Oh my gosh guys I'm speechless. Thank you so much for all the positive feedback! And yes the pomegranate seeds are a reference to the Greek myth (I was obsessed with greek mythology as a kid) but given the circumstances, I decided to switch a few things up (culture wise). In this universe there are multiple retellings of the Hades and Persephone myth all across the globe which will be shown throughout the story ;) No joke tho thank you guys it means so much to hear you like this story!
oOo
The remainder of the evening was wonderful— marvelous, even— and much better than the torture Chat Noir been subjected to via the horrendous pomegranate seeds. They chatted vaguely, joked around, played at least a dozen rounds of I Spy, argued over which Marvel movie was the best (Ladybug said Spider-Man Homecoming, Chat Noir said Black Panther), and eventually grew tired of uproarious conversation, choosing instead to lapse into a comfortable silence.
They were sprawled out on the blanket, surrounded by scraps and remnants of the once bottomless meal. Neither had really bothered to check the time. On nights like those, nights where they became completely enveloped in one another's company while the entire city slept, time was irrelevant. It didn't exist. There was only them and the moon and the stars.
They were watching the sky, gazing up at the endless inky sea of diamonds shining just for them. The occasional car hummed in the distance as it passed by, far below. The only other sound Chat could hear was Ladybug's shallow breathing, subtle but unmistakable.
Despite the coolness of the midnight air, Chat felt warm all over just laying there at her side, hands folded over his stomach, gaze turned heavenward. There was something special about Ladybug. Something enticing and contradictory. At times, she seemed like an otherworldly being who had swallowed the moon and, as a result, glowed with starlight from the inside out. And, at other times, she was as genuine and familiar as could be, the type of person you look at and immediately want to pull into a hug. Tonight, she was a combination of both. Magical and tangible. Ethereal and domestic.
Her foot was hooked over his at the ankle. She did this often. He didn't know why exactly, but he found it comfortable and all too endearing, so he wasn't one to complain. She had started eating those seeds again, slowly and occasionally. He briefly thought of the woman who'd given them to him, heart skipping over a beat as he did. Convince her to take of these and she will be bound to you, in love, forever, she'd said. It was a superstition, a legend at best, but it did sound terribly romantic. It also reminded him of how romantic the current setting was. He was sure this memory would cling to his mind forever. A blue blanket, moon rays, pomegranate seeds, and Ladybug.
"Chat," she muttered, only bringing him from his ruminations halfway.
"Hmm?"
"What are you thinking about?"
Chat was so delirious with daydreams, he very nearly told her the truth. However, delirium did not equal insanity.
"The moon," he replied.
It wasn't quite a lie, given that she was, in a way, the moon to his otherwise dark, dim night sky.
She seemed to reflect on this for a moment.
"What about the moon?"
She sounded thoughtful, dreamy almost, a tone of voice he decided he liked.
What about the moon?
"How beautiful it is," he mused, staring up at the silver coin in the sky, thoughts elsewhere. "How strange and brilliant… and wonderful."
His eyelids felt heavy, a lazy, listless feeling coursing through his veins. Those did seem to be the right words to describe… the moon.
"And you?" he inquired.
He wondered if she would tell him the truth, or if she was about to conjure up a vague reply, as he had done. He wondered how often she did that.
"The sun," she returned.
Keeping in time with their unspoken game of ask and tell, he said, "What about the sun?"
He gave her time to think, to elaborate upon her statement. He felt her ankle shift atop his to fill the space.
"How bright it is. It's blinding. But it's so warm. Warm and… dazzling."
Something about the heaviness of her voice made Chat's head loll over in her direction. He found her already looking at him. The sheer intensity of her gaze caught him off guard, made his stomach flutter against his will. It looked as if she had snatched two galaxies out of the sky and trapped them beneath her eyelids. That was how deep, how infinite her eyes looked in that moment.
"Dazzling?" he whispered, just above a quiet breath of air.
She didn't reply, and he got the funny feeling that he was missing something, but was too wrapped up in the way she looked beneath the blush of the moon to really care.
Chat watched as her gaze dragged over his features. His hair. His forehead. His mask. The lines of his temples and cheekbones and jaw. The slope of his nose. His Cupid's bow. The curve of his lips. Then, her eyes widened, and she sat up faster than a lightning strike.
"It's getting late!" she blurted out. "I— I think… I think I should head out now."
Chat was undeniably confused by her sudden outburst. He stared after her as she shot to her feet and began scrambling around to pack up, tossing anything she could get her hands on into the woven picnic basket.
"Why the rush?" he asked.
Ladybug kept her back to him, still scrabbling. "Oh, well, I, uh… I have a test— a test tomorrow. I totally spaced and I would hate to oversleep and miss it, you know?"
Chat pulled himself up, stumbling to his feet— courtesy of his lazy bones— and crossing over to her.
"Here, let me help."
He reached out to grab a leftover orange at the same time she did. When their fingers grazed, she jerked her hand away with a yelp, as if his touch had burnt her. He gave her a funny look, but she leapt to explain herself faster than he could ask her to.
"Ah, sorry. I'm just jumpy. Cause of the test."
Somehow, Chat Noir didn't believe her. However, he decided pressing the issue would do no good, settling on finishing clean up as fast as he could on her behalf.
"Well, good luck on your test," he offered, picking up the now empty wine glasses last, lest they break in the frantic scuffle.
Careful not to scratch or scuff it, Ladybug placed the ornate Chinese box on top.
"Yeah, thanks," she replied, pointedly avoiding his eyes as she handed him the picnic basket and blanket.
They lingered like that, he with arms full, she with a half-eaten muffin in hand. Chat tried to get her to meet his gaze, hoping to see what exactly was bothering her if they made eye contact, but to no avail.
"And thanks," he added in, getting the urge to scratch at the nape of his neck, "for entertaining my… extra-ness. I had fun."
At this, her eyes lifted to meet his. He was fairly sure she wasn't breathing, but then, neither was he.
"Yeah," she whispered. "Me too."
That lingering look prolonged till Ladybug gave herself a quick shake and plastered on a smile that was just an inch too broad.
"See you tomorrow!" she chirped.
"Yeah, see ya," Chat replied, forcing his own smile.
The two spun around and stepped out in opposite directions. Chat couldn't help the weird feeling settling in his chest as he went. Something was off. He'd known Ladybug long enough to know when she was nervous or lying, but the question was: why? Maybe he'd said something wrong, done something wrong. Maybe he'd looked at her too long. Maybe he—
Chat stumbled to an abrupt halt, letting out a smothered cry of surprise as he doubled over and nearly dropped the blanket. Something had grabbed him. Around the waist.
He whipped around in search of what (or who) it could have been, but all he saw was Ladybug, about five feet away, facing him with a startled expression.
"Chat," she reprimanded, a grimace flowering on her face, "that's not funny."
Chat blinked. "What?"
"You grabbed me," she retorted. However, upon apparently realizing that he couldn't have possibly grabbed her and leapt over to where he now stood, her agitation flickered. "You… you did grab me… right?"
Chat stared at her and said, very slowly, "I was about to ask you the same thing."
Ladybug's features contorted in confusion. Both looked down at their bodies, finding nothing out of the ordinary that could have caused their blunders.
"That's… weird…" Chat mumbled.
Ladybug shook her head, waving a dismissive hand. "It was probably nothing."
She turned around just as before and made a move to leap from the building, but as soon as she took a step, Chat was yanked forwards, tripping over his own two feet and barely catching himself before hitting the roof face-first.
At hearing his yelp, Ladybug whirled back around. Her wide eyes landed on Chat, now a foot closer to her than before and grappling with his near crash landing.
A few silent words were exchanged in two seconds through eye contact alone, before both came to the same conclusion. Each took an especially cautious pace back, and stopped. They had to stop. They couldn't go any further. They tried to move, but in vain. It was as if they were attached at the waist by an invisible rope, strung out between them and pulled taut.
Their gazes stayed steadily on one another, blue clashing with green.
"What's going on?" Ladybug asked, suddenly breathless with panic.
Her guess was as good as his.
Chat Noir lowered the basket and blanket to the rooftop, only sparing them a glance, but that glance made all the difference. His attention was grabbed by a deceptively innocent looking box nestled in the basket, glinting in the moonlight. He froze, bent over and staring at it. And everything clicked.
Convince her to take of these and she will be bound to you, in love, forever.
Bound to you.
Forever.
The whole world shifted beneath his feet, everything moving easily with the movement but him. His stomach sank like a rock dropped in water.
No. It couldn't be. That was… impossible.
Surely she hadn't truly given him...
Surely he hadn't accidentally…
"Chat?"
His eyes slid closed as he wished more than ever that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow him in one gulp.
"Chat, you're scaring me," Ladybug said. He heard her footfalls approaching, which prompted him to straighten up. When he looked at her, he was sure he was the perfect picture of guilt and remorse.
"Chat, what is it?"
"It's impossible," he breathed.
"What's impossible?!"
He shook his head, like denial and disbelief would change reality.
"I… I don't quite know how to tell you this," he began, hesitantly. "But… but…"
She grabbed him by the shoulders, very close to shaking him.
"Spit it out!"
He took in a deep breath, hand raising to his forehead. His fingers entangled in his bangs.
"So… you know those… pomegranate seeds?" Unsure of what that had to do with anything, Ladybug nodded. "Well… I didn't exactly get them from a gift shop. I mean, I did kinda get them from a gift shop, but they were actually from this fortune teller lady named Marie Huang. She said… she said something about them binding people together in love. Forever."
A thousand emotions in a thousand colors flashed across Ladybug's face as he explained and for a few seconds afterwards. Finally, she settled on a blatant jaw drop.
"You cursed me?"
His hands flew up, frantically waving away her insinuation. "Not intentionally! How was I supposed to know they were real? She was a fortune teller! They're supposed to be fake! Besides, I didn't know it meant literally."
Ladybug ran over this information in her mind, turning red in the face. He couldn't tell if it was from anger or humiliation. Possibly both.
"So you accidentally super glued us together at the hip? Forever?"
Chat folded his lips together. He wanted to say that no, of course not, he wasn't that stupid, but it appeared that he had and was actually the dumbest person alive.
Ladybug took a breath, probably about to yell at him again, when a thought made her stop. Her mouth hung open, stuck there, mid-speech. Something very much like realization fell over her face.
"What?" he asked upon seeing the look. "What is it?"
She just gazed at him for a moment before blurting out, "Nothing. Nothing, I just… Is there a way to undo it? Maybe we could stop by the gift shop and ask the lady— Ms. Huang, you said? What street is it on?"
He couldn't resist rubbing at the back of his neck, letting out a nervous laugh that sounded a lot more like a pinched wheeze. "Uh… funny thing, actually. You'll laugh. But I actually, um… I didn't get it in Paris."
"Okay. Where did you get it? Sceaux? Versailles?"
Chat swallowed with a wince. "Shanghai."
He had never feared for his life so much as he did in that moment. At first, Ladybug remained unreactive. But then, she threw her hands up in the air, face lighting up like furious Christmas lights.
"SHANGHAI?!"
oOo
Chat Noir poured the sparkling apple cider into a glass, passing it from his hand to Ladybug's. She accepted the drink, downing the entire thing in one gulp. Under different circumstances, Chat might have been impressed, but it just worried him further.
He wondered if he'd broken her. She was just sitting there on the rooftop's edge, staring straight ahead with a stricken look on her face. It anything but suited her.
She jutted out the glass again without sparing Chat a glance. He looked between it and her, uneasily.
"Ladybug, that's your third glass," he pointed out.
She didn't reply, choosing instead to shove the glass more insistently at his chest. He sighed, taking it from her and refilling it.
"You're gonna regret it," he mumbled.
"As if I don't regret all my life decisions anyway," she retorted, even toned. "Besides, it's not real alcohol."
"Maybe not, but the sugar crash is gonna hit you like a brick wall," he countered, reluctantly handing over the glass. She took it, this time settling for a modest sip instead of one big swallow. At least she was slowing down.
Ladybug was taking this harder than he'd thought she would. Of course, they did have quite the dilemma on their hands and Chat was certainly doing his fair share of panicking, but Ladybug seemed to have transcended into the fifth dimension. She'd passed panicked long ago, now in an unnerving state of false calm. The eye of the storm.
He had tried to reason with her, to insist that they could just fly over to Shanghai with their astro suits, find the fortune teller and ask- or rather, beg- for an antidote. But then, he'd lost her to the inward mazes of her mind. So he was forced to wait until she returned to planet earth before they could take action.
It was one in the morning. The city was quiet, which seemed fitting. He wasn't sure it would be polite for Paris to buzz with life and activity while the sky was caving in above its saviors.
He stole another glance at his partner. The glaze over her eyes seemed to be gradually but definitely fading, which he was grateful for. Chat didn't like the look on her face. It made him shiver.
"M'lady," he coaxed, dipping down to try and meet her eye-line. "Are you gonna be okay?"
He watched her eyes slide over to him, flicker with some sort of emotion, then go askance.
"Are you sure you know where the gift shop is?" she asked.
Not exactly an answer, but Chat nodded all the same. "Yeah. I remember the exact route. Well, the exact route from the hotel I stayed in, but I'm sure I could find it regardless."
She continued to gaze out at the skyline, raising the glass to her lips again.
"And what if the fortune teller doesn't have an antidote?"
Chat winced, but soon brushed her worries aside with a wave of his hand.
"Don't think like that," he dismissed. "She will. Anyone who can curse someone can come up with an antidote. Like… I dunno... Dark Cupid."
He tilted toward her at the mention, bringing them close at the nose and raising his eyebrows suggestively. Instead of the expected eyeroll he'd grown so accustomed to, Ladybug's eyes grew bigger than saucers, lips pressing into a tight line. A strange sound that might have been described as a tiny squeak came out of her, but it was so quiet that Chat really couldn't tell. She turned away a split second later.
"But this isn't akuma magic," she countered, slight bend to her voice. "This is something different, something we've never faced before."
A frown tugged at Chat's mouth. This really was bothering her. He'd never seen her so uptight.
"Hey, don't worry," he persuaded, reaching a hand up to trace vague shapes between her shoulder blades. "We'll figure it out. Trust me."
Her back was tense, but loosened up at his ministrations. She released a suffering sigh that sounded as if she hadn't exhaled in centuries.
"Right. It'll be fine," she agreed. "Everything will be fine. It's just temporary."
Ladybug downed the rest of her cider and handed the glass to Chat before pulling herself to her feet. He caught the look on her face as he stood to reach her level. It was the same look she donned before facing one of the tougher akuma victims. Pinched and determined.
"Okay," she said, rubbing her palms together. "I don't think Astrocat and Cosmobug are an option, given how far away Shanghai is. I say we use Kaalki to teleport there fast. Do you think you could do it? It takes imagining the exact place you want to go and you were the only one there so."
Chat Noir felt his entire form sag in relief. She was thinking, planning out a strategy to get out of this mess, which meant she had processed things and was back in action.
He clicked his heels together, raising two fingers to his brow in a mock salute.
"At your disposal, Sargent Bug," he said, not entirely in jest.
She nodded in approval at his readiness to adapt, taking out her yo-yo to flip it open. From the glowing center she withdrew a small pair of tinted glasses. With these glasses came a bright light that melted away to reveal a kwami, grey and white, resembling a horse. She stretched out her little hooves, releasing an overexaggerated yawn.
"Oh my, it's late," she murmured, rubbing at one of her eyes as she blinked in the pale moonlight. "Doesn't Hawkmoth get any beauty sleep?"
Chat Noir lit up at seeing her. He was never granted the privilege of meeting the other kwamis and was always game to make a new friend.
She finally looked down, a smile reaching her face as her eyes landed on Chat.
"Oh, hello," she greeted. "You're Plagg's charge, correct? Chat Noir?"
Barely stifling his ever-growing grin, he bit the inside of his cheek and nodded, eagerly. She was adorable to say the least.
"Pleasure to meet you formally, darling," she said, dipping into a grand bow for such a tiny creature. "I'm Kaalki, kwami of teleportation. Though, you probably already knew that."
She tossed her head as she said this, as if he knew her because of prestige and grandeur as opposed to a previous encounter. Chat decided he liked her style.
"Same to you, Kaalki,' he replied, also dropping into an eccentric bow. "A privilege, really."
She looked him up and down in a sort of approving way before turning to Ladybug and saying in a confidential tone, "He's got class."
Ladybug looked a tiny bit amused at their antics, but her smile soon dropped with a shake of the head.
"Yeah, yeah, he's a charmer," she dismissed (admittedly sparking satisfaction in Chat at her word choice), "but we've got bigger issues to deal with. Chat and I accidentally ate cursed pomegranate seeds and now we're in a bind."
"Literally," Chat muttered.
"We're stuck together," she clarified, pointedly skipping over his play on words. "We can only get five feet apart before we're forced by the spell to stop."
Kaalki raised a hoof to her chin, tapping it pensively.
"My, that is a bind. But what do you need me for?"
"Well," Ladybug explained, "Chat got the seeds in Shanghai, which is forever from here and we need to get an antidote ASAP. Do you think two people could voyage together?"
Kaalki made a pfft sound, saying with a wave of her hoof, "Child's play. I'm sure dozens could voyage together if I put in the effort. Hundreds, even."
"Fantastic," Ladybug answered.
She handed Chat Noir the glasses, gloved fingers brushing his, and he slipped them easily onto the tip of his nose. The blackish tint turned green to match his eyes.
"Sweet," Chat said, looking around to test them out despite there being no difference in vision.
"They suit you," Kaalki praised. "Bring out your eyes. Don't they, Ladybug?"
Chat looked down to find Ladybug gazing contemplatively at him, head tilted.
"Yeah, I think they kind of— Quit that!" she reprimanded, eyes snapping over to Kaalki. "We're wasting time. Chat, do the…" She waved her hands around, grasping for the right words. "The fusing thing."
Chat could have laughed, but did as asked, telling Kaalki and Plagg to unify. It was strange to feel a transformation wash over him in someone's presence, like he was breaking some sort of rule. It was thrilling.
Ladybug bent over to retrieve the offending pomegranate seeds. Upon straightening up, she was met with a hand outstretched to her. She glanced between it and Chat, bemused.
"What?"
He raised a challenging brow. "You expect to teleport on your own?"
Confusion switched to something that Chat might have deemed bashfulness had it been worn by anyone else.
"Oh," she said, right corner of her mouth tilting up. "Right. Of course."
Her hand lifted and slipped into his, and gosh did they fit well together. Chat fought against the silly flutter of his stomach as he turned and summoned a portal just at the rooftop's edge. He envisioned Huang's Place in his mind's eye before purposefully tightening his grasp and leading Ladybug through the swirling gateway.
There was a buzzing sensation that tickled at every inch of his body, then his foot hit pavement and Chat Noir and Ladybug were in Shanghai, China, once again.
oOo
Okay real quick did y'all watch Ephemeral?? Easily the best and worst episode ever. We got everything we'd ever wanted and a little more evidence for the Adrien sentimonster theory but the pacing was terrible and (in my opinion) it was kind of a waste of time. Still the flickering between Adrien and Chat in Marinette's mind and the umbrella scene and Luka carrying the entire episode was amazing. Our lashless blueberry boy deserves a paycheck after that one.
Anyway what did you think of this chapter? Looks like LB is kinda panicking and Chat is being the little gentleman that he is despite the circumstances. Let me know what you thought and thanks for reading!