Story: Cat's Cradle
Date: 21 July 2021
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Disclaimer: No, I don't own Miraculous Ladybug and I'm not making any money from this story.
Prompt: Write a drabble about the Eiffel Tower in 20 min

To celebrate my tenth anniversary of writing, I've dived into my Doom Box (my folder of ideas and bits of unpublished fics) and here's one of the stories I've pulled out! I just corrected a few spelling mistakes, formatted it and came up with a title, and voilàààà! Makes me wonder why I never posted it before…

This little drabble was written during a prompt workshop on a discord server. Unfortunately it's been a few years and I can't find out which server and when even though I suspect 2019. The oldest backup I have says 2021 so I've kept that.

Enjoy your Reading!

Cat's Cradle

It was an old structure really. A mound of steel intertwined on all sides and held together by hundreds of thousands of copper-plated bolts. Although it was unanimously admired in its old age, many people had figuratively raised their pitchforks when it was built. And it's true that, when you think about it, it clashed terribly with the Haussmann architecture that surrounded it. It must have been difficult, thought Cat Noir, to get the Parisians to swallow its construction at the time. And yet, the building that was to be mercilessly demolished a few years after the Universal Exhibition was still proudly standing more than a hundred years later. Better still, it had become a symbol! The universal symbol of France.

Cat Noir wondered, as he waved his legs over the void, watching Paris with his dreamy eyes, if his father would have been one of those who would have condemned the tower when it was created. He was inclined to say yes. Despite being a fashion designer he was usually very conservative. Chloé too, his childhood friend, would surely have hated this pile of steel. Marinette on the other hand, Cat Noir thought as his mind wandered to one of his classmates, Marinette would surely have been one of those oddballs who would have found the tower fantastic, inspiring even. Nino, too, would certainly have been excited by this technical feat, by what it symbolised for the future.

And Cat Noir... Well, as a cat, the lure of a giant chicken cage to climb on was far too appealing. As Adrien though...

Sighing, the hero of Paris let his head fall back on a steel pole with a sad little noise. An Adrien in those days probably wouldn't have had much of an opinion on the matter. What would an 1880s Adrien have done? Would he have been a well-off bourgeois? Or the son of a tailor, destined to take over the family shop? Or perhaps a duellist, devoting himself to the art of the sword! Who knows, even a great traveller! An explorer searching Egyptian tombs or dusting Tibetan ruins! Maybe he'd even come across a Miraculous on his travels... Cat Noir paused for a moment, pulling his legs together. What Miraculous could he have had? Not the cat again, surely, perhaps something more exotic! He hadn't liked the Snake much, but the Rabbit was rather nice, or maybe the tortoise, or even...!

"Hi Kitten!" A voice behind him suddenly exclaimed, causing him to jump slightly and turn his head. A few metres away from him, leaping from beam to beam, Ladybug was making her way towards him with enviable grace. "You know you've been on TV for a good half an hour? I was worried that an Akuma had appeared, and I didn't know it."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that..." Said Cat Noir as he rose to greet her Lady. "I was just out for a stroll, cats need to stretch their paws." He said with a wink.

Lady Bug opened her lips, ready to reply with a teasing smile, but an explosion rang out behind her. "Well, looks like you're going to be able to stretch your paws." She sighed as she readied her yo-yo. In a second, she was gone and with one last look at Paris, Cat Noir leapt after her.

I'm not particularly fond of Miraculous Ladybug but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw "Tour Eiffel". To be honest, I must have read a grand total of one fic from this fandom because of an author I follow and I don't think I'll ever write for it again ^^ But I hope you enjoyed it :)