Just An Ordinary Girl

A love square remix of A Friend Like That by @trainsinanime. Written for the @mlsquaredance. This fic was so much fun write. Do please read the original first. It makes this one more fun! Read on Ao3 ...

“We need to stay together!” Viperion called out. “Splitting up does not end well.” 

The sheer exhaustion in Viperion’s tone didn’t bode well either. Carapace didn’t want to know how many loops Viperion had gone through this go around especially considering it was his third time loop this battle.

Even from Carapace’s less than fifteen minutes of experience, this battle was awful. 

The akuma was like Miraculer - he could steal their powers. But he was worse because it could split into four clones of himself. 

“Okay then!” Chat Noir called. “Ryuko, Rena, and Carapace, protect our backs. Tigress and I will guard the gap! Viperion stays in the middle.” 

Carapace missed Ladybug. There was nothing wrong with Chat’s orders. Carapace didn’t disagree with any of his calls. This akuma just sucked. And Ladybug just had this insane creative genius for hare-brained schemes that seemed to be able to cut through anything. 

The akuma struck. Carapace narrowly yanked Rena Rouge aside and they both fell to the ground hard. His elbow took the majority of the impact, which hurt like a bitch, but he was glad it was him who took the brunt of it instead of her. And it worked. 

Except one of the other clones clipped him. 

A mud brown impenetrable dome manifested around all six of them immediately.

Purple Tigress punched it with her power. Nothing.

Cataclysm dissolved it, but it was immediately replaced with another. 

“Crap!”

That was one word for it. Carapace might have had a far less kid-friendly one ringing through his head. The six of them were getting their butts handed to them by this akuma.

Carapace took personal offense to the barrier that stood as a mockery of his own power. 

“Viperion?” Chat called. 

The snake hero shook his head. “We’re on loop number 1703. This is the best possible outcome. Trust me.”

Chat Noir winced. 

Carapace really missed Ladybug.

“I think we have to call Ladybug,” Rena Rouge said, turning toward Chat Noir. 

“No! We can’t!” Chat objected. 

Rena raised an eyebrow. “We can’t let the akuma win. We’re trapped.”

“She only asked for one weekend off! She deserves to have one weekend off! We can handle it.”

“I hate to break it to you, but we’re not handling it,” Ryuko added dryly. 

“We will not be calling Ladybug,” Chat declared firmly.

The other five of them exchanged a look. 

“We can get help from someone else!” Chat insisted.

“Like who?” Rena Rouge demanded. “You’d need someone who is willing to pull off crazy stunts, who is a tactical creative genius against so many, and someone who is not intimidated by akumas.”

“Marinette!” Chat exclaimed, his face lit up in excitement.

A Miraculous Reveal - Representation

Spoilers for Representation (5x24) Link to Ao3

...

Chat Noir swings wildly at the akuma who is his father. Adrien is almost glad Ladybug has yet to show up. He doesn’t have a plan, he almost doesn’t want to fix this one. It just feels good to lash out, to hurt this man and send him crashing to the ground, for every blow to make solid contact against the man who seems bent on stealing every good thing in his life. 

As Chat Noir, he doesn’t have to listen to his father. He can resist, he can fight. He can cataclysm anything that stands in his way as many times as he needs to! 

He can do all the things he can’t do as Adrien. 

Why can’t he fight as Adrien?!

Right Behind You - Ch 11: Echoes

Chapters: 1 | ... | 10 | 11

Read on Ao3

Chapter 11: Echoes

Adrien stepped outside onto the sidewalk, the tinkle of the bell from the patisserie echoing behind him. He sucked in a breath of cool afternoon air, but it didn’t calm him as much as he had hoped.

He hadn’t thought that seeing her would be so hard.

Nino had told him over and over again during the week that he didn’t have to come.

But he couldn’t not attend Marinette’s going away party. She didn’t know what had changed between her and Adrien.

He was confident that one day he’d be able to be in the same room with her and it would be the same as it always had been. They would be able to laugh and gossip while they made cookies together. But right now, he couldn’t even look at her without seeing Ladybug, without the visceral awareness of everything she had forgotten - everything she had chosen to forget.

And then in the middle of the party she had pulled him aside and confessed.

He choked back a sob.

Not Part of the Plan: Ch 2 - The Most Supportive Boyfriend

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 |

Read on Ao3

Chapter 2: The Most Supportive Boyfriend

Going to school the next day was hard. She felt self-conscious just saying good-bye to her papa on the way out the door. She hadn’t told him yet, and her maman had promised she would be able to tell him herself when she was ready.

If the way he squeezed her in his hug good-bye or the fact that he had prepared her favorite chouquettes to take to school were anything to go by, he was clearly worried. But he also asked no questions. She really did have the best parents in the whole world.

Her hand fell to her abdomen. There was the potential for a life there. One that would make her a mother. It was an absurd thought at this point in her life. She didn’t think she would do half as well at raising a child as her own parents.

A Love Square Short Story: Displaced

Thanks to @chocoluckchipz​, @ladyofthenoodle​, and @jennagrinsoverml​ for the beta!! And to Ladyofthenoodle for organizing our little collection. Check out the other works!! They are all so different and I love that!!

Read on Ao3

Adrien slipped through the front door to his flat. It was fully dark, and he was exhausted despite the fact that it was barely past nine in the evening. Social gatherings for society’s elite tended to do that.

 He loosened his tie and dropped his suit jacket unceremoniously across the back of the sofa that was already cluttered with unopened boxes, mail, and unfolded laundry.

 He really should have listened to Nino and hired a maid or cleaning person of some sort. But well, he still had a secret to keep, and keeping that secret was more important to him than ever.

 He moved to his bedroom on autopilot without turning on the light, intending to collapse into bed immediately.

 But when he tried to slip into his space, he found it was already occupied. He flipped his phone flashlight on towards the ceiling to light the room in a soft glow.

 In his wife’s place, Ladybug lay sprawled diagonally across the bed, and their beautiful four month old Emma was spreadeagled the other way, taking up far more space than she should be able to given she was a whole 62 cm long.

Restorative Justice - Ch 6: Restoring Community

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1 - Community Circle

Chapter 2 - Preparation

Chapter 3 - Circle Checkin

Chapter 4 - Acknowledging Harm (Part 1)

Chapter 5 - Acknowledging Harm (Part 2)

Chapter 6 - Restoring Community

Ms. Bustier didn’t speak immediately, but she was smiling at them.

“This is a lot,” she said, releasing a sigh. “It doesn’t seem like enough to say that you’re all amazing, but you very much are. For all you managed to accomplish and juggle while the people in your lives had no idea. People do not give teenagers enough credit.”

The praise was obviously more for the others than her, which was  fine, because Chloé didn’t need such words or sentiments.

“I’m also so proud of you all for your vulnerability and your willingness to share your struggles and to truly listen to one another’s pain. That is such hard work.”

Ms. Bustier’s green eyes landed on her, and to Chloé’s surprise, her teacher’s expression remained soft and proud.

Chloé glanced away, her neck prickling.  

“Chloé, you told us that you hate circles, and yet you fought for this to happen anyway, and once we were all here, you truly engaged in the process as you never have before, and I very much hope you’re satisfied with the results so far.”

Chloé shifted in her seat. She wanted to object, to pull away, to make the kind words stop. She didn’t know what to do with them.

But Ms. Bustier was the first adult in a long time that didn’t seem to outright detest her, didn’t seem to be afraid of her. She might even have a high opinion of Chloé, or at least of her potential.

And Chloé didn’t want to disabuse her of that notion. So she said nothing in response, glancing down at her nails, pretending she didn’t care.

Because she didn’t.

Ms. Bustier’s attention shifted to Marinette, and Chloé’s whole body relaxed.

Maybe she cared.

Yin and Yang - Ch 3: Adrien Leads Such An Interesting Life

Table of Contents: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 

Ao3 Link

Chapter 3: Adrien Leads Such An Interesting Life

Despite Adrien’s assurances, things did not get easier. And she wanted to blame the early wake up times, but as much as she still hated the way her brain woke up in a fog morning after morning, the wake up times were the least of her problems.

The biggest issue was that every moment was scheduled. It was school, basketball, Chinese, fencing, piano, solitary dinner, and then mandatory homework time. Rinse and repeat. And any time there was a gap in Adrien’s schedule it was inevitably filled up with a photoshoot, or a fitting, or with a random interview Gabriel said had to be done without delay.

There wasn’t a single moment to breathe. Not a single moment to live her life. Or to live Adrien’s life rather.

So she stayed up late. Way too late, but she needed a moment to just lay about each day. She tried to draw her designs as a way to remember herself, but she was so exhausted she didn’t have ideas, and ended up mindlessly tracing circles onto her paper.

Despite the bone dead fatigue, she felt restless. She made use of Adrien’s zip line and skateboard ramp, but it didn’t help for more than a moment.

She still felt trapped.

She had been in the middle of a fencing lesson gone wrong when an akuma alert went off, and everyone was directed to evacuate.

“Oh thank god!” Marinette exclaimed.

“Are you happy about an akuma?” Kagami had asked, her eyes narrowed in disapproval.

“Umm… no?” Marinette had squeaked. She totally was. “I gotta run!”

“What? Where?” Kagami called after her. “We’re supposed to evacuate!”

“See you later!”

Best Friends & Boyfriends - Ch 5

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Read on Ao3

Summary: Adrien and Nino are best friends. Chat Noir and Carapace are dating. Chat and Carapace go on fun dates. Adrien and Nino gush to each other about their boyfriends. That’s it! That’s the fic!

Chapter 5

Chat Noir sat at his and Carapace’s usual spot. It was where they met whenever they had a joint patrol, but since they started dating it was also where they tended to go whenever they didn’t have any plans, and they’d figure out where to go from here. Because of that, it had become one of Chat Noir’s favorite rooftops.

But tonight, Chat was restless. His legs swung back and forth and he didn’t know what to do with his arms.

Carapace was late.

Carapace was never late. Chat couldn’t think of a single instance when Carapace had arrived after Chat himself had. Not since they had started dating.

His mind spiraled into a thousand different directions. None of them good.

He worried Carapace was mad at him. He ran through every recent conversation. It hadn’t seemed like Carapace was upset with him about anything. And his boyfriend was pretty direct most of the time. Surely, he would have said something if he was.

What if something had happened to his boyfriend? What if he was injured or sick? What if he was in some hospital somewhere? Chat Noir didn’t know who he was! If something terrible happened, would Adrien ever know what had happened to him?

He knew how easy it was for someone to disappear without a trace.

Best Friends & Boyfriends - Ch 1

Chapters: 1 | 2

Summary: Adrien and Nino are best friends. Chat Noir and Carapace are dating. Chat and Carapace go on fun dates. Adrien and Nino gush to each other about their boyfriends. That’s it! That’s the fic! 

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1: 

Adrien hadn’t meant to stay up all night. He knew his make-up artists were going to kill him when they saw the dark circles under his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. 

Because even now, at barely six in the morning he couldn’t stop smiling. He never would have predicted all those years ago when Carapace had joined their super hero team as a temp hero that he would become one of Adrien’s closest friends.

In fact, Adrien had felt threatened when Ladybug had chosen Carapace. He had thought she was trying to replace him. And even though he had worked through all those insecurities, Chat Noir had always held himself a bit more aloof with Carapace than with many of the other temporary heroes. 

But over time, the turtle-themed hero had worn away Adrien’s defenses with his easy going and friendly nature. Carapace was also incredibly easy to work with. Adrien could now read him and make plans non verbally almost as well as he could with Ladybug. Carapace had also become his favorite patrolling partner if only because the other hero was willing to just hang out and fool around after all the patrolling was done. 

And it turned out that Carapace was so easy to talk to. And fun to talk to. Of course, they couldn’t talk about their personal lives - not directly anyway, but that never seemed to slow either of them down because they could talk about anything and everything else, from philosophy and politics to the existence of life on other planets. The previous night they had somehow started talking about dreams. 

Yin and Yang - Ch 1: An Inconvenient Mix Up

Table of Contents: 1 | 2 

Chapter 1: An Inconvenient Mix Up

It had just been a run of the mill akuma. One where Chat Noir spent more time thinking about amazing puns than strategizing moves because he didn’t need to worry about strategy. The battle was going that well. 

He was vaulting over the gap between buildings, exalting in the freedom of it.

And then he was swinging upwards, instead of vaulting downwards. He hadn’t had time to make sense of the impossible change in trajectory, and his whole body crashed into the side of the building. 

It hurt. A lot. 

It wasn’t the first time. He knew what it felt like to slam into a wall. And so he instantly knew something else was off. Something more than slamming into a brick wall. 

This conclusion was confirmed when he reached for his staff to break his fall to the ground and it wasn’t there.

He hit the ground harder than he had slammed into the wall. 

It took him several seconds to recover the air the impact had stolen from his lungs. 

This akuma suddenly sucked! 

“Ladybug!” Alya’s familiar voice screamed as she leapt over a pile of debris to land at his side. “That looked like a nasty impact. Are you okay?”

He looked over his shoulder, expecting to see his partner. But she wasn’t there. The movement caused him to notice the flash of red just under his ear. He reached up, and brought the red ribbon in his dark black hair into his line of sight.

“Ladybug?” he repeated. Only his voice was too high. Like not just in pitch, but higher in his throat. And his hands were slim and slender, not to mention red with black spots. “Holy shit, I’m Ladybug.”

Read on Ao3

A Miraculous Reveal - Rocketear

Nino pressed the play button for what had to be the twelfth time just in the past hour. His stomach had long ago turned to lead, so he felt almost nothing when the short clip began again.

Chat Noir dropped to the ground, and then twisted impossibly to the right in an acrobatic move that would have been impossible without a miraculous. Every time, Chat Noir managed to stay just out the past of each explosive blue tear that shot past.

Chat Noir was shouting something at the akuma, and Nino wished for the hundredth time that the security footage had audio. But whatever Chat Noir said had pissed the akuma off.

Which was just par for the course with Chat Noir. Get the akuma blinded with rage and it was just that much easier to goad them into a mistake.

But the next frame was not in the regular Chat Noir playbook. No, in his next move Chat Noir collapsed his baton, held it in front of himself in surrender, dropped it to the ground, and then just stood there!

Nino didn’t let himself look away as the next two tears struck Chat Noir in the chest, sending the hero flying into a parked van. The force of impact was so great, the van was caved inward and almost tipped over. Chat Noir fell face first to the ground, and then didn’t move.

Tears fell from Nino’s eyes.

He didn’t understand. Why hadn’t Chat Noir fought him? Why had he dropped his weapon and just surrendered like that?!

Nino had witnessed Chat Noir take dozens and dozens of hits in footage Alya had collected over the years. And Carapace had seen Chat Noir take hits first hand before. But in all of that, Nino had never seen anything like this.

Because Chat Noir’s sacrifices always served some purpose! He was protecting the team, or Ladybug! Or at very least, providing a distraction or stalling for time.

But here, he had just taken the beating.

Nino’s fist slammed into his desk.

It didn’t make any sense!

Read on Ao3

Right Behind You - Ch 6

Chapter 1: Scandal

Chapter 2: Friends

Chapter 3: Akuma

Chapter 4: Fallout

Chapter 5: The Morning After

Chapter 6: Letting Go

Adrien came in through the back southern entrance to the Agreste estate. When the gate clanged shut behind him it was hard not to feel caged in. Even the air felt thicker, more oppressive and smothering somehow.

He took a deep breath. He wasn’t thirteen years old anymore. He was a grown man who had been on his own for three years. However displeased his father was, Adrien would bear it as he always had. 

Nathalie was seated at her desk outside his father’s office like she always was as if she was some sort of permanent fixture and not an employee. Her eyes shifted to him for a moment, and then she turned away and returned to her work without a word.

He sighed. Things were challenging enough when his father was angry with him. When Nathalie was? That was like playing his whole life on expert difficulty. Because Nathalie had a lot of control over his schedule and influence over his father. 

“Good morning, Nathalie,” he greeted with a cheery brightness, hoping to smooth things over with warmth. It worked on most people. It didn’t always work on Nathalie. “I believe I’m scheduled to see my father this morning.” 

“Your father is running a bit behind at the moment. He should be off this call any minute now.” 

She still did not look at him. 

Adrien smiled brightly anyway with a patience he did not feel. “It’s not a problem. I don’t mind waiting.”

He was lying. His head was an anxious mess, and his inability to remember the previous evening wasn’t helping, but he knew that he couldn’t let it show. 

His father pulled stunts like this often. It was a power move to let Adrien stew and work himself up. His father likely didn’t even have a call or meeting at all. The only strategy Adrien had developed to handle such tactics was to pretend like they didn’t affect him.

Well that, and make certain he left at the scheduled end of the meeting. If his father insisted on making him schedule appointments to speak with him, Adrien was not above using his own “schedule” to limit the length of the meeting if his father tried to start it late. 

He had tried to make Adrien wait an hour once. Adrien had waited, and then when the scheduled time had concluded, Adrien had departed without ever seeing his father. 

Gabriel had been livid, and made Adrien’s life miserable for a solid two weeks afterwards. But he had never left Adrien waiting a whole hour again. 

Adrien slipped into the stiff uncomfortable chair just outside the door of his father’s office.

Nathalie continued to ignore him completely, which wasn’t completely abnormal, but she usually asked at least one question about how he was or how his thesis was coming. 

Today, she gave him nothing.

She likely was giving him the cold shoulder because he had been dodging her calls the day before. At least, he hoped that’s what it was. He hoped it wasn’t because she disapproved of his sexual identity.

He shied away from the thought.

Or he tried to. But the idea that every other person in his life might suddenly disapprove of him over something he had no control over, sent the anxiety already twisting in his stomach into painfully tight gnarled knots.

Read on Ao3