This chapter was fun! Hope you enjoy it and thank you, thank you for reading.


Grumbling to herself, Ladybug assented, then startled when Chat Noir put his hands on her waist and lifted her into the air. "Wait-what are you doing?" She struggled for a moment in the pitch-black as she was carried forward, unseeing.

"Express transport," Chat Noir chuckled, plunking her down on the spiral staircase's railing, "Unless you'd rather jump over the edge in the dark… or I could carry you over my shoulder?"

"Um, no thanks." She could just imagine the lights popping back on, and she slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Chat Noir chuckled again and, steadying Ladybug with a hand on her hip, he pushed her forward as he ran down the steps, taking two and three at a time. She gripped the railing just tight enough to keep her balance, still blind in the dark. She could feel air gusting past her face and through her wet bangs; she suddenly realized she was grinning. It was like going down the longest slide she'd ever been on! A peal of laughter burst out of her mouth and echoed across the empty foyer of the lower ground floor. She clapped her free hand over her lips, embarrassed at her lack of professionalism in front of the security guard. He was far above them, using his flashlight to come down the stairs at his own pace. She glanced at Chat Noir; all she could see of him was his green-yellow eyes and she couldn't determine his expression. He slowed their pace at the bottom of the stairs. She felt her way down off the railing with a tentative toe, then stood.

"Nothing to it," said Chat Noir, choosing not to comment on her overly-loud reaction to his inventive solution. He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward, running deeper into the museum. She followed without hesitation, grateful he couldn't see the blush that lingered on her warm cheeks. Or could he?

When they were well ahead of the guard, Chat Noir stopped short and pulled her into an alcove, out of sight.

"Chat, what-" she started, but he cut her off, pressing a hand over her lips. Annoyed, she snatched it away, but stayed silent.

"Something's up. I can't tell what, yet. I think I heard… I don't know what I heard, but we should keep our eyes and ears open."

"You'll have to do that for the both of us. The ears, at least." She took advantage of the brief pause to slide the halves of her yo-yo apart, giving her a small amount of light to run by. "You're right. Lights out at the Louvre doesn't make sense. The artifacts here are priceless; there's no way they don't have a secondary, or maybe even a tertiary redundancy system to keep everything protected." They nodded in silent agreement, slipping back into the wide hall as the security guard caught up to them.

"Things look okay out here," Chat Noir said a little too loudly, projecting confident assurance. Ladybug wanted to shake her head, but just let him run on. "Perimeter seems secure. Where do we go from here?"

The guard indicated a direction with the beam of his flashlight. "Over there. The service elevators and emergency stairs are this way." They followed him to an area of the museum that generally saw less traffic, which led to an out-of-the-way hall behind a partition, which led to a wide set of elevator doors and a regular door with a pictogram of stairs and a stick figure on it. When the man pushed open the stairwell door, voices could be heard arguing and various flashlight beams bobbed around, painting the walls with random streaks of light up and down the stairwell.

The guard spoke into his walkie-talkie; they could hear his distorted voice echo in several places above and below. It managed to silence the strident tones flying around the small space. "Ladybug and Chat Noir are here. We're at level -1. What's your status, Assistant Director?" Rather than a response by walkie-talkie, the trio heard the quiet tap of expensive loafers on the metal stairs. A flashlight shone down from above them and a solidly-built man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair joined them on the landing.

"I am Assistant Director Marcel," he said curtly, shaking hands with both of the superheroes. "As Julien has probably told you, we have nearly completed the temporary relocation of our archive - but this power outage causes a new wrinkle. The service elevator is equipped to handle even the largest paintings, but this staircase…" he looked down his nose at the open space to his left, lip curling up in annoyance. "Carrying these items up four flights of stairs would be taxing under the best circumstances, but we are in danger of wedging priceless art against the rails like cheap furniture for an upstairs apartment! I can't risk this kind of damage. We are running out of time here. Ladybug, do you have any suggestions?"

"Is there backup power in case of emergency?" she asked.

"Normally, yes, however, during the flood last year, we apparently used all the gasoline in both of our generators. I admit a lack of foresight there. I should have had them checked long before the threat of another outage. I assumed…" he trailed off as Ladybug took advantage of the myriad beams of light to lean over and glance down the utilitarian stairwell. The single floor below them was the basement. She looked up into the bright spots of light above, gauging the distance of three floors.

"I do have one idea… Assistant Director, do you have anything resembling a large bedsheet?" She grinned at Chat Noir, who returned her inexplicable mirth with a curious 'what-are-you-doing?' look, lips twisted to one side.

The Assistant Director sent someone off to the cafe for a tablecloth, which was returned within just a few minutes.

"Chat, head upstairs - and be ready to catch." Chat Noir complied, hopping to the rail, knees bent, gripping it with his hands. He sprang up and across the center space of the stairwell, landed on all fours, and continued up until he met with the group of employees crammed onto the landing of the second floor.

"Catch?" AD Marcel repeated. "Catch? Catch what?" He was balanced forward on his toes, almost ready to grab Ladybug by the shoulders in his anxiety.

"Trust me, Assistant Director. It's the safest, fastest way." Lighting the stairs below her with her yo-yo, Ladybug came to the bottom floor of the museum. She arranged three employees to help her with the tablecloth, which they stretched across the central open space of the stairwell. Two more employees hesitantly loaded onto the sheet an archived masterpiece, carefully packed between layers of acid-free cardboard and tied and sealed in such a way as to protect the priceless artwork from moisture damage. She gave the tablecloth a gentle, testing lift.

"Ready, Chat Noir?" she shouted up the stairwell into darkness.

"Ready!" came the echoing reply.

"Okay, just like we practiced, everybody. One...two...three!" On three, each museum employee heaved as hard and high as they could go, with Ladybug providing the oomph to send the large painting flying upward. This one was only about five feet across; she had every confidence that Chat Noir would secure it at the top of its arc before gravity could take effect. A dozen flashlight beams followed the broad rectangle as it rose, giving it a spectral quality as it silently shot toward its destination. Sure enough, a pair of black-clad arms reached out and plucked it from the air, drawing it back and away out of sight.

"Got it!" Chat Noir's triumphant voice rang out as thunder cracked outside. A cheer went up from the assembled crew. The Assistant Director was utterly pale in the light of the flashlight beams, but he managed a shaky smile. The remaining four pieces were successfully transferred the same way as the first. The mood in the small space brightened appreciatively, several employees chatting and laughing, now that the danger was past.

"Ladybug, how can I ever thank you?" AD Marcel asked, having regained his composure upon Chat Noir's final grab of the fifth painting. He shook her hand again and, surprising her, leaned in to kiss both of her cheeks. She felt, rather than saw, Chat Noir land next to her in the near-darkness.

"No need," she assured the Assistant Director, extracting her hands from his ebullient grasp. She turned to Chat Noir. "Ready to go?"

"Absolutely. They've got a grip on things upstairs."

"Good," Ladybug replied, stifling a yawn. "It's been a long night." Chat Noir pushed open the nearest door and held it for her, motioning her through ahead of him. She felt too tired to protest. He grabbed her hand and they loped off into the darkness, Ladybug feeling grateful she didn't have to navigate through the enormous, silent museum with her tiny flashlight. She yawned into her hand again, eyes squeezing closed. They snapped open the next instant and she stopped suddenly as though someone had splashed her with a bucket of cold water. Chat Noir skidded to a halt and looked back at her.

"Ladybug?"

"The Assistant Director didn't say the generators were low on gas, he said they were empty," she gasped. "What are the odds that a pair of unused generators are going to be completely empty after a year in storage?"

"Seems unlikely," agreed Chat Noir.

"A better question: what are the odds that someone around here has access and drained the generators - on a rainy week with a predicted flood and thunderstorm occurring on the same night?" Ladybug crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her toe, thinking.

"Thieves?" Chat Noir ventured.

"And an inside job, to boot," Ladybug asserted. "Maybe we better complete a real perimeter check before we leave." She looked all around, frustrated by the darkness crowding in on every side. "Chat, I'm nearly useless in here. I should go outside, while you take the interior." She sighed and rubbed tired eyes. "No, that doesn't work either. This place is too big for the two of us to search! Where would they go? We need to narrow it down."

"Or maybe we need to call in the cavalry," Chat Noir suggested. "I'll contact the police; you go back and talk to the Assistant Director."

"Good idea, Chat Noir," Ladybug nodded. She popped on her light to walk back to the stairwell solo, but before she'd taken a step, she saw Chat Noir give a shiver out of the corner of her eye, like he had an itch in the middle of his back. "What is it, Chat? That's the second time tonight."

"Nothing- I don't know. Ignore me; I think it's just this big, old place." He gave a shrug that was half shudder and stared around at the upper corners of the ceiling.

"You're freaking me out, Chat. It doesn't seem like nothing."

"I uh, well, do you get the feeling we're being, maybe... watched?" His voice had dropped to a near whisper. Lightning flashed, exposing his silhouette with shoulders hunched, neck craning upward to peer about. Ladybug pursed her lips into a frown.

"Chat Noir, are you trying to punk me? We have work to do."

"What? No! I'm -"

Ladybug huffed out a breath and gripped her yoyo again, stalking away down the hall by its meager light. "Keep an eye on things, and call me if you run across those thieves, Chat Noir."

A few people were still talking in the dark on the stairs; Ladybug could make out the voice of AD Marcel.

"Good, good. Did someone go out and get some gasoline yet? We have more to do this evening."

Ladybug quietly opened and closed the stairwell door, intending to be polite, but only served to startle the small group on the landing. "I'm sorry," she apologized quickly, "Assistant Director, do you have a moment?" She steered him out into the hall with a hand on one arm.

"What is it, young lady?" The AD's stern attitude was back in place. His bushy eyebrows pulled forward into a deep V over his eyes.

"You have thieves in your building."

"What? Impossible!"

"Very possible, with the lights out and the redundancy system offline."

"No, I don't think-" He broke off as the realization came to him. "Oh, merde." He straightened his shoulders and strode to the stairs once more. "Come with me to my office, whatever good it may do. I hate to admit it, but we are, in fact, defenseless at the moment." Ladybug matched his pace and they climbed quickly to the administrative offices of the Louvre on the top floor. AD Marcel unerringly inserted a key into the lock on the door despite the lack of light. Ladybug had the impression he'd been coming here every day for a very long time. He let them in, just as lights flickered overhead and dimly cast partial illumination over the historic offices.. "Ah, someone finally arrived with gasoline. Perfect timing." The room they stood in smelled of centuries of furniture polish, cigarettes, old carpets, and dust. It was filled with filing cabinets, antique furniture, and modern computer equipment.

Ladybug followed the AD to another door at the back of the first room, behind a massive and ornate wooden desk. He unlocked this door as well and ushered her inside.

"My office," he explained, stepping quickly around the edge of another heavily carved desk and pecking at the keyboard. "Security feeds will be back up."

"Let's see what we can see," she suggested. "Chat Noir is in touch with the police now." Images of various sections of the museum popped up in a grid across the large monitor. Every five seconds, they switched to another view. In the third round, Ladybug jabbed a red-gloved finger at the screen. "There!" she exclaimed, her finger resting on the image of a figure in smooth black leather, quietly tip-toeing down the steps of the Daru staircase in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, his body pressed into the shadows. AD Marcel selected the video feed with his mouse and it enlarged to fill the screen. A quiet beep on her yo-yo rang out insistently. She opened it up and looked at the face within.

"Chat Noir, we see you. What's going on?"

"Whatever they've got, it looks heavy and I'm guessing it must be weatherproof. They only have it covered with a dropcloth. They're headed to the Pyramid now, but they have to negotiate the stairs since the escalator's out of commission."

AD Marcel was outraged. "Out the front door? Could they really be so brazen? It's too much!"

"Well, we did take Julien with us when we came to help. Or maybe they assumed they could overpower him in the dark. Either way, I think they were counting on the element of surprise to pull this off. Chat Noir, are you going to confront them alone?"

"That depends. Do I need to?" She saw Chat Noir stop at the end of the staircase and lean against the wall, one foot crossed over the other. A faint shadowy distortion passed over the image, but when Ladybug blinked, the screen was clear. AD Marcel clicked over to a feed that showed the large area near the ticketing counter and they caught their first view of the struggling thieves as they staggered across under the weight of a heavy sculpture.

AD Marcel's cell phone rang before she could answer Chat Noir; he tapped it to receive the call. "Yes, this is the Assistant Director. Ah, Mr. Raincomprix? Thank you very much… yes, Chat Noir is correct. He's been following a pair of thieves to the main entrance. Could you gather your force outside the Pyramid? Yes, they are still inside the museum at this time. Can we do anything to help? Alright. Thank you again." He hung up.

"Chat, just keep an eye on them. Cavalry's arrived," she replied with a smile. Chat Noir winked at her.

"Alright. Chat out," he answered cheerfully in an imitation of her standard phrase before disconnecting the call.

The small group watched as the thieves exhausted themselves climbing the escalator, only to be caught at the top by Sabrina's dad and a complement of Paris' finest. They were too tired to attempt escape. AD Marcel pushed back his leather office chair to stand, intending to meet the police.

"My thanks again, Ladybug. Ah, it's not much, but come by anytime and the ticketing counters will have standing instructions to allow you and Chat Noir free entrance during the Louvre's open hours."

Ladybug opened his window, ready to go home. "That's very kind of you, Assistant Director! It's been my pleasure." With a final smile to cover her weariness, Ladybug leaned out of the window into the rain and jumped. She sent her yo-yo around the nearest lamppost and swung clear of the ground below. On her left, Chat Noir appeared, using his baton to vault across the space between them. He caught up to her and they came to rest on a nearby rooftop, drops of rain splashing down around their feet in a noisy patter. Ladybug couldn't hide the huge yawn that erupted as she reeled in her yo-yo and stood facing her partner.

He laughed. "No more adventures for you, Milady. It's getting late. I think we've done enough damage for one evening." She nodded agreement as yet another yawn took over, preventing her from speaking.

"I'll see you next time, Chat Noir. Thanks for the assist." Strangely, she found her tired mind seeking some excuse to prolong their time together, even as her arm was already flicking her yo-yo out to take her home. When she looked back, however, he was gone. A flash of lightning revealed only a small figure leaping away in the distance.

Ladybug came back to her own rain-soaked balcony and landed on a pile of pillows in her loft, transforming as she did so. Her room was just as she had left it; she looked down at the dim glow of her desk lamp… and noticed the small pile of library books next to it. Her report! She'd forgotten all about her plans to study this evening!

"Oh, Tikki…" she sighed, feeling the weight of the world press in on her. "I still have to study. Why do I do this to myself?"

"It'll be okay, Marinette. Come sit down and I'll keep you company." Tikki's warm reassurance calmed the bloom of anxiety in Marinette's chest. She stepped down from her loft and gathered up paper, pencil, and the three books in the stack. Arms and legs aching with fatigue, she shuffled back up to her soft bed. Her feet protested with phantom pains when she finally kicked her shoes off. She rubbed them gently, then grabbed the first book at hand.

"Okay, I can do this…" she breathed, rolling onto her stomach and turning to the first page. She managed about a page and a half before her cheek came down onto the surface of the book and she and her kwami slept.