Hello lovelies! Here's the next chapter! I've now caught up to what I've written so it might be another minute before I get another one up, but I'll try my darndest to keep that from happening. Though this Kickstarter is taking up more of my time than I initially thought it would (more on that later).

Hope you all enjoy!

I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.


Tikki was just about ready to murder each and every person in the room. Except Plagg. Though he would probably be ready to join her on that murder spree in a heartbeat if she asked. Apparently he "knew a guy".

On second thought, she'd just withhold all baking from them until further notice. That was the more legal punishment and perhaps the more logical one. You take away her date night, she takes away your cookies. Fair is fair.

"-ug. Bug, you with us?"

Tikki blinked, surprised to see Plagg and all her friends staring at her. She was busy plotting all of the delicious sweets she was going to bake and take pictures of to share with her friends (and then not share) that she didn't even notice she'd missed out on Plagg getting into serious mode explaining the nitty-gritty of what their job would be to help with his company's capture the flag game.

She blushed, "Sorry, I got distracted."

"By how good your boyfriend looks with pick lipstick?" Trixx asked with a snicker.

Plagg reached up to rub at his mouth again, even though the evidence had already been wiped off. Poor guy looked about ready to burst into flames over the incident.

"Anyway," Plagg said, not even bothering to hide his topic switch. "To summarize what I just said, the main thing I'm going to need from you guys is to watch the data for me when I can't and keep an eye out for the key words I told you about. I would suggest going in shifts of one to two hours because staring at the screens can get pretty intense on the eyes especially if you're not used to it."

Pollen raised her hand, like they were in a class or something. "Do we get to stay here while we're doing the spy thing then?"

Plagg held his arms out in front of him in an "X" formation. "Over my cheese stuffed corpse will you stay in my apartment while I'm not in it. Tikki has a perfectly adequate set up at her place, and if she's not comfortable with that, I will get you all a hotel room to stay in."

"Oooo! Can it be a presidential suite?" Pollen asked excitedly.

Tikki could just see the dollar signs her friend was about to try to wring from her boyfriend and stepped in. "My apartment is fine. You all know where I keep my spare key, so you can let yourselves in even if I'm not home."

"Booooo. No fun," Pollen said with a pout.

"Don't worry, Queenie, there's still plenty of fun things to do at Tikki's," Trixx said, reaching out to give Pollen a pat on the head.

"No parties and no funny business. I don't feel like having to get a new apartment just yet," Tikki warned. Her friends were all great, but if Trixx or Pollen were planning something then things had a tendency to get out of hand real quick.

"Booooo. No fun," Pollen and Trixx said together this time.

"Well I believe that covers everything that you all needed to know, so if that concludes our meeting then may I suggest that we separate until we convene at a later date once I set everything up at Tikki's tomorrow," Plagg said, interrupting them.

Tikki brought a hand up to cover her smile. He wasn't even being subtle about his disgruntlement over them crashing their date. She didn't know if 'subtle' was even something Plagg was capable of. Unfortunately for him, this was her friends they were talking about and they weren't about to let an opportunity like this slide any time soon.

"So what sort of gaming system do you have?" Trixx asked, completely ignoring their dismissal.

"I only have single player games."

Tikki raised an eyebrow at the lie, but didn't correct him in front of everyone. They were also being rude by overstaying their welcome after all.

Trixx, never one to be deterred, hopped off the couch and went to inspect the gaming set up just under the TV. "I have this system too. We can just log onto my account and use mine. I have plenty of multi-player games."

Plagg took a deep breath and looked between Trixx and Tikki, visibly weighing his options. Tikki waited, giving him a shrug to let him know that the choice was his to make.

He brought his hands together in prayer position as he took a moment to compose himself. "Fine, but I have terrible snacks and if you fall asleep on my couch I will dump you in front of a homeless shelter."

Trixx cackled, pushing buttons and making themselves at home. "I already ordered chinese food while you were talking. It should be here soon."

Everyone else settled in for a good time. The food arrived as they were finishing up a rock-paper-scissors game to figure out who would get to pick what they played. Plagg won and selected a racing game from Trixx's collection and the group set up a competition to see who was the best in a series of PvP rounds. Tikki joined in as well, doing her best to have fun, though she noticed some tension between Plagg and Wayzz.

For the life of her though, she couldn't figure out why. The two had only met the once before at the Lila incident that the brief period in her life when she and Wayzz had dated was long over and they'd both moved on. Right? What could he possibly have to be mad at Plagg for?

The game ended with Tikki as the winner (Dupain-Cheng girls have a reputation to uphold) and shortly after that Noroo excused himself saying he had to get ready for work in the morning, dragging Pollen with him since they'd driven together.

Trixx stood with a long stretch. "Hey Teek, can I borrow your phone for a minute? Mine's almost dead."

Tikki obliged, and Trixx stepped out into the hallway to make a very short phone call. They came back in less than a minute later and returned Tikki's phone, laying it face down on the seat cushion beside her before grabbing Tikki herself and saying, "All right, I best be off as well. Tikki, would you walk me to my car?"

Tikki raised an eyebrow but let herself be dragged out of the apartment. When they reached the elevator, she turned to her friend. "And just what was that about?"

Trixx raised a finger to their mouth and pulled out their phone, which looked suspiciously not dead. In fact, it was in the middle of a phone call… to Tikki?

Trixx put the phone on speaker and they both heard Plagg's voice.

"All right, everyone else has left. Now would you like to explain the death glares? I don't remember doing anything to you."

"I don't trust you," they heard Wayzz say.

"I don't trust people either. Again though, what did I do to you?"

"It's not about me, it's about Tikki."

"What about her?" His tone turned defensive and she could just picture him with his arms crossed and shoulders raised. All it would take was a hiss and then he'd be the perfect image of a cornered cat.

"What exactly are your intentions with her?"

There was silence between the two and the elevator dinged open to let Tikki and Trixx know that they'd reached their floor. Neither stepped out.

"You are neither her father, nor her brother, so I don't see what business you have having this talk with me."

"She's my friend and I'm looking out for her."

"She's not some damsel in distress. She's a grown-ass woman who can make her own life choices. One of which happens to be dating me, and until I actually do something to deserve an interrogation, I suggest you back off. Have some faith in her."

Wayzz gave a noncommittal grunt, and they heard a rustling that Tikki assumed was Wayzz sitting down. There was a 'fump' which made Tikki think Plagg had also sat down.

After another moment of silence Plagg spoke up again. "Thanks for looking out for her though."

Wayzz sighed. "I guess, to me, she'll always be the girl on the couch."

Tikki blinked back tears, thinking of that dark time in her life when she'd been little more than a homeless waif mindlessly staring at nothing on Wayzz's couch. Yeah, she could see how he had a hard time getting over that. She had a hard time herself some days. He was still going to get an earful from her later for not minding his own business.

"Yeah, well, to me she's a helluva lot more than that."

"Just promise me that you're serious about this," Wayzz said.

"She's my best friend's future wife's sister. I did not enter into that madmaxian world of awkward family reunions without a lot of thought."

Wayzz gave a snort of laughter. "Fair enough."

Trixx reached out and cut off the call. "Well I think that's enough snooping for both of us today."

Tikki turned to her friend. "Please don't ever bug my boyfriend's apartment again."

Trixx waved her off with a toss of their ponytail. "Oh, like you weren't dying to know what all that passive aggressive flexing was either."

"I could have just asked Plagg later."

"Ah, but this was so much more fun. Toodles!" Trixx said with a wink, stepping out of the elevator at last.

Tikki hit the button to Plagg's floor and leaned back on the far wall as the doors slid close. What exactly was she supposed to do with this information? Dangit Trixx! That sneaky fox just couldn't keep their nose out of other people's business. Not that she was better. She'd stood there listening in on every word just as intensely as Trixx had.

Before she could properly gather her thoughts, the elevator dinged once more and slid open to reveal Wayzz, who had no idea she'd heard everything he'd just said. Did she have the emotional energy to tell him off tonight? No. No she did not.

She gave him a tired smile and a wave before trading places.

"Hey!"
Tikki turned around to see that Wayzz had put his hand out to stop the doors from closing. "Yes?"

"Sorry about being... kinda weird tonight."

"Weird is a world for it," Tikki said.

"I just... it was me. It was my fault and I'm sorry."

"Okay?"

"Also..." Wayzz trailed off, biting his lip.

"Yes?"

"Plagg seems like an okay guy."

She smiled. "He is. I think he's a great guy."

He shuffled awkwardly for a bit and pulled his hand back. "Night."

She gave him a small wave. "Night."

The walk back to Plagg's apartment was otherwise uneventful and he was waiting for her when she walked back in. He wrapped his arms around her the moment she entered.

"Recharge meeee!" he moaned, wrapping around her.

She pulled back just enough to lead him over to the couch and then snuggled in once he was settled. "At this point, wouldn't it be better to actually go to sleep?"

He shook his head, chin messing up her hair as he did so. "I was promised one on one time with my girlfriend and gosh darnit, I'm gonna get it."

She giggled. "I have to go home at some point too, you know."

"You could stay here," Plagg said, hugging her closer.

Tikki stilled, considering his offer.

Plagg filled the silence. "Or not. You don't have to, but I just wanted you to know that it's an option. I crashed at your place. You crash at mine. Even-stevens then. But if you want to go you can go, but if you're feeling tired at least let me pay for someone to drive you home."

Tikki turned around and gave him a gentle kiss to silence his fears. "Staying sounds like a great idea to me."


If you're just here for the story, ignore this (though I encourage everyone to at least read the last sentence).

Alright, I said I'd talk more about my Kickstater thing- so Monday I started a Kickstarter to try and fundraise the money I need to pay for an illustrator and publishing for a children's picture book I wrote. That's the big project that I've been working on that's been sucking up so much of my time. I think it's overall going well, but even after months of prep work, I still feel woefully unprepared for this. But I don't think I could have learned any more before hand than I already did so at this point it's all experience/trial and error and I'm not tanking yet, so I guess I'm not doing completely awful.

The book is a retelling of The Ugly Duckling with a twist- what if it was about an endangered red panda raised by cats? I'm rather proud of it, if I do say so myself and I hope this works out. It's running until March 17 and during it I'll be running too (bad pun, I know). Today I went to a bunch of different coffee shops and indi businesses to place flyers. I expect tomorrow to take even longer because I'm hitting the town over from me to do the same thing (hence why I'm posting today instead of my normal Wednesday).

If you want to check it out you can go to Kickstarter and look up Lee Wilder (my author name), Endangered Fairytails (my series name), or The Ugly Kitten (the title of the book). Even if you can't back the project, I would still be eternally grateful to anyone who shared the link on their social media.

This is a childhood dream of mine so I'm kind of terrified to put it out there in an all or nothing format like Kickstarter, but after support and encouragement from my family and from hearing such wonderful feedback from all of you I finally got the courage to put myself out there and try.

So no matter what happens, thank you all for reading and commenting and just being your wonderful selves!