Chapter Text
Marinette waited patiently atop the roof of The Louvre. She was waiting for Alya’s signal, the signal that would give her the all clear to lower herself into the museum. While waiting she admired her latest work, The Death of The Virgin. It was a perfect duplicate, if you didn’t search too hard. In the exact center of the painting, beneath the layers of paint, there was a tiny, cursive L. As long as the curators didn’t x-ray the painting, she would get away unscathed. Even if they did x-ray it, she would probably get away unscathed, as long as the original was long out of her hands.
“Ladybug, you’re a go.” Alya’s voice crackled in from Marinette’s radio earrings.
“Roger.” Marinette was on her feet with the painting in hand before she was finished uttering the word. She removed a single, pre-cut, pane of glass from the triangular skylight and delicately placed it on the concrete roof. She then tied her wire around a pipe sticking out of the roof. Once she was sure it was secured, she lowered herself down.
“You’ve got 10 minutes until the alarms are back on.” Alya informed her.
“Please, Alya, you could have at least given me a little challenge.”
“Oh honey, if I could, I would have.”
Marinette giggled, “Love you, see you on the outside.”
“Good luck.” Alya said.
With that, Marinette turned her attention from her comm to the task at hand. She got lucky this time, the painting was located in the same room as a skylight, so there was no need to traverse from room to room. It was a quick in and out job. No problem for an experienced thief like Ladybug.
She regained her bearings and turned towards the corner of the room where the original Death of The Virgin was located. What she saw was nothing that she expected. A dark form with a puff of blond hair had his hands all over her mark. She slinked up behind him, careful not to spook him. She leaned against the wall to his right and said enticingly, “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
The guy jumped, causing him to drop the frame he was in the process of removing. It hit the floor with a crack and the pair watched a quarter sized chunk of the frame skid across the linoleum. They slowly raised their eyes back to each other in horror.
“7 minutes, girlie.” Alya broke the tense silence.
“Alya, we’ve got a bit of a problem here. This may end up being a challenge after all.” She glared at the terrified guy in front of her. She noticed that in addition to his leather body suit, he had ears and a tail. He must have had a secret identity like she did. Marinette slowly removed her hand from her earring, thinking about her next move.
“What were you thinking? Sneaking up on me like that? How could you be such an imbecile?” The cat man growled. His voice was a gruff, low whisper.
“Me? An imbecile? You’re the one who’s an imbecile! You can’t just drop the frame to a multi million dollar painting!” Marinette’s shrill whisper was barely comprehensible.
“Well I sure did because someone snuck up on me and scared it right out of my hands!” His voice was no longer a whisper.
“You better shut your mouth or we are both going to get caught and blamed for what you did!” Marinette warned angrily.
“Fine,” he went back to a whisper, “what do you plan on doing about this?”
“I plan on finishing this job and getting out of here before the guards make their way back to this room and haul me off to prison.” Marinette said as she quickly pushed the cat man out of the way and got to work.
“Why do you get to be the one to finish the job? I was here first.”
“4 minutes.” Alya interjected.
Marinette ignored her. “Oh please, you sound like a 5 year old. And plus, what were you planning to do? You don’t even have a replacement. Were you just going to leave the frame empty?” Marinette said condescendingly.
“Not exactly.” The cat man pulled out a spray paint can. That was when everything clicked for Marinette, this was Chat Noir. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t realize it was him from the cat ears alone. He was a small time art thief but he was most famous for his calling card, a spray painted black cat where the painting used to be. Marinette had always thought of him to be a little bit of an attention whore, caring more about the recognition than getting away scot free.
“Wait, but if you were just going to leave the frame empty anyways, why do you even care if the frame is broken? I only care because then everyone will know that the painting has been tampered with.” Marinette asked quizzically.
“Because Chat Noir doesn’t make mistakes.” He tossed a tuft of his hair out of his face arrogantly.
Marinette glared at him and refused to grace him with a response. Instead she began swiftly replacing the original with her own masterpiece. Once she had fitted the forgery into the chipped frame she stood back to see how noticeable the break was.
“You know, I don’t think it’s that bad.” Chat Noir said derisively.
“It’s going to have to do for now. As long as we can get out of here in time I can get this painting as far away from us as possible.” She turned on her comm, “Alya how long do we have?”
“2. Please hurry.” Alya sounded genuinely worried.
“Don’t worry, that’s plenty of time.” Marinette said mostly to convince herself of it. “I don’t know how you’re planning on getting out of here, Chat, but I’ve gotta split.” She took the painting under her arm and dashed toward the wire dangling from the skylight.
“You know, Ladybug, your way out seems a whole lot better than mine.” Marinette was already raising herself up towards the ceiling when Chat Noir lept into the air and grabbed onto her. He repositioned himself so he had one arm around her waist and one hand firmly grasping the wire.
“What are you doing?” Marinette was panicked.
“Hey if I get caught I could easily sell you out to the police, so it would be in your best interest that you help me.” He seemed all too proud of himself. Marinette groaned and put one arm around Chat Noir for support. She heard him grunt smugly and chose to ignore it.
Marinette heard the crackling of static in her ear, “You have cleared the motion sensors, and with 5 seconds to spare.” Marinette could almost hear Alya wiping the sweat from her brow in relief. Just after that she heard the dull hum of the motion sensors turning back on and let out her own sigh of relief. They were going to make it.
“Did your ear tell you we’re safe, little lady?” Chat Noir teased. He must have felt her chest deflate. She hated being this close to him, let alone having to literally hold on to him for dear life.
“Pay attention to your own stupid ears.” She angrily swatted at his head. Her heart stopped when she felt one of Chat Noir’s cat ears slide out of place. Marinette reached for it as it fell. Chat Noir pulled her closer when he felt her slipping out of his grasp. She watched the ear fall straight into the motion sensors.
“Silent motion detectors are very anti climactic.” Chat Noir said with no humor in his tone whatsoever.
“We have to get out of here!” Marinette shrieked. Her breaths were shallow and fast, she had never been this close to being caught before.
“I don’t see how we can go any faster, once we are on the roof we can book it so just calm down.” Chat Noir tried to soothe her without losing a shred of his arrogance. As soon as he told her to calm down, a swarm of guards barrelled in from both entrances. “Just. Stay. Calm.” Chat Noir gritted through his teeth.
“How can I stay calm when the entire French army is standing below us.” Marinette feigned calmness so the guards wouldn’t know that the two of them were trapped.
“Look only 10 more feet, we’re on the home stretch.” Chat Noir was no good at comforting. Nothing he said made her feel better. The sooner she could get away from him the better.
Marinette saw some of the guards running out of the room, probably making their way to the stairs to capture them on the roof. Before she had time to panic about that she felt Chat Noir heaving himself over the edge of the skylight. Once he was free of the museum, he grabbed both of her hands and pulled her towards freedom. Though Chat Noir was too strong and her momentum caused her to knock both of them over. She landed face first on his chest. Marinette realized that she was, for all intents and purposes, free. She sighed with relief again and let her head rest on Chat Noir’s chest for a few seconds.
“Hey sweetheart? I know I’ve got nice pecs but we need to move.” Chat Noir sounded more pleased than urgent. Marinette pushed herself up and used his chest as a step stool, causing him to wheeze.
“Don’t call me that.” Marinette said while she untied her wire and neatly gathered it up into its ladybug patterned case. “Do you have a way off the roof?” She asked, silently praying that he wouldn’t have to tag along again.
“Yep, don’t worry about me.” He whipped out something that looked like a baton. Marinette decided it was best not to ask.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you.” She extended her hand for Chat Noir to kiss. It was the least he could do after she saved his hide, she thought that he should be kissing the ground she walked on.
He brought her hand to his lips and said, “I still want that painting.” And with those as his parting words he extended the baton and used it to pole vault himself far away from the roof of the Louvre.
She groaned and rolled her eyes, wiping the back of her hand on her thigh. “Hey Alya. We tripped the motion sensors but I’m fine, just leaving now.”
“We? Who’s we?” Alya asked. That’s right, Alya couldn’t hear Chat Noir’s incessant talking through the comms. Marinette was suddenly jealous of her.
“I’ll tell you later. You’ll love him.” Marinette said sarcastically. With that she threw her wire case at the nearest building like a grappling hook, and she was gone.
The next morning Marinette awoke to a stolen painting staring her straight in the face from across her bedroom. It was the best way to wake up, knowing she had millions of dollars in her midst. She went to her front door to collect the newspaper waiting for her neatly in the hallway.
She slowly meandered into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee and started some toast. While she was waiting she took a long sip of her coffee and read the front page article. Marinette read the headline and almost dowsed the entire page with coffee. It read:
Ladybug in Love?
Leaked photos from Ladybug’s latest job picture her with hot new partner in crime. They’re a regular Bonnie and Clyde!
Below the headline was a photo of the two of them ascending towards the ceiling of the Louvre. Chat Noir had one hand firmly on the wire and one wrapped tightly around her waist while she clung to his waist with one arm and, despite having a painting under the other arm, had one hand braced against his chest.
“Oh no, anyone but him.” She put her head in her hands and frustratedly let her head hit the table.
Little did she know that somewhere across Paris, Chat Noir was having a very similar reaction.