The heart wants what the heart wants,
and what it wants is fire.

Pay attention to the temperature of each epigraph in context of Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice".

—excerpted from "Pyromania", Diane Lockward

Story and chapter titles are from "River Lies" by Seanan McGuire.

She leans up to kiss him under the starry Paris sky, above the glowing city night. She leans up to kiss him, gentle but confident, lovingly and without reservation, everything he's ever dreamed of—except he can smell her, sweet lavender and bitter rosemary: he knows he's awake. She leans up to kiss him, her warm hands caressing his arms and a glint off the gloss on her lips, and she hasn't said a word of why—what is different about this place or this time, about him or—

A more prosaic image description of the story-sparking art by alliando: the background of this four-panel comic is a starry night sky, glowing from below with city lights.

—about her.

1: Ladybug kisses Chat Noir. Not much of her face is visible, but half of his is: he looks surprised and upset.

"Stop it!" he cries, pushing her away. He can't—he can't look, he—his heart, like ice. Like ice shattering. How can she have—what did he miss? How did he fail to protect her? How could he?

2: Chat Noir pushes her away, looking down (in multiple senses), saying "Stop it!"

Ladybug's smirk isn't even vicious. Wouldn't even look vicious without the nightmarish argon glow outlining a butterfly mask.

3: Ladybug, front view of her smirking face, with a purple butterfly outline hovering before her eyes. A closer look shows that her lips are shiny, as though she's wearing lip gloss. "…What's wrong?" she asks.

"What's wrong, Chat?"

4: Chat Noir, front view of his despairing face as Ladybug finishes her sentence with "…Chat."

and a hunk of armor crashes down
like a tower. Fire against metal.
A poet might say: romance against banality.
When awake I know better.

I'm trying to have every mention of fire, water, or temperature throughout this story do at least two things at once. In the epigraphs, it's setting the emotional temperature of the chapter, as well as whatever the poet intended; it's also worth reading the full poem from which each epigraph is drawn.

—excerpted from "The Loneliness of the Military Historian", Margaret Atwood
 

 

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home—
Your house is on fire, your loved ones will burn!

This is not meant to be subtle.

—adapted from an English nursery rhyme, author unknown

Ladybug hurtles southwest along the rooftops, glance whipping every which way. Adrien trudges southwest along the street, hands in his pockets and head downcast, toying with his Marinette lucky charm and hoping—

Of course the charm is in his pocket. Where else?

She drops to the pavement before him. Adrien jolts: she draws his attention as she always does, magnetic. "Adrien!" she says, sounding startled. "What are you doing out so late? And no coat—" Adrien shrugs one shoulder and opens his mouth; Ladybug shakes her head. "No, listen, there's an akuma—I have to get you to safety," she says, scooping him up bridal carry before he can protest and taking off northwest. "And then catch up with Chat Noir; did you see where he went?"

Adrien being out without a coat is something one might not pick up on first read as indicating it's cold out—it is; I was pulling from TimeAndDate.com weather data and sun/moon data for 2020 January 29 and 30, and it wasn't much above freezing that night—but one might indeed notice that, and observe that Adrien doesn't notice the cold. Not yet.

Well done, Adrien observes, thoughts as jostled as he is: being jounced across the rooftops, held tightly enough he can only see behind her and even that is one-eyed (his other can barely see anything but the triaxial weave of her armor), is distressingly disconcerting in and of itself. Well phrased: not one word rings false. Anyone else she said this to, anyone who didn't know what he knows, would rely on what they know of Ladybug to lie to themselves.

 

"He was going southwest," Adrien tells her. "I didn't know he was chasing anyone."

Chat Noir was not in fact chasing anyone.

That's a game two can play.

 

"Why aren't you home, though?" Ladybug asks, and launches her yo-yo to anchor them for a leap across a street.

 

It doesn't connect right. They have a lot of momentum and Adrien wholly trusts his partner not to let them pancake on a wall or crash through a window but it is viscerally clear they will.

Hmm, I wonder what might have startled Firebug so badly, only a few seconds after the first time either she or Hawkmoth knows of that she saw Adrien while akumatized…

They don't—she casts the yo-yo midair and it catches, holds, swings them up; she lands them on the next roof and keeps running—but no one could possibly blame him for taking a moment to collect himself before answering.

I love this line for the synecdoche of it: one small instance of Marinette recovering from a blow that should have flattened her irrecoverably, serving to illustrate the greater pattern of exactly this.

And that was not a shriek, squawk, or squeal that she heard. Absolutely not.

It was.

"I got restless," Adrien tells her. "I…hurt a friend earlier." He doesn't know why, or how, or how not to do it again; he is only bitterly grateful it wasn't she who got akumatized. It would be better, easier, safer to fight her than his lady, but even so, his traitorous heart is glad. "I've been trying to figure out how to make it up to her." Every word he says to her lately comes out wrong somehow: she hears his praise as insults, his compliments as lies, and he doesn't know why. "But I'm drawing blanks," ha, ha, ha, "so I came out to clear my head."

How could Adrien know encouraging Marinette to spend more time on her artistic dreams would go wrong? He couldn't, without knowing about the crucial demand on her time.

Ladybug nods. "We have to get you home," she says. "It's not safe."

 

Adrien doesn't protest.

 

She vaults the entry gate and sets Adrien down just inside the courtyard wall. "Stay here," she says, with a nervous glance at the roof. "Stay safe, stay out of sight—I can't let you get hurt, but I can't get distracted by trying to keep you safe, either."

When in English dub she says she can't be in love with Chat Noir, in French dub I understand she's saying she is not in love with Chat Noir. This is much less interesting than I had hoped, while writing this fic knowing that English 'can' is used to mean both 'able to' and 'allowed to' and while understanding that French has no such ambiguity. (Apparently 'pouvoir' does, though. This is what I get for trusting English-language sources.)

Any other day, Adrien would have served her his own heart, grilled with shallots and vinaigrette, if he thought it would mean she'd look at him this tenderly.

 

"I can't," Ladybug pleads. "Not tonight. Stay safe, do you understand me?"

Here, 'can't' is 'not allowed to'. I expect the phrasing in French sounds like she isn't allowing herself to—which is even true, if not the whole truth—but phrasing it thus in English invites the question, who is not allowing her to? Hawkmoth, obviously, but the next question is, why does he care?

"Yeah," Adrien answers, and—she is your sweetheart, he remembers Giuseppe telling him of Margot (or was it Marie or Madeleine?): look at her, look how she tells you how she loves you—and he smiles blushingly down at her. "I understand."

 

He understands perfectly.

 

Ladybug waits on the steps: Adrien glances back before opening the front door, then, reluctantly, lets it latch behind him, the indoor warmth no comfort. Nathalie opens the door from the atelier, phone to her ear; Adrien rushes upstairs to find a window to watch Ladybug go, only half noticing Nathalie saying "Adrien's home, sir. —Sir, if you do not take the aspirin yourself, I will force it down your throat."

Reader, she did not. I think he came down and took it himself, but I can't rule out that he lied to her and said he had when he hadn't, because he wasn't about to exist while transformed in the main part of the house while Adrien was (supposedly) home.

Father must be feeling dizzy, or short of breath, or a purely literal heartache. Nathalie cares more about his heart health than Father does. Ordinarily, so does Adrien; he cannot care about it at all, not tonight. He may regret that later: knowing why Maman—left—and knowing how much she would have cared if she'd known to care, he knows he might regret that later—but—

Funny as it is to remark that Gabriel is not heartless, just heart-diseased, conflating the figurative and literal senses here does have an ableist effect. I won't claim I succeded in mitigating that, but disability and ableism are important enough themes in my life that I wanted to handle those themes in this story with the complexity and nuance they deserve.

"—I understand," says Nathalie, "and we can postpone tomorrow's discussion with M^e Pascal and Mme Khandakar if necessary, but as you yourself said five minutes ago, tonight is too important. Take the aspirin."

Master Pascal is a lawyer; 'Khandakar' is a Bangladeshi family name. I didn't bother to figure out either given name. (Or how anyone types the correct abbreviation of 'Maitre' when not using HTML.)

Ladybug vanishes behind a rooftop.

 

Plagg shoots out of hiding the moment Adrien's closed his bedroom door. Between his body type and his antigravity effect, Adrien's kwami can't do the spooky-cat pose that floods Adrien's Tumblr dash every October, but it's clear from his bottle-brush tail and the glints of tiny unsheathed claws that Plagg is just that spooked. "Tikki," he says. "I—"

 

"I know," Adrien says, unreliable knees sliding him down to the floor. His stomach keeps falling, falling, and he knows it's not the fall that kills you but— "Goddamn I fucked up, huh?"

 

Twenty-five thousand nine hundred thirteen—he still wakes often with the number ringing in his head, seconds ticking up to three hundred he dares not reach, before he remembers he doesn't need to count second chances anymore, before the calendar tells him it's not that two-month day anymore, before he spots Ladybug and feels the sunshine tell him she's all right—

I am worried about why Adrien knows the number of time loops in "Desperada" to five significant digits. Five.

Plagg turns away.

 

Adrien shoves himself back up and goes to get the chunk of Abbaye de Belloc he stashed, that Plagg either has eaten already or has been politely pretending he doesn't know it's there. It's the second: Adrien holds it out. "Here. I was saving this for a bribe," he admits, "but…"

 

Plagg hovers unmoving.

 

"Fair warning," Adrien adds, sitting slumped on the cold bed and dropping the cheese on the blanket beside him, "I'm allowing us thirty more seconds to wallow in desolation, and then we're fixing this."

 

They can't. They've lost.

This 'can't' is 'not able'.

Hawkmoth hasn't won. Not yet. He does not have Plagg and he does not have the ring. Adrien can ensure he never will. He has sneaked enough cash from the accounts his father co-owns to an account no one knows about that he can catch the train to London several times over, though once will do. The last train on that route runs about 21h, he thinks; they can be out of Paris in an hour or two. After that, who knows—but Hawkmoth can't enslave a kwami he can't find.

 

But Chat Noir protects. Ladybug rescues. Ladybug rescues, and it is Chat Noir's task before all else to ensure she can. To take the hits and attract the attention, to throw himself on the grenade if need be, to die or to be turned against her if that is what it takes to keep her alive and free to rescue.

 

He's failed her. Chat Noir has failed and Ladybug has lost.

 

Adrien should worry about what will happen now, with Tikki forced to dance to Hawkmoth's tune as Nooroo has been: Nooroo, whose wielder lent Ondine the power to drown all of Paris and Aurore the power to lever the earth out of orbit, and Tikki, whose wielder then—and Tikki's power, like Plagg's, is a deafening waterfall, when she herself wields it; it is Ladybug who can direct it, as a fire hose or a water pistol—

 

His mind spooks at the thought, yowling, cat spine arched: it bolts, clawing at the inside of his skull to get away from the idea of Tikki and Nooroo pulling in harness under the crack of Hawkmoth's whip.

I am still so pleased with this line.

Ladybug will never bump his fist in victory again.

 

Ladybug, who would not hesitate to free him if he were akumatized. Ladybug, who would act to retake Plagg if he were taken.

 

(Ladybug, who has been telling him he takes nothing seriously, and that's why she only considers kissing him when it's of tactical value or she's not herself—)

She hasn't told him that last part.

Adrien lifts his head from his hands.

 

Ladybug will never do their victory fistbump again?

 

That is not an outcome he will allow.

 

Plagg looks up from the crumbs of Abbaye de Belloc on the blanket beside him.

 

"He won't want her to let on she's been akumatized," Adrien says. This isn't Heroes' Day, when Hawkmoth's strategy relied on exhausting them, terrifying the city, and exhausting them some more, and only once they were overwhelmed moving to take their Miraculouses. "Paris's trust in her is too valuable. She might say I have been, though. Or that I'm controlled again. No one," he adds bitterly, "will doubt that."

 

"So we're telling everyone first?" Plagg asks.

 

Shaking his head, Adrien gets out his phone. "Not everyone. I like Paris trusting my partner too. Just the person who's most at risk right now, next to you and me."

 

(Adrien's always labeled his phone contacts by relevance. Family, friends, and Nathalie are in by name alone; his bodyguard is under 'Gorille'. If he has the number of Margot or Marie or Madeleine, her first name is given as 'Model-Margot' or whatever. Tutors likewise, except he's not sure he knows more than two of their given names; Nathalie is otherwise categorized, and the other—)

 

Calling: Tutor-Mandarin Chén.

Canonically I don't think Adrien has Fù's contact information, but in May 2019 I had no reason to think he didn't.

"Hello, Adrien," says Master Fù.

 

"We're fucked," Adrien says, blunt like a murder weapon. "If she knows where to find you, grab your valuables and run."

 

"She may. Why?" How is this man always so blasted calm? "What has happened?"

 

Adrien shakes his head, though the call is audio-only. "Let's pray the butterfly got a hair ribbon. Do you know anything about our teammates?"

 

"Only the obvious." He is less easily heard: hopefully on speaker, using both hands to pack. "Do you need—"

 

"No." He doesn't know if Master Fù knows anyone's names but Ladybug's, Queen Bee's, and Chat Noir's own. It never occurred to Adrien to tell him Marinette's or Kagami's names himself, since Ladybug said Multimouse and Ryūko wouldn't be returning; nor Luka's, for fear Master Fù would let slip to Ladybug that Chat Noir knew Viperion was Luka and not Adrien; nor Alix's, since Bunnyx isn't even real yet. He could now, but—he is unaccountably nervous about saying more than the bare minimum aloud. Master Fù must know Carapace, Viperion, Pégase, and Roi Singe by sight, but that doesn't mean he knows their names or where to find them.

Behold the first spot at which I was really glad I wasn't publishing this story as I wrote it. where the firelight fades ended up being set the day of and the night before the episode "Ladybug", because it would have been a pain to rewrite for canon compliance if I were setting it after Scarlet Fever 2 (—look, they had to call the red butterfly storm on Heroes' Day something), and the original draft of this paragraph in particular was written before "Party Crasher" and "Ikari Gozen" aired.

Equally to the point, Chloé will most likely make things worse.

 

"Not yet," Adrien amends, because he'd rather work with Queen Bee, and far rather work with any of the others, than work alone, if he can't get Rena Rouge or Carapace or—

 

Carapace, who first appeared when Alya was in danger.

 

"I have an idea. I don't like it," Adrien clarifies, "because she knows them both and I don't."

 

Ladybug chose both Rena Rouge and Carapace, after all. Ladybug knew on Heroes' Day she'd find them inseparable. Ladybug corrected Chat Noir's assumption about Rena's pronouns before Rena themself had the nerve to take that public. Ladybug always seems to know when Carapace (or Rena, but more often Carapace) has another responsibility someone needs to cover before she can count on this help. They're both good teammates—competent, trustworthy, he wouldn't want to choose anyone else—but Ladybug is who knows their names.

 

"But," says Adrien, "it's worth a shot."

 

And he is painfully aware that only Ladybug's refusal to learn Chat Noir's name has kept Plagg safe this far. But it still feels like poison-laced secrets. Like distrust.

 

"Can you get to where we first met? Safely," Adrien emphasizes. "Unseen."

 

"I am on my way." Master Fù disconnects.

 

Adrien pockets his phone and grabs his school bag, dumping the nonessentials, which is to say, everything but the rainbow Camembert, the emergency Camembert, and a few more wheels of Camembert. "Okay, Plagg. Let's go."

 

"Claws staying in?" Plagg asks, suspicious.

 

"She can track my baton," Adrien reminds him, and snags a hoodie.

 

Alya's running along the lane, coat unzipped so they won't overheat, trying to focus on where they're going more than Nino's video call, but Ladybug's swinging him to where she told Alya to meet them both and that means hella shaky cam and more rushing-wind noise than words. It's all right, though, as long as Chat Noir doesn't see them, doesn't realize Rena Rouge is about to come take him down.

Another example of temperature references pulling double duty: it's a chilly January night, so of course Alya is wearing the coat appropriate to mild physical activity in these temperatures, but running is not mild physical activity. And they're angry and scared and trying to keep a cool head, figuratively as well as literally.

What is Paris going to do without its better hero? Ladybug asked, voice shrill and trembling. What could Hawkmoth do with either of our Miraculouses? I saw the butterfly, Alya—

She did. She very much did see the butterfly. And her opinion on which of Ladybug and Chat Noir is the better hero seems to vary depending on whether she's talking to or about him—which is what gives this sentence the flexibility it needs to imply he is the hero Paris is currently without, while truthfully stating that she is.

This will be the world's worst akuma fight.

 

They miss a call from an unknown number.

 

A text notification drops, hiding Nino's hat and hand:

 

Unknown: alya it's chat noir, urgent mission for ladyblogger

 

Unknown: lb got butterflied. tell paris i need rena rouge and carapace

 

—Okay, yes, if one of Paris's protectors gets akumatized, they will both say the other was, they will both call reinforcements, it won't be clear who to trust: that's—that's a strategic decision Hawkmoth could make.

 

Pretty good one, too.

 

Shit.

 

"Hey, Nino," Alya says, and maybe no little gods are listening right now—or, in the case of Ladybug's friend, able to act—but maybe a benevolent big God or two is. Zarenyen the Spider, maybe; seems He and Trixx might get along. "One of the labyrinth guards stabs people who ask tricky questions."

Zarenyen is, if I am understanding correctly, another name for Anansi like Jupiter is another name for Zeus. Which is to say, possibly the same Deity, possibly not. I couldn't find a specifically Martiniquan name; Zarenyen is Haitian. It is likely that the specifically Martiniquan name is in fact Anansi, Who was and is a West African deity before He became also a Caribbean deity thanks to the African diaspora (read: the Atlantic slave trade). Since the episode by this title suggests to me that Alya's older sibling is a nonbinary person whose chosen name is Anansi, I chose to borrow a Deity name from elsewhere in the Caribbean rather than deadname Alya's sibling.

Their left foot lands on their right shoelace, again, again. The knot loosens, loosens, sends them sprawling shoeless: their phone flies from their hand.

 

—Okay, shit, that hurt, but there's no time to tend the graveled, bleeding scrapes. Alya picks themself up, fixes their shoe, and sneaks over to their phone: the call was on the front-facing camera and it landed screen down. Good. They thumb the phone off, waiting to pick it up until they're sure it's shut down entirely. The screen's cracked, which will hit their wallet where it hurts if Ladybug can't fix it, but when they turn it on again, it works okay. There's a text waiting:

 

Nino 🎧: xkcd wtf?

"And over here we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask tricky questions."

Yes!

 

🗞 Alya: TRUST BUT VERIFY

 

Nino's going to be on his own for a bit, though. They tuck themself in the nearest out-of-the-way spot, switch on the do-not-disturb, and call the unknown number.

 

"Oh, good," says Chat Noir. He's jammed himself into a gray stone corner, pupils distressingly circular, cat ears upright and swiveling. "I hate to ask, Alya, I know you'll get floods of spam." His voice is rapid and trembling, where Ladybug's was steady and strong. "But I don't know how to reach Carapace or Rena without asking the whole world. And I don't want to say why," he adds. "Help."

 

Not asking the whole world? Easy. Getting Rena Rouge, Carapace, and whichever of Ladybug and Chat Noir is themself right now on the same page without the other one reading ahead?

 

Little harder.

 

"Just Rena Rouge and Carapace?" Alya asks. They know Chat Noir knows Queen Bee's name—he might have contacted Chloé already. He might not want to because Chloé is notorious for making him and Ladybug work harder than they need to. He might not want to because Venom can bring him down. They don't know if he knows any other heroes' names. "Not Queen Bee or—"

 

Chat Noir swallows back what might be a growl. "Not yet. Ladybug probably grabbed her most competent and trustworthy people first." Is their burning face pride at the commendation? Or shame because Alya knows they and Nino were convenient, not considered at length, and when they were first asked to give back Trixx's pendant, Alya almost hadn't? Good thing he can't see them blush. "Strategy talk first," he says. "I just." He glances sideways, mouth twisting unpleasantly. "I'm not a solo artist."

 

Alya nods, sticking that in the identity hints folder for later. "Got a screening question?" they ask. It's not what they'd do if they trusted him, but it's what they would do if they did and they weren't Rena Rouge. And if they can't, it still buys time. "Something only Carapace and Rena Rouge would know what you meant?"

"Most people think in straight lines. But you, little fox, you think in corkscrews."

"Uhhh." Chat bites his lip. "It's a good idea!" he hastily points out. "And I probably only need to alert one to get both?"

 

Alya tilts their head, inquiring.

 

"You saw the Heroes' Day footage too," Chat reminds them. "Whatever their connection, it was already strong enough that, when Hawkmoth weaponized it, they got terrifying. It didn't get that strong in half an hour."

 

"That makes sense." No point in Alya—either the real one or the totally-not-Rena one they need to be until they know who they're talking to—asking more on that. Waste of time. "Okay, is there anything either of them would know that no one else but you would? Maybe something you said to one of them that nobody else heard?"

 

They can't think of anything Ladybug was out of earshot for, though, even by pitiful human sensory standards. (Nino doesn't think Carapace hears better than Nino ordinarily does, though he said his improved color sensitivity is a trip, and Alya doesn't know about any of the others. But Rena Rouge can hear everything.) The closest Chat might get to something only he and Rena know is what they said to each other while Ladybug was announcing the illusory amusement park to the Sapotis, and that isn't all that helpful.

 

"Hang on," Chat says, frowning up at something behind the camera. "Let me think…" A long moment, and he shakes his head. "Damn it. I've never really been alone with either of them."

 

"And Ladybug reads the Ladyblog," Alya says. "Probably gets update notifications."

 

He scrubs one clawed hand down his face and sighs, chin drooping to his chest. "Yeah."

 

(They don't have time to review footage of Ladybug fighting a compromised Chat Noir, and none exists of the reverse. They haven't seen or heard much of Ladybug tonight, not enough in itself to notice anything off and not at all since hearing something might be, and they have no way to know if this is Chat Noir's usual self under stress or only a convincing mimicry. They do not know yet if it's a greater risk to tip Ladybug off than not to.)

 

Then he straightens, expression firming. "All right. New plan. Forget Rena Rouge and Carapace."

 

—What?

 

Chat Noir grins at Alya, and only his still-round catlike eyes betray he isn't confident and fearless. "How would you like to be a superhero?"

 

Alya drops their phone.

 

Chat Noir is about eighty-five percent certain Ladybug got to Alya first: they were blinking too much to be anything but nervous, and Ladybug has beaten a possessed Chat Noir often enough that an akumatized Chat Noir probably isn't the nightmare fuel it honestly should be. But Alya agreed to go meet Ladybug's unnamed mentor, on the condition Chat Noir came with them: absurdly dangerous if Chat can't be trusted. Unless they're a minion or a collaborator, baiting him into Ladybug's trap?

I wrote this months before "Chat Blanc" aired. Remember this story is set about two weeks after that.

Whatever. He figured out how to disable location services before calling Alya, noting the map placed Ladybug on the Tour Eiffel end of that bridge, near where he transformed and well away from here. Ladybug wants Chat to come find her. Probably expects him to lose all sense of reason and come both too soon and alone.

He's mostly not wrong. Hawkmoth expects this. Ladybug is letting Hawkmoth keep thinking that.

Alya's passing Tom & Sabine's now, scanning the streets and skyline with one hand raised to block the streetlights, and he sees their stride falter when they spot his silhouette on the Collège Françoise Dupont roof. They keep going, though, checking for traffic and ignoring the don't-walk, and they're almost to the front steps when a tiny green blur shoots out of the bushes and flies rings around their startled head.

 

…Hey, wait a minute.

 

Wayzz—or so Chat assumes; he's seeing lime, not teal—leads Alya back to the bushes. There's a flare of orange light and a delighted squeak, some hurried murmuring—which Miraculous, Chat wonders instead of listening, would Alya be best suited to? perhaps more accurately, of the Miraculouses they have without wielders, which do they most need in play, even if clumsily wielded? or would Alya be ill enough suited to all those they could most use that it's better to give them the one they'll work best with?—and another orange flash and a green one, and Rena Rouge bounds up beside him.

 

"Huh," says Chat Noir, looking them up and down. Rena probably masses the same as Alya ordinarily does, but they've traded some fat for muscle—unfair: he's had to work for this buff physique—and colored and styled their hair; did the magic reshape their eyes or does the mask correct their vision? (Does it matter?) "I did not see that coming. Turn off your location."

Look I really really hate how Rena Rouge looks so much thinner than Alya. This explanation at least makes me not hate that thing.

"I figured," says Rena, setting down the phone and carved boxes they carry and taking out their flute. "Wayzz says Tikki is angry and hurting and Plagg is terrified, so he believes you."

 

Chat shrugs, looking out over the city. "So was I right? I'm recruiting Nino soon either way."

 

Not next, but very soon. Next is Marinette, he hopes, and only partly because her home is closest; sometimes she's the bravest and most capable person Adrien knows bar his lady, and sometimes her anxiety is thoroughly disabling, and hopefully with magic armor and a cool toy, Chat Noir can bring that first Marinette out to play. The cool toy doesn't even have to be Multimouse's.

 

"Don't." Rena frowns at the ladybug marker on the map their flute is projecting. "He's a few blocks northeast, unless Ladybug ditched him elsewhere. But she might not have found anyone else yet." They look back at him, somber. "I hate everything about this."

 

"Join the party."

 

Alya's phone lights up. Rena grabs it, unlocks it, swears in a language he doesn't know. "Mirage!" they whisper-snarl, pressing a finger to Chat's lips: both heroes and boxes shimmer out of sight.

I am pleased to learn in season 4 that this coheres perfectly with canon.

A few blocks northeast, red-gold light blazes, silhouetting the tiny figure of Ladybug swinging toward them.

 

Chat's pulse rushes in his ears. He can smell Alya's gardenia soap, feel the trembling of Rena's gloved fingertip, hear both their shallow breathing—but for all he can see, the rooftop is dark and empty. Discomfiting.

 

Ladybug lands, straightens, looks around; checks her yo-yo, looks around again. "I don't see them," she says. The argon butterfly mask flares: "No, Rena was definitely here a moment ago, I saw their tracker," she snaps. "Maybe they went inside and dropped the mask. Maybe they blocked me off and ran, just like Chat Noir did. Feel free to tell me if you think of any other possibilities."

She does not, in fact, see them. Either of them, though she's using the gender-neutral singular here. She does hear and possibly smell them, but she's not obliged to tell Hawkmoth that. Argon gas, by the way, glows violet when in an electric field; neon gas in that situation glows orange, which is how neon lights of all colors got their name.

He clamps his jaw, pressing his teeth painfully together to hold back the yowl building in his throat. She sounds angry with him, but only in the same way she ever is with ordinary akuma who prove difficult. (Her using 'vous' for Hawkmoth instead of 'tu' is equally unnerving.) Even the worst fights he and Ladybug have ever had—that is, the worst fights he remembers them having—and even the nightmare Sandboy gave him—

'vous' is the formal French second-person singular pronoun; the casual is 'tu'. In the episode "Chat Blanc", I understand, Chat Noir switches from addressing Hawkmoth as 'tu' to addressing Gabriel as 'vous', the moment he learns they're the same person.

"You didn't bargain for Rena's name," Ladybug tells Hawkmoth icily—stiffens, hisses, a sound that stabs Chat's heart: "You didn't! I'll look inside." She flips down into the courtyard and out of sight.

Reminding Hawkmoth that he didn't initially compel Ladybug to share strategic information, such as her teammates' secret identities, matters because that keeps his attention on how she's holding to the terms of the original bargain.

Rena's fingertip traces from Chat's mouth down his neck and torso: they unzip his pockets and zip a box in each. A moment, and the back of their glove is cool on his cheek, turning his face towards the bakery.

 

Chat nods. They let go. He moves.

 

Marinette isn't on her balcony when a thump announces Rena's landing, a moment behind Chat's arrival. Her room is dark, he sees through the skylight, and her bed empty, and only silence follows his rapping on the glass.

 

"Move," whispers Rena, and Chat goes to the railing, watching the school. He can't tell if she's followed them, but—

 

Northeast, his city is burning.

 

He hears the latch click open. "Close it behind you," whispers Rena, and when he comes over he can see Marinette's bedding indented and tugged: he drops through the skylight, avoiding the moving spots, and closes it again.

 

An orange shimmer, and Chat can see himself again, and Rena, her pendant signaling under two minutes. "Let's rest," they mutter, and the fox kwami spirals into sight, then zooms out of view as a scraped-up Alya climbs out of the loft. "So I can make people not see things that are there, as well as see things that aren't," they say wearily, sinking onto the chaise. "Good to know."

 

"Good thinking," Chat tells them, and, hearing himself, belatedly hopes his tone doesn't make him sound insincere. "Why? How did you know?"

 

Alya waves their phone. Chat leaps down to look at the texts they show him:

 

Nino 🎧: xkcd wtf?

 

🗞 Alya: TRUST BUT VERIFY

 

Nino 🎧: at school?

 

The fourth text of the night looks nonsensical. "She's what now?" Chat asks: if Nino meant 'crazy' (which hasn't been news since Stoneheart anyway), he'd say 'elle folle', not 'elle fou'.

'folle' and 'fou' both mean 'crazy': 'folle' is feminine and thus grammatically correct to call Ladybug, where 'fou', being masculine, is not.

"xkcd 246," says Alya. "Knights and Knaves—" (The nouns are in English.) "—or, you know, fucked." Okay, yeah, Nino could have sent the text partway into 'fourbe' or any of various forms of 'foutre', and he certainly didn't mean 'chevalier'. "What do you know about her akumasona?"

xkcd 246: Labyrinth Puzzle. 'fourbe': swindler; deceitful. 'foutre': to fuck. 'chevalier': knight.

Chat shrugs, watching them type a new text. "Nothing useful. Except for the direct line to Hawkmoth, I haven't seen her do anything she can't usually. Or heard her say anything she wouldn't usually," he adds. "I think. Give or take the bit where you're not her enemy."

 

Alya presses send:

 

🗞 Alya: you're a lifesaver. up to racing, slowpoke?

Slow and steady wins the something or other.

"So either she told you she got akumatized," Alya reasons, "or you saw her get akumatized, or she acted like Chameleon's take on Adrien, maybe. Scarily out of character."

 

Like ice, shattered. Chat scans Marinette's room. "Hey, fox kwami," he says. "What do you eat?"

 

"My name's Trixx," says the kwami, muffled, and pops open a drawer in Marinette's vanity. "What's available?"

 

"I don't know!" Chat snaps: too loud, too harsh—he grabs his temper by the scruff and shakes himself. "I don't know," he repeats, less vicious. "What should I look for? Cheese, cookies, bread, meat, fruit, greens?"

 

"Meat or fruit," Trixx says, wrestling a white box over the edge of the vanity drawer. It overbalances and tips out onto them, and bursts open when it hits the floor, scattering bandages and medications. They phase out of the overturned kit. "Red is better both ways."

 

Chat nods, going to look for a washcloth. "What about Wayzz and the others?" Alya isn't carrying the full-sized Miracle Box, though. "Wait, who else do we have?" He unzips his pockets to check: he's carrying one box labeled 龍 and one labeled 蜜蜂. "Longg and Pollen here. Alya?"

龍: Mandarin 'lóng'; Japanese 'ryū'; English 'dragon'. 蜜蜂: Mandarin 'mìfēng'; Japanese 'mitsubachi'; English 'honeybee'. Yes, the me who is contemplating podficcing this story—who has not figured out how to hear the difference between lōng lóng lǒng and lòng well enough to be sure they're saying the right one—has a few unkind words for the me who wrote it.

"Wayzz says Bee, Dragon, and Rabbit."

 

"—Rabbit," Chat Noir repeats, irritated, setting two clean washcloths on the vanity. "I am not knocking the Rabbit, the Rabbit is badass—hell, I'm not knocking Dragon or Bee, either—but seriously, no Rat?"

 

Alya frowns. "We haven't seen Rabbit or Rat in action, though. —Have we?"

 

"Not on video."

 

Chat wheels around to stalk across Marinette's room. He can—they can work with this. Bunnyx's identity is at least as well-kept a secret as most of the team's—why Ladybug feels she can trust Adrien with Viperion's identity when she doesn't know Adrien is anyone but the Snake wielder who never gave himself a cute name, especially when she booted Multimouse for nothing worse than assuming Chat Noir was trustworthy—

 

He pivots away from smelling that rat with practiced ease, pacing the floor. If Marinette takes the Dragon and Kagami the Bee, then he has two powerhouses on his team without involving Multimouse, Ryūko, or Chloé. And this time he'll make sure to tell Marinette the five-minute safety guideline on whatever they cast is there to protect both sides of the equation. Most of why she was famished, drowsy, and popping so many paracetamol after the Kwamibuster attack was because wielding two Miraculouses at once is never safe: he supposes Ladybug underestimated how badly being both Cat and Rat would hit Marinette, and he hopes someone was caring for his fool lady after bedecking herself with the rest, even if she did only transform with Trixx and Tikki and those separately. But some of the effect on Marinette has to have been because there's no way she spent fewer than seven minutes as a whole mischief of Multimice.

Pointedly not smelling (literally or figuratively) that Rat Miraculous wielder, hee hee—and yes, this does mean at least one of he has a very wrong idea of how dangerous it is to multi-wield Miraculouses and she has no more self-preservation instinct than he does. Adrien brought Marinette coffee, snacks, and over-the-counter pain meds all that week, by the way, which mitigated the effects enough that the whole thing masqueraded as Marinette being on her period. Which enough of her classmates already know is irregular and nasty that Lila didn't notice this time was unusual. Canonically, Gabriel probably did not have Lila keeping an eye out for anyone at that school who was having an unusually bad physical health week, but why would he have thought the person wielding several Miraculouses at once was anyone other than Ladybug with a new hat? Why, therefore, knowing that multi-wielding is physically dangerous, would Gabriel not look for someone experiencing its aftereffects?

—Focus. "Wayzz, Pollen, Fluff, and Longg. Carrots and honey, right?"

Carrots are only associated so strongly with rabbits because the Bugs Bunny animators once made a Clark Gable joke—they're no more the basis of a healthy meal for a rabbit than candy is for a human—but ladybugs eat smaller insects and cats eat small birds and smaller mammals where Tikki eats cookies and Plagg eats cheese. Anyway, if any kwami can pull off the anachronistic references, it's Fluff.

"Honey for Pollen, carrots for Fluff," confirms Trixx, studying Alya's scraped knees up close. "Longg loves spicy foods, the hotter the better. Wayzz especially likes tea, but he'll eat anything he can swallow and he'll like most of it."

 

That last sounds suspicious, especially from a fox, but he lets it pass. "Alya, anything?"

 

They shake their head, typing. "Not hungry. And I see you two plotting to deal with my very minor injuries that I inflicted so the akuma wouldn't know I was talking to you," they add. "Don't bother. Ladybug will fix those with Miraculous Cure, as always."

 

"Alya—"

 

Adrien's seen butterflies pinned to cards before, wings spread in a way not possible in life. Under Alya's glare, Chat feels like a butterfly. "Ladybug," they say, biting out each syllable, "will fix those, as always."

Butterflies in visual art are usually dead. Even though they're not usually meant to be.

"We don't—"

 

Chat cuts himself off and breathes. They're right. They must be right. They have to be right, or—

 

(One akuma attack was an entomologist furious at people killing butterflies thinking they were akumas; Dr. Hafner still has a point, about both that and the poisoning of phrases like 'social butterfly' and 'butterfly effect', but she also admitted afterwards, chagrined, that she hadn't noticed the akuma wasn't a male Apatura ilia until too late. Lesser purple emperor butterflies aren't, she said, that purple. And she doesn't have to like what's happened to the connotations of 'butterflies in your stomach', she said, to understand, viscerally, why.)

 

Evenly, he says, "I'm going to get Trixx some food. They need to recharge even if you don't. Since we aren't going anywhere for a few minutes anyway, you should clean yourself up."

 

Alya snorts, returning to their phone a little too slow to hide the flash of relief at his calling Trixx 'iel', not 'elle' or 'il'. "I've gotten worse on my bike."

The feminine third-person singular subject French pronoun, equivalent to English 'she', is 'elle'. The masculine, equivalent to 'he', is 'il'. According to nonbinary French people, the gender-neutral is 'iel'. It's making a certain sort of French grammar stickler about as happy as a certain sort of English grammar stickler is with singular 'they'.

"I don't care." The marks on Alya's palms and showing through their torn jeans are black in the diffuse glow of their phone screen. In better light, they would be red. "You don't need to fight hurt."

 

They don't look up. "You don't need to waste time."

 

"You don't need," Chat says, restraining his snarl, "to fight distracted."

 

"I'm—!"

 

Alya stops. Looks up at him. Over at Trixx, perched on the vanity faucet.

 

With clear effort, they compose themself. "Nino will be here in a few minutes," they say, and go to sort through the overturned first aid kit.

 

Chat heads downstairs and starts poking through the kitchen. There's a container in the refrigerator with kung pao chicken scribbled on its masking-tape label; he puts it on the counter, three carrots and a packet of deli-sliced roast beef beside it, and there's a half jar of honey on the tea shelf; cookies are…down in the bakery for sure, and probably not up here at all. Really, where else would they be?

 

Also, that croissant has his name on it.

 

On a strip of receipt paper he yanked out of the register, he tallies up the purchase price of everything he's taking from the bakery, adds lines guessing at the ingredients and labor costs of what he left upstairs (so that he only has to drop the mask in the bathroom once to get the lot in his school bag), estimates the total, and writes I'll pay you back ASAP, then signs with a cute little paw print with CN on the big pad. He checks the side door on his way past with the bakery box, ripping a mouthful off his croissant: Nino won't have to ring the bakery door's bell to get in, but odd that Chat didn't have to unlock it.

It's unlocked because thirty seconds ago, Marinette unlocked it. With her ordinary key, even, since I'm running with her yo-yo and her purse are connected magic storage spaces because she said so.

Alya's footsteps above him are too noisy: Adrien isn't as stealthy as Chat Noir no matter how he tries, but—now that Alya and Nino's new favorite date activity, couples' parkour, has context—haven't they even tried putting any skill points into—

 

Ladybug is standing in Marinette's living room.

 

Alya heads downstairs, their scrapes patched up and the borrowed messenger bag full of Miraculous boxes and scarily well-stocked first-aid kit over her shoulder. (Sutures? Scalpels? Ketamine? Rose and Juleka wouldn't know how to safely use some of this, emergency medical training or no!) Trixx is a disconcerting warmth somewhere around their liver. If Marinette's here—well, it's up to Ladybug, of course—that is, it's up to Chat Noir—but having their best friend be a superhero too would be super sweet. Maybe they were already planning to give Marinette the Rabbit or Dragon? Or—since Chloé is supposed to be off the roster—

Ketamine is an anesthetic that induces a dissociative state good for pain relief, sedation, and amnesia, and no, teenagers with the first stage of emergency medical technician training would not have been instructed on how to safely use it. Marinette hasn't either, but she believes in being prepared.

"Do you know where your daughter is?" asks Ladybug, bitingly cold, and loud enough to be plainly audible from Marinette's room, at least with the trap door open; two steps below the master-bedroom floor, Alya freezes. Ladybug continues, "There's someone I need to find."

This whole scene relies on my badly misremembering the apartment's layout. Canonically, the master bedroom and the bathroom must be the level above the bakery and below the living room and kitchen, since the trap door in Marinette's floor is in the kitchen ceiling.

"—Is Marinette in danger?" asks M. Dupain. Alya can't see him from here; he must be in the living room or kitchen with Ladybug—

 

"Of course she is." Alya read a mini murder mystery once, the kind one flips to the back of the book to find out if one's solved it right: the murder weapon couldn't be found, and someone had spilled water by the blood on the rug. Ladybug's tone reminds them of that icicle. "They say she's a liar, didn't you know?" Ladybug continues, sharp and serrated. "All her classmates. All her friends. All her family."

Of course she is.

Mme Cheng slips out of the master bedroom and catches sight of Alya, who puts a finger to their lips and gets out their phone.

 

"Haven't you yourself told her she can't lie about where she's going or where she's been?" Ladybug asks.

 

Alya shows Mme Cheng their notes app:

 

that's the akuma

 

"I don't care about that!" M. Dupain says—then shouts. Mme Cheng stifles her gasp. Alya smells smoke.

This is the second outright lie in the story's dialogue. (Adrien was right to be suspicious of Trixx saying Wayzz will like eating most of what he's served.) Ladybug's dialogue especially is full of partial truths and misleading truths—a theme throughout—but so far in this story, only Trixx and Tom have lied.

"Ah, a-ah," says Ladybug, singsong. "Don't lie to me, now."

 

M. Dupain sounds pained: "Of course I care. We taught her to value honesty. But we also taught her there are more important things."

 

Ladybug hums, a noncommittal sound. Alya thinks about the layout of the building, where Ladybug is most likely standing in relation to the doors and windows, where Chat Noir must be.

 

"My daughter's in danger, Ladybug," pleads M. Dupain. "Help her!"

 

"What do you think I'm doing?" She sounds honestly curious. Alya creeps farther down the stairs.

 

One step creaks.

 

"Who's there?" snaps Ladybug.

 

"Sabine!" exclaims M. Dupain.

 

Mme Cheng hurries down, passing Alya with a brief tight smile. "Ladybug," she says once downstairs, sounding nervous. "What's wrong?"

 

"People keep lying to me." There's a twist to her tone that Alya can't identify: it reminds her of nothing so much as Marinette trying to slander Lila. Ladybug has never sounded like that. But then, Ladybug has never told an untruth except to set a trap. "People don't trust me," Ladybug spits, and that is a lie, or else a falsehood Akumabug believes. Ladybug doesn't; she can't; it's not possible. "People say I am a liar and do you know where your daughter is?"

 

—Oh no. Oh no no fuck no dear Gods no. Akumabug is after Marinette.

 

"She's not home," Mme Cheng says steadily, moving closer to the living room, out of Alya's line of sight. "I haven't seen her since breakfast."

 

"Then who's upstairs?"

 

No one, technically. Alya's on the lowest stair that's certain to keep them unseen until Akumabug actually comes to look—trying not to breathe, not to drop their phone, not to let their heart pound loud enough to overhear—but they're not upstairs.

 

M. Dupain clears his throat. "No one else is here, Ladybug."

Marinette came by her everything honestly.

Something crackles out, bonfire-sharp, sizzling like sausage in the pan. "Liar!"

 

Shadow-silent, Chat Noir slips into view: he glances a little to his right, towards the kitchen area, ears flickering to catch any sound, but his attention is on the living room.

 

"No one's upstairs!" says Mme Cheng. "No one's upstairs, Ladybug, Ladybug, please—"

 

Chat's gaze flicks sideways and up: he spots Alya, then Marinette's messenger bag, and points first at them, then at the door behind him. Staff in hand, he moves a little farther into the room, clearly meaning to shield Alya's escape.

 

"So the roast beef is your midnight snack, then?" asks Akumabug. "With carrots and honey?"

 

And Chat can only carry so much in his other hand, and sticking around the bakery long enough to raid that refrigerator sounds suicidal. Alya takes both Miraculous boxes out of the bag and adjusts their grip on the strap.

 

"—All three macronutrients?" M. Dupain gasps for breath—he shouts—Mme Cheng screams—

 

Alya leaps, slinging the bag strap over Chat's head, and throws themself out the open door.

 

The fire alarm starts shrilling and strobing before they get to the cold outdoor air. Nino's running for the park entrance, a bakery box in his arms: he jinks left under the trees just past the gate; they keep following.

 

Behind them, a boom; before them, their shadows outlined in hot crackling gold; the overwhelming smell of burning pork; the sound of heavy rain.

Who needs dynamite when they have, and can amp up the volatility of, flour?

Alya catches up to Nino, checks which Miraculous box is which, and shoves the one with a T-shaped space in its ideographic label at him. (If they just lost Chat Noir, they hope and pray the other one they're holding, the one with the plain-ish box for a first ideograph, is the Bee. They know almost nothing about the Dragon and nothing at all about the Rabbit. Nothing!) "Turn off your location first," they warn. "Trixx, get out here."

龜: Mandarin 'guī'; English 'turtle'. 白兔: Mandarin 'báitù'; English 'white rabbit'.

Nino stops with a tree between him and the bakery and stands there trembling, as Trixx darts out to circle them both and Wayzz appears in a burst of light. "I don't think," Nino says, frowning at the dark damp splotches on his shirt as he slides the bracelet on, "I'm ever eating bacon again."

 

That ought to make your grandmother happy, Alya doesn't say. Mama Lahiffe isn't a practicing Muslim, and Nino never was.

 

But Alya saw Ladybug staring down Alya's friend's parents, searing M. Dupain for telling a lie to protect Alya. However strongly they know this is nothing Ladybug would ever even think of doing, nothing in Akumabug's stance spoke of anything but blazing fury and determination, and even had Alya seen her face, they doubt they would have spotted a flicker of hesitation.

This is correct; Ladybug did not hesitate. It is also misinformed: here she's still working out what she is and is not able to do, what Hawkmoth thinks she is and is not able to do, and what she is and is not permitted to do—and she has to keep Hawkmoth from noticing that she's giving that much thought, because she knows the leash is a lot looser than he realizes but she doesn't know how much he's able to tighten it. Ladybug needed her partner and her team to know the rules of engagement before they started playing with fire, and though Marinette's parents are not high-value targets from Hawkmoth's perspective, tormenting them is well within the terms of the original bargain..

They bet Mme Cheng told Chat Noir to leave her there.

 

"I think," they do say, stomach churning, and pauses to cough: "I think I'm going vegetarian."

 

"Lucky you," mutters Chat Noir, dropping out of the tree and shaking glass shards from his hair. "I'm an obligate carnivore. But hey!" He pats Marinette's bulging messenger bag with a wide fake grin. "At least we got the fucking snacks."