Chapter 1

Ladybug sat perched on top of a roof, looking out over the city. A light snowfall had started in the half hour she'd been up there. She watched the tiny flakes drift lazily to the ground, reflecting the glow from the golden lights that filled Paris.

She could hear the distant sounds of party crowds from several buildings nearby, and bobbed her head absently to the muted rhythm of Nino's music, which wafted up from the loft next door. The loft that she herself had left just a short while ago as Marinette. Smiling, she recalled how Alya had been tearing up the dance floor with their friends when she had quietly exited through the side door to get some fresh air.

Alya had just gotten back a few days earlier from half a year of studying abroad. Her journalism major had sent her to several different locations in South America, where she had written a number of pieces that were already getting publishing offers from cultural magazines. She now had only a couple semesters left to finish up her degree – with a double major in education – before she was set to graduate university a year early.

Nino had been on tour since mid-November, traveling to venues all over Europe to DJ both major events and personal concerts. Towards the end of their high school years, he had made himself a huge online presence as "DJ-Nine," and the success from his music had allowed him to skip university entirely to follow his passion in the music industry. Barely 22 and he already had a record deal with an independent label. He had made the exception to take a break and come back to Paris for a little while to see Alya, and but for the time she spent with her family and Marinette, they had been nearly inseparable.

Marinette was glad to see the two of them together again. It had been hard to be apart from her best friend for such a long time – the apartment they shared had felt incredibly lonely – but she knew it was probably even harder for Nino.

Well, not by much, but maybe a little.

The chimney she had positioned herself near was releasing a gentle stream of dark smoke. As a slight breeze raised goosebumps under her spots, she shivered and huddled a little closer to its warmth.

"Cold, M'lady?"

A voice from behind made her jump. She hadn't heard Chat Noir land on the rooftop, and she looked over her shoulder to smile up at him. He towered over her these days. He had always been taller than her, ever since they met, but somehow he had managed to grow even a few inches more in the recent years since their heroic partnership began.

"A little, but not too bad," she replied, turning her gaze back to the skyline as Chat came and brushed the dusting of snow off a small patch of shingles, settling down next to her.

"Here, try some of this," he said, and Ladybug turned her head to see him offering up a shiny silver thermos. "It always warms me right up!"

She took it from him and unscrewed the cap, catching a whiff of something sweet as she did.

"It's some mulled wine. I made it earlier. I always think it tastes like the holidays in a cup," he said with a grin.

Ladybug smiled at this, and pouring some into the cap, she took a sip.

"Mmm! Oh my gosh this is amazing!" The steaming, bitter-sweet mixture of Merlot and spices washed pleasantly over her tongue, and had an instant effect. She felt warmth tingle through her fingers, and her shivering stopped.

Chat Noir took a swig for himself right out of the thermos and sighed, content.

"I'm surprised to see you out here," Ladybug said after another sip, "I would've thought that you of all people would be the party animal tonight!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chat grin at her use of the pun before answering.

"Nah, not me. I mean sure, I had to be at one earlier, but they wouldn't miss me much now. It was kind of a stuffy event, and I'm not big into that kind of thing for extended periods of time."

Ladybug nodded understandingly as he continued.

"I was considering heading to a party nearby to visit some old friends, but I kinda felt like checking the roofs for you first," he said, nudging her with his shoulder.

"Don't miss out on your fun on my account!" she exclaimed, turning to face him.

"Oh I'm not!" he assured her. "I mostly just wanted to see a couple of people. The whole rest of the party scene didn't really feel that appealing otherwise. Plus, why do you think I'd be carrying this around–" he held up the thermos "– if I wasn't hoping to run into you? This is actually the much better option," he said, nodding in a satisfied way.

A smile tugged at Ladybug's mouth, and she slowly faced forward again. It was sort of a relief to have him here right now.

"And what about you? Decided you didn't want to join the party buzz?" he asked, starting to tap his foot to the beat of the distant music.

"Eh, I was just at one, too. I just needed a few moments to myself, though," Ladybug shrugged.

Truth be told, there were a number of different reasons why she didn't want to be surrounded by crowds of couples on this New Year's Eve.

It was around this time last year that Marinette had broken it off with Nathanael, after over a year of dating the aspiring graphic artist. It wasn't as if she was still pining away after Nathanael; he had always been sweet, and they had left it on decent terms. Truthfully, it had all been her own fault; the secrets she was honor-bound to keep regarding her Miraculous was what really drove them apart. It was never fair to him that she always kept her distance. But though she had seriously considered telling him the truth, it had never felt right. And even now, after that experience, it was hard to imagine finding someone she could be with without giving away the details of such a major part of her identity. How could she justify putting someone in that much danger? And even if she did get close to someone like that again, how could she ever truly know she could trust them?

Alya and Nino had both been surprised when she had first consented to going out for dinner with Nathanael. They had always something would eventually work out between her and Adrien Agreste.

Marinette had never quite gotten over her crush on Adrien as they'd gone through high school, though their friendship had solidified a bit more as the years went on. Well, she at least had the stuttering under control around him. Mostly. But his father had made him graduate in mid-autumn of their final year so as to start grooming him to enter a leadership position in the Agreste Company. And while he had remained faithfully connected to Nino (they even apparently shared an apartment together when Nino wasn't touring) Marinette hadn't seen him very much in the years since then. She'd been sad about it at first, but the more she had tried to come up with scenarios that justified seeing him, the more it became clear that they were both just moving on to live separate lives.

Even now, it had been 10 months since they she had spoken briefly with him at one of Nino's gigs. He'd had to leave the event early for a meeting with his father, both of them expressing what turned out to be an empty promise of catching up soon.

On top of old emotions getting stirred up, though, Marinette was already busy with preparations for her school's upcoming Gala, an annual student fashion exhibition held at the end of January. This assignment had begun in November. And even though they were on a holiday break, she had been using all her time either working at her parent's bakery to get ahead on rent, or constructing the garments she would need to be submitting for review the first day of the coming semester.

Unfortunately, inspiration had thus far failed her on this project, and since she wasn't pleased with the half-hearted designs she'd started to piece together, she really needed all the time she could get.

But Alya had insisted she come out with them tonight, and Marinette found that she couldn't resist. She didn't want to disappoint her best friend so soon after her return home, and she wanted to support Nino and his music.

'Perhaps it could be a refreshing distraction,' she'd thought when she finally gave in to Alya's pleas earlier that evening.

As it turned out, though, watching couple after couple join the party and get excited about sharing a proverbial "midnight kiss" was not exactly helping Marinette ring in the New Year on a high note. She had ended up feeling overwhelmed, and needed to just get away for a bit.

Adrien had been heading to Nino's party after leaving the formal, high-society event that his father had required him to attend. He'd been excited to see his best friend; they were both so busy these days, and often out of town at different times, so the occasions to hang out with each other were rare.

Apparently Alya was back in town as well, so he was looking forward to hearing her stories from abroad. And Nino had mentioned that she might be bringing Marinette. It had been so long since he'd seen her, and he still regretted that their last encounter at Nino's show had been cut short by his father's insistence that he be present at a stupid board meeting, which honestly he couldn't even remember the topic of now. And life had kept him so busy afterword that he never got the opportunity to reconnect with her.

But hopefully that would change soon; in the coming weeks, Adrien was finally going to return to his studies, and pursue a degree in business. He would, of course, continue to work for his father, but at least his schedule at the company wouldn't be quite so rigorous, and he now would have time for classes.

And, hopefully, time to see his friends more…

Chat Noir shot a sidelong glance at his spotted partner as he heard her let out a small sigh.

Her brow was furrowed into a slight frown, and she seemed to be deep in thought about something.

Usually when something was bothering either one of them, they had found a pretty good balance of talking about their problems without going into personal details. If she was staying silent tonight, he knew it was a topic too complicated to discuss without giving key specifics away.

But he wasn't about to let Ladybug spend these first few moments of the New Year with such a stoic expression.

Reaching behind him, he found that there was just enough snow to gather up into a small, lose ball in his hand. Quick as a flash, he tossed it up into the air and it landed with a soft 'poof' on top of Ladybug's head.

"OH!" She let out a shriek, jerking up straight in surprise. Turning to Chat, who was clutching his sides and shaking with laughter, she demanded "What was that for?!"

Chat looked up, but was unable to stop laughing as he took in the sight of her. A thorough snow dusting that looked like baker's flour covered her hair and shoulders. Even a small pile had rested on her nose as she pouted, her lower lip sticking out defiantly.

"You were frowning so hard that I was wondering if those forehead wrinkles were about to become permanent," he said, poking a gloved finger between her eyebrows.

"Oh really?"

Her frown deepened for a moment before she suddenly threw a double fistful of the powder into his own face. Blinking past the sudden cold shock, he heard her howling with mirth, and looked over to see her rolling around next to him.

"So that's how we are playing it, huh?" he said, and both of them leapt to their feet.

Suddenly, they were bolting around the rooftop, dodging around the chimneys that sprouted up in their paths, and gathering snowballs as fast as they could fling them.

Several minutes later, Chat was crouched down, trying to smother his laughter as he gathered up an armful of snow, ready to bring the final blow as he heard Ladybug call, "Heeere kitty kitty!" from the other side of the chimney he hid behind.

Quite suddenly, he felt his suit collar being pulled away from his neck, and icy, wet slush went running down his back.

"YAOW!" he cried, his back arching in shock as he tried frantically and unsuccessfully to reach the chunk of ice that now rested against the small of his back, dropping his ammunition.

Ladybug was collapsed to her knees on the rooftop next to him, gasping for breath as she roared with laughter at his reaction to her ambush.

"Ooohh you should see your face!" she said, wiping away tears from her eyes.

"That was way too cruel!" he said with a huff, plopping down next to her, and pressing his back against the warm chimney in attempts to melt what was left of the ice bomb.

"Maybe, but it was still too perfect," she said shaking her head and grinning up at him.

He poked her in the ribs at that.

She giggled. Then, with a sigh and a smile, she scooted over closer to him so their arms were touching, and leaned her head onto his shoulder.

Chat smiled and rested his cheek onto her head, looking at the snowflakes melting into tiny water droplets in her hair, and admiring the way they reflected the golden city lights. He thought it looked like she had small glowing diamonds in her hair.

Chat Noir's ears perked when the music suddenly cut off, and he heard someone at the party nearby excitedly announce the countdown to midnight. A crowd of voices joined in, shouting the time away as a minute turned to thirty seconds, to twenty, to ten…

"Cinq, quatre, tois, deux, un… Bonne Année!"

Cheers erupted, and the music started blaring once more with renewed enthusiasm.

Chat felt Ladybug sit up straight, and for a brief second he thought she was getting up to leave before he felt her lips brush soft and warm against his cheek.

"Bonne Année, Chat Noir," she said, smiling up at him before resting her head back on his shoulder, "And thanks. For everything."

"Bonne Année, M'lady," he replied with a smile, as heat spread across the rest of his face from where she had kissed him. He almost reached up his arm to put it around her shoulders and hold her closer, but then thought better of it, contenting himself to just enjoy the warmth of her presence, his tail curling and uncurling behind them.

"And I'm sure this is going to be the best year yet."

"I'm late! I'm late, I'm late, I'm sooo late!" Marinette muttered as she dashed around the tiny apartment, tying her hair up in a disheveled bun with one hand, and snatching up notebooks and her French Literature textbook with the other.

The first day back to classes, and she had already started the morning off wretchedly by sleeping through her alarm. If Alya hadn't finally wandered in to her room to shake her awake out of irritation at the constant beeping, she may very well have kept on snoozing the morning away.

"Channeling that 'Alice in Wonderland' rabbit, are you?" Alya said with a smirk, still cozy in her pajamas and sitting on one of their counter stools as the coffee brewed.

"Oh shush!" Marinette snapped as she stuffed everything in sight into her bag before dropping to crawl on her knees, looking desperately for her other black boot under the couch. "You don't even have class for another hour. You could at least make yourself helpful!"

"I am helping, you goof!"

Marinette finally looked over at her as she pulled on her coat and scarf, and saw that Alya had prepared for her a to-go mug of coffee and a piece of toast with apricot marmalade on a napkin.

"Just because I've been gone since August doesn't mean I've forgotten how amazingly prepared you always are for early morning classes. Dork."

"Oh my gosh you're the best!" Marinette gathered her bag over her shoulder and darted forward to grab her breakfast from her friend. "I seriously don't know how I survived without you!"

"Honestly me neither! I was prepared for, like, a 73% chance that I was going to come back and find you dead from a laundry mishap or something," Alya laughed, pouring her own coffee now.

"Ha ha, very funny," Marinette called as she closed the door behind her with a snap and took off for the stairwell. In all honesty, she was very glad to have her friend back.

"That 73% is a pretty accurate guess, if you don't take into consideration that I was there to keep you on track," piped up a small voice from the pocket of Marinette's bag.

"Oh hush, Tikki! I would've been fine," Marinette said indignantly as she leapt off the last landing, barged through the double doors of their apartment building, and started a brisk jog down the streets towards her 8 am Lit class.

The sky was still covered with rolling grey clouds, but at least the sun was finally making a small effort to peak through between tree branches and other buildings as it rose from the East. The streets were mostly cleared up of snow so she could move through without much fuss, but the flurries hadn't stopped their relentless attempt to blanket all of Paris since that New Year's Eve she had spent with Chat Noir. She smiled at the memory…

"Uh huh, right," the little red Kwami teased with a laugh. "Does Alya even know about the time you left that dish towel on top of the toaster and nearly set the apartment on fire? Or what about the time where you locked your keys in the apartment, and we had to wait for four hours before you could sneak in without anyone around to notice Ladybug going through your window? Or there was also that time –"

"OK! You made your point!" Marinette huffed, wolfing down the last of her toast as she rounded one last corner and the building came into sight. "Obviously I wouldn't tell her about that one even if I could. And I made sure to get a spare key after that, so it was fine! Plus, it's not like you were much help fifteen minutes ago when I was still sleeping through that dumb alarm. I swear, one of these days I should just jury rig an air horn or something instead using my phone."

She reached the side door of the building, and wrenched it open, rubbing her fingers together to dispel the cold from the frigged handle.

"Well that Akuma last night wasn't exactly considerate of other people's sleep schedules," Tikki retorted, crossing her arms and remembering the battle which ran until almost 3 am. "It's a good thing you'd already told Alya that you'd be working in your studio late, so we've at least started the year out avoiding suspicions."

"There's that, I suppose," Marinette agreed, hurrying through the halls up to the second floor where her classroom lay.

The room had tall windows which looked out over a small square that sparkled as the sunlight hit the fresh drifts of snow. Her professor was already in the full swing of the usual first-day-of-class announcements. He gave Marinette a pointed look without pausing his speech as she nodded bashfully towards him and hurried to the back row, where her friend, Meesh, had saved her a seat.

"You're late," she whispered, handing Marinette an extra copy of the syllabus, while continuing to jot down a few notes on her own.

"And you're surprised?" Marinette said, looking over the printed schedule that spanned till their finals in May. "Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really," Meesh replied. "He decided to add on an extra book for us to read this month, though."

Marinette groaned. Of course he would. Professor Martel – an elderly man with bushy eyebrows, an impressive beard, and a temper to match – was never one to go easy on his students. He was well known for throwing extra assignments into the curriculum for the fun of it. He called it "opportunities to pad their grades" but Marinette, like everyone else, called it torture.

"But did you hear?" Meesh continued in a hush voice, brushing her long dark hair over her shoulder and leaning over to avoid bringing Martel's attention. "Apparently there is this big announcement they are going to be making in studio about the Gala at the end of this month. No one knows for sure, but there are rumors going around that it involves Monsieur Agreste!"

Marinette felt her stomach flip at the mention of the name. Her thoughts very suddenly turned to Adrien.

'Does this have something to do with him?' she wondered to herself, suddenly torn between the strong desire to see him, and overwhelming nervousness at the thought.

"What do you mean?" Marinette whispered, trying to push the thoughts of Adrien to the back of her mind. "Is Gabriel Agreste going to be judging our collections or something?"

"No one knows for sure yet, but I guess we'll find out this afternoon, yeah?"

Marinette nodded thoughtfully.

"Hey," Meesh continued, "Didn't you say you knew his son?"

"Michelle! Marinette! Will you please leave your conversation till after this class, and pay attention?!"

The girls jumped, looking up at Professor Martel as he glared at them from the front of the lecture hall. A few of the other students snickered quietly.

Marinette settle back into her chair, looking dutifully at the board, but not really seeing it. Her mind was full of thoughts of Adrien. If what Meesh had said was true, then there was a very real possibility that she might see him again. The strange thing was, she didn't really know how she felt about this prospect. It had been so long since they had spent any time together…

She suddenly felt a small pressure on the side of her ankle. Looking down curiously, she saw that Tikki had leaned slightly out of her bag's pocket to put a comforting hand on Marinette's foot and offer her an encouraging smile. If anyone knew how Marinette felt about this boy, with all of her confusion and nervous hopes, it was Tikki. Marinette smiled gratefully down at her Kwami, and Tikki ducked out of sight again.

As Marinette tried to work through her thoughts around Adrien, the time dragged by. At the end of the two hour lecture, she said goodbye to Meesh, and left for her next class – History of Design – but was hardly closer to clearing up her jumbled mind. Of course she wanted to see him! But the aftermath of her relationship with Nathaneael – and the difficulty of trying to keep her secrets – made her hesitate to put Adrien in her former 'crush' category. And trying to think of him in another way just felt a little... foreign.

Somewhere in the midst of taking notes in her second morning class, her mind turned to Chat Noir instead. She looked out the window at the snow and started to wonder what he was up to. They hadn't really gotten to talk the night before; any time they would have spent patroling was taken up by the Akuma battle.

She realized she wished she could talk to him now, remembering how he had known exactly how to cheer her up last time. Over the years, they had gotten very good at using vague hypotheticals to discuss their problems. He really had a knack for knowing just what to say to make her look at whatever was bothering her from a different angle, and it almost always helped her to solve her problems.

Even if his thoughtful words were punctured from time to time with crappy puns.

Marinette blinked suddenly, her gaze coming into focus as movement out the window caught her eye. Almost as if her partner had heard her thoughts, there he was, leaping gracefully from one roof to the next, and heading in the direction she'd come from home that morning. She wondered if something had happened that required Ladybug's presence. But he didn't seem to be in any urgent hurry…

'Maybe he's just out for a late morning patrol,' she thought, and turned back to the lecture.

Not five minutes later however, she felt her phone buzz, and glancing down at it, she saw that it was a message from Alya.

[Alya: Girl! You need to get home ASAP!]

Marinette stared at the message for a brief second, feeling apprehensive.

'Maybe something had happened?'

She checked the large clock near the door; class was about to get out, so she could probably afford to wait the extra 2 minutes to avoid drawing any attention to herself. She was infamous for ducking out of classes (for good reasons, of course, but no else one knew that) so it wasn't the best idea to start out the first day back like that. Ugh, why did the minute hand have to move so slow!? Her right leg started bouncing under her desk in anticipation as she stared at the seconds ticking by, willing the stupid thing to move faster.

"Alright, that's it for today! Don't forget, for Wednesday you will need –"

But Marinette never heard what she would need for the next class, having already gathered up her bag and zoomed out the door.

"Tikki, I think we need to transform!" she said as she raced out the back door of the building into a deserted alcove.

Seconds later, after a flash of rosy light, Ladybug was swinging out of there in the direction of home, and where Chat Noir had disappeared to.

Using the roofs instead of winding through the streets, she made it there in record time.

Nothing seemed suspiciously wrong as far as she could tell. Deciding to take the more subtle approach, she swung into their apartment's stairwell, and Tikki released the transformation as Marinette raced up to their apartment's floor.

"Alya?!" she called as she opened the door and burst into to their place. "What's wrong is everything ok–"

Marinette didn't really know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't to come home and see Alya grinning at her from the kitchen as she placed two glasses of water on the counter, the first in front of Nino who sat on one of their stools, and the second in front of none other than Adrien Agreste, a smile splitting across his face.