Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

For some time, he waded through thick, oily darkness. It clung to his feet and legs; it streamed into his nose and made breathing nearly impossible. When he attempted to push it apart, like curtains, it seeped through the gaps in his fingers and flooded back in, seemingly faster than before. He felt like he was burning, or drowning, or maybe both. But still, he kept going, because he couldn’t bear to think about what might happen if he stopped and sat down and let the darkness consume him.

When he stumbled through the last of the dark, onto the solid ground of a busy street, he wanted to weep with relief. When the tears didn’t come, he didn’t question it, but continued to move, trying to engage passersby so he could figure out where he was. But after the first dozen people refused to speak to him, or even stop to look at him—even when he stepped right in their paths—he realized he had entered a new kind of hell: these people were ignoring him because they could walk right through him. It was only then that he looked down at his own hands, only to see that there were none. For whatever reason, he was no longer of this Earth.

---

Marinette Dupain-Cheng couldn’t quite explain why or how she ended up in these kinds of situations so often.

If she could, she would long ago have been able to provide Mme. Bustier an excuse for why she was so frequently tardy to class. Her best friend, Alya Cesaire, often liked to say that Marinette’s empathy got her in trouble. Marinette liked to say back that it also helped her make friends, brought about good luck, and typically served as an excellent moral compass.

At this point in time, Marinette was inclined to agree with Alya.

“So, I take the left turn down by the lamp post, and then I…” The old woman, a whole head shorter than Marinette and hunched over a small notebook in which she was writing down the short set of directions Marinette had given her, peered up at her through thick spectacles. “What do I do again?”

“Ah…” Marinette checked her watch. She pursed her lips. It would only take her a few minutes to walk the lost woman down the street to the bank she was searching for, but it would make her five minutes late to class—and that was if she sprinted there. But what if the woman took the wrong turns, and got lost, and then couldn’t find her way home? And five minutes wasn’t really all that late, all things considered…

“You know what? I can take you there myself,” Marinette blurted out.

“Oh, really?” The woman looked delighted. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! I don’t mind at all,” Marinette said, smiling back at the woman. “Let me just…” She quickly pulled out her phone and tapped a text message to Alya:

What are the odds Mme. Bustier will excuse my tardiness because I’m walking a lost old lady to the bank down the street?

In typical form, Alya’s response came back in record time. Literally negative. You are too much! Are you really going to risk detention for this?

Marinette sent back an emoticon with a sheepish grin and a sweatdrop rolling down its forehead before shoving the phone in her pocket. She looked down at the woman, who looked expectantly back up at her with hopeful eyes. Marinette’s heart warmed at the sight. Detention or no detention, that made it all worthwhile, she thought.

“Shall we, then?”

--

He’d been here for several nights, watching the sun rise and fall, perched atop a tower that he just knew he’d seen before. It felt like he had only been here for seconds, but he knew better; he recognized a loneliness inside of him that could only result from having been alone for a very, very long time.

But tonight was different from the previous nights. There was something in the air. He couldn’t explain it, but then again, he couldn’t explain many things.

It had taken him quite some time to recognize that he had no idea who he was anymore—or what he was. And he had no idea how he’d gotten here, as if someone had taken a black marker and dotted out parts of his memory.

He paused in his survey of the city when an unfamiliar light caught his eye. There—in a nondescript alley—there it was. A glow, as if something were lighting up that whole area. He knew then, instantly, more certain than he’d been of anything since he’d become this…thing, that he needed to follow it. He blinked once, just to make sure it wasn’t his imagination, and when he saw that it wasn’t, he jumped from his perch, urging himself toward the light.

---

Marinette climbed into bed and pulled the covers over herself, enjoying the soft breeze from the open rooftop window overhead. It was late summer, one of the only times of the year where the weather permitted her such a luxury. Sleep washed over her quickly, ushered on by the breeze that floated in, out, and back in through the window like a wave.

Somewhere between waking and sleeping, Marinette felt the distinct sensation that someone—or something—was watching her, and she jolted awake, sitting up and clutching the covers over herself. She looked around, and when she saw nothing, the sensation eased. This had not been the first time she’d been awoken by the vague beginnings of a bad dream, and she sighed before turning on her side, facing the wall.

Not half a minute later, she felt the sensation again—a tingling, prickly feeling that ran all the way down her spine—and she sat up once more, slowly this time, debating for a moment whether she should turn around at all before she finally held her breath and forced herself to do so.

In the darkness, with only the sliver of moonlight that crept in through the open window to illuminate the room, Marinette could very easily have been imagining what she saw. But when she blinked, the pair of large green eyes floating at the edge of the loft did not disappear, but rather blinked back.

That was all it took. Marinette let out a noise that was a cross between a gasp and a scream and scrambled backwards on her bed until she was pressing herself against the wall.

“Wait!”

And it could talk! The thing had a voice! On impulse, Marinette reached for whatever was nearest her—an old teddy bear, in this case—and held it out before her as threateningly as she could. She refused to die this way or this young. She had only been kissed once! And it hadn’t even been that good!

“Don’t come any closer!” she rasped.

But whatever creature bore those eyes, so cat-like in the dark but almost certainly human, paid no heed and approached her slowly, until Marinette could see that the eyes were not floating in plain air. Rather, they came attached to a clear, dark, almost watery translucent figure. She couldn’t decide if this made it worse or better.

“You—you can see me?” the thing said.

Marinette gulped, surprise slowing some of the rush of fear that was flooding her veins. Its voice was decidedly not menacing, but rather timid, she thought. As if it didn’t quite want to bother her.

It leaned in more closely, and Marinette tried to imagine a face to go with the voice and the large eyes—mildly less frightening, now that she’d heard it speak.

“Can you hear me, too?” it asked, and this time, it sounded hopeful.

Slowly, Marinette nodded, not sure how to react.

A joyous laugh made Marinette drop the teddy bear in surprise. It sounded so human.

“So I’m not totally invisible!” it cried. “You have no idea how happy I am, I could seriously kiss you right now—” it drew closer.

Marinette’s body, perceiving the dark, shadowy, unearthly thing so near her, told her to scream, to scramble out of the bed and run, and every muscle in her body tensed as if she were about to sprint a leg in a relay. But her brain, a totally different creature, was perplexed—and almost curious—at the very not-malicious, cheerful voice the thing emitted. The confusion helped to staunch the flow of adrenaline and fear, enough so that she could react in time to throw a hand up over her face to block it from coming any nearer.

The thing stopped, eyes widening. “Oh—sorry! I didn’t mean it like that, I just—”

Confusion was winning, the fear slowly ebbing away and no longer paralyzing her. Marinette sat up straighter, although she realized she was still pressed against the wall. Now that she found that she could speak, she resorted to the most practical thing to say. “W-Whatever you are, get out of my house and never come back!”

“No—please, look, I know I am probably scaring you, but I swear, I don’t want to hurt you at all—in fact, the opposite! You’re the first person who’s been able to see or hear me in days, and I have no idea how this happened to me, and I really need your help. Please.”

Disembodied though they were, the shadow’s eyes were quite expressive. Marinette could see the pleading in them, and she watched without responding, her heartbeat slowing down bit by bit, as the shadow seemed to grow smaller in her silence.

Marinette swallowed hard, wondering why on Earth she was engaging this spirit-creature-shadow-thing when she should have been—still was, a little—frightened out of her mind. But it seemed so earnest, and human, and frankly, pitiful.

“Do you—do you know what you look like?” she blurted out, and she had no idea why that was the first question that came out of her mouth when she had so many others.

The shadow turned its eyes, which had been downcast, back up towards her. “Um—I just know I’m not visible. I can’t even see myself.”

Marinette pursed her lips before speaking again. “To be honest,” she said in a small voice, “you look kind of terrifying. You’re just… a shadow-thing. With eyes.”

“A shadow-thing?”

Marinette nodded. “Like I can see right through you—but there’s darkness where you’re standing.”

“A shadow-thing,” it repeated, eyes looking upward, as if trying to recall a memory. It began to mutter, almost certainly to itself and not to Marinette, as the eyes squinted. “I had no idea! It sounds kind of cool. It could be worse, I suppose. I could have been like, a pink blob.”

Marinette rubbed her eyes and frowned. Listening to the ramblings of a spiritual being was not something she’d ever imagined herself doing. At the very least, the inane blabber made her all but certain he wouldn’t hurt her.

The eyes turned back towards her. “I was human, you know. Before I became this shadow-thing. I was a boy. I think I was young.”

“Do you not remember?” Marinette asked. She felt her shoulders ease up, and she realized only then how tensely she had been holding her body.

“No. I don’t remember anything about myself, really. I just know that I was different from what I am now.”

“So not even a name, then?”

The thing—the boy, Marinette supposed—squinted again. “I—I feel like it’s on the tip of my tongue, but… I just can’t remember,” it admitted, voice low.

Marinette chewed on the inside of her lower lip, fighting against what was bubbling up inside of her. I am not going to feel sorry for a ghost!

But it was too late. She wasn’t sure how someone could manage to look sad when he didn’t have a face, but the boy had done it. She felt a pang of pity for him before she could stop it.

“Well, hey—everyone deserves a name,” Marinette said. “I can’t just call you shadow-thing forever, can I?”

The boy’s eyes lit up, bouncing a bit, and he moved closer towards the bed. “‘Forever’? Does this mean I get to stick around?”

Marinette frowned. “It’s not like I can physically push you out of here to leave.”

She hesitated before leaning forward on her knees and reaching a hand out to touch the very edge of the shadow, seeking to test her theory. It went right through the darkness, the wateriness of him seeming to ripple and shimmer where she ran her hand through it.

“I won’t bother you too much. I promise! I’ll stay quiet and out of your way most of the time and give you privacy. I just—maybe… Whenever you have a little time in the day—I could pop by and… we could put our heads together and do some research into what happened to me?”

“And you’ll—you’ll leave me alone after this is all over?”

The eyes bobbed up and down quickly—a nod.

This is crazy. What are you doing? Marinette chided herself. Don’t make deals with demonic creatures! Haven’t you learned anything from the movies?

But she could hardly call the spirit before her a demonic creature. It was more like a lost puppy, she thought. Or…

“Chat Noir.”

The eyes tilted at a slant, and Marinette realized the boy was cocking his head.

“Until we can figure out your real name, I’m calling you Chat Noir. Chat for short.”

“You’re naming me after a cat?” the boy sounded unimpressed. “Not even a real human name?”

Marinette pursed her lips, mildly irritated at his brashness. She thought it was a cute name, really. “Well, you aren’t totally human right now, and your eyes glow, and you remind me quite a bit of this cat that followed me on my way back from school today. So, it’s going to stick.”

The boy was silent for a moment, and then he said, that same cheery tone suddenly infused back into his voice, “Chat Noir, at your service. And you?”

“Oh—me?” Marinette was surprised for a moment—she hadn’t contemplated the need to introduce herself to a ghost. “I’m Marinette.”

“Enchante, Marinette,” Chat said smoothly.

Marinette snorted. “Don’t get carried away. Now can you let me sleep? I get back from school at five tomorrow, but I have to eat dinner and do homework. I’ll leave my window open for you when I can talk.”

“Oh, I can phase through walls and windows, I think, so you don’t need to do that—”

“Good for you, but I need my privacy. No sneaking in unless I’ve got my window open! Got it?” Marinette said, and she almost smiled at how Chat seemed to draw back shamefully before recovering just as quickly.

“Got it. Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. Have a good night, Marinette! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

With a turn of the eyes, the shadow was gone. Marinette hardly slept a wink for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

ii.

“You look like death.”

A coffee cup appeared on Marinette’s desk, and she looked up as the aroma of hazelnut filled her nostrils. Alya stood before her, one hand on her hip and her own coffee cup in hand.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Marinette said, taking a long sip from the steaming cup.

Alya slid into the seat beside her, flipping back brown-and-orange hair. “You’re early! Was detention really that bad? Is Marinette Dupain-Cheng going to turn over a new leaf and show up ten minutes early to class every day?”

Marinette giggled and nudged Alya in the ribs. “Stop, you know that’s impossible.” She sighed. “I couldn’t sleep and just… rolled out of bed at six this morning. I decided I might as well take the time to walk to school a little early.”

“I’m impressed! But why the lack of sleep? I kind of wasn’t kidding when I said you looked like death.”

Marinette held the cup to her lips, biding her time. She rarely kept secrets from Alya, whom she’d known since their elementary school days. But she was quite aware that if she disclosed what had happened the night before, she’d sound crazy—and even she didn’t have full faith that it had actually happened.

She’d wait. Maybe after a few more visits, she’d be able to substantiate the story and make it sound a little less insane.

Marinette shrugged. “Bad dreams.”

Alya looked unconvinced, and Marinette thought her friend might prod her for more, but Alya’s gaze quickly shifted to the door. Marinette turned around to see Nino Lahiffe, Alya’s boyfriend, tech junkie extraordinaire, and another one of Marinette’s best friends since childhood, make his way into the classroom.

“‘Morning, Alya, Marinette,” Nino said with a nod to Marinette and a high-five to Alya. He took his usual seat behind the two girls and raised his eyebrows. “You okay, Mari? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” Marinette responded, and she repeated her excuse about having slept poorly due to bad dreams.

Thankfully, Nino was less persistent than his girlfriend, and he shrugged and dropped it instantly. “Hope you get some more sleep tonight, then.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Marinette muttered as Mme. Bustier walked into the room, heels clacking against the floor and bringing the class to attention.

---

Marinette trudged up the stairs to her bedroom and leaned against the door until it clicked shut softly behind her. Dinner had been a trial, tired and confused as she was; she could hardly bring herself to participate in conversation with her parents, prompting her mother to ask if she felt all right. Her father had whipped up her favorite dessert, and she had felt terrible when he’d taken her silence to mean she didn’t like it. Despite being so exhausted that she felt sick, she’d forced herself to gulp down an entire slice of the strawberry shortcake.

Climbing up the loft and sitting on her bed, Marinette watched her rooftop window with weary eyes. If what she had experienced last night was, in fact, reality, she wasn’t sure she had the mental wherewithal to deal with it again. Even if Chat were a friendly spirit, he defied reality, and her brain had to do backflips to adjust, regardless of whether or not she feared him. And then, there was the task of helping him figure out what had happened to him—who he was—and why it had been her, why she was the only one who could communicate with him...

Marinette felt herself drifting off to sleep, and in her half-waking state, she saw the flash in his eyes from the night before, when he couldn’t remember his own name.

With a groan, Marinette pulled herself out of bed, climbed up to the window, and unlatched it. She dropped back down onto the mattress, and without turning out the light, she fell into a deep slumber.

---

The softest breeze sent strands of Marinette’s hair across her cheek, tickling it and prompting her to open a single eye before sitting up. She felt it immediately—the presence of someone else in the room with her—and not seconds later, saw the faint ripple in the air, and two green eyes staring at her from the foot of her bed.

Marinette let out a startled gasp before clutching a hand to her chest. “I really didn’t know if you were real, but here you are,” she murmured.

Chat’s voice was hesitant. “I didn’t mean to scare you—I was trying to wake you up, and I couldn’t.” He paused, eyes lowering. “I was worried that maybe whatever magic had worked last night to get you to see and hear me was gone.”

The softness of his voice pulled at Marinette’s sympathy. She remembered the thought that had entered her head last before she’d fallen asleep: he had to have been so very lonely, wandering around like this, with only her to talk to.

“I can see you. And hear you,” she said, hoping she sounded reassuring. She squinted at the clock on her nightstand. It was just past midnight. “You’re really doing the ghost thing right, though, showing up so late at night.”

“Sorry,” Chat said sheepishly. “I lost track of time.”

“What were you doing that had you so distracted?”

“I was roaming the city to see if I remembered anything. I think—I think I lived here. Or maybe I’ve visited before. It looks familiar,” he said, his voice lilting up at the end. Marinette imagined his eyebrows rising in hope.

“Here in Paris?”

The eyes bobbed as Chat nodded a yes. “Paris. That sounds so… I definitely know this place. But of course, I couldn’t find home,” he sighed, but he moved on before Marinette could properly register the pang in her chest. “How was your day?”

“Me?” Marinette responded, caught off-guard, before she laughed quietly.

“What?”

“You have no idea how weird it is to be asked that by a ghost.”

“I prefer shadow-thing. It makes me sound like a creature out of a myth.”

Marinette snorted and drew her knees up to her chest. “I think my day would have been better if I weren’t so tired. You’ve got to start making these meetings earlier,” she chided gently.

The eyes fell low again. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I really don’t want to be a burden on you—”

Marinette was mildly horrified at how sad she could feel on behalf of a spirit that she couldn’t even see. If he couldn’t remember anything about himself, but he was constantly apologizing, she wondered what he’d been like when he was alive—what the people in his life had told him to make him think, without any prompting, that he needed to be sorry, or that he was a burden.

“You weren’t,” she said hurriedly. “I left the window open, didn’t I?”

Chat’s form shifted ever so slightly closer to Marinette. “You did,” he conceded. “Thank you.”

Marinette smiled. “Of course. We have to help you figure out what happened to you, remember?”

She proceeded to get up out of bed and down the stairs of the loft toward her desk. She looked behind her to see if Chat was following, and when she saw the shadow hovering, still at the foot of her bed, she called to him, tilting her head toward the floor below. “C’mon.”

After a moment, he obeyed, and Marinette watched with a mix of wonder and amusement as the shadow took the steps down the loft. She sat down at her desk and motioned for Chat to sit in the chaise lounge across from her.

“So,” she said, grabbing her notepad and a pen. “How should we start?”

Chat tilted his head. “I’m not sure,” he said, green-gold eyes blinking—flickering into the darkness of his form before the whites and pupils reappeared. “I guess… I was out exploring today, but you can’t come with me…”

“Maybe I could ask you questions and see if it would jog your memory,” Marinette suggested.

Chat leaned forward, excited. “That’s a great idea!”

Marinette smiled before tapping the pen against her chin, wondering where to start. She glanced out her window. “So, you said you think you lived in Paris?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can’t remember being in any of these places, but it feels… familiar to me. And I don’t know why else my soul would have ended up here.”

Marinette jotted down probably from Paris in her notepad before scratching it out and doodling a cat next to the Eiffel Tower. “Well, your soul speaks French, so you really could be right.”

Chat laughed, a light sound that contrasted sharply with the shadow. Marinette looked up from her notepad to see his eyes fixed on her, and she was again reminded how unreal this entire situation was, particularly since their meetings had only taken place late at night so far—they really could have been dreams.

“So… Do you think you could tell me anything about your family? Would you have had parents who lived with you?” Marinette asked. It was more common than not for someone her age, and he’d said he was young; it felt like a good place to start.

Chat was quiet, focusing. “I feel like I did,” he said, voice low as he tried to concentrate. “But for some reason, I know it was different. Not normal.”

Marinette pursed her lips, wondering how much further she should press. “Do you think maybe they were divorced?”

“No, I—I don’t think so,” Chat responded, eyes lowered, squinting. “But something was missing for sure.” He looked up at her. “I just don’t know what.”

Even though he hadn’t said anything indicating as much, Marinette felt sadness rolling off of him in waves at that moment. She wondered if he knew he was feeling that way. It made her feel sad as well, in a foreign, almost disjointed manner. She shook her head and cleared her throat.

“Okay,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice. “We can come back to it! What about… Hm. What about pets? Did you have any pets, do you think?”

“Pets?” Chat’s eyes tilted, indicating he was cocking his head, and paused. “You know,” he said, eyes widening now, “I think I did!”

Marinette clapped her hands together. “That’s great! Do you recall what kind? A dog or cat? Maybe a hamster?”

Chat laughed, and Marinette felt the foreign, gray feeling begin to ebb away at the sound. “I think it was a cat, maybe? It was black. It’s weird… I really think I remember his name.” Chat laughed again. “Of all the things to recall, I don’t know why—”

“Maybe he was really special to you,” Marinette offered. “What was his name?”

Chat looked at her. “I think it was Plagg?”

“Plagg?” Marinette wrinkled her nose. “What an odd name.”

“I know! But I don’t know why else I would think that were his name, unless it actually was.” Chat paused. “Black with green eyes. Little Plagg.”

Marinette felt something buoy up in her chest at the sudden fondness in his voice. Strange as this was, it was worth it, she thought. And if it were a dream, she’d be sad it was over when she woke up. Then, before she could blink, a slight shimmer rippled throughout the area where Chat sat, and before she knew it, she was staring at the faint, but certain, silhouette of a boy. Although he was still blackness, Marinette could make out contours in the shadow—as if someone had painted a human boy with very dark colors. A lighter black along the curve of his cheek and the bridge of his nose, darker in the shadow around his neck.

“Chat,” she breathed, “you’re—”

“What?” Chat moved a hand—whose fingers she could see the outline of—against his face. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “You’re… different. It’s almost like you’ve solidified or something.”

“So I look human again?” Chat said, voice lifting hopefully.

“No—I’m sorry,” Marinette said, regret coloring her voice for a moment. “But you look—I can tell you are young, like you said! You’re more than just a shadow now.”

“Are my eyes still here?” Chat said, and green eyes looked up, as if that would somehow make him see himself.

Marinette laughed. “They are.”

Chat breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder… Do you think it was the memory? I gained back a memory, and I became more ‘real,’ like you said?”

Marinette nodded earnestly. “It really could be!”

“This is great!” Chat shouted, jumping off the chaise and lunging toward Marinette for a hug before he stumbled right through her, tumbling onto the floor. Marinette felt something like a breeze push against her for just a moment.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, standing up. “Got a little carried away. You tell me I’m not just a shadow and I get all cocky and act like a real human.”

Marinette giggled before stifling a yawn. “But maybe we’ll be able to figure out what happened to you even sooner than we thought!”

“Maybe,” Chat responded, and his voice was warm—happier than Marinette had heard it yet. “But you’ve been up late for me long enough. You said you had school in the morning? You should get some sleep.”

Marinette looked at him with sleepy eyes and smiled. “You know, even if you are just a little more than a shadow-thing with eyes, you really do act like a human. A very nice one.”

Chat bowed. “Only the best behavior for my lady.”

Marinette snorted.

Chat followed her as she trudged up the loft and climbed into bed, and he stood by the foot of the ladder leading out to the roof, looking back at her for a prolonged moment.

“Marinette,” he whispered, voice serious now, “thank you.”

Marinette smiled. She wiggled the fingers of her left hand at him before pulling the covers up over her chin. “Bye, Kitty. See you tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

iii.

He needs you. You’re all he has.

Marinette’s eyes opened suddenly, and she sat up and squinted around her room for the source of the voice. Of course, there was nothing there, although she’d wondered if it had been Chat, playing a stupid prank on her.

The words reverberated in her head, as loudly as if someone had whispered them right into her ear. All he has . Marinette couldn’t pretend she didn’t see the truth in that. He’d told her, after all, that she seemed to be the only human he’d encountered who could see or hear or interact with him. And she’d seen the fear in his eyes the night before, when he’d thought for a moment that he could no longer reach her.

She sighed, rubbing at her eyes before pulling the covers off and stepping out of bed.

All he has. You’re all he has.

Marinette had no idea how to feel about that.

---

The day went by in a blur. Before Marinette knew it, she was sitting in her last class, squinting at the chalkboard and jotting down notes but failing to process anything Mme. Bustier was actually saying.

He needs you. You’re all he has.

Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. The words had been following her around all day, no matter what she’d done to try to leave them behind. Her feelings in relation to the meaning of those words had started out amorphous, difficult to process—but now, after hours and hours of incessantly thinking about it, she knew exactly how she felt.

Chat Noir did need her. For whatever reason, he was an unsettled soul, apparently bound to the living world, and totally unaware of what had made him this way. And she, Marinette, was his only connection to this world, and quite possibly his only chance at unraveling his past.

It was a lot of responsibility, rife with opportunities for her to let him down and to expose him to even more disappointment and heartbreak than he’d already experienced.

Marinette was terrified.

---

Marinette glanced up from her homework to look at the small digital clock sitting on her desk. 8:00—prime time for Chat to make his appearance. She sighed and rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand.

Maybe, if she didn’t let him in tonight, Chat would go seeking someone else’s presence and find that he could connect with other people, after all. And maybe he’d find that those people were more capable of helping him than she was. After all, she was a seventeen-year-old student who could barely manage to get her papers turned in on time. How would she help a dead boy find out who he’d been when he was alive and how he’d died with no semblance of context to guide her? She’d inevitably screw it up. Chat’s eyes, bright green and hopeful and then slowly dimming with disappointment, was an image she did not want branded in her mind forever.

Marinette chewed on her lower lip as she turned and looked up at the skylight before she quickly turned back around. She forced her gaze to return to her homework.

I’m sorry, Chat. I’m just the last person you’d want to help you.

---

At some point in the middle of her sleep, Marinette awoke, half-expecting to find green eyes staring at her from the foot of her bed despite the closed window. If he’d come by, then he had gotten the message—Chat was not there, or anywhere else in her room.

---

Karma was real, Marinette decided. And moreover, she now firmly believed that her tendency to go out of her way to commit good deeds dictated that karma. She’d had a stupendously terrible day, and whether it was superstition that made her think this or not, she couldn't help but wonder if it had to do with her decision to ignore Chat.

She’d overslept, and purely for that reason, she’d been late to school, resulting in yet another detention for the week and a verbal lashing by Mme. Bustier, who had said with exasperation that Marinette had, by far, the worst record of being on time to class in the history of her teaching. Marinette found that hard to believe—she’d only been late a few times here and there…every week—but still, it had been embarrassing for the whole class to sit and watch her get her wrists proverbially slapped.

Naturally, this had led to the unwanted attention of Chloé Bourgeois, a walking, talking counterargument to Marinette’s karma theory, given that Chloé had likely never committed a good deed since she’d first drawn breath and still seemed to live a charmed life. Marinette had taken deep breaths, had told herself it wasn’t worth it, had tried to imagine her happy place, but Chloé was nothing if not persistent. By lunchtime, when Chloé had approached Marinette’s table, loudly proclaimed that Marinette’s lunch looked disgusting and smelled spoiled, and connected this accusation to the Dupain-Chengs’ income bracket, Marinette had had enough. Without thinking twice, Marinette had grabbed her water bottle, calmly unscrewed it, and thrust the mouth of it towards Chloé’s face, dousing her with water and absolutely delighting Alya.

This had landed her not just another detention, but a visit to M. Damocles’s office, where she was informed that if she pulled a stunt like that again, she’d find herself suspended from school, no ifs, ands, or buts, regardless of what Chloé had said about Marinette’s parents.

Then, there was the terrible grade on the quiz she received back, Alya’s unavailability after school due to a prior engagement with Nino, and the puddle Marinette had stepped in as she’d trudged home, sloshing mud over her favorite pair of shoes in the process.

After all had been said and done, Marinette had, at the very least, been looking forward to dinner with her parents, always jovial and ready to cheer her up when she needed it most. But Tom Dupain had received word of the Lunchtime Showdown from Mme. Bustier, and he’d been in no mood to take pity on his daughter, despite her objections and explanations about Chloé. Marinette had been so upset that she’d hardly eaten any dinner and gone to her bedroom without a further word to her parents.

She sighed shakily as she looked down at the sad plate of leftovers she’d snuck out of the kitchen now, four hours after dinner and well past the time she was supposed to be in bed. Even coming out onto the rooftop patio to eat—something she normally took much pleasure in doing when she was up late and hungry—did nothing to rid her of the sour, thick feeling in her stomach.

After so much in one day, it was hard to keep her head up.

Marinette saw the tears before she felt them, and when she saw them splash onto the plate in her lap, all over the food, she shoved the plate aside and tried in vain to dam the flow with the backs of her hands. She hated crying, and somehow, that always made her cry more whenever she started. She took in deep, shaking breaths, simultaneously feeling pitiful and berating herself for the stupid decisions she’d made that day.

“Marinette?”

Marinette bolted upright, turning at first to see nothing, and then the familiar ripple of air and the green-gold eyes, bright even in the darkness of the outside world. Hurriedly, Marinette swiped at her eyes.

Chat Noir’s form came closer. “Are you all right?” he asked, concern permeating his voice.

“I’m fine,” she responded, probably too quickly.

“Are you sure? You’re not hurt anywhere?” Chat’s form drew ever closer, but hovered just a couple of feet away from her.

“Really,” Marinette said, drawing up a watery smile, “I’m okay. Just—had a really bad day.”

Marinette watched as Chat lowered himself to the ground, plopping down next to her, still maintaining a healthy distance. She felt herself start to actually smile, and then guilt barbed her stomach.

“Chat, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I— actually came by to make sure you were okay,” Chat responded, his voice sheepish now. “I tried to come yesterday, but your window was shut, and I didn’t want to bother you… And I figured it was probably more that you didn’t want to see me, but I just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t something else.”

The guilt grew, expanding to a sizable lump in Marinette’s throat. “Oh, Chaton,” she murmured. She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Chat tilted his head. “For what?”

“For ignoring you last night. I made you a promise. I should have kept it.”

Chat shrugged. “It’s okay. I was worried… But I tried to imagine what it would be like if I were human, and visited by a ghost, especially of someone I’ve never met before, and I guess I’d be pretty freaked out.”

Marinette let out a small laugh. “Believe me, you might look the part, but you’re probably the least frightening ghost I’ve ever heard of. It’s more that…” She bit her lip, reluctant for some reason to say it out loud. “You’ve got a lot riding on me helping you out. I don’t mind trying, not one bit, but I’d really hate to let you down.” She lowered her voice a little. “What if we don’t figure it out?”

Chat’s eyes met hers, and he studied her in silence for a long moment. Marinette felt herself grow self-conscious under his gaze.

When he finally broke the quiet, Chat’s voice was soft, kind, with not even a hint of an edge to it. “Then, I’ll at least be glad to have made friends with you. And for getting back a memory or two, even if they are just of my cat.” He chuckled.

Marinette smiled, but the words struck her through the heart. It wasn’t only her friendship he wanted—he wanted to know who he’d been, what had happened—but her friendship was all he asked of her.

That much, I can do.

“It’s not your responsibility to figure out the puzzle pieces for me, Marinette,” Chat said. “Whatever happens, I’m already thankful.”

Perhaps because she was already teary, Marinette felt her vision blur again. She tried to laugh it off. “You’re unbelievable.”

Chat’s eyes turned toward her. “Why do you say that?”

“I didn’t think people like you existed,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. She wiped at her eyes and felt Chat scoot just a little bit closer.

“Well, I’m not a person, technically speaking,” Chat said, his grin apparent from his voice alone.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean! I’m just trying to say, it’s just rare that a… personality is so…”

“Dashing? Debonair?”

Marinette giggled. “In your dreams, maybe.” She paused before stating, “Kind. You’re very kind.” She sighed. “Were you like this when you were alive?”

Chat’s silhouette shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. But I can’t imagine being any different.”

“Mm,” Marinette responded, mulling over that. She decided that he had to have been this way—nothing, not even death, could instill such innate goodness into a being.

“Hey,” Chat said suddenly. “Want to tell me about your bad day?”

“Hm?” Marinette’s eyebrows rose, and she found herself surprised yet again at being asked such a human question from such a non-human creature. “Oh, you wouldn’t want to hear about that. It’s just a bunch of dumb stuff.”

“Marinette,” Chat said, voice taking on an exasperated tone. “All I did today was wander aimlessly around the streets of Paris, where people literally walked through me. Hearing about your bad day will undoubtedly be the highlight of my night.”

Marinette laughed, and with a shrug of her shoulders, she launched into her day. Chat was an excellent listener, emitting a furious “she said what?” at her story about Chloé, a loud whoop when Marinette revealed she had doused Chloé with a bottle of water immediately after, and a sensitive cluck of the tongue when she explained her father’s anger with her.

“That Chloé sounds like a piece of work.”

“That’s one way to describe her,” Marinette muttered, picking at her nails. “I know I shouldn’t have acted out like that today, but I didn’t even think about it—it just happened.”

“Well,” Chat said softly, eyes turning toward her, “she was egging you on. We all lose control sometimes. You’re still a good person.”

Marinette pursed her lips. “How do you know? You’ve only known me for a few days. I could be pretty wicked.”

Chat snorted, and Marinette smiled.

“You aren’t wicked. You’re good. Why else would you help me like this?”

Marinette didn’t know how to answer that question. “Say,” she said after a moment, “Do you think you ever got mad like that? When you were alive, I mean.”

Chat’s eyes looked above, toward the stars. “I’m sure I did at something. I had to have.”

“Maybe you had a jerk of a classmate like I do,” Marinette said half-jokingly, and she looked over to catch Chat squinting, thinking.

“Hm… I don’t think so,” he said, and Marinette could hear him frown as he thought out loud. “I… I wonder if I just didn’t dislike anyone in my class at all— certainly can’t remember any of them. Maybe I didn’t like anyone, either, then.” He paused. “I really don’t remember having class with anyone. I don’t even remember what school was like.”

“Do you think you were just really shy?” Marinette asked, tilting her head. “I could see that being the case.”

“No, I think I’d have liked to make friends,” Chat said softly, and then, “I wonder why I didn’t.”

Marinette felt sharp, swift sadness cut through her insides at the tone of his voice.

“I-I’m sure you did,” she pressed. “Have friends, I mean.”

Chat shook his head. “I think I was really alone a lot of the time, but I can’t figure out why.”

A frown tugged at Marinette’s lips. “I wonder…” She paused, hesitating for a moment. “Maybe you were really sick and couldn’t go to school, and that’s why you…”

“Died?” Chat finished for her. “I couldn’t tell you, although that might explain why I don’t remember school at all…” He let out a groan. “This is so frustrating! Why can’t I recall anything? I know I must have wanted to—” He stopped, and his eyes widened.

“You know,” he said, turning towards her, “I do think I’ve gotten that mad before. At my parents. My father.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I argued with him about it once.” He paused. “No, a few times. A lot.”

“He wouldn’t let you go?”

Chat’s eyes mirrored her own—large and incredulous and indignant. “Yeah. I remember now. I’d tell him the same thing—I’m young, I want to make friends, I want to be in a classroom and learn from different teachers. And he’d always put his foot down and say the same thing back: I’m too important and busy to be involved in school, I get a top-notch education with my tutor at home, and friends are a waste of time when I have my career to think about.”

The bitterness in Chat’s voice was astonishing—Marinette had never heard him speak in such a tone before, so starkly different from the jovial and kind voice he typically wore when speaking to her.

“Career?” She was horrified. She was certain Chat had to be close to her age, which meant his father had forced him into home schooling to maintain a job—while he was a teenager.

Chat nodded. “I don’t know what he was referring to, but I know that’s what he said. And I’d feel so frustrated and helpless when it came down to those arguments. I hated it so much.”

Marinette chewed on her lower lip. “What about your mother? Did she feel the same way your father did?”

Chat’s eyes fell, and he stared at his lap. “I don’t know. I can’t remember,” he mumbled.

Much like he had two nights prior, Chat began to ripple and waver, and when Marinette blinked, he was, again, ever so slightly more solid-looking—hints of color underneath the black. She could make out the sheen of apricot skin at the tip of his nose, the beginnings of fine hair at the top of his head.

“Chaton… I’m sorry it had to be a bad memory,” Marinette said softly, “but we were right. You’ve changed again—I think remembering things from your life is bringing you back.”

Chat glanced down at his hands, and she watched him register the tint of skin at his fingertips. He looked back up at her, clearly still rattled by his recollection—but he held her gaze. Marinette held her breath, trying to read the shine in his eyes.

Finally, Chat let out what sounded like a forced laugh. “I’m sorry, Marinette. I approached you with the intent of cheering you up, and then I decided to make it even worse—”

“No,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “You really did—you made me feel better. Thank you.”

Chat stilled, and then he nodded. “And thank you, as always.”

Marinette swallowed. “You’re, um… You’re welcome here anytime, Chat. I’m sorry about the other night.”

Chat lowered his head. “Thank you. Seriously.” He looked out towards the city. “It’s late. I should get going and let you sleep. You sure you’re okay?”

Marinette laughed. “Of course I am, silly kitten. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He glanced back at her, and in the moonlight, she could see the faint contours of his face move just so into a smile. “I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“Sweet dreams, Marinette.”

And with that, Chat disappeared before her eyes, as if he hadn’t been there at all.

---

When Marinette lay in bed that night, the voice came back to her.

He needs you. You’re all he has.

Tonight had shown her exactly how true that statement was—and how she was surprisingly quite okay with it. After all, she thought, tonight had shown her that maybe she needed him, too.

Chapter Text

iv.

Marinette opened one eye, and then the other. Bright light poured into her bedroom, and for a millisecond, a wave of panic engulfed her before she realized that it was Saturday; there would be no public humiliation for her tardiness today.

Her pillow sighed as she sank back into it, now too awake from the brief adrenaline rush to fall back asleep. She couldn’t remember what she’d dreamt, but she was certain it had been about Chat. Something about the way he’d looked back at her last night, the outline of his face barely visible as he’d insisted he was all right, even as he was surely not, had ensured that the image would stay ingrained in Marinette’s mind for some time.

She threw her forearm over her eyes.

From her loft, Marinette heard her bedroom door creak open below her.

“Marinette?”

Sabine Cheng climbed carefully up the loft and made her way to Marinette’s bed, sitting just at the foot of it. The process was very slow—she had never liked heights very much.

Marinette removed her arm from her eyes and sat up. She knew where this was going. In addition to heights, Sabine had never liked conflict much, either. “Good morning, Maman.”

Sabine smoothed some of the wrinkles in the duvet where she sat. “Did you sleep okay?”

Marinette nodded. She bunched up the the sheets in her hands and then released them.

Sabine leaned forward on one hand and reached out to brush some of Marinette’s hair out of her face. Kind brown eyes crinkled as her lips curved into a remorseful smile. “You must be hungry after not eating any dinner.”

Marinette’s stomach gurgled, just so that only she could hear it, but she shook her head. “I got some leftovers out of the kitchen late last night.” She sucked in her cheeks before letting out a long breath. “I’m sorry, Maman. I shouldn’t have done what I did yesterday.”

Her mother scooted closer and wrapped Marinette in a hug. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“It’s tough to be your age. Teenagers can be very mean to each other. Your father and I should have been more understanding.”

Marinette laughed and brushed at an eye with the back of her hand. “Not all teenagers. Just Chloé Bourgeois.”

Sabine hid a smile behind her hand. “I'd say she couldn't be that bad, but what do I know?" Marinette knew that Sabine had witnessed Chloé's diva behavior in person on more than one occasion when the girl had barged into the bakery for her parents' famed pastries. "Do you have plans today? I thought we could go to breakfast together—I could use some time out of the bakery.”

Marinette was delighted. Her parents rarely ever left the bakery during business hours. “I have to meet Alya for a movie around noon, but that’s it.”

Sabine clapped her hands together. “Great! Get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs. We’ll stuff ourselves, and then I’ll drop you off.”

Marinette smiled and hopped out of bed as her mother left the room. Outside, it looked like it might storm, but all the gloom inside her had disappeared. As she wandered down her loft and to the bathroom to get ready, she caught herself hoping, out of nowhere, that Chat would stay dry in the rain.

---

Chat Noir meandered down a neat row of townhomes, turning his head this way and that in hopes that he’d recognize something. A few days ago, he’d stumbled across a large house in a lavish neighborhood, and somehow, it had made him feel a rush of familiarity. Unsure whether it was the size, the neighborhood, or the architecture that had seemed to trigger his memory, he’d returned to that neighborhood again and again, but he hadn’t felt the same pang—not even when he returned to the same house that had started it all. Now, he was trying the neighboring area, but it felt like a fruitless search. And with yesterday’s memory replaying over and over in his head—it was hard to focus on anything else when he only had a few memories stored up—he found it exceedingly difficult to focus.

With a sigh, he trudged up to the stone steps in front of one of the homes and sat himself down on it, briefly wary of being stared at before remembering that no one except for Marinette could see him. The clouds clapped loudly above him for the third time that morning, and before he could blink, he suddenly saw droplets of water begin to dot the ground. He watched as they fell faster and faster, going right through him but making him feel cold, all the same. And he could smell it—sweet, almost like the earth had been baking. It threw him, how he could remember this smell, how—

“Now, look at paragraph four and read it back to me, please.”

His gaze fell, reluctantly, to the book before him. It was so hot and so bright. The words seemed to jumble together. It was so hot, and he just wanted a cup of juice and to go outside for a little while, just to play for a little bit—

“___________.”

He looked up at the sound of his name.

The woman adjusted her glasses and sighed. “You’ve already had your break today. Paragraph four, please.”

But he was so hot and so restless and so tired of trying to read. He felt his lips start to quiver, but he forced himself to straighten them out into a thin line. Maman had said that crying was for young boys, boys younger than nine, and he’d just turned nine recently, so he couldn’t. But even as she’d said that, he remembered how she had let him hug her skirt and ruin it with his tears so many times.

“____________, I won’t ask again. Don’t make me tell your father.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. Slowly, he began to sound out the words. The tutor had said this book was for fourteen-year-olds. Why was he reading this again? He rubbed an eye.

“How about I take over for a bit?”

He turned to see his mother in the doorway, and joy welled up inside of him. With a nod, the tutor left the room, and his mother came in and sat beside him, smiling at him with her patient smile.

“_____________, were you being a bad student?”

He shook his head no.

She rumpled his hair. “Of course you weren’t. I think I know what you need so we can focus and get you through today’s lesson. Why don’t we take a break and go outside and play for ten minutes?”

His eyes lit up. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, go get your shoes on and I’ll meet you out in the yard,” his mother said, her smile conspiratorial now.

He got up and ran out into the yard as fast as he could—he’d been spending the last few days trying to perfect his cartwheel, and he wanted to be able to show his mother—and then he looked up, suddenly realizing it was still very hot, but no longer very bright. Dark clouds crowded the sky.

His mother came out just as the first drops of rain started to fall.

“Now we can’t play,” he said, frowning.

“Sure, we can,” his mother responded cheerfully.

“But we’ll get all wet.”

“That’s okay!” She looked up, blinking against the raindrops. “It smells so nice out here during a summer storm.”

He sniffed the air—it smelled like Maman’s cookies, somehow—and begrudgingly agreed.

His mother bent down so that she could see his eyes and slicked some of the hair out of his face. “Now, show me your cartwheels, and then let’s get you inside and dry.”

Chat jolted, as if he’d been touched by something he hadn’t expected to touch him. Although his mother’s face was already fading from his memory while everything else remained vivid, he felt a thrill when he realized that he now had a concrete recollection of one of his parents. And she seemed, from the brief vision, anyway, like a good parent, not at all what he’d expected after the memory he’d gained yesterday. This made him feel strangely buoyant.

He looked down at his hands, which, sure enough, looked slightly more solid, more tinged with apricot than the day before. The rain was still falling through them. He wondered vaguely if, before he’d died, he could still do a cartwheel.

---

Marinette rushed up the sidewalk of the movie theatre, where Alya stood waving two tickets in her hand.

“Sorry!” Marinette said between breaths. “I was having a long talk with my mom because my parents and I got into a fight last night, and—”

Alya raised a brow. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine now. Are we late?”

Alya checked her watch. “Almost! But you made it here with a minute to spare till previews!” She grinned. “Good job.”

Marinette let out a little woop and threw her arm around Alya’s shoulder. “Let’s go, then!”

As the two navigated their way through the theatre, stopping by the concession area to purchase several boxes of candy before making their way to their screening room, Marinette reveled in the freedom of not being in the midst of a bad day. They settled into their seats and traded candy boxes as the trailers began to roll. Since they were watching a horror film, many of the previews that came on were for other horrors or thrillers, already making the atmosphere of the dark screening room a little bit creepier. Marinette didn’t spook at the movies too easily, but some of these trailers really seemed to amp up the scary factor, and as the music of the trailer currently on the screen began to crescendo—

The seat on Marinette’s left, which had been empty, suddenly filled. The music came to an abrupt halt, and Marinette looked at the seat and found herself staring into green eyes. A loud crash played over the speakers as the face of a demon flashed over the screen, and Marinette let out what she could only describe as an alarmed yip—and just like that, Chat Noir disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Alya poked Marinette’s arm on her right. “Are you okay?”

Marinette looked over at her friend, realizing that her heart was thumping very quickly against her chest and that she’d just spilled her gummy bears all over her lap. “Y-yeah, why?”

“I know the trailer was kind of creepy, but you look like you just saw a ghost.”

Marinette let out a nervous laugh. “Funny you say that.” She swallowed. “I just—these previews have really been upping the intensity. I guess I got a little scared.”

Alya looked at her dubiously. “You’d better get ready, then. I heard this movie is supposed to scare the pants off of us.”

“O-oh, good. I can’t wait,” Marinette said, but her mind was already elsewhere. Why had Chat shown up here? And why hadn’t he said anything? She hoped everything was okay.

---

That night, Marinette pulled herself onto the roof and breathed in the summer air, whose sweetness was enhanced by the residual smells of the bakery below and the rainstorm from earlier in the day. She looked around the patio, and almost immediately, her eyes landed on Chat’s sub-solid form, sitting on the ledge. She could see the outline of his legs, each one wedged between a bar of the railings and swinging back and forth over the edge of the roof. Gratitude, cool and soothing, filled her chest. She was always worried about hurting him or having hurt him.

“Hi, there,” she said, and she walked over and sat beside him, mimicking his pose exactly.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sorry if I frightened you earlier.”

Marinette shook her head. “I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome.”

“You didn’t. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even mean to show up where you were. I just—I just found you.”

Marinette turned to look at him now, staring at the outline of his face. She could make out more of it, she thought, ever so slightly—she wondered if he’d had another recollection since she’d seen him last night. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Chat said, legs still swinging, “the first time I ever found you, there was this…light coming from where you were. I followed it to you, and there you were—and you could see me. And ever since then, it’s always there, somewhere, in the background, no matter where I am.”

“A light?”

“Yes. It’s hard to explain. But it leads me to you.”

Marinette chewed on this in silence. A light. She wasn’t one to believe in magic, even after almost a week spent befriending a ghost. But she couldn’t seem to come up with any kind of scientific explanation for it.

Chat seemed to take her silence as irritation, rather than bewilderment. He said, somewhat apologetically, “Most of the time, until I know it’s time to come over when you’re actually expecting me, I ignore it. But today… I just wasn’t thinking, and I followed it, and I found you.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Marinette said quickly. “No, no! Don’t apologize. It’s okay! I’m just confused, I guess. I don’t know what to make of this. You’re the first magical thing to ever come into my life, you know. And then suddenly I’m emitting supernatural ghost lights for no reason? It’s a lot to take in and try to understand.”

“Tell me about it,” Chat said, and Marinette could see him holding out his hands before him.

They both laughed, and then they were silent again, Marinette lost in her questions about the light. What could it mean?

“Marinette.”

“Yes?”

“Being out with your friends like that today—do you do that a lot?” Chat’s voice was shy and curious, like he’d been dying to ask her since she’d first stepped out onto the roof.

Marinette pursed her lips. “I guess I do, when I think about it.” She tilted her head. “Do you think you did, too, when you were alive?”

Marinette had a sinking feeling that she knew the answer before Chat would even respond.

“No,” he said, and to her shock, he said it with quite a bit of certainty.

“Wh-what makes you so sure?”

Chat stared out at the city, over the rooftops of the buildings before them. “A couple of things. Today, I had a memory where I was being homeschooled. I was very young, but I don’t think anything changed as I got older. And secondly… Well, you and I are friends, right?”

Marinette nodded.

He turned his eyes to her. Inexplicably, although Marinette thought she could see sadness there, it also looked as if he might be smiling. “This is all very new to me, you see. And… I feel like, if it weren’t a new thing—if I’d had lots of good friends when I was alive—it wouldn’t feel this way. Unfamiliar and exciting, I mean. And I think it would’ve triggered a memory of other friends, from when I was living.”

Marinette was quiet. It was hard to argue with that, and it was even harder to come up with a response that didn’t sound pitying or fake or totally useless. So, instead of speaking, she leaned back and settled a hand over where she could see the outline of his. Of course, it went straight through to the floor of the patio.

Chat’s eyes moved downward, toward their hands, and then back up to Marinette. “Thanks.”

A corner of Marinette’s lips quirked up into a half-smile. “It'd be better if I could actually touch you.”

Chat let out a quiet laugh. “It's the thought that counts.”

They were silent for a while, allowing the sound of cars passing by on the streets below and of Marinette’s breathing to fill the air between them. Marinette felt overwhelmed with the volume of information she did not know about Chat, his life, his afterlife, and the enormity of the task before her. She kept finding herself trying to resolve the situation by approaching it as if he were alive, and therein lay the problem: if he were alive, there would be no mystery to solve.

And even so, if he were alive, she could at least fix his loneliness. She could introduce him to Alya and Nino and some of her other classmates, and they could fold him into their world and keep him so busy that he hardly had time to worry about anything else. And most of all, he'd feel appreciated, something she suspected he'd been lacking in his lifetime.

Marinette chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. She would look crazy if she tried to explain to Alya that she'd befriended a ghost. But, she thought, they'd enjoyed a relatively judgment-free lifelong friendship, and it wouldn't be the first time one of them had told an unbelievable story to the other. It’d just be the first time that the story turned out to be true.

She let out a sigh. Right, then.

“Chaton.”

“Yes?”

“Maybe it’s time to show you to my friends.”

Chapter Text

v.

“So,” Marinette said, tapping her pen against her chin as she whirled around in her desk chair. “First, we do some research. Here’s what we know.”

Sunlight filtered through the windows of Marinette’s bedroom. This was the first time that Chat had come to visit her during the daytime. He had done so on Marinette’s request; she felt that they had a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks if they were going to introduce him to Alya and Nino without looking crazy or terrifying, or both.

“We need to figure out how you work.” Marinette began to jot notes down on her notepad as she thought out loud. “You can walk through things. And appear and disappear. Is that right?”

Chat’s eyes roamed up toward Marinette’s ceiling as he paused to think. “Yes. I can, but if I don’t think about it, I’ll walk smack into a wall just like I would if I were human.”

Marinette looked up at him from her notepad. She paused to study him in this new lighting—as she’d only ever seen him in the dark, or in very dim light, she was shocked at how much more solid he looked in the daylight. Still not human, of course, but the outline of him blurred into the background far less. “So you have to actively try to phase through something if you want to?”

“Yes. I think that’s why, say, I can sit on this,” he said, and the indistinct silhouette of Chat’s right hand gestured toward the chaise on which he sat.

“Interesting,” Marinette murmured, scribbling furiously. “So you can kind of ‘touch’ physical objects, then. But not people.”

“As far as I know, no. I mean, you’ve seen me run right through you.”

“Right,” Marinette said, and then, without any warning, she got up, walked over to the chaise, and picked up a throw blanket. “Okay. Sorry about this in advance.” She threw the blanket over Chat’s form.

“Hey!” Chat protested, arms shooting up to catch the blanket, but it didn’t matter; the blanket went right through him and slid off the edge of the chaise and onto the ground, as if he weren’t there.

“Oh.” He looked down at the blanket. “That’s weird. I thought it’d definitely land on me.”

“Me, too.” Marinette went back to her desk and wrote down some more observations. She giggled. “If it had, then you’d look like an actual ghost.”

“I can’t tell if that was supposed to be an insult.” He leaned down. “But then, see—” and he picked up the blanket off the floor and placed it carefully back on the chaise.

Marinette blinked. “Weird. But why didn’t it land on you?”

“I really had to concentrate on picking it up,” Chat explained. “I think it’s kind of like phasing.”

Marinette furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. “Who made up these dumb rules? They make no sense.”  She checked her watch. “Okay, I think we need to call it for this afternoon. I’ve got to meet Alya for a group project meeting.”

Chat tilted his head. “You don’t sound too happy about it. Isn’t Alya your friend?”

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “Chloé is in my group, too.”

“The horrible girl.” Chat said this like a statement and not like a question.

“That’s the one,” Marinette said, and she smiled. “To be fair, I don’t think she’s totally rotten on the inside. She’s just… Mm. The good version of her is just buried very deep down inside of her.”

She met Chat’s eyes, and even surrounded mostly by the apricot-tinted darkness of his silhouette, they looked dubious. She burst into laughter, and he did as well. Marinette watched out of the corner of her eye as Chat doubled over, and again, she felt a pinprick of awe at how human the movement was for a being made mostly of shadow. Perhaps, though, she was more shocked at the rush of fondness she felt for him in that instant, too.

“You don’t sound convincing at all,” Chat said, once he’d recovered.

Marinette shrugged. She moved over to her desk, packing her bag in preparation to leave. “I tried.”

“I could come along and haunt her if you’d like,” Chat offered, amusement tinting his voice still.

Marinette giggled as she tried to jam another textbook into her already stuffed backpack. “Thanks, but knowing Chloé, she’d make a huge scene out of it. Maybe I’ll enlist you one day when she’s really made me mad.”

“Just say the word, and I’m all yours.”

Something about the inexplicable warmth in Chat’s voice made Marinette look up, and for a moment, when she caught his eye, he didn’t look away or speak. She wondered, not for the first time, what kind of boy he’d been when he was alive. She didn’t know how many seconds slipped by before she finally shook her head, and she could have sworn she saw Chat do the same.

“Well, Kitty,” Marinette said, lifting her hand up in a salute. She smiled softly at him. “Till tomorrow night. We’ve got lots of work to do.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said, and Marinette wondered if she was imagining a smile gracing the barely-visible features of his face. He bounded up the steps of her loft, and Marinette saw his eyes turn back to her. “See you, Princess.” He disappeared through the window.

Princess? Marinette felt like she should have been offended at the nickname as she realized exactly how much pink was in her room. But instead, she tucked the sound of his voice saying it—with that tinge of warmth and affection that she’d heard for the first time today—away inside of her, so that she could pull it out and revisit the moment before she went to sleep.

---

“And then, guess what she said next!”

“What?”

“She told Alya that we couldn’t use her camera to record the video part of the project, because she was just an amateur using a cheap child’s toy.”

Chat let out a low whistle. “I’d imagine Alya didn’t take that too well.”

“Of course she didn’t,” Marinette snorted, leaning back against the wall of pillows at the head of her bed and wrapping her arms around her knees. “You’ll see when you first meet her, but Alya is not one to just take an insult sitting down.”

Chat sat facing her, cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Marinette noted with interest that the blanket seemed to crease a little bit underneath where he sat.

“So what happened?” Chat’s eyes were wide, seemingly brighter than usual, as they remained fixed on Marinette.

“Alya told her that unless Chloé herself wanted to pay for a professional, Alya would do the filming on her camera, and that if she didn’t like it, she could go home and cry to her dad for all she cared.” Marinette’s lips broadened into a grin. “And of course, everyone in our group agreed. Alya’s video projects have always been top-notch.”

Chat let out a loud laugh. “What a fearless girl.” He paused. “I hope she likes me,” he added, in a smaller voice.

Marinette clucked her tongue. “How many times do I have to tell you? Of course she will. She’s only a firecracker to the people who deserve it.” She sighed and brushed a piece of lint off of her covers. “I wish I could be more like her. She’s never been afraid to tell people like Chloé off. I just let her walk all over me until I lose it completely and then get in trouble.”

Chat leaned in a little towards Marinette now. In the dim lamplight, she couldn’t really tell what kind of expression he was wearing, but his tone seemed to indicate a frown. “It’s not a bad thing, you know. To be kind and considerate, I mean.”

She shrugged, and her eyes fell to her fingers, which were drawing patterns into the creases of her covers now. “I don't think of it as being kind. I think of it as being a pushover,” she mumbled, and she was surprised at the level of bitterness in her voice.

“Hey,” Chat chided softly. “I like you how you are now.”

It took Marinette a couple of seconds to process the words, and then the mild jolt of shock she felt from them, and she looked up, slightly wide-eyed.

Chat’s own eyes were wide as well now, and his form seemed to waver a bit. “I—I mean—you just—you shouldn’t want to be anyone but yourself!” He said this last part resolutely. “Of course, I’d love to hear one day that you stuck up to Chloé—but more than that, I… Well, if you weren’t as kind as you are, where would I be? I’d be as good as dead.”

Marinette felt a smile tug at her lips. “Well, you technically are—”

“Don’t say it,” Chat groaned, holding up a hand.

They both laughed, and Marinette felt warmth fill the pit of her stomach.

“Thank you, Chat,” she said softly. “That makes me feel much better.”

“Good.”

His eyes were fixed on hers again in that same piercing way they’d been yesterday afternoon, and Marinette found herself looking for an excuse to look away. Her gaze landed on the clock on her wall. “Oh, it’s late!” she exclaimed. “We haven’t even done any brainstorming tonight!”

“That’s okay,” Chat said. “Why don’t you go to sleep? We can always meet up tomorrow after you’re back from school.”

“No, no,” Marinette said, getting up out of bed and scrambling around for her notepad before running back to her bed. “We should just try a little bit. Don’t want to waste the night."

But even with pen and paper in hand, Marinette spent the next hour talking to Chat about things wholly unrelated to revealing him to her friends, learning instead about what memories he’d retrieved so far, what his own theories were as to who he’d been, what happened when ghosts—or Chat, at least—tried to sleep.

“You don’t… You don’t sleep?” Marinette said, alarmed. “Well, I guess I never considered… But what do you do all night?”

“It’s like sleeping, I guess,” Chat said. “But it’s not totally the same. Usually, when the city quiets down, I try to shut off my thoughts. And after some time passes, everything goes blank for a while. And then I come back, eventually. It’s like waking up, but I don’t dream.”

“How long are you… out for?”

“Long enough,” Chat said, shrugging. “Enough to separate night and day.”

“But it takes you a while?”

Chat’s eyes bobbed up and down—a nod.

“It must be lonely.”

“Sometimes,” he responded, voice soft now. “But it helps a lot when I end the night here. Talking to you. It gives me something quiet to think about, if that makes sense.”

Marinette smiled warmly at him. “I’m so happy to hear that.”

Chat leaned back on his hands, and as he shut his eyes, they disappeared into him. “But I think even when I was alive, I had trouble sleeping.”

“Oh? How can you tell?”

Chat’s eyes reappeared, focusing on the ceiling. “Sometimes, I can see the vision of my old room at night, from my bed—but from a lot of different nights, where I was just awake. It’s always the same. Lots of moonlight, the details of my ceiling, me by myself. And I always feel like I was frustrated on those evenings, for being unable to sleep, for thinking whatever I was thinking.”

Marinette was silent for a moment. Of course, Chat was describing the very common phenomenon of tossing and turning restlessly in bed, but it sounded like he'd experienced it more often than not, if it was such a pervasive memory. “What do you think caused your sleeplessness?”

“I don’t know, I feel like I was stressed a lot, or maybe anxious—especially when…” Chat paused, and his eyes narrowed as he thought. “I know I only got that way after something happened, but I can’t remember what.” He let out a frustrated sigh.

Marinette felt it again, then—the nearly tangible sense of aching that emanated from him. She wanted to hug him.

In that moment, he began to ripple and waver, and in the time it took Marinette to blink, she could see, very suddenly, the faint outline of lips and a nose and eyebrows on his face, the hint of a collar at his neck and the shape of shoes at his feet. It was only the slightest change, but he looked remarkably more human like this, she thought.

“Chat,” she whispered.

He took in the tone of her voice and appeared to know immediately what she was trying to say. He looked at her, and then looked down at his hands, which were just a shade more opaque than before. “Doesn’t take a lot, does it?”

Marinette let out a soft breath as she first registered the dazed expression on his face, then realized that she could tell he looked dazed. “I can see your expressions now.”

“Really?” He stared at her for a moment. “You know what this means?” he said, his voice suddenly very serious.

She had no idea. She leaned in, holding her breath. “What?” she whispered.

“You can see me do this,” Chat said, and he waggled his eyebrows at her with a cheeky grin.

Marinette burst into delighted laughter and threw a pillow at him, which flew through him and off the bed.

They continued to talk long into the night, until Marinette began to stifle so many yawns that Chat insisted she go to sleep. Finally, she let her eyes drift closed as the will to stay awake left her.

The following morning, when she awoke, she would vaguely remember just a few things: Chat still being there for a while, at first, and rather than feeling unsafe about it, her wishing in the back of her mind that he’d stay; and then, later, the feeling of her blankets being pulled over her and Chat’s voice, far away and very close at the same time, telling her, “Good night, Princess.”