Chapter Text
Me: hey Adrien!
Me: none of our classmates could get through to you
Me: you must have changed your number for the trip
Me: but I decided to try texting you anyway
Me: we all miss you and hope you come back soon
Me: maybe your tour ends prematurely?
Me: we’re waiting for you to come home!
Adrien: was this an allusive way of wishing the tour to fail?
Adrien: if so, then you have a highly dubious idea of how to wish well to your friends
Me: oh Adrien!
Me: you still have your phone!
Me: I’m so glad you’ll be in touch!
Me: I didn’t mean anything bad to happen to you, of course!
Me: we just all miss you so much
Adrien: that’s not a reason to wish someone failure on an upcoming project though
Me: but I didn’t mean it like that!
Adrien: I’m glad Adrien left his phone in Paris and wouldn’t be disturbed on his trip with such wishes
Me: wait
Me: you’re not Adrien!
Adrien: it’s either that or I’m talking about myself in the third person
Adrien: I’m glad that both your opinion of Adrien and your achievements in the field of formal logic are high enough to draw the right conclusion
Adrien: it’s promising
Adrien: unfortunately I’m very much indifferent about both matters of your future and respect for my cousin
Me: cousin?
Me: you’re Felix!
Me: you stole his phone again!
Me: how could you do this to him?!
Me: now he isn’t only far from all his friends, but also doesn’t have an opportunity to contact us!
Me: I knew Adrien would keep in touch otherwise!
Me: find a way to get his phone back to him immediately!
Adrien: I don’t think this concerns you in any way, but I can assure you that this phone was given to me by my cousin absolutely voluntarily
Me: I don’t believe you!
Me: you already stole his phone once
Me: what would stop you from doing it again!?
Adrien: perhaps I overestimated your achievements in the field of formal logic
Adrien: why would I steal the phone if it was already given to me voluntarily?
Me: Adrien doesn’t trust you
Me: he wouldn’t leave you his phone
Me: especially before the trip!
Adrien: since your idea of the relationship in my family is, to put it mildly, insufficient, the premises of your reasoning are false and lead to deliberately wrong conclusions
Adrien: and as much as I’m offended by the very idea that someone can mislead themselves based on incomplete information, I’m not particularly interested in educating you in this area
Adrien: wish you all the best
Me: hey!
Me: Felix!
Me: wait!
Me: let’s say he really left you his Parisian phone
Me: he couldn’t intentionally leave himself out of contact with his friends
Me: if you really are on any good terms with Adrien, as you imply, then you should know how much he loves his friends
Me: right?
Me: hey!
Me: answer to me!
Me: do you know how we can contact him?
Me: Felix!
Me: please
Adrien: unfortunately, for reasons that still remain a mystery to me, my cousin does have a tendency to maintain close relationships with a large amount of tiresome people
Adrien: so I am willing to confirm that his lack of the ability to keep in touch during the trip was not his personal choice
Me: his father didn’t let him take his phone?!
Me: couldn’t he take the phone discreetly?
Me: but why would he leave it with you?
Me: he probably wanted us to know that he would contact us if he could
Me: why didn’t you answer his friends’ calls then?
Me: Adrien must have asked you to let us know that he can’t contact us!
Adrien: in fact I was asked to provide this information only to one specific person, which I did
Adrien: now allow me leave you and go about my business
Me: one person?
Me: none of my friends have heard from you about Adrien, otherwise I would have already known about it!
Me: plus
Me: if it was supposed to be only one person
Me: why did you tell me about it too?
Adrien: I’m almost tempted to take up your education in formal logic, which you so desperately need to draw the only correct conclusion from the two obvious premises that you yourself have named
Me: what conclusion?
Adrien: have a nice day, miss
Me: Felix!
Me: wait!
Me: what were the premises?
Me: are you saying that Adrien asked you to tell ME about it?
Adrien: maybe you aren’t completely lost to the world of logic yet
Me: oh
Me: thank you then
Me: buy
*
“You are so silent today, Kitty!” Ladybug smiled as she landed on the roof next to her partner. During the fight, he seemed somehow different: aloof and focused, didn’t flirt at all, made a minimum of movements, and nevertheless achieved a result very quickly. “Are you all right?”
“I nearly acted with restraint and respect,” he replied with a polite nod, which was also completely unlike him. “If you expect me to behave differently during the performance of my duties, you’ll need to voice it.”
Marinette frowned. Maybe her partner was in some special mood or decided to play aloofness in order to get her interested? Although it seemed to her that lately his flirting was more of a habitual act than something he really meant...
“Are you trying to get my attention in this way?” She asked just in case, to immediately dissuade him to act like that and return to their relaxed casual relationship. “You know that I…”
“I can assure you that my interest in you is purely professional.” Chat Noir interrupted. “So you don’t have to worry about it. Now, if our work is done, I must leave you.”
Ladybug tensed, watching at him with growing suspicion. Her partner looked exactly the way he always looked, so his unusual behavior seemed to be just that — unusual behavior. But it began to feel more and more like a completely different person was standing in front of her.
But he couldn’t be an Akuma, because Shadow Moth could only create one Akuma at a time and they just defeated one together.
Sentimonster?
Ladybug held out her hand, clenched into a fist, offering him to hit it with his. If this person wasn’t her Chat Noir, she needed to find a way to make sure of it before acting. Even though his demeanor almost screamed that it wasn’t her partner...
Chat Noir, or whoever pretended to be him, looked at her hand, then looked up at Ladybug skeptically. “I wasn’t told that I would have to perform the ritual gestures.”
“Ha!” The heroine exclaimed, pointing her finger at him. “I knew you weren’t Chat Noir!”
The man rolled his eyes. “I never said that I was Chat Noir.”
“How did you manage to copy his Cataclysm?!” Ladybug demanded as she advanced on him. “Are you a sentimonster? I have no other explanation! What is your goal?!”
Not Chat Noir stood without retreating and ignored her hostility. “The other explanation, as you call it,” he said lazily, as if having to explain it to her bored him. “Consists in the fact that he gave me his Miraculous and asked me to replace him for the time he… for some while.”
“And I have to believe that my partner, whom I trust more than anyone in the world, would give the most destructive Miraculous to someone unknown to me without even warning me?!” Ladybug insisted.
“He didn’t have the opportunity, obviously.” The impostor answered calmly. “The fact that he managed to give me the ring and introduce me to Plagg was already great luck, given the circumstances, your luck in the first place, I suppose.”
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
“That you can’t manage on your own, of course.”
“Excuse me?!” Ladybug exclaimed indignantly. “I didn’t ask for your help! If Chat Noir is unable to perform his duties temporarily, then you will immediately give his Miraculous to me!” she demanded, advancing again.
Not Chat Noir took a step back and thrust his staff forward, extending it slightly to keep the heroine at a distance. “It’s out of the question.” He declared. “I will return the Miraculous only to the one who gave it to me. You don’t know his identity and I gave my word to keep it like that.”
“And how am I supposed to trust you without knowing who you are?!” Ladybug didn’t give up, losing her patience. It still didn’t fit in her head that her partner could do something like this, but the impostor was right, if she excluded the option with the sentimonster, this guy having the Black Cat Miraculous was the only explanation. “What if you somehow stole his ring?!” She insisted.
“Why would I steal the ring if it was already given to me voluntarily?” Not Chat Noir asked, although the question sounded more like a rhetorical one. There was something vaguely familiar about the way he phrased it, but in her anger, Marinette didn’t pay enough attention to quite place it. “As for trust, a few minutes ago I assisted you in the battle, didn’t I? I think that’s more than enough for now.”
“Let’s say Chat did give you his Miraculous for some incredibly urgent reason that didn’t even allow him to warn me, although I still highly doubt it,” It seemed to her that the imposter was holding back from rolling his eyes again. “How do you explain that you look exactly like him? My partner should have known that I would immediately recognize it wasn’t him!”
“Certainly.” Not Chat confirmed to her surprise, “However, he asked me to duplicate his costume anyway. Something about keeping the townspeople calm at the sight of a familiar image. I think he was counting on the Parisians not being overly familiar with his battle strategy, so from afar the similarity in our appearance would be enough to not cause unease among the masses.”
Marinette had to admit that what he called similarities looked much more than that, because the man in front of her was the perfect copy of her partner. Except for his behavior, of course.
“For me personally,” The man continued dismissively. “This is of no fundamental importance. But since in agreeing to do him this favor I already went against common sense in many ways, I found it possible to go against my own taste in clothes as well.”
“Oh, how generous!” Ladybug exclaimed sarcastically. “And you have convincing answers for all my questions. That alone sounds suspicious!”
“I couldn’t care less about how suspicious the truth sounds to you.” Not Chat Noir answered and put his staff away. Although he clearly didn’t intend to let her get close because he took a few steps towards the edge of the roof. “Now you have to excuse me, madam. I have lingered long enough beyond the duties to which I have agreed.”
He gave her a formal salute and, without waiting for Ladybug’s answer, turned around and jumped to another rooftop.
The heroine stood there, frantically digesting the events of the last day. Until she decided how to deal with this impostor, there was no point in stalking him. If Chat Noir really didn’t want the townspeople to notice his absence, then the least she could do was avoid openly confronting his replacement in public.
Maybe Chat got really sick? Or did he have to urgently leave the city? Or has something even worse happened?
Marinette didn’t even want to think about the worst possible options. She hasn’t yet fully come to terms with the fact that Adrien was away for several months and found himself without communication, leaving his phone to none other than Felix! At least his sassy cousin deigned to let her know about it, otherwise all of Adrien’s friends would go crazy with worry...
Maybe next time if she pretends to be friendly, Not Chat Noir will tell her what happened to her real partner?
Yes, that’s probably what she should do when she meets him again.