mistkitt | Entries tagged with enemies au

Originally Posted: 03/23/16
Enemies AU Part 5

~*~

Adrien is embarrassed.

He doesn’t mind hiding out at Chloe’s; he’s known her forever. But this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. His classmate. A girl he isn’t very well acquainted with. And she’s friends with Ladybug.

If the situation is as awkward for her as it is for him, she doesn’t show it. She lets him into her large bedroom and launches into an animated account of how Ladybug is a regular customer at the bakery, but it’s a big secret. Hush-hush. Don’t tell anyone. She climbs down the ladder of her loft–a loft!–and shows him to a comfortable chaise lounge, promising she’ll wake him up before sunrise so he can sneak away.

He doesn’t say much. The shock of the night is still fresh and his body feels heavy. Even after Marinette goes to bed, he lays on his side and stares at her furniture, thinking of his father.

He wonders if he’s lonely.

The next day, Nathalie is waiting for him outside the school. Chloe is latched onto his arm as always, and he senses the way her muscles tense, the way she instinctively pulls him closer.

Nathalie holds a suitcase out to Adrien. “You need clean clothes,” she says, as if it’s all that needs to be said.

He hesitates, then takes it. For the space of a moment he sees concern, sorrow, and care in his father’s secretary’s eyes. Then she smothers it and turns away, walking back to the car that waits for her on the curb.

At the end of the week, Ladybug holds a press conference to alert Paris that Chat Noir is no longer a threat. He was manipulated by Hawk Moth and coerced into his service. To atone for his crimes, he will now be fighting alongside her.

Not everyone is pleased about this. Some even suspect that Ladybug has become a villain, too.

But Alya has faith in them. “If Ladybug says he’s a good guy, then he’s a good guy,” she declares with the utmost confidence. In the row ahead of her, Adrien smiles.

Chat Noir saves Alya from an akuma victim the next day. She dedicates an entire Ladyblog post to him.

His entire routine changes. Days at school. Afternoons at Le Grand Paris with Chloe. Evenings patrolling the city with Ladybug. Nights carrying hushed conversations with Marinette about nothing in particular until they’re too sleepy to go on.

But it’s not just his routine that changes. He embraces the superhero role, saves Paris as if he were born to do it. He cracks jokes and makes a game of trying to fit as many cat puns as he can into a single fight. One evening, sitting on a rooftop with Ladybug, he laughs so hard that he surprises both of them.

“I haven’t laughed like that in years,” he says, his green eyes glowing with pleasure.

Ladybug never complains about his jokes again.

When Adrien starts greeting her in the morning, Marinette is equal parts confused and suspicious.

“I know he hangs with Chloe, but he’s not a bad guy,” Nino assures her. “Just shy and terrible at making friends. We totally misjudged him.”

The next day, Marinette returns Adrien’s greeting. He looks so happy that from then on, she makes sure to greet him first.

Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug.

He makes no secret of it. Marinette is a little embarrassed listening to him go on and on about how amazing his Lady is, but his joy is infectious, so she doesn’t stop him.

Meanwhile, she’s been spending time with Adrien. He joins her group of friends and seems to be coming out of his shell. The more she sees of him, the more she thinks she likes him, until one rainy day he awkwardly offers her his only umbrella and she realizes it’s not a maybe anymore. She likes him. A lot.

When she confesses this to Chat, he is the picture of surprise. “What’s so great about him?” he asks.

Marinette shrugs. “I had a bad first impression of him, but now that I see what he’s really like…” She feels the warmth spread across her cheeks in the darkness. “He’s just so nice. Even though his home life is rough, he never takes it out on anyone. He’s shy, but you can tell he’s a genuinely good person.” She shrugs again. “And I like him.”

Chat is oddly subdued after that, which is fine with her. She’s too embarrassed to keep talking.

On weekends, Marinette lets Chat have her bed. He feels horrible about it. Tries to insist he doesn’t want it, but he’s not fooling anyone. The chaise is nice. The bed is better.

One night, they’re simply too tired to argue, so Marinette crawls into the bed with him. He’s stunned speechless. That he manages to fall asleep at all is a testament to his exhaustion.

He wakes up early the next morning and finds his nose buried in someone’s black hair. He’s confused and disoriented. “Ladybug?”

“Mm.”

Why is he in bed with Ladybug? Isn’t this Marinette’s room? “My Lady?”

“Mm.” A little louder this time. She’s still asleep, but no, this is definitely Marinette. She’s wearing Marinette’s clothes.

“Marinette.”

This time, she wakes up. “What is it, Chat?”

“It’s morning,” he says.

She mumbles something along the lines of “see you later” and he carefully extracts himself from her. But he hesitates. He stays. He stares at the girl who is Marinette–without a doubt, she is Marinette Dupain-Cheng–but all he sees is Ladybug. He can’t believe he never saw it before.

Marinette is Ladybug.

And he’s in love with her.

He can’t keep it off his face. He’s sure that the whole class has figured it out by the way he looks at her, the way he smiles at her, the way he says her name, the way he finds every excuse to turn around and talk to her.

She must know, too. She becomes increasingly flustered around him. She stops mentioning Adrien to Chat. Even as Ladybug she develops a tendency to come over distracted.

Then one day, she confides in him that she’s working on a birthday present for Adrien. She won’t show him what it is no matter how much he begs.

“What if he doesn’t like it?” she whispers to him as they sit on her bed in the dark.

Chat gives her the cattiest grin he can muster. “Don’t worry,” he says, “whatever it is, he’s going to love it.”

On Adrien’s birthday, Marinette arrives at school early for once. She holds the wrapped gift in shaking hands. She knows he gets there before anyone else, and often studies in the empty classroom, so she hopes he’ll be alone now. To give him a handmade present in front of everyone else… she’s sure she’d die of the embarrassment.

She walks into the classroom. Adrien stands by the windows with his back turned to her and Marinette slows to a stop.

Not because she’s nervous, but because there is something so striking about his back.

She’s sure she’s seen it before on someone else.

She’s sure she’s leaned against it a hundred times in the privacy of her bedroom.

When he turns to look at her, a gentle smile lights up his face.

And she knows.

She crosses the room on weak legs. She leaves the gift on Sabrina’s desk. Her shaking hands reach out for him, and he doesn’t flinch when she lays them on either side of his face. “Chat?” she whispers.

He tilts his head in the most innocent and familiar of ways. “Yes, My Lady?”

Marinette kisses him.

It isn’t a very graceful kiss. He’s caught off guard and she’s never kissed anyone before. But when she pulls away, he immediately draws her back in, and when he kisses her she has just enough wits left to figure out how to kiss him back.

“Chaton,” she murmurs as he nuzzles her cheek. Her heart pounds in her rib cage and she can feel his smile against her skin. A thought occurs to her then, and she whacks him in the chest. “You knew?”

He won’t stop smiling at her. “Only for a couple of weeks.”

Marinette squeaks. She wants to be furious, but damn it all, he looks so happy and how could she ever be mad about that? “Stop smiling!” she practically begs.

“I can’t!” he cries, and wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her two feet off the floor. “It’s my birthday, and you’re Ladybug, and I’m so in love with you I don’t know what to do with myself!”

“Adrien!” Her face can’t possibly get any redder.

He puts her down, exhilarated, glowing. He cups her face and gives her such a look that she feels fire eating away at her insides. “I love you,” he says.

Marinette ducks her head and burrows into his chest. “I love you too.”

“And I’ve been dying to tell you”–his voice breaks–“how grateful I am.” He wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, holds her as if he never wants to let go. “You saved me,” he says, and Marinette’s eyes overflow with tears. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

They stay like that for a long time, separating only when Max walks into the room, stammers, apologizes, and walks back out.

They laugh as Marinette finally gives him her gift: a light blue scarf that he puts on immediately, even though it’s warm in the classroom.

By the time everyone else shows up, it’s obvious that Max has blabbed. The happy couple doesn’t get a moment’s peace for the rest of the day. But they can’t complain. They’ll have all evening to talk–and kiss–in private.

Hawk Moth is still on the loose. Adrien doesn’t want to face his father yet, and Marinette doesn’t press him. As Ladybug and Chat Noir, they continue to defend Paris, overcoming every obstacle thrown their way.

The city erects a statue in their honor. Within months it seems no one remembers those bygone days where the Miraculous duo stood against each other instead of together.

One evening, after a particularly difficult battle, Chat stands and watches the purified butterfly fly away, shrinking until it resembles one of the stars dotting the sunset sky. Ladybug’s hand slips into his and threads their fingers together. “Are you okay?” she asks.

Chat, who’s gotten a little taller lately, looks down at her and smiles. “Yeah,” he says, leaning over to rest his forehead against hers. “Never better.”

Originally Posted: 03/22/16
Enemies AU Part 4

~*~

Ladybug is used to Chat making reckless decisions. She’s used to akumatized villains getting so riled by their emotions that they cause their own defeat. She’s used to her opponents being human, flawed.

Golden Boy is neither reckless nor flawed. He is the perfect, dutiful son. He analyzes her every move and grows in confidence as she grows in desperation. And that damnable purple mask keeps appearing around his eyes–those eyes that had recently looked at Ladybug with so much warmth. She can only imagine what Hawk Moth whispers in his son’s ear, the sinister praises he lavishes upon him.

But she fights anyway. She’ll fight as long as she has to if it means she gets Chat back in the end.

“You don’t want this,” she tells him. “This isn’t you!”

She thinks of their silent patrols, of how happy he was taking on the Puppeteer alongside her, of the way he embraced her and thanked her for giving him the benefit of the doubt. Whoever the boy behind the mask is, Ladybug is certain he more closely resembles the grinning joker in the Kids+ building than the stoic and rational predator who closes in on her now.

And that boy needs her more than ever.

She makes her choice then and there. She reins in her yo-yo, drops her defensive stance, and takes a direct hit from his baton that steals the breath from her lungs and sends her sprawling to the floor.

He advances. She rolls to one side, then the other, gasping for air. He crouches beside her. She’s in so much pain. He reaches a golden glove towards her earrings.

And stops.

The purple mask appears around his eyes, but he doesn’t respond to it. He gets no closer. His serene expression contorts into confusion, then anger, then anguish. Ladybug takes his outstretched hand. “Chat…” She brings it to her earring.

He rips his hand away and staggers back, breathing hard. The purple mask doesn’t fade. He clutches his head. “No,” he whispers. “No, no, no, no!”

A howl tears from his throat, and the akuma bursts out of his ring.

Everything happens in a blur. Chat collapses. Ladybug purifies the butterfly on autopilot and bids it no farewells in her haste to get to him. The gold melts off his suit and she’s never been so happy to see the color black in her life. Ignoring her aching torso, she pulls his head into her lap and lays a hand on his cheek, pleading with him to wake up.

No one has ever rejected an akuma out of their own volition. Ladybug is overwhelmed with fear that he won’t wake up, that he’ll be damaged somehow.

Chat’s eyes open. He looks at her, takes in their surroundings, then covers her hand with his. “Are you alright?” he asks.

And with that simple question, she knows her partner is here to stay.

She carries him across the rooftops of Paris on her back. He’s too weak to move around much.

He tells her he has a place to stay during daylight hours as a civilian. A childhood friend who doesn’t mind having him over. But he can’t stay with her at night, and after this evening’s events, he can’t go home. Ladybug has a solution.

She lands on a rooftop terrace atop a bakery and tells Chat to hold on. “I know the person who lives here,” she says. “Once I explain the situation, she’ll be more than happy to help.”

“She?” Chat asks, but Ladybug swings over the railing and out of sight. He hears her knock on a window. A creak, followed by her hushed voice, then another creak and a click. He looks around the terrace. There’s a lounge under a small awning, a few flower pots and boxes, a watering can.

A few minutes later, a hatch opens up in the floor and Ladybug reemerges. “You’re all set,” she says. “Since you didn’t use cataclysm, your transformation won’t wear off during the night. You can sleep here for as long as you need to. Wait five minutes before knocking on the skylight. She’ll let you in.”

Chat nods. He wants to say more, but the words won’t come. Ladybug seems to understand. She steps forward and throws her arms around his neck. “I’m glad to have you back, partner,” she whispers, then pulls away and takes a running leap off the building.

Chat is so overcome with love for her that he almost forgets to knock on the skylight. When he does, it takes seconds for the girl on the other side to open it. He almost topples over backwards in shock at the sight of her.

“Hello, Chat Noir,” she says in her all-too familiar voice. “I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Originally Posted: 03/16/16
Enemies AU Part 3

~*~

Chat anticipates conflict with his father when he slips into his bedroom window.

He doesn’t anticipate an akumatized Gorilla and Nathalie.

When Adrien turns up at Le Grand Paris unannounced that night, Chloe thinks it’s a dream come true.

Until she sees him.

Very little of what he says makes sense. He keeps rubbing his bare ring finger, doesn’t seem to feel the pain of his injuries. The one thing he’s sure of is he needs to get a message to Ladybug.

A message from Chat Noir.

Marinette is watching the news when Mayor Bourgeois comes on and addresses Ladybug.

There’s an immediate backlash as reporters try to figure out why Chat Noir, a known criminal, would want to meet with Ladybug, the hero of Paris. Even Alya calls Marinette screaming about it.

But there’s no time for Ladybug to clear up any misunderstandings. If Chat entrusted the mayor to deliver an urgent message, something must be wrong. She practically flies to Le Grand Paris after sundown, landing on the roof and calling out for him, her voice tight with panic.

“My Lady.”

A shadowed figure stands at a distance. She takes a step towards him before noticing his ears and tail are missing, and he has a hood over his head. He’s not transformed. She whirls around to keep from seeing his face. “What happened?”

“Hawk Moth took my Miraculous.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

“I know where he’s hiding. I can get the ring back, but I need your help.”

Righteous anger courses through Ladybug’s veins. To think the man would steal from his own son… “Of course I’ll help you, Chat.” She resists the urge to turn around. “But first I need to know if you’re okay.”

He doesn’t answer right away. She hears his footsteps approaching and remembers that, until recently, they were enemies. This could all very well be a trap. But Chat Noir is Ladybug’s partner and she has to trust him. She wants to trust him.

He lowers his forehead to her shoulder. She feels his sobs before she hears them, and her hand comes up to rest on the blonde hair that tickles her cheek. Of course he isn’t okay. Nothing will ever be okay about this.

Hawk Moth’s lair is in an abandoned observatory. Ladybug doesn’t sneak in. She doesn’t even try. She bursts into the building and doesn’t slow down before launching herself at the two akuma victims acting as security detail.

While she fights, Adrien slips past and heads down the corridors he knows by heart. He finds his father in the gutted theater.

“You really have turned against me, haven’t you?” Gabriel murmurs.

“How could you akumatize them? After all they’ve done for us?”

“I merely made them more efficient employees.” He looks down at his son from behind his mask. “Have you forgotten your mother, Adrien? Do you not care about our happiness anymore?”

“This isn’t happiness,” Adrien yells. “It’s revenge! We’re Miraculous holders. We’re supposed to be good.”

“And what good is having this power if I can’t use it to gain back the only person who made my life worth living?”

“But Father…” Adrien’s expression is pained. “What about me?”

Hawk Moth stretches out his arm. In his open hand is Chat Noir’s ring. “If you’re so desperate to make me happy,” he says, “then obey.” He throws it at his son.

Adrien realizes too late that the ring is purple.

Ladybug is exhausted. She’s purified two akuma without the use of her Lucky Charm, and Chat hasn’t returned. Fearing that he’s locked in conflict with his father, she runs through the observatory until she reaches the theater.

She hears the beating of butterfly wings everywhere, but there’s no sign of Hawk Moth.

Chat stands in the middle of the room.

“You got the ring!” Ladybug cries. Then her eyes adjust to the darkness and she realizes Chat’s costume is gold, not black. His unruly hair is swept back neatly, and there’s a peaceful smile on his face. “Chat?”

A glowing purple mask appears around his eyes. “I must make my father proud,” he says.

And in that moment, Ladybug is certain she’s never hated anyone as much as she hates Hawk Moth.

Originally Posted: 03/12/16
Enemies AU Part 2

~*~

Ladybug doesn’t see Chat Noir for a while after that.

She refuses to admit she’s worried about him.

When at last he reappears, he skips his usual banter and goes straight to the task of trying to steal her Miraculous. But even Ladybug can tell his heart isn’t in it.

He’s sloppy. Frustrated. His green within green eyes conceal nothing, and Ladybug sees the war being waged inside of him.

All at once, she knows that fighting him with her fists isn’t the answer. “Chat,” she says to him, in a tone so gentle that he flinches away from her. “You know we’re supposed to be partners, right?” He doesn’t move. Taking a huge risk, she steps forward, her hand outstretched. “We’re Miraculous holders,” she says. “We’re the good guys.” She keeps moving towards him because she wants to understand him. She needs to understand him. “What does Hawk Moth have over you?”

Chat extends his baton and swings it at her. She leaps out of the way. When she looks at him again, he’s retreating. But he stops for a moment. Clenches his fists at his sides. “He’s my father,” he says.

And then he’s gone.

For reasons she can’t explain, Marinette cries herself to sleep that night.

Adrien’s rebellion starts subtly. He follows the Ladyblog. Makes friends with the boy who sits next to him in class. Goes on fewer missions, citing exhaustion.

The next time he finds himself mere inches away from Ladybug, he surprises both of them by leaning in with a sinister smile and whispering, “The akuma is in her brooch.”

He gets kicked in the stomach, but he’s never been happier about it.

He starts going on patrols of his own.

The first time Ladybug sees him, she whips out her yo-yo, ready for a fight. He gives her a disinterested look and keeps moving.

Sometimes, she tails him to make sure he’s up to no mischief.

Other times, he follows her, always staying within her sight but neither venturing closer nor speaking.

Some nights they sit on rooftops together, her on one side of the building, him on the other. He can’t say when the tension between them dissipates, leaving something like ease in its wake.

Marinette doesn’t know what to make of Chat Noir. Part of her is still suspicious of his motives, but another part–a greater part–wants to trust him. She can see that he’s changing. She wants to encourage him, believe in him, appeal to the boy she catches glimpses of whenever he lets his guard down.

Because Chat Noir may not be akumatized, but he’s still in desperate need of a savior.

Adrien’s leaving his piano lesson when his father calls and orders him to go after Ladybug.

He transforms and heads directly to the television studio. The sight of fleeing employees tells him where the action is, and snippets of conversation picked up by his sharpened hearing inform him that Ladybug is on the fifth floor, battling not one, but four akumatized villains.

Chat swallows his mounting panic as he leaps up the stairs. What was his father thinking? Five against one–was he really that desperate?

When he reaches the studio, his heart almost stops. Not because Ladybug is on the ground, surrounded, but because the victim, some kind of puppeteer, can’t be more than five years old.

Rage courses through his blood. He’s dimly aware that there will be consequences for his actions, but at the moment he can only think of one thing, and that’s saving the little girl. He grabs his baton and dives into the fight.

At first, Ladybug is completely bewildered. She sees Chat and automatically assumes he’s there to make matters worse, but then he launches Lady Wifi into Rogercop and knocks the stylus out of the Illustrator’s grasp.

“What are you doing?” the Puppeteer screams at Chat Noir.

But Chat doesn’t seem to hear. He turns to Ladybug and holds out his hand to her with a determined smile. “What’s the plan, my Lady?”

Ladybug’s heart soars. Joy illuminates every inch of her being as she takes Chat’s hand and lets him pull her to her feet. “We save the day,” she says, throwing him a wink. “Ever done that before?”

“No,” he says, “but I’ve been watching you long enough to figure it out.”

It’s the easiest battle Ladybug has ever fought.

“Chat!”

His ring is beeping. So are her earrings. They stare at each other across the roof of the Kids+ building.

“Don’t go back to him,” she says above the rush of the wind.

Chat shrugs. “I have to.”

“No you don’t! We can figure something out!”

“Ladybug.” His smile is tinged with sorrow. “He’s the only family I have left.”

She looks at him with her wide blue eyes, full of concern and the hero’s desire to help the helpless, and Chat comes to a delayed realization: He’s in love with her. He almost laughs, it’s so obvious. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He crosses the space between them, and in the light of the setting sun, he embraces her. Holds her tight against his body as if he can take all that goodness and purity with him, as if the void inside of him is the only thing large enough to contain it. “Thank you,” he whispers.

He doesn’t give her time to reply before he lets go and takes a running leap off the building.

Originally Posted: 03/11/16
Enemies AU Part 1

~*~

The first time Marinette meets Adrien, she misunderstands him. He’s a rich kid, a model, friends with Chloe Bourgeois, signing autographs for his new classmates like any other big-headed celebrity. But there’s something sullen about him, too. She sees it in the way he withdraws during class lectures and free periods, never once making friends. Others are attracted to him, but they never get close. He is a rainy day under the guise of a sunburst, and Marinette can’t help but feel sorry for him, though she isn’t sure why.

The first time Ladybug meets Chat Noir, she’s just cleaned up an akuma victim’s mess. She casts her yo-yo, ready to find a safe place to release her transformation, when her feet are swept out from under her. She falls on her back. A silver staff swings towards her and she knocks it aside.

“Not bad,” says a teasing voice. She leaps to her feet and seeks out the source, eyes landing on a masked blonde boy in a black leather suit. He flips the staff,–now the size of a baton–into the air and catches it. “But how much longer can you keep it up knowing your transformation is about to wear off?”

She barely manages to lose him before the magic fades.

According to Tikki, Chat Noir has always been Ladybug’s partner.

“Maybe someone ought to tell him that,” Marinette says bitterly.

The logic is simple enough. Ladybug can purify an akuma, but Chat Noir is not akumatized. Their powers are evenly matched. With Ladybug’s Miraculous, Hawk Moth will obtain power enough to bring Adrien’s mother home. And doesn’t he miss his mother? Doesn’t he want her back more than anything?

Adrien stands in his father’s shadow as Gabriel Agreste releases another akuma into the city. Of course he wants his mother home. But why do innocent people need to get involved? Why his classmates? They seem nice enough, if only he had the courage to talk to them…

“The faster we capture Ladybug,” Gabriel says, “the less people we hurt.” He stands in front of Adrien and smiles. “Make me proud.”

Chat Noir is drawn to Ladybug. Even as he slips from shadow to shadow, waiting for an opportunity to strike, he can’t help but admire her. She’s confident where he is not. She stays behind to reassure his father’s victims. She is so genuinely good and kind and merciful that he finds himself wanting to be comforted, too.

But when she looks at him, her eyes go cold. Then Chat remembers his objective, and his emotions are lost to the howling void inside of him.

The turning point happens suddenly.

She’s tired. She’s injured. She’s locked in a freezer with him and there’s no way out.

He thinks of his mother. How close he is to seeing her again. How she’d smile at him and stroke his hair and call his name softly like she used to. The longing is so powerful that it consumes his broken heart.

And then he just… stops.

He looks at Ladybug, sees the anger and fear in her blue eyes. A cataclysm swirls in his right hand. He pulls his arm back, lunges at the girl in front of him, and strikes the wall behind her. A hole opens large enough for her to escape.

Ladybug stares at him in disbelief. His ring beeps. “Take care of the akuma victim,” he says.

She stands on shaking feet and backs towards the hole. Then she grits her teeth, grabs his wrist, and drags him out with her. He’s too shocked to do anything more but be pulled along. Her hand is warm, and he realizes how long it’s been since someone has touched him. When she gets to the roof, she casts him away from her and he lands on his feet, several yards of concrete between them.

She eyes him warily, bathed in moonlight. His green eyes glow in the darkness. His ring beeps again and Ladybug turns, hesitates. “You’d better find somewhere to detransform,” she says before swinging off in pursuit of the akuma.

Gabriel is furious. He lashes out at Adrien with his cane, striking his son across the face. “You almost had her,” he bellows. “What were you thinking?”

Adrien was thinking that maybe he was meant to be with Ladybug. He was thinking the idea that they were two halves of the same whole felt right somehow. He was thinking that perhaps he was on the wrong side.

“I’m sorry, father,” he says, cradling his bruised cheek. “It won’t happen again.”