(Content warning: blood, but like, not in a violent or gore-y way)

Marinette stared at the drop of scarlet on the white jacket she'd been sewing in complete and utter bafflement. A beat later she became conscious of something streaming down her face.

"Gah!" She dropped the garment and pushed back from the desk just in time.

Tikki was already there. "I told you not to stress yourself out," she chastised, holding up a tissue.

"I - is my noe bleeing?" She asked. It came out funny because the tissue Tikki was pressing to her face stuck to her tongue. Blegh. Blood and paper, double yuck! "Tikki?"

The kwami in question ignored her, nudging her head back, making shushing noises, and generally looking far too understanding.

"Tikki."

The kwami twisted guiltily in the air. "This is another one of those ladybug traits I've been telling you about," she admitted.

"Nose bleeds?" Marinette asked in disbelief.

Tikki actually giggled. The audacity! "Ladybugs don't have noses, but they do bleed toxic substances from their joints when they need to scare away predators. It's called reflex bleeding."

Marinette groaned. "This is the most useless superpower ever."

Marinette banged her head against the bathroom mirror. She had to settle for banging the back of her head, because the front was currently dripping blood everywhere.

Worst. Superpower. Ever.

Alya – sweet, supportive, Alya – was already there, holding out fresh paper towels. Marinette should have been grateful to have such a good friend, but at that moment all she could feel was exasperation that she was hiding in a bathroom when she should have been preparing for her date with Adrien (with Alya and Nino, at the Zoo, but still! Hanging out with Adrien!)

Marinette finally noticed that Alya could barely breath she was trying so hard not to laugh.

"What?"

"Girl… You really do have it bad. I never thought I'd see this outside of anime," she crowed.

Marinette's cheeks flushed, and unless she was imagining it, the gushing redoubled. Alya finally succumbed to her giggles.

"It's not like that!" Marinette insisted.

"Sure it isn't, girl."

3 hours later

Ladybug stared at the giant T-Rex head protruding from the city-bus-briefly-turned-makeshift-cage.

Okay, scrap that plan.

"Hey!" Chat Noir shouted, as the massive dinosaur freed itself from the bus and loomed over them. "Since when do extinct animals count?"

Ladybug grabbed his wrist. "Run, before we go extinct!"

The dinosaur lunged, and the miraculous super duo sprinted out of the way, taking cover behind a car while Animan's face was buried in the pavement.

"Lucky Charm!"

Out of a shower of sparks and lights that Animan miraculously didn't notice, a car jack appeared in her arms.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Ladybug wondered.

"Maybe if you stand on it, you can make yourself look bigger and scare him away!"

"Ha, ha." Chat Noir was always cracking jokes at her height, even though 164 cm was the exact average height for French women, and quite tall for a ladybug.

"I have a better idea – do you remember Meet the Robinsons?"

Immediately, Chat pulled in his arms in an imitation of a T-Rex and said in a deep voice, "I have a big head, and little arms." He flailed his forearms around.

"Exactly! Use that to your advantage and make a distraction, then I'll floor him!"

"Sounds like a good plan! I can be very – distracting."

He waggled his eyebrows. She shoved him away.

ROAARRGHGHH!

"Eep!"

They sprung away from their hiding place milliseconds before it was crushed like a tin can.

Chat Noir jumped onto the T-Rex's head and began running up and down his spine, stabbing his baton into soft spots and generally making a nuisance of himself. Animan thrashed and waved his stubby claws around, but it must have been true that dinosaurs had pea-sized brains, because it didn't occur to him to shift into a more agile animal.

Ladybug swung her yoyo low and circled around and around-

"Now!" She tugged the yoyo string tight, and Chat Noir jumped ship. The tyrannosaurus rex came crashing down onto the pavement.

The two superheroes surveyed the toppled tyrannosaurus from a safe distance. Ladybug still held the car jack in her arms.

"Well, that's weird that we didn't have to use this," she said, looking down at the lucky charm. "What could it mean?"

Chat was unconcerned. "I guess it only means we rock as a team," he said, already strolling towards the T-Rex.

Ladybug saw Animan's eyes swivel towards them. His jaw loosened almost imperceptibly.

She gasped. "Chat, wait!" She tugged him back by the tail just before Animan's teeth gnashed shut. They couldn't get close to the Akumatized object on the dinosaur's bony wrist as long as those massive jaws were free.

"I know what to do with this now," she said, shifting her grip on the car jack.

She charged it head on. "Hey! Pea-brain!"

The T-rex roared. Ladybug leaped.

It was dark inside the dinosaur's mouth. Dark and very wet. There wasn't room enough to stand.

Little shafts of light made it past the dinosaur's crooked teeth. That was all Ladybug had time to notice before the ground rolled up beneath her – a giant slimy tongue trying to swallow her whole!

"Oh no you don't!" She threw up her arms and pushed, wedging herself in place like a column. With one knee, she caught the car jack before it could disappear down the dinosaur's throat.

Just as she was wondering how even she would manage to extend the car jack while preventing herself from being swallowed by a carnivore the size of townhouse, he stopped trying to swallow her.

Ladybug didn't stop to question it. She righted the car jack and started pumping the lever; it quickly reached the roof of the dinosaur's mouth. The massive tongue underfoot started moving again, but this time in the opposite direction, like he was trying to spit her out.

"That won't work either big guy," she thought, but did not say, because she could feel something wet running down her face, and the last thing she wanted to do was open her mouth.

The jaw creaked open. And a good thing it was too; it smelled revolting inside the mouth of the dinosaur.

The T-Rex thrashed his head around, but Ladybug went right on pumping the car jack, until his jaw could open no wider.

She hopped out.

Animan was shaking his head wildly and making gagging noises, but his teeth were no longer a hazard.

Ladybug dodged and broke off the akumatized bracelet no problem.

"Time to de-evilize!"

"Bye-bye little butterfly."

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

And then the day was saved.

She held up a fist for her partner. "Pound i- oof!" She wasn't expecting him to hug her.

"Milady," Chat said tenderly. And then he abruptly pulled back. Probably because she smelled like 65 million years' worth of bad morning breath.

"Wh-" Chat started to say, looking at his hands and at her "Are you okay!?"

"Yeah, I'm fiii-ine? Oh shit, yikes."

It was hard to notice, what with her bright red suit, but Ladybug was covered in blood, or something.

She was what smelled rancid. It wasn't the dino breath, it was the blood-or-something seeping out of her suit. Out of her joints? Ewww, this was a thousand times worse than the nose bleeds. No wonder Animan had tried to spit her out. And she'd gotten some on Chat! This stuff wasn't poisonous, right? It was just nasty-tasting, right?

"IpromiseI'mfineandI'lltellyoulaterkaybye!" She word-vomited like the total dorkasaurus she was, and then she zipped away.

"Okay, so it has it's uses, occasionally, I guess." Marinette admitted later, toweling her hair dry after her second shower. Did she have perfume anywhere? She could really use some perfume right now. And maybe a jambon-beurre—she was famished. "But like, how many of the previous Ladybugs ever jumped into the mouth of a tyrannosaurus rex?"

"None," Tikki said, swallowing a piece of shortbread. "But there was an incident with a vampire once."

They met at their usual spot on the Eiffel Tower that night. As soon as he saw her, Chat Noir ran up and hugged her. It was a much gentler hug than she was used to receiving from him, almost as if she were a delicate macaron he was afraid of handling.

"Ladybug!" He pulled away, scanning her for injuries. "Are you okay? You're not bleeding anymore?"

"No, no – I'm fine. I wasn't really bleeding. I mean, there was blood, and it came out of me, but I wasn't bleeding-bleeding."

Chat Noir gave her a wtf look.

"It's like… this weird ladybug thing. A defense mechanism to ward off predators. I bleed when I'm stressed now, it's super annoying, I don't really want to go into detail."

"So… just to be clear, you weren't hurt and the akuma didn't bite you?"

"No, I was just 'reflex bleeding.'" She huffed, and her bangs flew up. "Don't you have any feline side-effects to deal with?"

Chat Noir still looked worried, but his shoulders had relaxed a little.

"Well, now that you mention it, I've become a pretty cool cat since I got my miraculous."

"Chaaat," she whined, though she couldn't help but smile. He smiled back.

"Alright, yes, I also have weird cat behaviors now."

"Go on."

Chat paused to think about it. "You already know about the purring, right? But what you don't know is that I also do it in civilian form."

"You purr?" The look on Ladybug's face was pure delight.

"Well, I hum. When I'm really happy, or really stressed."

"I'd take humming over nose bleeds any day."

"Oof, yeah," He agreed. He briefly imagined what his father would do if he started bleeding all over the latest Agreste designs. Probably order Nathalie to arrange for a dry cleaner and reschedule the photo shoot session, which would inevitably end up on one of the few days he had plans to hang with Nino.

"I also keep finding myself fantasizing about boxes," he said.

"You do not."

"I do! Most of the time the boxes I find are too small for me. Ooh! Except for this one time, when I stayed after school for fen-" Ladybug shot him a warning look "-nntastic extracurricular activities that I am in," he saved. Nice. "There was no one in the locker room, so I just… curled up in my locker for fun, and I fit perfectly. It was great."

Ladybug laughed so hard she snorted.

"Hey! It was really satisfying!" Chat Noir pretended to defend himself, grinning broadly. "I would 10/10 recommend trying it sometime, milady."

Ladybug leaned into his side. "We ladybugs prefer snuggling to crawling into holes."

"Cats enjoy snuggling too." He wrapped his arm around her. They sat like that a while, watching over the twinkling city of Paris below.

"Promise me you won't jump into any dinosaur jaws again?" He asked eventually.

"I'll do my best to avoid it, kitty cat."