It turned out though, never was an awfully short time for her, and Marinette's curiosity about Paon overcame her that night. Googling his name came up with interviews from Nadja Chamack, Reddit forums supporting him, and even merch with his stupid, smirking face on it. The new supervillain had been around for a few months and there were already talks of adding him to the third installment of the Ladybug and Chat Noir animated movie series.
Marinette shut down her computer before she could get any more frustrated. She'd stick to her Adrien Agresete interviews and commercials, thank you very much.
"Marinette, maybe Ladybug should just hear him out," Alya said at lunch the next day, interrupting Marinette's rant about Paon.
"I'm with Alya," Adrien added, perhaps a little too quickly. The issue of Paon v Ladybug had staunchly divided the school, with Adrien and Nino pro-Paon and Alya and Marinette pro-Ladybug. Chloe was neutral on the issue - she hates Ladybug but Paon's design was just a fashion atrocity - but most other classmates fell on one side or the other. Thankfully, the fellow miraculous holders (Rose, Juleka, Mylene, Kim, Zoe, and Max) were all team Ladybug, but she knew Mylene and Ivan had gotten into a huge fight over whether Ladybug was being too hard on a guy who just thought he was doing the right thing.
"He's just a teen like us," Nino chimed in, as sympathetic as always. "Maybe he doesn't know what he's gotten himself into."
"Well…" Adrien trailed off, thinking delicately about what he was going to say, "it might be a bit of that, but I think the ideas he proposes would actually be good. What do you think, Marinette?"
Marinette flinched as the table turned to her, Adrien's eyes a little too focused on her response.
"Um, I mean, the ideas are certainly ideas?" She grimaced. Her crush for Adrien had faded quite a bit upon learning he was pro-Paon, but she'd be lying if she said her stomach still didn't do flips when he looked at her like that.
"Marinette refuses to watch even a single one of his interviews." Alya rolled her eyes and shoved Marinette's side lightly. Both Alya and Tikki had been bugging her about it since the interviews premiered, but Marinette was adamantly against seeing them. They were hard to avoid, but Marinette would sprint past stores showing them on television, blocked the YouTube videos on her phone, and even asked her parents to stop watching the news when she was in the room.
"Oh, come on, Mari! How is that even possible?" Nino asked, laughing.
"I guess I'm just not obsessed with him like you guys are."
In truth, Marinette was a little obsessed, in her typical Marinette way. Determined to figure out his identity, she compared the times he showed up to school schedules in town, pictures of public events on social media, and even possible sports tournaments he could be involved in.
She was able to narrow down the list to approximately 12,567 Parisian boys who could be Paon.
On her own, her research got her nowhere. But to defeat him, to save Paris, she had to know him.
It's why when Adrien slid up next to her to show her the interview she didn't complain, or close her eyes, or push him away. She watched as Paon slid on that red couch she and Chat Noir had sat on so many times. She listened as he enthusiastically went on about how he wanted to help, and how all four miraculous would be returned to the guardian after he unified and wished for a better Paris. She noticed the glint in his green eyes, that big smile, and that feeling of honesty in the way he spoke.
He was still naive in the power of the unification of the miraculous - no one wish could pull off everything he was hoping to accomplish - but, despite Marinette not wanting to believe it, he seemed to be speaking the truth. She couldn't say the same about Hawkmoth, but Paon did genuinely want to be good.
The problem was, Marinette couldn't risk the miraculouses on a gut feeling. There was a reason unification had never happened, and the bigger the wish the bigger the consequences.
When asked whether a better world was worth risking all of Paris, the answer was obvious to both Marinette and Adrien.
It just wasn't the same answer.