The Queen of Broken Hearts Chapter 4: Will You Join Me?
Hey guys! I know it’s been ages...this semester has been really hard on me and my mental health, so I haven’t felt like writing much. It’s finally at it’s end though, and I only have three more assignments to complete before the semester ends next Tuesday, and I finally had enough brainpower to finish writing this chapter. (If you’re waiting on either of my other stories, Miraclasse or You Can Count on Me, those should be written and posted in the next couple of weeks.) Thanks for being so patient with me!
Without further ado...
Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3
AO3
The Jabberwock roared again, stretching its useless wings in agitation. Queen of Hearts waved her scepter and a swirl of red sparkles cleaned up what was left of Lila and her clothes. Once that was done, the sparkles swirled around the Jabberwock’s neck before they vanished, leaving a heavy golden collar with a broken heart tag in their place.
“I think I’m going to be sick…” Alya whispered. Chloe and Nino nodded in silent agreement. They never thought Marinette could do…that.
Queen of Hearts paid them no mind and turned to Chat Noir with a satisfied smile.
“Well, Chaton? What do you think?” Queen of Hearts asked. “Are you impressed? Everything she ever said was just meaningless jabber anyway, so it’s not like I changed that much about her.”
“You,” Chat started, but he couldn’t get the rest of the words out. He tried again, but then the image of Queen of Hearts’ sword slicing through Lila’s neck flashed in his mind again, but this time it was Marinette holding the sword instead of the akuma and his stomach churned. He had to force himself to remember it wasn’t Marinette, but Hawkmoth had never resorted to such blatant murder before… still, he couldn’t help but whisper, “you killed her…”
“You still haven’t been listening to me, have you, Minou? Not everything is what it seems to be,” Queen of Hearts asked, disappointed. “No matter. We’re late, you know.”
“Late for what?” Chat asked warily. The Queen of Hearts grinned brilliantly at him.
“I told you, we have a very important date,” Queen of Hearts said. “You really should get your ears checked, Kitty. All of those rumors about you having enhanced hearing while transformed must not be true…”
“He already told you, he doesn’t date murderers,” Nino spoke up. Queen of Hearts turned to him with a withering glare.
“You know, if everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does,” Queen of Hearts snapped. “Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t speak,” Queen of Hearts interrupted him. She waved her wand, and red sparkles swirled around Nino, Chloe, and Alya for a moment. When they vanished, Nino opened his mouth to say something, only to discover he no longer had a voice. He nudged Alya, but her voice was gone too. Chloe twisted around in her chair to glare at Queen of Hearts. Chat couldn’t make out everything she was trying to say, but it looked like ‘ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!’
With how well he knew her, he was almost certain that’s exactly what she was trying to say. Not that Queen of Hearts particularly cared.
“Now, Kitty, let’s see about making you a little more open-minded…” Queen of Hearts said.
Chat began to panic, knowing that if she blew him a kiss Paris was doomed, but also knowing he wouldn’t be able to escape from the playing card soldiers holding him. The Seven and Eight of Hearts were stronger than he was, and while he was tempted to use cataclysm to free himself, he didn’t know what that would do to them. He suspected the playing cards were his classmates and teachers that had seemingly disappeared from the courtyard, and he wasn’t sure Ladybug’s Cure could reverse the damage if he cataclysmed a person…
What if Ladybug is one of the cards holding me? Chat thought in horror.
Meanwhile, Queen of Hearts watched intently as a flurry of emotions danced across his face. They both knew he couldn’t escape her soldiers without hurting them, and though he could be reckless, she knew he wouldn’t deliberately harm a civilian.
If only it didn’t have to come to this…if I had more time, I could make him understand, but I don’t…this is the only way, Queen of Hearts thought, her lips twisting into a rueful attempt at a smile as she blew him a kiss.
The small red heart floated from her lips to Chat’s right cheek, landing at the edge of his mask gently.
Despite its gentle touch, the sensation of her magic brushing across his skin made Chat Noir thrash against the soldiers. He wasn’t even trying to escape anymore, just fight against the strange whispers crawling into his mind and echoing all around him.
“Easy, Chaton,” Queen of Hearts soothed. “This won’t hurt you, I promise. I just need you to see this, so you can understand. I’m not evil.”
“You’re an akuma,” Chat gasped out. “All of your powers come from evil and pain and suffering…that’s all you can be.”
“No, it’s not,” Queen of Hearts said. Chat’s vision swam, and suddenly he was standing in an empty clearing, with green grass under his boots and tall trees and flowers growing up around him. He whirled around and saw Queen of Hearts standing behind him. She was fiddling with her scepter to avoid making eye contact. He reached behind him for his baton, only to realize it wasn’t there.
“You can’t fight me in here. Not physically, at least,” Queen of Hearts explained. “I want to make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” Chat asked warily.
“Just, listen to what I have to say, what I have to show you. At the end of it all, if you still believe I’m evil, I’ll give you my akuma and let you and Ladybug set everything back to normal,” Queen of Hearts said. “I want you to join me, Chat Noir. I need you by my side.”
“I can’t trust you.”
“Would you trust Marinette?”
“You said Marinette was gone.”
“Would I be trying to reason with you if she wasn’t still around?” Queen of Hearts asked. Red, sparkling light swirled around her, and the Queen of Hearts vanished. In her place stood Marinette, with dried tear tracks clinging to her cheeks and a familiar determination in her eyes. The only remnant of the Queen of Hearts was the scepter in her hands the ghost of the broken hearts around her eyes. “I’m not entirely the same Marinette you were friends with, and I’m not the Marinette that my classmates knew either. I’m done taking the high road when someone is only causing pain, I’m done being controlled, and I’m done suffering for people who won’t take me seriously and reduce me to nothing more than a middle school crush. But even through the akuma, I’m still me. And all I’m asking is for you to give me one chance.”
“Alright, I’ll take your deal, Princess. But you had better not try anything,” Chat said.
“I swear,” Marinette promised. She waved her scepter, and the clearing morphed into a familiar balcony under a starry night sky, with warm lights illuminating the two figures leaning against the railing. One had dark pigtails and wore a black jacket over pink jeans and the other had blond hair and wore a black leather catsuit with a belt for a tail.
“One time a supervillain fell in love with me,” the memory Marinette said. “Talk about bad luck.”
“Seriously. I seem to have bad luck in the love department myself,” memory Chat agreed. Chat blinked once, and then again when he remembered what day the memory was from.
“Is this the night Glaciator attacked?” he asked, turning to Queen of Hearts. “Why are you showing me this? What does this have to do with anything?”
“You’re in love with Ladybug?” memory Marinette asked, and Queen of Hearts gestured to her with her scepter.
“That’s why,” Queen of Hearts said.
“Why do you care that I love Ladybug?” Chat asked, frowning. “And even if it is important, everyone knows I love Ladybug. Why is this memory so important?”
“Because this is the night I realized you were serious,” Queen of Hearts said.
“You? You’ve gotten your heart broken too?” memory Chat asked.
“Yup,” memory Marinette said, her lips pinching together in a bitter smile. Memory Chat looked at her for a moment before reaching a hand out to her.
“Hey, come with me,” he said. Memory Marinette hesitated for a moment in surprise before taking his hand and letting him pull her closer. “Close your eyes and hold on tight, okay?”
The two leapt over the railing in the direction of Chat’s surprise for Ladybug, leaving the real Chat Noir and Queen of Hearts alone on the balcony.
“I don’t understand. Why is any of this important? Why were you so surprised that I was serious about her?” Chat asked.
“You’ll see,” Queen of Hearts said. She waved her scepter and the memory faded away, leaving them standing ankle-deep in a thick, white liquid in a small, dark crate. Memory Chat banged on the door of the crate sharply.
“He’s right. We’re done for,” memory Chat said.
“Not yet, we’re not,” memory Ladybug said. Realization dawned on the real Chat’s face as Ladybug turned away from the memory to address the villain outside the crate, “You win, Dark Owl!”
“How do you know about this?” Chat asked, turning to Queen of Hearts. “How do you know exactly how this went down? Only Ladybug and I know…what are you doing to me?”
“Chat, I’m just showing you the truth. My magic has ways of supplementing the truth with my own memories and the facts that I know, and I don’t fully understand it, but I need you to listen to me. I need your help, and I need you to trust me,” Queen of Hearts said, her voice overlapping with Ladybug’s own plea for Chat to trust her in the memory. He clenched his jaw and looked away, but Queen of Hearts reached out her hand and gently turned him back to face the memory. “Watch, please.”
He did.
Ladybug called off her transformation, and after a flash of pink light, Marinette stood in her place. Chat’s jaw dropped, and he stumbled back away from Queen of Hearts in shock. Seconds later, memory Chat dropped his transformation as well, leaving Adrien in his place.
“So that’s where my little dormouse scampered off to,” Queen of Hearts mused. Chat looked at her in shock and horror.
“You’re lying to me. None of this is real,” Chat growled. “Let me out of this crate, let me go!”
“Why would I lie to you, Chat? What purpose would that hold?” Queen of Hearts snapped. “Lying to you now would make me as bad as Lila. I need your help, and I need you on my side, but I’m not going to stoop to Lila’s level and manipulate you into believing me. I’m only showing you what you need to know, Chat Noir. You’ve wanted to know your lady’s identity for so long, and now you do! And your lady needs your help!”
“Help with what?” Chat snapped back. “You’re an akuma. Hawkmoth will give you whatever help you need. You don’t need my help. I’m supposed to break your object and set you free.”
“I have a plan, a plan that will end all of this for good,” Queen of Hearts admitted. Chat froze.
“What are you talking about?” he asked hesitantly.
“When he yelled at me to take your Miraculous earlier, when I stood my ground against him, I blew him a kiss and pushed my magic through the connection. Why would I do that if I didn’t want to turn him too? I needed to find him so I could get close to him and take his Miraculous away. He’s hurt too many people, and we have a chance to stop him, Chaton,” Queen of Hearts said.
“You’re an akuma, he’d let you near him anyway if you had taken my Miraculous,” Chat said slowly. “Why go to all this trouble?”
“Would he? Chat, when has an akuma ever gotten close to him? Dark Owl was the only one that came close to succeeding and he sent our Miraculouses to him using a drone. If anything he would just force me to send them to him using one of my soldiers, or he would force me to admit that I was Ladybug but that my kwami took the earrings and I have no idea where they are so I can’t give them to him,” Queen of Hearts said. “We’re a team, Adrien. I can’t go fight him on my own. If my magic doesn’t hold, or if he has the Peacock Miraculous to help him, I’ll lose. And my identity might still be safe, but without the earrings I can’t fix anything, and I don’t know what lengths he’ll go to in order to protect his identity. What if I fail, and he doesn’t just take away my akuma powers? What if I fail and he kills me? He’s killed people before who were only saved because I cast the cure.”
“I can’t—”
“Adrien, please,” Queen of Hearts begged, tears pooling in her blue eyes, the blue eyes he once fell in love with, the blue eyes that belonged to the friend he had promised to stand beside, both in and out of the mask. “I can make you my Cheshire Cat and give you stronger powers. You’ll have unlimited access to your Cataclysm and you’ll be able to disappear at will.”
“And I’ll go mad, just like the others? No, thank you,” Chat said, turning away from her.
“Did the others look mad to you? Do I really look mad? It’s all an act, Adrien. I have to make Hawkmoth believe I’m an akuma under his control,” she said. “Dredging up the memories hurts. Showing people the truth hurts, especially when the truth is that they’ve been hurting someone they cared about. And if some of them couldn’t handle it? That isn’t my fault.”
“What about Lila? You killed her!” Chat yelled. “You’re worried about Hawkmoth killing you when you killed our classmate!”
“Lila was hurting people, Adrien! She was hurting me! This entire time, everything she’s done has hurt me! She got me akumatized! She almost got me akumatized several times, in fact. I was just able to fight off the butterflies before. Chameleon should have been me, because she threatened to take all of my friends away from me, including you!” Queen of Hearts exclaimed. “But I didn’t kill her, no matter what you thought you saw. It was all just an illusion, the same way it was with Alya and Nino and Chloe. None of them got hurt, their appearances just changed.”
Chat looked at her warily, taking in every inch of her appearance. On the surface, she looked just like Marinette. The dark black pigtails that almost looked blue in the sunlight. Her bright, ocean blue eyes that sucked him in like a whirlpool when he stared into them too deeply. Her slender, athletic figure that didn’t quite match the idea of a clumsy baker’s daughter but made so much sense for someone who was secretly a superhero. The longer he stared, the more his mental image of Ladybug merged with the girl standing in front of him, until every fiber of his being was telling him to believe what she was saying. And yet…
“I can’t trust you,” Chat ground out, his heart breaking at the hurt that flooded Queen of Hearts’ eyes. “You’re an akuma right now, and I can’t trust that this isn’t some intricate ploy to get my Miraculous away from me, or that you don’t actually have Ladybug’s Miraculous and are just waiting until you have both of them to turn them over to Hawkmoth.”
“You think Hawkmoth is smart enough for a plan like this? The same Hawkmoth that akumatized a baby twice?”
“He also orchestrated the Heroes’ Day attack, and almost won.”
“How can I prove it to you? What do I have to do to prove that you can trust me?” Queen of Hearts begged.
“Show me something Hawkmoth could never know about, even if he was able to sort through our memories. Something that would seem so insignificant or so long ago that he would never think to show it to me.”
“The scarf,” she whispered. Her eyes lit up as she realized there was still hope. “You don’t know about the scarf, so how would Hawkmoth? If you think he’s controlling me, he wouldn’t be able to tell you about the scarf. He wouldn’t even know to look for it.”
“What scarf?” Chat asked.
“The blue scarf you got for your birthday. You thought your father got it for you because there was some mix-up and there wasn’t a card inside the box, but that was because I forgot to sign the gift!” Queen of Hearts exclaimed.
“What are you talking about?”
“I made you that scarf, Adrien,” she insisted. “I know you aren’t inclined to believe me but just…watch.”
She waved her scepter before he could protest, and they were standing in Marinette’s room. She was sitting on her chaise with a set of knitting needles in hand and a ball of soft blue yarn in her lap connected to them. There was music playing in the background, a haunting version of Once Upon a Dream. She was humming along quietly, seemingly lost in the repetitive, meditative motions of looping, knitting, purling, and casting off stitches one at a time until the yarn began to look like a scarf. She got through quite a few rows before an alarm went off on her phone, making her jump visibly.
“Are you okay, Marinette?” a new voice asked as Marinette silenced the alarm and rubbed at her eyes. A little red kwami that Chat recognized flew up to her.
“I’m fine, Tikki. I just lost track of time, is all. It’s time to go meet Chat for patrol,” Marinette said.
“You looked really relaxed,” Tikki said with a bright smile. “That’s your birthday gift for Adrien, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is! I only have a few more days to finish it before his birthday, and I’ve been so busy with school and Ladybug duties that I’m really behind…but I think it’s really coming together, don’t you? I wish I had time to make more than a scarf for him, but I don’t know any of his measurements and I don’t know if he’d even like anything I could give him since he could get anything and—”
“Marinette, breathe! He’ll love it! It’s a Marinette original, and you created it with love, so how could he not?” Tikki reassured her. Marinette took a deep breath and giggled anxiously on the exhale.
“You’re right, Tikki. It’s the thought that counts, after all,” she said, almost as if she needed to reassure herself more than anything else. “Let’s go meet Chat Noir. The sooner we get to patrol, the sooner I can come back and keep working on the scarf. Tikki, spots on!”
A pink flash filled the room as Marinette transformed into Ladybug and jumped through the trapdoor to meet her partner for patrol.
One wave of Queen of Hearts’ scepter later and the memory changed again. This time they were standing outside of the school. Marinette was hiding next to the stairs next to Alya, a box in her hands that was wrapped in an eerily familiar blue wrapping paper with a pink ribbon.
“You’ve been stalling all morning! Now’s the time,” Alya insisted. Marinette still hesitated, a look of terror on her face, so Alya pushed her out from behind the stairs towards Adrien.
“Um, he—hey!” Marinette stuttered, holding the gift behind her back where Adrien couldn’t see it.
“You were so nervous…” Chat mumbled, walking around the memory to see it from a different angle. “All over a birthday gift?”
“I didn’t even put a note inside of it,” Queen of Hearts said bitterly. “I was so focused on making the gift and making the perfect scarf and wrapping it perfectly that I forgot to sign the card, and then I couldn’t even get over my nerves long enough to give it to you in person. I don’t know how you ended up thinking it was from your father, but the presents must have gotten mixed up somehow.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked, his eyes unreadable for once.
“Well, that’s probably easier if I just show you,” Queen of Hearts said, speeding up the memory to the next day.
Adrien stepped out of his limousine wearing the blue scarf with a happy expression. Marinette gasped.
“That’s my scarf! He’s wearing my scarf!” she squealed excitedly.
“All of my hard work had paid off…” Queen of Hearts mused.
“Can you believe my dad got this for me?” Adrien said, responding to Alya’s comment on it and completely oblivious to the shock on Marinette’s face. “He’s so awesome. He’s been giving me the same lame pen for three years in a row.”
“Wow, I guess anyone can change. Adults can be cool when you least expect it,” Nino said. He and Adrien continued walking inside, leaving Marinette and Alya standing by the door.
“You have to tell him you were the one who knitted the scarf,” Alya said to Marinette.
“But he seems so happy about his dad,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “I can’t spoil it for him.”
“You just let my dad take the credit for that gift? Why did you let me believe that when he lied to me?” Chat asked.
“You were happy, Adrien. That was what mattered. The whole point of a gift is to give someone something that will make them happy. The scarf made you happy, even if it was because you thought your dad gave it to you. Ruining that for you would have ruined the gift,” Queen of Hearts explained. “I cared about your happiness more than I cared about getting credit for it, plain and simple.”
“And I never even realized…”
“Do you believe me now? Or do you really think I’m still just an akuma designed to manipulate you?” Queen of Hearts asked.
“I…” Chat started, then trailed off as he weighed his options. His brain was still screaming at him that she was an akuma and working with Hawkmoth, but his heart was louder now, and his heart was telling him to trust her. He knew Marinette hated liars and would only ever lie herself if it was absolutely necessary, akuma or not, and that showing him this wasn’t necessary. She could have just tormented him with endless images of all of the times he had failed her, or hurt her, or turned against Ladybug because of an akuma or his feelings being hurt. If she wanted to manipulate him into turning into one of her pawns, all she had to do was let her magic target his most vulnerable insecurities until he went mad. She wouldn’t have been so gentle if she wasn’t still Marinette, if she wasn’t his Lady. “I believe you.”
“So will you join me? Will you join your lady, and help her win this fight?” Queen of Hearts asked, stepping close enough to him to rest a hand on his cheek. He leaned into the touch and covered her hand with his.
“Yes.”
She smiled up at him, a dazzling, blinding smile that completely captured his attention. Everything around him faded away as he stared at her smile, until she began to fade away as well. Soon only her smile was left, and then that disappeared in a flash of pink light so bright he had no choice but to turn away. He felt a wave of magic wash over him, and then everything was dark.
~*~*~*~
Queen of Hearts opened her eyes with a proud smile. She had her kitty by her side again, and she could see a plume of blue smoke rising over the roof of the school. All she had to do was wait for the magic to finish its job and she could finish hers, once and for all. She glanced over at Chat just in time to see the light pink mark on his cheek break. Shimmering red sparkles emerged from the crack and swirled around his body, faster and faster until the pinkish-red light was almost too bright to look at. When the light faded away, her Chaton stood there, looking mostly the same until she stepped closer. His hair was fluffier, with light pink strands shining amongst his usual gold. Tufts of pale pink hair stuck out from the cat ears perched on his head. His signature solid black suit had turned into a deep plum purple that shone almost pink where the sunlight hit it, and all of his angles seemed sharper. Deadlier. Even his tail had a sharper point to it than it had just minutes before. The biggest change, however, was clearly in his expression. He smiled, wider than ever before, revealing the sharp fangs that replaced his canines, and when he opened his eyes, they were yellow instead of green.
“My Chesire Chat, how good of you to finally join us,” Queen of Hearts said, smiling warmly at him.
“You asked me to join you, so that is what I must do,” Cheshire Chat said with an unnerving, laughing lilt in his voice that chilled Alya, Nino, and Chloe to their cores. “One does not upset the Queen.”
(The wonderful Cheshire Chaton art was drawn by @wolfykit)