Thinking on your feet
“WE’RE ALL GOING TO JAIL!” Alix screamed. She had rocketed up from her seat, now beginning to run around the room.
“Wait, maybe she’s not dead! Maybe she’s just unconscious!” Kim suggested.
Rose stood up from her chair, going over to the motionless Lila on the floor. She placed her fingers against her throat, then leaned into her chest, putting her ear against it. Rose sat up. “She’s dead.”
Kim now began to scream as well. “WE’RE ALL GOING TO JAIL!”
“Actually, only Adrien would go to jail if we all decided to turn him in right now.” Sabrina pointed out. “We didn’t shoot her, Adrien did.”
“But then we’d have to explain why he did it!” Alix pointed out. “And we all know why!”
“Alix is right. We’re all accomplices to this crime.” Kagami said calmly. “But we’re also all cops. We studied the law religiously. If we know how to enforce it, we know how to break it.”
“I can check if the security cameras were on.” Sabrina suggested. “And if they were, I’ll erase it and replace it with static footage. I know how to make it look seamless.”
Kagami snapped her fingers. “See, there you go. Now you’re thinking. Mari, you used your keycard to enter. Officially, there’s no record of Lila entering this building today, right?”
Ladybug shook her head. “I used my keycard to enter this room. When she entered the front of the building, the door was open. I found her there and lead her back here.”
“Alright.” Kagami said with a nod. “Now we just figure out how to clean up the body.”
“But we’re not crime-scene cleaners!” Alix exclaimed. “None of us know how to do that! Even if we use bleach or something couldn’t professional investigators tell it was used?”
“Not if we’re the ones investigating it.” Kagami responded, prompting a few gasps.
“What?!” Alix questioned. “Kagami we were obviously all here. Isn’t it on record that we clocked in today and were here at this time? We can’t just waltz in and find the director-general of all police forces in France dead on the floor in our office! It’ll look suspicious!”
“We need help from someone that is a professional at covering up crimes.” Chat spoke suddenly. “I know Viperion’s identity. That means I can look him up on a database and find where he lives. I can go and talk to him there.”
“It’s Luka Couffaine, isn’t it?”
Chat and Ladybug both turned to look at who had spoken the words, which was none other than the sweet Rose.
“How did you—“ Adrien began.
“Lila said it was Mari’s ex boyfriend and noted he was punk and liked music. Juleka, his sister and my girlfriend mentioned Luka had an ex girlfriend once. She never said who it was. But with what I learned today, assuming Lila was right, I was able to piece it together.” Rose explained.
“She was right.” Ladybug said quietly. “It’s shocking how she’s this smart and was never able to piece together any of these details sooner. I wasn’t very good to Luka when we were together. But I’m better now, I promise. And I can make up for it by protecting him now.” Her sentence ended in a firm tone.
“I can give you his number.” Rose offered. “I don’t speak to him often, but I do have it.”
Chat shook his head. “It’ll be fine. He likes to pay me surprise visits. Wouldn’t it be cute if I returned the favor?”
“It’s nice that you want to pay a visit to your boyfriend and all but I’m pretty sure leaving a corpse on the floor in a public place for too long isn’t going to go over well for any of us.” Kim pointed out.
“For now, we move her corpse. Bring it out back and do a surface level clean up job.” Kagami decided. “Once Adrien hears from Viperion, we do some deeper cleaning and decide what to do.”
“Kags is right, that’s the best we can do for right now.” Ladybug agreed. “No one is immediately coming in here or looking for her. We’ve got a little time to spare. Now go kitty cat. We have time, but not that much.”
“Rose, give me his address.” Chat directed.
Rose nodded. She walked over to Chat, pulling out her phone. She pulled up a GPS location, then showed it to him. “Think you can remember that?”
Chat nodded. “Can do. I’ve got the mind of an elephant.” He soluted, then dashed towards the back exit.
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Juleka was in the front room of her and Luka’s house. She was currently sitting in her wheelchair, pulled up to a table with a plate of food placed in front of her. Luka was home, he was just in the back.
A knock on the front door caught Juleka’s attention. She hated asking Luka to answer the door, as despite being confined to a wheelchair, she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.
Juleka pushed herself back from the table, traveling the short distance to the front door. She reached over to it, unlocking it. “It’s open! Push it open!” Juleka called loudly, then moved herself out of the path of the door.
The door was quickly but carefully pushed open. In the doorway stood Chat Noir. He looked down at Juleka, giving her a wave and an awkward smile.
“Hey Juleka! Your brother doesn’t happen to be home by any chance, does he?”
Juleka looked up at Chat, only staring at him in silence.
The awkwardness in Chat’s smile increased as he looked down at Juleka.
Juleka still looked at Chat, slowly blinking. She took a deep breath, sighing. “LUKA! YOUR BOYFRIEND’S HERE!” Juleka screamed.
The loudness of the previously quiet voice of Juleka caught Chat off guard, causing him to slightly jump.
Basically only a second passed before Luka had practically teleported behind Juleka.
“A-Adrien?! What on earth are you doing here?!” Luka exclaimed, clear confusion on his face.
Chat returned this remark with an awkward laugh. He stepped inside, then closed the door behind him. “So, funny story, actually.”
“Adrien, what happened?” Luka asked calmly.
“You fucked up, didn’t you?” Juleka piped in.
Panic spread into Chat’s expression. “So not… exactly—“
“Adrien, am I in danger?” Luka asked suddenly.
“What?! No! I promised you that would never happen! And I meant it.”
“Then why are you here?” Juleka asked.
“Because in order to make sure you weren’t in danger, me and my entire team are now in danger.” Chat explained awkwardly.
“Care to explain what that entails?” Luka asked, a hand going to his hip.
Chat pressed his fingertips together. “So there’s a chance… maybe— just maybe! That there is a small possibility that uh… I may have shot and killed the director-general Lila Rossi?”
“WHAT?!” Luka and Juleka both exclaimed.
Juleka turned to look at Luka. “Luka, I told you he was gonna fuck up!”
“Relax, I fixed it! She found out, but she’s dead now so everything’s fine.” Chat waved his hand across the air.
“You call murdering your superior ‘fixing’ things?” Juleka retorted.
“How did she find out? How much did she know?” Luka asked.
“It… Juleka is right. I did fuck up. She found out because of me. She came to grill us for not getting any closer to you. She threatened to bring your case to another team. I panicked, she noticed. I tried to lie, but suddenly all her brain cells turned on and she pieced everything together. And I mean //everything//. That I’ve been covering for you, that me and Ladybug both knew your identity, that it must be someone LB is or was close to and would feel sympathy for, and finally, that you were her ex boyfriend. She didn’t remember your name but—“
“I’m sorry, slow down. Marrinette is Ladybug?!” Juleka asked. “And when did she learn your identity, Luka?”
“Last week.” Luka answered with a sigh. “I had to tell her. She has a key card to Adrien’s hotel room. She entered when I was there. She was going to turn both me and Adrien in. I knew it was the only thing I could do to get her to back down.”
“That’s what you meant when you said you knew how to get mercy from her.” Juleka realized. “So you killed your superior in order to avoid her turning Luka and you all in?”
Chat nodded. “I had to! I didn’t have a choice! We were toast if I didn’t kill her!”
“And you’re not toast now that you committed murder?!” Juleka retorted.
“Adrien, what did you do with her body? Where are you all keeping her right now?”
“We brought her out the back exit. We cleaned up the room and were gonna wait until we got advice from you about what to do. Obviously we need to do a deep clean but we’re not really sure what products to use.”
“Advice from me? What am I supposed to tell you?”
“You’re the criminal mastermind, genius! Don’t act like you don’t know how to hide a body!” Chat raised his hands up in the air.
“I mean, I do. But I’ve never actually done it. I leave all my kills to be discovered by the police.”
“What?! You haven’t hidden a body before? Not even once?”
“No. I like my work to be admired.” Luka replied. “But— I do know how to help you. First step is to recover the bullets from her corpse. If the police finds those, they’ll be able to tell the caliber of the bullet and the make and model of the weapon. I have shot my gun without recovering the bullet before, but generally it wasn’t super risky. This is. I don’t just shoot. I shoot, stab, dismember, the likes. After you recover the bullets, you need to dump them. As far away as you possibly can in the most niche location you can find. Far away from the body. Next, you carve out the bullet holes and give her extra injuries. Try to not make it obvious what exactly killed her. And yes, bleach the place. But don’t go overboard. Make it look untouched. Next is your alibis. What were you all documented doing?”
“Well officially, all of us were on the clock. I mean sure we could say some of us were out, but Sabrina never leaves the office and Rose rarely does. And all of us being out? That wouldn’t make sense.” Chat answered, rubbing his arm.
“Hm.” Luka brought his hand to his chin. “You don’t have a choice then. You have to destroy the body.”
“What?!” Chat shook his head. “What do you mean? We can’t just leave it somewhere for someone to find?! At least they’d know she’s dead!”
“You have to. It’s too risky. If someone finds the body and finds out she wasn’t killed where she was found, it would be bad for you. Doesn’t mean no one will ever find out that she was killed in the police station. No crime is a hundred percent fool-proof. There’s a risk with every one. I can’t promise you’ll never be caught.”
Chat nodded. “… Alright. Still remove and ditch the bullets?”
“Yep.” Luka said with a nod. “The best way you can destroy her body is by dismembering her. Separate each limb, each organ, dispose of her blood.”
“Eugh.” Juleka cringed. “That sounds gory.”
“Oh it is.” Luka replied. “But it’s how tomcat and his friends avoid going to prison. Officially, she’ll just go missing. Do you know who the last person to speak to her was?”
Chat shook his head. “No. But I can find out. I’ll find out who last spoke to her and what was known about where she was last seen besides with us, which obviously isn’t going to be revealed. Thanks Luka.” Chat hopped over to Luka. He leaned over to him, kissing him on the cheek, then pulled back.
Luka placed his hand over his cheek, a small blush spreading across his face. “I should be thanking you. You literally killed someone for me.”
“Just returning the favor.” Chat winked. “You know, this is the first time since our meeting in the coffee shop that I’ve seen you unmasked. But the first time I wasn’t able to really study you. You have a beautiful face.”
Juleka cleared her throat. “Still here. Don’t you have a body to destroy Mr Flirt?”
Chat rolled his eyes with a laugh. “You aren’t wrong.” He looked back at Luka, who was still silently blushing.
“Thank you, Adrien. For everything. I started this mess, and you’re risking everything to clean it up.” Luka said quietly. “You really are an angel.”
Chat chuckled. “I don’t know about that. But I am a black cat! Me-ow!”
Luka returned a laugh. “Alright, now get out of here before someone discovers Lila before you all can cover your tracks. You’ve been here long enough.”
“Will do, Viper!” Chat waved. He walked over to the door, swiftly exiting.
Luka remained staring at the door for a moment. This was cut short due to him being pinched by Juleka.
“Ow! What was that for?!” Luka hissed.
“You’re such a dork. But… I can see why you like him. He really is a nice guy.”
Luka nodded. “The best.”
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The group of cops was all once again around Kagami’s dining room table. It was about 9:45 at night.
“Things really worked out pretty well for us.” Sabrina began. “I was able to trace the last place she was seen. She lives in Paris, not Miracle. She took a train here. According to all text messages, emails, phone calls, and any of forms of digital communications, she didn’t mention coming to see us. I checked the footage of the security cameras in her home base office. She didn’t talk to anyone about it either. Officially the last place she’s recorded saying she was going was to a diner in Paris. If she talked to anyone else about going here, there’s no way I can track it. She had the Viperion case open on her computer, but a dozen other cases were open as well. We bleached the place, cleaned it to the best of our ability. There are no traces of blood or anything else there. Any footprints from that day were removed as well. No one saw her enter except for Marinette to our knowledge.”
“I never needed to know how to dismember a corpse.” Chloe shook her head in disgust.
“I got out of it! You all know I’m squeamish!” Rose cheered.
“Lucky you.” Alix retorted. “I mean, we’re cops. We see gruesome scenes all the time. I guess it’s just different when you’re the one dismembering the corpse.”
“I’ll say. Well, I do love learning.” Marinette shrugged. “Now I have a skill set I thought I’d never need. But hey, look on the bright side. We’ll be even better at catching criminals who dismembered their victims. Since we know how to do it now, we can better identify it.”
“She’s not wrong.” Kim replied. He turns to face Adrien. “So. When do we officially get to meet this boyfriend of yours?” He raised his eyebrows with mischief.
The question took Adrien aback, causing him to sputter out random sounds. “I-I don’t know! Is it really necessary?”
“I already know him!” Rose pumped her fist into the air.
“At least I want to meet him.” Chloe said with a shrug. “I’ve been your friend since we were kids. I think I’m owed it.”
Adrien let out a long sigh. “Maybe. I’ll have to ask him.”
Marinette looked at Adrien, then began to speak. “So, I’ve officially decided to start my journey of moving to Miracle.” She announced. “I’ve already started the process of moving out of my apartment in Paris.”
“What about you Adrien?” Chloe asked.
“Gonna move in with your boyfriend?” Alix added.
Adrien rolled his eyes. “Well at the very least, I’m going to move here. Funnily enough, I’ve also started the process of moving out of my apartment. I mean like I haven’t been there in two months, but I mean legal wise. I actually need to go and start packing things up.”
“Me too.” Marinette said with a nod. “Kagami is gonna help me. Investigations for Lila’s disappearance have began. They want us to help. But me and I’m assuming Adrien have managed to buy some time by moving. Can’t say the same for you all however.”
Groans were heard throughout the room.
“I just hope we can manage to successfully lead an investigation on a crime that we committed while convincing everyone that we had nothing to do with it.” Alix picked up a glass of water, taking a sip from it.
“We’re all smart people. I’m sure we can do it.” Kagami replied with a nod.
Adrien looked up at the group. “I guess time will tell. Time will tell.”
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About two months had passed.
Adrien was currently sitting on Luka’s bed, Luka sitting next to him. Luka had a guitar in his lap.
Adrien was smiling happily. “I’m glad I’ve been able to hear you play in person. Seriously, you could be famous.”
Luka shook his head with a chuckle. “I’m done with being famous. With any identity. You guys have so far not been even suspected. And still no lead on me. Seems we really will get our happy ending after all, kitty cat.”
Adrien put his head on Luka’s shoulder. “I hope it stays that way. I’ve only been fully living in Miracle for a few weeks. It’s really nice here.”
Luka nodded. “It is a nice city. How has other police work been treating you?”
“Oh, good.” Adrien replied. “Much less dramatic police work. And Marinette’s dad is still around. They say he won’t be for much longer. But I’m just glad she’s been spending more time with him. I even went to meet him. He’s really sweet.”
“Always was.” Luka let out a sigh. “Life can be sad. But I’m glad things are working out for the most part.” He set his guitar to the side. “I’m really glad you gave me a chance, Adrien. I know Jules said I was crazy for trusting you. But it was the right thing to do.”
“I could say the same to you.” Adrien responded. “I’m a cop. I’m not supposed to have mercy on criminals. But I’m glad I did. If I didn’t, I would’ve never known the kind soul you are. But I could kind of sense it. I think that’s why I gave you a chance at all.”
Luka laughed. “We both took a risk, and jt was worth it. Hopefully all of our risks work out.”
Adrien gave a soft smile. “Something tells me they will.”
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