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English
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Part 8 of Miraculous Hive
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Published:
2024-09-20
Updated:
2025-05-02
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23,298
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11/?
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Kinship

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

It’s past dinner time by the time that Luka and Chloé return to the ship. Luka is beaming, brimming with enthusiasm and confidence the way that Nathaniel and Juleka used to. She misses the excitement of being a new miraculous holder. It’s adorable watching Luka run down below so that he can tell Juleka all about the training that he and Chloé did today.

Wanting to give the siblings privacy, Chloé doesn’t follow. Instead, she pulls out her phone to check her messages. She instantly sees one from Marinette asking Chloé to sleep at her place tonight. Chloé hesitates for a few seconds. Part of her doesn’t want to know how the meeting with Alya went, nor is she sure she wants to see Marinette’s parents again. But even though she’s not a cat, her curiosity wins out and she types out a quick confirmation.

“It’ll be fine, Chloé,” a little voice whispers in her ear, and Chloé turns to see that Pollen is hovering over her shoulder looking at the phone too.

“Are you reading my messages?” Chloé asks with a small smile, and Pollen giggles.

“Of course I am! Going to Marinette’s means that delicious honey pastry tonight,” Pollen says with a dreamy gaze. “Someday I hope I can give my compliments to Marinette’s papa.”

“You and Tikki both,” Chloé says. “Alright. I almost wonder if I should bother packing a bag since Marinette has a bunch of my stuff at her house.” She shakes her head fondly at the memory. “But I will anyway.”

Pollen’s light weight settles on her shoulder as Chloé walks slowly down the steps. She can hear Luka and Juleka chattering away as she heads into her room. She’s like 90% sure that both of them will be out tonight running around the city, which means that there will be images of them on social media in no time. The post she made about Dracones on Instagram absolutely exploded, and now all of Paris is on high alert to snap pictures of the newest miraculous team member.

She enters her room and rummages around for a moment until she finds a small bag, which will do for overnight. She packs in an outfit for tomorrow and pajamas, plus her make-up bag and usual hair stuff. As she does, her nerves mount. She’s not sure about seeing Marinette’s parents again so soon. This morning was uncomfortable. Maybe she should have suggested Marinette come here instead.

But Marinette probably wants privacy for this, which is hard to get in such close quarters on the boat. Maybe she can sneak in as Queen Bee, Chloé decides, and swings her back up onto her shoulder. Pollen scoots inside, making a little nest for herself in Chloé’s clothing. For a moment, Chloé envies her. It must be nice to be so small and easily hidden, she thinks.

“I’m heading to Marinette’s,” she says, poking her head into Juleka’s room. Juleka is sitting on her bed and Luka has turned Juleka’s desk chair backwards and is straddling it, arms resting on the back.

“For the night?” Juleka says, and Chloé nods.

“Want us to walk you there?” Luka asks.

“Oh yeah, we totally can,” Juleka says. They both look ready to jump up and rush to her side.

Chloé smiles and shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Good night.”

“Good night,” they say, practically at the same time, and then they grin at each other. Chloé’s heart twists a bit. She always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. And now she has one, or at least has one coming, and it’s nothing like she ever thought it would be.

She quietly slips out and starts the walk to Marinette’s. As she goes, she can’t helping wondering what Zoé will be like. She must really be something if even Audrey and André like her so much, Chloé reflects, and it makes her feel bitter. It feels like she’s being replaced, and those feelings make her hate Zoé a little bit, even if it’s not fair. Then again, nothing about this situation is fair...

“Chloé!”

Chloé looks up, startled, and sees Marinette hurrying towards her. “What’s wrong?” Chloé asks. Her immediate thought is of an akuma, but the city is so quiet...

“Nothing. I just came to meet you,” Marinette says, leaning over and putting her hands on her knees while she catches her breath.

“You didn’t have to. I know the way to the bakery,” Chloé says, mostly because this ruins her plan to sneak inside as Queen Bee, and Marinette grins as she straightens up.

“I know you do,” she says, linking her arms through Chloé’s. “But it’s a nice night for a walk. I thought we could pick up a pizza for supper on the way back. And maybe stop and pick up some junk food too? I have a major craving for chocolate that cake or pastry can’t fill.”

Chloé shrugs. “Sure, I guess.” She’s dying to ask about Marinette’s lunch with Alya, but fear makes the question tangle on her tongue.

Luckily, Marinette is a step ahead as usual. “So Alya and I met for lunch,” she announces as they walk. “It went... okay, I guess? It was awkward. It’s been a while since Alya and I really talked, and a lot has changed. But she’s still the same old Alya.”

“Is that a good thing?” Chloé asks, because she genuinely can’t tell. For Chloé, who has never had much patience for Alya, it would be a bad thing. But for Marinette, who loves Alya, that’s tough.

Marinette sighs, slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know. A year ago, I would have said yes. But now? Maybe. Sort of? I like Alya, but she can be super frustrating to deal with at the same time.”

“Gee, I wonder who else fits that description,” Chloé says innocently, and Marinette laughs and slaps at Chloé’s arm.

“Shut up! I just meant, like, she still doesn’t want to see or admit that there’s anything wrong with Lila. All she would say is that Lila exaggerated ‘a little bit’,” Marinette says, letting go of Chloé’s arm to make quotation marks in the air. “I know she doesn’t believe me when I say that Lila was a terrible person.”

“She’ll probably never see the truth,” Chloé says as gently as she knows how. “Now that Lila is gone, no one is going to want to think less of her.”

Marinette nods, pinching her lips into a thin line before saying, “I know. I figured that out when Alya apologized to me for letting Lila come between us, but not for anything else.”

Chloé doesn’t say anything, mostly because she doesn’t think Marinette wants to hear what Chloé thinks of Alya right now. She definitely does not have anything polite to say about Alya Césaire right now, that’s for sure. Frankly, she thinks that Alya is a pretty shitty journalist. All of this has been happening right underneath Alya’s nose, and she thinks it says a lot that Alya hasn’t even noticed.

“It gets better,” Marinette adds bitterly. “She said that Lila was so nice, and I said well Lila wasn’t nice to me, and Alya said she was sorry I felt that way. I almost wish she wouldn’t have said anything at all.” She stares straight ahead, looking like she’s working hard not to cry, and Chloé’s heart wrenches.

She can feel it, beneath the depths of her own despair, the little anxious buzz that means there’s discord in the hive. She reaches out, setting a hand on Marinette’s arm, and Marinette looks back at her, mouth twisting up and eyes blinking furiously. Chloé doesn’t really know what to say, so she does the only thing she can think of and reaches out to hug Marinette instead.

“Chloé,” Marinette gets out, a gaspy little half-sob, and then she’s crying into Chloé’s shoulder. “I just – I wish things could go back to how they were, before Lila.”

“You could use the Rabbit miraculous,” Chloé offers after a hesitant moment, and Marinette shakes her head.

“No – no, that wouldn’t work. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to lose what we have with the hive. I just – ” She pulls a back a little, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “I think I wanted Alya to be someone who she’s not, and that’s my own fault.”

“Nothing about this is your fault, Marinette,” Chloé says quietly. It’s not fair for Marinette to blame herself when every day Marinette is out there trying so hard.

She has to tamp down on a jolt of anger and frustration. This isn’t what she meant when she spoke to Alya. She wanted Alya to fix things with Marinette, really fix things, but it seems like Alya can’t even do that much. And no matter how much Chloé wants to step up and fix it instead, she knows that she can’t. And that sucks so much in ways she doesn’t even know how to express.

“I just think there’s things I could’ve done different,” Marinette says, wiping her eyes again. “I don’t know what, but I never thought it would be like this.”

“You could’ve punched Lila in the face the day you met her,” Chloé says impulsively, and Marinette bursts out laughing.

“Chloé! Oh my god, stop.”

“I’m just throwing options out there,” Chloé replies, and Marinette giggles again and wipes her eyes for a third time. But she’s smiling now, even if it’s a sad one.

“I think Lila made me realize that the people around me aren’t who I assumed they were. In both good ways and bad ways,” she says, looking right into Chloé’s eyes. “You stepped up to protect me from Lila as best you could. Alya didn’t, she chose to ignore the situation and doubled down about it even now. We’re just – we’re not kids anymore, you know?”

“I know,” Chloé says softly. Even though they’re young, she knows exactly what Marinette means. They’ve been through a lot.

“I always thought Alya would be my second. The person I leaned on the most. I didn’t know until now that there was still a little part of me hoping she’d still become that,” Marinette says. “But I have to accept that while Alya and I can be friends, we can’t be more than that. We can’t be best friends or teammates.”

“So... no miraculous?” Chloé says, because it did cross her mind that if Marinette and Alya made up, then Marinette might want to give Alya a miraculous again. Not the Fox – she doesn’t think Marinette would take that away from Nathaniel, and she doubts Trixx would have gone quietly if Marinette had tried – but another miraculous.

“Nope,” Marinette says, seemingly calm about this. “But that’s okay. It might sound a little mean, but I don’t really need Alya out on the field anymore. We’ve got an amazing team going here. You, me, Adrien, Nath, Juleka, Luka, we all fit together. We work, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to ruin that.”

“Okay,” Chloé says, absorbing that, feeling a little relieved. She would have made room for Alya, and probably Nino, if she had to, but she wouldn’t have liked it.

Marinette reaches out suddenly, grasping Chloé’s hand, and says, “And anyway, the position of my best friend has already been filled.”

“Marinette,” Chloé says, shakier than she wants to, and Marinette smiles kindly.

“It’s the truth. I like having you as a best friend, Chloé. I meant what I told you before. You can’t get rid of me now. You’re stuck with me and Adrien until the end,” she says with a grin. “Even if Alya and I are friends again, things are different now. I would pick you over Alya now any day.”

Chloé can’t say anything to that, because if she does she’ll be the one to start crying, and she feels like she’s already cried enough over the past few weeks. She settles for squeezing Marinette’s hand as hard as she can, and she thinks that Marinette gets the message.

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