Archive of Our Own ^beta

Between their friend group, there are many sleepless nights.

When she can say it without guilt churning in her gut, Alya would joke about them gaining insomnia thanks to her. Marinette would always huff, Nino would shrug, and Adrien would do anything from raising a single eyebrow to breaking into a giggling fit that borders on hysteric.

It goes something like this, at first anyways:

They’re all being piled with work, now that Hawkmoth is gone and it’s safe to catch up on the near two months worth of content that they haven’t had the chance to review yet. Kim starts a study group with Max, which then acquires Alix and Rose, and then of course Juleka follows suit, and before anyone knows it the entire class, somehow including Chloé have all been dragged into a Discord server that’s almost nothing but people whining about homework and Max teaching them whether they like it or not.

It doesn’t escape her notice that Marinette and Adrien are. Always. Online.

This is not a joke. Alya’s frequently up until at the very least 1am when her body doesn’t give out on her, and even after all-nighters she never sees Marinette and Adrien listed as anything other than idle.

Is this just a website bug? Possibly. But on a lucky day where she falls asleep early and can’t get back to bed when she’s up around 3, she buys four coffees for her friend group to split instead of her regular two for her and Nino, and Adrien runs to give her a hug at frankly terrifying speeds, and Marinette follows suit pretty much the moment he lets go.

(Speaking of, when the heck did those two get so strong!? The Marinette that Alya met on the first day could barely handle the books in her bag, but now she can see muscles in some of her tighter shirts, and considering Adrien Agreste is, well, Adrien Agreste, the public has commented on this shift for him, as well.)

Anyways, back to the possible problem at hand – maybe this makes sense for Adrien, considering his father was outed as a supervillain and his assistant hasn’t been seen since. That wound is still frighteningly fresh, and Alya’s endlessly confused by how he gets happier by the day.

But Marinette? Alya might have not known her very long, but Nino and Kim are forthcoming with insider information and they both agree that her getting fixated on a project all night long is a once a week sort of thing, at worst. Then again, she sort of got sort of sidetracked by Kim being half of this equation and started demanding those two help her with a chart of previous class dynamics in order for her to get a full picture of the social structure.

This all culminates, at least in her eyes, during the ball.

Adrien is already there when Alya and Nino arrive, in a suit too plain to be anything but one of his old Gabriel pieces that he’s been not-so-subtley tossing into donation bins one by one over the last two weeks. (It’s probably too formal for a bin, actually. Whatever.) He’s fidgeting like crazy, rolling his mask between his fingers, and if he’s not doing that he’s twisting his ring instead. When Chloé starts to strut towards them, he ducks ‘into the bathroom’ and completely vanishes into the crowd. Alya blames the fact it’s a masquerade.

Marinette shows up for maybe five minutes at most, before ducking off as well. She doesn’t even offer a proper explanation, just drifts away until she accidentally bumps into Juleka’s brother, and then she’s full on sprinting out of sight.

Neither of them are seen for the rest of the night, but for curiosity’s sake Alya checks their status later that night to see them still miraculously online, even though it’s nearing 2am.

Maybe she needs to stage an intervention. Or a sleepover.

⠀

⠀

They’re flirting.

They’re flirting, and Alya does not have the energy required for this right now because she’d forgotten that school starts today and pulled an all-nighter, having left the house in too much of a rush to even grab her usual morning coffee. She can’t even remember what lesson they were on before winter break, let alone pay attention to the fact Adrien is in a hoodie and sweatpants and has called Marinette princess at least twice in the last five minutes.

(Good news, she’ll find out later, is that Mylène filmed almost the whole thing.)

By lunch, Alya’s dug into enough of her food that she’s got the energy required for at least a small questioning, but when she walks into the lunch room she remembers that Marinette always eats lunch at the bakery, and even though Adrien doesn’t have to go anywhere for lunch now he still usually hides instead of risking it with any nosy non-peers.

At least she gets in a good gossip sesh with the entire homeroom, because it seems as though everyone aside from Chloé, Sabrina (though whether that’s because of her or Chloé is up in the air), and Nathaniel are interested, (as well as Aurore and Juleka’s brother for some reason). The table is a bit packed– they’ve pushed three tables together in a pyramid shape but Alya finds herself just a bit too close to Nino in order to still have room on the table. Ivan keeps exhaustedly confiscating large unfolding papers that Aurore, Alix and Max are trying to turn into either a flow chart or conspiracy board.

“They have to have gotten together over break,” Alix insists, because despite supposedly not having any interest in romance she lives for drama. Her place in the school’s silent hierarchy has been the hardest to discern– she seems to be closest with Kim but gets along with pretty much everyone, supposedly being one member of a very limited group of people Nino talked to before she came along. She only has a passive hatred of Chloé, which wouldn’t be on her radar if it weren’t for the writhing hatred of that random Lila gal from Mme. Mendeleive’s homeroom. “You know how they are, if they got together before the dance they would have been rubbing it in our faces all evening. And before anyone even mentions Chloe, she's definitely in the best position to get insider info right now, let's be real.”

Debatable, in regards to the Adrinette aspect. Those two had both been operating on the edge of an anxiety attack with the helpful addition of vibrating from what was probably more caffeine than what should have been survivable. She’s pretty sure if they were dating at that point Adrien would have been clinging to her like the anxiety-filled hermit that he secretly is. And knowing how big Marinette’s crush is, they probably would have been too busy making out in a secluded corner to flaunt it around, anyways.

(Actually, that’s probably a good guess, now that she thinks about it.)

“But without telling us?” Mylène stresses. While she comes off to the untrained person as just casually concerned, she’s rubbing at one of her bracelets in a way that Alya’s discovered means that this is something she’s not enjoying being out of the loop about. “She’s been ranting to us about her crush for months now! That can’t just change overnight!”

Juleka’s brother, who has been sitting there and scrolling on his phone the entire time, hums and doesn’t even look up. “Maybe now that Adrien has freedom to make his own decisions, he was able to confess without worrying about his father?”

The vibe immediately tanks. While not a direct reference to Hawkmoth, it’s certainly a reminder of the villain and his shitty parenting tendencies. Still, Rose attempts to remain optimistic, replying, “I’m sure that Mr. Agreste wasn’t that bad of a father. He still… turned himself in!”

“I think the fact that he’s the only parent to one of our classmates who’s in jail says enough,” Aurore decides.

Juleka’s brother snorts, and Alya internally starts writing up a new note to add to her vault later.

When the conversation trails off Alya decides now’s a good point to take it back into her own hands, loudly clearing her throat. “Back on topic– I think the only time that makes sense for them to get together would have been early on during the masquerade at Le Grand Paris. Barely anybody saw them that night, and I’m pretty sure nobody except Chloé saw them after break. Which is, like, totally out of character for Mari. I got the feeling she’s the type of person to break down crying while signing yearbooks even though she’s already planned a class get together for that weekend.”

“Yeah, we know, she’s destined to be the best parent at the PTA meetings,” Alix says dismissively, “I need the real scoop, and unlucky for me I can’t time travel right now.”

Alya looks toward Alix and Aurore. Aurore is carefully drawing a folded piece of paper from her purse.

Ivan reaches forward.

Mylène puts a hand on Ivan’s thigh, mouthing the words let them.

“I agree with Alya in this instance, though more data would be preferable,” Max states, pushing his glasses up as he begins helping to unfold the large paper. “No paparazzi captured any photos of Adrien near the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Pâtisserie, at least as far as I have been made aware. He also does not seem like the type of individual to confess to someone digitally. As well, if it had happened in a quieter setting such as our school, there’s a high chance that they would have been too eager to keep it a secret for long, not to mention the fact there must have been some sort of squealing on Marinette’s part, considering…”

He pauses for a long moment, searching for the word as he taps a pen against the paper.

“She’s Marinette,” Kim finishes shortly.

“Yes, exactly,” Max says almost carelessly. “However, the masquerade was a loud environment with many different areas to wander into, and to my knowledge very few people actually spotted Adrien or Marinette at the party, unless we are missing an important confidant in this conversation. After the fact, she and Adrien were both suspiciously low-contact, only having resumed what I perceive as normal behaviour a day or two before school was due to resume.”

“Not to be a bitch, but I feel like we’re focusing on the wrong part here,” Alya declares. In order to add effect she slams her hands onto the table, hoping the sound isn’t too loud. “Why did they get together? It’s been months of Adrien refusing to acknowledge Marinette’s obvious feelings for him—”

“Or his obvious feelings for Marinette,” Juleka’s brother cuts in.

“Yes, and that, thank you guy I still don’t know the name of—”

“It’s Lu—”

“And then all of a sudden, without any poking or prodding, he finally takes his head out of his ass? It’s way out of character! Chat Noir falling in love with Marinette is more likely than that.”

Juleka’s brother coughs again. Maybe he just has a cold, or something.

Max begins clicking his pen against the table rapidly, clearly about to offer some sort of percentage of why Alya’s hyperbole is actually inaccurate, when Nino pipes up, “Are we sure that his obliviousness wasn’t because of pressure from his Da– uh, gene donor? Like, sure, sure, because that’s way in character for the dude, not gonna lie. He wouldn’t let me into the house because my hat was crooked.”

Alix rolls her eyes. “Yeesh.”

It’s a good theory, Alya can admit. Less romantic than what she’s hoping for, like honestly it’s sort of just a really depressing real life Romeo and Juliet sort of concept, but she’s learning over time that Adrien’s more perceptive than he allows himself to be and it’s pretty much world news that Gabriel Agreste is one of the biggest pieces of shit to ever walk this Earth, or at least as far as Paris is concerned (Alya still has flashbacks to the one video an anon had sent to the Ladyblog of Hawkmoth having conversations with himself while strutting around the catacombs under the city. Like, seriously, Hawkmoth in front of a wall of actual skulls? Some crazy shit). But, also, she wants to believe in the power of sunshine child and chaos child romance, just in case. Having a story this investing has been the only thing keeping her energised ever since Ladybug and Chat Noir had put a stop to Hawkmoth’s reign, and coincidentally their jobs.

“So, what, Adrien confesses at the masker-thingy, since his Dad’s not around to stop him, right?” Kim asks rhetorically. Or maybe not, it can be hard to tell with him sometimes. “And they’re so in love that they don’t even talk to us for two weeks straight?”

A collective shrug goes around the table.

Alya sighs, slumping into her chair. “Unless anyone thinks of a better story, then I guess.”

⠀

⠀

The first sentimonster, as they’ll later be dubbed, arrives three weeks into January.

When the akuma alarm first sounds, Alya assumes that there was a malfunction while someone was trying to take the thing down. It still sends her nerves ramping up, as it does for the entire class, but it’s nothing important. Nothing real. Totally,

Her phone chimes.

She can’t really remember what happens after that point, so lost within her own head. At some point she makes it out into the street, live streaming, but her brain is fighting over three thoughts: Hawkmoth’s back, Chat Noir betrayed us, and there’s a new power at play.

To be honest, she doesn’t know which of the three would be the option she wants. Just… not the second one. Totally for Ladynoir reasons, yep.

Chat Noir is the first on the scene, wearing his classic suit rather than the dark purple one he’s been donning ever since Hawkmoth was defeated. The green looks almost out of place on him now, despite it’s always part of his core colour scheme.

The akuma(?) doesn’t look… human. This feels like some sort of body horror shit, because the akuma is shaped like an akuma. As in a butterfly. Like– butterflyception, or something.

Oh– also, it’s hurling fireballs out of its mouth directly at Chat Noir and random citizens. That’s probably something important.

She ducks behind a car, not really processing any words as her eyes mindlessly drift towards the frantic live chat. All she hears is screaming and crying and fire and while she doesn’t think she has PTSD her brain is still reminding her of her caved in apartment building all the same.

At some point, Ladybug arrives. At some point, the akuma(?) lets out an inhumane screech. At some point, it’s just the butterfly and Alya, alone in the burning street, and her still streaming phone is ringing like crazy.

The phone leaves her hands. She runs.

And runs, and runs, and runs, and runs, and—

“Lady Wifi.”

Breathless. Heart-hammering. The world is moving– burning in slow motion, and she’s helpless. Purple floods her vision and a voice whispers into her ears, and if whatever the hell is in the streets isn’t an akuma she already knows she’s about to end up being one anyways.

“It’s– don’t panic, okay? It’s Chat Noir, or uh– Flutter Noir, I think we’re calling… whatever this is. Anyways– I need you to know first and foremost that this is a choice, and you’re allowed to reject it and keep trying to flee. But we’re really, really out of options right now and we need some assistance, and with the powers that you used to have I know that you’d be able to buy us the time we need to figure out what’s going on. So, uhm… do you want the pausing powers back in exchange for helping us take down… whatever this is? And I also won’t make you ugly or anything, I swear.”

Power. Put this on pause. Stop it. Save the city. Help Chat Noir.

“I accept,” she responds, before choking on the power that suddenly swims through her veins, stumbling as the world goes back to the speed it should be. The familiar cold of an akuma’s magic envelops Alya Cesaire, leaving Lady Wifi in her place, awaiting Flutter Noir’s orders.

“Alright, I’m gonna detransform now. Good luck, Fi.”

The purple mask flickers away from her face and Lady Wifi has to blink several times while she adjusts to having full control of her conscious. The first thought that makes it through her head properly is that Flutter Noir had kept his promise: rather than the logo be awkwardly etched around her waist, there’s a belt splitting her costume in two, her phone resting on her hip and showing off the power logo that she often associates with her once akumatised form. The top of the costume is now a long sleeve that sags ever so slightly, and the bottom of the suit has been completely replaced with black joggers that end a bit above her ankles.

Her second thought? Probably the most reasonable one.

The fuck?

That thought lasts for maybe ten seconds before she realises that she’s directly in the villain’s line of fire, and she’s running out of the way. She wracks her brain for the list of abilities her akumatised form had, but considering that none of the list had actually been compiled by herself it’s not as concrete as she needs it to be.

⠀

⠀

Two hours. The butterfly is paused for two hours before Ladybug finally sends her cure shooting through the city. School’s long since over by now and civilians became daring enough to film Lady Wifi helping out the heroes after maybe an hour.

She’s going to have to be very careful about how she writes this for her blog.

Once all is said and done, Chat Noir comes out of nowhere and carries her onto a nearby rooftop, smirking as she screams the entire time. Lady Wifi glares at him while she catches her breath, and in response he only sits down casually.

“So, in order for me to un-kamikoitise you, since Ladybug’s already used her power for now, I sort of have to take control of you again for a few seconds, if that’s alright of course. I promise I won’t do anything bad.”

Lady Wifi has never heard Chat Noir this sheepish before, and she doesn’t even get to enjoy it because now that she has the time to process wow is this an interesting situation. So akuma forms can be used for good now? How did Chat Noir get Gabriel Agreste’s superpower? Is it in a piece of jewellery like the ones he wants to steal off of Ladybug and Chat Noir?

“Cool,” she responds, in an attempt to sound like she’s focused on one thing at a time. That’s not really how she operates, though.

Chat Noir mutters something softly enough she can’t catch it, and purple light washes over him. His hair becomes slightly more golden, his roots a little bit less pronounced. The dark purple replaces most of the black, and now that she’s close enough she can also see that his cat eyes go from green to purple. His mask gets a bit bigger, faint lines in the shape of butterfly wings starting from the eye holes and stretching out until they’re completed, leaving his mask shaped similarly to the purple insignia that Hawkmoth always used. His baton is slightly thicker now, with a bump at the top that leaves it almost resembling a cane.

She has to stop the villain.

The villain has been stopped.

“Thank you, Alya,” A voice in her mind whispers.

And she’s left feeling warm.

⠀

⠀

It’s a good thing she couldn’t write about herself on her blog, because the next day the sudden swarming of her classmates is already overwhelming enough.

Everyone, except for Chloé, Marinette and Adrien, are attempting to get info on the attack yesterday, mostly to no avail because her memories of being Lady Wifi, while present unlike the first time, are blurry and hard to grasp at, and she was more there for defence than offence anyways. The only thing she can say for certain: whatever villain attacked, it wasn’t Hawkmoth.

When Ms. Bustier walks into the classroom, everyone has to scramble for their seats, and Alya realises a moment too late that Adrien has stolen her usual spot next to Marinette. Those two are muttering quietly to one another, so Alya decides she might as well take the opportunity presented to her and slides in next to Nino.

Class passes by in its usual haze, Alya’s never been the best at paying attention to anyone but her parents and older sister, and even that’s iffy sometimes. She’s not failing anything yet, at the very least. At some point, Nino grabs a notecard and writes something down, resting his elbow on it in order to smoothly pass it to her side of the table.

I really hope that whatever CN/LB did doesn’t happen again.

She arches an eyebrow, grabbing an orange gel pen to respond to his hard to read green highlighter. Why’s that?

Her pass is a bit less smooth, she props it on her pencil case and lets him reach over and grab it. Luckily, Ms. Bustier isn’t looking at the class and doesn’t notice. He switches out the highlighter for a matching green pencil, before using the same trick to slide the note back over to her. The Bubbler was ugly.

Alya fails to suppress a snort, and crams the note between her notebook pages before Ms. Bustier can catch sight of it. After a stiff moment of waiting to be in the clear, she writes back a smug I bet if you asked nicely enough he’d get rid of the clown makeup.

He sighs deeply as he reads the note, and doesn’t respond.

⠀

⠀

“Hey Alya!” Adrien greets cheerily, and probably too loud for this hour considering he’s living in a hotel right now, even if there may be some half-decent soundproofing.

Suspicious.

“Do you know what time it is right now?” She asks casually, leaning back in her desk chair. She’d gotten bored while glaring down the weekly Ladyblog report – she still doesn’t know how to describe whatever the heck she’d experienced the day before. Does it belong in its own separate article? Is it isolated enough to go in the weekly patrol recaps? She’s got to answer the question in the next, like, two or three days, and wow is it annoying. “Don’t look at a clock, just like. Gimme an estimate.”

Adrien hums for a long moment, and she can hear a bit of shuffling. For a moment, she’s worried that he’s cheating and checking a clock, but then he responds, “10:30-ish? Maybe 11?”

For the benefit of her mental health, she flops forward and bangs her head against her desk.

“Uhh… Alya?”

“2:45,” She chokes off, more than likely edging on hysteria.

A distinctly Marinette voice swears.

“Are you with anyone right now?” Alya asks suspiciously, suddenly wide awake. She’d had her theories, of course, but what the fuck is keeping those two awake together every night? She knows Adrien’s taste in anime and it’s absolute trash—

“Oh, uh, sorryAlyaI’mgettinganothercallgottagobye—”

“DON’T YOU DARE—”

Adrien hangs up.

Alya flops her head back onto her desk, ignoring how her forehead is protesting. It can bitch all it wants, four times in one night is still relatively low as far as she’s concerned.

Someone knocks on her door. It’s not one of the twins, because they both have the shave and a haircut knock that they absolutely stole from Frozen, and also there’s only one person in the house with that heavy of a knock and that’s Nora. Probably the worst option out of the five.

“Come in,” she groans, barely looking up as she minimises her work in project Ladyblog post. If she had the energy, she might open up an actual school assignment in an attempt at appearing productive, but it’s nearing 3am and Nora knows her a bit too well for that.

Nora steps into her mess of a nook, her heavy footsteps unable to avoid that one annoying creaky spot not far from the door. Her strike comes too fast to predict, suddenly Alya’s being hefted up by the armpits and deposited onto her bed, and her groaning in protest does not do much, especially once her blanket’s over her shoulders. “I’m not even gonna ask what you were doing up, little sis,” Nora decides.

Alya pouts. It is not very effective.

“Get some sleep, ‘kay?”

“I have homework,” she attempts.

Nora raises her brows. “I doubt that.”

Honestly, Alya couldn’t tell her whether or not she has homework. She lost track somewhere between theorising about the potential new villain in Paris and going into a craze over Adrinette becoming real behind everyone’s backs. There’s probably something, but she can check the study Discord tomorrow morning if worse comes to worst. And anyways, Nora’s made her all nice and cosy…

⠀

⠀

Yeah, she’s out like a light. What about it?

⠀

⠀

The day Alya met Marinette, she had smelled a story from a mile away and had promised to stick to her like glue.

Now, four or five months later, she has her hair tied up into a loose ponytail and a beanie over that, and she fully intends to stalk Marinette home from school, in order to prove the fact that she’s been spending time with Adrien in secret.

(Creepy? Yes. But thanks to some stories she’s needled out of Alix, she knows Marinette’s no better.)

However, she doesn’t spot Adrien ever walking into the bakery, even after ten minutes of camping out. She’s about to give up on the story for the day when something potentially more interesting happens right before her eyes.

Chat Noir, of all people, lands on Marinette’s balcony, and instead of continuing to patrol he flops down on one of her chairs, instantly starting to twirl his folded baton around as a fidget. Alya’s gaping, staring at one of her idols from afar, brain too fuzzy to even remember to take a photo.

She watches almost in slow motion as Marinette’s skylight opens.

And then she has an idea.

Strutting into the bakery with confidence, she smiles at M. Dupain in what she hopes is a good enough picture of confidence and innocence, and asks if she would be allowed to hang out with Marinette for a little while. Almost as an afterthought, she yanks off the beanie so that he can tell who she is.

He says yes.

It’s been nearly a month since Alya was in this part of the building, but it’s not like she was about to just magically forget the route up to Marinette’s area in the attic. She knocks on the trap door just to be safe, waits for the response that she’s already semi-aware isn’t coming, and then decides why not and goes the rest of the way up anyways.

She might feel a little guilty as she climbs onto Marinette’s bed, but it’s the only way to reach the skylight. She peeks just enough that she can see both Marinette and Chat Noir casually sitting together on Marinette’s balcony, and before she knows it she’s shoving herself the rest of the way up because, like. The hell?

Marinette squawks when Alya appears, and Chat Noir attempts to make a run for it. Marinette yanks him back by the tail, hissing “If I have to deal with this, then so do you.”

So she’s clearly just stumbled upon something.

“Haha, heyy Aly– I mean, Ladyblogger. What are you doing here?”

You know, maybe her idol is actually a bit terrible at this. She wouldn’t be that surprised, to be honest.

Alya shrugs, pointing at Marinette. “She’s my best friend. I think the more important question is what you are doing here, M. Superhero.”

He smiles a cheshire grin, and Marinette gets halfway through opening her mouth before Chat Noir loudly interrupts, “Why, I’m just a humble stray cat that she feeds whenever I happen to be in the neighbourhood. Isn’t that right, purr—”

“I give him food and he keeps me company,” Marinette says loudly, glaring at the literal superhero next to her. This is Alya’s life right now, somehow. “That is all.”

Yeah, no. There’s a story here, at the very least about how this started, and like hell is Alya backing down before she gets it. “And why exactly am I just hearing about this?” She demands.

The two share a look and shrug. Chat Noir’s the one who shares what they are both apparently thinking, “You’re the Ladyblogger.”

⠀

⠀

At some point, she settles down enough on the questions that they actually get to talking, and to be honest it’s… nice? Reminds Alya of her friend group at her last school, except this time around they’re at least making an effort to include her in the conversation. Sure, Marinette does have a suspicious number of inside jokes with the literal superhero, but the bantering is three way and lively as all of her LadyNoir videos.

The sun is beginning to set before Alya even knows it, and Chat Noir sighs dramatically while deflating into his chair, making Marinette giggle. “Unfortunately, my princess, I must depart before the King and Queen of food retrieve their vile broom and order me to scram.”

“I’m pretty sure that if you asked them, you could stay for dinner,” Marinette says, brows knitted in thought. Alya goes straight back to gaping, because like. Literal superhero. What is the dynamic here!? She thought that this was just a casual waiting for Ladybug sort of hangout. “But you’ll have to keep the flirting to a minimum, furball.”

Chat Noir sputters, propping himself up on his elbows while he glares. “I do not flirt!”

“You do,” Alya pipes up.

He shoots his glare in her direction. The effect is sort of lost in his absurdly large irises. Like, seriously, he should have themed himself after a dog, he’s got the puppy eyes for it.

“You absolutely flirt, Chat,” Marinette says with a sigh.

“You can’t prove anything.”

“I have a broom for myself—”

Chat Noir hisses. Like, actually hisses at her. Alya is internally reconsidering the early theory of the two superheroes being animals given human bodies via magic. People sort of gave it up after an injured Chat was whisked away to ‘detransform,’ but if they can actually make noises like animals maybe the idea still has some merit.

(But no, ‘does Ladybug eat bugs?’ guy. You are not allowed to have a board on the Ladyblog, for the last time!)

“And unless you want me to get it,” Marinette says, unperturbed, “You better be a nice young gentlechat.”

Chat Noir pouts.

“Chat.”

He continues to pout.

“Chat.”

Wow. Just, wow. (Marinette is definitely dead meat.)

He springs up all at once, whispering a string of words too soft and fast for Alya to catch. She flinches away from a sudden flash of light, and when the light subsides she finds a new blonde boy leaning against the balcony railing.

The boy, unlike Chat a moment earlier, is decked out in almost all purple. He’s wearing a very light lavender button-up with a purple mesh on top (which hangs around his shoulders sort of like the beginning of a cloak) and is buttoned with a small Butterfly-shaped pin. He’s paired that with black yoga pants, with slits near the ankles which have been filled in with purple lace, depicting flowers. He’s got fingerless gloves that are similarly lace, with a butterfly centred on the back of each hand, and the by now well-known black cat ring has been replaced with a black ring with a butterfly cut out at the top, and another shape (which she assumes is the Chat Noir paw print) on the side facing his middle finger. He’s still wearing a belt, and hanging off one side are what looks to be two halves of some sort of staff or cane, with one having a dome at the top. His bleach-blonde hair is pulled back into a small low ponytail, not too dissimilar to hers.

So… the fuck?

The boy (Chat Noir???) quirks an eyebrow at her, and she realises belatedly that she must have said that out loud, in a very unprofessional manner. Maybe operating on this little sleep is a bad thing— anyways. “The fun part about having two different powers is that I can do costume changes on the fly.”

“He calls himself Apaturia, because he is a nerd,” Marinette says sagely.

Apaturia(?) rolls his eyes, extending a gloved hand. “Just call me Flutter, she’s lying to you.”

She takes the hand, shaking it violently. “I have. SO many questions right now.”

When they part from the handshake, Flutter pushes himself up so that he’s standing on the balcony railing, definitely now in view of any pedestrians and waving at the two girls like it doesn’t even matter. “I’ll see you two around, right?”

“You better,” Marinette says seriously.

He grabs the two halves of the staff off of his belt, pressing them together until it does make a cane. Similar to how he’s been shown to manoeuvre with the staff, he presses one end against the railing, and while somehow managing to keep that balance he pushes on the larger piece at the top, and the staff starts to extend, launching him along with it.

The moment Flutter (Flutter what? Flutter Noir? Just flutter?) is gone, Alya rounds on her little shit of a best friend. “You better tell me what that just was. Now.”

Marinette gulps, eyes wildly searching for an escape. Alya grabs onto her shoulder, keeping her focus right where Alya needs it to be. “So– uh. It just started as me giving him food during patrols! But then sometimes he gets bored, and he was… nice company? And apparently he thought so as well, so he started coming back more often and suddenly it was at least once a week and it wasn’t like I hated it or anything so I sort of let it keep going and honestly it wasn’t anyone’s business it’s not like it even matters anyways so we just sort of didn’t tell anyone about it even Ladybug so uh please keep this a secret thank you Alya anyways I think I hear my parents calling me from down in the bakery gotta go—”

She attempts to make a run for it, but Alya stops her from getting very far. Alya needs the deets, not just the short version. Marinette stares at her with terribly disguised panic while attempting halfheartedly to yank her arm out of Alya’s grip, unfortunately Alya doesn’t have a boxer for a big sister without getting up her strength. Marinette sighs. “Look, Alya, it’s really not a big deal.”

Alya sputters. “Excuse m– not a big deal!? Girl, he is a superhero! That is absolutely a big deal!”

“Well he’s still a person under there!” Marinette argues, managing to yank her arm back this time around only just to cross it. “A lonely person, who goes out protecting Paris every night because he likes doing it, he likes the interactions and the fame but he likes people treating him like the kind everyday guy he is more. And I know you idolise him, and that’s fine, but I don’t anymore, ‘kay? And… okay–” she takes one deep breath, letting it out painfully slow, “–I’m not mad at you for this, I get it. But can you please not nag me about this? Whatever sort of drama you think is going on here just… isn’t.”

Ugh. It’s hard to keep following a story when her best friend has emotionally mature moments like that. Like, way to kill her spirit, now she’s just sleep deprived and bored again.

“As long as you promise to let me stay for dinner?”

Marinette grins, forgiving Alya immediately in the way that only she can. “Deal, I’ll go tell Mamman right now.”

⠀

⠀

A lot goes down in that next month.

The newest supervillain, Mayura, makes herself properly known in the minds of thousands of civilians across Paris. Due to how frequent attacks seem to be in their area, even just from the student body and/or staff themselves, Françoise Dupont moves classes fully online. Mayura fucks up and accidentally kills like the entire population for an afternoon? Chat Noir faints on live television, something about overusing his powers.

Then, one afternoon in the middle of class, they all watch Max panic as an amok lands on his desk, sinking into his computer before making him disconnect. Nobody actually knows what emotion prompted the amok, but what they do know is that they’re panicking because this is the first time anyone in their class was the victim ever since Mayura showed up.

Marinette dismisses herself, saying she can smell something burning and wants to go check on her parents.

Adrien dismisses himself because he doesn’t like thinking about people falling victim to either Hawkmoth or Mayura and he might be about to throw up.

Maybe a minute later, everyone else dismisses themself as their cameras all glitch out and it becomes very clear, very fast, that today’s sentimonster has a lot to do with technology and Alya especially doesn’t want Mayura getting access to a news source as crucial as the Ladyblog.

It’s lucky that the call ends, too, because a moment later she’s shrieking because what the fuck why is Ladybug in my room.

“Alya Cesaire,” Ladybug greets, posture stiff and with her hands carefully behind her back.

Alya scrambles up from her bed (where she’s hopefully out of view of her computer’s camera, even if she taped up the thing already) and tries to match the confident posture to the best of her ability, even though she has no idea what Ladybug is doing here instead of helping Chat Noir locate Max and the object with the amok inside. “Ladybug,” she responds, failing at the posture thing while she shuffles nervously from foot to foot.

Ladybug sucks in a deep breath, holding serious eye contact. “We’re having trouble with today’s sentimonster. Thanks to its access to technology, there are eyes on us wherever me and Chat Noir go, meaning he can’t risk using cataclysm and neither of us can get close enough to do so either way. So,” she untucks her hands, holding one out with a fox-tail pendant in her palm. “This is the fox miraculous. It gives you the special ability called mirage, which would allow you to create temporary illusions. If you accept, you’ll use it to help us defeat today's sentimonster, though unfortunately you cannot keep it after the battle. Do you accept?”

O. M. G!!!!!

Alya can’t stop her face from breaking out into a wide grin, or the flapping that instantly demands to take over her control of her hands. She does manage to fight back a squeal, but that’s only barely. She nods her head along with her hand flapping and slight bouncing, practically screaming, “YES I ACCEPT—” before Ladybug begins frantically shushing her.

Oh right. All-seeing sentimonster. Also siblings.

Ladybug reaches her hand out a little further and Alya eagerly grabs the necklace, barely remembering to unclasp it before putting it on. She squints against a sudden ball of orange light, peeking through her fingers as an orange creature materialises.

“Oh come on little bug!” The creature complains in a high-pitched, slightly raspy voice. “Couldn’t you have sped this up even a little! It’s been centuries since I’ve had a holder!”

“Trixx…” Ladybug says warningly.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” the creature complains, before floating down to meet Alya’s confused gaping at eye-level. “Is it just me or is this one… slower, than usual.”

That snaps Alya out of it somewhat, at least enough to snap, “I’m not slow.”

“Great, then that makes this easier. I’m Trixx, the kwami of illusion,” Trixx (apparently) states. Ladybug awkwardly shuffles towards the window. “Kwami are the manifestations of a bunch of things, and we were tied to the miraculous by a bunch of old assholes who want power for themselves.”

“KWAMIS DON’T SWEAR,” Ladybug calls angrily, now sitting on the window.

Trixx grins deviously. “That’s what they want you to think, little larva!” They turn back to Alya, who’s fidgeting has now shifted so that she’s twisting her watch around and around her wrist. “Anyways– you get one use of my power, two if you’re lucky. Usually my holders get some sort of instrument to play as they do it, but it depends on how cool they are. The best ones are always with a woodwind instrument, except the bassoon that was really inconvenient. Anyways! To cast my power, you have to focus on an illusion and call for m-i-r-a-g-e, and if you want to redirect it into something else you do that by focusing on it while playing music with your instrument. If you don’t get an instrument, then… you’re probably a one-time holder. And finally, to transform, you just have to say: Trixx, let’s pounce! And– uh, to go back, you’ve gotta say let’s rest.”

Alya blinks once. Then a second time. Sucks in that entire ramble on the third blink, and then she’s back to bouncing eagerly. “Trixx, let’s pounce!”

Something warm swarms her entire body, making her already jingling limbs tingle and shudder. The pendant momentarily burns against her neck, but then it stops, and Alya looks down at herself to find that she’s changed into a costume.

Distantly, she notes, oh, so that’s how they do it so fast.

Her pants have been replaced with leggings, patterned with orange camo. There’s also fabric wrapped around her waist, which when she glances behind her is way longer in the back, creating the imitation of a fox’s tail. Miraculously clipped to that near her hip is a flute, which is coincidentally the instrument she’s been learning. Tucked underneath her leggings is a black undershirt and sleeveless white overshirt. At the top of the overshirt are a few orange buttons, and the chain of her new necklace is just long enough that the pendant rests on top of the final button. The undershirt also has winding orange embroidery going down to the cuffs, which have thumb holes. Her fingernails have been painted alternating black and orange. She can feel that the weight of the hair on her head has changed, being up in a high ponytail that she would usually opt away from since her hair wasn’t long enough. There’s certainly something else, but it’s probably just a headache, she hasn’t gotten enough sleep for a while. Probably.

“I’ll help you out as best as I can,” Ladybug announces, inserting herself back into the conversation. “Lucky for you, I think your power would be better suited to help us from a distance. One thing: if someone touches your illusion it vanishes, so keep that in mind. You ready?”

Oh god is she ready for this. She has never been more ready for anything ever in her life.

⠀

⠀

Chat Noir is the one to find her after everything is said and done.

“Bug’s better at talking to victims,” he explains as he touches down on the rooftop Alya’s been hiding on. “I’m here to collect your miraculous.”

(Oh, she needs a hero name, doesn’t she? Something like, uh… Rena! Shortened ‘fox’ in French, as well as fox in Haitian Creole. She can come up with a better one later.)

Anyways– focus time. Al– Rena frowns at Chat Noir, asking, “Are you sure that I can’t keep this? What if you need my help again later?”

“It’s not my call to make, unfortunately. We’ll put in a good word for you, and hopefully we’ll be able to invite you out to a patrol sometime, or something. This is the second time you’ve helped us out and both times you’ve done really good. Even before we gave you chances, you’d be good at evacuating scared civilians if it came down to it, and considering we know how committed to your reporting you are, it says a lot about how ready you are for a job like this. But for now–” he’s cut off by the beeping of Rena’s necklace. “–you’re going to have to hand Trixx back off to me, Alya.”

She sighs, slowly reaching for the clasp of her necklace. At the very least, she wanted to get to better know the spirit guide, kwami… thing. “Rena Rouge,” she corrects, adding the second part on the spot right as she unclasps the necklace. Trixx appears in an orange flash, clinging onto the chain of the necklace and peering up at her with what seem like stars in their purple eyes.

“Rena, then,” Chat Noir says, his practically trademarked wild grin shifting into a more genuine smile, even as he reaches out his hand.

Trixx whines, looking from Alya to Chat Noir. “Come on, kitten, we both saw that she’d make a great holder! Much better than the ones the old guardians would have picked for me.”

Chat Noir’s cat ear twitches. Alya knits her brows together, looking over at where his human ears should be only to realise it will remain a mystery, as his hair has completely buried them (if they’re even there). “Yeah, Trixx, well, I’ll try and make a good case. I think Rena would be a supurrb holder to have out again in the field.”

Alya hands the necklace off to Chat Noir, and Trixx flies up in order to squint at Chat Noir from above his head. “Oh, you’re definitely one of Plagg’s.”

⠀

⠀

Through some needling over text the next day with Max, she manages to get Markov to drop by her window during their half-hour lunch break.

The little robot had popped up a few weeks after Ladybug and Chat Noir, and had been beneficial to the note taking in their class, or at least for those with attention problems like Alya and Nathaniel. He thrived off of the analysis sitting in on classes provided him, and in return he’d give anyone who needed it any info that he had.

Alya’s not entirely sure what he can do for her, considering that he was the one whom the amok had targeted this time around, and nobodies managed to track down a victim to interview before, so she doesn’t know if he actually remembers the whole thing, if an AI like him actually has ‘memories.’ (Kim and Alix think that Markov is fully sentient, Juleka and Nino are often vocal in the opposite direction, and Max himself is yet to comment.)

“Do you happen to have any footage of that new superhero yesterday?” She asks casually, opening up the Ladyblog media Dropbox and creating a folder (temporarily private) titled ‘Rena Rouge Footage’ with a branch inside that for things such as direct quotes and videos. Max, coincidentally, had suggested the system once she had started hiring moderators, and between him, Alya, and Aurore, the system had been polished as far as Alya could imagine it.

Markov’s screen creates a soft smile and a nod, and he flies down to settle on her desk. Her brain briefly compares him to a kwami like Trixx, but she shakes the thought away and moves to plug the robot into her computer. Instantly, the folder is flooded with pictures of her superhero costume, roof-hopping or stationary, clear or otherwise.

“It is curious that I have retained full recollection of what happened during the attack,” Markov comments, the eyes on his screen looking all about her room, though she’s not sure whether or not those are actually an indication of where he’s actually looking. “From my understanding, the sentimonster seemed to connect all of the technology within a certain range of the amok, correct?”

Alya nods, frantically clicking every blurry shot before it jumps away from her mouse, and shoving them into a ‘Requiring Further Review’ section. She’s not sure if it’s her hyperfocus or sleep deprivation, but it takes her longer than she wants to admit to realise something crucial about all the photos she’s seeing flash by.

She freezes in place, having accidentally double-clicked onto a surprisingly high quality shot of Rena Rouge taking a breather while attempting to follow Ladybug, or at least that’s what was happening to her memory. That’s not important– what is important are the two fox ears sticking above her distinctly not-orange hair. Well, sort of. She can see orange strands peaking out, especially in the ponytail, but the majority of her hair had returned to her natural brown, if not even a bit darker. She didn’t think the transformation had changed her appearance like that.

Markov’s eyes are now focused on her, and he asks: “Is something wrong, Alya?”

Shaking her head frantically, Alya presses her escape key before rolling back a bit in her chair. “Just fine, Markov, I just… zoned out a little, sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for,” he reassures. He then makes a show of looking her up and down, saying, “Though, with all of the signs of exhaustion I have witnessed you display overtime, I’d recommend not dedicating your breaks to more work.”

She waves off his concern, going back to controlling the final moments of the flood. Markov’s frame by frame methods are handy at times, but when it comes to picking shots for articles it can give her more choice than they’re worth, and this is only the third time she’d had to do it. “Nothing a bit of coffee can’t fix, I’ll go out and grab some once I’m done with this.”

He manages to create a sound akin to a sigh. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of that, can I?”

“No,” she responds, not sorry in the slightest and now going to even try and pretend.

⠀

⠀

The week after that, the school realises that the online lessons have ultimately stopped nothing, and decide to go back to in person teaching.

Ms. Mendeleiv is the only person happy about this. Ms. Bustier can pretend, but everyone knows that she’s lying to make them feel better.

… Except Rose. She seems to have really missed Juleka. That’s nice.

Adrien seems to have discovered that now that he’s not required to wear expensive clothes all the time, he actually prefers comfort rather than cost, and Alya doesn’t remember the last time he came to school in anything other than a rotating cast of hoodies. Honestly? It doesn’t exactly look wrong for him.

Apparently Marinette also enjoys this change, as Alya turns around during the last class of the day to find that she’s tucked into his side, dead-asleep. Adrien’s making a shushing motion, glaring at something in front of Alya.

She turns around to find Ms. Bustier rolling her eyes at him, before continuing her lesson as though one of her students isn’t completely tuned out.

It’s good to know at least some teachers around here are sane, at least.

⠀

⠀

Alya, in an attempt to stay awake, has found herself leaning back while spinning in her chair, humming some American song she vaguely remembers while she focuses on her phone screen, held high above her head. It’s more making her dizzy than keeping her awake, but it’s the thought that counts.

She can’t sleep until she gets this article onto the drafting phase, but that doesn’t mean her body isn’t protesting her for it. Unfortunately, she’s tried listening previously but then she’d inevitably wake right back up.

“Is tonight a bad night?”

She jolts, phone slipping from her hands and landing right on her face, causing her to wince as her nose throbs. Her phone tumbles off her head and onto the floor, and deciding that can be a problem in a moment she yanks on the lever of her chair, getting jolted forward only to come face to face with Ladybug.

Suddenly, the discarded Ladyblog article doesn’t seem that important. Aurore’s been saying she’s bored lately, anyways.

“It’s a great night, actually,” she reassures, hoping that she comes off as more confident than she feels. “Like, seriously, gi– I, uh. I’m always up for interviews or…” she winks dramatically, “other stuff.”

Ladybug huffs, reaching carefully for the yoyo tied around her hip. She draws a finger over the top and the two wings of it split open, revealing the compartment usually used for purifying akumas and amoks. Alya has to suppress the urge to run forward when she reaches in and pulls out the fox miraculous.

When the necklace is dropped into her hands for real she can’t keep the stimming down any longer, bouncing on her feet only for as long as it takes to put on the pendant, and then she’s flapping her hands as well. She barely flinches at the flash of orange that unveils Trixx, who already looks considerably happier than the last time she saw them.

“I take that as a yes?” Ladybug teases.

Trixx settles themself on her shoulder, which while an odd sensation she doesn’t entirely mind. It’s a little odder when his voice seems to be almost right in her ear. “Can I have a few moments with my chosen, Ladybug? There’s a few things that I prefer as kwami to holder rather than holder to holder.”

Ladybug shrugs, before placing her yoyo back on her hip. Alya can’t see a belt there, now that she thinks about it, just a thin-looking red string, how does it stay on so well?

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Ladybug, looking at Alya, even as she walks back towards the window. “Me and Chat will be up on the roof whenever you’re ready, Alya.”

With that, she exits.

Trixx hops off of her shoulder, flying around her before stopping a few feet in front of her, right at eye level. They’re wearing a mischievous grin that probably should not belong to a supposed spirit guide. “Okay, so the larva doesn’t want me to tell you this, but I’ve been with her before, and I can already tell you’ll be a great kit. Actually, you already are! But the thing is, that means you gotta be ready to get out of your comfort zone, play a few, y’know, tricks!” They fly away at that point, behind her computer and then back out, circling over to her photo board and then right back over to Alya. “Tikki’s chosen are creative, but foxes are too! You’ve just gotta trust your gut, even when it might not be what Ladybug tells you to do. When it comes down to it: she gets information, and then you use it, ‘kay?”

“Okay,” she replies.

“And interrupt people!” Trixx declares, flying forward briefly in an attempt to add emphasis. “Get those answers! You’re good at it, you can’t let people get the better of you.”

Maybe he’s a better spirit guide than she’d thought.

“Is that it?” She asks, having honestly expected a bit more actually power-related stuff. Not that she’s complaining about the free advice, or anything, but this is only her second chance!

Trixx rolls their eyes. “Well, yeah. You can use your power twice if you really need it, but that really wears us kwami out, and will make your timer run even faster. I’m fine with it, but Plagg’s been complaining about his holder every time I see him so I thought I may as well let you know. And since you don’t have anything to help you move around, there’s also the uh… oh!” They spin around in the air. “A bit of friction manipulation, a bit of gravity control, it’s nothing big, but with the strength it helps humans scale things they probably can’t, and move around environments that they made in one of their dumb ways—”

“You mean that I can run up walls?” Alya asks eagerly, unable to conceal a wide grin.

“Of course!” Trixx responds, just as excited. “It takes a bit of practice, but it’d be dumb to not let our holders move how they want to. But humans are dumb like that. Anyways– I think we’re ready now.”

Well then.

Superheroes can wall run? Intriguing. Plagg, Tikki? Are those the kwamis of Ladybug and Chat Noir? How strong is the superstrength? Are there more kwamis out there?

Now this is a story.

“Trixx, let’s pounce!” She calls, watching as Trixx devolves back into a flash of orange light as he’s sucked into her necklace. The orange light then flashes over her entire body, leaving her as Rena Rouge.

Rena grins, rushing on silent feet towards and then out of her window. The roof is still a few stories above her apartment, but when Rena pushes herself up to grab the next balcony she moves a bit higher than that, accidentally jumping onto the top of its rail. But that’s fine and dandy, because now she’s got to see how far she can push the jumping.

“Super strength,” she mutters, overjoyed, before leaping with as much strength as she can find.

She overshoots the leap, somehow, hitting the rooftop with a thunk. She’s now realising it was probably a small miracle that she didn’t do that last time. Rena looks up, hoping that her idols didn’t see her fumble, but unfortunately both Ladybug and Chat Noir are right there. Chat Noir is perched on top of a chimney, and Ladybug is sitting right on the rooftop while leaning on it. Chat Noir flashes a teasing grin, commenting, “Definitely not a cat, then.”

“Wild and free, housecat,” she snarks right back as she pushes herself back to her feet. Like– actually just pushes, because now that she’s aware of the strength it’s like it won’t stop, and the moment she pushes against the rooftop she’s all-but thrown upwards.

“Can you get first day jitters on the second day?” He asks, looking down to lock eyes with Ladybug.

In response, the spotted heroine shrugs, standing up in a way that appears completely natural, unlike Rena. “I mean, it’s possible, but we didn’t.”

He snorts, sitting down only to instantly slide right off the chimney. Unlike Rena, he lands on his feet, even if it’s not in any badass hero pose like she briefly imagines. “Well, you broke all your toes on day two, so I’d say that counts.”

“You what?” Rena asks incredulously, smiling despite herself.

Ladybug huffs, crossing her arms. “I did not!”

“Oh, you definitely did,” he reassures cheekily.

The newest tragedy of the year hits: there is peak Ladynoir content happening right here, and Rena isn’t allowed to film it. Criminal, she swears.

“Don’t lie to Rena,” he says almost like he’s scolding, but that’s sort of undermined by his dramatic pout. “I refuse to believe your ankles weren’t at least sore after that fight.”

“Okay, fine, maybe!” Ladybug allows, uncrossing her arms and walking away. She then pauses when she spots Rena, suddenly adjusting her posture into something more confident or serious. Chat Noir also looks towards her, but does not change his posture one bit.

“So…” Rena starts, forcing her excitement down for as long as she can. “How do you guys usually do patrols? That’s what this is, right? Because I’ve always wanted to patrol, but I get if you need me to train or something, since I’m new and all. Whatever works, really, I’m just really glad to have this chance.”

Ladybug takes a deep breath. “Well, the plan is to patrol eventually, but first, I think we need to make sure you’re able to safely park—”

“Bugaboo,” Chat Noir whines, and maybe it’s her imagination but she swears she sees his tail (belt?) and ears droop. He leans a bit further forward, and yeah his tail is definitely twitching right now, meeting her just a bit above eye to eye. “Stop trying to be serious, it’s going to blow up on you at some point.”

Pretend to be serious? Pff– she’s Ladybug! The badass female heroine, who saves the city (and by extension the world) on a semiweekly, if not more, basis.

Then again, Ladybug sighs, pushing Chat back up to his full height by straight-up pressing a gloved hand to his face. “Can we try to uphold our image, Chaton? In front of the Ladyblogger,” she tries, finishing in a near growl.

“I make no promises,” he reassures.

Honestly she’s just sort of flattered that her reputation has made it all the way back to them. It’s not like she’s the only dumbass reporter running towards instead of away from the action, she’s just the… most common one. But Alix literally does the same thing for the hell of it! She is not an isolated incident!

Ladybug doesn’t even wipe her glove or anything before going right back into serious Ladybug mode, declaring, “Well, I think we can follow one of our patrol routes from the early days, those had easier jumps and less weapon vaulting. We need to make sure that Rena can keep up. It might be hard for you, Rena, but if it’s okay with you we can use the Louvre as a checkpoint and see how well you’re holding up.”

“How early are we talking?” Chat asks?”

She locks eyes with him, and then for a moment Rena finds herself mystified as the heroes of Paris communicate solely with expressions.

But also… she doesn’t usually look at Paris from this angle, but she’s pretty sure the Louvre is at least half a kilometre away from her apartment, and knowing the roundabout routes Ladybug and Chat Noir tend to take that is a long time parkouring before they even make it there.

“Just follow my lead,” Ladybug dismisses. “I doubt that we’ll be doing too many tricks tonight.”

“That’s boring,” Chat Noir says without missing a beat.

“You’re boring,” Ladybug snaps, before shooting a slightly panicked glance at Rena.

Which like. Okay yeah. Realistically, she should have figured at some point that the heroes of Paris are less than perfect, but Ladybug casually insulting someone, without thinking, is something that she doesn’t even associate with Ladynoir banter. Her high standards come crashing down around her thanks to two works and in the rubble of it Rena Rouge slaps Alya Cesaire on the cheek, snapping you dumb bitch, you’re a superhero now too! You are also rude! That is called being human!

“Are you sure that you can’t teach me any tricks?” Her brain simultaneously teases and puns on her behalf.

Chat Noir’s looks more genuine, or at least less teasing. “Oh, you’re going to work with us purrfectly.”

Confident. Talk when you want to, even if that means interrupting. She’s a reporter and a fox.

“You’re the ones who picked me fur this job,” she says confidently.

She’s pretty sure that she sees actual stars forming in his too-big irises.

Ladybug puts her head in her hands. “You gotta be kitten me,” she mumbles, loudly.

⠀

⠀

Mayura is considerably more… violent than Hawkmoth.

Case and point: today’s sentimonster is just like. A turret. Two turrets. A lot, a lot of turrets.

Luckily, she found out pretty quickly, is that these turrets seem to only freeze people in place, rather than actually shoot them or erase them from existence or anything similarly drastic. But they’re also firing wildly, and the beams seem to pass through glass just fine, and eventually she realises that they’re also going through already frozen civilians meaning that it’s annoyingly hard to find cover.

Seriously, though, Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Rena Rouge’s powers are all so different, what the fuck dictated that Hawkmoth and Mayura had to be the same thing different font?

She manages, somehow, to make it all the way to Marinette’s building, and she dives inside the bakery only to find that the darkened window evidentially don’t deter the beams in the slightest. But that’s fine, because it seems like materials like wood are blocking just fine, which just means that she needs to make it into Marinette’s room and fast.

That doesn’t really pan out.

Her hand is just barely reaching for the residential access door when she sees a white beam flying right towards her, and after so many months of following attacks she already is vaguely aware that this is it until Ladybug casts her miracle cure.

But then a flash of emerald green decides to alter her fate.

No, seriously.

A blur of green crashes through one of the bakery windows, leaving shards of glass in the displays and scattered across the floor. They roll to a stop right in front of her, leaning forward in what can only be called a superhero pose. There’s a shield or disk of some sort on their arm, and when the beam hits it, instead of freezing the person in place, the beam ricochets through another window and back out into the streets.

Alya jams the door handle with her elbow, impulsively yanking the possible new hero into the stairwell with her. They seem to take the hint, frantically slamming the door shut with their back and allowing her a good look at their costume

She’s pretty sure that he’s a boy, though if she’s wrong she eternally apologises. He’s got short brown hair, which stands out against the green with a faint hint of teal that is the rest of his costume. Grey goggles, missing a rim at the bottom and with lenses that are faintly tinted green rest over his eyes, probably his version of a mask. He’s wearing a long sleeve shirt that ends in gloves, with wrist cuffs and elbow pads in a slightly darker shade of green than the rest of it. In that similar slightly darker green is a hexagonal pattern on his chest, which pokes out in a way that reminds her a bit of one of the new ninja turtles she vaguely remembers from a TV ad her sisters watched. The shirt is also continued into a pair of shorts that end slightly above his knees. Underneath that are more leggings, in a middle ground green, and on top of that are knee pads. Still hanging off one arm is a shield, the front of which is clearly mottled after a turtle or tortoise shell.

So, clearly, there’s a new hero now, a turtle-themed one at that.

Alya does… not know how she’s feeling right now. Like, on one hand, new teammate! On the other, it’s barely been a month since she first used Trixx, and this leaves her with the faint impression that she’s not good enough, that Ladybug and Chat Noir are replacing her because she’d failed at some unknown test.

Her thoughts are, somewhat, cast aside a moment later, when the turtle hero elects to open his mouth.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he gasps. He then locks eyes with Alya, pales, winces, and then shakes himself. “Uh– erm– I mean. Have you seen Ladybug or Chat Noir anywhere?”

⠀

⠀

“In an unexpected turn of events,” Chat Noir greets that night, as though he is an announcer. “It’s been revealed that the usually docile turtle kwami is, in fact, the sneakiest kwami in the box.”

Alya closes out of her latest Ladyblog article, spinning in her chair in the same motion that she stands. “Might you even say a bit of a trickster?”

“No, that’s me,” Trixx declares, appearing from behind Chat Noir.

“But we do get to go turtle hunting, Rena.”

Trixx flies briefly back to Chat Noir, not even bothering to ask before rummaging through his pocket and yanking out the fox miraculous, which they then hand off to Alya. It’s near muscle memory to put the necklace on at this point. “Wayzz hasn’t done anything like this in a millennium,” they declare eagerly, and though it looks odd since they’re floating Alya is pretty sure that she can see the kwami bouncing in place.

“Thanks for letting me get involved, Chat Noir,” she says genuinely, because that shock of nerves earlier had hit her harder than she’d expected and now she sort of wants to get on the heroes’ good side, just in case.

“Just Chat,” he corrects, for once genuine. Which he immediately ruins with his sharper grin, extending his staff down to the floor so he can lean against it. “Or, you could call me Noir, because you know I’m so dark and mysterious.”

“Chat it is, then,” she says with an eye roll.

Chat gasps in mock offence.

⠀

⠀

Neither the turtle kwami or holder makes his appearance, though the three heroes waste all night looking for him.

It’s edging on 5:30 when they finally drop Alya back at her apartment, and that’s only because Chat Noir mentioned how there once was a time where this would’ve been when his alarm went off and she and Ladybug had to stare at him in pure concern for a solid minute and a half.

Trixx goes to talk with Ladybug and Chat noir for a few minutes, not taking the necklace back from Alya. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, because she knows she’s not supposed to keep it, but she elects not to let it bother her. She slides back into her desk chair, opening the Ladyblog draft back up only to stare blankly into the bright white document for an indeterminate amount of time.

That text on the screen certainly is… text.

Uh– that paragraph might be a bit long for mobile? Maybe? She’s not up to the editing phase yet, but that probably doesn’t matter, it’ll speed things up later—

“Good news, kit!” Trixx calls eagerly.

Alya jumps, flailing only to jam her thigh into the bottom of her desk which causes her startlement to break off into a small wince. Still, “Good news?” She indulges her kwami, who zips towards her desk.

“Yep!” Trixx says, miraculously still completely awake and energised. Alya might be able to handle all nighters the day after, but 5am is just made to make people tired. “Ladybug doesn’t want to go back to Wayzz’s old holder without the bracelet, or wake him up to put away your miraculous, which means I get to stay with you for the day!”

She doesn’t even try to suppress her excited squeal, leaning forward to hug her kwami only to remember belatedly that he’s a bit too small for that. And then it’s dash to her bed, because just because there’s no proof Nora doesn’t have super hearing that doesn’t mean she doesn’t. Trixx lifts her blanket up and they both hide under it, and her kwami smiles down at her and Alya can already tell that today is going to be awesome.

“I can’t wait,” she declares, with a stupid grin on her face.

Trixx’s smile turns a bit more devious. “Well, while I’m here, is there anything you’re… curious about?”

Uh… what?

Okay, actually, yes, but she’s pretty sure that all the information she wants she isn’t actually allowed to have.

But Trixx doesn’t ever ask her questions without having a reason for them, whether that be entertainment or actual training, which means that maybe there’s something that he wants her to notice– hold on, rewind a dang minute.

“The turtle was with someone before the new guy?” She asks, which causes Trixx to positively beam at her. “Why have I never seen him while reporting before? What’s his hero name? Did you say that you go back to him when everything is said and done? Why wouldn’t you go back with Ladybug?”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Trixx teases. They then seem to calm down, at least slightly, and answer, “You’ve never seen him before because he doesn’t transform, he just uses Wayzz energy to keep him from dying. Apparently 200 is old for humans? Anyways– I think that he uses the alias Jade something, but he doesn’t transform much and when he does it’s mostly behind the scenes—”

“Go back to the part where he is 200 years old,” Alya requests, alarmed.

“It’s nothing, most kwamis can help with lifespan, and turtles live a while. I think people assume he’s 60 or 70? Dunno, he doesn’t let us out too often. But you had other questions.”

“That is not an answer—”

“Sure it is! Everyone but Tikki and Plagg go back with him after attacks, or at least I think that’s the plan with you and whoever Wayzz picked out. Ladybug doesn’t actually have the miracle box we’re all from.”

“Are Tikki and Plagg Ladybug and Chat Noir?”

There’s a long pause as Alya attempts to suck in the information, and Trixx formulates his response. So the old turtle is some sort of… gatekeeper? For the other miraculi? And is also somehow 200 years old? Honestly that’s… sort of normal? Who knows, the world’s been weird lately.

Hopefully she’ll get to know both of the turtles. As a teammate, and as a way to… totally not manipulate her way into keeping the fox miraculous full time.

When she tunes back in, Trixx is squinting at her. She decides to squint back.

“I’m getting you coffee,” Trixx decides.

⠀

⠀

Nino walks into class, and immediately locks eyes with Alya. She waves.

He looks up at Marinette and Adrien, who have not switched back seats in over a month. She doubts they’re ever going to, at this rate.

Nino looks back down at Alya.

“You all look like trash,” he decides.

Alya jumps at a loud thump, spinning around to find that Marinette’s head has hit her desk, and she’s groaning softly. Adrien, who had previously evidently been leaning on her side, promptly overcompensates and falls on his side, splayed behind Marinette on the bench.

It takes him longer than it probably should to get up, and when he does he’s scrubbing at his eyes. “If I give you my wallet and a paper with me and Marinette’s orders, could you get coffee for us?” He requests hopefully.

Nino crosses his arms. “That sounds like an easy way to end up late for class. Why can’t you get some yourself?”

“Because you’re my best friend?” Adrien tries.

Nino raises a brow.

“Because I’m running on four hours of sleep from two days ago?”

Mood.

For a moment, Nino’s concern is focused solely on her, and then he goes back to analysing his three best friends while his brows knit further and further together.

(Marinette is yet to stop groaning. Alya’s not sure she’s even breathed yet.

Oop– nevermind, there’s a breath. Aaaaand she’s back to it.)

“With all due respect, I think it’s time for you dudes to go home and get some sleep.”

“I’m not weak,” Alya protests.

Trixx pinches her in the side hard. She glances down, only to find that the kwami is nowhere in sight. Maybe she’d just hallucinated that.

There’s a pop as Adrien caps the… highlighter(?) that he had just used to write his order on a sticky note, before nudging Marinette. “What do you want?”

Marinette’s groaning momentarily lowers in pitch.

Adrien nods seriously, grabbing her pencil and writing something down on the sticky note, before leaning forward and holding it out for Nino to grab.

Alya’s left eye begins twitching while she attempts to keep it open. Once she notices it, it starts twitching more aggressively, until it gets to the point where her eye is just closed and fluttering. That’s… probably normal.

“Hey, sunshine, let me get in on that action,” she requests.

Adrien adjusts his leaning so that he’s extending the note towards her, but then he overcompensates yet again and falls over his table, catching himself with a shoe hooked on the back of his table and his hands pressed into hers.

“Are you guys okay!?” Alix shouts down at them, a bit louder than necessary.

“No!” Adrien and Marinette synchronously reassure, also a bit too loud.

Adrien slaps the sticky note next to Alya, before slowly pushing himself back to being properly seated on their bench.

⠀

⠀

Alya spends the entire morning praying for the sweet release of lunch period, only to be disappointed by a sentimonster attack centred barely two blocks away.

She sighs, slipping through the flood of students and into the library. Trixx flies out as soon as they’re in the clear, noting, “If it makes you feel better, you could use your power to make yourself a bed and sleep through the whole thing.”

She stares blankly down at her kwami for a second or two before replying. “Don’t my illusions break when somebody touches them?”

“Just checking to make sure you’re still aware, kit. I’m gonna have to get you to skip patrol for the night.”

“I was invited?”

“Nope!”

She sighs, then calls for her transformation.

The rush of transforming hits her all at once, and suddenly she feels as though sweet, sweet caffeine has been injected directly into her deprived veins.

Rena runs for the nearest classroom, rushing right past the confused teacher while calling out, “Just cutting through!” Before promptly throwing herself out the window.

Who knows? Maybe if she gets lucky, she’ll even track down the new turtle holder during this fight, and she can prove herself by getting the miraculous back without help.

Even though she doesn’t know what the turtle miraculous actually looks like.

… Semantics.

⠀

⠀

Alya has a vague memory of getting home that afternoon, but she couldn’t tell you how she managed to wake up two hours later face-down on her bed.

She peeks one eye open to find Trixx hovering right there, and for a second she gets the odd mental image of Trixx poking her and asking are you dead?

Apparently, though, that is not normal Trixx behaviour, and once she’s awake they ruthlessly steal her pillow, making her nose bump against her mattress. She attempts to sputter out some sort of protest, but before she knows it her kwami is turning her pillow into a nest on top of her dresser, and honestly they look so cute and at peace she doesn’t have the heart to yell at them.

“Trixx,” an unknown voice says, and Alya shrieks, reaching for a pillow that isn’t there, and when she fails to get a grasp on her weapon she falls onto her side and her head knocks against the wall. She probably gets a concussion or something from that, too, because a green blur wizzes out of her discarded school bag and stops hovering only a few inches away from where Trixx is resting.

Wait– green blur? And… oh god, that’s a turtle shell, did she kidnap the turtle kwami!?

Trixx wakes right up, letting out what sounds like a warning bark while glaring at the turtle kwami with their bright purple eyes. “I didn’t even do anything,” he says, as though there’s something Alya should definitely know about.

“Sneaking around the school!? In your cloaked form!?” The turtle kwami hisses right back, the anger not sounding right in his voice. “You were asking to be caught by humans!”

“You’re just having this argument in front of my holder to get yourself out of trouble for sneaking away from yours,” Trixx argues, with an eye roll for good measure. “Plus, they wouldn’t have caught me anyways, they don’t call us sly foxes for nothing.”

“Cloaked form?” Alya interjects, ignoring the small pain in her hand as she stands up. “Also– you’re Wayzz, right? Why are you here?”

Trixx huffs, eyes sparkling. “He’s running away.”

“You’re making my actions sound childish!” Wayzz snaps, crossing his tiny arms. “I was the only kwami guaranteed to be active at the time, and Master–” he’s cut off by a brief bit of choking, only for a bubble to escape from his mouth. Alya recoils in confusion, only for the kwami to continue unfettered. “–refused to even consider recruiting any more allies! I wouldn’t allow him to take that risk!”

“Sure, buddy, whatever floats your boat.” Trixx floats up, hanging Wayzz all the way over to Alya. “This is my holder. She’s guaranteed to be better than yours, and now that I’ve been with her for a day you can just try to tear us apart. It’s not gonna go down easy.”

“Don’t you need to stay with your holders?” Alya asks, looking between the two kwamis. Wayzz’s eyes are a bit weird to look at, because Alya didn’t know turtle sclera were apparently yellow until today and wow is it freaky to see. “Also, still need an answer on what a cloaked form is.”

Wayzz sighs. “A cloaked form—”

Trixx breaks out into a wide grin, bumping Wayzz mid-air before declaring “Is this!”

They transform into a ball of bright orange, which quickly triples inside before becoming a literal fox, one that walks over to her bookshelf, takes a textbook into its mouth, and then presents it to Alya while she can only think to stand there, possibilities running through her head rapidly.

“A kwami has the ability to transform into the animal they represent,” Wayzz explains patiently, as Alya slowly takes the textbook from the fox that looks eerily like it’s grinning. “This is more convenient for some of us than others, as depending on the animal you run the risk of being noticed by humans, and some kwami represent animals that are long-extinct.”

The fox turns back into orange light, and Alya can’t help but jump as it leaps at her, only for it to end up as Trixx back in their regular form, settled on her shoulder. “But if you’re like me or Plagg, it just means that we can get around easy.”

“Plagg runs the risk of being mistaken for a stray—”

“Yeah, well, hate to burst your bubble,” Trixx says, and Alya realises that there’s gotta be something going on here because Trixx has never sounded actually pissed before. “But Plagg practised, unlike some of us, and he knows what he’s doing.”

“Okay, as much as I love kwami drama, I am serious. Why are you with me, Wayzz?”

“To yell at me,” Trixx says confidently.

“I am not–” Wayzz breaks off into a long sigh, dropping a bit in the air. “Okay, yes, partially to have this discussion with Trixx. I also did not want to risk betraying information about my Master holder until I knew that my active holder would be a regular holder.”

Well. “I can handle hiding one magical spirit guide,” Alya states, even though she honestly wants to get to know all of them, especially Plagg since he’s the one Trixx mentions the most. “Two who are arguing the whole time is pushing it, and even though I can’t prove it I know my big sister has super hearing, which means if you’re still here by tonight, Wayzz, I’m done for.”

“I understand,” Wayzz responds with a nod.

“You also might freak out your holder, whoever he is,” Alya notes, looking out the window as if he would magically appear on her balcony. “I can imagine going from being hyper-aware of a superpower-giving magic spirit guide on your person to realising that you’ve somehow lost them would be a bit jarring.”

Wayzz concedes that time, zipping over to her window. “Well, then, I suppose I will see you some other time, Rena,” he says kindly, before phasing through the window.

“Kwamis can go through solid objects!?” She blurts, looking over at her kwami who she swears was just literally sitting on her shoulder.

Trixx does their best approximation of a shrug. “If we want to, then yeah.”

“That’s so cool!”

They smile. “I know!”

“And… are all the kwamis going to call me Rena?”

“Well, probably,” Trixx says, zooming over to her computer and bouncing off the keyboard in order to turn it on. “Kwamis are under a spell that stops them from saying the name of their holder whenever someone who doesn’t know their secret identity is listening in. That’s what the gagging stuff was earlier.”

Sometimes, Alya wonders if her current life is one long dream, as Trixx bounces off one key after another until he’s managed to log into her computer entirely unassisted. Then again, she’s pretty sure she remembers all dream-based akumas being defeated after the fact.

“Is there not a way to do that more… humane?” She finds herself asking, clenching her jaw as her brain tries to give examples of how a giant bubble clogging your throat might feel.

Trixx begins typing something into her search bar, and once she checks it’s nothing inappropriate she opts to just leave them to it. “We’re not human,” he says simply.

That response isn’t exactly better, but. Maybe she just doesn’t know enough yet.

⠀

⠀

“My kwami really wanted me to come meet you guys,” the turtle holder explains patiently, holding steady eye contact with the glaring Flutter Noir while occasionally glancing over at Ladybug and Rena who were both squinting at him in suspicion.

There’s a hood on his costume, Rena’s just now realising. That probably must be annoying– imagine trying to keep your hood up in the middle of a fight but it kept falling down! Then again, her ponytail miraculously never loosens, so maybe similar logic applies to other things involving miraculous costumes.

“And he couldn’t have done that earlier?” Flutter argues, tail twitching behind him. “Runaway kwami, and you thought that we’d all be okay with you not confirming that you didn’t even flat-out steal a miraculous?”

The turtle sighs dramatically, gesturing wildly as he explains, “I didn’t even know I had a miraculous on me until the sentimonster cropped up and I dropped it! I just assumed that’s how it was for the rest of you, and I was perfectly chill listening to advice from the little dude until the next attack.”

Y’know, for Wayzz trying so hard to present himself as composed, this whole thing honestly sounds like quite a mess.

“Give him a chance,” Rena attempts, resting a hand on Flutter’s shoulder even though she knows she’s out of place. The fact that he’s pulled out the butterfly is example enough– he’s really on the defensive thanks to the new holder, and after the mess that was Mayura first making her entrance Rena can honestly understand. And now that she knows that the kwamis actually have some drama among them, she’s considering drilling Trixx on the butterfly kwami if she’s given the chance. That’s probably less suspicious than asking about Plagg.

Does Noir have the butterfly on him at all times, or just the cat? She’s still unclear on where he actually wears the butterfly, sometimes it appears as a necklace, then a wrist cuff, then on his belt, and then as a replacement for his bell, and that’s only from her up close experience, plus maybe a few analysis sessions with Markov, not that anyone but her needs to know about those.

And– actually, if Noir is keeping the butterfly full time, does that mean that Ladybug would have the peacock at all times once Mayura is taken down? What would she even look like? Ladybug’s colour scheme is, like, the opposite of what Rena associates with peacocks.

(Plus, there's that whole Adrien holds the butterfly theory, which he hasn't done anything to disprove, but she trusts him to give her that scoop if it were real, so she doubts it. Plus, why go through the effort of constantly handing it off to Chat Noir? That sounds like a hassle for both parties.)

Oh, shit, right, active conversation. That’s probably more important.

“The team is more secure when we know where all of our miraculi are,” Ladybug declares.

“Wouldn’t the plural be miraculouses?” The turtle asks.

Wait– does he have a hero name? That’s probably something they should know at this point.

“We worked together just fine without knowing who each other are,” Flutter argues, and Rena can’t help but do a double-take because holdup, that is some juicy gossip she wasn’t previously privy to. She’s theorised, of course, but most people assumed that with how in sync the duo tends to be they were working together both in and out of the suits.

Ladybug raises both eyebrows. “You’re calling what we used to do working?”

Flutter considers her words, before conceding with a sigh. “If the turtle kwami trusts you, then I trust you,” he says, even though he still sounds a bit unsure.

The turtle smiles, fidgeting with a bracelet on his wrist. Could that be the miraculous? “Honestly, I’m not sure how often I really want to help out. Akumas were scary enough and sentimonsters took them from wacky and random trauma to some serious stuff that I’m not really sure how to handle yet. But the three of you seem pretty chill, so…”

Damn, imagine still being afraid of attacks. Couldn’t be her.

(She does not vocalise this thought, because she occasionally knows how to prioritise her physical safety.)

⠀

⠀

The hundredth (or something like that) mistake at the expense of their sleep schedules is when Chat Noir decides that now’s a good time to announce that apparently they can text each other without consequence on their civilian phones. It's fun for the entire time, even when Ladybug and Chat Noir start lightheartedly joking about her and Carapace getting together.

Pssh. He looks good, sure, but she doesn’t know nearly enough about him for that.

Plus, getting through that means that she gets to see Chat’s completely unhinged opinions on sandwiches. As well as his kwami's even more unhinged opinions on cheese (he likes rot!?) which carries into a long debate between the kwamis, who don't know how to type on a phone for the life of them, except for Tikki who Alya suspects is actually just using computer keyboard. 

Or well. She does after Ladybug slips up and spills that she and Chat are sharing a bed, but with the (slightly unwilling) help of Carapace she's able to steer the conversation into that direction, because she will always live for superhero gossip. 

Between all the different wild conversations going down, it hits morning before her brain and/or body is ready for it. Looking at her clock two minutes before her alarm is set to go off is like a slap to the face with exhaustion, and she feels like there are chains dragging her eyelids down with it.

She thinks, briefly, that this is why she should keep Trixx more often, because they’d get her to go to bed on time. But honestly? Trixx would probably encourage this as long as she’s still able to function, they’re an odd sort of chaotic good like that.

Ladybug hates the time even more than Alya does, complaining about the fact she doesn’t have much more time for sleeping and she’ll have to resort to the assistance of a ‘power head injury’ in order to get in even a few minutes.

This concerns her kwami enough to kidnap the phone for real this time, quickly explaining to Alya that yeah, she’s fine, just a mess, and the only head injuries she will be receiving today will be by Tikki's own hand if she doesn’t at least attempt to take care of herself. Oh, also, sorry for not clarifying, Chat Noir had gone back to his own place of residence an hour or two earlier. The impression that Alya gets of the kwami is that they’re like one of those fictional moms you wish was your real mom, but that’s actually because they acted a bit less mature than your real parents and you find too much comfort in that, if that makes any sense.

(The Ladybug kwami swore. Alya hasn’t even gotten that from the real deal.)

It might occur to them later on that having a text chain linked to the four numbers of the secret superheroes of Paris is a bit of a security risk for their identities, but luckily Alya just so happens to have an in with the most advanced AI.

⠀

⠀

“We should have a reverse sleepover,” Nino decides out of the blue, while the four of them are eating peacefully together at their usual table in Marinette’s bakery.

Marinette perks up, while Adrien and Alya share a quick confused glance.

“Reverse?” Adrien asks curiously, before ruthlessly eating a macaron whole. Alya doesn’t know how he never picked up on all the rich kid manners stuff, but it’s funny enough that she’s not about to stop him.

“It’s where the four of us set up a blanket fort in Mari’s room and then immediately go to bed,” Nino explains, getting into that protective tone that Alya sees more and more of the more involved she becomes with the class’ vaguely found family-esque dynamic.

Adrien frowns. “That sounds like a waste of a perfectly productive ten hours,” he decides.

Marinette smirks at him, and without hesitating offers, “We could cuddl—”

“I’m in.”

Okay, so. Those two are absolutely dating, coolcoolcool. Good to know. About time they clarified.

⠀

⠀

“We’re both going to be busy for patrol tonight,” Chat explains the next afternoon, after handing off Trixx. “Can you please take charge for us tonight? Carapace will be with you.”

Alya doesn’t have the guts to tell him that she will, in fact, also be busy, but she’s not entirely sure it matters. In the history of Ladynoir patrols, there have only been two interrupted by akuma attacks, and Rena has yet to have been on even one interrupted patrol.

It’s an excuse to keep her kwami for a little bit, at the very least.

“Also, have fun at the sleepover tonight,” Chat says as a smirk suddenly splits his face, just before he turns around and ducks back into the city. Alya snorts at his retreat, realising that he must have known exactly what he was doing.

Have the superheroes been keeping up with her social life?

Alya freezes while stepping back into her room, swivelling around only to find that Chat is already long gone. But Alya’s pretty sure that the only ones who know about the sleepover are Alya, her friends, her family, and her friends’ families/guardians. So how the heck did Chat Noir get word of it?

Her phone buzzes with a text, and she looks over to find that the class’ server is active with some curious messages.

sunshine: i screwed up

sunshine: princess i really screwed up

clutz n crafts: wrong chat, babe <3

Ladyblogger: BABE!?

clutz n crafts: oh shit

clutz n crafts: SCRAM

⠀

⠀

To be honest, she really should have expected this.

The reverse sleepover had been effective, at least at first. They’d all certainly gotten comfy and were out like lights before anyone knew it, despite the distracting fact that Marinette kept her deal and she’s cuddling with Adrien right in front of them. Like, way to make Alya third wheel alongside her crush, girl. Real best friend shit, putting her into situations without warning.

Okay, maybe this could have been okay by itself. But Alya has this funky little thing that decides if she goes to bed late she goes to bed late, and if she goes to bed early she has to wake up in the middle of the night, because who needs a full night of sleep anyway?

And she is. Beside. Nino. Like– yeah.

This is fine, right? Perfectly okay with him? She can just pretend she never woke up, and he’d never know that she was definitely taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

If she moved there’s a chance he’d wake up, anyways, so technically she’s doing Nino a favour by staying where she is.

Nino takes that moment to shift, pulling away from Alya and leaving her cold. He twists around so that he’s facing her properly, at most a foot away from her, and then seems to continue to rest.

Keyword being seems.

Slowly, his eyes flutter open, and he locks gazes with Alya. He jolts.

“Morning?” She teases softly, if only to see him blush. Clearly, he’s aware enough to be uncomfortable, even if there’s a chance he won’t guess what he just missed out on.

“I– uh…” He looks around wildly for a moment, and while she’s not sure how effective that is without his glasses he sure seems to notice something. “The sun’s not up yet, that means we should probably go back to—”

“Cuddling?” Her brain interrupts for her.

He looks away. “Sleeping.”

“Aw, bestie, are you sure?” She teases.

Nino’s full on panicking now, and so she decides to have mercy on her socially awkward crush. At least she’s a few steps closer to the goal.

“Take the talking downstairs,” Adrien’s voice croaks, and Alya spins around to find that his green eyes are glowing in the dark of the fort, and staring eerily at them.

She and Nino share a glance.

“Yes sir,” they say synchronously, before both dramatically flopping back down onto their pillows, suppressing snickers.

It becomes very apparent, very quickly, that she and Nino aren't getting back to sleep yet. A shame, really, since she'd been honestly interested by the idea of having a hangout dedicated to catching up on some much needed rest (and even getting some free Dupain-Cheng pastries for her efforts.)

And so she gives up, standing and waving Nino over as she opens the trapdoor, wincing as the first step creaks underneath her.