"This is bad, Tikki. Really bad!"

Marinette paces across her bedroom floor, phone clutched tightly in one hand. She's gesturing wildly with her other hand, making frantic movements without aim or purpose. Tikki watches silently, lips pressed together into a thin line.

"Oh my god, Tikki," Marinette continues, still pacing. "What am I going to do? What am I going to tell my parents?!"

"Alya still does not know your identity," Tikki offers optimistically.

"She knows what school I go to!" Marinette exclaims. She extends her phone out with one hand, practically shoving it in Tikki's face. Tikki delicately backs away from the device, but Marinette hardly seems to notice. "She knows what neighborhood I live in! There aren't that many girls at Françoise Dupont—and Alya's really smart. She's going to figure it out eventually."

"Perhaps not," Tikki says sagely.

Marinette does not look comforted. But Tikki is an old, old creature. The actions of one over-ambitious teenage girl are not very concerning to the millenia-old embodiment of good luck—even if said girl's blog does have readership in the tens of thousands.

"Uggghhh," Marinette says. She flops back dramatically onto her chaise, arms crossed over her chest. "I should've known that this would happen! That map—she' s had it for months now! And all those videos she's got of Ladybug flying out of the school courtyard—and oh no, do you think she's going to figure out Chat Noir, too?"

Tikki doesn't address any of those concerns. She floats over to Marinette, hovering near her head, and says gently, "We just need to convince Alya that she's mistaken. I'm sure we can figure something out if we work together."

Marinette is still white-faced and panicky. But she nods sharply. "Yeah, okay. A plan."

"Ladybug is great at plans," Tikki reminds her.

"Yeah," Marinette agrees. Almost instantly, her mood switches from dismay to determination. The change is so swift that it might've surprised Tikki thirty or forty thousand years ago. As it is, Tikki finds Marinette's reaction wholly expected.

"Okay," Marinette is saying. "Yeah, I'm great at plans. We can totally do this! Let's get some, like, notebook paper or something. We're gonna get this worked out."

Tikki smiles benevolently. "That's the spirit," she says sweetly.


The apartment above Master Fu's Enchanted Artifacts and Appraisal, quite unlike the store itself, is clean, minimalistic, and sparsely decorated.

The curtains—plain and white—have been drawn on all the windows, but inside it's still brightly lit. Adrien sits at Fu's kitchen table, holding a steadily cooling mug of tea in his hands. Fu sits across from him, sipping slowly at his own tea, with his kwami perched on the table near him.

Fu's kwami did not look much like Plagg. For one thing, its shape was... fuzzier. The longer Adrien looked at it, the less certain he was of what he was seeing.

Those cold eyes though. Those were clear enough, and they sent a shiver down Adrien's spine.

Plagg, for his part, has decided that this would be a wonderful time to display all the affection he usually withholds. He climbs all over Adrien, crawling from one shoulder to the other, nuzzling up almost possessively against Adrien's neck, hissing slightly all the while.

"C'mon, Plagg," Adrien whispers to the kwami. He reaches up with one hand to stroke behind Plagg's ears nervously.

"You'll have to forgive our kwami," Fu says calmly. He offers the boy a small smile. "They are... opposing forces, so to speak. It is not in their nature to get along."

"Can it, old man," Plagg hisses. He leaps down from Adrien's shoulder to stalk along the table, and Fu's kwami watches with critical eyes. "Gwayy has been interfering in my affairs for the last two hundred years—"

"Oh, honestly, Plagg," Fu's kwami interrupts. "I haven't gone by that name in a thousand years. And they're not your affairs."

Plagg bares his teeth. "You have brought us nothing but trouble, Wayzz. This is my home, and you are not welcome here."

"We are kwami, Plagg," Wayzz says sternly. "We don't have homes."

Plagg makes a dark, rumbling sound that could almost be called a laugh. Adrien looks up nervously at Fu, but the old man only sips calmly at his tea.

"I was born here," Plagg growls, "carved out of the hopes and fears of humans first crossing these seas. Fifty thousand years I have lived here, the ghost of those cold, cruel ocean waves. I was old before humankind had even the vaguest notion of you. This place has been my home for longer than you have existed."

"You can't lay claim to the entire Mediterranean, Plagg," Wayzz says calmly.

"Watch me!" Plagg spits. "You should go back to Serica, where you belong."

"I go where I am needed," Wayzz says.

"Where you are needed?" Plagg hisses. "Where you are NEEDED?"

The lights in the room flicker. For a moment, Plagg seems to transform before Adrien's eyes—no longer a cat-like creature, but instead a hideous multi-dimensional monstrosity, echoes and shadows of his form rippling across the space that he occupies. His appearance is indescribable—black and ragged and sharp—and almost painful to behold. Plagg looks like the very personification of darkness, of destruction.

"Did Félix NEED to get killed by your stupid, worthless harpy of a peacock—"

"Plagg," Fu interrupts softly.

In an instant, Plagg returns to his normal form. Realizing what he's said, he shrinks in on himself and whirls around to face Adrien, horror writ clear across his expression.

"It's okay," Adrien says gently. He holds out one hand towards Plagg, and the kwami tentatively flies to it, pressing his head gently against Adrien's fingers. "I kind of already suspected."

"Did you indeed?" Fu asks. He sets down his tea, watching Adrien with unreadable eyes.

"The Miraculouses came from somewhere, didn't they?" Adrien smiles wryly. "Something had to have happened to the wielders that came before us."

"And your mother?"

Adrien keeps his expression carefully neutral. "Father always said that she was a troublemaker."

"Hmm," Fu says. "And what makes you think I would know anything about that?"

Adrien's eyes slide over to Plagg.

"Just a hunch," he says lightly. Fu takes another slow sip from his tea.

"You were there," Adrien guesses. "The Trocadéro Disaster."

Fu says nothing, but his silence is answer enough for Adrien. There's a certain tenseness in his jaw, a hardness in his eyes, that belies the truth. For the first time in seven years, he feels a faint glimmer of hope.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Adrien asks. "I just—I want to understand."

Fu inhales slowly, closing his eyes. He traces his fingers in a slow spiral on the tabletop, contemplative, and for a moment Adrien is half-afraid that he won't answer. But, after a pause, he begins speaking softly.

"Many years ago," he says, "my companions and I found ourselves in possession of an unclaimed Miraculous. We each agreed that it would be too dangerous to allow any one of us to wield two at once, and so we decided that we should seek out a new wielder. As the oldest of our group, that responsibility fell to me."

Adrien nods along to the story, hardly surprised. "After much consideration," Fu continues, "I selected your mother to wield the peacock Miraculous. Your mother was an incredible young woman. Kind, principled, strong. She had all the makings of an excellent wielder. Someone who would use her power for good, and defend against those who used their powers for evil. But..."

Fu pauses a moment. Adrien says dully, "You made a mistake."

Another pause. "I did," Fu admits. "She was a poor match for her kwami. Your mother might have made a wonderful hero in other circumstances, but Duusu had a way of bringing out the worst in her."

"Plagg... explained some of that to me," Adrien admits.

"Power changes people," Fu says. He takes a long, slow sip from his tea. "Your mother was a very good person. She only ever wanted to help people. But somewhere along the way she lost sight of that. Her desire to protect people became a desire to control them..."

Fu falls silent, so Adrien continues on for him. "So she became a supervillain instead," he says dryly. Plagg nuzzles gently against his neck.

"Supervillain may not be the correct word," Fu says slowly.

"One hundred and twenty-seven people died," Adrien says flatly. "What else would you call that?"

Fu pauses a moment, staring blankly at the cup of tea in his hands.

"No one wanted that," he finally says. "The Trocadéro incident was..."

Fu trails off again. His kwami looks up at him, concern clear in his eyes, but it's Plagg who eventually speaks.

"A three-way battle between thirteen Miraculous wielders," he says. "Ground zero for an ideological conflict that had been brewing for decades. The humans were just collateral damage."

Adrien glances down at Plagg warily. His kwami offers no further explanation.

"What were you even fighting over?" Adrien finally asks.

"What do humans ever fight over?" Fu asks cryptically.

"That's not an answer."

Fu shakes his head slightly. "It's not," he admits. "But I'm afraid you're not going to get anything much better than that."

He pauses again, taking another long drink from his tea. "Papillon's corruption is obvious," Fu says slowly. "Unquestionable. There is no doubt that he is using his Miraculous for evil purposes. But humans are complicated creatures. Not every battle is so clear-cut."

Adrien's eyebrows draw together, low over his eyes. "I see," he says, even though he doesn't.

"It's alright if you don't understand," Fu says, smiling reassuringly at the boy. "Your mother sincerely believed that what she was doing was for the best. My allies and I believed the same. We did not realize our mistakes until it was too late."

Adrien is silent for a moment, mouth moving wordlessly as he searches for the right thing to say.

"You're the one who gave me the ring," he eventually settles on.

Fu nods once. "I did indeed," he confirms.

"Why?" Adrien asks, the question slipping out before he's quite thought it through. On his shoulder, Plagg grows still. "I mean, after what happened with my mother, out of all the people in Paris... why take a risk on me?"

"You were perfect for her," Fu says simply.

Adrien hesitates a moment, confused. "Her?"

"Ladybug. You can feel it, can't you?"

Yes. Even leaving romantic feelings aside, Adrien has never felt closer to anyone before in his entire life. There are some people that get along so well that you might say they were made for each other. But Adrien and Ladybug weren't even like that. She was his other half, in a way that he wasn't sure was even entirely metaphorical. One could not exist without the other. They were push and pull, yin and yang, creation and destruction...

Good luck and bad luck.

"Why her, then?" Adrien asks quietly.

At that, Fu pauses a moment. "Every Miraculous is different," he begins, "and every Miraculous is dangerous. I spent a long time selecting a new wielder for Tikki. After several years of observation, I had a handful of candidates who all would have been equally suitable. In the end, I suppose there was an element of chance."

Because of course there was.

"Why pick new wielders at all?" Adrien presses on. "Why not just guard them all yourself?"

Fu smiles. "You have a good heart, Adrien," he says, pouring himself another cup of tea. "But no man can be trusted with that much power. Not even me."

Plagg curls up closer to Adrien's neck, and Fu's eyes are drawn to the kwami. "It's easy to forget that they are ancient, godlike beings," Fu says pleasantly. "They adopt such charming forms, don't they?"

Adrien snorts. "I don't know if I'd call Plagg charming, exactly," he says and, unusually, Plagg lets the insult go without comment.

Fu lets out a soft chuckle at the jab, but has no response. Adrien lets the lull in the conversation sit for a moment before he dares to ask the question that he really wanted to know the answer to.

"Is my mother still alive?"

Fu glances away, looking solemn. "I don't know."

"Could you... would it be possible for you to find her?"

Fu half-smiles at that. "If I could track any Miraculous on a whim, I would have dealt with Papillon long ago," he says. Adrien grimaces slightly, but the answer isn't really unexpected. "If she still has her Miraculous, and if I were to happen to get close enough, I might be able to narrow down her location to a city. Perhaps even a neighborhood. But our paths have not crossed since that day."

Adrien breathes out slowly and takes a long drink from his tea. When he finally sets the cup back down, Fu is watching him silently, a faint concern clear in his eyes.

"I should have known," he says dryly. He offers Fu a half-hearted smile. "That's just my luck, huh?"


André Bourgeois had never been loved, but he'd never been hated either. Paris had... tolerated him. He was the consummate politician—all flattering words and thinly veiled threats beneath a veneer of gentility—and while it had never earned him anyone's admiration, it had all been... routine. Expected. Maybe nobody really liked him, but nobody disliked him enough to complain about it.

But now, of course, with formal corruption charges pending against him and a local superheroine only tooglad to hurl insults at Paris's four-time mayor... well. Now everybody loathed Mayor Bourgeois, even—or perhaps, especially—the people who had held their noses and voted for him in the past election.

Chloé had grown accustomed to getting extra attention. To being recognized wherever she went.

She was not accustomed to the cold, accusatory glares that followed her every step.

Chloé leans back heavily in her chair, pretending to read the menu in front of her, but she never gets past the first few lines. It feels like every pair of eyes in the café is on her, and she swears she can hear her own name being whispered in the hushed conversations at nearby tables.

In the seat next to her, Sabrina is oblivious as per usual. She's already decided on her order (salad à la carte, sans dressing) and is blabbering on endlessly, tapping her toes against the floor as she talks. "And I finished your math homework too!" she says. "It was really hard, but after a while I figured it—"

"Do I look like I care?" Chloé cuts in harshly.

Sabrina's smile falls abruptly. Deflating, she mumbles, "I—uh—no, sorry." She adjusts her glasses, awkwardly turning her gaze downward, and falls into silence.

Chloé watches Sabrina for a moment. She feels a pang of... well, something, seeing Sabrina look so downtrodden. It tugs at heartstrings that she didn't know she had. This feeling is suspiciously close to remorse or perhaps even guilt, and if there's one thing that Chloé can't stand, it's being reminded that she's not completely heartless after all.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Chloé snaps, with the vague hope that she can drown her conscience with still more cruelties. Sabrina sinks down even lower her seat, looking almost as if she's trying to make herself invisible. "Remember that you'd be nothing without me. Nobody else would want to be friends with someone like you."

Sabrina won't look at her, but Chloé can tell that she's upset. Possibly even on the verge of crying. This time, instead of guilt, Chloé feels an empty sort of satisfaction. Her heartstrings sufficiently stranged, Chloé returns her attention to her menu.

By the time Adrien finally strolls into the café, fifteen minutes late and damp from the rain, Chloé has actually managed to make it halfway through the menu. The only son of Gabriel Agreste attracts a fair bit of attention himself, and Chloé hears his name repeated several times in nearby conversations, but he scarcely seems to notice the stares. He smiles at Chloé from the front of the room, waving a little at her, and makes his way over, weaving through the crowded room with surprising ease.

"Hey, Chlo," Adrien says, sliding into the chair on her left. "Nice to see you too, Sabrina. Sorry I'm late."

Chloé lifts her drink up, eyeing Adrien curiously, and takes a long, loud sip from it. "You look like shit," she says flatly.

Adrien seems taken aback. Even Sabrina looks a little surprised.

"Green and red?" Chloé continues, gesturing at his outfit. "You look like a Christmas tree."

Adrien glances down at his shirt. "I, uh," he says awkwardly, scratching at the back of his head. "I guess I didn't notice."

Chloé pauses for a moment, grinding her teeth together. Adrien has about as much fashion sense as a Russian coal miner, so she can't really say that she's surprised he tried to pair a red argyle polo with a forest green undershirt, but something about his reaction feels off to her. There are bags under his eyes and there is something strangely distant about his voice.

She doesn't like it.

"What's wrong?" she asks, eyes narrowing suspiciously at Adrien.

Adrien looks confused. "I don't—"

"Don't lie to me," Chloé interrupts. "Is it your father again? The election?"

Adrien's expression wavers. "It's complicated," he says, looking away.

There used to be a time, Chloé thinks, when Adrien wouldn't have tried to hide it from her.

"Are you okay?" Sabrina asks gently, worry furrowing her brow.

"I'm fine—" Adrien starts to say.

"Shut up, Sabrina, no one asked you!" Chloé snaps viciously.

Sabrina jumps slightly in her seat and redirects her gaze downward. Adrien gives Chloé a pointed look, but says nothing.

Chloé is still trying to decide whether she's going to drag the truth out of Adrien or let him sulk on his own when a stroke of bad luck renders the question pointless. A waiter approaching their table, cursed by some combination of clumsiness and misfortune, stumbles slightly as he walks past. A few inches to the left and it wouldn't have mattered—well, not to Chloé, anyway—but as it was, the waiter was not a few inches to the left. Chloé, cursed by some combination of karma and misfortune, ends up with two glasses worth of cherry cola soaking through her yellow silk blouse.

Furious, she rises up to her feet and whirls on the waiter. The waiter shrinks back slightly, apologies on the tip of his tongue.

"You!" she snarls, advancing on him.


The Ladyblog names this one the Chevalier Blanc.

Adrien understands why she would, of course. The akumatized man wears bright, shining armor and has a really lovely longsword and an awful lot to say about the death of chivalry (and civilization in general), and how could Alya possibly resist captioning her exclusive video coverage as Blanc vs. Noir?

The name feels ominous to him, though.

It starts as a fairly standard fight: Adrien dives over tables and pushes past terrified civilians to find a safe spot to transform. Chloé, despite being the cause of the day's akumatization, manages to wriggle her way out of the restaurant with surprising ease, leaving behind the akumatized waiter with nothing to take his anger out on except a crowd of innocent bystanders.

It's good luck, perhaps, that the Chevalier Blanc is more interested in ranting than actually putting that sword to use. He postures, and he raves, but ultimatelyhe is one of Papillon's less threatening villains.

Well, for the most part, at least...

Ladybug swings into the fray about six minutes post-akumatization, wearing a scowl and exactly one pigtail. The other half of her hair is woven into an elaborate braid.

Chat can't help but smile at the sight, which just prompts Ladybug's scowl to deepen.

"Don't—" she begins curtly.

"You look beautiful as always, my Lady," Chat Noir says.

Ladybug rolls her eyes slightly, but she's more amused than annoyed. "Let's take care of this one quickly," she says, all business. "I promised my best friend that I'd be back soon, and I don't think she's going to appreciate it if I'm gone for hours. Plus I saw the Chevalier Noir on my way over here, and I'd prefer to get this taken care of before he murders somebody."

"No problem," Chat says. "The akuma's in his shield."

Ladybug nods sharply. "Can you keep him busy?"

Chat smirks slightly. "I thought you'd never ask."

Ladybug hurls her yoyo into the sky and swings off, leaving Chat Noir to one-on-one the Chevalier Blanc.

"Over here, garçon!" Chat Noir calls out, as obnoxiously as he can manage. "I think there's a butterfly in my soup!"

The Chevalier Blanc curls one lip. "You don't even have soup!" he bellows, as if this fact alone is grievously offensive to him.

Chat Noir's staff is not, strictly speaking, intended for use as a sword. But Adrien's training is mostly in fencing, and when fighting against a sword-wielding enemy, it works well enough. The balance is a little awkward, and the weapon is much heavier than a sabre, but he thinks that he does pretty well for himself.

And so, naturally, the worst possible thing happens while he's fighting the Chevalier Blanc. Chat Noir miscalculates.

He supposes it's not that unexpected. He is only human, after all. He realizes too late that he's fallen for a feint, and that the Chevalier Blanc's very real sword is just seconds away from—no, currently grazing across his unprotected abdomen, slicing easily through both his suit and his skin, and Chat Noir backs away quickly, one hand pressed to the cut.

It's just a surface wound, but it hurts. They never covered this in fencing lessons...

Chat is on the defensive now, losing ground steadily, as the Chevalier Blanc presses his advantage. A few parries later, and his staff is knocked out of his hand, skittering down along the sidewalk.

It's absolutely the wrong reaction to have, but Chat Noir freezes. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for impact and holding out a vain hope that Ladybug will swing in to save him at the last minute...

Well, somebody saves him, all right. A moment passes and Chat dares to crack one eye open. The akumatized villain, miraculously, had decided against finishing him off due to the abrupt appearance of Paris's favorite black knight vigilante—or rather, more to the point, the abrupt apperance a stray crossbow bolt that just barely missed impaling him through the skull.

Chat stands in place for a moment, watching blankly as the Chevalier Noir swaps out his crossbow for a sword and launches himself at his white knight counterpart, running at a full sprint—or, at least, as close to a sprint as one can get while wearing a full suit of armor. After another second, Chat Noir rouses himself from his stupor—he can't just let this guy murder some poor unlucky waiter, after all.

Not that there was any need, as it turned out. By the time Chat Noir finally moves to action, Ladybug has already knocked the akumatized shield out of Blanc's grip and cracked it in two with her bare hands. With a flick of her fingers, the butterfly turns from black to white, Chat Noir's wound is healed, and the waiter is left on the ground, blinking rapidly and suddenly very confused.

The Chevalier Noir lowers his sword. Without another word, he turns as if to leave the scene without another word, and Ladybug watches him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. She's not happy, Chat can tell, but she also can't deny that he was an unexpectedly useful distraction in this fight.

"Wait!" Chat finds himself saying, half-reaching out towards the Chevalier.

Two pairs of eyes slide over to him—Ladybug's, narrowed and worried, and the Chevalier's, impossible to read beneath the grated mask of his helm.

"Thanks," he says, a little awkwardly. He reaches up to scratch at the back of his head. "For, you know..."

The Chevalier Noir hesitates another moment, considering him carefully.

"You should keep your footwork smaller," he suggests, speaking every word slowly and carefully. "It will help you control the distance. You let him get too close."

Adrien's heart skips a beat.

That lecture is too familiar to be a coincidence.

"Thank you," he manages to say, his mouth dry and his pulse fluttery.

The Chevalier stares at him for another long, long moment.

"Until next time," he says politely. He bows his head slightly, and then walks out of the square, clanking faintly with every footstep.

Ladybug waits until the Chevalier is out of earshot before speaking. She spares a glance at the freshly de-akumatized waiter, still kneeling on the ground and looking increasingly like he's on the verge of a panic attack, then slides her gaze back over to Chat.

"What was that about?" she asks quietly, motioning with her head towards the distant figure of the Chevalier.

Chat Noir only shakes his head.


Ladybug doesn't push the matter at first. Everyone deserves to have some secrets, after all. She knows that better than most people.

But Chat Noir's mood doesn't improve—if anything, he grows gloomier—and by the time Thursday patrol rolls around, she has to admit that she's beginning to get a little worried.

(Not to mention the tiny issue that she's made absolutely no progress with Alya, who is getting ever-closer to figuring out her civilian identity despite Marinette's frantic attempts to dissuade her...)

"You know," Ladybug says, landing beside him at the Notre Dame, "tomorrow will be our nine month anniversary. What do you think of that?"

Chat Noir shakes his head slowly. He's staring out blankly at the Seine, lost in thought. Instead of making some light-hearted pun or trying to flirt with her, he admits softly, "I don't know."

Ladybug purses her lips. "You know," she admits, "I kind of thought that we would have defeated Papillon by now."

Chat nods once, to show that he heard, but says nothing.

The evening is quiet. Too quiet, really. Much as Ladybug is loathe to admit it, some of those things that her detractors have been saying are a little bit true. Paris in mid-June should have been overflowing with tourists, filled with people from every corner of the globe and conversations in dozens of languages. Instead, the streets are empty and silent. Even the locals mostly keep to themselves, going out only when necessary. Ladybug could see only a handful of brave souls walking down sidewalks that should have been swarmed with crowds.

"I think," Chat Noir says slowly, "that someone may have figured out my identity."

Ladybug stiffens. "Who?"

Chat hesitates a moment, muscles twitching on his jaw. Ladybug is already imagining dozens of worst-case scenarios when he finally answers. "The Chevalier Noir."

"The—the Chevalier?!" Ladybug splutters. "How!?"

Chat Noir shakes his head slightly. "I can't explain without telling you who I am," he says cautiously. He glances over at her tentatively, green eyes glittering in the evening light. "Do you still want to know?"

For a brief second, Ladybug feels a flicker of panic, like someone reached into her chest and squeezed.

A part of her—the part of her that's currently quaking in terror—wants to know everything. The Chevalier is no friend of theirs, and she can only imagine what kind of trouble that he'll bring if he really does know Chat's civilian identity. What kind of havoc could he wreak with that information?

Another part of her—the part of her that's a superhero first and a scared teenage girl later—assesses the situation with a cold critical eye and says, voice level, "No. Are you sure that he knows?"

Chat Noir bites down on the inside of his cheek, contemplative. "He hasn't done anything yet."

"But will he?"

Chat shakes his head slightly. "I don't know," he answers honestly.

Ladybug exhales slowly.

A part of her wants to confide in him about Alya, and the Ladyblog, and about how very close her best friend is coming to outing her own identity as well. But she can't risk letting Chat know that Alya's on the right track.

So she forces a tight smile, and says, "Well, if he knows, then he hasn't outed you yet. All we can do now is hope that our luck holds."

Chat Noir hardly looks comforted. But he shrugs a little and mumbles, "I suppose you're right."

Ladybug really hopes that she is.


He knows.

On Friday, D'Argencourt cancels their fencing lesson again. Nathalie feeds him some story about a family emergency that Adrien smiles and nods along to, but his stomach feels like lead.

The words swirl around in his head, stark and cold and terrifying. He knows.

Plagg, unhelpfully, has no real advice to offer him.

"Someone usually figures it out eventually," his kwami says, sounding unbothered. "Either it'll all end in disaster... or it won't! No sense in agonizing over it. Slow down a little bit. Enjoy some cheese. This Pont l'Évêque is excellent..."

Adrien glowers a little bit at Plagg. "It smells like a sewer," he says.

"Suit yourself," Plagg says, devouring another wedge.

Adrien spends about thirty seconds watching his kwami eat the sewer-cheese, before deciding that he's going to need more of a distraction to get through the day.

He eventually settles on a trip to the library and ends up piling all his schoolbooks into his backpack. Plagg looks skeptical, but Adrien shepherds him and his cheese into the backpack as well, and after a quick check-in with Nathalie he's on his way.

Unfortunately, it seems half of Paris has also decided that they would love to spend the day at the library. He supposes that it makes sense, with the brevet just two weeks away, but the sheer number of people in the library makes it awfully difficult for him to find a quiet little corner where he can sulk in peace.

He's still looking for an empty table or study carrel when a familiar voice startles him.

"I'm not saying that you're wrong," Marinette was saying, "but maybe you're jumping to conclusions too fast. There are a lot of reasons... um... a lot of reasons why..."

She trails off. Adrien steps around the corner, and is surprised to see that she's sitting alone.

Marinette taps her pencil against the table, and after another pause, goes to scratch down something on a sheet of notebook paper.

"A... lot... of... reasons," she says slowly, writing the words down one at a time, "the... akumas... might... be..."

Adrien finds himself smiling.

"Helping Alya with her blog?" he asks.

Marinette jumps up in her seat, visibly startled. She whirls around to look at him, and all at once her face turns bright red.

"Oh, Adrien!" she squeaks. "Yes, it's about the Alyablog—I mean, Alya's blog—I was just—um—you know, going over s-s-some..."

She trails off, looking mortified. Adrien feels a stab of guilt.

"Sorry," he apologizes quickly. "I shouldn't have interrupted."

"No!" Marinette blurts out loudly, gathering the attention of a few nearby students. Marinette's face grows redder and she whispers, more quietly, "No, no, you're fine—I mean, it's fine—I mean—"

Adrien furrows his brow slightly. He's half-afraid that he's overstepping a boundary, but...

"Mind if I sit with you?" Adrien asks casually. He flashes her a nervous smile.

Marinette's eyes go wide.

"Y-yes," she says, nodding her head a few times. "I mean—no! I mean—I wouldn't mind at all, um, please have a seat."

Marinette gestures awkwardly with her hands at the open seats around the table. Adrien presses one hand to his lips, trying and mostly failing to suppress a laugh, and slides into the chair across from her.

"Alya's pretty intense about that Ladybug stuff, huh?" Adrien asks.

Marinette groans softly and buries her face in her arms.

"I wish she wasn't," she mutters bitterly. Her stutter has mysteriously vanished.

"Oh?" Adrien asks.

"She's so... reckless," Marinette says, propping her head up on one hand. "I feel like she doesn't understand how dangerous the things that she's getting involved with are! And now she's trying to out Ladybug's civilian identity—ughh!"

Adrien hesitates a moment. "It's natural that she would be curious," he says carefully.

"Curious, sure," Marinette says, gesturing with her free hand. "But doesn't she realize how dangerous it would be if Ladybug's civilian identity got out? Not just for Ladybug—for her friends, her family, everyone around her."

Adrien nods along, knowing that she's right, even if he doesn't particularly like hearing it.

"But Alya doesn't care about that," Marinette continues, one hand curling into a fist. "She doesn't think about consequences! She's just so—"

Marinette cuts off, making a gurgling sound of frustration. She throws both her hands up into the air, to demonstrate just how much it bothers her, and Adrien can't help but laugh a little.

Marinette freezes in place. "Was that—was that weird?" she asks, suddenly nervous again.

Adrien shakes his head. "No!" he says quickly. "I've just... never seen you get so animated like that before." He looks away, flushing slightly. "It's... kind of cute."

Marinette makes a high-pitched, shrill sound. "C-cute?"

"I mean—no, not cute!" Adrien says quickly, suddenly afraid that he's offended her. "Nope, not cute at all."

All at once, the blood seems to drain out of Marinette's face. "It's... not?" she asks, voice small.

"I mean—yes. Yes, you're very cute." Adrien gestures helplessly with his hands, practically flailing. He thinks he might hear a faint snicker from the direction of his schoolbag. "But not like children or kittens are cute! You're cute in way that's—that's not patronizing.

Some of the color returns to Marinette's cheeks. "I..." she says awkwardly. "Um."

Adrien buries his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he says, only he's talking through his fingers, so it comes out more like mmm owwee. "I'm not—I was homeschooled until this year, you know. I'm not... good at this."

Marinette laughs a little, which gives him enough courage to lift his head. "Not good at what?"

"This," Adrien says, holding his hands out in front of him. "Talking to people without offending them."

She laughs again. "I'm not offended," she says, looking away nervously. "You could never..."

Adrien's heart feels strangely light in his chest. "Really?"

"Really," Marinette says. Her flush grows deeper, and she forces out an awkward laugh. "I mean, um..."

"I just," Adrien says, also looking away, "I've always kind of thought that you..."

Marinette watches him with a strange expression. "That I?" she prompts, almost nervously.

"That you were still mad," Adrien admits. He finds himself looking away again. "About, you know... when we first met."

Marinette's still got a strange expression. She shakes her head wordlessly.

They fall into an awkward silence, neither one of them quite able to meet the other's eye.

It's probably a bad idea, but the words come tumbling out of Adrien's mouth before he can quite stop them.

"Do you want to hang out some time?" Adrien asks, unprompted. Marinette glances over at him, eyes gone wide. "I mean—you don't have to. Well, of course you don't have to! It's just—this whole friendship thing. It's still kind of new for me, and..."

Adrien trails off. Marinette is watching him with a strange, soft expression that he doesn't know how to name. It's making his heart flutter in strange ways and he doesn't understand why.

"Yes," Marinette says softly, all traces of her previous awkwardness vanished into nothing. "I would love to."

Adrien thinks that he should probably answer her, or at least say something, but instead he finds himself drawn into her eyes. He's staring right into them, and she's staring back, and he wonders if it would be inappropriate to reach out and brush her hair our of her eyes...

Marinette's phone beeps, abruptly ruining the moment.

Marinette fumbles nervously for her cell phone, and swipes on the screen to unlock it. "Oh no—it' s Alya," she says. She stands up and starts shoveling her belongings into her schoolbag. "I've got to go—um—sorry to cut things short—"

"No, don't worry about it, it's not a problem at all," Adrien says quickly. "I'll, uh, see you later?"

"Yeah!" Marinette says quickly, bobbing her head up and down. "Totally. Um, yeah."

And with that, Marinette sweeps out of the room with all the grace of a flightless bird, tripping slightly on her own feet as she makes her way out.


A part of Marinette wants to say, Okay, Alya, this better be good because I was just having a really great time with love-of-my-life Adrien Agreste!

But Marinette doesn't say that, of course. She's spent the better part of a week trying to dissuade Alya from pursuing Ladybug's civilian identity, and sometimes a girl just has to admit that there are more important things in her life than finally managing to get through a coherent conversation with the boy that she likes.

"Sooo, Alya," Marinette begins tentatively. "I've been thinking some more about Ladybug's civilian identity, and I think that you might be on the wrong track..."

"No time for that!" Alya says, snapping her head up. Marinette thinks for a moment that Alya might be mad at her, but Alya waves one hand dismissively at her. "That's great, but I'm working on something way bigger right now, so tell me about it later!"

Marinette freezes in place, furrowing her brow. "Bigger than Ladybug's civilian identity?"

Alya shrugs one shoulder. "Okay, maybe not," Alya admits. She flips through a few pages of her notes, searching for a particular page. "I mean, definitely not. But whatever! I'm finally making some progress on this historical Ladybug stuff, and it is the coolest thing ever and I need you to listen to me freak out for a while."

Marinette hesitates a second. She's not sure whether she should count her blessings or be more worried about what kind of wild theories Alya has cooked up this time.

"You remember that Egyptian magic goddess, Isis?" Alya asks, after a beat.

No, Marinette thinks.

"Yeah?" Marinette says, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve.

"I've been doing some more research on her," Alya says, flipping through some of her notes. She eventually finds what she's looking for, and passes a stack of papers over to Marinette. "I think Adrien really was on the right track. Look at this!"

Marinette looks, brow furrowed.

"Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the site of an ancient Lutetian temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis," she reads aloud. She blinks a few times. "Uhh... are you sure that's real? This kind of sounds like one of those Mayan apocalypse conspiracy theories..."

"No, no," Alya says quickly. "Well, yes, but—never mind." She leans over Marinette's shoulder, pointing lower on the page. "Down here, look at the picture!"

Marinette looks.

"I don't get it," she admits.

"That's a two-thousand year old statuette from Ptolemaic Egypt!" Alya explains breathlessly.

"Uh-huh," Marinette says, nodding along as if she actually understands what "Ptolemaic" is supposed to mean.

"That's it, Marinette!" Alya continues on. "The missing link! I mean, sort of. I mean—well, it's the hybrid goddess Isis-Tyche, anyway."

Marinette pauses, tilting her head slightly to one side. "Who...?" she asks, voice tight.

"Isis-Tyche," Alya repeats. Seeing Marinette's confusion, she flips through her notes again. "Tyche was the Greek goddess of luck," she explains. "But she was also called—and this is where it gets weird—the 'Protectress of Cities.' Sound like anybody else you know?"

Yes, Marinette thinks. Tyche and Tikki sound awfully similar, don't they?

"It gets better," Alya continues, blind to Marinette's chagrin. "Tyche was worshipped basically everywhere in the Mediterranean, but in every city she was a little bit different. In Rome, she was merged with their luck goddess into Tyche-Fortuna. In Turkey, she was merged with Cybele. In Alexandria she was Amazonian, and in Beirut she was Phoenician! In some places, she was even a dude."

Marinette stares blankly at the page before her.

She knew that Tikki—Tyche—whatever, was old. She knew that there were other Ladybugs that came before her. That some of them, probably, had worked their way into history books.

She had never quite imagined that Alya's goddess theory would turn out to be right after all. Especially not after Tikki had specifically denied that there was any truth in it.

"Now, I know what you're thinking," Alya continues, holding up her hands. "You might say that it's normal that were would be some regional variations in religion. Except I have this account from a Greek historian, who says that a girl named Calliope was sacrificed to purify the city of Antioch, and later their Tyche statue was built in her likeness, so I'm thinking—"

"Wait—sacrified?" Marinette interrupts.

Alya pauses briefly, looking taken aback. "Well, yeah," she mumbles. "That Miraculous stuff is really dangerous, you know. I don't think she was literally sacrificed—it's like... a metaphor. You know?"

Become a superhero, die for your city, get a statue of yourself built.

Yeah, Marinette thinks. That sounds believable.

Alya's still talking, but Marinette is scarcely listening anymore.

Your friend Alya certainly has a talent for jumping to conclusions, Tikki had told her. And then Tikki had smiled and reassured her gently and been lying through her teeth the entire time.

Tyche. Tikki.

She wonders what else Tikki has lied to her about.

"—inette? Marinette? Oh, c'mon girl, are you even listening to me anymore?"

Marinette blinks a few times, jerked back into the moment.

"Sorry, Alya," she apologizes quickly. "I guess I'm just... tired."

Marinette offers her a half-hearted smile that Alya regards with silent suspicion. But after a few beats, Alya nods slightly.

"Yeah, I understand," she says. "We can hang out more over summer vacation, yeah?"

"Yeah," Marinette says.

"And try to actually get some sleep this weekend!" Alya continues. "Don't let your parents overwork you in the bakery! And—"

"Thanks, Alya," Marinette says, genuinely grateful. "You too."

As Marinette leaves, there's a storm of emotions churning uncomfortably in her gut.

She doesn't say anything at first. She walks back home, silently climbs the steps up to her family's apartment and then up to her bedroom.

She cracks open her purse, and Tikki floats out, stern-faced and quiet.

"So, Tikki," Marinette says. "You want to tell me why you share a name with an Ancient Greek goddess?"


A/N: Everything Alya says about Isis-Tyche-Fortuna in this chapter is at least sort of true.

Some of the things she mentions are either apocryphal or unverifiable, but Tyche (pronounced TY-kee by most English speakers, roughly TEE-hee in Modern Greek, and confession time this scene does not really make sense in French) really was a very popular pick as the patron goddess of ancient and medieval Mediterranean cities such as Antioch and Constantinople. For that reason, Tyche is also known as the "Protectress of Cities," and is often depicted symbolically wearing the city's walls as a crown.