Day 4: Common Interests
This is meant to be sort of a Private Eye AU!
Ladybug crouched low at the edge of a sloping metal roof. She dipped her head below the gutter to look left, then right over a dark alley. Seeing no one, she slipped forward on her stomach until she could roll off the edge, her fingertips gripping the gutter as her biceps engaged to hold her weight above the ground. She dropped soundlessly onto the pavement below. Perfect. She checked left and right again, secure in her solitude. Hawkmoth's dirty hush money wouldn't buy innocence for much longer. Her client had a solid lead on evidence exposing Hawkmoth's vile akuma racket. Ladybug just had to go get it. Simple - for a Parisian girl with a Miraculous.
Quick, silent steps brought her to a rusty metal door marked with chalk. An unremarkable scribble matched what her client had brought her on a bar napkin - the subtle signal that this warehouse was owned by Hawkmoth. She pressed her ear to the door, but it was silent inside. Her luck was definitely holding. No perimeter guards, no one working inside. She would have been suspicious that this was a wild goose chase, except that her client, known only as N.S. to Ladybug, swore up and down that this was the headquarters of Hawkmoth's operations. N.S. had never let her down before. Ladybug knelt before the door and drew her lock pick equipment from a small compartment in her yo-yo.
"Okay, Lady Luck, let's make this happen," she muttered, placing two of the tools between her lips and inserting two others in the lock. Sure enough, the doorknob clicked and the door swung open as effortlessly as if she had brought a key. Suspicion flared again. This is too easy. Had N.S. set her up?
Ears pricked for any sound, she took two slow steps inside the door, sticking to the left doorjamb as she let her eyes adjust to the darkness. A full moon sent murky beams down through dusty skylights. Ladybug knew from her recon over the last several weeks that there was a back office opposite where she stood now. N.S. had instructed her to find the safe behind a big desk there. Inside was an old-fashioned ledger notebook listing every one of Hawkmoth's akuma sellers and clients. He went old school to keep his files from being hacked. The ledger was the only record of his activity. Ladybug held her breath, listening. No sound. Not even a drip of water. Finally sure she wasn't being tricked, she pushed out a sigh of relief. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in her own ears and she schooled her breathing into silence. Ladybug shouldered her small backpack and clicked on the flashlight in her yo-yo. The back office was twenty feet away.
With a spring in her step, she started across the warehouse, only to jump back suddenly when the whistle of metal slicing through the air hit her alert ears. Chat Noir's metal baton cracked down on the cement floor where she'd been standing, the sound reverberating through the open space.
"Ladybug! Fancy seeing you here," the black-clad figure leered at her from a rafter overhead, his baton gleaming dully in the moonlight as it retracted into his hand.
"Chat Noir," she grimaced, planting her feet and raising two fists in greeting.
"Aww, is that any way to greet your old pal?" Chat Noir completed a neat flip and landed between Ladybug and the office door. "I'm not feline the love, Love."
"Don't call me that," Ladybug snapped. She launched a flying kick at his head, but Chat Noir easily sidestepped and whacked her shin playfully with his baton as she sailed past. "Oh!" she exclaimed as she landed, rubbing the offended leg then bouncing back up to face him again.
Chat Noir sighed mournfully. "You're getting slow, Bugaboo. Time was, I could never guess what you'd come up with next. You were fur-ocious when we were together." Chat Noir's eyes glowed with green fire in the near darkness. Flustered, Ladybug could only guess at his implications as she gathered herself to launch another offensive. Anger pulsed along with the heartbeat in her ears. How dare he? As though she were the traitor.
"How's Daddy Dearest?" she taunted, but he stayed cool, sidestepping another jab. They circled each other, neither breaking their locked gazes.
"Those eyes..." Chat Noir purred. Ladybug felt unaccountably bare before him as his gaze swept over her whole body. "I remember how they looked when you -"
"Don't say it!" Ladybug shouted, taking a small step back. Then she turned and ran, straight for the office Chat Noir was supposed to be protecting. She heard a bark of laughter behind her. Despite herself, she let slip a small grin. She slid into the office like it was home base, slammed the door, twisted the deadbolt, and shoved the desk up against it. It had exterior windows, but she knew she'd have a minute or two before Chat could go around and bust them in.
Ladybug knelt before the safe, her yo-yo light shining on the bar napkin. 56-25-87-32-54. What a crappy old safe. What had Hawkmoth been thinking? As she pulled the handle to open it, she heard a click. A blast slammed into and through the safe door and Ladybug hauled herself out of the way just in time. Too close, Bug, she told herself. She reached in and felt around for a wide, black notebook, taking care to avoid the hot metal of a rigged pistol that still smoked. She drew it out and it slipped from her fingertips as Chat Noir's long arm dipped down in front of her face. Startled, she looked up. He saluted her with a cocky grin, leaping to a window. "Don't take it purr-sonally, Milady. You win some, you lose some. 'Til next time!" He waved the ledger book at her and disappeared into the night, gone before Ladybug could reach the window to peer out after him.
"Drat that cat! When I get hold of him…" Ladybug let her feelings flare for an instant, then smolder low. She'd have her day.
Chat Noir nestled into a small crevice behind a chimney, certain he'd lost Ladybug. Oh, that girl. He chuckled to himself. He missed her, he surely did. He thumbed open the ledger he'd purloined from his Lady. His father would be very pleased with this save - except, where were the records? He paged through, back and forth, but the book was blank. Had his father set up a decoy? He turned to the first page. Oh, merde.
The inscription read, "Start keeping track of the ones I owe you, Chat. I'll pay you back, with interest."
