To yellow 14: Given where Chloe's headquarters is, what else would you call it? ;P

To Butterfly: No, that is the correct group.

"If you think she can do it…"

"I have faith in her. She can make it work."

"But, Chlo, it took Marinette a few years to figure out how to repair recent damage she hadn't witnessed and which hadn't been directly caused by her opponent. You're asking her to repair an apartment building that has been in disrepair and abandoned for over a decade!"

"Are you saying you don't think our Ladybug can do it?"

"Of course not. I think she has at least a 70% chance of some degree of success. However, I do think you need to measure your expectations."

"Please, Chlo. She's your daughter; she's not Marinette."

"I know who she is."

Alex turned to Ana and muttered, "I really didn't miss this part."

Ana giggled. "With everything else going on, listening to the grown-ups argue almost feels like a return to normal!" She cleared her throat, and Chloe, Sabrina, and Max all turned to look at them in surprise. "If this works, then we can provide housing for a couple hundred people, right?" Ana asked. Max nodded.

"Now that Plagg has a holder, my power is stronger and more focused," Tikki interjected from her perch on Ana's shoulder. "That will help." She frowned. "But Cat Noir needs to be there – Plagg will need to keep us in balance, since Ladybug is still so new to the miraculous."

"There, you see?" Chloe turned to Max with a smirk. "If the Kwami thinks it will work, what do we have to worry about?"

"I can't guarantee anything…" Tikki warned.

On Alex's shoulder, Plagg shrugged. "We'll keep you in line, Bug."

Ana set her jaw firmly. "I want to try."

Chloe gave Ana a look between pride and worry and pulled her into a hug. "That's my girl." She held her out at arm's length, examined her face critically, and added, "Just be careful, okay? If it doesn't work perfectly, that's just fine, too."

"Even a partial repair would be a tremendous help," added Max. "As long as the building is structurally sound, we can patch the holes in the walls and roof well enough for people to live in it for the next few years, at least until the new apartment buildings downtown have been completed."

Ana let out a breath and nodded. "I'll do my best!" she assured them, transforming and racing out of the office.

Chloe gave Alex a look. "Aren't going with her?" she asked. "You heard Tikki: someone needs to keep an eye on your partner…"

Alex nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Sabrina patted Alex's arm sympathetically, raising an eyebrow at Chloe. With an affectionate sigh, Chloe grabbed Alex's shoulder and hugged him. "I may not say it as much to you as to Ana, but you be careful, too. I don't want to lose you – either of you."

Sabrina chuckled. "To be fair," she told Chloe wryly, "they inherited their respective mothers' attitudes toward being miraculous heroes!"

A shadow passed across Chloe's face as she patted Alex on the back. "You'll both do great," she encouraged him.

Plagg gagged. "Stop stroking my kids' egos, Bourgeois!" he grumbled.

Alex quickly transformed and sprinted down the stairs and out the front door after Ladybug, who had already gained a sizeable lead on him, no more than a tiny speck on the horizon. Cat Noir extended his staff and vaulted up to the rooftops, racing along after her. He rolled his eyes. Were it not for the miraculous and the rooftops, this could be any one of a hundred times they had played tag growing up, with her running in front and him trying and failing to keep up – Mom had always said he got his "speed" from his father. But as he ran, Cat Noir found he didn't tire as easily as he had back then; the miraculous gave him a nearly boundless store of energy. He grinned.

Only a couple minutes later, Cat Noir paused on the roof of an old grocery store across the street from a dilapidated apartment building. Most of the windows had been smashed out over the years, and a long gash ran down one side of it, exposing the flooring between the levels and leaving the units on that side open to the elements. The building sagged to one side, the foundation having crumbled from an impact to one corner. Ladybug stood on the front stoop, her yo-yo in her hand, stroking her chin with one finger, a look of intense concentration on her face. The street around Cat Noir was choked with families crowding close together around their few remaining possessions, watching Ladybug think. Cat Noir extended his staff to the ground near the back of the crowd and rode it down to the street like a pole before collapsing it and replacing it on his belt.

"Who is that?!" a voice shouted from a little further down the street. "Mommy! Look!"

Cat Noir turned toward the call to see a young girl – no more than six – standing on an old, beat-up trunk. She held her mother's hand and pointed up at Cat Noir in confusion. The mother looked away from Ladybug and gasped on seeing Cat Noir standing only a few meters away from them. The mother squeezed her child's hand tightly and pulled her to her chest, wrapping her arms around her daughter tightly, hiding behind her trunk, and staring at Cat Noir with a look of fear and terror in her eyes. Cat Noir's shoulders slumped.

"What are you doing here?!" the woman demanded, glaring at Cat Noir. The rest of the crowd turned away from Ladybug to see what was happening. The closest people shrank back away from him. The woman pressed her daughter's face into her chest protectively. "Haven't you done enough destruction?"

"My parents died on the streets!"

"My brother was hunted down like a dog!"

"For shame!"

Cat Noir shrank back away from the withering glares of the people in the crowd, his eyes moving back and forth between the angry faces. No matter where he went, would he ever escape the shadow of CBN? But after everything CBN had done – twelve years of terror – why should the people trust someone with the Cat Miraculous? Maybe Ana needed a partner, but would the people of Paris ever accept a new Cat Noir?

Why had he even agreed to this in the first place?

"ENOUGH!"

Cat Noir jumped with everyone else at the furious shriek. Ladybug sprang away from the building, cleared the crowd in a single leap, and landed between Cat Noir and the woman who had shouted at him first. Ladybug rolled up the polka-dotted blueprints in her hands into a tight roll and smacked the woman over the head. The woman stared at Ladybug in shock as Ladybug raised the blueprints again, one hand on her hip, fire in her eyes. "I have had enough of listening to you yell at my partner," Ladybug seethed, her voice low and threatening. Suddenly she raised her voice so it echoed off the buildings surrounding them. "Does this look like CBN?" she demanded, glaring at the crowd that had gathered around them. She grabbed Cat Noir's hand, squeezed it so tightly he almost lost feeling in it, and continued, "This is my friend. Cat Noir. He is a hero. He is not another CBN! And after everything we have both lost at the hands of that monster, I'll be damned I'll just sit around and let you badmouth my partner by comparing him to the monster who killed both our parents!"

Someone in the crowd scoffed. "You actually trust someone who would use the Cat Miraculous?"

Ladybug turned her withering glare on the man who had spoken. "I trust my Cat Noir with my life. And don't you dare to put CBN's actions on him!" She let out an angry huff. "Now, if you're done insulting my partner, I would like to get back to the business of giving you a home!"

The crowd around them fell silent, staring at the two heroes. Without another word, Ladybug dragged Cat Noir through the crowd, which parted in front of them. Stopping directly in front of the building, she promptly threw the blueprints into the air, and shouted, "Miraculous Ladybug!" The blueprints disappeared into a swirl of red magic, which engulfed the apartment building for almost a full minute. When the magic finally dissipated, the building had straightened out, the damaged foundation fully repaired and the cracked wall restored. About half the windows had been replaced with unbroken panes. Ladybug slumped, and Cat Noir caught her with an arm around her shoulders. "Thanks, Chaton," she told him, catching her breath before straightening up.

"Thank you," he replied, releasing her.

Ladybug folded her arms. "She had no right to say those things to you," she insisted, turning her glare on the crowd again. She sighed. "But getting angry about it won't solve anything…" Her miraculous beeped. "Can you start helping them while I recharge?" He nodded, and she looped her yo-yo around a protrusion from the building's façade and swung herself up onto the roof.

Cat Noir let out a breath and turned around to see the people in the street staring at him in awe. Wading through the crowd, Cat Noir found the woman and her daughter, knelt down in front of them, and said, "That trunk looks heavy. Would you like some help bringing it inside?"

The woman stared at him in shock for a moment before nodding dumbly. "Ye–yes." She coughed. "Thank you, Cat Noir."