Night Shift - Chapter 1 - Spirolateral - Miraculous Ladybug [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter Text

Marinette stood outside the mansion doors, with Alya at her right, her mother at her left, and countless friends and family around her. The cold was bitter, the snow showed no sign of stopping, and the time was well past midnight, but everybody stood calmly and silently in anticipation. Marinette could hear the breathing of the people around her, and could see her own breath rising above her in the cold.

The door swung open, held by a woman with dark hair, and Adrien and his father stood behind.

“Please, Father,” Adrien pled, “show some Christmas spirit!”

“Very well,” Adrien’s father replied, and turned to address the assembled crowd outside. “Come in.”

Nino was the quickest, running forward to embrace his friend. Marinette followed, with Alya at her side, both filled with warmth and cheer as they saw their friend safe at home.

And before long, all were seated around a long table, laughing together and exchanging good wishes as they ate a magnificent feast. Everything was good, and love was all around.

Lila set down her book and walked across her small apartment to remove a box from the freezer. Fumbling with the packaging, she pulled out a plastic dish and placed it in the microwave, peeling off the clear plastic cover before closing the door. She fished the cardboard box out of the trash to confirm the cooking time, and punched in four minutes and thirty seconds.

Absentmindedly, Lila drummed her fingers on the counter as she watched the dish slowly spin around and around in the small lit chamber. As the timer hit zero, the microwave beeped, and the display switched to show the time. Lila was surprised to see that it was already after midnight as she reached to pull out the dish.

Lila sat back down in the only chair in her apartment, and set the plastic dish on her lap while she picked up a book from the small table at her right. She read chapter after chapter as she ate her food, and at one point grumbled as a drop of red sauce spilled onto the pages. Eventually, she sighed, closed the book, turned out the lamp, and climbed into bed.

“Hey Alya,” Nino called across the table, “did Marinette ever tell you about that one time at the Louvre?”

“Aww, come on, don’t tell her about that!” Marinette complained.

Alya laughed. “Knowing you, Marinette, I’m sure it won’t be unprecedented.”

“It was totally nuts, dude!” Nino began. “It was a couple years ago, and we were all on a class trip. Anyway, there’s this Rembrandt exhibit that Nathaniel really wants to see, and he convinces Ms. Bustier to take us there. But it’s just past that room with the Mona Lisa. You know how crowded it always gets there, right? All those tourists who don’t know any better, packed in like a box of crayons.”

“I think I see where this is going,” Alya commented, as Marinette blushed and hid her face in her hands.

“Anyway, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to make it past the crowd. So then Marinette gets the idea that if we hold hands and make an arrow formation, we’ll be able to part the crowd ahead of us. Chloé and Sabrina go on by themselves, but the rest of us decide to follow Marinette’s idea, and we all hold hands and make a Vee formation, and Marinette’s in front, trying to part the crowd in front of her. So anyway, we’re going through the crowd, right? And then Marinette trips over somebody’s foot and falls backwards on Nathaniel and me, and we all fall over like a row of dominoes.”

Alya snorted with laughter and Adrien let out a small chuckle. Marinette slowly sank lower and lower in her chair.

“And it gets better! As we fall, this person with a shoulder bag trips on Marinette’s leg and an entire sandwich spills out of the bag, with mayonnaise and everything, and it lands on Marinette’s face! You shoulda seen it, dude, it was sick!”

“Did you really have to mention the sandwich?” Marinette said with a small voice from under the table.

“And then when she tried to get up, she elbowed Nathaniel right in the eye. The poor guy never saw it coming!”

Laughing along with Nino and Adrien, Alya reassuringly put her hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.”

Marinette tentatively chuckled along with her friends as she sat back up. “I’d forgotten that part about Nathaniel.”

“Say, where is Nathaniel?” Alya wondered out loud. “Why isn’t he here?”

“His family’s Jewish, right?” Nino responded. “So he doesn’t celebrate Christmas.”

“But still, I’d think he’d be here for Adrien,” Alya insisted. “Maybe he’s out of town?”

“He’s got a cold, actually,” Rose added from down the table. “He texted me about it; he’s been sick in bed for a few days.”

“Aw, that’s really sad,” Alya sighed. “We really should go visit him and cheer him up sometime.”

“Hey, where are Ivan and Mylène?” Marinette asked. “Do they not celebrate Christmas either? I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them at a Christmas party.”

“I don’t know about celebrating Christmas, but Ivan always travels with his family over winter break,” Rose replied. “Mylène went with them this year. I think they went to Japan.”

“Korea, not Japan,” Nino corrected. “I heard them talking about it a while back.”

“That’s everybody, though, right?” Alya wondered. “I don’t think we’re forgetting anyone.”

“See, Adrien?” Nino said cheerfully, lightly elbowing his friend in the ribs. “We’ve all got your back, dude.”

Adrien beamed. “Thank you all so much, it means the world to me.”

“Of course,” Alya said with a grin. “Merry Christmas, Adrien.”

The orange streetlamp outside Lila’s window was flickering irregularly. Lila watched carefully from under her sheets, trying to spot a pattern as the light flickered on and off. Three short flashes, then a long pause, then a long flash followed by a short one, then—no, it broke the pattern.

Resignedly, Lila tossed the sheets to the side and got up, aware that it would be a long time before she could get to sleep. Turning on the light and pulling out her flute, she began practicing a short solo, making sure to stay quiet so as to not wake up the neighbors. After playing through the solo three times, she absentmindedly improvised a slow melody, imagining that she was a soloist accompanied by a full orchestra, with a full audience of enthralled concert-goers that all came to hear her play her own composition.

After a few minutes, she put the flute down, and briefly pondered whether to write out the melody, eventually deciding against it.

It was then that Lila realized it was Christmas. She’d never celebrated Christmas herself, or really any holiday for that matter. She was far from being religious, and like her parents, she saw no reason to partake in what in her opinion amounted to just another solar festival. Lila did sometimes wonder what that sort of celebration would be like—being together with friends and family, united in the spirit of celebration. It sounded good on paper, but Lila suspected it would always end up being trite and contrived.

For what felt like the millionth time, Lila briefly wondered what she would do if she had her own mobile phone. Perhaps she would text somebody; on nights like this it would always be nice to have somebody to talk to. She immediately scoffed at the thought: everybody would be sleeping by now, and besides, nobody would want to talk to her. Not after she was humiliated by Ladybug and was exposed to all of Paris as a fraud and a liar.

Lila sighed, opened her laptop, pulled up a blank document, and began to write.

“Say, who is that Santa?” Alya asked, glancing toward the red-suited man at the other end of the table.

“Oh, I ran into him on the way home,” Adrien explained. “He was all alone, and I thought he could use some company.”

“I see, you felt you couldn’t just stand by and leave him all on his own,” Alya finished.

“I know what that feeling’s like,” Marinette said quietly, as she gently prodded her mashed potatoes with a fork.

“What did you say?” Alya asked.

Marinette shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“Well, he’s a cool dude, that Santa,” Nino added. “He showed me a magic trick where he put a chocolate coin in his pocket and then it ended up in my pocket. And he even let me eat the coin!”

“I know how that trick’s done,” Alya commented.

“Well, don’t spoil it for me!” Nino retorted. “Say, Marinette, are you all right?”

Marinette’s head jerked and she looked over at Nino. “Oh, yes, sorry. I was just zoning out for a bit.”

“You must be tired,” Marinette’s mother commented from further down the table. “We should probably be heading home, since we have to wake up early tomorrow.”

Marinette nodded. “Goodnight everyone, and merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas, Marinette!” Alya replied. “See you tomorrow!”

“Have a safe trip home,” Nino added.

Adrien smiled and waved as Marinette and her family left the room.

Lila looked up to see a spotted red figure standing on her balcony, just past the glass door.

“I hope I’m imagining this,” Lila declared as she walked toward the visitor.

“Then I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,” Ladybug curtly replied.

“As if that’ll be new and different,” Lila shot back. “Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”

“You wouldn’t pull poor Officer Roger away from his family on Christmas, would you?”

“Officer who? Look, I’m not playing here, Ladybug. I don’t care if it’s Christmas or not, I’ll call the cops on you so fast you won’t even have time to use that stupid charm of yours.”

“Go ahead, call them. Let’s see if they believe the word of a liar more than that of their hero.”

Lila huffed and folded her arms. “All right, then talk. Why are you here?”

“I’m here to offer you an opportunity,” Ladybug began to explain.

Lila laughed sharply. “What, are you serious right now? Is it the opportunity to have never met you? Because I’d take that one in a heartbeat.”

Ladybug sighed, her breath fogging up the glass. “May I come in?”

“Absolutely not,” Lila replied, keeping her arms crossed.

“Please? It’s cold out here,” Ladybug tried.

Lila pulled a string and the blinds fell, covering the window.

“I brought you a Christmas gift,” Ladybug’s voice said through the blind.

“I couldn’t care less about Christmas.”

“Then it’s just a gift. For you.”

“Go away!” Lila shouted. “Get out of here, get out of my life!”

“I gave you a second chance,” Ladybug said quietly. “I was hoping you’d return the favor.”

Lila stood still and silent for a few seconds. “I’m going to regret this,” she eventually said, and opened the door.

Ladybug stepped in, shivering slightly. “Thank you, Lila,” she said with a smile. She took a look around the room. “So this is where you live.”

“How did you even find me?” Lila asked.

Ladybug held up her yoyo. “I’ve got access to a full database of everybody who lives in Paris. It’s useful for tracking down villains.”

“That’s incredibly creepy,” Lila said with wide eyes. “How is it even legal for you to have that?”

Ladybug looked into the other room. “Just two rooms. You live alone?”

“Well, yes. I think that should be pretty obvious given the general tidiness of the apartment and the absence of a second bed.”

“Where are your parents?”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Not here. Obviously.”

“You shouldn’t have to live alone like this. Especially over the holidays.”

“I don’t care about holidays. And right now, I think solitude sounds pretty appealing.”

Ladybug glanced at a large box on the balcony, wrapped in red paper. “Oh, I forgot to bring it in!” she realized, and pulled the box through the door, leaving it in the middle of the floor.

Lila stared at the box with one eyebrow raised. “What is it?”

“An opportunity,” Ladybug replied. “You said it yourself that you were cut out to be a hero. I’m offering to make that dream a reality.”

Lila slowly pulled back the paper, exposing a cardboard box. “I don’t believe in heroes.”

“An odd sentiment coming from somebody who aspired to become one.”

“Well, it was you who said that would never be possible for me,” Lila pointed out, peeling back the tape around the box.

“Then prove me wrong,” Ladybug replied as the box fell open.

As Lila looked into the box, she saw a mass of folded orange fabric, with some layers of black and white. As she reached in, she felt something more firm. Pulling out her hand, she found a carefully sculpted orange mask with a black edge.

“What is this?” Lila asked, a look of bewilderment on her face.

“I made it for you,” Ladybug replied quietly. “Come with me, and you can redeem the name of Volpina, and you can become a true hero for the people of Paris.”

“Is this a joke?” Lila asked, standing up while holding onto the mask. “I’m not a hero. I don’t have any powers. I’m not capable of fighting villains.”

A small smile spread across Ladybug’s face. “You’ve got a lot to learn about what it means to be a hero. Now put that on, we need to get going.”

“And what makes you think that I’ll come with you?”

“Because while you may be many things, you’re not somebody who’ll back down from an adventure.”

Lila raised one eyebrow. “An adventure? With my nemesis?”

“Sure, that works,” Ladybug replied. “Now put on your costume and I’ll meet you outside.”

With a quick flourish, Ladybug turned and leaped out the window.

Lila watched Ladybug leave, sighed heavily, and put on the mask. Against all odds, she’d failed to be the one in control of the situation. It was a new experience for her…it was unnerving, and somewhat thrilling.

And Lila left the apartment, turning off the lamp behind her.