Unmasked

Chapter Three

Song: Memories by Shawn Mendes

Word Count: 1382

Today was the first official day of the mission. I took a deep breath before staring at myself in the mirror in my room. It felt weird to see me, Ladybug, without my mask. Without it I was Marinette. Plain Marinette. The Guardian had placed clothes in the house for me, so I was wearing an outfit he had put together. A pair of pink jeans, a white floral shirt and a black overcoat. My hand reached out and stroked the pair of ladybug themed earrings I had on.

Technically, no one is allowed to know the other's identity, but we all had one piece of identification in case of an emergency. Say, if someone were to claim to be me and try to get insider information, they'd be pushed towards The Guardian who would then look for the identifying he gave us, and if it wasn't there we'd eliminate the threat. Plus, the pieces of jewellery we were given also doubled as a comm unit and a tracker, they all connected to The Guardian so he could keep his eyes on us at all times.

Quickly, I raced towards the school I was to attend. I had never been to real school, Miraculous Inc was all I knew, I had grown up in the program and had never stood in a normal classroom. Normal had been classified as throwing daggers at targets while we were shouted questions that had to do with academics, and if we got it wrong we had to do twenty push-ups before continuing our assault on the targets.

My small hand gripped the worn dagger handle before throwing it at the already chipped target. It hit with a thud on the bullseye and Rena Rouge smiled at me, her hood and mask covering her face so I could only see her mouth. "That was a good throw, LB!"

I gave her my own smile before throwing another dagger. The Instructor walked towards us all and we stood at attention like soldiers in an army. With a meticulous touch, Instructor taped four pieces of paper on each of our targets. Then he put up dividers so we couldn't see each other's answers.

Chat Noir let out a sigh and started grumbling about how he hated pop quizzes under his breath. A small laugh escaped my mouth and I hip bumped him before gesturing to be quiet. In response, he stuck his tongue out at me childishly.

Prepubescent Chat was geeky, I could make out some pimples from under his hood as well as his blindingly bright neon green braces. Not that I was much better, but that's not the point.

Instructor yelled something and Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee all had their hands devoid of a knife. "Chat Noir and Ladybug, your answers please?" Instructor asked impatiently. Chat and I both winced, we hadn't heard the question.

Knowing better than to ask for him to repeat the question, we simply threw our knives and hoped we had gotten the answers correct. We didn't.

"Chat Noir and Ladybug, drop and give me twenty- no make it thirty for not paying attention!"

I laughed as the memory flickered behind my closed eyelids as I walked to my new school. I felt the person I walked into before I heard them.

My eyes flew open and soon I was falling, I, international spy, had just walked into someone. God, I'm an embarrassment.

The guy I had walked into was ethereal. His blond hair was styled perfectly and his outfit was on point- okay maybe not the orange sneakers, but who am I to judge- and I had to do everything I could to not sigh in contentment. We fell with a thud, him breaking my fall as I laid on his chest.

My cheeks turned scarlet and I rushed to stand up, "I'm so sorry! Oh gosh, I wasn't looking where I was going!"

The guy had his eyes closed and he rubbed the back of his head, "It's fine! I wasn't looking where I was going either." His voice caressed me like an old friend and I shivered as an unknown sensation blazed through me.

Just as his eyelids started to flutter open the bell rang and I turned away from him and ran towards the school, I can't be late on the first day, I had to find a way to gather information and the more time I spend in that place the better.

When I sat down at a desk my mind was going haywire, and not about the job, but about the guy I had literally ran into outside. Something whispered in my head that he was no stranger... The feeling of his chest under my hands had felt familiar and another memory flickered from the depths of my head.

Chat Noir and I stood on a balcony, our clothes askew from our earlier... activities..., his coat was draped across my shoulders, and his arm around my waist. My hands and head were laying gently on his chest and I savoured the feeling of his chest rising and falling, of the sound of his heart thumping.

His hand moved up and drew shapes on the nape of my neck, distracting me from the snow storm that was whirling around us. Breath streamed from his open mouth and he tilted his head up to look at the clouds that were covering us in little white snowflakes. "Why'd you get put in the program. Princess?" he asked quietly and I watched as a snowflake landed on his red nose and he scrunched his nose up, true to his name, like a cat.

My head then followed his lead and tilted upwards. My mouth pressed a gentle butterfly kiss to the underside of his jaw, causing him to quiver a bit and tilt his head so I could press kisses elsewhere on his neck. I pressed another kiss, this one on his Adam's apple, before whispering, "I was told that my parents had a bakery and that one night it was robbed. Everything was taken and our insurance couldn't cover it so in the end they were evicted from their house. They had no money and no house to live in, no way to care for me. Somehow I ended up in foster care and then ended up in the Mini Miraculous Training Program, not that I remember any of that."

"What do you remember?" Chat hummed inquisitively.

I let out an embarrassed laugh before hiding my face in his neck. "Believe it or not, but my first memory is of us sitting together in our small Miraculous Inc Outfits, and you were babbling on about the ears on your hood and how much you loved cats, which I remember telling you that Ladybugs were way cooler." My hand brushed a stray piece of hair behind my ear, "Lame memory, huh?"

A small kiss was planted on the crown of my head and my hands dragged up his chest, memorising every single plane, till they wrapped around his neck. "No, not lame at all."

The bell rang again, snapping me out of my thoughts. A figure plunked down on the bench beside me and smiled lightly, "Hey, I'm Alya, cool if I sit here?" She had long red-brown hair and huge curious brown eyes framed by black glasses. She wore a plaid shirt and a necklace chain that should lead to a charm, but I couldn't quite see what the charm was- it was hidden by her shirt.

I nodded with a smile and once she settled into the seat I greeted her, "Hi, I'm Marinette!"

For some reason The Guardian's instructions were to use our real names, which could be risky on all different levels, I didn't understand his reasoning for it, but everyone knows that you never question The Guardian.

A teacher who went by the name Ms Bustier started class and soon I noticed a mop of blond hair who sat in front of me. Oh great, it's the guy I ran into outside! I held in an aggravated sigh before trying to focus on the teacher instead of the man in front of me.

Just what I need on this mission, a distraction. 

-=-

I'm back! Exams are finally over (thank goodness)

I got:

77.5% on Math

92.7% on English

96% on Science and

94% on Social Studies

Weird part? Math is my best subject usually, so that made me kind of sad and confused, but I'm so glad my month of studying is over! Thank God! 

This update is random because I will be out of the city on Sunday on vacation and I didn't know if I'd be able to upload, so I'm doing it today! But the regular Sunday updates should be back to normal by next week.

Thanks for being so patient!

-SecretsInMyHead