The funeral was…surreal. Adrien had never thought he would be attending his partner's funeral. She was always so much more cure than he was, stronger and faster. Of course they had considered what would happen if one of them fell, but he'd always thought it would be him first, jumping in front of a blow to save her. It was always her. She should have lived, not him. He knew it was what everyone was thinking. He heard the whispers, saw the comments Alya desperately tried to delete before he could.
Marinette's parents couldn't quite believe it either. No parent wanted to believe they would ever bury their child. Sabine had spent the three days since the hospital crying; now she was pale, empty-eyed. Tom was holding himself together, but just barely; Adrien saw the sea of pain behind his eyes. Seeing them broken like that made Adrien feel even worse about the way everything had happened.
Alya, Nino, and Chloe stood around him creating a wall of comfort between him and the rest of the city. They had all shown up, ever single person. Marinette was being honored as any other fallen officer would. The speeches at the service had been numerous and, though heartfelt, had fallen short of portraying even a fraction of the grief each person felt; she had touched them all, lifted their spirits. And now she was gone. The streets were empty except for the funeral procession—the hearse with Sabine, Tom, and Marinette's grandmother, followed by a car with the mayor, Chloe, Alya, and Nino, and a line of vehicles bearing family and friends. Every police unit surrounded the procession. The sidewalks were lined with mourners, like some dark parade. And, above it all, Chat Noir followed along the rooftops, keeping his eyes peeled for Queen Bee.
"I dare you to interrupt this funeral," he thought with a snarl.
She didn't.
Then, standing beside her open grave, hundreds of flowers draped over the coffin, someone began to sing "The Old Rugged Cross." Adrien himself wasn't overly religious, and he knew Marinette hadn't been, but that voice, filled with pain, raised to the winds like a defiant prayer—that felt right. More voices joined in, including his own, until the air rang. As the final notes faded away, the requiem of Ladybug and Chat Noir, Adrien blinked away tears and turned his back, walking away.
The wake was worse, made all the more surreal by the sunlight beaming down on an otherwise perfect afternoon. Adrien made his way to Tom and Sabine across the banquet room of the Grand Paris. He'd changed into a black suit and tie. Plagg and Tikki cuddled on his right shoulder.
He had been dreading this moment since the doctor's news at the hospital, but it needed to be done. He waited for an elderly couple to finish giving their condolences before stepping forward. Both pairs of eyes were red-rimmed, tear tracks marking their faces. Adrien steeled himself.
"Adrien!" Sabine cried, throwing her arms around him. The commotion caught a few gazes, and people began watching them as surreptitiously as possible. "I can't even imagine…you were her dearest friend."
Adrien patted her back and met Tom's eyes sadly. "More than that." His voice cracked. He'd barely said a word in the last few days. "I love her." He extricated himself. "And I was her partner. We knew each other better than anyone else would or could." Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a white envelope.
"That better not be a check," Tom warned. "We won't take your money." They'd had several people try to give them cash donations that day, and they had refused every one.
Adrien shook his head, almost wishing that were all it was. "We've been partners for five years. We were just kids when this started. Then, a year in, I got hurt. It was a close call. If not for Marinette and Ma—our teacher—I would have died. That's when we finally realized how dangerous it all was. We made a pact, in case the worst happened, a way to let our families know. We both wrote letters to our loves ones and sealed them in an envelope, only to e opened in the case of our…deaths." Sabine covered her mouth and looked down at the letter like it might come alive and bit her. "This is her letter to the two of you. I've never opened it or read her words. And, please, open it alone. I know mine hold very…personal details. When Sabine didn't take it, Tom stepped forward. Adrien held the letter and his gaze for a moment. "I'm sorry." He walked out with dozens of gazes on his back.
The next afternoon, Adrien arrived at Le Grand Paris and made his way to the third-floor suite his friends had been moved to after the attack. The reporters and guards moved aside; his expression spoke determination, a steady, don't-fuck-with-me gaze. NO one wanted to get in his way today.
The mayor stood from the armchair he'd been resting in as he swept past the door guard into the room. "Adrien, what are you-?"
"Please, sit," Adrien cut in, sitting across from him on the couch. His trio of friends joined him, dressed in black with fresh tears still in their eyes.
"You have something to say." Mayor Borgeouis commented.
Adrien nodded. "You might not like it. I need to move Alya, Nino, and Chloe to the other safehouse."
The mayor paused before responding with a single word: "Why?"
Adrien straightened his shoulders. "They were used as bait once, at this very location. Queen Bee doesn't know where our hideout is—where my hideout is." He flinched as he corrected himself. I can keep them better protected there." He held up a hand as the mayor began to respond. "There is another reason. The…Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous were made to be used together. With Marinette…I don't know yet how my power will react to her…absence. Furthermore—and this knowledge does not leave this room—" he darted his eyes around to assure their privacy, "I myself am going through a sort of…change with my Miraculous, causing my emotions, and, by extension, my powers, to react strangely. With my friends nearby, I might avoid a meltdown."
"Are you saying these Miraculous can be dangerous?" The mayor said nervously.
"No, but the holders can be, and this change is. Before you ask, no, there is no way to slow or stop it safely. Things must run their course." Adrien ignored the curious glances from the girls, and the "not buying your bullshit" look he was getting from Nino.
Mayor Borgeouis nodded slowly after a brief silence. "I cannot argue with your logic. Very well. Between your current apartment and the one across the hall, there should be enough room for all of you. And I will assign a team of guards on the lower fl—"
"No." Insisted Adrien. "If an assumed-empty apartment building is suddenly under surveillance, it will alert her to our presence. We have the element of surprise over her. As few people as possible need to know where we are." The mayor acquiesced. "The apartment building is empty?" He asked, a scheme in his mind. "Then I may use its facilities as I see fit? The gym, the indoor pool, the lounge, etc?" The mayor nodded. Adrien didn't explain himself, turning to his friends. "Pack your things; we're moving out in twenty minutes."
Six weeks had passed since the fight, five weeks since the funeral. Paris still mourned openly for her lost hero. It was quieter than usual, but normal activity was beginning to resurge. Children played on playgrounds under heavy supervision. School was back in session, shops were all opened again. Signs of grief were everywhere, though. Every single person—man, woman, child—wore a black ribbon with a ladybug in the center, made and handed out by Marinette's classmates and teachers from university. A black flag hung from the lowest beam of the Eiffel Tower, and over either side of the Pont des Arts. Plans were underway to build the memorial, choosing to keep it outside the louvre instead of within, so that it could always be seen by everyone.
In the six weeks, Queen Bee had only been spotted a handful of times. Victims still appeared hear and there, a scattered few. She was gathering a new army of bees. Every time she appeared, Chat Noir fought her off to a stale mate, both escaping before real harm could come to either them or any citizens. He never went all out in a fight. It was as though losing his partner had made him realize the fragility of his mortality. Or maybe his heart just wasn't in it anymore. He was spotted almost as rarely as Queen Bee was. The Ladyblog had gotten several images of Chat Noir's silhouette on the skyline, looking over the city, or staring at the bakery, or Marinette's old apartment, with messages like, "Is he okay?" or "Is there any way we can help him now?" attached.
Those messages made Alya ache. She kept the Ladyblog going, asking readers for personal stories of what Ladybug meant to them and times when she saved them or made their day. Her inbox was flooded. She was glad for all the material to go through. It meant a distraction for everything going around in her head. The press had hounded them for days, not letting up. Everyone wanted the real scoop on Ladybug before anyone else. No one talked to a camera. No one said a word other than "She is a hero, and she will be missed." The attention, though, and the fact that the hotel was no longer safe, helped Adrien convince the mayor that Alya, Nino, and Chloe would be better off living with him at the safe house. He agreed of course, telling them that, just as Marinette and Adrien had guessed, the rest of the building was empty. The three of them took the room across the hall, not really wanting to be in the last place Marinette had been before…
It had been six weeks.
Today was different.
Queen Bee banged her broken pipe against the metal trashcan lid in her hand again, letting the sound ring out. She stood in the middle of a huge park, open area all around her. Kids were pulled off of swings as mothers raced away with them. They cleared out with frightening ease—years of practice running from akumas winning over their fear. "Here, kitty, kitty!" She called in a sneering voice. "You and I have unfinished business."
Several minutes passed. Police cars showed up, encircling her, officers hiding behind doors with weapons trained on her. She paid them no heed. Finally, Chat Noir dropped from the branches of a tree 10 yards away and stalked forward. "You rang?" His voice was dark and heavy with anger.
Queen Bee tossed the lid away and pointed the pipe to him, her other hand suddenly holding her knife. "I'm sick of this game, kitty."
"Don't call me that." He growled, taking a menacing step forward.
"Fine, Chat Noir, I'm tired of playing. This ends today. Right here, right now. Give me the Miraculous, yours and hers. I know you have them both."
"So what if I do? You'll never get your hands on either." He replied.
"Last chance." Her bees fanned around her, spreading out like a blanket. His only response was to grip his bo staff tighter as he crouched in preparation. "Wrong choice." There was a series of groans as one by one, the officers dropped to the ground, stingers in their skin. Chat didn't have time to react before she was on him, slashing with her knife. He blocked the blade with his staff, but forgot about the pipe. He was able to bring up his arm at the last possible second to protect his head, but grunted as he felt something crack, pain radiating from the tips of his fingers up. They exchanged a rapid series of blows. They seemed about evenly matched, but Chat knew he was losing this fight. He tried to pull away, but every time he almost escaped her reach, her bees forced him back towards her. With frustration, he realized there was no way he would be able to win this fight alone.
Queen Bee seemed to realize this as well. She grinned, renewing her attacks. Finally, swinging her arm faster than he had time to react to, the pipe caught him alongside his head, sending him sprawling. The staff bounced away, and he lay there dazed, trying to regain his swimming vision. "Give me the Miraculous." She demanded. He didn't answer. She swung the pipe, slamming it into his stomach. "Give me. The Miraculous." She repeated.
"Never…you'll have to…kill me first." His breathing was labored, voice ragged. He coughed and spit blood onto the grass by his head.
"Have it your way." She said in a dead tone, lifting the pipe above her head with both hands, preparing to bring it down on his head.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd of onlookers hiding behind the ring of cop cars, a second before the pipe was knocked out of her hands by a flash of red. Silence, as Queen Bee looked up from the cat at her feet to see Ladybug standing before her, confidently swinging her yoyo in a slow arc. Her voice was clear and strong when she spoke. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
Marinette and Adrien lay back on the couch in each other's arms, watching "The Message," episode 12 of Firefly, as Mal and Zoe carried the dead body of their friend and comrade onto their ship.
"What would happen to us, if one of us dies?" Marinette asked quietly. Chat's arms tightened around her. "I'm serious. Adrien, I have to know that, if I'm not here, you'll be alright."
"If you're gone, Milady, I don't know what I would do." He answered honestly. "And I don't know that I'd ever be alright."
"I need to know that you will. I need to know that you'll continue this fight. You heard what Master Fu said. We aren't ever going to be completely safe again. We'll always be time bombs. Maybe one day we'll go off. Maybe we won't. But I know that if I lost you…" She trailed off. "If I lost you, I don't know if I could hold it back, if I could keep up the fight. But I would try. I need to know that you would do the same."
"I would try. Of course I would try. I know we have our contingency plans. But I don't know if I could go on." He said.
"You have to." She insisted firmly, clenching her fist over his heart. He didn't answer. He knew that he would probably self-destruct completely without her there. But he also knew she would keep her position no matter what he said.
Suddenly, Marinette sat up. "Oh my god." She said, crawling over him to rush to the kitchen table, sifting through the stacks of papers and plans.
"What?" Chat asked, worried.
"I think…it's a long shot. It would require a lot of work. And it would only be a last resort, but…" She bit her lip as she looked over the strategy charts they'd drawn up their first night there.
"You're kinda leaving me hanging here, Milady," he joked, looking over her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. He saw the notes she was writing up and stiffened. "That…is not going to happen." He growled firmly. "Not in a thousand years. Never."
"No, listen. I'm not saying we do it on purpose. I'm saying that, should it happen, should one of us be so gravely injured that we couldn't continue actually fighting, we might as well use it to our advantage." She turned her head to the side and saw the anger on his face. "Look, what's the strongest part of Ladybug and Chat Noir?"
He glowered at her before answering through clenched teeth. "The team."
"Exactly. Together, we're an unstoppable force. That's what the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous are meant to be. But, if the team were forced to break, everything falls apart. I wouldn't be able to use my Lucky Charm, or you wouldn't be able to use Cataclysm. More than that, our psyches would be irreparably damaged, especially knowing what we do about bonding to our Miraculous. If you were gone, I would be an unstable, rage-filled wreck. And Queen Bee knows it. So, what if she thought one of us was dead?"
"No." Chat said stubbornly. "That would be one hell of a ruse to pull off. One of us would have to actually be hurt, completely incapacitated."
She turned in his arms. "It would serve another purpose, then. In the case of such an injury, it would allow safety to the injured party. If she thinks we're dead, she won't be after us. And then, once healed, call her out and surprise her at her moment of greatest weakness—the moment she thinks she's won."
"No." Chat growled again, baring his teeth in defiance like an actual cat. "We would have to lie, to everyone, to our friends, our families. We would have to deal with the blame from the city. The city would tear itself apart. And then? Once we reveal that, hey, we were just kidding, not really dead? They would never trust us again."
Marinette shook her head. "Sure, some people will take a longer time to get around it. But, eventually, they would understand. This akuma needs to be purified, Chat. At all costs. Before more lives are lost." He frowned at her. "Look, with the time spent for the injured party to heal, we would be able to train another holder. I know I have a couple people in mind. Three, actually."
Chat opened his mouth, then closed it in shock. "You're thinking of giving them Miraculous? Of bringing them so fresh into the fight."
"Not that fresh. We had our Miraculous for hours before we fought Stone Heart. With an injury like the one we're discussing, it would take weeks to heal well enough to be fighting again. Plenty of time to get them used to their abilities. You know I'm right, Adrien. You know I am." She jabbed his chest with her index finger and looked up at him, daring him to argue.
They stared each other down a full minute before Adrien sighed, resting his forehead against hers. "You are. You're absolutely right. I just don't like the idea that you could be hurt that way."
"Nor I you," She replied, cupping his face between her hands. "God, it kills me to think about it. But if it did…"
"If it did, we would have the perfect opportunity to bring her down."
"Cat got your tongue?"
On either side of Marinette, three figures dropped down to the ground in a crouch, grinning like the cat that got the mouse. A girl with piercing brown eyes and golden red hair streaming down her back in a wave of curls, with fox ears and a tail, wearing a fox-themed spandex outfit knelt at her right, a blonde girl with a black mask, wearing a golden dress with irregular black stripes and a poofed-out skirt with knee-high black heeled boots crouched beside her. On Ladybug's other side, a dark-skinned boy in what looked like green and gold leather armor, a hard shell-like shield strapped to his back, was on her left.
"What is this?" Queen Bee shrieked as she backed away from Chat Noir, who sprang up nimbly—especially so for someone who had been beaten and pinned down a moment before—and stood next to his partner, leaning on his bo staff like a cane and grinning devilishly.
"This is called a clever ruse." The fox-girl said. "And this," Queen Bee jumped as a fox the size of a semi-truck appeared beside her, "Is what happens when you try to take on the Miraculous." The fox lunged, it's teeth closing on Queen Bee, who covered her face with her arms and screamed. The teeth passed right through her.
"It's…an illusion?!" Her eyes flashed, and she turned back to the five heroes. Flinging out her hands towards them, she ordered her bees forward. They advanced, stingers poised to attack. As soon as they reached them, though, the group vanished. Queen Bee realized her mistake all too late. Blows rained down on her. She had sent the entirety of her winged army after them, leaving herself defenseless. She didn't even have time to raise her knife. Claws slashed at her, the yoyo string wound around her, pinning her arms to her side. Whenever she almost tore her way free, images of spiders or webs or other things pulled her attention away, and the string wound tighter. She thrashed and cried out, but no one would be helping her. She fell forward, kneeling in the grass, and the girl in the black and gold dress saw light glinting off a tiny charm hanging from the front of Queen Bee's dress.
"Gotcha!" She cried, pulling the charm free and tossing it to Marinette. The yoyo unwound itself from their captive, but the other four heroes were able to detain her easily enough.
"Chat!" Ladybug called, and the cry of "Cataclysm!" rang through the park as he turned the charm to dust. A black glowing moth flew out, frantically trying to escape its fate, only to be captured by Marinette's yoyo, enclosed in the glow of her purifying light. "Time to de-evilize!" Her voice was rising in enthusiasm. "Bye-bye little butterfly!" Queen Bee watched it go with regret and anguish in her face. Marinette didn't see it though, meeting eyes with her partner—partners, now. "Ready?" She whispered. They nodded, and she flung her yoyo into the sky. "Miraculous Ladybug!" They all held their breath as the glow infused the city, the healing magic fixing broken windows and smashed cars and doors. Even when the glow faded, they didn't dare breathe, until, with a collective groan, the first police officers began to stand up, the paralysis worn off. Only then did the city let up their cheers. Marinette threw her arms around Chat and they laughed giddily. They'd done it. Despite everything, they had done the impossible. The reign of terror Hawkmoth had begun was finally over.