Fifty-Four: Making New Friends

Author's Note: Chat is recruited to help SHIELD take down a villain holed up in the very animation studio he and Team Miraculous had been planning on visiting.


My head was pounding – that was the first thing that came back to me.

Groaning, I tried to open my eyes against the throbbing in my brain; it took a moment for me to realize the world was sideways because I was laying on the floor. Blinking hard, my vision finally came into focus as I laboriously pushed myself up from the cool surface. Idly, I noted I was still transformed; it seemed that my costume had done its job, save for the whole passing-out thing. Then again, it would have been far worse to have woken up as Adrien Agreste, stripped of any of my Chat abilities as I faced whatever was ahead of me.

Folding myself into a seated cat position, I saw I was in an industrial space; I appeared to be inside of some sort of circular glass-walled cell in the exact center of the room. Looking down, I realized the floor was actually clear, showing an iris of a door just below the cage. My ears went up, for that just couldn't be good. Looking up I could see a protected light source, behind the same thick glass or plastic the cage was made out of. And it was a cage – that much appeared certain.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, for I generally didn't react well to being cooped up.

Reaching to the small of my back, I nodded to myself when I grasped air; clearly someone had assumed – rightly – that my baton could be a weapon. But it also meant I couldn't contact Ladybug, which would be problematic. I could only hope that the magic we used to track each other would still work without the baton being in my physical possession. Looking out through the clear walls, I thought I could see it sitting on a small bench bolted to the far wall.

There was a substantial vibration running through the space, confirming what my feline hearing had already deduced: we were moving, though in what manner, I wasn't particularly sure. It was clear to me, though, that I was likely no longer in Santa Monica, and I wondered slightly at how my bodyguard was reacting to the sudden disappearance of the star of the photo shoot. I felt a little bad, for he had consistently gone out of his way to make my life better, be it taking me to Marinette's on the down low or looking the other way when Nino appeared to play video games at the mansion. I'd have to make it up to him, somehow.

A double-door slid open beside the workbench and I turned my attention to the tall man striding through it. Clad in a leather trench coat and an eyepatch, he swept across the catwalk to the door of the cell, then leaned sideways to press a button on the outside. "Who are you and why the Hell were you in Los Angeles?" he asked without preamble, his voice forcefully issuing from hidden speakers.

"Would you believe—"

"You've got one shot," he cut me off before tapping another button.

My masked eyes were drawn to the clear floor, where the door below the cell cycled open. They went wide when I saw clouds and, far, far below, what looked like a coastline. I looked back at the man with slight apprehension. I'd dropped from a height lower once before, but the Eiffel Tower and a certain yo-yo had helped keep me from becoming a Chat pancake.

"One shot," the man repeated. "Don't waste it."

I swallowed. "My name is Chat Noir," I said. "I… had business in Santa Monica."

Eyepatch stared at me, hard. "What sort of business?"

"I can't disclose that," I said truthfully, "other than to say it was benign."

There was a long moment of silence before he continued. "Are you honestly telling me that four distinct signatures of quantic energy suddenly appearing in Los Angeles is benign?" he said.

I couldn't help my masked eyes going wide. "How do you know—"

"We have smart people," he said offhandedly. "And a field office in Paris."

My feline ears flattened. "Then you know who I am."

"Maybe," Eyepatch said. "We're analyzing the energy pattern you're putting out right now to confirm. But you could be one of those sentient thingamajigs, too."

"Sentimonster," I corrected.

He waved his hand. "Whatever. Why are you in the States, Mister Noir?"

I nodded slightly. "If you are worried that we were tracking an akuma or sentimonster, I can assure you that's not the case. As far as I know, Hawkmoth hasn't operated outside of Paris."

"Look," he said. "We've turned a blind eye to your activities in Paris-"

"You what?"

"We track everyone," he said casually. "And you haven't needed any help in Paris, so—"

"Who's tracking us?" I asked hotly. "Who are you?"

Standing, I deliberately walked toward him; I was tall for my age, but not as imposing as this guy, but I nonetheless tried to stretch myself as high as I could go by the time I was face-to-face with him. "Who are you?" I asked again in my dangerously quiet voice. "And what exactly do you know about me?"

"If you are Chat Noir, then not much," Eyepatch admitted carefully. "An uncertain number of metahumans appeared about a year ago in Paris, led by a creature known only as Ladybug. Chat Noir is her primary partner; over the past few months, we've seen the team temporarily augmented by members with distinctly differently abilities, presumably as needed by Ladybug for a particular situation."

I nodded slightly.

"While we suspect all of the individuals we track—"

I growled a bit at that.

"—live and work in Paris, their true identities remain unknown to us." He paused. "Most importantly, though, our agents have reported that in all cases observed, this team was endeavoring to protect the city and its residents. We've had trouble tracing and confirming this Hawkmoth you mentioned, though."

"He exists, believe me." I arched a masked eyebrow. "Metahuman?"

"Uh, humans who have special abilities," he explained quickly.

"Ah," I nodded, deciding I'd neither confirm nor deny his assumption.

The doors opened again, and the balding man I'd seen earlier appeared, carrying a small digital pad. He stopped next to Eyepatch. "It's him, boss. Scans confirm it." He looked back to me. "We also confirmed that the other three appeared in Paris just a few moments after disappearing from Santa Monica."

"Neat trick," Eyepatch said as he looked at me anew.

"Another member of our team," I said as I examined my claws. I still wasn't comfortable sharing anything with these characters. At least, not until I was out of the cage and had my trusty baton back in my paws.

"I'm Director Fury," Eyepatch said as he triggered something on the panel. "I believe you've already met Agent Coulson."

The massive door below the cage closed while a glass door in the side of it silently slid open, allowing a gust of fresh air to fill the small cage. I stood firm, despite the obvious invitation to exit. "Director of what, exactly? And you would mind explaining why you took me into custody in the first place?"

Fury looked at me. "I run an organization called SHIELD," he said simply. "We prepare for the unexpected." He looked at me again. "You were, in a word, unexpected."

I blinked and carefully stepped out, noting I was a good two heads shorter than Fury. "People tell me that all the time," I smiled slyly. "But I am the black cat of stealth."

"Clearly," Coulson chuckled and turned to his boss. "I'll prep the team."

"I'll be down shortly." Turning to me he said, simply, "Follow me."


The conference table was at the rear of a massive control center on what I learned was something called a heliocarrier; I didn't have much time to process that as Fury immediately began to explain why I found myself in his care. I tried to ignore the fact that the people in the space – all of whom were professionally dressed in a kind of uniform – seemed to take it in stride that a feline-themed superhero was casually chatting with their boss.

"Last night, our LA office picked up traces of quantic energy in Santa Monica," he started. "It was nearly ephemeral but was so close to what we'd recorded in Paris it deserved to be looked into." Sipping a coffee, he continued. "It went off the chart around noon; we already had a team on the ground looking for you at that point, so it was fairly easy to track you down."

I nodded, knowing that was about when the four of us had transformed. That means they can partially track the kwamis; when we activate them, it's almost a beacon. I filed it away for later.

"And now you are here," he finished. "Until we could confirm your identity, you can understand how we'd naturally want to be cautious."

"Naturally," I snarked.

He raised an eyebrow. "God-damn. Another teenager," he said with exasperation. "Why must they keep saddling me with teenagers for—"

"What do you mean, another?" I interrupted, arching a masked eyebrow. "I could be old – like thirty-five!"

Fury laughed. "You and Spider-Man would get along great," he answered enigmatically.

I blinked. "Do you think I could actually meet him?" I said, tossing all pretense aside and embracing my inner fanboy. "Some of my teammates would like that too. If they were still here."

Fury looked at me. "Can you get them back?" he asked.

My ears shot up and my sense of self-preservation kicked in. I narrowed my masked eyes as something else occurred to me. "You weren't just looking for us in Santa Monica, were you?" I asked.

Eyepatch shifted. "I'm not exactly at liberty to discuss that."

A half smile appeared on my face. "You need us," I nodded slowly. "Even with Spider-Man and Thor… you have a situation and we magically dropped into your lap unexpectedly."

Fury smiled slightly himself. "Our intel on you is all wrong," he said. "You're not just the brawn in the operation, are you?"

I shrugged. "I am whatever Ladybug needs me to be," I answered. "That's always been my role."

Considering me a bit, Fury came to a decision. "We could use your help. You and your fellow team members might be uniquely qualified to assist SHIELD. In exchange, we may be able to provide some help to you upon your return to Paris."

"Tell me more," I said, twisting my feline ears. "I'm all ears."


"It's not an akuma, per se," I told the small image of Ladybug on my baton. "But from what Fury has described, it seems to be acting like one." I smiled crookedly. "Luckily for SHIELD, we appear to be the only Miraculous holders available."

She looked at me skeptically. "Can we really trust Fury?"

Once Fury had decided I could be allowed into the circle of trust, he'd provided me access to all of the information on what seemed to be an unusual metahuman who had holed up in the very building we'd intended on visiting. From the high-tech scans he'd shown me, the waves of energy coming off of the creature within the building matched closely with the akuma tracking his team had done in Paris, though it unsettled me that they had such good data on akumas. Considering we'd been dealing with them in our own way, seeing pure science turned against magic was a little weird. And yet, seeing the graphs side-by-side on the tablet I was using, it was easy to comprehend why they'd been so concerned when the four of us had appeared in Los Angeles.

I had explained all of that to Ladybug once Fury had returned my baton to me. "Yes," I said. "I think we can."

"All of us?"

"The base four," I nodded. "I think it might be wise to keep the rest of the team under wraps. I'm a little worried the more info we provide, the greater the chances…"

"I understand," she replied with a smile. "Where shall we meet you?"

"Where it all began," I winked.

"You are going to be missed," Ladybug said quietly.

"Not if we are really lucky," I smiled wider.

Ladybug looked at me askance. "What did you do this time?"

"I've made some new friends, Milady. Some who even come with a 'get out of jail free' card."

"Oh Lordy," she frowned. "We're doomed."