꧁ • 𝗹𝗮 𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲 ​​ • ꧂

✧ •​ 🇨​​🇭​​🇦​​🇵​​🇹​​🇪​​🇷​ ​🇸​​🇪​​🇻​​🇪​​🇳 ​• ✧

The Unraveling Puzzle

It had been 48 weeks and 5 days—nearly a year now, since my life took a peculiar turn. The days seemed to bleed into one another, ending in a pattern less haze. I was pushed ahead to the 9th grade, though I should've been navigating through the complexities of the 7th. But for me, academics were trivial. My mind devoured information like a hungry beast, and solving puzzles? That was second nature. I was thirteen now—an age that apparently marked the beginning of the teenage abyss. Most of my classmates were fifteen, some even pushing seventeen. Their conversations revolved around trivial gossip and the latest scandals. I couldn't care less about any of it. They whispered behind my back as if I didn't notice, but in truth, they didn't even register in my world. I was too far beyond their reach, and they knew it. They would always remain behind me because my standards were... higher.But there was a bigger puzzle gnawing at the corners of my mind, one that Paris itself had been desperate to solve. It hovered like a specter, whispering through the cracks of every conversation: Who is Ladybug? Who is Chat Noir? Who is Hawkmoth?These questions haunted the city like unsolved riddles. The mystery of the heroes and their elusive enemy was tantalizing, but I never bothered with those puzzles. Not my kind. Too murky, too wrapped in superstition. However, there was one piece of the puzzle I had already cracked, a secret that came with a strange mixture of disbelief and frustration:

  Adrien is Chat Noir.

Yes, my overly-enthusiastic, dimwitted brother was the iconic Chat Noir, the city's feline hero. The thought never ceased to amuse me. No psychologist could ever fix the extent of his recklessness, his blind heroism, or his incessant need to play the part of a golden savior. Even as a 16-year-old, Adrien was an idiot, albeit an idiot with a secret identity.But that wasn't what intrigued me today.It was a typical day at school—monotonous and dull. The whispers followed me like shadows, students muttering about me as I passed, but I paid them no mind. I had my own agenda. As usual, I stood near the front entrance of the school, leaning against the wall, lost in a novel I had borrowed from Adrien's private library. The pages should have been enough to drown out the world around me, but something, or rather, someone, caught my attention.A group of my brother's classmates hovered near the steps, gossiping about something irrelevant. Normally, I wouldn't have cared. But there, standing among them, was her.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The girl with dark blue hair. A girl who, on the surface, seemed nothing more than an average student. She had the intellect of any typical 9th grader, a decent if not clumsy personality, and a noticeable crush on Adrien that manifested in awkward stumbles and nervous laughter. Everything about her screamed normal—except, she wasn't.Something about Marinette didn't fit.The longer I watched her, the more familiar she seemed, as if she was a missing piece of the very puzzle Paris had been trying to solve. I didn't know what it was exactly—her movements, her voice, her demeanor. They all pointed to something hidden beneath the surface, something others had failed to see.I leaned forward slightly, my gaze narrowing as I observed her. She moved with a quiet grace, though it was disguised by her natural awkwardness. But it was her eyes that gave it away. The way they darted around, as if always aware, always calculating. There was an intensity there, a vigilance that no one else seemed to notice.It clicked. My mind pieced together the fragments of a puzzle I hadn't even realized I'd been solving.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng... is Ladybug.

The revelation settled in like a cold fog, wrapping around me slowly. I'd never been interested in the puzzle of Ladybug's identity before, but now that I had an answer, it felt so obvious. How could no one else see it? The girl standing in front of me was the superheroine who had been protecting Paris for over a year. She wore the mask well, hidden behind her clumsy teenage facade, but I could see it now, clear as day.For a moment, a smirk tugged at the corner of my lips.