seeing her in person, he was reminded strongly of why he was so crazy for her. She exuded confidence, and she looked amazing swinging that magic yo-yo around as she headed directly toward the latest villain and shouted, "Not so fast, Fundraiser!"

After that, watching her was like watching some kind of nostalgic film clip for Adrien. She was so incredibly fluid, effective and downright dangerous. He probably should have left, but he was spell-bound, and he wasn't alone. The stampede had stopped, and everyone was watching her in awe. The crowd cheered her on. It gasped collectively at close calls. It went crazy when she'd broken the Fundraiser's walking stick. Adrien was stuck in the middle of it, completely incapable of escaping. It was only after she captured the akuma and released it as a butterfly that he felt he might be able to walk again. The reporters that had been there to cover the dinner called for her, and he started heading toward the exit, taking one more look back first…

And that was when he realized that all was not entirely well with Ladybug, even if she had won another fight. The little spring that was supposed to be there in her step wasn't there as she headed toward the reporters. Her face was tight in a way he didn't remember it looking. Her magic suit clung perfectly to her body, but it seemed like there were fewer curves to cling to than there had been the last time he'd seen her. She reached the reporters, who instantly began hitting her with a slew of questions that made him want to yell out: "Give her a break! She just saved your asses again!"

"Is there anything you'd like to say, Ladybug? Anyone you'd like to send a message to?" one of the reporters asked her coyly, and that question made Adrien want to smack him.

Ladybug didn't smile back. "Yes," she said seriously, and she looked directly into the camera. "To Chat Noir."

The crowd hushed and the reporter practically stood on his toes. Ladybug generally refused to answer questions about Chat Noir. This was exactly what they wanted to hear.

"And what do you want to say, Ladybug?" the reporter urged. "It's been over a hundred days since we last heard from your feline partner, hasn't it? A rather long absence."

Ladybug sighed. "Not that I'm counting, but it's only been 96 days since I last heard from him." She looked into the camera again. "And Chat Noir…wherever you are, whatever you're doing…what I want to say is: Paris needs you." She paused, grimaced and went on. "I need you. Please come back."

The reporter opened his mouth.

"No questions," Ladybug snapped, and then she was off in the wink of an eye, and Adrien felt so dizzily ill that he thought he might fall.

Plagg spoke up from Adrien's jacket. "You should listen to her." He tugged on Adrien's lapel. "Paris does need you."

"Paris needs Ladybug," Adrien said weakly. "Not me."

"But Adrien," Plagg pleaded, "Ladybug needs you."

He tucked Plagg back into his jacket and decided he needed fresh air. The charity dinner could conclude without him.

"She doesn't know what she needs."

He walked out of the hotel and into the rain.


Marinette changed back to her civilian self behind the hotel and slumped there with her shoulders down. There was a chill in the air with the rain, and it felt like it was soaking deep into her bones. Tikki crept out from the purse she always kept her kwami in at her side. "Marinette?" she asked softly. "Are you okay?"

Marinette wiped tears that were falling from her eyes. They'd started coming down before she'd even gotten out of the crowd. Thank God for superhero masks. She'd almost broken down in front of the reporters. It had been 107 days since she'd last seen Chat Noir, and 96 days since the note he'd left for her saying she would never see him again. The Fundraiser was the 25th villain she'd had to fight on her own. This was the first time she'd tried to reach out to Cat through the media. She was not okay.

"Are you sure he's alive, Tikki?" she asked.

"I'm sure," Tikki answered. "Ladybug and Chat Noir can't exist without each other. If one dies, the other's powers gradually decrease, and then Plagg and I return to our master, and we must wait until a new Ladybug and Chat Noir are found."

"I feel tired," Marinette said. "Maybe my powers are dying."

"You feel tired because you've had to fight alone. That doesn't mean your powers are going anywhere," Tikki insisted. "He's out there."

"Then why won't he help me anymore?"

"Be patient, Marinette," Tikki said. "Your Chat Noir was chosen, just like you, and your last battle together was difficult."

"But he wasn't the one who got hurt," Marinette said.

"Not every hurt is physical," Tikki said. "He may take longer to heal than you."

"I just want him back, Tikki," Marinette said.

She walked away from the hotel and into the rain.