A 'deleted/alternate scene' of sorts from the Vulpina episode. They really missed an opportunity for 'illusion' symbolism in that episode, if you ask me. with that fuckin door scene. UMPH (that's the sound of me slamming my head against my door just thinking about that scene lmfao).
Smoke and Mirrors
Panic. That's what this was. Pure, unadulterated panic. There was no mistaking the cheap inflations of her lungs while the never oxygen itself seemed to reach her brain. And it didn't matter that Chat's calm steady voice was ringing in her left ear and that he was still hanging onto control where hers had shattered. She didn't hear what Chat was saying because some hundred meters ahead and above, Vulpina stood on a horizontal beam, dangling the love of her life by the arm over a heart-stopping void.
Marinette screamed at the enemy; some sort of demand or plea, maybe. She didn't know, and anyway Vulpina only laughed.
Lila laughed.
Even from here she could see the fear on Adrien's face and she wracked her brain for her next move, the move that would save his life. She was a hero, god dammit, and she would save him no matter the cost. So when the word "miraculous" penetrated her terror from above, that logical part of her brain that had kept her rooted in place took control of her limbs. There was no way she'd be able to make it there in time if Vulpina dropped him, that much was a cold hard certainty. He was too far and the drop too short. Just short enough to ensure she'd never make it. Just high enough to ensure that he wouldn't survive.
Marinette's hands were on her earrings before she'd even processed Hawkmoth's tired old demand through his newest mouthpiece. Nothing was worth Adrien's death. She didn't care if Hawkmoth took over the entire universe, if only Adrien lived.
"Ladybug!" Reality crashed back into her as someone's hands closed around her wrists, yanking them away from her ears before she'd managed to procure the offering that would save Adrien. For a brief, disorienting moment, she was sure Vulpina had somehow sent one of her illusions down to accost her. But no, an illusion wouldn't have been able to touch her. Looking down, she saw the hands were black with leather.
"Chat, let me go!" His betrayal wouldn't sway her. "Let go of me now! I have to save him!"
"No, listen to me!" he hissed, stepping between her and the tower, obscuring the dangling Adrien from her view entirely. Her heart stopped.
"Get off!" she shouted, and shoved him away. It succeeded, but only momentarily, and only because the sheer force of her determination startled him. He had to lunge for her hands again as they went to her earrings. The icy look she gave him when he stopped her from removing them a second time was enough to flatten his cat ears to his head.
"It's not real," he insisted for the tenth time, though he still wasn't sure she was hearing him. "You have to calm down. What's gotten into you?" Never in all their time together had he seen her act like this, and honestly, she was scaring him. There'd been civilians in danger before and she was always able to keep her cool. Even when she did panic, she had always trusted him as the voice of reason when she lost her footing. But now, she was straight up losing it over an illusion of a person she didn't even know. What in the hell was going on? This wasn't right. It wasn't like her.
"So you're not giving the miraculous up after all?" Vulpina's lilting drawl was somehow both lazy and cutting at the same time. Like she had no interest in the proceedings, despite holding all the power.
"Yes, I will!" Ladybug shouted, at the same time that Chat shouted, "No, we won't!"
Far above, Vulpina rolled her eyes at Hawkmoth's increasing telepathic demands. "This is taking too long," she said to her illusory benefactor. "Look at that cat, he's not falling for it at all. I'm gonna cut my losses and think up something else. Oi, lovebirds!" she called down at the grappling pair of heroes. "Catch him if you can!"
The illusion of Adrien Agreste fell.
A ragged gasp tore its way from Marinette's throat and she lunged forward, even though she knew, she knew, she wouldn't get there in time. He was too far. And it didn't matter because the second she lunged, two strong arms closed around her waist and wrenched her back. For an eternal second, Adrien flitted in and out of sight between wrought-iron beams. Then, writhing with all her might against Chat Noir, she lost track of him. The world could have ended in rubble and flame right then and there and she'd not have noticed. She screamed and raged and fought and fought against Chat, but he had turned into some sort of marble statue and she might as well have been fighting against arms carved of stone for all the good her blind flailing did her. She couldn't see; she couldn't hear. Reality shredded into reams of static. Adrien was gone.
It was all the real Adrien could do to keep his hold on her. He watched as the copy of himself shattered into refracted light against the pavement, and waited for Ladybug to noticeㅡto realize that it was all a lie. But she went on in uninterrupted agony. She didn't see. Cackling madly, Vulpina vaulted away, and he couldn't go after her because Ladybug was in such a state he was afraid to even relax his grip. After a full minute of this, he realized this was going downhill far faster than it was coming back up again, so he too decided to cut his losses. They were not defeating Vulpina like this.
Just as he was about to try talking to her again, she surprised him by collapsing. He barely adjusted his hold in time to keep her from falling hard onto her knees on the cement. Her breathing turned strange, and with a start he realized she was sobbing.
"Ladybug," he worried, and was surprised at how broken his own voice sounded. Misunderstanding or not, the strength of her reaction to this was straight up killing him.
"Let me g-go," she cried, her voice a scarce whisper. "Please, Chat, justㅡ just le-et me g-go."
Despite her request, she made no protest at all when instead of releasing her he moved around to the front side of her to pick her up in one smooth motion. Now that Vulpina was gone, a small crowd had begun to gather. It was time they too were gone from this place. Ladybug no longer struggled against him; at his direction she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, and cried on his shoulder as he carried them far, far away from the city square.
It was several minutes before he stopped again, choosing the lofty open belfry of a church, startling a flock of roosting pigeons as he made his landing and slipped from the warm sunshine into the shadow of the enormous bronze bell. "Ladybug," he tried as soon as he set her back onto her own wobbly feet. "Please," he begged, taking her face in his hands in desperation. No matter what he said, she wasn't hearing him. If only she'd seen the illusion dissolve. "You have to calm down."
"You don't understand," she coughed, choking on her own voice. "That boy was myㅡI knew him, Chat. I loved him."
"You… What? Wait, what?"
Marinette went on, unhearing. Lost to the world. "He's dead," she gasped. "He's reallyㅡ"
"He's not dead!" A ray of sun that cut through the taut pulley cables hit her squarely in the face, carving her anguish into beautiful golden canyons. She loves me? She knows me. She loves me, and… and she still thinks I'm dead. And she loves me. "Bug," he insisted, almost as elated as he was confused. "It wasn't real."
"You don't know that," she cried. "You don't know."
"Yes, I do. I really, really do."
"Youㅡyou stopped me. I could have saved him if I'd just…"
"I had to," Adrien reeled. He shouldn't be defending himself; he'd done nothing wrong. "Ladybug, that was not the real Adrien."
"You don't know!" Marinette shouted, realizing that his hands were still on her face and trying once again to push him away. She stumbled backwards and one foot stepped off the edge of the belfry into the yawning chasm between them and the bustling city street below. Chat's quick hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from falling.
"It's okay, Ladybug. Really. Look at me," he said, and she hated that he sounded so calm. How could he stay so cool-headed when the world had come to a bitter, bloody end? "Bug," he pressed, hands coming to rest once again gently on her cheeks. Despite everything, the motion soothed her broken heart by the smallest degree. Here she'd been nothing but chaotic and violent with him and he was still trying to comfort her. She stared at his chest, suddenly too ashamed by her behavior to look him in the eye. It wasn't Chat's fault Adrien wasㅡit wasn't Chat's fault. All he'd done was keep her from losing her miraculous in the process. "Look at me," he urged, more insistently. "Please, I can't take any more of this. You're breaking my heart. Just… look at me, and you'll understand, okay?"
Something in his voice allowed no room for argument. An unshakeable determination. A quiet plea. Marinette dragged her weary eyes upward, pulled toward the sound like a magnet. His eyes were soft and understanding, and for the life of her she couldn't reconcile those kind eyes with the look of fierce resolve taking over his face and squaring his shoulders. His thumbs brushed quickly at her tear-streaked cheeks before his hands left her face completely, moving toward his own. What was he...?
Marinette stepped back reactively as his fingertips brushed the bottom edge of his mask. What was he doing?
Adrien paused as the back of her heel brushed the edge of the landing once more, eyes flitting toward the perilous drop behind her. But she held her footing. She'd regained some measure of control over her body, and she was using it to stare at him like he'd lost his mind between one moment and the next. So, he'd finally gotten her attention.
And wasn't that just terrifying.
Assured she wasn't going to fall, Adrien resumed what he was doing. The magic that adhered his mask to his face fizzled and disconnected as he hooked his thumbs up underneath the edges, and slowlyㅡso slowlyㅡthe mask that hid his identity from the world came away from his skin. Marinette stood frozen in place as reality unfolded itself before her eyes, and found that for all her screaming earlier, her voice now was gone. The flock of pigeons returned, soaring through the open belfry in a whirlwind gust, parting around them and never landing for fear of the two intruders standing silent in their roost.
"You…" Marinette took a tentative step toward him. Toward Adrien. He pushed his hair away from his face, cheeks tinted rose, eyes wide with fear and excitement. "Another trick," she said, her words hollow. That was it, somehow Vulpina had kidnapped Chat Noir and replaced him with yet another of her endless illusions.
"No," he said, exasperated. "I'm notㅡ I'm real, Ladybug. Ask me anything. Test me."
But instead of asking him anything, he was met with the curiosity of Ladybug shakily removing her glove. He sucked in his breath as she moved toward him, then with one trembling, gloveless hand, felt for his pulse at the top of his neck.
The hardest moment in Marinette's life until now had been Adrien's death. She really didn't think it would ever get harder than that. But now… Oh god. Everything was different, wasn't it? She tore her eyes from the place on his neck where she felt the unmistakable rhythm of a blood pumping through his veins, up toward Chat Noir's naked face. Adrien's face, angled down at her with patience and compassion. Of course he couldn't be an illusion because he had touched her. Held her. Carried her...
He was real.
Relief hit her so hard and so fast that she choked on it, something between a laugh and a cry escaping her throat as she threw her arms around his neck again, this time with a crushing, desperate ferocity. "It's really you." The leather of his costume stuck to her face, hot in the light of the sinking sun, and it was so strange and so surreal but she didn't care. He was alive.
"Yeah," he breathed, arms coming to rest at her back. He rested his cheek on the top of her head for some sort of tie to the earth, because he was reeling. Just reeling. Ladybug knew him and loved him and somehow nothing else mattered right nowㅡnot Vulpina, not Hawkmoth, not Paris, not anything outside the belfry where she was clinging to him like he'd come back from the dead. "You know me," he said softly after a long, tender minute. That was the safest question to start with, right?
Marinette pulled back, just a few inches, coming back to herself. Now that the grief was evaporating, it was replaced by a rising panic of an entirely different kind than she'd experienced at the base of the tower. Oh, how could she have been so stupid? Feeling her stiffen and seeing the anxiety in her eyes, Adrien moved his hands to her shoulders.
"Ladybug, please. I have to know. No one's ever..." His eyes softened even further, if possible, and a look of extreme wistfulness crossed his face, sending Marinette's heart straight into the roof of her mouth. "No one's cared that much about me since my mother died," he said, dropping his voice to the barest whisper. "I have to know who you are." Who it is that loves me like that.
When his fingers brushed the base of her mask, she closed her eyes in a fit of embarrassment. But she didn't flinch or pull away. She wouldn't deny him this. Not after she'd accidentally forced his hand with her misguided hysteria. Fair was fair.
Adrien watched her quietly come to the decision to let him remove her mask with intense fascination. Who was this girl who loved him so dearly? This girl who was Ladybug. This girl who'd captured his heart so throughly from the beginning, yet somehow slipped his notice in the civilian sphere of his life. If she didn't want him to know then the magic securing her mask to her face would repel him with complete efficiency. But when he pushed his index finger underneath, it came away as easily as had his own. And just like that, it was off.
The warm summer wind felt weird on the skin around her eyelids. Marinette took a deep, shuddering, steadying breath before opening her eyes. When she did, then first thing she saw was Adrien's hand clutching both their masks in a tight fist. It took all the willpower in her arsenal to bring herself to look back into his eyes, now that he knew who she was. Now that he knew who was so stupid-in-love with him that she nearly lost her miraculous over it. Shock and elation fought for control over his faceㅡat least, that's what it looked like to her. Honestly, it was hard to tell when her own heart was beating so fast it was verging on cardiac arrest. The silence stretched on, and somewhere in the distance the flock of pigeons came to rest on a slanted rooftop, painting the red bricks there gray and purple.
"Say something?" She curled her arms around her stomach, feeling like the anxiety might swallow her whole.
"I-I'm sorry," Adrien laughed, pushing his hair away from his face as he gazed at her unabashedly, trying to sort the hurricane of emotion into more manageable piles. "I don't know what to say. I'm justㅡI'm so happy?" That was definitely the predominate emotion, presiding over all the others like a brand new sun. "This is the best day of my life."
Marinette could feel her face heating up quicker than if he'd lit it on fire. So she was right about the look on his face after all. It was elation. He laughed again, a nervous giggle that did dangerous things to her heart. It had been less than ten minutes since he 'died' and now he was giggling like a child on Christmas.
(There'd been a time when she swung too far with her yoyo and stopped too fast, resulting in genuine whiplash that put her out of commission for a full two hours of battle. This felt something like that.)
"Do you really mean that?" She could hear the blush coloring her voice.
Lucky for her, Adrien was blushing too. That nervous tick of his appeared, and she marvelled when she saw both Chat and Adrien in the motion as he rubbed shyly at the back of his neck. She'd watched them do it hundreds of times, and now she was watching them both at once.
"Well, yeah," he replied. "Marinette…" Somehow the name fell so easily from his lips, despite the spots decorating her body. It just felt right, like somehow the only thing keeping him from knowing had been a layer of magic as thin as their masks. As if some deep cavern in his mind had known all along, and all he'd done by removing her mask was to find that cavern and fill it awash with light. "Mari," he corrected, resulting in a furious doubling of her blush that got a very intense physical reaction from his stomach. "I've never said anything to you that I didn't mean with my whole heart."
Maybe he was just being kind. But it still flustered the ever-loving shit out of her. "Even all theㅡ" she gestured vaguely at his costume, unable to voice the depth of her true question, "ㅡthe Chat stuff?"
Adrien broke eye contact then. It was too much. Too intense. "Especially all the Chat stuff."
"O-oh." So they loved each other. Could it really be so simple? Just like that? She honestly didn't know what to do with this information and the whiplash hit her more severely than ever. "Maybe we should go find Vulpina," she suggested weakly, "and talk about this after?"
Adrien smiled at her as she turned away from him toward the edge, every corner of his heart melting in her wake. "Forgetting something, lovebug?"
The age-old nickname caught her attention a little too hard and she fumbled her yoyo, tangling it and reeling it back in before turning back toward him with something between exasperation and embarrassment. He waved her mask, then moved toward her with a smile as she realized she'd been about to leap away without it. "Whoops," she said, and it was so Marinette of her and god help him, he was in trouble. He was in so much trouble. It must have shown on his face because she turned toward him more fully, eyes widening as she looked up at him. He'd meant to put her mask back on for her but now his hands were at her waist instead, pulling her closer.
It wasn't until he pressed her forehead to hers that she truly believed he wanted to kiss her. She trailed one hand up his chest, savoring the way he sighed, moving past the neckline of his suit where Chat stopped and Adrien began and coming to rest on his jaw. His half-lidded eyes fluttered shut then, and she stood on her toes to kiss him.
Their first kiss was soft, the way their lips moved together tentative and exploratory. (Much the same way she had checked for his pulse not two minutes ago.)
When she parted from him to fall back onto her heels he trailed after her, stopping just a fraction of a centimeter before making contact again, changing his mind. If he didn't stop now he'd never be able to. Sensing that it was long past time to return to business, Marinette took a deep breath and stepped back into her Ladybug shoes. But before turning away from him, she tugged their masks out of his hands. Hers she put on without thinking, trying not to blush under his unabashed stare.
His she put on with infinite more care, watching with blissful awe as Adrien became Chat again. How strange, and how perfect. But… how strange. Which face was the one of smoke and mirrors? Had she fallen for Adrien or for Chat Noir?
The question tumbled from her lips unbidden. "Which one is the real you?"
Adrien was so surprised that the honest answer slipped out before he could really think of anything better to say. "I don't know."
"Hmm. So then, I guess you're an illusion after all," she joked, but there rang a hint of deep sincerity in it, and Adrien couldn't help but smile.
He winked. "You too, Princess."
Marinette had to giggle at that behind her hands; she knew what he was really saying. So maybe they had both shrouded pieces of themselves behind smoke and mirrors. But that smoke had cleared nowㅡthe mirrors shatteredㅡand whaddya know? They were still here. They were still going strong. They were still in love.
(Take that, Vulpina!)
