"All you have to do is jump," Ladybug said encouragingly as the three masked teens stood on the edge of one of the highest buildings in Paris.
The Fox twisted his flute tightly. "I don't know, that looks like a very ugly fall."
"It's only a fall if you can't fly," Chat Noir pointed out. "And you can fly, right?"
"Right," the Fox said hesitantly.
"That's what you said."
"I said I technically could," the Fox said staring at the void. "That doesn't mean I actually can."
"We'll find out soon, then," Chat said with a smirk that the Fox did not appreciate.
"Well, don't look so happy about it," the Fox said, gulping.
"Don't worry, you'll do fine," Ladybug said. "It's always scary the first time. But you'll manage, it's in you after all."
"What's in me precisely? Because the will to die is not and I'm having second thoughts about this whole gig."
"You are the Fox Wielder, with or without the mask," Chat Noir said.
"We really need to get moving, Fox," Ladybug said, sounding apologetic. "Sorry."
"That-that's fine. You guys go ahead, I can just watch. Honest. I think it might be better."
"Have you thought about a name yet?" Chat asked casually, standing right behind the Fox without him noticing. He was too busy calculating how fast he'd drop to the ground.
"Name? I was thinking Renard Rouge but I'm not sure yet. It's a little, I don't know. Why?
"Oh Renard Rouge, nice. Sorry, by the way," said Chat, nonchalantly.
"Sorry? For wha- AH!"
Chat pushed him into the abyss, plunging after him seconds later with Ladybug trailing right behind him.
"AHHH!" The Fox kept screaming, and shouting every curse he knew in his books.
"Fly!" Chat shouted at him, preparing to extend his baton. "Do it!" The ground got closer by the second. "NOW!"
Instinctively, Nathaniel unsheathed the flute and put it to his lips. He played indistinct notes, the little four note tune that he had been practicing. Smoke formed around him, his tail igniting only briefly, as he hit an invisible sort of trampoline that redirected his fall upwards. Soon enough, he fell his body loosing height again, letting himself scream and flail around. Chat extended his baton at the same time he bounced around the sky to make sure he was safe- The fact he didn't like him didn't mean he could just outright kill him. He was a teammate, after all.
"YOU MOTHERFUCKING FLEA BAG!" the Fox screamed, not sharing his opinion. "You pushed me off the building!"
Chat smirked, masterfully controlling his trajectory through the skyline. "Language! And please, if I left it to you we'd still be waiting. Careful, time to land." Chat nodded at the building where Ladybug was.
An expansion of his baton and a flip in midair was all Chat needed to land softly next to Ladybug. Easy as breathing.
"That was unnecessary, chaton," Ladybug said with a slight smirk that let Chat Noir she wasn't entirely against his mentoring methods.
He shrugged. "Different parenting styles, my lady."
"Parenting styles?" She laughed.
Chat winked and opened his mouth to flirt some more.
"WATCH OUT!" Renard Rouge roared, crash-landing against Chat Noir and causing for both to roll around the gravel a few times.
They groaned.
"Get off me," Chat demanded. "Ow, OW MY TAIL!"
"It's your karma for pushing me to my death."
Ladybug hurried to help them up by untangling Chat's tail from Renard Rouge's foot and helping Chat up while Renard dusted himself off.
"Gotta work on that landing," Ladybug commented.
Renard Rouge blushed as deep as his own hair. "Sorry."
"It's okay. I didn't get it on my first try either." As if sensing Chat's oncoming intervention, she added, "And Chat, well. Chat's Chat. So don't mind him."
"Overeager?" Renard said, just to see Chat's insulted expression.
"That too," Ladybug said, not paying attention to him but instead orienting herself to try and figure out just exactly where in Paris they were. "He's a natural at this whole superhero thing," she mumbled unimportantly, focused on the task at hand. "Ah, there we go! Yep." She consulted her compact just in case her sense of orientation was wrong.
Chat Noir's heart tripped in his chest at how casually she complimented him. Sure, she'd congratulate him every time he did something right or devised a specially clever plan but she had never gone as far as telling him- really telling him he was good at being a superhero. There was a nagging thought that always gnawed Chat's gut. That Ladybug really didn't need him and that more often than not he ended up being a drag but she was just too kind to tell him the truth. And now she said he was good- no, a natural superhero.
"Okay, so we have the city divided into 7 different quadrants. Like a cake. One day, one quadrant. One, five, and six are the ones Chat and I patrol together because Chat actually realized that's where the most akumas tend to happen. Three and four are mine, two and seven are his." Ladybug pointed at a certain direction, spinning on the heel of her toes as she indicated Renard which way was each quadrant. Today is quadrant three, because it's Wednesday. We'll follow Chat's route."
He nodded and then turned to Renard as he unclipped his baton from his back. "Try to keep up."
They let Renard try and take the lead this time. Before they both jumped after him to make sure he wouldn't hurt himself, Chat muttered insecurely, in a way that was more like Adrien than Chat. "Thanks for the compliment, Ladybug."
He didn't let her reply, as fast as the words were out of his mouth, he jumped off the building.
Something warm sparked in Ladybug's chest. A warmth she was deft in quenching as soon as it appeared.
Focus. They have to train Renard. No time for Chat.
He was a fast learner, Chat noticed with a huff as he vaulted through the rooftops of the city with the Fox- Renard Rouge- closely behind his tail. The only thing that kept the newest addition to the team from taking the lead was his inexperience, which was rapidly fading. Chat Noir forced himself to push harder, jump higher, run faster. That fox would not outrun him on his first patrol. But for Nath this wasn't a competition, this was about experiencing a revelation, tasting true freedom, with the wind and the sights and the heights. Nathaniel had never felt so alive in his entire sixteen years of existence.
Paris was a creature, he discovered. It was alive. Its streets were like veins, it breathed and sighed. He felt the magic of the Miraculous syncing with him as he hopped from building to building. He felt the shifts in the energy between place and place, like a tingling sensation that ran up and down his spine. He caught himself wondering how he'd ever be afraid of becoming a Miraculous wielder. He'd never get tired of this.
"You're learning fast!" Ladybug commented, having no problem to catch up with him.
"This is amazing!" Renard said.
Ladybug giggled. "It has its pros, yes."
"I've never had so much fun in my entire life!"
Ladybug noticed that Renard Rouge started having trouble keeping up after a while, so she decided to call for a break. Chat Noir took them to one of his usual break spots: The roof of a small but busy ice cream parlor on Rue de la Rochienne 13, La Chambre de la Coccinelle, named after no one else than his lady herself. On quiet nights, Adrien would detransform and buy himself an ice cream cone. He'd sit at the back of the shop on a secluded booth and listened to people's conversations, happy to be comforted by the sugary smells and bubbly laughter of the Parisians.
As they sat upon the roof of the ice cream parlor, Ladybug remembered that Chat Noir once brought this place up in conversation, flirting, none the less. She recalled him inviting her for an ice cream cone in their civilian identities.
"You'd probably melt for me, my lady," he said that time, with a wink. To which Ladybug only rolled her eyes that time. She dismissed it. But now she kept glancing at Chat Noir, occasionally meeting his glance as well. She could tell he also remembered.
"So what do we do now?" Renard Rouge asked, uncomfortably seeing that Chat Noir and Ladybug took a spot by the edge of the building.
"We sit," Chat Noir said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Sit?"
The cat furrowed his eyebrows. "Is there anything else to do?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Renard said, half in shock, half completely offended. "You mean to tell me that the only thing you do on patrol nights is go around buildings, and then just sit? No wonder you haven't found Hawkmoth you-"
He didn't get to finish his sentence. The words clumped around his throat, forming a gasp. A shiver ran through him. It felt cold, so cold. He felt an invisible force course through him, followed by a distinct notion of fear, anger, cholera.
"What was that?" he asked, voice quivering.
Ladybug and Chat Noir were silent and only fixed their eyes in the horizon, in the direction of Notre Dame.
"Guys?"
"Shh!" Chat Noir scolded him. "It's a big one."
As if to prove him right, the ground trembled. All of Paris did. Suddenly, a monster as high as the Eiffel Tower crawled out of Notre Dame, busting the western tower. It was a nasty thing. A humanoid that wore a priest's hat and carried a trident. Horns poked out of his head and his skin had the texture of cooled down magma. Staring at his eyes was like staring at death itself.
"Is that… is that a priest?" Renard asked, afraid to hear the answer.
"I think so," Ladybug said with dread. "Poor man."
"How- but… isn't he a good person? Aren't you supposed to be a good person if you're a priest?" Renard shrieked as the akuma tore the remnants of Notre Dame like it was a sand castle.
"Good people are the worst," Chat Noir said.
"What do you mean?"
He glanced at him briefly. "There's as much bad as there is good in you. There is always a balance."
"Like Yin and Yang," Ladybug said. "If you are an extremely good person you have it in you to be as extremely evil. Kind people are always the worst akumas."
She detached her yoyo from her hip. "Ready, Chat?"
"Whenever you are, my lady."
"And what do I do?" Renard said.
Chat turned to him. "You go home."
"What?"
"Go home. It's dangerous."
"But-but aren't I supposed to learn?"
"Chat Noir is right, Renard. This is not a good akuma for you to learn with."
"LADYBUG, CHAT NOIR!"
"That's our cue, LB."
She nodded. "Go, Renard."
They jumped into action without letting Nathaniel reply. He witnessed dumbfounded, how they skillfully swung and vaulted from building to building, reaching heights that no human lungs could bear. He watched them become tiny dots in the distance, battling the Devil -which was the name of the Akuma.
Let it be said he tried to follow their orders. He did, honest. But he just couldn't tear his eyes apart from the scene, in part because how terrified he was and also because as scared as he was a big part of him felt like he was compelled to take action despite his incompetence.
His heightened sight allowed him to easily spot Chat Noir as he was tossed across the skyline like a nagging insect, closely followed by Ladybug.
"No, no, no, no…" Renard Rouge whispered to himself, frantically searching the pair of heroes. "Please get up, please get up. Don't make me go in there…"
Seconds passed, then he saw them charging the monster again. And again, they were knocked down. Before they could regroup, the monster tore down every building in its way and set them on fire with its touch. It certainly looked like hell in there.
"They need a distraction," Renard Rouge muttered to himself, seeing how Chat's efforts were coming up short. He had to constantly tear himself between distracting the Akuma and protecting Ladybug from its blows.
He clasped his hands around the flute and fixed his eyes on the monster, as far away as it was. His better judgement told him to run away, to hide, to follow Chat Noir and Ladybug's instructions.
Be rational, chances are you'll only make it worse.
But it was hard to ignore the screaming, the crying.
The tug he felt on his chest was more powerful than any insecurities, any rationality he could confront. Yes, this wasn't the ideal first fight, it certainly did not look easy. But being a hero wasn't about doing things the easy way.
Just get closer and assess the situation.
He put the flute to his lips and played the little four-note tune he was familiar with, helping himself hover as he jumped between buildings.
The four notes wouldn't do, he noticed. Not if he wanted to be of any help, and by the looks of it, if he was going to help he had to do it now.
Think Nath, think.
"Of course, a library!" he exclaimed and hopped from the roof where he was to an open window in the library.
He ran to the front desk to find the coding guide, trying his best to ignore the people huddled beneath the tables, who whispered among each other about the Akuma in the library.
"Music… music… 420 to 450!"
He ran through the shelves until he found what he wanted.
"Hope I can borrow this without a library card!" he said and rushed to the street. Not that the book would be of much use, of course. The first sight that greeted him was that of a young mother pushing a stroller as fast as she could to avoid a falling building.
Nath gasped and at that point instinct overtook his body. He played the flute and darted to the woman's direction, first taking the baby and then her, out of the way. There was something familiar about her face but he didn't stop to consider what, there were other people in the way of the falling debris that also needed help.
"Go, take cover!" He shouted at the civilians, shooing them away with his hands as the ground trembled with the steps of the giant magma Akuma.
"Well, well, well... what do we have here."
Renard Rouge froze, sweating in cold. He turned around slowly to find the Akuma kneeling to street level, staring right into Nath's eyes. He gulped.
"My, my, a new Miraculous wielder." He picked Renard Rouge from the ground with no effort to inspect him closer.
From a distance, Chat gasped. "Ladybug! He has Renard!"
Take his Miraculous, a voice inside the Akuma's head instructed it.
Renard Rouge squirmed to no avail, causing the Akuma to laugh.
"I could simply crush you right now, you realize that?"
"I'm not afraid of you... or you, Hawkmoth!"
The Akuma brought Renard closer to his face, close enough that he could smell its sulphurous breath and to realize that the akumatized object was a jewel on his hat.
"No? You should."
He had wiggled enough that the flute was now within reach of his mouth and he could play it. He only had one shot at this.
"Hey you, rock face!" Chat Noir yelled right before slapping the priest hard behind his head.
That was his cue. While the Akuma was distracted, he played the notes he memorized from the book in the library and focused as hard as he could on becoming... Nothing. Invisible. Air.
"Where'd it go?" The Akuma let go of him, confused. But while Nath was scrambling to get to the top of the hat he had not noticed Ladybug rushing to do that herself, as it usually went when it was only her and Chat. At the same moment, Nath's invisibility wore off.
"Got you," growled the monster, spotting Renard Rouge's reflection on the glass of a building.
He grabbed him and violently tossed him across the skyline, but not without smashing some constructions first.
"No!" Chat screamed, as some of the debris knocked Ladybug out of her trajectory. What was worse, a toppling apartment building was slowly and dangerously leaning in the direction of the street, where a school bus had been trapped in traffic.
Renard Rouge was the only one close enough to do anything about it, but his fall had been a nasty one. He barely could stand.
"Renard!" He heard Chat scream. "Renard, the kids! Oomph!" The Akuma smacked him off his feet.
Nath didn't know where he gathered the strength or the agility from, but mechanically—almost as a knee-jerk reaction—he played his flute, turned into a copy of the Akuma itself, and pulled the school bus out of the way of the falling building. The transformation wore out almost immediately and the bus landed unceremoniously out of harm's way. A few scratches and bruises, but the passengers, a sixth grade class, would be okay.
Nath dedicated himself to lead people out of danger for the rest of the attack. Parisians were confused, just like Chat Noir had been before, but he tried his best to be kind and reassuring. After all, he knew better than Ladybug and Chat Noir themselves how it felt to be on the other end of the line when an Akuma was happening. Defenseless, scared, at the mercy of chance.
Renard was catching his breath, sitting on a bench when Ladybug and Chat Noir joined them after purifying the Akuma. His back was hunched and held his head on his hands.
"This is too much," he muttered, knowing they were listening. "That—that was so scary. I don't know I could do it agai-."
"You don't think it was scary for those kids you almost killed?" Chat reprehended severely, in a way Ladybug had never heard him talk.
Nath looked up, evidently conflicted. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I messed up, I know but-."
"No, there is no but," Chat said. "We told you to stay away from this one. It was one simple request. One."
"You were in trouble."
"Yes Renard, but we've been in trouble before and we know what we are doing! And if we told you not to get involved is because we knew the kind of fight we were up to. And you just... you didn't things through! It's not a game, there are consequences when we mess up."
"Chat..." Ladybug intervened, sounding a little softer. "Calm down."
He breathed and pinched his nose. He looked at Renard, and felt a little sorry. He reminded him of Ladybug the first time they fought together. He shook his head.
"I'm sorry I messed up," Nath said, getting up from the bench. "Look, I—I won't be in your way anymore. I'll return the Miraculous. I'm not meant for this."
"No, Renard, wait..."
He left before Ladybug could make her point.
She glanced at Chat Noir, who was still frowning.
"Happy?"
"No."
"What got into you?" She said. "You were very harsh with him."
"You saw what was going to happen, Ladybug. Things would not have gotten out of hand if he had just done what we asked him to. He wasn't thinking."
She gave him a look. "Like you do, from time to time?"
"And when I do the risk is related to me, Ladybug. Not to other people."
"Well, but the fact that he made a mistake doesn't mean he won't get better, and you know that."
He sighed. "I told Master Fu we didn't need another teammate."
"Is this what all this is about then?"
Chat widened his eyes. "N-no." A little bit, yes. But not entirely. "It's just that-."
Both Miraculouses beeped. They looked at each other, for the first time wishing they could have more time to sort things out. To sit down, maybe over a cup of tea, to discuss. It wasn't only that Renard Rouge had committed what could have been a very costly mistake. This was also about Chat, Ladybug noticed.
The jewels beeped again.
"See you later, Ladybug," said Chat, and with that, he left.