Chapter 3

In which we round out the cast, Chloe needs some sleep, and someone only thinks outside the box.

Adrien smiled as he stepped out of his private (and still completely unnecessary) limo and saw Nino, Alya, and Marinette waiting for him at the top of the school's stairs. The three of them waved to him and he said a quick goodbye to Nathalie and Gorilla before going up to meet them.

"Yo dude, what's up?" Nino asked, exchanging their patented "secret" handshake.

"Not much, just glad to be back at school," he told them, with a tired smile.

The other three smiled, but still looked at each other anxiously. It was no secret that yesterday had been the anniversary of his mother's death. All the fashion industries of Paris had paid tribute to the tragic passing of one of the most beautiful and beloved models it had ever had. Gabriel Agreste made sure of it.

The four of them stood awkwardly looking at each other for a minute. Finally, Alya dropped the casual act with an exasperated groan and grabbed Nino and Marinette to pull all four of them into a big group hug. The other two resisted a little at first, but soon gave up and wrapped their arms around Adrien as well. Adrien chuckled a little and did his best to hug them all back.

"Thanks guys…"

They had all made it clear to Adrien that they were there for him, and each had called to check up on him throughout the day yesterday, and had repeatedly offered to come over if he needed them. He could never tell them, but it was their support that made him choose that day to finally confront Chloe and mend their relationship. He knew his friends would be there for him no matter what, and that convinced him he needed to start being there for his family. Well, the family he thought he had a chance of reaching anyway.

The four of them separated with each one of them wiping their eyes. This time their smiles were all much more genuine. Nino patted him on the back and they all silently made their way to class. There wasn't anything more to be said, his friends were there for him, and that was that.

As he climbed the stairs his thoughts turned to Chloe. She hadn't answered any of the texts he had sent last night, or this morning for that matter. She had looked pretty tired when he had left her though, so she had probably just went to bed early and had woken up late. She was going to need the rest for this afternoon. He was so excited to show her what she had been missing, he had been half tempted to call her this morning and ask if she wanted to skip school for the day so they could get right to the fun. Ladybug probably wouldn't approve of such a thing though, so they'd wait. But once that bell rung they would be out the door and hitting the rooftops faster than you could say "Claws Out!"

He was so lost in thought, he barely noticed that Chloe was already in her usual seat when they entered the classroom. She had her back to them and seemed to be muttering to herself while digging around in her purse. As usual the other three completely ignored her, save for Alya who just shot her a nasty look. Adrien only realized she was there after he had sat down and started taking out his things.

"Hey Chloe," he called. She stiffened up. Clearly, she hadn't been aware of him either. "How are you…"

His voice died when she turned around to face him. She didn't look especially happy to see him. Though that may have had something to do with the large and painful looking black eye she was sporting.

Alya whistled loudly, while Marinette did a double take, and Nino quietly whispered "dude" under his breath. They all stared at the bold new 'racoon' look the Mayor's daughter was trying out. She had bags under the eye that wasn't completely bruised, which were clearly visible since she wasn't wearing her usual makeup, or even any foundation. Though going off of how swollen and bruised her eye was, it may simply have been too painful to put it on that morning.

Adrien was frozen in his seat one second, and the next he was less than an inch away from her in a state of near panic.

"What happened? Who did this? Are you hurt? Should I call an ambulance? Do you need a doctor? Has anyone seen Rose?"

"Adrien!"

Chloe grabbed him by the cheeks and brought his now fishlipped face level with hers.

"I. Am. Fine." She told him, looking him straight in the eye, or at least as straight as she could. "I'm okay. It's just a black eye, nothing to worry about. So calm down, okay?"

Adrien did calm down a bit and Chloe let go of his cheeks and gave him a gentle and reassuring smile.

"…wow."

Chloe stiffened as she realized they were in public now. A quick glance around and she saw that most of the assembled class was staring at her in surprise. Well, Alya looked like the universe had just turned upside down and Marinette was looking from Adrien to Chloe like she was about to burst into tears, but on the whole the expression was surprise.

"I mean, I'm sure I'll be fine if my charming Adrikins would give me a kiss to make it all better!" Chloe declared for the classes benefit, being sure to aggressively cuddle up to (elbowed) Adrien and make large pouting kissy lips at him.

Adrien gave a subtle grunt, and gently pushed her back into her seat, giving her an unhappy frown as he clutched his ribs.

"Uh… Yeah you're fine," he said, getting the message as she let herself be pushed away, though he made no effort to move from his spot next to her.

Seeing them go back to their normal dynamic, the rest of the class dismissed the odd exchange without a second thought and went about their business. Alya continued to look at them suspiciously, but Marinette breathed a deep sigh of relief. As usual Adrien failed to notice her, but Chloe still shot her a glare, silently telling Marinette not to get too comfortable.

"Seriously though Chloe, what happened to you?" Adrien asked quietly.

Chloe pursed her lips for a moment before answering.

"I had a little… pest problem in my room last night."

Despite being across the room, Alya suddenly perked up asking, "Was it another Akuma attack?"

Adrien looked worried, as did Marinette for some reason, but Chloe quickly shook her head.

"No. It was just a… wasp or something."

Alya looked at her skeptically.

"A wasp gave you a black eye?" Then she laughed. "If that's true, then I think Ladybug might be in danger of losing her place as most heroic bug in Paris."

Chloe and Adrien looked at her appalled while Marinette seemed to wilt a little for some reason. Noticing Marinette, and the dangerous glares the two blonds were giving her, Alya quickly corrected, "I mean, Ladybug's still number one of course! She just… never punched the walking Akuma magnet in the face is all."

The mood did not improve

"For your information, nobody punched me," Chloe said, tossing her head back dismissively. Then she cringed and gingerly rubbed her still sore and bruised neck. "I just tripped over some furniture while dealing with the little home invader," she grumbled.

Alya smirked.

"Well, glad to hear karma finally caught up with you." She said, then went back to her phone, though she gave Marinette an apologetic look.

"Yeah, it can be a real Bee-itch." Chloe mumbled, still rubbing her neck.

Adrien beamed at her.

"Did you just make a pun?" he whispered to her. Chloe shot him a wiry look.

"Don't push it," she told him and nudged him back towards his side of the aisle.

He went, smiling proudly the whole way until his mind began to connect the dots. He looked over at Chloe again and realized for the first time that she was wearing a new hair accessory. She caught his eyes and saw him looking at the golden bee sitting just in front of her pony tail in place of a hair tie. It blended in with her golden blond hair perfectly, so you wouldn't notice it immediately unless you knew to look for it, but Adrien did, and he quickly realized who the "pest" in her room last night must have been.

Before he could do anything but give her a guilty and questioning look, a loud gasp and the thudding of falling books drew everyone's attention to the front of the class. Rose, with Juleka of course, had arrived.

As soon as she had spotted Chloe's black eye, Rose had dropped the school books she was carrying and thrown her hands up to her face to gasp in horror at such an injury. Juleka on the other hand looked almost impressed.

"Oh my goodness! Are you okay?"

Rose produced a bright pink first aid box from… somewhere, and nearly flew to her injured classmate. It made no difference that Chloe and her toady Sabrina were still the number one source of torment and suffering for herself and everyone else at the school. Someone was hurt, so Rose had to take care of them. Juleka just shook her head and began picking up the books Rose had dropped, as Rose pressed her palm against Chloe's forehead and started shining a light in her eyes.

As Chloe tried in vain to fight off her class's self-appointed nurse, she leaned back and accidently stuck her hand into her purse.

"OW!"

Rose jumped back as Chloe swore and quickly pulled her stinging hand out of the angrily buzzing lion's den she had foolishly stuck it in.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt-"

"It wasn't you!" Chloe snapped, holding her already swelling hand and glaring at her previously beloved designer handbag. "I just… pricked myself on something in my purse…"

Rose gasped again and grabbed Chloe's hand. She pulled a magnifying glass out of the first aid box and began looking it over closely.

"Was it broken glass? There could be shards in the skin! We'll need to cut them out immediately if it's broken glass before it gets into the bloodstream."

Chloe felt close to tears as she tried to pull her hand back and saw Juleka carefully lift a sterilized pink scalpel from the first aid box to hand to Rose.

Adrien couldn't help but give a sympathetic smile as Chloe began pleading for her hand back and insisting that there was no glass. He didn't enjoy seeing her suffer, but even he had to agree she had it coming. Like she'd said, karma was a real bee-itch. Though Chloe would get a chance to dish out some just desserts of her own soon, and he was sure she'd start changing her ways once she got a taste of that sweet nectar of justice.

…And got to flirt with a few girls.

'Well,' he thought, as he watched Rose lead a still frantic and almost broken Chloe out the door and off to the school nurse's office.

'If she can survive that long...'

Chloe lay on the school's hospital bed feeling like a partially wrapped frozen mummy.

Once Rose had noticed the bruise on Chloe's neck while they were waiting for the nurse to fetch an icepack for her eye, she had nearly stripped Chloe naked searching for more. Of course, Chloe had had to go through a similar experience the previous night after Serge had found her kneeling in the wreckage of her penthouse, but at least the private doctor Serge had called to see to her hadn't gasped in horror at every injury, and repeatedly asked her if she was being abused at home.

She couldn't fault Rose or the Nurse for asking those questions. Heck, she had been abused last night, but she couldn't very well tell them it had been by her new… friend. Still, the questions only stopped when the nurse called Serge himself to have him verify her "pest control" story. She did find it a bit odd that the Nurse had known to call Serge instead of the mayor's office, and even had her butlers cell number on file, but then it may well have been Serge who had signed all of her school paperwork. Her father was extremely careful about what he put his signature on.

However, while Serge confirmed that she had been seen by a trusted doctor the previous night, he had also expressed his support of Rose and the Nurse's refusal to allow Chloe to return to class, given the battered state she was in. Her father was still blissfully unaware of the extent of the previous night's incident, so Chloe had little in the way of threats to offer as argument.

Which was why she now found herself laying on a cheap, commoner's hospital cot, wrapped head to foot in compression bandages, both to hold the multitude of icepacks covering her bruises in place and (she suspected) to keep her from sneaking away.

She glared angrily at the ceiling. She couldn't even shop on her phone while she waited because it had been smashed into a thousand pieces after its' three story drop, and the replacement wouldn't be ready until that afternoon. She was sore, she was cold, she was humiliated, and she was dreadfully bored.

She adjusted herself a little so she could look over at her purse sitting a few feet away. The Kwami was still inside as far as she knew. No, it had a name… what was it again? Pigeon? Pippin? Something like that.

She closed her eyes and tried to think back to the previous night.

"I still do not understand why you are so insistent about going to school tomorrow, Mademoiselle," Serge replied curtly from the empty closet where he was hanging up her clothes for the next day.

Chloe adjusted herself on the hotel room's bed uncomfortably, and not just from the welts and bruises covering her body. Serge had called a private doctor to check her over as soon as he had seen the insect stings covering her face and arms. She had spent the last hour being poked, prodded, and examined as she repeated again and again that she had been stung by a very big bee. The doctor had eventually released her back to Serge's care, saying that she would be sore for a day or two thanks to the bruising, but the swelling from the stings would likely go down by morning.

Serge had then called her father and made her explain to him what had happened. Of course, she may have glossed over the true extent of her injuries while on the phone with him, which earned her a suspicious look from Serge, but her father didn't ask to many questions. He never did.

Serge did ask though. She'd long ago learned that a half-truth was the best lie, so she told him everything from the moment she left the bath. She just left out the bits about the miraculous or the fact that the bee could talk. Still, he could tell she was hiding something. He was normally good about giving her her privacy, like any good butler should, but it was another matter when he thought her silence could be putting herself in danger.

Which was why he had made her change rooms for the night. He said it was because he couldn't have the broken windows of her penthouse replaced until morning, but Chloe knew it was so he could keep a closer eye on her. Not that changing the room would keep her safe from the tiny terror when it was still trapped in the history book she was still holding. Serge had to have been aware of how protective she had suddenly become of her homework, but he had yet to say anything about it. She'd kept a death grip on the book since he had found her, even during the medical exam. The Kwami inside had gone completely quiet after she slipped away to hide the miraculous while they were waiting for the doctor. She'd snapped the jewelry box shut with the comb still inside and stuffed it into her purse while Serge was marveling at the destroyed closet.

Now she was waiting for Serge to finish setting up her temporary room and leave, so she could try to make nice with the creature she had repeatedly bludgeoned over the head and kept pressed flat inside of a high school text book for the last hour and a half.

…Then again, maybe she could just tie the book shut with a belt or something and leave it till tomorrow.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when Serge stepped back into view and repeated his request.

"Mademoiselle, please. You are hurt, you are tired, and you will most certainly have a horrendous black eye tomorrow amongst all your other injuries. Would it not be better for you to simply stay home and let yourself recover, rather than needlessly risk going out in public in such a state?"

Chloe sighed and tried to roll onto her back with only a small groan of pain.

"I'm sure seeing me in 'such a state' would only boost the school's morale," she said bitterly. "Plus, Sabrina's still out with the flu, so I have to take notes and get our homework."

There was a long pause and then,

"I am calling the doctor back immediately. Clearly Mademoiselle is suffering from some horrific head injury that was missed in the initial diagnosis."

"Fine!" Chloe groaned, forcing herself up into a sitting position to look at him with a tired glare. Serge simply looked back at her expectantly, waiting for the truth. Chloe's attitude held for only a few seconds under his gaze before she had to look away.

She didn't trust anyone completely, but her personal butler came close. She had known Serge longer than she could remember, and he was one of the few people in the world who cared about her enough to tell her when she was wrong. She'd never lied to him, but there were some secrets she had never told anyone. She wouldn't lie to him now, but it seemed another half-truth was in order.

"Look I… I made up with Adrien today."

Judging by his expression, Serge hadn't been expecting that answer at all.

"We talked and I… I apologized for the way I had been using him for the last few years. I told him I was only flirting with him so I wouldn't have to deal with any other boys flirting with me."

"That much, was obvious," Serge said flatly. Though he had an amused smile on his lips. Chloe shot him a warning look and continued.

"Anyway, I apologized for being weird, he apologized for… I don't know, he didn't do anything wrong. We talked about how much we missed Aunt Sophia and about Uncle Gabriel and we… made up. We're friends again. For real."

Serge walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder gently. "I'm sure Mademoiselle Sophia would be most happy to hear that."

Chloe just nodded.

"Yeah, well. Adrien said he wanted to meet up after school tomorrow so we could hang out, just the two of us." If you don't count the ancient spirit partners anyway, she added mentally. "It hasn't been just us for so long, and Sabrina is still out sick and Adrien's schedule is actually clear for once so I don't want to miss the chance and..."

She trailed off, keeping her eyes focused on her bedspread instead of Serge. Everything she had said had been the honest truth, even if she was dancing around some of the minor details. Like how she had talked with Adrien in person after he had cat burgled his way in to her apartment, or that their little get together tomorrow was for superhero training.

Minor or not, Serge still seemed to know she wasn't giving him all the facts. However, he seemed satisfied that she would be in safe company, so he relented.

"If that is the case, then I shall of course ensure that mademoiselle's schedule is also clear tomorrow afternoon."

She smiled at him gratefully.

"However," he added sternly, "I must insist that you not push yourself, Mademoiselle. As you have said, you will be without Mademoiselle Sabrina tomorrow, so-"

"I promise I'll behave," Chloe interrupted. Serge looked skeptical so she added, "hey, the last thing I need is to be running from another Akuma like this." She gestured to the red welts still throbbing on her otherwise flawless complexion.

Serge gave her a sympathetic look and nodded.

"Very well, Mademoiselle. Is there anything else you require?"

Chloe let her eyes fall shut and shook her head slowly.

"No, I think that will be all for tonight, Serge."

Her butler smiled and helped her lay back down and tucked her into bed. She yawned and could feel herself quickly drifting off to sleep when she heard Serge say,

"I'll just leave your text book on the bedside table for you then."

'…Merde.'

Chloe kept her eyes shut and her expression neutral as Serge turned off the lights and left. He paused only a moment to half whisper, "goodnight Mademoiselle," before closing the door.

As soon as she heard the soft click of the latch, Chloe threw off the covers with a muffled groan of pain and switched on the bedside lamp. She silently berated herself for letting go of the book. It was still completely motionless on the bedside table, but for all she knew the Kwami had slid out of it the moment she had loosened her grip. She tapped tentatively on the beaten-up cover.

"Hey?" she whispered. "You in there?"

There was no reply.

Carefully, she picked up the book by the front and back covers and shook it out over the floor. A few more pages fell out, but no Kwami.

She put the book back on the small table with a soft thud. Wonderful. She had a pint-sized terror with an elephant-sized ego and a grudge to match hiding somewhere in her room, waiting to strike with a venom tipped needle attached to its' rear end. Was it really too much to ask for this night to just be over already?

She wracked her exhausted brain for options as she looked about the unfamiliar gloom of her temporary room. The little pest could be hiding anywhere and she had no means of finding it, or even properly defending herself without creating a racket and waking up everyone on the floor. Still, she couldn't just wait for it to attack her during the night. She needed help, but who? And how? Her cellphone was smashed to bits on the sidewalk below, and she couldn't risk Serge or one of the other servants finding the guardian spirit of a Miraculous…

'The Miraculous!'

Chloe got out of bed as stealthily as she could and made her way over to her purse. Chat Noir and Ladybug were supposed to be able to call each other with their weapons. Maybe she could use the Miraculous he had given her to contact Adrien so he could come over and deal with the little monster he had given her. It was a slim chance admittedly, but it was the only chance she had.

She tiptoed over to the desk where Serge had left her things. Her nerves were nearly shot, but she kept on high alert, her every sense straining to detect even the slightest hint of movement. Her imagination kept taunting her with images of the Kwami waiting to lunge out from the shadows to attack her ankles. Reaching her target, she quickly snapped open the five-hundred-dollar handbag and pulled out the unassuming looking wooden box. It looked remarkably innocent, especially since it was the source of the utter fiasco her quiet evening had turned into. She opened it to grab the comb inside, but nearly dropped it as she was blinded by a sudden flare of bright golden light. When she could see again, the Kwami was hovering in front of her, blinking and swaying slightly.

"What? Where are We?" The Kwami shook its' head and nearly fell out of the air. Once it got its' bearings it noticed Chloe standing in the gloom. "Oh! You must be our new… Oh, it's you again."

The Kwami glared at her and Chloe gulped. The book was across the room, so she knew she'd best choose her words very carefully, else her face be used as a pin cushion again. Taking a deep breath, she started to set the box down on the desk so it wouldn't distract her and addressed the Kwami as politely as possible.

"Okay, look. I think we may have got off on the wrong-"

"Stop!"

Chloe jumped and froze. The Kwami was staring at the box in her hands as if it's life depended on it. Absentmindedly, she had nearly closed it while setting it down. Sensing a vulnerability, Chloe opened the jewelry box all the way and watched as the Kwami relaxed slightly. Then she slowly started to close it again and saw it worriedly tense up and look anxiously from Chloe to the box.

"You need this to stay open, don't you?" She asked. The Kwami's silent glare was all the answer she needed. "This box turns off the miraculous, doesn't it? Or like, blocks the signal or something so you can't… project from it? Like putting a cellphone in a led safe! I'm right aren't I?" Again, the Kwami only glared in response. Chloe smiled in triumph. She had the power now, and it felt good.

The temptation to just snap the box shut so she could sleep undisturbed for the rest of the night was strong, but she knew that the threat of punishment was sometimes more advantageous in the long run than a direct show of force.

"Alright, here's the deal. You stop stinging and spitting insults at me and do what I say, and I let you stay awake and bask in the life of luxury with me, alright?"

The Kwami grumbled under its breath, but nodded obediently.

"We have no choice in the matter. If you truly are our chosen, then we must do as you wish, no matter how… distasteful We find it."

"Yeah, well, I'm still not really sold on this whole 'chosen' thing," Chloe said, more to herself than to the Kwami. The Kwami still perked up however, somehow looking both hopeful and offended at the same time.

"What do you mean you are not 'sold' on bearing our miraculous? It is an honor any would gladly give their left eye for!"

"Keep it down!" Chloe hissed, glancing over at the door. "Do you want to wake up the whole hotel?"

"Hotel…"the Kwami repeated. "We are visiting some foreign land then?"

"No, I live here," Chloe explained, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Look, I live in the greatest hotel in France, you trashed my penthouse so I'm staying in a commoner's room for the night. My dad is the Mayor of Paris, my best friend is Chat Noir, and he's the one that gave you to me. He and Ladybug have been fighting Hawkmoth and his Akumas for like, two years now, and I guess they need more help now or something. Anyway, Chat thinks I'm the girl for the job, but I wasn't supposed to open your box until tomorrow after school when he was going to train me. Right now, I'm tired, I'm sore and I'd really like to get some sleep. So, how about we just forget about all the fighting and yelling until tomorrow, okay?"

The Kwami seemed to be dazed again by Chloe's quick and dirty summary of events. Chloe let it have a few seconds more to process the information until the pain in her back and lower extremities became too much, and she turned to hobble back to bed.

"Wait!"

"Oh, what now?" Chloe turned again and looked back at the Kwami impatiently.

"You… We never made proper introductions. Also, you will have to put on the Miraculous before We will recognize you as our new master." The Kwami added, closing its eyes and putting on that infuriating air of superiority again and turning its' nose up at her. Well, it didn't have a nose that Chloe could see, but still.

Chloe sighed, and decided the quickest way to bed would be to just give it what it wanted.

"Fine."

With some difficulty due to her swollen finger, Chloe finally took the golden comb out of the box and put the box back into her purse. After a few seconds of trying to figure out how to wear the comb fashionably, she gave up and pulled her loose hair into its usual ponytail and used the comb to hold it in place.

"Happy?" She asked, gesturing at the hastily made and slightly lopsided ponytail. The Kwami looked her over unimpressed.

"It will have to do for now, We suppose…"

"Good." Chloe limped over to the Kwami and stuck out her hand. "Chloe Bourgeois, Mayor's daughter."

The Kwami just looked at her.

"…Bourgeois?"

"Yes."

"Your name is Bourgeois?"

Chloe could feel her anger beginning to rise again as she fought to keep her hand held out in friendly greeting.

"Yes," she answered tartly.

"As in… the middleclass?"

"It's an old name," she said through gritted teeth.

The Kwami just continued to stare blankly at her until it shifted its gaze up to the roof.

"…What did We do to deserve this humiliation?"

"Oh, come on!" Chloe withdrew her hand and felt ready to burst into tears of frustration right there. "It doesn't matter what the name means, okay? My family has been the head of Paris for more than two decades!"

The Kwami simply scoffed at her.

"No doubt thanks to some less than ethical political moves, if your attitude is anything to go by."

Chloe was about to argue back, but the words died on her tongue.

"…You know, you're right," she admitted, looking down at the floor. "That's exactly how we got here."

The Kwami gaped at her in horror, but Chloe kept her gaze elsewhere and continued somberly.

"My father has used nearly every dirty trick in the book short of actual murder to keep himself in office. He's used blackmail, slander, bribery, anything it took to destroy his opponents image and keep himself looking completely clean. But you want to know something else? He has no idea that the biggest scandal in Paris is sitting right under his nose."

The Kwami jumped a little in midair as Chloe suddenly looked up at it with an angry fire burning in her eyes.

"He has no idea his precious only daughter loves girls more than Jagged Stone loves skin tight leather, and I've had to keep that secret from him and everyone else in Paris all my life! Then Adrien and his smelly cat thing show up and say, 'hey if you want to help fight super villains we'll give you some cool superpowers so you can flirt with cute girls without anyone knowing it's you!' Only it turns out that the combee of my miraculous is a stab happy little monster with an ego bigger than its own fat head, so I don't know if I'm ever going to get that chance to actually be me for once in my life!"

Chloe managed to hold her furious glare at the baffled looking Kwami for all of three seconds until physical pain and emotional exhaustion overtook her again. She nearly collapsed and had to reach out to grasp the desk for support. The Kwami simply hovered silently in the air and watched as Chloe slowly gathered what remained of her strength.

After nearly a minute, Chloe limped her way back to the bed and climbed in. She barely noticed as the Kwami followed her silently and settled on top of the history book still sitting on the bedside table. Chloe pulled the now cold blankets over herself and let her head hit the silk covered pillow with a dull thump. She let out a long breath as she tried to relax into the soft mattress. She was so close to finally getting some rest, when the Kwami loudly cleared its' throat next to her.

"We… We are willing to acknowledge that we have both been… not at our best tonight," it said slowly. Chloe opened one eye and gave it a tired glare as she made a show of snuggling down deeper into the blankets. The Kwami seemed not to notice and continued.

"We… We would not be opposed to making a second attempt at first impressions. When we are both in a better state of mind of course."

Chloe sighed and reached to switch off the light in an attempt to end the conversation, but hesitated when she noticed the history book the Kwami was perched on. Maybe if she gave it something to do it would leave her alone.

"Here," she said, carefully shooing the Kwami off the book and opening it for it. "You can read this and get caught up on some of the history you missed while I get some sleep."

The Kwami hesitantly approached the book. When it was sure Chloe wasn't going to try to trap it inside again, it began flipping through the table of contents. Once it seemed settled in, Chloe settled back into bed with her back to the light.

"Just keep it down, okay?" she asked over her shoulder. The Kwami gave no response that she could hear, but she took that as a yes.

Just before she slipped off to sleep, she realized she still had one important question nagging in the back of her mind.

"Hey, what's your name anyway?"

The Kwami didn't answer.

"Are you still there?" Chloe asked, making the mistake of twisting around to look over at the table. Her body screamed in protest and she quickly flopped back to her original position. The Kwami was still there, but it was looking off into space again.

"What? Yes, yes We are still here." It answered, shaking its' head. "It has just been several centuries and We…" It thought for a long moment until its eyes lit up in recognition.

"Pollen! Our name is Pollen. We are the Kwami of…" Its' voice trailed off again.

Chloe waited for it to finish for a few more seconds before giving up and trying to get comfortable again.

"Whatever, Pollen it is." She yawned again and pulled the sheets over her head. "Goodnight, Pollen."

Pollen didn't hear her. They were too busy staring at a chapter in the history book labeled:

"1800's Century Political Corruption and "Le Piquer Royale": The Queen of Thieves"

Authors notes

Regarding Serge: Chloe's butler is an interesting character and more will be seen of him in later chapters. I think his relationship with Chloe is pretty obviously inspired by some other famous butler in fiction. I chose his name because it means "attendant," "protector," or "shepherd." All of which fit the character I'm giving him perfectly.

Regarding the Miraculous Box: Yes I am aware that Tikki disappeared as soon as Marinette took off the earrings in the origin episode, not when she put them in the box. Again, AU.

Regarding "Le Piquer Royale": I do not speak French, but roughly translated it means "The Royal Sting" and we will learn a bit more about her later too. Though I'm sure you all already have theories.