The entire school was buzzing with the news: Ladybug had been seen on a rooftop the previous night with Chat Noir, hanging out for several hours.

She was back, and now- well, akuma attacks were going to go back to normal, right? Or would Coccinelle get assigned a different Miraculous and become part of the regular team?

And Marinette was left cringing from her desk, wondering if- despite how much she had enjoyed her rooftop picnic- it hadn't been a very good idea.

Maybe they should have chosen a different rooftop, one that was higher or more secluded or something. Maybe she should have gone out with a different Miraculous, so she couldn't be so easily identified as Ladybug. Maybe they shouldn't have gone out at all.

Except Marinette had enjoyed seeing Chat Noir again and spending more time with him. And if she had gone out with a different Miraculous- well, she would have chosen the Horse or the Snake, probably, since those were the ones she had used most recently, but neither would have been a great choice. The superheroes didn't want to give away that there was an active Snake user, and she would have had to detransform and recharge if she had used the Horse as her main Miraculous during the picnic. And as for the location- well, she wasn't limited by where she could go, but Chat Noir had been. If they had wanted to meet in a significantly less busy part of Paris- even less busy than their rooftop had been- then they would have had to go way out.

If they had been older, she would have just used Kaalki to meet up with Chat Noir on the first rooftop, then Portaled them out to a more remote location so that they wouldn't be seen for sure. But they weren't old enough for repeated power uses yet, so if they had wanted to do that there would have been a lot of re-charging Kaalki required. Which- well, it was fine during battles, but probably not so fine when they were just hanging out for fun.

Maybe she could have asked her mom to use the Horse for the night and be the transportation for her and Chat Noir- except no, that wouldn't have worked, either. Her mom had to go to bed early because of the bakery, and while she and Chat Noir maybe should have finished earlier so that they could go to bed at a better time, her mom's involvement would have required them to finish really, really early.

"I'm glad that she's back!" Rose told everyone as they waited for class to start. "I like Coccinelle, of course, she seems really nice, but I'm just used to Ladybug. We've seen her around more."

There was agreement all around the room. Marinette ignored it, pulling up the Ladyblog on her tablet and going through all of the photos that Alya had been able to find that people had taken of the "Ladynoir rooftop date". It looked like no one had gotten any photos (or seen) her use of the Horse Miraculous, and since they had been sitting the whole time, there wasn't any sign of her crutches or cast.

Or, well, almost no sign. If she looked really closely, Marinette could see the top of the Ladybug-patterned cast on her leg in one of the photos. But not much of the cast was visible, and if she hadn't known to look for it- well, then Marinette probably wouldn't have known it was there at all.

So it wasn't as bad as it could have been. If news got out about Ladybug's injury- well, that would be worse than them just being spotted, right?

"All right, everyone settle down," Ms. Bustier called as she stepped into the classroom. "I know we're all excited that Ladybug is back, but it's time to learn now. Put away your phones, please, you can look at the photos over break."

There were a few noises of complaint, but everyone listened. Marinette put her tablet to the side and looked up, doing a quick glance around the room to see how people were reacting. There was excitement on most everyone's faces, happiness that the city's second superhero was apparently back. Chloe didn't look thrilled, but that was to be expected. And Adrien-

Adrien didn't look thrilled by the news, despite the fact that he was definitely a Ladybug fanboy. Marinette hid her own frown as she watched him, trying to puzzle out what he might be thinking. He looked more worried than excited, which made Marinette wonder why.

Surely he would want to see Ladybug back in action, right? The news that she had been spotted out and about should have been an exciting thing for him. But it wasn't, apparently.

Odd.

Marinette kept wondering over it during morning classes, but it was just a mystery she couldn't solve. She almost wanted to ask Adrien about it- after all, they were friends, she should be able to ask him a simple question without fretting over it too much- but if he had seen the cast, or had seen other photos that gave away more of her injury, then she didn't exactly want him mentioning that near Alya. Not when she still hadn't figured out how she wanted to address the whole thing yet.

After all, Ladybug wouldn't be able to come back for another week and a half at least. The chances that Hawkmoth wouldn't attack before then was... pretty much nil. The public would be wondering what was going on and why Ladybug still wasn't coming out, unless the superheroes made some sort of announcement.

Ugh. Dealing with announcements and press releases and whatnot was definitely not her favorite part of being a superhero.

By the time lunch rolled around, Marinette was all too eager to get home and brainstorm with her parents and Tikki about what she and Chat Noir could say about Ladybug's presence back in Paris. With a few quick excuses to Alya, Marinette step-hopped home and headed up to the kitchen. There, her mom was standing in front of the stove, frowning at her phone.

"We have a problem," Marinette announced, dropping her backpack at the table and hopping her way forward to the kitchen counter. "People spotted Ladybug with Chat Noir last night, and now everyone thinks that I'm going to be back."

"That's not the only news," Mrs. Cheng told her, turning away from the stove and passing her phone over to Marinette. "Someone spotted you out with the Horse during the akuma attack. They hadn't posted the pictures right away, but now they have and there's been a lot of speculation about the 'new' Miraculous holder."

Marinette groaned. She had been hoping that she wouldn't be spotted like that. It wasn't a huge problem, necessarily, but it was just one more thing that they would have to explain. "Did people see the crutches with the Horse? And the cast?"

"Crutches, yes. Cast, no. The angle was wrong for that." Mrs. Cheng gave the soup on the stove a stir, then turned her attention fully to Marinette. "So I suppose we'll have to make some sort of announcement, right? I mean, we could always not, just in the interest of not giving Hawkmoth any more clues about your identity, but I doubt the public would let any of this go that easily."

"Right. It would honestly be less hassle if we can think of something to say right away. The longer we go, well..." Marinette thought back to all of the run-ins that she had had with the press before, the way that they responded to what the superheroes had to say. "The more they'll question whatever they'll say eventually."

"So Chat Noir and I should address it by the end of the day, probably," Mrs. Cheng finished. "And- Tikki, what is it?"

Tikki had been vibrating mid-air, clearly dying to say something. "Chat Noir is trying to call. Can- can we go somewhere he won't recognize and transform? He probably wants to check in on what we want to do."

"We can use your dad and I's bedroom," Mrs. Cheng decided after a moment's thought. "Chat Noir hasn't ever seen it, so it should be plenty safe as long as we don't stand near any family photos."

Marinette nodded, leading the way towards the door while her mom turned off the stove. A couple minutes later, they were transformed and in front of a carefully blank baby-blue wall. Coccinelle called Chat Noir back, and he picked up right away.

"I'm assuming that you've heard the news about Ladybug and a Horse user being spotted, right?" Chat Noir asked right away. "Everyone's wondering about it now."

"Yes, and Ladybug said that it would be a good idea to make some sort of press statement today, so that people would actually believe what we tell them," Coccinelle told him. "Or they'll be more likely to believe us, at any rate."

"There'll be conspiracy theorists no matter what we say, honestly." Chat Noir glanced to the side, then back at them. "I looked up what we said when you first took over for Ladybug, just to make sure we wouldn't end up with contradicting stories, and we said that Ladybug was getting 'some much-needed-rest'. And there's been some wondering about how much rest a superhero really needs- as if literally anyone else in Paris could actually decide that- and a lot of speculation that Ladybug was going out of the city on vacation, so I was wondering if maybe we could say that Ladybug got injured on her trip? That way, the dates really won't line up with your injury, Vipera. If anyone uses that information to try to figure out who Ladybug might be, it should lead them in the opposite direction."

Vipera grimaced briefly, unable to help herself. Anything about made-up trips reminded her of Lila, honestly, and that wasn't exactly a comparison that she wanted to be making. But Chat Noir was right- it would throw off the timing between her injury and Ladybug's, and since the crutches had been seen but the cast hadn't, they didn't have to say that she had broken her leg.

Maybe she didn't like the comparison, but keeping her identity secret was far more important.

"We could say that she had a bad sprain," Coccinelle suggested, almost as though she was reading Vipera's mind. "After all, it's- what? A little over a week until the cast comes off? So if she just sprained her ankle and then is trying to be careful and make sure that it's at 100% before coming back out, that timing is pretty good."

"We'd probably just want to 'accidentally' imply a sprain, rather than outright saying it," Vipera told her. "Because we've never confirmed anything about our personal lives to the press before for identity reasons, so if we say 'Ladybug sprained her ankle', then people will question that. But if we just mention a minor injury and say that she- er, I- asked Coccinelle to extend her time as a superhero a little bit more to make sure that I'd be coming back at 100%, people can draw their own conclusions from that. Minor doesn't suggest a broken leg, and there's only so many things that crutches can mean."

Chat Noir nodded approvingly. "I like that! A sneaky little bit of manipulation. I think it's a believable amount of information. Like, normally we wouldn't say even that much, but we kind of have to in this situation and everyone know that- or, well, they expect it, at any rate."

"Yeah, what people expect and what people need to know are sometimes two completely different things," Vipera sighed. "From some of the stuff I've seen, people seem to think that I should have handed out a day-by-day itinerary to everyone in Paris so they wouldn't be 'left in the dark'. Which is just- do people even think about what they're saying before they say it? Did no one consider the whole secret identity thing?"

Chat Noir laughed. "I know, right? I've seen those posts, too. Thankfully there aren't many of them, and some are clearly kids who don't know to take Hawkmoth seriously, but the others? The grown-up adults who think that we should hand them an exhaustive list of information about our lives? What are they thinking?"

"They're not, and that's why they wouldn't make very good superheroes," Coccinelle responded tartly. "I would love to meet one, actually, and read them the riot act. They need to actually use their brains every once in a while. They're not just for decoration, after all."

Vipera muffled a giggle. She'd like to see that too, honestly. Those poor souls wouldn't know what hit them.

"Okay, I think I wrote all that down," Chat Noir said after a pause. "About what we want to say, that is. I can do a press release later today, after school. I'll let the Mayor know. I can probably manage it on my own-"

"I will not leave you to the press vultures on your own," Coccinelle informed him tartly. "I'll be able to pop out. Just call when you're heading out for the conference and Tikki will let me know. And you will be in trouble if you try to do it yourself, young man."

Chat Noir laughed. "Okay, okay. I just didn't know if you would need to stay at work or not and I wanted to give you that option. But I'll call you for sure."

"Good boy." Coccinelle glanced at Vipera, then back at her yo-yo's screen. "I think that's all we have to discuss ahead of time, unless either of you have any concerns to bring up?"

"Maybe we could mention that Ladybug has been helping the fights go smoother, too," Chat Noir suggested. "I know we were talking about letting on that she's been assisting near the end of her time off, but not exactly how. Would now be a good time to bring it up?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," Coccinelle decided. "It will probably provide a fairly natural opportunity to mention it, which is exactly what we'd like."

"Calling another press conference to bring it up would just be strange," Vipera agreed. "And it's only a little more than a week left, so it shouldn't be overly early. Not that Hawkmoth can actually really counter Second Chance- or, well, I don't think he can, especially when I'm not even out on the battlefield. But then it can just be a passing comment, instead of having a ton of focus on it."

"That's a good point," Coccinelle agreed. "So yes, we'll look for a place to work it into our comments! Anything else?"

There was nothing else, and then they ended the call. Coccinelle detransformed, heading back upstairs to finish up lunch prep, and Vipera followed her, still transformed and hopping along on her crutches. Right before she reached the door, her lyre let out a quiet chime. Vipera paused, puzzled, and then pulled her lyre out to check it. A message from Chat Noir had popped up, a small notification in the corner of her screen. Frowning- they had just talked, why on earth would he have to send a message so quickly?- she opened it.

Chat Noir: I'm sorry about this whole mess! I know you hate telling more lies than we need to and we would have gotten away with the resting thing if we hadn't done the picnic. That was a bad idea on my part, I definitely didn't think it through.

Vipera sighed. It wasn't his fault at all, really. She had agreed to the picnic, after all, and they had both enjoyed themselves. It was just unlucky that someone had spotted them and that it had blown up as much as it had. Propping herself up against the wall, she messaged him back saying as much. He was not allowed to blame himself, and that was that.

If he kept blaming himself... well, her mom knew where to find him. If she couldn't knock some sense into Chat Noir and get him to stop taking on the blame for things that weren't his fault, then no one could.

Marinette followed the press conference from the comfort of the bakery's front counter, her attention divided between the video feed on her phone and the customers coming up to the counter. Chat Noir had taken the lead, since he was the permanent superhero and the one that people would be most likely to trust, and he was doing really well.

Neither of them particularly liked public speaking, especially considering that there were always going to be people who would pick apart what they said to try to twist their words into something else, but Chat Noir tended to avoid it more often than Ladybug. While he was fine with the attention, the speaking part, well...

It was clearly not his favorite part of being a superhero. But he had stepped up to the plate this time, only being a little obvious about glancing above the crowd instead of actually at it. And he wasn't hesitating over his words at all, delivering what was presumably a practiced spiel rather smoothly.

Or at least it was smoothly from what Marinette could tell. Considering that she had been a bit distracted by customers needing her attention, he could have stuttered or stumbled over his words at some point and she wouldn't have noticed.

Once the conference was over and Mrs. Cheng had returned to the bakery, Marinette made her way upstairs to watch the footage properly on her computer. The Ladyblog had coverage of the impromptu press conference from several TV channels linked in one post, and Marinette clicked on the first one. It took a minute to load, and then she pressed play. On-screen, there were a few seconds that simply showed an empty platform, and then Coccinelle and Chat Noir landed in the middle of the stage.

Just like she had thought, Chat Noir's delivery was near-flawless, and Coccinelle only stepped in to help him along in a couple places. And when questions opened, he didn't flinch away at all.

Even though the questions were- well, for lack of a better word, they were aggressive.

People wanted more details, of course. They wanted an exact date when Ladybug would be healed and back. They wanted to know how she got injured, and when. Some were questioning why Ladybug had gone on a trip and left Paris in the first place, and if that was really a responsible thing for a superhero to do and if Ladybug was taking the superhero thing as seriously as she should be.

Marinette just kept herself from snapping at the screen at that. Not taking the superhero thing seriously? The 'superhero thing' dictated her entire life! She couldn't even go on a field trip without considering her superhero duties, having to think about how she would get the alerts and how she would get back to where she needed to be (particularly if their trip took them out of Paris). The first thing she had thought about after her leg broke was how it would affect her superhero life. When she had use of both legs and a bit of free time, she would go out searching through shops in Paris to make sure that she had a good supply of potion ingredients on hand, just in case. She had to think about where she could store the Miracle Box long-term so that it would be secure and safe, and that was on her mind almost all of the time now. Sketches of hidden compartments and complicated locks were tucked alongside her fashion designs, along with scribbled thoughts on logistics. And whenever she could, Marinette would pull out other kwami from the box and talk to them about their powers and how they had been used in the past, just to get a better idea of what tools she had on hand.

Not taking it seriously. There was no way that she could possibly take it more seriously. But the vacation lie was a necessary one, and besides- well, Chat Noir had well and truly called those particular reporters out on their absolutely ridiculous claims.

Really, it was ridiculous for people to expect Paris' defenders to never take a break, he had told the crowd of reporters and cameras. Why should he and Ladybug be required to shoulder all of the stress of protecting Paris from supervillains and never get a vacation, or even an extended break? Overworking and stress could wear down on them, but a vacation- well, it was a good way for Ladybug to get refreshed, right?

Besides, Chat Noir had added before anyone could voice their objections, hadn't Ladybug done a good job of setting things up to keep going in her absence? She had picked out Coccinelle, and decided who got what extra Miraculous and got those Miraculous to the fights before the battle even started- and kept an eagle eye on the fights in live time to help them out, noticing things before Coccinelle and Chat Noir did and warning them. Which, if anyone had noticed, resulted in the fights being a whole lot shorter.

And that particular revelation had made the crowd stop their grumbling and sit up straight. There was another flurry of questions- if she could get the Miraculous there and spare the time to watch and monitor the fight, why not just come back herself, at least before she got injured? Was the mysterious Miraculous user in brown Ladybug? How was Ladybug so much more effective when she wasn't there in person?

Coccinelle sent an icy glare at the asker of that last question and they promptly shut up, no other answer needed.

"Yes, Ladybug used the Horse to deliver Miraculous," Chat Noir confirmed, clearly none too thrilled at some of the questions being asked if the lashing of his tail was any indication. "And she could spare the time to watch and provide vital information to us during the fights because doing that shortened them. If she hadn't been doing that- if she had been, y'know, taking a complete vacation like she deserves after protecting the city nonstop for over a year- then Coccinelle and I would have been having a much harder time. It wouldn't have been smooth sailing like it has been, so I thank Ladybug very much for taking time out of her break to make sure that Paris would stay safe in her absence."

With that, Chat Noir gestured for an end to the press conference and he and Coccinelle waved before taking off, not giving anyone any time to fling more questions at them. It was a tactic that they used rather often, actually, since often the press wanted to ask more probing questions than they wanted to answer.

More personal questions, really. Questions about things that might give too many clues about their identities, because that was what the public was most curious about. And trying to evade those questions time after time- well, it wasn't fun. It was exasperating that the reporters insisted on trying to pry, and neither of the superheroes wanted to come off as impatient and snappy. And if they slipped up and gave away any information...

Well, one slip once might not be so bad. But those small slips could add up fast, and so it was better to just finish saying what they needed to say, thank the reporters for coming, and then promptly take off.

"Your mom said to just let her borrow the Miraculous if any of those reporters start stirring up problems for you once you come back," Tikki told Marinette, suddenly appearing next to her shoulder and making her yelp. Tikki ignored that. "She's sure that you can handle yourself, but she's perfected her Parental Icy Glare and if people think that they can bug teenagers into giving them an answer, then they'll have to deal with Mama Bear."

Marinette giggled. "Unfortunately for her, there's not a Bear Miraculous. Not in the box I have, at least."

"Oh, you- you know what I mean!" Tikki complained. "She'll make sure that no one bugs you. And then if they get upset or she has to be really snappy, it won't be you that people will get upset at."

"I don't exactly want the city upset at my mom, either, but I get what you mean," Marinette sighed. She glanced back up at the screen. "Well, that's done. Now, all we have to do is wait and hope that people don't question our story too much."

If the mood at school was any indication, Paris had bought the superheroes' story hook, line, and sinker. And for the most part...

Well, most people weren't too worried. Coccinelle and Chat Noir- with Ladybug's help- had been doing a fantastic job during the akuma battles, enough that Hawkmoth had noticeably cut back on the number of akuma attacks. Marinette's theory was that Hawkmoth didn't want to give Coccinelle and Chat Noir practice with the weak akumas and thought that it might be to his advantage to only akumatize people if they promised to be a strong akuma. That way, Coccinelle's lack of experience might work against her. It wasn't working that way, of course, but Hawkmoth never let failure put him off from trying the same thing over and over and over again.

Others, though, were concerned. Not about the safety of Paris, really- clearly the setup that the superheroes had now was working- but about Ladybug's safety.

"It's bad enough that she got hurt on her first vacation after over a year of constant akuma attacks, but now that she got spotted out and Coccinelle and Chat Noir had to clear up what was going on and now- well, now all of Paris knows that she was traveling out of the city and when, and when she got injured- and that it was a leg injury!" Alya was telling her audience at school. "That's a lot of information. A lot of potentially identifying information. Hawkmoth might be able to figure out who she is from that!"

"Okay, I don't think there's nearly as much info out there as you think," Alix told her. "Yeah, so Ladybug got seen recently, sure, but who says that that was when she got back to the city? I'd say it's more likely that Ladybug went on a short trip- because really, who goes on a trip longer than, like, a week in the middle of the school year, when there's no holidays? Maybe two weeks, if it was a really big trip- and got injured then. A broken leg, probably, or- well, or a broken foot or ankle, that could happen too- and she's just been staying in the shadows since then. Or she did take a longer vacation and did have the injury more recently and will be out a while longer." She shrugged. "She might decide to stay out longer than she needs to just to throw off the timeline, too. There's a lot of stuff that Ladybug could do to make sure that her identity isn't quite as compromised."

Marinette blinked. Alix had been putting a lot of thought into this, she could tell. Maybe that wasn't a huge surprise, though, considering that she knew that she was going to be getting the Rabbit Miraculous and had probably spent a bit of time contemplating how she would both keep herself from spilling that information and how she would keep her secret identity secret once she actually got the Miraculous and had to vanish to help with- well, akuma battles if they were still going on, and whatever other superhero duties called. She had probably been keeping a close eye on the situation as soon as Coccinelle showed up, maybe even studying the contents of each interview as much as Alya to try to pick up on what was being said- and what deliberately wasn't being said.

Maybe Alya was the self-appointed Ladybug expert in the class, but Marinette would put money on Alix being the one who got more out of the superhero interviews. She had always been pretty good at reading between the lines.

"I hope you're right," Alya sighed. "I just worry, you know? If Hawkmoth finds out who she is- well, Chat Noir made it pretty clear that the reason why they've been doing so well is because of Ladybug's help, and if Hawkmoth attacks her and they don't have her help anymore..."

She trailed off, and several of their classmates exchanged worried looks.

"Ladybug is smarter than that, though," Nino chimed in, "She knows the risks more than anyone in Paris. They would have thought to talk ahead of time to make sure that they wouldn't give away too much. And honestly?" He shrugged, glancing around the room. "She's clever. Everyone is assuming that her injury was to her leg or ankle because of the crutches when she used the Horse, but who's to say that the crutches weren't just a prop? Maybe she actually broke an arm or a rib and she's trying to throw people off the scent. No one actually got pictures of her actually moving around on the crutches, after all, just her standing there with them."

There were murmurs of agreement around the classroom at that, and Marinette hid her smile. That was a very clever thought, and honestly, it was one that she maybe should have thought of herself before venturing out into public view at all. There was no real way to encourage that line of thinking without it being obvious, though, which was a little unfortunate.

Nino's comment wouldn't be forgotten, though. She would keep it as a thought in the back of her mind, an idea as to how they could throw people off of their scent in case Chat Noir was ever injured and they had to come up with a cover story for him, too. Hopefully they would never need to use it, but, well. they were superheroes. It never hurt to be prepared.

a/n: author problems...when you have the perfect spot to end a scene but accidentally end up sounding super-ominous. I tried to fix that, I really did, but...well, there was no other way to finish, not unless I wanted to spend a ton of time fiddling with that instead of writing more.

As always, comments make my day! :)