When Queen Bee's boots touched down on the balcony at the topmost floor of Le Grand Paris, golden light swirled around them and rose across her body. The light passed her face, peeling Queen Bee's mask away to reveal Chloé Bourgeois. Vii zipped through the balcony doors and landed next to her bowl of lollipops while Chloé turned and leaned out with her hands against the railing, gazing out at the city. A drawn out sigh slipped through her lips and it felt as though a weight on her shoulders lifted. Paris was safe for another day. Nathanaël was safe. But the only reason he was in danger in the first place was...

Her heart ached. It wasn't just seeing Nathanaël's eyes behind that mask, but knowing she was the one who put him there. She snorted. Two years ago, she wouldn't have cared. Two years ago, she would have laughed at his pain...had laughed at it. Mocked him, mocked his passion, his crush on Marinette, and afterwards, had she apologized? No. Not even after becoming Queen Bee and turning her life around had she apologized. To anyone. Not that anyone would believe her. To her former classmates, she was still Chloé Bourgeois. The selfish, cruel bitch they all knew back in collège.

She was somewhat thankful that she hadn't seen any of her old frie...no. Not friends. They were never her friends. Regardless, she was thankful she hadn't seen any of them in some time, everyone attending a different lycée. Everyone except the red-headed artist who still hated Chloé more than anyone else and sat next to her in chemistry, endlessly doodling her alter ego as some great karmic insult.

At her new school, Chloé had a fresh start, a second chance to make friends. Yes, most of the other students knew she was the mayor's daughter and was mixed up in Akuma attacks in the past, but hardly any of them knew she had caused most of them. Everyone got to see the new Chloé, the Chloé who was still full of attitude, who always had a snide or sarcastic remark, but who turned that attitude towards people who hurt her friends. The Chloé Queen Bee had brought out of her.

She wished Nathanaël could see that side of her.

...except...

(#)

It was Queen Bee's first Akuma, an armor-clad woman named Iron Maiden, and Queen Bee had pulled Nathanaël from beneath her hammer just before it could grind him into a splintery paste. When he looked up into her eyes to thank her, a redness that rivaled that of his hair spread over his cheeks. He absently scratched at his left hand before Queen Bee flew away to deal with the Akuma. She spent the rest of the day curious as to his reaction. No one had ever looked at her that way.

So, when Chloé spotted Nathanaël sitting on the edge of the southwest fountain of The Place de Vosges the next day, sketchbook in his lap, she felt herself inexplicably drawn to him. She tried to play it casual, inquiring about his well-being after the Akuma attack. Naturally, he didn't believe she of all people would be worried about him. She was ready to brush him off and mock his Ladybug doodles when he surprised her.

He turned his sketchbook around and held it up to her. In the center, a full body drawing of a girl in a yellow and black bodysuit, her golden hair flowing behind her, a pair of gossamer wings protruding from her back. In the bottom right corner, a sketch of her face, her blue eyes meticulously shaded in.

"It's the new hero, Queen Bee. She saved me during the last attack."

"You know, Chloé...you could really learn something from her."

(#)

He did see that side of her. He just didn't know it was her.

For a few weeks after that, she saw him at every Akuma attack, sketchbook at the ready. He had a better attendance record than even Alya. One day, he'd gotten too close and...

(#)

"I swear, Nathanaël, why do you have to get so close to the attacks? You're worse than Alya!"

Queen Bee had her arms hooked under his, flying him away from the city streets now covered in sticky tar.

"I'm sorry, I just...I wanted to draw you and..." She dropped him on a rooftop and landed next to him.

"Plenty of pictures of me on the Ladyblog," she huffed.

"But...they don't do you justice." She blushed at the comment. "I...want to see you in person."

It was then she made either the best or the worst decision of her life.

"If it'll keep you away from the attacks...I'll...I'll pose for you."

"Y-you'll what?"

She turned to him and smiled. "Stay away from the Akuma attacks and I promise: I'll visit you whenever you want and let you draw me."

(#)

For over a year, she held to her promise. He filled sketchbooks with her face, she regaled him with stories of fighting Akumas, working with Ladybug and Chat Noir, helping Volpina gain the city's trust. And she enjoyed every moment. At first, it was because she savored the irony that he hated one side of her and worshiped the other. But now, it was because she got to see him. Wanted to see him. Why had she made that promise? Why did she want so desperately to keep him safe? Why did it hurt to see him akumatized again? Why did she want him to look at her the same way he looked at Queen Bee?

"Whasha doin aht here by yuhself?" Vii asked around a lollipop. Chloé hadn't noticed her kwami partner flutter out of her room and settle on the railing beside her.

"Thinking."

"Yuh've ben dun thah a lot letleh." Vii pulled the candy from her mouth with an audible pop. "It's...about that red-haired boy, isn't it?"

Chloé blushed and jerked her head away from the kwami. "None of your business."

"Chloé," Vii cooed and placed a paw on her partner's hand. "When you transform, I don't just disappear into the Miraculous. I become a part of you. I see through your eyes. I share your thoughts, your emotions. I know what you feel when you look at him, and I know you've felt this way for a while, since he showed you his first drawings of Queen Bee."

Chloé's blush deepened, but she said nothing.

"It's that feeling that's made you want to be a hero on both sides of the mask, and it's that feeling that has all these questions running around in your head." Chloé looked down at Vii who only looked up at her with a supportive smile. Were they still connected, even though she wasn't transformed? Was that how she knew what she was thinking? "Those questions have a single, simple answer, Chloé. So, do yourself a favor and say it."

Chloé returned her eyes to the city below. A single, simple answer. Single, yes. Simple, hell no. Vii was wrong. There was no way Chloé Bourgeois had fallen in lo–

(#)

"You know, you don't need to worry about your hair so much,' Vii teased, a tiny emery board in her paws. 'It's always gonna look tacky."

Chloé glared at the floating kwami, her loose hair gathered in one hand and her Miraculous in the other. "You're just jealous because you don't have any."

"Oh please. I have been beautiful since the dawn of time." Vii waved at Chloé's head. "And I didn't need that mop you have on your head to help me."

"Whatever." Chloé shrugged and turned her attention back to her vanity. "I'm just making sure my hair looks lovely for school tomorrow."

Vii went back to filing...something on her paws. "Yeah, school. AKA that boy with the red mop on his head."

The comb clattered to the floor and blood rushed to Chloé's face. "N-no! It isn't for...for him!"

"'Oh, sure, because those "coincidental" walks in the park don't mean anything..."

(#)

She forced the memory from her mind. Coincidental walks in the park. Right. She just wanted to see his progress on his Queen Bee sketches. When she'd offered to become his personal model, those 'coincidental walks' stopped. That's all it was. She absolutely did not lo–

(#)

Rain pounded against the sidewalk in front of Francois-Dupont. Chloé zipped up the purple fleece jacket she had found wadded up in the back of her locker and took a tentative step outside. The morning had started so bright and shiny, but had steadily devolved into this torrential hell, leaving Chloé to walk back to the hotel without an umbrella. She just had to wear white today and her driver just had to ask for today off.

She briefly considered transforming and flying home just before she heard the pop of an umbrella unfurling behind her. She turned and saw Nathanaël holding an umbrella with a clear canopy over their heads.

Chloé scoffed and stepped to the side, sweeping her arms towards the door in an exaggerated gesture. "Don't let me get in your way, tomato."

Nathanaël grimaced and tightened his grip on the umbrella handle. "You know, I was gonna walk you home...against my better judgment," he add that last part under his breath, "but if you're gonna be like that..."

He stepped outside and Chloé lunged forward, latching into his arm. "Wait!" Their eyes locked on each other and a blush formed on both their faces. Nathanaël broke his gaze away first, lowering his eyes to their arms. Chloé blinked and also looked down. She jumped away from him with a small yelp and crossed her arms. "I-if you're offering..."

"Say please."

She glared up at Nathanaël. 'When did he get taller than me' she pondered. "Seriously?"

"Bye."

"W-wait!" She grabbed his arm again, immediately retracting her hand as though bitten. "P-p..." She groaned to herself. "Please walk me home?"

He gave her a half-hearted smile and moved his umbrella over both of them. They walked in silence the entire way, neither sparing the other a glance, Chloé with her arms crossed, visibly uncomfortable. When they reached the hotel, she mumbled her gratitude and put one hand on the door. Before she pushed through, she turned to Nathanaël, barely a few steps away and called out to him. He turned to her with a disinterested look in his eyes.

"Why...why did you walk me home?"

He rolled his eyes. "Because unlike you, I have a heart."

"Hey! I have more of a heart than you think!"

"Oh, really?" He shot her a challenging smirk. "I'd like to see it some day."

(#)

Chloé shook her head. Okay, so maybe Nathanaël had been nice to her, like, one time. And maybe after that, she tried harder. Tried to change, tried to be nice, to show him her heart. But it still didn't mean anything. It didn't mean she lo–

(#)

Queen Bee hovered over the streets of Paris, her eyes trained on the Akuma glaring up at her. Evillustrator. His cold blue eyes, such a painful contrast from his usual bright teal, held loathing and rage within them. She turned her gaze to her teammates behind her. Ladybug stood with her yoyo wire wrapped around an Akuma seemingly made of fire, Chat before her with his staff held in a defensive posture, several of Evillustrator's drawn sawblades lodged in the ground around him. Beside Ladybug, Volpina crouched with a hand over her right eye, a pained expression stretching her features. Queen Bee could just make out a sliver of tanned skin on the bridge of her nose... Was...was part of her mask missing?

"It's about time you got here," the Akuma growled. She returned her eyes down to the pained soul below. "I need to know, Queen Bee. I need to know who you are!" A quick swipe of his stylus and pain ignited in Bee's right temple. She screeched and dropped out of the sky but just before she did, she caught a glimpse of the image drawn on his tablet: her mask. Her fingers soon found the edge of her mask, at least where it should have been. The magical material had eroded away to the corner of her eye, the edge rough and jagged.

Evillustrator huffed. "It seems it takes a bit more force to unmask you heroes. Just have to try harder!"

Queen Bee snatched her trompo from her waist and cast it out. Just before she snapped the cord back, she yelled, "Swarm!" At her command, the top multiplied and dozens of duplicates circled Evillustrator before converging on him. She mentally struggled to aim each top away from any vital areas; she only wanted to distract him, not to hurt him. She succeeded, as he had no choice but to clear his tablet and draw several walls around himself to deflect the assault. She assumed the subsequent soothing tingle at her temple was her mask regenerating. A quick glance to Volpina, who lowered her hand as her mask spread back across her face, confirmed this. The fox girl pulled her flute from her back and stood, teeth barred.

"Volpi, no!" Queen Bee waved her away. "Let me talk to him!"

Volpina looked from Queen Bee to Evillustrator and back. A tiny beep emitted from her necklace, making the decision for her. She sheathed her weapon, growling, "Better know what you're doing, girl." She leapt to the rooftops and disappeared into the distance.

Queen Bee waved her hands and all but one of the trompos vanished in puffs of yellow smoke. She ignored the still spinning top at the villain's feet and strode up to him. He regained his bearings and erased the walls on his tablet only to replace them with another sketch of Bee's mask. The stylus twirled in his fingers and the eraser tip hovered over the tablet.

"What happened to you?" she asked when she was close enough.

Evillustrator glowered at her, but despite his cold exterior, he took a step backwards as she approached. "You happened to me. I must know the truth. Who are you? Who are you behind that mask?"

'He got akumatized because of me...again.' Queen Bee swallowed the lump in her throat. "Please, come back to us."

A single flinch at the corner of his eye, an eye with teal slowly bleeding into it. That was all she needed. She stepped forward and rested a gloved hand against his cheek. He recoiled from her touch, but she kept her hand on him, her eyes burning from tears she was struggling to hold back. She thought it hurt to see him become this purple-skinned demon again, but to know it was because of her...

"Please, Nath," she whispered, barely able to conceal the quivering in her voice. "Come...come back to me."

He blinked, slowly, and when his eyes opened again, Nathanaël's eyes shined behind his violet mask. A weight lifted from Bee's heart. She was getting through to him, but she still had work to do. Though Nathanaël looked at her now, anger and bitterness still flowed from his gaze.

"I am not Nathanaël. I am Evillustrator."

Queen Bee shook her head, and pleaded, "No, you're not. You don't have to listen to Hawkmoth. We can help you. If you'll let us." She laid a hand on his, her fingers brushing against the stylus that held the wicked butterfly corrupting him. He trembled, he shook, and his eyes, filled with pain and doubt, fell to their joined hands. He grunted when the glowing outline of a butterfly manifested over his eyes, and Queen Bee bit her tongue to keep from lashing out at Hawkmoth through him.

He lifted his eyes back up to hers, now begging and fearful. "Bee," he wheezed. "Help...me..."

She smiled. He was free, or at least would be soon. She slipped the stylus from his grasp and fluttered over to Ladybug, who released the butterfly from both it and the necklace the fire Akuma wore. When she called her healing magic down on the city, Queen Bee was waiting when the darkness consuming Nathanaël lifted away and he collapsed into her arms.

She held him. Not a word exchanged between the two for a solid minute, and that's all she wanted. She just wanted him, here, in her arms. When his arms snaked around her waist, her heart melted, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut against a wave of unbidden tears. She pulled away from him and pressed her forehead against his.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "Whatever I did to get you akumatized, I'm so sorry. Nath, you...you mean so much to me."

(#)

She blushed when he looked at her. She smiled when she thought of him. She pushed herself to become a better person, to be Queen Bee even when she wasn't wearing the mask, all because she wanted to show him her heart, a heart which pounded when he smiled at her, flew when he laughed, and ached when he hurt. And when Ladybug's magic pried him from Hawkmoth's grasp, she had all but confessed to him.

"...I love him."

With her revelation, she found it easier to breath. Her mind cleared and her heart slowed. But her eyes...her eyes burned with tears long held back finally able to flow. Tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of relief. She lowered her head into her arms and wept, finally accepting the chaotic emotions rampaging through her.

"Vii," she sobbed, "I-I...I l-love him."

Vii floated up to her partner's head an laid a comforting paw on her temple. "There's no need for tears, Chloé. It's about time you admit this to yourself."

"But, Vii." Chloé turned her head towards her kwami but did not lift it. "What's he g-gonna do when he finds out? When he finds out I'm behind Queen Bee's mask?" She buried her face back into her arms. "He'll hate who I really am."

Vii settled down on the railing, her paw now resting on Chloé's cheek. "We kwamis have partnered with a lot of humans, and each one did something different with the anonymity we gave them, but this remains constant: if you want to see someone's true self, give them a mask. You could have been anyone, Chloé. You could have been a villain, a tyrant, a selfish glory hog and no one could trace those actions back to Chloé Bourgeois. But you chose to become a hero. You chose to become Queen Bee and that's who you really are. That's who Nathanaël loves."

Chloé lifted her head and looked out at the city, the setting sun on her left. "How do you know he loves me?"

Vii smiled. "I've seen the way he looks at you. That boy has it bad."

Chloé smiled herself. 'The way he looks at me...'

(#)

"Why are you scratching like that? You don't have a rash, do you?"

Nathanaël looked up from his sketchpad and into Queen Bee's inquisitive face. He dropped his eyes down to his hands and stammered, "Oh, I, uh...it's weird, it's stupid, but...my drawing hand literally itches when I get inspired. Whenever it happens, I just have to draw whoever or whatever I see."

"And that happens when you look at me?"

He smiled. "All the time."

(#)

Chloe's smile faded. But that means...yesterday...

(#)

"Alright class, we'll have a quiz on electron affinity and electronegativity tomorrow. Dismissed."

Chloé gathered her books and slung her bag over her shoulder. Her favorite yellow pen slipped from her grasped and rolled under the table she shared with Nathanaël. When she crouched down to retrieve it, she spotted Nathanaël still seated with an almost disgusted look directed at her.

"What's your problem?" she asked.

"N-nothing," he grumbled as his right hand scratched at his left.

(#)

"Whenever it happens, I just have to draw whoever or whatever I see."

(#)

"I need to know, Queen Bee. I need to know who you are!"

(#)

"He knows." Vii tilted her head at Chloe's words. "He knows I'm Queen Bee."

"Chloé, there's no way he could–"

"It all makes sense." She stood, sending Vii tumbling before she righted herself and tried to keep up with her rapidly pacing partner. "His hand itches when he gets inspired. Yesterday in class he was looking right at me when his hand started itching." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "He drew me, he drew Chloé but found out he's drawn me before. He found out I'm Queen Bee and he...he couldn't believe it." She laughed in spite of herself. "Of course he wouldn't. He found out the hero he's adored this whole time is..." she dropped her arms to her sides, her face fell, "is the girl who bullied him for years. That's why he became Evillustrator again. He needed confirmation. He needed to know." She trudged over to one of the lounge chairs on her balcony, dropped into it, and pulled her knees into her chest. "He got akumatized because he didn't want to believe Chloé Bourgeois could be a superhero."

Vii dropped onto Chloe's knees and stared into her partner's eyes. "He didn't seem too upset when he asked to meet you tonight." Chloé huffed and turned your head. "Maybe he'll be more understanding than you think."

"You seem to forget Vii: Ladybug's the lucky one. Not me."

"You can't avoid him forever. You'll see him in class tomorrow anyways, so you might as well see him tonight."

Chloé turned her head to gaze into the sunset. Vii was right.

'I can't avoid him forever.'