Three weeks down the line, and Marinette had been practicing her Conversion Traits ability to alter the physical properties of atomic structure, for hours upon hours at a time. Everyday had been the same for her for the last twenty-one days. She would go to her school, she would learn, study, go to Enrichment classes the days they were on, and then she would come home, and use the chunk of diamond that she had copied form her mother's diamond form to try to change it into coal. She would try as hard as she could, for hours and hours on end, before she couldn't try anymore. Each night often saw her room cluttered with a thousand tiny, or large, diamonds from the failed attempts.
But try as she might, she couldn't figure out how her ability to change the atoms directly worked. All that ever happened was that she would just duplicate them, even when that hadn't been the thing she had wanted to do. It ceased making sense to the blue haired girl, who just growled in frustration whenever it happened.
"Rrrrgh...." She groaned, and tugged at her hair in disgruntlement. How was she this bad with her own powers?...
Every few nights, she would go and meet up with Chat Noir, and the two of them would go over various plans and discuss what they felt they needed to do throughout the week. Patrolling was a dangerous task for them, since any patrolling Heroes would attack them on sight. Even meeting up proved to be a dangerous thing that they did, since anyone who saw them now knew exactly who they were.
Sometimes they would find something petty, like a mugging or a shoplifter that they would traditionally easily defeat, and then leave them in an area the Heroes and police would be unable to miss them at. As it turned out, the Heroes tended to take out the most dangerous of criminals themselves which was to be expected. It was their self-appointed jobs, after all, the role that they had chosen to lead throughout their lives. That left only the weaker criminals, with the weaker Traits and abilities, committing the smaller crimes that a lot of Heroes would overlook in favor of bigger, potentially disastrous events.
Perhaps then, the fact that Ladybug and Chat Noir were actually starting to receive some support on the Parisian streets wasn't unexpected then. As they saved more people, and took out more and lower key criminals that the official Heroes either simply didn't notice, couldn't be there, or had to ignore, some people, although they would never, ever say it out loud, become more and more willing to simply just ignore a sighting of the two Vigilantes. Support of Vigilantism was almost never accepted. But if you simply ignored it, or forgot to report it...
It was the closest their secret supporters would be able to do.
Mairnette sighed once again. It had been two hours since she had gotten home, and not a single thing had changed in regards to her Conversion Trait. She still wasn't able to utilize her powers to their absolute maximum. She just... Couldn't do it.
With a tired eye, she looked around her desk, noticing all the hundreds of thousands of tiny diamonds that cluttered her desk, and dropped onto the floor all around it. Luckily, she had learned her lesson the first time, and since then, in order to avoid searching for the ones that scattered throughout the entire room for the next six hours, Marinette had created a capture fabric that caught the diamonds as they fell. When they hit the floor, they handed on this, and all rolled into the center, making them far easier to collect up at once.
She decided that she was finished for the day, clicking all her fingers at once as she stretched. Opening one eye to glance at her desk, she saw her digital clock informing her that it was 17:00. Looking at the piles of diamonds in her captured net, and on her desk, she decided that they needed to be properly disposed of, before it got too dark to do so today. Knocking the ones on her desk into her growing mountain of precious rocks on the floor, she allowed them to be captured and added to the collection in the middle. She then tied them all up, and dragged the makeshift bag outside.
A diamond is an immensely valuable thing. Such a rare material, formed at such specifically perfect conditions for billions and billions of years, the current world saw diamonds reaching prices of over €3000 per carat. An entire economy had been placed on them, due to their insane levels of privilege and luxury to those who could afford them.
They were precious, valuable minerals.
But in the world of Traits, these things were never as secure as they seemed. Not even the evolution of their world, billions and billions of years of heating, cooling, rotation, and evolution, would mean that these precious rocks would keep their value anymore.
Marinette was aware that with her ability to create atoms, she had the very real power to absolutely crash the value of diamonds. All she had to do was duplicate the diamond skin that her mother was able to create, and she would crush the rarity and value of the precious rocks, making them about as valuable as the ground of minerals that filled up a sandbag.
And indeed, it wasn't an uncommon side effect of Traits either. There were a million Traits on the planet that utilized minerals and other various materials that would otherwise be considered precious, and made them into something painstakingly common. Crystals that were used as shields, now could no longer be charged for up to as a souvenir when someone could just create one out of the palms of their hands and charge €5 down the street. No one could do a trade on metals when one country had someone who had the create metals.
Indeed, value for precious objects went down the more Traits existed, which lead to a huge crash in the economy. This was one of the main factors of the Great Depression that kicked in partway through the Great Trait War, and even went straight through it. Powers, for all their value, and how they defined the way life was, for Humans, Primals, and Abnormals, had the capacity to send their world into utter turmoil.
That was why Marinette was making her way to dispose of these rocks she found herself in possession of.
Across the globe, facilities that were dedicated to the incorporation of materials that were created due to the effects of Traits. Appropriately known as Disposal Dumps, the law legally required anyone who had created a material of value to dispose of them at these locations, in order to protect the global economy. They even had crews who would gather any sort of residue that Heroes left behind from their battles, to make sure that no one stole any precious rocks and used them to make a fortune.
These facilities were equipped with high tech scanners, to confirm that the materials being processed were indeed made because of a superpower. Traits often gave off a very specific residual energy within any objects that were created because of them, and as a result, they could be segregated form naturally occurring metals. This helped these facilities in not being taken advantage of by embittered individuals, and also aided them in sending the precious metals and materials back to keep the economy on the right track.
Whenever materials were taken, they were assessed based on value, the demand for them, and how much of a surplus the world was currently working with. Depending on these factors, the materials could either be destroyed, stored, or added to the surplus to keep stocks high in them. If demand was low, but surplus was low, the materials could be used to create objects, such as stairs, banisters, tables, and all manner of things that may not be possible to help demand increase.
Essentially, they were the ultimate recycling plants.
It was a place that Marinette was fairly used to visiting regularly, due to her Trait's nature. Constantly having to bring back materials that she wasn't using or were at risk of shattering the globally market, she obeyed the laws put in place willingly and happily, dragging the bag of diamonds along in an old cat that she had purchased specifically to aid in such matters.
The blue haired girl sighed, occasionally looking back to the tied up beige coloured back in her pulling cart, filled to the brim with diamonds. Not one had been turned into a lump of coal, like she had wanted them to. Her power was simply too advanced for her to handle yet. She had to learn, and learn, and learn...
Classes had been going on throughout the week, she had been learning a huge amount from everything that she'd been doing. From combat practice classes and Enrichment lessons, and combined with her Vigilantism? She was becoming more and more combat capable with every day, and her powers were coming in useful when she was able to use them as she was comfortable with. Of course, combat wasn't the thing that she prided herself on, unlike someone like Kim or Adrien. But the better she got at it, the better she felt about herself.
She had kept her constant training on her Conversion Trait a secret though. She wanted to figure it out on her own, to get better at her ability to independently learn more about her own Trait.
Enwrapped in her thoughts, she found herself at the Disposal Dumps within a very short amount of time. At around this time, the streets were still active, many people walking to and from places, and the Disposal Dump was still open, although it was nearing the closing times. The dumping ground looked akin to that of a production factory combined with a junkyard, as the building was tall and large, pumping a ginormous cloud of white steam into the sky, a result of their water based cooling equipment. The building itself was fairly grey, with a few dulled out windows. Surrounding the building and its premises, was a high, metallic wall, designed to keep people from seeing the goods that the junkyard held, but also to keep them out to boot. Barbed wire acted as a deterrent to anyone who wanted to climb over the construct. Of course, attempts were still made.
Walking into the front door, Marinette was greeted by the receptionist, whom she actually knew fairly well, since she showed up here like clockwork, at least one time a month. The receptionist was a mid-twenties woman who had naturally red skin. She was led to the processing plant, where all of her diamonds were processed, by some incredibly bewildered plant workers.
"Where in the heck did all of this stuff even come from?!" One of the workers asked, picking up a diamond and inspecting it with shimmering eyes. This was a new worker, one Marinette hadn't met before. A few of his co-workers were to the side, chuckling at their new workmates surprise towards the blue girl's delivery.
"My Trait." Marinette responded, helpfully informing the new worker of her ability. "I duplicate atoms and put them into any form that I like."
Once everything was scanned and confirmed, the diamonds were returned to Marinette, for her to place in the growing piles of materials that cluttered the junkyard. She often took an interest in what surrounded her whenever she stepped out into this place, finding a great manner of hints as to what different minerals and things people were capable of creating with their abilities.
Crystals and emeralds were common ones, and presumably were acquired by members of the Disposal force and police bringing them here after a Hero used them in combat against Villains, or in use from Villains against Heroes. Either way, here they were, tossed aside like a common aluminium can on the street, preparing to be either recycled or obliterated into nothingness.
Other such creations included a large quantity of stainless steel, which would almost certainly wind up being recycled. Ruby and sapphire, all strewn across the place. Gold and a huge number of incredible objects, valuables, and another such sort. While it looked like a pirates treasure cove that someone could live comfortably on for centuries, it was, in reality, a huge risk to the society they lived in for this stuff to exist like this. Until the economy changed, or a shift in society required it, these facilities would be around for a long time.
As Marinette made her way to find a clearing where she could dump these precious rocks, she saw a few other people wondering around the place, some in varying clothing. Some of them in some of the rare schools in the country that had a uniform. Some of them adults who had to drop some things off at the same time. All of them were Creation Type Trait users, who all how a power that could create something from matter, or even create that matter from nothing.
Ironically, the ones who could create things like this were some of the most trusted people in the world. They could create. They had no need to steal such things from other people. The people who were the ones who ran the risk of ruining the entirety of society, were the ones you could trust with your wallet and credit card details – They simply had no need to take them.
Many of them were making their way out of the zone, with only a few of them still dropping off things that they needed to be rid of. Marinette found a spot near a pile of rare quartz crystal, so she made her way over there, and dumped the tens of thousands of diamonds by them. She had to have just dumped what would be worth well over seven million Euros in just that one bag. Funny how the world worked, wasn't it, she thought to herself. Some people would kill to get hold of something like that, and here she was throwing it out like garbage. Still, the law was the law for the Creative Type Trait Users.
She began to turn to leave, but suddenly, she heard what sounded like a scream, from the other side of the wall. High pitched, like a young child, and suddenly, footsteps, and next, panicked screams. Something was happening, right outside.
"What the hell?..." Marinette muttered to herself.
In that exact moment, a glow of green shimmered over the wall, heat seeming to radiate from it. It seemed to go over the entire dumps courtyard, causing the air above it to become humid and warm. Many were prompted to run away out of a lack of understanding and concern for their well-being. Those who remained saw the wall closest to Marinette begin to melt down, through the use of a heating Trait. The ones who hadn't run away now began to.
Excluding Marinette.
Unlike the civilians, Marinette ducked behind one of the many piles of valuable materials, and quickly rummaged through her backpack. She knew what was happening. It wasn't like these were uncommon occurrences.
The steel wall now weakened enough for the thug to move it with their bodyweight, the metal was quickly ripped apart, and from it, came a group of three people. All of them wore balaclavas, hiding their appearances from view, and none of them wearing anything obvious that would give away their anatomy or boost their powers. Each of them was wearing the black balaclava, a grey trench coat, and were carrying a duffel bag each.
"Make this quick, boys!" The one who stepped through the wall first, the one with the melting powers, declared, already dashing into the compound to grab as many valuable things as he could. "Before the Heroes show up, grab the loot and get ready to go!"
Villains. Thugs. People who were desperate, or stupid. Attempting to attack such a facility in order to steal the minerals inside it to make some very quick, very easy, and very valuable cash. These concepts have been brought into play the very second Disposal Dumps came into being, hundreds of attacks happening every month worldwide. In a society of Heroes, it wasn't considered to be a huge deal, since aforementioned Heroes could take care of it.
But the Heroes weren't here yet.
Yet Marinette – Ladybug – She was here.
"Am I safe?..." She wondered aloud, bringing out the Ladybug costume. Quickly, she applied the mask as fast as she could, and slipped into her Vigilante costume as quickly as possible. Normally, she would shy away from such an obvious attack on a civilian area. The Heroes were sure to come by and deal with it themselves, and her going there would simply be a huge risk to them uncovering who she was.
But she was frustrated today. Her lack of progress with developing her powers the way that she had wanted them to develop had left her irritated, and actually wanting to get into a fight. Plus, these guys weren't going to be much trouble.
After all, surrounded by these materials? She had the field advantage so strongly it nearly felt unfair. Not to mention her yo-yo.
Another one of the thugs ran over near her location, grabbing fistfuls of amethysts and rubies, and shoving them into their large bag. Six, seven, eight hands full later, he moved to another pile, this time, one made of gold and crustal. Another seven, nine, eleven handfuls, before he went to the pile Marinette had hidden behind.
Five handfuls. Seven handfuls....
And a swift kick to the back of the head, directly in the pressure point, from Ladybug. The kick smacked the thug' head into the pile of sapphires, the added weight and sudden movement at the base causing a figurative ton of the precious rocks to fall atop him, rendering him totally out cold if the kick hadn't done so already.
Ladybug grinned. No one had seen her changing into her costume, and she'd gotten a sneak attack off on one of the thugs. Right now, while it was two to one, she was the one who had gained the upper hand.
"Two!" One of the thugs called out, with clear anger and frustration. Two, presumably being the code name that the thug Ladybug had rendered unable to fight had selected, in order to hide who they were. In a way, their code names and masks made them similar to Marinette. Except Ladybug was a Vigilante-Hero. Two was a thief and a thug.
Ladybug stood with her feet apart, and her guard up. Her left hand held her yo-yo tightly, and her blue hair blew slightly with the wind. Since she had been taking combat practice classes thanks to the enrichment course at the CFD, she had developed some humble muscle structure, which was made a bit more obvious thanks to this skin-tight costume. Her calves were obviously more bulk than one expected from a girl like her, and she had some muscle to her biceps. Not a huge amount, and nothing close to Adrien's level, but it was enough to have given her a new level of physical prowess that she hadn't been entirely sure she would ever gain in her life.
She liked having them. It felt good.
"Make this easier and just give it up." She told the would-be thieves. "I don't really have a lot of patience today. I'm frustrated. So just give it up and let's skip a fight."
"Like hell!" Another one of the thieves yelled, this time, a woman's voice. Clearly defiant, it was clear that despite taking a subordinate role in this operation, she was one of the far more seasoned criminals here. Taking up a fighting stance, she prepared to take a stand against the Vigilante in front of her. She seemed to be getting ready to grab a device from her pockets. The Vigilante refused to let her.
Smirking, Ladybug back-handed threw her yo-yo towards the female member of the group, utilizing her Trait to extend the length of the cord by about forty meters, enough to reach, entrap, and tie up the female criminal in one quick swoop.
However, the female was prepared for this, and activated her own power, which allowed her to propel herself off the ground and into the sky. Reaching into her grey trench coat, she pulled out a handgun, a model Glock 17. With impressive aim for someone who was falling through the sky, she began to pull the trigger rapidly, unloading an entire clip of twelve bullets at the young teenager, with remorseless and ruthless fury and not a second's hesitation. She felt nothing towards murdering a child in cold blood.
Quickly slapping her hands onto a nearby bar of steel, Ladybug quickly duplicated the atoms into a shield, that protected the young student underneath it from those twelve shots. She wasn't aware that her breathing had stopped in that brief moment. She came very close to panicking.
Next however, she felt the metal becoming hot, and she became covered in that same emerald green light from before. Skidding out of it, she saw the original thug, the leader, using his own power. It seemed to be some sort of melting ray that emitted heat from its users hand whenever it was willed. Unlike his companion however, this person didn't seem to want to use his natural abilities on Ladybug. He seemed to not want to actually be in a fight, nor did he seem too thrilled at the prospect of killing anybody.
Ladybug had no time to dwell on this however, as she saw the female thug attempting to land on her, with the intention to crush her. A fresh clip was loaded, so Ladybug rolled out of the way, and attempted to disarm the woman as she fell. Her hands reached for the Glock 17, only to be whacked away by the female.
"Get off!" The thug declared, and launched an elbow strike straight for Ladybug's throat.
Pushing back on her refined calves, Ladybug was able to back out of the way, and then roll behind a pile of gold as the bullets began to come firing in. Being shot at was certainly a new experience for Marinette, but after everything she had learned at Combat Practice, and through her Vigilante work with Chat Noir, she was able to keep her cool and handle it with relative ease. Ladybug was calm. Ladybug was cool.
Ladybug was going to win this fight.
"Come out, little Hero!" The female thug jeered, using her power to jump quickly to the wall, so she was able to get a clear shot at Ladybug. Landing on the side, and remaining there for just a few seconds while she aligned her next jump, the crook was met by a girl in fighting stance. The Vigilante was ready for this eventuality. She had already figured out how this Trait worked.
Unable to prevent to activation of her Trait again before she could cancel the jump, the girl sped towards Ladybug, and was met with a merciless right hook to the face. The force gave the female thug a nosebleed, and slammed her into the ground, letting out a sickening cough as she did so.
"No way am I done!" She loudly, and defiantly declared, before she found herself rocketing into the air once again, smirking in the fact she had managed to get away from the Vigilante again. The leaper wiped her bloodied nose, and reached for her pistol again.
It hadn't been a part of the plan to get captured. It never was a plan to have the Heroes come after you. If they were caught before they'd managed to get the jewels, the plan had been for her to use her power to get the group out of there. But the hell with that right now. She was going to kill that cocky -
It wasn't there.
The pistol was gone.
She checked again, and again, and again again. "What the hell?! Where's my gun?!"
"This what you're looking for?"
Glancing just below her, the female thug saw the teenage vigilante rising up with her, the gun that the criminal was wielding prior in the teenagers hands. Using her ability to duplicate atoms, Ladybug had used this as a jumping board, and when the sharp momentum came with it underneath her, she had achieved a feat that allowed her to leap high. Quick, sudden kinetic energy transferred into her, and sent her flying. A trick she had learned through hours of practice. She called it her 'Atomic Leap'.
Ladybug threw the gun aside and allowed it to fall from this incredible height, and grabbed the female thug by the collar, grinning. "You're not getting away this time! I figured out your power! You have a jumping Trait – You can only leap incredibly high, and not suffer any falling damage, but you can only do it from a solid surface! Meaning, in the air, without your gun –" Ladybug slammed her right fist into the jaw of the female thug, with as much force as she possibly could muster. " – You're powerless!"
It was exactly as Ladybug stated. The crooked woman only kept a gun on her because her own ability was worthless when it came to combat. A few failures of what could only be described as attempted fist-fighting, the female thug was rendered unconscious by Ladybug, after knocking out every single atom of air that the woman had in her lungs with a powerful knee strike to the gut.
The young Vigilante landed perfectly, using her defeated foe as a landing pad, since she had an immunity to falling damage, and threw the woman into a pile of crystals, which like the first individual, encased her, and guaranteed she wouldn't be escaping any time soon.
"Alright, that's two of you down..." Ladybug muttered with a deep exhale, letting out the breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding in. despite the clear supremacy she had over this group, and the very obvious skill she held over their combat ability, being shot at certainly was nerve racking in the worst possible way.
All that was left was the final thug. If the guy was calling the shots, he was probably going by the name of One, Ladybug mused. Where even was –
"S-Stay there!"
....He?
Ladybug turned around, to see the criminal staring her down, having apparently grabbed hold of the Glock that she had thrown aside. It was in his right handle, and she could hear the rattles it made as his hands shook. His left hand was glowing that same emerald green that his melting Trait gave him, sheeting his features in a pale green color. Judging from the clear fear that he was showing, he was a young person, and hadn't faced down a sort of situation like this before.
And he certainly hadn't handled a gun before. There wasn't a reason for him to have, with his power. The chances were that he was holding onto the weapon right now because he was scared, and felt that this weapon would help him be safer. In actuality, pointing it at the Vigilante he was supposed to be shooting, it was just making him feel worse.
"I said don't move!" He repeated, straightening his arms. "Turning is moving!"
"You actually said to stay here." Ladybug informed him. "I haven't moved from this spot." She didn't think there was a real need to fight this person. It was clear he wasn't going to shoot her. He didn't want to. Why he was even here, that was a better question.
Looking between his two fallen companions, One gritted his teeth, and tried to look dangerous and intimidating by narrowing his eyebrows. He put a low growl onto his voice, making him sound like he had a throat filled with gravel. "Put – Put your hands in the air!"
"Don't do this." Ladybug said simply, not even pretending to comply with One's demands.
One looked at her for a second, before he pulled back the chamber of the gun, letting out an empty shell. "I said put your damned hands up!"
"You don't want to be here, do you?"
"What?!"
"Doing this. I don't think you even particularly want to be doing this sort of thing. I saw how you hesitated after you used your melting ability on me earlier. Even when your friend was shooting at me, you still looked uneasy."
Taken aback that the Vigilante had paid so much attention to his expressions in such a short time frame, One lowered the weapon for just a second, before quickly tensing up, refusing to allow himself to be talked down like an infant. "Sh-Shut up! I'm walking away from here, with – With a bag full of these valuables! I'll take them, and live like a king for decades!"
What had caused this person to this sort of life? Desperation? Debt? Perhaps he had family who needed money in order to keep their home, or maybe he had been colluded into doing this by his comrades. Whatever the reason, for some logic defying explanation, he had been put in charge of this robbery attempt, since he had been calling the shots.
Perhaps it was because he was smart?
Or maybe it was because he was malleable.
"You don't believe that, do you?" Ladybug asked, taking a step towards him. In truth, she was sweating. Having a gun pointed at her, no matter how nervous the one holding it was, was honestly terrifying. The entire world could turn black in one second, and it would all be over. She had to tread carefully, or end up with a bullet to the head. "You don't honestly think that."
She didn't say it like she was asking him. She was saying it like she knew. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to shoot her. He didn't want to kill. These weren't guesses, nor were they assumptions. She knew.
Not that that reassured her. All it took was one nervous twitch of the finger and she'd have a hole in her brain.
"Stay back I said!"
"If you shoot me... The Heroes probably won't care too much. In fact, you might get lucky, and they might even see you as the person who stopped one of the evil Vigilantes of Paris. You might even be allowed to skip jail time for doing such a service to the city." Ladybug swallowed, and took another few steps closer, knowing fully well she was playing with fire.
Another tremble came from One's hands.
"But you don't want that, do you? You don't want to kill anyone. I don't know why you're even here. Maybe they forced you to come along." She gestured to the crooked individuals she had rendered unable to move. "But... I think you're not like them at all."
Another step.
"I think you're a good person behind that mask."
Another tremble.
"You don't have to do this."
One final step, and the gun was now directly against Ladybug's forehead. All One had to do was pull the trigger, and Ladybug would be gone. There was no chance for error. It was impossible to miss, impossible to fail in this scenario.
Ladybug would die right now if he pulled the trigger. He'd be a Hero. The Heroes wouldn't even know he had tried to rob this place for all the precious rocks. He'd go home, and live a good life.
He steeled himself...
And dropped the gun. He couldn't do it. He couldn't take a life. His power deactivated, and he fell to his knees. "...I... Give..."
Ladybug left all the criminals tied up in the streets outside the Deposit Depot, with a note attached to One's shirt, asking the police to go easy on him. It wasn't going to be a huge amount of help, but it was the best that she was going to be able to do for him. She hoped that he would be let off easier than his companions. At the end of the day, he was a criminal still... But he clearly regretted even being there in the first place. Maybe there was a chance for his redemption...
But she'd done everything that she could for him. It would have to be enough.
She found an alley somewhere that she knew people rarely ventured, and began to change, quickly, just in case someone decided that they would be randomly in view of this place at this time of all times. She took the mask off last, and quickly stuffed it into her backpack, quickly scanning the area. Thankfully, there didn't seem to have been anyone around to see her do this.
But no one had seen her transform back into plain old Marinette, the girl who struggled to master her own powers. She had to chuckle. In a way, her being so unskilled with her own powers made her a bit happier now that she wasn't Ladybug anymore. It meant that connecting the two would be a lot harder to do. No one would suspect someone who struggled with their own powers of being one of the two main Vigilantes in Paris.
Sighing, she realized that she had left the cart she had brought the diamonds in back at the Disposal Dump. Thankfully, she could use that as an excuse to return back there to pick it up. She doubted the police or the Heroes would blame her if she said that she ran away because she was afraid of the criminals attacking the place.
"Is life gonna be like this if I actually become a Hero full time?..." She wondered aloud, with a chuckle.
Adrien was more than aware of the rules regarding the use of Superpowers in public. Unless you were a Hero, a Policeman, Solider, or otherwise, use of them was illegal, except for cases of self-defense, defense of others, and other exceptional circumstances. The reason that such a law existed was because the authorities didn't want to risk anyone who had a violent power using it in public, and causing a mass panic, or even igniting a massacre. These laws were in place so everyone would be able to live together, regardless of what powers they had.
Although, they were a bit more accepting of things such as movement abilities, as long as they were very carefully regulated. That was why, every time Adrien used his Teleportation Trait in public, to get home, get to school or otherwise, technically speaking, he was skirting the law. Teleportation inherently didn't endanger the people around him, and he was very careful not to do so, as well as to not even be seen by the police when he did this.
That was why he was jumping from rooftop to rooftop above the city streets, Teleporting from one building to the next. Normally he wouldn't do such a thing, but today, he was in a hurry to get back home. He had spent far too long at the practice session he had with Nino, Alix and Kim, and if he didn't get home as quickly as possible, his father was going to blow a fuse. He seemed to be in a much fouler mood these days, so while Adrien would normally take whatever opportunity to spend time with his father, he gave him his space for now.
After all, he knew why he was like this. In a few days, it would mark the eleven year anniversary of Adrien's Trait's activation... And the death of his mother by his own hands. Could he ever blame his father for being this way with him around this time of year? No. Of course he couldn't. He was to blame, after all, for what happened to his mother.
No amount of Heroism was ever going to make that up to Father. And it was within his right. Adrien hadn't even forgiven himself for what he'd done. Asking his father to forgive him for it was... Selfish at best.
It also marked the time that Adrien would refuse to activate his Destruction powers. On that day, and that day alone, he would never activate his Destruction Trait, in order to honour her. It was a silly thing, a pointless, self-indulgent tradition that he used as a way to justify what little humanity he must have had left... But it was something that he had done for over a decade, and he wasn't going to stop now. On the anniversary of her death, the very least that he could do was not bare the ugly, charcoal hands that took her from the world.
It was his way of saying he was sorry to her, where ever she happened to be right now. Be it in the afterlife, or still in a hole in the ground. Wherever she was, he hoped that she knew that he did this in honour of her, not in shame of what she had given him.
He Teleported over another rooftop, before he skidded to a halt at the edge of one with ragged breath, which he kept quiet to not alert anyone who happened to be nearby. In need of recharging his stamina, he needed just a few seconds of-
What.
The.
Hell.
Eyes shot as open as they were ever going to get in his entire life, and his blood suddenly stopped. Cold. He didn't even feel his blood flowing throughout his body anymore. Had his circulatory system ceased to function? Did he even care? What relevance did these thoughts have to what this was anymore? He didn't care. About anything right now.
'No. Way.'
What he was looking at right now had him shocked. Silent. Beyond all words. For all the 200,000 words of his spoken language, not a single one of them was going to be enough to express what he was looking at. Was he mistaken? No. there was no mistaking that blue hair. That red and black polka dotted jumpsuit. That mask.
There was no denying who it was that had just taken it off the reveal her civilian clothes underneath.
And there was no mistaking that face. Even if it was at a top down angle, Adrien recognized that face.
Ladybug... Was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Holy.
Shit.
Adrien couldn't believe it. He couldn't, not even for a second, comprehend what he was looking at. Ladybug was Marinette? That shy, sweet, blue haired girl who sat behind him every freaking day?! That was the girl he had been admiring, secretly in love with, for well over a month now? The same girl who he fought criminals alongside as the Vigilante duo of Ladybug and Chat Noir?!
That was Marinette?!
His heart thudded loudly. Incredibly loudly. In fact, it beat so loudly, that Marinette craned her head around the alleyway in which she had undressed from her Ladybug costume, looking for the source. Adrien quickly pulled back out of view, so he wouldn't be seen.
A blush was making its way across Adrien's face, and he struggled to breathe. Sweat was now dripping down his forearms as well as his head, his unkempt hair now sticky from the stuff.
Ladybug had been so close to him all this time?...
There was only one word that could describe how he felt now...
And that word was joy.
Why hadn't Ladybug wanted to reveal who she was to Chat Noir?
That was a question that plagued Adrien that night, as he sat in his room trying to think up theories. In truth, it had been all he had been able to think about ever since the bombshell that he had been dropped with came into contact with. He hadn't meant to see! He really hadn't! It had just been... A huge, huge coincidence that he had happened to stop Teleporting there, and that he'd just happened to look over that alleyway!
Part of him did feel genuine guilt over learning who Ladybug was. He felt like he'd unintentionally betrayed her... She had wanted to keep their identities a secret, and while he had disagreed with the reasons why, he respected Ladybug way too much to argue. He promised her. His feelings for her were no joke, no matter how often she implied her belief to the contrary. He loved her. He loved Ladybug. He knew from the day they defeated Sunstreak, it wouldn't matter who was underneath that mask. It didn't matter - He loved the girl underneath it.
That meant...
He loved Marinette.
And the more he thought about it... The more he liked the idea. Marinette was a nice person, with an eagerness to improve herself. She took her Trait seriously, and was always trying new things with it, to improve her abilities. Yes, she struggled with her Trait, but she showed dedication to figuring it out.
Despite her clear lack of confidence in her own abilities, she was incredibly smart, and Adrien respected her abilities as a warrior, even if they weren't on part with someone like his, or Kim's, or Alix's. The fact that Marinette kept trying to improve, and that she never gave up, was enough for Adrien to admire her for all her faults.
And she was a cute girl, Adrien wouldn't deny that he thought that at times. Her blue hair was a beautiful addition to her, and her light blue eyes just seemed to tie the entire look together, but for her appearance, that was about it. What was truly endearing about Marinette, was the cheerful, happy, and soft, kind, and helpful side that she displayed to nearly every single person in the entirely of their class. The only exception being Chloe, but Chloe got exactly what she gave everyone else. Marinette was willing to stand up for herself now. She was willing to stand up for other people now.
Along with that, her cheerful, bubbly personality was something that cheered him up immensely. The fact that Marinette just seemed to tackle everything that was thrown at her with a smile, even if it did become a shaky smile from time to time, was something he had grown to admire about her. She was incredibly trusting to her friends, but around him, she seemed to have trouble talking. Intimidation perhaps? It was never his intention, but as time went on, Marinette was getting better at just speaking to him.
Marinette displayed something that not a lot of people in their class did demonstrate. Something that Adrien appreciated above everything else. Something that he valued so highly, and so truly, that if he was asked to point to a single thing about a person, he would always mention this.
Loyalty.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a loyal person. Dedicated to her friends and to helping them out whenever they needed it, supporting them in combat whenever she could, and creating openings for her teammates to attack. She never ran, no matter how clear that it was that she would prefer to find a safer spot and plan a counter attack. She would stand by her friends, even against Chloe.
She even became Ladybug... To save him. That night, against Molecular... Marked the first sighting of Ladybug ever. And he remembered thinking that she seemed shaky...
She had donned the mask of Ladybug... To save Adrien. That realization...
Marinette Dupain-Cheng... Loyalty personified...
So... why didn't she want to reveal who it was that she was to Chat Noir?
Perhaps there were a multitude of reasons, Adrien thought to himself, drumming his fingers against his knees, that he couldn't see in the pure blackness that was his bedroom right now. What could those reasons possibly be?
Fear? Fear that Chat would judge her based on how she looked? Fear that he knew who she was, and that he'd betray her to keep himself safe? Was it the fear of the unknown, that she didn't know that she could fully trust Chat Noir yet, and that she needed to hide from him as she did from everyone else around her?
A lack of confidence in herself? Marinette lacked the self-confidence that Adrien knew she needed in order to achieve her fullest potential. Marinette had greatness hidden deep inside her, and if she just could work up that courage to grab that potential, and turn it into pure strength, there would be nothing on this planet that would ever be able to stop her. But right now, she lacked it. Maybe that was why she didn't want to reveal who she was to Chat Noir.
Was it... That she just didn't trust Chat Noir? It... Wasn't like he could blame her. He had openly admitted to becoming a Vigilante because he was inspired by her. There weren't a lot of ways to take this information without becoming disturbed by the implications that this held. A young boy in a ragtag outfit shows up, and more of less declares himself her partner, and then dashes away and she doesn't hear from him until the next night, whereupon the fight he starts against a professional Villain nearly gets them both killed? He could understand how that would disturb her... So maybe that one was his fault...
But... He just couldn't see Marinette letting these things stop her. She was strong. She was dedicated. She was confident. She was... Well, she was Ladybug. Nothing stopped Ladybug... So... What was it?...
And then, he felt he had come up with the answer.
Security.
She had a family. She didn't want to wrap them up in this mess. Her family, the family that she must love so dearly that she couldn't even bear the thought of them getting hurt because of her own ineptitude, because she was so stupid as to trust someone else with who she was who would then betray her. And it was more than that. Her friends would also be in danger. The people that they both knew would become targets to get to her. Nino. Alya. Nathaniel. Kim. Alix. Chloe – They hated one another, but Marinette wouldn't wish this sort of hell on the spoilt girl... And himself.
Vigilantes belonged to a dangerous world. Maybe... Maybe she just needed that extra layer of safety. Just to put her mind at rest. That she would be fine. That her family, her friends, the people who made her smile, were okay. That no one was judging her silently from the shadows...
That was why...
That was why he wouldn't tell Marinette that he knew she was Ladybug. If she needed that security... Then it was best for her to have it. To be able to think to herself in the morning and night, that she, Ladybug, and that she, Marinette, were both okay. That their secrets were safe. To learn that this wasn't the case... It could break her...
He decided that night, that he'd keep Ladybug's secret identity just that. A secret. He'd never let her know. Not until she was ready to tell Chat Noir who she was herself. When that day came, he'd be more than happy to accept Marinette. He'd be more than happy to accept Marinette telling him she was Ladybug. It didn't matter which way around it went.
He decided that he would fight to the death to keep her identity a secret. That if the Traitors, if Hawkmoth, the school, or the Heroes thought that he was going to give up who Ladybug was.... Then they were dead wrong. He would protect her identity, and he would protect her, even if she wasn't asking for it.
He'd never force her to reveal a thing more than she was ready to. That as the promise he made to himself, and to Marinette. That he'd fight for her. And die for her if he had to. And he'd do it with a Cheshire smile.