Chapter Text
Ice cream in the snow. Only Chloe would suggest a freezing dessert in already freezing weather. André's wasn't available. Not even he drove out his cart on Winter nights, and they weren't likely to find him even if he was out since the likelihood Chloe would be interested in solving riddles to find his location was practically nonexistent. For her, there really seemed to be only one riddle that mattered.
If figuring out Hawkmoth's identity was as easy as solving André's location, though, Marinette didn't think either of them would be where they were right then.
Chloe scrunched her nose as a snowflake hit it, idly biting the top of her mint chocolate chip cone.
"That's good luck, you know." Marinette licked at a bit of her butter pecan already dribbling down the side. She never got to eat it at André's, so the change of pace was nice.
"Says who?" Chloe asked, skeptically.
"People. I don't know." She shrugged. "Heard it somewhere, I think."
"How very specific," she deadpanned.
"Well I don't need the third degree." Marinette rolled her eyes. "Why ice cream?"
"And the third degree comes to me," she snarked. At Marinette's continued gaze, however, she eventually relented. "My old butler used to take me out for ice cream after I'd done a good job. Today felt like I did, so I had a craving."
Marinette nodded along, thoughtfully. "Have you ever been to André's?"
"Once." She stared at her ice cream for a moment. "He wouldn't sell one to me."
Marinette's eyebrows furrowed. "Why not?"
She shrugged. "Who knows? Come on, Marinette, you know he's always been temperamental. All the passionate ones are."
Marinette pursed her lips. "He told you why, didn't he?"
"He just said he wouldn't serve me," Chloe said, solidly. "That's all."
Liar.
"Alright, then." Marinette scooted up next to her, handknitted scarf waving in the Winter breeze. "You want a lick?" She bent her cone in Chloe's direction.
"Of your well lubricated butter pecan?" Chloe wrinkled her nose slightly at Marinette's licked all around cone. "If I really wanted to try it, I'd go in and buy another cone."
"Were you always such a germaphobe?" Marinette asked, licking at her own cone again. "I would've thought everything like that was handled by your maids, did you even see a germ before you were eighteen?"
"Believe me, I'd seen plenty." She grimaced, biting into her ice cream again. "It only takes one trip into a filthy guest's room to watch the maids clean to become exceptionally aware of how dirty a place can be. Besides, I can't afford to get sick at the moment."
"Too much business at Honeycomb?" Marinette asked, feigning idleness to cover her intense curiosity.
Chloe side-eyed her with faint amusement at seeing through her obvious ploy. "Sure."
"It's not a crime to want to know more about you, you know," Marinette pouted, biting into her ice cream like Chloe did and immediately regretting it as a brain freeze pounded against her.
Chloe huffed, lightly, returning her attention to her cone. "What could you possibly want to know about me you don't already?"
"Chloe, I didn't know your favorite color until a little while ago," she said, disbelief peppering her tone. "I don't know loads of stuff about you."
"I doubt I'm that interesting."
"You are the most interesting person I've ever met." Her voice was serious, solid. "It's not even close."
Chloe blinked at her, eyes widened in surprise. "Huh."
"Can you tell me what you're doing?" Marinette asked, leaning against the stairs they sat on outside the ice cream parlor. "Why you can't afford to get sick now?"
She expected Chloe to blow her off again, tell another lie. At most, she hoped for something vague she wouldn't bother to explain.
"Chat Noir is gone," she said, instead. "The replacement won't be good enough to pick up the slack for long. Ladybug looks more tired by the day. If I can't find Hawkmoth's identity soon, she'll crack." The cone under Chloe's fingers broke, green minty sludge oozing out of the sides in an uncomfortable effigy. "Things are bad, Dupain-Cheng. I can't get sick now. I have to help."
There was some part of her that almost rushed to tell Chloe she was fine, the edge between Marinette and Ladybug blurring under the lie.
She wouldn't crack. Not to Hawkmoth. Once she did that, even without the Miraculous, he'd already won.
But...Chloe was so sure.
So it wasn't an assurance 'Ladybug' was fine. It wasn't some brush off or bristling that it wasn't any of Chloe's business anyway. It wasn't even confusion at her knowing for sure Chat Noir was gone when she'd only ever worked with Catspaw once that very day, that Marinette pressed into Chloe at that moment.
"What can I do?" She asked, instead. "To help?"
Chloe laughed, that same wheezy, out of use, thing. "That really is your first instinct for things, isn't it?"
Her voice was teasing, but also... sad.
She stood up, slowly, depositing her destroyed cone in the trash and the rest of her icecream with it, grimacing at the stickiness remaining on her hand. Marinette held out a napkin for her to use and something akin to exasperation flushed her face for a moment as she took it.
"Thanks," she said after a delay, dumping the napkin with the rest of it once she'd finished wiping her hands.
"You're welcome."
She didn't sit back down, tapping fingers up and down her leg, thinking, weighing. "Come with me," she said, eventually. "To a party. There are going to be more Hawkmoth candidates there. You've watched the cameras enough to know what to look for."
Marinette nodded, once. "Okay."
For a while, what felt like eternity, they just stared at each other, snow falling around them, Marinette feeling her pants soak through from the damp steps she sat on, while Chloe twitched the fingers on her still sticky hand.
Her breath came out in wisping steam, Chloe's the same in the freezing cold, she could feel her ice cream dribbling down by the heat of her hands, but she couldn't look away to stop it.
Chloe's gaze had trapped her completely. For that stretch of time, it was like she had dropped her mask entirely, and Marinette could see what was beneath.
At first, it didn't seem human at all. There was something coldly analytical to it, like she was being watched by a lizard, measuring her out piece by piece, seeing if she was a threat, if she was benign, if she could be eaten. This seemed like the part of Chloe that could so easily poke through to the heart of problems at Honeycomb, the part that showed in all the notes Marinette had read on Hawkmoth, observations, deductions, logic following invisible threads from one person to the next. It also seemed like that part was the reason she had so few friends, why she evaded or lied at every question that could have gotten to know her better, and when she was a child the part that knew just what to say to cut someone down, or get away with whatever she'd done that day.
If that was the end of Chloe, Marinette would have stopped looking, unnerved by the almost alien quality that look had, but when she looked past that, she saw something only too human.
There was frustration there, and sadness, but also an almost overwhelming hope. Marinette didn't think she'd ever seen that on a younger Chloe's face, but that must have been the why to her analysis' how. Why she was going after Hawkmoth, why she worked at Honeycomb.
'Today was a bad day,' she'd said. 'Tomorrow will be better.'
She was skeptical, and bitter, beyond anyone Marinette had ever known, but somehow, behind it all, she genuinely believed that.
Did Marinette?
There was a time she would have said yes in an instant.
Right then... it was harder.
For a moment, Marinette wanted to ask how, what made her hope so hard, trust so much that everything would be alright, but her mouth wouldn't move.
Lights, flashing red and blue behind Chloe were what finally broke the spell. She looked away, sighing when she realised what they were, and the mask slid on again like it had never slipped an inch.
Marinette looked past at the police car that had stopped on the street right outside the ice cream parlor. "Expecting someone?" She asked.
Chloe's frown deepened. "Expecting someone to take longer to find me."
The door to the police cruiser opened and Alix got out, arms spread as she walked over. "You promised, Chloe. I asked you and you promised you'd be there."
"I never promised," Chloe answered, evenly, but Alix's glare sharpened.
"You don't need to actually say the words, Chloe. You told me you would and you lied." Alix turned to Marinette, waving, but still unhappy. "Hey, Marinette. You doing alright?"
"Uh, fine." Marinette stood up, dumping the rest of her cone in the trash. "Were you part of the meeting Chloe said she skipped?"
Alix raised an eyebrow at Chloe, who shrugged wordlessly.
"You could say that," Alix hedged. "Kind of a private club, though, so sorry we can't invite you."
"Oh, I'm fine," Marinette waved her hands. "I don't want to intrude, I was just putting together that you were the one on the phone with her earlier."
Alix shook her head. "Adrien was on the phone with her earlier."
Chloe half turned, an annoyed frown quirking her lips. "He sicced her on me."
"I was already sicced on you." Alix's glare refocused on Chloe. "I've noticed how you've been lately. I knew you needed this, and then you didn't show, what am I supposed to do about that?"
"I didn't do anything," Chloe said, impassively. "There's no need to be concerned."
Alix poked her in the chest. "But you almost did, didn't you?" At seeing Marinette shift out of the corner of her eye, Alix sighed, dropping her hand. "Marinette, do you want me to drop you off somewhere? I've still got to talk about this with Chloe."
"Oh, I can get a cab or someth-" Marinette started to say, but Chloe cut her off.
"Back to her apartment, Alix." Chloe climbed into the car, slamming the door shut behind her.
Alix gritted her teeth, pinching the bridge of her nose in an effort to calm down. "Chloe, I just can't with you, sometimes." She turned to walk back to the car. "Come on, Marinette. Let's get you home before the princess pitches a fit."
"Sorry for the inconvenience," Marinette said, walking with her.
"Marinette, it wouldn't be an inconvenience if you asked me to drop you off on the moon, getting you back home isn't even a thing." Alix sighed. "Sorry for interrupting your date."
Marinette cracked a smile. "It was fun, but it wasn't a date. I'm sorry Chloe bailed on what you wanted her for."
"She does it more often than you might think." Alix paused right outside the car, laying her hand on the door. "Do you... wish it was?"
Marinette tilted her head, confused. "Do I wish it was what?"
"Nevermind." She shook her head, opening up the door. "You want to ride in front or back in the lockup?"
"Uh, front, I think, would be fine." She went around and climbed gingerly into the front passenger side, arms in her lap so she didn't accidentally touch any of the police equipment.
Alix got in beside her, starting the car and easing out of the driveway and down the Parisian streets.
"Did you guys hear? Apparently there was a new Chat Noir fighting the last Akuma with Ladybug," Alix said, the car idling at a stop light. "What do you think happened to the real Chat?"
"Maybe he aged out." Chloe yawned, head up against the car window. "Started pretty young."
"Is that part of the magic?" Alix asked, driving forward with the light once again. "If there are age limits, it'd explain why they were just kids starting out, but... does that mean Ladybug's going to get replaced soon, too?"
"She won't-" Marinette started to say at the same time Chloe spoke.
"Hawkmoth's power source is the same." Marinette looked back at her, still pressed against the glass. "If he hasn't aged out, it's not the magic stopping them."
Alix's eyebrows furrowed. "Then what'd you mean when you said Chat did?"
"Fighting for years against someone you don't know without gaining much ground. There aren't many people who can take that. Eventually, he must have decided to do something else with his life."
Marinette felt her fingers close into fists, bunching up her pantlegs. "Chat wouldn't just give up like that. Something must have happened to him."
Chloe's eyes flicked to the front seat. "You'd prefer to think he's too injured to come back instead of just off doing what he wants to do?"
"I'd prefer to think he wouldn't abandon m-" she forcefully corrected herself. "Paris. Without saying a word, if he had a choice, yes."
"Then maybe he told Ladybug already that he was leaving and she just hasn't made an announcement to Paris yet." Alix shrugged, both the other passengers staring at her for a moment before looking out the window again.
"Yeah," Marinette said, dryly. "Maybe."
Alix kept driving, silence coating the vehicle, as she glided it carefully down snow soaked paths.
"How do you know Hawkmoth's power source is the same?" Marinette asked, suddenly.
Alix raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Chloe, you said Hawkmoth's power source is the same." Marinette turned her body around, clinging to the headrest so she could look at Chloe as she asked. "How did you know that?"
Chloe stared at her for a few moments. "Ladybug said so," she said, evenly. "After Stoneheart."
Marinette shook her head. "What?"
"'No matter how long it takes, we will find you, and you will give us your Miraculous,'" she quoted without inflection. "Both of them use Miraculous, according to Ladybug, so, same power source, presumably same rules."
"Jesus, Chlo, that was years ago," Alix shouted. "You still got space in there for your job and everything?"
"Enough." She shrugged, turning back to the window, and slowly Marinette faced forward again. "What did you think my answer was going to be?" She asked after another minute in silence.
"I... don't know," Marinette admitted. "You just always seem to know more about it than I'm expecting."
Chloe cracked a smile, eyes becoming half-lidded. "Don't you trust me, Marinette?"
Marinette hesitated, eyes searching Chloe's face, but finally she shook her head. "No. I guess I don't."
Her eyes widened, but after a moment she gave that wheezy laugh of hers again, laying her head against the window, a more genuine smile replacing the one she had before. "I never know... I just never know what you're going to say."
The car eased to a stop, pulling off to the side of the road. "This it?" Alix asked.
Marinette looked up to see they'd already reached her apartment building, and she jumped in surprise, quickly unbuckling. "Oh, yes. Thank you so much for driving me." She opened the door. "I'll-"
Chloe caught her arm, looking at her with just a little of that hope from before sliding through her mask. "The party... you'll come?"
Marinette smiled, softly. "I wouldn't miss it."
Chloe let go, turning away again.
After waving goodbye to Alix, Marinette got out and walked up the stairs to her apartment, the police car pulling out again a few moments after. When she finally made it inside, she'd barely locked the door before sliding down it, giving a long, shaky, sigh.
Talking with Chloe always felt like a minefield. She'd try to go this way or that only for her progress to be stopped each time, carefully stepping over all the things she really wanted to ask. And if she made a mistake and stepped on the landmine, itself...
'He just wouldn't serve me. That's all.'
Marinette groaned, pressing her hands against her temples. "Stop pushing me away, already."
She'd seen the mask fall that day, found out why she was working so hard to find Hawkmoth. It felt like Chloe was floundering in deep water all by herself, and even though Alix and Adrien were trying their best, they couldn't help her where it mattered.
She needed someone to jump in the water after her.
"Are you alright, Marinette?" Tikki asked, worried.
"I'm cold, and sore, and if I don't take something for this headache, I think I'm going to die," she sighed, leaning her head back on the cool wood of the door. "Today was a bad day, Tikki, top to bottom. I hadn't eaten, I hated fighting with Catspaw, and even talking to Chloe felt more stressful than not, but..."
Tikki's eyebrows furrowed. "But?"
"Tomorrow." Marinette's eyes slid closed. "Tomorrow will be better."
Maybe, even a little, it felt easier to believe that than it had before.
(:*:)
Alya woke up slowly, gently floated from unconsciousness with a smell that was neither her bed nor the couch in her office. The awakening didn't come without a cost, however, as her gradual creep toward reality was accompanied by a harsh stabbing pain somewhere behind her eyes that only intensified as she became aware of it.
It was a regrettably familiar, if not too common, experience.
"Never. Drinking. Again." She tried opening her eyes, but shut them immediately against the too bright room.
"Okay..." she muttered to herself. "This definitely isn't my apartment."
Alya's apartment was cluttered, or could be called that if someone was being kind. Old clothes ended up on the floor more often than not, clean clothes exiled to messy piles in her bureau and closet when they weren't just shoved into a corner of her bed.
Dishes went into the sink, hurriedly cleaned when she was starting to run out, and takeout containers didn't always quite make it into the trash, the trash itself needing a jenga pile of a good height stacked up higher than most would have already taken it out.
None of these habits were damning evidence against her character or even altogether uncommon amongst her peers, but it did make it remarkably easy to distinguish her space from someone else's. By sight, by smell, by feeling, there was no question the bed she was in was not her own.
That left the reasonable question: "where am I?"
Slowly, she flipped on her stomach and opened her eyes carefully toward the pillow, enough light filtering through the fabric almost enough to make her shut them again, but her present confusion allowing her to adjust over a too long period before moving to actually look at the room.
It was... sparse, wasn't quite the right word. 'Indistinct' might have been closer. There were some items breaking up the monotonously white walls, a few trophies or medals on display, a guitar shoved into a corner like it was embarrassing, and a painting on one wall of a classic asian dragon, but beyond that, everything seemed picked clean of dirt, of personality, and ownership. If this were a vaguely themed hotel room, Alya would have felt better about it, but a rapier carefully displayed behind the medals gave a better idea who the room belonged to.
"Kagami?" Alya slipped out of bed, rubbing her aching head as she went for the door, something she had to feel around for as its white appearance and lack of indentations or handle made it almost completely flush with the wall.
What was she even doing in Kagami's house, anyway?
Alya froze.
What was she doing in Kagami's bed?
'Okay... keep me asleep.' Her own words came to her through hazy memories of the night before. She'd gone out to eat with Kagami. She'd had wine... a lot of wine and...
Her hand ghosted up to her lips. She'd kissed her, hadn't she? Then...
Her eyes dragged back to the open door behind her, Kagami's bed visible through the door with rumpled sheets.
Oh.
New priority list: find a sink to drink out of, find her phone to contact Marinette, and find Kagami.
Easy.
Of course, it would have been much easier if it didn't seem like every door in the house had that same flush with the wall design, to the point she was glad she left the door to Kagami's room open in the massive house, since several times she'd looped back in on herself entirely and that was the only indication.
"Really starting to feel like a sanitorium, at this point," she muttered to herself, running a hand along a wall in the vague hope it would eventually give way to a secret passage. The fact it actually did, really didn't help matters.
"A swimming pool?" Alya shouted, disbelievingly. "She has a swimming pool?"
"Have you been helped?" A severe voice came from behind her and Alya whipped around to see an old woman with dark glasses standing in the doorway.
Alya backed up a few steps. "Oh, uh, sorry. I was looking for... Kagami?"
"Kagami isn't here." She gestured out into the hall, clearly dismissing her from the pool area, which Alya politely vacated. "Normally, she is more particular about making sure her 'conquests' leave quickly and quietly in the morning, but I suppose the conference is causing her attention in minor matters to slip."
Alya looked down, suddenly embarrassed by everything from her hangover to her current state of undress. It didn't matter that the woman seemed to be blind, she felt her cheeks burn uncomfortably, all the same.
"Do you just know where my phone and clothes are?" Alya forced out, quietly. "Then I'll be out of your hair."
"I would check Kagami's en-suite bathroom." The woman turned away. "My daughter often hides things there she would prefer I not know about."
With that said, she walked away with quick, disciplined, strides, leaving Alya to crawl back to Kagami's room in shame.
It took another few minutes to find the en-suite bathroom, with of course the same flush to the wall design as everything else hiding it from view.
There, on the bathroom counter, were her clothes, neatly folded and smelling of unfamiliar soap, with her phone and a note on top of the pile, and a glass of water with two white pills on a small napkin beside it.
Alya eyed the glass of water thirstily, but decided to read the letter before touching anything unnecessarily, flipping it open to see sharp, precise, lettering in what could only be Kagami's hand.
'Good morning, Alya, I enjoyed our dancing last night tremendously, and can only hope you remember it enough to feel the same. I couldn't tell whether you were truly blackout or not, but either way you seemed a bit too far gone for me to be comfortable with, so don't worry, your chastity is safe from me, for the moment. (Not that I wasn't tempted).'
Alya breathed a slow sigh of relief at the letter, sitting down on the closed toilet seat and kept reading.
'I got you to drink some water last night, but I imagine it wasn't enough, so I prepared another glass with some paracetamol based pain relief beside it, which hopefully you're not allergic to. I've also had your clothes cleaned, so you won't have to reuse them.'
That was enough for Alya to down the whole glass of refreshingly cool water, with the pills beside it as well.
'If my mother finds you, I'm sure she'll say something unnecessary, so if you want to avoid her, just use the first door left of mine, it will take you straight through to the garage.'
That... could have been useful to know before.
'I'm sorry the conference prevents me from being there when you wake up. Next time, I'll be sure to fix that.
'You already know my number.
'-Kagami.'
The burning in her cheeks at that wasn't the same embarrassment as before, but she was no more prepared to deal with it.
"Alright, then." Alya picked up her phone, checking through messages before starting to redress. "No longer worried I won't have anything to talk about to Marinette at dinner."
She walked out, slinging her bag around her shoulder.
"How's that for getting out more?"
The door to the garage slammed shut behind her.