I Fall Still, Falling Apart. (Miraculous Ladybug AU)

•3• c'est un nouveau temps et jour

The walk home from the metro was beautiful. The air was cold and biting, crisply buffeting against the clean lines her warm coat made. The clouds, like cotton balls were white and wispy, but Madeleine was positive that if she reached high and touched them, her hands would be sticky and sugary like cotton candy.
Too bad that Madeleine was too busy staring at the sky to not register there was a wave of people fleeing the scene behind her. Trampled, she tried to dive away from the crowd and landed into a patch of grass by the sidewalk. Getting up tenderly, she minded the sore parts of her legs and bodies that were stepped on a few times before she rolled.
Now out of danger, she found herself curious of why people were running. With the crowd cleared, she walked back to the plaza. "Where is everyone? I don't know why they just started running!"
This was before she was hit with a stick right in the face of course. Spluttering, she pulled back to see a man wearing an outfit fit for gardening, armed with a metallic leaf blower and a messenger bag. 'Wow can I take a hint.. Gardener man?' She was about to roll her eyes before another weapon was thrown at her by her assailant. This time a spear made out of wood.
Dropping to her knees, she let out a sigh of relief before another spear was thrown at her. Rolling to the side, her heart thumped quickly at how the spear landed where her organs just were. Bolting off as gardener's shears were thrown at her, the blades shining vividly as they wizzed past her head. Ducking into a near alleyway, she peeked out to see the gardener who gazed dazedly, trying to see where the young girl had went, before he clumped away on his dirty boots.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, she gestured for her kwami to come out of her shoe.
"Plagg! Claws out!" The heroine of Paris cried out, a flash of light engulfing her, she's encased in the familiar sanctity of leather and latex. Shedding her civilian clothes, leaving only a feeling of lightness and strength she can never comprehend the fact that she has.
Stretching her muscles, she's about to languish for a moment on the energy coursing through her, humming like a motor wire, but she kicks into action- a group of people, screaming in the distance. Unsheathing her baton, she uses it to fling herself. Flying across the plaza, she lands onto the opposite side's rooftops. Looking over the metropolitan area, she notices the bustling crowd of people. It's 5'o'clock, the civilian side of her says. Rush hour.
Like a cat, she has no measurement of time. So in what one would call a split second later, she pinpoints the gardener in the crowd and leaps right at them, she wouldn't know how long it was.
She only comprehends this- the electricity, her blood singing, her prey, marked and ready for a fight- this feels natural. This feels right.
Landing onto the shoulders of the akumatized gardener, launching him backwards as his hands searched for balance, waving frantically to stabilize hisself. Grasping one of his hands, she jumps off his shoulders and spins before using the acceleration to sling him into the air and propelling him across the plaza.
Immediately launching off her lower position, she uses her baton and flys across to meet him. Sliding her baton back into position, she crouches over the man, who was starting to recover but still seemed a bit cross eyed. Landing a right hook on his dirty face, she was about to dig in with her claws before a black string wrapped around his torso and dragged him up.
Looking up to meet the new competitor, she spots the figure holding a, yo-yo? Is it? Dressed in red and black. Scaling the brick building, finding it easier to do that instead of ripping out the baton, she speedily catches up to her prey and the new mysterious figure. Swinging up to the rooftop, she meets the mysterious person, a young boy also dressed in latex. The mask covering his face like hers doesn't allow her to identify him, but his cherub cheeks and bright eyes makes him look as young as her.
Still, she feels her (figurative) hackles raise, and trying not to growl, "Why are you here? Don't you know it's dangerous? He can kill you!" She only receives a blank stare by the young boy as he unravels the akumatized villain from his yo-yo. "Aren't you my partner? You're the cat hero right?" He asked, his voice thick with condescension. 'Try not to growl, try not to growl, try not to growl..'  Madeleine growled. "Sure. Your partner. Your partner? Who do you think you are," She pauses, noticing the space behind him that was once filled but isn't. Empty space. But what? She looks further in the distance and sees a jumping figure- oh right, the villain.
She grasps the boys wrist next to her to grab his attention. Pointing to the retreating man, "That's him! He's getting away." Whipping at her baton, she prepares to chase after him, her mind racing in anticipation for the catch. The floor is moving and leaving her feet though, as she's being dragged to the edge of the roof by the rushing boy, and now she's flung over the roof as he uses his yo-yo to carry them across the rooftops.
Shocked, and she'll admit this later, a bit offended, she immediately stabs him with her baton, jabbing him in the stomach. His sense of concentration faltering, his yo-yo's hold slips and they both go tumbling 30 feet down into the busy, populated, street.
Time seems to slow when the body is placed in a dangerous position. She remembers her health teacher, Mme Rickshaw saying that, something about the flight or fight response and adrenal glands and all that. She totally could of used this moment to provide an example in class. All she sees is the furious anger on the masked boy's face morphing into complete terror and the bustling of traffic below, before time catches up again and she's falling faster than before.
Her organs are constricting, her limbs flailing, but one of her hands latch onto the stranger's arm and the other grasps the baton in her hand. Something, maybe her based instincts clicks as her eyes fling open.
Her baton is in her hand.
Something in her mind whispers that she's changing the roles up by doing this but she doesn't know how. Praying for time to slow again, she attaches her baton to a far away light pole half away through their fall. The jerky pull and her motion sickness is replaced with the familiar slide into the light pole. She never thought she'd be so happy to ram face first into a pole before now. The boy who she grabbed on to wriggles from her grip and lands with a soft 'thump' on the ground. Madeleine looks down. Oh, right. She's not that far from the ground. Dropping down and sheathing her baton, she looks eye to eye to the masked boy.
He looks mad. Madeleine is about to ask him why his face is all scrunched up before the just recent events caught up with her. Oh. Yeah. She wants to feign ignorance and ignore the heat on her face and the clenching of her insides, but it seems he is turning away before she can even do that.
Something compels her to run after him. This can't be the end, not with all the chaos surrounding them. "Wait." She stutters, her voice caught in her throat and coming out whispery and high. He is still walking away, "Wait." Voice firm, she can't let this go. His back is becoming smaller. She knows he heard her.
The flames licked her still queasy insides. Why would he do this? The ignorant brat! Only one thing to do. Using her infamous baton, she jabs him in the back. He starts to turn at the confrontation, "Wait!" She says, almost screaming in the commotion of people. Running to him, she glares at him, but does nothing else. "I'm sorry, alright. It was not in my," She scopes the ground, picking apart all the advice she got through the years, 'use 'I' messages!', 'don't place blame!', 'make amends and be sincere!' and she surreally feels like she's back in nursery school again. "It was not my right to accuse you of not being capable of helping." He starts to turn and she grabs his shoulder, fingers clenching into the latex and skin underneath, and she finds that she doesn't care that it's against social politeness by far.
"I don't know you! Why should I trust you! Just tell me, who are you?" She rushes her sentences, slurring together until they feel like tongue twisters, trying to make the masked stranger stay. To not leave yet.
He turns to her, "Look, my name is," He pauses, and seems embarrassed when he says this, "Ladybug. We have a villain to catch right?" He turns to look at the havoc wrecking mass of people and the Hell
that Paris had been turned into. Turning back to her with a look on his face like he expected her to object.
She lets it slide this time. "Yeah. Let's see who can catch him first, shall we?" "You attack from the right and I'll search left?" "Sure!" Madeleine agrees, the rhythm becoming natural to her. "First one gets all!" With that, they both run off, not looking back. Madeleine weaves through the crowd, keeping an eye out for any infected civilians. She doesn't know how they look yet but she is relieved when they stand out quite obviously. Like hulking yeti monsters, if yeti monsters were made out of dirt, and if snow yeti's mouths spewed black, gushing,fertilizer.
If Madeleine was not running at full velocity and not sliding and rolling to dodge the giants, she would of made some theory or connection with that but instead she dodges a huge, black foot print right above her head. The ground shakes behind her as the yeti's foot meets where her head  would of been. The lumbering beast turns around, slow and clumsy, to see what they missed.
Madeleine didn't know if there were humans under the layers of dirt. She was guessing not, as they couldn't breathe under all of the dirt and layers. Making her pole long to give some distance, she raised it above her head to slam it into the dirt monsters. They crumbled as the pole cut jaggedly through the monsters' insides.
The ground shook below her. Turning around, she noticed the hoard of monsters approaching her. Spinning around, she swung her pole out in front of her, cutting and therefore crumbling the yeti's into piles of dirt. She made her escape, jumping to the roof with her baton.
"Time to find the cause of all of this." Racing across the roofs of Paris, the view was incredible, but she didn't have time to cherish it. She stopped, looking around to find the streets around her were inactive. That didn't make sense. Gardener Man had to be here, right?
Flashing to the metro station, where it all started, she remembered her curious search of why the civilians were running past her. And into her. "Oh!" Madeleine smiled, clicking into place, "If the civilians run from him, wherever the crowd is he must be!"
Bolting off, she tries to find the street with the most activity. "That must be the street that I landed on! That means," Madeleine slumped. That meant she went in the completely wrong direction. What a waste of time! Running faster, she drops from the rooftops to the street below. The crowd is gone, people migrating to somewhere else to avoid the villain's hold.
Turning around, quite cautious and afraid for nothing happening, feeling like a child expecting the villain to jump out like a boogeyman. Ears pulled back, she crept in the shadows, looking for any sign of the villain.
She got what she wanted it seems, as something sticky is thrown on her and she is slammed into the brick wall. Looking at the black goop that stuck her to the wall, she realizes it's fertilizer. Experimentally moving her limbs, they struggled to the sticky substance but ultimately she ended up still presses to the wall.
Movement in her peripheral vision. Turning her head, which was almost impossible with how the fertilizer crept up her neck, she saw the villain she was searching for. 'So I wasn't just a scaredy-cat, he was there! Heh.' Looking at his face, she noticed his eyes looking solely at her hands. Her hands. Her fingers clenched consciously, her hand anxiously trying to hide or make it harder for the villain to grab her ring holding the miraculous. No dice. She knew doing this was going to be dangerous, because if this didn't end quickly she risked exposing herself to Paris.
Taking the risk, she cried out, "Catalcysm!" She couldn't move because she was trapped, but she charged her power and directed it towards the substance holding her back. Evaporating, she dropped down and faced him. Immediately swinging before he could react, she swung her baton at him, he stopped her movement with her air blower, starting to jest, they both matched each other.
In the indestructible suit charged from the miraculous, she wasn't in her human skin- easily destructible, weak, and puny. It made matching up with the akumatized victim easier than if she still resembled the 12 year old girl that she is on the inside.
Feeling more encouraged by how this wasn't her, this was the black cat of Paris she inhabited, she fought harder, going on the offensive as she invaded his attacks. She got closer until he was backing away to give himself more leverage as they fought. Now was the time. She tried not to grin (smirk, her mind supplied) at the fact that he was near cornered, he was about to run into the brick wall.
It seems that Gardener knew that too though, as he stopped meeting her attacks and let one cut through the air, no weapon to meet it. Left confused, she had to take the time to strike again, which she wasn't able to do as he slapped the leaf blower across her body, meeting her midsection, she was flung to the side. Surprised by the strength of the blow, she tried to crawl away from the advancing attacker. Shaking, she pulled herself up before she was snatched by the collar and slammed down again.
She kicked the man in the face, and tried not to find too much joy in the surprised look he gave her. (she was a superhero, did he think she was going to lie down and take this?) "Monsieur, don't you know not to have your claws out on a first date? It's impolite to do so!~" Flipping her feet behind her head, she pushed up off the ground and started to strike again. Biding for time for something, (though she didn't know what), to come.
Well she got her wish after all. She turned her head as a whizzing noise flew past her. In front of her was the spotted boy in red. Spinning his yo-yo, he wastes no time and wraps his yoyo around the leaf blower before yanking it out of his hand.
That became a tug-of-war between the two. The akumatized villain was persistent. Madeleine stared confusingly at the tug of war, why was her supposedly partner-in-crime (partner-in-good didn't sound as well, good.) so persistent on getting the leaf blower in the first place?
Speak if the devil, she felt him hissing in her ear. "Madeleine! The akuma is in," Before he could finish, he was flung forwards by the gardener pulling extra hard. Losing his grip on the tool, the gardener used the time to start converting more civilians to monsters made of rock. He turned to the boy in red, making his way to hover over him, grasping his.. ears?
'Earrings! His miraculous!' Her mind supplied, taking the leap of logic, she took the leap of fate and extended her baton. Like a sword, she pounced and swung, knocking the man across the head. Wincing in pain, the gardener flinched and rolled away. Just enough time for Madeleine to grasp his leaf blower and smash it. Out flies a purple butterfly, oozing with negative energy.
Madeleine tries to not look too amazed as the boy in red jumps up and uses his yo-yo, spinning it and capturing the akuma in his tool. Pressing the button on his ladybug shaped yo-yo, the butterfly emerged, glowing and white. He tossed it in the air, cried "Miraculous Ladybug!" and with a swarm of glowing ladybugs, Paris was corrected into his normal state.
Where there used to lie their villain was a scrawny, dirty, confused, gardener.
"What happened?" Madeleine asked. She didn't know if it was instinct or if it was compulsive. "I gotten walked out today! Apparently my style of gardening and aesthetic is becoming out of fashion and they're replacing me with people 'who promote the business'! I'm so sorry." The man trailed off. Madeleine couldn't help but feel bad for the man, even if he did make a gigantic scene and mess for the day. Reaching her hand out, he grasped it and she pulled him up to his feet. "It was no problem! We all have a bad mood sometimes. Just don't let it consume you next time!" The boy next to her said. Almost forgetting that he was there, she turned to look at him.
He was staring directly at the dejected man, an open look of understanding on his face. As the man said goodbye. Ladybug turned to her, as if expecting her to say something. Her ring beeped instead. "Oh." Looking at her hand, she noticed the paw print had only one toe left, she had around 10 minutes till she were to transform back by force. "You have to leave, then?" The boy asked her. "Yeah. I'll see you, next time?" She asked. "Yeah! We can call each other so we know when the next attack is." Turning, anxious that she would expose herself to Paris she walked away, prepared to launch off onto the rooftops, before Ladybug's hesitant voice stopped her. "What should I call you anyway?"
Looking at him over her shoulder, she was thoughtful for a moment before making her mind up. "Chatte Noire, you can call me Chatte Noire." Ladybug seemed satisfied with that answer, turning to walk away. She turned to face his back. "Hey, Ladybug?"
Suprised, he looked back. "You did," a pause, "good today." "Yeah, you did too, Chatte Noire." A smile.
Turning to flee before it was awkward, she bolted off onto the roof tops, a beep from her ring signaled she only had 5 minutes, and she raced amongst the rooftops, sure that she'd make it in time. She took the time to glance at the sky on the roof top of her house. A brilliant array of orange and red, the lowering sun about to sink into the horizon, and Madeleine was surprisingly content. A flash of green, and she was normal again.

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c'est un nouveau temps et jour: it is a new time and day.