(For @pardonmeow as a belated birthday gift and thanks for all you to do improve my haphazard writing. Thank you so much and Happy Birthday!)
The more Marinette looked Chat over, pencil scratch-scratch-scratching on the
notepad in front of her, the more she bemoaned Tikki’s abyssal lack of
imagination.
It wasn’t fair,
she mentally whined, that Ladybug’s costume was essentially polka dotted
shrink wrap that belonged in an 80’s music video more than it belonged on her.
She made it work, granted, but the more time she spent studying the details of
Chat Noir’s suit, the more she wished Tikki had his kwami’s sense of style. She didn’t even have antenna or wings while his suit was ornamented with ears, a tail, and more
detailing than she noticed during their fleeting encounters. Now, finally able
to focus on Chat Noir instead of whatever absurd looking akuma they were
fighting, Marinette had the time to take in the details of his costume…and time
to realize just how poorly the “Cat Noir” knockoff costumes were.
“Don’t go into the spaceship, don’t go into the
spaceship,” Chat Noir whined, nibbling on handfuls of popcorn stretched out on
Marinette’s fainting couch as the cheap, schlocky horror movie played on her
desktop monitor. “Marinette, why are they going onto the spaceship?!”
“Because the movie is called Sorority Sisters vs the Brainsucker in Outer Space?” Marinette
snorted, sketching the details on his belt while he was almost childishly
obsessed with the horror film. “The sisters of Alpha Omega Omicron can’t very
well do battle with the horrible brain-sucker from the Secret Moon of Venus if
they don’t get on the space ship first, now can they?”
“But the
horrible brain-sucker is hiding in Tiffany’s footlocker!” Chat whimpered,
teeth nibbling the edge of the popcorn bowl. “How did the ship’s onboard
maintenance robot miss that; HouseMomBot has thermal vision!”
“Maybe brainsuckers from Venus’ hidden moon have
thermal camouflage,” Marinette said, biting her lip as she tried not to make it
obvious that she was studying every inch of the wriggling boy’s costume. The
more she studied it, the more she was sorely tempted to buy off the rack. The
costume party was still two weeks away, and she could devote her free time to
something other than meticulously copying her partner’s wardrobe with non-kwami
created materials. But once Chloe bragged about arriving in ‘the finest Ladybug
costume tailored to her exact measurements,’ Marinette knew she had to do one
better. Her first instinct was to replicate her own costume, but she felt that
would be tempting fate a little too
much. Alya had slowed her crusade to uncover Ladybug’s identity, and she felt
that showing up in Ladybug gear would provoke one too many questions from her
overly-intrepid best-friend.
Besides, everyone
was dressing as Ladybug; she couldn’t exactly call herself a fashionista if
she just followed the crowd.
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