Chapter 13:

Leaving the two young lovers to enjoy each other's company, Tikki flew from the bakery in search of her own lost love. With endless cycles of re-awakenings and countless generations of chosen, Tikki had always had Plagg as a constant in her life. Since the beginning, the two were drawn to each other, as if their very existence relied on the other. They served as perfect compliments: while Tikki was light-hearted and carefree, Plagg was introspective and cynical. Tikki tended to wear her heart on her sleeve and cared deeply for each of her chosen, but Plagg was much more guarded and reserved. Still, like the yin and yang they were, the innermost aspects of the two kwamis belonged to the other. At her core, Tikki was contemplative and sincere, more of a maternal figure than the flighty child her easy smile and innocent demeanor projected. Similarly, Plagg held a deep affection for humanity and a gluttonous love of all things pleasurable. In truth, he so loved life that it was his suggestion to relinquish his power to protect it. Never in the eons of their shared existence had Tikki imagined life without him. Now, uncertain as to his whereabouts and sensing only her own fear, a void where Plagg's presence normally resided in her soul, Tikki was desperate to be reunited with the missing part of herself that the cat-god represented.

Leaving the storefront, Tikki flew into the kitchen, phasing directly through the large metal door of the walk-in freezer.

After a battle like that, the most likely place he'd go is wherever the cheese is! the tiny bug-god deduced with a smile.

Fumbling through the dark (as she lacked the gift of night vision bestowed upon her cat-like counterpart), she located the shelf storing the cheese collection. The entire supply sat undisturbed, all the containers sealed tight, wrappings secured, the blocks without tale-tell markings of tiny fanged nibbles.

No… Plagg was not here, and from the looks of it, he hadn't been.

Thinking quickly, Tikki darted through the wall of the freezer, through the walls of the building itself, and headed across town.

If he woke up confused, maybe he headed home!

As the spotted bug-god darted through the city toward the Agreste mansion, she made no efforts to conceal herself, intent on finding Plagg and caring little for anything else. She may have resembled a small bird, or possibly the world's largest insect, but either way she was less concerned about the thoughts of a passer-by wandering the streets at night than she was for her missing partner.

The Agreste mansion was massive, but Tikki located Adrien's room without difficulty as she had been there many times before with Ladybug. Calling Plagg's name, she searched every drawer, turned over every pillow, and thoroughly raided Adrien's cheese-filled mini fridge, hoping to find the adorable pointy-eared figure tucked away somewhere, unaware of her mounting anxiety. When her search of Adrien's room turned up nothing, she similarly combed through the kitchen, including its multiple refrigerators, freezers, and pantries, to no avail.

Pausing for a moment, Tikki took a deep breath and tried to calm her increasingly frantic mind. Earlier that day, Plagg had called out to her for help, communicating his worry as clearly as words ever could despite the distance between them. Reaching through the unique bond they shared, she called out to him:

"Plagg, where are you? Please, I need to know you're OK!"

She expected him to reply to her unease with a sense of reassuring calm, or perhaps feigned annoyance, but she was met only with the increasingly familiar sense of emptiness.

Tikki thought back to the events of the night. What am I missing? Where could he be?

Remembering their first encounter with Ruin under the glow of lamplight in the streets of Paris, Tikki guessed that Adrien may not have returned home after the dance. If the akuma attacked them in the streets somewhere, could Plagg have materialized at that spot when the akuma was cleansed?

Although it would be unsual, Tikki worried that if this was the case, Plagg might be disoriented and confused. Without Adrien there to explain, he might have no memories of the events of the night, suddenly finding himself alone, outside, in the dead of night. Focusing on Plagg, trying desperately to feel some indication of his presence, Tikki shot out into the night.


It was nearly 3:30 am by the time the exhausted kwami returned, alone, to the bakery. Despite hours of searching, she found no trace of Plagg, no inkling of his presence, no flicker of his previously omnipresent companionship in her heart. Tikki was too tired to even contemplate that he might actually be gone. As she entered the shop, she noted that Adrien and Marinette must have gone upstairs at some point, as the bakery was entirely empty. There was no indication that anything had happened there that evening, everything was right where it should be. Everything except…

As she floated languidly through the room toward the stairs, a glimmer of light caught her eye. Something small, laying forgotten in the middle of the tile floor, drew her attention. As she moved to retrieve it, it took her a moment to recognize the silver band of the cat miraculous, cracked and distorted from being stomped underfoot. Tenderly, as if cradling an injured child, she scooped up the ring in her tiny paws.

It hadn't been restored by the Miraculous Ladybug.

As she absent-mindedly made her way up the stairs to Marinette's bedroom, understanding dawned on her slowly, with a crushing weight that dulled her senses.

The akuma had been swept up into the miraculous. Nothing besides the kwamis can reside within the miraculous, or the intrusion would interfere with its powers.

Unbeknownst to Tikki, Plagg had explained the concept to Adrien several years prior during an incident with a certain gold bracelet.

Not only that, but the miraculous is not intended for evil purposes. If something evil was brought into the miraculous, the result would be… corruption. The very nature of the miraculous would be defiled.

Unfortunately, Tikki was well-aware that the power of creation wielded by Ladybug could not best the powers of destruction, tainted or not. They were equal, by definition, and one could not alter the other.

Crawling into the tiny bed made just for her, Tikki clung to the bent, broken metal as if it was the companion she so fiercely missed. As the deep sleep spawned of sheer exhaustion took hold of her, Tikki was consumed with a single, harrowing thought.

The cat miraculous was lost.


The next morning, Marinette was awoken by the feeling of a tiny hands insistently poking at her face.

"Noooooooo Tikki," Marinette groaned. Normally, she was thankful for her "secondary alarm clock," or she would frequently be far more than a few minutes late to class… but not today. School can wait. She had been having the most wonderful dream, that she and Adrien had confessed their love for each other, and that he wanted her, in a very physical way. She had dreamt that he eagerly fulfilled her every lustful fantasy, and it had been incredible. Squeezing her eyes shut tighter and pulling her enormous cat pillow closer into herself, she willed the dream to return.

To her surprise, the cat pillow moaned groggily and pulled her closer to him in turn.

Her eyes flashed open to meet the still sleeping and ferociously handsome face of Adrien, only inches from her own, as it bent toward her neck to nuzzle her softly.

Holy shit.

Her face burned with all the fiery fury of hell as her heart hammered away in her chest, the events of the previous night flooding through her slowly awakening brain.

Holy hell that had actually happened. Holy fucking shit, she had actually… THEY had actually…!

The breath she hadn't realized she had been holding escaped her in a strangled squeak.

"Marinette, please, we have a serious problem!" The urgency in her kwami's harsh whisper convinced Marinette to tear her eyes from the face of the gorgeous man beside her. Trying not to wake him, she rolled to her other side to address her small red companion.

Marinette was surprised to see pain and fear in her large purple eyes, and was instantly concerned. She sat bolt upright, reaching for her visibly trembling kwami in an attempt to provide comfort.

"Oh Tikki, what's wrong? What happened?!" Marinette's mind raced. Hadn't the Miraculous Ladybug worked? Sure, she didn't check to make sure that everything was back the way it had been, distracted as she was, but the magic had restored the bakery, and Adrien, so… it must have worked. Right?

The bug-god landed in her chosen's outstretched palm, still clutching the broken ring, and sobbed outright. "It's PLAGG Mari! I can't find him, I can't feel him… he's-!"

Awoken by Marinette's sudden movement, Adrien had sat up behind Marinette, and was now listening intently to the ladybug kwami's mournful lament. His mouth dropped open in surprise at her words. Plagg was missing?! Before he could say anything, though, the tiny god's facial expression changed abruptly.

Her grief-stricken features were instantly replaced by a visage of surprise. Eyes wide with wonder, Tikki yelped and launched herself straight into the air, dropping the ring onto the ground and reeling to face the wall. The attention of all three was drawn to the pile of their discarded clothes from the night before, piled up against the opposite wall of Marinette's bedroom in favor of much more comfortable sleeping attire. To their amazement, the heap began to rustle.

With an ecstatic squeal, Tikki dove into the pile, causing even more commotion in the haphazard jumble of fabric, until the pile erupted with joyous, high-pitched laughter that could only be coming from a certain tiny bug-god, accompanied by the unmistakable groans of her feline counterpart.

Leaping to their feet, Marinette and Adrien both ran to the pile, dropping to their knees and digging through the heap until they came upon Adrien's suit jacket from the night before. There, in the inner pocket that had once held a pale pink orchid, Tikki was relentlessly snuggling a very confused but not altogether unhappy-looking Plagg.

"Where were you! I was so worried!" Tikki urged the cat-god from his hiding spot, pulling him happily into the air and spinning him around several times in delight.

Plagg blinked a few times in confusion. "I… I don't really remember?" He met the bright, violet gaze of his eternal love and smiled a sheepish grin, one pointed tooth coming into view. "I was with the kid, and he wasn't doin' so good, and then…"

Plagg's grin dropped as he remembered. "Then the akuma! It was coming, and I didn't know what to do… I called for you, but there wasn't enough time, so I… I…?" Plagg stared at the waiting faces of Tikki, Marinette, and Adrien, one-by-one, but his own mind was a blank. "Then I remember waking up, dizzy and exhausted and starving. I didn't know where I was or what was going on, so I hid in the kid's jacket pocket, like he always tells me to. I guess I fell asleep or something… "

His captivated audience was grinning at him now. Their faces held something besides happiness or interest in his story, though. Was it… relief?

"… I'm still hungry, by the way," he concluded with a smirk. "Got any camembert?"

With another delighted yelp, the little bug-god tackled the stunned black kwami, sending the two of them tumbling through the air.

Wrapping an arm around the petite girl beside him, Adrien pulled Marinette into his side for a quick hug.

Gazing into his piercing green eyes, so full of love for her, Marinette swallowed a lump in her throat. Reluctant to ruin the moment, she needed to say the words weighing heavily on her mind.

"Adrien… I'm so, so sorry for causing you so much pain. I was so focused on myself… I never considered that your feelings might be hurt." Her words were quiet but sincere.

His eyes momentarily read of confusion and surprise before softening again. "Oh…oh Marinette, it's OK, it's not your fault. I should have just given you time to process the whole… situation. Everything happened so fast…" his voice trailed off as he mentally replayed the last 48 hours. "Speaking of," he continued, remembering a detail that he still hadn't deciphered. "When did you figure out who I was under the mask?"

She blushed at this, breaking eye contact to stare at her hands as she wrung them together. "Uh… um… I didn't, actually, until you showed me." She bit her bottom lip, waiting for the question she knew would come.

"Wait, you mean… after I kissed you as Chat?" confusion overtook his features again as he struggled to connect the dots. "But… you called me Adrien!"

"…yeah…by accident…" she mumbled, her blush deepening. As silence stretched on, she continued. "I was… excited, and I, umm… "

Suddenly he erupted with laughter, startling her out of her embarrassment.

"I can't…" he laughed again. "I was so worried that you—" more laughter. "This whole time I thought you didn't like me!" Tears came to his eyes as he clutched his stomach, struggling for breath.

She couldn't help but smile, seeing him so happy. "Ohh no, quite the opposite, I assure you!"

Calming to a light chuckle, he pulled her into a hug, placing a kiss on the top of her head. "Well, for the record," he grinned, "I like you too!"

"Umm…" Tikki's voice interrupted their light-hearted exchange, causing Marinette and Adrien to turn to find Tikki and Plagg floating side-by-side. "There's still one little problem…"

Tikki sent a purposeful glance toward the floor, where the broken silver band still lay.