A/N:Most chapters will be once a week, but gosh darn it I couldn't help myself this time! I also decided that I would release the podfic chapters with each update, so you can choose whether to read or listen! These audio versions are on my AO3 (you shouldn't need an account to access).

Song rec: Too Sweet by Hozier

When Claw Noir showed up at the birth of Adrien and Shay's daughter to warn them that the Supreme was getting suspicious, Marinette had agreed to join him in his fight to free the other Paris from the cloud of destruction it had been under. He'd given Marinette one month to get everything together, knowing that she would need time to prepare.

For Marinette, the month that followed passed much too quickly. She had spent all the time she could with Shay, learning everything about the world she was about to go into.

One evening while the three of them were in Adrien and Shay's living room, Claw Noir stepped out through a portal.

He took one look around at them before scowling. "Where's the baby roach?"

Marinette bristled, but Shay just rolled her eyes. "She's sleeping, Fleabag. You better not fucking wake her up."

Claw huffed but walked closer, meeting Marinette's eyes only briefly before stopping in front of Shay. "Before I go through all this trouble to save our world, do you have time to tell me more about what the hell happened over here while you were gone?"

Shay sighed but moved over on the couch, getting closer to Adrien as she patted the seat next to her. "Fine. Sit."

Adrien glanced at Marinette before focusing back on Shay. "Do you want us to give you some space?"

"No, it's fine. You both know it all anyway."

Shay began her tale, summarizing her journey starting with her self-loathing that had resulted in staying transformed for long enough to cause her body to suffer. She hit a low point when she found out she was pregnant and thought she had managed to drag Adrien down into her own struggles, trying to remove herself from the equation and leaving. Thanks in part to Claw and Adrien both, it hadn't worked, and she'd returned, trying to get into a better spot.

Finally, she ended the story with their defeat of Shadow Moth.

Shay slowed down at the final reveal. "Claw, you need to know. In this world, Shadow Moth…" She paused, her hand finding Adrien's leg beside her and squeezing. "He was Adrien's father. Which means…" She trailed off again, hesitating to finish the thought.

Stepping in, Marinette said. "Hesperia could be yours."

Marinette expected it to be taken as good news. Instead, Claw tensed up. "What? No. Not possible."

"Claw," Shay said, her words firm but her eyes soft. "Adrien, you need to look into it. Everyone else has been the same on both sides so far. In this room, at least."

The words startled him, a reminder that she now knew his identity. He didn't seem to know what to do with that.

Then his expression steeled up. "Fine," he snapped, his voice louder than before.

A cry started up in another room, echoing through the small monitor that was placed on the side table.

Claw Noir's frustration fell away, replaced by a wince. "Sorry," he whispered. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Any signs of his inner turmoil disappeared in an instant as he stood up and turned to Marinette with a casual expression. "You ready to go, Little Bug?"

She turned to hug Adrien and Shay one last time. "Keep the miracle box safe for me. Hopefully I won't be gone too long on this side." With Bunnilark's ability to pass through not only universes, but also time, it seemed like a reasonable request that Marinette be brought back to roughly the same time period.

Assuming they were successful, of course.

But Marinette tried not to think in such pessimistic ways, so she turned away, following Claw through the portal once more into another world.

Bunnilark's portal placed them in a dark room. Marinette's eyes were slow to adjust to the light, but as they did, she realized they were in a rather small entryway.

Before she could ask where they were, Claw turned to her, his face illuminated by the dim light from the porch outside. "Alright, listen. The first thing we need to do is get you ready to get out there to see the Supreme so he'll get off my ass. Can you transform and make yourself look like Shadybug?"

Marinette took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing. It had been something she'd practiced over the past few weeks, not an easy feat as the magic wasn't always exact. But in the end, she'd managed a close enough approximation.

She felt the anger and the rage blossom within, flowing through her to settle in her bones and fuel her disguise. "Tikki, Spots On!"

After her transformation fell into place, Claw marched around her, his eyes narrowed as he inspected her work. "Passable, I suppose. Now, how about your impression of her?"

Marinette grimaced. Unfortunately, she had spent most of her time focused on the transformation itself, as well as learning what she could about what Shay knew. She hadn't exactly mastered trying to act like Shay. But surely it couldn't be too hard, right? She'd been around the woman enough over the past several months.

"I should be fine."

Claw raised his eyebrows. "Well, that was a fail. Try again."

"What?" Marinette spluttered out. "No, that wasn't my impression."

"Still terrible," he said, a hint of a grin appearing on his face as he leaned casually against the wall.

Marinette narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, shut up."

He let out a long sigh. "Is that really the best you can do? We might as well give up now."

After grinding her teeth together for a moment, she finally snapped back, "No wonder Shadybug is the way she is, with an asshole like you as a partner."

His grin fell fully into place. "There we go. That was good."

Marinette's glare immediately dropped away as she smiled, a hint of pink appearing beneath her mask. "Yeah?"

He rolled his eyes. "God, living in that bakery of yours over there has made you too fucking sweet. We need to work on that if you're going to convince anyone."

Marinette's smile fell away as the stubbornness rose within her. "I know Shay well enough. We're both similar at our core—it's just living in this place that's given her some rough edges." She walked over to the door, peering out through the small pane of glass in the center. "Just thinking about this world and everything its citizens have been put through makes me angry enough to channel her all on its own. She went through so much. I'm sure you have too." When she turned her head back, Claw's face had gone neutral. He didn't respond, so she continued. "I'll handle the Supreme. And I'll do a kickass job of it, just you watch." Striding up to him, she shoved her finger against his chest. "I'm good at being Ladybug. I make plans, and I carry them out. So yes, I'll succeed at convincing the Supreme that I'm her. They're counting on me. You're counting on me. There is no. Other. Option."

Silence followed her little speech, until Claw's expression cracked. "You know what? I believe you." He let out a harsh laugh, the edges tinted with surprise as he turned away. "Fuck—" He laughed again, running a hand through the emerald spikes of his hair. His eyes met hers, and something flashed briefly from within them. Before Marinette could try and understand what he was thinking, however, he composed himself, leaning back against the wall. "Well alright, Sweetness, so what's our plan?"

A light suddenly clicked on, pressed unintentionally from beneath Claw's arm on the wall.

Ignoring his question to gaze curiously at the rest of the home—apartment?—the first thing she noticed was how much of a mess it was.

Empty take-out containers and other clutter littered the surfaces, and clothing was strewn about on the floor and the couch. The space seemed very cramped, more so than she would have expected for Adrien Agreste.

"Is...this your place?" she asked, a note of skepticism in her tone.

Claw grunted, clearly irritated, though he didn't bother to turn the light back off. "Yeah, so what? What's the problem?"

She met his eyes, her own calculating. A thought had suddenly occurred to her at the sight of his living situation, worry niggling through her. "Are you taking care of yourself, Claw?"

Confusion bled through his response. "Yeah? What, my apartment is messy and you think that means I'm not—"

"Shay always said she was fine," she interrupted, "and look what she was hiding. She had no civilian life over here. How do I know you aren't in the same boat as she was, Adrien?"

The sound of his real name seemed to startle him. Then he scowled at her before abruptly dropping his transformation.

The Adrien Agreste that appeared was unlike the one she knew, though his features remained familiar. The same green eyes narrowed on her, the same mouth curled up, but in a different expression from what she was used to on her own version. His blonde hair was longer, more unkempt. She was also reminded that he was older than her Adrien, who was 19. According to Claw, not as much time had passed on this side as it had for Shadybug. So that left him around 22, if she had the math correct.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. "There. Happy?"

As Marinette took him in, she decided he looked healthy enough on the outside, unlike Shay had been.

But inside? She wasn't quite sure. She got the feeling that he really wasn't all that happy himself.

It was something to add to her mental list of tasks to accomplish while here.

She pursed her lips. "I suppose."

He transformed again, though Marinette ignored him, dropping her own transformation as she walked beyond him into the apartment proper. She heard him mutter something about a 'nosy bug,' but he didn't follow her.

She had been right in her initial assessment, something she determined as she turned the corner. It really was small. "Did you choose this place?"

Claw's arms crossed as he continued to lean against the wall. "Yep."

"Hmm." She contemplated how to ask what she wanted without sounding terrible. "Are you...struggling?"

He scoffed. "No. I just don't care about where I live. This place works."

Curious, Marinette leaned against the arm of the couch in the cramped living room. "Are you a model?"

His mouth slowly curved into a smirk. "How flattering that you think I'm good-looking enough to be one."

Flustered, Marinette fell over her words. "I'm not— that's not why—" She cut herself off with a huff, glaring at his smug face. "The Adrien in my world is one, so I just figured you would be as well."

His smugness grew an edge to it. "No. I'm not a model anymore. Used to be when I was a kid, but I quit early on."

Unable to keep her curiosity contained, she asked a follow up question. "So what do you do, then?"

"Nothing important," he said, not bothering to elaborate. Before she could keep digging, however, he sighed. "Alright, enough about me. What is our plan for the Supreme?"

Marinette took a moment to watch him carefully, wondering if she could get more out of him. Finally she took a breath and stood up to join him, admitting that there were other, more important things to focus on at the moment. "Do we need to go to him right now? Or can it wait until tomorrow?"

He thought it over for a minute. "I think we might be okay. But we can't wait too long."

"I think we need to try and meet up with Hesperia first."

Claw tensed up, his eyes tightening. "No."

Marinette could guess the reason for his stubbornness. "Listen, Claw, I know it must have been a shock to find out he might be your father. But if he is the head of the resistance here, we have to join up with him. The only way we can win this thing is with allies on our side."

Groaning, Claw said, "Do we really have to defeat the Supreme? Can't we just hold him off or something? And then, I don't know, get the fuck out of here and go back to your world? Seems better over there, anyway." A bitter edge had crept into his voice as he avoided her gaze. "I don't know what Shade told you, but I'm not a hero. I told her I would join the other side if she asked me to, but she's over there. What's even the point of saving this place if she's already safe and out of the Supreme's reach?"

Marinette could see the darkness swarming around him like a cloud. She kept her voice soft as she responded. "We can't leave everyone vulnerable over here, Claw. I'm not going back until I've figured out a way to free those here that are suffering. But I won't stop you if you need to leave. Is that what you want?"

Claw turned his glare on her. "I'm not leaving you here to do it all yourself." Then he sighed, the tension within him suddenly disappearing as though a string had been cut. "Alright, fine. But I'm not telling my father who I am. Not that I could, even if I wanted to, due to the Supreme's damn rule." Before Marinette could ask more about what rule he was talking about, something shifted in Claw's gaze as he relaxed further and took a step into the living room to lean against the wall near her. "You know, I could use an incentive for being forced to play nice with someone I hate."

"You hate your father?"

"Oh yeah." He didn't rise to her bait to elaborate, however, merely continuing to encroach into her personal space. "Well?"

Marinette folded her arms. "What, do you want a cookie? I am a pretty decent baker."

"Nah," he drawled, looming above her. "I'm thinking something sweeter. Like, I don't know...a kiss?"

"Oh my God, Claw," She reached up and flicked his nose, causing him to jerk back with a whine. "You really are just like Chat." Except Claw seemed to be purposefully trying to rile her up, a hint of amusement in his gaze that belied the bold ask. Marinette moved past him towards the door. "Quit messing around, we have a job to focus on."

Behind her, Claw sighed dramatically before following her outside.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Would love to hear what you think!