Chapter 2

When Alya had been asked by Chat Noir to find Ladybug, she had not expected him to be such a gracious client. She had expected that he would have wanted privacy. She expected that he would remain in contact with her to find out what everything she had learned. She was however surprised that he would offer her a place to stay. Ayla assumed it was more for his privacy than hers. How could she work on Chat Noir related activities with friends and family constantly pestering her? This apartment though… this apartment was utterly shocking.

The apartment Chat noir had provided her with was luxurious. Black marble floors filled the entry. White walls with roman pillar beams directed her eyes the wall of windows in front of her where a black leather couch and two black leather chairs enjoyed the view of the Eiffel tower. Upon exploration Ayla found; a full kitchen with black granite counters, a dark oak table, and every tool possible for cooking, two full bathrooms both with black and white tiles in floor and shower, along with a matching marble tub in each, and two bedrooms, one with her name mounted on the door as if she were the owner of an office building.

"Gotta give that cat a hand," Alya said out loud. "he knows how to impress." Taking her bags with her into the room, she found a large bed, closet, door to one of the bathrooms, and a yellow rose on the night stand with a note.

Thank you

The reporter grinned at the simple note, but then remembered she had another envelope to open. The attendant had handed her an envelope addressed to herself. The only person who knew she would be staying at this apartment was Chat Noir, so logically the reporter concluded that he had written some sort of instructions to her. So it was easy to say she was shocked when she saw the enveloped only contained an invitation to a party on the penthouse atop of this very apartment the day after tomorrow.

Please join us in celebrating the night

On Friday, June 17th

At Penthouse Suit at the Noir de Suit

Time 9pm-?

See you there

There was a time, a date, and an address, but no host, only a green paw print. Chat Noir was hosting a party. This was all so strange indeed. He was a cat though, and perhaps a party animal as well. Alya yawned. The time was 11:30 pm. This was all so much for the first day back in Paris. She would need to sleep if she wanted to function at all. Alya set her phone for 7am, and got ready for bed.

_oOo_

Alya sat up in the dark room. She could hear someone walking around outside of her room. 'Did I not lock the door?' She thought. She checked her phone. 6:04 AM. Panic was sinking in. Should she pretend to be asleep and hope whoever it is goes away? No, no. that was not her style. She would confront the intruder.

Creeping towards the door the reporter heard the intruder opening and closing a soft door. She heard the sound of a gas stove turn on. There was the unmistakable smell of eggs. 'Is this creep cooking?' Alya thought. 'The hell if I'm going to just let someone that weird break in. If I go missing Chat Noir will know what happened.'

She pushed open the door and stormed out, phone in hand ready to catch the intruder in the act. "Ok! Who do you think you are breaking into a person's…." A pair of acid green eyes interrupted her sentence.

Chat Noir was standing in the kitchen. He flashed a mischievous grin. "I, madam, am no cat-burglar."

"What the hell Chat Noir! Why are you sneaking around like that?"

He shook his head. "I thought we should meet to go over a few details, and make you breakfast while I am here."

"Do you make breakfast for every investigative reporter you employ?"

"Would you expect anything less of me?" He arched an eyebrow. "

Alya rolled her eyes. "Whatever. What's for breakfast, Chatsinova?"

"Crepes, berries, and coffee."

Alya sat down at the table, as Chat brought over a plate of decadent crepes. "Wow! First he fights crime. Now, he's a personal chef. Tell me, Chat Noir, what is next for you?"

"Hopefully settling down and being with my lady." His answer was sweet, but left an aftertaste of desperation. Ayla began to eat, unsure how to fill the air.

Chat looked out the windows and sighed. "I need you to find her."

Alya swallowed a bite full of crepe. "What makes you think I can?"

"Ladybug cares for you. I can't explain why, she just always has. She always would go out of her way to make sure you were always safe." He stood up continuing to stare out the window. "I think that if you are back here, you might be the only one that can find her or at least come back out."

"So I'm simply bait for your Lovebug," Alya summarized.

"No. you are more than that. You are someone she cares for. I think you may know her civilian form."

Alya spat out the berries in her mouth. "What?! I know LB? Who is she?"

"I don't know."

"So it's just a hunch?"

"It's the only hunch I have left. Besides you have seen almost everything my lady and I have gone through." His voice was hollow and desperate."This is why it is imperative you come to my party on Friday. Maybe if you are there she might come. Maybe she will reconnect with you and you will be able to figure out who she is."

"Don't worry, this reporter knows how to find a scoop. If anyone at your party is hiding secrets, you can bet I will figure them out."

He smiled. "I knew you would be the Purr-fect reporter for the job. Speaking of hire," he reached a claw into his left zipper pocket and pulled out a bundle of cash. He tossed it in front of the reporters table. "Having a bank account attached to the name Chat Noir is not something I find that would protect my alter ego. I will be paying you in cash. I hope this will be enough for this week. I plan to pay you every week you are out here. Also please let me know if there are any accommodations you need for your stay here. "

Alya picked up the bundle of bills. "Chat, this is too much. It's sweet, but all this upfront. Along with providing me a place to stay, and breakfast! To be blunt, this is way more than you should pay anyone to just agree to look for someone who is hiding."

Chat turned towards Ayla. Leaning over to set his face in front of hers. "A few things. One, Money is not a problem for me. Two, I need you to stay here for protection of my own identity. Three, without Ladybug I have nothing left to live for." The hero snapped his head away and walked towards the windows. He pushed one open and hopped on the glass ledge. "I will see you on Friday." He saluted the reporter with two fingers before extending his baton into the city street and disappearing into the morning.

Alya looked at her phone to check the time. 6:30 am. She yawned and finished her plate of crepes. Chat Noir was quite desperate to find Ladybug. At least she would not be late for coffee with Nino.

_oOo_

Though it had three years since she had seen her high school sweetheart, Alya was still hoping to impress Nino with a bit of makeup and her long wavy hair. Keeping her glasses on she devoted the 'geek chic' and with five minutes remaining until 9 am, she sauntered down to the main floor where she waited for Nino to arrive.

Getting dressed had been a distraction from Chat Noir's sudden visit. The cat she was used to filming and joked with in interviews had only been partially there this morning. He was clearly desperate, which made Alya worry some. 'Without out Ladybug I have nothing.' Alya knew that Chat Noir had always told Ladybug she was his world, but she had always assumed it was a flirtatious joke. Now she knew how serious he really was.

Nino pulled up to the front. The DJ's yellow car opened the side door for Alya as she approached the car. "Good morning. You look nice."

"Since when did you become such a gentleman?" Alya cocked an eyebrow.

"Ha, ha. Well you know… being on the road with a bunch of single dudes to play at clubs all over Europe really changes a guy."

Alya laughed even harder. "What happened? Do all your bros try to play, but they're took smashed to see how bad they are. So you end up swooping in and getting the girls simply by apologizing for your friends being idiots?"

Nino's eyes widened. He faced forward and started the car. "No comment."

Alya laughed. "Ok, I'm done with the pestering. We have coffee to get to."

"Yeah. You have a lot to catch up on."

Ayla's face lit up. "Man, Nino I missed you. I know I'm out here for work but, I'm glad I can get together with you to find out what I've missed."

"I missed you too. We work well together. I'm glad you're here. I think you can really help out."

"What's going on?"

The car stopped. "I'll tell you more when we get some coffee."

The Coffee shop was a mom and pop shop that wasn't very crowded. They had spent the first few minutes bickering over paying for each other's coffee. Alya finally one when she pulled out the wad of cash Chat noir had left her, Nino put his wallet away. "I know when I'm defeated." They collected their beverages and went outside to chat.

Nino was stilled shocked by Alya's payload. "Dude! where did you get that much money?"

She shrugged. "I have a really wealthy client I guess. Now don't keep me waiting, what is going on with my bestie and her roommate?"

"She really hasn't called you about anything that happened with herself and Nathaniel?"

The brunette shook her head. "We used to talk everyday, but as school picked up for me, she just sorta stopped talking about what was going on with her. I tried to keep up with her, but school work kept me from being able to pushing more out of her. So what happened?"

The DJ leaned across the table. "Ok Alya, It's just me. I'm about to spill the beans on what's going on with our friends at their studio. I was told all this in confidence. The least you can do is give me a hint."

"I don't know. It seems that you've become a bit of a gossip." Her eyebrows raised up and down. The DJ's glasses slid down his nose with his smile. "I will give you a hint… after you fill me in with what's going on with Marinette and Nathaniel."

"It's a deal." He stuck out his his fist out, and the reporter responded with a fist bump. "I'll warn you now, it's a long story. "

"Just give me the deets."

He sighed. "Nathaniel had started having trouble related to Ladybug and Chat Noir when he began applying to art school. Every school he applied to sent him a letter of rejection. Even after you left for the U.K. after he continued to apply. He applied to over thirty schools, and all of them rejected him. That's when he just started getting mad about the whole situation. Ladybug and Chat Noir were easy for him to blame."

"That's horrible! He's such a great artist! But what does that have to do with Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

Nino's brows furrowed. "You really are clueless right now?"

The report crossed her arms. "What am I missing, Nino?"

"The reason he was rejected by every school was because of his akumatized form, the Evillustrator. Every art school found the reports of him using his art to attack people was not something the colleges wanted to be remembered for. They are worried he wouldn't be able to handle the criticism. Everyone in our class who was akumatized received some sort of rejection from a school in France because they were some form of 'emotionally unstable.' Heck, even I had to explain myself when I was interviewing to DJ. I was able to get away with I was just too passionate to throw a good party for my friend. You never were questioned about being Lady Wifi?"

"It was never really brought up. People were more impressed with the fact that i was there for almost every akuma. I had news credit and a semiprofessional blog. If anything being akumatized once allowed me to be able to see the whole story and explain from a more unbiased way. "

"I guess you handled this better than a lot of other people." Nino sipped his drink.

"Had everyone in the class been rejected that much?"

"Actually a group of our friends got together to try and sue Chloe."

"Sue!" The reporter almost spit out her coffee. "Why were they taking that brat to court? Because she's loaded?"

"More to try and clear their name and blame all their problems on her. Juleka didn't make it into the beauty school she wanted to go to because her 'Reflekta side' might not handle the complicated 'multiple representations' of beauty in the world. This made her so upset that she developed all kinds of problems; depression, sleep apnea, an eating disorder.

"Then one day in the summer she decided this was all Chloe's fault for being such a bully. She hired a lawyer and contacted everyone she knew the contact info to over the summer and told them she had a lawyer and wanted to know if they wanted in as well to go after Chloe as well. Alix and Kim joined up with Juleka right away. They we both upset about losing ability to join sports and clubs at their university because no one wanted to be affiliate with an akuma."

"That's a little extreme isn't it?" Alya's eyes grew wide through the lens of her glasses. "The fact our classmates would become so mob like is shocking."

"What's really shocking is that Sabrina and her dad joined the cas against Chloe. Rodger even brought in the fact that he was akumatized because he was fired by Mayor Bourgeois for not apprehending someone his daughter accused of stealing with no evidence. "

"Woah." She leaned back in her seat in disbelief. Why had she been kept out of loop for so long? How was it that Nino was just telling her this, when she could of been hearing about this first hand. Alya had not realized how far out of touch she really had been. Would she even have been able to empathize with all her classmates when she had been so successful?

Nino took the moment to drink from his mug. He glanced up at Alya seeing her absorb the information she had just learned. Her posture was relaxed, but she was clearly chewing all the new information in her mind. Nino cleared his throat, and Alya looked up; giving the DJ the sign to continue.

"As the charges grew against Chloe, the case became more and more public. Nathaniel at the time was focusing on purchasing his studio with the money he made from selling his art online. Chloe needed people on her side, and she found an adversary in Lila."

"Lila? After her akuma attack she sat in the back and did her own thing."

"So we thought." Nino tilted the brim of his hat up to show more of his face. "Apparently, Nathaniel and Lila became really close sitting in the back together. They even went on a date during our senior year!"

The reporter stood up from shock. "What?!"

Nino placed his had over his mouth to whisper. "Yeah. I've actually heard they are still a thing. Any way, Lila managed to convince Nathaniel to help defend Chloe. The three of them teamed up and got a lawyer as well. The defending argument; Ladybug and Chat Noir were the cause of all their problems. If they knew that Hawkmoth wanted their miraculous, then they should have announced that they were leaving Paris so Hawkmoth would have vanished and not caused so much pain."

"So Nathaniel just suddenly switched over to hating the heros that saved Paris, just like that."

Nino nodded his head. "Apparently Lila is convincing."

"Gross!" Alya gaged. "But that doesn't explain why Marinette has crawled into her shell."

"Well it kind of does actually. When Marinette started to study design at the local Gabriel Agrest School for design," the two shuttered at the awkward tension from the school's name, "she had already started to seem kinda had kept in contact with Nathaniel to have someone to bounce Ideas off of. The date for the court had been set, Nathaniel apparently begged our sweet Marinette to join his side. She had received a call from Juleka but she just said that she didn't want to be involved. Nathaniel's call however, was different." Nino stared into his almost empty mug as he spoke, twirling a spoon around in the foam of the latte.

"Nathaniel had informed her that she was going to be called as a witness for his akumatized self and just wanted to give her a heads up on dates so she didn't fall too far behind with school. She received the court summons the next day and went to answer questions. I wasn't at the trial, but from what I was told from Max, Marinette fell apart at the stands. She kept answer questions about how Nathaniel had vowed to not hurt Chloe if she had gone on a date with him, and that nothing bad would have happened if Chat Noir hadn't have interfered and manipulated Marinette to get his pen. Everyone on Juleka's side who was involved in the court case began shouting at Nathaniel for manipulating Marinette. A huge fight broke out in the courtroom, and Kim had to be removed for the remainder of the trial. The judge and jury sided with Chloe and most people believe it was because of Marinette.

"After that trial Marinette just wasn't the same. Many of our classmates refuse to talk to her. I think after seeing everyone fight like that made her feel so guilty she couldn't function. So that's when she dropped out of design school, she moved in with Nathaniel to help with the studio, and that's all I know."

Nino looked up when felt the table shaking. He saw his friend hunched over on the table. Her back was shaking with irregular breath. "Alya," he reached a hand to clasp over hers. The girl lifted her head tears pouring from her face.

"Why didn't she tell me?" she bawled. "Why would my best friend allow herself to hurt so much, and not even inform me of what was going on? I let my school work get in the way, of what's really important. I should have been here. I should have been helping her!" Alya continued to cry. Warm tears crawling down her face, until she felt a warm embrace surround her. The shock shook her light brown eyes open.

Nino embraced his friend. "You couldn't have helped her when you were far away. However you are here now. I'm here now. We are going to figure out a way to fix this together. There is too much animosity and anger in Paris."

The brunette wiped her tears. "Thanks Nino. You are right. As much anger and stress that has changed everyone else in this city, we need to be here for each other, and be here for our friends."

"We'll figure out what to do." He let go of the reporter and returned to his seat. "Let's change topics. I think that's enough tears for now."

Alya laughed. "What do you have in mind?"

"How about that clue I earned for who your 'secret client' is I was such a useful source." He raised an eyebrow.

A snort escaped from Alya trying to hold in her laugh. "Alright I guess you earned that much." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the invitation to the party on Friday. "They are someone who can get me into a cool scene like this."

Nino picked up the invitation and read it. His eyes grew big and his mouth gaped open. "Alya, this is the party I am going to be the DJ for this week."