Disclaimer and Content Warning at the bottom.
Mylène wrestled another dress onto its hanger. She had been shopping since school got out, and it was nearly seven and she had neither eaten nor found a dress that fit. Not even one that she liked; one that fit.
"Are there any more?" she asked the lady at the counter.
The lady at the counter sighed and stood up. "Let me check," she said, going into the back.
Mylène looked herself in the mirror. Short, she thought, trying to stand taller. Lumpy. Heavy. Not even pretty.
Ivan had told her so many times that she was beautiful. It didn't make her feel any better. She wondered – if her boyfriend's affirmations didn't make her feel better about herself, would anything?
She hadn't worn a dress since école primaire, when childrens' dresses stopped fitting her. The more dresses she tried, the more she worried that nothing would fit. Worse, each dress that didn't fit – didn't make it past her hips, didn't zip up, fit too tight in one place and too loose in another – further affirmed what she was thinking as she tried them on.
Lumpy.
Heavy.
Not even pretty.
The lady returned with a dress. Mylène's breath caught in her chest – it was the color of the sky, with a layered skirt and cloth flowers traveling up to one shoulder. It was a little wider than the other dresses – maybe this would fit.
"Go ahead and try this on," the lady said, handing her the dress.
"Thank you!" said Mylène, taking it and bolting into the dressing room.
She hung the dress on the rack and just stared at it for a moment. There was a warmth spreading from her heart that said, this is the one. This is the dress that will make me pretty.
Actually, maybe it was, Please fit me. Nothing else has all afternoon. Please, I'm begging you. It was hard to say which.
Mylène took a deep breath and started to try it on.
It was the kind that lacked a zipper and had to go over her head. The waist had trouble making it past her torso, but a few wiggles and it was down. Mylène held her breath as she moved the straps to her shoulders. She turned around to face the mirror.
And, well.
It wasn't perfect. The bust was just a tiny bit large, and it only fit if she sucked her stomach in. But she could do that, right?
It wasn't a success so much as a, Well, this is good enough. But this was by far the best she had found in four hours, and she had math homework to do, and this dress would work.
Mylène started to take it off. She pulled the skirt over her head.
And then she was stuck.
She squirmed, trying to get the waist back over her chest. She heard a rip at her side and stopped moving.
Oh no.
She moved carefully and heard another rip. She froze with her arms and skirt stuck over her head, the dress definitely damaged and stuck at her chest and it was getting hard to breathe and through the rip in the side she could see herself in the mirror, her bare lower half which was–
Lumpy.
Tears rose through her throat to her eyes.
Heavy.
I just want to fit into a dress again, she thought, starting to cry.
Not even pretty.
Metamorph – I will give you the power to have any shape, and fit anywhere. In return, you must obtain the Miraculous for me.
"I will, Papillon."
"There's got to be something!"
"He likes Jagged Stone. Sing him a Jagged Stone song?"
"I'd be so nervous, I'd sing off-key the entire time."
"Marinette, you can't just shut down every idea I give you."
"Logic. I'm being logical."
"Sure, sure. You've logicked your way through Jagged Stone, any and every kind of food, posters, flowers, and even reenacting a Chat Noir and Ladybug adventure. Which sounded great to me."
Marinette shuddered just thinking about that last one. "Adrien isn't dorky enough to play Chat Noir."
"Maybe you could just kidnap him."
"Alyaaaaaaa…"
Alya stretched and yawned. "Let's take a break. It's already seven."
Marinette sighed and stood up. "I think my dad made dinner, are you hungry?"
"Am I ever."
Marinette's dad was burning the food. "Sorry about this," he said, serving the quiche onto plates. "I got distracted by the news."
Marinette glanced over. Her heart sank as she saw the unmistakable live footage of an akumatized villain.
"I'm sure it's great as always," said Alya, bringing plates to the table.
"I gotta– I left something at school. I'll be right back," said Marinette, rushing for the door.
"It can wait until we after we eat, right?" said her dad.
"School will be closed by then. Don't wait for me."
She flew out the door. Alya and Marinette's dad exchanged a glance and a shrug.
"Your daughter's a strange one," said Alya.
"You're telling me?" said Monsieur Dupain-Cheng.
Chat Noir sat atop a building, waiting. Normally he'd have plunged right into battle. But for a few reasons, he needed to talk to Ladybug first.
Not because of prom. He was trying to bury the prom reason underneath the duty reasons.
"Hey. What did I miss?" Ladybug said, landing next to him.
"Not much. She's tearing up the boutique down there. The shop owners ran away. Problem is, I can't pick out the akuma."
Ladybug squinted at the boutique below. She caught a glimpse of something hot pink wearing a blue dress.
"That's not Horrificator, is it?"
"I don't think so? She looks more human than Horrificator did. No tail, fewer eyes. But it might be Mylène again."
Ladybug prepped her yoyo. "All right, let's go check it out."
They landed and entered the boutique. The outline of a butterfly flashed around not-Horrificator's face. "Glad you showed up!" she said. "Why don't we skip the part where I fight you and win, and you just hand me your Miraculous now?"
"Ooh," said Chat Noir. "I'm very convinced. You really have a way with words."
He and Ladybug walked forward slowly. "Mylène, why are you doing this? What happened?" Ladybug asked.
"My name is Metamorph, not Mylène. Until Papillon found me, I couldn't find a dress that fit. Now, I fit any dress, and everyone else can feel my pain of searching and finding nothing." She reached out and pulled a glittery gold dress off a rack, and ripped it in two.
The fashion designer part of Ladybug cringed internally. "I guess it's the dress," she whispered to Chat Noir.
"We have to rip her dress off?" He sounded horrified.
"I mean, Horrificator didn't wear clothes." Chat Noir didn't seem convinced. "It'll be all right. You can look the other way."
"I'd rather you ad-dress that situation."
"If you're not going to hand them to me peacefully," said Metamorph, "I guess we'll do this the hard way."
She pulled five clothing hangers off a rack and threw them at Ladybug and Chat Noir. Chat Noir used his stick to bat them away, but too late, Ladybug realized it was a distraction.
"Watch o–"
Two full racks of clothes hit them from both sides. It was a soft landing, due to the clothes, but the racks stuck, pinning them in heavy winter coats. Ladybug struggled to get her arm out in the open. Metamorph advanced on them, grinning.
Chat Noir extended his stick in the middle of a mass of clothes, pushing everything off of one rack. They jumped out of the trap and ran at Metamorph. Right as they were about to reach her, she seemed to collapse to the floor. Something pink slithered out of the bottom of the dress and up into another one hanging on the wall. Metamorph took shape as a smaller version of herself, fitting into the child-size dress exactly.
Chat Noir picked up the dress she'd been wearing and tore it in half – nothing happened. "Well… hm."
The gears in Ladybug's head were whirling madly. If she was trying on dresses when she was akumatized, then there's a high probability she wasn't wearing much when it happened… So it would have to be the dress, in theory.
Wait, if she was trying on dresses…
"Chat Noir, hold her off," Ladybug told him, darting towards the changing rooms. Metamorph shoved another rack of clothes at him; he leapt over it and took a swing at her. She melted out of the child's dress and took shape in a yellow sundress.
Ladybug, meanwhile, ran in and out of the dressing rooms. She found a prom dress in one, but tearing it in half resulted in nothing.
Ladybug entered the seventh room and heard the door lock behind her, and was promptly tackled by Metamorph, whose body took on just the shape she needed to hold Ladybug down and reach for her ear–
"Cataclysm!"
The door shattered. Chat Noir put his baton between Metamorph and Ladybug and pulled Metamorph off of her.
"Lucky charm!" Ladybug yelled. From her yoyo fell a red-and-black spotted…
…thermos…
She looked around. At first nothing stood out, but then she noticed the jewelry for sale at the front counter.
Chat Noir was still wrestling with Metamorph, only stopping her from taking his ring by gripping his baton tightly. Ladybug's yoyo grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. Chat Noir prepared to fight Metamorph with her, but he realized there was something glittery flying in a gentle arc towards him. He caught it, looked at it, and immediately knew what had to be done.
"Hey! Metamorph!" he called.
Ladybug and Metamorph looked up from their fight to see him waving his ring in the air.
"Want my Miraculous? You'll have to catch it!"
He threw the ring. Ladybug and Metamorph both ran for it. Ladybug opened the thermos and reached up, catching the ring inside it; Metamorph, not to be outdone, shrank and leapt into the thermos to get it. Ladybug shut the thermos.
"A perfect fit!" she said.
They moved quickly, hoping Metamorph wouldn't run out of air. On the floor of the very last changing room lay a prom dress, the deep violet color of an akuma. Chat Noir tore the dress, Ladybug caught the akuma that emerged, and Mylène appeared outside the thermos.
"Miraculous Ladybug!" Ladybug cried, tossing her Lucky Charm in the air. With a whoosh, the boutique fell back into order, the akuma's destruction erased.
"Mylène, are you all right?" Ladybug asked.
"Yeah, what happened?"
"You were akumatized."
"Did I hurt anyone?"
"Nope. Just some dresses. And they're all right now."
Mylène drooped a little. "Okay. That's good."
Ladybug noticed. "What's wrong?"
Mylène was staring at the ground. "I couldn't find a dress that fit," she mumbled.
"Hm…" Ladybug looked at Chat Noir, then at the store, then at Mylène. "I think I know a place that'll work."
Ladybug and Mylène started to leave the store, Chat Noir lagging a little behind them. While the girls talked, his heart was pounding.
Akuma's been defeated. Now is the time.
She's gonna say no.
Stop being a fraidy-cat!
Why is this so difficult?
His ring beeped. Ladybug turned around. "Ah, your ring. You're running out of time," she said.
I sure am.
"I need to talk to you," he said.
She hesitated. "Okay. What is it?"
Chat Noir glanced at Mylène.
She needs to prioritize Mylène right now, because Mylène is still sad and was just akumatized and could be akumatized again, and did her earring just beep? She needs to hurry. Also she's not going to say yes anyways she's going to say no she's going to say no.
The wall between his heart and his vocal chords pushed down on his words until they fizzed out.
"Never mind," he said quickly. "See you later."
He ran.
"What in the name of camembert was that?"
"Forget it, Plagg."
"Forget it? You've never been like this before! You were once again – once again, this isn't the first time – going to ask the love of your life to the prom, and once again – once again! – you chicken out?"
"What am I supposed to… How do I…" He groaned and flopped on his bed. "I don't know what's happening! I don't understand it! The moment comes and suddenly my heart's beating too fast and my head's a jumble and I can't do it!"
"Well, don't just give up on it!"
"I'm not giving up. That would be a lot easier, and a lot less stress, but I'm not giving up."
Mylène was unsure about the plus-size boutique for a bit, but after Ladybug convinced her that it was more of a this-store-sells-clothes-in-your-size thing than whatever preconceived notion Mylène had (at least, tried to convince her), they went for it. Mylène took a few dresses into the changing room; Ladybug went into another stall to detransform for a bit and feed Tikki.
Mylène was on her own. She took a deep breath.
Here goes, she thought.
For a bit she was concerned the first dress wouldn't get past her hips, but the zipper wasn't all the way down. It slid on easily and zipped up comfortably. Mylène realized she could relax and still feel comfortable in it. She turned around to look herself in the mirror.
Oh! she thought, stunned. I look…
She thought about it for a minute.
I look pretty okay, she thought.
She tried on the others. One of the dresses – it was light pink, with sheer lacy shoulders, a bright sash across the waist, and a knee-length skirt made from layers of some kind of shimmery sheer pink material. Mylène zipped it up and turned around.
The background noise within her faded away, as though her head and her heart had stopped talking to look. Mylène twirled for the full effect. The skirt floofed out a little and she giggled.
She looked up and caught the expression on her glowing face. Words couldn't… she couldn't… It was perfect.
I feel like a princess.
It was a much shorter shopping trip. Mylène paid for the dress, thanked Ladybug, and brought home the dress that made her feel like a princess. She'd thought before that the dress would make her feel pretty again, and it kind of did, but in more of a roundabout way – through her smile, her eyes, the glow she gave off – than just decoration.
Ladybug didn't need to tell her she was pretty. Ivan told her often, and it hadn't ever affected her. Now, Mylène felt it anyways.
Better. I feel… beautiful.
It must not have been up to them, after all.
Content/Trigger Warning: Mylène is portrayed as having unhealthy body image, and I write using her mindset in the beginning. If you wish to skip over this, start reading from the bold print (Papillon's words) in the early-middle of the chapter.
Disclaimer: I really think the canon Mylène is good with her body image – I've never noticed her express discomfort in her body, although I don't think any other character has either. I also want to say that I didn't pick Mylène because her body type must inherently mean she's insecure (which, obviously, isn't so).
I chose Mylène (and this topic, for that matter) because her body type most mirrors the insecurities I used to have. I've wanted to incorporate this story into a piece for ages, but Chance never gave me the... chance... Whereas for this one, the opportunity presented itself with a fanfare and confetti. I mean, prom? Dresses? All it was missing is... well, a lot, but I can write about that later. For now, this was something I'd wanted to get off my chest, and Mylène was unfortunate enough to play me.
I would further like to point out that Mylène doesn't feel pretty just because she found pretty clothes. What the dress in the end did was let her see herself in a new light, and thus come to terms with her own body.
Anyways! Chapter five is almost ready to roll, so hang tight while I finish up. See you then~
