Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, nor the show they come from.

Plagg eyed the small bag, completely still except for his twitching tail.

It had to be her.

He had been watching the bag for the last few days, hoping to catch another flash of the red and black blur he had glimpsed nearly a week ago.

He was so going to win this round.

For as long as there had been Ladybugs and Chat Noirs, there had been Tikki and Plagg. And while being an ageless magical being certainly had its perks, it got a little tedious after a while.

So they came up with a game.

Whenever new Ladybugs and Chat Noirs were chosen, the game began. The two kwami would try their hardest to find each other. And it was usually fairly easy. The magic of their Miraculous was such that their chosen wielders were often close to each other in their civilian lives. It made for better teamwork and more efficient fights, as villains seemed drawn to them.

It was essentially a glorified game of hide and seek.

Plagg, to his dismay, had lost the last five rounds to Tikki, who seemed to take pleasure in showing up at the most inopportune times. He was more than ready to return the favor.

So he watched the small round bag next to the seat behind his boy's.

Just as the bell rang and the students were dismissed for the day, he sat it twitch. A small red something peeked out of top of the bag and Plagg ducked down before she could see him.

The world tilted as Adrien picked up his bag and joined the throng of students leaving the building. Plagg crouched, peeking out through a small opening in the zipper.

"Hey, Nino, Adrien!" a girl called. Plagg cackled. The voice belonged to the best friend of the owner of Tikki's bag and the two were almost never apart.

"Marinette and I were just heading to the movies. Do you want to join us?" The voice grew louder and the small white bag entered Plagg's view. Now was his moment.

He barely registered Adrien's regretful "Sorry, I have a piano lesson, maybe tomorrow?" as he phased through the gym bag and dove for the round white bag.

"Surprise!" he yelled.

Silence.

Plagg scratched his ear. "I could have sworn she was here," he mumbled, looking around. He flew around the small space.

"Ah-ha!" he said. "Cookie crumbs. She must have been here."

But where had she gone?

Plagg peeked his head out the top of the bag, only to see the door of Adrien's car slam shut, a small red figure poking her head out of his gym bag. Plagg's eyes grew wide as the car pulled away from the school.

He was stuck.

Not only was he stuck, he was stuck with Ladybug.

This was not going to end well.

"Tikki," Marinette whispered after she and her friend had gone their separate ways. "Did you hear that? Adrien might come to the movies with us!"

"Hooray," Plagg drawled, rolling his eyes. "Do you have any cheese?"

The poor girl froze, throwing a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. "Who are you? What did you do with Tikki?!"

Not going to end well at all.

Perhaps she had gotten overconfident.

After all, she has won the last seven rounds in a row, no matter what that cat claimed. That was something she was quite proud of. And she had been so determined to make it eight.

It wasn't all that hard to locate Plagg. The dumb cat wasn't nearly as sneaky as he thought he was. She had seen his ears poking out of the bag in front of hers weeks ago. She just hadn't been quite sure how to proceed.

On the one hand, she absolutely wanted to win. At almost any cost.

On the other hand, the bag belonged to one Adrien Agreste, the boy her Marinette had a massive crush on. And in the past, once Tikki and Plagg had found each other, things tended to get complicated.

Eventually Marinette could come to be grateful for the fact that the boy she pined over was the Chat who constantly flirted with her. But Tikki had a feeling that unless he revealed himself very carefully, Marinette was likely to do something reckless and emotional, perhaps even try to drive the poor boy away.

But she had to act. She had seen the way Plagg was eyeing her bag. It was only a matter of time before he realized she was there and she couldn't let him win.

She just couldn't.

So when Alya dragged Marinette over to ask Adrien and Nino if they wanted to go to the movies, she made her move. She carefully flew out of the bag, hiding behind Marinette's jacket. When no one was looking, she dove for the small opening in the zipper.

"Ha! I win again!" she cried.

To her surprise, there was no cry of outrage. No argument about who had won or how many times.

No Plagg.

For a moment, Tikki panicked. She couldn't have been . . . wrong, could she?

Impossible.

She looked around again and saw the evidence of him. Namely, an empty container of camembert cheese. She felt the bag move and peeked through the opening. To her surprise, she saw Plagg's wide green eyes staring at her from Marinette's small purse.

Oh no.

This was not good.

This was a disaster in the making! If Tikki was separated from Marinette and Plagg was separated from Chat Noir, nothing would go right. They wouldn't be able to transform. And because they were magically prohibited from revealing their bearers' identities, Tikki couldn't just tell Adrien who to return her to.

Tikki took a deep breath to keep from panicking. She was a centuries-old magical being. She could figure out a solution to this.

She had faced worse. Like Plagg after too much cheese.

Thankfully, she had plenty of time to plan. Adrien was whisked from piano lessons to a photoshoot to a tutoring session before he finally had a little free time at home. He collapsed onto his bed, the bag beside him.

"You've been awfully quiet today," Adrien observed.

"Um, I don't know how to say this, but there's been a bit of a mix-up," Tikki said, slowly emerging.

Adrien stared at the small red creature, eyes wide.

"I'm Tikki," she said, once it became apparent that the boy couldn't utter a word. "I'm Ladybug's kwami."

I've fallen into the Miraculous fandom and can't get up!

That's okay, though. I rather like it here.

And if it wasn't obvious, I rather love Tikki and Plagg. So you guys get a story about them.

Special thanks, as always, to star-eye for beta-reading and helping me figure out whether to capitalize names of cheeses. You know, the important questions in life.

I'll be back soon with another chapter, I promise!

Catch ya later, lovelies!

-FD