Miraculous Adventure - a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic

Chapter 23

"Another arson attack occurred at Palais Garnier around..." the newscaster began. "...firefighters were able to respond, however, just like the other four cases, the fire spread in less than a minute and consumed the entire building. No deaths or injuries were reported yet, but the authorities still plastered some safety warnings to the public. So far, there were ten reported incidents related to property damages happened solely in Paris, and fifteen of its nearby departments. The Parisian Mayor, Mayor Bourgeois, released a statement about these consecutive attacks, announcing that the suspect was still at large, and finally declared it as something related to an Akuma. No statement has been made from Ladybug and Chat Noir..."

"I messed up." Marinette continuously chanted, even after she was ushered into the room silently by Adrien and their kwamis. Once he closed the door behind them, she broke.

"I fucking messed things up."

"Mari-"

"Don't." she raised her hand, stopping her partner when he attempted to hug her. "Don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me and tell me that everything's in control even though it's not."

He stood straightly and gaped at her ridiculousness. "What shall we do then - blame each other because we happened to have a life outside the mask?"

"That's not what - "

"Is this something we'll going to fight over later on?" he said without any madness or hints of frustrations. "A strain on our relationship? A crack on our solid foundation? Marinette -"

"No." she shuddered, shaking her head. "God, no - no, Adrien. I'm sorry..."

She welcomed his heat when he pulled and drawn her into an embrace. It pained him to see her cry.

He wiped the stray tears with his thumb, then kissed the tip of her nose. "Do you trust me when I said that everything will be alright?"

"As If I have a choice." she croaked with a smile. "I'm sorry. I tend to overreact to things."

"Don't worry - there's nothing unbeatable for a calm and collected Ladybug."

She nestled her head in the crook of his neck. "You're reminding me of Stoneheart again. Comforting me with your own ways despite my carelessness."

"You're just responsible."

"I'm not. I even removed my Miraculous and secretly slipped them on Alya's, only to take them back when she got trapped by two destroyed cars," she muttered. "So I think you're the best of the bunch."

He sighed on her head. "Let me tell you how I jumped on the situation without debriefing myself about the Miraculous origins because I'm too excited to escape from my dull, meaningless life."

"We're both ignorant doofus."

"That's why we're made for each other."

"What shall we do, Adrien?" she asked, drawing them back to the reality.

"I think." he answered, "We need a plan."

Formulating a plan wasn't easy even with four brains combined - considering that kwamis have that particular organ, though Adrien refused to concur on Plagg - which probably due to exhaustion and limited access.

"It says here that the 'attack' started around eight," Adrien said as he read a random news post after spending minutes waiting for a page to load on a mobile browser.

"We're en-route to Gare Saint-Lazare that time." Marinette pondered. "But why is it we haven't heard anything about it?"

"We sorta have - or maybe, I have," he answered as he looked at her grimly. "Before they flashed the news about the train fiasco, a clip about some property damages caused by an unidentified source was reported. It was so brief I didn't make any importance on it. "