When Nino came into the kitchen, Marinette was staring at her hand in a way that could only be described as dreamy. Then she sighed. Wistfully.
Wonderful.
Yeah, Marinette was the kind of girl who got invested. Absurdly so, and at lightning speed. This was going to end in tears.
"He's drunk."
Marinette startled awake, glancing up at him with guilt in her eyes. "Pardon?"
"Adrien. That nap he took on my couch was way too short to sober him up." He sat down across from her, reaching for a slice of wheat bread. "I'm sorry he made you uncomfortable. Adrien gets handsy when he's drunk." Not really, alcohol had never lead to that before, but he had been very touchy-feely last night.
"Oh, he didn't…I mean…" Her blush returned in full force, and she stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Then, she asked softly, "How has he been? I haven't talked to him in so long…"
"He's…" Well, he couldn't say fine, because that would be a blatant lie. "Busy," was the word he settled on.
Marinette nodded and said nothing, still staring at her hands. Or rather, hand. Singular.
"Look, Marinette. I know I have no business butting in and you're an adult capable of making your own decisions and everything…"
He trailed off, and she smiled. "But? It feels like there's a 'but' lurking in there somewhere."
"But," Nino said with a nod of acknowledgement. "Look, I don't like talking shit behind people's backs, but here we go. He's my friend, I care for the guy, but I don't think Adrien would be good for you. He's… I've known him for eight years and in that time, he has never introduced me to a single girlfriend, and I'm his closest friend. And it's not exactly lack of opportunity, so I'm pretty sure he's allergic to commitment. Whatever mental image you have of him…" He grimaced. "It's likely wrong. Adrien hasn't been the same since his dad died."
She grew very still then, and suddenly it hit him.
He was talking to Ladybug.
Ladybug, who had been there when Adrien's father had died. No. When Adrien's father had been killed.
"I know," Marinette whispered. "I tried to set it right, but I failed."
"My Lady." Chat's voice was barely above a whisper, cradling Hawkmoth in his arms. When he looked up, his inhuman eyes were shining, and he held Gabriel Agreste's broken body out toward her. "F-fix him. Please."
He expected her to knit the bones and sinews back together, the way she could mend the destruction of the city after their battles.
That day Ladybug discovered the limitations of her Lucky Charm.
"It was an accident. And I couldn't – Chat was so upset with me…"
Upset at her? Nino frowned. "So, what happened to him anyway?" He and Alya had a long-running bet on this. While Alya had committed herself to the "Chat Noir was recruited by the government as an assassin to escape prosecution"-theory, Nino had stuck to the far more likely and down-to-earth "Retirement out of guilt"-option.
"Good question," Marinette muttered.
"You don't know?"
She shook her head, and smiled. It was a little crooked. "Chat and I kept our identities secret even from each other. He didn't tell me where he was going, and I have no way of tracking him down." She paused, and then shifted in her seat, looking around. "Although someone did."
"Indeed," said Wayzz, and Marinette lit up. The purse she'd slung around the back of her chair moved, and a red blur shot out of it – directly at Wayzz.
"Wayzz!" A small being that looked remarkably like his kwami, except red and spotted and somehow even more adorable, wrapped its tiny arms around his new partner. "It's good to see you! I haven't heard from you in so long!"
Nino slanted a glance at Marinette who watched the hug with a small smile on her face.
"My Master and I–" Wayzz paused, patting Ladybug's kwami on the big black spot on its head. "My former Master and I have had our hands full with an important mission."
Marinette opened her mouth, as did Nino, questions on their lips, but before they could make a sound, the red kwami let out a soft croon and hugged Wayzz tighter.
"I'm so sorry, Wayzz."
"All is well," the green kwami said stiffly. "We have known this was coming for quite some time." But he still snuggled against what Nino was growing increasingly convinced was a girl kwami. Its – her voice was even higher pitched than Wayzz's.
Then the red kwami disentangled herself to flutter in front of Nino.
And bowed.
"Guardian," she said formally. "I look forward to our new partnership. May your sight be true."
"Um." Marinette, help. But when he met his friend's gaze, she gave him a small shrug, looking as mystified as he felt. Alright, roll with it. "Thanks. You, too."
Ladybug's kwami giggled, a sweet, clear sound like the chime of a bell. "Wayzz, I like this one. Forgive me if I seem forward with you, Nino." She floated to Marinette, landing atop her head and curling up in her hair. "I know you've just met me, but I've known you for years. I'm Tikki."
"Hello, Tikki. It's nice to meet you, too." So Marinette had carried her kwami around in her purse all these years? His eyes widened when he realized that this meant that some of his less dignified teenage antics had been witnessed by a powerful magical being. Great.
Marinette was gazing at Wayzz, nibbling on her lower lip. "What mission were you talking about, Wayzz? Why did you and Master Fu leave for so long? Where is he?"
"Who's Master Fu?" Nino asked.
Tikki grew still, as did Wayzz. Then he sighed. "The former wielder of the Turtle Miraculous. He was one in a long line of Guardians, trained for this task since childhood amongst many, selected above the others for excelling. He was a fine Guardian, exemplifying the virtues we are supposed to embody, and he Chose well."
He quelled Nino's questioning look with a warning one of his own, seeming to not want what was gearing up to be A Speech interrupted again. So Nino didn't, even though he clearly hadn't been trained since childhood for this, nor did he knew what that Choosing thing – he could hear the Ominous Capital Letters Of Significance – was about.
"But – his life was defined by an event that happened in his youth, when he and I had been joined for less than a year. Under his watchful gaze, our sanctuary, where we trained and chose new Miraculous wielders, was attacked. Our temple destroyed, our numbers cut down, and our line of succession broken. Even worse, we lost two Miraculouses – the butterfly, Nooroo, and the peacock, Duusu. Worst of all…" He closed his eyes. "We lost our wisdom. A book in which all secret knowledge on the power gathered over many generations was written down. Us kwami are forbidden to read it, for we live forever, and can be forced into servitude against our will. So to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, the secrets of the Miraculouses' full power lived and died with our wielders – and only those who had proven themselves virtuous and worthy."
Tikki floated out of Marinette's hair to hover behind Wayzz, gently patting his back.
"My Master–" A quick glance at Nino, and he corrected himself. "All his long life, my former Master tried to set right what had once gone wrong. And, with the help of Ladybug and Chat Noir, we were finally able to return Nooroo, the butterfly, to safety."
"Hawkmoth," Nino said softly.
"Yes. Hawkmoth. Nooroo was much abused in the time he was lost and still has not recovered from it." His antenna twitched. "My Master was old. Older than he looked, for turtles are long-lived, but all the same, no human escapes the long sleep." The kwami's shoulders drooped. "But my Master had finally recovered one of the three lost ones, and seeing Nooroo's scars, he grew determined to find the other two, to see his life's work finished. That is why…"
He floated toward Nino, an apologetic expression on his face.
"He neglected his other duties. I kept telling him he should be preparing his successor, and he did select several prospective candidates, of which you were one, Nino. But we had such a promising lead on the whereabouts of the book that he kept putting off the Choosing. Until…" Wayzz sighed, and Tikki crooned again, nuzzling his cheek with hers.
"He's really gone?" Marinette whispered, cheeks pale.
"Yes. But his passing was peaceful, and his single-minded pursuit did leave us with a great gift." Wayzz raised his hand, and Nino's Miraculous glowed.
In a burst of green sparkles, an ancient tome appeared on the kitchen table.
"Brie de Meaux."
A barely perceptible twitch.
"Livarot."
He placed it at the far end of the table, as this particular brand of cheese had a certain aroma that far surpassed even that of Plagg's usual fare. A high-pitched keen escaped the kwami before he managed to compose himself and return to stony silence.
"And of course, Camembert de Normandie."
Plagg lost it, snatching the wheel straight out of his hand.
"Fine! Fine. What do you want, you emotional terrorist?"
Adrien narrowed his eyes. "You know what I want."
He'd goddamn scented Nino. And purred. And tried to cuddle. He was grateful the alcohol dulled the memories, but the embarrassment burned all the same. Still, it was Nino, and Nino, thanks to many years of moonlighting as a DJ, was very que sera about the antics of drunk idiots.
It was his behavior toward Marinette he remembered in humiliating detail. He had just gotten her to relax, had her shake that self-consciousness that hid the wit he'd first glimpsed in her texts. She'd talked to him. She'd made a pun!
And he had licked her.
She's never going to talk to me again.
That thought bothered him. Marinette's efforts to stay in touch with him had been second only to Nino's, and he appreciated that to this day, even if their acquaintance had dwindled to wishing each other happy birthday once a year. The odd pang of what could have been when he saw those empty phrases had never been enough to move him to action, to try and reconnect, but now…
Well, she'd made a pun.
No, more than that, they'd clicked, falling into banter that flowed as easily as it was enjoyable. It had been cut short by his impulsiveness, but now that he'd had a small taste of what talking to Marinette was like, he wanted more.
Even if Nino disapproved. Which… really. He'd looked at Adrien like he was twirling a mustache and announcing his fiendish plans to ravish the girl.
"No can do." Breaking the cheese wheel in half, Plagg set to devouring it.
"You said–"
"I know what I said. We release powers to our wielders bit by bit, and we can choose to set the pace of that progress. But you!" He leveled an accusing cheese-smeared paw at Adrien. "You locked me up!"
"I'm sorry, Plagg," Adrien said softly. The kwami's tail bristled with fury, but then he went on as if he hadn't heard.
"I was dormant, but dormant is not severed. Our bond was still in place. And it kept growing the way it was supposed to, at the pace I'd decided on. Power once released can't be taken away, not without taking it all away." His ears flattened, and suddenly all anger left his little body. "We were… such a good match. I wanted you to reach our full potential quickly."
"Plagg…" Adrien reached out, curling his hands around the tiny black ball of fur. And, to his surprise, Plagg let him, allowing himself to settle down in Adrien's cupped hands. Using his pinky, Adrien found the spot Plagg would vehemently deny was his favorite, and scratched.
"You would be used to it." The kwami leaned into the touch. "If it had grown with you instead of hitting you all at once, you'd be able to control it."
"Ah." He kept scratching as he thought about this. "So I'm just… going to have to learn to deal?" It was one thing to embarrass himself in front of a stranger, but there were only so many times he could act like a freaking cat in front of people who knew him before someone started piecing puzzle pieces together. No matter how strong the glamor surrounding Chat Noir, there were some things that just couldn't be ignored. "Nothing I can do to make it stop?"
"There is one thing." The kwami suddenly flew out of his cupped hands to float at Adrien's eye level, a challenge blazing in his eyes. "It's very simple, you see? All you have to do is take off the ring. When the powers and the bond are dormant, so are the instincts."
Ah.
He self-consciously twisted the silver ring around his finger, his gaze falling to it. Even though his hands were now much bigger than they had been when he'd first been gifted with his Miraculous, its form molded itself to him perfectly. It felt… right. The weight of it, the shape of it. Adrien was complete.
He hadn't even realized that he'd been feeling incomplete this entire time.
He'd taken off the ring when he'd been drowning in grief, and the pain of it had barely registered. When his grief had ebbed, he had figured the faint background noise of loss was just part of his new normal going forward.
"Alright," he said. "Guess I'm going to get used to it."
Plagg raised his chin with a dismissive hmpf as he floated back Adrien's palms for more pats. "Good luck with that, old man."
Author's Note:
Sheesh, I need to stop killing characters off off-screen. Sorry Master Fu. You died for the plot.
Thank you all for your wonderful feedback so far, it means a lot to me.
