Chapter Text
Truly, it was a miracle that she hadn’t hurt herself yet. She spun her compacted bo staff between her dexterous fingers so quickly that the object blurred in her hand, babbling about something or the other about the importance of him being able to do things without his father knowing, before dissolving into a frightened stare in his direction.
He raised a brow at her, one hand on his hip and the other on the light switch, laughing softly to himself at the way she squeaked. As if he was any match to her staff. He’d seen the way she could launch akumas and sentimonsters flying with the force of her upper arm strength, using the staff like a bat. Her eyes widened at the windowsill, deer in headlights at the sight of him completely drenched from the showerhead, her bo staff snapping into her hand in a relaxed position.
“Need something?” He was finally able to break the silence after a few moments, letting water droplets from his hair sprinkle on his waterlogged polo shirt. Noire’s eyes flitted up to meet his after a long trek up his wet arms, watching a water droplet disappear down the crook of his elbow. His cheeks heated at her staring, the edges of his lips twitching at the scrutiny.
“Oh. Hi, Adrien. I didn’t know you were in here. I thought you were in your room.”
“Liar.” He rolled his eyes.
She winced. “Honestly, I swear.”
“I thought you had amazing hearing? Did you not hear me open the door?” She was always telling everyone and everything that would listen that she would always be able to hear cries of help from miles away. And not to worry, because she was unmatched to see in the dark. No akuma could compare to her when she was bound in hexleather, that she could fight in complete darkness if she needed to. Hawkmoth had even given up on making akumas that would take away normal human senses, Noire was that good at it.
He had to admit, Noire’s eyesight and advanced hearing was always helpful in battle. She successfully picked up tidbits from fights that he just wouldn’t have been able to get by himself. Other than her invaluable companionship, he always felt safer knowing that she was with him.
“I guess it’s not as good as I had thought!” Her laughter was forced and rough, and Adrien watched unimpressed at how she clicked her compacted staff behind her to rest at her hip. She gestured towards him, head tilting to the side in confusion. “I didn’t mean to walk in on your clearly busy night. What… are you doing, anyway?”
“I’m heading to the bathroom because I heard a noise coming from the windowsill. I tried turning on the light to see what it was but I ended up turning on the showerhead.”
Rich peals of laughter came easy from her, and he fought himself to not laugh with her, trying to keep a stern look on his face. “Well it’s not my fault your light fixture is next to the shower handle. Who lives like that, anyway?”
“Rich people,” He scrunched his nose at her, trying to look as offended as possible but failing. He couldn’t really be angry with her. “You’re not off the hook, you little cat. What are you doing at a civilian’s house in the middle of the night?”
He didn’t know what time it was, but it was early enough in the night that Tikki hadn’t tried to convince him to sleep for the night, quoting something about how being better rested would keep him more awake during times of need if there were akumas the following day. He heard the same spiel from the kwami nearly every night, and he’s gotten accustomed to tuning it out in favor of finishing his homework on time. He looked down to his watch for good measure, trying to gauge how close he was to the actual time.
“Not the middle of the night! It’s probably around nine, or something.” She almost looked comfortable on the windowsill, one slender leg dangling while the other kept her supported on the small ledge. She was almost about the size of the window, perfectly nested in between the top frame and the bottom as if she belonged anywhere in his room, the tops of her hexleather ears grazing against the top frame. She took to swinging her tail to keep herself occupied since she’d put away her staff, pretending to check her own watch that she didn’t have on her wrist. She shrugged. “Not sure. I left my house as soon as my family finished dinner together. Don’t act like I don’t show up here every night. I came to check out how my favorite fashion model has been doing!”
“I think you’re just looking for reasons to show up,” He couldn’t help himself from smiling at her knowingly, wiping a hand across his wet face to try to get as many droplets off. He grabbed the nearest towel to wipe at his hair. He was going to have so much bed head when he woke up the next day. “Are you here to organize my sock drawer again? Very important Hero of Paris work.”
She leaned down towards him when he walked closer to her, her long braided hair dangling from her shoulder like rope, the green ribbon at the end hypnotizing. “Nah, I think I’ve done all your drawers already. But it’s important to be organized, you know.”
“You know I have maids to do the cleaning. I don’t need a superhero to do that.” He tugged at her ankle with barely any force to it, content enough to just see her feet swing down and try to worm out of his loose grip.
“Well, you’re welcome anyways. Now you don’t need a maid to clean up after you. See? Saving you money, like a good Hero of Paris should do.” Her calves were lithe and slender, he noticed. Her hexleather had no obvious plating or armor-like qualities to them, unlike his own suit. Noire moved like the night was hers, light on her feet and with fluidity that brought real cats to shame.
He wiped at the bottom side of his jaw with his towel, trying to catch her gaze. “Why are you really here, Noire?”
“I told you already. I wanted to see how you were doing.” If Adrien didn’t know how to read her well enough, he would have missed her worried expression behind that soft smile. It was more in the way her eyes strained behind the hexleather domino mask, neon green eyes swirling with emotion that he couldn’t place. “How’s your ribs? I don’t like how you’re not taking cover in the middle of an akuma battle.”
“It’s alright. The miraculous cure healed me up. It’s getting kind of old, isn’t it? Running for your life?” The argument sounded poor even for him, and he wasn’t sure what he could say to fix it. “I mean, well, I just don’t fear getting hit anymore. You and Mister Bug are always there to save the day. What’s the problem if I get hurt along the way if it will just get reversed?”
It didn’t help that whenever he did actually run for his life under the assumption that he would be able to find a back alley to transform in, Lady Noire always found him ‘cowering’ (read: in the middle of searching for Tikki in his pocket to go through his transformation) behind a dumpster or an air conditioning unit, and took him far away from the fight.
“No, I don’t agree. Adrien, I don’t like that you’re using yourself as a bodybag.” She sighed. “Especially since you’re a civilian. You don’t have superhero powers to withstand akuma attacks. You can get really hurt. You’re going to give me a heart attack if you keep body slamming akumas. I have to focus on the fight, but I can’t do that when you’re running into battle as if you can fight the akuma in hand to hand combat.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to go head to head with any of them. I just feel useless not being able to help you.” He hoped his lie was believable enough. Lady Noire could handle herself just fine. Overpowered senses aside, she always had a good grip on the fight by the time he showed up. Her bo staff was one hell of a bat when she wanted it to be. Not to mention she clearly had professional training in some type of martial arts.
“You can help me by staying behind, letting me and Mister Bug take care of it. Please. Promise me you’ll stop.” She stopped chewing on her lip to step down from the windowsill, allowing Adrien’s neck to relax from looking up at too steep of an angle. She came up to his collarbone at her full height, and without fail he had to violently stamp down the urge to pat her on the head whenever she was this close.
He pretended to give the topic some thought, placing his towel back on the towel rack with enough care that she wouldn’t complain at how untidy he was. “Alright. I promise. On the condition that if I step away to change my wet clothes, you won’t go pawing through my bathroom cabinets.”
“Awh. No fun.” He left her in the bathroom with the knowledge that his toothbrush would be misplaced by the time he got back. He couldn’t stop the smile on his face from widening. “It’s not like I can’t smell what shampoo you use, anyway. What’s the fun of hiding the brand name from me?”
“A man has to keep some secrets up his sleeves.” He pulled the polo off by the collar, searching his drawers for a suitable replacement. He slipped open his second drawer and gave Tikki a knowing shrug. The kwami giggled silently behind her two red paws, snuggled up in between two different pairs of socks that Noire had spent an afternoon organizing. The two of them had learned almost a year ago that it was easier to let Noire hang out in his room for as long as she wanted than to try to push her out.
“Do people know that you use acne wash?” He hoped Hawkmoth didn’t know just how easy it was to distract her, or Paris would definitely be in trouble.
“If they did, it would probably be trending on the internet for a full day, I bet.” He made sure to change out of his clothes quick enough before she realized he was gone.
“The famous Adrien Agreste uses dandruff shampoo. How embarrassing.”
“The best part about all of this is that no one will believe you if you try telling people.” He came back to the bathroom, reclothed, and leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching her tail swish behind her as half of her body disappeared into his cabinets. He wondered if his artesanal collection of beard wash would survive her curiosity.
“My god. You’re right.” She poked her head up, nodded at his new shirt, before diving back. “Even if I shared this with a photo of your cabinet, no one would know it was really Adrien Agreste’s cabinet. Also I think Mister Bug would be really disappointed in me technically misusing my Miraculous to get into a guy’s house.”
Adrien’s eyebrow twitched, suddenly worried. “Do you? Normally do this with guys?”
“What, come into their house at night?” She knocked over his aftershave bottle with her elbow, but caught it before it fell onto the floor. Cat-like reflexes, of course. “Of course not. You’re the only one who gets the special treatment, Monsieur Agreste.”
He refused to acknowledge how the knot in his stomach that had formed quickly disappeared into nothing. “Is it because I’m famous?”
“Not at all, Mister Ego-tistical. I just find you easy to talk to.” She turned an unopened bottle of conditioner in her hand, her black domino mask moving to imply that her eyebrows were high up. “Seriously? You know silicon is bad for your hair, right?”
He floundered. “It was a gift.”
“Whatever. Throw it away. It’s bad for your hair.” She placed it on top of his otherwise empty counter, tossing her braid over her shoulder, diving back into the cabinet to mess around. “I can give you tips on beautiful long tresses, if you’d like.”
Adrien surprised himself with a laugh. “Are you this chaotic outside of the suit, too?”
He didn’t miss the way she paused, didn’t miss the way her tail slowed its swishing as she moved things around in there. “To be honest, no. You honestly wouldn’t even know it was me. Something about wearing the miraculous just makes me want to do everything I can’t do when I don’t have the mask on.”
He envied that about her. He envied the way that Lady Noire was always able to pass off as carefree whenever they were together. She laughed and hollered during tough battles against akumas. Whenever he had to be serious and face his responsibilities, she was able to roam throughout the city, using her miraculous as a way to be free from obligations. She was smart, and her plans to defeat the akuma were always brilliantly formed, but there was always an edge of playfulness to them that Adrien as Mister Bug would never be able to compete with. He envied her so much.
It was much easier talking to Noire when she didn’t have blinding stars in her eyes in adoration for Mister Bug. He knew she meant well, and genuinely cared about her partner, but it was hard to talk to her without her bringing up how amazing he was, or asking him nearly every time they met if he had any plans and wanted to hang out. Sometimes Noire acted like his fan, not his partner.
It was hard hearing that outside of the miraculous, Noire wasn’t the same. He hadn’t given it much thought, since he had always imagined her being the way that she always had showed him when he was Mister Bug. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering how much of her personality was actually a facade, or just a teenager trying to make a friend but failing.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” She shrugged, more to herself, her tail back to swishing at full force. “I’m always doing something or another that’s full of responsibility. I like being able to get away from it all. Every chance I get when I don’t have to save the world, big or small, I’m running on rooftops or talking to you.”
“You don’t usually talk much about your home life.” His brows furrowed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Thanks! But not today. It’s full of things to do that-- believe me-- I don’t want to deal with when I’m in the suit. I came here to forget about it. Anyway!” She clapped her hands together, getting his attention. “You going to invite me into your room, or what? I’ve learned too much about your bodywash than I would ever want to know.”
“People would pay to know that, you’re aware of that, right? I could probably get interviewed just on my cosmetics alone.”
“Stop acting so posh, it sounds like you’re the golden child of Paris, or something. You’re not as cool as you make yourself seem, sunshine! I know you sleep with Lady Noire pajamas.” She giggled, flexing her fingers in grabby motions. Shiny hexsteel-tipped claws reflected the bathroom light back at him.
Hm. Maybe she had a point. He motioned her to follow him into his room. She skipped behind him, and launched herself to the sofa that flanked the TV, perching herself on the back of his sofa. She folded her legs underneath her quick enough to be a blur. He could see the underside of her feet, the little green paw prints visible. “You’re right. I’m secretly a nerd but I’m too afraid to tell anyone about it. My favorite hero is clearly Lady Noire. Also, I see you eyeing it, but don’t touch the ball of yarn on my desk. I need it for something I’m working on, and I want it one piece.”
Just like he expected, Noire’s eyes widened at the sight of yarn. Her pupils dilated to nearly all black, her diamond shaped pupils turning into large circles. He tsked her when her hands twitched, and she bit her lip. “Aha, sorry. Sometimes the instinct is too strong to curb. You learning how to crochet, or something?”
He groaned into his hands, embarrassed to admit it. “Something like that. I’m trying to learn how to knit for a friend, but I guess I didn’t get my dad’s knack for creating clothes.”
He wanted to make something special for a classmate of his. Marinette frequently complained about the temperature in the school, and long afternoons in the classroom with them working on projects together, he always found himself sympathetic to Marinette’s constant shivering in the class. No matter how many layers she wore, she complained about the cold. He’d wondered how difficult it could’ve been to buy some yarn and knit her a scarf, and with Tikki’s enthusiastic help picking out the different colored yarn, he was able to start the first couple of rows.
But it was hard. So much harder than he had imagined. He thought akumas were hard to deal with, but blessed be, nothing compared to him trying to memorize loops and tucks. His brain wasn’t made for it.
“Oh? A friend, huh?”
He tried not to blush. “Well. You know. More than a friend, I guess. I like her a lot.”
“Some lucky girl!” Noire laughed. “You want some help?”
“I don’t think your dating advice will help me here.”
“Hey, my dating tips are purrfect. But I’m not talking about advice!”
“You know how to knit? Or are you just trying to get into my yarn stash?”
“A little bit of both,” She rolled her eyes. “But mostly the knitting. I can’t do much with the claws, but I can probably teach you better than the tutorials you’ve been watching online. You really have to get someone in person to teach you how to do it, so I’ve found out. I’ve made a couple of knitted stuff before. What do you say?”
“If this is a trick, little kitty, I’m kicking you out.” He passed her the square that he’d been working on, letting her evaluate it. She looked at his rows that had taken him hours to complete. He was a novice, sue him.
She grinned. “As if you’d even be able to catch me.”
“I know the layout of my room better than you do.” He matched her defiant glint with his own. “And I’ve been told my throwing arm is extremely accurate.”
Ha! Nevermind that his accuracy came from years of fighting akumas. His yoyo was extremely precise because of it. He could catch akuma butterflies with his eyes closed, and miles away. Noire wasn’t the only one with special abilities.
“And I’ve been told that I’m very slippery.” She paused, giving her sentence some thought. “Actually, no. No one has called me that. I don’t really have time to talk to anyone except you.”
He couldn’t stop himself from wincing. “That sounds lonely.”
“Tell me about it! I have no social life from all the stuff I have to do. If this mask wasn’t in the way, you’d definitely be able to see all the bags under my eyes.” She laughed good naturedly, picking at a stray string of fuzz on his project.
He wanted to ask her why she spent so much time in his bedroom if she clearly didn’t have time to socialize at all. Did she truly enjoy his company this much that she would rather bother him on her spare time, than do anything else? He wondered what type of obligations she had that made her sleep less, but he knew that it was private information he would never get to have. Maybe asking Master Fu for advice on how to take care of his super hero partner’s health was in order.
“How about this. Put on the last part of Pride and Prejudice and I’ll fix up your lines for you, and I’ll also teach you how to loop.”
“You’re a guy, right?”
It always gave him whiplash whenever she climbed through his window without preamble. This time she wasn’t as graceful with it-- claws scrabbling for the frame as she tried to squeeze herself in through the small square. She was small and lithe, but just barely small and lithe enough to fit through the smallest partition of his ceiling-to-floor windows. He was lucky that Tikki was snoozing in her favorite drawer, tucked away from Noire’s grabby hands. He paused from folding up a shirt in the way that Noire had taught him, giving her a pointed look. Her grin took up her entire face, rosy pink lips pulled while to show fanged teeth. “I’m pretty sure I am. Why?”
“Oh, cool!” She sighed a breath of relief. Clearly the question had been too cumbersome for her. “Can I ask you some questions about guys? I would ask my other guy friends, but I was passing by when I saw your window open.”
“Okay, one: my window was not open,”
“Semantics.”
“Secondly: what exactly do you need to know about guys?”
“Ooh, I love lists.”
“ Third: why?”
She made herself at home on his couch, tossing her go-to decorative pillow under her head as she stared at the ceiling. “I’m trying to make friends with a boy in my class and he just can’t talk to me, for some reason. I’m starting to think he doesn’t like me.”
It wasn’t often that she came by with an actual dilemma from her civilian life. In fact, he wasn’t sure she ever had. He wracked his empty brain for an answer. “Did you do anything to make him not like you?”
“Not that I know of.” He couldn’t see her from the other side of the couch as he put away his clothes. He looked at a jacket, and wondered if it was worth the wrinkles if he shoved it into a drawer instead of hanging it up. He quickly decided against it. Noire would have his head.
“Well, what happens when you talk to him?”
She sighed. “He clams up. Oh, it’s horrible. I can barely talk to him without him stammering up a storm. Sometimes it gets to the point where I feel like I’m talking to a telegraph, and I’m a poor radio man trying to decode the morse code coming through.”
“Don’t be mean.” Either way, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “I’m sure the guy just gets intimidated by you. Sometimes you talk like you’ll die if you stop talking.”
“Like a shark.” She popped her head up from the couch, the tips of her ears twitching in alert.
“Sharks don’t talk.” He hoped to god he was right.
“But they do die if they stop moving.” She tsked at him when he tried putting a folded shirt into the wrong drawer. “Hey! Put that in the right place. I can see it from a mile away, that’s a date shirt. That goes into the ‘date shirt’ drawer.”
He groaned. “How do you even know the difference between a black school shirt and a regular black shirt?”
She giggled. “I have special eyes. They don’t twinkle lovingly for no reason, sunshine.”
“It’s not that big of a deal, kitty. It’s just a shirt.” He followed through with her request anyway, wincing under her mock frown.
She humphed, her tail swishing wildly behind her, back onto her wild train of thought. “You think I’m like a predator, or something? I don’t like that word. Too gross. You think I intimidate him as if I was a shark? That’s a better analogy.”
“Do you try to eat him like a shark?”
“No way! I’m real nice, I swear it, Prince Charming. All I do is ask about his day. It’s not my fault he’s terrified of me.” She sighed, and bared her teeth to him, pretending to bite. She huffed. “I can’t even smell blood like a shark. That would be cool though.”
“You’d be too overpowered.”
“You’re right. Mister Bug would need the upgrade, not me.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t even talk a lot outside of the suit. But I am full of energy when I have the suit on. You try putting on a super suit that’s made to fire at all cylinders--”
“It’s ‘fire on all cylinders’, not ‘at’--”
“--And try not to have a heart attack from the energy building up in you that makes you want to build the Great Pyramid of Giza all by yourself. You think the Louvre’s glass pyramids are impressive? Watch me build it on sheer super hero energy. It would be beautiful, and taller than the Eiffel Tower. No. Empire State Building in New York. No. Marinara trench.”
He knew exactly what she meant. The suit always made him feel anxious, and almost claustrophobic. Not that he could tell her, though. “It’s ‘Marina’.”
“Actually, it’s ‘Mariana’. Silly. But it’s such a pretty name, don’t you think?”
He steered the conversation back, noticing her eyes swirling with jumbled thoughts. It was like as if he could read her mind, and he knew that she was thinking about just how deep the Mariana trench was, and if she’d be able to swim all the way to the bottom. “Sharks.”
“Sharks.” She nodded sagely, snapping out of her thoughts. “Right. I’m not terrifying outside the suit. I don’t think I’ve ever said anything bad to this guy. He’s really sweet, and my friends say that he has a great sense of humor, but how am I supposed to know? I can barely talk to him! Sometimes we only last two sentences before he’s excusing himself. What do I do, sunshine?”
He tried not to wince. This sounded similar to what he dealt with at school. Whenever he got the courage to talk to Marinette, he’d stutter and dissolve into a heap of a mess. Nevermind that he spent hours with her after school working on class representative projects that were both a blessing and a curse-- blessing, because he could stay longer at school with Marinette-- curse, because he was horrible at keeping conversations with her without turning into a garbled mess-- he still couldn’t convince himself that he wasn’t in mortal danger from just talking to her. His body refused to believe him, and the anxiety talking to her was enough to make him sweat bullets.
Maybe his crush on Marinette was too much. Nino was his best wingman, and tried valiantly to help him out to get Adrien to have good conversations with Marinette, but he was useless when it finally came down to the talking part. Marinette was like his own shark problem. He hated that the analogy worked for his problem so well.
“Why don’t you try asking him questions about himself?”
“Let me try practicing as if you were him.” She set her braid to hang from the back of the couch, eyeing him with her diamond slitted eyes. “Hi, Adrien. Did you have a good time at school today? What was your favorite part?”
He closed his drawer set softly, trying not to wake the sleeping Tikki within. “Hi, Lady Noire. My day was good. I got to eat at a special place with my friends for lunch today. I ate a really nice sandwich for lunch, and I think that was my favorite part of the day. It was either that, or the short meet up I had with the class president about the class meeting we are going to have tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe just how easy that was.” She frowned, dropping back onto the couch. Her braid pulled up with her, but a third of it still hung across the back of the couch from how long it was. He watched the green ribbon dangle. “Look at that! A full conversation. A two-way street. A question and an answer. Is it that easy to talk to boys? Is it the super suit? Is it the fact that I look ridiculous in this suit and you feel sympathetic? I wish I could have that type of conversation without sending him stammering out of the room.”
He snorted. “Maybe you’re coming on too strongly? Give the guy some breathing room.”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just truly a shark and this poor guy is a shrimp, and all this time I’ve just wanted to be friends with him but all he can see is big shiny teeth.” She threw her hands up, hexsteel claws shiny in the mid afternoon rays that filtered into his room. She tried catching a sun ray in her fist. “Do sharks eat shrimp?”
“I don’t know enough about sharks.”
“Whales eat shrimp.”
“I don’t know about that, either. But penguins do.”
“Are you sure? I thought that was krill.”
“Are they not the same thing? Wait, don’t whales eat krill too?”
“Stop asking me hard questions.” She groaned. “Once the super suit is on, it is ‘lights out’ in the brain cavity. I’m only here to help Mister Bug fight akumas, and pester you until you need to do homework or whatever-- and Mister Bug is nowhere to be found.”
It was almost laughable. If she knew who she was actually talking to, she would probably have a heart attack.
He sat on the only square available left on the couch, pushing her feet off of his area. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest when her feet fell on him, but he oofed! comedically nonetheless. “Maybe he has the right idea. He’s probably doing homework.”
“Smart man.” She shrugged, but Adrien could see the blush that formed on her cheeks at the mention of Mister Bug in a conversation. “But I’m smarter. I already finished all my homework for the semester last night.”
“Did you have a lot?”
“Loads!” She pushed at his thigh with her foot. “It took me nearly a whole week to finish weeks in advance. My brain is fried! There’s nothing left in there except thoughts about boys and sharks now! Didn’t you notice I wasn’t in your room at all this week?”
“I don’t think you know just how much you occupy my life, little kitty.” He deadpanned. “Of course I notice when you’re not here.”
He couldn’t help but smile with her as she laughed wholeheartedly. “Your world sure does get boring when I’m not around, I bet.”
She had no idea how it felt to be constantly looking at his windows, wondering if every blur of a bird flying by was actually her. He’d begun to feel lonely without her showing up and pestering him. As much as he wanted to hate the feeling, he actually looked forward to her popping in and sending his entire life into a whirlpool for the evening.
“It’s boring enough to let me catch up on homework.” He shrugged, poking at the neon green paw print on the ball of her foot. She pulled away, ticklish. He filed that information for a later day.
She stretched her arms up to the ceiling, her claws casting reflective hexagonal patterns onto the coffee table. “I’m so glad you let me into your room every time I need it.”
He snorted. “And everytime you don’t need it, too.”
She gasped. “You don’t know that. What if everytime I come here it's because I need to be here?”
“You don’t need to enter my room to organize my underwear drawer. I know you were just interested in seeing if I wear the Agreste brand for everything.”
“Hey, you know what they say about curiosity and cats.” She shrugged into the decorative pillow.
“You’re proving my point.”
“No I’m not.” She crossed her arms, scrunching her face together into a pout. “I just like to have things organized. Forgive me for trying to pass my wisdom onto you.”
“It’s working,” he chuckled, happy that her eyes twinkled. “I get uncharacteristically nervous if I put something in the wrong spot.”
“That’s right, everything has a place! I’m so glad you’re learning it, it warms my heart. One step closer to being a well-adjusted adult. Oh wait, is that the latest console?” She shot up from the couch, her braid whipping behind her. “It is! No way! I bet you I can win against you in Mecha Strike. You have it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Two out of Three. If I win, you get kicked out.” He couldn’t stop smiling. As if he would ever do that.
Her grin went wide at the prospect of a challenge. “Alright, Prince Charming. If I win, you help me with my boy problem.”
“Deal.”
“--Adrien? Adrien?” She squeaked, suddenly, and by a smidge she was able to escape his panicked grabbing. He was incapacitated by his sheets, tangling his legs and never letting him go. She nearly vaulted to the ceiling in shock.
“Oh god. What in the world? It’s four in the morning, maybe.” He croaked, struggling to slip up his sleep mask to look for her in the dark. He wasn’t sure what window she’d come through, the Parisian night was almost too dark to see anything. His eyes shifted to try to see better in the dark, looking in her general direction before rubbing at his face with his only freed hand. “Noire?”
“Sorry! I’m sorry!” He could barely make out her form bouncing on the balls of her feet two meters away from him, lifting her hands high up to her face to not accidentally hurt him with her claws.
“What’s--” He forced himself to stop yawning. Maybe something had happened. “What’s wrong?”
“I know I shouldn’t have woken you up, you looked so peaceful,” She squirmed, and he could scarcely see her tail whipping behind her. “But I need to use your bathroom.”
“What?”
“Your bathroom,” She enunciated, as if he was thick in the skull.
He groaned. Stuffed his face back to the pillow. And here he thought there was an akuma. “Kitty… Why did you wake me up for that?”
“Well, you were asleep-- I didn’t want to just-- use something of yours without telling you-- I wouldn’t feel good.” She bit down on the edge of her hexsteel claws. “And I don’t have a zipper on the suit, which is great news because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day by getting the zipper stuck open in the middle of a fight, and the Ladyblog would have a hoot and holler about it-- but that also means that I…”
His eyes finally focused enough to be able to see her fully. She bit her bottom lip, careful of her slight fangs. Worried diamond green eyes flicked to him, then back to his bathroom door. Like a computer restarting in his brain, he finally got the gist of what she was implying, and his eyes went wide without him making them to. She was going to… “Oh.”
“Yeah. I gotta detransform.” She bit her lip harder, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! It’ll be quick, and you won’t see me, but I wanted to wake you up and tell you because I didn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position and--”
He waved at her, trying to calm her down before she lost all her motor control and kept talking. “Hey, it’s okay. Go use the bathroom. We can talk when you’re done.”
“Thanks, sunshine!” Even in near pitch black, her smile was all consuming. “I’ll wash my hands, I paw-mise.”
Adrien tried not to slap his own face. He sat up in his bed, and untangled his legs from his blanket that had twisted around his ankles and hips, settling his pillow behind him. God. What time was it? Had Tikki gotten to hide in time before Noire’s superior eyesight caught her? Noire hadn’t mentioned anything, so he hoped that Tikki had been quick enough. He reached for his watch on the bottom of his platform bed, and he squinted at the light that it emitted when he tapped on the face.
It was nearly five in the morning. He groaned to himself. He’d been asleep for two hours. Studying for finals sucked. But even then, as grumpy as he felt from being woken up, he didn’t feel angry or upset at Noire. More or less confused as to why she was in a suit if there were no akumas lurking nearby, but definitely not upset.
“Uhm. Slight hitch.”
He started, cringing as the back of his head hit the wall. “What the-- ow-- you’re still here?”
“Sorry! Sorry. I just wanted to say thank you. And ask you another favor.”
“Sure. Go on.” He rubbed at the soreness of his skull.
“Can I get some cheese?”
Did she say cheese? “What?”
“Ahm. I need to detransform, and, uhm.” He watched her dig her toes into the rug underneath his bed. She took a deep breath, and Adrien prepared himself for the avalanche of words. “The super suit-- my super suit-- is powered by a spirit named kwami and every time I transform using my miraculous, it uses a bunch of my kwami’s-- his name is Plagg-- energy, and whenever I detransform I need to feed him or else he gets super lazy and doesn’t want to retransform me. Which is bad, because I want to go home.”
Adrien blinked heavily into the darkness, hoping she could see the tiredness blinking from his eyes.
“Okay.” He hoped he was selling the appearance of not understanding what she said, but he was only a model, not an actor. So Noire’s kwami was named Plagg? And needed cheese? He could do that. He hoped none of the cooks were awake at this time, watching him stumble into the kitchen with barely a shirt on looking for cheese. It wasn’t the first time he’d gone into the kitchen this week looking for something to snack on while he studied, but definitely not for this food. “Any type?”
“Can he come with you, actually?” She shifted on her feet. “He’s picky about his food sometimes.”
He was going to meet Noire’s kwami. This way too intimate for him, the guy who just a couple of months ago had swore off to knowing Noire as anything other than his partner in taking down akumas. Now look at him.Was he even wearing pants? Did boxers count as pants? He hoped Plagg was as amiable as Tikki was, and would be able to keep his secret for him. Tikki had told him before that kwamis couldn’t talk about the other miraculous holder by name, so there was that, but…
“Yeah, no worries.” He nodded, showing more courage than what he felt. He was completely lying: It was all the worries. Starting with the boxers situation.
“Awesome! He’s really sweet, I’m sure he’ll love you, I’m heading to the bathroom now.” She all but ran towards it, slamming the bathroom door and missing the tip end of her tail and braid by centimeters. He tried to curb himself from hitting his head on the wall on purpose, grinning like a fool despite himself.
He blinked at the light that seeped through the cracks of his bathroom door, and listened to the hesitance in her voice. “C-Claws in!”
The bathroom door glowed green light. Out came barreling a small black dot about the size of his fist, zipping past his ear to look around, and Adrien settled into a sigh. Well. He supposed Plagg was ready for some food.
It was easy enough to convince the cooks to slip in a dessert or two in his lunch bag or dinner, when he asked for it. They knew his diet was inadequate for a near-adult, knew that he got hungry well before whatever mealtime. Plus, Adrien had gotten supremely good at the puppy eyes with the staff, always able to slide by an extra serving of food if he asked for it. No one said a word about it. Feeding Tikki the cookies that the staff made was fairly simple to do. He was thankful that he didn’t have to try to figure out how to feed a kwami cheese constantly.
The black dot landed on his shoulder. Adrien pressed a comforting hand on the crown of the kwami’s head, surprised that the kwami gave a little purr. “It’s nice to meet you, Plagg.”
The kwami yawned into his shoulder, and stayed silent until Adrien closed the door to his room. He padded down the hallway, checking carefully to see that nobody was there. He nearly missed Plagg talking. “Nice to finally meet you. I thought I never was going to be able to.”
Adrien bit the inside of his cheek. “Does she-- does she know? About me?”
“About you being ‘you’?” Plagg yawned again. It must take a lot of power to keep Noire running. Or Plagg was just lazy. “No. She has no idea. I can only tell its you because of your smell.”
Wait. “You can smell me?”
“The cat miraculous gets the night vision and the good hearing from me.” The little kwami’s paws patted his collarbone, as if he was trying to console him. “As well as the good humor.”
He would have laughed if he weren’t so busy freaking out. “But the good sense of smell?”
“Isn’t given to the user.” Plagg laid his fears to rest. “I can smell Tikki all over you, but Noire can’t.”
“So she doesn’t know that Mister Bug and I smell the same.” Adrien sighed. “This is such a mess. It was her idea to keep the identities a secret.”
“Yeah, I figured. Especially since Master Fu’s said before that he switched the miraculouses on accident.” Adrien remembered hearing about that in passing, when they had first gone to his place. The screen had divided him and Noire from seeing each other as they de-transformed, and their kwamis were instructed on staying on their side of the screen so that they wouldn’t know the other’s secrets. Guess that was out of the question now. “It’s a shame. Tikki would’ve loved my holder. I’ve never met someone who liked the color pink so much. How is she? What are you feeding her?”
According to Master Fu, Plagg was supposed to be his kwami. He wasn’t sure if he felt some semblance of tragedy on that, knowing that Tikki wasn’t supposed to actually be his to take care of. He loved Tikki. But he couldn’t help but feel that he would love Plagg too, if he was actually his.
“Cookies. Lots of it.” He should probably bring one back to her, now that he thought about it. “She sleeps in my underwear drawer most of the time, since Noire is in my room constantly.”
Adrien flicked on the lights to the kitchen, perusing the fridge for food. Where were the cookies? Maye on the bottom shelf?
The doors were tall and wide enough to technically be considered a walk-in, but Adrien tried not to go in so that his feet wouldn’t freeze and fall off. Plagg sniffed the air, his small black tail twitching and thumping against Adrien’s back.
Plagg’s neon green eyes went wide. “Is that? Do I smell? It is! Where is it? Where is the camembert?”
“Ah. Maybe in here?” Adrien shrugged his shoulders, gesturing to the open fridge. “I don’t know many cheeses. It could be any of these.”
“Hold on. Let me get it. The stinkier the better.” The black blurr disappeared into the fridge, rattling things around for a long moment. Adrien caught the wine bottle that tumbled off a shelf, exasperated. For such a tiny little critter, he had a lot of force in him. Plagg returned joyfully, two wedges of cheese underneath his arms, oblivious to the wine. Adrien couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the little cat. “This type of cheese is my favorite. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had this. This is like a dream come true!”
“Do you not eat it at Noire’s?”
“She doesn’t have enough money to spend on cheese.” Plagg chewed thoughtfully around one of the wedges, using the back of one of his paws to wipe at the leftovers off his face. He licked his nubby paws. “And when she does, she barely has time to use the money.”
Adrien frowned, leaning over the white countertop to poke at Plagg’s cheeks. “Is she that busy all the time?”
Plagg couldn’t contain his laugh, grabbing the second wedge. “Are you kidding me? She has absolutely no time to herself. I can count on my hands how many times I’ve watched her go to bed and actually sleep for the whole night-- and that’s because I don’t have fingers, and I’ve been with her for four years now. Everytime I go to bed she’s still working on something for school or projects or whatever, and by the time I wake up again she’s already getting ready for school. That’s even after going on our nightly patrols.”
“Nightly?” Hold on. Every night? “But Mister Bug and Lady Noire only patrol--”
“Every three days, I know.” Plagg took another bite. “Believe me, I’ve talked to her about it. She just doesn’t listen. We go out every night. I eat so many cheese puffs it’s almost criminal.”
Adrien frowned. “But… why? Every night?”
Plagg looked as pensive as he could look while still focused on his last remaining bite of cheese. Like he was contemplating something. Adrien pet his whiskers as he thought, giving the little cat kwami a nice head scratch that he was sure to get a good reaction out of him.
“I think you’re going to have to ask her that one, kid.” Plagg patted his full stomach, sighing in relief. Adrien wondered why Plagg didn’t want to answer. “Phew! I’m full.”
Adrien rummaged through the back of his fridge, grabbing the rest of the small cheese wheel. Maybe Noire needed this more than he did. He wrapped it in a paper towel from the rack below the cabinets, giving the cheese wheel the best of a knot he could. “Can you find me some cookies in the fridge?”
“I think I smelled chocolate.” The little kwami hummed, floating into the fridge again. “That’s her favorite kind. Let me go see.”
Adrien slipped the wine bottle back into the fridge, minding the shifting produce. Plagg reappeared triumphantly with a cold cookie twice as large as him. He placed it on top of the cheese stash. “Ready to go back now?”
“Sure thing! Maybe she’ll actually go to sleep after all of this. I know I’d feel a lot better if she did.” Plagg yawned, rubbing at his face with his tiny little paws. He rested into Adrien’s careful palm, curling into the cup shape he created with his hand.
Adrien took his time padding through the hallways, checking his corners just as a precaution. He clicked his door shut behind him, scanning the black room for Noire’s presence. He let the cookie rest on his desk, certain that Tikki would find it later when Noire finally left and she was able to move around.
“Noire?”
“I’m still hiding in the bathroom.” Her voice sounded muffled on the other side of the doorway. He got close enough to the bathroom door before Plagg zipped from his hand and squeezed through the crack underneath the door. “Oh, hi Plagg!”
“I like him.” Adrien shuffled on his feet, feeling bashful at the compliment. “He has some good cheese.”
“I’m glad to hear.” Noire’s laughter sounded genuine. “Ready to transform?”
“Let’s go.”
“Plagg, claws out!” Neon green light exploded from the door, and it left Adrien squinting at the light. She stumbled through the door, turning off the lights from the bathroom, only leaving a blur of a smile in front of him before they were cast into the pitch black darkness. This time, his eyes adjusted quicker, and he was now able to see the vague shapes of her eyes and lips.
Adrien held his other hand out with the cheese. “This is for you. And Plagg.”
She cupped her hands to receive the paper towel sack. “What is this?”
“More cheese. He can have all of it, if he wants.” Adrien shrugged. “I don’t have much, but he was pretty excited about what I had.”
“Oh-- thank you. That’s really nice of you.” She looked up at him, and Adrien could make out the diamond shaped pupils. “And thank you so much for letting me use your bathroom. Ah. I’m so sorry that I had to barge in on you while you slept. That was… not wise of me to drink that much water.”
“It’s okay.” He was feeling more awake now, anyway. At the more extreme droop of her cat ears, he tried for humor. “It’s better you doing that than having to detransform to use a public bathroom and someone catching you, right?”
“Yeah.” She smiled softly. Her eyes flickered to his desk, to the open notebooks he had spent the entire night studying in. “I’m so sorry I had to wake you up during our testing week. I really didn’t mean to wake you up during a time that’s super important. But I don’t feel comfortable going to your bathroom and entering your room without you knowing.”
“Can we talk about that, before you go?” He winced. “What were you doing up at five in the morning during a school night running around in your suit-- during test week, no less-- if there was no akuma?”
“I’ve been patrolling.” Noire sighed. “I thought I could make it back home before that liter of water I drank before leaving caught up with me, but I was totally wrong.”
He frowned. “Why are you patrolling out so late?”
“What do you mean?” She cocked her head. “I always patrol the city. Every night. Rain or shine. Five in the morning or not.”
“Why? Isn’t that too much?” He scrambled for something to add. “Does Mister Bug know about this?”
“No, he doesn’t.” She sounded panicked. He imagined her tail was flicking hard behind her. It was too dark to see it. “Please don’t tell him. I mean, he probably wouldn’t believe you that you saw me patrolling out and about in the city so early, because it sounds ridiculous, but either way. Please don’t tell him. I don’t want him to worry.”
“Noire, patrolling by yourself is dangerous. You could get hurt.”
She smirked. “You know I’m a superhero, right? With a black belt in aikido? My miraculous baton doesn’t transform into a bo staff just because.”
He never knew that. There had been speculation online on the Ladyblog, and even he had wondered how she was all that good when she had her staff. If it were up to him, he would use the baton as a sword, but that was because of all of his years of fencing, so there must have been some kind of preference for her. He never knew it was because she had already practiced with it.
“Okay, so you can defend yourself.” He frowned, crossing his arms. “But aren’t you tired? You cat nap in my room all the time. I think you’ve even left an indentation on your side of the couch. You’re trying to catch up on sleep wherever you can. Why don’t you ask Mister Bug to come with you?”
Her shoulders curled forward. “It’s nothing.”
“Hey.” He poked at her cheeks. “It is to me. Tell me what’s wrong. I don’t feel comfortable knowing that you’re patrolling by yourself, superhero strength and abilities or no.”
“I know that Mister Bug sees me as an annoying fan girl, sometimes.” He caught her whispering, more to herself, “And I know that maybe I push the whole thing too hard. I’m usually seen as just a side character to Mister Bug’s super hero development. And if not, I’m always seen as his equal. He doesn’t see me as anything other than a fangirl, but this time he has to work with me in order to save the city. And I’m never my own thing when people talk about me.”
“Hey. That’s not--”
Her smile turned sad. “It is true. I know it because I hear it all the time. Super hearing stinks, Adrien. I wish I meant something to people without it being an add on. ‘Hey, look over there, it’s Mister Bug! Awesome! Oh, and Lady Noire is there too! That’s nice.’ I just wish I wasn’t treated like second in command.”
“I was talking about the Mister Bug thing, but I’ll address that too. I’ve never thought of you as second. And I know that Mister Bug thinks the same.” He hoped she could see he was speaking from the heart. Never in his life had he become so resolute. “Kitty, you don’t have to go out there in the middle of the night to prove to people that you’re important. Everyone knows you are. Everyone knows that Mister Bug protects you and gets hit by the akumas instead of letting you get hit because he knows that you’re smart enough and capable enough to fight akumas on your own if you need to, and that he can’t fight without you.”
“Thank you, Adrien. But I don’t think that’s true.” She sighed. He wondered if she was crying. “Mister Bug never tries to stick around after akumas to ask if I’m okay. He barely even looks at me. Why do you think I keep ending up at your place after the battle is over? He doesn’t see me as a friend, no matter how hard I try. I keep trying to show that I’m just as capable as he is, for him to just look at me, and Plagg gets so upset by it. The more and more I push, the more it just seems like I’m fangirling over him. I just…”
“Noire,” Oh.
“I just want him to notice me. Not romantically, anymore. Just… be my friend. Oh, Adrien. Maybe he’s my own shark. And I’m not even a shrimp, I’m the unappetizing seaweed.”
What had he done? All this time, going back home as fast as he could to try to beat her from coming home to an empty room, he was neglecting her as Mister Bug. He hadn’t realized that she missed talking to him in the suit, obvious crush or not. How could he be so foolish to think she wouldn’t be upset about him leaving before talking to her after the fight, and instead just relying on his civilian identity to do the caring of her?
“You’re-- hey-- you’re not seaweed.” Her shoulders curled harder when his palms made contact with them.
“Look at me. I’m floating. Fish-- fish get tangled in me. Everyone wants to go see the shark but gets upset when there’s just me, the seaweed, in the way. Seaweed isn’t interesting. Seaweed isn’t shiny. Seaweed isn’t a real Hero of Paris.” Oh, she was crying, wasn’t she? He didn’t have to have night vision to see it. She folded in on herself, holding the paper towel wrap in one hand while sobbing into the other.
He crushed her into a hug. Finally, he was able to address the urge to smooth down the top of her head, and he did just that while smooshing his cheek into one of her hexleather ears. He’d held her so many times before, as Mister Bug, trying to help her escape an area when she had sprained an ankle or rolled her foot, but he never paid attention to her size as closely as this.
She was smaller than he realized.
Her hair smelled faint of coconut oil.
“You’re not seaweed. Not to me. Not to Mister Bug, either. I know it. I’ll ask him himself, if I have to. He can’t fight akumas knowing that you’re hurt, I know that in my bones. You’re the most important hero I know. My favorite, too. I’ll go on a campaign for you if I have to. I’ll tell the entire internet that you’re my favorite. I’ll get Mister Bug to agree with me.”
He knew that he could get almost about anything trending on the internet if he talked about it enough. He didn’t like using social media because of it-- people were always watching what he was saying with bated breaths. As much as he could afford to, he tried to stay out of public eyesight, Mister Bug notwithstanding.
“Please don’t ask him.” She clung to his shirt weakly, trying not to tear holes into the fabric. “I don’t think I would be able to deal with it.”
“Alright, I won’t. But please, Noire, please don’t continue patrolling by yourself. Please. I won’t be able to sleep well at night knowing that you’re out there alone.” They swayed slowly in the dark, the balls of Noire’s hexleather feet on top of his sock-clad feet. He hugged her close enough to hear her heartbeat pounding like a wardrumb as she cried.