"Are you sure you can't come in?" Alya pleaded, glancing towards the phone on the bed as she finished putting on concealer.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't leave my parents alone." Marinette did sound trite, and exhausted - how much sleep had she been getting lately? "The doctors are saying it's a miracle I haven't gotten the bug too, but I'd rather not come to school just in case I end up infecting someone."
The dark-haired girl let out a sigh. Putting the cap back on the makeup she shook her head, soft curls tickling her skin. "You're right. I shouldn't be so worried about this. But what if we get an akuma while you're gone?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but the others are calmer when you're around." She shrugged her shoulders, turning to inspect the back of her shirt. She tugged at it a bit to smooth out the creases.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Alya looked back to the phone. "Mari?"
"You really think that?" There was something strange, something tight in her voice as she slowly responded. "I calm people down?"
"Well, yeah!" The girl tapped the speaker button and the sound from the other end was quieter again as she held the phone to her ear. "I don't know what it is - maybe it's because you're our rep and people like you?"
There was a weak little laugh, and the bespectacled girl frowned.
"I'm flattered, regardless. But you can hold down the fort while I'm gone, right? I hate leaving the class to you, but at least I know you can ask for help if they get too..." she trailed off, "... rowdy."
"Don't you worry about a thing, 'Nette. I've got it covered." Alya grabbed her purse and headed for the door at the sound of her sister calling. "I'll be by after school to drop off the homework."
She could practically feel Marinette's beaming smile over the phone. "Thank you, Alya."
The mental image made her smile, too. "Anything for my bestie."
"She's still not coming?" Rose inquired with a heaving sigh. "At least Miss Bustier rescheduled that test due to the akuma attack yesterday…"
"That was insane," Juleka agreed.
"Yeah…" Shaking her head, Alya glanced at the window. "Well, I mean, it's not like very many exciting things happen on a daily basis. Even the akuma attacks are few and far between here."
The goth gave her a look.
"Whatcha talking about?" Alix piped up, casually walking over.
"Akumas," Rose answered with a tiny frown.
"Oh." Alix nodded knowingly. "At least Ladybug seems to get here as soon as they start running around. I don't know what we would do if she took like ten minutes."
"She'd be no better than the police at that point, I guess." Juleka shrugged.
The pink-haired girl snorted.
Alya listened to them speak, her face tightening with a frown the longer they discussed it. It was indeed strange that Ladybug and Cat Noir seemed to get to akuma attacks so early; she had her hunches on how old the heroes were, and neither seemed very grown given the way they spoke and acted.
There was a lull in the conversation, and she realized the other girls were waiting for her to chime in.
"I tried sketching them out so that I could start matching faces, but..." she trailed off for a moment and shook her head. "Well, one, I'm not nearly as good at drawing as Nathanael, and two, I just... I can't seem to remember exactly what they look like."
"What do you mean? We all see the same exact people, right?" Alix questioned. "Dark blue hair, light blue eyes, red and black outfit..."
"Yeah, I know that. The problem is that I just can't seem to figure out what color her hair is, or what color her eyes are, or even any blemishes on her face!"
Juleka let out a quiet hum. "You know... I have the same problem."
Turning, she called out to Nathanael. "Nath? You still have those sketches of Ladybug and Cat Noir I wanted?"
The redhead looked up from his sketchbook, startled for a moment, before nodding and flipping the pages. Once he found them both, he held up the book. "These?"
The four girls crowded around the desk and peered at the book. There were several different sketches on both pages, one for Ladybug and one for Cat Noir. The Ladybug page had a few different facial styles, with different styles of hair - one tousled, one kept, one long, one very very short. There were different swatches of blue in the empty spaces with various little notes he'd scribbled about which one seemed the closest. The only thing he could pinpoint was the red and black of her costume.
It was much the same with Cat's page; different shades of color, ranging from platinum-blond to straight yellow, along with several different greens filled the empty space along with several bewildered personal notes about what, exactly, the cat hero looked like. The only thing he seemed to stick with was the black leather catsuit, boots, and unkempt hair. Even the mask seemed to fluctuate between styles - from classic domino to elaborate masquerade masks for both of them.
Alya stared at the page in open surprise. "I had the same problem! These colors," she tapped her finger against the colored pencil swatches, "you got a lot closer than I did."
"It was hard enough picking colors from memory, but when I looked online other people had the same issue. Even official photos looked... really blurry." He shook his head with a huff. "It's annoying. Like, we all know what they look like - but nobody can remember the finer details."
"It's just weird," Rose sighed.
"I mean, I guess it's a good thing..." Juleka shrugged her shoulders loosely. "I'd feel really bad if people started harassing them just because they figured out who they were."
The little group murmured agreements.
"It's... weird," Alya murmured, echoing Rose's words. "Why can nobody figure out who they are? Is it related to the magic? And if their faces really are being distorted... who could they be, really?"
Alix had been quiet for a few moments, but soon her eyes snapped over to Alya's. "Don't."
"Huh?"
"I know what you're gonna try to do, and I'm telling you right now that it's a bad idea."
The dark-haired girl raised her hands in defense. "I'm not seriously gonna try and figure out who they are, I'm just thinking! I mean c'mon, what if it could be someone we know?"
Rose shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, while Juleka folded her arms.
"It is a nice thought," the little blonde admitted, "that they might be someone we're friends with."
"But what if they were someone we hated?" Juleka challenged.
Slowly, all eyes fell on Chloe, up in the front.
For a moment, they seemed to really consider it.
Then Alix snorted a derisive laugh. "No chance in hell. I wouldn't pick Chloe to be a superhero even if she was the only choice in Paris."
"Alix, that's not nice," Rose murmured, though her pinched expression betrayed the same thoughts.
"I mean seriously, she's been making our lives a living nightmare for years now. She could never be Ladybug - Ladybug is way too nice!" The skater threw her hands in the air.
"You've got a point," Alya hummed.
"And we're back to square one," Nathanael murmured to himself, flipping back to the page he was previously working on.
Humming quietly, Alya looked back to the front of the room. While Chloe was a bad choice for Ladybug, who knew who Cat Noir could be? He was mischievous, fun, sneaky - yet he seemed competent in his abilities so far. Ladybug treated him with a fond exasperation during fights, and he seemed to take her lighthearted barbs in stride.
Her eyes strayed to where Adrien and Felix were sitting quietly, working on their homework. The matching rings on their hands made her take pause. What was Cat Noir's Miraculous, anyway? It couldn't be the staff, nor the bell, nor the ears - like Adrien had mentioned, it had to be the ring on his hand. But people wore rings all the time, right? She'd seen Juleka's older brother wear some once or twice.
Yet what were the odds...?
The more she looked at them, the more puzzled she got. It didn't make sense. None of this made any sense.
Adrien glanced over his shoulder for a second, and the smile he cast her made her suddenly dizzy.
What was the truth...? What were Ladybug and Cat Noir, anyway...?
"Alya?" Rose startled as the girl stumbled back against her, and she held her up with a worried look to Juleka.
"Whoa, careful," Alix helped her steady the bespectacled girl. "You good?"
"Uh... ah, yeah," she responded dizzily, cupping a hand over her forehead. "Sorry, I- I don't know what happened. I think I blacked out for a second."
Juleka glanced over at the boys in the front, but Adrien was occupied with his work again.
"What were we talking about?" Alya asked, blinking rapidly as her vision cleared.
Alix's lips pursed into a line. "Oh, we were just talking about... y'know, the akuma attacks that have been happening lately. You said something about trying to start a blog to make people more aware of them?"
Alya paused for a second. A disquieted, confused frown spread across her face, but was gone as soon as it appeared. "Oh yeah!" Her eyes lit up. "I wanted to run some design ideas past you guys real quick..."
A/N: Oh Alya, the can of worms you're opening.
(I can't remember which one it was, but I was very inspired by a fic's idea that the Miraculous intentionally distorts their user's identifying features when used, which would make a lot of sense as to why nobody figured out who Ladybug and Cat were for the entire show. It's probably more common of a thing than I'm thinking, but I can only remember one going into depth about it.)
I also like the idea that the Miraculous (or rather, the Kwami) intentionally dissuades people from attempting to figure out the Users' identities by causing temporary temporal disturbances to nudge them away from it (like causing a brief dizzy spell so they forget what they were thinking about before). We need more cool effects of the Miraculous, man.
Anyway, lore ramblings aside, let me know what you thought!