Marinette couldn't remember the first time she had met Alya. It seemed a bit like they had always known each other. The two of them had grown up in a world where to be non-white was to be trash, but Marinette felt there was more to their friendship then being the only children who looked different. She could feel, in a way, that no matter their skin color or how people treated them, they would always be friends.

Other people hadn't felt the same.

Marinette was a quiet, sickly child. People liked to claim her illness was the result of her mixed race, but in truth she was just unlucky. Her immune system just wasn't as strong as other people's. She got Scarlet Fever at three, pneumonia on three separate occasions, and not to mention her horrible asthma. The only luck she had was that she hadn't died.

Being so sickly, she was often shut up in her room to draw. To the outside world, that was all she was, constant illness and pretty pictures.

That wasn't what she was to Alya though. Alya knew the truth about Marinette. That even though she was a scrawny little thing, she had the bravery of lumberjack.

Alya had never once thought that anyone would try to hit Marinette, for awhile. That turned out to be false, as time went by. Little Mari couldn't stand bullies, and bullies seemed to be the type of people willing to hit girls who looked like they were made out of glass. And Marinette was the type of girl who punched back even though her jaw was broken, and then walked around with her arm in a cast like it was a badge of honor.

So, Alya had no choice but to start watching out for her.

Which didn't help her reputation. Alya was the only girl to attend their school with skin darker than tan. Rumors of her promiscuity and wildness had spread by the time she was seven. It was perhaps dealing with so many false rumors that made Alya so obsessed with discovering the truth about matters.

Marinette had loved that, though she couldn't say she hadn't been embarrassed by it on occasion. Sitting in History class and listening to Alya stand up and loudly correct the teacher about certain things had been so nerve-wracking that Marinette had excused herself to go home despite feeling surprising healthy.

Still, the two had been friends. That friendship had led to Alya chasing Marinette around war zones, and telling any general with half a mind to stop her that she was Captain Ladybug's personal reporter, thank you very much.

Marinette had spent every moment after her death wondering if it had been her fault, if she hadn't spent her childhood fighting bullies and letting Alya sneak into her room to read to her, would Alya have lived?

It turned out that question had been pointless, because apparently Alya had lived.

Chat had fought off giant squids, whip-wielding juggalos, and terrorists, but he had to stay Ladybug's glare was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen, and he didn't even have to fight her. He hoped he didn't anyway, trouble in SHIELD could many anything, even some sort of weird mind control beam.

He almost wanted to fly back up the elevator shaft and return to helping employees evacuate.

"Chat." Ladybug said, and her voice was calm, like there wasn't a dead body two feet away from her, "Did you see a woman run past just now, with a metal arm?"

"No." He said, already hacking into the SHIELD cameras to see check the other floors, "She isn't in the building."

"She stole the Miraculous."

"W-what?" He shouted, he dropped heavily onto the ground, to surprised to focus on controlling his repulsors, "But how? Nathalie said the Director would be keeping it on himself personally!"

"The director is dead." Came a voice suddenly.

Ladybug and Chat turned to see Nathalie exiting from down the hall, covered in ash and clutching a gun. There was a cigarette in her mouth, and her nose looked like it had been broken and reset wrong, still blood covered. Somehow, her suit was still impeccable, if it weren't for the ash it would look fresh from the cleaners.

"Gabriel is dead?" Ladybug gasped.

Chat couldn't focus on her shock though, he was too busy dealing with his own, "Gabriel? as in Gabriel Agreste?" He asked, though he was sure he already knew.

"Yes, that was a level 8 secret, Captain." Nathalie said, glaring at Ladybug. Protecting the Director's secrets to the end, as though they mattered when he was dead.

"I didn't know." Ladybug shrugged, unrepentant, "I assumed leaders were the one thing that wouldn't be kept secret in a free nation."

"SHIELD isn't a free nation," Nathalie replied, and blew a smoke ring at Ladybug, "It's a secret organization, and it seems to be collapsing. So, I don't suppose you could give a girl a hand and drop me off somewhere without dead bodies?"

"Chat, could you drop her off?" Ladybug said, her eyes like hot stones.

Chat hadn't heard a word they had said, too focused on the iron weight that had settled in his chest. There had to be something wrong with the arc reactor, maybe he had stopped functioning and he just hadn't noticed, every moment he spent frozen the shrapnel got closer and closer to his heart. That was the only explanation.

But, he knew it wasn't true. He had never thought what it would be like when his father died, only that he would older than he was, more prepared to inherit the company. Married maybe, with children. He thought that he would have someone to comfort him, besides Nino and Chloe who wouldn't understand his feelings anyway.

The feelings he had for his father were a dark twisted knot, the complicated feelings of loving someone and thinking their a murderer. His father's company had been responsible for the deaths of millions, even more deaths now that he knew his father had been the Director of SHIELD.

And, God, the Irony of that. He had quit the company and cut himself off, and then gone and got himself a job working under his father again. Had his father known? Had his father laughed at him, when he went out to live on his own and returned to his father's control almost immediately?

"Chat!" Ladybug said, and she sounded like she had been saying it for awhile.

"Huh? Sorry my lady, I was... lost in thought for a moment." He tried to force out a laugh, but the suits audio filter made it sound more like a groan.

"It's fine," Ladybug said, she tilted her head to the side, like he was a puzzle to solve, then shrugged, "Can you take Nathalie outside? I have no clue if there's anymore surprises hidden around here."

"There won't be," Nathalie assured, and took another drag of her cigarette, "The Winter Soldier follows certain rules, now that she's left we should be fine. But I'm not particularly fond of the idea of staying in a potentially unstable building."

"The Winter Soldier?" Ladybug asked, and her eyes demanded answers.

Chat wished suddenly, that he could be as tall as he was in the suit at all times, if for nothing else to admire her eyes.

"Look it up, the Director's laptop is still in there," She gestured back towards the room, then turned to Chat, "If you don't mind, Mr. Noir, I'd like to leave."

"Right, of course." Chat nodded and turned. Nathalie didn't even blink as he climbed on. He wondered if it was trust in him, her confidence that she would survive, or her ability to hide her feelings that made it so easy for her to climb on.

He glanced at Ladybug, waiting for her word.

"I'll be fine Chat." She said, and gave him a smile that was more teeth than anything else.

Chat wondered if he could say the same if she asked him.

It didn't matter, he would just have to put his feelings aside. The Miraculous was missing, and it was in the hands of the Winter Soldier. They needed to get it from her as fast as possible, there was no way that combination could do any good for the world.

AN: More mixing things up haha. Follow me StrawberryDecaf