Notes to Self

by GalahadWilder

Summary:

Adrien finds out midway through Oblivio that his assumption was wrong, and that Marinette is NOT his girlfriend. So he decides to do leave a message calling himself out for failing to properly appreciate the most incredible person he’s ever met.

Now, having been confronted with his mistakes, Adrien has realized that he has a lot to make up for—and a girl who needs to know exactly how much she means to him.

Chapter 1: Mementos

He’s been keeping notes on his phone. Everything he knows about her, every personal detail she accidentally lets slip. He knows he’s not supposed to be doing it, but he tried to let them pass; after the first three, he started to go crazy. Started to worry. What if he forgot a detail? What if he missed her?

So he takes notes.

She claims to be extremely clumsy out of the suit.

She’s half-Chinese on her mother’s side.

Speaks fluent English and Yueh Chinese, but can’t understand Mandarin. (Yueh accent may indicate native speaker? Need to check what that sounds like)

She makes (designs or constructs? Don’t know) all of her own clothes.

She’s made bread from scratch at least once.

Her favorite icing flavor is strawberry.

Apparently ships Carapace and Rena Rouge outside of the suits.

Calls Jagged Stone “Jagged”—personal connection?

HER NAME IS MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG AND YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH HER. Check your videos.

He stares at the notes. He’d only meant to add something new—apparently chocolate chip is her kwami’s favorite cookie, she prefers snickerdoodles—but there it is, staring him in the face. A note he can’t remember adding.

It can’t be. His breath catches in his throat as he reads the name. She can’t be so close, can she?

He checks the date the notes were last updated. “Holy crap,” he says. He launches himself out of bed, runs to his computer. “Holy crap, that can’t be right, there’s no way—”

He opens the Ladyblog and scrolls back nine Akuma to the entry for Oblivio before remembering that he has that one bookmarked. But yeah, there it is: same date, two hours later.

He made this note while memory-wiped.

”What’s up, kid?” Plagg says from his nest inside the trash can. “Snickerdoodles that big of a surprise?”

”Plagg,” he snaps, holding up his phone, notes open.

Plagg is silent for a moment, then shoots out of the can. “What?” he says. Then he reads.

”Huh,” he says. “Took you long enough.”

Adrien snatches the phone back toward his own eyes. “So it is her?”

Plagg cackles, which isn’t an answer.

”Check your videos,” he murmurs, reading the notes out loud. So he goes to the camera, which he hasn’t opened in just as long as his notes, and there, clear as day, is a video that he can’t remember making. He taps it: same timestamp as the note.

His breath is getting shallow, and he can hear his pulse in his ears. He presses play.

The first thing he hears is the sound of scissors on cardboard, which... okay, at least explains where the low-budget Chat Noir cosplay he was wearing after the Akuma came from, if not the why. He can’t see anything except for a roll of duct tape.

”I woke up next to Marinette,” he hears his own voice saying. “Neither of us knew who we were, but right off the bat I knew she was...” He hears a dreamy sigh, like a rush of static through his speakers. “She’s incredible, Adrien,” his other self says. “She’s brilliant, and brave, and clever, and gorgeous...” A hand reaches down from out of frame, pulls the duct tape, and now he can see himself, constructing the mock Chat Noir disguise from a cannibalized cardboard box. “She’s got like a hundred pictures of us on her phone. Don’t know why. We figured it was because we were dating. Made sense at the time.” He tears off a piece of duct tape with his teeth, smoothing it down onto a cardboard corner. “But you don’t have any pictures of her. Just Ladybug.”

He—the real him, the current him—blushes.

”I figured we knew, right?” the other Adrien says, attacking another piece of cardboard with the scissors. “We were perfect together. Of course we told her. Of course we told her everything.” He pauses, closes his eyes, and takes a breath. “And then I found your notes.”

Real Adrien swallows.

Oblivio-Adrien turns directly to the camera, accusation in his eyes. “You don’t know, do you?” he says. “Who she is.”

Adrien catches himself shaking his head, as if the other him can see him, but of course he can’t. Still, he can’t help feeling embarrassed by the fact that this memory is calling him out like this.

”I don’t think you know Marinette,” Oblivio-Adrien says, turning back to his crafts project. “It’s the only way you could’ve missed her. But however you feel about Ladybug? That’s how I feel about her.” He lifts the cardboard off the table, and there it is, the “armored” shirt he’d found himself wearing after he detransformed. “Lucky us they’re the same girl, right?”

Adrien feels like crying. She’s so close... he can’t believe she’s been so close all this time. The other him’s unintentional accusation hits him right in the chest: how could he have missed her? How could he possibly have missed someone who was so close, and apparently so like his Lady?

Except that... Marinette wasn’t like that. Was she?

Not around you...

Adrien gasped, thinking back to the class president elections, to every time she’d been brave or kind or stood up for someone else in the class. He’d called her Everyday Ladybug for a reason.

”Anyway,” Oblivio-Adrien says, taping the cardboard shirt onto his body. “She’s probably in our class. Same student ID.” Adrien smiles through his tears; the other him has no idea how right he was. “You don’t know her—” Wrong. “—but she definitely knows you. Probably has a crush, based on the—” At this, Oblivio-Adrien blushes, tries to hold in an embarrassed giggle to no avail. “Like, three hundred pictures of us.” He plops on the helmet. “Take care of her, okay? I know I’m not gonna remember this when it’s done, so... I’m counting on you.” He reaches forward, picks up the phone—he’s smiling under the helmet.

The video shuts off.

Adrien stares at the screen, his fingers clenched white around the edges. “I’m such a...” he starts, but a sob cuts him off before he can finish. “I’m a fucking moron.”

Plagg drifts into his line of sight, his cat-eyes full of concern. “Kid? You okay?”

”She’s...” He sniffs, tries to wipe his eyes. They brim up again immediately. “She’s been right fucking there, the whole time, and I didn’t even look!”

”Uh...” Plagg says. He bops the phone, opening the notes app. “Seems to me like you—”

”It should’ve been so obvious,” Adrien hisses. “I should’ve... I should’ve...” He sobbed, then laughed. “This whole time. This whole time!”

Plagg pats him on the cheek. “She didn’t exactly make it easy.”

”No wonder she said she feels overshadowed by Ladybug,” Adrien mumbles. He curls into himself, hugs his chest. “I never noticed her,” he sobs. “I’m the one who was supposed to know. I’m the one she wanted to—”

Plagg rams his head into Adrien’s cheek, stopping Adrien mid-rant.

”Hey. Kid.”

Adrien wipes his eyes. “Y-Yeah?”

”You want to make up for not noticing her?” The Kwami says. “Looks like now’s a good time to start.”

Adrien stares, then slowly begins to smile. The weight on his chest starts to lift. Plagg is right: maybe he’d never noticed her before, but he has an opportunity now. An opportunity to make sure Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the most amazing girl he’d ever met, never feels overlooked again.

He braces his hand against the armrest of his chair and pushes himself to his feet. “Come on, Plagg,” he says. “We’re gonna learn how to make snickerdoodles.”

 

Notes:

Clearing something up because somebody on Tumblr asked:

Adrien did not think it necessary to note that Ladybug speaks French, because they are in France. So the note was that she speaks English and Yueh IN ADDITION to French.

Also the explanation for Kung Food: She speaks Yueh but not Mandarin. Her Uncle speaks Mandarin but not Yueh. Marinette speaks different Chinese dialect headcanon originated here.

Chapter 2: Snickerdoodles

Notes:

TW: Marinette has a panic attack after the cut.

Alya walks into class the next morning to find that Adrien has beaten her there. He has also climbed on top of his desk and is now snoring facedown into the table, his arms and legs splayed out haphazardly over the edges and dangling in a rather precarious manner.

She raises an eyebrow. “Mornin’, Sunshine.”

Adrien snorts, but his eyes stay closed. “Mmmhey Al...” he slurs, only halfway intelligible with his mouth pressed against the surface of the desk.

”Had a fun night?” Alya says, moving a bit into the classroom to get out of the doorway but not any further—she’s too busy staring at Adrien. “Looks like you didn’t get much sleep.”

”Kept... burning snickerdoodles,” he responds without moving any of the rest of his face. “Baking...” He flops his hand in her general direction. “Hard.”

”Don’t I know it,” Alya giggles. There’s a reason her mother isn’t a pastry chef. “If you needed something baked, why didn’t you ask Marinette?”

”Mrfm.” Adrien doesn’t move. “Ruin the surprise.”

Alya’s eyes grow wide. “Wait,” she says, processing. “You were up all night... making snickerdoodles... for Marinette?”

Adrien nods, squishing his face into the desk as he does so. ”Her favorite,” he mumbles, as if that explains everything.

Alya opens her mouth. Closes it again. Opens. Closes. She knows if she tries to say anything she’s going to scream. She wants to grab Adrien and shake him until he gives her answers, but he’s in no condition for it right now—he’s not going to be able to explain to her satisfaction. She resolves to put off the shaking until later.

Instead, she pulls out her phone and calls Nino.

---

Marinette arrives at school a little early, courtesy of Alya’s eight wake-up texts, each more frantic than the last. She’s not sure why Alya was freaking out so much; she’s here about twenty minutes early. Though she is grateful for the chance to swap out her books before the first class—usually she has to carry everything with her in the morning because she uses up all her locker time in bed.

The locker spins open easily like it always does, but then, right in the center of the empty cubicle, there’s a small Tupperware container. One that definitely wasn’t there when she left the school yesterday afternoon.

She picks up the Tupperware, confused. How did it get here? No one else has the combination to her locker. It has a note on top in yellow paper, so she flips it up to read.

Her heart stops.

To the bravest girl I know

                       —A.A.

           PS don’t tell Chloé about these

She recognizes that handwriting. She recognizes that signature.

Her fingers go slack—it’s pure luck that she hasn’t actually removed the box from her locker yet, so it only drops a few centimeters before clattering onto the bottom. It’s impossible. She shoves her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming, looking at the note, looking at the box, looking at the note, looking at the box, looking at the note—there’s no way Adrien wrote that, right? It has to be a prank.

She picks up the note again. No, it’s his handwriting. And the note is in her locker.

She reaches for the Tupperware, tentative. Almost afraid to touch it. Like it’ll vanish as soon as her fingers make contact. Then she snatches it up, trapping it before it can run away, and rips off the top with as much strength as she can muster.

The smell of yeast and cinnamon wafts out. She reaches into the container, and her fingers wrap around a very familiar texture: mildly burnt cookie. It’s misshapen and unevenly cooked, impressions of fingers smashed into the surface—no bakery in Paris would sell a cookie this badly made, and Adrien’s professional staff would never make something this amateur. Which means he made this himself. He’s never touched an oven before, and he made her cookies by hand.

She feels her ears go warm at the thought. She can’t move: all the strength has drained from her legs, if she tries to walk she’s going to collapse. She stares at the cookies and emits a low whine. Why did he...? That... she... he...

Her phone rings, and whatever spell is keeping her upright suddenly vanishes and she collapses against the locker. With difficulty, she pulls herself upright, using the lockers as a backrest, and answers the call.

"Mari!" Alya yells through the speaker. "Where are you?"

It’s all too much. The metal is freezing against her back. The buzzing of the lights overhead pierces her eardrums, droning into her skull. Everything is too loud, too close, too bright.

She doesn’t feel the phone slip from her hands. Doesn’t hear Alya’s panicked “Mari?” as it strikes the ground. She curls up, squeezing her eyes tight, burying her face in her knees, and crushing her ears beneath her palms. Too much. Too much. Too much too much too much toomuchtoomuchtoomuch

Alya’s arms wrap around her. “Hey,” her friend whispers. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

But it’s not okay, because it’s too much, too fast, and she’s so used to Adrien staying at arms distance that it’s like her world has been suddenly ripped apart. She can’t breathe—her throat is too tight, ragged gasps of air whistling in and out of collapsing lungs.

She’s not sure whether she’s laughing or crying.

”H-he—” she begins, but a sob cuts her off. “He... he n-n-noticed me!” She’s smiling now, even in the midst of her panic. “He—he—he—”

”Shhhh sh sh sh,” Alya says, patting her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

Marinette wipes her eyes. “Alya,” she rasps. “Alya!” Her grin hurts her teeth; the air is too cold on her gums. “He... he...”

”Stayed up all night to make you cookies,” Alya murmurs. “I know.”

Marinette looks back down at the offending box, the thing that’s caused so much trouble, and finally, finally manages to breathe. “I don’t...” she mumbles. “Why now?”

Alya tilts her head. “You don’t know either?”

Marinette shakes her head, lips squeezed tight. Her brain is still too scrambled from shock to make full sentences; she doesn’t trust herself to speak yet.

Alya picks up the note and reads it. “Oh my God,” she says, raising her hand to her mouth. “He... oh my God.”

Marinette can only nod.

Alya slides the cookies back into Marinette’s locker, then leans down to offer a hand to Marinette. “Come on,” she says. “We need to get to class.”

Marinette leans on Alya the whole length of the hallway, all the way to the classroom. But when she turns the corner into the room—

There’s Adrien, fast asleep on his desk, splayed out like a starfish. Snoring. Drooling on the table. Undignified. He’s always been so intimidating to her, but right now?

Nino pokes him in the cheek, and he mumbles something, slapping ineffectually at his friend.

Marinette’s heart begins to slow. Her cheeks bloom red, and she giggles. He looks so silly like this. But so... but so...

He noticed her.

When she takes her seat, that’s what finally settles in her mind. The panic is gone, replaced with a warm sense of giddy satisfaction.

He’s noticed her.

Notes:

So yeah, Adrien got a little ahead of himself and fucked up. At least the results are good?

Chapter 3: Evidence

Adrien doesn’t pay a great deal of attention in class that day, and while he does take notes, they aren’t about Indochina. He’s sure Ms. Bustier notices that he’s not looking at the board or volunteering answers to questions, and probably that his notes don’t correspond to anything she’s saying, but honestly he’s usually far enough ahead that it doesn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like Nathanael or Chloé take great notes either.

Instead of world history, Adrien’s notes are of more of a personal historical nature. He scribbles each one down on a separate line, trying to make sure that he forgets nothing.

I let her keep mom’s umbrella and it never even occurred to me to ask for it back.

I carry her lucky charm on me at all times.

She’s the first person I think to check on before and after Akuma attacks.

I bought two copies of Jagged Stone’s new album just so I could frame the one she autographed.

I’m always disappointed when I go to class events and she’s not there.

I was flattered when her Adrien photos got broadcast on citywide television when I would’ve been mortified if it was from anyone else.

I almost went for it when she said she was in love with the other me.

He doesn’t title the notes for the same reason he doesn’t mention his other identity in the writing: there are at least four people watching him in the class, any one of whom could try and steal his notes and see what he’s written down. And while Nino and Alya seeing what he’s doing might be embarrassed, Chloé or Lila getting their hands on his uncensored notes could be disastrous. Still, the title is obvious in his mind:

“Evidence I Was Already in Love With Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

In retrospect, all of it makes sense. All of the little things he’s been denying stack up to the inescapable conclusion that at least part of him knew that, if he hadn’t met Ladybug first, Marinette is the one he’d be so desperately yearning for. And at least part of him was wondering whether he shouldn’t abandon Ladybug for Marinette anyway. While he feels a little guilty about that—is he really so fickle?—the fact that he’s fallen for the same girl twice seems sort of... on-brand for him. Reassuring. Lucky as hell, too. (Another, less gentle, part of him is secretly relieved that he has an excuse to break things off with Kagami; as soon as he started writing the list he realized she makes him kind of uncomfortable, and he’s pretty sure she’s a lesbian anyway.)

He wonders if she's looking at him.

---

"Okay," Nino says as soon as class lets out for lunch. "I know you those weren't your class notes. What were you writing?"

"Just... notes to self," Adrien says with a smile.

"Oh, man," Nino says, taking his tablet and sliding it into his backpack. "I know that look. Girl stuff?"

"Mhm," Adrien responds. He flips his notebook closed, trying to hide the contents from Nino—he's not ready to share yet. Luckily pretty much everyone else in the class has already left, so he only has to hide the notes from one person.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain... fashion designer, would it?" Nino says, waggling his eyebrows.

Adrien drops his tablet. "What?"

Nino grins. "Alya called this morning while you were out." He claps Adrien on the shoulder. "Snickerdoodles?"

Adrien drops into his seat. "They're her favorite," he mumbles.

Nino sits back down and crosses his arms with a grin. “So,” he says. “You’ve finally realized you’re into Marinette.”

A rueful smile splays onto Adrien’s face. “Can you believe it took me this long?”

Nino laughs. “No offense, dude, but if there were an obliviousness Olympics you’d take gold in every event.”

Adrien chuckles and shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says. He taps the desk with his finger, wondering how much to tell him. “I actually owe you big for that.” He grins. “Or, well, Oblivio anyway.”

Nino’s eyes somehow go wide and narrow at the same time. “What?”

Adrien smirks. “Apparently Oblivio-me spent the day with Marinette and had a few... choice words for me when he found out we weren’t together.”

Nino smiles. “Oh, man,” he says. “We actually pulled off a successful matchmaking? Alya is going to flip.”

”I do have... one question,” Adrien says, flicking his finger outward in the universal gesture for one. “Her thing for me... is it just a celebrity thing, or...?”

Nino’s grin grows wider. “Dude. Dude.” He smacks the table with his palm. “Have I got some stories.”

---

He put a note in her backpack. How did he put a note in her backpack?

”Breathe, Mari, breathe,” Alya says, patting her back. But she can’t—all her attention is on the note, the same yellow paper as the one on the snickerdoodles, the same handwriting and the same signature.

You inspire me.

            —A.A.

Her eyes are watering because she’s forgotten how to blink. She keeps staring at the note, trying to hold together a body that alternatively wants to collapse in panic or explode with glee. But the question doesn’t leave her mind: how did he get to her backpack? He didn’t leave his seat all of class and she’d had it the whole time. Had he snuck the note in while she was leaving?

Alya covers her mouth and giggles. “Who knew Sunshine was such a romantic?” she says.

Marinette sighs. It’s a good sigh, the sigh of a young woman in love, of one who is overcome with the returning of her affections. She smiles, dreamy, staring at the note. She can’t believe, even after all the missteps and mistakes, the wrong notes and the things she could never manage to say, he’s seeing her exactly the way she’s always wanted him to.

But she still has a problem.

”Alya,” she says, and her voice sounds unsteady even to her own ears. “What am I supposed to do next?”

Chapter 4: Adrienette.exe

“Take care of her, okay? I know I’m not gonna remember this when it’s done, so... I’m counting on you,” Oblivio-Adrien says through Adrien’s headphones.

”I will,” Adrien murmurs. “I promise.” He shuts off the video, unplugs his headphones, and stows the phone. Lunch is almost over, and he’s leaning against the wall in the empty men’s bathroom, rewatching the video he made for himself.

He’s putting it off, he knows, but he’s not ready to face her. Not yet. Not knowing what he knows. Not feeling how he feels.

Is this why she’s always been so terrified of him? That’s what Nino said. Apparently she treasures the umbrella as much as he did, and even if she doesn’t know why it’s so important to him, that thought alone makes him want to cry, in both joy and relief. Finding out about the scarf was painful; he’d believed that his relationship with his father might have been finally, finally repairing, only for that to be snatched away with the knowledge of a theft. And Marinette had let him keep believing it because she thought it would make him happy.

All this time he thought she’d forgotten his birthday, and instead she’d crippled her chances with him to give him the greatest gift he’d ever received... even if that gift was a lie. Even if his father doesn’t care.

She’d entered the gaming tournament just to spend time with him. She’d been crushed when he skipped out on her after Glaciator to set up a date with the wrong her that hadn’t even happened. She’d risked ruining her own career by shielding him from his father’s wrath, taking the blame for the lost book so he could keep going to school. The constipation medicine—which he belated realizes he should’ve put on the Evidence list, he would NOT have done that for Nino—was supposed to have been a love note. All of the little things he’d been too blind to see...

For the first time, when his heart aches, it isn’t for himself. It’s for her.

He can’t face her yet. Not without bursting into tears.

But the bell is almost ringing, Class is about to start, so he sighs and pushes his way out of the men’s room. Gotta hero up sometime.

He walks through the door and the first thing he sees is blue. He tries not to scream, but there she is, staring right at him with exactly the disbelief he’s feeling right now. He’d said he was ready, but not—!

He waves, weakly. “H-hi Marinette.” He can feel the blush coming on.

She stares at him, her pink lips hanging open, and for a moment she doesn’t say anything before Alya (oh, Alya’s been standing next to her this whole time, he hadn’t noticed) pokes her in the arm. “Maaaaari?” she drawls.

”Oh! Right!” Marinette snaps into motion, frantically patting every pocket in her jacket, her purse, and her backpack before finally producing a familiar pair of slips of yellow paper. “Notes!” She holds them out to him, as if he hadn’t written them, as if she were giving them to him instead of the other way around.

Alya giggles. “Not that, sweetie.” She snatches the notes from Marinette’s unresisting fingers and holds them upright. “She wants to know if you wrote these.”

Adrien opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out—this is so much easier in writing! How is he supposed to talk to someone as incredible as Marinette? Instead, he presses his lips together and nods.

”Why?” Marinette whispers. Her eyes are shining like she’s about to cry.

”Is it... not obvious?” Adrien rasps. He’s able to get out that much.

Marinette shakes her head. “Why now?”

”I...” Adrien freezes. “I can’t.”

”Okay, not important right now,” Alya says. She steps forward and grabs Adrien’s shoulders, locking him in place. “Do you, Adrien Agreste, like Marinette?”

He closes his eyes and nods with what he’s certain is the dumbest grin he’s ever worn.

Marinette squeaks.

Alya is trying not to laugh, but he can feel the shaking transmit through her arms to his torso. “Oh my god,” she whispers, too quiet for Marinette to hear. “You can’t function around her either.”

Adrien grimaces and shakes his head.

Alya giggles, and one of her hands disappears—Adrien opens his eyes to see her wiping hers. “Okay,” she says. “We will continue this conversation AFTER class—” She glares at him, then turns the same whithering gaze to Marinette— “and HOPEFULLY by then you two will be able to speak actual French words to each other. Sound good?”

Both of them nod in unison, and Alya slaps herself in the face. “Dorks,” she whispers.

Suddenly Adrien realizes something. “Wait!” he says. “Photo—photoshoot! Afternoon.” He swallows, opens his mouth, and tries again, slower this time. “I... have a... photoshoot, today—I mean this afternoon. After class.” He blinks. “Like right after.”

”You do?” Alya says. She turns to Marinette. “Did we already know that?”

Marinette nods enthusiastically, her mouth still practically glued shut.

”Guess we’ll be there?”

Marinette shakes her head at the same time Adrien says, “Can’t—Private.”

”Ugh. Fine,” Alya sighs. “Lunch tomorrow then.” She grabs both of them by the shoulders and steers them toward the classroom. “Come on, we’re going to be late for class!”

As Adrien settles into his seat, he hears a whisper from behind him. It’s a voice more familiar to him than his own, a voice he’s heard every night in videos and every day in class. “He likes me, Alya!” Marinette whispers.

”I know, sweetie,” Alya responds. “I was there.”

Chapter 5: Sorry

Chat flings himself to the side, biting back an I’m sorry as a stream of sharpened Polaroids sliced through the brickwork behind him. PhotoShoot is his fault, really—Adrien couldn’t focus on anything but the thought of what he would say to Marinette (and how she might react) and he hadn’t noticed how frustrated Victor had been getting with his distraction. So when they’d taken a five minute break, Adrien had barely heard Victor declare all the shots useless—and he certainly hadn’t expected to have his dressing room cut in half by flying photographs.

He flings his foot forward, hooking it on light stand, forcing PhotoShoot—who has old-timey cameras instead of hands, which Chat considers a really stupid design decision—to pivot out of the way, punching outward and cutting the stand in half with photographs.

While PhotoShoot isn’t looking, Chat smashes the nearest window with his baton and flings a large light fixture through the open space. Then he ducks behind the white screen.

PhotoShoot runs to the window and looks down. It’s not going to fool him for long—just long enough...

Chat leaps up behind him and swings his baton. “These photos aren’t worth a frame!” he yells, slamming PhotoShoot’s head into the bottom of the window frame.

“Agh!” The Akuma screams. He stumbles backwards, tries to rub his head, but only smacks himself in the face with the cameras. He yelps and staggers, and Chat can’t help but laugh.

At which point PhotoShoot snaps his camera-hand in the direction of the laugh and fires, and Chat Noir suddenly finds himself diving for the window he’d only pretended to leap out of before. Luckily, he’s only on the second floor, so it’s not a very long fall; unluckily, he went out the window headfirst and doesn’t have time to reorient himself, so he’s probably going to land on his skull. Ow.

Except instead of a crushing smack to his head, he feels a familiar and welcoming pain in his ankle as unbreakable wire wraps around the joint, swinging him away from the building and away from the spray of photographs that followed him outside. He slams face-first into the building across the street, and his breath gets knocked out, but everything’s okay because she’s here.

”You okay, Kitty?” she says, tousling his upside-down hair. She’s standing in the street, her yo-yo looped over a streetlight. “Everyone make it out?”

For the first time he hears the unspoken third question: is Adrien okay? “I’m fine, everyone’s clear,” he says, careless of the fact that he’s still upside down. “I had to physically pick up the model and throw him through the doors to get him to stop charging the Akuma, but I got everyone out.”

Ladybug’s cheeks dust pink under the mask, and oh, she’s thinking about him, and he knows how she is about brave and gentle idiots—after all, that’s him to a T. Both hims. Maybe he shouldn’t have said what he said. But then, she always did handle distraction better than he does. “Good,” she says, failing to hide the tremble in her voice as she lets him go. “What’re we up against?”

He flips to all fours on the way down, landing like a good cat should. “The photographer,” he says. “Calls himself PhotoShoot and fires sharpened photographs from his camera hands.”

She narrows her eyes. “What, like his assistants?”

Chat nods upwards to where the Akuma is climbing through the window. “No, I mean his hands have literally been replaced by cameras.”

”How is he supposed to take our Miraculous?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have the full picture on that yet myself,” he says, trying to hold back a grin. And failing miserably.

She giggles, slapping him on the shoulder. “You’re terrible,” she says. Then she turns back to PhotoShoot, who’s just slammed into the ground with both feet, and squares her shoulders. “You ready?”

”Always,” he whispers with a smile.

---

The thing about fighting an Akuma so focused on destruction is that Chat hadn’t needed to Cataclysm the entire fight—just taunt PhotoShoot in the general vicinity of whatever Ladybug needed destroyed, then dodge. Ladybug’s Lucky Charm, a makeup kit, had been extremely confusing at first until she’d realized that PhotoShoot could see them through the lenses of his cameras and covered them with foundation, disorienting him and leaving him open for Chat Noir to snatch and snap the memory card he’d had in his front pocket.

With Victor cleansed and their customary celebratory fist bump out of the way, Chat bites his lip. He still has some things he needs to say to her as Ladybug, not as Marinette, and he needs to say them tonight, before he talks to her at lunch tomorrow. “I’ll take him to the paramedics,” he says. “Can you meet me on the roof in fifteen minutes?”

She looks at him with curiosity. “Sure,” she says. “Is everything all right?”

His mouth twists. “Sort of?” He shrugs. “It’s not, like, bad. Just something I need to talk to you about.”

Ten minutes later, after Victor has been bundled up in a shock blanket and taken to the hospital, Chat climbs the last stair and opens the door to the roof. There she is, looking away from him, staring out over the whole city, her hair ribbons fluttering in the breeze, and for a moment his breath seizes in his chest. She looks so strong like this, and yet so vulnerable—he can’t help seeing the Marinette beneath the spandex, and wonders again how he could never have noticed the girl beneath the mask before despite all his claims to the contrary. Denial, he decides, is a bitch.

”Ladybug?” he murmurs.

When she turns to look at him, her eyes are soft and full of concern. “Chaton,” she says. “Is everything okay?” She steps toward him, wraps her arms around his head, runs her fingers through his hair. “Are you okay?”

”I’m—” he begins, only to be interrupted by an involuntary purr. He cuts it off with a cough. “I’m fine, LB.”

She raises an eyebrow. “No flirty nicknames?”

His eyes wander away from her, towards his feet. “I’ve been... overdoing that lately,” he says. “I just...” He breathes in, steels himself. “I wanted to apologize. For Oblivio.”

She tilts her head, a soft smile appearing on her face. “I’m pretty sure I kissed you back.”

He shakes his head. “I know, but that photo... it’s been making you so uncomfortable, and I’ve been...” He shudders to think about how unfair he’s been to her, the confused terror he’d forced himself to ignore on Marinette’s face whenever Alya brought it back up. “Rubbing it in?” He grimaces. “That’s not the right word.”

She unwraps herself from him and steps back with a curious expression.

He sighs, hugging his arms. He’s not sure why he feels cold in an insulated suit. “I know you don’t feel about me the way I feel about you, I know there’s someone else, and... I haven’t been fair to you.”

Ladybug smiles, and he knows she’s already forgiven him. He knows everything’s going to be all right. “Thank you, Kitty,” she says. “I’m... sorry I can’t give you what you want.” She walks to the edge of the roof and sits, her leg kicking over the edge. “I wish I could. For what it’s worth.”

He joins her at the edge. “This other guy. He wouldn’t happen to be the model I mentioned earlier, would he?”

Ladybug’s face goes red. “Am I that obvious?” she croaks.

Chat laughs. “He seems sweet,” he says. “A little dim, maybe, but sweet.”

Ladybug waves her hand, looking anywhere but at her partner’s face. “He’s just sheltered.”

Chat slings his arm around her shoulders, and she buries her face in her hands to hide her blush, but it’s not working. He grins. “Need me to talk some sense into him?”

”No, I’m okay,” she whispers, not moving her hands.

Chat removes his arm and climbs to his feet. “We’d better get home,” he says. “I’ve got a busy night ahead of me.”

”Chat,” she says, and he stops. She looks up at him with an intensity in her eyes that she usually reserves for when she’s figuring out her Lucky Charm. “You know... if it hadn’t been for him...”

His stomach flips—she fell for both of him too. He nods, trying not to cry. “I know.”

He knows from Nino that she’s not just interested in Adrien the Celebrity, but Adrien the Person, and that’s meaningful enough—but if she loves Chat, it means she’s seen every part of him and still loves him. All the weak parts of Adrien, all the jealous parts of Chat, all the little things he tries to hide by splitting them between identities like they aren’t both him, she’s seen them and she knows them and it’s him she’s chosen, faults and all.

”I’m sorry,” she whispers.

And he smiles. “Don’t be,” he murmurs back, unlatching his baton from his belt. “Like you keep telling me when I feel useless: no matter what happens, we’re still partners. And you’re still my best friend.”

He leaps away, leaving his Lady behind on the rooftop. He hopes she’ll forgive him for not telling the truth just yet. But he needs her to know it’s not just Ladybug he loves: he needs her to know how he feels about Marinette. And spilling those beans now...

He’ll tell her tomorrow, he decides. He’ll tell her everything tomorrow.

Chapter 6: Exclusive

By the time Marinette makes it to school the next morning, she’s barely managing not to puke. She’s not ready to talk to him, not really, but it’s coming and it can’t be stopped. Today she is going to have to say all the things to Adrien Agreste that she’s never been able to... what if he’s been pranking her? Or what if he changes his mind? What if he tells him how she feels and he realizes he doesn’t feel the same?

What if he tells her how he feels and she realizes she doesn’t feel the same?

”If it hadn’t been for him, it would’ve been you.” She’s never voiced it before, at least not to him, and as long as he didn’t know she could pretend it wasn’t real. And last night, when he apologized, when he knew, there was something—he deserved to know. And she needed to tell him. But what if, after all this time, what she’s been so afraid of isn’t Adrien saying no... but Adrien saying yes?

His notes to her had been so intense. Last week she could swear he’d never noticed her before, and now he’s gone clear into the other side—he’s not just trying to woo her, he’s practically ripped his heart open, naked and bleeding, to present it to her and doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with it.

New Message From: ❤️Adrien❤️

She hears his text tone and almost shrieks. She wants to hide, to take her phone and fling it all the way to London where she won’t have to see text messages from blond models, but instead she picks it up and looks at the screen.

Are you as terrified as lunchtime today as I am? it reads, and suddenly her heartbeat calms. How does he know exactly what to say?

Marinette: Im basically pushing myself

Marinette: *pissing

❤️Adrien❤️: I think I puked in my locker a little bit.

❤️Adrien❤️: Not that I’m not excited, it’s just scary, you know?

Marinette smiles as she reads it. She’s not alone in this; he feels the same.

Marinette: I know exactly what you mean

She breathes in, then out. She’s ready. She can do this.

She walks into the classroom.

---

”Okay, you two,” Alya says after the rest of the class has filed out of the room. “Time to talk.”

“Actually,” Adrien says, turning in his seat, “I was thinking we should probably go to Marinette’s first.”

Alya smirks. “Great idea!” she says. “We can—”

Adrien holds up a hand. “Um...” he says. “Alya, you are a dear friend and I trust you, but some of the things I have to say—” He turns to Marinette with a shy smile. “—are for her ears alone.”

Marinette swallows. That smile is going to be the death of her.

Alya nods knowingly. “I gotcha, I gotcha,” she says with a grin.

Adrien shakes his head. “No, you don’t,” he says. “I cannot stress how important it is to me that you don’t eavesdrop... so instead I’m going to make you a deal.” He clenches his fist, then unclenches, and takes a breath. “You don’t come anywhere near Marinette’s house this lunch break, and I will make sure that you’ll have an exclusive interview with Chat Noir by Saturday.”

Alya’s eyes widen. “What?”

”I’ve asked Alix to keep watch,” Adrien continues. “I’m sorry, I know you want to be a part of this, but this is really important.”

”I’ve never... had a Chat interview before...” Alya says, mesmerized.

Adrien grins. “Yeah,” he says. “I can make sure you get to Chat with him.”

Marinette tries not to groan.

---

“Why was it so important Alya not be here?” Marinette says once they’re safely in her room and behind closed doors.

“That’s... complicated,” Adrien says. He wanders over to her chaise, then halts, looking over at her.

She chuckles. “You can sit down if you want,” she says, taking careful steps toward her computer chair—she doesn’t want to trip in front of him.

Adrien sits and groans, dropping his forehead into his palm. “I had this whole speech rehearsed,” he says. “And it’s completely gone from my head.”

She smiles. Even now, it’s nice to know that she’s not the only one who’s having trouble with this. Then her smile turns downward. “You’ve never... noticed me before,” she says, reluctant to remind him. As if it he’d forgotten, as if he’d realize that he’d made a mistake, as if just invoking his ignorance would bring it back. “What changed?”

He bites down on his lip. “I think,” he says, “I need to start at the beginning.” He looks up and meets her eye. “That afternoon in the rain. When we met.”

She says nothing, but she knows exactly what he’s talking about. Of course she does. She’s never been able to forget that moment.

”I think about it a lot,” he continues. “All the time, really. For a while I thought it was just because you were my first friend, but...” He trails off, staring at the ground.

”But?” she squeaks, trying to prompt him. She cringes at how her voice sounds.

He shakes his head. “Do you know why I kept that umbrella?” he says. “It’s been broken for years, and I have more than enough money to replace it.”

She shakes her head. It had, to be honest, never occurred to her.

”You remember that movie we watched together, after the fragrance ad came out?” he whispers. “The one with my mother in it?”

 Marinette gasps. “It’s not... the same umbrella, is it?”

Adrien nods.

Her eyes feel hot, and she tries to blink away tears. “Why didn’t you say something?” she says. “I never would have kept it if—”

Adrien laughs. “I told you to keep it, remember?” he says. “Something that important to me... I could never have given it to anyone else.”

She can’t... She doesn’t understand what he’s saying.

He finally looks up, meets her eyes. “Marinette,” he says. “I have been in love with you for almost a year and somehow managed not to notice.” He gestures wildly, and she realizes that he’s sort of losing control. “I mean seriously, how am I that fucking stupid? I knew you could’ve gotten constipation pills in Paris, but I put my whole London trip on hold because you asked me for something?”

She makes a noise that sounds like meep. “You know... um...”

Adrien nods. “You mixed up the notes,” he says. “Nino told me.” He covers his face with his right hand. “And I am so, so sorry I didn’t even bother to question it. It should’ve been obvious.”

Marinette grimaces. “How... much did Nino tell you?”

Adrien’s eyes flick up to where she’d hung his rolldown schedule, and her face drops into her hands. “Kill me now,” she whispers.

He’s kneeling on the floor in front of her now, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. “No can do,” he murmurs. “You’re too pretty to die.”

She giggles.

”When the Grim Reaper comes for you he’s gonna be all ‘oh sorry madamoiselle but works of art are supposed to be preserved for at least a hundred years, gonna have to leave you here for a few more decades.’”

She’s laughing now, pushing him away with one hand and covering her face with the other. “S-stop!” she gasps through her cackles. “You’re gonna make me cry!”

”And wouldn’t that be a crime against humanity,” he murmurs in response.

Her laughter takes a few moments to subside before she’s finally ready to face him again. “So...” she says. “You—you still haven’t... answered the q-question.”

He nods. ”Why now.”

”Y-Yeah.”

He sighs and looks at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. “So... the thing is...” he begins, then closes his eyes. “Please don’t hate me.”

Marinette’s stomach bottoms out. Oh god, she thinks. What happened?

“I... uh...” He coughs. “I thought I was in love with someone else.”

Marinette blinks. That... is unexpected. Sort of. “Kagami?” she says.

Adrien shakes his head. “That’s... what changed,” he says. “I found out that the someone else... that she was you.” He swallows. “And when I realized I didn’t have to choose... I also realized I didn’t want to.”

The someone else was you.

Marinette can’t breathe. There’s only one explanation for what he’s just said, only one thing that makes sense—Adrien knows who she is. Her identity is compromised. The one thing she’s been trying so hard to do since day one—

Adrien wraps his hand around the back of her neck and brings their foreheads together. “Hey,” he whispers. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

”What if—” Her breath catches as she tries not to cry. “What if you get akumatized?”

”Then you’ll just have to kiss me again,” he says, holding up his hand.

She doesn’t understand. What’s... what is he...?

He takes off his ring with his other hand—the ring he’s worn since the day she met him, the ring she’s never seen him without—and places it gently in her palm. And she realizes: she’s seen that design before.

She gasps, hiccups. This is... impossible. The two boys she’s been in love with, being the same person? The boy she wants and the boy she trusts wrapped up in a single blond muscular package? Unthinkable. But the way he’s looking at her... the eyes are different, but they have the same softness in them. The way he’s looking at her is exactly the way her partner does.

“Chat?” she sobs, half in terror, half in relief.

He smiles, weak and tenuous, unsure, yet she can feel the adoration pouring from him. “Hey, Bug,” he murmurs. “Looks like I was your someone else too.”

Notes:

I don’t understand why everyone was expecting this chapter to be angsty. 😜

Chapter 7: Love You

Notes:

Marinette spends most of this chapter having an intermittent panic attack, so feel free to skip her sections if you need to. Adrien’s bits... SHOULD make sense alone. I think.

Marinette’s not breathing, and there’s a very scary moment where Adrien thinks he’s killed her.

That would be just his luck, wouldn’t it? Spending so much time chasing each other in circles because of denial and stubbornness, and then the moment he finally realizes that she’s right there in front of him, tantalizingly close, the universe snatches her away. He’s halfway through planning a very elaborate Romeo-and-Juliet style suicide to follow her before she suddenly gasps and pitches forward into his arms.

---

Marinette isn’t sure whether she wants to laugh or cry. Or puke. Or scream.

It feels like her whole world is collapsing around her. For the second time in three days, everything she’s believed to be an absolute fact of the universe has pitched beneath her feet, and she imagines that this is the similar feeling to discovering that the island you’ve lived on all your life is in fact the back of a giant sleeping turtle who has chosen this moment to begin to move.

She’s terrified. And furious. And elated beyond words. And, most of all, overwhelmed. There’s too much to process all at once—she can’t even begin to wrap her head around everything that’s just happened.

Her balance goes before she’s realized it, and she falls forward into Adrien’s arms, clutching him to keep from exploding.

---

“Marinette...?” he says. She’s shaking. He can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying.

”You... you absolute bastard,” she gasps, and he realizes that she’s doing both. She pulls away from him with a sniffle and a smile. “You know exactly what you were doing last night, didn’t you?”

He grins back. “Did you like the part where I called myself an idiot?”

”Oh my God!” she howls, shoving his shoulder with a cackle. “I hate you SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!”

”No you don’t,” he purrs, shoving his face into her personal space. “You looooooove me.”

"Nope.” She crosses her arms and pouts. “Hate.”

”Love.”

”Hate hate hate.”

”Love love love.”

She sighs with a dreamy smile, her face reddening. “Okay, you got me,” she says. “I... I—I l-l-lo—” Her face passes through panic as the words refuse to come out, then clenches into anger. “Rrrgh!”

”Hey,” he whispers, taking her hands into his own and holding them against his chest, where she can feel the heartbeat that he knows is etched with her name. “It’s okay.”

---

”It’s okay,” he says, but it’s not okay because she has to say it, she needs to, she needs him to hear it but her stupid mouth won’t make the stupid words and her heart keeps beating in her ears, it’s beating his name over and over and over, Adrien, Adrien, Adrien and how can he not hear that it’s deafening!

“Mari?”

She’s shaking she’s shaking she can’t stop shaking—

“Marinette?” Tikki says.

”Pigtails?” says the black blob behind Adrien’s head.

”I-I-I—”

“Sshhhhhh shhshh shh,” Chat Noir says with Adrien’s voice and Adrien’s eyes. He’s holding her, and her ear is against his chest—his heartbeat. She can hear it. His heartbeat is slow and strong and it centers.

She gasps.

”I’m okay,” she says.

---

Adrien doesn’t know what to do.

Marinette’s finally shaken herself out, and her breathing deepens. He realizes she’s falling asleep against his chest, and he suddenly realizes how tired he is—he’s barely gotten any sleep for the past two nights, too caught up in her and the cookies and planning what he was going to say. He can feel it on the edge of his brain, lurking—he’s about to hit a breakdown too.

He hears a knock at Marinette’s door. “Are you kids okay up there?” he hears her father say.

”A little help?” he calls back.

The hulking baker barrels up the stairs, sees the two of them entwined, and freezes. “What happened?” he says.

”Uh... panic attack, I think?” Adrien says. 

Tom breathes out, slowly and carefully. “She hasn’t passed out from one of these in a while,” he says. “What did Chloé do this time?”

”What?” Adrien says, and it takes him a second to realize he’s squeezed Marinette defensively at her father’s tone. “No, she, um... Mari was trying to say she loved me...” He realizes how pathetic he sounds, and belatedly remembers that the last time Marinette confessed to him Tom turned into a wolfman and threw him off the roof. He cringes—

But Tom is laughing. “Well!” he says. “Took her long enough!” He cranes his neck down at Adrien. “You don’t seem surprised.”

Adrien grimaces. “I did say it first,” he says. “Can you help me get her into bed?”

”Of course.” Tom gathers his tiny daughter up in his massive arms and mounts the ladder, placing her gently onto her mattress. He turns back to Adrien. “You know, you don’t look so well yourself.”

Adrien sighs, pushing himself to his feet on creaky joints. “Slept about five hours in the last two days.”

”Right, then.” Massive fingers wrap around his arm, dragging him to the ladder. “Into bed with you.”

”What?” Adrien says as he stumbles in Tom’s grip. “But I need to go back to—”

The man fixes him with a brutally impressive death glare. “Bed,” he says. “I’ll call your teacher and let her know.”

Adrien’s eyelid twitches, and he swallows. “Okay,” he croaks.

”Up you get,” Tom says, leading him towards the ladder. He grins. “No funny business, now.”

Adrien feels heat flood his face all the way to the tips of his ears. “I—Uh—wha—?”

Tom laughs. “I know, you’re a gentleman.” His face hardens. “But seriously. No funny business.”

Adrien swallows. “Yes, sir.”

The baker is all smiles again. “I knew I could trust you!” he says. “Get some sleep, son.” He turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Adrien shoots a quick text to Alix to let her know they’re not coming back for the afternoon, then climbs into bed next to his Marinette—and suddenly the enormity of what he’s just done hits him like Stoneheart’s fist. He’s been running on pure inertia since the apology, doing, saying, what he had to because that’s what was going to be done, going to be said—but now it’s happened, and he’s looking back, and he realizes how fucking CRAZY the last hour has been. The only reason he was able to function coherently at all is because he was doing his best not to think about it; he was just following the plan, sleepwalking through it to be honest, and now he’s run out of plan and he has to actually think about what’s happened—

He told her everything. He told her he loved her.

It’s all he can do to remember to breathe.

Adrien Agreste should never be left alone with his thoughts. Right now, he’s lying in a bed with the girl he loves between his arms, but he’s wondering if telling her was the right thing. Did he put too much pressure on her? He should have gone slower. The snickerdoodles and the notes and the confession all in two days, it was too much too fast and now he’s broken her—

She stirs, makes a little happy groan as she presses against him, and his heart begins to slow. Whatever happened, whatever damage he’s done, it’ll fix. She’s strong, the strongest person he’s ever known, and he reminds himself to trust her, to trust in her strength and her courage. Just because right now is the wrong time doesn’t mean there isn’t a right one.

”Love you, Adrien,” she murmurs. Still half-asleep.

He presses a kiss into the back of neck, where the softness of her hair meets the softness of her skin, and she giggles. “I love you too, Princess.”

Notes:

By the time I finished this chapter, this song was playing in my head pretty much on repeat:

https://youtu.be/PxNYvk_0Onw

Chapter 8: Overlooked

Marinette’s phone is ringing. She can’t always tell the difference between her ringtone and her alarm when she’s asleep, which has led to her blearily saying “hello?” into her clock app on multiple occasions and alternately rejecting calls from her friends by accident, but right now she’s awake enough and aware enough to tell that the thing that jolted her out of sleep is DEFINITELY a ringing phone.

She slaps her nightstand a few times in a futile search for it before realizing it’s still in her purse, which is hanging from the edge of the bed. She rolls slightly to get a better grip and fishes up the purse without opening her eyes, extracting the phone and pressing it to her face. “H’llo?”

”Hey girl!” Alya’s cheerfulness explodes out of her speaker. “You ducked out real quick after your conversation—you been makin’ Adribabies?”

”Wha?” Marinette mumbles, rolling back towards the center of her bed. What is Alya talking abo—

There’s a hand on her tummy, which she somehow managed not to notice. And she’s just rolled her back into someone else’s front.

She twists her head and catches a glimpse of blond hair—

She barely manages to suppress a shriek into a squeak. “Alya!” she whisper-screams. “He’s in my bed!”

Alya is silent for a moment. “You seem surprised,” she says. “Were you... not intending to?”

“Intending to what?” Marinette rasps.

“Oh shit,” Alya says. “Are you okay? Did he do anything to you?”

Marinette looks down at herself—nothing’s out of place. “We’re both still clothed...” She shakes her head as her memory of the last few hours starts to clear. “I... oh, right,” she says. “I started stuttering and had a pretty major freakout.” She pulls herself upright, smiling softly down at Adrien. “He held me until I fell asleep.”

”Awwwwwww...” Alya says. “That’s so cute!” She clicks her tongue. “So he just fell asleep next to you?”

“Looks like,” Marinette says. She reaches out and ruffles his hair, and yep, there’s Chat Noir. “Poor guy. I don’t think he’s slept in days.”

Alya giggles. “Been too busy thinkin’ bout you, I’ll bet.”

”That is what he told me.”

”Oh, snap!” Alya says. “Damn, girl, I was kidding!”

”He wasn’t,” Marinette responds softly. Gazing down at him.

Alya laughs. “Okay, I gotta go,” she says. “Snuck my phone into the bathroom for this and Mendeleiev is gonna get pissed if I stay in here too long.”

”Okay,” Marinette says. “Good luck.”

”You too.”

The call ends, and Marinette places the phone gently back in her purse, then turns back to Adrien. She’s expecting him to be starfished across her bed they way he was on the desk yesterday morning (Kwamis! Was it really only yesterday?) but instead he’s curled in on himself. The arm she just extricated herself from is pulled in close to his chest, and everything about him is tight, like he’s trying to defend himself from some invisible threat. Even his face looks worried, every muscle in constant motion instead of the slack she might have expected from Adrien alone. But this isn’t just Adrien—it’s Chat Noir, and when he twitches and whimpers, she’s fairly sure she knows why.

She doesn’t want to wake him, but she can’t just leave him like this. She leans down and kisses him on the forehead, and is relieved when his twitching slows, and then stops.

A gentle, yet mischievous grin spreads across his face, and he turns his face directly into the pillow, mumbles something unintelligible, and starts drooling.

Carefully, she slips out from under the comforter and crawls toward the ladder, begins to clamber down. The room is empty, which is a small blessing. “Tikki?” she whispers.

Two Kwami look up at her from her desk where they’ve clearly been having a somewhat emotionally charged discussion—Plagg is desperately wiping his eyes, apparently trying to hide the fact that he’s been crying. Tikki, in the other hand, smiles. “Good morning!” she says.

Marinette steps down onto the floor and tiptoes over to the desk. “This isn’t an Akuma, right? This is actually happening?”

”Yep!” Tikki says. She nods toward the bed. “That is actually Adrien, this—” she turns and pokes her counterpart in the face—“is actually Plagg—”

”Hey!”

”—and Adrien is actually Chat Noir.”

Marinette runs her hand through her hair. “Wow,” she says. “This is... a lot.”

Tikki giggles. Plagg cackles.

Marinette drops into her computer chair. “Plagg,” she says, “Good to see you again.”

“You too, Pigtails.” He grins.

Marinette casts her gaze up toward Adrien. “He seemed kind of fragile, up there,” she says. “Is he okay?”

Plagg clears his throat. “Honestly?” he says. “No. He’s not.” He floats upward, looking at his chosen. “You’ve met his dad, right?”

Marinette nods. “Gabriel’s not any better in private, I take it?”

”Oh no,” Plagg says. “He’s much worse.”

Marinette feels a growl rising in her throat. Tikki just frowns.

“Everyone in his life overlooks him except for us,” Plagg continues. “The only support the kid gets is from me, and I’m no good at it.” There’s a sadness evident in his big cat eyes. “All I’m really good for is breaking things.”

”I can relate,” Marinette mumbles, though which part of it she’s relating to isn’t entirely clear even to her.

Tikki waddles up to Plagg and presses her disproportionately large head into his tiny furry chest, trapping him in a hug that he half-heartedly tries to squirm his way out of, though it’s obvious to Marinette that he’s secretly enjoying it. “You’re doing fine, Stinky,” Tikki says. “You always do.”

Plagg relaxes into the hug, his pupils blowing wide, and he purrs.

Marinette looks away, feeling like she’s intruding on something sacred. Or at least special to the two Kwami. But that brings her back to Adrien, and she realizes there’s a question she needs the answer to.

”Plagg,” she says, “how did he figure out my identity?”

Plagg turns to her, his pupils narrowing back to their normal width as he focuses on her. "Oh," he says. "It was Oblivio."

Marinette feels her heart squeeze. "What?" she gasps. "He's known for a month?" He’d really waited that long? Why? Was she not good enough, was he disappointed—

“What? No!” Plagg said, pulling himself away from Tikki. “He found out two days ago.” He closes one eye and purses his lips. “Let me grab his phone, it’ll be easier to show you.”

---

“Take care of her, okay? I know I’m not gonna remember this when it’s done, so... I’m counting on you.”

The video goes black, and the play symbol appears on the screen. Marinette’s fingers twitch, but the whole rest of her is frozen. Even her eyelids won’t blink.

"He wasn't kissing Ladybug," she whispers. "He was kissing me."

Plagg cackles. "Since when is there a difference?"

Tikki frowns at him. "Be nice, Plagg," she says. "This is something she's sensitive about."

But there are a few things that Marinette knows about Adrien—one of which is that he's bad at making his own decisions. If someone else tells him to do something, he won't even consider saying no—and Oblivio!Adrien left some very clear instructions...

All the things he's done for her over the last few days... did he really mean it? Or was it just out of a sense of obligation? The Adrien without memories fell in love with her, that much is clear—and that sends a little thrill up her spine, he fell in love with her—but now-Adrien, the one who still has his memories, didn't do anything until he found out who she was. He's always been in love with Ladybug, and now he's got someone telling him to love her too...

Her breath catches. "This isn't about me, is it?" she says. "It's about her." Tears well up in her eyes. "It's always about her."

“Zae agaashi nungarra!” Plagg snaps. "I can't take this anymore!" He zips into Adrien's bag and emerges carrying a notepad that's much, much bigger than he is, slapping it down on Marinette's desk. He sits down next to the notebook. "This is what he spent the last few days doing," he says. "Read it."

Marinette picks up the notebook and sees, in Adrien's handwriting, I spent the whole double date with Kagami looking at her instead.

She flips the page. There's three full pages of this, double-sided.

She's the only one I wanted to dance with at Chloé's party.

I was so excited when I thought she had written me a Valentine's poem.

Videogames at her house was the most fun I've had pretty much ever.

I keep trying to think of excuses to invite her to modeling events.

When the news assumed she was my girlfriend I never even thought about trying to correct it.

I literally tackled her to protect her on Heroes’ Day.

Marinette keeps flipping between pages, reading every entry. “What is this?” she whispers, her voice hoarse.

”Evidence,” Plagg says, “that he was already in love with you.”

Marinette turns back to the list. There’s so much: every interaction they’ve ever had, even ones that she’s forgotten about, and she can’t believe they’ve stuck in his mind. But the conclusion is inescapable.

Adrien wasn’t lying, and he’s not doing this out of obligation. He doesn’t like her just because she’s Ladybug. Adrien Agreste is well and truly in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Marinette falls back in her chair, smiles, and starts to cry.

Notes:

Translation note: Plagg’s line is Sumerian for, roughly, “You awkward moron!”

Chapter 9: Combust

Notes:

Warning: light sin. VERY AWKWARD sin.

His name is Adrien Agreste, and he is in love.

He wakes up in a snap as the afternoon light moves across his face through the skylight; he’s never had the luxury of waking slowly, even his good dreams end stressfully and suddenly. But this one seems to have followed him into the waking world, because for whatever reason, Ladybug is lying next to him, smiling softly.

”Hey, handsome,” she says. “Sleep well?”

It takes him a second to realize that, despite her smooth and confident delivery, she’s blushing under her mask. But that still doesn’t change the fact that this is Ladybug, and she is in bed right next to him.

”Uh... h-hi,” he says. “You’re, uh, wow. Hi.”

She giggles, and it’s the pure, delighted laugh he’s always sought as Chat, that little bit of Marinette that she’s been willing to show him. It’s the same laugh, the same closed eyes and shoulder shake, and he smiles. Even though he just made a bit of an idiot of himself, he made her smile.

”You seemed like you were having nice dreams,” she said. “Was I in them?”

”Always,” he responds immediately. He bites his lip. “Good ones and bad ones.”

She smiles. ”Which were you having?”

The side of his lip tugs downward. “That depends,” he says “I... is this part of... is this real?” 

“Does this feel real?” she says. She closes her eyes and leans forward, lips pursed, but he stops her with a hand pressed against her chest.

“Can you... detransform?” he says. “I want to see Marinette.”

She blinks, then whispers, “Spots off.” Her body washes in pink sparks, the red of her Kwami spiraling out from her ears, and there’s Marinette, awkward, gentle, perfect Marinette, blushing from her neck to the tips of her ears.

”I’ll leave you two alone,” Tikki says, vanishing over the edge of the bed.

Adrien smiles and boops Marinette’s nose. “You were hiding from me.”

Marinette rolls over, turning her back to him. “Thought it would be easier,” she grumbles.

”Are you okay?” Adrien says. “You’ve never hidden behind Ladybug before—that’s my thing.”

”You usually throw yourself in front of me,” Marinette responds. He can’t see her face, but there’s a smile in her voice.

Adrien snorts. “You know what I meant.” He touches his face, right where the mask would meet his cheeks if he was wearing it. “You don’t have to pretend to not be scared, Mari.” He breathes in, then out. “I’m terrified.”

She breathes in. “Kitty,” she says, “I love you so much. And just...” She sighs. “What if everything changes?”

He smirks. “It already did.”

She blindly slaps toward his face, though given how close they are she mostly ends up elbowing him in the collarbone. “You know what I meant.” She curls up again, her hands pressed against her chest. “What if I... what if I lose you?”

He’s silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve been...” He coughs, though he’s fairly certain he’s just stalling. “I’ve been ready to die since Stoneheart re-akumatized.”

She doesn’t respond, and he wonders whether he should’ve said that. But it’s too late to take it back; he’s said it, it’s out there.

She breathes in and turns over, and his eyes are suddenly locked onto hers, she’s drawing him in. There’s a power in her gaze that he can’t fight. “Adrien Agreste,” Marinette says, though it’s Ladybug’s commanding voice coming out of her mouth. “You are not allowed to die.”

”Yes ma’am,” he says, immediately, before his mind can protest.

She giggles. “Good Kitty.”

Adrien is very glad that the comforter is covering everything below the waist, because he’s fairly certain that if she saw how his body reacted to her praise—and, moreover, her commanding presence—he would probably combust. Luckily he is saved from that particular brand of embarrassment when his phone begins to ring in his pocket with the Gorilla’s ringtone.

He turns away from Marinette, fishing into his pocket for the phone, revealing the time. “Ah, crap,” he says. “School let out like twenty minutes ago.”

”Oh no,” Marinette says. “Are you going to be in trouble with your dad?”

”I don’t know,” Adrien says, answering the call. “Hello?”

”You all right?” the Gorilla’s husky voice responds.

”Yeah, fine,” Adrien says, looking over at Marinette. She smiles shyly. “Sorry, there’s a, uh, group project? I went over to Marinette’s place. Didn’t mean to forget to call.”

”Marinette from the bakery.”

Adrien nods. “Yep.”

”Mhm.” The Gorilla makes a noise like he’s thinking. “What’s the project?”

Adrien freezes—he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

The Gorilla snorts, for him the equivalent of a full-throated laugh. “I’ll let Monsieur Agreste know you won’t be home for dinner,” he says, fondly. “Give you time to work out the rest of your excuse.” Adrien hears the rumble of the car starting. “Enjoy your date.”

The phone beeps, signaling the call has ended, and Adrien pulls the phone away and stares at it. “...Damn,” he says. “Did everyone know I was in love with you before I did?”

Marinette says something that sounds suspiciously like meep and buries her face in his shoulder. “I didn’t,” she says, muffled.

They lay there together for a moment in silence, before Adrien gently pokes Marinette in the side with a grin. “Hey,” he says. “You said you loved me.”

He feels Marinette’s stomach seize against his own as her entire face bleaches into the color of bone. “I was talking to Chat Noir,” she whispers.

Adrien opens his mouth to make a joke—What’s the difference?—but then he thinks about their lunch conversation, her panicking and passing out onto him. As difficult as this has been for him, he’d always been the one to make the first move in both of their relationships; even just trying to keep herself together around him must be practically killing her.

”Well then,” he says, “might be easier for you to talk to him instead.” He holds up his hand, the one with the ring. “Claws out.” The green light washes up his body, cloth replaced by leather.

Marinette visibly relaxes, sinking into his chest with a dreamy sigh. Then she raises her eyes to his and grins. “When did you get so perceptive, you goober?”

Chat smiles. There she is. ”When a memory-wiped version of myself left me a video calling me an idiot.”

Marinette giggles. “It was kind of cute seeing you make things with your hands.”

Chat groans. “Oh no,” he says. “Plagg showed you the video.”

Marinette nods. ”And your notes.”

Chat freezes. “...Fuck.”

Marinette smirks and looks pointedly at her pull-down schedule.

Chat laughs. “Okay, okay,” he says. “Point taken.” He thinks for a moment. “I don’t remember making the costume, but as for making things with my hands... baking was certainly fun, once I figured it out.”

Marinette flicks his nose. “You still haven’t.”

”What do you mean?”

”Yeast doesn’t go in cookies, Chaton.”

He stares at her. “Oh, god damn it.” He messed up that badly? But still, she seemed to appreciate the gesture more than the cookies themselves, so he decides to count it as a win and roll with the punch. He dramatically clenches his jaw, raising his fist like a movie villain. “Google has failed me,” he mock-snarls.

Marinette laughs and pokes his cheek. “You know, if you really enjoyed it, I’m sure my parents would love to teach you.”

He pouts, casting his best kitten eyes in her direction. “Maybe I want you to teach me.”

She snickers. “You’re just trying to get me into the waitress outfit from the premiere again.”

There’s a moment while both of them process what she’s just said. Her face goes full crimson barely half a second before the exact outfit she’s referring to pops into his mind, and the skintight suit is suddenly a lot tighter. “I—don’t know... what you’re talking about?” he chokes out.

Marinette squeaks, rolling away from him and covering her face with her arms.

”Oh shit Plagg showed you the notes!” Chat shrieks, reddening. His reaction to the waitress outfit is far from the most embarrassing thing on there: not everything on the list is a thing that happened in reality, and some of those were meant to be very private. “Fuck,” he says. “H-how... much of it... did you read?”

"I...” She breathes in, then out, very deliberately. “I had to—to stop when I got to the, um, the dream where I—I took your tail off? And then, um—”

Chat rubs his wrists. He remembers that particular dream very well. “In my defense,” he mumbles, “that happened the night after the class elections, and you had a very commanding presence that day.”

Marinette says nothing, simply groaning unintelligibly.

“Claws in,” Chat says. His suit vanishes and Plagg ejects from the ring, snickering. “Plagg,” Adrien says, “please kill me.”

Notes:

The yeast thing was totally Adrien's mistake and not mine. Yes. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Also, I SWEAR I meant for them to kiss this chapter. But they’re so awkward... 😅

Chapter 10: Family

He’s only had dinner at the Lahiffes’ a few times, but it’s enough to know that his situation is not normal. Nino’s family makes a point of setting aside time to make sure everyone in the family can make it to dinner; for them, it’s a family meal, but there’s enough of them that that has to be enforced a little bit, which usually took the form of Nino’s father playfully chucking soft pieces of bread at his son whenever Nino tried to check his phone at the table. For all the chaos of the Lahiffe dining table, Adrien had felt more at home there—even if a little out of place—than he ever had alone in his giant dining room.

Dinner with the Dupain-Chengs is another experience entirely. The atmosphere has a vastly different energy: Nino’s house always felt like crackling electricity, the pumping of a bass drum, constantly alive and excited and thriving. Marinette’s is warm, soft, suffused with palpable love from the foundations to the very tip of the lightning rod. Even more—where Nino’s family had put immense effort into making him feel welcome, Marinette’s parents have sort of just assumed he already belongs.

”—and he asks me if they’re fresh again, so keep in mind this is four times now,” Tom says, holding up four fingers and smiling through his mustache, “and I don’t know what to do except keep reassuring him that I just pulled them out of the oven. So my lovely darling wife interrupts and says...” He casts a look over at Sabine.

She smirks, idly stirring what little is left of her soup while watching for Adrien’s reaction. “I said, ‘sir, if they were any fresher, the wheat would still be in the ground.’”

Tom howls with laughter, and Adrien feels himself dragged into the massive baker’s joyful aura, cackling along with him to the point that he can’t quite breathe. He steals a glance at Marinette, and she’s smiling, and everything’s all right.

He read once that all happy families were happy in the same way, that uniqueness is limited to forms of unhappiness. He’s only met two happy families, but he can already tell that’s horseshit.

“Mama, you didn’t!” Marinette laughs.

Sabine beams at her daughter. “Of course I did,” she says with a crinkle in the corners of her eyes. “He was being rude, so I didn’t see the need to be polite.” She glances down at her empty soup bowl, then at everyone else’s. “Marinette, sweetie, will you help me grab the chicken?”

”Of course, Mama,” she says, standing up. Her hand trails behind her on the table’s surface, and Adrien takes a moment to squeeze her hand before she leaves. She lights up at his touch, her shine filling his vision, and he finds himself struck dumb all over again just from the thought of her.

Marinette follows her mother into the kitchen, and Tom’s face suddenly steels. “Adrien,” he says. “I need to ask you some things.”

Adrien swallows, once again remembering the wolfman who’d nearly killed him not a month before under very similar circumstances. “Of—of course,” he says.

Tom steeples his fingers. “My daughter has been in love with you for nearly a year,” he says. “In that time, Sabine and I have had to console her a number of times when you...” He trails off and sighs. “We want nothing more for her than to be happy, you understand,” he says. “And while I understand your intentions may have been good, your actions over the last year have occasionally left her feeling... inadequate.”

Adrien swallows. Tom’s reaction is completely justified—for all that he’s been calling Marinette a friend, he’s been an ass when it comes to her feelings by chasing the wrong version of her for months. “Yeah,” he whispers.

Much to Adrien’s surprise, Tom smiles reassuringly. “I’m not angry at you, son,” he says. “I just want to make sure you be careful.”

Adrien takes a moment, licks his lips. “I...” He looks down at the empty place between his fork and knife, breathes in, and starts again. “Monsieur Dupain,” he says, “I have been in love with Marinette since the day we met.” Both days, really. Both times they met. Which was, of course, the problem.

Tom narrows his eyes, and Adrien jerks backwards before remembering: this isn’t his house. This isn’t his father. This is Tom Dupain, who had to be possessed by evil magic to ever hurt anyone. “I—I—I—” Adrien begins, shaking his head. He bites his lower lip, refocusing. There’s a plausible lie here, and it doesn’t take long to find—partly because it’s not entirely a lie. “My family isn’t... expressive,” he says. “I didn’t really know what love was supposed to look like, so I didn’t...” He frowns. “I didn’t recognize the feeling.”

”Oh,” Tom says, his face fallen.

”When I met Nino’s family, I started seeing differently... and then, you and Madame Cheng...” Adrien says, gesturing toward the kitchen. “What you two have... there’s never been anything else like it in my life. Except how I feel for your daughter.”

He hears a muffled sob from behind the kitchen door. “Princess?” he says, his voice rising in horror. “Were you listening to that?”

“I’m not crying you’re crying!” she yelps back.

”Okay!” Sabine says, pushing through the door and dragging Marinette in her wake. “I think it’s time for the next course.” She places the chicken on the table in the middle—it’s slathered in some sort of cream sauce, and Adrien finds himself salivating.

”I’m glad we can count on you to protect her,” Tom says, taking the serving fork and spearing a few choice pieces of chicken, then shaking them loose onto his plate.

”Monsieur Dupain,” Adrien says, taking a moment to squeeze Marinette’s hand as she sits back down next to him, “I have literally given my life for her, on more than one occasion.”

Tom drops the fork with a clatter, and Sabine gasps.

”It’s okay!” Marinette interjects, suddenly crushing his wrist under the table in a clear message of what the hell were you thinking, you weren’t supposed to say that. “It was only during Akuma attacks, so Ladybug brought him back every time.”

Tom steeples his fingers. "Son," he says. "I need to ask you to stop dying."

"You'd break poor Marinette's heart," Sabine adds, squeezing her daughter's arm from the other side.

Tom nods, picking the fork back up and pushing some pieces of chicken onto his wife's plate. "Also your father's, I'd expect."

"I doubt that," Adrien grumbles, and he thinks it's under his breath, but the way Marinette's parents are looking at him makes him think they heard him.

"Sabine, Dumpling," Tom says, turning to his wife, "can we adopt him?”

She shrugs. "That might make the wedding tricky, legally.”

"Maman!" Marinette shrieks, her face going bright red. "We're... we're not... we haven't even kissed yet!"

Adrien raises a finger. "Uh, technically—"

She glares at him.

He puts the finger back down. "Yes ma'am, shutting up now."

"Ah, I see you're making a good husband out of him already," Sabine says as Tom moves on to Marinette's plate.

"Maman!" Marinette somehow manages to shriek louder this time.

"Well, while we're on the subject," Tom says with a jovial smile, chasing down some chicken with the serving fork. "Adrien, do you think modeling is a good situation to support a family?"

Adrien chuckles, looking as Tom drops the meat onto his plate. "Didn't you ask me that last time?"

The table falls completely silent, and Tom freezes. "I've only said that to one boy before," he says.

Adrien swallows, and he sees recognition spark in the eyes of both of Marinette's parents.

Marinette glances between her parents' faces in a panic, then, apparently seeing the same thing he does, closes her eyes and tilts her head back in exasperation. "You couldn't even make it an hour," she grumbles.

Chapter 11: Together

If there’s one thing about Chat Noir that worries Marinette (there isn’t, there’s a whole collection of them and she has a list) it’s that he loves like a drowning man. Like he’s scrabbling for affection of any kind, even harmful or fake, like he doesn’t know what love is supposed to feel like and he’s constantly afraid of losing it. He loves like it’s fragile, like it’s about to collapse out from under him. Now that she knows he’s Adrien, she’s aware of exactly where that comes from, why he’s so terrified of disappointing people.

Which is why, even though she is rip-roaring pissed at him for spilling his identity so easily, she does her best not to let it show. He’s far more fragile than she would’ve ever believed, and there’ll be time to be angry at him later.

“Chat Noir?,” her father says, confused. He looks at her, as if to say did you know about this?

“Who did this to you.” Her mother’s voice is cold, and Marinette can practically feel the temperature in the room drop at the harshness of her voice. She’s clearly enraged on Adrien’s behalf—but, Marinette realizes as her heartbeat leaps into her ears—he’s going to misread it, think she’s angry at him, and he’s going to collapse.

She can already see him curling in on himself, hear the raggedness of his breath. ”Please...” Adrien whispers, fidgeting with the ring with both hands. “Please, don’t—don’t t-take this—away from me.” There are tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, and he blinks them away. Marinette realizes he’s trying to hide his emotions, lest they get him punished. “It’s all I have.”

She grabs his hand off the table, squeezes it between her fingers, and resolves to “accidentally” punch his father in the face the next time Ladybug gets the opportunity. “No one’s taking anything, Kitty,” she says. “You’re not the one they’re mad at.”

He looks at her with pitiful eyes. He’s still quivering, still curled up like he’s expecting someone to hit him. “A-are you mad at me?”

She squeezes his hand and smiles. “Furious,” she says as calmly as she possibly can, “but I’m not going anywhere.” She places her hands on either side of his cheeks. “Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean I love you any less, okay?”

He stares at her, wide-eyed. “W-What?”

”Accidents happen, Minou,” she says, squeezing his face so he looks like a pufferfish. “I’m not leaving you just because you messed up.”

He continues staring for a moment before finally, slowly, beginning to uncurl. “Okay,” he breathes, closing his eyes. “Okay okay okay.”

Sabine growls. “I’m going to have words with whoever put the responsibility for the safety of an entire city in the hands of an abused child,” she says. Then her face lightens, softens. “We’re very proud of you, Adrien,” she says, holding out her hand and placing it on the table, palm up. Not invading his space, but an invitation into hers. “You’re very brave.”

Her father looks between his wife and his daughter’s boyfriend, then holds out his hand as well. “No matter what happens,” he says, his voice quiet, “you will always be safe here.”

Adrien looks between their hands, then their faces—but his gaze flicks down, almost ashamed. And he begins to cry.

---

After Adrien has had a few minutes to cry himself out, enwrapped in three sets of loving arms, her father slowly extricates himself from the hug pile and goes into the kitchen to retrieve dessert. He comes back out carrying a fresh chocolate-iced cake that says “Congratulations Adrienette!” on it in looping baby blue, surrounded by red hearts, and Marinette feels heat flood her face at the mere sight of it. God, she was expecting them to be a bit embarrassing, but this—!

She glances at Adrien, hoping maybe he hasn’t looked, but he’s staring straight at it with those soft eyes, and she melts.

”Dumpling,” her father says with a glance at her mother, “I think you owe me those ten Euros back.” He places the cake on the table gentle as a Kwami’s kiss.

Her mother groans and stands up, walking to where her purse is hanging near the door. “In my defense,” she grumbles, “neither one of us expected them both to be the same boy.”

Marinette, who is still holding Adrien (who has snuggled into her like an actual honest-to-god cat), glances between her parents indignantly. “You were gambling on my love life?”

Her mother smiles and nods, completely absent of shame. “Your father had ten Euros on Chat Noir,” she says, reaching for the cake knife. “My money was on Adrien.”

”Neither of you put money on Luka?” Adrien says, still snuggled against Marinette. She's not sure whether to be offended by the naked delight in his voice.

”The Couffaine boy?” her father says with amused incredulity. He reaches out and pinches Marinette’s cheek, causing her to squeak in embarrassment. “Of course not. I know my little sweet roll better than that.”

"Papa!" she squawks, slapping his arm away.

Adrien breathes in through his teeth, making a whistling noise. "What are we going to tell him?" he says. "Didn't he get Akumatized over you?"

Marinette freezes. "Oh, no," she whispers. "Kagami."

"I think you two are missing the biggest problem here," her father says. He's holding two plates, each with a slice of cake on them, and he places one at each of their spots at the table. "What are you going to tell Ladybug?"

Marinette and Adrien both look at him, then turn to each other. Their eyes meet. Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh, Marinette tells herself, but it's not good—she can tell Adrien's about to lose it, and suddenly so is she.

They're both cackling in seconds.

"I'm serious," her father grumbles, sitting down and spinning the cake fork in his fingers. "She may deny it, but I've seen the way she looks at you. She'll be crushed."

"I think—" Marinette says through her giggles, "she'll be—fine!"

Adrien presses his hands to his cheeks, forcing his laughter back down for long enough to be coherent. "She just—just got a boyfriend!"

Sabine gives the two of them an impassive stare. "And the photograph?" she says with one eyebrow raised.

All of Marinette's muscles go tense at once. So do Adrien's. The photograph—how did they forget about the photograph, Oblivio was what started this!

“Adrien,” her father says. He’s concerned, though Marinette can’t tell if that concern is directed at her or at him (or even at Ladybug). “Are you going to continue pursuing Ladybug?”

”Absolutely not, sir,” Adrien replies. Marinette feels a flash of indignation at how fast he was able to answer, before he winks at her with the eye furthest from her parents—and she realizes he’s not even lying: there’s no need to pursue Ladybug when he already won her.

---

She’s holding his hand on his way out the door. “I think we should tell them,” she says to Tikki. “If they already know about him—”

”It’s not safe,” the Kwami insists. “Even knowing Adrien’s identity is a risk. If they get Akumatized—”

”I can teach them how to fight it off,” Marinette says with a shrug. “I’ve done  it before.”

Adrien snorts. “Of course you have,” he says. “No way Chloé beat you to that accomplishment.”

She smiles, blushing, and smacks his shoulder.

”We can continue this conversation later,” Plagg croaks. “Looks like our ride’s here.” He jabs his head twice in the direction of the door as the dark car honks its horn.

”I’ll see you tomorrow,” Adrien says, holding onto Marinette’s waist. He’s not looking at her face, but he’s not concealing what he wants either, and the unsureness on his face is enough to grant Marinette a rush of Ladybug courage.

”Hey,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Let’s see if you can remember this one.”

”Remember this wha—” he says, but then she’s on her toes and her lips are on his, and there’s nothing he wants to say at all.

The car beeps again, and she pulls away from him. He’s reeling, red, and she wants to laugh at how utterly gobsmacked he looks, but instead she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I—I love you, Adrien Agreste,” she says, and mentally does a little fist pump that she barely stuttered at all. She said it. After a year of failed messages and false starts, she finally said it.

”I...” he slurs, his body wavering dreamily. “I love you too, Marinette.” He touches his fingers to his lips, his eyes focusing again, looking right at her. “From the day we met.”

The driver honks again, laying on the horn for a few seconds this time, and Adrien smiles. “Gotta go.”

”See you tomorrow,” she says as he pulls away. He turns back to her and waves.

The door closed, and Marinette slumps across the wall. Her face hurts from grinning. “I did it, Tikki!”

”You did!” Tikki says, nuzzling her cheek. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

Marinette’s smile grows wider, and she has to remind herself to breathe so she doesn’t cry. “Adrien Agreste is my boyfriend,” she tells herself, and it’s finally starting to feel like it’s not a dream. “Adrien Agreste is my boyfriend.”

”Your soulmate,” Tikki agrees sleepily, settling into the hair on the top of Marinette’s head.

Marinette yawns. “My Kitten,” she says, wandering up the stairs to her bedroom.

She flops into bed unceremoniously to dream about a future that, for once, doesn’t seem quite so out of reach. 

Chapter 12: Counsel

“Do you think this is what that day was like?” Adrien says as they walk, conspicuously not holding hands in case of ambush by paparazzi. Not that that’ll deter them much from making the connection; he keeps looking at her in ways that make her legs wobble, he’s grinning like an idiot and practically dancing. “You know, when we were...” He waves his hand in a circle.

”Probably not,” Marinette says, quiet. Her hands are clasped together, held low in front of her; her stomach keeps flipping as she alternates between giddy and terrified. “If I assumed we were already together I was probably a lot less anxious.”

Immediately, he stops, his eyes going soft in that way that makes her want to wrap his arms around his head and hug it against her chest. “Anxious?” he says. “Mari, are you okay?”

She breathes, centering herself. She doesn't want to ruin his mood. “I just... keep feeling like this isn’t real.”

He nods. “Yeah,” he says with a smile. “I’m having a little trouble believing it myself.”

She shakes her head, sucking in her lip. He doesn't understand. “I keep worrying that I’m going to... do something, to screw this up, and you’re going to realize you don’t like me, and—”

”Hey,” he murmurs, his fingers gently wrapped around her wrist. “You’re spiraling.”

She swallows and nods jerkily, then closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

”You good?”

She nods again.

He presses her hand against his chest. “Hey,” he says again. “I fell in love with you three separate times, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

And just like that, everything's better again. He's so sweet, and she wonders how she could possibly be this lucky, that not only is he exactly what she always dreamed of, he's better. She considers for a moment, and then—damn the paparazzi. She steps into him, pressing her face against his chest, and...

Oh sweet Tikki did she just chirp?

Both of them freeze.

Marinette wants to shriek. No, she wants to bolt. She wants her embarrassment to turn physical, to combust her and burn her to ash right now so she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that she just chirped at Adrien Agreste.

Adrien chuckles. ”Is that the sound that ladybugs make?” he says, ruffling her hair. He’s mocking her, just a little, but it’s a fond mocking. “I always wondered if the purring was just a me thing.”

“Keep this up and you’re never seeing the bun again,” Marinette grumbles into his chest.

He throws up his hands. “I’ll be good.”

She smiles, pulls away from him, but he holds onto her hand for a moment before she finally slips out. They walk down the street, quiet. There's still something unspoken between them, a worry that hasn't been put to rest, but neither of them wants to broach the subject.

”You’re still nervous,” Adrien says, finally. “And not just about me.”

Marinette stops, sighs. “We weren’t supposed to know,” she says. “And yeah, it’s dangerous, but what if...” She swallows. This is what she's been worrying about since last night, since Adrien moved to protect his ring. “What if he decides it’s too dangerous? What if... what if he takes them away?” She fingers her earrings, nervous. She’s not looking at him.

He takes her in his arms again. “You’re still Marinette,” he says softly, and the way he emphasizes her name reminds her again just how much he thinks of her. “Magic Ladybug earrings or no.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not what I’m worried about,” she says. He understands so much, so much more than she ever expected, but he still doesn't understand this one thing. “I mean, I’ll miss Tikki, but I could do without being Ladybug. It's always been... more of a burden, for me.” She looks at him, and it’s hard, not crying. “But last night, when you thought my parents were going to ask you to give up being Chat—”

Adrien smiles, and her heart stutters. “Is that all?” he says, like she hasn’t been worrying about this all morning. Like Adrien losing his freedom hasn’t been driving her insane since it first occurred to her. He runs his hands down her arms. “Losing Chat Noir wouldn’t be so bad. I have you.”

Marinette’s throat seizes, and it’s everything she can do not to cry. She loves him so much, and every time he says it back it’s like the first time all over again. It’s like he’s falling in love with her all over again, like she can finally believe it.

But the way he’s treating her... it’s unsettling. Even when she planned out her whole life with him, there were parts of it that weren’t about him, and Adrien—he’s clinging to her like he doesn’t have anything else, because he doesn’t. She can’t be the only bright spot in his life, can’t have another responsibility that she can’t live up to.

But he’s so happy, her brain supplies. And so are you. Do you really want to risk that?

And this is the problem, the last thing she can't quite shake: she's worried that this isn't going anywhere healthy, that he's going to destroy himself for her, and she might not be able to save him without losing him first.

She shakes her head. There’s no easy answer here. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go talk to Fu.”

It’s two minutes later when they knock on his door, and the jovial Chinese man throws it open and beams at them. “Marinette!” he exclaims, throwing his arms around her shoulders (on his tiptoes, she notices. Either she's gotten taller or he's shrunk). “It’s so good to see you!”

”Hi, Master Fu!” she says. “How’s your... um...”

”Constipation?” he says with a grin. “The medicine you brought me cleared it right up.”

”Wait,” Adrien says. “That was for you?”

Fu’s eyes flick to Adrien, and for a moment, his face falls. “Ah,” he says. “You know, then.”

Marinette and Adrien swallow in unison.

”Oh, well,” Fu says with fond exasperation, the laugh lines returning to his eyes. “I suppose it can’t be helped. Come in, have some tea!”

---

“This is... concerning news,” Fu says, after they’ve told him everything. They’re all kneeling on the floor around the massage mat, drinking some of Fu’s excellent rejuvenating tea. The Kwami are mirroring them, having their own tea party on top of the gramophone. Fu pours a bit more tea into Marinette's cup. “Your parents’ knowledge could be exceedingly dangerous, even moreso than you simply knowing about each other.”

“I think we can handle it,” Marinette says, with more confidence than she feels. She takes up the cup, watching the swirling particulate, and tries not to let her hands shake.

Fu smiles back at her. “I have no doubt you can,” he says, and she looks up in surprise, realizes that he means it. There is absolutely no doubt in his mind that the two of them would be able to deal with any complications that might arise from Adrien’s blunder the previous evening.

Adrien fidgets, turning his teacup in its tiny plate. His fingers are twitching the way he does when he’s uncomfortable, when he’s in a situation he wants to get out of but can’t. He clears his throat. “I...” he says. “I don’t want to give up being Chat Noir.”

Fu opens the teapot and peers inside, making sure there's still enough for... whatever. “Whatever gave you the idea that you’d need to?” he says, not even looking at Adrien.

Adrien blinks. “I, uh...”

Fu presses his hand to the teapot lid and tilts it, refilling his cup. “You’ll just have to be more careful, is all.” He meets Adrien’s eyes with another comforting smile. “Besides,” he says, raising the cup and turning it in his hand, inspecting it, “even if I felt you should return the Miraculous, it’s no longer my decision.”

“What?” Adrien and Marinette say in unison.

Fu chuckles. ”Well, first, if I were to attempt to take your ring, Plagg would likely burn my house down.”

”Damn straight,” Plagg says from the gramophone, without looking up from his teacup. The warm smile that spreads across Adrien’s face at his Kwami’s possessiveness makes Marinette want to squeal in delight—she'll die happy if she can spend the rest of her life looking at that smile.

”And second...” Fu places his cup on the ground next to his knees. “Marinette has begun training as my successor, meaning who gets what Miraculous is now in her hands, not mine.” He smiles. "And since you are her soulmate..."

Adrien swallows and nods.

"However," Fu says, "even if none of those things were true, you have proven yourself a worthy wielder of the Black Cat Miraculous multiple times over." He raises the cup again in a silent salute. "Allowing you to continue to wield it is certainly worth the risks."

Adrien's eyelid twitches, and he sniffs. Marinette can tell he's trying not to cry, so she reaches over and squeezes his hand.

Fu turns to Marinette. "I have placed... a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders," he says. "It was necessary, but I have still done a great wrong to you that I will likely never be able to right." He nervously turns his cup. "Given what has occurred, I agree that it is safer to reveal your identity to your parents than to attempt to further hide it."

Marinette's breath catches, and she sobs. All the lying, all the things she's been hiding from her parents, the parts she hates most about being Ladybug—she can't believe it. She's finally done with the secrets. She's done betraying her parents' trust.

"Adrien," Fu says, turning to him. "This was previously not a problem, but now that you are with Marinette, I have a warning for you."

Adrien bristles. "Whatever it is, I can handle it."

Fu smiles. "It is very important," he says, pointing at the boy, "that you remember to make your own identity, and to not simply define yourself as part of Marinette, or by what you are to other people."

Adrien freezes. "What?" he says.

Marinette's head snaps around. This... it's exactly what she was too scared to talk to him about. Is Fu really...?

Fu takes a sip of his tea, swishes it around in his mouth (looking for all the world like the child who fled the temple a century and a half ago), and swallows. "At this age," he says, "you are still making your identity. And you have spent much of your life allowing other people to define you." He sets his cup back onto the plate and places it on the ground. "You must remember not to make her all of it. Marinette is your soulmate, but she is also many other things: she is a designer, she is the class president, and she is the future guardian. You are her other half, but you are also yourself—" He nods to both of them in turn. "—and you owe it to both her and you to figure out who you are independent of her."

Adrien opens his mouth, indignant, but Fu interrupts him. "You must choose what will make YOU happy," he says, "not what you believe will make her happy. Because what will truly make her happiest..." He smiles at Marinette. "Is knowing that you are."

Adrien turns to her, confusion on his face. But tears are gathering in Marinette's eyes now. "Th-thank you," she croaks. She looks at Adrien. "I just—" She looks down. "I want you to be you."

Adrien swallows, looks back and forth between her and Fu. "You're talking like... like we're going to break up..."

"Oh, Kitty, never." She reaches out and grabs his hand. "I just want you to find as many things that make you happy as you can..." She wipes her eyes. "And... not resent me, years down the line."

Adrien's face softens. "Years?" he breathes.

Marinette nods. "Years," she says. "I told you last night..." She smiles, presses his hand to her lips. "I'm not going anywhere."

Chapter 13: Public

There's a bug on her arm. Adrien's arm is around her shoulder, and they're sitting together against a tree with their lunches, but there's a bug on her arm and she can't stop staring.

Don't eat it. Don't eat it. Don't eat bugs in front of Adrien, he's going to think you're weird, don't eat it—

"It's okay," he murmurs. "You've seen me chase lasers."

"What?" she says, weakly.

He turns from his notebook, caresses her cheek with his thumb. "You can eat it if you need to."

She looks at him, blinks, then reaches down and pops it into her mouth, closing her teeth around it with a crunch. She shivers as the juice splashes across her tongue, sweet and tangy and delicious; she'd always considered insects gross before she became Ladybug, and now she's eating them and it's basically the same feeling she gets when Adrien's skin brushes against hers.

Adrien chuckles and turns back to his notebook, tapping his pencil pensively against his lips. The page is mostly empty, just a title and three entries:

Things I Enjoy:

Being a superhero.

Playing with Kitty Section.

Gaming.

Marinette purses her lips at the sight. She's glad Adrien's taken Fu's advice to heart so quickly, but there's so many things that she knows he does that aren't making it onto the list. She stopped suggesting things a few minutes ago; she can't keep watching the way his face falls whenever she suggests something, only for him to realize he's only doing it because someone else made him, not because he wants to. And there are so many of those things.

They don't have much longer left in lunch, but she's not really ready to go back inside yet. They've agreed that they can't keep this secret, that they need to get out ahead of it at least with the class. When they go back, they're going to tell everybody that they're together. Alya, Nino, and Alix already know, but in a few minutes Chloé and Lila will too, and so will Kim, and Myléne, and Rose, and Sabrina, and Max, and Marinette isn't ready for that. She's not ready to be mobbed. She's not ready for their cheering, or for Chloé and Lila's escalating contempt—her heart is beating a little faster at the thought, and not in a good way. She pushes the thought away, pretends it's not there, papers over the panic with the scent of his skin. She takes a moment to snuggle in closer to Adrien's side and appreciate being just the two of them for a few minutes longer.

Then Adrien sighs and puts the notebook aside. “I’m worried about Kagami,” he says.

Marinette groans softly. “Do we... have to talk about that now?” she says, snuggling in closer to his side.

He pulls her closer with the arm wrapped around her shoulder, kisses her forehead. “It can wait,” he says.

Marinette feels heat flood her face—how is she still a mess around him?—but then she grimaces. “No, you’re right. She’s not going to take this well, is she.”

”I don’t know,” Adrien says. “I don’t think she has many friends aside from us, and, well...” He sighs. “You saw how she reacted when Lila sent that picture. She’s going to think she’s losing both of us.”

Marinette steels her jaw. “I’ll talk to her before fencing practice,” she says.

---

Adrien walks into the classroom in front of Marinette—they discussed it beforehand, and while he’s nervous, he’s not likely to have a panic attack. Plus, Chloé or Lila are less likely to attack him than her. There’s only a minute or two left in lunch, meaning they won’t get overwhelmed with questions. 

“Hey, guys?” Adrien says as Marinette hides behind him. The entire class turns to look at him, and she feels herself catch fire under their collective gaze. They know. And if they don’t, they will shortly.

”So,” Adrien says. “I finally got my head out of my ass.” His hand reaches backward, finds hers, and she can’t help the warm, shy smile that spreads across her face alongside the rosy color. “If any of you were betting on when we’d get together... pay up.”

There’s a second of silence from everyone, then, simultaneously, Nino pumps his fist, Alya yells, “Finally!” and Alix leaps from her chair, shrieking in delight and repeatedly punching Kim in the shoulder. Max pushes his glasses back and grins, Myléne and Ivan sink into each other with dopey smiles, Rose sighs, and Juleka—well. Her eyes narrow.

”You—” Chloé says, pointing at Adrien, her eyes wide and jaw slack. “You’re dating Dupain-Cheng?”

He opens his mouth, but Marinette can tell the words are failing him when he only nods instead, with a furtive and giddy glance back her direction.

Chloé is silent too—she’s shaking like a teapot left too long on the stove. Adrien doesn’t give her time to recover. “The people in this classroom are the only ones to know,” he says, stepping forward into the room. “Alix, can you make sure Kim doesn’t spill to anyone before tomorrow morning?”

“Hey—!” Kim says, finger upraised, then he blinks. “...Fair.”

Alix nods with a grin.

Adrien turns to Lila with an impassive glare. “Lila,” he says.

Marinette’s stomach clenches. They’d practiced this part, but... what if she gets Akumatized again?

“I’m so happy for you!” Lila says—then her face falls. “And... I’m sorry to have to do this, but...” Her face screws up into an expression somewhere between disgust and sorrow. “You know she’s been stalking you, right?”

Marinette’s ribs squeeze tight around her lungs as the entire class shifts uncomfortably in their seats. Of course Lila wasn’t going to let this go—of course she isn’t going to take it lying down, she’s going to destroy my reputation—

Adrien smirks. “Of course I do,” he says, glancing back at her with a lovesick smile. “I’ve kind of been stalking her too, so I think we’re even.”

Marinette blinks as her chest relaxes, as Lila starts in surprise. That was not part of the plan—but damn if he isn’t good.

Adrien sighs. “Anyway,” he says. “According to my therapist, um... what you’ve been doing to me could be... well, it could be considered sexual assault.”

The entire class freezes at once. Marinette can see them looking at each other, confused—Lila’s been doing what? Alya turns to Marinette, shock written across her face, and Marinette just nods. Lila, meanwhile, whitens, looking like she’s swallowed her tongue. It’s... disturbingly satisfying. Ladybug shouldn’t be reveling in that.

”I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Adrien continues, casting his gaze to the floor. “But... I really need to, to, to speak to Kagami before—before this goes out.” He squeezes Marinette’s hand, and she realizes he’s panicking almost as badly as she is; though, in true Kitty fashion, he’s doing his best not to show it. “Keep this one secret for me, just for 24 hours, and I swear I’ll drop the whole thing.”

”Are you... threatening me?” Lila whispers, horrified.

Adrien swallows, rubbing the back of his neck with his free arm. “Chloé tells me it’s called... um, blackmail?”

Lila’s eye twitches. “I—you—fine!” she spits, slamming her hands onto her desk. “My lips are sealed.” She mimes zipping them, and Adrien lets out a nervous laugh before chivalrously guiding Marinette to her seat as Mlle. Bustier enters the room.

Alya slides her notebook over to Marinette, a question written in the margins. Sexual assault? it reads. Did you know about this?

Marinette grimaces, meets Alya’s eyes, and shakes her head. She’d suspected, sure, but after everything Alya had said to her she’d almost assumed it had been paranoia talking—yeah, Lila was bad, but she wasn’t that bad, surely?

When Fu had explained otherwise, she barely managed not to cry.

She reaches into her bag for her tablet, and her fingers close around not steel and plastic, but warm, breathing, and furry. Plagg quickly slips out of her grip, replacing himself with a notecard, the same one’s Adrien’s been leaving for her to find for three days. Or, as she knows now, he’s been having Plagg leave for her.

She pulls his note out of her backpack, lays it on the table, and blushes straight from her neck to the tips of her ears.

I’m the luckiest man in the world to have gotten to meet you twice.

        —A.A.

He turns with an expectant expression, and she raises an eyebrow and three fingers, pointing at Alya and Nino with her other hand.

He snorts.

Bustier shoots him a look, and he turns back to his tablet, but he keeps glancing back at her throughout the class, growing steadily redder—and smiling wider—every time.

---

Nobody sees Juleka, phone under the table, tap out a quick message to her brother.

Get your blue ass over here, pronto.

Notes:

This chapter was originally supposed to have Luka in it instead of being focused on Kagami but it wasn’t working, and then, well, Ikari Gozen.

Also, remember when I said this fic was going to be 8 chapters? And finished at the end of May? Good times.

Chapter 14: Old Friend

The afternoon passes for Adrien without much incident. Lila fumes, her petulance on display for the entire class, but none of them are looking at her and every time she tries to make puppy eyes, everyone around her twists in disgust. Chloé’s face has been cycling through anger, pride, disgust, despair, or every time she looks at him or Marinette (weirdly, she gets some of the pride as well, which Adrien can’t quite figure out); either way it’s mixed enough that no butterflies are coming through, which means there’s nothing for Lila to try and grab onto.

But even sitting in the front of the class, without turning around, he can feel the waves of joy crashing over him like his classmates are plates in that wave pool his father once took him to (sneaking past his mother of course; their little secret). He can’t blame them. He’s grinning like an absolute moron; the love of his life is sitting right behind him, looking at him, seeing him, and oh, he’s hers, she’s claimed him and there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be than in this classroom under her gaze. He’s been waiting his whole life for today and he didn’t even know it, and it’s here and it’s so much better than he could have imagined even imagining.

If he were to die right here, right now, he’d go out happy, and request his heaven be an eternity of this one moment. Nothing else in his life has ever felt the way he does right now, and he realizes—the knowledge sinking deep into his bones, melding into him and molding itself into his very identity—that with his Lady by his side, things are only going to get better. Tomorrow is going to outshine today.

For the first time in his life, he has a hope that no one can take away.

All that aside, though, the day ends too soon. Adrien isn’t looking forward to fencing practice, or to talking with Kagami; last time someone got between them, she’d turned into a demon. He really doesn’t want to face her alone.

Good thing his Marinette is coming with him. Though she’s a bit anxious too, he can tell as class is letting out—she’s doing that stampy-feet wiggly-butt thing she does when she’s emotionally overloaded, and it’s so cute he just wants to squish her like a teddy bear.

The book she’s pressed against her chest slips out of her hand, and he jumps down to catch it. “You okay?” he says, pressing the book back into her hands.

“I—!” She turns bright red at his touch. “I’m fine!” she squeaks.

Chloé snarls quietly at them both. Alya is too busy beaming to notice. Adrien doesn’t care about either of them.

“I’ll—” Marinette breathes in, then reaches up, lays her fingertips along the side of his jaw. “I’ll meet you at the locker room in a few,” she says, trailing her fingers feather-light along his chin. He can’t help melting at her touch.

He manages, with a great deal of effort, to suppress his shiver of delight. “Feel free to start without me,” he says with a  Cheshire grin.

Marinette’s eyes light with Ladybug’s dangerous mirth. “Oh, no,” she says. “You’re not getting out of it that easy.” She taps his chin with her first finger, once again sending paroxysms of joy straight into his chest. “You’re gonna be there if I have to tie you up and drag you.”

Adrien’s diaphragm seizes—did she just—?

Her smile is innocent. Too innocent.

---

Adrien is impressed Alya managed to go a full half minute without screaming like a lunatic. He’s further impressed that Chloé actually waits until he has a moment alone to corner him.

“Why her?” Chloé spits. She slams Adrien into the wall next to the janitor's closet, jabbing him in the chest with her finger. “Why Dupain-Cheng, of all people?”

Adrien sighs. This was one of the things he and Marinette had discussed last night, over text, after he'd returned home—they knew Chloé's possessiveness was going to come up. That's not how a real friend acts, he hears Marinette's voice inside his mind, feels the ghost of her fingers in his hair, reassuring him. "Because I love her,” he says. For once in his life, he’s not backing down under Chloe’s glare.

Chloé's hand drops and she gapes at him. “You—what?” Her voice has unexpectedly dropped to a whisper instead of the shriek he was bracing for, and her lip begins to shake. “Adrien, we... we were supposed to...” She steps back from him, clutches at her shoulders, shivering, and drops her eyes. “Weren't... we supposed to get married?”

Adrien’s brain screeches to a halt not once, like a six-car pile-up in an American action movie. There are at least twenty casualties. "What?" he says.

Chloé says nothing, and he's struck by how vulnerable she suddenly seems. Her possessiveness with him is suddenly thrown into a new light: she actually, honestly believed—somehow—that they'd made a promise to each other, that they were together, that anyone who came between them was a threat to a real future, not just her current status.

He has no idea what to do, what to say. What would Oblivio-Adrien do?

The worst thing you can say is nothing.

He reaches out, tentative, takes Chloé's hand. "Chloé," he says, softly. "You know we'd be terrible for each other."

She raises her eyes. "You promised," she whispers.

Adrien swallows. "Chlo, I—" He squeezes his eyes shut. "You need something I can't give you."

She shakes her head, closing her eyes to squeeze away the tears. "Who else would have me?"

"Chloé?" Sabrina says from down the hall. "Is everything okay?"

They both glance at her. She's smiling at them, expectant, and Adrien instinctively moves to hide Chloé's crying eyes from her friend.

"Thanks," Chloé sniffles.

Adrien nods. "We'll always be friends, Chloé," he says, "but I could never be what you needed." He glances back at Sabrina. While he's being honest... "I'm... actually not sure she could either."

Chloé grits her teeth. "She makes you happy?"

"Yeah."

She squeezes his shoulder. "Proud of you," she says. "For the blackmail thing." Then she shoves past him, stalks down the hallway, grabs onto Sabrina’s arm. “Come on,” she says, dragging her friend around the corner. “We are going to go demolish a liter of Dutch Chocolate.”

”Wait, that’s my favorite,” Sabrina says, her voice diminishing as they gain distance. “Wouldn’t you prefer Rocky R—”

”I don’t care.”

Adrien grimaces. He wasn't expecting a dry run for Kagami, and he's slowly realizing that maybe Chloé needs more help than he thought. But he's definitely not the right person to provide it.

He glances toward the locker room, catches a glimpse of his girlfriend pinwheeling down the last few steps of the staircase. She lands unharmed in a heap at the bottom, then catches his eye and grins with a sheepish wave.

His heart squeezes in his chest and he barely manages to wave back as all the strength goes out of his legs. She makes you happy? Chloé had asked.

A simple "yes" isn't nearly answer enough.

Notes:

THIS CHAPTER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT KAGAMI GOD DAMN IT CHLOE

Chapter 15: Princess

Tikki burps, a white butterfly exploding out of her mouth. "Bleh," she says, wiping her lips as the butterfly flutters unsteadily out the window. "Those don't taste as good as I remembered."

"Thanks, Tikki," Marinette says, popping open her purse. "Fighting Chloé again was not on my list of things to do today."

Tikki giggles, flitting into the bag. "No problem, Marinette!" she says. "Are you rea—?" She blinks. "Wait." She looks down, searches around with her paws, then dives down into the purse, her oversized head vanishing into the pink fabric.

"Tikki?"

Tikki's head pops back out, wide blue eyes glistening, and holds up a post-it note with a barely noticaeable smile on her face. "It's for you!"

Marinette takes the note from her Kwami's paws, holds it up with a small, fond groan. She appreciates the love notes, but Adrien's reverse pickpocketing is getting ridiculous—

Even the nighttime view from

the Tower can't match the

stars  I see in your eyes.

"Eep!" Marinette slams her free hand over her mouth, locking her knees to keep from collapsing. She feels her face catch fire all the way down to her neck, and for a moment the only sound she can make is a dull whine.

Tikki giggles again. "Love looks good on you," she says.

"How am I supposed to stay together when he keeps being so sweet?" she whispers, collapsing against the wall. Oh, gods—Adrien flirting like Chat Noir is an absolute nightmare for her composure. She's glad he has yet to say anything like this out loud, or... yikes... in front of people. She might melt into a puddle. Ladybug can't fight Akuma if she's a puddle!

Tikki pats her thigh, which does very little to reassure her.

Marinette shakes her head, trying to clear the swirling hearts from her brain. "I have to talk to Kagami," she reminds herself, pushing herself off the wall. She snaps her purse shut, looks down the hallway—then her chest clenches.

"Um, Tikki?" she whispers. Dangit, she goes there every day, how can one frickin' love note scramble her brains this badly? "Which way is the locker room again?"

---

"Okay, deep breaths," Marinette tells herself, just outside the locker room door. She leans against the doorframe and holds her hands together, focusing on a single spot on the opposite wall—one of the meditation exercises she's been doing with her mother. "I can do this."

"You're gonna do great!" Tikki says.

Marinette breaths in, swallows, as her heart rate slows and the buzzing retreats from her veins. "Thanks, Tikki," she says. "I've—I've got this."

She nods, then turns and pushes through the locker room door.

The first thing she sees—her vision zeroes in on it pretty much immediately—is Kagami's subtle smile, the one she makes when she wants to make a genuine facial expression but she's not quite sure how. Given the way Jean is gesticulating, he's likely just told some joke or other that someone else would be rolling on the floor for. She's always appreciated Jean's sense of humor (not that it ever held a candle to her Kitty's).

She clasps her wrist in front of her waist and clears her throat. "Um... Kagami?" she says.

Immediately, the other girl's head jerks up, then around, and her face brightens. "Marinette," she says, with the particular flatness of her inflection she has when she's trying to suppress joy. "Are we still seeing a movie this Saturday?" Her voice is straining, so hopeful, and Marinette feels her stomach drop.

Oh, boy.

"Of course we are!" Marinette says, sliding onto the bench next to Kagami, whose muscles loosen by a single notch at her words.

Jean rolls his eyes, and so does Kim; Marinette and Kagami send them simultaneous death glares, and both of them raise their hands in surrender and back away, leaving the locker room.

"You seem tense, Marinette," Kagami says, placing her hand on Marinette's. "Is everything all right?"

Marinette shudders. "Everything's great!" she says. "Actually, everything's—really great. Really really great." She can't stop the blush spreading over her face at the thought of Adrien, of her silly kitty, and she tries to glance away from Kagami, to hide her expression.

"Things are going well with Luka, then?" Kagami says with a knowing smile.

Marinette swallows. "Um," she says. "That's... what I'm here to talk to you about." She looks down, clenches her fists. Please be here soon, please be here soon, please be here soon...

The locker room door slams open, and Adrien stumbles in, his face red. "Sorry!" he says, sheepish. "I didn't mean to—"

Marinette straightens as they lock eyes, and her shoulders fall, tension flowing away.

"—be so late," he finishes with a grimace.

Kagami's hand tenses around Marinette's. "Oh," she whispers.

Marinette's spine chills—that one word is far more expressive than her usual defensive emotional lockdown. Even someone who didn't know Kagami would be able to hear the devastation in her voice.

"Gami—" Adrien says, his voice trembling. He raises a hand, like he's not sure what to do, how to react to this situation...

But Marinette has a lot of experience dealing with traumatized children of rich, abusive parents—more than she even knew about, prior to yesterday afternoon—and it's barely a second before she's wrapped around Kagami, pressing the other girl's head into her chest. "Hey," Marinette murmurs. "Hey, it's okay, you're gonna be okay."

Kagami twitches in Marinette's arms, then twists to look at Adrien. "You're breaking up with me," she says. It's not a question.

Adrien swallows, leans gracelessly against the lockers, and licks his lips. "Technically—technically we were never, uh—"

Marinette silences him with a glare. Not. Helping.

He sighs. "Yeah," he says. "I'm—I'm sorry."

Kagami pulls out of Marinette's arms and turns away. "It is fine," she says. "You clearly care about her, and she cares about you, and..." She grows quiet. "And you don't need me anymore."

It takes Marinette a second to realize that that last sentence is directed at both of them.

She reaches out, holds her hand just above Kagami's. "May I?" she says.

Kagami looks askance at her, then nods.

Marinette clasps her hand around Kagami's, bringing it closer to her, turning the other girl. "This was never about needing you," she says gently, tracing her thumb right where Kagami's meets her palm. "Just because neither of us is in a romantic relationship with you, that doesn't mean you're going to lose us as friends."

Kagami stiffens. "You—you knew?" she says, her expression widening in horror.

Marinette smiles, and out of the corner of her eye, so does Adrien. "I'm obsessive," Marinette says, hoping Kagami can hear the fondness in her voice. "Not blind."

Adrien steps forward, down onto one knee in front of Kagami. "Gami," he says, placing his hand on top of theirs. "We're not going anywhere."

Kagami's shoulders shudder. "Even if—" she begins, then chokes. "Even if I—I like girls? And not..."

Marinette places a hand on Kagami's shoulder. "I like girls too," she says. "I mean, have you looked at Alya?"

Adrien smirks. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't spent time appreciating Luka's ass."

"Ugh! You Tomcat!" Marinette yelps, smacking him on the shoulder. He giggles.

"You two really are disgusting," Kagami says, wiping her eyes, but she's smiling now. More than she was at Jean.

"We're still friends, Kagami," Marinette says. "And yes, we're still on for Saturday, and no, I am not bringing my boyfriend." She glares at Adrien, almost challenging him to disagree, but he simply smiles and holds up his hands.

Kagami licks her lips. "You... are you, potentially, interested in..."

Marinette grimaces. "I'm—I'm really sorry," she says. "I'm... pretty sure I'm monogamous?"

"Ah," Kagami says, looking at the floor.

"Hey," Adrien murmurs, squeezing her knee. "Things may suck a bit now, but I promise... they're gonna be okay."

Kagami smiles, and it's a small, sad smile, but it's a real one. "With friends like you two," she says, her voice light, "how could it be otherwise?"

Chapter 16: Forget

Get your blue ass over here now.

Luka doesn’t know why his sister texted him; she’s never this curt, or this urgent. In fact, he can't remember the last time he's heard her swear.

He opens his phone as soon as the lunch shift is over. What's the emergency? he sends.

After a second, her response plops back into his phone. Sorry! No emergency, it says. Freaked out a little.

He quirks an eyebrow, but her next message comes in before he can type a response.

You should still see this yourself, though.

He narrows his eyebrows. I'll be there after school.

---

He spends the rest of the day in the Liberty's galley, alternating between his homeschool course and worrying about his sister.

His mother wanders in later in the day with an amp in her arms, probably from the Claudio Moreau show she was doing sound check for tonight. He lays down his pencil. "Hey, Mom?" he says. "Have you heard anything from Juleka today?"

Anarka sighs, shouldering open the kitchen door. "You know your sister doesn't talk to me much," she says, not even looking in his direction.

Wonder why that is, Luka thinks with a roll of his eyes as his mother disappears deeper into the boat.

He'd be running off to check on her right now, but they've already had enough trouble with the homeschool inspectors and one of them could pop in at any time. If he's not there and they catch that, there'd be nothing to stop them from forcibly sending him back to public school... and that's an experience that all he wants to do is forget. But the second the clock hits 16:30, he basically throws aside his book and his pencils, shoots straight out the boat, and bolts for the College François DuPont—not a full run, it's too far for that, but he does get there at a fair clip.

He arrives at the school, and Juleka's there just outside, leaning against a wall and making doe eyes at a very animated Rose. He's not sure what's going on—she seems fine. She meets his eyes, flashes her eyebrows once, then tilts her head towards the park and oh.

He understands why Juleka was so insistent, now. Halfway across the park, Marinette and Adrien are sitting against a tree together, basically wrapped around each other. Luka looks at Marinette and dear God, she’s alight in a way he’s never seen her before, and she’s looking at Adrien... and he’s looking back at her. Not just looking. He’s seeing. Just like Marinette, Adrien is burning bright.

Something inside Luka’s chest fractures. His breath halts halfway up his throat, and for a second he can't remember how to blink.

He's known this was coming, though he's been hoping that maybe, somehow, she'd forget about him. Something in Luka has been praying that she'll realize Adrien doesn't want her, that she'll finally give up on chasing a pipe dream and finally let herself accept that her love for Luka is enough, that—well. He sees the way Adrien is looking at her now, like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, like he's finally hearing the song, and Luka knows he's lost.

Adrien's looking down at a notebook and chewing on a pencil eraser, but then he looks up and meets Luka's eyes and he immediately goes soft. He unloops his hand from Marinette's shoulders, offering it to her as he stands. She takes it, allowing him to raise her to her feet, and then she sees Luka and her face falls. Luka's heart stutters. He's never wanted to be the reason for that expression on her face, and now he is, and—

"Hey," Adrien says. "Are—are you okay?"

Luka looks away; can't meet his eyes. "Yeah," he says. "I'm fine." His voice doesn't shake; it's smooth, as usual. Like E major.

"Oh, Luka," Marinette says, and her voice is shaking, and he hears her, she cares so much. There's a second where hope flares in his chest, that maybe he can use that, that maybe he can draw her away from Adrien, but no. That's not him. That's not Luka. He saw her, he saw the way they looked at each other, and they're happy.

They're happy, and they're just two more people who are going to forget him. Two people he's never going to be able to forget. All he wants is for it to stop. Stop moving forward. This moment, right here, right now, before they're gone again.

The song in his heart plays the Devil's Third.

---

"Luka!"

Marinette is momentarily taken aback—she can't remember ever hearing Juleka scream before. She sees the girl dash towards her brother, hand outstretched, and it takes a moment before she realizes why—there’s a glowing black butterfly divebombing them from the clear blue sky.

Luka doesn’t see it, and Marinette barely even thinks before reaching for him to pull him clear. But she doesn’t quite make it—her fingers brush against his painted nails before Adrien’s arm wraps around her waist, and she finds herself wrapped around her boyfriend, sprinting clear of the park.

”Adrien!” she shrieks, trying to wriggle out of his muscular arms. She sees the butterfly light on Luka’s wrist, on his armbands, sees the neon purple butterfly light up over his eyes.

Adrien throws open the door to the bakery, ducking inside and pressing his back to the wall, between the windows. ”Sorry... Princess...” he huffs—he’s barely had time to recover from fencing, and she knows damn well that carrying people without the suit is really hard. “But... you know... my priority... is always you.”

She hears that a lot from Chat Noir, as Ladybug. But hearing those words directed toward Marinette... well, she can’t help melting a little bit.

”Kids?” Papa says from behind the counter, as they realize the other three people on the shop floor are also staring at them. “What’s wrong?”

”Akuma,” Marinette gasps, trembling as it sinks in just how close she came to being Luka’s first victim. How close they came to a reversal of Style Queen, when Adrien had been too close when Bourgeois transformed and she’d had to take the fight without him.

Tom nods, then turns to the customers. “Everyone, into the basement,” he says, waving them into the bakery space and holding open the door. The customers rush past him, and he looks at Marinette and Adrien. “Adrien, you’ll need the roof?” he says.

Adrien nods. He releases Marinette, who climbs off him and reaches down to help him to his feet. “Tell Mama Sabine to lock herself in the pantry,” he says.

”Of course.” Papa unties the apron from around his waist. “Pumpkin, are you coming down?”

Marinette looks at Adrien and swallows. “N-no, Papa,” she says, biting her lip. She sniffs, trying to hold in the wetness in her eyes—this is not how she wanted to do this. “I’m going upstairs with Adrien.”

Her father narrows his eyes. “Sweetie, I know you’re in love, but that’s very dangerous—”

Marinette straightens to her full height—admittedly not very much—but then she keeps going, holding her fists up and locking her muscles, pulling the Ladybug part of her from deep within her chest and laying it across her face like the polka-dots of her mask. “Papa,” Ladybug says. “I need to go to the roof.”

Her father’s eyes widen, and he begins to shiver, covering his mouth with his hand as his eyes grow wet. “Mon dieu,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “My—my baby?”

Marinette swallows. She can only nod.

“Don’t worry,” Adrien says, placing a hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “I’ll keep her safe.”

Her father nods. “I’m—I’m so proud of... both of you,” he says. “But, please...” He sobs. “Come home alive.”

---

Chat Noir and Ladybug climb from Marinette’s balcony, leaping onto the roof where they can get a better view of the park below. From there, Ladybug can see a number of confused people milling about—fewer than there were, but nobody’s running. Don’t they know there’s an Akuma?”

“Wasn’t your bodyguard supposedly to be meeting us down there?” she says, flicking her eyes at each person, looking for abnormalities in behavior. “Here’s hoping he knows better than to charge into an Akuma situation.”

“That’s literally what we pay him for,” Chat says, crouching next to her. His eyes narrow, the tip of his tongue breaching the corner of his mouth. “Nobody’s running.”

Ladybug’s gaze catches on one person who’s moving a bit more frantically than everyone else—a very small figure, who seems to be tugging desperately at another, very confused, person. She shades her eyes with her hand. “Is that Rose?”

Chat squints. “I think so,” he says.

Ladybug stands, unslings her yo-yo, and begins spinning. “I’m going down there,” she says. “Watch my back.”

”Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave,” Chat responds with a grin.

She rolls her eyes, smiles, and jabs his shoulder with her free hand, then leaps down into the park.

Everyone turns to look at her as she touches down onto the grass, which is—at this point—expected. What’s not expected is how everyone except Rose seems to get lost as soon as their eyes move from her, returning to whatever they were doing... in fact, repeating whatever they were doing.

Despite the comforting sound of Chat Noir’s boots crunching onto the gravel behind her, Ladybug feels a chill run down her spine.

”Rose?” she says, carefully approaching her. She seems to be trying to pull Juleka away from the park—desperate.

”Ladybug!” Rose cries, gasping for breath. “Help, she keeps—she keeps forgetting!”

Juleka turns, sees them, and lights up. “Oh, Ladybug!” she says, then her face falls, her eyes growing fearful. “Is there an Akuma?”

Rose sobs. “I keep telling you—”

Juleka looks down. “Rose?” she says. “We—we moved? Where’s Luka?”

Rose grabs her girlfriend by the shoulders. “He was Akumatized, Jules!”

Juleka gasps. “Oh, no,” she mumbles. “Where—where’s Ladybug?”

Rose’s eyes flick to Ladybug, desperate, and a pit forms in Ladybug’s stomach as she realizes what’s happened.

”She can’t form new memories,” Ladybug whispers, horrified. She glances around the park, realizes—none of the bystanders seem to remember the last few minutes. They’re all wearing nearly identical looks of surprise, which refresh every few seconds.

Chat swallows. “Anterograde,” he says, squeezing his baton. "My Lady... if he comes near us..."

Ladybug's heart squeezes. She's the strategist—she needs to plan. She needs to be aware. Chat Noir doesn't.

Chat doesn't stutter, the words coming out with brutal clarity. "...you have to let me take the hit."

Notes:

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