I didn't know you yet.

Chapter 1: bad bet

The door creaked open with a melancholy groan. Marinette stepped inside, moonlight sliding across her face as she dropped a paper bag onto the kitchen table. It creaked slightly at the weight, as if a few kilos of food was the last straw that would finally break it.

It didn't break, though. Marinette knew it wouldn't. Still, as she laid out the food, something in her wished it would break. Snap right in half. Useless. Unfixable. Damaged forever with no cure.

She blew out a breath and set out the plates—cheap kids' party plates from the market, plastered with cartoon versions of Ladybug and Chat Noir. It wasn't her idea, originally, but it was a time-honored tradition. At least for her. She placed two glasses next to the plates. These ones were at least made of glass, but only because she'd insisted. Each plate got a helping of quiche Lorraine and three macarons—chocolate, strawberry, and passionfruit—and each glass was filled with shimmering, chilled champagne. Marinette lit the candle sitting on the table as a final touch.

Then there was only one thing missing now.

She sat and stared at the empty seat across from her, hand shaking as she laid a single red rose on the scuffed tabletop. With a slow breath, she clinked her glass against the other.

"Happy anniversary, Chat Noir."

⚜⚜⚜

Three years ago |

Wind whipped through Marinette's pigtails as she leaped across moonlit rooftops, chasing Monarch's latest akuma. This one called herself Contrapper—a musician who had been tricked by her contract with Bob Roth Records. So far she'd trapped hundreds of people in irreversible contracts with her magic pen, each time chanting her catchphrase, "You should've read the fine print!"

In the square below, Contrapper was signing off yet another magical contract with a civilian.

"Contrapper, you don't have to hurt people like this!" Marinette said as she closed in. "Think of how much you were harmed by your own contracts."

Contrapper growled and shot a blot of glowing ink in Marinette's direction. Marinette flipped backwards, dodging by just a hair.

"Aaa! Leave me alone, Ladybug! I'm just getting back at Bob Roth. You know just as well as I do that he's a no-good bully! And all these people agree with me—he's got to go." She gestured to the trail of trapped people behind her. They followed her like zombies, each one with a glowing ring of bright magenta around their right wrist—the hand she shook inside a magical circle she'd drawn with her pen.

"They don't agree with you. You're just trapping them, like Bob Roth did to you. You're hurting all these people and destroying the city to get revenge!" Marinette jumped out of the way as another blot of ink shot past, splattering on a nearby car. It fizzed and hissed behind her, eating away at the metal like acid.

"Oh, you're on his side, aren't you?" Contrapper scowled. "He sent you to protect him!"

"No, that's not—"

Another inkblot interrupted her. She ducked into an alleyway in the nick of time.

"That man is a coward," Contrapper yelled. "And so are you!"

"I'm not protecting him. He may be scum, but this isn't the way to get back at him." Marinette swung her yo-yo to a chimney, pulling herself up to the roofline. She glanced down at the street below. Contrapper was stalking around the square, heading toward the alleyway Marinette had just escaped from.

"Maybe you're not working for him," Contrapper went on, "but you still refuse to do anything to stop him. Well, I'm not holding back anymore! All my contractees will help me take him down, once and for all."