Love by Design - Adrienette

The Narrator

The furious scratching of my pencil came to a sudden halt; my story was yet to meet its resolution, and my brain was void of any notion how to get it there. "I hate writer's block!" With an exasperated groan I removed my hat and placed it upside down on the table in front of me. Taking off my glasses, I nested them inside the hat. This allowed me to lay my right cheek sulkily on the table top, slightly cushioning my head with my right elbow. I thrust my left arm out in front of me, its corresponding hand still fiddling absently with the writing implement. Giving myself a moment to close my eyes and wallow, I was unaware of a purple butterfly fluttering around me until it landed on my pencil and melded itself into the wood.

"Narrator, I am Hawkmoth. You try to give account of other people's lives, but you can't always predict what somebody would do in a set situation. Now everyone will do exactly as you say. In return, you have to fulfill one little job for me."

I raised my head from the desk, a pink mask glowing around the borders of my face. A dark red shadow spread across the skin under my eyes. "Narrator will retrieve the miraculouses of Ladybug and Chat Noir." A glowing purple light seeped out of my pencil and consumed me; when it dissipated, I stood cloaked in black, a hood covering my face.

I wandered through the streets of Paris, using my new ability mostly to my own amusement as I looked for Ladybug and Chat Noir. "Chloe and her father spontaneously start a duet while walking down the street together. Despite it being the second week of April, their repertoire consists mostly of Christmas songs."

Suddenly Marinette sprinted out of a cafe and across the street. I followed her. She seemed distressed - enough that she didn't notice my presence, but her kwami did.

"Marinette, an akuma! You have to transform!"

"I can't let anyone see Ladybug like this - I'm a nervous wreck! I can't possibly fight sucessfully right now, not when he is my partner."

"None of this is Adrien's fault, nor yours! His dad can't force you to do anything. Now please transform, Paris needs you. Try to forget about your civilian form for now."

Marinette still hesitated.

"I just saw a pigeon with spots on it!"

"Spots on a pigeon?...Oh." Marinette chuckled a little when she realized Tikki had tricked her into saying the words that would trigger her becoming Ladybug.

With the transformation complete, she jumped out at me while flinging her yo-yo. I suspected she wanted to capture my akuma quickly and have the job over with.

"Ladybug's yo-yo falls just short of Narrator. Its string becomes tangled, giving Narrator time to escape." I smiled as I realized everything was happening just as I spoke it. I ran well out of her reach while she fixed her weapon.

"Suddenly Narrator has a hunch exactly where Chat Noir is. She leads Ladybug right to her partner." I just started running and sure enough was taken straight to Chat Noir. "The sight of her partner is too much for Ladybug as her mind is flooded with memories of earlier events."

Ladybug blushed profusely. "I don't need help with that, you know!"

"Ladybug can't help herself, Narrator said so, so she has to kiss her partner."

"I'm sorry Chat, I can't control my body!" Ladybug walked over to her partner and tried to kiss him.

"It's okay, I know you can't. We'll figure something out." He sidestepped her, making me realize my mistake. While I controlled her, he was left in complete control of his actions.

"Look at us, what a mess we are. I know you feel awkward too, you can't even pun today!" She was panicking, something she rarely did as Ladybug.

"Well... this is a very telling situation." He forced the pun out, trying to make her feel better when he himself was not feeling okay.

"Thanks, Chat. Lucky -"

"Ladybug cannot remember the second word to activate her special ability," I interrupted her. "Neither can Chat Noir," I added hastily to make sure he didn't remind her.

Unfortunately for me, Ladybug noticed my trouble this time. "She can make people do literally anything, but she has trouble controlling multiple people!" She looked around for someone to help. "Alya!"

Alya was off to the side, videoing the fight to upload to her blog. "What's this? Ladybug has called out to me! Yes?"

"I need you to distract Narrator. Anything - just please get her attention off of us!"

"That won't work against me if I know what your plan is," I told Ladybug.

"Trust me, Alya has ways of getting a person's attention." What a display of confidence in a person she wasn't supposed to know that much about.

"Good luck with that, now my attention is on you. Ladybug embraces Chat Noir. He smiles and kisses her fondly. She blushes and turns away, glaring at Narrator. Chat pulls her back into him."

"What is it with you and making us kiss?!"

"I know it embarasses you, and embarassed heroes can't fight well."

"Oh. Good idea, but not good enough. Your attention should have been on Alya."

Suddenly something wrapped around my torso, pinning my arms. It took me a moment to recognize it as the detached strap of Alya's school bag. "You had better get this on video!" she yells at Nino.

"No problem," I laugh. "The strap -"

I felt a hand firmly clamp over my mouth. I licked it, thinking that would make her pull it away. "Nice try." Alya is strong willed! "Now Ladybug!"

"I'll take that!" When Ladybug removed my pencil from my hand and snapped it in two, an akuma flew out. She purified it in the usual way. I transformed back to normal.

"Aren't you going to use Lucky Charm?" Chat Noir asked.

"There is really nothing that needs to be put back to normal, unless you count that." Ladybug pointed to the Bourgeois father and daughter duo, still caroling.

Alya released me and I went home. I knew how to finish my story.

***

A highly emotional Marinette returned to the bakery and went straight up to her room. Soon afterward, Adrien came in the bakery door and immediately hunkered down below the line of sight through the window. Sabine was about to alert her daughter to the boy's presence when he shook his head.

"Please don't, I couldn't bear to see her right now." A/n - I used the wrong "bear" when I wrote the rough draft. Instead of just pointing it out to me, my mom said "well he shouldn't". I didn't really know she had comments like that in her.

"Did you get in a fight?" Tom asked.

"No. Not with each other, with my dad... we... found out."

Tom bent down to where the boy was crouching on the floor. "Listen, Adrien, Sabine and I aren't going to let anything happen. We both strongly believe that marriage is a decision you should be able to make on your own when the person and time are both right."

The blond boy nodded. "Thank you."

"So, why did you come here?" Sabine asked.

"I'm afraid to go home, and I didn't know where else I could go."

A/n - I am The Narrator. The Narrator is me. My parents even called me that when I was little. When I was first learning to talk, I would talk about everything that transpired; such as a family friend getting out of the car: "Bob weave, Nana (nuh-nuh) wave."