I'm going to be honest: my life is a complete disaster.
I mean, originally, it was fine. I lived a fairly average life with my mom, my step-mom, my step-sisters, and I saw my dad every weekend. I liked listening to old 80's rock music, much easier to access thanks to the Bluetooth in my hearing aid. I liked to play first person shooters and indie horror games. I liked to eat gingerbread. I liked to sleep. I liked to knit things sometimes. Yeah, gingerbread is an acquired taste, but it's not totally outlandish, right?
And then everything crashed and burned when I met Ladybug and Chat Noir.
You see, I lived in Paris. Capital of France, you might've heard of it. I went to a school there too, but it's not really that important to the story. It was really average, trust me.
It all started on a boring Sunday, but I didn't feel like getting out of bed. My bed had suddenly become the most comfortable place in the universe, and I wouldn't have gotten out of there even for a million euros. (Okay… change that to… like, 10 euros. Who wouldn't get out of bed for a million euros?)
But sadly for me, life doesn't work that way.
So the story starts with me in bed, not wanting to get up. My mom Laura Brodeur came in, opening the door and shoving back the curtains. She was dressed in early 2000's athletic wear, which was not encouraging whatsoever. Plus, the sunlight almost blinded me. Even if my bad hearing blocked out half the noise, it didn't block out that godforsaken sunlight.
"Wake up, sweetie!" she chirped, her golden-blonde hair shining. With tanned skin and blue eyes, she radiated happiness and sunshine. "Last day before school!"
Kill me… I thought.
As if my morning couldn't get any worse, my younger twin step-sisters invited themselves in, and jumped on my bed. Being identical, they both shared dark skin, dark brown eyes, and curly black hair. For some reason, they liked to wear jean overalls underneath Barbie sweaters. Simultaneously. So it was impossible to tell them apart if you didn't know them. They enjoyed messing with people, you see.
"He's like a zombie," giggled Mardi, the younger twin.
"Wake up, Johnny!" Lucetta teased, pulling back my blankets.
"Go away…" I groaned. I knew she was trying to get a reaction out of me. One of my many pet peeves is people calling me Johnny. No offence if your name is Johnny, but good gods do I hate that name.
"Now, now," my step-mother, Avril Brodeur, also invited herself in. "Let John get ready in peace."
Like her offspring, she had dark skin, but had straight black hair. Thank the gods, she wasn't wearing an embarrassing outfit like my mom; she simply wore a nice blouse. She led her two vermin outside, leaving me alone for a few blissful moments.
Of course that was ruined once again by my dog, Piss (short for Pistache… please don't ask, my step-sisters came up with it). Piss was a French Bulldog with a brown coat and a goofy doggy smile. He also happened to be the only other male living in the house. As much as I loved him, having his heavy body mass lean on me when I was trying to sleep wasn't something I wanted first thing in the morning.
Ironically enough, it made me want to get up. So I did. I kicked him off the bed… and tried not to fall back asleep again. I was really not feeling it that morning. (In hindsight, I really should've stayed in bed. It would've been a win-win situation.) I forced myself to stand up. I reached for my hearing aid, putting it inside my left ear. Fun fact, I'm almost completely deaf in my left ear. Not very fun to live with, matter of fact.
I spent some time fiddling around to get the amount of sound I wanted to hear (it's never perfect and I always have to adjust it), but I realised I was taking too long and just left it. Now for the fun part: clothes. I put on a boring white hoodie with blue sleeves and a Metallica logo. I wore black tracksuit pants with a green stripe and blue converses. Now that we've got that out of the way… I went to the bathroom to pee.
Oh yeah, and I looked at myself in the mirror, because I'm vain, I suppose. I had olive skin, wavy, dark brown hair with a mild light ombré and a widow's peak, and brown eyes… with bags underneath them. The bags are permanent, trust me. And an eyebrow piercing above my right eye. (Because I thought it would look cool.) I had a pretty bad case of acne on my face. It wasn't the worst thing in the world but it didn't help in my sexiness factor. My hoodie hid my missing abs, thankfully.
I was about average height for a guy of my age. I still felt kind of short, but I knew I wasn't a hobbit or anything. Anyway, I left the room, and went downstairs. My mom and step-mom were romanticising while having breakfast… at the table. No they weren't getting all smoochy-smoochy, they were just being far too close and personal while I was trying to eat food. As for the vermin twins, they were in the living room, watching that weird KIDZ+ channel. Better than annoying me, I guess.
Mom smiled at me. "Hi, sweetie. Your dad called."
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He says he wants to see you later," Mom said.
I nodded. I sat down, grabbing some toast. Oh, were you expecting a croissant? Nope, that's weekend stuff. I'm pretty sure most of you know what toast is, so I don't need to describe it. And no, it wasn't 'French toast'. It was just normal toast. Though, I suppose it was technically French since it was made here, but still.
(I bet you're all wondering when the action is going to start. Patience, my young padawans. Enjoy the peace while it's still here.)
"In the meantime, John, could you go down to the bakery and get some more bread?" Mom asked. "We're running low."
"Yeah, sure," I shrugged. Why not? I had nothing better to do. I didn't like going on the bus that much but I did like the bakery. Most people do like food after all.
So I got a few euros in my pocket and I left the house. We lived in central Paris, so the bus stop wasn't too far away. One uninteresting bus trip later, and I got to the bakery. It was called Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie, and it was right at the end of the street. It was pretty up-market, with white walls, and fancy black and gold signs. Inside, many pastries were on display, sitting on white desks. A girl was at the counter, and gave me a friendly smile as I entered. I breathed in the scent of fresh bread, fiddling with the euros in my pocket.
"Hello!" the girl smiled at me. "How can I help you?"
She was a friendly-looking teenage girl with dark blue hair tied into two pigtails, bluebell eyes, and freckles across her nose. She wore a dark grey blazer over a white t-shirt with a flower design below the collar. She also had pink rolled up jeans and pink ballet flats.
"Hello, four of those, please," I said, pointing at the baguettes on display.
The girl nodded, putting the baguettes in a paper bag for me. I handed her the euros.
"Hey, um," she spoke up, accepting the money. "Do you go to my school? I feel like I've seen you before."
"You mean College Françoise DuPont?" I asked. "Nope, I don't go there."
"Oh, I see," she nodded.
"But my family comes here a lot," I told her. "We really like your bakery. Good stuff."
"I'm glad to hear that!" the girl said, still smiling. "Thanks for coming. We appreciate it!"
"No problem," I said, grabbing the baguettes. "Guess I'll be back at some point, heh."
"In that case… I'm Marinette," the girl said, offering a hand.
"John," I accepted her hand, shaking it.
And I was pretty sure I'd never see Marinette again, since every time I met someone nice, we never saw each other again.
Boy how wrong I was.
Anyway, I left the bakery, preparing to catch the bus home when I saw a huge crowd ahead, at the end of the street. Because I'm a sheep I decided to head over there and check out what was going on. It seemed a bunch of teenage girls were swarming a blonde guy around my age. He had green eyes and an immediate 'boy next door' kind of attitude. He wore a white button-down shirt with an upturned collar and sleeves rolled up above his elbow. Underneath, he wore a black shirt with five horizontal stripes around the chest which were coloured. Added to this were blue jeans and orange sneakers.
"What's going on here?" I asked a girl with a blonde ponytail and a heap of makeup. She looked like the type of girl to call someone broke if they didn't walk around wearing Gucci.
"That's Adrien Agreste, duh!" the girl scoffed. "Son of Gabriel Agreste! Don't you know him?"
"Gabriel Agreste has a kid?" I asked, raising a brow. (Don't blame me, I don't keep up with celebrity gossip.)
Then the Adrien kid turned and saw us. He walked over to us, making the blonde girl squeal.
"Adri-kins!" she greeted. (Man, I felt bad for Adrien. That nickname is beyond horrendous.)
"Hi, Chloé," Adrien greeted, and then he looked at me. "Who's this?"
"No one important," said the blonde girl Chloé. "He doesn't even know who you are!"
I was about to speak up, but Adrien simply laughed.
"That's fine," he said, turning to me and offering a hand. "I'm Adrien."
"John," I said, shaking his hand. The girls around me screamed in protest. Chloé herself looked like she was about to explode.
A limousine pulled up, and a bodyguard got out. Adrien sighed, turning away.
"Well, I've got to go," Adrien told me. "It was nice to meet you, John!"
He walked over to the limousine and got in. The girls continued to squeal.
Well, that was weird, I thought.
I ignored the furious girls, and decided to head on home since I was tired.
But of course that didn't happen. Nope, life wanted me to suffer. And that is when the action finally kicked in.
So I went to the bus stop to, well, catch the bus. I leaned against the sign, pulling out my phone to look at social media.
Suddenly, the ground began shaking. I heard sirens, and something coming down the street, like I was in a horror film. Panicked screams were everywhere. I looked ahead, and saw something straight out of a nightmare: a huge monster made out of mud. It roared, raising its sludgy arms.
"I am Mudslide!" it yelled. "The streets will run brown with my mud!"
Mud came rushing down the street, like an, ahem, mudslide. I jumped out of the way, clinging onto a building, like a cat. People were getting washed away in the mud, screaming for help. I tried to go inside the building, but it was closed.
Dammit dammit dammit, I thought, desperately banging on the doors. Get away from me!
Just as I thought the mud was going to get me, a hand wrapped around my arm, pulling me up to safety. It belonged to a girl wearing a skin-tight red bodysuit covered in black spots and with a black collar/turtleneck. She had a yo-yo around her hips with a red string. On her face was a red mask with five black spots. Her earrings were red with five black spots and the bands holding her hair back became red ribbons, resembling antennas.
She was also extremely familiar. I had met her about ten minutes ago, in fact.
I stared at her. "Mar-"
"Don't worry," Marinette told me. "Just stay up there, and you'll be fine."
She left me to hang out on the roof. She held up her yoyo, using it to swing across the mud, like Tarzan.
It seemed Mudslide hadn't lost interest in me quite yet since it spotted me hanging out, and gave me a nightmarish grin. I crawled back, trying not to slip on the tiles.
"Get away from me, you flying piece of poo!" I uttered, holding up my hands.
"Hold on there, pal."
Another hero-clad guy appeared. The first thing that caught my attention was his green cat eyes. He wore a textured black skin-tight catsuit with metal details. His matching gloves had claws on the fingertips and boots. He had a golden bell on his neck, connected to a zipper on the front of his costume, and a long belt that wrapped around his waist and hung out from the back like a tail. The look was finished with black cat ears and a black mask around his eyes.
He was familiar too. I had also met him pretty much five seconds ago.
Adrien gave me a cocky, bad boy next door grin before pulling out a long, black staff. He jumped towards Mudslide, slamming his staff into its muddy flesh. That kind of backfired when he sunk to the ground.
"Chat Noir!" Marinette shouted.
"Don't worry, m'lady," Adrien swam around like a broken duck, "I'll be fine!"
Sure looks like it, I thought, looking to my left.
The monster stared at me again, making me crawl back like a crab. What did it want from me? Of course, I almost fell off the damn roof. Marinette used her yo-yo to help Adrien out of the mud. They stood on a roof opposite me, facing the monster.
"Cataclysm!" Adrien, or Chat Noir, shouted. He leaped towards Mudslide, holding out a clawed hand. As soon as the hand collided with the mud, the creature began to melt. The mud was turning to steam which rose into the air.
Marinette joined Adrien, picking up something that the monster dropped. A phone? She suddenly crushed the phone beneath her foot. A butterfly flew out (don't ask me where it came from), disappearing into the sky.
"Miraculous Ladybug!" Marinette yelled, waving her yo-yo. And then all the mud suddenly vanished, like it had never been there before. Everyone who had been washed away was back to normal, no injuries sustained. I kind of just sat there and stared like an idiot. What the Hell had I just witnessed?
"Ladybug!" I heard people cheering. "Chat Noir!"
I shook my head in disbelief. Marinette, or Ladybug, as everyone called her, appeared beside me.
"Do you need help getting down?" she asked.
"Uh, um, yeah," I said, my brain hurting.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder as she led me down. I gave her a brief thank you, still feeling pretty out of it. Everyone continued to cheer, shouting 'Ladybug' and 'Chat Noir' over and over again. No one seemed to know who was behind the masks. No one except for me, apparently.
And then it hit me that I could've died. That thought made my stomach plummet.
Welp, I have a boring life, I thought, relieved. It's not like something like this will ever happen again. So what if I know their identities? It's my secret.
Oh boy. How wrong I was.
A/N: Welp, new fic time. This fanfiction is an experiment of sorts. I've had the idea of having a grumpy character being involved in heroic situations they don't want to be involved in for a while. This is where it finally came to fruition. XD Honestly IDK if I will continue this, depends how much traction it gets I suppose. I have mixed feelings about it. But we'll see how it goes.
