Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Rise of the Timberwolf. Before I begin this chapter, I wanted to direct you to my sister, WhatASurprise, because she has begun writing a Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction that shares a universe with mine. The story is called Still Standing, and stars my sister's OC. We plan to join the stories into a joint story eventually but want to flesh out our characters a bit first. With that said, let's get to it!

I don't own Miraculous Ladybug. However, Matthew Agreste is my OC.

Matt walked through the airport, searching for the baggage claim. He didn't really pay attention to the people around him, the only source of his focus was the camera that he carried with him. He fiddled with the camera's strap as he walked, looking at the signs for directions. He passed the security checkpoint, and was about to keep walking, when he heard a voice.

"Matt!"

The boy in question turned to see his cousin and his uncle's assistant, as well as a large man who kind of looked like a gorilla. Adrien was the one who had spoken.

"There you are! We've been waiting for you!"

Matt looked around for his uncle, but didn't see him.

"Where's Uncle Gabe?"

Adrien sighed and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Father was too busy to come. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you beforehand. He's been by himself a lot lately. Actually, I think that Nathalie. Has seen him more in the past year than I have."

Matt nodded silently. He'd forgotten that Adrien's mother, his aunt Emilie, had gone missing. Adrien knew better than a lot of people how he was feeling, so he didn't let the hurt that Gabriel wasn't there show.

"Okay. Uh, are we going to the baggage claim? I still need to get my things."

The four headed over to the baggage claim, with the large man picking up Matt's suitcase and handing it to him. As they walked towards the customs desk, he started fiddling with his camera strap again.

Adrien noticed this.

"You like photography?"

Matt gave a small smile at that.

"Yeah, when I was in middle school, I joined the student newspaper. I got interested in photography when they told me to get some photos. When I talked about how much I enjoyed it at home, Mom and Dad… Well, they bought me my camera. I was so happy."

Adrien grinned.

"There's a friend of mine at school, Alya. She's something of a journalist, with her blog. She gets all the information herself. I think that you two would get along."

"While I'd love to meet all of your friends, I'm not into journalism. The school newspaper was less about telling the news than it was about gossip. The editor would have probably had me spy on people at home if it got people to read the paper. I hope Alya's blog isn't like that."

"No, Alya is kind of an investigative journalist. Her blog is all about Ladybug and Chat Noir, and their exploits in saving Paris from akuma villains and sentimonsters."

Matt was confused, and Adrien saw this immediately. He didn't realize HOW confused. He was, until Matt spoke again.

"Who are Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

"Ladybug and Chat Noir? They're Paris's superheroes! They've been on the news tons of times! How don't you know who they are?"

Matt gave Adrien a helpless shrug as customs officials checked over his luggage before waving them through.

"I've never heard of them. Seriously though? Real superheroes? Are you messing with me?"

Adrien smiled. He could see Matt was starting to brighten up with all the talk of superheroes. He began to explain to him as Nathalie and the Gorilla led the way out of the airport and back to the car outside.

"Well, Ladybug and Chat Noir are superheroes in Paris, like I said. Ladybug has a power called Lucky Charm, which gives her one random object that she has to find a way to use against the villain she's fighting. When she defeats the villain, she throws the object into the air and shouts, 'Miraculous Ladybug', which repairs all the damage caused in the fighting."

"Cool. But, why doesn't the Lucky Charm just turn into a weapon for Ladybug to fight with?"

"It's random. She has no control over what the Lucky Charm is. She has to improvise when she gets it."

"Now, as for Chat Noir, he's sort of the opposite. Chat's power is called Cataclysm, which destroys anything he touches. And, before you ask why he doesn't just use it on the villain, could you honestly say that you could use it on a person willingly?"

"I wasn't going to ask that. Superheroes don't normally kill the villain. Unless it's the Incredibles. Or Superman 2. Or Man of Steel. Or the 1989 Batman movie. Or any Marvel movie. Actually, superheroes kill a LOT of villains in the movies. But anyway, what else about Chat Noir?"

"He's a jokester, which balances out Ladybug being serious. Don't get me wrong, she's not like Batman, but it's like comparing Superman to Plastic Man. One is confident but also can let loose, the other makes jokes on the battlefield. And, between you and me, I think that they would make a cute couple."

Matt chuckled at that, and Adrien grinned. The more he kept his cousin's spirits up, the less likely that Papillion or Mayura could take advantage of his grief.

"So what kind of villains do they fight?"

Ah, the serious issue. Adrien got ready to explain.

"The thing is, most of the supervillains that Ladybug and Chat Noir fight aren't really evil. The real supervillains are called Le Papillion and Mayura. Whenever someone in Paris feels really strong negative emotions, Papillion sends out these little black butterflies called akumas, which allows him to manipulate the person into getting revenge for the wrong done to them, so long as they bring him Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculouses."

"The what now?"

"They're magic jewelry that Ladybug and Chat Noir wear, and what gives them their powers. Ladybug's are her earrings, and Chat Noir's is his ring. Ladybug gave Alya an interview once and explained that. Papillion and Mayura also seem to have Miraculouses of their own, but we don't know what they are, because they don't come out very much."

"What are Mayura's powers?"

"They're similar to Papillion's powers. She uses dark feathers called amucks to feed off of people's negative emotions, but instead of turning the person into a supervillain, it creates something called a sentimonster. Sometimes, Papillion and Mayura will combine their powers and create an akuma villain with a sentimonster under their control. That happened to another friend of mine, Juleka, once. She'd been akumatized into a villain once before, and when it happened a second time, Mayura gave her a sentimonster to give her an advantage. I won't tell you any more about that though. People don't really remember what happens when they are akumatized, and most of the kids in my class are really casual about when they were. Still, it's Juleka's story to tell, not mine."

Matt was quiet for a moment.

"Have you ever been akumatized?"

Adrien was caught a bit off guard at that.

"Have I? No. But most of the kids in my class have, and I've probably been at-risk of akumatization in the past, but I never actually was. Father was though, and my bodyguard at one point."

Matt nodded. It was at that point that Adrien noticed that they were close to home. He pointed this out to Matt, and the two got ready to leave the car. As they did, Adrien glanced back over at Matt. With any luck, he could help him recover from his loss.

And, scene! Bit of a filler chapter, with some backstory for Matt. My headcanon for the Miraculous Ladybug universe is that the events of the show aren't known outside of France, so as not to affect tourism, which is why Matt doesn't know who Ladybug and Chat Noir are. I do apologize that I didn't write more than just a conversation between Adrien and Matt, but I'm having to work around the scenes from the original story that had my sister's OC in them. Things will pick up eventually, though, and THAT is something that I already have some plans for. Until the next chapter!