#featuring Phone Thief!Plagg and Telemarketer!Plagg

[quicksilversquared]

The Phone Fiasco: Part 2

After Plagg recognized Tikki's voice over the phone, he's determined to get in contact with her. She's his other half, after all, and he hasn't seen her in forever.

Still, things never go quite the way they planned. Plagg's going to have to get creative if he wants to speak directly to Tikki.

(Part 1)

(AO3) (FF.net)

Plagg was bored.

This was hardly an uncommon occurrence in his life. He couldn't eat cheese all the time (though he tried his best) and Adrien had loads of boring activities to attend, so really, Plagg was actually very well-behaved, all things considered.

But he was still bored, and Adrien was busy washing up in the bathroom after a particularly grueling photoshoot. Last Plagg had checked, his Chosen was still waging a losing battle over the makeup he had had to don for the photoshoot. Adrien apparently had yet to figure out that it was waterproof and really, he needed to be using the makeup remover that someone (presumably Nathalie) had set on his bathroom counter for exactly that purpose.

So naturally, Plagg had to amuse himself until Adrien had finished getting both makeup and hairspray off. He briefly considered using the computer before discarding that idea. It was too tame, really. Plagg was looking for entertainment of another sort.

He wanted to pull a prank.

Cackling, Plagg floated towards Adrien's desk. Ooh, the things he could get away with, with everything in the Agreste mansion at his disposal. He could...

He could...

He couldn't think of anything to do.

Damnit.

It really was too bad that Adrien and Tikki's Chosen hadn't revealed themselves to each other yet, Plagg mused as he grouched along Adrien's desk, shoving things off of the surface grouchily. He knew the whole secret identity thing was important, especially at first when they weren't 100% certain that things were going to work out properly, but darn it he missed his other half. Tikki came up with the best prank ideas.

...wait.

Tikki.

The last time Plagg had heard from his other half, it had been in the most unexpected way. Adrien had called back a number that had called him half a zillion times. The person who had picked up had claimed to be a telemarketer had actually been Tikki, Plagg had been positive...and she claimed to be from the Wayazz Corporation.

The Wayazz Corporation, as in the corporation that, when Plagg looked it up in a middle-of-the-night flurry of doubt, didn't actually exist. The Wayazz Corporation, as in Wayazz, the turtle kwami.

Yeah, it definitely had been Tikki. Which meant that Plagg knew Tikki's Chosen's phone number. Which meant that Plagg could call up Tikki and bother her for ideas.

He would just have to not use Adrien's phone, since Tikki's Chosen might recognize the number. Of course, in a house like the Agrestes', finding another phone was easy. There was a house phone sitting right on Adrien's desk, and it was even light enough for Plagg to pick up and, if Adrien ever managed to exit the bathroom again, he could hang up quickly before he got noticed.

Mission firmly in mind, Plagg zipped off the desk and down to the floor, where Adrien's phone had landed after Plagg shoved it off of the desk (whoops). Plagg unlocked it quickly and navigated to the call log. Adrien hadn't ended up erasing the mysterious number (why, Plagg had no idea), but since it had been a good month since the call, it still took Plagg a minute to find the number he wanted. Wiggling a little in excitement (it had been so long since he and Tikki planned a good prank together!), Plagg copied the number onto an old cheese box he had made into a bed, closed out of the phone log, and lugged the cheese box over to the landline phone.

Oooh, Tikki was going to be so surprised.

After making sure Adrien was still busy (his Chosen, it seemed, had momentarily given up on the makeup and had decided to shower first), Plagg cackled and dialed the number. He punched the call button and waited eagerly.

Riiiiiiiing. Riiiiiiiing. Riiiiiiiiing.

"Hello?"

Plagg froze. That was a girl's voice, and it was decidedly not Tikki.

Whoops.

"Hello? Who is this?" the voice asked, sounding confused. The voice sounded familiar, and not just in the oh-yeah-that's-Ladybug way. "Is someone there?"

Well, he could always take a page out of Tikki's book.

"Hello, this is the Nooroo foundation!" Plagg blurted out a little frantically. He winced a little, cleared his throat (gotta sound professional! That was something he never thought he would have to say.) "Uh, how are you today?"

"Uh, I'm not interested in whatever you're selling," the girl on the other end said a little uncertainly. "But, uh, good luck and have a good day?"

"Ah, yes, and you as well," Plagg managed before a click sounded over the phone. He set the phone back down a little unsteadily and slumped next to the receiver.

Humans had never told him how stressful it was to make a phone call. It was terrible, horrible, and worst of all?

He had had to be polite. Ugh.

Really, Plagg should have guessed that Tikki's human would pick up the phone. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but he had been so excited about his idea that he hadn't stopped to think (not that thinking was his strong suit). Maybe he should have said the Tikki foundation instead, and then the girl would recognize the name- but then Tikki would have his head next time he saw her, and that would be bad-

"Uh, Plagg?" Adrien was standing by his bathroom door, freshly showered and magically de-makeup-ed. He must have found the makeup remover after all. He looked decidedly puzzled. "What are you doing with my phone?"

  Knowing that he had Tikki's Chosen's phone number was strangely frustrating. He couldn't tease Adrien with it, since the number was still on his cell phone and Plagg really didn't want to be responsible for a premature reveal (Tikki would end him), and worse, Tikki was right there but just out of reach. She had probably been able to hear his call and surely she knew it was him. After all, the Nooroo Foundation- or was it the Nooroo Corporation?- didn't actually exist. She would recognize the name.

Surely if he called again he would have a better chance of getting a hold of Tikki than he had had the first time.

The thought plagued Plagg for the next few days, especially during the downtimes when Adrien was busy and Plagg was not (which, unsurprisingly, was quite often). If he called again...maybe Tikki would pick up.

Hopefully.

"You already called me, just a few days ago," civilian-Ladybug said when she picked up the phone on the second ring, sounding less confused and more annoyed. "And I distinctly remember telling you I wasn't interested."

Plagg managed a nervous laugh, all the while cursing his luck. Of course Tikki's Chosen would answer her phone instead of Tikki if she were available. The only chance he stood was if Tikki managed to pick up while her Chosen was in another room or didn't hear her phone going off. Pity he didn't know the girl's schedule. "Oh, did we? My apologies, the data banks here at the, ah, Nooroo Corporation recently went down."

Her voice turned suspicious. "I thought it was the Nooroo Foundation."

"I- ah-" Plagg was taken off guard. Plagg did not like being taken off guard. It was not a feeling he often had. He had thought that he had remembered the name correctly. Whoops. "No, it's the Nooroo Corporation, you must have just misheard the first time. My apologies for calling you again BYE."

With that, Plagg slammed down the phone's receiver and slumped onto the desk. He briefly considered seeing if he could block Ladybug's number from calling back (because oh boy would he get in trouble if she called to complain; please Tikki don't let her do that) before deciding that it was too much work. He could just play dumb if anything happened.

Which it wouldn't (probably), because Ladybug probably had better things to do than call back a nonexistent corporation (foundation?).

Probably.

  Two weeks after his second failed phone call, Plagg was starting to get antsy again. He had tried calling from the Agreste home phone one last time and found the number blocked (whoops), so that obviously wasn't going to work anymore.

Still, the fact that Tikki was just barely out of reach was starting to really nag at him. He didn't even care about the prank ideas anymore (well, he did, but they were a very minor consideration in the grand scheme of things). Although he was loath to admit it, Plagg missed Tikki. The idea that he could call her, maybe exchange names of their Chosens or even figure out when they could hang out if their Chosens were ever close together during the day, was taunting him. He had to try at least one more time, but clearly he had to change his approach at least a little.

He couldn't use the Agrestes' home phone, that much was for sure, and he couldn't use Adrien's phone because for whatever reason Ladybug seemed to have his number. Tikki would be more likely to pick up instead of her Chosen if her Chosen was unable to answer the phone, like she would be, say, during the school day.

Of course, that meant that Plagg had to get his hands on a phone that wasn't Adrien's during the school day.

He would have to, uh, borrow, a phone, Plagg mused as he sat in Adrien's bag as his Chosen took a Physics test. And while cell phones weren't that heavy, relatively speaking, they were hard to carry. He would have to get the phone from someone sitting close to Adrien.

Definitely not that screechy blonde horror, Plagg decided, remembering the fuss she had made when he sort of helped misplace her bracelet. She would probably notice it missing the second class ended, and besides, crossing the aisle would be too dangerous. He might be seen.

Maybe the reporter girl? No, if there was an akuma attack she would notice her phone missing. Besides, if he somehow got caught in her bag...

Plagg shuddered to imagine it.

Plagg's eyes slid over to the reporter girl's stammery friend. He could maybe steal her phone- it would be easy, considering she sat directly behind Adrien, and she seemed the type not to freak out too much if he somehow was seen. She might not notice her phone missing for a class or two. But for whatever reason, the thought of sneaking into her bag and stealing something from her sent cold shivers running up and down Plagg's spine.

Maybe not.

That left Nino's phone. It also would be pretty easy to get, and since Adrien and Nino always sat together, it would be easy to get the phone back in his bag after Plagg was done trying to call Ladybug. There was always a chance of it backfiring and Ladybug calling Nino back if the call was missed, but Plagg really didn't care.

He was the god of destruction and chaos, after all. It would be funny.

And thus started Operation: Get A Hold Of Nino's Phone, For The Love Of All Things Cheesy, aka Operation GAHONPFTLOATC for short.

(Plagg needed to work on naming his operations.)

With fifteen minutes left of class, Plagg phased through Adrien's bag and snuck along under the table. He had to freeze a couple times, since Madam Mendeleiev was wandering around the classroom and would no doubt raise a fuss if she saw him. It only took a quick shuffle to phase into Nino's bag and drag his phone out of his bag and to the floor, all without making a sound.

Going back was surprisingly easier, since the teacher had had to go to the back of the classroom to answer a student's question. While she was still distracted, Plagg heaved the phone up over the top of Adrien's bag and dove in after it. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Adrien giving the bag- well, him, really, but details- a look. He'd probably get another talk later about not calling attention to himself during class, but it didn't matter. His mission was complete and he had Nino's phone, all before the bell rang to signal the end of class.

Success.

Plagg's jubilation didn't last long. The boys hadn't even reached their next class when they started debating about the answer to one of the questions on the homework and Nino decided to find the answer on his phone.

"I'll look it up," Nino said after it was clear neither of them was going to back down. "One second, I just need to find my phone." He reached for his bag, digging for his phone between his notebooks.

Plagg gulped and hurriedly buried Nino's phone under all of the cheese wrappers Adrien had forgotten to clean out of the bag.

A minute passed, and the sound of Nino's furious digging had yet to cease. "I can't find it! My phone is missing!"

Adrien's bag swayed as he came to a stop. Presumably Nino had as well. "Did you have it this morning?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I was listening to some beats on it on the way to school."

"Are you missing something?" the stammery girl asked. Adrien sifted again, presumably to let her and her reporter friend join the group. "We can help look for it- uh, maybe after class is over, though."

"My phone is missing," Plagg heard Nino explain. "I had it this morning."

"It's probably in your locker," the reporter girl said as the group started walking again. "You took out your headphones there, remember?"

Plagg let out a sigh of relief as there were sounds of agreement all around. He was safe for now.

  Tikki was having a relatively normal day. Marinette had gotten up with her alarm and gotten to class with plenty of time, there hadn't been any Adrien-related meltdowns, and best of all, there hadn't been any akuma.

Well, yet.

And then Nino's phone went missing.

Tikki listened absently as the four friends talked amongst themselves, trying to figure out where it could be. She was willing to bet that Alya was right and Nino left it in his locker, or maybe his bag was too messy to find it.

(She had been in Nino's bag once, when Tikki accidentally broke Marinette's pen and needed to replace it before her Chosen could ask what on Earth she had been trying to accomplish. It was an unholy mess, and Tikki was honestly surprised that Nino could find anything in that bag.)

Nino's phone was still missing when they got to their classroom, so of course Tikki was very surprised when Marinette got a call from Nino ten minutes into class.

The class had been broke up into groups to work on a project, making the classroom noisier than normal. Tikki let the phone continue to ring (on silent, so Marinette didn't hear) as she peered out of the bag. Just like she had thought, Nino was busy with his group and most definitely not on his phone. Which meant that someone else had Nino's phone.

And if they were calling Marinette, it was doubtless because they saw her name in Nino's contacts and wanted to get the phone back to him.

Well, if they didn't know Nino, they probably didn't know Marinette that well, either, Tikki decided as she reached for the phone. They wouldn't know the difference if she answered the phone instead of Marinette, and what harm could it do? The classroom was too loud for anyone to hear any noise from the phone, and any intervention from her would just get the phone back to Nino sooner.

"Hello?"

  When Adrien's next class broke out into groups, Plagg was thrilled. The noise from the talking would cover any and all noise from his phone call- well, unless Ladybug or Tikki yelled at him, of course. He was hoping that that wouldn't happen. He'd have a hard time explaining that.

Once Adrien was settled in with his group (with Ivan and Alix), Plagg squirmed his way to the bottom of Adrien's bag, where he was least likely to get caught, and pulled out the scrap of paper he had copied Ladybug's number onto. Quivering with excitement (Please let this work, please let this work...), Plagg punched the number in, ignoring the suggested contacts as he punched the call button.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. And then it picked up.

"Hello?"

"Tikki!" Plagg exclaimed, refraining the urge the squeal in triumph. At last, his plan had worked. "Hah! I knew I recognized your voice from that telemarketer call! How are you?"

"Plagg?!" Tikki sounded nothing short of incredulous. "What- why- what are you calling me for, Plagg? And why do you have Nino's phone? Did you steal it?"

...ah. Plagg had forgotten how much of a kill-joy Tikki could be when it came to possibly vaguely illegal activities. Momentarily borrowing his Chosen's friend's phone would probably qualify as such.

"Well, your Chosen wouldn't quit picking up the calls meant for you," Plagg retorted. "And then she blocked my Chosen's home number, so I had to get creative."

"By stealing a phone." Tikki didn't sound particularly impressed. She muttered something about "always with the phones, really", which didn't make any sense at all considering that Plagg hadn't ever taken a phone before now.

"I'll give it back!" Plagg whined in protest. "Really, I thought you would be glad that I actually put in effort for something besides cheese. Cheese is grateful when I put in the extra effort to get it."

There was a huge sigh from the other end of the line. "Cheese can't be grateful, Plagg."

"Of course it can. It tastes better than normal."

The second exasperated sigh on the other end of the line made Plagg snicker, but he still wasn't going to back down. Cheese did taste better when he had to work for it, but then again if he had to work for all of his cheese instead of getting it handed to him, he would be very hungry and very sad. He preferred to have quantity over quality, though, since while his hard-earned cheese tasted better, it wasn't so much better that he was willing to give up other cheese for it. That would just be insanity.

"So why were you trying to call me, then?" Tikki asked after a pause. "Other than just to have an excuse to steal people's phones?"

"One person's phone," Plagg corrected automatically. "And was I wrong for wanting to talk to you? Our Miraculous have been dormant for ages and our Chosen haven't revealed themselves yet, so when I heard you pretending to be a telemarketer..."

"Which I wouldn't have had to do if you- wait. You heard my telemarketer impression?" Tikki sounded surprised. "But that would mean your Chosen is-"

"Yeah, yeah, he's a blond pretty boy. He makes a good Chat Noir though, eh?" Plagg was quite proud of him, actually. He just didn't show it, or else it would go to the kid's head, or maybe he'd get mushy.

The kid was already mushy enough when it came to Ladybug. Plagg really didn't want to have to deal with a heart-to-heart conversation about her on top of all the mooning Adrien already did with zero prompting whatsoever.

"Anyway, this phone-stealing thing is annoyingly difficult," Plagg added when it seemed like Tikki wasn't going to respond. "So I was thinking, if your Chosen could maybe unblock my Chosen's home phone and put it in her contacts as 'For Tikki', I could call you up when I get bored and need prank ideas."

Plagg could practically feel the steam coming out of Tikki's (nonexistent) ears as she responded. "I'm not doing that. My Chosen would ask too many questions about how you got her number. Besides, I'm not supposed to answer the phone. We can wait until they're ready to do a reveal."

Plagg only just refrained from pouting. "Oh come on."

"No more stealing phones, either," Tikki scolded, clearly ready to hang up. She let out a long-suffering sigh, and Plagg pictured her rolling her eyes. "You and my Chosen would get along like a house on fire. Both of you with the stealing phones thing..."

Plagg sniggered. Tikki's Chosen had a tendency to steal phones? He was already looking forward to the reveal going down. Even if he had no clue who Ladybug was, he liked her already. Maybe they could double-team Adrien into being less well-behaved. A little rebellion would be good for him.

Also...Plagg was starting to put together the pieces as to why Tikki's Chosen might have had to call Adrien's phone a million times in the first place. Adrien's phone had gone mysteriously missing the day before, and when it was (mysteriously) returned, it (very mysteriously) was missing the voicemail that had been left during Adrien's fencing practice. Ladybug had called seven or eight times in quick succession, which wouldn't make sense if she were trying to reach Adrien, but if she was using the ringing from Adrien's phone to track down where the phone was...

Sneaky. Plagg approved. Maybe the two of them could come up with prank ideas together if Tikki refused to help.

"I'm going to hang up now and get rid of all evidence of this call," Tikki announced when Plagg didn't say anything more. "I'm sure they'll be ready for a reveal within a year or so. That's practically a blink of an eye for us!"

"Uuuugh," Plagg complained, antennae drooping in disappointment. "That's too long. I'm bored now."

Tikki giggled. "You do realize that when the reveal goes down, our Chosens might start dating, right?"

Plagg let out a squawk that was loud enough to have Adrien kick his bag. Plagg ignored the hit (so rude!), though he did lower his voice. "That would be a reveal too soon! Please, Tikki, the sap would just get even more intolerably mushy if that happened! Maybe we could wait, say, ten years? Fifteen?"

"We're not putting off a reveal just so you don't have to put up with another dating couple, Plagg," Tikki said, sounding fully exasperated. "You'll survive. Goodbye."

"You don't understand!" Plagg said frantically, trying to imagine the sickening levels of mushy goo Adrien would no doubt achieve if he and Ladybug started dating. It would be all Ladybug this and Ladybug that and ooh she has the most gorgeous eyes and ugh, even the mere thought was enough to make Plagg lose his appetite.

Well, mostly. Very little was enough to make him completely lose his appetite.

"He's a romantic, Tikki, it'll be worse than all of the others!" Plagg moaned into the phone. He had had Chosens date before and some were worse than others about the gushing. Plagg had reason to believe that Adrien would be the worst of the lot. There would probably be sappy love-letter-writing on both sides, and awful poems, and stuffed teddy bears holding satin hearts, and boxes of fancy chocolates, and giant bouquets of flowers that would make Plagg sneeze, and probably skywriting too, knowing Adrien's ridiculous extravagance, unless someone put their foot down. "They can wait to find out, they fight well enough now without knowing- Tikki?"

A dial tone was his only answer.

Plagg was still grumbling by the end of the class, when Adrien peered into his bag to check on the kwami. Since Adrien and Nino hadn't been sitting near each other during the class, Plagg was still sitting on Nino's phone and of course, Adrien noticed within a second. Plagg's eyes widened, but it was too late to hide his stolen loot in the mess at the bottom of Adrien's bag. Adrien scowled at him, then pretended to dig in his bag as the rest of the class filtered out.

"What were you doing with Nino's phone?" Adrien demanded as soon as they were alone in the classroom, snatching the phone from Plagg and swiping it open to make sure Plagg hadn't messed anything up. Plagg watched in amusement as his Chosen pawed through his friend's phone frantically in search of any unpleasant surprises Plagg might have tried to leave. He wasn't going to find anything, because Plagg hadn't planned on being caught red-handed- or, rather, red-pawed. Unconcerned, Plagg focused on cleaning his long, whisker-like antennae.

And then Adrien found something.

"You made a call?" his Chosen demanded, double-checking the time of the call. With a start, Plagg realized that he had made the exact same mistake Tikki's Chosen had when she "borrowed" Adrien's phone- forgetting to clear the phone log. "Why did you call Marinette?"

Plagg froze with his mouth open, ready to protest that no, he hadn't called Marinette (because he had called Tikki's Chosen's phone, duh), when something clicked in his brain. He closed his mouth and tipped his head to the side, suddenly contemplative.

Huh...black hair, pigtails, blue eyes, shorter than Adrien, good leader...

Perhaps he had called Marinette's phone. That would certainly explain why he hadn't dared to steal her phone from her bag, since Tikki would doubtless be there. And it would further explain the missing phone fiasco that had started this whole thing, because Marinette had had a hard time talking at all in front of Adrien (thanks to the completely obvious crush that his Chosen somehow still hadn't noticed), so it didn't take a genius to deduce that she probably had left an embarrassing voicemail that she absolutely had to erase- thus the phone stealing.

As Adrien continued to berate him, Plagg just started cackling. He had seen all sorts of ridiculous shenanigans between his and Tikki's Chosens before, but this- this love square- was absolutely insane.

Yeah, they could wait on the reveal for a while. This was gonna be hilarious to watch.

  Bonus

"We've been fighting this akuma for half an hour and Chat Noir still hasn't shown up, Tikki!" Marinette complained, pushing her sweat-dampened bangs out of her face as she watched her kwami recharge. She could barely make out Tikki's shape in the dim light from the moon. "I bet he's asleep since it's so late, but I really could use his help right now."

Tikki shifted uncomfortably as she ate the cookie. Technically she knew how to get a hold of Chat Noir, thanks to Plagg's little escapade with the phones, but did how much did she really want to tell Marinette? She didn't want to explain too much about how she knew who Plagg's Chosen was, and Marinette would definitely notice if Tikki dialed up Adrien's number, since she had had it memorized for months. Plagg hadn't used Adrien's phone, though (a fact for which Tikki was everlastingly grateful; after all, if he had used Adrien's phone, they could have easily ended up with a very muddled, very confused reveal that could have thrown off Ladybug and Chat Noir's partnership for a while. It was better to wait until Marinette and Adrien were better friends before springing that on them), and he'd used that same number twice and had tried at least one more time, which meant that he hadn't been using a borrowed phone.

Which meant that, in theory, if they called that number back, Adrien- er, Chat Noir- could be reached.

"I wish we could use the communicators in real life," Marinette was grumbling as Tikki mentally debated the pros and cons of telling Marinette that they might have a way of contacting her partner. Pros: Getting this fight done so that Marinette could actually get some sleep before her alarm went off and having a much safer fight so that Ladybug's earrings weren't taken.

Cons? If it was a cell phone that Plagg had been using, Chat Noir could trace the number back to Marinette. Marinette could accidentally figure out who Chat Noir was, if she recognized the number. There might be too many questions asked on both sides, and Tikki wasn't completely certain that she could trust Plagg to deflect them well enough...though of course, she could always visit Plagg in Adrien's bag during the school day to make sure that Plagg would do his part on Adrien's side to keep him from discovering anything.

In the end, the two kwami could probably run enough interference to keep the cons from happening. She and Marinette definitely could use the help with this akuma, and really, they could probably take the guy down in less than five minutes with Chat Noir's help.

"I know how we can call Chat Noir," Tikki announced as Marinette pondered the pros and cons of setting off a city-wide alarm to rouse her partner out loud. The pros mostly involved wake up the cat and the cons involved a very long, very overdramatic list of the possible upset, over-the-top reactions the citizens of Paris might have to having their beloved superheroine waking them all up rudely in the middle of the night, even if it was for a good cause. "Let me have your phone. I'll call his home number."

Marinette froze in the middle of con number 18,they would trash the statue of her in the park. "You-what?!"

"At least, I think it should work," Tikki corrected herself, brushing the cookie crumbs off of her front and holding out her arm for Marinette's phone. "I'll dial so you don't see the number."

"How do you know Chat Noir's phone number?" Marinette demanded as she handed over her phone. Tikki took it with a hum of thanks and started scrolling through Marinette's blocked numbers in search of the one she had labelled 'Weird Corporation Thingy'

"I'm a god. We know everything." Tikki unblocked the number and tapped the call button before holding the phone up to Marinette's ear. If this was the Agreste's home phone, it was possible that someone else might answer (which could be very bad). "Just, uh, make sure it's Chat Noir's voice first before you say anything, okay? I think it's a family phone number."

Marinette let out a quiet eep. "But what if he has brothers that sound like him?"

"He doesn't," Tikki reassured her. Adrien was an only child, after all, and she was pretty positive that anyone with ears would be able to tell the difference between Adrien's voice and his father's. "Be ready, someone's picking up!"

"Hello?"

  Adrien was rudely awakened by the sound of a phone ringing in the middle of the night. He sat upright with a groan, first reaching for his cell when he realized that it was the phone on his desk that was ringing instead. He furrowed his brow in confusion, completely perplexed as to why on Earth anyone would be calling at this time of the night. He was the only one with a phone in his room; the other one was on Nathalie's desk, and of course Nathalie had long since left for the day. If someone wanted to get in contact with his father, they had to call his cell phone. Gabriel had long since quit having a home phone extension in his room, since it would wake Adrien as well whenever he received a late-night call.

So if he wanted the ringing to stop, Adrien would have to answer it himself.

Adrien sleepily slid out of bed and plodded across his carpet towards the phone. It was still ringing persistently when Adrien picked it up, hitting the 'answer' button before holding it up to his ear. "Hello?"

"Chat Noir?"

Adrien's heart stopped as his entire body froze and he stared blankly at the wall. Someone had found him out. Oh god, oh god, oh god, Ladybug was going to be so ticked at him-

"There's an akuma near Collège Françoise-Dupont and I need your help. Can you transform and get over here in the next five minutes?"

Ladybug?! It couldn't be, yet Adrien would recognize his partner's voice anywhere.

"I, uh, I- I mean-" Adrien's brain had ground firmly to a halt. He hadn't had enough sleep to deal with this. "I- yes?"

"Good. See you soon."

Click.

There was a long silence as Adrien tried to figure out what on Earth had just happened. The receiver in his hand stayed black and cold, offering no clues. Adrien's brain finally kicked back into gear and his mind raced, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

His mind came up completely blank.

"How does she know my number?" Adrien demanded of the air after a long moment as he stood at his desk, phone still in hand. "How did she get my number- does that mean she knows who I am? But then why wouldn't she call me by name, and seriously, how did she get my number?"

Plagg, who had been awakened by the ringing and was none too happy about the continuing noise, peeked one annoyed green eye out from where he was sleeping in a discarded cheese box. "What are you yowling about?"

"Ladybug called me! How did she get my number?" Adrien had gone from shell-shocked to slightly frantic in approximately three-tenths of a second, and now his hands were gripping his hair and making it stand up in all directions. "Does she know who I am? She must, that's the only way she could have figured out who to call- and how did she get the home phone number? It would've made more sense to call my cell phone, since if she called during the normal part of the day Nathalie would've picked up. Both of those numbers are unlisted, though, so-"

"Didn't you promise Ladybug that you would be over by the collège in five minutes?" Plagg asked as his charge spun in slightly worrying circles in front of his desk. "Are you going to transform or not?" He yawned widely, showing off small, pointed teeth. "And her kwami probably told her. We're gods. We know everything."

That clearly wasn't the right thing to say. Adrien spun on Plagg with wide eyes. "You do? Do you know who Ladybug is? Do you know where Hawkmoth is? Do you know who Hawkmoth is? We could have used that information ages ago-"

"Okay, we don't know everything," Plagg corrected hastily before Adrien could get on a roll. "We know some things. I may have passed on your home number to Tikki at some point."

"Ah, so that was just you trying to take the easy way out of the question." Adrien paused, thoughtful, then pointed a finger at Plagg as his face lit up again. "So do you know Ladybug's number, then?"

"No," Plagg claimed immediately. He would never get any rest if Adrien knew that Plagg knew Ladybug's cell phone number. "And if I did, I wouldn't tell you. I bet Tikki typed your number in and didn't let Ladybug get a look at it."

"But-" Adrien started, reaching for the phone again. Plagg suppressed a curse- his boy was far too inquisitive, especially when it came to Ladybug. He would have to screw with the landline phone log when Adrien wasn't looking and destroy all evidence. If the phone got a teensy bit damaged in the process, so be it. It wasn't as though Mr. Agreste couldn't afford to replace it.

He'd have to do that after they came back, when Adrien was too tired to do anything but hit his pillow face-first.

"Ladybug is expecting you in two minutes," is what Plagg said instead. He feigned nonchalance, yawning as he peered up at Adrien, acting for all the world as though he wasn't concerned about Adrien finding Ladybug's number and then from that, finding out her identity. "Are you planning on letting her down?"

His words had the intended result; Adrien yelped, pulling his hand away from the phone and charging for the window. "I'm not done with my questions!" he yelled over his shoulder as he vaulted the couch. "But they can wait 'till later! Plagg, transform me!"

As he was sucked into the ring, Plagg sighed. Somehow he suspected that he would be regretting his escapade with the phone for a long, long time.