She strode forward as the last coin dropped onto the counter, considering that maybe she should try a new pastry instead of getting another spinach-gouda croissant, but dismissed the desire as a passing fancy – the spinach-gouda croissant was salty, warm, and familiar. And in the face of everything having changed for the worse – familiar was something she desperately craved.

“Good-morning Chloe.”

Chloe stopped a foot short of the counter and did a double take, in Sabine’s place stood Marinette.

“I, I want a spinach-gouda croissant.” Despite her shock she wouldn’t say please, she was talking to her arch-rival after all.

“They’re not ready yet,” Marinette said gravely with a straight face.

Chloe looked at the full display of spinach-gouda croissants through the counter glass and raised her eyebrows, “…Right. Look Dupain-Cheng, just give me my breakfast and we can pretend this never happened.”

‘Seriously,’ Chloe thought pinching the bridge of her nose, ‘what’s with this girl?’

“How about you come to the back and I make you some tea while we wait for the croissants to bake?” Marinette offered as if her request were nothing out of the ordinary. “Besides, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Okaay,” Chloe had no idea why she was agreeing to this. She told herself it was because she would receive a free cup of tea and an extra fresh breakfast, but really, the truth was simpler – it was the first time since the… Hawkmoth situation that someone had shown her positive attention. Even if the kindness was false, since Marinette clearly outlined that she was doing this to get something out of her, it was nice to be on the receiving end of it all the same.

She sipped delicately at the jasmine tea and waited for Marinette to speak first. Marinette clutched her teacup like it was a life-line and took a long gulp before beginning with “Chloe, I need to travel to Lhasa for a week for…personal reasons.”

“Tibet,” Marinette clarified when Chloe sent her a blank look.

“So you want me to what… take notes for you while you’re gone?”

Marinette waved a hand, “No, no – thank you, but I have Alya covering me for that.”

“Then why are you telling me this?” Chloe tossed her hair over her shoulder, “I swear, if this is a mean prank to make me late for school, then I –”

“I want you to be Ladybug while I’m gone!” Marinette blurted out.

Static overtook Chloe’s brain. Marinette was Ladybug? But then. But then that meant that Marinette knew how, how awful she was both in and out of the mask why would she want? Why would she want her to be Ladybug? Chloe’s near-empty teacup clattered onto the table.

“That’s a sick joke,” Chloe declared as she stood up, “Where’s the camera? Are your little friends watching?”

Tears fogged Chloe’s eyes – breakfast be damned. This was just cruel.

“No, Chloe, wait!” Marinette grabbed Chloe’s sleeve, “Please! It’s true.”

Chloe’s eyes snapped to Marinette, “If it were true, then why me? Why not any of your other friends?”

Marinette’s grip tightened briefly on her sleeve, “Because none of them would be as good!”

“…What?”

“Please, sit back down. I can explain, I promise.”

Marinette released her sleeve and sat carefully down, as if Chloe was a wild animal that would spook at any fast movements. Chloe wiped the gathering tears with the back of her hand, grimacing inwardly at the smear of blue and black that was left behind. She knew she should have used waterproof mascara that morning.

“Alright, talk.” Chloe demanded imperiously as she picked up her teacup.

Marinette inhaled noisily, “Ok, well. I’ve been watching you since Hawkmoth –”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Chloe interrupted.

“Alright,” Marinette said soothingly, “So since that…day you didn’t leave for New York… I noticed how, without having any distractions…”

Chloe snorted at Marinette’s delicate wording, of course she would be too polite to say ‘since you lost all your friends’ but otherwise remained quiet.

“…and without you bullying me, how creative you got with your designs. You’re crafty in ways that no one suspects. Crafty enough to rival me,” Marinette paused to take a sip of her own tea,  

“The Ladybug is creativity and kindness itself. It needs someone like me.”

“Like you,” Marinette corrected, “to reach its full potential. And as guardian, I deem you worthy.”

When no more words came from Marinette, Chloe tried to poke holes into Marinette’s reasoning, “But how can you say that? How can you be sure I won’t abuse the power and keep the miraculous for myself? Or that I won’t turn to Hawkmoth again?”

Marinette’s eyes pinned her down, “Would you?”

Chloe cast her eyes away from Marinette’s, “It happened last time. And the time before that.”

“True,” Marinette said softly and slid a lacquered box towards her, “But I have a feeling that you won’t this time. I’m choosing to trust you to do the right thing. It’s up to you to choose to honor that trust.”

Chloe’s hands trembled as her fingers closed around the box, “Thank you.”

On her way out, Chloe paused at the counter.

“Oh Chloe, dear,” Mrs. Dupain-Cheng said cheerfully, “A new batch of spinach-gouda croissants just came out – how many would you like.”

“Actually,” Chloe said slowly, “I think I would like some canelés, please.”

Maybe it was time to try something new, after all.

___

“Is Uncle Cheng alright?” Marinette asked in a tiny voice. “Were his hands worse off than the doctors had initially thought?”

Momentarily confused, her mother shook her head. “What? No, no – your uncle is fine. It was just a stress fracture.”

Sabine then held up the letter with the Temple Guardian’s insignia facing Marinette, “Do you know what this is? What it means?”

Marinette forcibly kept her breathing easy and feigned ignorance. “No,” she lied easily.

“What is It?”

Marinette waited for her mother to draw her eyebrows down – as she did whenever she caught Marinette telling a fib. But the moment never came. Instead, her mother drew a ragged breath.

“I think you should sit down.”

Marinette complied and sat very still, waiting for her mother to start talking first. Her mother stared at the ceiling for several long minutes before looking down at the space in between them before meeting her daughter’s concerned gaze.

“Do you remember the news about the miraculous reappearance of that temple in the Tibetan mountains?” Her mother began lowly.

Mutely, Marinette nodded. The reappearance of the temple had plastered the news for a better part of the month before coverage of Queen Wasp had taken over. A person would have had to have lived under a rock to have missed the implications of a temple suddenly reappearing like that. Especially since it suddenly supported the Ladyblog’s “crazy” theory of a secret order directing Miraculous appearances.

“Well…” her mother took another deep inhale through her nose, “The news was right – it’s no ordinary temple. In its heyday, it housed great magic and those that were chosen to walk those sacred halls became Guardians.”

“Mom?” Marinette interjected. Her voice wavered, “How do you know–?”

Her mother raised a single eyebrow, effectively silencing her daughter’s interruption and continued, “Though most Guardians lived within the walls of the temple, they were not bound to it. Guardians were free, and were encouraged even, to travel. To walk the lands helping those that needed help the most. So, when the Guardian’s Temple suddenly disappeared, precious few of the order survived. And those that survived continued on teaching the core lessons, but not the magic, throughout the generations.”

Her mother paused and looked at Marinette, “Do you understand what I’m saying so far?”

“I…think so,” Marinette lied. In truth, her thoughts were whirling recklessly through her mind. If her mother knew all this then that meant… That meant… Her mind shut down – refusing to process her thoughts.

Meanwhile, her mother nodded, ignorant of her daughter’s inner distress. “Good, good.” She said half-absentmindedly, “Where was I? Oh yes. So. What does this letter mean? And how can I know all of this? Well. When great, great Grandmother Ya married her husband, this secret was revealed to her – which she passed down to her children who finally passed it down to me when the time was right.”

Sabine wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, “I had hoped that there was a better way to introduce you to all of this or, better yet, never have had to talk to you about this ever. But, we are where we are.”

Sabine finally relinquished the letter into Marinette’s waiting hands, “Sweetie. I’m so sorry but you’ve been summoned.”

The words, once uttered, echoed strangely in Marinette’s ears, conveying an importance that should have been impossible to convey verbally.  But logically, Marinette knew that she should have been expecting something like this – after all, the appearance of the Guardian’s Temple and Master Fu’s passing down of the guardianship happened too close together for fate to not interfere.

If she thought about it, it made sense that she would be summoned.

But she hadn’t.

Hadn’t truly thought about the implications of becoming a Guardian. How could she have? It all happened while she was under duress. Paris had been at stake – in the moment there was no time to think of anything else. And after? Too much came too fast so the meaning of guardianship was shunted to the back of her mind.

But now?

The finality of her mother’s words rang deeply in her psyche.

Summons.

Guardianship and all that entailed.

Marinette’s mother took notice of her daughter’s eyes widening and how each breath became more shallow than the last. She grasped her hands, “Dear. Breathe with me.”

Once Marinette was capable of pulling air into her lungs steadily her mother ran her thumb over her daughter’s knuckles, “It can’t be ignored.”

“I’m sorry,” her mother gathered Marinette in her arms and apologized over and over again softly. “It can’t be ignored.”

“You must have been recognized as being exceptional,” Sabine murmured in a soothing tone, “I’m so proud of you.”

“I…,” Anything Marinette had been planning on saying died in her throat. Her identity was safe, but another lie had sprouted to shield her mother from the truth of who she really was. And what could she say anyways? ‘No mom, the only reason I was summoned was because I was Ladybug before I was named Guardian by Master Fu?’

She couldn’t. She wasn’t exceptional. But there was no way to explain all of this to her mother without revealing everything so instead she just swallowed down anything that went contrary to her mother’s imagination and said,

“I’m going to make you proud – I promise.”

They clutched each other tightly.

When they pulled apart, Marinette studied the letter. It was straightforward thanks to the grueling hours she had spent studying Han characters under her mother’s tutelage. The Guardians wanted her to travel to Lhasa (in any way she deemed necessary) – when she arrived, there would be an emissary waiting to guide her into their sacred hall to begin “the guardian trials”.

Beyond that, the letter only stipulated that she bring her “most precious items of passage.”

“What about Dad?” Marinette questioned.

“Don’t mind your father,” her mother dismissed without a thought. “He understands as well as I do how important something like this is.”

Marinette’s eyebrows creased slightly at her mother’s words but she didn’t comment, not sure she wanted to learn everything she didn’t know about her parent’s marriage. Some cans of worms, she thought, are best left unopened.

Her eyes dropped back down to the creased paper and committed each step to memory before tearing it into fine shreds.

“Mom,” She said slowly. She brought her eyes up to her mother’s, wide blue eyes meeting dark brown, “I love you and Dad– you know that right?”

Marinette wasn’t sure why she was suddenly desperate to hear her mother’s affirmation. It wasn’t like a visit to the temple would take too long – after all, she had already gotten some training under her belt thanks to Master Fu. But something about the atmosphere made Marinette feel like it would be the last time she would be able to see her mother for a while.

An absurd thought.

But one that nonetheless pulled the question out of her mouth before she even realized what she asked. Her mother didn’t even hesitate.

“I love you now and I’ll love you for another thousand years,” her mother replied firmly.

Marinette’s eyes slid shut momentarily as she locked the familiar phrase into her memory.

“Before I go,” Marinette began, “I need to plan a few things out…”

___

Hope you guys had as much fun reading that as I had writing that. Originally, I had planned on writing Chloe out further but I felt that switching between Marinette and Chloe would be more interesting. 

Choosing Trust Pt. 1

Part 3

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