Submitted Prompt: Not So Desperate After All
NY Special AU where instead of breaking down and not being sure if she can continue without Chat Noir when Adrien abandons her on her own to save the world, Marinette shoves the fact that she recently lost Fu to the back of her mind and sucks it up - because, actually, she’s fought plenty of Akumas without him (and occasionally with him helping the akuma) and she can do it again.
However, this villain is still a pretty big undertaking for a single person, so she turns to the two American heroes who’ve shown a willingness to work with her - Sparrow and Uncanny Valley. Jess and Aeon are naturally thrilled at the opportunity to help a hero who actually respects them as equals, and Marinette gives them the two miraculous she has on hand, the Black Cat and the Horse. It doesn’t matter who gets which, but they should both get a miraculous (because what’s the point of making Robustus the fake-akuma sentimonster if not to remind us that A.I.s can interact with miraculous magic?), and show respect for the kwami inside (even when Aeon can’t see them).
The fight goes pretty quickly after that - the heroines don’t have to track down and trick Doorman when they’ve got the Horse miraculous in play, and the two ‘new’ heroes already had the powers and skills of superheroes before being enhanced by miraculous. The Eagle miraculous is taken from the akuma and Marinette unifies it with the the Ladybug to become Lady Liberty and free the adult hero’s from his influence. After that Hawkmoth’s minion doesn’t stand a chance.
Marinette profusely thanks Jess and Aeon for their help, and all the adult heroes finally respect them. But unlike in canon where they eagerly join the ‘United Heroez’ (or whatever it’s called), in this AU they think twice about it. They’d obviously know that Marinette’s partner quit, and whether she let something slip herself or one of them found news coverage of Miracle Queen they also know that all her other allies have been exposed to Hawkmoth. They realize that instead of staying in New York (which is bizarrely over saturated with superheroes) they’d be able to do more good if they went to Paris and lent their aid to the first hero to treat them as equals.
It probably takes some reassurance from the present kwami s for Marinette to agree, but the possibilities presented by new allies who are definitely trustworthy and already experienced are too good to pass up. Knight Owl and Majestia aren’t exactly thrilled their daughters want to go across the ocean to fight a supervillain with no adult supervision, but they ultimately recognize the girls have proven themselves and arrange for them to be in a study abroad/student exchange program. With Marinette’s secret identity impossible to conceal from Aeon if they’re around each other long term, the three girls all share their secret identities with each other (and having confidantes beyond a tiny god greatly improves Marinette’s mental and emotional health). Marinette decides that the black cat ring is just too risky to keep active full time when Hawkmoth wants it, so she stores it in the box, giving Jess and Aeon whichever miraculous you see fit (preferably whichever ones with kwami whose personalities you want to explore).
But Marinette’s good luck doesn’t end there, because the Guardian of the American Miracle Box travels all the way to Paris to retrieve the Eagle miraculous. And upon discovering just how young and untrained the Parisian guardian is, he decides to stick around and properly train and support her. Now Marinette has a new mentor, who like her was trained by a guardian who managed to escape the destruction of the temple - however, his teacher avoided the destruction because they were already a full guardian stationed in America with the box at the time of the fall, so unlike Fu they were able to give him a full education. So he’s a fully educated guardian who doesn’t believe in the temple’s more… draconian practices, which is exactly what a modern miraculous user needs.
Meanwhile Adrien is stewing. With the introduction of these random new heroes (nobody knows they’re Sparrow and Uncanny Valley because Jess uses her real gender and Aeon keeps her human appearance when using the miraculous) it’s become obvious that Ladybug isn’t going to track him down or make a public appeal begging him to come back. Giving up his ring seemed like a good idea when the most powerful superheroine in the world was pissed at him for killing her daughter, but now that he’s back in Paris the lack of freedom is chafing. With nowhere to vent his darker tendencies he becomes more and more irritable in his civilian life, to the confusion of those around him. It doesn’t help that upon seeing recordings of Chat Noir sexually harassing Ladybug Aeon realized that they weren’t ‘made for each other’ and told Marinette who was behind the mask, so now she’s avoiding Adrien for reasons he can’t understand.
There are so many possibilities with this universe.
How do Marinette’s old friends react to her being instantly tight with the new exchange students?
Jess and Aeon aren’t going to put up with Lila’s lies, but how do they handle them and Adrien’s ’advice’ to Marinette on the subject?
Will Marinette ever snap and tell Alya off for pushing her beyond her comfort zone with Adrien?
Will Alya and Nino realize it’s super gross to try and set a guy up with someone else when he’s already got a girlfriend? Or will it be revealed that Adrien was somehow hiding his relationship with Kagami from them?
What sort of new information will the American Guardian teach Marinette?
And will they find a way to free the kwami from slavery?
How does Aeon interact with kwami when she can’t see or hear them? (I’m fond of the idea of tiny Semaphore flags myself)
How do Jess and Aeon adapt to a new city and new hero responsibilities? How does Paris react to three WOC superheroes with not a single cishet white boy in sight?
How does Hawkmoth react to the new hero lineup and the ring being taken out of play?
Does Gabriel ever realize Adrien was Chat Noir?
Do the heroes track down Hawkmoth with detective work, or does Hawkmoth make the mistake of coming out into the open and getting recognized by Aeon?
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