Chapter Text
With a crew of drunken pilots,
We’re the only airship pirates.
We’re full of hot air
And we’re startin’ to rise
We’re the terror of the skies,
But a danger to ourselves.
—Abney Park, “Airship Pirate”
Plagg yawned, mouth stretching wide, as he blinked blearily up at the stars. They glittered coldly down at him, and the icy wisps of the stratus deck drifted by as the rigging creaked softly. Fur ruffling, he hissed as cold droplets dotted his antenna and rolled down his back. More vapour tickled at his whiskers, and he buried a sneeze, trying to ignore the tuneless whistling beside him. Instead, he kept staring up into the black, closing his ears to the soft notes and the haunting way they threaded the clouds.
Humans had never been meant to travel the skies like this, and Plagg was cold.
Humans had been meant to be stuck to the ground, crawling about in their cities and towns, or flying above them in those giant metal aeroplane things, weightless for just a few fleeting moments.
Not this.
Never this.
Humans were not kwami, to live rootless in the sky for years at a time.
And Plagg was cold.
“You okay, Plagg?”
But cities and towns and aeroplanes had been a long time ago.
A wedge of Camembert miraculously materialised beneath his nose.
They had been two worlds ago, now.
Plagg hissed again and took a swipe at the kid for the hell of it, but he looked away from the uncaring stars. Maybe someday he’d zip past the nebulae on the cosmic winds with the other kwami again, but that day wouldn’t be today.
Or tomorrow.
Not with what had happened to the miraculous.
“Plagg—”
Plagg took the cheese.
At least some things hadn’t changed.
“I’m fine,” Plagg finally mumbled around tangy wonderfulness as he shoved it into his mouth. He shivered as the water vapour curled about his face.
He sneezed again.
“You sure?”
He rolled his eyes and smacked at the gloved human hand next to him. “I said I was fine.”
“It’s kind of cold, and we’re in the upper toposphere—”
Plagg groaned loudly so he would get the hint and shut it.
Plagg was cold, but it wasn’t like it was the kid’s fault.
“There’s always my scarf…”
Plagg refused to make it the kid’s fault after his dad.
He made a show of looking at the scarf. “I don’t know…”
“You’re not fooling anyone, Plagg. Just let me—”
Plagg zipped over and buried himself inside the folds of it, snuggling into fibres designed to repel cloud vapour. The kid almost never took it off, keeping it wound tightly about his neck at all times, even in the galley and his bunk. The fabric smelled delightfully of sour human sweat, and Plagg had very carefully smeared Camembert into the deepest inner folds to make it smell even better.
Homier.
The other humans the crew met—even the crew—always held their noses when the kid walked by but…
The kid was immune to their griping. He didn’t care.
Even Pigtails was shit out of luck when it came to the kid’s smell.
Taking a deep whiff, Plagg suddenly wrinkled his nose and wormed deeper into the layers. He made a face.
“You’re drunk,” he growled accusingly.
“When am I not drunk?” the kid asked rhetorically. Then he added defensively, “You can’t tell me what to do.” A pause. “I don’t give you shit about your cheese addiction.”
“Cheese doesn’t impair my nonexistent cognitive abilities,” Plagg sighed for the 80th time since they’d found themselves aboard the Lady Luck.
“But we’re airship pirates,” the kid shot back for the 81st time since they’d joined the crew, “and pirates are always drunk. Obviously.”
“You’re not a pirate, kid,” he snapped. “You’re too nice.”
“I am! I am literally an airship pirate!”
He was also a bleeding heart.
A kitten with no claws. How had the kwami of Destruction got stuck with a kitten that had no claws?
Instead of complaining, Plagg pushed, “You think Ladybug is that kind of pirate?”
“She’s the best, and she drinks, too,” the kid sulked.
“That’s not a yes,” Plagg pointed out, taking a deep sniff of the sweat smell, feeling his edgy nerves settle even with the stench of alcohol. Kid was warm. “And she doesn’t always have a bottle in her hands.”
“I don’t always have a bottle in my hands.”
“Sometimes it’s a can,” Plagg allowed. “It’s really terrible stuff when it’s in the can.”
The kid groaned loudly. “Ugh. I don’t have to deal with this. I’m going inside.”
“Good,” Plagg snorted.
The kid clomped over to the hatch at midship, unlatching and yanking it up to drop down through it. He carefully shut it after them, engaging the lock code.
Glorious warmth.
“How’s it looking out there, dude?” the Nino-kid’s voice called loudly.
Plagg felt the kid’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “Quiet. Clear. No storms this side of the horizon.”
“Pretty sure we knew that,” the Alya-kid’s voice teased lightly.
“Never hurts to keep a weather eye on the clouds instead of just having my head stuck in them all the time,” the kid hummed as he pulled the gloves and heavy coat off. “It’s clear now, but I think a storm is coming. Maybe tomorrow night, if we don’t change course.”
“And here I thought you went out to get a weather eye on our fearless leader.”
The kid sputtered and squeaked, and Plagg didn’t have to look to know that his pale human skin was flushing redder than sunset skies.
The Nino-kid and the Alya-kid started laughing.
“I-I’d never!” the kid whined. His fingers tightened around the bottle in his hand with a soft sound Plagg wished he didn’t recognise. “I mean… I wasn’t! Really! It doesn’t even work that way and… Alya!”
The Alya-kid cackled.
“Come on, you know we’re only friends, why would I do something like—and we didn’t even talk—”
The other humans laughed louder, and Plagg let himself snicker a bit.
If nothing else, at least the kid was good for a laugh.
Plagg opened his mouth to—
Suddenly, sharp corrosive magic swirled out on the deck by the wheel, and Plagg froze, mouth still hanging open. Legs tensing, he got ready to grab the kid and run. He didn’t care what would happen to the rest of the humans if the ship went down—Tikki could take care of Pigtails and she was the important one—but Plagg and the kid needed—
For once, though, the kid wasn’t the target of all the rampant entropy loose in reality.
Tikki’s energy spiked around wrongness, twisting and trying to beat it back, away from Pigtails—
Plagg’s breath caught in his chest. He blinked in the quiet dark as the humans nearby continued to talk over each other cheerfully like nothing was wrong. Like nothing was attacking their captain outside. Like everything was normal.
They were so blind to the world’s energies around them, every single one of them. The kid at least should have felt it—
One human heartbeat passed.
Thud thud.
Plagg felt the pulse, slow and steady, in the kid’s jugular vein.
Thud thud.
Tikki strained, screaming through the ether as her magic dug in and twisted.
Plagg swallowed, shaking off the shock, and took a deep breath. He needed to warn the humans.
The kid’s heart pulsed again just beyond his ear, warm and soft and alive.
Thud thud.
And Plagg—hesitated.
The kid’s pulse beat on, soft and slow and content. Blind and oblivious.
Fragile.
Completely human.
And of absolutely no interest to whatever had attacked Pigtails, who reeked of Tikki’s miraculous magic, outside.
Plagg’s mouth snapped closed decisively.
He held his breath.
Thud thud.
A sickening strand of tar solidified, clinging and spreading, but glowing bright with Tikki’s energy to Plagg’s senses. Instead of resetting and burning away in the face of Tikki’s magic, the wrong shuddered and settled, and reality warped around it as it absorbed all that Creative energy and—
The kid’s heart pulsed again, and Plagg snarled quietly, listening, feeling.
Thud thud.
Yes.
To anything watching, the kid’s aura still screamed soft, human, oblivious.
Uninteresting.
Worthless prey.
It needed to stay that way.
Plagg dug his claws into the soft scarf, hiss barely audible, making himself as small and unassuming as possible on all energy wavelengths, trying to vanish. His tail swept back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, as the kid’s hand automatically came up to press at the fabric around him soothingly.
He let himself breathe, still sensing the tar that had dug itself in to Pigtails.
It was corrupted Destruction, with a quiet timer ticking down to oblivion, given an innocuous-seeming form by Tikki’s influence.
Prodding further, he swallowed.
It flexed, tendrils digging deeper like strangling vines.
Tikki’s anguish was sharp and caustic, already tearing at his senses. When she realised what Plagg had done—that he’d let Pigtails be—
Plagg needed to take the kid and run. Now.
“—bed, okay?”
“Sure you don’t want to play a round of poker? I’d give you a handicap…”
Plagg’s tail lashed.
The kid snorted, taking a healthy swig from the bottle. “Ha! Play poker with you, Alya? I’m an idiot, not stupid.”
“Bro…”
“Maybe I’m drunker than I thought,” the kid mused. “Wait. No. You’re drunk. I’m sober. That made perfect sense!”
He squeezed at Plagg a little as his tail lashed harder, and Plagg resisted the urge to bite him to get him moving.
The Alya-kid sighed loudly. “Fine. See you later, Sunshine Boy.”
“Quit calling me that! I just—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said airily. “I’ll stop calling you that when you stop unerringly sending us to the friendly skies.”
There was a short silence, and Plagg tried very hard not to bite. He scratched at the scarf instead.
Tikki’s energy was fluctuating wildly as she screamed.
Time was running out. Any second—
“Um. Tell Marinette goodnight for me? When, uh. She comes in? She, um.” A deep breath as the pulse in the kid’s throat sped up. “She didn’t want to…”
“Of course, dude,” the Nino-kid said, tone quiet.
“We will,” the Alya-kid agreed cheerfully. “Don’t worry. She’ll get over it. Like you said, you’re kind of an idiot, and she knows that.”
As soon as the door to the sleeping room was shut, Plagg darted out of the scarf to hover in front of the kid’s face in the dimness. Zipping forward, he knocked a paw against the protective goggles the kid hadn’t bothered to take off. “Oi! Wake up!”
The kid yawned, tossing his coat and gloves aside. He scratched at his hair before finally pulling the goggles off. “What?” he yawned again, rubbing gently at the interface point in his left eye socket. He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank down the last drops left in the bottom. “Can’t this wait, Plagg? I’m going to be busy tomorrow with that storm coming. I’ll have to do a—”
“Who cares about the storm?” Plagg hissed. “They did fine before we joined!”
The kid stared in confusion. “What? I mean, sure, yeah. But I help—”
“They don’t need us,” Plagg hissed quickly, mind moving as fast as only a natural disaster—Destruction—could, “they’ve just been humouring you.”
“W-what?” The kid looked like he’d been stabbed. “But I thought—”
Plagg forced himself to keep lying. “Yeah. I heard ‘em all talking.”
“I thought… I thought we were a team now.” His voice was thick.
“I know, kid. I know. But… they don’t need a Weather Eye. They don’t even want one.”
“But Marine—” He choked on the name. “Ladybug said—”
“All pirates lie, kid.” He made himself roll his eyes, trying not to gag on the unexpected guilt clogging his throat.
Guilt was a human emotion.
Plagg was Destruction.
He didn’t do guilt.
“You always said she wasn’t that kind of pirate.” The kid’s voice was tiny, and Plagg refused to claw his own eyes out in response. “N-not to her crew. She’s with Tikki. You said.”
Plagg took a deep breath. “She does have Tikki. But she is an airship pirate, and they’re not a good fit, not with us.”
He tried not to gag on the lie. They were all a brilliant fit, better than the last several human centuries at least.
But it couldn’t be helped.
He had a kid to save.
“Me, you mean,” the kid mumbled. He reached up a hand and touched his implant with a shaking fingertip. “Not a good fit with me.”
“With us. We’re a package deal, remember?”
“You’re a package deal with Tikki,” the kid mumbled. The bottle slid through his fingertips, hit the deck, and rolled. “I’m just… the human wearing your ring. And I’m not even good at that. You just didn’t have a choice.”
He looked down at the tarnished silver ring caked with grease on his right hand. He rubbed his thumb over the deep crack running through the centre.
Plagg ignored the dull shiver ruffling his fur with long practice.
“Come on, kid. Time to go. You and me’re a package deal. Forget Tikki and Ladybug. This is no good for us, and we need to move on.”
He’d explain it all.
One day.
Tikki wasn’t going to be rational, not after last time.
She was going to take it out on Plagg’s kid.
She’d be sorry after. She always was.
But the kid would still be dead.
“You really don’t think we should stay?” the kid asked, voice sodden with alcohol and something else Plagg refused to think about.
He shook his head rapidly, trying not to quail as Tikki finally figured out something was wrong and that her partners were missing while Pigtails was suffering. Her rage blasted through the ether.
The kid’s eye didn’t even flicker even though Plagg almost fell out of the air when the heavy pressure slammed into him.
Maybe it was a good thing the kid was drunk all the time.
“No. We’ve gotta do what’s best for us. Get your gear. We’re leaving.”
The kid shakily slipped his goggles down over his face and shrugged back into his coat, shoving the gloves deep into a pocket. He reached down and picked up his duffel, which Plagg had insisted that he always keep packed. At least one thing had gone right tonight, even if Plagg had only thought the kid’d need a ready bag in case of a crash.
He wouldn’t be surprised if the rickety old ship did go down tonight.
They needed to leave right this second.
They could deal with Camembert and everything else later. The kid had his share of last night's haul in the bag, so they’d be able to front the cash for a small ship and steal it. And Plagg would just steal whatever else they needed from some idiot upper-atmo rich kid's super-yacht.
They were airship pirates, after all, and being able to phase through physical objects had its perks.
Plagg? Tikki demanded, and all of Plagg’s fur stood straight on end as her energy crackled and snapped at him.
Where is your chosen?
Where are you?
Plagg didn’t answer.
“You know the words, kid.”
“Plagg… claws out.”