where the firelight fades: teaser collection post

[alexseanchai]

where the firelight fades (est. 70K words) by AlexSeanchai
Chapters: 13/13
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Paris, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth
Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Alix Kubdel, Kagami Tsurugi, Chloé Bourgeois, Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Miraculous Ladybug Ensemble
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Akumatized Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Identity Reveal, Romantic Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Suicidal Ideation, Fire, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Neurodivergent Characters, Queer Characters, Trans Characters, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Miraculous History
Summary:

inspired by "found your weakness" by alliando

Some say the world will end in fire,
   Some say in ice.

—excerpted from "Fire and Ice", Robert Frost

The heart wants what the heart wants,
and what it wants is fire.

—excerpted from "Pyromania", Diane Lockward

She leans up to kiss him under the starry Paris sky, above the glowing city night. She leans up to kiss him, gentle but confident, lovingly and without reservation, everything he's ever dreamed of—except he can smell her, sweet lavender and bitter rosemary: he knows he's awake. She leans up to kiss him, her warm hands caressing his arms and a glint off the gloss on her lips, and she hasn't said a word of why—what is different about this place or this time, about him or—

—about her.

"Stop it!" he cries, pushing her away. He can't—he can't look, he—his heart, like ice. Like ice shattering. How can she have—what did he miss? How did he fail to protect her? How could he?

Ladybug's smirk isn't even vicious. Wouldn't even look vicious without the nightmarish argon glow outlining a butterfly mask.

"What's wrong, Chat?"

---

May 5, ch 1:

"Stay here," Ladybug says, with a nervous glance at the roof. "Stay safe, stay out of sight—I can't let you get hurt, but I can't get distracted by trying to keep you safe, either."

Any other day, Adrien would have served her his own heart, grilled with shallots and vinaigrette, if he thought it would mean she'd look at him this tenderly.

"I can't," Ladybug pleads. "Not tonight. Stay safe, do you understand me?"


May 19, ch 1:

Wayzz—or so Chat assumes—leads Alya back to the bushes. There's a flare of orange light and a delighted squeak, some hurried murmuring, and another orange flash, and Rena Rouge bounds up beside him.

"Huh," says Chat Noir, looking her up and down. Rena probably masses the same as Alya ordinarily does, but she's traded some fat for muscle—unfair: he's had to work for this buff physique—and colored and styled her hair; did the magic reshape her eyes or does the mask correct her vision? (Does it matter?) "I did not see that coming."


May 26, ch 1:

"All right. New plan. Forget Rena Rouge and Carapace."

—What?

Chat Noir grins at Alya, and only his still-round catlike eyes betray he isn't confident and fearless. "How would you like to be a superhero?"

Alya drops her phone.


July 21, ch 1:

Alya's running along the lane, trying to focus on where she's going more than Nino's video call, but Ladybug's swinging him to where she told Alya to meet them and that means hella shaky cam and more rushing-wind noise than words. It's all right, though, as long as Chat Noir doesn't see her, doesn't realize Rena Rouge is about to come take him down.

This will be the world's worst akuma fight.

She misses a call from an unknown number.

A text notification drops, hiding Nino's hat and hand:

Unknown: alya it's chat noir, urgent mission for ladyblogger

Unknown: lb got butterflied. tell paris i need rena rouge and carapace

August 11, ch 1:

"Ladybug will fix those with Miraculous Cure, as always."

"Alya—"

Adrien's seen butterflies pinned to cards before. (Photos of, rather.) Under Alya's glare, Chat feels like a butterfly. "Ladybug," she says, biting out each syllable, "will fix those, as always."


August 11, ch 2:

"Comm check," says Chat Noir.

"Say something," Rena Rouge says over the earpiece. "Anything."

"Test one two three," says Carapace at once.

Bunnyx grouches, "Anything but that." She's grinning.

Chat Noir suddenly has a lot more sympathy for Ladybug's incessant complaints that her partner is unfocused, unprofessional, and—in both senses—laughable.


August 14: my goals for y'all's reactions:

"—holy shit this concept is terrifying"

&

"—holy shit that could have been so much worse"

August 18, ch 2:

Rena Rouge is missing something. She must be. Some puzzle piece that will make the rest fit into place, some angle to view the problem that will turn all these distorted blotches of color into a coherent picture—she never personally saw this art installation, Alya's family wasn't living in Paris then, but Alix went on an anamorphic street art kick recently and proceeded to talk Alya's ear off. François Abélanet, a ridiculous quantity of sand, hay, and greenery, and several days' work from dozens of people. From most angles, Alix said (waving a photo on her phone), this art installation—Rena can't remember its title—looked like someone'd made some weird little hills by City Hall. From one particular angle, the photos show, the whole thing snapped into focus: a green globe, marked with latitude and longitude lines in white.

She just has to find the right angle, that's all. This will all make sense when Rena knows the right angle.


August 25, ch 1:

"—Sir, if you do not take the aspirin yourself, I will force it down your throat."

Father must be feeling dizzy, or short of breath, or a purely literal heartache. Nathalie cares more about his heart health than he does. Adrien cannot care about it at all; not tonight. He may regret it later, but—

"—I understand," says Nathalie, "but as you yourself said five minutes ago, tonight is too important. Take the aspirin."


September 1, ch 4:

[S]he growls and flips the yo-yo like she might to dump out a change purse. The white-glowing entrance to what Ladybug once called her mystical vault (Chat remembers repeating the words with a different intonation and a bright smirk, then getting knocked on his ass as she laughed) spits out a large metallic-pink sports bottle and a gold-plated hoop earring with an imitation cultured pearl. She shoves the bottle into Chat's free hand and regards the earring flat on her palm.

When she can speak again, Ladybug says "Drink, minou, it's not poisoned or anything. Just water, electrolytes, and berry flavor. Have you eaten anything since lunch?"


September 15, ch 3:

"Adrien?" Chat Noir repeats, hearing his voice squeak clear up into mezzo-soprano. "Sits in front of you in class Adrien?" Twenty-five thousand nine hundred thirteen Adrien? Not exactly a 'good friend' Adrien? His brain is throwing web client error codes: 421 Misdirected. 422 Unprocessable. 418 I'm a teapot.


September 24: visual aid


October 6, ch 4:

There's a song. It's not about gambling, except in all the ways it is. Adrien hasn't been to Mass since he was thirteen: in the months after Maman died—Chat Noir can admit that, though Adrien cannot—he only managed to talk the Gorilla or Nathalie into taking him once or twice a month, and Father only ever went to Christmas and Easter Mass even when Maman was around to drag him; Adrien doesn't believe Father's ever gone without her. Meeting Plagg—the sermons rang hollow after that, the Gospels felt too fragile for everyday use, and the Eucharist tasted of dust and air. Adrien thinks he could have gone to Christmas Mass if he'd asked, and (given he'd gotten that Santa cosplayer akumatized) maybe he should have, but he hadn't asked.

Plagg and Tikki are the biggest gods who have ever listened to him.

When a heart breaks, no, it don't break even.


October 13, ch 1:

[Chat] can—they can work with this. Bunnyx's identity is at least as well-kept a secret as most of the team's—why Ladybug feels she can trust Adrien with Viperion's identity when she doesn't know Adrien is anyone but the Snake wielder who never gave himself a cute name, especially when she booted Multimouse for nothing worse than assuming Chat Noir was trustworthy—

He pivots away from smelling that rat with practiced ease, pacing the floor. If Marinette takes the Dragon and Kagami the Bee, then he has two powerhouses on his team without involving Multimouse, Ryūko, or Chloé. And this time he'll make sure to tell Marinette the five-minute safety guideline on whatever they cast is there to protect both sides of the equation—though as drowsy as she was for days after the Kwamibuster attack, she probably figured it out already.

—Focus.


October 20, ch 5:

"Camembert, berries, honey, macarons, an extra spicy serving of one of the main dishes, and stuff to make tea with," Chat Noir rattles off. "Rena Rouge and Carapace will want something vegetarian. [Redacted] probably wants seafood but I'm not sure. Ladybug and I need meat. She'll be happier if it's insect protein; I don't care as long as it's not pig." Chloé will be insulted if Chat Noir tries to tell her that she needs to eat, though, never mind what, and it isn't as though he's certain anyway, so he says, "And we could all do with some sweets, I think. I vote for baklava." He's forgetting something; what is he— "Oh, and lots of ice water and lots of flavored electrolyte water."


October 27, ch 5:

"Agyinamoa. 'Iole Uliuli. Kumbang Merah. I have been around the sun a few times, brat. I know things."


November 10, ch 2:

"This is Bunnyx," Chat Noir tells them. Maybe later he'll wonder who thought of that. "She's our ace in the hole."

Alix is aroace. Bunnyx lobs a pillow at Chat: "That is the worst pun I have ever heard!"

"How is that a pun?" asks Carapace.

"You'll see part of it when she uses her power," Chat says, "which we'd better save for when we know more about what's happening. And the rest is, why did you get fired from the supermarket?"


December 4: public service announcement (research)


December 8, ch 6:

Alya has no way of knowing when Marinette acquired the Ladybug Miraculous. But the absolute latest that could be isn't even three hours after Alya first saw a rich blonde snob and her sidekick bullying the only other girl of color in the classroom. Alya has never known Marinette when she wasn't hiding being Ladybug.

"She's always been flaky," Carapace murmurs. "Didn't really talk unless someone was talking to her. I…" He tugs self-consciously at his hood. "I kind of thought she got confident because of you."


September 8 | December 8, ch 4:

"Look, Carapace," Rena snaps, scanning the skyline, "I want Adrien to get through this in one piece as much as you do! But when an akuma turns up, have you ever seen him run any direction but away?"

"Away is usually the right direction!" Bunnyx reminds her, umbrella held ready to play sword or shield. "You read the Ladyblog, right? Number two piece of advice for dealing with an akuma attack, stay out of the way!"

Rena Rouge wrote that article her own personal self, thank you very much.

"Number one piece of advice for dealing with an akuma attack," Carapace observes from somewhere in the Agreste mansion, "don't cause one."

Bunnyx snaps open her umbrella: Rena dives behind her, plants her feet on the concrete and her back against Bunnyx's shoulders, and braces.

"I am," Rena grits out over the rushing wind, "actually aware the Ladyblogger ought to stick a photo by that paragraph. Big red 'no' sign over the latest Insta selfie from TheOfficialChloeBourgeois." Alya has not done so because that seems counterproductive. "But we know Queen Bee can and will fight akumas, and she is competent!" If Alya had not pedaled that rickshaw at Lollipop Giant, and then rapidly in the other direction once the oversized toddler decided he wanted their fake street sign more than he wanted Ladybug, would Alya now be Rena Rouge? "We do not know that about Adrien!"


December 22: out of context spoiler image


December 29, ch 7:

"I do not have words," Rena says slowly, "for how fucked we would be if Alya Césaire were Ladybug."

Carapace squeezes her knee, amber eyes somber, and doesn't argue. Alya and Nino have talked about this, after all. They'd both like to take some of the other Miraculouses out for a spin. But not Ladybug's or Chat Noir's. Not realistically. I'd Cataclysm Gabriel Agreste, Nino said, and Alya asked Does Miraculous Cure have to put it all back? and—


January 26, ch 7:

"You're on speaker," [Chat Noir] says when the call connects. "Markov, question for you."

"What do you need?" asks Markov's synthesized voice.

"Do you remember anything about being akumatized?"

"My internal recordings of that time were erased," Markov says with an audible droop.

"I thought you knew that?" asks Max.


February 9, ch 8:

"I wanted to keep you safe," she whispers. "I thought if you didn't know, you'd be safe. It didn't matter what you thought of me. Didn't matter you thought I wasn't good enough. Didn't even matter I was lying to you. You'd be safe."


February 23, ch 10:

"Other highlights from January episodes of the 'My Brother, Why Are You Texting Me Morbid Shit After Midnight, Go The Fuck To Sleep' show include what is the bite force of an adult tyrannosaur, would tyrannosaur taste like chicken, how coronary artery disease leads to myocardial infarction, and is explosive decompression in the vacuum of space actually explosive. Which, it turns out, no it is not, for the same reason that if a teenage boy got thrown off the top of Tour Montparnasse, hitting the pavement would not make him go splat. Human skin's pretty tough, dude. But these are both closed-casket funerals. There must be a reason people in this city have weird trauma responses like that."


April 5, ch 11:

"He built a four-meter butterfly-shaped window into his attic," Rena says, looking around the bare room with disgust, fingers clenched painfully tight around their flute. "Look, the floor's scuffed where the direct light is." Judging by the shape all the scuff marks make, Hawkmoth probably made sure to stand in the center of the area marked out by the shadows of the metal arcs, undimmed by the window's weirdly tinted glass, no matter where in the room those shadows fell.

"Must be nice having money," Carapace grumbles. He glances up: "Is that a spotlight? The only light fixture in the whole room, and it's a spotlight?"

"Comic book supervillain lair, maximum drama," Rena reminds him.

"Shut up."