MariChat: Soul Link (SoulMates AU)

A Few Choices

Marinette didn't get any sleep that night. Her heart was beating and her mind was processing a thousand different things. She wasn't really tired anyway anymore. She'd made herself a late night coffee to help keep her awake while she thought.

Chat was toying with her. He wasn't making a secret of it. He was really having fun with toying with her. He was doing it deliberately, and he was making the most of it. He was giving her tips and subtle hints to lead her along the right path. He was enjoying watching her wonder about these things.

Oooooh, she was going to punch him once she found out who he was. Right in the gut.

"Would my miraculous help figure out who he is?..." She wondered aloud. Tapping her magical earrings, she tried to spark the messages. "Soul Link! Soul Mate! Connection!" Nothing. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting. The miraculouses hadn't been giving her messages lately, which was something that she found rather weird. Maybe they had run out of poems, or maybe they didn't need to send her messages anymore. Perhaps something was wrong with her miraculous... Great. Another thing to think about.

"It doesn't work that way, Marinette..." Tikki groggily responded from her sleeping space, awoken once again by a confused Marinette's noise.

"Oh, Tikki... Sorry, I've kept waking you up these past few days, haven't I?" Marinette sincerely apologized to her sleepy Kwami.

"It's fine... I'm used to it at this point. Every Ladybug has had questions and been confused about the Soul Link... I think I remember the Amazonian Ladybug tried hitting her miraculous against a tree when it refused to tell her anything about the Soul Link."

"...How would that help?"

"She was a lot more hot-headed than you."

That earned the first real laugh Marinette had been able to have all week. So far, she hadn't had the chance to really just relax for half a second. Everything that had happened had been draining her emotionally and physically. She hadn't been able to laugh in a while.

"So, what is the issue? It's not broken, is it?" Marinette asked, once she had managed to stop laughing.

"Miraculouses can't be broken. It just needs to recharge itself."

"Re-Charge?"

"They have to tap into the very Soul Link's themselves to send you messages... You two must have been interacting so much it's shorted it out for a bit. It should be back to normal in a few days."

"Will it affect me being able to become Ladybug?"

"Not at all."

Marinette sighed. That was good to know. "Thanks for that, Tikki. You should go back to sleep now."

"What about you, Marinette?" Tikki asked, with a yawn.

"I'm not tired yet. Don't worry about me." She told her Kwami sweetly, with a reassuring smile. "I'll be okay."

Nodding, Tikki drifted back into sleep, leaving Marinette alone once again, to her thoughts.

Chat had made no secret that he knew who Marinette was in his civilian identity. He had practically given her a starting line. He was testing her. He wanted to see if she could find him now. He probably wouldn't have done that if he hadn't seen Tikki the previous night, like he claimed... So that meant he was going to offer some tips to who he was behind that black mask.

So everyone Marinette knew was a suspect.

Wonderful.