-Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noir-

The world rarely remembers those it has left behind. Such was true for the young, late, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Two years on from her passing the world had moved on, only a select few people holding on to her memory but even that, fading.

Tikki stared through the eyes of her Ladybug, who rested on the roof top that opposed the Tom and Sabine bakery. From some force her holder had always been drawn to this place when feeling scared or insecure. It was a habit that no matter what Tikki tried, she couldn't get her Ladybug to stop. Some days it frightened her, that Ladybug felt this attached to a place of such... impact. When it started she had tried to confront Marinette about it, see if she had slipped through her holdings in her mind, but she had only been met by screams and enraged cries. Tikki hadn't returned to Marinette since then. She never felt guilty, no matter how much the beast she had created had cursed her name. It was the life of one for the life of many. She long ago gave up hope Marinette would understand.

The Ladybug that had been left when she separated her from Marinette had been perfect over the years. Confident, strong, resourceful, never wavering, never giving up. Paris had been safer for it. Tikki always felt a sense of pride whenever she saw who Ladybug had become. And with the absence of Marinette, Ladybug and Chat Noir have had the chance to become closer, as partners in and out of their superhero duties. Their bond strengthened each day and Tikki always felt giddy when seeing the love in the pairs eyes. Sadly, she always got the feeling that Plagg was disgusted by it, but he never said anything of it, to which she was glad. She had never liked a Chat Noir as much as she liked Adrien, and it was good to have someone to reliable in control of the miraculous of destruction. The life in the two holders was something you only saw once a millennium, it would have been a shame to mess with it.

Still every now and then Tikki would see something, a small memorial of Marinette, Alya rushing in to a battle for her blog, or a pink and white flower, and wish, just for a moment, that things could have been different. But Tikki never took back her actions, never apologized to the person she had locked away and tormented. She just moved on, like the rest of the world, leaving Marinette in the back of her mind, to fade into obscurity.

-Miraculous-

Ladybug swung through the streets of Paris, waving to the people as she flew by. The wind brushed through her hair and the feeling of it across her face brought a bright smile to her face. Gosh, she loved swinging and running through Paris. It was by far the greatest perk of being a superhero, excluding downtime with her partner. Nothing could top her time with Chat, but this was a close second for sure. She'd taken up more patrols recently, feeling close to a break though with her investigations into hawkmoth's identity, and had also been using the time to greater hone her abilities. She'd spend hours some days just training to become stronger. Occasionally Chat would join her, but his civilian life often kept him preoccupied, which left her to get stronger on her own. Despite that her kitty was always able to keep up with her, so something in his civilian life obviously kept him fit. Fit was honestly an understatement. If he weren't so filled with cocky puns and being a superhero he could definitely be a model. He had grown even taller in the last two years, increasing their difference in height to a level she found embarrassing. He always found it cute though whenever she'd spiel over the injustice of it. His shoulders were now well and truly squared, his body filled out from a young teen to a full adult, and whatever he did behind his mask kept him tanned, sleek and muscled, which she definitely never complained about when it came to their time. She smiled just thinking about it. Chat had something to do today and as such would only be able to join her in her patrols till after it was done.

She also used this time to think. Chat Noir had been very patient with her, she knew. He longed for them to reveal each other's identity to one another, but she couldn't find the words to tell him she had none. She had no secret to tell him, no hidden part of her to give up to him in exchange for his. She sometimes worried if who she was as ladybug was enough for him, that the lack of something else was a deal breaker to him. Sure, she had her face behind this mask but that wasn't the same as a whole other life, and it didn't help she had always talked as if she did. She couldn't remember the last time she'd bothered to detransform completely. Ladybug had used her knowledge as a guardian to figure out a way where Tikki could come out of her miraculous while leaving her partially transformed, so while it didn't give her her powers she never really had a reason to completely detransform from being Ladybug.

Something else she learned to do was to how to tinker with her suit. She felt that she had been in dire need to of a change last year and had since donned a new style. Taking inspiration from the costume consisted of of black colouring that lined her arms legs and waist in the same ways Chat's had when he used her miraculous. The only real differences were the removal of some of the padding, to greater allow movement, and the addition of a long slim fitting coat that flapped in the wind behind her like a pair of insect wings, coloured red with a large black stripe along the back, peppered with red dots. She'd asked Chat if he had wanted any adjustments to his suit to which he responded that he already thought it was perfect, much like himself. She'd snorted at that and he'd chased her all through the night till he managed to catch her and they'd started a different game.

She suddenly felt rather hot and took a particularly daring dive off a rooftop. A couple more hours and she'd be right back with her Chaton.

-Miraculous-

Adrien stormed into his room, the furious yelling of his father thundering after him, but he didn't bother to turn back to him. He slammed the door as he moved to the couch jumping over it with practiced ease. The door suddenly burst back open, the ever pristine Gabriel Agreste storming in with a look of utter rage spread across his features. "What do you mean you won't be taking over!?" he commanded. Adrien wasn't having any of it. His father had long wanted him to start preparing for the take over of the Gabriel Brand, meanwhile he wanted to enter into the area of physics. He was sick and tired of his father and had long given up hope he would get better.

"What I said! I'm not taking over your damn company! Give it to some other fool cause I don't want to control a blood sucking fashion business!"

"It's not you choice!" Gabriel thundered "I've groomed you for this role for years and you are not going to throw it away to go teach pathetic students how play scientist by coming up with random theories!"

"It is my choice, you old bastard! It's no one's choice but mine!" His father had become increasingly awful over the last two years and Adrien was well and truly fed up with being his obedient child. "Now I'm done talking about this, get the hell out of my room!"

Gabriel's eyes set on fire. He stormed forward towards Adrien and raised his arm, ready to bring it swinging down. In an instant Adrien caught his fathers arm, holding his gaze and gripping hard, cold rage staring down the man's flaming fury/ He held it there for what felt like an eternity, before finally shoving his arm away. He'd set a line that he would not allow to be crossed. "I said get out."

Gabriel stood there, taken back by the finality of the dismissal, before turning. "You always where a disappointment." He said before walking back out of the room. Adrien was tempted to call back the same thing but thought better of it. There was no point dragging him back in here, nothing would come of it but another spitting match. His final comments like that always tended to hit there mark and it didn't help that the man throwing them was the man he used to do so much to please. The bastard.

He wanted to go see his Lady, she always managed to cheer him up. Her smile would be a relieving sight. "Plagg?"

The kwami floated up to his owner. "You okay, kid?" A questioning worry in his eyes.

Adrien had once reminded Plagg he wasn't a kid anymore, to which he had cheekily reminded him that compared to him Adrien he would always be a kid, to which he begrudgingly agreed. "Yeah, I think I just need to go out and see M'lady."

Something flickered in Plagg's eyes but it disapeared as soon as Adrien saw it. He'd seen it many times since Marinette died, but when he questioned Plagg about what it was he just denied that Adrien saw anything.

"Okay kid. Good to go."

Something had impacted Plagg, sometime a couple years ago, Adrien just wished he knew what it was. "Alright. Plagg, Claws Out!"

-Miraculous-

I'm here.

-End Chapter 19-