Just my Luck -Book 1

Chapter 5: Horifiheart

*****A/N this was written before miraculous combos were a thing.  And before Shadow Moth made his appearance. ***

Just before the Akuma attack, Chat had been stupid. Very stupid. 

Being stupid for Chat Noir wasn't an unusual occurrence. Luckily his partner and love of his life, Ladybug, was an expert at cleaning up his messes. He thought back to what had just happened as he pole-vaulted through the city with his extendable baton and headed straight towards the stream of screams which had erupted on the other side of town.

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After she had ran up the stairs, he had stood there awkwardly for a moment staring blankly at the stairs she had just run up until Plagg snapped him out of his daze. "So, why'd you volunteer to model her Chat Noir suit? What happened to 'Oh no, everyone's going to find out who I am?' You want her to find out, don't you?"

Tell Mari his secret? The thought had crossed his mind, and she was one of his closest friends, so he knew he could trust her. But Ladybug was right about it being safer not to anyone, even the people they are closest to. Adrien shook his head. "Well, no. I hadn't really thought it through..."

"That's a surprise." Plagg rolled his eyes. "I don't think she's coming back down..."

He was right, of course. You weren't a true friend of Mari if you didn't witness at least one Mari moment on a daily basis, and she usually disappeared for a bit after each awkward moment. "I think someone should go check on her..." But not Adrien. That would probably only embarrass her more. 

He looked for a fire escape and, making sure nobody was looking first, then he transformed into Chat Noir. He jumped to her roof, dangled down, and looked in through the window. She was reading his school notes and it looked like she was already trying to catch up on her homework. There's the responsible Mari that I know. He was about to leave when he saw a teardrop from her cheek and onto the paper. His heart sank. She had been crying. 

He knew that it would be risky to show up right after she had been talking to Adrien because Mari was pretty smart and he was sure she would put 2 and 2 together, but he had to make this right. Marinette was precious to him and he'd never let anything happen to her. He knocked on the window, and then came inside. They talked, and she was worried that Adrien would hate her. Chat reassured her that he didn't, and then hugged her. 

But that had been a stupid mistake because when he was hugging her he... got distracted. Her hair smelled good, her skin was so soft, and something felt right about her being in his arms. And he found himself thinking the first time since he met her before he was smitten with Ladybug, that Marinette Dupain-Cheng was quite a pretty girl.

He didn't have time to think about it because the Akuma alarms went off. He jumped to another roof... in time to see a large alien-like creature made of stone tromping through the streets of Paris, leaving car-sized potholes in its wake. He pulled out his cat phone and dialed. "My lady, where are you? We've got a big problem here... well make that a giant problem..." He said as the monster got bigger. It was a new monster, but there was definitely something familiar about it.

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A masked man and woman stood in a dark room, as a steel wall opened up to reveal a butterfly-shaped window. The man, dressed in a dark plum suit and blue vest, rested his weight on an old -fashioned silver walking cane. Beside him, the woman wore an old-fashioned cocktail dress in complementary colors. She hid her masked face behind a large peacock feathered fan. At first glance, they looked like a couple, except for the fact that they shared no outward expression of emotion whatsoever.