Deep Down
A Miraculous Ladybug one-shot story
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"Come on, Chat, pick up," Ladybug said through gritted teeth into her yo-yo phone, sprinting down the street.
She was not chasing down an Akuma for a change, but that didn't mean she wouldn't like Chat's support. In a way, this was a worse situation than their usual Hawkmoth-induced problems. Her Lucky Charm would not fix the repercussions this time.
As soon as Alya had showed her the breaking news about the missing children, Marinette had made up an excuse for a quick getaway and transformed. Scared children and worried parents made for very easy targets. She had to do something before it got out of hand.
A childhood memory pushed to the front of her mind but she quickly shook it away, pushing herself to run faster.
She rounded a corner and collided with something warm and clad in black.
"Woah there, M'Lady, who's after your tail?" the voice of Chat Noir said from just above her head.
"Chat! Oh thank the cakes, come on, we have to hurry," she said, stepping out of his arms, as he had balanced her after the collision.
"I'd follow you anywhere, Buginette," he said, indeed following after her as she resumed her run, "but mind telling me what's going on? I didn't get an Akuma alert."
"It's not an Akuma. Yet," she added. "Two girls went missing. Their parents are going out of their mind, along with other relatives. They both have big families… Let's just say we can't let Hawkmoth have that much ammunition."
They entered a small park the parents had told her about. It had a dog agility course at one end. "They usually take one of the girls' dog here, but they should have been home hours ago. The parents haven't heard from them and their phones are unavailable. And one of the girls needs an inhaler and they could be lost, hurt, or kidnapped or—"
"Hey, hey," Chat interrupted her as her words gained rapid-fire speed, stepping in front of her and grabbing her by the shoulders. "Breathe, M'Lady, it's gonna be alright. We'll find them," he said reassuringly, looking down into her eyes, his expression serious for a change.
"This isn't about me, Chat," she said, shaking off his grip.
"I know, just do this for me – take a deep breath."
She frowned but did as he instructed.
"Good. One more."
She felt like a fool.
"Perfect. Now, do we know their last known location or is it just here?"
He barely finished the sentence when they heard their names being called. They swiveled around to find a young couple jogging towards them, a large dog in tow.
"Did you come to help with the search for the missing girls?" the man asked, slightly out of breath.
"Yes, sir," Chat said.
"Good, we stayed here just in case the girls returned here—"
"Have you seen them?" Ladybug asked urgently.
"Yes," the woman answered. "We talked to the police and told them everything we knew. The girls arrived while we were already training and we saw them leave – through there," the woman said, pivoting around and pointing diagonally across the park.
"Did they leave by themselves?" she asked, already backing away from the pair.
"They did, just the two of them and the dog."
"Thank you," she threw over her shoulder as they sprinted for the gate.
When they exited the park, Ladybug said to Chat Noir, "The police already covered the street level, we better take the bird's eye view."
And so they took to the roofs.
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She wasn't sure how much time had passed as they flew around the city, pausing several times to ask the locals for any information. Some had been helpful, some less so.
Suddenly, Chat called from behind her. "M'Lady, look!"
She turned around and saw him pointing down towards a hole in a fence that guarded a steep slope leading towards old train tracks.
She swung down towards the fence and landed just as he did.
"See?" Chat Noir said, bending over and picking up what she quickly recognized as an inhaler.
"What are the chances that this belongs to one of the girls?" he asked, turning it over in his hands. He ran a clawed thumb over a yellow smiley face sticker on the side of the brownish plastic.
"Too great to ignore. Good eye, Chaton," she said, climbing through the fence and simultaneously opening her yo-yo. She dialed quickly.
The chief of police answered on the first ring.
"I need the parents to verify something. Does the girl's inhaler have a yellow sticker on it?" she asked, carefully making her way down the slope.
"One moment." Distant conversation came through the phone before he spoke up. "They've confirmed it. What have you found, Ladybug?"
"We've found it by the old Petite Ceinture train tracks, in the eleventh arondissement. It's just where it runs relatively deep in the ground, close to a fenced-off tunnel." She gave the directions rapidly, the two of them finally reaching the overgrown tracks, looking around.
"Understood. You found the inhaler there?"
"By a hole in a fence, it's better we check it out in case it fell out of the girl's pocket while she climbed through. It could—"
Ladybug jerked her head in the direction of the tunnel. "Was that a…"
"Dog barking?" Chat finished for her. "I think so."
They ran towards the sound. Ladybug said into the phone, "I think we hear a dog in the tunnel. Send someone over here." And she disconnected the call.
"You said their phones were unavailable, right?" Chat asked.
She didn't like where this was going.
As they reached the heavily spray-painted tunnel entrance, they could clearly hear the barking echoing from deeper within the darkness.
"Definitely not horror film material," Chat mumbled.
Ladybug scanned the fence barring the entrance. She quickly located the point of entry and pointed it out to her partner. The corner was pushed in, forming a hole big enough to get through.
She climbed through first, folding the loose piece further away to help Chat Noir get through too.
"Well," he said as he dusted himself off, "at least we don't have to worry about a train barreling towards us."
Ladybug entered the tunnel and followed the dog's voice. It soon became dark enough that she activated her yo-yo's flashlight. "Hello?" she called. "Anybody there?" Her voice bounced all around them. "Emile? Lisette?"
Her beam of light illuminated the walls and showed more graffiti. They definitely weren't the first ones there.
Something small scurried along the opposite wall. Ladybug suppressed a shudder.
"How are you with rats, Chaton?"
"I would never turn down a dinner invitation from my Lady, but I'm afraid even I have my limits."
"Good to know you have some standards."
"I was taught by the best."
She gave him a warning look.
Chat held up a hand. "My Kwami. His taste in cheese is rather exceptionally costly."
Ladybug silently thanked Tikki for liking things from her parents' bakery.
As they neared the dog, the barking started to lose its ominous echo. When her flashlight finally landed on the canine, a breath whooshed out of her lungs. The description fit. It was the girl's dog.
But what he was barking at made her blood chill. "Oh no," she breathed just as her partner expressed the same sentiments.
The dog was pacing nervously around an open manhole by a stack of what appeared to be crates, barrels and metal scraps, dragging its leather lead behind it. As they approached it, the animal looked at them and whined, resuming its vigil over the round opening.
"Hey doggy, hey boy," Ladybug said in a gentle voice, kneeling down and letting the dog approach her first, offering the back of her hand for sniffing. "Where is your owner, hmm?"
The animal continued to nervously pace between her and the hole.
"Is she down there?" she asked despite not expecting an answer.
Chat approached the manhole and shined his baton flashlight down into the darkness of the narrow space. "Nothing to see at the bottom, but the rungs look like someone climbed down recently."
Ladybug could see the grimace on his face in the reflected light. She leaned over the opening and called the girls names, but no answer came.
"Alright," she said, standing up. "I'll go in. You stay here and wait for the police."
"What? No way, LB, I'm not letting you go down there alone," he said, his eyes horrified.
"We have no time to lose, Chat. If they're down there, they'll be terrified by now. We have to find them. Immediately." She held out a hand towards him. "Give me the inhaler."
"No," he protested, placing a hand over a zipped up pocket.
"We really can't waste time arguing about this, Chat, you have no idea what—" she swallowed the rest of her words, looking away from him. "Every minute we waste could feel like an hour to them."
She felt his eyes on her for several long seconds.
He sighed. "Counter proposition: I take the dog outside and tie him there to mark the entrance. We call the chief and let him know exactly what we're doing because that seems like a smart thing to do, given the circumstances. And we go together."
She looked up and found his serious gaze boring into hers. The white light from their flashlights carved out deep shadows in his face, highlighting the black material of his catsuit. He looked determined to fight her on this.
"Alright," she said.
He blinked twice as if he expected more resistance. "Alright," he echoed, recovering quickly. He picked up the dog's lead and jogged back towards the entrance.
She saw him dialing and lifting the baton to his ear. Which left her with nothing to do but fidget and wait.
She had no idea what the girls were thinking, if they had actually climbed down what appeared to be a sewer entrance. She shined her light further into the abandoned tunnel but it went on far beyond the reach of the beam. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, as long as an abandoned creepy tunnel could be considered ordinary.
"Emile? Lisette?" she tried once more. "It's Ladybug and Chat Noir, we came to find you. If you can hear me, please let us know. I promise you won't get in trouble, your parents just want you back safely."
She waited for several heartbeats but heard nothing except the echo of her own voice, the continuous ominous hum of the tunnel, and the occasional rat.
Then Chat's rapid steps approached and she turned to the manhole.
"The chief is bringing more men, they'll explore the area in wider perimeters, too."
"Good. Let's go," she said and began lowering her feet to the rungs below. She looked up at her partner as she climbed down the steps and caught his frown. "Ladies first, right?" she teased, instinctively trying to ease his worries.
He gave her a half of an uncertain smile in return.
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When her feet hit the bottom of the long shaft, she turned around and shone the light further into the tight space. It was high enough to walk through but the damp walls closing in on the narrow path gave her an uncomfortable feeling.
She heard her partner's booted feet hit the ground behind her.
"Well, this is pleasant," he remarked.
They moved forward, dodging pipes and valves sticking out of the roughly hewn walls, until they reached a fork in the path. It was either go straight or take a right.
Chat Noir stood right behind her back, using his own light to peer around the corner.
Ladybug called the girls' names once again, and again received no answer. She took a deep breath. "I think we—"
"No splitting up," Chat cut her off. "That's the number one rule in horror movies and it applies to this situation too," he said directly into her ear.
She turned her head to look up at him and found his green almost glowing gaze on her. "I guess you're right," she murmured and saw a flicker of surprise behind the mask. "Do you vote right or straight?"
"I personally always take a left, when in doubt."
"Helpful."
"But I'll go with whichever you choose. I wouldn't want to be left behind." His sentence ended on an oomph as Ladybug elbowed him in the ribs.
"Fine. We go right. We can go left on the way back."
"The right decision, My Lady."
"I swear, Chaton, there aren't enough elbows on a person to deal with you," she said and began walking.
They kept going, calling out the girls' names at intervals, always taking a right where there was a choice. Their feet sometimes splashed in a puddle of unidentifiable liquid and Ladybug was glad for the watertight suit.
They reached another T in their path, this one with a metal door barring the way to go straight. She tried the handle, but nothing budged. It was probably rusted shut, but the grooves in the ground suggested it used to work. So they took a right again. But found themselves in a dead-end passage, with more valves and broken gauges.
"Ok, clearly not the way the girls might have gone. Maybe we should—"
A distant metal scraping interrupted her. They both shone their flashlight in the direction from which they came. Silence followed. And then, the muffled sounds of something heavy falling and hitting a metal surface, over and over, the deep bangs resonating through the underground corridors, until silence followed again.
A sharp intake of breath and Chat Noir was off, sprinting back.
"Chat, wait!" she said, immediately running after him. She stayed hot on his heels, taking many lefts, until they rounded the last corner and he leaped up onto the rungs and disappeared from her sight, cursing in the process.
When she reached the ladder and looked up, she saw her partner pushing at the now sealed up cover of the manhole.
"No, no, no," Chat repeated, ramming a shoulder upwards against the metal.
She clambered up after him, squeezing into the tight space next to his body, bracing her own hands against it.
After about a minute of futile attempts, Chat pulled back his right hand. "I'll get us out of here."
"Wait, don't!" she said, reaching across him to grab his wrist. "Your cataclysm might get rid of the cover but we don't know what's above that now. Haven't you heard the banging? A lot of stuff fell over, and I'm betting that's the reason we can't get it open even with our heightened strengths combined. Something could fall in here, on us."
She stared into his eyes, being able to see them only thanks to the light from their flashlights, that were secured against their lower backs, bouncing off of the damp walls. She watched his pupils, blown wide, dart between her face, the cover, and back to her several times, swallowing thickly.
He was so close she could feel his chest expanding with each rapid breath.
"Y-you're right. Of course, you're right," he said, lowering his hand.
She let go of his wrist. "We'll find another way out."
"Yeah," he mumbled, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close, dropping them both back down below. He released her quickly and ran a clawed hand through his already unruly hair.
She eyed him carefully, noting his still slightly elevated breathing. "Are you alright?" she asked gently.
"Yeah," he said again, not meeting her gaze. "Don't worry about me."
She didn't want to pry. She took a deep breath and hunted for a plan.
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In the end, they didn't have that many options. Checking their communicators, they found out that no matter how magical their weapons were, they still wouldn't allow for a good signal down here. And having received all the necessary fairytale education, they quickly agreed that it wouldn't be wise to just go any further without a backup plan, without a way back in case someone came to investigate the area. So Ladybug sacrificed her yo-yo, wrapping it around one of the rungs of the ladder, unspooling the string as they walked. She figured the yo-yo would snap back to her if she needed it.
"How long is the string, anyway?" Chat asked after they took several turns and backtracked a couple of times because of dead-ends.
"I'm not sure, I've never tested out the maximum length, but it has yet to fail me in that regard." It was long enough to wrap around the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower several times over so she assumed it'd be fine. "What about your baton?" she asked.
"It's always been as long as I needed it to be," he said, shrugging his shoulders, making their only beam of light wobble ahead of them with the movement. "Balancing it has always been a breeze but I suppose that even with magic, there must be limit to that."
"Yeah, we wouldn't want you to accidentally shoot yourself up into space— EEK!" she bumped into him as a rat ran past them along the wall. They'd stopped walking and she quickly noticed she somehow latched onto his arm. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, releasing her grasp.
"I'm not judging you."
"Sure you're not."
"I'm…not," he said, his voice somewhat subdued.
"Well, thanks, I guess," she said when they resumed walking. Turning at the next corner, they found themselves again in front of the rusty door. Ladybug sighed. "We've walked in circles, through possibly every passage here. It's clear the girls aren't down here." Which was both good news and bad news. What was worse though was that they hadn't found an alternative exit.
She turned to her partner and was about to say something, but the words got lost on the way to her lips when she looked at him. He was breathing hard and fast, and the hand holding the baton shook, causing the light to tremble as well. His eyes were wide open, darting around them.
"Chat, hey," she said, placing a hand on his free arm. "Hey," she said with more steel in her voice when he refused to look at her. "What's wrong?" she asked, immediately wanting the reward for the stupidest question of the day.
He fidgeted on the spot, swallowing with effort. "I…I'm…" He closed his eyes.
He looked so uncomfortable, practically in pain.
She looped the string around her elbow to keep it out of the way and reached up with both hands, placing them against his cheeks. "Hey," she tried again, "what is it? Please, Chaton, tell me."
"It's stupid," he practically whispered.
"It's not, whatever it is, I won't judge, I promise." He remained quiet. "Even if it's the rats."
He let out something akin to a snort, but it sounded pained.
She slid her hands down to his chest and could feel the rapid gallop of his heartbeat beneath her palms.
"I'm…not dealing with this situation very well," he admitted.
She didn't tell him that much was obvious. "Are you…claustrophobic?"
He shook his head. "Not…exactly. It's not the lack of space. It's being…trapped," he said, his voice going hoarse on the last word.
Ladybug's heart squeezed, witnessing his pain.
"We are going to get out, Chaton, we'll find a way. I promise. We always do."
He nodded jerkily, keeping his eyes closed.
"You're alright," she reassured him, drawing him in for a quick but firm hug. When she withdrew, his arms reluctantly letting her go, she took his face between her hands once more. "Look at me, please."
He did as she asked, the black pupils completely obscuring his irises. "You're alright. You're not alone. We're going to get out and then we'll go for an ice cream. Ok?"
He swallowed again before asking, "At André's?"
She didn't want to think about the repercussions of her promise at that moment. She needed to calm her partner. That's all that mattered. "At André's," she confirmed.
He blinked owlishly a couple times. "Um…I'm probably taking advantage of the situation."
"I'm aware."
"But I'm not…pretending—"
"I know," she said and gently patted his cheek. "Just stay with me, ok?" She released him and took a step back.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
"Never apologize for something like this, it's not your fault." She took his free hand. "Together, ok?"
Even in the dim light, she could see that he had that look he sometimes wore when he thought she wasn't looking. Like she hung the Moon up in the night sky just for him. She turned her head away. "Right. Now for plan B. Or C." As she surveyed the ground, she noticed yet another rat scurrying along it in the direction of the door, where the rodent suddenly disappeared.
She tugged on Chat's hand. "Hey, can you illuminate the bottom of the door?"
He did as she instructed and they both moved closer to it. Releasing his hand, she kneeled down when she noticed one corner of the door had a rusted hole in it. She peered closer, trying not to think about what just passed through it, the mental picture of a rat jumping at her face making her pull back.
"There's definitely open space behind it, I can feel a breeze coming through," she said, getting to her feet. She tried the handle again, pulling on it with her weight, but to no avail. "Alright, I think it's time for you to do your magic."
She stepped back to give him space and watched as he raised a hand that trembled slightly. His murmured cataclysm was barely audible, gone was his usual flare and dramatics. Dark power gathered in the palm of his hand and he pressed it against the metal surface, which quickly began to deteriorate.
When the destruction stopped at the doorframe, not spreading to the stone walls surrounding it, Ladybug breathed a sigh of relief and stepped close to his side. A rough uneven path opened up before them, the ground covered in layers of pale dust.
She took the hand that held so much power just seconds ago and squeezed it tightly. "Together," she said again, and they started walking.
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"Well, this place officially sucks," Ladybug grumbled, when she tripped over a loose rock for the third time. They took many turns; some of the tunnels were narrower, some wider. Some had lower ceilings and they had to walk bent over. After some time, they started to encounter drawings on the walls. Some looked like figures, others like mere symbols. Some appeared to be arrows marking a path, in chalk or in spray-paint. And though she couldn't see very well, she could sometimes feel the ground descending or rising at an incline.
The hum of air passing through the corridors, the occasional rat, and the echo of their own steps that almost sounded like somebody was following them left her feeling thoroughly creeped out. She didn't dare complain because Chat Noir was faring far worse. The hand she kept a tight hold on shook relentlessly, his breathing was ragged, as if he had ran a marathon, and it seemed that maintaining a conversation was impossible for him at the moment.
The first beeps of his Miraculous didn't help the situation either.
As they turned at the next corner, with a large arrow pointing them on their way, they both came to a halt. The light from Chat's baton illuminated what appeared to be a long narrow room full of—
"Bones," Ladybug breathed, a shiver running up her spine. They appeared to be human and covered the entire length of the area, forming a macabre carpet she did not want to set a foot upon. To her surprise, Chat was the first to break the silence.
"I know where we are," he said hoarsely. "We're in the catacombs."
Her lips parted in surprise. She hadn't thought of that. "Have you ever been here?" she asked.
"Yeah, but only the touristy parts, with a guide and stories and all that."
She considered this. The catacombs ran beneath Paris for hundreds of kilometers. Clearly they weren't the first ones there, given the tags and pictures they had passed, but they had no way of knowing how old those pictures were. It was illegal to go exploring on your own, so many of the entrances were sealed off.
She shivered again and jumped at another urgent beep of Chat's ring. "Come on," she pulled him past the room of horror. "You're going to de-transform soon and I don't want to be anywhere near those bones when we're left in the dark."
"S-shit," he stammered. "I hadn't realized that."
She almost smiled at hearing the rare curse word from his lips, but it was further proof how not well he was dealing with this. "It's going to be fine. At least I won't see a thing while your Kwami refuels. So I can be with you the whole time."
They found a dry thankfully rat-free and bone-free part of a corridor and sat down, leaning against the uneven wall. The last beep signaled that time was up and after a bright flash of light, against which Ladybug closed her eyes, they were plunged into absolute impenetrable darkness.
Ladybug kept blinking, expecting to see something, but it was just her mind playing tricks on her. Chat's breathing accelerated and she felt around for his hand and squeezed it in what she hoped was comfort.
"Wow, kid, just wow. This is something else," a scratchy voice came out of the dark.
Chat took a shaky breath. "Ladybug, meet Plagg. Plagg, this is Ladybug."
"Hello, Plagg," she said, smiling to herself.
"Well, isn't this cozy. If only I had a camera to snap this moment."
"You know where the cheese is," Chat grumbled.
"Wait," Ladybug said, sitting up straighter. "You can see?" she asked the Kwami.
"Of course I can see," came the answer, sounding as though it was muffled by a piece of cloth. He must have dived under Chat Noir's clothes.
"That's…impressive," she admitted.
"And useful," came the reply from closer than before. "I can count all of your spots from here. Shall I count the small ones across your nose, too?"
"Plagg," Chat practically hissed.
"What? You said they're cute."
"I—that's not—Plagg, that's not how humans make conversation," Chat stuttered through clenched teeth.
Ladybug swallowed a giggle, simultaneously trying to suppress the slight heat rising in her cheeks, thankful that Chat was currently as blind as she was. But then a thought occurred to her. "Wait. Perhaps it's useful for something else, too? Like finding out where we are and how to get out of here? You can pass through walls, can't you?"
Silence, and then a mouth full of what she supposed was cheese said, "This one's got a brain on her, kid."
She heard a sigh. "Stating the obvious there, Plagg."
"Um, thank you?" she said, her voice rising at the end uncertainly.
"The brains and the brawn, always a powerful duo," the Kwami said. "Just like Camembert and I. We'll help. Sit tight. Though, you already kinda do. It's adorable."
"Just go already," Chat snapped impatiently.
"Ever the thankful one, and here I am, trying to—" His voice cut off as he presumably exited through the stone.
Silence followed his departure. The boy next to her shifted. "I'm sorry."
"No need to be sorry, he sounds like fun to be around, actually."
"He is. Sometimes I feel like he's the only one I can talk to. But no, I meant - sorry for being this useless."
"You are not useless. You're here with me and there's no one I'd rather be stuck here with. I mean, not stuck, that's not a good word," she backpedaled, not wanting to remind him too much of the word trapped. "Just…having this creepy experience with. I'd be a mess if I were here alone," she admitted, leaning the side of her head against his shoulder.
She heard him swallow audibly. "If I hadn't insisted on coming down with you…I would have been able to get you out. P-prevent the cover from closing or something. I shouldn't have insisted, Plagg is right. You're the brains of the duo."
Ladybug shifted closer to him, the dark pressing against her eyes, the hum of the tunnels against her ears. "Then why did you?" she asked softly.
"I…I couldn't let you go alone, you looked frightened, like there was something lurking behind your eyes, a memory you were trying not to live through again," he said hesitantly.
She closed her eyes against the dark. "You know me too well, Chaton."
"You…you don't have to tell me."
"Will it make your panic worse?" she asked.
"I don't think so. Talking helps."
"Then I'll tell you, but it's really quite silly," she warned. "When I was little, I got lost at the supermarket."
Chat's shoulder jerked under her, as though he suppressed a chuckle.
She let it slide and continued. "I couldn't find my mum and I convinced myself that she must have left without me. So I followed her out. She wasn't outside either, so I thought, maybe she'd gone home. But I was little, and dumb, and didn't know the way, so, I got lost."
"How…how did she find you?"
"She didn't. For hours. It was dark before the police did. Nothing happened to me, except for a scraped knee and chin from when I fell while running in panic along some street, and I have realized by now that the panic my parents felt must have been far worse than mine at the time, but for some reason, those feelings just sometimes…reappear. I was too scared to ask for help, stupidly scared that I'd be in trouble. I even ran away from a police car at one point. But when my parents saw me, dirty and hungry, they were just…happy. Relieved and happy. A happy end. And yet…" she trailed off.
"You don't want other people to feel the way you and your parents did."
"I very much don't."
"Trauma comes in many forms."
She pulled her head away from his shoulder. "I wouldn't call that trauma."
"Why not? It was a bad situation and it left its mark. And it's not silly, as you put it. Your feelings are valid," he said, his voice carrying a hint of underlining meaning.
She turned her body towards his, and even though she couldn't see a thing, she found his back and ran her hand across it, mirroring the movement with her other hand at his front, linking her fingers on his other side. "So are yours," she said, resting her cheek against his shoulder, feeling crisp cotton touch her skin, scenting a hint of laundry detergent with the proximity.
With her arms banded around his ribcage, she could feel his chest rise and fall at a faster pace than normal. She wished she could do more for him.
Trembling hands landed on her arm at his front, pressing it closer to his body.
"Tell me what to do," she whispered.
He heaved a shaky sigh, running his fingers along the material of her suit, mapping out the crease of her elbow in the dark that enveloped them whole. "What… what does your Kwami like? To eat, I mean. No stinky cheese, I suppose?"
Ladybug laughed through her nose. "No, she loves sweet home-baked goods. Especially macarons."
"Huh."
"What?"
"It seems I have more in common with your Kwami than with mine."
"Sweet tooth?"
"Absolutely."
"Not a cheese lover?"
"I like cheese just fine, just not the stinky sock kind Plagg prefers."
She giggled. "You don't smell like cheese."
She felt him still in her embrace, his fingers halting their repetitive motion. "W-what do I smell like?"
She bit her lip. She was tired of always trying to keep to neutral ground with her partner. Shutting him down was out of the question.
"Like…home. Like a loving home, a place of sunshine, warmth, and happiness. Like freedom and the wind, and laughter and safety." He did, to her. "And really lovely laundry detergent."
He let out something between a cough and a snort. "Goes to show that even smells can lie," he said, his fingers resuming their perusal.
She pressed herself closer to his side, tilting her head, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I know…we shouldn't say much about our private lives, but… if you ever want to talk, I'll listen."
He remained silent before sighing and saying, "I don't have a story like you. An episode from the past, like getting stuck in an elevator or something like that."
Ladybug had the feeling that if she were able to see, his head would be hung low.
"My home is… the exact opposite of what you described. There's no freedom, no laughter. I have very little control over my civilian life. And not to sound like a dramatic teenager, but I do get grounded a lot. For the stupidest reasons." A beat of silence. "Though our laundry detergent is the bomb."
She swallowed against an emotion crawling up her throat. "That's why you love being Chat Noir."
"He's more me than…well, me."
"I think he's wonderful."
He must have turned his head towards her because his next words stirred her hair. "You do?"
She looked up in the general direction where she thought his face would be.
Without warning, a double flash of white light went off, making them both jump.
"Did you know," the scratchy voice of Chat's Kwami said as she blinked rapidly to get rid of the sparks in her eyes, "that there are whole rooms of human bones just through there? Oh, you can't see where I'm pointing."
"Plagg," Chat's voice had a warning in it.
"This place is just lovely. They sure know how to decorate."
"Plagg!"
"Oh, alright. I found your way out. You're one cataclysm away from your desired freedom." He gave them the directions, repeating them twice, making sure they had it right.
They stood up, dusting themselves off. "Oh yeah," the little cat Kwami said, "you better check in with the police. There's been some sort of an uproar since you two decided to get cozy down here."
Chat Noir quickly transformed, preventing Plagg from saying anything else. Turning on the flashlight, he offered her an arm. "Shall we, M'Lady? Let's get out of these cat-tacombs."
She linked her arm through his, smiling at his better mood.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Plagg's instructions were precise enough. After Chat obliterated a somewhat well hidden door they probably would have missed on their own, they found themselves in halls where walls were entirely made of bones, with skulls arranged in decorative patterns. This distinctly creepy fact was easily forgiven, as there was actual light surrounding them after what welt like an eternity.
Chat brightened considerably, leading her by the hand around corners, until they took a sharp turn and found themselves face to face with a group of tourists, all staring at them in surprise. Ladybug snapped her hand and her yo-yo returned to her, much faster than one would expect. Magic.
Explaining their situation briefly to the guide, and apologizing for the damage, they ran up a set of stairs and out onto a street. They took a brief moment for themselves, just breathing in fresh air and taking in the sounds of the city. Grinning at each other, they took to the roofs of Paris, and after a quick phone call, they headed back to the tunnel where it all began.
To their immense surprise, all was well. The closing of the manhole was quickly explained. I group of twenty-something men discovered the entrance to the catacombs through the tunnel and were planning on exploring that day, but were first interrupted by the arrival of the girls, running in after their dog companion, and then by the superheroes themselves. Upon seeing the two girls climb back out and run away, they decided to close the manhole, tipping over the pile of discarded things next to it to cover their tracks, hoping to explore at another day. They were now facing charges for trapping the superheroes underground.
The two girls were found not too far from the tunnel, supposedly indeed hiding down below before, sneaking back out when Ladybug and Chat Noir unknowingly passed them close to the entry shaft. They had dared each other to climb down the open hole and were scared to give away their location, should they get in trouble. They were made to apologize to the superhero duo by their parents.
Chat Noir squatted down in front of the girls and held out the inhaler. He ruffled the hair of the girl that took it from him, telling them both to never do something so risky and to not put their parents through something like that again.
After receiving many thanks from everybody present, and Chat's ring beeping a warning timer, the superheroes departed from the scene. Ladybug felt quite confused by the two separate stories and decided not to question it. She did however question her own poor decision.
"If I chose to go straight right at the start, we would have found the girls immediately," Ladybug said quietly, landing on the roof of a nearby building.
"And if I hadn't insisted on going down with you, all of it could have been avoided." He walked to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We can't always be expected to make the right choices. Despite all this," he said, gesturing to his mask and body, as animated as she knew him to be, "we are still human."
She smiled warmly up at him, grateful for his good humor. "When did you get so wise?" she asked playfully.
He shrugged. "Somewhere between the rats and the bones." He leaned in closer. "The brains are rubbing off on the brawn."
She poked him in the forehead with a red-clad finger. "A little gross."
"Just a tad."
His ring beeped incessantly.
"And that is my cue. I'll see you later, M'Lady," he said, bowing dramatically.
He turned to leave but she called after him, "Let's have a picnic somewhere really high up." She wasn't sure where this was coming from.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
"I'll bring the sweets," she added.
His face lit up. He turned to face her and placed a hand over his heart. "The brains and the sweets? How's a poor cat to resist?" And with that, he jumped backwards off the building.
Ladybug smiled, a slight heat creeping into her cheeks. Silly cat. And she owed him an ice cream at André's on top of everything.
She wondered what their cone would look like.
She shook that thought away and headed home.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Sitting in class the next day, Adrien found it distinctly difficult to concentrate. Despite the drama of the day before, he was in a very good mood, his mind wandering off to the damp cramped places deep beneath the Parisian streets.
The panicked feeling that covered his memories of their underground adventure in a layer of fuzziness made the entire ordeal feel like a dream. And he would have believed it too, if he hadn't had proof.
When he had returned home the previous afternoon, he had made a surprising discovery after de-transforming. He had all but forgotten about his phone tucked away in one of the inside pockets of his shirt. Taking it out, he had frozen on the spot, almost dropping the device.
There, across the small screen, had been a photo of him in his civilian form and Ladybug, arms wrapped around him, chin on his shoulder, looking up at him, his own face tilted down towards hers. The photo had been taken with a flash, illuminating their dreary surroundings and making Ladybug's red suit and mask glow in some spots. They looked as though they had been staring into each other's eyes, but Adrien remembered the oppressive darkness after he had de-transformed in the passage. They'd been as good as blind.
And then he'd recalled the sudden flash of light.
He had chased his little black Kwami around the room, trying to smother him in a hug. Plagg had refused, of course, but he had graciously accepted some premium Camembert order as payment instead.
Smiling to himself for what felt like the hundredth time just that morning, Adrien packed up his school bag as the teacher ended the lesson, preparing to move to the chemistry lab.
Walking down the stairs to get to his locker, he couldn't resist pulling out his phone and checking the photo yet again. He had fallen asleep staring at it the night before and had already saved it to his computer and a backup disc to make sure he never lost it.
He reached the bottom of the stairs just as the world gave a violent jerk, throwing him to the side. He recovered his balance quickly thanks to his cat-induced reflexes, but not everyone was so lucky. He looked around the atrium, seeing many students on the ground, looking around themselves in panic. Shouts echoed around the school as teachers tried to get students to safety. It was time to go.
He rounded the stairs just as a second shudder hit, and he heard an ominous cracking coming from above, bits of plaster raining down from the underside of the walkway up on the first floor. He was about to run for the bathroom to transform when he saw something that made his heart drop into his stomach.
It was Marinette, picking herself up from the floor, bits of white plaster in her hair. The walkway above her began to lean down precariously.
His feet were moving before he gave them the command. "Marinette!" he shouted, real fear creeping into his voice. "Watch out!" What a useless warning.
He watched practically in slow motion, as she looked at him, then above her, mouth opening in surprise, then back to him. She lifted a hand towards him as if to ward him off.
He pushed his body to go faster, faster, as the support beams cracked and the slab of iron and concrete began to tip down.
He threw himself at her, taking her down with him, wrapping a hand around her head for protection, trying to take the brunt of the fall. A horrible crash sounded behind them, small bits of rubble pelted them both.
Silence followed, interrupted only by his harsh breathing. He opened his eyes and a quick scan of their surrounding confirmed his theory and he was so glad he hadn't miscalculated. The slab of concrete remained mostly intact, leaning against the wall behind them, essentially trapping them in between the two. More rubble and pieces of broken railing hemmed the small space in from the sides.
Adrien was on his back, Marinette sprawled on top of him, and he quickly realized he was clutching her to his chest. He released his tight hold and grabbed her shoulders instead.
"Marinette, are you alright?" he asked breathlessly.
The petite girl groaned, lifting her head. She blinked twice down at him before her cheeks took on a rosy hue. "A-Adrien? Oh God, are you ok?" she demanded urgently.
"I asked first," he tried grinning, lifting a hand to remove a larger piece of plaster that clung to her hair.
Her blush deepened. "M-me? Of course I'm K.O. I mean, ok. I mean I'm—" She froze just as she began pushing herself up, horror washing over her features. "Oh God, no, no, no, don't move, it's gonna be ok, you're gonna be ok," she rambled on.
Adrien frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Y-you're, you're—" she pulled her hand that had somehow gotten under his open shirt during the tumble away and stared at it in puzzlement, "covered in cheese?" her voice tilted upwards.
He patted his shirt and upon opening it, found Plagg's preferred snack smeared all over his clothes. "Oh! Um, I didn't have time for breakfast in the morning, so I just grabbed something to go and…" he trailed off, trying not to dig himself any deeper in the lies.
She was sitting up, straddling his hips, still staring at the sticky mess across her hand.
"Sorry about that," he said sheepishly, pushing himself up on his elbows. "It's not the best smelling thing in the world."
She looked down at him and blinked. Then her mouth formed a small O, and as if she'd just realized their position, she quickly slid off of him, allowing him to sit up fully. "D-don't worry about it," she stammered, "it's fine."
He looked around them again, taking in more details. He noticed the windows to the locker rooms on the wall behind them remained thankfully whole, no glass shattered above them. Removing the rubble on the sides would be possible, but maybe risky given how some of it seemed to be wedged under the main slab of concrete. The best exit strategy might just be smashing the windows.
He heard Marinette shuffling next to him, probably taking in their predicament. He could tell her to put her jacket over her head and face for protection and use his newly cheesy shirt to wrap around his fist to break the glass—
"Oh, looks like you've dropped your phone," she said behind him, her shoes crunching over the debris on the floor. "And look! It survived the…" her voice trailed off.
He swiveled his head in her direction and found her standing by the wall, his phone in her clean hand, staring at the screen with wide eyes. He got to his feet and approached her.
He saw her blink once at the screen, then at her cheese-covered hand, then back at his phone.
Slowly, painfully slowly, she lifted her gaze to his.
He wasn't ready for what came out of her mouth next.
"You dumb, dumb cat, getting yourself trapped again because of me."
A jolt went through him. His lips parted, but no sound came out. He stared and stared into her blue eyes, as she stared into his. Her eyes were the same, with or without the mask, he realized. How powerful must the magic guarding their identities be for him not to see this sooner?
And he wondered if maybe, somewhere deep down, he'd known all along.
The sound of skittering dust behind them jerked him out of his stupor.
"I had to," he said, his voice hoarse. So many thoughts were running through his mind, so many things he – they – needed to address.
"Always taking the fall for me. You stupid, dumb cat." She let her hands fall limply to her sides.
He shifted on his feet nervously and cleared his throat. "Now that we've established my intelligence, perhaps we should—"
Marinette threw herself at him, burying her face in his chest. He felt his phone and the fingers of her other hand digging into his back.
He hugged her shoulders, placing a hand on the back of her head. "At least you can't say I don't smell like cheese anymore," he murmured, his heart beating faster than it had in the catacombs.
The sob she let out was muffled by his T-shirt.
"You really know how to pick your moments, kid," Plagg said, hovering just behind Marinette.
"And you know how to ruin them, Plagg!" said a high, squeaky voice next to them, and when Adrien turned his head, he found a red Kwami with black spots and big beautiful eyes, tiny hands akimbo in annoyance. The sweet-toothed Ladybug Kwami turned her gaze to him and said, "Though I must agree with Plagg that perhaps it would be wiser to continue this," she gestured with a tiny paw in their direction, "after you deal with the Akuma."
Adrien blushed.
"Chat Noir, meet Tikki. Tikki, this is Chat Noir," Marinette echoed his words from the day before. "Apparently," she added, shaking her head against his chest.
"Nice to meet you, Tikki," Adrien smiled.
"I know a lot about you," the red Kwami said.
"Tikki!" Marinette gasped in horror, backing out of the embrace with pink cheeks.
It looked like both of their Kwamis partook in over-sharing.
Trapped there, under all the rubble, Adrien felt the happiest he'd ever been. He reached out a hand to Marinette. "Shall we get going, M'Lady?" he asked, with a very Chat-like grin.
She smiled and took his hand. Cheese and all.
The End
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A/N: Several things became glaringly obvious to me while writing this story. First, I love reveal stories. Second, I love writing dialogue. And third, I would never set foot in the catacombs under Paris. How well would you fare? I'd be worse off than poor Chat in this story.
I think we can all agree that Plagg is the real hero here. Please send him all the stinky sock cheese you can find.
Thank you so much for reading,
Matylda
Edit: Big thanks to Qoheleth for pointing out a spelling error!