Title: Catalyst
Author: Timothy Wren
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Relationships: Lovesquare, but pre-relationship
Genre: Anime, Romance, Superheroes
Notes/Warnings: Pre-relationship, pre identity-reveal, Whumptober so some temporary injury is to be expected, Kwami swap! (temporary), Original Akumas
Word Count: 3242/?
Summary: It was roughly two hours– two hours, two Cataclysms and one spent lucky-charm– into the fight that Adrien knew he’d fucked up.
It was roughly two hours– two hours, two Cataclysms and one spent lucky-charm– into the fight that Adrien knew he’d fucked up. He only realized it when he flubbed what should have been an easy landing. His foot slid under him on the roof ledge, vision abruptly spinning, and he cursed under his breath.
At street level, a ten-foot tall Akuma wrapped head-to-do in red lycra, a green apron, and wielding an honest-to-god flamethrower doused the street in yet more flammable liquid. Tacky flame designs ran up and down his outfit, as though the motif needed additional hammering in.
“I’ll give you gas! I’ll give you ALL the gas!” Torchennaire screamed, spraying noxious accelerant everywhere. The air all around him was visibly thick with fumes. And not only had Chat Noir been breathing it in during the fight; he had also been hit directly by the spray more than once.
Vision still gray and hazy, Adrien flagged down Ladybug. Instead of gathering his bearings on the warehouse roof–and diving right back into the fray, as he’d planned– he was forced to dive into the warehouse window, trusting his lady to either join him or carry on.
But it had been a long and frustrating fight for her, too– not their longest, not by a long shot, but still plenty tiring. She could also use a moment to catch her breath.
Chat had long since gone nose-blind to the foul stench. It was only when he stopped in the half-hidden loft of the warehouse, standing still for the first time, that he realized he was literally sodden and drenched with gasoline.
Oh, shit. Well, that explained the dizziness.
Ladybug swung through the window after him moments later.
“Chaton, what’s–?”
She broke off as he swayed, catching himself heavily on a railing.
Suddenly she was there, supporting him, only grimacing a little as her gloves came away soaked in gasoline. He waved her off.
“I’ve got to change. I’m pretty sure–” He coughed, briefly, and ignored how much it burned. “– that my suit will be reset with the transformation. I hope, anyway.”
Now that he’d started paying attention, he couldn’t stop. The burn was worst around his eyes, mouth and nose. His throat hurt and his skin was starting to itch painfully under the suit.
He’d thought it was just smoke inhalation or the super-heated air around the fire bothering him. Now, he realized it probably hadn’t helped, but wasn’t the main cause; that would be the gasoline itself, and his advanced senses probably hadn’t helped. Dread settled low in his stomach.
“Be quick. Do you have food for your Kwami?” Her hands hovered over him, not quite touching.
He grimaced. The headache he’d been trying to ignore kicked up a notch.
“One more round, maybe. I keep his favorite in my shirt pocket.”
He waited for the gray to leave his vision, for a few deep breaths to clear out his burning lungs. The chemical wetness coating his cat suit was cold, sticky and inescapable. He had to get out of it as soon as possible, as soon as the room stopped swimming. Any second now…
“Chat?” Her voice, as if from underwater. Chat lifted his chin to respond and encountered the strangest sensation: his wet fingers closing on air, slow and clumsy.
“Chat!” Ladybug rushed to catch him, heedless of the gas that seeped from his suit to hers. He was literally covered in it. The smell alone was like a solid wall.
Marinette stared. Despite passing out, he was still at least transformed. The fumes– could they have hurt him? Their suits gave them some level of protection, but neither held a rebreather or a gas mask.
“Tikki, he’s unconscious, what do I–” But of course, Tikki couldn’t hear her. She lowered Chat Noir to the floor.
His hair fell softly into his mask. His breathing was shallow– too shallow, and raspy, as if his throat was hurting him. He’d also spent more time rushing through the fire than her.
She needed to purify this Akuma ASAP. It was the only thing that would heal him. Ladybug hesitated.
Defeating an Akuma on her own wasn’t the problem. No, she’d done it before, and she could do it now if she had to. The problem was he needed to get out of the suit.
Her fingers clenched against her thighs. Outside, Paris was on fire, and people screamed as they were burned alive or drowned in petrol.
Closing her eyes tightly, Ladybug reached forward. She found cold fabric and felt her way to his arm, then his hand. Carefully, she held her breath and slid off the ring, the flash of detransformation bright even against her shut eyelids.
“… Kid?” A male voice asked, hesitant– and clearly not talking to her.
“He breathed in too much gas, I think.” Marinette kept her eyes closed, curling the ring against her palm. “It was– it was all over his suit. I had to…”
“C’mon, baby bug. Breathe.” Despite the tension of his voice, the words themselves were caught between chastising and reassuring.
“I just need to use the cure. Then he’ll be fine.” She tried to convince herself, clenching the Cat Miraculous almost painfully tight as she stood and ignoring that her fingers had started to shake.
She hesitated. She could hear his breathing now, but if she stepped away…
“I should leave you here, just in case.” Despite the words, Marinette hesitated. If she got defeated, Hawkmoth would have both Miraculouses; but if she just left it here, defenseless…
“Like hell.” The Kwami snarled. A rustling, and savage chewing noises. “I’m almost ready.”
Marinette kept her eyes shut.
“I thought you couldn’t– will you be able to do anything on your own, without a wielder?”
A pause, a swallow loud in the dark.
“The faster we get rid of this Akuma, the faster…a̶̖̞̕d̵̗̥̈̽́r̵̻̮̒̍͠i̴̻̘̳̿… the kid wakes up.” A stumble over what might have been the first syllable of Chat Noir’s name.
Marinette bit her lip.
“We were about to try another plan.” She admitted. “It probably won’t work on my own. I’ll have to think of something else.”
“Do you know the Akumatized object?” Closer, now– the Kwami was in the air in front of her.
“We think– we thought it might be his keys. They’re in the flamethrower like a car’s ignition.”
“Safe bet.” The Kwami grunted. “Flamethrowers don’t usually require keys to turn on.”
“Right.” Marinette couldn’t stop herself from dropping to her knees once more, feeling along a surprisingly soft shirt up to Chat’s collar and chin. She felt the pulse at his neck for a moment, then the shallow exhale in front of his mouth.
“He won’t get better until you finish this, Ladybug.” The Kwami said, not harshly. But not kind, either.
“Right.” She stood and turned away, gathering up her yo-yo. “Right. Of course.”
Getting the keys was easier said than done. Ten minutes later, she was no closer than when she’d started. The Akuma– Torchennaire– had built up a sea of gaseous flames around him, which he alone could walk through. The inferno moved with him, slowly crawling through Paris’ streets like flowing magma.
The streets had long since been evacuated, but he was targeting the buildings as he went, forcing citizens to flee out into the danger area or up their fire escapes, putting them in the line of fire.
Ladybug rescued several and relocated several more, her yo-yo taking her through the curtain of flames fast enough to avoid damage. She was never able to get close enough to hurt the Akuma, though, no matter how quickly she swung through the fires. They were too hot and powerful; she was swinging down blind, clipping through just fast enough to avoid getting burned, but too blinded by the heat and plasma to even see her goal, much less grab it.
The only good news was they’d left the warehouse with Chat Noir behind a few blocks ago, untouched by the flames. Ladybug lured him further into the outskirts of Paris, away from the population centers.
In any other circumstances, Chat Noir would give her the opening she needed. The ring on her hand seemed to burn– a cold reminder that she was alone in this.
The best she’d been able to do was get in a lucky kick– knocking the Torchennaire out of his own mass of flames, long enough to get in a sharp exchange of blows before he’d doused the area in gas again. Then, she’d been forced to lunge to the high ground to avoid the spark and explosion of the new gas igniting.
Her only saving grace was that she’d avoided getting her own suit drenched in the flammable liquid, as Chat Noir’s had been. She went out of her way to avoid taking any hits from the gas-dispensing gun, very aware that if she went down, no back up would be arriving.
The akuma hadn’t noticed Chat Noir’s absence, at least. Torchennaire launched into the standard grandstanding, swearing to get her Miraculous. He remained blissfully unaware that he’d be killing two birds with one stone if he did.
Marinette stayed out of melee range after that. The Akuma wasn’t the smartest, relying on sheer destruction and keeping an environmental advantage of defense, but Hawkmoth was always watching; the last thing she needed was him to catch a glimpse of her hand at the wrong moment, and redouble his efforts.
She looked around. Though they were close to the river, none of that water could help extinguish the flames. A few civilians were desperate enough to make the plunge as Torchennaire came nearer.
Marinette swung up high, gaining the vantage of distance. Her yo-yo deposited her on a tower. There had to be something she could use in this situation. Her first lucky charm of the night had been a magically-enhanced fire extinguisher. It had made a brief headway against the flames before running out, and she’d been forced to abandon it, throwing it like a missile at the Akuma’s head to give them an opening to escape.
In the bakery, if there was ever a grease fire, she knew to use bicarbonate de soude in small amounts. For something like this, even tonnes of flour wouldn’t help. Worse, the powder in the air would probably explode.
Forget superheroes, they needed the fire department! Chat had tried Cataclysm-ing a hydrant early on, though, and the water wasn’t directable enough; the villain simply moved to another district, away from the spray. He was too mobile.
Marinette slammed her fist against the metal of the tower. Then, upon reading the label affixed to it, her eyes widened. Of course, she was supposed to be lucky… But this was crazy.
She threw back her head and laughed, unamused.
“Oh, Chaton…”
“What?” The little black Kwami hovered over her shoulder. Marinette had to take a few gasping breaths to avoid a sob.
“If he were here, this would be the perfect solution.” She gestured at the water tower. “But I let him get hurt and…”
There it was; a gasp and a choked-off hitch of breath. Tears stung at her eyes, messy with dirt and smoke residue that blended with sweat under her mask.
“And you’re alone.” The Kwami said bluntly. Shame burned in her gut. She nodded, jaw tight.
“Well, this is fucking stupid.” A huff. “Come on, the faster we get rid of this clown, the faster ç̸̤̬̿h̵̲̦̘̎̏͑a̶̖̞̕r̵̻̮̒̍͠i̴̻̘̳̿ǎ̷̻͉̰͝n̵͉̂̄̕– my Cat’s back in business.”
A stumble again, as if he were going to say a name. Because Chat Noir had a name, of course he did, and he had a face under the mask; a face resting soft and naked in a warehouse, unguarded by even his Kwami. It hurt to think about, that civilian boy. His shirt had been soft. He could have been any of the scared people she pulled out of harm’s way tonight; he could have been any of the smiling faces she regularly walked by on the sunny streets of Paris.
She didn’t know why she was tripping over it now, the old knowledge that Chat Noir was someone when he wasn’t wearing a mask. Maybe because that someone was alone and vulnerable right now, a stranger yet very much hers.
Marinette turned to the Kwami and his little snarl of impatience, surprised to find him eye level with her.
“It’s Plagg.” He said shortly. “C’mon, no time to waste. Claws out.”
“Claws out–?” But she had barely said the words when a yelp took her, the sharp light of detransformation caught somewhere strange and in-between.
Tikki’s voice sounded next to her, alarmed and unexpected. Marinette worried, for one horrible moment, that she’d just unmasked herself on a tower where anyone could see.
“Plagg!” She hollered, horrified, but there was no little black Kwami to answer her. Instead, as the transformation died down, Marinette realized… a lot of things.
Claws tipped her fingers. Her vision was different. Her hair was braided down her back and a tail swished at her waist. She was… she was…
“Oh, my god.” She grabbed hard on the tower to avoid falling down. Her claws actually caught into the metal, like thumb tacks into corkboard. She jumped, surprised to feel her teeth bare into a near hiss at the motion.
“Oh!” Tikki gasped, buzzing around her. “Oh, look at you! Lady Noire!”
Marinette bit her tongue to keep from reacting to that. She was almost dizzy.
“Tikki, what just…?”
“Plagg must really want to get this Akuma sorted.” She fretted. “Oh, your Chat Noir…”
Marinette swallowed heavily. Lady Noire stood up with renewed purpose.
“It’s not good, Tikki.” She answered, throat tight. “He needs us.”
“Right.” Tikki disappeared into her earrings. “When you’re ready– I’m here. We have enough energy left for the cure.”
Her determined little voice buoyed Marinette in a way that was hard to describe. Maybe it was the ‘we’. She wasn’t alone.
Let’s get our boys back where they belong, she thought viciously, and let that state of mind guide her through instinct. It wasn’t hard, finding the right angle to strike. Moving as Lady Noire was different– her reflexes sharper, her senses primed to take in the information of the night.
She watched the Torchennaire with the slitted eyes of a predator– and when he was just below, had no mercy.
“Cataclysm!” It felt good. Raw, destructive, vindicated. She let out every ounce of rage she’d ever felt, and the water tower burst open, a deluge of water spilling out.
Marinette did not give the Akuma time to get his bearings. At the moment, she didn’t even care if he drowned.
The cure would put him to rights, and he wouldn’t remember it anyway.
She used Chat Noir’s staff to get to ground level, to knock the weapon away from the villain.
“Tikki!” She cried, jerking the keys out of the flamethrower’s ridiculous ignition. “Spots on.”
It was a snarl and a demand all at once, and she was already throwing the item into the air as the red light flowed around her, the half-formed yo-yo flying out to make contact at the apex of the toss.
“Miraculous Ladybug!”
–
She couldn’t go to see Chat Noir.
Marinette blinked at the stone wall that was Plagg, holding his ring.
The Kwami had no sympathy.
“What, you’re going to trip blindly up the stairs, stumble over his unconscious body, and make me transform again for no reason? I’ve barely ate.”
“You–” Marinette took a deep breath. “Why would he still be unconscious?”
The Kwami shrugged his shoulders.
“I dunno, it might take a minute. He needs the sleep probably.”
“I. Hn. Understand.” Marinette bit out, averting her eyes before she said or did something she’d regret. Already her hands were balled into fists. Plagg muttered something about stubbornness.
Tikki made a cooing sound.
“Marinette, you know why it’s not a good idea.”
Annoyingly, she did. It was her stance on the matter that was firm.
Still, it was rare that she couldn’t see him after a fight, rarer still that they didn’t celebrate it together. She didn’t get to see him fixed up with her own eyes.
“Have him call me?” She asked, with a semi-civil tongue and swallowed desperation. Plagg had the nerve to smirk.
“He needs sleep, Pigtails.” The smirk faded a little. “I don’t know if he’ll transform again tonight. But he’ll send you a message when he wakes up.”
That would have to do. Infuriatingly, it would literally have to do. She also couldn’t just sit around her room in Ladybug’s suit waiting for the message.
Stiffly, she nodded. Then, getting over herself a little, forced a deep breath and a smile.
“Thank you, Plagg. I– We couldn’t have done it without you.” Even Tikki beamed. Plagg looked startled.
“Eh.” The Kwami rubbed his nose. “I mean, you made a decent enough Cat, I guess.”
“High praise.” Marinette said sincerely. “It’s not everyone who can pull off that level of awesome.”
Plagg’s ears perked up. He blinked once before scowling.
“I’m wise to your tricks, bug girl.” But he couldn’t help a grin. “I’ll tell…ç̸̤̬̿h̵̲̦̘̎̏͑a̶̖̞̕d̵̗̥̈̽́r̵̻̮̒̍͠i̴̻̘̳̿ǎ̷̻͉̰͝n̵͉̂̄̕… how well you wore his suit. That’ll keep him up at night.” A snicker.
That skritch again, as if Plagg couldn’t be bothered to find another name for his holder. Magic cut it out of the conversation like a record scratch.
As long as Chat Noir was awake and well enough to be weird about the outfit swap, Marinette would take it. She was feeling beyond charitable toward their boys.
“It’s a shame no one got a picture.” She certainly hadn’t seen Alya around. “That would have gotten Chaton all mixed up.”
Plagg snickered again. Marinette didn’t bother to tamp down the mischievousness in her voice when she reached over to scratch his tiny head.
“Next time, alright?”
“Next–” Plagg dropped a foot in the air out of shock, but Marinette had already giggled and walked away.
“Get back to him safe, you hear!?” She called, cupped hands over her mouth. “And hurry up– I’m scared of what kind of trouble he can get into without you.”
“You and me both, sweetheart.” Plagg muttered, and vanished into the roof below.
When he was gone, Tikki burst out into giggles.
“You did make a good Black Cat, Marinette.” She assured, earnestly. “But you’ll always be better as my Ladybug.”
“Of course, Tikki.” Marinette agreed. She cupped the Kwami in both palms. “I just can’t help teasing them.”
She bit her lip.
“He’ll be okay, right?”
“Oh, Marinette.” Tikki said. “The cure worked, you know it did. He’s safe. They’re both safe.”
“I can’t… I have to take better care of them. Of him.” Resolve strengthened her words, though they were quiet and private in the air between them.
“You will.” Tikki promised. “We’ll keep a better eye on them.” She sighed. “And I can see you thinking– you’ve got an idea about that, don’t you?”
“I do.” Marinette reached into her bag and offered Tikki a cookie. With her other hand, she pulled out her phone. “It’s high time I keep an eye on those two even when we’re not together. There’s got to be a way.”
She clenched her fist again, determined.
“If anyone can find it, it’s you. I believe in you, Marinette.”
“Thanks, Tikki. I won’t let you down.”