Mr. and Mrs. Rossi were shocked when Ladybug arrived on their doorstep that night. They were almost ready to go to the police. The only reason they hadn't already was their hesitance to call attention to her absence. Lila went off on her own sometimes and she had been in a…mood recently. She could not have been aware of her actions as an akuma but the incident had clearly had an impact on her. They feared bringing her into the spotlight could also bring her recent behavior to it as well.
Their shock soon gave way to panic at the sight of the heroine's expression. Had she been transformed again? Ladybug quickly reassured them that their daughter was not, in fact, a rampaging akuma…but she could be again. And likely would be.
"Which is why she needs to leave the city," Ladybug said. "Immediately and indefinitely."
"Why?" Mr. Rossi asked. "Where is she supposed to go?"
"Anywhere. We don't care. Out of the country would be best. You just have to keep her away from Paris and out of Papillon's reach."
"What happened? Where is she?"
Ladybug clasped her hands behind her back. "She…is safe. Chat is bringing her."
"What happened?" Mrs. Rossi demanded more firmly than her husband had.
The heroine averted her eyes. "I think you two should sit down. There's something I have to tell you."
They handled the news that their daughter was a terrorist…rather well. Or maybe their experience as political figures had given them the ability to internalize the hell out of their emotions. Ladybug wasn't sure. They didn't scream or yell and they didn't demand she leave or anything outlandish. Just two simple questions: "Are you sure?"
Ladybug nodded. "Why else would we keep her identity a secret?"
And: "Where was she today?"
"The hero who she impersonated wanted a word."
(Later, she would learn that Lila had not uttered a single word for days after. Not in defense as her parents grilled her over her actions, not even to protest being sent back home to Italy.)
They met up again later that night after going home to diffuse any situations that may have arisen with their families. Chat Noir clearly had not calmed down in the intervening hours because it was well past midnight and he was pacing in front of the fountain in the little park they were in. Tail lashing, ears pinned against his head, he reminded her of an agitated cat pacing in front of a a window.
Ladybug sat sideways on the edge of the fountain and waited for him to get it out of his system. She wasn't sure how else to help him when she was just as torn over the events of earlier. What happened down in the catacombs was not what they'd agreed to. Sure it had been both secluded and at night just like they'd stipulated but…dear God they hadn't meant for Lisitsa to drag the kid underground and leave her there alone in the dark for half an hour. Nor had they expected her to be so rough.
And the curse… should they have agreed to allow that? A vindictive part of her was glad to see Lila finally get her just desserts but would she have agreed if she'd had a day to think about it? What exactly had they sentenced Lila to? And it had been Curse! Curse! They were supposed to fight against Curse, not use it! Tikki had even warned her when it had manifested. Was she going to be mad at her? Disappointed?
Why did Lisitsa even know how to use Curse?!
"AAGH!" Ladybug slammed her fist against the surface of the water. Leaning forward, she propped her elbows on her knees and pressed her head into her hands. Chat Noir was by her side in an instant. She saw him reach towards her, hesitate, before settling his hand on her thigh. She looked up. "Did we do the right thing, Chat?"
"I don't…" he trailed off abruptly and furrowed his brow. "I wish I knew but I… did we?"
"Should we have stopped her?"
"Plagg told me not to. He said we were already in too deep. Was he right?"
Ladybug considered this for a moment. "Was he wrong, though?"
He growled quietly and the tip of his tail clinked as it whipped across the ground. "I hate this morality-based stuff. We think it was wrong but Lisitsa obviously doesn't and the kwami don't but they'd probably condone murder if it—" He gritted his teeth to stop the angry flow of words and then growled quietly. "This is so messed up."
She laughed humorlessly. "Tell me about it. We let a so-called hero Curse someone."
Chat Noir was quiet. She glanced at him, trying to gauge his expression. Biting his lip, he looked at her and then away. "I'm actually…" He trailed off and pulled himself onto the edge of the fountain in front of her. Ears flat, he met her eyes hesitantly. "I think what she did was alright. Lila deserved it. She actually deserved a lot worse but I'm okay settling with that. I just wish it hadn't involved Curse. Why does she even know black magic?"
"We should ask her," Ladybug decided. "There has to be a reason."
"Yeah but can we really trust her to tell us the truth?" he grumbled. "She was lying through her teeth down there."
"To Lila. But she's been open and honest with us."
"As far as we know."
Ladybug swallowed, shaking her head slowly. "She's promised to help us with Papillon. If we turn on her, I mean…what's to stop her from backing out on her end of the deal?"
He growled again. "What indeed." Noticing her expression, he brushed his fingers across her cheek. "But we won't let her do that, will we?"
"Chat…"
"Yes, my Lady?"
"You…" Ladybug bit her lip. Was now really the best time? So much had happened in the last few days. She was letting him come closer and closer, silently beckoning him by responding to his gentle touches instead of rebuking them. Lisitsa was right, she had to tell him. This was so unfair to him. But they needed to be a united front now more than ever and he was already in turmoil. Telling him now would be kicking him while he was down.
"Nothing. Never mind."
Pictures of their midnight rendezvous had somehow made their way to the Ladyblog. Marinette wondered why she was even surprised and did her best to feign interest as Alya gushed over the submissions the next day when she had the the three of them, Nino and Adrien included, over for lunch. The photos showed them sitting together on the fountain during various points in their conversation and there was even one of Chat Noir as he'd touched Ladybug's cheek. From the way Alya went on, you'd have thought she'd just won the lottery.
"My ship is sailing!" she insisted. Nino rolled his eyes, Adrien laughed under his breath, and Marinette tried not to blush.
Clearly it had been wise to not broach the topic last night but she would need to soon. Her heart was set on the boy sitting across from her at the table. He was the one she wanted to be with, to fall asleep and wake up with, to hold, laugh with, and love. Chat Noir was…her chaton…her partner, her best friend, and up until this week, the only one who had an inkling of what her life was really like. She loved him dearly but… it was platonic and it had to stay that way. She didn't want to be leading him on but that's exactly what she felt like she was doing and that was unfair, to him more so than her.
But, kwami help her, she didn't want to hurt him. She didn't know if she would be able to forgive herself for breaking his heart.
They were to see Lisitsa one more time before she left. With her mission over, duty called her back to Russia and the black sorcerer she pursued. Hopefully, she would have him dealt with within e next few months and then she would return to help them. They just had to hold out until then, which shouldn't be a problem considering they'd lasted this long.
Lisitsa arrived to their meeting place after both of them and, to her credit, almost instantly noticed their guarded expressions and tense postures. She kept a respectful distance from them as she said, "So, I take it that neither of you has come to terms with Friday evening?"
"No," Chat Noir answered.
She sighed and shook her head. "I should've expected. …What was it, then? The location? How I treated her? The curse?"
"All of the above."
Another sigh, this one of disappointment. "While I admire your pristine morals—"
"How was any of that okay!?" Ladybug demanded harshly. "You kidnapped her! You abandoned her in the catacombs for God knows how long!"
"You used Curse!" Chat Noir added. "Never mind what you did to her—you used bad magic!"
"Ah, ah, ah!" Lisitsa held up her hand. "Let me stop you right there. Curse is not inherently bad. You'll learn about magic when you're older, for now, basically, magic can be divided up into two categories: harmful and helpful. Curse and Blessing."
Chat Noir took a step forward and cocked his head to the side. "But… Guardians exist to keep Curse in check."
"Curse was once a god, remember? Before humanity learned to wield it, it was simply a neutral force in this world, same as blessing. Its nature is negative but its wielders are what make it bad. A true sorcerer is skilled in both aspects of magic." Lisitsa held out her hands. "I can do some of both. You both could, too, with proper time and study."
Chat and Ladybug exchanged nervous glances. "But… Papillon…" he started to say.
"Chat Noir, of the two of you, you're more likely to have an affinity with Curse. Destruction and Curse are both negatively aligned. Hell, with your destructive power, you can do more damage than a lot of curses," she added wryly. "But are you evil?"
"No…" he said slowly.
"And if you learned how to use Curse, would you use it for evil?"
"No."
"Exactly. I think it was Shakespeare who penned 'there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so'. This philosophy applies to anything. Even lies." She smirked. "If I were to lie to you, you would think it wrong. But did you think it was wrong of me to lie to Lila the way I did?"
Chat glanced at Ladybug again and rubbed the back of his neck. Pursing her lips, Ladybug lowered her gaze and kicked at the ground with her foot. Neither had an answer for that.
"Exactly," Lisitsa repeated. "Now, as for the other things, I am sorry that they unfolded in a way that upset you. But to be quite honest, I could have done much worse. I could have left her down there all night but instead I had Firra summon your kwami immediately. I could've broken her bones, physically scarred her, screamed at her until she cried…any number of things. But I didn't. And yet you still think I was too harsh on her."
She began walking towards them. "Which begs the question: what do you plan to do with Papillon when you finally catch him?"
Her question brought the younger Guardians up short and in that moment it dawned on them that they never had given much thought to it. Then with growing horror, they both realized they had absolutely no idea what they were going to do. For so long their mission had simply been stopping the akuma and…keeping their eyes out for Papillon. Papillon's defeat was the ultimate goal but only recently had they been given the knowledge to deduce that he was a black sorcerer but they knew nothing about stopping them. What were they going to do with him!?
Could you put black sorcerer's in prison?
What did the others do?
"Are you KIDDING ME?!" Lisitsa exploded, startling the teenagers so much that they both jumped. The elder Guardian fisted her hands in the top of her hair, ears going flat. "You don't have any idea, do you?!"
"H-hey!" Chat protested. "We only just figured out he's a black sorcerer. Cut us some slack!"
Her eyes flipped wide. "You…what?"
"Our kwami didn't even tell us that much. We had to figure it out on our own," Ladybug elaborated. "We don't know much about black sorcerers or what to do with—"
"You kill them! What else would you do?" she hissed through her teeth and stalked away from them.
"K-KILL?!" Ladybug squeaked.
Lisitsa spun around on her heel and stomped back. "Yes, kill! You can't take their powers, you can't imprison them, so you have to kill them! What were you expecting?"
They both stammered incoherently for a few moments while Lisitsa continued to pace. "Oh my God. What the hell is even going on around here?! I can't believe the two of you are up against a man like this on your own. Where are the others? How am I the only one who has come to call?"
Chat sputtered for a moment before finally finding his voice again. "You only came because of Volpina!"
"Yes. And I didn't know about about Papillon until I began my investigation! My current lifestyle does not allow me such luxuries as time to read global news. But there are a dozen others out there and at least half of them have to know about what's going on in this city! I do not understand how he's managed to chase you and your predecessors for nearly a hundred years and not alerted anyone else?!" Lisitsa clenched her fists angrily.
"Well, you didn't know until now, either." Ladybug pointed out.
"I was living off the grid until my sorcerer surfaced!" The woman shrieked. "I knew nothing of what was going on in the world outside my territory. Maybe some of the others were living similarly but not all of them! They couldn't have been!"
Lisitsa was seething. Her ears were flat against her head and anger rolled off her in waves. Neither teenager could understand why she was suddenly so worked up.
"Don't most Guardians handle things by themselves?" Chat asked. "That's what our kwami told us."
"They do," she agreed. "But you two can't even seem to fathom the idea of killing your arch enemy so clearly there's a problem! And besides, this is different. This is so, so different. We have all failed you. Our negligence allowed him to murder your predecessors. Now a fresh pair of children are fighting him!"
"Isn't this what we're supposed to be doing?" Ladybug stammered. "I—I mean, why is it such a big deal? They died fighting and we had to continue the fight. How's that any different from when other Guardians get killed?"
Lisitsa froze, facing away from them, and her back straightened. "You…don't…know…."
"Know what?"
She spun around and stared for a long moment, deliberating. No one moved. Then she frowned determinedly. "To hell with this. This is wrong. If they wanna come after me, let 'em, but this is bigger than just the two of you and your kwami need to get their heads out of their asses. Secrets or no secrets, you have the right to know."
"Know what?!" The young Guardians demanded together.
"Who you're fighting."
They stared at her.
"Did you never think it strange that your foe was a man called Papillon?" Lisitsa asked them. "The Beetle and the Cat versus the Butterfly. It's like something out of a children's tale. Or a fable. You picked your names because those are the animal forms your kwami chose to mimic." She glanced between them to see if they were following her. "I refuse to use the title for that man because even if he once was, no one that far gone can ever be considered one. But the man you know as Papillon is in possession of a Miraculous…and the kwami Nurru.
ಠ_ಠ gdi kwami
As always, feel free to come chat on tumblr. My url is wintermoth! If you want to, feel free to tag anything about this fic with "ML Guardians AU"