WELCOME ALL! This is my aged-up, strong woman do bong soon AU! Hehehehe. I hope you all like reading this as much as I liked writing it, because wowee was it fun.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE DRAMA: No need. It may even be more fun because you haven't seen it.

IF YOU'VE SEEN THE DRAMA: This fanfic is vastly different from the drama later on (or so I hope). So please enjoy :)

I posted this on ao3 indefinitely and on tumblr aerequets. Please enjoy :)

As the bus rolled in to the stop with the hiss of brakes, the crowd of kids waiting surged forward, each vying to be standing right where the bus would stop. Eventually, the vehicle ground to a halt, and the pushing began. When it came to the public bus and getting first seats, a group of waiting high schoolers was akin to a mob. Adrien found himself at the back of the group, but not unwillingly—he'd rather stand in a crowded bus than ruin his goods. He took a glance at the bouquet of flowers he held in his hand before clambering in and paying the bus fare. He felt a bit out of place, being the one homeschooled kid amongst a crowd of public school kids. From their loud chatter, he could tell that they all clearly knew each other. Maybe they were in the same circle.

He'd already risked a lot by coming here, so he couldn't ruin anything. Ever since his mom died three years ago when he was 14 years old, his father turned into a cold husk of who he used to be. It almost seemed scripted, the way Gabriel took a 180 and began hating everything. He hated Adrien leaving the house, so tutors were brought in to provide Adrien with only the best, high-end education. He hated Adrien wearing bright clothing, so Adrien's wardrobe became an array of muted grays and blacks with the occasional stripe of color. And Gabriel especially hated Adrien visiting his mother's grave.

"Sentiments are a waste of time," he would scorn. "Once a year is enough. The rest is needless emotional stimulation."

The first time his father said that, Adrien wanted to believe that Gabriel was delusional. Maybe he had drunk one too many glasses of wine.

The next few times his father said that, Adrien's initial attempts at justification were blown out of the window. In the end, they'd both changed: Gabriel went from appreciating every little thing, courtesy of his wife, to hating every little thing—again, courtesy of his wife. Or rather, the lack of her. Adrien went from trying to see the good in his father to just ignoring what he knew would disappoint him.

Adrien slouched in his seat a little and pulled his hood further over his head. He knew that he would be scolded harshly once he got home—maybe even worse. But he didn't really care at the moment. He had already come too far to run back now. Cradling the bouquet to his chest so as to avoid any elbows or backpacks, Adrien made a beeline for the back of the bus, relieved to find an empty seat. He sat down and gingerly checked his white carnations, making sure no petals had been crushed. He could only bring the best to his mom.

The bus rumbled to a start after the last stragglers had boarded. Adrien drifted off in his thoughts, watching streets, buildings and people pass by through the window. It's been really long since I last visited you, Mom. Two months? Three? Sorry about that. I've been really busy…

In his one-sided, silent conversation with his mom, Adrien leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. The chatter dulled into white noise. The jerky movements of the bus gained rhythm, and he could feel his breathing slow. Several moments—or possibly many minutes, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference—passed like that, him in the oddly comforting milieu of the public bus.

Adrien's eyes snapped open right as the bus lurched violently. People were just beginning to murmur worriedly when the bus suddenly swerved. Students were thrown to the ground and the air was permeated with sounds of shrieks and thudding bodies in an instant. People were thrown side to side as the bus veered haphazardly on the road, honking at cars and passengers. The bus driver shouted in a panic, "The brakes won't work!"

A wayward leg belonging to a mystery passenger managed to strike the carnations out of Adrien's hand. Adrien felt his body being thrown and a shout escaped him unintended as his head slammed against the edge of the seat. Vaguely, he registered his teeth clamping down on his lips and feeling something wet trickle down his chin; but the pounding of his heart and the chaos in the bus drowned out any twinge of pain he should have felt. An agitated pulse ran throughout him, making him shake on the floor of the bus and break out in a cold sweat. His vision whitened and strained at the edges. An awful ringing started up in his ears that lead him to squeeze his eyes shut with vigor, waiting for the noise to subside.

It was because he was so focused on removing himself from the nightmareish moment that he only registered the blank silence seconds into it. Slowly, Adrien opened his eyes and let them refocus before pushing himself up on shaky arms.

He was the first one to move on the entire bus. When he raised his head, he saw belongings that had mattered so much to the students just seconds prior flung across the length of the bus. Several windows were cracked, but other than that, there didn't seem to be any casualties. All the passengers, and the bus driver, just seemed like they were in shock. Adrien was pretty sure he was, too. People began moving from their places on the ground, groaning in pain.

Adrien caught sight of the scene outside the window. The bus was precariously close to the edge of a bride, the railings already having been knocked off from sheer force of impact. When he peered closer, he could see a mother standing right next to the wheel of the smoking vehicle, tightly clutching a child's head to her chest.

The bus hadn't fallen off of the bridge. Nobody inside the vehicle was injured seriously. And the pedestrians, who appeared to have been right in the path of the bus, were unharmed too.

If Adrien didn't know better, he'd think this was a miracle.

He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and spun to look out the back window. What he saw made him lean forward to press against the glass, wide-eyed. It was enough to chase away any of the numbness that the shock had brought.

Surely the person had to be some sort of angel. My mom sent an angel to protect me. A figure cloaked in an oversized red hoodie, spotted with black circles, turned away from the scene and began walking away. Adrien hadn't seen anything, yet somehow—somehow he knew that whoever that person was, they had to have done something. As if willing them to stay, Adrien pressed even closer on the glass, half-debating calling out even though he knew they wouldn't hear.

As if they could hear feel his stare, they began to turn. A breeze blew and began to peel the hood away from their face. Now Adrien could make out faint features. A girl, it was definitely a girl. Just a little more—if she would just turn a little—and if the wind blew a little harder, he could see—

RRRRRRRING!

Adrien's eyes snapped open to darkness. It took him a few seconds to process what was going on through the sleepy haze clouding his mind, but when he finally understood, he groaned tiredly.

"I was so close!" He complained. With a cross expression, Adrien fumbled for his phone that was still ringing loudly on his bedside drawer. When he made out the numbers on the bright screen through a squint, his scowl deepened further.

"Great," he muttered. "I'll be bugged all night if I don't pick up. Seriously, they do midnight now, too?" The number was unfamiliar, but gut instinct told Adrien that this was who had been harassing him for a while now. He jabbed at the 'accept call' button and put the phone to his ear. "What do you want?"

Like he'd been expecting, a distorted voice spoke from the other end. "Cancel the upcoming release of your new video game. Or else you will—"

"Or else I will die," Adrien snarked. Sleep-deprivation made him no less sarcastic—especially when it came to these assholes. Whoever they were. "Threaten me some other time when I'll actually be awake enough to be scared."

"If you don't cancel the event and delete the files, we'll ruin your company—"

"Go to hell!" Adrien barked into the phone, thoroughly fed up. "Do you think I care about that right now? Let me get my sleep!" With that, he shut his phone off and tossed it over the edge of his bed.

"Bastards," Adrien growled, still simmering with anger even after hanging up on them. He was even more ticked off than usual thanks to his dream getting interrupted. Even though he knew that the part he wanted to see was over, and that it'd probably skip to the next, less desirable scene of his father yelling at him for getting into a dangerous situation, he still wanted to hang on to the hope that maybe his subconscious had buried the face of his savior. Somewhere, deep in his mind, her face was there. It had to be.

The face of Ladybug from 8 years ago.

With a sigh, Adrien tried to readjust himself in bed. When he finally fell asleep again a long while later, his dreams were empty.

…

Upon waking up, the first thing Marinette did was check her phone. She'd been doing so for two weeks. The cycle was as such: wake up, roll over, grab phone from bedside table, and check. Today, what she'd been waiting two weeks for had finally popped up in her notifications bar.

Re: Job Application for Character Design and Development. Chat Noir Games Inc.

Marinette gasped. The device slipped from her hand and slapped onto her face. "Ow!" Marinette picked her phone back up and rubbed her nose while staring at the message, slowly feeling the anticipation that had been building up for the past two weeks begin to ebb away.

If it was anyone else, they'd be excited to see if they got in. Chat Noir Games was a big company, and a job—especially in Character Design and Development—meant a solid income. Not to mention that their workplace was notorious for being interesting and filled with all types of eccentric gadgets. But Marinette already had an inkling as to what the reply to her application said.

She swiped on the message and was met with exactly what she expected. We are sorry to inform you that…

Expecting it didn't make her gut sink any less. "Twenty-five years old and I can't land a solid job." Marinette sighed and climbed down the stairs of her loft bed, plopping into her cushy computer chair right underneath instead. It wasn't a matter of her work ethic being bad or anything like that. In fact, Marinette would hardly say it was her fault at all. Over the course of four years, she'd tried out a whopping total of 17 different jobs, none of which suited her, to say the least.

She booted up her computer and navigated straight to her resume.

Empty.

Well, smart-alecks would always tell her, you should try filling your application out past the introduction. Maybe that will make companies want to hire you, eh?

Marinette glared at the offending resume. "And what am I supposed to fill in? 'My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I'm from Paris, France. I used to try being a designer, but after my super-strength destroyed half my projects and I had half a mind to obliterate the assholes in the industry, I decided to stop. I don't really have any qualifications. In fact, the only reason I'm doing Character Design and Development is because it's the closest thing to designing that I can do without showing off the super-strength that the women in my family inherit.'" Marinette paused. "Dammit, I monologued again." With another long-suffering sigh, Marinette dropped her head against the desk. "Cursed super-strength…"

If anyone had heard her, they'd probably suggest a mental asylum, or, more kindly, for her to stop daydreaming. Unfortunately, what she said had been only the truth. In the Chinese side of her family, dating back to even the early 1700's, the women—and only the women—of her family were born with herculean strength. It was said that these women used this sort of power in rebellions and wars to crush their enemies. One would think that such power would be great—I mean, duh—but sadly, it had its ups and downs just like every other miserable thing in life.

Personally, Marinette didn't care to be strong. She'd have been perfectly happy being average. It wasn't like there were wars that she needed to fight in or anything. Then she could have pursued her early dreams of becoming a fashion designer… but alas, delicate work with pins and needles just didn't mix with brute force.

There was always the option of misusing her power. In her family, the women who used their powers for anything other than good were stripped of their strength. However, Marinette did have morals of her own. That, and the misuse of power not only lead to your powers being taken away, but some sort of karmic payback that sounded too scary to risk. Marinette's great-grandma from her mom's side, Jiayi Cheng, once used her powers to beat someone up. She had explosive diarrhea for a month following that incident. Needless to say, it was the last time she ever got to use her power.

Accidentally hurting someone innocent with your powers could get rid of them without some synergistic punishment. Marinette only knew this because this was what had happened to her mom. Sabine had been doing a part-time job of moving loads from trucks shortly after moving to France to make some quick money while she was in college. One day, she accidentally dropped a 200 pound bag of flour she was moving on a man's foot, subsequently breaking it. That man had been her dad. He forgave her—obviously, seeing as they were married now (talk about a meet cute, right?)—but Sabine was an average person the very next day, despite having no issues like explosive diarrhea. However, Marinette knew that her mom didn't experience any fallout only because the incident had been truly unintentional. Marinette couldn't fabricate an accident because that would just be misusing her powers.

So, Marinette was stuck being like this. Added to her natural clumsiness and she was quite literally a walking disaster. This made it hard for her to do any job. The most fitting job she'd ever done was farming, and even that flunked when she lifted a tractor out of a ditch with her bare hands and ended up causing a granny watching nearby to faint. Even the cows had seemed spooked.

Marinette sulked as she navigated to Chat Noir Games' website. She hadn't ever wanted a job as much as she'd wanted this one. Character Development and Design at that company had become her new dream. Working in that department at that gaming company would have been the perfect solution for her to use the creativity and strength that fashion designing couldn't handle. She also had a passion for gaming—their games especially, including Ultimate Mecha Strike, one of her favorite all time series.

Even though she'd known from the get-go what the result would be, it was still a bigger let down than usual.

"I guess I'll work in this bakery forever, and live in this room forever," Marinette mourned. She got up from her chair in a drained state despite having just woken up and began to get ready to look around for new jobs.