Initial exploration of the techniques involved in action figure customization includes tutorials in kit-bashing various figures into an amalgamated piece, typically one which requires further painting to match colour schemes. As the actual Hasbro Akuma figures appear to have been crafted with a great deal of care, and his Lady's design is perfectly acceptable, if flimsy, he files links to beginners' tutorials away in a well-organized series of nested folders on his desktop.
Those might come in handy when he gets to ... little Chat.
Instructional videos on painting are helpful, and he crafts careful notes while seated before his computer, contemplating the basics of matching skin-tones and hues with the costume sported by his little Lady, and the necessity of thinning paints, whether he uses an airbrush or hand-painting.
An airbrush?
Like the makeup applicator, he presumes, and is proven correct through yet more research that lasts long into the night.
Without a second's hesitation beyond a thorough layer of research into different models of compressors, airbrushes, and paints, he lays down five-hundred Euro on supplies, intent on experimenting with the myriad techniques on display.
Fortunately, he has three junk – he thinks back to his Lady's scowl – three expendable Chat Noir figures on which to practice, when the time comes.
School in the coming days is awkward in many ways, largely because he's being unintentionally excluded from the major conversations that are unfolding, keeping his head down because he can't face Marinette.
He knows his Lady, and knew that all of this mess was ultimately his responsibility, so he had to slink over to her and apologize to her, but becoming the object of Marinette's censure and wrath when discussing the figures, or extending his regrets for – for his failure and his insult against her...
The very thought of her scowling up at him, spurning him, sneering over his contribution to this racist offence as if she could see right thought him and know, somehow, that he was responsible...
For whatever reason, that might be one hit that he can't take.
Particularly because Marinette is on a perpetual warpath, and he's not getting caught in the crossfire or her pint-sized blitzkrieg advance.
That, and his disheartened withdrawal, begins the morning after he puts in his expedited order for painting supplies.
Before class, and thus long before Marinette's inevitable late arrival, Lila is mocking the Chat Noir figure, showing off the video footage of the reviewer who- who had binned him. The other students gather around to listen to her describe in detail Ladybug's appalled response to the products.
Apparently, she and Lila had been chatting on a rooftop and sharing smoothies and pastries in something that sounded very much like a date, or, at least, that was Lila's implication as Alya scowls over the tacit breakdown of LadyNoir and the other students hang on for dear life to every word, drooling and frothing at the mouth over the exchange between the super-heroine and her... very good friend.
Ladybug, Lila confirms conspiratorially, looking about the room as if fearing that Chat Noir himself might leap from the shadowed corners and tear her limb from limb, had split with chortles at the flopsy failure of a figure, resting an arm to Lila's shoulder and holding her close – Ladybug's arms are so strong, aren't they?! Lila gushes and swoons, fanning herself alongside about half the class.
True, but Lila would probably only be aware of that after having her lights knocked out by a solid Ladybug haymaker.
Then, according to the narrative that Lila weaves with typically emphatic skill, her g – uh, that is to say, Ladybug dropped Chat Noir off the roof.
Not threw. That would take effort that little Chat Noir didn't deserve.
Even though he knows that Lila is pathologically incapable of telling the truth, Adrien succumbs, face falling for just a moment, before-
"How dare you." It's a hissed whimper from the doorway where, Adrien realizes as her turns in his seat, Marinette stands, balled-up fists shuddering as her backpack drops to the hardwood floor.
The sheer agony that screams from her posture and garbles her voice makes Adrien long to throttle someone due to his cat-like protective instincts which are totally a thing. Cats could be incredibly loyal and defensive when their loved ones were threatened. Totally.
"What's that, Marinette?" Lila offers sweetly.
"How dare you suggest that Ladybug would ever do that to Chat Noir!" Marinette rages, and a single step forward into the classroom is sufficient to press Adrien away, scooting his chair back from his desk.
Alya sets her cell phone to the table, grimacing as she appears torn between the two girls.
"Yeah, I mean, they must have had final say on the figures, right?" the blogger offers, hands raised to try to placate both of the girls as if she's warding off two lionesses from different prides. "So it's not like she'd really tear into it, or be surprised."
A reasonable defense on Alya's part that, sadly, is in no way accurate because he was an overconfident idiot who'd bitten off more than he could chew when it came to contract law and had only really looked at the royalty offers, trusting experts in their field to actually produce quality material.
"Oh, Ladybug told me that she hadn't even seen the figures. After all, she's too mature a woman with refined tastes to be interested in kids' toys," Lila offers in a syrupy innocent tone, and he nearly snaps a pencil in two underneath his desk at the infantilization, the suggestion and the fact that he was, and is, just a stupid child. "It was all Chat Noir's idea, so I think that, as the real superhero, Ladybug has a right to be upset."
Much as he would like to deny the assertion, she's right, really. Failure to review the contracts properly or retain veto rights on design choices had led them to this situation, and that's entirely his responsibility.
"Well, if that's true, than I guess La Cité de Refuge homeless shelter has Chat Noir to thank for the extra funding they'll be receiving this year, right?" Marinette growls in retort, closing the distance with Lila, the crowd of students shattering and parting like a formation of Russian irregulars before the German advance. "That's all on him too, just like the donations that are going towards more professional help for students across Paris."
Lila rises, thumbing her chin towards the other girl, her warm smile oozing unabashed contempt that only he and Marinette appear to be able to detect.
Seeming to collapse into her desk as she watches the exchange like someone who can see the doomed smart car, stuck on the tracks, and the train bearing down, but is too far away to shout a warning to the driver, Alya massages her brow.
"He didn't have to sell himself and Ladybug alike to get that money," Lila snorts into a huffing Marinette's face that's creasing up to the point that she almost looks like a rabid pug, face all folds, and it's as terrifying as it is adorable. "He had no right to speak for her without getting her consent. That's the most important thing."
There are some uncertain nods of agreement from the students who have retreated to their desks. Did they realize that signing over rights, which both he and Ladybug had done, at least as a formality, was really irrelevant when you were operating anonymously, or under a super-hero guise? Hadn't they seen Ladybug alongside their Hasbro liaison when the donation to La Cité de Refuge was presented?
Lila is far from done, though, pushing on too quickly to allow the other students to really think things through. "He could have just organized a fund-raiser or gone on the news. I think that he was just trying to be more famous- get his face in the store shelves."
"Chat is a pretty cocky showboat, isn't he? Just look at this video!" Alya scratch-laughs in a clear attempt to short-circuit the disaster that's unfolding before their eyes, thrusting her cell phone into the air to show off a random Chat Noir video clip that actually involves him face-planting into a wall after getting caught up in a bevy of sneezes due to the effects of a passing flock of pigeons.
Not his finest moment, but he'll take a bloodied nose over this catastrophe any day.
Marinette is not paying attention, though, jabbing a finger into Lila's wide-eyed face that's starting to show signs of flushing and tearing up.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing, so maybe Ladybug should have gotten off her fat butt to actually use her fame to help people, just like Chat Noir did." Marinette's snarl drives their classmates back to their seats as they seem to decide that close proximity to roughly equal masses of matter and anti-matter – apt, because Marinette matters a lot and Lila is the antithesis of mattering to him – is unwise.
Lila's mouth opens, lips starting to quiver or, more accurately, flap so that what should be a subtle motion can probably be seen in the back row, before a third combatant tosses herself into the charnal pit.
"But he embarrassed Ladybug and himself, not that he had to do much there. That kid's toy is an affront! Ridiculous!" Chloe chirps from her seat, finally seizing upon the opportunity to refocus attention on herself.
That's his moment. He has to take the chance as Lila and Marinette alike swivel towards the heiress, surging forward to capture Marinette's arm in a gentle handhold.
Regret and shame alike roil inside his intestines when she nearly leaps to the ceiling, held to the ground only by his grip, it seems, when his fingers close around her shockingly thick bicep. Thick lines of muscle are firm and warm under his palm and that's – that's a little too hot for friendship because he likes a girl with a good throwing arm.
What is he thinking?!
"Marinette, can I talk to you for a minute?" he asks before her flapping lips can form coherent words. "It won't take long."
With a baleful glare towards Lila, she allows him to tug her out towards the hallway beyond their classroom. A conveniently quiet corner, their potential conversation drowned out by the din of passing students and the chatter of friends who gab about upcoming films and tik-tok videos, will be perfect.
"Marinette, you- you shouldn't upset Lila," he says, a wince splitting his face when she tugs free of his grip halfway through the word "upset."
"Are you serious right now?" she spits like a cobra, flaring up and looming large.
"I'm completely serious," he insists to defend both him and her, reaching out for a hand that she refuses to give him, snapping it back to her chest, the prospect of his touch nearly scalding her. "She's been leaving you alone recently, right?"
She'd darn well better be in light of their Faustian bargain that allowed her to clutch and cling to his arm at photo shoots, the reek of her perfume tearing at his sensitive nose, and the clammy heat of her skin clinging like sludgy sweat mingled with the spray of oil so fine that it violated his pores and sunk in under his skin so that no amount of time spent in the shower could ever remove the itchy filth.
Only a rooftop jaunt that left him so burnt out that his chest heaved and burned as he rounded the towers of College Francois Dupont and saw the warm light that spilled from Marinette's attic room, or caught a streak of red the colour of the dawn and chased after his Lady, was enough to squeeze it out.
"I don't care." There's a resolute flippancy to Marinette's tone, the dismissal punctuated by a flick of her hand.
"Listen, if you're flying under her radar, then you don't have to worry about her turning on you or trying to get you expelled again," he insists, interlocking his own fingers before his stomach to squeeze out some of the tension, but the pressure and Marinette's expression only trigger a flash of Ladybug from last evening.
"I am not going to allow her to lie about Chat Noir like that, or put him down. He's died for this city," Marinette insists, jabbing him in the chest, a minute tremor racing its way up her arm, her mouth drooping as she sucks down air. After a momentary whole-body convulsion that's surely an undulation of outrage as her gaze jerks about the the hallway, she settles.
The ensuing frown is so ugly on her, even though she's glorious and fiery in her wrath.
"He might seem like a goofball, and he is, but he's a hero, Adrien. If you heard someone talking about – about a fireman who died trying to fight his way through a tenement fire to pull someone out, would you just let her keep doing it?"
If it was his Lady, he certainly wouldn't follow his own advice, but she deserved the defense.
"No, but Chat Noir's not worth it," he nearly whines like a plaintive child, and it's only then that he realizes he's saying it because it's true, and he wants her to lie and tell him it's not.
Marinette blinks and shakes her head as if she's just heard him say with complete sincerity that he's actually a Reptillian from Alpha Centauri and has been sent to Earth to scout it for an invasion – like the very words got folded up together like a sheet of origami paper that somehow become, with a few skillful pleats, a jet engine aircraft weighing in at 200 metric tonnes and carrying France's national soccer team.
Then, blood blooms hot in her suddenly snarling face, her fists clenching up and twitching. She looks like she's just on the verge of slugging him and grinding his nose to powder in one blow. Instead of lashing out, however, she's suddenly his father, icy-cool and emotionally-distant as she judges him and finds him unworthy.
"Adrien." Her voice is not a hiss. It's a steady stream, barely flowing, clogged up with the winter freeze, as she grabs his outer shirt and brings him down with a slow, easy pull. He swallows, mouth dry, staring into her crystalline blue eyes that are tugging him under, trapping him beneath the frozen surface to drown, pounding and scrabbling in terror. "You listen to me. Chat Noir is always worth it."
There's no chance to muster a defense or a retort, or even to squeeze out an inarticulate expression of gratitude. Marinette wheels away from him, shoulders rolling as if to work out tension, but he can't quite fathom the new shudder, like a hiccup, that rocks her form and nearly has her tripping, bracing herself against a locker.
Bringing pain to his very dear friend was the exact opposite of what he'd intended, hoping to spare her from Lila's reprisal, but he can see from the way that she limps off, stung, surely, by his inarticulate and inconsiderate betrayal, that's he's only hurt her worse.
His back collides with the wall, the only thing keeping him upright. He's such a mess that he really is fit for the trash if he can do that to a friend.
When he slouches his way home that evening, his mute driver checking in on him, stoic eyes flicking up towards the rear-view mirror periodically, he endures a lecture from Nathalie regarding his posture and the impression that it conveying to a judgmental public.
Dinner consists of a half chicken breast, unseasoned, accompanied by a plethora of vegetables from which he can eat his fill. His father does not join him.
In his room, he checks on his order, and boy is it a blessing that he paid for expedited shipping, because his parcel is two days away.
Those two days are utter hell, as, though Lila has quieted down and no longer launches into screeds against Chat Noir's legitimate incompetence, Marinette is ignoring him, or trying to ignore him.
Her face contorts whenever he enters the classroom, her effervescent and energetic conversation with Alya dying down and that massive smile – too massive because he knows what a fake smile looks like – dies away, impossible to maintain in his presence, and the vibrant girl becomes a mealymouthed mouse around him.
The only time that changes is when she sees someone starting to disparage the other him, and another Marinette takes over – the one that's driven by a fiery-wild sense of justice that makes her seem as if she could overcome Ladybug herself if they ever contended for the position of "the true heroine of Paris."
That's when the blitzkrieg starts its advance once again.
It's a good look on her.
He'd like to see it more often.
Oh!
That's it, of course.
His supplies might be two days away, and even then it will take some time to practice his stills so as to ensure that his Ladybug figures are properly painted and worthy of them – although nothing that he has to give will ever truly be worthy of Ladybug or Marinette, not with how he's insulted them and failed them – but there may be another gift that Chat Noir can give Marinette.
At least that would make him feel a little bit better, knowing that he tried, even if she can never be allowed to learn that it was Adrien's way of apologizing, or at least trying.
Being Chat Noir is the most liberating and exhilarating aspect of his life, allowing him to shuck the burdens of identity and fame, claiming both again by manufacturing them on his own terms, and working to earn them and define them, rather than having them handed over to him by his father.
He can't think of a greater gift, a more meaningful apology.
And if Char Noir can maybe, just maybe, put in a good word on Adrien's behalf, or even convince Marinette to give up on defending him to her classmates because he's a macho, debonair, and qualified hero, unconcerned regarding public perception, and she wasn't meant to take emotional and social blows to defend him, well, so much the better.
Heck, if everything goes his way, they may actually be able to find out which girl deserves the title of the "true heroine of Paris."
In response to that tail-wagging prospect, his mind immediately conjures the phrase "My Lady."
But for some reason, he sees Marinette, defending him against Lila.