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It’s 2am on a Thursday night and Marinette Dupain-Cheng is failing history. They have a quiz tomorrow morning that she had planned on studying for that afternoon, but then Hawkmoth akumatized a dog groomer, so she’d spent her afternoon chasing down an akuma with giant, sentient sheers. Chat Noir had been especially wary of that particular akuma.
Anyway, her whole afternoon and evening got blown by the attack and now she was in bed, popping ibuprofen for her bruised ribs, trying to remember what the Hamilton Method was and why she should care.
“This is math. This is literally math. Why am I studying this for history ?”
“The apportionment method is used to decide which house seats of representatives are distributed across the United States ,” Chat Noir supplies helpfully in her mind.
“Oh yeah, that makes more se- what the fuck?” Marienette threw her textbook across the room with a shriek, hitting the wall. Tikki, who had been napping on her desk, blinked awake.
“ I mean, yeah it’s pretty boring, but it makes sense why that’s part of your history course,” Chat goes on, as if this is a perfectly normal thing they do and not absolutely fucking out of this world. “Actually, as a matter of fact, I was studying the exact same thing today! Weird that our curriculum lines up. What school do you-”
“Chat, what, and I repeat, the fuck .”
Tikki pops up in Marinette’s field of vision. “What’s happening, Marinette?” she squeaks, looking highly concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Hey bugaboo! ” Chat chirps. It literally sounds like his voice is in her head, like he beamed it directly in. What the hell. What the hell? “ Sooo I have some good news and I have some bad news .”
“How are you in my head?” Marinette pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling an oncoming migraine. Tikki’s eyes widen.
“I’ll get to that-so bad news, Hawkmoth knows who I am .”
Marinette’s entire body jolts with panic. She throws herself out of bed and grabs her shoes. She’d learned the hard way the fighting akumas at night meant that you usually found yourself de-transforming in a cold alley.
“Good news, I know who he is,” Chat continues, which yeah, that’s pretty good news, but then Chat goes on. “ Bad news, he has my Miraculous. ”
“Oh my god -”
“Good news! I have his.”
“...Chat, where are you?”
“Telling you would reveal my secret identity, and I know you don’t want to know who I am and I didn’t want to put extra stress on you .”
“WE ARE SO FAR BEYOND THAT CHAT.” Marinette faceplants back onto her bed and shrieks into her pillow.
“Marinette, what’s happening?” Tikki asks, sounding even more worried.
“Chat’s speaking in my brain.”
“Yeah, I got that,” the tiny kwami huffs, probably rolling her eyes.
“He knows who Hawkmoth is.”
Tikki lets out another squeak, this time more excited than anything. “What?”
“Bad news, he’s my dad,” Chat Noir suddenly says. “ Good news, I know where he lives. Bad news again. I also live there.”
“Chat, where ARE YOU.” Marinette sits up again, throwing her balcony door open and climbing onto the roof.
“I’m in a heavily fortified mansion basement with a few dozen robot guns pointed at me .”
“ Chat -”
“ Ugggh fiiiiine, I’m at the Agreste Mansion.”
Marinette blinks in surprise. “The Agreste Mansion, why are you at the Agreste Man--oooooohh fuuuuuuuuck.”
Marinette turns her betrayed glare onto Tikki who suddenly pretends to look very interested in one of her flippers, which she’s had for a couple thousand years give or take a holder. “The Agreste Mansion.” She says flatly. “The Agreste Fucking Mansion. Home of fashion designer and CEO of Agrest Industries Gabriel Agreste and teen idol Adrien Agreste.”
“That’s the one!”
Tikki clears her throat. “Weird coincidence.”
“You’re telling me the guy I look up to as mentor in the fashion world is my fucking nemesis and my superhero, crime fighting partner is my crush .”
“Uhhhhhhh- ”
“Shut up, how can you even hear what I’m saying .” Marinette slaps her hands over her eyes.
“I can hear what you think you’re about to say which is probably exactly what you’re saying.”
“And how can you do that ?” Marinette asks, muffled into her hands.
“Oh. Oh! You know how I have Hawkmoth’s Miraculous? Cute little kwami named Nooroo? Yeah, turns out one of the powers he uses is telepathy, but apparently Hawkmoth like has no idea that he can even do this which is, frankly, ridiculous. Obviously telepathy is part of Nooroo’s powers, how else would he be able to akumatize people. Smh.”
“Did you just say smh out loud?”
“Oh my god there’s a body in here. Bugaboo, I just found a body. Oh my god oh my god- can you come pick me up?!”
“I’m never getting my history test done. I’m going to fail school and never go to university and end up working at a corporate coffee chain for the rest of my life.”
“I just found my mom’s body in the basement and my dad’s a supervillain.”
“Okay, you win. Spots on!”