This is my contribution to this year's @mlbigbang No art for this chapter
Adrien was observing Marinette sleep when Chloe walked down the stairs carrying a tray. He watched as she set two of the plates on the table, one filled with camembert, the other cookies, before accepting a third, larger, plate of sushi and rice cakes from Chloe.
“No problem,” she replied. “I’m going to finish watching the news, you wake Marinette up. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” With that, she turned and walked up the stairs, tucking the tray under her arm for easier movement.
He turned back to Marinette.
She groaned and hugged his chest tighter.
“Princess, it’s time to wake up,” he repeated softly.
“Five more minutes, Mam’an,” she groaned.
Man. She really was hard to wake up.
“Come on, Marinette, wake up.”
“Okay, then. You asked for it.” He grinned before beginning to tickle her furiously.
“No! Stop! I’m trying to sleep,” she shrieked as a round of giggles bubbled out.
Adrien looked down to see her lying in a heap at his feet. He leaped off the couch and helped her up.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to wake you up,” he panicked.
Oh, no! Now she'll hate me! And never want to talk to me! And she'll never date me so we'll never be able to get married! Or have a house! Or three kids and a cat and a hamster! This is a disaster!
“It’s fine, Adrien, I’m used to this. Clumsinette, remember?” She yawned and picked herself up, dusting off her clothes.
“Don’t ever say that again!”
“No. Clumsinette.” He set his hands on her shoulders. “You’re wonderful just the way you are, don’t ever forget that!”
He stared into her eyes. Like two clear mountain lakes. So beautiful.
“Fine, but the same thing goes for you.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t keep sacrificing yourself for me.”
He saw tears pool in her eyes and she turned away.
“You don’t know how it feels to watch you die over and over and over. Not knowing if I can save you. I can’t keep doing this. You’re my partner, not my shield.”
“Hey, hey, look at me, Bug,” he turned her to face him. When she kept looking down, he tilted her chin up. “I didn’t know it affected you this much. If it means that much to you, I’ll stop.”
She sniffed and looked up at him through her lashes, “Promise?”
She wrapped her arms around his middle and after a surprising moment, he hugged her back.
“Thanks, Kitty.” She leaned back and smiled up at him. His heart pounded. He loved it when she called him that.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Adrien turned to see Chloe leaning against the wall beside the stairs and watching them.
“Because I can leave. I just came to ask when you want to start putting your plan into action and what part I play in it.”
Marinette pulled away just as he did the same and they looked away.
“Um, no, why don’t we decide how soon we should contact Alya,” Marinette stammered.
After they were all seated, Chloe on a large armchair and Adrien sharing a sofa with Marinette, he spoke. “Why don’t you start by telling us what you saw on the news?”
“The reporters are making this a bigger deal than it already is. The riots have gotten worse, and people are demanding justice. They’re angry, tired of years of akumatizations and uncertainty. And they need someone to blame. It’s hard to blame a mystery man who hasn’t been seen in years, so you two are now the scapegoats.”
They were silent for a moment, and this time it was Tikki who broke the silence. “We need to find Alya.”
Marinette nodded and opened the little purse she carried around everywhere, pulling out a little box identical to the one Adrien had gotten Plagg in.
“You two stay here. Tikki and I will go talk to Alya.” She opened the box and put on a pair of glasses. “Kaalki, FULL GALLOP!”
Light swirled around her and when it disappeared, she stood in a skin-tight brown suit with little braids as decoration. Her hair was Dutch braided and pulled into a ponytail that swung down to her waist. She was just as breathtaking as usual. It turned out brown was as much her color as red and pink were. Was there anything she didn’t look good in?
A portal appeared in front of her and she stepped toward it.
“Wait!” Adrien jumped up and grabbed her shoulder. “I’m going with you.”
“No, I’ll be fine on my own.”
“I can help. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She turned and leapt into the portal. He waited a few seconds before jumping in after her.
Everything went black for a moment and a dark blue tunnel formed around him. Various shades of lighter blue runes swirled around inside of it. He slid into it and at the end, he fell through a thin, blue ring of light. There was another moment of blackness before he tumbled out into Alya’s kitchen.
His princess looked over and giggled. “I thought cats always landed on their feet.”
He stood and leaned against the counter. “Well, we can’t all be as perfect as you, La-” He realized that she hadn’t told him what she’d like to be called when using this miraculous.
Guess it’s up to me, then. He thought. Hmm . . . Mare! That’s what he’d call her!
Mare froze, her eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. “I’m not perfe-”
She was stopped when the front door opened and a tired-looking Alya walked in. Her glasses were falling down the bridge of her nose and her usually-well-ironed shirt was wrinkled. She collapsed onto the couch and sighed deeply, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. When Mare cleared her throat, Alya jumped and twisted to see who it was.
“Marinette? Adrien?” she gasped. “You shouldn’t be here! What if someone finds you?”
“No one will find us. And if they did, I have the horse miraculous. Speaking of which, I need to feed Kaalki if we want to teleport again. Kaalki, DISMOUNT!”
Light swirled around her again and she went back to her original appearance. Kaalki landed in her palms.
“Do you have any apples?” she asked as she handed Kaalki to Adrien.
“There’s a bowl on the counter.”
Marinette scanned the counters for a moment before finding a dark blue bowl with three Honeycrisp apples sitting in it. Kaalki ate everything, including the stem and the blossom before settling back down in his hands.
Marinette walked to the couch and sat beside Alya. He followed and claimed the other spot next to Marinette.
“So . . .” Alya started. “Why are you here?”
“We need your help. You’re the best reporter we know and you aren’t wanted for being a superhero.” Marinette said.
“Yeah, that was ruined for me years ago by someone I think we all know,” the auburn-haired girl said darkly.
“She’s changed. She’s the one that saved us and she’s hiding us in her secret bunker.”
“Sure. Whatever you say, girl.” Alya pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.
“We can come back to this later,” Adrien interrupted, after realizing that they weren’t going to stop anytime soon. Do you know where Nino is?”
“Uh, yes. He’s DJing at some kid’s birthday party. He’ll be back in about . . .” She pulled out her phone and checked the time. “Half an hour or so. Why?”
Marinette answered first so he let her take over again.
“We need you two to do a little research for us.”
“We need you to find out who Hawkmoth is and, if you have the time, of course, tell us what’s going on in the city. We need reliable sources and the press doesn’t provide impartial reports anymore. We would meet up twice a week until we found Hawkmoth. Then, we’d confront him and all the temporary heroes would get to use their miraculous one last time.”
Alya frowned and looked at the ground.
“You think you can do that?” asked Marinette.
“Sure. Where would we meet, though, and when? We need to find somewhere safe where no one will find us. Like . . .
Marinette shook her head.
“No, they do tours there.”
Looking up suddenly, Alya snapped her fingers.
“What about that old building on Rue Vraie Amitié? The one that used to be an antique shop?”
“What antique shop?” he asked.
“It was by my parents’ bakery. Alya and I used to love going there on the weekends. We worked there for a few years too. The owner would pay us in hard candy and pretty little trinkets. It closed down a few years ago because she didn’t have the money to keep it open.”
She stared off into the distance as though her mind was anywhere but here. Her mouth was twisted into a slight frown and her eyes weren’t as bright as they usually were.
“Nobody has used it in years. It’s a shame, really. It was such a cute, cheerful little shop. I wonder what happened to Madame Beauchêne.”
“I think she moved in with her niece,” Alya answered. “She gave me her address before she left. I have it here somewhere.”
“Maybe we should visit her when all this is over.”
Adrien was happy to listen to Marinette’s happy memories all day, but right now probably wasn’t the best time.
“I’m sure she’d love that but we can’t until we defeat Hawkmoth. So let’s focus on that right now.”
Shaking herself out of her fantasies, Marinette turned back to Alya.
“What time works for you?”
“Um . . . let’s see . . . I have work for most of the week, but I can set aside an hour on Wednesdays and I have Saturdays off. We could meet around five-thirty. Does that sound alright with you?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect! We have another stop to make before we get back so we’ll be going now. Tell Nino for us, will you?”
Marinette stood up and he followed suit.
Standing up, she hugged him, then Marinette.
“Be safe,” she whispered.
Pulling back, Marinette transformed and conjured another portal. She waved before jumping into the glowing ring, disappearing into the darkness.
“Bye, Alya,” Adrien said as he followed his partner.
Chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, epilogue
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