I have been cursed with yet another miraculous AU. I legitimately cannot express how much I just want to focus on what I have. But alas, I cannot. Because my brain won't stop.
If anybody ever wants to do anything with these they are more than welcome! I love seeing peoples take on ideas, and fandom is communal, after all. Anyways, on to the idea!
Not the first Ladybug in Paris AU
So, this AU is a bit of a doozy. So, as a grounding, I'll start with some basic stuff:
This AU exists as the result of a use of the ultimate wish, but not by hawkmoth. Instead, this wish that rewrote the universe was made by the universes Original Cat Noir roughly 25-30 years before the events of cannon.
This original Black Cat wielder is Felix Fathom as shown in the pilot 2d animated series. As cannon Felix also exists in this world(and is more or less unrelated to black cat Felix) we will call this older Felix Fel to avoid confusion.
Now, Fel was Cat Noir alongside his Ladybug, Bridgette(I know it's a fannon name, but this is fanfiction so I'll use it) fighting off a not-gabriel Hawkmoth who used the Kwami of Nothing Null (also from the Original storyboarding, can be seen in released sketches and notes). They succeeded in defeating this villain, but at the cost of Bridgette being extremely mentally damaged by the final fight. She became confused and could remember almost nothing accept for Fel and her feelings for him. She couldn't speak, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't feed herself, and didn't even know her own name anymore. But she looked at Fel with a spark of love and memory all the same.
Fel....couldn't handle this. Their hawkmoth(not sure I'll keep the name the same tbh) had wanted the wish for evil purposes. But Fel just wanted his lady whole again. He knew the cost of using the wish and willingly paid it, assuming it would take his life to give hers back.
But the wish is equivalent exchange in the most painful way. Quite literally it's cost is always the most awful outcome for its user while still fulfilling the wish. It's like a monkeys paw, only it will carry out the wish flawlessly, it's the price it twists into your side like a dagger.
For Fel, the wish was perfectly cruel. He wished that his lady would know more of the world than him again. Would live perfectly healthy in the world and be happy, with all of her memories and mind intact, not just those involving him.
The idea is was to bring time back to the begining and give them both a chance anew with their love known between them from the start, with all memories of the first reality.
So the wish created a world where Bridgette and Felix Fathom never met. And erased every memory and feeling that Bridgette ever had of him. She remembers the last reality, and being healed, but doesn't know who did it. Nor does she know about what she's lost. She chalks it up to the Kwami of reality giving her a redo, and efficiently decimates null's wielder before he can even truly take his agenda public. No one ever truly learns of the hero who protected them, or the villain that threatened them.
Curiously, she can't find Null. Even though she beat the bad guy, Null was whisked away at the end of the fight before she could secure him.
Suffering though he is having to watch his lady love without being able to truly see her again, he knows he's making the right call. Knowing him got her all but killed, as and did get many of their friends murdered by the psychopath who once wielded the miraculous of nothing and it's Kwami.
Null, like all the Kwami, remembers the past world, and unlike some of the others, understands the desire to be forgotten. To become nothing. So, he helps Fel erase himself. From every mind, every heart, every book and document and memory on the planet. As far as anyone besides himself and the Kwami are concerned, Felix Fathom was only ever the name of the much later born nephew in law of Gabriel Agreste. Fel simply never existed.
Fel leaves Paris and all its painful memories to travel the world with the miracle boxes 20th Kwami.
(For anyone familiar with my AU's who know I generally use an overhauled power system for the Kwami and miraculous that puts them in equal pairs, I'm sticking a little closer to cannon this time. I'll likely still use the overhauled powers of every Kwami's prime domain, but not their secondary. Whichever set of powers encompasses the ability they have in the show is what I'll use.)
Meanwhile, Bridgette trains under master Fu and succeeds him as the guardian of the miracle box. Still unable to locate Null despite chasing a disappearing and reappearing trail for the last several decades.
Then the events of cannon happen more or less as they do in cannon, with Bridgette returning to Paris to get the butterfly and peacock back from hawkmoth. And unbeknownst to her, Fel returns as well. Unaware that Bridgette is now the Guardian, he's returned to stop "that bastard Fu" from ruining the lives of yet another pair of teenagers. He also has a vested interest in making sure no one else gets ahold of the Kwami of reality, as they might undo his fix and put Bridgette back where she was. So more than a little selfishness and hypocrisy guide his choices.
Now an important note, after you have officially renounced a miraculous, or just not used it for a long period of time, you can never become the official Wielder of that miraculous again. There are exceptions for one time lends, but those are heavily restricted and to use a miraculous more than once you have to become it's wielder, full stop.
So it's not just like, Bridgette didn't feel like doing the ladybug part of this on her own. She literally can't. She could maybe be the cat noir (if Plagg would tell her why he's so grumpy with her all the time, of course), but she can never be Ladybug again. And if there's a ladybug candidate, there will always be a perfect cat noir to balance them. (Though she often wonders why hers never came.....)
So while Bridgette is handing out her miraculous to teenagers (it worked for her! Ignoring the fact she almost died), Fel is desperately trying to find out who the new Cat Noir and Ladybug are. Unable to just turn their protection to nothing due to the hard coded rules of the miraculous not letting Kwami's mess with the identity stuff.
Fel sets himself up as a wise mentor figure, or at least tries too. He's too worried about tipping off the guardian to intervene directly or overtly (unless he really thinks the kids are in danger) but he also refuses to put these kids through what he went through. He can make Chat a better protector and Ladybug a better leader. He will not lose another wielder. Not after all their friends, not after Bridgette. Not in this better world he's made for them all.
Ladybug and Chat aren't sure what to make of this strange adult, at first. But they learn quick that whatever else he is, Blanc(yes he named himself after the evil variant Bridgette told him about. Minus the "chat") is skilled, scarred, and terrified of them getting hurt. No matter how brusque or so obviously uncomfortable he is when he tries to be social and polite with them, it is plain to see that he wants the kids to be safe.
Why? They don't know. But he does.
So yeah, this is my take on the idea of the kids having experienced previous holders as mentors. I really liked the idea of a grizzled and tired Fel desperately trying to be friendly and comforting to these kids who he sees to much if himself and Bridgette in. Whilst Bridgette starts to question if "the way we've always done it" is actually the RIGHT way.
janainaart
snowghoul
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
germansingergirl
