Heyo!
So I wrote this story some time ago (long before Reflekdoll) as my combined imagining of how the superhero switch might go and what would happen if one of the heroes got akumatised. Takes place sometime after Frozer and before Reflekdoll or Ikari Gozen.
Marinette heard the last bell of the school day with a feeling of relief. The teachers had been extra kind today and given them little or no homework, so she had managed to finish it all in her lunch hour while chatting with Alya. She wasn't needed to help her parents out in the bakery or had anywhere else to go. As long as Hawkmoth didn't release an akuma, she could look forward to a blissful afternoon doing whatever she wanted. Already her mind was filling with designs of new clothing ideas she was itching to start working on.
She hummed happily to herself as she packed up her things and headed out with Alya. As Alya started describing the latest updates she had made to the Ladyblog, Marinette wondered what the odds were that she would be called to be Ladybug that day. Something told her that she wouldn't be, and she smiled. As much as she loved her superhero persona, trying to keep her identity secret was exhausting.
No, Marinette thought to herself. Nothing is going to go wr—
Suddenly she stopped dead at the sight that greeted her on the street. Adrien, the love of her life (though he didn't know it) was locked in an embrace with a dark-haired girl. Marinette's world froze.
"Mari—?" Alya started before catching sight of what she was looking at.
The two watchers stood immobile for a few seconds, until the girl pulled away from Adrien and got into the car waiting beside them, letting them now see that it was Kagami. Adrien watched her car leave, then turned and walked to his waiting car and driver, apparently lost in thought.
Only when he too had driven away did Alya turn back to her friend, who had just started to hyperventilate. "Marinette, calm down. Breathe! We…we don't know what we saw exactly! That could've been about anything!"
Her words didn't seem to have an effect. Marinette continued breathing hard, until she suddenly gasped and squeaked, "I've got to go."
Before Alya could stop her, she fled, tears already beginning to fall.
Adrien waited until he was in the privacy of his room before he called Kagami.
"Hey Adrien," she answered, her voice as casual as though nothing had happened.
"Kagami, why did you kiss me?" he demanded at once.
She was silent for a beat, and Adrien thought he had surprised her for once. "I told you why."
"And I told you," he said, struggling to keep his voice borderline polite, "I'm not interested. I like someone else. You're just going to have to accept it."
There was a mutinous silence from the other end, and then she hung up. Adrien threw the phone at his bed in frustration.
"Jeez, what's the big deal?" Plagg said, soaring over with half a camembert in his paws. "I get that you're annoyed with Kagami, but you never get this mad. It was just a kiss."
"The big deal, Plagg, is that that was my first kiss," Adrien muttered. "And I wanted my first kiss to be with Ladybug."
"Well, technically it was," Plagg said, bouncing up and down on his computer keyboard. A picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir kissing popped up. "Ladybug kissed you to break Dark Cupid's curse. And then again after Oblivio. Remember?"
"That's the point! I don't remember! How can I count that as my first kiss if I have no memory of it?"
"I was there both times, Adrien," Plagg grinned. "And I can tell you," he jabbed at the computer screen, "you did a lot more kissing then than this afternoon. So technically, this wasn't your first kiss either. You were just an unwilling recipient."
Adrien sighed, unsure whether he was comforted by the kwami's bizarre logic. He went and sat at his piano and practised his new piece, hoping it would relax him. He only had a small amount of homework, but he did have a Chinese lesson, as well as his piano practice to do that afternoon. Even on the days he wasn't called to be Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste made sure his son was kept busy and – it seemed to Adrien – stuck inside.
After his Chinese tutor left and Adrien was tossing up whether to get to work straight away on the list of verbs he had been left to conjugate or go back to his piano, Plagg let out a shout. "What the-?"
Given that the laid-back kwami never seemed bothered by even catastrophic events, Adrien whirled towards the TV – kept vigilantly on the news channel – to see what had caused Plagg to react in such a way.
But Plagg wasn't looking at the TV. He was staring at a small red dot outside the window. As Adrien caught sight of it, it went straight through the glass, stopped right in front of his face and spoke in a high-pitched voice, "Adrien! Quick! Ladybug's been akumatised!"
Adrien stared at the creature. She had big blue eyes and was covered in uniform black spots and carrying a pair of black earrings in her tiny hands. She was undoubtedly Ladybug's kwami. Then he grasped what she had just said. "Ladybug's been akumatised?!"
The red kwami nodded urgently. "Yes! You have to help!"
He gaped. "Why?! What happened?!" Even Plagg had flown up next to them and was listening and looking worried.
The red kwami sounded distraught. "There was…she saw…something…and got really upset. She was crying. I tried to cheer her up! I'm Tikki, by the way. Usually when she gets upset, it doesn't last long, but it was different this time. I don't know. She wouldn't talk to me…she wasn't listening… And then the akuma came through the window! I tried to help her! But…" Tikki's ramblings suddenly cut off as she burst into tears.
Adrien had never seen a kwami cry before, and even while most of his brain was still screeching 'Ladybug's in trouble! You've got to help her!', the sight of this gentle kwami's tears moved him to cup her tiny body in his hands and stroke the black spot on top of her head.
"Wait, if she's akumatised, does that mean Hawkmoth is currently controlling Ladybug?!"
Tikki hiccupped and tried to quell her tears. "No, she's in her civilian form."
Adrien felt a rush of relief, quickly followed by panic as the implications of this struck him. If Ladybug had been akumatised, as a civilian or not, it meant there was no one to capture and purify her akuma.
Plagg was saying as much. "Who's going to capture the akuma?"
Tikki straightened, and Adrien could see the resemblance to Ladybug as the kwami pushed aside her own worries to deal with the problem. "Adrien has to," she told Plagg.
Plagg glanced at his chosen, then back at Tikki. He nodded. "You're right."
Both kwamis now looked at Adrien. "You ready?" asked Tikki.
Adrien nodded, the familiar feeling of determination sweeping through him. His Lady was in trouble. She needed his help. He took the earrings from the red kwami and put them in his own ears. Without prompting, he shouted, "Tikki, spots on!"
The Beetle rocketed through the Paris skylines, quickly becoming used to his yo-yo, though wishing he still had a baton. He was searching frantically for any sign of a supervillain. It would have been easier if he'd had Plagg's help, but when he had asked him, the small black cat had only smiled enigmatically and said he had another job to do.
What that might be, the Beetle had had no idea, but the kwami took off without giving his chosen the time to question him.
As it turned out, though, tracking down the akumatised villain wasn't very hard.
He was headed towards his school and had just pulled in the yo-yo to throw it again, when a crippling feeling of despair came over him. He was drowning, helpless to do anything. He no longer had the energy to fight a villain even if he managed to find her. What was the point?
When he crashed to the ground, pain exploded over every part of him. Dimly, he realised he must have forgotten to throw his yo-yo out to catch himself. He couldn't even fill Ladybug's shoes for five minutes. He was a failure. He should give up now.
But then Ladybug would have no one to save her.
That thought made him open his eyes. No one was coming to save Ladybug, except him. That was what he always did. Whether or not he managed to help, he was her only hope.
The Beetle slowly got to his feet, wincing with pain. He must make a terrible superhero if he couldn't take a simple fall. Why had he even been chosen in the first place? And now he was supposed to be the number one hero? There was a reason he was supposed to play second fiddle to Ladybug! He couldn't even handle the attention he got in his regular life! Some hero…
He gripped his head in his hands and groaned as every insecurity about himself seemed to eat away at his brain. If he gave in, he would never get to Ladybug.
Ladybug.
It was the thought of her that had gotten him to his feet. Refusing to think of anything else, he fixed an image of Ladybug in his mind, chanting over and over to himself: She needs me.
The Beetle continued on, walking slowly and painfully, concentrating on nothing except the fact that Ladybug was in trouble.
The people he passed didn't seem to notice him. Most were sitting on the ground or leaning against a wall, either staring into space or crying. Some seemed to be throwing hysterical fits, but most seemed to have lost the energy to do anything at all. Only a few noticed the new superhero, and looked surprised. One or two of these threw themselves at him, begging for help. The Beetle just grew more determined with every desolate person he saw.
He finally found the Grim Weeper on a bridge overlooking the Seine. Not wanting to get closer without knowing what he was up against, he used the yo-yo as a telescope.
She was dressed like a mourner, with a gown as black as a void. The only decoration was an angry red symbol on her chest, which only vaguely resembled a heart, slashed and shattered to pieces. Her normally shiny, dark blue hair was now black, hanging limp and lifeless on either side of her bone-white face, and her eyes had become puffy; brilliantly red with two dead black pupils that stared sightlessly. Like make-up that had run, black pools dripped below them. The Beetle shuddered at the sight of her, almost overcome by hopelessness again. She looked like the drowned corpse of a young widow.
Almost the only indication that she was alive was her sobbing. She was hunched over something clutched tightly in her hands, her whole body wracked with sobs, every now and then letting out a keening wail that was painful to his ears, even a good hundred metres away. He was suddenly glad he didn't have his sensitive cat ears at the moment.
At first the sight of his Lady in such a state rooted him to the spot, filling him with despair so terrible he couldn't move. It wasn't until a police car pulled up and Officer Roger got out that he thought he would have to go help them.
He was just about to leave his rooftop when the villain raised her head and let out another teeth-clenching wail of despair. In the middle of shouting "Put your hands up!" Officer Roger crumpled to the ground.
The Beetle paused and stared. Though the Grim Weeper had made no move towards him, or even seemed to acknowledge his presence, she had very effectively taken the policeman out. Obviously, she could not be approached.
Then how was he to get her akuma?
The Beetle fought off another bout of hopelessness as he fixed his gaze on the Grim Weeper. She was clearly clutching something in her hands, and he had no doubt it was the akumatised item. But he couldn't take it from her without getting closer.
Or could he…?
He hurled his yo-yo towards her. The yo-yo wrapped around the object in her hands and the Beetle allowed himself a small smile.
But as he went to yank it back from her, the Grim Weeper screamed again, the sound so painful it seemed to rent his heart in two. The Beetle was driven to his knees as the sound continued to assault his ears, going on and on and on. The yo-yo fell limp and automatically hurtled back to him, but the Beetle didn't even notice it. He screwed his eyes shut and desperately tried to block the noise from his ears with his hands, fighting the urge to burst into tears.
When the horrific screech finally ended, the Beetle was flat on his back and panting. It took him several moments to collect his thoughts. Clearly, he could not attack her directly without being driven almost out of his senses. He must use a little bit of luck instead.
"Lucky Charm!"
He threw the yo-yo straight up in the air, where it spun rapidly, sending out red and black sparkles that formed into an red object with black spots. The Beetle caught it as it fell straight into his hands.
"A blindfold?"
The Beetle gazed around, wondering how he should go about using it. Ladybug had once described to him – after a particularly convoluted plan of hers had worked out – what happened when she used her lucky charm. Apparently her vision turned black-and-white, and the objects or people she needed to use the charm lit up in her signature pattern.
His vision had indeed gone black-and-white, which was extremely disconcerting, but nothing around him lit up in black and red. Confused, he glanced back at his blindfold, which suddenly glowed in a slightly different red-and-black spots pattern. Then his own hands – scratch that, his whole body, and just as quickly, the world went back to normal.
The Beetle shook his head, utterly confused. He was supposed to fight blindfolded? Considering the Grim Weeper's weapon of choice, wouldn't it have made more sense to have a pair of earplugs?
He raised the yo-yo to look at the villain again. She was still hunched over, sobbing hysterically, tears flowing relentlessly down her face like a waterfall. His heart twisted. What had happened to make his Lady so devastated?
He focussed his gaze on the item in her hands – the thing he was supposed to take from her and destroy – blindfolded – hoping not to be knocked unconscious by her screeches beforehand – and he realised it was some kind of paper. The breeze made it flutter, and as it did, he froze. Not paper, a photo. A very familiar photo.
The Beetle suddenly realised what he had to do.
After muttering "Spots off," and finding Tikki some of the chocolate-chip cookies she craved – Adrien found it a refreshing change feeding his kwami something other than stinky cheese – he headed back out to the street, clutching the blindfold nervously. Despite battling villains on a weekly basis, he could not remember taking such a risk before.
When he reached the closest end of the bridge, he called, "Grim Weeper?"
She had raised her head, supposedly to wail again, but at the sound of his voice, even her crying stopped. She turned and looked at him.
Adrien started to slowly walk towards her, watching for any hostile movements. But she did nothing except watch his approach impassively.
When he stood in front of her, Adrien raised the blindfold, trying to gauge whether or not she would stop him before he put it on. Her dead eyes gave nothing away, but they were filled with unshed tears. Quickly, he slipped the blindfold on and the world went dark.
Adrien was so familiar with his Lady that he found her face easily. Cupping both her cheeks with his hands, he whispered, "Don't cry," and wiped away the tears that slipped from her eyes with his thumbs.
She sniffled in response, but he could sense she was attempting to obey. The tears continued regardless, but then again, she was the Grim Weeper.
Adrien's hands went to her shoulders and then travelled down her arms, until finally he was holding her hands. He could feel the photo, caught between her hands and his. He let out a slow breath, hoping his luck would continue to hold. She could start screaming again at any time, and he wouldn't know it until the incapacitating sound reached his ears.
Keeping hold of her hands with the rest of his fingers, Adrien used his thumbs and forefingers to rip the photo.
A flutter of wings going past his face told him he was successful.
There was a brief moment of silence, then something changed. Suddenly he was not holding the Grim Weeper's black-gloved hands, but warm, regular ones, and a secret thrill shot through him. These were Ladybug's hands. And they weren't covered in her magical suit; they were as bare as his own.
He heard a gasp. "Where am I? What happened? A-A-Adrien?!"
That was her voice, confused and vulnerable, but it only endeared her even more. He felt a twinge of recognition, but pushed it aside. Her questions needed answering.
"Ladybug, you were akumatised," he said, dropping her hands. He felt immediately lost without them, but continued. "You need to transform and capture the akuma."
When the connection broke, Hawkmoth was finally able to get to his feet with a groan. He had not expected that. There had been a few victims he had not been able to fully control before, namely young children. And that robot – he would not try that again in a hurry.
He had sensed Marinette Dupain-Cheng's negative emotions before, and their intensity was thrilling, but they always vanished long before an akuma would be able to reach her, even when he had already had an akuma in readiness at Chloé Bourgeois' Sorry party. So this time, when she had sunk so low she could not even hear her friends' encouraging voices trying to pull her back, he was ecstatic.
But he had miscalculated. Big time.
The girl's heartbreak was so overwhelming, it had flowed right through their psychic link to him, and before he could stop himself, he had burst into tears and wailed right along with her. His wife was gone… What could he possibly do to get her back, after all this time? There was no hope.
Only when he had seen his son approaching through her eyes had he felt the smallest return to his own self. His son. Yes. He must cling to that. He was the only source of goodness in this world, as both he and the Grim Weeper knew. Strangely, he had never been as in sync with one of his villains as he was with this one. Even Lila, who had welcomed his influence. He may have seen the world through them, but he had never truly looked through their eyes before.
As his akuma was purified, Hawkmoth only felt a distant relief. He was lost in thought.
He knew all too well the crushing power of a broken heart, but somehow he had forgotten, at least enough that he had tried to take advantage of another's. Instead, he was the one rendered powerless. He should have known better.
Then his thoughts turned to Marinette herself. After being so intricately connected, feeling her own pain, he could not help feel a sense of kinship with her. And she clearly loved his son.
Hawkmoth made a decision.
"Dark wings fall."
The magical outfit fell away, and Gabriel Agreste spun on his heel and made his way out of his lair. From this day on, Marinette Dupain-Cheng would be under his protection just as much as his son. And he would do whatever he could to unite her with her true love, just as he was doing everything to reunite with his own.
Marinette glanced up and saw the black butterfly making its escape. Then she spotted Tikki hovering at Adrien's shoulder.
"Tikki, spots on!"
As soon as her yo-yo appeared at her waist, Ladybug grabbed it and spun it towards the akuma. "Gotcha!" When the now-purified akuma flew off, she whispered, "Bye-bye, little butterfly," then pulled the blindfold from Adrien's head. "Miraculous Ladybug!"
As Paris was set to rights, Ladybug looked nervously at Adrien, who had stooped to pick up the photo at their feet.
"Here," he said, handing it to her.
Ladybug blushed as she took it. "Th-thank you."
"Ladybug, why were you akumatised?"
The spotted heroine suddenly found herself in a position she had never thought to be in. She was somewhat protected by her identity, but it didn't feel like it at the moment. It felt just like Adrien had seen Marinette.
"I-I-I s-saw you…k-k-kiss-kissing Kag-gami." She hung her head.
Sensing she could not go on, Adrien concluded, "And because you love me, you were upset and became vulnerable to Hawkmoth."
She nodded miserably.
"Hey, it's okay, Ladybug," he murmured, lifting her head so he could brush her tears away again.
She pulled away and asked, "Why are you here? I mean, how did you know how to beat the akuma?"
Adrien had been prepared for this. "Chat Noir told me. He saw the picture of me you were holding and how you didn't let anyone else get near you and figured I'd be the only one who could get close enough to destroy the akuma."
That made sense. Adrien had agreed to be bait for them once before, but still…
"Where is he now?"
Adrien was ready for this question too. "He didn't stick around. Said he didn't want to see what happened next."
Ladybug frowned. "What do you—?"
She was cut off as Adrien stepped forward and kissed her gently on the lips. Abruptly, all the air left her body and she gasped as he pulled away.
"Just so you know," Adrien said hurriedly. "I didn't kiss Kagami. She kissed me, even though I told her I liked someone else. And that someone else is you."
She just blinked at him, too stunned to speak.
Adrien's face was flushed a deep red, and he quickly turned and hurried away, leaving Ladybug staring after him in shock.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Plagg greeted him as he stepped off the bridge. "Looks like you got your technical first kiss to Ladybug after all!"
"Shut up, Plagg," said Adrien, a stupidly wide grin on his face.
I may or may not decide to continue this. Review to let me know if you think I should or not. Please note that if I do, I will not be very kind to Kagami. This was written long before I made my peace with her and if the story continues it will continue in that vein.
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