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She can't find Chat.
They were supposed to meet for patrol an hour ago.
Chat never misses a patrol, and he was supposed to meet her an hour ago, and Marinette can't find him anywhere.
So, she might be panicking a little. She might be panicking a lot more than she'd thought not being able to locate her partner would cause, especially since it's not like she usually knows where he is. Most of the time she has no idea where he is and it doesn't usually bother her. It's not something she usually even really thinks about very much.
But Chat Noir was supposed to meet her here an hour ago and he's still not here. There's no note, no Plagg, no message on her yo-yo. There's nothing to let her know where her missing partner might be, or why he isn't already here with her like he's supposed to be.
And-
And Marinette might be feeling a little clingier than usual, right now.
Because Chat had died, in that last battle. Chat Noir hadn't just gotten hurt, he'd gotten hurt and then he'd died in her arms, and he's back and he's safe and he's unharmed and she can't sleep and she can't stop feeling his blood slick and warm and slowing with his fading pulse, splattered over her side and sticky on her hands, going tacky so much faster than she'd thought it would even as her best and closest friend faded much faster than-
But he's back now and he's fine and Marinette had held him so tightly for so long afterwards and he'd let her sob into his shoulder and he'd tucked his arms around her and held on tight right back and shut his eyes to let her detransform and then retransform to yell at him for doing that to her, for doing that to himself, for doing that to their kwami, and he'd apologised over and over in that low tone that means he's awake right now too because the guilt's going to eat at him and keep him up and where is Chat Noir.
Marinette tries her yo-yo again, but for the third time it does the magical accessory version of going straight to voicemail. Chat Noir's not here and he doesn't miss patrols and he'd already been acting off before the battle, and she can see the bags under his eyes even with his mask on every time he yawns, and he's been leaning on his staff so much more than she's ever seen before and he blinks slow and tired when he thinks she's not looking and he hasn't tried to start a game of chase in ages now.
Maybe he could have gotten them both out of the way, if whatever's happening with him wasn't happening. Maybe he wouldn't have gone down so hard with her safely under him instead of fully out of range like he'd obviously intended.
But barring a too-late intervention from Bunnyx, they'll never know, which means that all Marinette wants right now is her partner safe by her side and to just. Have that for a few hours. For a night.
Marinette starts to realise just how fast she's breathing, just how much frantic energy is boiling up from the place deep inside her that's firmly a part of her that is Chat Noir, because he's her partner and he's a part of her and she knows that she's the same for him. She looks rapidly around her- their- chosen rooftop and then ducks into the greenhouse tucked away at the far end.
She drops her transformation.
"Marinette?" Tikki hovers as close as she dares, eyes darting anxiously. "Marinette, what is it? Your heartbeat shot up so fast, I was worried!"
Marinette's already curled herself into the corner she shares with Chat Noir on bad nights, nights she doesn't usually think about too hard but that she has to cling to now, and she's clutching the edge of Chat's blanket and trying to concentrate on controlling her breathing. Answering Tikki is not a possibility, not until Marinette can be sure that she's not about to look very attractive to any stray akuma.
Tikki doesn't settle. She doesn't flit down and fit herself into Marinette's purse like she usually would. Instead she watches her chosen with clear concern, her huge eyes growing larger yet as she observes both Marinette and everything around them.
Tikki's not-quite-hovering, darting about too often and too jerkily to fool Marinette into thinking her kwami's any calmer than she is.
Because obviously, Chat had been transformed when they'd lost him.
Because when Marinette loses Chat Noir, Tikki loses Plagg.
Because they both lose their other halves every time Chat sacrifices himself.
(Chat Noir loves and listens to his kwami in a way even Marinette and Tikki don't have. In a way Marinette's not sure that she would want to have.
Plagg has apparently not stopped or not been able to stop Chat's sacrificial tendencies. By now Marinette is unhappily convinced that Plagg shares them).
Tikki asked her a question, she needs to answer her kwami, Marinette's sworn to herself she won't do that to Tikki when Tikki doesn't often have the chance to talk to anyone else but her, even now that they have the Miracle Box themselves Tikki is always with her and-
"He's- not- here," Marinette gets out, panting for breath as she says it, scanning the sky herself. She's all too aware that she's a prime target right now.
They've never learned exactly how Hawkmoth hones in on emotions, but she's bleeding panic in way that might as well be firing distress beacons into the night. This isn't safe.
She doesn't know if Chat's safe.
She doesn't know if Chat's alive, and even though logically it's not likely anything's happened to him between their battle ending five hours ago and now it's also not impossible. Accidents happen all the time, especially in a city the size of Paris. People get hurt constantly even without accounting for Hawkmoth.
He could get hit by a car or fall into the river and drown or just get caught unaware and mugged one day and Marinette would never know, he'd just stop showing up to patrols and she'd be fighting alone and she'd never know why-
Tikki's trying to calm her down, but Marinette's not functioning enough to listen to her kwami's words and Tikki's too scared herself to keep her tone calm or level.
Marinette has no idea how long they'd have spiralled around each other if it wasn't for the heavy thunk and swish of boots and a leather tail hitting the roof beside them.
"Sorry, I'm so sorry I'm late, my father caught me sneaking out and- uh- wait, are you- Tikki?"
Marinette tears herself out of the greenhouse and throws herself at him, uncaring that she's not transformed and he is, uncaring of everything except that he's here and real and solid and alive and safe in her arms.
His own arms come up very hesitantly to hug her back, and she shifts enough to look up at him and see how tightly shut his eyes are behind his mask. He swallows hard as she finds she definitely can't let go of him and when she moves he squeaks and tries to screw his eyes shut tighter.
She didn't plan on telling him her identity tonight. She didn't plan on telling him her identity at all.
She'd just had a panic attack at the idea of him hurting when she can't help, at the idea that she could lose him (again, she could lose him again, one of these times he won't come back).
And Tikki's not saying anything. Tikki didn't stop her.
Slowly, it occurs to Marinette that Tikki-
That Tikki had been having a panic attack, too.
She didn't even know their kwami could panic like that.
Which makes Marinette cringe, when she thinks it, because there's no reason their kwami shouldn't be just as capable of panic as they are. It's bothered Marinette enough that Master Fu's lessons always seemed to treat the kwami as little more than tools, and Plagg and Tikki's casual use of the word owner is even more upsetting- they've finally got them to stop calling her and Chat that, but the other kwami still say it. It's horrible that Marinette wasn't thinking of her kwami as experiencing every emotion just as strongly as she does. She knows that part of that is that the Guardian lessons so thoroughly objectify the kwami, even filtered through Fu's less-than-stellar recollection of what it was he was supposed to teach, but Marinette had always tried to resist listening to that in the first place. It's an unpleasant shock to realise that she still has those clinging beliefs to unlearn.
Tikki's her friend, not just her kwami. Marinette wearing her earrings doesn't give her the rights to Tikki even if she's not always sure that Tikki knows that.
(Plagg definitely doesn't, but Plagg is still so raw and hurt and furious over Feast that Marinette's stunned and touched that he's ever let her wear his ring).
Tikki would normally be reminding Marinette how dangerous it is to share their identities.
Tikki lost her partner earlier today, too.
Marinette takes a slow step back and then another, drawing Chat with her until they're safely in the shadows of the greenhouse, and watches as Tikki flits to Chat's shoulder. He flinches, at first, and then as soon as he realises what's happening he relaxes and a quiet purr rumbles out of him.
Tikki huddles down close on Chat Noir's shoulder and leans hard into his neck as he swallows, and Marinette meets her kwami's eyes easily as she says, "You can look, kitty."
He doesn't. He swallows again and keeps his eyes firmly shut. "Are you sure about that, Ladybug?" His voice is scratchy and hoarse, and while she knows it's from nerves it's impossible not to flash back to earlier and think of him screaming.
He hadn't been screaming, he's never loud when he's in pain and he'd been gone too quick besides, but she feels his blood on her hands and knees and thinks that he should have been. That she should have been.
(She'd risen, still coated in his blood, and dropped the akuma fifty feet through the air in a single shot. Marinette had never fired a grappling hook before, but her fear and fury fuelled Lucky Charm hadn't needed practise. She'd dropped him fifty feet and skimmed him centimetres above the pavement when she'd reeled him in, letting him know just how easily she could have let that fall be complete, and she feels guilty and sick about it now because the man had been possessed but she hadn't had any room in her for guilt at the time).
"Kitty- Chat Noir, I lost you," Marinette says, her own voice thick with unshed tears and his arms tense around her.
She leans her head back and reads shock in the lines of his face and the set of his shoulders.
Her heart drops. It climbs to her throat to fall to her feet, crushed, because she knows the uncertain flicker of his ears like she knows her own heart and he's-
He's surprised.
He's surprised that losing him would shake her so badly.
She shakes him, a little, cautiously because even though she'd seen him healed she's going to be seeing him still and silent when she tries to sleep for a while yet. "We lost you, and then you were late and you're never late, and I was so scared for you." Even now, her heart is rabbiting in her chest, leaping and falling in time with her worry. "You're not careful, Chat, and if something- if something happened to you- what would I do, Chat Noir? I can't do this without you."
He swallows hard, eyelids fluttering because by now his eyes should be locked on hers but he still won't look. "Plagg could choose someone else."
"Plagg won't." Tikki doesn't move from Chat's shoulder, shuddering as she speaks practically into his ear. "Plagg loves you, he won't choose someone else after you. Not for- not for a long time. He can't move on that quickly." Tikki takes a deep, shuddery breath, but she's far more articulate than Marinette can manage yet. "I know Wayzz can. I know you know Wayzz can. Most of the others can, but we can't, Chat! We've had to and it's awful and we hate it, and Plagg loves you and he hasn't had a chosen that he wanted in so long, much less one he loves, much less one he loves like he loves you. He won't take anyone else, he would have gone with you instead- Chat you died and Plagg wasn't there, he's always been there and he was gone, he loves you more than- he, he loves you more than-"
Tikki chokes, eyes wide and wet, and startles backwards off of Chat's shoulder as she seems to realise just how loud she's gotten. Just how much she's said.
Marinette's staring. She can't stop staring.
She watches herself detach one arm from Chat to reach out and catch her kwami like it's someone else doing it, only slamming back into her body as she draws Tikki back to her chest and cradles her between the two of them and shuts her eyes as Chat detransforms in a rush.
As Tikki slams into Plagg and tangles with him in a hysterical little snarl, Marinette aches to know if Tikki loves her like Plagg loves Chat. If Tikki would refuse anyone else too.
If Tikki had really been about to say he loves you more than me.
(And she wonders- what it means that their kwami-
What it means that Plagg will still go to her, and Tikki to Chat. That they'll take no one else but they'll still swap between them-
What does that mean?)
"Plagg?" Chat's voice wavers and drops low and is altogether too familiar. Of course it is though, he's fought at her side for what feels like somewhere a long time past forever, and Marinette steadfastly does not think about how that's not the part of it that sounds familiar. "Plagg, I didn't think- I thought you'd still be okay."
She almost doesn't hear Plagg, his reply is so quiet.
"Not without you, kid." She feels him struggle free of Tikki just enough to lean against Chat Noir's chest and purr, made easier by the way Marinette still refuses to entirely let go of Chat. "Not- not without you." Plagg laughs, and it's damp and dark and sort of awful. "Y-your dumb cheesy puns have really grown on me, kit- kid. Like mould."
"Plagg..." Chat trails off, and Marinette can't blame him. She's sort of at a loss, too.
She's still upset and shaking with displaced terror and adrenalin herself, but never in a million years had she expected both their kwami to be so affected. The kwami are ancient and so powerful she thinks they might technically be at least semi-deities- Plagg and Tikki have lost before. They've lived longer than Marinette can wrap her mind around and they've had more chosen than she can count.
But Plagg still chose Chat Noir over Tikki. Over his literal other half.
Marinette shivers, cold sweeping over her, and if she was willing to free either hand she'd reach up to touch her earrings. She's always known that Master Fu's lessons had disagreed with her, but she'd never thought it extended this far.
She should have known from the first time she heard any kwami use the word owner. She should have known from how much time and effort it took from her and Chat Noir to get their kwami to stop.
She should have known from the way Fu's never acknowledged that Tikki's more than her Miraculous, that Plagg's more than just destruction. She should have known just from the way Fu treated Plagg when Plagg had helped her with Style Queen (and a sudden question slams into her at that thought, because wait, how could Chat Noir have lost his Miraculous? Chat Noir would never have lost his Miraculous. He'd never have risked losing Plagg.
Which... raises a question about their brief swap, again. Where had Chat found, that he'd felt safe enough to take off his ring? From the little she knows about it, it's certainly not his home).
Marinette swallows back the desperate question that's trying to escape her (but would you choose me, Tikki) and burrows closer to Chat Noir, careful not to trap their kwami. She twists her hand where it's gotten trapped in the fabric at Chat's back because she'd refused to let go when he detransformed, feeling the material and weight of an overshirt and then a thinner shirt through that, and thinks again that his voice is too familiar.
And she tries not to place it, because she knows what he's said about their identities before but he hasn't said it this time. At least, not yet.
She doesn't think he will if she doesn't say it first.
So she swallows, and swallows, and fails to shift the lump in her throat that's been there since he bled out in her arms and says shakily, "Chat? Are you- are you gonna be missed for the next, uh, day or so?" He was late because he'd been caught sneaking out. Fear shudders through her at that, but he'd be a lot more scared right now if he'd been caught transformed. So- so it's still not good, because she knows his parents are strict, but it could be worse.
"Yeah." His chest heaves, once, because he is still scared and normally that would be her focus but she's been too scared herself to reassure him. "I mean, yeah. They're gonna notice, but I'm not supposed to be out at all anyway." His voice turns sad and horribly defeated as he adds, "I'm worried about even making it to you right now, my Lady. He's-" His voice drops quiet again. "Father's really mad. He's had my- he's, um, shifted my schedule around for at least the next week so I can't go anywhere. I mean, anywhere, he's- um. It's- it's a pretty restricted schedule." There's a horrible sense of defeat in Chat's voice. He goes even quieter as he adds, "Plagg will let me out for battles, but I don't know how much I can be around otherwise. Father- he's threatened it before, but-b-but now he won't let me out to go to school."
Like hell.
"Don't go back." They're teenagers and Chat Noir can't just leave home and Marinette had planned to go back home herself after patrol like normal tonight and their kwami are the best, are their friends and partners, are perfect and never deserved to be misused and none of that makes the kwami able to provide for her and Chat and Marinette does not care. Her parents will be hurt and terrified if she doesn't come home tonight and later she'll be upset about that but right now Chat Noir's breath is shallow and he's shaking almost imperceptibly in her arms and he's said his dad is trapping him and running away is a terrible idea and Marinette does. Not. Care. "Chat Noir, don't go back. Let's- let's find somewhere to stay, okay, kitty? We can- we can find somewhere, all four of us, it can't be that hard. We can just, just be-"
They can sneak into some unused room at Le Grande Paris if they have to. They can sleep on the rooftops or in the greenhouse every night if they have to. They can camp out in one of the parks or take up living in the old tunnels, or they can find some abandoned building, or-
Marinette has a life she'd be giving up. She has friends and a family she'd be abandoning.
She has a partner that would live and be safe, or as safe as they can keep him when they're constantly having to fight.
They'll beat Hawkmoth and then they can go back home and she can take him home with her, because she's not letting him go back to his. She can't tell them until after Hawkmoth, but her parents would never turn away her partner.
She steadfastly does not think about how they could be adults by the time they beat Hawkmoth and then it wouldn't matter. Bunnyx had come back from somewhere far ahead in their timeline and said that it was them who'd sent her, and Marinette can't think about that if she wants to convince Chat Noir.
"Ladybug, we can't do that," Chat says gently, unwrapping one arm from around her to rest his hand heavily on her shoulder. "What about your family?"
He's right except-
Except that he doesn't ask about his family, and that means she needs to get him out.
And it is a need, pulsing through her in time with her heart, strong as gravity and twice as likely to affect her- she needs to get him out.
"They would understand. Someday." She leans her head on his chest and tries to calm her racing heart. She doesn't think she's been calm since her first spots on today. "They'll love you, you know. So much."
Chat moves like he's startled, like he's scared, like he doesn't believe her.
She moves the hand still cradling their kwami, reaching for him, and he reaches back for her without a word, completing the motion on instinct alone the way he has in hundreds of battles fought and won. Fu might have tried telling her before that that's because Plagg and Tikki are mirrors to each other, but Plagg and Tikki are still twined around each other just as tightly as her and Chat are, now cupped in both their hands together, and their mutual lack of transformation doesn't lessen Marinette's connection to Chat any.
It hasn't in a long time now, but Fu's always given her a look like she's quit making sense when she's tried to explain.
(Tikki said they haven't been getting to choose their holders. Tikki said Plagg hasn't had chosen that he wanted, and the implications of that are huge and horrifying and Marinette hates them instantly. Tikki said Plagg won't give Chat up for anything and Plagg has more than proved that true.
So what if this is what happens when their kwami do have a choice, or at the very least a say in the choice? What if this is some version of how their transformations have always been supposed to happen?)
"Kitty, they really would love you." Marinette moves as close as she can and listens to his rapid heart and his unintentional purr, moving the hand at his back up to the nape of his neck and cupping it there, curved protectively over where he's vulnerable. She can feel the heat rising in his skin; he flushes like Adrien and Nino do sometimes, all the way down past his collar. Further, maybe. "They'd love that I love you, but they'd also love you."
His breath and heartbeat stutter. "You love me?"
He should know that. "Of course I love you!" Too late, she realises what he must mean. She lowers her voice and leans harder. She knows how pressure grounds him and they both need that right now. If she can calm him, he can calm her, and they can get out of the loop of panic that she's vaguely aware the two of them are stuck in. That the four of them are stuck in, because their kwami are still not contributing like normal.
She hates the way their strongest emotions rebound between them until they're caught in these loops. She'd hate it more if they lost that now. She's grown far too used to the way her and Chat Noir's emotions amplify each other, and losing that now would feel wrong, would feel like she'd lost something integral to who she is.
Chat Noir's become so integral to who she is.
Tikki has, too.
Marinette can't imagine life without her partner or her kwami and clearly her partner and his kwami feel the same. She's still in love with Adrien, and that means she can't be in love with Chat Noir, of course it must, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love Chat.
She doesn't understand how anyone can know Chat Noir and not love him.
Chat Noir is saying nothing, but he's tensing slowly in her arms as silence ticks by.
Marinette knows she has to break that silence, but she doesn't want to hurt him. "Maybe I'm not- romantically, and I'm, I'm sorry for that, kitty, but I can't- I can't stop loving who I love. But that doesn't mean I don't love you, Chat." She presses the hand over his neck flat, revelling in the way he goes limp and leans back into her even though she knows he hates it when anyone else does that. He's told her before that he doesn't mind it if it's her but this is the first time she thinks she believes it.
This is the first time she's ever done it, because it feels like exploiting a far too vulnerable part of him to satisfy her own desires. It takes her breath away that Chat Noir not only lets her do it, but leans into her touch, a touch she knows he won't willingly accept from anyone else.
She doesn't think Chat Noir can be scruffed, but he still gets very anxious about anyone's hands near his neck. (Which only seems sensible, to her, but pointing that out has gotten her nowhere fast). He still doesn't like it when people reach for him. He still flinches.
He keeps flinching now, and it's not from her touch.
Every time she says she loves him, he flinches.
"Of course I love you," Marinette repeats, firmly, and he flinches again and she twitches in response, because why is he so scared to hear that?
"You don't have to keep saying that," Chat Noir says, voice low even as he curls into her and rests his head on top of hers. "You don't need to do that."
"I want to, though." She takes a deep breath and counts to ten before letting it out. "Hey, kitty? I don't think Plagg and Tikki are gonna be ready to transform us any time soon, and I don't. Um. I don't want to let you out of my sight. I don't-" She lets out a shuddery breath. "I don't want you to go home, Chat. I don't want to go home without you."
"You can't just bring me home, Ladybug." Chat Noir's voice is soft and sad and full of regret. "And you have to go back, your parents will worry."
She laughs and it's nearly not a sob. "I'll worry, kitty. I'll do nothing but worry if I go home without you."
"My lady." She feels him bow his head, his arm around her tightening. "You can't bring me home with you."
"I can damn well try." He'd been off before the battle. He's been so tired and defeated for so much longer than the battle.
If he'd been rested, been as bright and cheerful and eager as he usually is, then he would have been able to pull off that last desperate manoeuvrer.
He wouldn't have died.
She wouldn't have lost him, Tikki wouldn't have lost Plagg, they wouldn't have lost their partners.
(Marinette doesn't want to lose Plagg either. Plagg is her partner's family, the person he goes to when he's hurting, and Plagg is also her friend. Marinette doesn't want anything to happen to either of them).
"Ladybug-"
"Give me this," Marinette says, interrupting in a way she usually makes an effort to avoid with Chat. She's always had the impression that not enough people have ever listened to him as it is. "Give me the rest of tonight and tomorrow to come up with something. Don't- don't go home, Chat. Don't- I need you to stay with me."
She hears him swallow. She catches herself listening for his bell when he does.
"Okay," he whispers, and she becomes aware of just how much he's trembling. Every point of contact they have, and there are a lot of those, lets her feel him shaking. "Okay, LB. I'll-" He swallows again, then asks, in a much smaller voice, "You really mean it?"
"Kid." Plagg's voice is tired, his movements heavy and slow as he struggles free of Tikki, who would very clearly prefer not to let him go. "She means it. We mean it. I know you don't wanna go back and I know I don't wanna go back and I sure as hell don't wanna take you back, so how about we just... not." Plagg purrs, weakly, and Marinette can feel Chat Noir's answering purr before he swallows it back. "I'm tired of breaking you out, kid. We're out now, we should, we should just stay out. Away. Anywhere but there."
Plagg's faltering, and it sounds like exhaustion, and it nearly forces Marinette's eyes open with renewed alarm.
"Tired of... breaking him out?" Tikki repeats, slowly, before Marinette can and with about the same level of distress as Marinette is feeling. "But you're... Plagg, they're..."
"What, kids?" Plagg says sourly, biting off each word, but settling and purring again when Chat Noir goes tense. "Yeah, Teek. I noticed."
Tikki's very quiet for longer than Marinette expects.
Then, still quiet, like she doesn't want Marinette and Chat to hear but is even less willing to leave them, Tikki says, "Plagg, they're not ours."
"The hell they're not," Plagg hisses, furiously, and this time even Chat's full-body flinch doesn't stop him. "Maybe you're willing to give yours up but I'm not."
"Of course I'm not!" Tikki's answering cry is anguished, immediate, unthinking, and Marinette's heart beats faster even as she tries to draw Chat closer. She'd wanted, after today, some kind of affirmation that Tikki loves her even half as much as Plagg loves Chat- but now that she has it, she can only wish they'd never reached this point.
She'd be so scared for the possibility of approaching butterflies right now if the four of them weren't all together.
She can't let Chat Noir go back.
Taking a deep breath that makes her even more acutely aware that they're still clutching each other, Marinette admits that to her partner and their kwami. "Chat Noir, I need you to stay. If- if you leave right now, if I can't- if I don't know where you are, that you're safe-" She swallows. "Then I'm going to get akumatised, kitty. I'm not strong enough to do this without you."
"Of course you are," Chat says softly, but his hold on her grows tighter as he says it.
Plagg sniffs, lifting off their hands and brushing against Marinette's cheek before returning to Chat. "Sure, but she shouldn't have to."
Warmed by the implied praise in Plagg's comment, Marinette follows her train of logic further. "And... I want to spend time with Tikki, too. And Plagg. So. So I guess, unless we wanna wear blindfolds the rest of the day... which is probably not going to go well..." She leans back, trusting his arms to hold her, finding that she's right. "I meant it when I said you could look, Chat."
His arm flexes around her, once, briefly. He says nothing for a long, long moment. Too long; she feels sweat roll down the back of her neck, and it's not due to temperature.
And then Chat Noir breathes out, "Marinette?"
He says her name joyfully, hopefully, happily. She's never thought that either of them would- or could- be disappointed in the other, but there's a thrill in his voice that surprises her.
Until she opens her own eyes, and finds herself just as overjoyed.
Plagg drifts lazily back down from where he's circling over Chat Noir's head and lands on Marinette's head instead. As Tikki flits up to join her counterpart, Plagg grumbles, "It's about time."
Marinette's too caught up in her own relief and joy to join in Tikki's laughter.