Chapter Text
When Chloé had woken up that day, she was more than fairly certain she was hallucinating from having one too many cocktails late in the night back in New York from dealing with her mother’s incessant complaints.
Seeing as she wasn’t sporting a hangover, and that she was in the bedroom she’d moved out of a year ago was fairly disconcerting.
Chloé squinted, gripping her head for any sort of recollection of her night. Had she drunkenly booked a flight back to Paris and managed to make her way back to the hotel?
Well, it could’ve been worse. She could’ve almost caused another PR scandal and woke up to a man who didn’t even own a facial cleanser.
She eyes some of her drapery in distaste. Hadn’t she gotten rid of that stuff, years ago? Audrey Bourgeois would’ve had a stroke seeing how out of fashion her room looked.
A flight from New York would’ve been at least seven hours, getting to the airport—she can’t have possibly been black out drunk such an extended period of time.
Jesus Christ, this was an Akuma thing, wasn’t it?
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. This type of nonsense was exactly why she’d left Paris in the first place.
Getting out of bed, she was pleasantly surprised that she wasn’t hungover as she began getting ready for the day.
There was a knock. “Good morning, Mademoiselle!”
Chloé could only stare stunned as Jean entered her room. He seemed pleasantly surprised to see her already awake as he came over to make her bed. “I’m glad to see you up so early for school, you must be excited to see the Agreste boy.”
Jean smiled down at her warmly, but Chloé doesn’t hear a word coming out of his mouth.
Majordome Jean died protecting her from a Hawkmoth attack a year ago.
She doesn’t even realise how she’s sprinted across her bedroom until she’s in her care-taker’s arms, earning a startled look from him.
“Mademoiselle?!”
It’s only then does Chloé see from the calendar dated back to September 2019 does it all suddenly click.
She’s travelled back in time.
Chloé really doesn’t want to go to school today.
She’d barely survived the first-time round, who the fuck would want to repeat that?
She’s barely let Jean leave her side for more than a moment—how could she? He was the only consistent parental figure she’d had in her life before Hawkmoth’s attack.
It was the final straw as to why she’d left Paris in the first place.
“Mademoiselle, I thought you were excited to see Monsieur Agreste for his first day of school?” Jean asks, frowning down at her in obvious concern for his charge’s sudden mood swings as they’re driving through the familiar roads of Paris, back to where it all began.
Collège Françoise Dupont.
Which, yeah, she’d love to see Adrien again except he’d leave her for his new group of friends, and she didn’t need a repeat of feeling stupid and betrayed upon seeing him drift further away, before ending their friendship and finding out about his miraculous.
Most of it is your fault though. Her conscious, which sounds suspiciously a lot like Pollen responds.
Which—again, yeah that may have been true. She did have layers of guilt, but she wasn’t exactly over seeing Jean come back to life after how much she’d grieved.
Jean’s death had been her breaking point. And Hawkmoth had used her pain to akumatize her—
She hadn’t been back to the city since.
The whole drive there, Jean keeps glancing back at her through the rear-view mirror, features contorted into obvious concern and Chloé has to bite her tongue to not throw out a harsh remark about watching the road.
They pass a bunch of girls her age chattering excitedly in front of Adrien’s cologne ad, and she remembers.
She remembers forcing Sabrina awake at some ungodly hour to make it to school early for Adrien’s arrival. She remembers making the girls cry at the sight of her own signed poster and the thought makes her lips quirk upwards in amusement before pausing.
Shit. She’s not changed at all.
The thought chills her to the bone, because if she’s not changed then she’s a mini-Audrey. She’s everything Miracle Queen was. She’s—
“Mademoiselle, we can turn back.” Jean suddenly pipes up, frowning in concern she’s never once deserved. It makes her want to snap at him bawl into his arms like she had when she was seven and had lost Mr Cuddly.
“No.” Chloe shakes her head. She’d have to show up either way and the idea of missing a day would just throw her off for the timeline.
This was when Ladybug and Chat Noir would make their debut appearances, she had to be there.
Chloé steps out of the car, making a conscience effort to thank Jean as she gets out. She ignores the way he looks even more concerned with her, instead turning to where the school is and immediately feels the weight of her past pressing in on her—the identical courtyard, the squealing girls, the camera flashes around Adrien’s arrival.
Except this time, it all feels smaller.
Like she’s looking at a dollhouse she used to think was a palace.
She watches Sabrina hurry toward her, awkward and eager, clutching her notebook in that pathetic, obedient way Chloé had encouraged.
God.
She really had been a tyrant.
“Chloé! Adrien’s here just like you said he would be! I have everything ready—” she holds up the signage and posters and Chloé feels a wave of embarrassment.
Merde, she was an idiot.
“…Thanks Sabrina, but we won’t be needing that stuff anymore.” She hastily grabs all the hard work that her younger self had forced the teenager to bring, shoving it all into her bag miraculously.
“What, why?” Sabrina looks crushed and it hits Chloé how young she is—eighteen year old Chloé was still in touch with the girl, but it wasn’t the same to how it had been when they were sixteen. With Chloé moving to London then New York, trying to get closer to her mother only to find out that she had ANOTHER mystery half sibling with Noé—
Ugh, two years really does change a person.
“Look, Sabrina…thank you for uh, going out of your way to make this, but I realised Adrien would probably hate it.”
Sabrina looks at her with wide eyes, unwavering with worship and Chloé suddenly feels icky. She used to love this, being the centre of people’s orbit—hell, a part of her still believed she deserved it. She was Chloé Bourgeois, but—
Chloé swallows, feeling the weight of Sabrina’s stare like a spotlight she suddenly doesn’t want.
“But… Adrien loves when you do things for him,” Sabrina says softly, confusion crumpling her face. “You said it makes him feel special.”
Oh God, had she said that? Merde, she probably did.
“No,” Chloé says, and it comes out more brittle than firm. “He doesn’t. He’s just too polite to tell me to piss off.”
Sabrina’s mouth opens in a little “o” of shock, and Chloé realises—too late—that she’s said it too bluntly. She winces.
Great.
Fantastic.
Day one and she’s traumatising Sabrina early.
Chloé clears her throat. “What I mean is…he won’t appreciate being swarmed on his first day. It’s…embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” Sabrina repeats, like the concept has never once been considered.
“Mortifying,” Chloé corrects. “Tragic. Social suicide. So put the signs away.”
Sabrina fidgets, uncertain. “Are you… feeling okay, Chloé?”
No.
Absolutely not.
She’s having a full-blown identity crisis in her old high school, she’s been thrown into the past for reasons unknown, and she’s stuck having to relive Akuma attack’s because Adrien’s dad decided to take a swan-dive into the cuckoo nest after Aunt Emile’s death.
But she obviously can’t lament to Sabrina about this so she forces a scoff. “Of course I’m fine, what kind of question—”
And then she freezes.
Because Adrien Agreste is stepping out of his father’s car.
And she forgot, she truly forgot, how young he looked back then.
Sixteen, but years of being a professional model and a celebrity has him PR trained enough to smile and sign some autographs, thanking his fans despite the fact that all he wanted was to go into school like a regular kid.
God, he didn’t even have his miraculous yet. Or did he? Well, either way he hadn't even debuted as Chat Noir yet.
Her stomach twists.
Sabrina squeals. “Go on! Say something to him! You always say something first!”
Oh god.
That was her role here, wasn’t it?
Chloé instinctively steps forward—and stops inches later, as if someone yanked her by the spine.
Because she knows what she said that day.
“Adrikins! You’re late! I’ve been waiting all morning—”
Is shoving his fans out of the way rude? Probably but Adrien was too nice and, in all honesty, if she didn’t help him out, he’d be stuck here all morning, late to class and even more embarrassed.
Her muscles tense—old habits sparking like muscle memory.
Just a quick shove, she could easily part the sea like Moses if she wanted to. A casual “back off, peasants” and she’d have Adrien sailing safely into the courtyard.
Easy. Familiar. Comforting.
It’d be so easy—
But then she remembers the eventual fallout.
The whispers.
The way Adrien had looked at her with that brittle, uncomfortable smile the first time she’d done it—too polite to say she’d made things worse, that he was uncomfortable.
She’d told herself back then that he was grateful. She sees now he’d just been trapped.
Chloé’s heel hovers mid-step.
Stop.
Pollen’s voice in her mind—stern, steady.
Think.
And for once, she does. She drops her foot back to the ground, biting her lower lip.
Adrien is still surrounded, signing posters, laughing nervously, gently declining a girl who tried to physically latch onto him. He’s drowning in attention, but not asking for a lifeline.
“Merde,” Chloé mutters under her breath. “I can’t believe I used to enjoy this. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”
Sabrina blinks at her. “Huh?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly.
Adrien finally looks up—and spots her. His face lights up with genuine relief. He excuses himself from a cluster of girls and jogs toward her, hair bouncing slightly, bag slipping off one shoulder.
God, he’s so young.
Young and hopeful and unscarred by everything that comes after.
“Chloé!” Adrien beams. “It’s so good to see you.”
She swallows.
Old Chloé would’ve dragged him by the sleeve and announced to the entire courtyard that he was hers-hers-hers, a trophy she’d polished and displayed.
This Chloé smiles, but its polite, more reserved than he’s used to. “Adrien, it’s good to see you too. I'm so glad your father agreed to letting you come to school.”
He falters for a heartbeat. Her tone, her restraint, the lack of dramatics—it all throws him off.
“…Thanks,” he says, softer. “I was actually kind of nervous.”
Her chest squeezes.
Right.
Because this was his first day meeting his class. Meeting Nino, Alya—
Meeting Marinette.
Becoming Chat Noir, falling for Ladybug—
“This is Sabrina, she’s, my friend.” Chloé introduced diplomatically, and Sabrina smiles brightly, awestruck. “H-Hello!”
Adrien gives his easy, polite model-smile. “Hi, Sabrina. It’s nice to meet you.”
Sabrina squeaks. Actually squeaks. Chloé watches the whole thing with the surreal horror of someone watching a baby deer sprint toward oncoming traffic.
Adrien laughs a little, oblivious. Actually—he probably did notice; he wasn’t stupid and he was used to fangirls on a daily basis. “Are you both headed to class? We could walk together, if you want.”
“Sure.” Chloé says on autopilot, mind a whirlwind as she walks into the building with both friends—
And isn’t that a fucking insane thing? Adrien hadn’t been her friend in years, not since—
“Are you okay, Chloé?” Adrien frowns, and she’d forgotten how easily Adrien could give out his concern, his kindness. It came so easy to him while Chloé had to actively remind herself not to casually ruin someone’s day.
“I’m fine, Adrien.” She waves off, smirking. “Just thinking about how your poor stomach isn’t going to be able to handle the cafeteria food this place serves.”
“It can’t be that bad—”
“Oh no, it’s bad.” Sabrina confirms, not as fangirl-y now that they were having a normal conversation.
Chloé just smirks, “We could always just order from a Michelin star restaurant if you want, Adrikins. I know for a fact you’ve never even touched a fast-food chain before.”
“Chloé.” He sounds exasperated, but there’s a smile there. He’s more relaxed around her this time round than in the original timeline, so Chloé takes it as a win.
“Come on, we’ll show you the class.”
The first day was…intense.
Adrien had sat next to Nino, and she’d essentially witnessed the origins of their friendship, Sabrina sat next to her and Chloé had to immediately tell the girl not to write her set of notes and that she’d do it herself.
Honestly, Sabrina didn’t know whether to be concerned or pleased with her overnight character development.
Marinette had come into class late as usual, and since Chloé had essentially ignored the girl, letting her sit wherever she wanted. Because of this, Alya had no reason to interfere on her behalf.
Whatever, they’d still be best friends either way.
Watching Marinette almost fall flat on her face had the blonde genuinely bite her tongue to keep herself from saying anything cruel, instead opting to distract herself with her old phone.
It wasn’t that she hated Marinette—but she was still bitter, sue her.
Chloé had gone from Ladybug’s biggest supporter to her biggest hater, and it was just—ugh, it was complicated.
She couldn’t actually fault Marinette for taking Pollen away from her, it was Chloé’s own hubris that led to her downfall. Not only had she made her identity known but she’d also been a fucking tyrant the second things didn’t go her way.
But did she have to give her miraculous to Zoé of all people? Yes Zoé was a good person, and she was kind, and an overall good hero— Merde, she was just digging her own grave at this point.
The rest of the morning dragged on in a surreal haze.
Chloé kept catching herself drifting—staring too long at Adrien and Nino’s rapidly forming bromance. Watching Alya take notes like her life depended on it. Glancing at Marinette every time the girl tripped over her own shoelaces, nearly died via gravity, or stammered every time Adrien so much as breathed in her direction.
It was like reliving a documentary of a species she’d once bullied to extinction.
In fairness, she’d grown since then.
In more fairness, Marinette still irritated her on a primal level.
Not…maliciously.
Just in the way that seeing someone who eventually replaced you always stung.
And Marinette had replaced her. Hard.
Chloé had always wanted to be a hero, but she wasn’t cut out for it. She was mean, cruel and in all honesty? She was a bitch
Marinette wasn’t just a good superhero, but it was just—Everything. The girl who got to be heroic, adored, morally righteous, while Chloé spiralled trying to make herself like her mother.
Chloé tenses, fingers curling around her pen.
Sabrina glances sideways as Chloé scribbles violently into her notebook.
“Um…you wrote the same sentence three times,” Sabrina whispers.
Chloé looks down.
‘THIS IS FINE.’
Repeated. In increasingly chaotic handwriting.
Merde, she was losing it.
She slaps her hand over the page. “Mind your own business, Sabrina.”
Sabrina beams, apparently pleased to be included in any capacity. “Yes, Chloé!”
God, even her compliance is exhausting.
Chloé softens—barely, begrudgingly. “Look…I didn’t mean—just stop copying me like some sort of corporate intern, okay?”
Sabrina nods enthusiastically, as if Chloé has just given her the greatest gift imaginable: permission to exist independently.
Adrien glances over his shoulder when he hears the commotion, giving her a tiny smile—surprised but warm.
She looks away instantly.
Lunch isn’t better.
She leads Sabrina to the usual table—because old habits die hard—and tries not to roll her eyes when Marinette “accidentally” bumps into a chair and cascades into Nino like a wet domino. Alya laughs and Adrien helps her up; Marinette then proceeds to forget how to speak French.
It’s exactly as it always was.
And yet completely different.
She hadn’t bullied Marinette or been cruel the entire day, so it was a little more off script than the first-time round, but it wasn’t like she could remember exactly what she had done back when she was sixteen on Adrien’s first day.
Chloé picks at her food—some sad, overcooked pasta she wouldn’t feed a stray pigeon—while Sabrina talks about…something. Chloé isn’t listening.
Because she keeps watching Marinette.
Not with hatred now, but…irritation.
Regret.
A deep, uneasy ache of knowing she’ll eventually blow up her life trying to be better—and Marinette will still get to be the golden girl.
Her jaw tightens.
And Zoé—
God, her half-sister wasn’t even in Paris yet. She hadn’t even met the girl this early on.
“Chloé?” Adrien asks gently, suddenly across from her. “You look like you’re plotting something scary.”
“I’m contemplating how this school hasn’t been sued for food poisoning yet.”
Adrien laughs. Actually laughs. Warm. Genuine.
It hits her like a sucker punch.
He sits down beside her, tray in hand. Nino tentatively joins him, eying Chloé as if she might bite his head off.
Smart boy.
“Uh, hey Chloé.” He starts off, looking to Adrien for support who in turn gives his new friend the thumbs up.
Chloé nods in greeting “Lahiffe.”
His shoulders relax as he takes his seat opposite Adrien, Sabrina filling in the spot next to him.
Chloé stabs her pasta.
Everything is too familiar.
Too loud.
Adrien nudges her shoulder lightly. “Hey. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can talk to me, you know?”
It’s the first tremor of panic she’s felt all day.
She forces a smirk. “Please, Adrikins. I’m fine. I’m always fine.”
“So uh, how long have you guys known each other?” Nino asks, brow raised, somewhat more comfortable now that he knows Chloé isn’t about to throw her pasta in his face for breathing the same air as her.
“We grew up together, Chloé was my first real friend.” Adrien smiles fondly. “I used to come over to her family’s hotel all the time.”
Chloé falters slightly, because she honestly felt like she was experiencing imposter syndrome.
Nino whistles and Sabrina’s wide eyed in awe, so Chloé feels herself shift uncomfortably before flipping her hair back. “It was back when I wasn’t a bitch yet.” She feels the need to clarify.
“Chloé!” Sabrina and Adrien gawk and Nino actually bursts into surprised laughter.
“Holy shit—at least you’re self-aware.”
Adrien and Sabrina both snap their heads towards Nino, Sabrina looking ready to defend her honour and Adrien exasperated. “Nino—”
But Chloé smirks, actually amused by Lahiffe, which was a first. He didn’t have the unwavering loyalty like Sabrina nor was he like Adrien, who had only gotten glimpses of her cruelty throughout their upbringing.
Nino’s laughter tapers off when he realises Chloé isn’t offended—if anything, she looks vaguely entertained.
“That’s…you're not mad?” he adds, unsure again, adjusting his glasses.
Chloé twirls her fork, leaning back with that casual, cat-stretch confidence she wears like armour. “Relax, Lahiffe. If I wanted to ruin your life, you’d know.”
“Comforting,” he mutters, but he’s smiling now, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders.
“No offence, but you’re not as bad as I thought. Or well, you've really toned it down over the summer.”
Chloé pauses at that, her brain already configuring fifty different scathing insults to send his way, but she immediately reboots herself—tongue pressing against her molars so hard they could crack.
“Don’t be too surprised, Lahiffe. I could still be so much worse.” But her tone isn’t sharp, and she grins to show that she’s joking.
"Oh yeah, I'm aware." He puts his hands up immediately, but he's grinning back.
Adrien watches the exchange like he’s witnessing a rare cosmic event—Chloé and someone outside their bubble getting along. Sort of.
He bumps her knee under the table, gentle. “See? You’re not that scary.”
She shoots him a flat look. “Don’t spread lies.”
Sabrina eagerly nods. “She really isn’t th—”
Chloé lifts a hand without even looking at her and Sabrina immediately stops talking.
Nino’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. Is that, like…telepathy? Training? Does she have PTSD?”
“Sabrina is loyal,” Chloé says simply, lifting her chin. “And…yeah, okay fine she’s properly trained.”
Sabrina beams. “I am!”
Adrien sighs, but there’s affection behind it. “We’re working on the whole ‘don’t terrorise your friends’ thing.”
“Hey, I’ve been trying to damage control all day. You try to undo the amount of programming she has.” Chloé playfully pokes the girl's freckled cheek and Sabrina just giggles, clearly enjoying this more tame version of her best friend.
Nino just raises an eyebrow, honestly surprised to find himself enjoying Chloé’s company. "And who programmed her?"
"Irrelevent."
Jesus fucking Christ she’d forgotten about the Akuma attack.
Living in New York with her tyrannical mother really had softened her, how the hell could she have forgotten about Ivan’s akumatisation into Stoneheart?!
She stared at the broadcast from her bedroom, jaw tightened. Marinette and Adrien would debut as Paris’s Superheroes today, Ladybug and Chat Noir.
There honestly wasn’t anything she could do to help at this point in time—they didn’t really need her, and it all needed to play out properly otherwise how else were they supposed to learn how to wield their Miraculous’s?
Chloé frowned, gnawing at her bottom lip.
Hawk Moth had made his move, and she was probably the only one who knew his identity. What was she even supposed to do with this knowledge? Was she even allowed to mess with time by revealing it?
She didn’t even have Pollen, she wasn’t meant to be a Miraculous holder—
But God, did she miss being the wielder of the Bee miraculous, even if Zoé was better at it than she ever was.
Chloé dragged a hand down her face as Stoneheart stomped across the screen, the news anchor’s voice wobbling with every tremor.
Of course it was happening exactly the way she remembered.
Of course she was stuck watching it from her stupid, childhood bedroom.
She paced.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Like a caged animal.
“Hawk Moth.” She spit the name like a bad aftertaste.
She knew who he was, she knew where he was.
Hell, she knew exactly how many people would suffer because of him—how many akumas would tear apart her city, her friends, her life.
Did she even have a right to interfere? She wasn’t that different to the man, except at least Gabriel Agreste had a purpose, as blindsided as he was.
He wanted his wife back. Chloé had just been evil for the sake of it.
She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, breathing hard through her nose.
If she revealed his identity now, what would happen? A paradox? A cosmic slap on the wrist? Would the universe implode because Chloé Bourgeois decided to be helpful for once?
Stupid. Ridiculous. Infuriating.
She flopped onto her bed, staring up at the obnoxiously ornate ceiling.
“I wasn’t meant to be a Miraculous holder,” she muttered to herself, but her chest squeezed painfully.
She missed Pollen.
Missed the weight of the comb.
Missed the hum of power on her skin.
Missed feeling…useful.
On-screen, Ladybug swung into view—young, clumsy, brilliant—and Chloé felt a rush of nostalgia twist deep in her ribs.
“You don’t even know what’s coming for you, Dupain-Cheng,” she whispered, not unkindly. “And I’m stuck here watching reruns of my trauma.”
Her phone buzzed with a text—Sabrina, panicked, demanding where she was and if she was safe.
Chloé sighed. Her eyes went back to Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting Stoneheart like newborn foals on ice.
“God, this is painful.”
She shot a quick text back to Sabrina, telling her friend that she was fine and to stay safe before grabbing her bag and heading out. She’d have to sneak out, the hotel security on high alert but she didn’t really have a choice.
She had a crazy old man to find.
:::::
“I’m from the future.” Chloé states, arms folded as she stares at the previous guardian of the Miraculous box.
Master Fu just stares at her, blinking slowly, completely bewildered.
She couldn’t really blame the guy, this early on.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m from the future.” Chloé repeats, louder this time, tone flat and unapologetic. “And if you don’t help me…a lot of people are going to get hurt. Like, seriously.”
Master Fu finally blinks again, slower this time, as if trying to decide whether she’s insane or a very rude apparition. “From… the future?” he asks, voice careful, measured. “And why come here, Miss Bourgeois?”
Chloé huffs, crossing her arms tighter. Him knowing her name doesn’t bother her, she was the mayor’s daughter, so it was a given he’d know the most spoiled girl in Paris. “I wielded the Bee Miraculous in the future.” Technically not a lie, even if it was Zoé who ends up with it. “Pollen.”
The old man leans back on his chair, peering at her over thin-rimmed glasses, his expression more trusting at the mention of Pollen.
“Miss Bourgeois, messing with time is—”
“I don’t know how I got here.” She interrupts, frowning, gripping her hair. “I know I’m not supposed to be here. I wasn’t even in the continent when I got sent back. All I know is, I got sent back today. The day of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s debut as Paris’s superheroes.”
He stares at her, jaw clenched as he processes this information. “I…see. That is very strange. You have no idea what could have caused you to come back in time?”
Chloé frowns, shaking her head. “I’m from two years in the future.”
“The Bunny miraculous?”
She shakes her head. “If the holder of the Bunny miraculous sent me back then I haven’t got any memory of it.”
“…This is troubling. I’m afraid I have no idea what to do with this, it’s unprecedented.”
“So, I’m stuck here?” Chloé frowns but crosses her arms. The idea of being stuck in the past permanently was horrifying.
Master Fu sighs, regretful. “For now. I need to look into this—”
Chloé cuts him off again, pacing now.
“No, you don’t understand. Things get bad. Cataclysm-level-bad. People die! And Adrien—"
She stops so suddenly she nearly trips over her heels.
Master Fu raises an eyebrow. “Adrien…Agreste?”
Chloé scowls, embarrassed.
“Forget I said that.”
“I cannot,” he replies gently before eyeing her consideringly. “You know the identity of the wielder of the cat miraculous?”
The blonde rolls her eyes. “Of course I do. I know everything, I know that Ladybug is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I know who Hawk-Moth is—”
“Stop!” he cuts off, pale, a trembling hand lifted as if physically trying to block her words from reaching the air.
“Miss Bourgeois, you must not speak these names. Not aloud.”
Chloé blinks at him, exasperated. “Why? Afraid the wallpaper’s going to snitch?” See, this is why she thought of him as a crazy old man.
“This is not a joke,” Master Fu says sharply, sharper than she’s ever heard the old man speak. His eyes dart to the corners of the room, as though expecting the tiles themselves to prickle with magic. “Knowledge of identities is sacred. Dangerous. Even for a Guardian. You risk destabilizing far more than you realise.”
“Well, too late,” Chloé snaps, throwing her hands up. “I already destabilized everything by getting flung back here! What do you expect me to do, just tiptoe around spoilers while the city gets blown up?”
Fu shuts his eyes, breathing slow and deliberate—meditative, but tense.
“Even so,” he murmurs, “knowing too much can attract forces you are not prepared to face. The Miraculous have their own will. They do not react kindly to temporal interference.”
Chloé crosses her arms again. “Yeah, well, neither do I.”
He opens his eyes, and although they’re still kind, there’s something steely underneath. Something ancient. “Does Hawk Moth win?”
Chloé bites her bottom lip, visions of Chat Blanc flashing through her mind. “The details are…fuzzy. I’d moved to New York to live with my mother a year from now. But it wasn’t looking good for Team Miraculous.”
Master Fu’s sigh is long and heavy, but not hopeless.
“I see,” he murmurs, his expression shifting into something more sombre. “Today’s earlier attack… Stoneheart…it confirmed much.”
Chloé blinks. “Confirmed what, exactly?”
“That Paris is vulnerable,” he says plainly. “Ladybug and Chat Noir managed to prevail, but they are inexperienced. Their teamwork is fragile, and that is expected as it is their first time working together and transforming. however, if it is as you say then Hawk Moth will grow stronger with each failed attempt.”
Chloé rolls her eyes. “Welcome to the next two years. Honestly, what did you expect? You left the fate of the world in the hands of teenagers.”
Fu gives her a look but continues as if she hadn’t spoken. Rude.
“And then you appeared. Abruptly. Inexplicably. With knowledge you should not possess, yet with no malicious intent. A temporal disturbance occurring within hours of the first akuma? That is not coincidence.”
She opens her mouth, ready to make a snarky comment, probably something about old men and paranoia—but it dies on her tongue. Because he’s right. She hadn’t thought about it like that. She’d been too freaked out by waking up in the past to do anything but panic and sass her way through it.
Fu walks slowly toward the Miraculous box.
“With the timeline potentially destabilising, and Hawk Moth already preying on the fear in people’s hearts and proving to be a greater threat than I feared, it is too dangerous to let someone you’re your knowledge be defenceless.”
Chloé bristles. “I’m not defenceless.”
“You are,” he counters gently. “You have no allies in this era. No technology. No kwami. And if Hawk Moth senses your emotional turmoil—”
“My emotional—?!” She nearly squawks, offended despite the truth in his words. She'd resisted Hawk Moth before, yes, but if she got Akumatised this time round it would all be over.
His gaze softens, but the seriousness never leaves it.
“You are frightened, Miss Bourgeois. Not of the Miraculous. Not of me. But of what you remember.”
Her throat tightens.
Chat Blanc.
Mayura’s collapse.
Majordome Jean
She swallows hard, jaw clenching. “Can I fix it? The future?”
Fu continues quietly, “I cannot repair the timeline. Not alone. Not without understanding the reason for your arrival. But I can give you the tools to protect yourself until we know more. You were bought here for a reason, Miss Bourgeois.”
He opens the Miraculous box.
Chloé’s breath catches.
He reaches for the Bee Miraculous—Pollen’s comb—and holds it delicately between his fingers.
“Miss Bourgeois,” he says calmly, “take it.”
Chloé doesn’t move.
The comb gleams in the lamplight, familiar in a way that makes her stomach twist.
Her fingers flex at her sides.
“I…I don’t—” She coughs, scowls, pretends she didn’t almost stammer. “I don’t need that.” But merde did she miss it.
Fu watches her carefully. “You said you wielded it in the future.”
“Well, yeah, but—” She folds her arms tight. “Things changed.”
“How so?”
She inhales sharply and looks away, chin tilting up in that defensive, haughty way that always precedes something vulnerable.
“Someone else has it now,” she mutters. “Zoé. She’s, my half-sister. She’s one who…gets chosen.”
Fu’s eyes soften with understanding. “But you were the first.”
Chloé flinches like he struck a nerve. “It doesn’t matter. She’s better with it. She’s—”
She cuts herself off, jaw locking. She hates how raw the words feel, how pathetic this whole thing is,
Because a part of her selfishly wanted to strange her sister for taking what was hers, and another part wants to thank her for doing what she couldn’t.
Chloé wasn’t a good person, Zoé was.
This alone keeps her arms folded tight against herself, shoulders squared like she’s ready to argue her way out of this entire century.
Fu studies her a moment longer—really studies her—and instead of judgement, there’s something far worse,
Understanding.
“I do not know this…Zoé,” he shrugs. “But I know you.”
Her head jerks up, startled and offended all at once. “You don’t know anything about me! I come from a timeline where I’m put hundreds of people at risk! I left Paris because I'm a coward!”
“I know who stands in front of me,” Fu replies simply. “A girl who survived something extraordinary. A girl who carries fear, loss, and guilt as though they were her own shadows. Yet she is still standing.”
Chloé’s throat works. Her glare sharpens—not out of fury, but out of self-defence.
“You shouldn’t trust me,” she mutters. “I’ve—I’ve gone traitor before.”
Fu doesn’t flinch.
That somehow makes it worse.
Chloé forces a brittle laugh. “Oh don’t give me that wise-old-man patience. I mean it. In—my time, I joined Hawk Moth. Not just ‘oopsie, temporary mistake,’ I actually—” She bites down on her lip hard. “I made choices that hurt people. Real ones. I lost my chance at being a hero a long time ago. I was never chosen, nobody gave me the Bee Miraculous.”
Fu tucks his hands behind his back. Calm. Grounded.
“Yet you regret it.”
She scoffs. “Regret? I wake up thinking about the sound of—”
She wakes up to the sight of Majordome Jean protecting her from an Akuma attack only to end up six feet under.
But she cuts herself off, face tightening. “No,” she says shortly. “You don’t get it. I’m not like Marinette or— or Zoé or even Adrien. I mess things up. That’s what I do. Kindness comes naturally to them; I have to actively remind myself to stop being a bitch, to stop hurting people whether its intentional or not.”
Fu shakes his head. “All I see is a young girl willing to write her wrongs.”
The words are so gentle they hurt.
Chloé blinks rapidly, jaw trembling before she crushes it back into a sneer. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“And you are afraid,” Fu says simply.
She looks away and he steps forward, still holding the Bee Miraculous between his fingers. Not forcing, just offering.
“You say you fell once,” he continues. “Good. That means you know where the edge is. You know what losing yourself feels like. And you know that you never want to be that girl again.”
A beat.
“I see potential in you because you told me the truth and quite frankly, you could have easily gone to Hawk Moth if you know of his identity.”
Chloé freezes.
“If you were truly dangerous,” Fu adds quietly, “you would have lied to me.”
Her breath stutters, and for a moment, she genuinely doesn’t know what to do with that.
Fu holds the comb out once more. “I am not choosing the girl you were,” he says. “I am choosing the one standing here—who is afraid, and honest, and trying.”
Chloé’s fingers twitch. For the first time since waking in this nightmare of a time loop, someone looks at her like she’s more than the mistakes she hasn’t even made yet, and it’s fucking terrifying.
Chloé looks down at the comb.
Memory flickers—
Pollen fussing over her earrings,
the glow of transformation warming her skin,
the rush of belonging she never admitted she craved.
She’s shaking. Master Fu notices but says nothing.
With a tight breath, Chloé lifts the comb and slides it into her hair.
The effect is instant, like the room inhales all at once.
Golden ripples spread from the comb, shimmering like sunlight on water, and Chloé gasps as the world briefly washes warm and bright and a tiny shape sparks into existence in front of her.
Pollen.
But not her Pollen.
This one stares at her with wide, unfamiliar eyes.
She flutters in place, studying Chloé as though trying to understand why the Miraculous called to someone trembling so hard.
“Oh!” Pollen speaks softly. “Hello! I—I’ve never sensed you before. Are you my new holder? I am Pollen, the Kwami of Action.”
Chloé swallows thickly.
Pollen doesn’t know her.
There’s no familiarity, no affection, no history.
Just…curiosity.
Apart of her was glad, because at least this version of Pollen didn’t know how truly horrible of a person she really was. But another part missed her Pollen. The one that would greet her with 'My Queen'. She’d been a brat when she’d had her the first-time round, she didn’t take her Miraculous’s feelings into enough consideration, and Pollen for the most part had been so encouraging—
“No,” Chloé blurts, hands flying up. “I mean—yes. I mean—not really. This isn’t—I’m not supposed to be your holder.”
Master Fu just sighs, looking at her fondly and Chloé can’t help but feel herself go warm in both embarrassment and something else she couldn’t quite place. His gaze was borderline paternal, she could see why Marinette had spoken about the previous guardian so highly.
“Chloé, you’ve earned your right to be the wielder of the Bee Miraculous.”
Pollen glances between them, confused but earnest. “Master, you chose her?”
Chloé’s stomach twists so hard she almost hands the Miraculous back, the idea of Pollen rejecting her would probably send her into enough of a spiral that she’d become Akumatised on the spot.
But Fu simply nods.
“Yes. I did. Pollen, this is Chloé Bourgeois. Your new holder.”
The Bee miraculous turns back to Chloé and smiles, polite, patient. “Hello Chloé. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
Chloé inhaled sharply, forcibly blinking back the tears that were threatening to appear and felt herself genuinely smile. Merde, she really had gone soft. How mortifying.
“I’m looking forward to working with you too.”
Extra
“SHE’S FROM THE FUTURE?!” Pollen squeaks out while Chloé’s in the bathroom.
The Bee Miraculous floats in front of the guardian, flabbergasted while Master Fu just pours himself a cup of calming jasmine tea. “Apparently.”
Wayzz just poked his head out of Fu’s shirt pocket. “Well, I think she seems nice.”