Chapter Text
The One That Got Away by Katy Perry
In another life
I would be your girl
We'd keep all our promises
Be us against the world
Juleka took a deep breath. Another city, another hotel room, another crowd who would know her face but she would never know any of theirs.
Luka lay on the twin bed parallel to hers, scrolling through something on his phone. She wasn’t all that interested, if she was being honest. Social media stopped being interesting the second she gave up Purple Tigress and suddenly saw superheroes everywhere. It was no longer pride she felt seeing articles and headlines, but deep shame.
“Hey, Jules?” Luka’s tone was shaky as he asked, sitting up suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“Did Marinette text you?”
“I’d have to check.” Marinette was one of the few people who knew her phone number, and that was really only for emergencies.
There had been a few times she’d flown over to Paris for an Akuma situation that absolutely required all hands on deck, but it wasn’t particularly frequent. She hadn’t been back for a little over three years now, anyway.
Juleka fished her phone out of her pockets and sure enough, there was a blue-haired icon in her notifications.
Mari: Can Purple Tigress make an appearance at a meeting tomorrow? It’s important.
Mari: And before you answer, Luka already said you don't have a show for another three days, so find a different excuse this time.
Me: she can.
Mari: Good. Text me your flight information and I’ll pick you up from the airport.
Me: thx
“What do you think it is?” Luka asked, now picking up his guitar to anxiously strum.
“I don’t know,” she responded, purposefully unhelpful. She laid back and looked up at the hotel popcorn ceiling. “Are you booking the flights?”
“Fine.”
She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Something heavy always came with going home. The ghost of a best friend and first love wandered around her childhood bedroom, around every Paris street she’d known, through the very essence of the loud and boisterous Purple Tigress herself.
She spent the rest of the night and most of the next day cocooned, from the hotel room to the airport. When they got off the plane, she let Luka do most of the talking, only exchanging pleasantries with Marinette.
Luka was fine to do the talking anyway. He knew what Paris was to Juleka now. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been asked a million variants of, “how’s the tour been?” already.
She looked out the window and nearly physically cringed at the sights so familiar to her. Places she’d walked with Rose, carried her when her migraines got too bad, or rushed her to sit down when she was going to faint. Spots they had dates, or played as small children.
She would have to ask Rose sometime, if her migraines had gotten any better.
As it turned out, the old Agreste Mansion had undergone some renovations. First and foremost, the basement had been turned into a meeting room. Apparently, it was where Marinette lived now, too.
When they walked down the stairs, her eyes almost instantly locked on Rose. More specifically, Pigella, sitting in a chair, staring wide-eyed at her. Most of the team was already there.
“So, we’re just waiting for…” Marinette scanned the room. “Felix and Kagami.”
“I’ve never known Kagami to be late,” Luka commented. “Or Felix, now that I think about it.”
“They’re normally pretty punctual, but Kagami’s pregnant, so we give them some leeway,” Adrian explained as he set the snacks out.
“I see. Good for them..”
Juleka followed Luka to retrieve their Miraculous’, locked away in the polka-dotted Miracle Box at the center of the table. Then, Juleka took the seat with the tiger mascot, which happened to be right next to the pig mascot. It wasn’t malicious; they were seventeen when they’d chosen the seats.
Rose had changed a lot, but Juleka knew that. She knew from stalking Mylene’s Instagram and watching superhero clips, but it was… different in person. Shaved head covered by her dark magenta hood, white cape falling off her back and splayed on the back of her chair. Her bright blue eyes flickered over to Juleka occasionally, still big and blinking despite the change in aesthetic.
Juleka took a deep breath. Roaar didn’t say a word to her, and she didn’t say a word to them. Last time they’d spoken, it was just too much. Instead, Juleka just murmured her phrase, ‘Roar, stripes on’, and let Purple Tigress consume her.
She imagined it wasn’t too different from a drag persona, the way the tigress’ confidence consumed her. She could only assume, based on the drag queens who opened for her and just how they spoke.
A grin came over Juleka, and for just a moment, she could breathe like herself again. It was like being on stage, sitting next to Luka, when everything disappeared for just a moment. Only more prolonged, and a lot more pinks and purples. She took a deep breath, stood up, and wrapped her arms around Carapace.
“Dude, it’s been too long! After this meeting, you wanna go for drinks again?”
They both knew the reputation they had together when the tigress was in town. Last time, they’d drunkenly done some very, very vulgar karaoke in their hero personas and the turtle had bought a truck of roses for Alya. They’d also both cried. A lot.
“Hell yeah, man!” he responded.
“Not again,” Ladybug groaned. “Last time was so much damage control.”
“And so many roses launched through my bedroom window,” Rena Rouge said with a certain level of fondness that made Juleka’s heart ache. She pushed it down. The tigress was out, meaning Juleka was in and so were her feelings of loneliness and crushing existential dread.
“Let’s make it two trucks this time.” She winked, then jumped over to see Rooster Bold on the other side of the table. “Haven’t seen you in forever, either!”
“You should come around more,” Caprikid said, all quiet and sincere. “We could use your brashness on the team.”
“I’m not brash enough for you?” Adrian asked from the cookie table, the only one in the room not suited up at this point.
“No!” Rooster Bold answered for him, and Purple Tigress cackled.
“I’ll have to come around more, then,” she said, knowing the Juleka of it all would regret it later, knowing she would go back to the stage and Paris wouldn’t see her again until the next catastrophe. The tigress didn’t care. She grinned and laughed with her friends.
Eventually, the last two got there, already suited up. Ryuko had a noticeable baby bump as she sat down in her seat, same stone cold face as usual. Everyone else quickly moved back to their assigned chairs, with Juleka still right next to Rose.
No, that wasn’t it. This was Purple Tigress next to Pigella. They were two professional superheroes who could sit through a meeting without mountains and mountains of grief on Juleka’s end. She could keep her eyes on the subject at hand and not on the girl she desperately missed.
“So,” began Marinette, “I’ve called you all here today because we have a problem. A big one. Bigger than we’ve ever faced before.”
Juleka froze. There went her post-meeting plans.
“The Black Cat has been stolen,” continued Adrian. Oh. Oh shit. She should’ve noticed when they’d sat down and Adrian was still… Adrian. “Nooroo’s agreed to be interrupted from his decades-long break to allow me his use, but we need to find that ring. We can all guess what the thief is going after.”
“Shit, man,” muttered Carapace.
“We have six months to figure this out,” Bunnyx explained, reading from a notebook. “That’s when the timeline should supposedly be back in order.”
“We have a list of suspects, and we’re going to go through them one by one,” Ladybug explained. “Capture them and clear them. If something pops up, we’ll reconvene and make a new plan.”
Okay. Okay, that was easy.
“For our, um, visiting heroes–” Adrian gestured to Viperion and Purple Tigress, “–you have the choice to stay anywhere in Paris, obviously, but we have rooms made up for both of you here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Purple Tigress responded, not giving her brother the chance to. Luka would want to go home. Juleka would not. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow morning.” Ladybug glared pointedly at Purple Tigress. “Bright and early.”
“Fine, fine!” Purple Tigress laughed out. “We’ll save the party for after we’ve caught the thief.”
“Good,” Rena Rouge chuckled.
She felt that same ache once more. After they caught the thief, she would be on a one-way flight back to North America, no doubt about it. There would be no party, and if there was, Juleka wouldn’t be a part of it. Maybe Luka would try to convince her to stay just a bit longer, or maybe he would already know there was no use.
This would mean she had to put the tour on hiatus until further notice. She would claim it was to care for her mother, who was too old to be alone in the crime-ridden city of Paris. She would be so apologetic, would send her love and regards from her childhood bedroom, would release a single or two in her old style as an apology.
She would then go back on tour, and she would sing away the girl sitting to her left.
“Alright, sounds good. I’ll put everyone in duos and we’ll go through roughly three suspects each day. We have a little over a hundred suspects right now, but with nine duos, it shouldn’t take us more than a month or so at most.”
Then, she listed off the duos, “Ladybug and Swallowtail, Viperion and Purple Tigress, Vesperia and Miss Hound, Carapace and Rena Rouge, Pegasus and Bunnyx, Polymouse and Minotaurox, Argos and Ryuko, Rooster Bold and Caprikid, and King Monkey and Pigella.”
Rose didn’t get along with Kim too well. While she would be so kind in public, in private, she regarded him as a complete asshole (and, well, she wasn’t exactly wrong).
“Wait,” Purple Tigress spoke without really thinking about it. “I’ll, um, switch with King Monkey.” She turned to her left, where Pigella sat, jaw dropped. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Um… yes?” Her voice was still so high and sweet, even with the darker look to her.
Ladybug chuckled. “Well, alright! We can make that switch in the plans, and I’ll rework the suspects those duos will work with. Go team?”
Viperion shot her a look, and she looked away, face flushed red. She took a deep breath and let Purple Tigress envelope her again.
“Go team!” she shouted out, and everyone echoed her.
She glanced to the left and saw Pigella staring at her, and she couldn’t help herself from staring back. She saw the eyes of a girl whose lips and body she knew well, whose brain she’d practically lived in with how close they used to be. She saw, even through the guise of Pigella, Rose Lavillant staring back at her.
She saw the migraine forming before Rose even felt it.
“Hey,” she whispered, “Do you need to go somewhere quieter?”
“Yeah,” Pigella whispered back.
She said her good-nights to her friends, firmly but subtly grabbed Rose’s shoulder, and led her to the quieter upstairs area of the Agreste mansion.
“Roaar, stripes in,” she murmured, and nearly collapsed as she felt her energy drain. Still, she knew she had to find Rose some head medicine and lay her down. That was the number one priority.
She led Pigella to one of the three Agreste family living rooms, put on the fire, and grabbed some water. She then put on the kettle. Back in her family home, before things ended, she had a routine down to help whenever Rose got a migraine or a dizzy spell.
“Are you okay, Rose?” Marinette’s voice asked from nearby. Juleka was rifling through Adrian’s medicine cabinet, but could still hear the conversation nearby.
“I am,” Pigella responded. “Just another migraine.”
“You should power down. Your Miraculous takes energy from you.”
“I will soon. I just…” she sighed. “Can you believe she still remembers how to deal with all of this?”
“Honestly? Yeah. Rose, she loved you. It doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t just… forget how to do that.”
“Yeah, I guess… Daizzi, calm down.”
Juleka finally found the specific brand of headache medication she remembered Rose using and went back into the living room. What she saw was…
The girl she’d once known was so different to the girl lying on the couch, head in her hands. As she’d already known, Rose had shaved her head completely, but what she didn’t know was the all-pink alt look she was wearing, nor the dark look of her smudged, heavy makeup. She looked as though she had come from a rave.
“Got the medicine,” she said calmly, trying not to focus on how hot Rose was right now. It wasn’t like she wasn’t beautiful before, but she basically dripped sex appeal in this outfit. “Are the migraines getting worse?”
“Not worse, but not… better.”
“What are the doctors saying?”
She shrugged. “Same as always. All they can do is give me more medicine and recommend more sleep.”
“You could use more sleep,” Mylene commented from the stairs, her Kwami following close behind her. “I can take her from here.”
“Yeah, alright. Get home safe, Rose.”
Juleka began toward the stairs, but was stopped by Marinette’s voice.
“Wait,” began the leader, “Let me show you to your room.”
“Right, yes, thanks.”
With Marinette’s help, she found her way to one of the many plain, neatly-made bedrooms, had Kim with his impossible muscle mass and gym bro optimism grab her bags, and finally was able to flop into the expensive mattress.
Scenes of that day played through her head, like they did every time she went to Paris. A normal day, just a few weeks after graduation. Then boom, everything imploded on itself.
Then, suddenly, she was packing her bags, and her dad was greeting her at the airport, and everything shifted. While before, her thoughts were accompanied by Rose’s, they were alone now. So, she did the only thing she knew how: she picked up her notebook and started writing.
Luka made her deeply angsty emotions into songs, and now there they were. Everyone knew Predators. Stadiums sold out, tour going strong.
She pulled up her phone, rubbed her eyes a bit, and went to Instagram to record a video.
“Hey, guys, it’s Juleka. So, you might’ve all heard the news of the Over It Tour cancellation, and I just want to say it’s true. To anyone who has a ticket to an upcoming show, you’re being fully refunded and when the tour can come back, we’re going to give anyone who previously bought a ticket priority over the next ones. Luka and I are so sorry, but with everything going on in Paris right now, we have to be there for our family.”
It wasn’t a lie. She did have to be there for her family; when Paris was in danger, her mother was in danger. Her friends were in danger, putting themselves into the line of fire. Luka was in danger, because even if she refused to go, he would.
She pressed the little red end recording button, sent the video to her PR team (because apparently, she couldn’t just fucking post a video without permission), and closed her eyes.
Tomorrow would be a day full of Pigella. It would be Juleka scrambling to remember what she could say to the girl, only to realize for the billionth time that there really was nothing to say. However, tonight was only for sleep.
And if she thought of shaved blond hair and smudged eyeliner a few times more, then no one would be around to call her on it anyway.