Cataclysm

The lie that broke the cat

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was feeling pretty lucky as of late. Stressed, sleepy and sometimes a bit too hungry, but lucky.

There was this weird balance in her life, on one hand she had a lot on her plate: Getting good grades at school, improving her designing skills, helping at the bakery, fighting akumas and the occasional criminal, hanging out with her friends and wooing Adrien Agreste. On the other hand, all of those things have been going pretty well, even if she had to cover with makeup the bags under her eyes before going to school and sometimes her pain au chocolat ended up forgotten in her room instead of in her stomach.

Alya might disagree with her and say that she was stressing herself thin, specially on that last item on her list; But to Marinette's standards, being able to actually talk to the boy of her dreams instead of babbling incoherences and having him be a part of their regular hangouts now was enough progress. She was not in a hurry, they were 16 after all and couldn't marry in two more years, so she had time. Alya hit her head when she heard that joke the first time she had to explain her ''slow progress''.

But being serious, Marinette really was enjoying her life, even with Lila's presence being a constant now and Chloe being as annoying as always, both with the (Light) bullying to Marinette and the nagging to Ladybug to get her miraculous back. And speaking of miraculous, Marinette was also training with Master Fu to become the guardian, though training was a strong word for one hour sessions a week of talking about philosophy and history and what not.

''The best thing a guardian can be, is careful, Marinette'' Repeated Master Fu for what Marinette thought was at least the 45th time this month. She never complained about his teaching and she was learning a lot about the miraculouses and their powers, but she thought that if one thing described Master Fu's way of Guardianing, was paranoid.

''Master, you always tell me to think of the worst case scenario but I don't think it helps on a fight, I usually just try to find a solution fast instead of thinking what happens if we lose'' She said, Tikki by her side nodding.

''I'm not talking about fights here Marinette, being a guardian is much more, you need to find the right person for the miraculous that are needed and you need to understand each of those people and the powers they are connecting with, and for that, you need to be extremely careful'' Master Fu seemed to be very passionate about this particular topic, Marinette thought, for he always lighted up when the conversation about finding new chosen ones started. It was a curious thing, considering he didn't want anyone else wielding a miraculous permanently.

''And how do you know that you chose correctly?'' She asks this time, a bit afraid of the answer. Master Fu chuckles and says ''The fact that you care more about fight scenarios than anything else is a good sign for me, Ladybugs have always been attracted to action and hands-on type of people''

''It's the best part of creation!'' Exclaims Tikki, and Marinette joins on the chuckling too. ''You are right, I suppose''

After that session with Master Fu, Marinette went home thinking of her partner, what characteristics did he have that made him a good fit for the miraculous of destruction? It was a disturbing question for anyone who didn't know Chat Noir well; Marinette was everyday more convinced that behind the flirting and the puns, was a true gentleman and one of the best people she knew. The slight pink tint on her cheeks while thinking that was just the product of her jog to get home before dinner. Yep.

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Adrien Agreste was feeling pretty unlucky as of late. Not that he wasn't happy with his father finally letting him have regular meetups with his friends and the fact that Ladybug actually laughed to one of his jokes the other night, he was certainly grateful for that. But he was feeling the weight of the pretences and too many coincidences lately making his life harder than it used to be.