Not-so Mysterious Ladybug

Chapter One

"Tikki, spots on!" Marinette panted, out of breath. Normally, she and Chat Noir could handle Hawkmoth's akumatized villains easily, but this one was much more difficult. With the power to control the air, Air Glider easily left Marinette breathless and gave Chat Noir a lot of opportunities to make puns of her predicament.

This time, Marinette had to recharge a second time, somehow not making it weird for Chat Noir to save her twice from Air Glider by whisk(er)ing her off to the other side of town, only for her to run back to the scene as Tikki ate a macaroon.

Marinette zoomed across the city of Paris to Chat Noir, still heaving in loads of air to recover from the exercise crunch she did not know she needed nor wanted to go through.

"Looks like you're breathless, bugaboo." Chat Noir winked, shielding her from an oncoming branch that was flying in her direction.

"Stop calling me bugaboo," Marinette pouted. "And it's not like I'm breathless for you, either."

"But you came back. Doesn't that mean you wanna help me?" Chat Noir nudged. "Bugaboo?"

Marinette groaned and launched herself at an opening to attack Air Glider.

"Come on, Lucy. You know those kids meant no harm in messing with your hang glider," Marinette said, trying to soothe the villain. "It's not their fault that they didn't know any better. Kids are kids. It's also not your fault that you had to make a faulty landing and forfeit the competition."

Air Glider scowled. "What do you know, Ladybug? It's not like you ever had a taste of defeat."

Marinette froze, leaving an opening for Air Glider to blast a gust of wind at her.

Marinette screamed as she fell into Chat Noir's open arms.

"Back so soon, bugaboo?"

Marinette groaned, both at Chat Noir's teasing and at Air Glider's accusation.

Air Glider wasn't exactly wrong, but she wasn't entirely right either. While Ladybug had never had a taste of defeat and always won in the end, Marinette, the girl behind the mask had tasted defeat over and over and over again.

She was still bitter about her failure of a confession to Adrien.

"Why is it that she's waving the broken piece of metal that's left of her hang glider and it's so obvious that's where the akuma is, yet it's so hard to get to it?" Marinette groaned, hopping out of Chat Noir's arms.

"Aww, bugaboo, I don't like the feel of the air that's coming off of you. Just cool it down a little. Let your stress get blown away."

Marinette couldn't help but groan and put her forehead into her palm.

"Look, I still haven't used my cataclysm yet and you still have your lucky charm. Let's try this again and see what happens."

Marinette looked up at Chat and smiled. "Let's do this," she said, smiling softly. Turning around to Air Glider, she threw her yoyo into the air. "Lucky Charm!"

A can of grounded pepper fell from the sky and into Marinette's open hand.

"Pepper?" Chat asked, taking a step from Marinette. "I may not be allergic, but that doesn't mean that I don't wanna sneeze."

"There's a lot of things you don't want, kitty-cat. I wish puns were one of them." Marinette chuckled, glancing around for a way to use the lucky charm. Her eyes caught onto the can of pepper, a large, curved pipe attached to the side of a nearby building, Chat Noir, and Air Glider herself. Almost instantaneously, a plan formed in her head.