Set during Chapter 6 (aka the visit to the classmate that wasn't Ladybug)

(Please ignore any inaccurate techie talk. I tried to make things as accurate as possible based on what I could understand from research, but if there are any mistakes... just pretend that computers work differently in Miraculous-verse or something.)

A Peculiar Request Pt. 1

To say that Max was surprised when Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at his window was an understatement. Chat Noir was positive that he had never seen anyone so puzzled before.

"Is there an akuma?" Max inquired as soon as he opened his window to let them in. When they shook their heads, he frowned in confusion. "No? Then why...?"

"We need some tech help, and you were the first person that came to mind to ask," Ladybug told him. Max looked pleased, though clearly he was trying to hide it.

"Really? Me?"

"You figured out how to build a robot with emotions," Chat Noir pointed out. "And we've heard that you developed software to counter a super-virus. You're good with this kind of stuff."

Max looked a little starstruck as he nodded. "I'll certainly help if I can," he promised. "What do you need?"

"We need to know how to put security camera feed on loop," Chat Noir told Max. He handed over the slip of paper with all of the information about that part of his father's security system that he and Plagg (and apparently Ladybug's kwami as well, though when she had been close enough for that he didn't know) had found. "That's the info about the system. Just let us know if it's missing any information you need and we'll try to find it for you."

"No problem," Max said immediately, adjusting his glasses as he scanned the sheet. "This looks like a fairly common system, actually. I'm ninety-eight percent positive that I'll be able to find the information you need for this without too much trouble."

"We also need a virus," Ladybug added, and if Chat Noir had thought Max looked startled before, he was wrong. Max looked as though he could be knocked over by a feather.

(An artificial feather, of course. Chat Noir had no desire to set off his allergies.)

"A- a virus?"

"Yeah," Ladybug said. "Something that wipe all of the files from a certain user on a computer, preferably without affecting other users on that same computer."

Chat Noir nodded. That last requirement- well, request, really- was something Ladybug had suggested. He himself hadn't thought of it- in his opinion, his father would damn well deserve it if he lost all of his design files on his computer as well, but Ladybug had pointed out that it might not be a great idea to enrage Mr. Agreste too much. If he thought that just the Miraculous filed were lost he would surely be annoyed but think that he could just scan everything in again, no real harm done. If everything on the computer was lost including his original designs, he would probably fly into a fury and might end up taking some of his mood out on Adrien.

Sure, it might make it easier for him to give up any remaining love for his father, but it didn't make sense for him to make his life harder.

"It'll be easy enough to limit it to one account as long as the user you want to affect doesn't have administrative privileges," Max said after a moment's pause, still looking positively baffled. "It'll be more difficult to limit it if it does have those privileges."

Chat Noir blinked, lost, and glanced at Ladybug. She didn't look any less confused than he felt. Max looked at the both of them, sighed, and elaborated.

"The administrative account is often the main one, for most home users," Max told them. "If it's a computer in a business then it probably isn't an administrative account, but it might have administrative privileges. You can check- hold on, let me write down some instructions for you." Max turned and pulled a blank sheet of paper out of the printer by his desk and started writing on it. "If it's a business account it probably won't have administrative privileges, but either way, it would be a good idea to check." Max finished writing and handed the paper over to Chat Noir before regarding them curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, what is this for?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a glance. They had decided easily enough that they weren't going to tell Max who Hawkmoth was or that they were targeting Gabriel Agreste, but they had decided that they could trust Max with the fact that it was Hawkmoth that they would be targeting.

"We've discovered who Hawkmoth is," Ladybug started, and Max's eyes went huge behind his glasses. "And he has some information that we would rather that he not have. At the moment it's in code so it's not exactly something he could have memorized, but we don't want him to have it long enough to decipher it."

"We'll be switching out the physical copies he has for fakes," Chat Noir chimed in. "But he scanned things into his computer, so we want those destroyed. Or, rather, we're going to transfer his files to a really big flash drive so we can see what he knows, and then we need the virus to make sure he can't, y'know, somehow recover stuff from backup or whatever or if we missed something, and to give us some cover."

"You want something that he won't realize that someone came in and took his files," Max filled in. "Okay. So you need a virus that makes itself known, not just one that works in the background. Something obnoxious. I can do obnoxious." He grinned.

Chat Noir was suddenly very, very glad that Max was on their side. The look of glee on his face as he considered the virus he was going to design was rather eerie. Ladybug must have felt the same, since she spoke up again.

"We just want one user affected," she reminded Max. "No matter how tempting it is to destroy all of his work. If we tick him off too much, he might take it out on the city by making even more akuma than usual...or he might take it out on his kid, who definitely doesn't deserve any of this."

Much to Chat Noir's relief, Max's expression dialed way back in intensity. "Oh, right. I didn't think about that. Okay, I'll limit the virus, but I do have to know about the administrative access on the account."

"We'll try to find that out," Chat Noir promised. "And then we'll let you know as soon as possible. And thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate it."

"I think that went well," Ladybug commented after they had said good-bye to Max and he had waved them out of his room, clearly eager to start work, though he had tried to hide it. "I'm glad I said something more about why we don't want everything on Hawkmoth's computer destroyed, though. I trust Max, but I think he might have been getting big ideas revenge for the attacks through the virus."

Chat Noir nodded. "Yeah. I think he'll be more careful now for sure." He pulled the paper that Max had given him out of his pocket and looked down at it. "Now I have to do is have my kwami try to follow this and figure out the administrative thing." He was willing to bet that his father's Miraculous account wouldn't be the administrative one, partly because the design account on the same computer had surely been there longer but mostly because Nathalie would know all about how viruses spread on the computers and would have taken steps to make sure that nothing would be able to bring the whole system down. In fact, he vaguely recalled Nathalie telling him something similar when she set up his computer account for him several years back. He had ended up with both an admin account and his own personal account that he actually used on his computer.

That was a good sign, at least.

"I could have my kwami do it, too," Ladybug said, looking surprised by his assumption that he would be the one to have his kwami look at Mr. Agreste's computer. "There's no reason why you should have to do all of the work, Chat Noir. Seriously."

"It's no problem at all," Chat Noir promised her, trying his best not to laugh. No reason for him to do all of the work? Living in the same house as Hawkmoth was a pretty good reason for him- or rather Plagg- to take on the lion's share of the work. All he had to do personally was to sit in his room (like normal) and supply cheese (more than normal) while Plagg zipped around the house. If Ladybug investigated, she would have to try to lurk close to the mansion without getting spotted or questioned by Nathalie or the police. "Really, I, uh- I live close enough nearby that I don't even need to leave home for Plagg to be able to sneak over. That's how he found out about Hawkmoth in the first place, too. I wasn't having him search or investigate or anything."

"Okay," Ladybug finally agreed, though she sent him a funny look for some reason. "If you say so. But your kwami is doing so much already! Tikki said that he was disabling something in the lair and that it would take a lot of energy, especially since you're not in the same area."

"He can handle it," Chat Noir promised, patting Ladybug's arm. "Don't worry about it, 'bug. All I need to do is supply my kwami with extra cheese and he's fine with doing a little extra poking around." Maybe that wasn't entirely true- Plagg's grumbles about being asked to investigate had been increasing as of late- but Ladybug didn't need to know how lazy Plagg was.

A yell attracted their attention then, and both superheroes glanced over to see an orange and purple-clad person zipping over the rooftops away from them. They sighed in unison.

"Well, duty calls," Chat Noir commented, tucking Max's paper back into his pocket. "Shall we?"

"That sounds like a plan."

A/N:I meant to post this yesterday/earlier today, but I had an interview for grad school today and focusing enough to get any work done was...not a thing that happened. Whoops.

The next few chapters will alternate between the main story and the outtakes over here. I'm planning to at some point try to post a chart of which outtakes go with which chapters of the main story, but as there's only two outtakes thus far, hopefully it isn't too difficult to keep track of yet.

As always, reviews make my day! :)