All rights to Miraculous Ladybug belong to Zagtoon, Method Animation, Thomas Astruc, and Disney. All rights to Persona 5 go to Atlus and Sega. This is my own creative work.
There was no going back from this, Adrien knew. The cursor on his desktop blinked with the heavy toll of Notre Dame's bells, his fate swinging with every ring. Sure, the comparison was a bit dramatic, but it fit.
Taking in a gulp of breath, he typed his name in the entry bar on the Francois Dupont decathlon. He pressed enter before even a cat's hair of indecision could pad into his mind again. With a breath he collapsed into his chair and watched the page load to a confirmation mark, his email pinging with a notification. Despite the clear rebellion, a smile slipped onto his face gently, the feeling familiar at this point.
His eyelids shot open before he had noticed they were closed when a buzz rang. His phone vibrated on his desk with Nino's picture front and center.
"'Sup, dude?" Nino replied once his finger swiped the screen. "How's the unexpected downtime?"
"As welcome as always and refreshing as can be considering."
The schedule for the shoot was still up in the air and being brought back down to Earth. Though details were still vague and Nathalie was on the verge of collapsing again as she had a while ago, his father was adamant – the shoot would go on. Ladybug was of a similar mindset what with the Phantom Thieves running around Paris. It would be nice to ground himself with something of his own choice instead of being swept up in the gale force insanity that was happening.
"Hey Nino, I need you to do me a huge favor and check out a few books from the library." Adrien leaned towards the desk explaining. "I'm gonna have a lot of studying to do."
"Seriously? You score some free time and you wanna spend it with your nose in a book?"
"People never won the decathlon slacking off."
"Uh, say wha?" Adrien swore he heard something crash in the background. "You signed up for the decathlon?"
"With all the delays in the shoot I've got a lot more free time. I plan to keep up with the schedule my father sets but this way I'll get to see you all in school too." His voice gave a hopeful lift at the end. A month of separation was a month too long in his opinion. The more he wrapped his head around it, the more sure he was that this was a golden chance.
"Oh, we'll see you, alright. We'll see you collapse! Dude, at this rate, you're heading for crash city!"
"Remind me to take you with me on a typical shoot day."
"Hey, all I'm sayin' is that there are better, and frankly more fun ways to pass the time. Like the movies, concerts, amusement parks? Y'know, fun stuff?"
Adrien gave a smile rolling his eyes. "School can be fun too."
"Now I know you're spending too much time in Mrs. Mendeleiv's class." Nino gave a sigh as though he was the tired one. "Fine, seein' as you got no sense of standard teenager-ism, I'll grab you those books."
"You're the best, Nino." The young model's eyes shone as he cheered. "I'll text you a list later."
"Cool." The call hung up.
Fixing his attention back to the screen, Adrien skimmed through the list of subjects. Nino would be picking up the required textbooks but he swore he had a few books on his shelves that dabbled in the more advanced fields. If modeling and his father had drilled anything into his head it was that standing out never hurt.
As he zipped to the shelves and began piling his advanced books into his hands, Plagg emerged from beneath the cheese counter, gulping his latest aged morsel. "A little piece of friendly advice? Don't go for the camembert until you've savored the refined, fruity tastes of the reblochon."
"I don't suppose there's a non-cheese related translation for that." Adrien spoke without turning.
The kwami flew to an inch before his head. "I don't suppose you've actually seen your schedule before you went and committed to that decatta-whatever thing?"
"Of course I-"
Adrien paused, blinking. He HAD looked, right?
Nathalie just hadn't sent the schedule yet, right?
Preferring to spare himself the pain of leaping before looking that led to many a pratfall as Cat Noir, Adrien jogged back to his phone. He scrolled up and down through the list of messages looking for that one thread of a notice. 'Nathalie', 'shoot', 'schedule'; the words tumbled from his mouth as if to hone his search yet his mind prayed he'd see no sign of those fatal words. His wishes might have a little room to thrive before his schedule ground them into litter.
After five rounds of frantic scrolling, the notification came all on its own. He moved to the top of the list and there it was, in all its dooming glory. Adrien groaned and collapsed back into his seat.
It was… a lot.
It was already a lot but seeing how the days were arranged it was as if nothing was altered. There were still the meticulously laid out dates for shoots and costume changes and makeup sessions and interviews, all on the dot. Even his lunch break had a good ten minutes shaved off. Apparently even an industry-wide scandal couldn't stop his father.
He just wanted to see his friends and do something he wanted. But this might be too much after all.
"It's gonna take a miracle to do all this AND the decathlon, Plagg." The boy ran a hand along his face.
"You want to hang out with your friends, but you don't really listen to them a lot."
"Don't rub it in."
"Plus there's the fact you signed up for that get-together with your new Japanese friends…"
Adrien slapped himself in the head. He did promise Ann and her friends that he'd show them the sights of Paris. If he was going to be working with Ann, it would have been good to establish a formal relationship. He'd never have guessed formalities would be an issue.
Plagg drifted over to his ear. "You can still stop him you know, it's not too late."
Did he want to stop him and do the shoot? Did he want to compete? Adrien just wanted to do what he wanted, figure things out for himself. The thing was, as always, he was never really sure what that was.
Marinette's eyes were glued to the shutter before her, littered with notes and articles. She was well aware the kwamis were behind her staring like she was Hawk Moth in the flesh but this was all in the name of justice. So what if her hair was a total mess or that her eyes were sunken? So what if that was due to a couple of sleepless nights compiling data? Master Fu had been protecting the Miracle Box for hundreds of years, and he never was the best with his own upkeep.
She'd scoured the web with her trusty phone translator as best as she could and dug up as much on the Phantom Thieves as possible. They had been printed out and taped over her Adrien schedule with notes she had taken based on the revisions. At this point everything was blurring together and it had, at one point, led to the spiraling theory of Adrien being a Phantom Thief. Five cups of coffee later and her head was cleared of that mental implosion.
"Marinette, are you… feeling alright?" Wayzz muttered.
"She wasn't like this yesterday, or the day before. Or maybe she was and will be tomorrow, or next week." Fluff's musings came as confusing as ever.
"Your condition is most disstressssing." Sass added. "We advissse you to rest, Guardian."
"I GOT IT!" Marinette screamed.
The kwamis' jolted twice at her yell and at the hand that slammed on the shutter, knocking notes away. The girl turned to them with wide pupils that had messy font practically seared in.
"Marinette, what is it?" The concerned voice of her kwami, Tikki, chimed in.
"I've logged all the reports over the year the Phantom Thieves were active. It looks like all the cases are random, but ohh I can see it, I've seen all the loose ends." Marinette paced back and forth, ignoring her little audience. "Their first victim was a gym teacher at a high school and from there it moved on to more high-profile villains right up to a potential prime minister. Each victim got a calling card the day before and afterwards turned into a completely different person and confessed all their crimes. The media mostly focused on those bigger incidents for obvious reason, buuut… social media tells a more in-depth story. There were smaller changes here and there that didn't involve calling cards."
"I'm impressed at all the research you've done, Marinette, but I hop you haven't forgotten about the current case."
The girl's hands clamped around Tikki's tiny body, leaning in to the point of touching foreheads. "Tikki, don't you see the obvious common link here!?"
"Um, not really?"
Marinette whipped back to her banner just as Tikki floated out of her hands. More notes fell as she slapped the shutter once more. "I don't get the specifics but it's clear they can change someone's personality completely! Who says that can only go towards confessions? There's a chance they could have been behind the incident with Silva and Pernet to begin with. All I need is some hardcore evidence and bam! Dilemma over!"
"Well, makes sense to me." Trixx shrugged.
"A valid theory, Marinette, but perhaps you might be too quick to label them as the evildoers." Wayzz chided.
Frustration and exhaustion were double-dating in the girl's head, as though there were bees buzzing in time with the turtle kwami's words. Frankly, she wasn't being quick enough. The longer this Phantom Thief debacle went on, the longer she and Paris would start fraying at the seams. That would just be an open invitation for Hawk Moth and a swarm of Akumas, ready and waiting, to shower the streets with supervillains.
Marinette was about to vocalize this when a real world buzz cut her off, making her yelp and crash onto the floor. She pushed herself up and brushed away the last of her sticky notes looking to her desk. It was her phone, with Alya's icon on the screen. The girl dragged herself up and accepted the call.
"'Sup, girl? Still enjoying the life of a hermit?" Alya gave a sly smile but with concerned eyes on the other end.
The girl ran a hand along her face up to her frayed hair. "Sorry, Alya, but I'm busy and it's early."
"Uh, I suppose noon is early in some countries."
"Noon!?"
Marinette's head whipped to the clock and saw that yes, both hands were inching closer to the twelve at the top. She remembered hearing her mother call her down for breakfast but that was only a few minutes ago, or she thought it was. Fluff and Sass behind her gave her a shrug when she stared back. Figures the two kwamis in charge of time would know.
Alya was laughing on the phone behind her. "Clearly you've spent a few days too long in your room cave if time AND sleep are now an illusion. Luckily, your BFF has the perfect solution – a weekend getaway!"
"I'd like to reiterate the 'busy' part I mentioned."
"With what exactly?" Alya angled her head looking back. "Reworking Adrien's December schedule or something?"
Marinette gave a yelped as the banner with her Phantom Thief notes was still down, in all its obsessive glory. She stumbled over and drew the sheet up before smiling back to Alya. "Um, no, it's uh… fashion stuff." She giggled.
"Funny you should mention that. This isn't just your typical getaway."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember how I told you Adrien's been working with this rising star model from Japan?" Marinette nodded, though her insides were turning more and more. "Well, she and all her friends will be coming too! They wanted to get a tour of Paris in before the shoot starts back up."
"Uh, I'd love to, Alya, but, uh…" She hated to do this. Her insides were on fire at the thought of ditching her friend again, not to mention being so rude to people she'd never even properly met. Even if one girl was another potential love-rival. "I'm, eh… planning a Christmas gift for Adrien. Well, I mean, I've got one in mind that I picked out back in July but…"
"Awesome. You can give it to him then."
"Wait, what?"
"Adrien's going to be there too, showing these new guys around. You'll get to spend the whole day with him. You can thank me now."
Marinette screamed. "DON'T tell me that! I won't be able to resist!"
"I'll take that as your word that you'll be there."
Before Marinette could make any kind of protest, or at least one with proper wording, the call hung up. That left the girl with a hand reaching towards nothing but a disastrous future set in stone. She was in no way date ready, not like she ever had been. With all the time she'd spent in her room, she was sure she'd hiss at the touch of sunlight. At least hermits didn't have to worry about potential embarrassment.
"Marinette, I think this will be good for you." Tikki exclaimed. "Your investigation isn't getting any further, and you really do need to step away from Ladybug matters right now."
"…This is something I have to do, Tikki." She looked down, rumpled clothes, sweaty wrists and all.
Yeah, at this point she wasn't sure if she was suited for teenage life anymore. Her life was a laundry list of obligations now. Was there even a Marinette anymore, or just Ladybug?
"How much screentime do you rank amateurs need!? There's only one lead actress here!"
The Arc de Triomphe could crack at the shrill scream that came from underneath. A trio of girls, witnessed by hordes of film staff with mics and cameras in every other hand shuddered. A young woman with red hair so bright in the sun it almost glowed neon, a violet dress and enough jewelry to go way past the realm of gaudy, glared back with hands on hips. Old timers in the Parisian crowd could liken it to the gladiator fights of Rome.
"Madame Riviere, please calm down." The middle-aged director timidly stepped forth saying. "It's just that we need one of the girls in this scene-"
"You're placing focus on some no-name instead of your star?"
"Please, madame. If you could-"
"Ugh, spare me your excuses! Either fix your script or you're out of a job!"
The woman, Riviere, fought the urge to spit in his face as he offered a plethora of apologies. She all but snatched a water bottle from the cooler just past the lights in her claw-like nails and trudged off. She lounged on the bench just before the road and watched the crowds go by, flinging her hair past for any passersby to get a glance at greatness. Being surrounded by amateurs tended to highlight the exceptional as pearls before pebbles.
She watched the screens atop a nearby building switch to Nadja Chamack with the daily news. The image of a dashing man in a business suit appeared alongside her, Corbin Lefevre, the hotshot mogul of Renaissance, an electronics company that had risen to fame in a short time. Some news that he was planning to unveil their latest smartphone model at some premiere party for the elite.
The elite, the wealthy, the respected and worshipped. She was something of a rising star, but she wasn't on that man's level. She deserved to be though, one of the elites.
With a grin, she reached for her phone in her pocket, and flipped through her apps until she found the perfect one.
"Hello, and welcome back to MakeLove! Are you ready to meet your perfect match?"
Hello, everyone!
So sorry for the incredibly long delay. In fact I don't believe I've posted anything since June of last year. A lot of things happened between then and now – I got a big new job, I finally got into My Hero Academia and was spending a long time binge reading fanfiction for that, and we were just trying to get through COVID, same as everyone else. Another thing to note is that my cat died so that hit pretty hard.
I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, so I'll probably post a couple more chapters here before I move on to my other stories. I'm not sure I'll have a set schedule in mind and I know there's a few people who are still waiting for updates on those stories so I hope I won't keep them waiting too long. My new job is pretty tiring.
Anywho, I know there wasn't a lot of excitement here but things will get into the swing again soon.
As always, review, favorite, follow! Until next time!