Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started a few days after Marinette had dealt with Chat Blanc. It wasn’t that hard to notice. It would be difficult to not notice. The spectacle it was confused everyone the world around, regardless of time-zone or continent. Panic echoed across news stations, little else being the topic for days, weeks.

Marinette anxiously looked into the sky, eyes flicking to the cause of her concerns. She was supposed to be doing homework, but everyone was distressed with it’s presence. There was little Ladybug could do to help with the public’s unease.

It was ever-present. Looming in the cosmos, never leaving.

But never doing anything, either.

Sometimes it was only visible with a telescope. Most of the time, however, it was clear and contrasting from the blues of the day.

All could wish of naught but the cessation of the disastrous.

Chat Noir had questioned her about it the day after it appeared. Nearly all the responses she gave were a painful “I don’t know,” and a shake of her head as she steadily felt weaker.

School was far weirder. The students failed to focus on related subjects, and a large majority of the teachers couldn’t blame them – they couldn’t focus either.

Not with that in the sky.

There was a lot of relief when it first receded from view. People had been claiming the end of the world before it, and groups still believed things would collapse, but many had gotten their first smile in days when it happened. Life had felt fully normal that day, even if the tranquillity only lasted a dozen hours.

Hawkmoth stopped attacking for a week. This abnormality in his consistency couldn’t be assumed as Hawkmoth stopping because of the weird… thing, but it would make perfect sense if he, too, was deeply concerned.

After all, it was a distortion. A rift in the cosmos. Pitch-black, twisting, a vortex and impossibly large. It wasn’t an object – it was an absence. It was empty, but everyone knew it was something. Whatever it was, it was not natural in the slightest. There was literally nothing in it. You couldn’t see anything behind it, but it wasn’t a black hole. No… It didn’t distort light like that.

People just started calling it “the rift.” The name stuck. Everyone just accepted that the rift would just exist, forever in the back of their mind and countless kilometres in the sky.

There was nowhere in the world where the rift was not known.

Alya had written a single post about the rift.

And it was a question.

“Recently, there has been a large rift in the sky, and I know all of you know about it. Ladybug has recently stepped up and answered some questions about the rift from some reporters (sadly, not me), but the results were limited. She was keeping calm about the whole situation and was answering the questions with as sensible conclusions as she could come to – trust me, I know how to read a girl from her face – but it was clear that she didn’t know a lot; she did say that she would have to inquire further.

“Now, I have one question for Ladybug here.

“Do you feel worse in any way because of the rift?”

And now the Ladyblog lies mostly abandoned, save for a few threads. No more posts, just a few reply-chains about unrelated topics.

Alya had tried ignoring it, but it was hard to ignore when you can see it most days you go outside. Nino was trying to lose himself in his music-making, but everything became an uncomfortable background rumble. Marinette couldn’t muster up any clothing ideas, her mind cluttered with homework she needed doing, catastrophising spirals and her nightly patrols. Adrien was spending less time being himself and fulfilled it with just staring into the ceiling, like his gaze could bore a hole into an oasis of safety.

Chloe had an interesting response; she quieted, keeping her head down and being less prominent of an annoyance. Kim dared less and was becoming slower in competitions, losing track of time and getting stuck in his thoughts, and Alix was steadily falling out of skating as the days and weeks went by. Juleka showed up to school less; it wasn’t clear what specifically had changed, but she seemed to murmur to herself every now and then. Luka had become more distressed – he had taken less orders and was spending more time with his sister, comforting her and himself, although with less-than-ideal success.

The world had dulled under the silent and yet terrifying gaze of the rift. It had saddened; tears of negativity streaking across the globe in waves of mass-depression the likes of which had never been seen before.

For the rift had never been seen before.

Lights of positivity were few-and-far-between in the world. Those lucky enough to have been refused a chance to see the sky were happy. Those in areas where catching sight of the rift was simply impossible shared this feature.

Would you be happy if you saw something you didn’t understand?

Andre had closed shop a week ago. Schools had shown clear evidence of a severe change in productivity. Businesses changed perspectives to helping the public if they weren’t already. Social media lost its aggressiveness, now filled with grey hues of emotion and rare refuges of escapism. Theories dotted the internet, astronomists shifting efforts into discovering the nature of this anomaly, conspiracy theorists suspicious of its existence at all, and those of all religions believing their gods were disappointed in them.

They were all right in some aspect.

Chapter Text

It was 9:00 PM again. It was time for patrol.

Again.

Marinette lifted herself from her bed, the covers falling off as she imagined struggling against muscles that aren’t tired. She called out for her transformation, the typical rush of adrenaline of returning to her battle-ready body absent. It had been absent for a while.

She looked at her sketchbook longingly. She wished she had a normal life, free from the oppressive presence of the rift. Free from her duties as protector of Paris. She could breathe… mostly freely then, but now everything was so much stricter, with her schedules, her sleep, nearly her entire life. She could barely hang out with her friends as much as she liked. She really didn’t get a lot of downtime.

And that was before the rift.

It clung to her, no, everyone like a plague. A slow working one. Everyone’s mood has been dampened. The few designs that were unfinished when the rift showed up were suddenly horrible. She tore them out of the book without much of a second thought.

With everyone less happy, people weren’t hanging out as much. Marinette guessed it was somewhat of a redeeming quality – she could finally relax. Given, this relaxation was always depressingly still and cold, but it at least provided her mind time to unravel the events of a day.

Climbing out onto her balcony, she leapt off into the night, under the gaze of the rift.

She bounded off roofs, lunged and soared across the Paris buildings, shaking the shingles and even cracking some with the force of which she jumped. She sprinted and skipped across the gaps in the streets, the streetlights staying on while everyone else was going to sleep.

She reached the base of the Eiffel tower and ascended it, springing up from each beam. Arriving at the top, she looked down at the city below. Gazing down at the park, she found all manner of citizens praying to the flowers.

A humourless chuckle slipped out of her mouth – but then again, what else could they do? Nothing better than that, that’s for sure.

The sound of boots on metal reminded her of why she was there.

“Quite the night. Right, Bug?” Chat Noir’s familiar voice echoed from behind her.

“Well, it’s the same as all the rest. Not sure whether that’s comforting or not.”

They had had this conversation many times now – probably couldn’t even be called a conversation. Just a relaying of statements. Meaningless and without fruits.

“Well, I suppose that we still need to get things done. Let’s go, Chat.” Ladybug said as she walked to the edge facing where the patrol would start going.

Chat Noir didn’t move.

“Chat?”

She turned to look at him. His eyes were tracking something in the sky. It wasn’t the rift, because it was behind him. She turned to look and could only quite notice it when she focused. It was an unnatural glimmer, a glow slightly brighter than the stars… and it was moving. It was heading straight for them, and fast!

“M’lady, look out!”

Ladybug did as she was told, dashing to the side.  The starry light struck a few meters away from where she stood, rending through quite a few of the iron beams, significantly bending the ones that weren’t melted or torn apart. Gazing at the remaining stardust and the fiery-coloured metal, Chat straightened and circled the damaged supports, seeking to find the culprit.

But when he saw what was stuck in the iron lattice work, he very quickly stopped in place.

A pale or grey skinned, blonde-haired person, quietly whimpering among the superheated metal. They didn’t look human. Well, not entirely. If you made their skin the average of every other human skin colour, they’d fit in just fine. Maybe not, considering their clothes were most unusual. The robes were crimson, and they had a star like collection of hair, hanging down across their face as they silently wallowed in whatever sorrows they were facing.

Chat just stood on the steadiest beam of metal in the entrance of the melted alcove. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say – partly in due to the sullen mood from the looming rift ahead, and from his many sleepless nights staring at his ceiling. His face was stuck in that same expression of restrained worry that it usually was when Ladybug didn’t show up for prolonged periods of time. His fingers twitched as he hesitantly lifted his arm but decided against reaching out to make the person aware of his presence.

Ladybug joined him. She, too, did not speak. Her face was similarly laced with worry, but it was not prominent enough to warrant a reaction.

They just waited.

The person slowly stopped shaking – the only remaining sounds being the creaking of metal and the wind whipping through the latticework of the Eiffel Tower. It was then that they decided to announce their presence, but they were cut off immediately.

“I… I know you’re both behind me.” The person didn’t look at them, just slightly turned their head.

Ladybug was the first to respond. “Wh- Are… Are you alright?”

“I… I suppose so?”

Chat spoke up this time. “Who are you?”

“… I’m Solyn.”

“I… Sorry, I… I can’t think straight just now. We can talk later, I... Right now … I need some time.”

Ladybug’s eyes didn’t disclose much of her mood, but she still spoke, “We’ll give you some space.”

Chat looked at her, expression unreadable in the darkness. Then, he stepped away.

“Thanks.”

And they left the strange person, in the darkness of the nights, as per their wishes.