SOOOOO i decided to start uploading my fic from ao3 here, since this is where i got my start and i feel a little bad not contributing to its archives. this is a fic i wrote around this time last year because chat noir has freaking PAW PRINT SHAPED TREADMARKS ON HIS SHOES and i just. could not handle that fact in anything but fic form. plus there's some headcanons, silliness, and akuma because that's how i roll. enjoy!

If there was one thing Marinette regretted in life, it was that she couldn't alter Ladybug's costume.

Sure, it was great that the jumpsuit was streamlined. Nothing got in the way when she pulled the many flips, lunges, jumps, slides, and other acrobatics needed to win a fight. She was covered from neck to toe in immovable fabric, so there was no chance of accidentally flashing someone while she rescued them. It was even cute, because she made polka dots work for her.

But Marinette was a designer. The outfit was too simple, too plain for her tastes. She wanted to put her own spin on the already iconic figure of Ladybug. Marry fabulous form with much needed functions. She had an entire sketchbook stashed away with her diary, bursting with concepts and new ideas.

Tikki wouldn't budge.

"But Chat Noir gets pockets, Tikki! Pockets!" Marinette moaned, frantically gesturing at the open sketchbook in front of her. She pointed to one of her designs where Ladybug rocked that holy grail of women's fashion: usable pockets. By itself, it should have been enough to make her case. "And I get, what, ribbons?"

"You get to cleanse akuma," Tikki said, her voice clipped. She sighed and landed on Marinette's shoulder, leaning against her neck. Marinette felt a stab of guilt. She had been bugging Tikki a lot lately. Their partnership was still new and fragile, and she didn't want Tikki to think less of her.

But... there was so much Marinette didn't know. About Ladybug and Tikki, about kwami and akuma.

"It's a trade-off, you see," Tikki continued. "Like if you use Lucky Charm, we have five minutes before your transformation wears off."

Marinette was sitting at her desk, with a plate of warm cookies Papa gave her for a study snack. There was one left. She broke off a bite-sized piece for herself and gave the rest of it to Tikki.

Her kwami accepted the offering with a quiet thank you. She nibbled on it as Marinette popped the cookie chunk into her mouth.

Oatmeal chocolate. Delicious, as always. She chewed on it as she thought over Tikki's words.

"Sooo... you're saying your power comes with a price," she guessed, resting her chin on her hand.

"I'm saying I only have so much magic to spare," Tikki corrected her gently. "Even though it takes no energy for me to cleanse an akuma, just having the ability available for you uses up a lot of my reserves. I don't have much power left to customize Ladybug's suit."

"But Chat does," Marinette said. Tikki nodded against her neck. It tickled enough that Marinette had to smother a giggle.

"Chat Noir's kwami must have realized that Ladybug was already using the cleansing ability. So they were able to spend more magic on giving Chat Noir different things."

"Like his claws... and his night vision," Marinette mused.

"Exactly," Tikki said. Cookie done, she flew up so that she was eye-level with Marinette. "That's why Ladybug and Chat Noir work best as a team. One person to act as a shield and a distraction—"

"—While the other cleanses the akuma," Marinette finished, tapping a fist on her open palm.

It made sense. Chat Noir couldn't cleanse akuma like Ladybug could, but he had a wider array of abilities and tools, more for him to fall back on than just a yoyo.

"Chat Noir must have some good luck, for his kwami to have enough magic to add so much to his suit," she said. She tried not to sound to envious.

The detail in Chat's costume was amazing. It was made of the same indestructible material as her own, but reinforced in strategic places like his shoulders and forearms. They didn't really add any extra protection, as far as she could tell, but Marinette knew she would have felt better her first time out if it at least looked like she wore more than a spandex jumpsuit.

There was a lot of embellishment in his suit for purely aesthetic reasons, like the silver studs on his joints and cat ears, the extra material accenting his gloves and boots, and the entirety of his belt tail. Not to mention the golden bell at his collar that she was convinced didn't even have a clapper. There was no way he could sneak up on anyone, especially her, if it did.

But as much as his suit was about style, there were just as many practical components. Things like his razor-sharp claws, his fully functional cat ears, his green-tinted night vision, and his zippered pockets augh, it wasn't fair.

"Weeeeell, that's less about luck and more about his kwami being on the vain side," Tikki replied. It was the slyest Marinette had ever seen her.

A snicker escaped before she could stop it, the idea of sweet little Tikki seriously throwing shade too much for her. Before long, they both fell into laughing fits, Marinette holding onto her chair for dear life as Tikki lost it and crash-landed on her desk.

Months later, during her first winter as a superhero, Ladybug ripped the akuma's staff from her hands, thoroughly fed up with the snow and wind stinging her face.

"It's over, Jack Frost!" Ladybug growled as she snapped the staff over her knee. The akumatized victim cried out in horror as the akuma proper peeled itself away from the broken staff. Spinning her yoyo swiftly, she caught the akuma and cleansed it, releasing it with her customary, "Bye bye, little butterfly."

Ladybug took the Lucky Charm she summoned earlier—a glow stick necklace, to help her see as she fished Chat Noir out of the frozen Seine—and threw it into the air. Tikki's magic spread out from the Lucky Charm, stopping the blizzard and fixing the destruction left from the fight and Chat's Cataclysm. It washed over her as well and she relaxed into it, shuddering with relief as her hair dried and she finally began to feel warm again.

"Mission accomplished?" Chat Noir asked, grinning. He held up his fist to her and Ladybug bumped it with her own.

"Mission accomplished," she said firmly. She had never been more glad for a fight to be over. "Thanks for covering for me while I recharged."

"Anything for my lady." He bowed with one hand to his chest, grin softening to a pleased smile. "My only regret is that we didn't have the chance to purractice meowth-to-meowth resuscitation."

Ladybug rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh at Chat's usual antics. "With how often we save each other's skins, that might actually happen one day."

Good grief, Chat Noir looked like he was close to sparkling.

"I live in hope," he said grandly, before his ring had the good timing to beep. "And with that happy thought, I take my leave. Farewell, my lady!"

"Take care, Chat!" she yelled after him, waving goodbye as he hopped from roof to roof. Lucky Charm hadn't removed all the snow, unfortunately, and Chat Noir slipped on it, almost braining himself trying to wave back.

Ladybug winced and dropped her hand, shaking her head in amusement. She was about to head off herself—she was already late to school—when she heard a quiet sniffle. She turned, catching sight of the akuma victim hunched over her staff.

When Ladybug first saw the staff, it had been made of heavy wood, an old and gnarled shepherd's hook covered in delicate frost patterns. Now, back in its original form, it was... well, it was still a staff. But one made out of papier-mâché and already falling apart from its exposure to the snow.

The victim, a girl who looked old enough to be a lycée student, was shivering and crying as she hugged the ruined staff to her body. Normally, Ladybug and Chat Noir had to flee as soon as they were done, leaving the akuma victims to piece together what happened by themselves. But... Tikki had already recovered from today's Lucky Charm. It would be cruel of Ladybug to leave this girl alone.

Ladybug walked up to the girl, the crunch of snow under her feet startling the girl enough to look up.

"L-Ladybug?" she asked, her voice thick with tears. She tried to wipe them away as Ladybug crouched down to her level, but they kept streaming down her face. "I-I'm sorry, I don't—this is so embarrassing..."

"It's fine," Ladybug said gently. She flashed the girl her most reassuring smile. "What's your name, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I... I'm M-Marielle," the girl half-sobbed. She pressed a hand to her eyes. "I'm sorry, I can't—I can't stop crying!"

"That's okay, Marielle." Her name was surprisingly close to Ladybug's, but still, "I like your name. It's good. Solid."

Marielle let out a watery laugh. "Th-thanks. It's the only... the only thing p-people seem to like about me."

Nope, that line of thinking wouldn't do at all.

"You know, there's a café up the street," Ladybug began. "And it's cold here. Why don't we go get some hot chocolate and just... talk?"

Marielle's face was already flushed from crying, but it turned redder after Ladybug made her offer. "Y-y-y-you want to g-get hot chocolate with... with me?"

Ladybug nodded. "Of course."

"Hah, uh, um, wow, jeez," Marielle stammered, burying both hands in her curly, black hair. She sat there for a long moment, staring at the shingles in front of her.

Finally, she sniffed and combed her hair back, cleaning her face with the sleeve of her sweater. When she was done, her face was still blotchy and puffed, but there was a determined gleam in her eyes that wasn't there before. "Y-yeah. Okay."

Ladybug carried Marielle on her back, over the roofs, before landing in the street in front of the café. They spent almost an hour there, with the free hot chocolate the staff had insisted they take. Ladybug learned about how Marielle had been bullied online, that a few anonymous jerks thought her skin was too dark for her to cosplay as one of her favourite characters.

There was hand-holding, a hug, and many more tears shed before Marielle felt ready to call her fathers. They picked her up quickly, almost out of their minds with worry for their daughter.

Marielle would be alright with parents like that, ones who loved and supported their children unconditionally. She and Ladybug were both lucky that way.

After Ladybug bid the family goodbye, she took to the rooftops again. Because it was in the same direction as her school, she retraced her steps back to where the fight had ended. It was then that she noticed something worrying.

After Jack Frost's storm, the snow lay smooth and undisturbed on the roofs of Paris. Until Ladybug and Chat Noir raced across them.

Ladybug looked behind her, where her path to and from the café was etched in snow. That was fine. She knew about it now, she'd be careful on her way to school. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was the footprints in front of her. Or, to be more accurate, the pawprints.

She knew the level of detail in Chat's suit was ridiculous. But, somehow, she hadn't expected this.

The heel of Chat's tread pattern looked normal, like something you'd find on any other shoe. The top half, however... well. The tread was shaped to look like a paw.

A cat's paw.

Ladybug doubted anyone else in Europe, let alone Paris, had footprints like Chat's.

And now there was a clear path of them across the snowy rooftops, all leading to one place: Chat Noir's civilian life.

This was the first snowfall that had stuck since they received their Miraculous. Chat Noir probably had no idea what sort of danger he just put himself in.

"Fantastic," Ladybug hissed to herself.

She tried to reach Chat Noir through her communicator, but he didn't answer. He must have dropped his transformation already. With a frustrated growl, she left a message, telling him that they both needed to keep an eye out in the future. Then she reluctantly turned her attention to the main problem.

There was no getting around it. Ladybug was going to have to cover Chat Noir's tracks.

Literally.

... Yeah, she had zero chance of getting to school before lunch break. Ladybug sighed, long and harried, before she got down to work.

She didn't have the time or money to get a broom, a shovel, anything even remotely useful for this. Using Lucky Charm would just be wasteful. She was down to one option: destroy Chat Noir's tracks with her own.

Luckily, Ladybug's footprints weren't anywhere near as distinctive, and the snow was powdery and light for this time of year. It was a simple task to swipe her feet across Chat's pawprints, scattering the snow and ruining the impression in it.

It would be obvious that something had been up on the roofs. But now, there wasn't any evidence pointing directly to Chat Noir or herself. She hoped no one would think to track them this way until more snow fell or the weather warmed up again.

Like, say, Hawk Moth.

Ladybug shuddered at the thought and continued working, steadily making her way across Paris. Straight to... her neighbourhood.

Despite the chill that turned her breaths to clouds, Ladybug began to sweat. Chat Noir would keep going, right? There was no way... the alternative was him living in the same—she would have noticed! Absolutely! Chat Noir was just... taking a shortcut through where she lived.

Ladybug nodded sharply to herself. Yes, that must have been it.

It wasn't it.

Ignoring her silent, increasingly desperate pleas to the cold, uncaring forces of the universe, Chat Noir's pawprints switched from taking a straightforward path to meandering around her neighbourhood. They reached a boutique behind her school, pausing at the edge of the rooftop before continuing in the secluded alleyway below. The trail ended at the sidewalk, lost among the morning foot traffic.

There were no other footprints in the alley.

Ladybug squatted over the pawprints Chat left on the rooftop edge. Wiped them away with her gloved hand. Tried to think.

It was a school day. Chat Noir looked around the same age as her, so it was logical to assume he was a collège or lycée student. When he left, he probably headed straight to school.

Her school.

Ladybug dropped her head between her knees and took deep breaths.

Oh god they went to the same school. How had she not known? How did they both completely miss this?!

She was so very, very lucky. If Ladybug hadn't noticed in time, she and Chat Noir might as well have drawn Hawk Moth a map to their Miraculous and been done with it.

Ladybug rubbed her face in her hands and grimaced at the wet feeling. Of course she forgot she was just touching snow with them. Of course.

"Okay, Ladybug. This is a really bad situation, but freaking out isn't going to help," she muttered. She heaved herself over the edge of the roof and landed in the alley. Right next to where Chat Noir's pawprints started again.

Except this time they weren't pawprints.

After finding them over and over again today, Ladybug felt that Chat Noir's pawprints would forever be burned into her memory. Already, she could recognize the outline of them, even when they were covered by another set of footprints.

Well. Not completely. This new set was slightly smaller than Chat's, enough that the tips of the cat's pads peaked out before disappearing into a pattern of spirals, interrupted by a stylized butterfly, the Gabriel logo, at the heel.

The footprints that she thought were Chat Noir's, that had to be Chat Noir's, the footprints that lead to the sidewalk... they were actually the new ones.

Chat Noir must have dropped his transformation here and gone to school. Her school.

Chat Noir went to their school in designer shoes.

"Unbelieveable," she said. Ladybug hardly recognized her own voice. She felt so tired, so annoyed, so done with being Ladybug and being responsible and she was alone wasn't she and—she touched one of her earrings. "Tikki, detransform me!"

She felt Tikki's magic more than she saw it, a wave of warm, pink light that washed over Ladybug and left behind plain old Marinette.

Shivering in her winter jacket, Marinette adjusted the strap of her school bag. She glared at Chat Noir's civilian footprints before scuffing them furiously with her boot. Then she stomped up and down the alley like a city-eating monster, destroying what was left of Chat's trail. It didn't let her forget what she learned.

Chat Noir went to Collège Françoise-Dupont. She had seen him before, in the courtyard, in the halls of their school, and they hadn't recognized each other.

Maybe they only nodded to each other in passing. Maybe they did a group project together in history class. Maybe they bonded over the trauma of Mme Mendeleiev's killer pop quizzes.

Maybe they were already friends.

Maybe he'd be disappointed that she wasn't the person he imagined Ladybug to be.

"Marinette, are you okay?"

She looked down at her bag, where Tikki was peeking out from under the flap and shooting her a worried frown.

"I'm fine," Marinette forced herself to say. "I'll be fine. This is fine, everything's fine."

If Tikki had eyebrows, she would be raising one.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm fine, I really am!" Marinette began pacing up and down the alley, disturbing the snow even more. "I mean, so what if I know what Chat Noir's footprints look like? I don't know who he is, he doesn't know who I am, everything can just... stay the same. Nothing has to change! He can be himself and I can be me! The only difference is that I know where he goes to school. That's it! It's fine!" She bit her thumb, chewing anxiously on her nail. "Ooooh, but what if he figures it out? What if he knows that I know? Oh god, what if he starts flirting with me as Marinette? In front of Adrien? How do I even explain that? Especially to Alya! Or what if he just doesn't want anything to do with me anymore?" She stopped walking and suddenly crouched down, holding her head in her hands. "Argh, this is such a mess!"

Marinette felt something warm brush her nose. She looked up, startled. Tikki was floating in front of her, small arms on the tip of her nose. There was a tiny, sweet smile on her kwami's face.

"You care a lot about what Chat Noir thinks of you, don't you?" Tikki asked.

Marinette felt her face grow hot and avoided Tikki's gaze. She knew Tikki didn't mean it like that, but she felt so afraid. Marinette could never measure up to the magical, perfect figure that was Ladybug. She knew that. She didn't need to see the evidence firsthand.

"He's my friend," she said instead. It felt like her answer was and wasn't a lie.

"And you're his friend too," Tikki replied. She leaned back in the air and crossed her arms. "Do you really think Chat Noir would abandon you if he learned who you were? Does he seem like the type to do that?"

If it was me, he might, her doubts whispered. Marinette shook her head to clear it and stood up.

"We should get going," she said. "Lunch will be over soon."

They both knew it was a deflection. Tikki was polite enough not to call her on it.

The walk back to school was short and did nothing to relieve her stress. Marinette tried to distract herself from brooding as she went inside, heading for her locker. She thought about what things she would add to Ladybug's suit, if she could.

Pockets were a must, but she would happily give them up for a pair of wings. Ladybugs could fly through the air, so Ladybug herself ought to, and Paris from above was always beautiful. Not to mention the tactical advantages of flight in battle. Ladybugs had antenna too, to augment their senses. Like Chat Noir's cat ears.

Marinette tried to imagine herself with two feelers. Maybe they would be like Tikki's, sort of droopy and sticking out from the back of her head—

She turned a corner and barrelled into someone, knocking them both to the floor. Marinette landed on top, hard, and groaned in humiliation. This day really couldn't get any worse.

"I am so sorry!" she wailed as she sat up, catching Adrien's eyes. She froze.

"No worries, I've had worse," he said. He smiled at her, so kind and polite even when he was sprawled on the floor while she was straddling him. He leaned up, which brought his face alarmingly close to hers. "Are you hurt?"

Marinette squeaked and scrambled off of him, crab walking backwards until her shoulders hit the lockers on the opposite side of the hall. She stared at Adrien, wide-eyed and flushed. He blinked.

"Ooookay." Adrien turned to look up at Nino, who Marinette hadn't noticed due to her massive heart attack. Nino shrugged cluelessly before he stretched out his hand.

As Adrien moved to take Nino's helping hand up, Marinette saw them. The soles of his boots.

Time felt like it slowed to an excruciating crawl. Marinette's entire world narrowed down to the tread pattern on Adrien's boots.

Spirals, with a Gabriel logo at the heel.

She stood up carefully, steadying herself against the lockers. Even with Adrien on his feet again, she couldn't get the image of his soles out of her head. It was there, terrifying and ridiculous and improbably, impossibly real.

Marinette was wrong. This had to be a mistake.

"Hey, Marinette. Are you sick or something?" Nino asked, after he made sure Adrien was alright. "Is that why you weren't here this morning?"

They both looked worried, probably unnerved by the way she clammed up, but Marinette couldn't reassure them. She was too busy trying not to fall apart. Because there was no way. No way.

She lifted up a shaky hand and pointed at Adrien's boots.

"What are those?" she asked. Her voice sounded strange, strangled, even to her own ears.

Adrien's eyebrows climbed high on his forehead before he looked down, twisting his feet. Marinette caught another glimpse of the incriminating soles and gulped.

"My boots? Uh, they're from my dad's new Galaxy line, if that's what you're asking. My old ones gave out on me, so I got these as a replacement." He flashed her a wry grin. "Wouldn't want to walk around with wet socks."

Marinette let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She wanted to laugh at herself for being so silly. Of course Adrien would wear stuff from his family's company! The Gabriel brand was popular, lots of people wore their products. Just because he and Chat Noir wore similar boots, that didn't mean anything! Chat Noir must be some other kid at her school!

Oh god, Chat was still around here somewhere.

"I thought the Galaxy stuff wasn't coming out 'til next week," Nino said, leaning against the lockers, and Marinette stopped fretting, stopped thinking, just... stopped.

Adrien winced and rubbed the back of his head, all bashful schoolboy charm. "How'd you know that?"

"I got a cousin who won't shut up about it or you." Nino crossed his arms and pinned Adrien with a no-nonsense look. "Spill."

"I'm not... technically supposed to have these yet," Adrien admitted, pink dusting his cheeks. He lifted a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. And winked. "Let's keep it between us, okay?"

Marinette remembered the crude photoshop Alya had shown her once. The one where her best friend drew Chat's costume over Adrien's photo. Marinette couldn't see the resemblance then, didn't even want to think about it.

But as she crossed the hall back to where her classmates stood and grabbed two fistfuls of Adrien's shirt, she couldn't stop seeing it. The same golden shade of hair, the way his mouth went slack when he was shocked, the need to tug him down in order to get him to her eye level.

"Whoa!" Nino yelped, jumping back, but she ignored him. Ignored everything but Adrien. Because she was a girl on a mission.

"Is there anyone else who could get them early like you did? Anyone at all?" Marinette demanded. This was shattering her record of 'how long could she talk to Adrien without frothing at the mouth', but that wasn't important right now. She shook him a little, because he wasn't answering fast enough. "Well?!"

"N-no?" Adrien stammered, hands up in surrender. "I don't think so? I mean, I... I snuck these out of a photoshoot, but, like, that was 80% luck and 20% bribes, I don't think anyone else could do it or get away with it or... or. Yeah."

Please don't hurt me! he shouted with his eyes, because even if the pupils weren't slit and the whites were still white, Marinette knew how to read Chat's eyes and they were the same. They were the same. They were the same.

Because Adrien was Chat.

Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste.

"Marinette?" he asked nervously, treating her like nitroglycerin on an especially rickety shelf. She slowly released the white-knuckled grip she had on his shirt. Smoothed out the wrinkles. Distantly noted the pecs she could feel underneath. "Uh..."

"I need to go," Marinette said. Calmly. Because she was a calm and reasonable person and not on the edge of a hysterical breakdown. At all.

She turned around and walked away. Right out the front door.

Then she started to run.

And then she started to scream.

Adrien peered out the window, watching as Marinette's tiny figure drew further and further away.

"Was she... yelling?" he asked Nino. His friend was busy with his phone.

"Yup," Nino said, popping the last syllable. Adrien had never been more baffled in his entire life. How was Nino keeping his cool? Was public school always like this? "I'm letting Alya know the deets, she'll handle it," Nino continued.

"Oh." Well, Alya was Marinette's best friend. She probably knew the best way to handle her. And. That. "Do you have any idea what that was about?"

Nino looked up from his phone and shrugged. "Beats me, dude. But whatever it was, Marinette's tough. She'll bounce back eventually."

His confidence was reassuring. Adrien relaxed and glanced back at the window. He couldn't see Marinette on the streets anymore, but he hoped she'd be alright. She was his classmate, a bit eccentric like most artist types were, but she seemed like a nice person.

Usually.

A beep sounded from Nino's phone and Nino fiddled with it, eyes moving as he read his text. He smirked.

"Wow okay," he snickered. "Alya says she's going to go track down Marinette, but, man, you have got to see this." Nino turned his phone to show Adrien the familiar layout of the Ladyblog. There was a new post, headed with a photo of Ladybug and... a girl? Drinking at a café? Actually, the girl looked familiar as well. "Ladybug went out on a date!"

Adrien's hand whipped out to grab Nino's wrist, dragging his protesting friend and the all-important phone closer. There, in undeniable dark pink font, was the headline: 'Ladybug With Her Lady Friend?!'

Adrien paled. "Wait, WHAT?"