Ladybug left a lot quicker than Alya liked.

After double checking the blogger was ok and making sure that it was the correct apartment complex, the spotted heroine swung away like Spiderman - if Spiderman was a ladybug, a girl, wasn't on the bad side of the news, and wasn't from New York. Not that Alya would know if Ladybug was from New York or not. It didn't particularly matter at the moment, since she hadn't answered any of Alya's questions aside from what her favorite color was (it apparently was red with black spots, which Alya didn't believe).

Now, Alya was standing outside of her apartment door, outside the viewing range of the little door peeper. Just as she had been for the past five minutes. And she would most likely have stalled for a lot longer, if not for the fact that her stomach felt like it was about to consume her inside out. And she lived there. It wasn't as if she could escape to Marinette's until she was able to live by herself, on her own merits. Unless...?

Alya shook her head. Running away from her problems wasn't the way Alya Césaire did things.

Even if facing her problems head on meant making up with her mom.

Her feelings regarding Mom chewing her out in front of what seemed like the whole school were mixed. She was angry, but it wasn't quite anger, was it? Mostly shame regarding the public humiliation and... frustration. Frustration about how she couldn't get a word in, how everyone thought her reasoning- her blog, her passion- was pointless. Inconsequential.

Throw in a teenager's developing brain blowing every comment out of proportion, the fact she had been running on hardly any sleep, and it made the perfect concoction for akumafication.

She didn't know what she did. She hasn't gotten the courage to check just yet. So much for facing her problems head on.

Alya'd find out eventually. Regardless, out of all the awful things that definitely happened, she knew one good thing came out of it. Getting akumatized happened to be mighty cathartic. She felt clear headed, like everything that clouded her thoughts faded away. A life threatening stab wound scabbed over in just an hour. It would bleed if she picked at it, but nonetheless a miracle.

Standing in front of this door, Alya felt like a knife was poised just over where her injury was. With three other (tiny) knives right with it, since her siblings were also there and ready to condemn her. She's not sure if the twins would understand, not sure if they could comprehend just how real the things on the TV were. Nora... Alya wasn't quite sure how Nora would react, if she was even home.

Still, Alya found herself raising her hand to knock. She couldn't leave this stay like this, in a stasis of uncertainty. Held back from the joy of it being resolved, but protected from hurt if something bad happened. She knocked once, and immediately wanted to take it back.

It was the only knock necessary. The door flung open, revealing Mom, eyes puffy and hints of dried tear tracks on her cheeks. Alya felt another stab of guilt.

"...hi, Mom-"

All the air left her lungs- wheezed out pathetically, really- completely cutting off her apology. She found herself stumbling into her mom's shoulder and getting a faceful of hair that smelled like honeydew shampoo and coconut conditioner. Her mom's hugs always felt like someone double her size would give and twice as fierce, as though she had to make up for the lack of a father her children had.

Alya eventually found the courage to wrap her own arms around her mom. She leaned in.

She doesn't know how long they stood there, just outside the doorway of their apartment. At one point she felt tears run down her cheeks, and her whole chest shuddered as she gasped and choked past the block in her throat. At one point she felt something wet on her own shoulder and the hug tightened.

It felt like an eternity. Yet It couldn't have been longer than three minutes until Mom pulled away and the world continued.

She took Alya's hands in her own, gently guiding her inside and to the couch. Alya's legs felt weak and shaky, as if she couldn't stand without leaning on her mom. When she sat down the couch threatened to swallow her whole.

The silence also lasted an eternity, filled by the whirr of fans that they filled their home with. Alya was gathering her words, desperately trying to find something to say, someway to apologize-

"Alya, I'm sorry."

Wh-what?

"Mom? What do you mean? I'm the one who did all the bad stuff"

"Alya." She breathed once, eyes closed, and opened them with the exhale. "It was unfair of me to scold you in public. I should have taken you someplace private."

"You hardly did anything wrong!" Alya was the one who should be apologizing. "I did stupid stuff, illegal stuff! I-" She swallowed. "...I deserved it."

"Honey..." The tears were back. "I pushed you into a bad enough mindset to allow a terrorist to take away your free will and use you as a pawn. There is nothing today, yesterday or even in the past week that you did that makes you deserve something so- so terrible."

And Alya's world blurs, and she's dragged into another hug on the floor.

"I'm s-so-orry!" She hiccups, only to be met with soft hushes.

A hand carded through Alya's wavy hair. It felt nice.

"You can't change what you've already done, " came the whisper. "All you can do now is decide what you do now."

. . .

The only thing that had stopped me from leaving the room when Chat Noir got caught was Mom sitting by my side and Chase's hand on my shoulder. In that moment, I felt remarkably like a rat with its tail caught in a trap, thrashing to escape, yet ultimately unable to. My heart had hit my ribs, a bird in a cage.

I almost shot to my feet, almost rushed to the 'bathroom' with an excuse on my tongue. And something was twisting in my stomach. My previous thought echoed in my brain:

I was leaving something to doom itself.

That was it. I left the city to its natural order, and it was about to come tumbling down- a house of cards against a gust of wind. I had wondered briefly- because at my core, I was a horrible, selfish person- that if the city was destroyed if my Dad's company would finally let him go back to the states. Because all the stories said if the villain got what they want, nothing good would happen. And that definitely applied to a man ready to stop at nothing to get his fingers on magical artifacts that carry the essence of both creation and destruction in them.

So when Lady Wifi said goodbye in her hauntingly cheerful voice, I thought that was the end, and it would be Ladybug against the akumas- each with a potential destructive power up (I didn't know how Hawkmoth's powers worked, so I couldn't possibly predict how combining the miraculous could affect the akumas). Ladybug and Ghost, me, except she didn't even know about me, other than that disastrous encounter on the roof. We wouldn't even last one akuma. Not like that. Like this .

And when the screen went black, the only thing that had kept me on the couch was Chase's hand on my shoulder and the look in his eyes. It didn't calm the screeching bird in my chest, only strengthened the bars of the cage containing it.

"Stop thinking about it," He practically hissed. "You can't help yet."

Even when I have the power to do something, I'm still helpless. What a comforting thought.

It didn't take long for the feed to come back mid fight against Ladybug, who was throwing various objects at Lady Wifi. It was hardly a minute later when the video feed started to glitch, dropped frames, and then it cut out entirely.

And then the ladybugs washed over the city, healing every scratch and dent caused by the akuma. I imagined even the grass Lady Wifi trampled was straightened.

I retreated to my room, making my trek through the ladders and trapdoors that connected each floor. They lost their novelty after living in the house for a week, and they were especially inconvenient whenever someone has the urgent need to use the bathroom. Or whenever Mom's back hurt. I hit my knee on the edge of the trapdoor just as I made it to my room. I dragged myself to the floor, curling around the injury and hissing.

I was pathetic.

( You're a danger to everyone around you )

Knight drifted out of my pocket, ever silent. I focused on them, even when they got so close to my face that I went cross eyed. They leaned their head against the bridge of my nose. My eyes strained to keep them in focus.

S̵t̶o҉p̶

"W-what?"

A tiny little fist hit my eyebrow.

n̵o̴t̴ u̷s̷e̷l̷e҉s̷s̸

I laughed, yet it lacked mirth of any kind. "Objectively, yes I am."

They pulled away, just enough so I could see their large, glowing eyes narrowed. n̴o̸

"I haven't done anything helpful at all. I just-" I closed my eyes, "do nothing, all the time."

( You don't know what you want )

A pause, then:

w҈h҈y̷

"I don't know" I swallowed, "I'm a coward?"

n̷o҉

"Confused?"

n̷o҉

A faint amusement leaked into me. I think it was my own. "I don't think you know how questions work. You generally aren't supposed to decide an answer for yourself."

y҉o̴u̸ h̶a̴v҈e̷ n̴o̶ c̷o̶n҉f҉i̸d̷e҈n̸c҉e̸

I couldn't deny that.

"Guess I need to practice, then." I was planning on doing that anyway. "Practice makes perfect and all that."

Knight let the matter die after one last glare. They drifted over to their basket full of scraps of paper and various other bits that they collected. It was like a nest or a dragon's hoard, if dragon's hoarded trash. They settled down, hugging a discolored marble that used to be a nice deep blue, but now was a shade of gray.

I pulled myself from the floor before collapsing in my bed with a flop, like I used up all my energy just to get there. That wasn't too far from the truth. All that panic from earlier, the adrenaline that I hadn't even noticed was there, had settled into something heavy, something cold. It might have been guilt or fear or even dread- it was definitely guilt. But what it was didn't particularly matter in this specific instance; because there was something else there too.

Resolve.

. . .

It took two days after the Lady Wifi akuma for Chat Noir to meet with Ladybug again.

His questions and doubts lingered at the back of his mind, even when he was talking with Nino and Keana. Lady Wifi's curiosity brought up uncertainty he didn't even know he had.

But now, as he faced her with the sun leaving orange and pink streaks across the horizon, he found himself lost for words. And he felt torn between wanting to make her smile and wanting her to take him seriously. And this combination left him fumbling words, a pun prepared and died before it left his lips.

"What's wrong?" Ladybug quirked an eyebrow. "Cat got your tongue."

He sputtered, arms flailing. "W-what? No way!" In a way, yes. He had caught his own tongue, if that made any sense. It didn't, he decided, but Ladybug was usually right.

"What did you want to meet about, anyway?"

And that's the big question, wasn't it? How was Chat Noir supposed to tell her about the ball of uncertainties in his stomach? He could hardly describe them beyond the panic and anxiety that was all tangled up with vague pieces of evidence in a Gordian Knot; he didn't even know how to begin to untie it. He shoved it aside- that wasn't even what he wanted to think about, yet, much less with Ladybug.

He had a different burning question, one he never knew he needed an answer to until it was brought up by Lady Wifi.

Ladybug was still waiting for a reply.

"Oh! Secret identities!" He blurted out. He didn't notice how she tensed up. "I was wondering if we are gonna share our identities with each other..?"

Ladybug didn't reply immediately, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad thing. But he couldn't quite stop that small spark of hope blooming.

"I..." She started, after what felt like ages, "I don't think so."

What?

"Why not!?" Chat Noir exclaimed. She knew she could trust him, right? He wasn't dumb enough to go blabbing to anyone, even if he was hot headed. If someone tried to trick him or-or-

"It's just- What if one of us gets akumatized? Our own identity would be leaked for sure, and then Hawkmoth would target us and our friends and family, specifically. If we knew each other's identities then both of us would be leaked and we would be in constant danger without a break! Then we'd fail and Hawkmoth would win and- I don't know what he'd do with the miraculous, probably something awful, and-"

Ladybug continued rambling. Most of the words sounded like paranoia, too many what ifs, bad scenarios based on chance. Chat Noir wasn't even sure if they could get akumatized- Hawkmoth would look for them if they could. But... Ladybug was the planning one for a reason, she could think ahead. She had to think ahead, for the both of them.

"I'm not sure if I entirely understand," He admitted once she paused for a breath. "But I know you mean well. I just... I wish we could actually get to know each other. As friends."

Ladybug smiled. "Just because we can't know each other's civilian identity, doesn't mean we can't be friends. I'm sure patrols will get boring and we'll talk about things that aren't just Hawkmoth and protecting the city."

"Well then-" Chat Noir drawled, "What's your favorite color?"

"Believe it or not," she rolled her eyes, "it isn't red."

. . .

Chase had a bad habit of staring up at his ceiling at night and thinking about all the things he's said wrong. It didn't happen every night- it was sporadic enough that he didn't bother to keep track of it. unlike his sister, Pax, he didn't have chronic insomnia. He just sometimes... realizes he messed up.

This night, he had a specific thought circling his mind that wouldn't let him rest.

"You don't know what you want"

"You can't help"

He spoke harshly, far harsher than he intended. He practically called her useless. It didn't matter what he intended, he definitely hurt Keana's feelings. Generally he didn't particularly care if he offended her: she had thick skin and knew he didn't mean any harm. Smack talk bounced off and she was quick to make a joke at her own expense before Chase could even think of something.

In this particular instance, Chase had a feeling that this was not something she'd get over in a day. The feeling was reaffirmed when Keana stayed in her room for the rest of the day.

Now he got to stare at the ceiling of his room, the floor of Keana's, and contemplated his life choices.

He didn't want to drive a wedge between each other. She's his baby sister. Sure, he knew plenty of people who had awful relationships with their siblings, but it's hard to stay mad at someone who's been with him through nearly everything. He never had much time to make friends with anyone between moves, and it's hard to stay friends with people over a long distance. He didn't get a phone until he was a sophomore in high school, so it wasn't like he could talk to them. And it's difficult to stay friends when you know you probably won't ever see whoever it is again.

So naturally, he tried to have good relationships with his siblings. They followed him everywhere, voluntarily or not. Until Jane left for college a while ago, and she graduated a year or so ago. And Pax left just last year for college. It was just Chase and Keana now.

It wasn't a question that he was friends with her, and he preferred to stay that way.

The question now wasn't if he felt guilty of what he said; the question was how he would make it up to her.

A few minutes later he had an epiphany. He opened Youtube.

. . .

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

There was a bang.

I startled, arms flailing yet unable to move. I kicked my legs, but something was tangled around them. And then there wasn't a bed under me. I was greeted with the hard floor, my face cushioned slightly by a decorative carpet thrown over the hardwood. I shook my head. "What the-"

"It's hero bootcamp time!"

There stood Chase, poking his head through my trapdoor. The bang must have been it opening.

"What are you talking about." I squinted over at my clock. "It's 5 am, are you crazy?"

He seemed to not notice my predicament of being trapped in a blanket burrito. Or the fact it was earlier than any teenager in their right mind would be up. On a weekend. On a Saturday. Which begged another question:

"How did you not wake up Mom or Dad?"

Chase snorted "Like they could hear me over Dad's snores." Fair .

I struggled to free myself from my prison. Knight was laughing at me- apparently they didn't need sleep or something, so they were wide awake to witness my fall to the floor. I grumbled, eventually kicking off the covers.

"Anyway," he continued, because he's a monster who didn't care for my mental health, "I figured you'd procrastinate training again till the next akuma attack, so I decided to help out."

I stared at him and recognized that the sinking feeling in my chest was dread. "...What did you do."

Chase grinned, and that brought attention to his bloodshot eyes. "C'mon, we've got no time to waste!"

Then he grabbed my wrist and yanked me to my feet.