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aidanchaser · 11 months ago

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Boulangérella: A Miraculous Fairy Tale AU - Chapter Twenty-Three

Table of Contents Read on Ao3 Prologue

Marinette had hardly managed to get over the palace wall and find a place to hide before her transformation came undone. As the magic left her, exhaustion swept back in. She collapsed against the cold stones of the palace walls and tried desperately to remember the last time she had gotten a good night’s sleep. And it seemed that she would not be able to get one in tonight.

“Tikki,” Marinette sighed, “do you think King Gabriel will really return Trixx like I asked him to?”

Tikki nuzzled her soft head against Marinette’s cheek. “I can’t say, Marinette. But you asked. If he doesn’t…”

“If he doesn’t, we know a thief. At least, we know a thief for one more day.”

Chat Noir’s strange deadline still haunted her. And his desperate proposal… She thought again to the bruises on the princes’ cheeks, so like the injury that Chat Noir had sustained saving her.

“But why would a prince become a thief?” she asked aloud, and she did not believe it even as she said it. Prince Adrien, who was so sad and gentle, could not be her silly thief. Prince Adrien was charming; Chat Noir was charming but in an annoying sort of way. And Prince Félix didn’t have even a shred of humor in him. Not that she found Chat especially funny…

“Maybe you need some rest, Marinette,” Tikki said in a kind voice.

Marinette scrubbed her eyes. “I need to find Alya and Nino first, make sure they’ll be all right.”

“You cannot help anyone if you do not take care of yourself,” Tikki said.

Marinette ignored Tikki’s advice. Though the wall offered some shelter from the rain, she pushed herself to her feet and started for the palace gates. Her friends, however, were not waiting for her. A guard told her they had been escorted home. Someone who had just threatened the king and nearly destroyed the palace, even under Hawk Moth’s curse, was not going to be allowed to linger. She supposed she shouldn’t linger in this rain, either.

Marinette trudged from the palace and back into the heart of the city, though it was dark and quiet at this late hour. Everyone was either at the ball or already in bed. The journey would have been easier as Ladybug, and her head might have been clearer, less muddled with exhaustion, but she couldn’t bring herself to transform into Ladybug. Maybe it was just the exhaustion talking, but even Ladybug felt insufficient.

Marinette had adored this past year of being a hero. She had spent most of her life battling her own clumsiness and scatter-brained tendencies. The things she had gained for herself while working at the bakery and in her apprenticeship alike had been hard-won through muscles sore from hours of kneading dough and fingertips bloody from wayward needles.

When she was Ladybug, everything suddenly seemed so easy. She didn’t trip over her own two feet. Her head felt clear, and problem-solving became a thrill rather than a struggle to scrape together what she could with limited resources. She loved magic. It made her into so much more than what she was as Marinette.

But tonight, even Ladybug had failed. Ladybug had barely been able to stop Riposte. Ladybug hadn’t been able to recover Trixx. She’d hardly been able to comfort her best friends, one whose anger she did understand but was powerless to help, and another who seemed so consumed with an ending she didn’t understand, couldn’t understand.

Marinette paused on the bridge and stared up at the inky black clouds overhead. The raindrops pelted her face and stung her eyes. “Tikki… I don’t want to be Ladybug without Chat Noir.” It was strange to say it out loud, but the moment the thought had occurred to her, she realized how true it was. “I have to stop Hawk Moth tonight if I want to help him.”

Tikki shifted in Marinette’s apron pocket. “You will stop Hawk Moth. I would not have chosen you if I did not believe that you could.”

“But I don’t want to do it alone!”

“You won’t,” Tikki assured her. “But I want you to remember that you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in almost a month. Your master told you to make sure to rest tonight. We can make a plan first thing in the morning.”

Marinette could not tell if she was crying or if it was all the rain. She wiped her cheeks and rubbed her eyes, but it was fruitless in face of the steady downpour.

“But what about Alya?” she asked. “And Trixx?”

“You cannot give more than you have,” Tikki insisted. “Rest now and work tomorrow. You don’t know what it will look like by the light of day.”

Marinette did not agree. She could picture exactly how it would all look tomorrow: hopeless.

But she was too tired to argue. She trudged home, trying not to flinch as the bell above the door announced her midnight entrance to her worried parents. Tom chided her for being late; Sabine demanded to know why Nino had not brought her home like he had promised.

Marinette told the story of Alya becoming cursed by Hawk Moth as quickly as she could, and tried to explain that she had been caught in Princess Kagami’s curse as she had tried to leave the palace. She left out, of course, Ladybug’s dance with the prince, but if her parents noticed any holes in her story, her long yawn must have been enough to set their concerns aside. She was quickly ushered upstairs to bed.

And, despite Marinette’s despair over her failure of an evening and her anxiety over what endings tomorrow would bring, she had hardly pulled her blanket up to her chin before she collapsed into a fitful sleep.

Tikki, who normally nestled on the pillow beside Marinette, flitted around Marinette’s head. With small, delicate red hands, she unfastened the ruby earrings in Marinette’s ears.

Tikki needed Ladybug’s help, but Marinette was too exhausted. And though Tikki knew who Chat Noir was, because she had watched Plagg choose him, she did not think he was the person who would be best suited to help her tonight. Instead, she had someone who was just as intelligent and determined as her bondswoman in mind, someone who was almost as reckless as Chat Noir.

Alya Césaire tried her best to shove her way past her betrothed, but he stood firm in her bedroom doorway.

“Let me go, Nino,” she hissed.

“You can’t go back,” Nino protested for the thirteenth time that night. “They’re not going to let you anywhere near the palace.”

“I’m not planning to ask permission.”

Alya’s pale brown eyes seemed to flash gold as she glared up at Nino, and he wanted so desperately to douse her anger.

Nino had always loved Alya’s passion. He adored the way she threw herself into projects, the way she refused to give up on a problem until she had solved it. It was the same thing that had initially drawn him to Marinette when they were younger. Nino liked people who did what they set out to do and for the last five years he had done nothing but support Alya and stoke the fires that kept her going.

Now he wanted nothing more than to keep her still and quiet, because if he could do that, he could keep her safe.

“You’ll be arrested,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in a dungeon or end up killed. I won’t let you do that to yourself.”

“I’m not asking for your permission, either.” Alya tried again to push past him, but this time he grabbed her arms and held her firmly in place.

“You’re hurting me,” she snapped, but there was no fear in her voice. Only frustration.

And Nino let her arms go, but only to take her hand in his. “Alya, don’t do this. You’re only going to get yourself hurt.”

His grip on her hand was still tight, far more protective than it usually was and it burned against Alya’s anger.

“I understand that you don’t want to help,” Alya snapped at Nino, “but I need you to understand that I have to do this.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to help! It’s that I don’t want to lose you. Please, Alya, I can’t protect you if you go back.”

“I’m not asking for your protection!” She yanked her hand away and pushed Nino back against the wall. It was not so unlike the way Rena Rage had thrown him into one of the palace pillars.

A single, still moment passed between them, but then shock turned to anger and Nino turned away.

As he left, he slammed the door behind him. Alya didn’t mind this expression of anger, but she did mind the click as Nino slid the deadbolt into place, locking her into her room. She slammed her fist against the door and shouted after him. There were no words for her anger; she simply screamed.

She was not some damsel that needed to be protected, and she was not going to wait around for anyone else to solve her problems. So Alya threw open her bedroom window, but before she could climb out, a small red ladybug flew in.

Alya glanced up and down the street for any sign of the heroine or her magic, but she saw no one. When she turned back to the ladybug, she found that it had become a small red fay, holding a pair of earrings.

Alya had only one question for the creature as she reached her hand out for the earrings: “What’s the price?”

The fay bounced in the air anxiously. “I am Tikki, the Fay of Luck and Creation. I can grant you the power to—”

“I don’t care,” Alya snapped. “I’m going to use whatever power you can give me to rescue Trixx. Just tell me what it will cost.”

Tikki hesitated. Perhaps Alya was too reckless a choice. “I will only ask that you let Trixx go,” she finally said. “He’s been bound against his will for hundreds of years. You can have Ladybug’s power for one night in exchange for returning Trixx to the Forest of Fay.”

Alya had no qualms with that bargain. She did not want to rescue Trixx for her own gain. She simply wanted to see justice done.

She fastened the earrings into her ears and, as certainly as she had known the words to seal her deal with Trixx, she knew what to say to complete her bargain with Tikki.

“Spots on!”

The fay’s magic filled her quite suddenly. Donning Trixx’s power had felt like diving into a cool stream, but Tikki’s magic was like pins and needles pricking along her skin. She buzzed with the magic of creation and, eager simply to move, she jumped out of her window.

She swung herself up onto the roof and ran across the straw thatching and wooden beams easily. The rain did not bother her in the least, kept at bay by the magic in her clothing.

Instead of a dress like Ladybug’s, her red bodice was more similar to a doublet and jerkin, and instead of sleeves laced with gold ribbons, she wore black gloves that extended the length of her arms. Similarly, her tights were black, and instead of trailing red ribbons, her hair was pulled back in a red and black kerchief. There was no gold nor dangling ribbons. It was all together a sleeker look than Ladybug’s, and it seemed much more appropriate for breaking into a castle.

She wasn’t sure what to call herself. She might have the earrings and the bandalore, and her dress might be red with black spots, but the name “Ladybug” felt like it belonged to someone else. She would have to come up with something for herself.

On any other night, Alya might have stopped to appreciate the view of the city from this angle. Even as rain battered the rooftops, the lights of the city cast warm halos in the cold night. It felt like running across the surface of the river with the stars reflected beneath her feet.

Even though King Gabriel had recently increased the number of guards in the palace, Alya knew of all the changes because her sister had complained about them. It was easy, thanks to that, a bit of patience, and her newfound luck, to slip past the walls undetected.

She paused in the gardens and surveyed the castle for an open window that could slip through. She wondered how her bandalore might help unfasten a latch or get her into a higher window that someone left open, thinking upper levels might be safe. She supposed even the palace, though, must fear Chat Noir’s thievery.

Maybe Lucky Bug? But that was too similar to Ladybug.

Lady Luck would not be a terrible name, she thought, as she looped the cord of her bandalore around the latch of a window and unfastened it. She pushed the window panes open and tumbled into a small receiving room. She was not entirely sure where the throne room would be, but she trusted in Tikki’s magic, confident that she would get lucky in her search.

“Stop!” a guard from the wall shouted, and she ducked back into the shadow of a nearby tree.

But when she turned, the guards were not looking towards her. One of them screamed as a small explosion struck the wall. The guards went flying, but before they struck the ground, they were caught in colorful bubbles that bounced gently along the grass.

“Hawk Moth!” someone shouted.

Scarabella squinted and reached for her yo-yo. She hadn’t come out tonight to catch Hawk Moth, but she certainly wouldn’t say no. She’d catch Hawk Moth, rescue Trixx, and show King Gabriel what the people of his city were truly capable of.

But the figure that crested the wall froze her in her tracks.

The young man looked something like a jester, dressed in brilliant reds, yellows, and blues. He flicked his fingers and bubbles as translucent as soap sailed through the air, but once the guards were trapped inside, they were unable to escape.

But it wasn’t his appearance nor his power that left Alya cold to her core. It was his voice and his words.

“I won’t let you hurt her!” he shouted at the guards. “Where is she? Where is Alya? I’m going to protect her!”

Hawk Moth had, as the ball had ended for the evening, searched the guests for more heartbreak to exploit. He knew he had to strike while Ladybug was weak. She had to be worn down after facing down two of his strongest curses in a single night. If he had not won yet with power, he would win with sheer relentlessness. His timetable, too, was running short. He needed his wish granted before the end of the third night if the prince’s wedding was to be a truly happy event.

He had searched for jealous heartbreak over Adrien’s dance with Ladybug or even his time with Chloé. And though the murderous rage in Lila was truly tempting, he was afraid she might put Adrien in danger in her quest to claim him for herself. No, she would not do.

He felt Félix’s grief, too, but it was even more untrustworthy. Félix could turn his anger against Gabriel, and he could not risk that.

He felt even Alya Césaire’s rage, but it was as formidable as Félix’s, and just as dangerous.

Instead, Hawk Moth found the frustration of a young man, whose indignation had been seething since that afternoon. He’d felt helpless in the palace, he’d despaired as his betrothed had been cursed, and now he was unable to protect her from danger as she ran off to retrieve what had been taken from her.

Nino didn’t know how to make Alya understand that he only wanted to keep her safe. When he left her, he’d had some idea that he ought to apologize, and that she should apologize to him, but when he had unlocked the door to her room to bring her dinner and found her gone, his anger had doubled. He had failed to protect the woman he loved, and if he could not save her before she reached the palace, there was every chance that he could lose her forever.

The ring on his finger, the very symbol of his love for Alya, the ring whose match had just been destroyed that afternoon, turned inky black as one of Hawk Moth’s cursed butterflies touched it.

“Bubbler,” Hawk Moth had called through the cursed butterfly, “I will give you the power to protect those you love in exchange for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous gifts.”

Nino did not know how to refuse. It was always the noble desires that worked best for Hawk Moth’s curses.

The violet curse had rippled over Nino, turning his simple tunic into a costume suited more for a court jester, a corrupted callback to his usually jovial nature. With no more than a flick of his finger, he called a brilliantly colored bubble into his hands and tossed it at will.

He had started by bubbling Alya’s family, ensuring that they would be safely protected from his fight with the city’s heroes. Then he hurried to the castle, certain that was where Alya would be. He just had to get to her before the palace guards.

Alya attempted to swallow down her fear, but it persisted in her chest. She wasn’t a hero like Ladybug. She’d come to rescue Trixx; that was all. She could save Trixx then return the earrings to Ladybug. Then Ladybug could rescue Nino from Hawk Moth’s curse and set things right. This wasn’t what Tikki had asked Alya to do.

She used her bandalore to jump through the castle window and tumble inside.

She slipped through the dark, empty halls of the palace in search of a path that was familiar to her. She considered trying to find the kitchens, an area she had more intimate knowledge of, and search for the throne room from there, but before she could commit to that plan, she heard the jingle of a bell behind her.

She ducked behind a corner, paused to catch her breath, then peered out. But it wasn’t Bubbler. Instead, she saw Chat Noir, already stalking the halls of the palace. He had made as good time as Tikki had.

“Chat Noir, over here,” she hissed softly, assuming he had snuck into the palace for the very same reasons that she had, or perhaps he was searching for Nino himself.

Chat Noir turned, but anger flashed in his green eyes. She stepped back as he charged her, ducking beneath a swipe of his claws, only for him to turn and manage to get a hand around her throat. He yanked her back against his chest and the pointed tips of his claws dug into her neck.

“Who are you?” he snarled in her ear.

She reached for her bandalore, careful to keep her movements slow. “Buggalady,” she said, but as it left her lips she knew she hated it. “La Bugette?” she tried, but it sounded equally terrible.

“What are you doing with Ladybug’s miraculous gift?”

“It’s on loan for the evening.” She unstrung her bandalore and wrapped the cord around his wrist, yanking his hand away from her throat. As he fell against her, she threw her shoulder into his stomach so that he went tumbling over her and to the ground. She pressed her foot on his chest and squinted down at her attacker in the dim light. “What happened to your face?”

The notorious thief scowled up at her. She couldn’t decide if the dark bruise splashed across his cheek made him look dangerous or vulnerable.

He ignored her question. “What’s happened to Ladybug?”

“Her fay offered me a chance to rescue Trixx, so I took it. I wasn’t going to let the king get away with how he treated me.”

“You’re Rena Rouge?”

But before she could make a witty retort about how she looked nothing like a fox at this moment, she heard the jingling of another bell behind her.

She turned, and Chat Noir made use of her distraction to escape her pin. But before she could see if Bubbler had indeed found her, something struck her in the chest and threw her back against the throne room doors. They flung open, and she tumbled into the large, open chamber, but it was not the hard marble floor beneath her. Something flexible pressed in around her and she bounced between its walls.

When she stopped spinning and managed to get to her feet, she found herself encased in a translucent blue bubble. She pressed her hands against its edges but it had no give.

She pounded against the unyielding sphere. “Let me out!”

Bubbler stepped into the throne room, cap jingling softly as he walked. In the silver moonlight she could see his painted face twist into an unpleasant grin. “You’ll be safe in there,” he said. “Tell me where Alya is, and hand over the miraculous gift of creation.”

“This isn’t you, Nino! This is Hawk Moth’s curse!”

Chat Noir had his own grievances about Rena Rouge laying claim to the miraculous gift of creation, but he set them aside for the moment. She was willing to fight to protect her gift from Hawk Moth, and right now, that was enough for him to count her as an ally in this fight.

He called on his Cataclysm and charged into the throne room.

Bubbler turned, but Chat Noir ducked beneath the brilliant yellow bubble hurled his way and slid past Bubbler right to the-girl-who-wasn’t-Ladybug. He touched his hand to the bubble encasing her and it crumbled to dust.

“No!” Bubbler snarled, and in his anger, flicked a stream of bubbles towards them.

Chat Noir yanked her behind one of the throne room’s pillars, and not a moment too soon. The bubbles struck the king’s throne, but instead of encasing it in a protective sphere, the throne crumbled from the force of the blow.

“Careful, La Baugette,” Chat said.

“It’s La Bugette,” she said, but even she didn’t like the way it sounded in her mouth. “Wonder Bug?” she tried.

“Stay still,” Bubbler snarled, and with another flick of his finger, hurled a stream of bubbles at the pillar.

She pulled Chat Noir back towards the center of the throne room as the marble cracked and crumbled from the impact. White dust fell from the ceiling, and she had a vague memory of her own curse doing something similar.

“You said you wanted to protect people!” she shouted at him. “Look at what Hawk Moth’s curse is making you do!”

And he paused. Even as he held his thumb against his ring finger, aimed at her and Chat Noir, he hesitated, and she was certain that she saw Nino flicker in the dark eyes left by Hawk Moth’s curse. He was in there, the boy who loved her as she was, not this curse that consumed him with this desire to hold her prisoner, to love her at the cost of her freedom.

“I… can’t…” He gritted his teeth and his hand trembled.

With a yell that was impossible to distinguish between indignation and resignation, Bubbler, flicked his finger at her. Chat Noir dove in the path of the bubble, unsure if it would destroy him like it had the throne or encase him like it had the guards, but he knew that it was only the miraculous gift of creation that could undo Hawk Moth’s curse, not his.

She may not be his lady, but he had to count on her to save them both.

The bubble struck him in the chest and it hurt, but it was not unlike being kicked by his cousin. He floated upwards, stopping only as the bubble pressed up against the ceiling. He was not eager for the lengthy drop to the floor, but he pounded against the bubble anyway. As he did, the first emerald in his ring flickered out.

“Wrap this up quickly, Back-Up Bug!”

She hated that name the most. But his sacrifice had given her an idea of where the curse was located, and even though she was terrified to fight Nino, she was not going to let Chat Noir’s sacrifice go to waste. It was Bubbler’s ring finger that conjured the bubbles, and that ring on his hand must be where the curse was located.

She couldn’t decide if it was unfair of Hawk Moth to take each of their promise rings or if it was only fair that she break Nino’s curse the way Ladybug had broken hers.

She threw her bandalore into the air and called on her Lucky Charm, as she had seen Ladybug do a dozen times. After a bright flash of white and pink light, a U-shaped pipe, decorated in red and black spots, fell into her hands.

Bubbler took aim at her again, and she saw the path to victory as clearly as if Tikki’s magical spots had been painted on each step in the plan. Bubbler released his magic and a stream of bubbles shot in her direction. She caught them in the pipe, looping them back around in his direction. He ducked, but she had expected that he would.

The bubbles struck the pillar behind him, and it crumbled on top of Bubbler, pinning him beneath the weight of its stone, not unlike the way she had been pinned that afternoon beneath a portrait.

She walked forward and pulled the blackened ring from his hand. With a heavy heart, she snapped it in two. The violet butterfly flitted from the crack and she caught it in her bandalore. She wondered for a moment if there was a trick to removing the curse, something no one but Ladybug knew, but just as she had known how to call on Tikki and Trixx’s magic by instinct, that same instinct called on the magic infused with her. Warmth filled her, like stepping out of the shade on a spring day, and when she opened the bandalore again, a white butterfly flitted out.

She wished it well, as she had seen Ladybug do a dozen times. She didn’t know if that blessing was part of the magic, but it felt right.

She turned and surveyed the mess of the throne room and the rubble that had collapsed on top of Nino. She had witnessed Ladybug remove the damage of Hawk Moth’s curses dozens of times before by throwing her Lucky Charm into the air and calling on her name, but she knew if she tried to cast this magic in the same way, it wouldn’t work. She needed to call on her own brand of that magic, on the person Tikki had called on to adopt the role of thief and traitor so that Ladybug could still be a hero.

She wasn’t Ladybug, but she knew who she was.

“Miraculous Scarabella!” she called as she threw the Lucky Charm into the air.

The dark palace was filled with the soft pink light of Tikki’s magic, and the shimmering ladybugs began to wash away all the damage that Hawk Moth had inflicted.

Chat Noir fell to the floor as the bubble encasing him vanished, but he landed on his feet. The pillars of the throne room reformed, as solid as they had been before Bubbler’s arrival, and Nino reappeared, no longer buried beneath the palace’s pillars.

He pulled his plain red cap from his head and rubbed it like it ached. He looked up at Scarabella with heartache in his soft brown eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She pulled him to his feet. “You had good intentions.”

“Doesn’t that make it worse?” he murmured.

Scarabella pulled him into a hug, and she felt him stiffen at the intimate contact, but she was not about to let him go. She whispered, “I promise to be a little less reckless if you promise to be a little more understanding that I need the freedom to make my own choices, even if they’re a bit dangerous.”

There was a long moment of silence as Nino processed not only her words, but the implications beneath them, that Scarabella knew and understood intimately exactly why he had been cursed. That Scarabella felt the need to apologize to him. “Deal,” he finally said.

She kissed him, but it was brief, cut off by a flicker in her ruby earrings. “If we want to save Trixx, we’re running out of time.”

Chat Noir was already at the door behind the throne. “Someone left it ajar for us,” he said, and pushed it open.

Nino kept one hand in Scarabella’s as they stepped into the small back room that served as a private office. “Is it normally open?”

“I don’t think anyone’s supposed to come in here except the king,” Chat Noir said, “and he doesn’t seem the type to leave a door open.”

Scarabella agreed. With a wrinkled nose, she asked, “There’s not another cat burglar running around the city, is there?”

“I can’t imagine anyone else would be bold enough to steal from the king himself,” Chat Noir said. Even he had never done it. But that was less because he was afraid of the consequences and more because sneaking around a building that he already felt trapped in had little appeal.

Scarabella tried to conjure something from her time as Rena Rage, some memory that might give her a clue about where Trixx was hidden. She brushed her hand along the desk and had a vague memory of breaking it in two. Surely after such damage, any secret drawers would have broken open and revealed the hidden fay.

Chat Noir paused in front of the portrait of Queen Emilie. He had been prepared to see it this time, and that alone made the swell of grief manageable, but he was still grateful that he had already burned his Cataclysm. He didn’t want to know how terrible Plagg’s magic could become when he was at his worst.

Nino stopped beside Chat Noir and also looked up at the painting. It was beautiful. Nino had certainly not known Queen Emilie, but he had seen her pass by in a carriage or wave from a balcony. He remembered her as regal and beautiful, and all of that was present in her imposing stare. But it was off somehow. Nino tipped his head to the side.

“It’s crooked?” he said.

He reached out and touched the frame. Chat Noir put out a hand to stop him, but didn’t quite reach Nino’s wrist.

“Wait—”

Nino tugged and discovered that the frame was not crooked. It was fastened straight to the wall but the wall was not set correctly, giving the appearance of a crooked frame. Nino pulled on the frame and it swung open, revealing a hidden safe.

Nino examined the lock on the safe. “Chat, I think this is your thing.” But when he turned back to look at Chat Noir, he saw that both Chat Noir and Scarabella alike were staring up at the painting, or rather the back of it.

Behind the frame, on the other side of this wall, stood another painting of Queen Emilie, dressed in blue and silver instead of gold. She wore a coy smile and a crown of flax flowers, though the yellow paint in the center was streaked, giving the flowers the appearance of starlight. The artist had also smeared something like rust across her face.

“Why does the king have two portraits of Queen Emilie?” Scarabella asked.

Chat Noir shook his head. “I don’t think that’s Queen Emilie.” But his ring and Scarabella’s earrings alike flashed and they were forced to set aside their shock.

Nino stepped out of the way so Chat Noir could get to the safe. “If Trixx is anywhere, he’s got to be in there.”

Chat Noir readily tucked one of his claws into the key hole and pressed his ear against the safe to listen for the pins and coils inside. His claws came in handy scaling walls, hopping fences, and breaking into locked doors. The magical boost to his hearing helped, too.

After only a moment, the door swung open, revealing a small iron cage with the familiar orange fay inside. There did not appear to be anything else in this safe, aside from the orange pendant, which surprised Chat Noir. Surely the king had something else to keep hidden away, or why have this safe at all?

Scarabella grabbed the small cage and used the indestructible string of her bandalore to snap the lock in two.

In a blur, Trixx flew out of the cage and pressed against her cheek. He knew her, even with the glamor of Tikki’s magic. He would know his bondswoman anywhere.

“Let’s go before our magic fades,” Scarabella said, even as she turned the scarf over her hair into a small pouch she could carry Trixx in. She took the pendant from Chat Noir and fastened it around her neck.

“But why is the safe empty?” Chat Noir asked.

And even Nino, too, did not feel ready to leave. He pressed his fingers against a seam in the wall behind the frame. “This doesn’t feel quite right.”

“We came for Trixx,” Scarabella reminded them, and her earrings flashed another urgent warning, “and we have him. I don’t fancy getting escorted out of the palace a second time today.”

Reluctantly, Chat Noir closed the safe door. He glanced up at the hidden portrait one more time before closing that, too. Why would King Gabriel hide a portrait of the duchess? And why keep a hidden safe for a fay he had only taken that morning?

He led Scarabella and Nino to the roof quickly, their journey only briefly impeded by the guards that had rushed the throne room to investigate the sounds of the battle with Bubbler. Scarabella and Chat Noir, however, did not have time for a chat. Scarabella hid Nino’s face from the guards as she and Chat Noir hurried out a window and up to the roof, where they paused between the two towers that framed the throne room, partially sheltered from the drizzle that the storm had petered into. He had less time to escape than Scarabella did, though at least he would not have as far to run.

“I suppose next time we see each other, you’ll be Rena Rouge?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I promised to return Trixx to the Forest of Fay. He’s been bound too long.”

“So this is goodbye, then.”

“You’re quitting too, aren’t you?” Nino asked.

Chat Noir shrugged. “If tonight was my last night, I suppose I won’t be sad it was with you. You were fun, Back-Up Bug.”

Scarabella stuck her tongue out at him. “Good night, Tomcat.” She pulled Nino against her chest, but before she leapt from the roof paused and looked back at Chat Noir. “I know the rich aren’t a fan of what you do, but the people appreciate the way you protect them alongside Ladybug. And I don’t know what she’d do without you.”

“I’d have her for life if she’d have me.” Another emerald on his ring flickered out, and, with a sad smile and a hasty salute, he dove off of the other side of the palace.

#so somehow I never posted this chapter to tumblr ??? oops my b #i was updating the tumblr table of contents and could not find this chapter anywhere so i think i just forgot it #embarrassing truly #boulangerella #ml fic #miraculous ladybug #nino lahiffe #miraculous ladybug fanfic #ml #ml fairytale au #ml fairy tale au

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