"Marinette, dear, are you sure? You don't really like fish."

She nods her head, a bit more enthusiastic than strictly necessary, and the older woman just chuckles. "Well, alright. Here you go." She leans down, handing the plate of fried snacks to the small child, who takes it with a squeal and skitters off to the next room. Her mother is left there, raising an eyebrow at her antics.

Marinette makes it to the table she can barely see the top of, and slams the plate onto it, startling the huge man napping in a chair nearby. He rubs the sleep from his eyes, blinking back into focus just in time to see his daughter with half of the fish patties somehow already shoved into her mouth at once, and he can't help the bellow of laughter that escapes him.

"Since when do you like these, my little princess?" He asks, leaning forward to take one that had so far escaped her snack annihilation. She's quick to share, excitedly picking up the plate and practically shoving it in his face, and it's only his quick reflexes that stop the food from launching into his lap.

"Oops." She says, somehow, around the mass of snacks she hasn't yet managed to chew. He just laughs again, and bites into his own rescued fish, and almost misses the child suddenly dashing out of the room. "I wanna swim!"

He chokes, and is out of the chair in an instant, tripping over the table as he runs after her out of the house.

"Marinette you don't know how to swim!"

Except she did.

She remembers it clear as day.

Ladybug lays on the floor of the captain's quarters, her legs on the bed. She stares up at the ceiling, her thoughts running all over the place, part of her even starting to question if the wood under her back is real. Her hair is a mess, tangled and sprawled around her head on the floor. She hasn't slept.

There's too much to think about. Too much that she has never thought about before. Too much that doesn't make sense.

She knows who she is. She's Ladybug the infamous lucky pirate, and before that, she was Marinette the innocent baker's daughter. She's never known anything else, has no memories that don't match that. It should make perfect sense, it should be entirely clear.

Right?

But it doesn't.

She doesn't remember learning to swim. She remembers her parents constantly pointing out things she completely changed opinion on, no, more like she'd developed opinions in the first place when before, she'd never cared for anything. The change was abrupt, overnight, but she doesn't remember her tastes or interests changing.

She doesn't remember the days before they did.

She only remembers something almost like suddenly waking up, as if she hadn't existed before.

"Marinette, did you get hurt?"

She looks up in pure confusion, surrounded in bubbles. The water is wonderful, it's warm and feels like home, in a way she doesn't know how to express yet. It brings a sense of longing, like she wants something, but she doesn't know what it is. But her mother is looking down at her with concern, and she only gets more confused, looking down to investigate herself. The older woman's hand appears in her vision, pointing toward her belly.

"See? Where did this scratch come from?"

It's pink at the edges, like a healing scrape. She doesn't know how it got there, but it doesn't hurt, so she doesn't really care. Marinette only shrugs, and continues playing, forgetting about the mark entirely within moments.

But where did it come from? Apparently it wasn't there before. Why would something like that just suddenly appear, overnight?

Her mind trails back to the look Chat gave her when he saw it, like he recognized it, clear as day. As if he'd seen it before. Did he say his partner had something similar? She isn't sure. She wonders.

Somehow, she's pretty sure it's true.

The pirate stares up at the ceiling with an intensity that almost feels like it could set fire to the ship, a massive headache forming from her lack of sleep and constant digging through her memories.

She's not even entirely sure why she's doing this. It could be to keep her mind off Chat, because if she thinks about him too much she knows she's going to spiral. And why, even, does she care so much? She's known him for a few days at best, and he clearly has his own issues to work through. She shouldn't be feeling like she's gone through a break up when she thinks about how he left. She shouldn't be feeling like she's lost something important.

Working through her memories and trying to figure herself out is better than sulking, she rationalizes. But she can't help but feel like she needs to, like there's something obvious she's missing that she needs to know.

But she can't figure out what it is.

Not for the first time, Ladybug finds herself missing her home. She wants to go back to her city, find the bakery nestled in on a street corner somewhere, see her parents. It's been so long since she left, so long since she'd last seen them. They'd have insight on all of this, she knows, they'd be able to help her put the pieces together.

But she can't do that right now, she has a crew to find first, and she's not particularly keen on the idea of giving her parents the gritty details of pirate life either. Ladybug sighs, crosses her ankles on the bed, and stares harder at the ceiling.

Her head is pounding. She hopes her parents are well, that Hawkmoth has left them alone. He probably wouldn't remember them at this point, if he ever realized they were related to her in the first place. Unbidden, another memory crosses her thoughts, and she doesn't stop it.

"Oooh, Marinette, look at this one!"

Marinette sidles over at the voice, peering over her best friend's shoulder at the array of seashells spread before them. The stall owner just smiles at the young teens and their wide stares, and says something that Marinette doesn't hear at all, her attention well and fully absorbed by the shells. Her gaze is drawn in by the colors, by the shapes that bring images of the ocean to mind, and a nagging feeling that she knows what they'll feel like even before she picks one up.

She's right. As she turns it over in her hands, Alya is giving her a thoughtful look, and soon speaks up again.

"Y'know girl, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were a fish, what with the way you gawk at anything that so much as touched the water."

"Alya! That's rude. I just think it's pretty." Marinette huffs, setting the shell ever so gently back on the table. She turns away, facing her back to Alya, and dramatically crosses her arms in a faux pout.

"I'm just teasing." The other girl laughs, but quickly cuts herself off. "Whoa, is that the Captain of the guard?"

Marinette cracks open an eye, still not entirely convinced it's not just Alya trying to distract her. But her friend is being honest, and the infamously cruel Captain is standing not so far away, exuding an air of danger and making anyone nearby back away from him. That's not what bothers her, though.

She's heard the horror stories, the talk among the small businesses and merchants, but she's never seen the guy in person before. There's something about him, something she can't quite place her finger on, that makes her skin crawl. There's a bubbling sense of distaste rising in her throat, and she almost feels angry, for reasons she honestly can't place. It's like just seeing him has soured her entire mood, and just from seeing him once, she kind of already hates him. There's just something that doesn't sit right with her.

It only gets worse when he turns his head, and time slows to a crawl as his eyes lock with hers through the crowd. A startled kind of shock crosses his face, before morphing into a narrowed glare that sends pure ice through Marinette's veins. Instantly it's not just a slightly off feeling about him, it's become pure terror, as if she was facing something inherently deadly.

Time resumes as his hand raises. He points straight at her.

"You! You're under arrest!"

Marinette is frozen, unable to react under the pure hatred of his stare as he approaches. Before she can figure out what to do, or plead her innocence for whatever he thinks she's done, Alya is dragging her down a nearby alleyway and running. "Alya, wait! We can't run from the law, it's just a misunderstanding!" She protests, her fear growing as guards give chase. But Alya only glances back for a moment, a dark look crossing her features.

"Hawkmoth doesn't do misunderstandings, Marinette. Whatever he thinks you've done, he'll punish you for."

There never was much to argue, nothing they could have changed, from then on. Everyone knew Hawkmoth's favorite, and only, method of punishment for civilians was hangings.

Ladybug rolls over on the floor, and groans into it. It still doesn't add up. She never did find out why he went after her so aggressively in the first place, and now that she's seen the way Chat reacted to his name? Even if it was a different person, it was strange. For a moment, it crosses her mind that maybe her Hawkmoth is a descendent of the one Chat dealt with, but that doesn't explain his grudge against her. It doesn't explain anything.

There are no easy answers. She's so confused.

The pirate had never questioned things so much before. Sometimes things didn't add up, but she didn't let it bother her, just went on and accepted how things were, but now her confusion and frustration at not being able to piece everything together all this time was starting to weigh down on her. Her own memories seemed off, her arch nemesis was a complete mystery, somehow an actual live mermaid was related in some backwards way, it was becoming so ridiculous she was almost starting to think she had definitely died in the Cataclysm and all of this was just some kind of afterlife fever dream.

Frustration pools in the form of her fist, which she slams dully against the floor beside her head. The vibration rings through her skull and makes her headache throb, and with it, a thought crosses her mind with such clarity it's like being drenched in cold water.

Chat sees someone else in her.

What if Hawkmoth sees someone else, too?

What if, all this time, she had never done anything except look like someone he had a grudge against?

She rolls over again. It's an interesting theory, and it's better than not having any idea of the man's reasoning at all, but it still doesn't explain everything. Who is Hawkmoth seeing in her? Yes, Chat and the mermaid he sees when he looks at her did have a run in with someone named Hawkmoth, but that was ages ago. The Hawkmoth she knows can't possibly be that old, and theirs would have died long before. It can't be the same person.

That's what she tells herself. But why does the most impossible theory have to make the most sense? If Chat and his partner fought a man named Hawkmoth years ago, and she died, and now Chat sees that same girl in Ladybug now? And another man also named Hawkmoth is holding a grudge against her for someone else he also sees in her?

And her name was Marinette?

People have the same names all the time, it's nothing new. But two different men who both go by Hawkmoth, who have attacked both her and another girl who looked exactly like her and had the same name? It's just weird. And why would a random power hungry guard Captain be so coincidentally related to a pirate and mermaid skirmish from half a century back? And what does any of this have to do with her?

How did she get into this mess?

She groans again, a long, drawn out noise attempting to vent her frustration. Yes, it could all be chalked up to a weird coincidence, or a weird repeat of history, stranger things have happened of course. But those things didn't involve a specific commonality, the exact same thing from both situations bridging the two. In this case, that was Chat.

He made everything so much more complicated, purely because he's involved in the exact coincidental history repeat as the original. Something still doesn't add up, because even if it was all just a weird glitch in reality, then he should have no interest in her. Lookalikes or not, his dead partner was his soulmate, and he seemed to have a stronger sense of people or magic or whatever than humans did.

Shouldn't he be able to tell she isn't the same person he lost? Maybe she's identical, maybe they'd be like twins. And obviously, logically, he knew they were different people. But in that moment on the deck, she could see his awareness slip, could see the way the lines blurred and he forgot who he was with. But deep down, shouldn't he still know?

What made him so confused in telling her apart from someone who died years ago? What made Ladybug so special?

Why did he spare her in the first place?

Why did he leave?

Why did she care?

Her fist met the floor again, and then again. Why did she care so much, why did she want him to come back? She wasn't his partner, she shouldn't be feeling rejected that he left. He was supposed to leave, he wasn't going to just hang around her side forever like the pet this crew thought he was. She shouldn't be feeling so conflicted about everything. It was all so stupid.

Ladybug had already come all this way on her own, with no one but her crew to turn to. She'd built her resistance against Hawkmoth all on her own, and survived everything he'd thrown at her all on her own up until that dip in the Cataclysm. And now, since then, why does everything have to revolve around the stupid attractive fish that rescued her?

She wants him to come back, even though she shouldn't. She's so hung up on a guy she barely knows, it's infuriating.

Damn it all. Chalk it up to mermaid charm, and then damn that especially.

A knock at the door cuts off her thoughts, which were quickly becoming a dull muted tone of just straight internal screaming. Lifting her head off the floor, Ladybug faced the door just in time to see one of the crew members tentatively push it open just a crack. "Um, miss Ladybug?"

"That's Captain to you." She snapped back, instantly, almost on a reflex. He flinched, and she almost felt bad. This crew were terrified of her, both for her death defying tendencies and the show Chat had put on back at the island, when really she had no intention of personally hurting them if they left her alone. Right now, though, she was better off if they were afraid of her, since that meant they wouldn't try to pull a fast one on her before she found her own crew.

"Right, yes, sorry. Captain Ladybug. Uh, we've spotted a set of ships on the horizon, the lookout thinks they're having a skirmish."

She raised an eyebrow at him from the floor. "And why should I care about that?"

"They appear to be the, um… One of them is yours."

That got her attention. Ladybug sat up, legs still on the bed, and twisted to at least mostly face the door properly. Excitement was rising in her chest, at the notion that seeing her crew on her ship was just on the horizon. "And the other?"

"That one is… Captain Hawkmoth's flagship, ma'am."

Damn it all. Her reunion would have to wait.

"... We're going to intercept. That fight is mine."

She rolls to her feet, standing upright in what feels like a split second and ignoring the way it makes her head spin, and then she's out the door and brushing past the crewmate before he can react. He flinches away and freezes, and Ladybug can't help but pause and stare pointedly back at him. Getting the hint, he rushes to fall into step by her side.

"Erm… Are you, sure you want to attack Captain Hawkmoth himself?" He sounds anxious, nerves making his voice thick.

The pirate only gives him a half glance as she marches down the hall. "What else am I to do, pretend I don't know he's there and go somewhere else? Abandon my crew? I think not. Think what you want of us, I'm not leaving my friends to die."

"I didn't… I'm not implying-"

"You just don't want him to know I made you help me." She noted, and his wince and following silence proved her right. "It's okay. I know his ideals, you'll all be killed if he decides this was treason."

The next few feet are punctuated only by a heavy, fearful silence. She knows how it must feel. No one on this ship has done anything wrong, anything more than just their jobs, and submitting to her was the only way they'd live through the fight Chat had started. But Hawkmoth, ever the empathetic leader, won't see it that way. He'd say the crew should have died before ever helping her in exchange for their lives.

When they reach the door leading to the deck, Ladybug pauses, her hand just shy of pushing it open. The tension in the dark hall grows while she gathers her thoughts, the crewmate behind her growing ever more fearful. He nearly jumps out of his skin when she looks back at him, but tries to look like he's composed.

She can't help but notice how young he looks. She wonders if he chose this, or if becoming a guard was the only choice he had.

"Listen," The pirate starts, her voice gentle. "If you want to escape Hawkmoth's wrath, you're going to have to be careful. I'm going to fight him, again, but if I lose, he's still going to know you were forced to help me, and I think we both know what he'll do then."

Turning to face him more fully, she continues, the tension draining away in light of her open honesty.

"So if I lose, I suggest the lot of you get out of here and flee to another kingdom. He'll be too distracted with my crew to even think about going after a few deserters, and will probably forget all about you. You'll be better off then."

A moment passes, and she turns back to the door, pushing it open and letting light stream into the hallway. The crewmate's quiet voice makes her pause, the fear absent from his tone.

"And what do we do if you win?"

She smiled. "Go back to your city. Keep your jobs. No one will know anything different from whatever you choose to tell them."

A/N: So how many points do I get for making this as needlessly complicated as canon? instead of "I love him but he loves other me but I don't realize that he also loves other me and I keep rejecting him" this is "he keeps mistaking me for her but I'm not her but this other guy also acts like I'm her and everyone has the same name and also I might be her except that doesn't make any sense I might be in love with a fish"