Cult of Secrecy

by Kuramari

Summary:

A Miraculous Ladybug AU where Marinette does not reveal her secret to Alya after Gang of Secrets, but to Adrien instead. Somewhere along the way, Chloé finds redemption.

Notes:

I've been dabbling in writing fanfiction for this fandom for a while now, but this is the first time I actually feel content enough with what I've written to actually post. I haven't posted my fanfics on the internet in well over a decade, since back in the days when it felt like all we really had was fanfiction.net.

That being said, this is an AU to get the most bang for my buck as far as canon: I'm going to choose what I want, ignore what I want, and rearrange what I want for the maximum amount of having fun (and hopefully telling a good story). I hope if you're reading this, you have at least as much fun as I had writing this.

So, without further ado, on with the story!

Chapter 1: Sacred Lie

Summary:

"This is bigger than us, Alya. Way too big."

Alya placed her hand on Marinette's shoulder. "If it's too big, two of us can handle it better than one."

"If I tell you, things will never be the same between us again." Marinette shook her head. "It'll mess up everything, maybe even destroy it."

"Marinette," Alya begged, her voice cracking, "I'm your very best friend."

"And I…"

The words threatened to spill out from Marinette's lips. I'm Ladybug. But they stuck in her throat.

"I know," she said instead, her voice small and weak, turning away from the other girl and curling up onto her chaise. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the hurt look on her friend's face. "I'm tired, Alya. Please go home."

Notes:

= = indicates a change in perspective

Yesterday had been a weird day.

Marinette didn't typically cause people to be akumatized, Adrien thought. A lot of people around her got akumatized, but that applied to him, too. If he had a nickel for every time he was late to a fight because he was personally trapped by the akuma, he would probably be richer than his Father.

But yesterday? Marinette had somehow managed to get five people akumatized in one shot.

He'd seen multiple people be akumatized before, of course. Oblivio was the big one. And there was the other day, where both of Luka and Juleka's parents had been akumatized together, resulting in the returns of Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock. The Ladyblog was calling it The Battle of the Crocoduel.

But up to two people was fairly normal. Marinette had gotten five people akumatized, and they'd had to go another round with Timebreaker (Alix), Reflekta (Juleka), Princess Fragrance (Rose), Lady Wifi (Alya), and Horrificator (Mylène). The Ladyblog titled this entry Gang of Secrets.

Adrien (as both himself and as Chat Noir) didn't dig too deep into what actually happened, as he wanted to respect Marinette's privacy, but from what he'd gathered, the girls were upset because Marinette was keeping some sort of secret from them. When they'd pushed her to tell them, she'd pushed them away. This was what caused the negative feeling allowing them to be akumatized — and why their primary goal had been to capture Marinette and force her to tell them her secret.

If Marinette had a secret, it was a secret for a good reason. Adrien trusted her judgement. She was a good person.

The girls had all apologized and made up, as far as he could tell. But the weirdness continued into today. It was like a cloud of unease and misery hung over the city. Adrien wondered if he was the only one who could feel it, because nobody seemed to be acknowledging it.

At lunch alone in the mansion, he suddenly became nauseous. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew something was very wrong.

The closer he came to the school on his way back from lunch, the more anxious he became. His stomach twisted in knots and his mouth dried out. He could feel the skin on his lips beginning to flake and crack. Normally he'd be worried about how Father would say that was unsightly and unbecoming of a model, but he couldn't even care about that right now. The churning in his gut was all he could focus on.

Adrien walked through the hallway to his classroom, feeling not unlike a prisoner walking to their execution. He rubbed his arms as he did so — they were burning, itching, like he'd been scratched, but there was no sign of any injuries.

He got to the doorway and stopped. At the same time his feet stilled, so did his heart.

Nobody seemed to notice his arrival. The entire class was in their seats, talking quietly amongst themselves, save for one person.

"…where's Marinette?" he asked, the words almost getting stuck in his throat.

It was entirely possible these events were unrelated. But this weirdness, this heaviness that hung in the air, had started yesterday after the akuma battle. Adrien didn't know how he knew, but he knew this wasn't just a coincidence.

Alya's eyes drifted over to him. She wore a blank expression. She shrugged and turned her face away.

That was… not normal. Adrien's stomach sank. Alya was Marinette's best friend. Why wasn't she more concerned?

"Oh, Adrien, it was just horrible!"

Adrien flinched when this voice spoke up. Lila Rossi.

Lila wiped her eyes, clearing away tears that were never there. Adrien knew her mascara wasn't waterproof; he used that exact same brand during photoshoots that required heavy makeup.

If she'd really been crying, her thumb would smear the black streaks and make her look like a raccoon.

"Marinette attacked me when I was in the bathroom, and—"

And Adrien turned on his heel and walked out of the room, because he didn't have time for this nonsense when alarm bells were ringing so urgently in his head. He'd heard enough.

If Marinette had attacked Lila in the bathroom, then Chloé Bourgeois was Ladybug.

He walked down the hallway, striding with purpose, toward the front door. As he got closer, he picked up his pace to a jog, before turning into a full-on sprint once he was outside. The closer he got to Marinette's family bakery, the faster he moved, and the harder his heart pounded.

She had to be home. If she wasn't, he'd transform and search the whole city if he had to. He couldn't explain it, but he had this sudden and overwhelming need to make sure she was alright.

Adrien was so focused on what the plan would be if she wasn't home — beginning to mentally map out the best search route over the rooftops — that he almost got flattened by a car as he crossed the street. The driver honked, scaring Adrien nearly out of his skin and causing him to jump, but he'd never been more grateful for the instinctive reflexes being Chat Noir had granted him.

"Hello, welcome to— oh, Adrien. Welcome," Marinette's mother Sabine greeted him as he came inside. There were no other customers in the shop. 

Adrien doubled over, out of breath. "Is — Marinette — here?" he asked between breaths he struggled to take.

"She is," Sabine responded. "She said she didn't feel well, but she seemed upset."

"Can I — talk to — her?"

Sabine nodded. As Adrien walked past her to go up the stairs to the residential part of the building, Sabine slid him a bottle of water, which he took gratefully. He quickly downed the entire thing on the stairs and then stood outside the door to the living room for a moment, catching his breath.

Once he got his breathing under control, he headed into the Dupain-Cheng home. As he stood on the stairs outside Marinette's loft, he hesitated. Plagg vibrated in his pocket as if to say get a move on, kid.

Adrien, at least a small bit concerned that Plagg had an aura of urgency about him — the cat-like kwami hardly ever felt strongly about anything except cheese — banged on the trap door above his head.

"Go away, Mama," Marinette yelled through the closed door, her voice cracking. "I'm fine."

Marinette was not a liar. She despised liars more than anything in the world, which was why, Adrien assumed, she had so many issues with Lila Rossi, who Adrien didn't think would be able to tell the truth if her life depended on it.

But obviously she wasn't okay, given that it sounded like she'd been crying.

"Marinette, it's me," Adrien called to her. "Can I please talk to you?"

The response was immediate: it was a symphony of crashes — probably Marinette knocking over several large items with her legendary clumsiness, which Adrien always saw most impressively whenever he startled her. He wouldn't be surprised if one of the louder thumps was Marinette herself falling over. As soon as the noises settled, she stuttered out in surprise, "A-A-A-A-Adrien?!"

This was followed by the sound of, as best as Adrien could tell, Marinette crawling along the floor before settling on top of the trapdoor; at least she sounded closer when she spoke again. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"I needed to check on you," Adrien explained. "You weren't in class. I just had this really bad feeling, and Lila started saying some nonsense about you attacking her, and I just really, really needed to know you're okay; can you please come out and talk to me?"

Marinette didn't answer right away, but finally she spoke in a soft voice. "Can I have a minute? I'm not… decent."

Adrien had been modeling since he was five years old, so he had a very different idea of modesty than the average person. He didn't quite understand what she meant at first, but then something clicked. He'd heard Chloé use the expression, once or twice. 

"Of course! Take all the time you need," he answered.

What followed was the sound of footsteps frantically pacing about the room, doing what Adrien assumed was scrambling about to straighten up the chaos from the fall as she also got more properly dressed. He wondered what it was that she was wearing that she considered indecent for him to see, not that he was wondering in a sexual way! Marinette was undoubtedly very pretty, but he was less curious about her body underneath the clothes than the actual clothes themselves.

Whatever she was wearing, had she designed it? He certainly wasn't assuming Marinette was completely innocent — he honestly had no idea — but surely if it was her own creation it was gorgeous and she should want to show it off, no matter how revealing it was. He could be professional. 

Then again, considering she was alone in her room, and he suspected having a hard day, maybe it was indecent due to its age or wear. Chloé had tried to explain the concept of "granny panties" to him once — underwear that was meant to be comfortable only and not cute. 

Or, Adrien thought Marinette was alone in her room. He thought he could hear her talking, but was unable to make out any specific words, or even hear a response.

Just when Adrien decided she was talking to herself — not that he could judge; before he met Plagg, he did that a lot — the trapdoor cracked open above him. He saw only part of Marinette's face peering down at him, her eyes red from crying.

"Do you want me to come down," she asked hesitantly, "or do you want to come up?"

"I'll come up, if you don't mind," he answered easily with a gentle smile. "I like your room. It's so… cozy in there."

It was the complete opposite of his bedroom in the mansion. It was open, empty, cold. Marinette's room always seemed to be so packed full of stuff, despite how small it was. It was full of the love and life Marinette spread everywhere she went.

She disappeared from his view and the door completely opened. Adrien noted as he came in that Marinette was a fast cleaner — the room was as neat as the last time he'd been in here, when they were training for the Ultimate Mecha Strike tournament.

"So… do you wanna sit on the chaise, or—"

Marinette had motioned to her chaise lounge, and had turned to motion toward her desk chair, when she managed to do something Adrien would later describe as impossibly twisting her ankles together, while rolling the rug beneath her into a spiral with her feet, causing her to fall.

Instinctively, he lunged forward to grab her and keep her from hitting the floor, expertly dodging Marinette's flailing arms but dropping his messenger bag in the process. Briefly he thought of Ladybug, as they ended up in a position he'd dreamed of holding her in — most of Marinette's weight was on his left arm that was supporting her back, as if they'd been dancing and had moved as though to dip her. His right hand had come to rest on her left forearm, sliding up her sleeve.

And he noticed something that made his blood run cold.

"Marinette," he said carefully, evenly, in that practiced voice he used with his Father and photographers to not betray his panic that it was what it looked like, "what is that?"

 

= =

 

Marinette didn't know how to process this.

She was in her room, with Adrien Agreste — model, classmate, love of her life (although he didn't know that) — and he was holding her in what felt like an intimate, romantic embrace.

Yes, he had only grabbed her to stop her from falling, because he was firstly a good person and secondly her friend. He certainly hadn't meant for them to end up like this. But a girl could dream, couldn't she?

She'd been having a rough time recently, what with the overwhelming pressures of becoming the Guardian of the Miraculous and essentially having adopted fifteen scared and anxious, pocket-sized gods. She could use a win, even if she knew it was entirely made up.

But then he noticed what she'd been doing earlier and tried to hide, and her illusion shattered.

"Marinette," Adrien said, his voice pulled taut in a way that made her heart fling out of her chest the same way her yoyo did, "what is that?"

Marinette couldn't look him in the eyes, because she couldn't tell him the truth. Not because she feared he'd think less of her — Adrien was too good for that. But, considering who her alter ego was and what she did, it was embarrassing.

Her arms were covered in fresh cuts, hastily wrapped in bandages. The great Miraculous Ladybug, fighter of supernatural villains and restorer of the city, Guardian of the Miracle Box and its kwamis, reduced to harming herself, and by a teenage girl, of all people.

"Crafting accident," she mumbled.

Adrien didn't look away from her, keeping his gaze steady. It was firm, but didn't hide his concern. He didn't seem to believe her, but Marinette knew that she had always been a terrible liar.

Adrien's look was familiar, though; despite how different they were, she briefly thought of Chat Noir. It was the exact same look that crossed his face whenever she told him a lie and he knew it was a lie.

But Chat Noir was a dutiful kitty cat, and he never called her out on her shit. He knew there were times in their line of work that secrecy was called for — and trusted that she lied for good reason.

Adrien was not Chat Noir.

"I think you're lying to me, Marinette," he said simply.

He didn't call her a liar. She appreciated it wholeheartedly, that he understood lying was not something that she wanted to define her.

He didn't demand answers, like Alya did yesterday. Like Rose, Alix, Mylène, Juleka. He didn't insist he was entitled to all the details of her life.

He merely stated that her answer was unsatisfactory, that he didn't believe her. The ball was lobbed gently back into her court, and he was patient enough to wait until she was ready.

Marinette felt herself squirm in Adrien's arms anxiously under his intense gaze. And suddenly, she couldn't hold it in anymore.

She had barely held it together yesterday; she had almost told Alya her deepest, most personal secret. The weight of it was crushing her and she had to get it out.

Surely Alya, her dearest, bestest friend, would understand?

But Alya also ran the Ladyblog. Alya wanted, more than anything in the universe, to be the one who revealed Ladybug's secret identity to the world. Could she ask her closest companion to choose between her greatest dream and their friendship?

Would Alya even hesitate?

So Marinette had bitten her tongue, though barely. She had kept her secrets, but they still threatened to rush out of her, and she knew if she kept them in, she would drown.

Drown.

Like all the cataclysmed Parisians under that broken moon in that broken future.

Was Adrien any safer of a choice? It was her mistake that revealed her identity to him, and — although she still wasn't sure how — somewhere down the line, Chat Noir found out, and it led to whatever happened that caused Chat Blanc. Adrien had to have told someone, but at least it probably wasn't the entire world.

But he was here now, and she was more broken than yesterday. Today, she wasn't strong enough to keep it to herself anymore. 

Marinette broke into sobs and sank to her knees. Adrien followed her to the floor, keeping pace with her, making sure she landed gently.

"I can't do this anymore, Adrien!" she cried, streaks of tears staining her face. "I'm only a fourteen year old girl; there's too much responsibility on my shoulders, and I can't do it anymore! I can't handle it. Something has to give and I guess it's Marinette, because everything else is just too important."

"Whoa, whoa, Marinette, slow down," Adrien said soothingly. He put up both his hands in a placating gesture. "Don't cry. We'll figure this out. I know a thing or two about having too much being expected of you, so let's try to go through this together, okay?"

Marinette dared to peek at Adrien's face through her tears and saw him offering her one of his genuine, comforting smiles.

"Also, Marinette?" he asked gently as he put his hands on her shoulders. It was unfamiliar, because Adrien rarely touched her like that, but it was calming all the same, and for the second time she imagined, if only for a second, another important blonde boy in her life. "You are so important. I need to know you know that."

Marinette didn't respond except to give a little sniffle. Maybe she could get some of this off her chest without actually compromising her identity. Because if anyone understood how overwhelmed she was with all of her responsibilities, it was probably Adrien: fourteen year old student, model, actor, pianist, and fencer, who had an unlucky habit of being personally targeted by akumas.

At least he didn't have to balance all of that on top of a secret identity and saving the world.

"I suppose if anyone would understand, it's probably you," she mumbled finally. "You have nearly as much going on as I do."

"Exactly!" Adrien's entire face lit up, seemingly glad that she was responding. "I'm an expert by now in managing tons of responsibilities — though it's a big help to have Nathalie scheduling things for me. So let's see if I can help you find somewhere maybe you can cut back or something you can drop. Let me be your Nathalie."

Marinette quickly ran over all the non-Ladybug-related responsibilities she had on her plate through her head: being class representative; design commissions for both Kitty Section and Jagged Stone; shifts at the bakery, including sometimes making deliveries and assisting with catering events; homework and studying; babysitting Manon and Chris; and… helping Alya with the Ladyblog. While technically that was Ladybug-related, she did that on her civilian time, so she felt it counted.

"The real problem is that I'm keeping secrets, and I have no one to talk to about it," Marinette said, surprising herself with her honesty. "I'm keeping a huge secret from my friends, and I know they want to help me, but I… I can't. I'm not allowed to tell them." She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched closer to the floor. "The girls were akumatized yesterday because of that."

Adrien laughed nervously before he said, "Yeah, I heard about that. Do you… want to talk about it?"

"I'm keeping secrets from my friends, and on top of that I just don't have time for them anymore." The tears were coming at full force, again. "Between my homework, my commissions, being class representative, working for the bakery, babysitting, and… the secret thing… I'm just so tired, Adrien."

"Okay," he answered slowly as he thought that over. "Okay. We can try to talk to Mrs. Bustier and see if we can let someone else be class rep? I'm sure she would understand that the bakery seems to be extra busy lately and you just can't devote the time you used to. That would take that off your plate." Adrien nodded, mostly to himself, before continuing, "I can help you with your homework if you want. I developed a system for getting it done quickly back when Nathalie still homeschooled me. And maybe you should consider not taking on any new commissions until you're a little less busy."

Adrien made it sound so easy.

Just someone knowing part of what she went through, part of all the things she had to juggle, made her feel better. She felt the knowledge of her deepest secret churning inside her again, fighting to break free.

If the small stuff felt this good, how euphoric would it feel to have that weight off her chest?

Would it feel… miraculous?

"I don't know about Manon, but you can probably stop babysitting Chris. Nino can take back over; that's his brother. As for the secret thing…" Adrien trailed off, obviously not really sure what advice to give about a mystery agenda item.

"But that's the thing," Marinette explained. "The secret thing is the thing that's hurting me the most. It's huge, and its weight is crushing me because I'm not supposed to tell anyone about it. They tried to push me into revealing it yesterday so they could find a way to help, but they can't! So I pushed them away. I thought it would be better." Marinette paused and turned her gaze to the floor. "But then they were akumatized, and yeah, after Ladybug and Chat Noir saved them, they apologized to me and promised to stop pushing me to tell them until I was ready, but I almost told Alya."

"This is bigger than us, Alya. Way too big."

Alya placed her hand on Marinette's shoulder. "If it's too big, two of us can handle it better than one."

"If I tell you, things will never be the same between us again." Marinette shook her head. "It'll mess up everything, maybe even destroy it."

"Marinette," Alya begged, her voice cracking, "I'm your very best friend."

"And I…"

The words threatened to spill out from Marinette's lips. I'm Ladybug. But they stuck in her throat.

"I know," she said instead, her voice small and weak, turning away from the other girl and curling up onto her chaise. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the hurt look on her friend's face. "I'm tired, Alya. Please go home."

"But it's suffocating me, Adrien," Marinette continued. Mentally she apologized to Tikki as she felt what bits of strength were left fighting to keep the words in finally shatter like a glass pane hit by her partner's cataclysm. "I can't do it anymore; I have to tell someone. I can't keep it in anymore, and I'm sorry for dragging you into this, but I…"

 

= =

 

"I'm Ladybug."

Notes:

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed :)

Stay tuned because I have some crazy stuff planned

Chapter 2: Land of Confusion

Summary:

After what felt like an eternity, Adrien swallowed loudly and spoke. "Wait. Am I Buttercup?"

"Who told you about that?" Marinette demanded. "Was it Nino? It was Nino, wasn't it?" She threw her head back and groaned before covering her face with her hands. "I told Alya not to tell him; he can't keep a secret to save his life!"

Adrien chuckled; it was such a beautiful sound. "I have to agree with you there, Mi— Marinette." He stumbled strangely over her name. "He told me that he was Carapace and that Alya was Rena Rouge."

"Nino," Marinette moaned in agony before wordlessly screeching. "Could today possibly get any worse?"

She shouldn't have said that. She should have known better than to taunt the universe, even with Ladybug Luck on her side.

Notes:

Welcome back! I hope you're ready for some nonsense.

Adrien forgot how to breathe.

Those were certainly the last words he'd expected to hear.

I'm Ladybug. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was Ladybug. Ladybug had just told Adrien Agreste her secret identity.

Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir.

"Oh," Adrien breathed out, in a daze. He felt like he was in shock, except he wasn't sure that was it, because he felt the tightening pinch in his chest and the dizzying wetness in his head that made the world spin — the familiar feelings he associated with the reset of a Second Chance that sometimes jolted him awake out of a nightmare.

Absentmindedly he rubbed his wrist in a circular motion as though undoing the last five minutes would make any of this make sense.

Marinette was Ladybug. Ladybug was Marinette.

Adrien was jerked out of his thoughts and back to reality when he felt Plagg stick his claws into his chest through his shirt.

But it made perfect sense, now that he wasn't trapped in that endless thought loop. Of course Marinette was Ladybug; there was no one else as brave, as beautiful, as creative and wonderful and selfless as her. His head had just refused to see what his heart already knew.

So wait, Marinette had to do all of those civilian things on top of being a superhero and saving Paris — and now, being the Guardian?! No wonder she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. 

Suddenly Marinette jumped to her feet, and if she hadn't just told him she was Ladybug, the way she moved now would've been a dead giveaway. He'd seen her make that exact movement many times, but never as Marinette.

"Shit, shit, shit," she chanted under her breath as she paced feverishly. Then she groaned. "Why am I such a disaster?" She tugged roughly on her pigtails.

"You're not a disaster!" Adrien immediately protested, realizing with dawning horror that Marinette was Ladybug and that meant his two most anxious friends were actually the same anxious friend who was at least twice as anxious as he had thought.

"Yes I am! This is terrible! Oh, Chat Noir is going to be so mad at me!"

What? It took all of Adrien's concentration to keep from letting his mouth drop open. "I, uh, don't think he could be mad at you," he responded.

"Tikki," Marinette whined, as though she didn't hear him.

Tikki appeared from somewhere in Marinette's room; she made eye contact with Adrien, but then pointedly ignored him, flitting in circles around the pacing Marinette. Adrien could hear a faint, high-pitched buzzing, and it seemed to him as though Tikki was trying to calm Marinette down.

"I swore to myself that if I was ever going to reveal my identity to anyone, he would be the first one to know," Marinette finally said after a minute or so.

She did? This was news to Adrien. He appreciated that she'd planned it that way — but understood why she broke down.

(He'd planned it that way, too, to be honest. Shadowmoth defeated, they stood in triumph atop the Eiffel Tower; they revealed themselves to each other and kissed in the moonlight. Well, it was less of a plan and more of a fantasy, but still.)

"I think Chat Noir would be okay with you telling me, if you just explained to him what happened," Adrien replied.

He could feel Plagg vibrating with silent laughter in his pocket. Tikki sent him a look that was clearly unimpressed.

He knew he should tell her. Marinette needed to know exactly who she'd revealed her identity to. It was only fair.

However, she had never wanted to know his identity. It wasn't safe, until the butterfly and the peacock miraculouses were recovered. So she'd probably be mad at him if he told her.

On the other hand, the longer this went on, the angrier she would be when she found out he knew all this time and didn't say anything.

"You don't understand. I have patrol with him tonight!" Marinette threw her arms emphatically into the air. "And the conversation is going to go something like this."

Marinette stopped pacing and grabbed an empty cardboard tube that used to have fabric on it off her desk. She twirled it around in her hand as an approximation of Chat Noir's baton before stamping one end into the floor and leaning onto it.

"Hello and good evening, Milady," she said, lowering her voice to imitate Chat Noir. "Isn't it purrfectly lovely weather for patrol?"

Then Marinette spun around, grabbing a hard plastic circle off the desk as well, and stood facing the opposite direction. She yanked out a long strip of sewing tape and then dropped the circular bit toward the floor, swinging it from side to side like a pendulum. Clearly, it was meant as a stand-in for Ladybug's yoyo.

"Chat Noir… I have something I need to tell you. And I'm afraid you're not going to like it."

Marinette turned back in the original direction and leaned against the cardboard tube again. "What is it, Ladybug? You can tell me anything, you know."

Adrien couldn't help but to settle on the floor more comfortably and lean in. It was absolutely fascinating. He'd never imagined he'd get such an intimate look into how Ladybug's mind worked.

Marinette turned and started swinging the tape again. "I… revealed my identity to someone today."

Yet another turn and lean. "You did? May I ask… to who?"

Adrien knew he wouldn't actually ask, because he already knew. And even if he didn't know, because he wasn't the guy she'd told, he probably would have just accepted that. (He wouldn't have been happy, but he would've accepted it.)

But this wasn't reality; this was Marinette's anxiety-induced fantasy, so he was content to let it play out.

"And do you know what I have to tell him?!" she demanded, addressing Adrien now. She planted her feet shoulder-width apart and spread her arms out wide, haphazardly sending her props flying. (Tikki agilely ducked out of the way before she got smacked with the tube.) "I can't exactly tell him Adrien Agreste, because that significantly narrows down my identity."

Adrien was thankful that apparently the ladybug miraculous didn't grant advanced hearing out of costume like his miraculous did, because Plagg's wheezing laughter was now faint, but audible. Marinette didn't appear to hear it, however.

And so she continued, dropping a bombshell somehow even bigger than the identity bombshell from earlier. "But I'm going to have to tell him, and he's going to be so mad at me, because it's you! I'm going to have to tell him I revealed myself to the other boy!"

The other boy?

Marinette kept ranting, but he didn't hear a word of what came next; it was as though Adrien's ears stopped working to focus all his brainpower on that phrase.

The other boy.

Adrien Agreste was the other boy?

Marinette was Ladybug. Ladybug always turned down Chat Noir for the other boy. The other boy was Adrien Agreste. Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir. Chat Noir helped Marinette practice her love confession for Buttercup. Marinette was Ladybug. Marinette liked the other boy.

The other boy was Buttercup? Buttercup was Adrien Agreste? Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir; Chat Noir was the other boy?!

As though Plagg could hear his thoughts getting caught in another feedback loop, he dug his claws into Adrien's chest a second time, this time harder. Shocked out of it again by the pain, Adrien was able to ask one question.

 

= =

 

"The… other boy?"

Marinette had to admit that she felt lighter than ever with all these secrets off her chest. She hadn't exactly meant to confess to Adrien that he was the one she liked, but she would be lying if she said she didn't feel free.

Or, she guessed she hadn't, actually. She'd done it in a sort of round-about way, and clearly he didn't catch her meaning.

"Well, you know how Chat Noir is always confessing his love to me, and flirting with me, and bringing me roses and stuff? So, I keep turning him down — not because I don't like him, because I do! Of course I do! He's my partner, and he's always been there for me, and he's honestly my best friend — because of this other boy I liked first," Marinette explained frantically.

She shook her hands urgently as she spoke. Heaven forbid that anyone think she didn't like Chat Noir, even if she didn't like-like him. Which she does, actually, she discovered recently; she's just not allowed to act on it because it's not safe. And because of the aforementioned other boy who claimed her heart first, of course.

But clearly she wasn't explaining this very well because the only emotion she could find on Adrien's face was confusion.

"Chat Noir knows about the other boy," Marinette rambled on. "But he doesn't know who he is, because of identity stuff. But, uh, he's you. You're the boy I keep turning down Chat Noir for."

At this point Marinette grabbed her fingers and started anxiously twisting them, waiting for Adrien's response. Yes, the uncertainty of not knowing was setting her nerves on fire and threatening to make her throw up, but now that it was out in the open, it felt like taking a gulp of fresh air after coming up from underwater.

After what felt like an eternity, Adrien swallowed loudly and spoke. "Wait. Am I Buttercup?"

"Who told you about that?" Marinette demanded. "Was it Nino? It was Nino, wasn't it?" She threw her head back and groaned before covering her face with her hands. "I told Alya not to tell him; he can't keep a secret to save his life!"

Adrien chuckled; it was such a beautiful sound. "I have to agree with you there, Mi— Marinette." He stumbled strangely over her name. "He told me that he was Carapace and that Alya was Rena Rouge."

"Nino," Marinette moaned in agony before wordlessly screeching. "Could today possibly get any worse?"

She shouldn't have said that. She should have known better than to taunt the universe, even with Ladybug Luck on her side.

"I still think Chat Noir won't mind that you told me your identity, Milady," Adrien said after a beat of silence, "because he is me. And as the number one expert on Chat Noir, I think he'd mostly be ecs-cat-tic to know he's been his own competition this whole time."

Marinette removed her hands and stared in horror at Adrien's face as his eyes twinkled with mischief and delight. A smile formed on his face, starting out small but slowly warping into a familiar cheeky grin.

Her legs gave out from under her and she dropped butt-first, hard, onto the floor. "No. You're not— you can't be," she insisted, her voice shaking.

But Adrien wasn't the sort to joke about something like this, and Marinette knew it.

"Plagg?" she called hesitantly, hoping with all her heart that nothing would happen.

Marinette felt her soul leave her body when a small black blur shot into the air from out of Adrien's pocket.

"Ha! He got you! Bet you didn't see that coming, eh?" Plagg made a beeline directly toward Marinette, but slowed as he got closer so that their foreheads came together with a gentle bump. "You should see your face!"

"You can't… no. This isn't happening." Marinette closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming. Right, Tikki?"

Plagg cackled. "Nope, 'fraid you're wide awake, little bug."

"Plagg, could you be nice?" Tikki scolded him. "She is the Guardian."

Plagg made a dismissive wave toward his other half. "Fine, fine. I'll try to say something encouraging. Well, Pigtails—" Tikki cleared her throat and Plagg amended, "Guardian Pigtails, the good news is that now you don't have to worry about telling Chat Noir you told your other boy your identity. And it won't break his heart because he is the other boy. So he won't be akumatized and the world won't end. And despite how nonchalant I sound about this, I'm actually genuinely concerned for multiple reasons if that's what you really think is gonna happen."

"Infinite destruction," Marinette mumbled. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face so her next words were muffled. "Unlimited cataclysms. There'll be nothing left."

It made perfect sense, she realized: Adrien hadn't needed to tell anyone. She had never really thought he did — she had always thought that Adrien could keep a secret as big and important as this one; he proved that when he never told anyone about his brief stint as Aspik — but she assumed he must have, because she had never considered the possibility that he was Chat Noir.

Oh. No wonder their love destroyed the world.

She had never truly understood how Chat Blanc could happen — in that she didn't understand how she could love Chat Noir so deeply that Paris flooded, the moon cracked in two, and all life on earth ceased to exist, when she was already full to bursting with so much love for Adrien Agreste, but it all made sense if she already loved Chat Noir that deeply because Chat Noir was Adrien.

The world never stood a chance.

"We're doomed," she muttered into her legs. Because knowing Adrien was Chat Noir didn't make her love him less — in fact, it was the opposite. She could finally acknowledge the feelings she held for her partner, now that she wasn't constantly pushing them aside in favor of the boy she loved first. "Paris is doomed."

Marinette didn't look up as she felt more than heard Adrien move over to sit next to her — now that she knew he was Chat Noir, it was like she was hyper-aware of him.

"Putting that aside for now… because that does seem like something we should talk about eventually… we still need to talk about this," Adrien said, carefully raising one of Marinette's arms. "What happened? And the truth this time, please, Marinette. You and I both know this wasn't a crafting accident."

"If you don't tell him, I will," Tikki chimed in. "This has gone on long enough, Marinette."

She sighed and hugged her knees tightly. She didn't want to admit what was going on, but she would rather Adrien — who was also Chat Noir, her partner — hear it from her rather than from her kwami. She began, "Lila has been bullying me for months."

Marinette finally raised her head again to look at Adrien when an animalistic snarl slipped from his throat through his lips, and she thought she heard Plagg echoing it from wherever he was in the room. "She's supposed to be leaving you alone," he growled, his eyes flashing with uncharacteristic anger.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I… made a deal with her," Adrien admitted, suddenly unable to look at her. "When she got you expelled. She was supposed to get you back into school and then leave you alone. In exchange, I'd be her friend. Or at least act like it." He frowned.

"Mostly it's been verbal harassment," Tikki explained when it seemed that Marinette was done talking. "Until today. Lila physically assaulted Marinette in the bathroom."

 

= =

 

Marinette attacked me in the bathroom, and—

And Adrien should have known that whatever happened had been the exact opposite of the story Lila had been trying to spin.

"And not only that!" Tikki shouted, sounding angrier and angrier as she continued, floating around in rapid circles. "She went on to tell Marinette to kill herself—" Tikki's voice cracked and she seemed to be unable to continue speaking; she just started emitting an angry hum.

Plagg zipped across the room to her, curling himself around her. He spun her around gently, almost as though they were dancing, and began purring softly.

"She what?!" Adrien was flabbergasted, though that quickly gave way to rage. Plagg's words — so he won't be akumatized and the world won't end — flashed through his head and he knew he needed to calm down, immediately. His Lady needed him right now and getting akumatized would not help her.

Marinette reburied her face in her legs and let out a sob.

Adrien gingerly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Marinette?"

No response.

"Ladybug? Milady?" Adrien frowned, his concern drowning out his anger. He tried again. "Princess?"

Still no acknowledgement from Marinette.

"Bugaboo?"

She didn't stop crying, but Marinette did respond to him this time. "Don't call me that," she said softly, barely a whisper.

He'd take it. 

"There's my bug!" Adrien couldn't help but to break out into a big smile, relieved, but he almost instantly turned serious again. "Marinette, listen; whatever Lila told you, it isn't true. Okay?"

"But it is," Marinette answered. "I'm a bad friend and everyone would be better off without me."

"No." Adrien's voice was firm. "I wouldn't be better off without you. Who else would stand up to my Father and convince him to allow me to come on a trip to New York? You're a great friend, Marinette."

"You're just saying that. You're just saying that because I'm Ladybug. You don't really care about Marinette. Nobody does."

Adrien let out a shocked gasp before he could stop himself. "That's absolutely not true, I promise you. I swear on my miraculous." He held up the hand with his ring and pressed it against his chest.

Marinette lifted her head a little and made eye contact with him. Adrien felt his heart tear in two as he took in her miserable expression. What had Lila Rossi done to her?

He moved his hand carefully toward her and wiped away the tear tracks on Marinette's face with his thumb.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said softly. "We'll figure everything out later, together, like we always do." He smiled tenderly at her. "You and me against the world, right?"

"Right," Marinette mumbled.

"But for now, we're going to go tell your parents we're going to go out for a walk to get some fresh air. Let's do a little patrol. I find that running across the rooftops is a great way to clear your head. How's that sound?"

Marinette nodded stiffly. "Okay," she said weakly.

Adrien got halfway up, one knee hovering just barely over the floor, into a sort of lunge-position. He held his hand out for Marinette to take; she hesitated, her eyes momentarily far away as she seemed to get caught in a memory, but then grabbed it, and Adrien pulled them both to a standing position. He beamed at her, and she managed to smile in response — it was shaky and feeble, but it was real, and that was good enough for Adrien.

Plagg pulled Tikki into Marinette's purse — likely Tikki's preferred hiding place — and didn't reappear once inside. Not that Adrien minded. Tikki clearly needed the comfort of her other half as much as Marinette did, and besides, it's not like Adrien was planning to be very far away from Marinette ever again. Plagg would be still close enough there for him to transform.

He picked up the strap of his messenger bag and draped it over his shoulder. "Come on then, Milady," he said brightly, never letting go of her hand. He couldn't stop the euphoria that swept over him as he led the way down the stairs, Marinette dutifully trotting along behind him. There were a lot of things about this situation that were not ideal (the first and foremost being how upset she was) but he couldn't help but to be almost deliriously giddy at the fact that he was, finally, holding his Lady's hand — her ungloved, civilian hand.

Notes:

I still can't believe I'm actually posting fanfiction on the internet again.

Personally, my favorite part of this chapter is the bit where Marinette is basically making a real-life version of a TikTok.

Chapter 3: Misery Business

Summary:

Before Marinette could respond, both of Lila's hands were on either side of her collarbone. The dainty, barely-there touch felt invasive and violating, making Marinette's skin crawl. Then Lila suddenly shoved her, hard, and Marinette stumbled backwards, losing her balance and falling to the floor. In the process, the back of her head smacked violently against the porcelain edge of a sink.

For a few seconds, Marinette's entire world was the cool tile beneath her and the intense pain that shot through her skull like lightning. It was as though the impact had knocked her spirit loose from her physical body. When she returned to herself, the world had changed: the overhead lights were too bright, the air was too warm, and every sound was distorted by a distant high-pitched shrieking.

"You should just kill yourself." Lila smiled triumphantly as Marinette winced; Lila's voice was too loud, now, and the shrill ringing in her ears made it seem as though it echoed forever, the voices of many Lilas layered over each other endlessly. "You're a terrible friend and everyone would be better off without you here."

Notes:

I don't know who needs to hear this, but just in case: don't tell people to kill themselves.

And I don't know who needs to hear this, but: don't put up with people telling you to kill yourself, either. Nobody deserves that (not even Lila).

Chat Noir wondered if there was an appropriate way to tell someone that you thought their laugh was the greatest, most melodious sound in the world. He swore that every time Ladybug laughed, flowers bloomed, the sun parted the clouds, and baby angels sprouted their wings.

Hearing her laugh was a million times better than listening to her cry.

Thankfully his plan had worked. It had been a little awkward, at first, but soon they were zipping about the city without a care in the world, engaging in a game of chase. For every step Ladybug took, Chat Noir was right on her heels. And based on the cheerful giggles that bubbled forth from her lips every time one of his clawed hands brushed against her pigtails, her silky tresses barely escaping his grasp, he knew it would only be a matter of time until, for once, she let him catch her.

After saying goodbye to Marinette's mother and leaving the bakery, they ducked into a nearby alleyway to transform.

"Plagg, claws out!" Adrien called merrily before his kwami could complain.

Marinette echoed his command with her own transformation phrase, although she didn't sound nearly as happy: "Tikki, spots on!"

Chat Noir had an ulterior motive for making sure his transformation was done first (aside from being unsure what would happen to Plagg if he was still inside Marinette's purse) though. He was going to use every strategy he could think of to get his Lady's mind off school, off Lila, off Shadowmoth, off anything and everything that didn't spark joy in her soul.

And he absolutely was not above using the newly-revealed fact that he had been the one Ladybug loved all along to his advantage.

Transformations complete, he watched as she adorably screwed her face up in concentration and reflexively grabbed onto the yoyo set on her waist. But before she could cast it out to raise herself up onto the rooftops, he slid over to her and wrapped one arm around her, settling his hand comfortably on her hip. He quickly crouched down and used his other arm to cradle her calves and lift her off the ground.

Instinctively she reached up and framed his neck with her arms as he stood upright, clasping her hands together to lock herself in this position. Knowing that she was safely in place, he skillfully grabbed his baton from the small of his back and immediately extended it, launching them up into the air with enthusiasm.

"I've always wanted to sweep you off your feet, Milady," he practically sang. His boots thumped loudly against the shingles as he landed. He wondered if his smile was as enormous as it felt — like it was so large, so bright, that at any second, his entire face would melt like a chocolate bar left in the summer sun.

Ladybug's cheeks turned a downright delectable shade of pink. "Put me down, you awful cat!" she snapped, but he knew she didn't mean it — the part about him being awful, at least. She definitely meant the part about wanting to be let down. "I can't do any therapeutic running if you won't let me run!"

They eventually stopped to rest, camping out on one of their preferred support beams on the Eiffel Tower. They were well-hidden from tourists and busybodies and also safe from being seen by news helicopters. Chat Noir dangled his legs over the edge, swinging them out contentedly, as Ladybug leaned against him, her head using his shoulder as a pillow. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and even.

His heart swelled. He couldn't remember the last time she seemed so relaxed. It had to have been… well, he was positive it had been before. Before Chloé had betrayed them. Before they'd lost Master Fu. Before she became the Guardian.

"Can I ask you a question, Milady?"

"You just did, Kitty-cat," Ladybug murmured drowsily.

"No, another one. What exactly happened yesterday? After the akuma, I mean. Because I thought you all made up; did you have a fight with Alya?"

"No. I mean: yes, we did make up, but no, I didn't have a fight with Alya," she clarified. She raised her head to look at him — apparently with great difficulty — and blinked a few times to try to rid her body of sleep. Chat Noir missed the feeling of her pressed against him instantly. "Why do you ask?"

"She… just seemed like she might be mad at you, I guess," he explained. "When I asked where you were before I came looking for you."

"Oh," Ladybug said softly. She hummed thoughtfully. "I thought I may have hurt her feelings, but I didn't think we were fighting. Maybe she's more upset than I thought."

"What would she be upset about?" he asked.

"Well, like I said earlier, yesterday the girls kept pushing me to tell them what's been wrong with me lately. But I couldn't, because the biggest source of my problems right now is, well…" She trailed off and used her arms to gesture vaguely at herself. "I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know it was unnecessarily mean. Something along the lines of I don't need friends who force their way into my room and break my things, and maybe I don't actually need them to be my friends at all. And then I told them they needed to get out. I actually shouted that at them. So that's how they got akumatized."

"Let me make sure I have this right," Chat Noir said. "Ladybug got not one, not two, but five of her friends akumatized at once… because she didn't want to tell them she was Ladybug."

Ladybug laughed, but this time it wasn't a joyful sound. It was hard and dry, like a month-old jelly doughnut. "Yeah, that about sums up how absurd my life has been recently. I didn't need to be so nasty, but in my defense, I was panicking; they almost found the Miracle Box. Anyway, after you left… after the fight… we all made up and they promised to wait until I was ready to tell them my secret and stop pushing me. But Alya stayed behind after everyone else went home, and I think she was expecting me to tell it to her anyway. I almost did, but I… didn't."

 

= =

 

"Why not?" he questioned her. "Isn't she your best friend?"

"Silly kitty."  Ladybug reached up and tapped Chat Noir's nose with one of her fingers. "You're my best friend. I can't be friends with civilians."

Yesterday had proven that in possibly the most hurtful way she could imagine.

It was adorable, the way Chat Noir's cat ears instantly perked straight up and twisted forward in pure delight despite not actually being real. Ladybug couldn't help but to raise a hand to his scalp and give him a gentle scratch. He butted his head into her palm, his way of silently asking for more. She smiled warmly and continued, applying slightly more pressure, and a purr rumbled to life in his chest.

He was such a cat. Which she didn't always understand, seeing as how at the end of the day he was really just a regular teenage boy — a human one — in a magical leather suit. Also, she didn't particularly feel like a ladybug, though she supposed she wasn't sure what being a ladybug should feel like.

It was times like this that made everything worth it, though. The secrets, the lies, the danger — all of that melted away whenever she could share a peaceful moment with her favorite kitty-cat-boy.

Well, it was peaceful until her mind finally got around to circling back to the earth-shattering truth she'd learned approximately two hours ago, at least.

She was petting Adrien Agreste.

Ladybug made an absolutely inelegant noise of distress and surprise, and she jerked back like she'd been burned. Judging by how hot her whole body suddenly felt, maybe she had been.

Chat Noir turned his head to look at her; the look initially on his face was part disappointed, part betrayed, and clearly asking why'd you stop?, but once he saw the look on her face, he asked out loud, "Are you okay?"

"Fine!" Her voice was high and tight. "Just… you're…"

Ladybug waved helplessly toward the conveniently placed Adrien: The Fragrance billboard in front of them.

"Yes?" Chat Noir's tail twitched in amusement and his mask moved as though he was raising an eyebrow. "I thought we already established this."

"Listen, that's just a lot to take in, okay?!"

"Aww, is somebody a fan?" he teased. He leaned in close to her and gave her one of his playful smiles. "I never took you for a fangirl, Milady. Then again, you do have all those pictures of me in your room."

Ladybug groaned and buried her face in her hands.

"If it makes you feel any better, I have lots of pictures of you, too," Chat Noir admitted nonchalantly. She peeked through her fingers and watched as he leaned back and effortlessly settled into a modeling pose that appeared in nearly all of Adrien's photo spreads, seemingly without even thinking about it. "I had to get a whole new phone because I ran out of storage space."

"Hashtag rich kid problems," Ladybug muttered and Chat Noir burst out laughing.

She had a brief flashback to the second day of school — their first day as heroes. It was the same mirthful sound she'd heard in the rain the day she fell in love. It still made her stomach flutter like it'd been filled with thousands of purified akuma butterflies, and she thought it probably always would.

"Maybe it is," he said once his chuckling subsided. "Because Chloé had the same problem. I had her help me pick out my new one."

"Can we not talk about Chloé right now?" She didn't want to think about her ex-self-proclaimed number one fan, just like she didn't want to think about her supposed civilian best friend. Especially now, after everything that had happened, the idea of Chloé Bourgeois having — or having had, since Ladybug suspected Chloé had probably deleted them all by now — that many photos of her was deeply uncomfortable.

But it was too late; her brain had jumped on that train of thought without permission and ridden it to Lila Central Station. She remembered what transpired in the bathroom earlier that day, before she left school and went home, claiming she was feeling unwell.

Marinette was alone in one of the school's bathrooms. She had just finished drying her hands and was about to feed Tikki a macaron before she headed home for lunch. That was when Lila Rossi walked in.

"I heard about what happened yesterday. My bestie Ladybug told me," Lila lied smoothly. Her voice was light and airy. "Congratulations on setting that record by the way, Marinette. Very impressive."

"What are you talking about, Lila?" Marinette asked flatly.

Lila laughed; it was an ugly thing that made Marinette's stomach twist in knots. "I'm not stupid, you know. I know you hate me, and I know it's partly because I've had a hand in a few akumatizations. But even I have never gotten five people at once — and so-called 'friends' of mine, at that." She slow-clapped sarcastically, five times. "Good job."

The Italian girl slunk into Marinette's personal space, slithering like a snake poised to strike. "You think you're so much better than me," she said almost tenderly, her hot breath dusting Marinette's face. "So I lie. Big deal. Everyone does about something. I just tell people what I think they want to hear. At least I'm honest with myself about it. You, on the other hand, claim to be morally superior — some saint who has never fibbed, a champion of absolute truth who has never used sugar-coated words to spare someone's feelings. And yet, you keep secrets from those you call your friends."

"Everyone is entitled to their privacy," Marinette responded, trying not to shrink away from the other girl.

A dangerous grin crept over Lila's face. "You come riding in on your high horse and go home to your glass house. You can't demand the whole and complete truth from everyone else and then skip over parts of yours."

"I never—"

"Just admit it. Alya likes me better because I'm a better friend to her. Because I'm not keeping secrets from her… She likes what I have to say more than she likes you."

Before Marinette could respond, both of Lila's hands were on either side of her collarbone. The dainty, barely-there touch felt invasive and violating, making Marinette's skin crawl. Then Lila suddenly shoved her, hard, and Marinette stumbled backwards, losing her balance and falling to the floor. In the process, the back of her head smacked violently against the porcelain edge of a sink.

For a few seconds, Marinette's entire world was the cool tile beneath her and the intense pain that shot through her skull like lightning. It was as though the impact had knocked her spirit loose from her physical body. When she returned to herself, the world had changed: the overhead lights were too bright, the air was too warm, and every sound was distorted by a distant high-pitched shrieking.

"You should just kill yourself." Lila smiled triumphantly as Marinette winced; Lila's voice was too loud, now, and the shrill ringing in her ears made it seem as though it echoed forever, the voices of many Lilas layered over each other endlessly. "You're a terrible friend and everyone would be better off without you here."

"I–I–I—"

"I–I–I—" Lila repeated mockingly. "They really would be better off without you, you know?" she said casually, inspecting her fingernails for dirt with indifference, as though she were discussing the weather. "What do you do, besides get them akumatized? Run away from them with lame excuses about having to give your fish a bath?"

It was true. Marinette did often run off with horrible excuses, but nobody took them seriously. Everyone knew she wasn't telling the truth, but her lies weren't hurting anybody.

Lila's lies were accepted as gospel, and they were potentially ruining lives. That was the problem. That was the difference. It wasn't the same at all.

"Isn't it, though?" Either having the base of her skull nearly cracked open had granted Lila the ability to read her mind, or Marinette had accidentally spoken aloud. "I thought lying was lying." Lila paused, then turned to walk out of the bathroom. "But I wasn't lying when I said everyone would be better off without you. You really should just kill yourself and spare us all from having to deal with you ever again. You'd be doing everyone a huge favor."

Marinette closed her eyes and dug her nails into fists against her legs, clawing at the fabric of her jeans. Her head started throbbing.

Lila opened the door and raised her voice to make sure anyone hanging around outside would be able to hear. "Just think about what I said, Marinette, please," she begged tearfully without tears, her voice wavering perfectly as though to sound genuinely frightened.

She turned her head to look over her shoulder and smirked venomously at the girl on the floor, and then Lila flounced out of the room as carefree as she'd arrived.

"Maybe Lila said something to Alya," Ladybug muttered. "Maybe that's why she's mad at me."

"Right. Lila." Chat Noir frowned deeply. "Your kwami said she attacked you in the bathroom? Is that why you weren't in class after lunch?" When Ladybug nodded, he asked, "Did she do that to you?" He delicately ran a clawed hand along one of her forearms, being very careful not to scratch her.

She didn't answer.

Really, it was amazing, the way suddenly absolutely everything except this conversation became super fascinating. Did the ground always look like that from all the way up here? 

"Ladybug?"

"Hmm?"

Her eyes locked on a cloud floating by that sort of looked like the akuma Riposte's sword-arm, if you squinted.

"Hey, look at me," Chat Noir said softly. He waited patiently for her to follow his direction, then used two fingers to tap her arm twice, the way one might tap a wristwatch. "Did Lila do this to you?" he repeated more firmly.

As much as she wanted to, Ladybug knew she couldn't avoid the topic forever. Even if she tried, as soon as her kwami got the opportunity, Tikki would tell him anyway. 

"No," she confessed.

 

= =

 

Ladybug averted her gaze and she mumbled, "I did that to myself."

Chat Noir was intimately familiar with the feeling of falling to his death, but he'd never experienced it like he did now, with a surface safely beneath him. "Ladyb— Marinette," he mewled, concern in his voice, as his tail thrashed anxiously, "why would you do that?"

He wasn't judging her. He really wasn't. He was just worried about her.

"I'll heal!" she shouted defensively, not answering his question. "Tikki told me that we have this, like, crazy magical healing ability, even as civilians, so they won't even leave scars."

"That's not—" He cut himself off with a wordless whine, his leather ears flattening backward on his head, upset that she was focusing on the wrong thing. "Please don't do that again, Milady. I'm begging you," he said desperately. "If you feel like you need to do that again, call me. Actually…" Chat Noir paused. "Do you even have my phone number? I don't think I have yours."

He whipped out his baton to check and slid it open to get to the communication interface. He immediately started scrolling through his contacts. 

"Yeah. I have it," Ladybug whispered. Then she noticed what he was doing. "Wait, do you have your civilian contacts on your miraculous phone?"

"Well, yeah, sorta? Plagg helped me set it up so I can still get calls and texts when I'm transformed. It comes in handy sometimes." He was still scrolling. "I should delete some of these, I think. Some of them are people I haven't worked with in five years or more," he mumbled to himself. 

"If you don't have it, I can just—"

"Not while I'm transformed," he interrupted her, but not unkindly. "Plagg promised that any number I call or text from my phone contacts should show my regular contact information, but he thinks that if I add them directly to the baton, the caller ID might say Chat Noir."

He raised the pitch of his voice just a tad and tried to add a rasp to it, to indicate he was paraphrasing Plagg. "Because the communication magic is weird. And this is really more Nooroo's thing." He shrugged and cleared his throat, returning to his normal speaking voice. "Whatever that means."

"Nooroo is Shadowmoth's kwami," Ladybug volunteered. "The butterfly, the kwami of transmission. Tikki and the others talk about him sometimes."

"Poor guy," Chat Noir said sadly, shaking his head. "Living with Shadowmoth. I can't even imagine."

"At least Nooroo has Duusu now — the peacock kwami. But yeah. The other kwamis miss them both very much."

"We'll get them back, Bug. You'll see." He smiled warmly at her. "One day."

He reached over and put one of his hands atop hers; it was resting on the beam between them, curled into a fist. "And I hope you know I'm here for you, right? Both of me. Both of you. Whatever you need, any time. I don't care if it's 4 a.m. and all you want is a glass of water."

Ladybug looked at him, awestruck; he recognized the expression because it was often captured on his face when he looked at her. People actually made collages and posted them in the comment section on the Ladyblog all the time.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, and then, without warning, she latched onto him, squeezing him in a tight hug. "Thank you," she breathed. "I couldn't do this without you, you know?"

Chat Noir disagreed completely. If something happened and only one of them was able to continue being a superhero, everyone would be much better off if it was Ladybug instead of him. But he was not going to say it aloud.

"I hope you know that goes for me, too," she continued. "I don't care how ridiculous you might think it sounds. Just say the word and I'll throw myself across the city in five seconds flat."

Chat Noir smiled affectionately at the spotted heroine with her arms wrapped around him. He thought of all the lonely, quiet nights he'd spent in his bedroom wishing he knew Ladybug's identity so he wouldn't have to be alone.

"Thank you, Milady," he responded, finally putting his own arms around her and returning her embrace. "That means more to me than you could ever know.

Notes:

And as a reward for reading the story thus far, here is a sentence from this chapter that got cut/edited because I couldn't make it flow with everything else, but it still holds a very dear place in my heart:

Lila's breath cropdusted Marinette's face like a hot fart, which was fitting, because Lila often spoke out of her ass.

Chapter 4: Give Me a Sign

Summary:

Chat Noir waved an arm angrily toward the billboard with his naked, maskless face on it. His ears swiveled so far back it was almost like that scene from The Exorcist, and his belt-tail lashed so violently against the steel beam that it actually made a sound. "That isn't real! Nothing about Adrien is real!"

"You're wrong!" Ladybug shouted so passionately that Chat Noir froze completely. "Yes, Adrien is the face of the Gabriel brand, so he's a little bit of a commodity. He constantly has to portray a certain image to please his Father. I know that," she insisted. "But the moment I fell in love with him? He saw someone who didn't like him, and who, honestly, had been a bit of a bitch to him, and he wanted to be kind to her anyway. The gesture wasn't performative; there was no one around to perform for. That kindness, that vulnerability — that was real. That was the real Adrien. And if I hadn't been so busy blinding myself by staring at Adrien like he was the sun, I might've noticed earlier that the boy hidden behind the mask of Adrien the Model was the same boy under the mask of Chat Noir."

Notes:

Do they finally kiss? I wanted them to kiss last chapter, but apparently I was too busy having fun writing angst.

Also, I have never seen The Exorcist.

Suddenly Chat Noir remembered: Marinette, who was actually Ladybug, had confessed her feelings for him today. And he'd been, understandably, a little too busy slipping into protect-mode to respond at the time. It would be downright criminal if he didn't take an opportunity to make sure she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt where he stood.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked. Ladybug, still halfway in his lap and clinging to him like velcro, nodded against his shoulder. "I knew Marinette liked me — well, Adrien; I just pretended I didn't."

At first, he had thought that maybe she hadn't really forgiven him for the gum incident, despite seeming to accept his apology, and that was why she always seemed to be running from him like her life depended on it. But then he saw the massive amount of photos in her room on the Jagged Stone episode of Fill My Shoes. And even though she'd denied having a crush on him when he'd jokingly brought it up — which was fair; he probably would've done the same thing if Ladybug had asked him about his collection of her merchandise after it had accidentally been aired on live television — he recognized fan tendencies when he saw them.

Suddenly everything about their relationship had been recontextualized. The nervous stuttering and mixing up of her words wasn't something she did because she was intimidated by him for being the son of her fashion idol. She didn't freak out whenever people (mostly Alya) suggested they be alone together because she secretly hated him and only tolerated him by association — he was best friends with Nino; Nino was dating Alya; Alya was best friends with Marinette — but because she liked him maybe a little too much.

It didn't bother him that she liked him as more than a friend, though, as long as they could still be friends. Because while he couldn't return her feelings, he couldn't lose her presence in his life either. He didn't exactly have a lot of friends to spare.

"Because I liked Marinette, too. But my heart already belonged to Ladybug — the real Ladybug, the girl underneath the costume," he explained. He knew people had a tendency to think he was in love with Ladybug the Ideal, the symbol of creation and justice — and he had a suspicion that Ladybug herself was unfortunately one of those people — when that was the furthest thing from the truth.

"Nino's always teasing me about my crush on Marinette, did you know that? And I always deny having one and say that she's just a friend. I knew better. But what was I supposed to do? I always chose to stay faithful to my feelings for Ladybug, even when Marinette was more attainable, because I…" Chat Noir paused for a moment, because he couldn't afford to get his words wrong and accidentally offend her. 

The thing he really appreciated about Marinette and her crush is that she, and she alone, never tried to touch him without permission. She went out of her way to make sure he was never uncomfortable around her. She always treated him like a person first, not a mannequin or an accessory, and made an honest effort to get to know him. Not the version of him who was artificially processed and presented to the public for consumption — the real him, the one hidden under layers and layers of Agreste Etiquette and model training.

And then, because of that, and because love and romance were two of the basic components of Adrien's very DNA, he'd gone and fallen for Marinette anyway. But years of masquerading as a painfully oblivious blonde had made it easy for him to just… ignore that and pretend it wasn't happening. Because he meant what he said — what was he supposed to do? Give up on Ladybug? He may as well just give up on breathing.

"I couldn't bear to love Marinette and find out she wasn't Ladybug; if Ladybug wasn't someone as great as Marinette, who could she possibly be?" he concluded. "Because there's absolutely nobody as incredible as Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"I get it," Ladybug mumbled against his chest. "Not the identity-related part, because that never even crossed my mind; I had both of you very squarely in different mental boxes. But I get it. Of course it would be so much simpler to just give up, and give in to the ridiculous flirt who was always showering me with roses, especially when I realized I was falling for him, but I just… couldn't…"

"Couldn't give up your celebrity crush on perfume boy?" he asked, his tone turning a little sour.

Ladybug finally pulled herself away from him and smacked him on the shoulder — not hard enough to even remotely hurt him, but enough to show that she was displeased. "Don't talk about him like that. He's my friend."

"I mean, I don't get it, to be honest," he continued as if she hadn't said anything. He shrugged and the tip of his tail flicked with annoyance. "What's so great about Adrien Agreste? I'm being completely serious. He's a terminal people-pleaser with no backbone. A daddy's boy with lots of money and a pretty face."

Chat Noir almost laughed at the sounds coming out of Ladybug's mouth when he said that — had the atmosphere not been so tense, he probably would have. It was a string of offended gasps, indignant grunts, and outraged groans; it was a perfect impression of the time he and Chloé were going out to lunch and he had the audacity to suggest they go somewhere that wasn't a sushi restaurant.

"You're not allowed to talk about him anymore, because you clearly don't know what you're talking about," Ladybug finally said, sternly, when she was able to control her tongue and make words again. She folded her arms across her chest. "Adrien Agreste is so much more than just a pretty face."

He snorted. "If that's the case, why didn't you ever see me when I was right here?"

 

= =

 

"It's not like you ever saw Marinette, because you were too busy chasing Ladybug's shadow," she spat back. "News flash! I go home, I take off the costume, and I become clumsy, ordinary Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Ladybug isn't real. Marinette is."

"Are you trying to say that you think Adrien Agreste is the real me? Because he's as fake as Ladybug is!" Chat Noir waved an arm angrily toward the billboard with his naked, maskless face on it. His ears swiveled so far back it was almost like that scene from The Exorcist, and his belt-tail lashed so violently against the steel beam that it actually made a sound. "That isn't real! Nothing about Adrien is real!"

"You're wrong!" Ladybug shouted so passionately that Chat Noir froze completely. "Yes, Adrien is the face of the Gabriel brand, so he's a little bit of a commodity. He constantly has to portray a certain image to please his Father. I know that," she insisted. "But the moment I fell in love with him? He saw someone who didn't like him, and who, honestly, had been a bit of a bitch to him, and he wanted to be kind to her anyway. The gesture wasn't performative; there was no one around to perform for. That kindness, that vulnerability — that was real. That was the real Adrien. And if I hadn't been so busy blinding myself by staring at Adrien like he was the sun, I might've noticed earlier that the boy hidden behind the mask of Adrien the Model was the same boy under the mask of Chat Noir."

Chat Noir sat, unmoving, in complete silence. Ladybug actually started to get worried. Her kitty-cat was prone to his quiet moments, but those happened when he was sad. She wasn't sure what he was feeling now, with his stillness, and it made her feel off-balance.

"…you really think I didn't notice Marinette?" he finally asked in a small voice. "Because I can promise you, I did. I'm blonde, Milady, not blind. I called you our Everyday Ladybug, remember?"

She remembered. She remembered the spike of anxiety that shot through her as she briefly thought someone had put the pieces together and discovered that she was Ladybug, before she realized that Adrien was just trying to give her the highest form of compliment he could.

And now, knowing that he was Chat Noir, she knew that that was truly high praise, indeed.

"And I'm a young man with male teenage hormones, as Father would say. I'm more than aware that Marinette Dupain-Cheng is without question the prettiest of Adrien's friends."

Chat Noir smiled brightly at her, his magically-enhanced eyes sparkling with genuine affection. She felt her face light up in response and wondered how closely her skin matched the color of her suit. "That's not fair," Ladybug whined. "How do you have such an easy time saying things like that?"

He shrugged. "I grew up listening to Mother and Father talk like that constantly. I know that's hard to believe because you've met him, and I know you've heard the things Nino says about him, but he was… different, before. Really. Losing Mother broke him."

"Oh, Kitty," she whispered sadly. She reached out to touch his face, but stopped before she actually made contact, letting him decide if he wanted it or not.

He did. He pushed his cheek into her palm instantly, once again acting every bit like a real cat. "You're not so bad at it yourself, you know. Like you didn't just compare me to the sun. I— wow," he sighed dreamily, his purr kicking back up. "You can call me a dumb cat every day for the rest of my life, because I have that to hold onto."

Chat Noir twisted his neck and head around in a way that Ladybug swore was impossible so that her hand was back on the top of his head, between his cat ears. She returned to giving him scritches and his body melted, his chest rumbling louder in response. 

"…we should probably get back to school," Ladybug finally said after a few minutes. "Or, at least you should."

The last thing she wanted to do was leave, and she knew that her partner felt the same, but it was the proper and responsible thing to do. Reluctantly, he sat up and lazily stretched himself out. As she watched, he gave her a disappointed look.

"What?"

"Don't you know anything about cats, Milady? You're supposed to say 'big stretch' when they do a stretch."

Ladybug rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched into a smile. "You're not a cat."

"I kinda am, though." He pointed a clawed finger toward his leather ears, which he wiggled. Then he flicked the bell that hung on the collar around his neck, making it chime pleasantly. "Your cat, if you'll have me."

Ladybug sputtered like a broken water fountain.

"Maybe this is, uh, a bad time to ask this," Chat Noir said, reaching back to rub the nape of his neck anxiously, looking every bit as shy as Adrien Agreste ever had, "but would you like to go out with me? For real?"

Our love destroyed the world. That sentence looped on itself in Ladybug's brain, over and over again, until the words ran together and created mush that held no meaning. She frantically looked around for Bunnyx to appear out of her burrow like a groundhog in February, except instead of announcing a longer winter or an early spring, she was arriving to forestall the apocalypse.

She didn't come.

A large swatch of white caught Ladybug's eye, but it wasn't a burrow. It was another cloud. This wasn't like the one she'd seen earlier that required some imagination. This one was quite clearly in the shape of a hand giving a thumbs-up.

…

Really?!

 

= = 

 

Ladybug didn't speak for a long moment, and Chat Noir started to get worried he'd overstepped. But this made sense to him — she was the mysterious girl he'd fallen head over heels for, and now he knew who she really was: the other girl he'd started falling for. He was her other boy. 

"As… Ladybug and Chat Noir, or as… Marinette and Adrien?"

His heart soared. Her answer wasn't a no.

"Yes," he answered immediately. "Yes. You really think, now that I've finally found you, that I want to spend a single second more apart from you? You'd be dead wrong, Milady. I want Chat Noir to be able to run across the rooftops singing the praises of Ladybug. I want Adrien to be able to pick Marinette up and take her out to fancy restaurants. I want you to be mine and I want the world to know it."

"Chat Noir already does that. I can't stop him. I've tried," Ladybug muttered, and it was cute how annoyed she sounded about it. "But it's dangerous! We can't date as both heroes and civilians, not at the same time! That's as good as giving away our identities. So you'll have to pick one or the other."

She was letting him choose.

His heart felt as though it was pushing through his ribcage, about to explode out of his chest with how much it seemed to swell. She was giving him a choice.

There wasn't a chance he would settle for anything less, though.

"Think about it; it's actually the purrfect cover-up," he said, unable to resist the easy pun despite the fact that he was trying to get her to agree to something. But he had a plan — just because he opted to follow her lead didn't mean he couldn't think tactically himself. He'd grown up playing chess with Félix, after all. "If people accuse us of being Ladybug and Chat Noir just because we started dating at the same time, all we have to do is just tell them it's just a coincidence. Because don't you think it would be suspicious if we really were Ladybug and Chat Noir? Don't you think if we were, we'd stagger our relationships to avoid this exact situation?"

"…okay, that could actually work," Ladybug admitted.

"I can also say that I'm just way too busy to be Chat Noir. Or that I'm so much more handsome than Adrien," he continued, running a hand dramatically through his hair and posing, despite Ladybug shooting him a look that said she was this close to wrapping him up in her yoyo and launching him off the tower. He just smirked at her. "It's offensive that people think I look like the perfume boy, honestly. You really think the angel boy is the avatar for an ancient god of destruction? Yeah, okay." He waved his hand dismissively.

Then he laughed. Ladybug burst into a fit of giggles as well. "Alya drew a mask on one of your modeling photos once," she said. "I said you didn't look anything like Chat Noir! You! Chat Noir!"

"I told you. People aren't going to figure it out as long as we're careful — like we have been. But we don't have to do it alone anymore." He held a hand out to her.

Ladybug reached out and took it. "You… still… like me? Even after…"

"…did you think being Marinette would make Ladybug less attractive to me?" Was she not listening, or was her self-esteem just that far gone? He felt a physical ache in his chest. He brought her hand to his lips and placed a tender kiss to her knuckles. "Because it's the opposite. And I will spend every day proving it to you until you believe me."

"…okay," she finally answered. "Yes. I'll go out with you. With both of you."

She said yes.

Chat Noir asked Ladybug to go out with him, and she said yes.

Miracles did happen.

She gently took the hand with his ring and bought it to cup her face. His miraculous brushed against her own and they both felt a spark of electricity at the contact. "Ladybug and Chat Noir," she murmured. "Creation and destruction, yin and yang. Whatever we have to face, we're stronger together."

"I couldn't have said it better myself, Milady." He couldn't stop the lovesick grin from appearing on his face even if he wanted to.

"We really should go, though. Don't you have fencing practice?"

He wasn't going to question how she knew that. Fans had done worse before – there was a reason his chauffeur doubled as a bodyguard. "Yeah. Hopefully Nino covered for me with Mrs. Bustier and said I was at a shoot or something." He checked his baton. "Nathalie hasn't called or texted me about missing class, though, so I think I'm in the clear."

 

= =

 

"What about your Father?"

Chat Noir looked at Ladybug like she'd grown a second head.

"Father barely acknowledges me when I see him in person," he said bitterly. "He's not going to text me about something he expects Nathalie to take care of. If I didn't hear him in his atelier yelling at suppliers from time to time, I'd think his phone didn't work at all."

Ladybug felt like she might cry. Suddenly all the pieces fit together – Chat Noir's absent father was Adrien's. Her poor, lonely kitty. "Can I hug you?" She swept her arms open.

"Always," he responded, diving into her embrace. He rubbed the side of his face against hers — scent marking her, really?! — before he pulled back. He looked her right in the eyes and said, "I'd really like to kiss you."

"…what's stopping you?" she asked. Because restraint was not something she expected from him – after all the months of overt flirting, the dozens upon dozens of roses, and the overblown daily declarations of love, she was not expecting him to have the willpower to keep himself from kissing her silly as soon as he was allowed.

"This will be my first kiss with you that I remember, and I'd like that to be special." He grabbed a lock of hair just to the side of her bangs and tenderly twirled it around one of his fingers. "And I meant what I said earlier — that I would spend every day proving to you that it's not Ladybug I love. It's the girl who wears the costume. It's Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

Oh. Ladybug's heart felt like a jackhammer against her ribs. It really wasn't fair, like she'd said earlier, how he was able to say things so sweetly. And she realized she hadn't been fair to him — of course he would control himself. He always respected her boundaries. Why would this be any different?

Chat Noir gently removed his clawed finger from her hair and brushed his knuckle against her face, wiping away the tears that had started to form. "Don't cry," he murmured. Then, smiling, he asked, "Come to fencing practice with me? Kagami will be there today, and I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."

"Okay, sure, if my parents say it's alright."

"Ask them if you can come over to my house afterward, too." Chat Noir frowned very seriously — it was an expression that Ladybug hated to see on his face. "We're going to have to talk to Father."

Notes:

Alternate chapter summary -

Chat Noir: Adrien Agreste sucks
Ladybug: SORE WA CHIGAU YO!

...if you know, you know

Chapter 5: Extraordinary Girl

Summary:

Her attention was jerked elsewhere when she felt a hand gently place itself on her cheek, covered in cool leather and tipped with pointed claws. She knew this hand. She'd recognize the delicate touch of her partner, Chat Noir, anywhere, even if she went a thousand years without it. He carefully used the points of his claws to lightly scratch her skin, gingerly enough to not leave marks, just enough to cause more feelings of bliss to violently shoot through her body.

The weight against her lips pulled away, and without thinking, she chased after it. It jerked away farther, just out of reach, and she heard a low chuckle that instantly made the butterflies that lived in her stomach burst to life. "Claws in," Chat Noir whispered, and when Marinette felt his hot breath ghosting against her face, she realized the warm, wet, soft thing had been his own lips.

Before she could think more about that — or how different it had been from the last time she remembered kissing Chat Noir, while he was under the thrall of Dark Cupid — his lips were back on hers, pressing against her more urgently.

Notes:

When it was originally uploaded, the previous chapter (chapter 4) was erroneously titled Extraordinary Girl, which is actually this chapter's title. If you saw that, no you didn't.

Also, I know in canon Adrien takes Chinese lessons - and he still does, in this story - but I decided it would be fun if he also spoke Japanese, because he's definitely a gigantic weeb. You can't change my mind.

(On that note, despite the story being written in English, I mention them speaking French, which makes more sense to me because the story takes place in France. But since I hardly speak any other languages, everything has been translated into English for convenience.)

"So, why do we need to talk to your Father?"

The two of them had changed locations — now they were sitting out on the rooftop of their school. They'd arrived too early for school to be over for the day, but too late to bother going back to class. However, Adrien still needed to make an appearance at fencing practice, because Instructor D'Argencourt would be harder to fool than Mrs. Bustier. And besides that, he needed to be here to be picked up by his driver afterwards.

They weren't quite ready to go back to everyday civilian life, either. It was rare that they got to hang out, for lack of a better term, while transformed, and it was oddly peaceful.

Chat Noir sighed. "Well…" He ran a hand through his hair. "The best defense is a good offense, as they say. If we don't want me to end up under house arrest — I can't speak for you, Milady, but I definitely don't want that — we need to be proactive."

He looked off into the distance, the way he did when he was withholding something. But Ladybug chose not to push it, remembering being on the other side of the fence and how it had gotten five people akumatized. Instead she reached over and placed her hand softly on top of his as if to say she'd wait until he was ready to tell her what was on his mind.

 

= =

 

It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her. He just didn't know how. And, he didn't know if it was the right time to tell her yet, when he couldn't prove it.

But he was pretty sure Lila was spying on him for his Father.

It was too coincidental. Sometimes Father and Nathalie knew about things they had no way of knowing unless someone had told them, and this didn't start until after Lila had joined the class. More specifically, it didn't start until Lila started modeling for Gabriel.

Adrien's Father did not normally put up with drama and unprofessional behavior. If Lila wasn't working for him in some other capacity, she would have undoubtedly been fired from the lineup before her first day was even over. She was rude and unnecessarily difficult; she did not follow directions; she also wasn't particularly good at modeling, and, if he was being honest, she was the… most homely of the models. Adrien was all for more diversity in models, but it was Father who chose them, and Father only ever wanted traditionally attractive models.

If Adrien, face of the brand — and the son of the CEO and lead designer — dared to act the way Lila did, he was almost certain that not only would he be fired, his Father may actually physically strike him.

But this was why he had a plan. If Lila did spy on him for his Father, she would certainly tell him about how Adrien never returned to class. If questioned on that, he would say he didn't feel well and went to the nurse's office, but he felt better in time for fencing. Unless Lila followed him, which he doubted, she couldn't disprove that.

It would definitely prove that someone was leaking information about him to his Father, if they knew about it despite not contacting him to see where he was, or even to find out if he was okay. But regardless, the sooner they approached his Father, the better off they would be. Allowing Father more time to formulate a defense against them would only lead to disaster.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a familiar voice calling out a familiar name. 

"Ladybug! Ladybug!" Alya shouted out joyfully, running over to the heroes and waving.

Class was over and students were heading home for the day. Ladybug shot Chat Noir a quick glance that said I'm sorry you don't get more recognition. He shrugged back, ever so slightly, as if to say I don't mind. I get enough of that as Adrien. Ladybug nodded in response, a movement invisible to everyone besides her partner.

"What's going on? Is there an akuma attack?" Alya asked as she got closer, pulling her phone out to record.

Chat Noir felt Ladybug stiffen beside him. She was clearly not in a headspace to deal with Alya right now. "No, everything's fine," he answered easily. "We were just on patrol and stopped to take a little break. Thought this would be a good spot—" He elbowed Ladybug, who groaned dramatically. "—since so many akumas seem to come from here."

He stood up and offered his hand out to Ladybug, who let him pull her to her feet. "But we don't have time for interviews today. Cat-ch ya later, Ladyblogger!" He waved to the crowd in general, not to Alya specifically, then turned back to his partner and in a softer voice said, "Come on, Milady. Let's get out of here."

Ladybug smiled awkwardly and gave a tentative wave to the crowd as well, before zipping off after her partner. They landed in a secluded spot near the back of the school.

"Thank you," she whispered. She sounded grateful for taking over that interaction, probably unsure of how to approach Alya right now. Then she saw the look on his face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

He shook his head as though it was an etch a sketch and the movement would erase his frown. He hastily put on a smile. "Don't worry about it."

Sometimes his improved hearing felt like a curse. Thankfully Ladybug hadn't seemed to have heard it, but as they had gotten the heck out of there, he'd distinctly heard Alya call out to them, "Don't you want to say hi to Lila?"

Ladybug sighed, releasing her breath slowly to center herself. Her eyes were clenched tightly shut. Then she said her magic words: "Spots off."

Chat Noir watched in amazement as the pink light flashed over her whole body, leaving Marinette Dupain-Cheng in her place.

And God, she had never looked so beautiful.

Maybe it was knowing she was Ladybug. Maybe it was the miraculous magic giving her skin an extra magical glow. Maybe it was his supernaturally-enhanced eyes.

But the why didn't really matter.

Before her detransformation even completely finished — the light was around her ankles, and Tikki had yet to be ejected from the earrings — he leaned in to kiss her.

 

= = 

 

Marinette felt something warm and wet against her lips.

It pushed against her pleasantly, a delightful tingle waterfalling down her spine, causing her toes to curl without her conscious direction. Whatever it was was also so soft—

Her attention was jerked elsewhere when she felt a hand gently place itself on her cheek, covered in cool leather and tipped with pointed claws. She knew this hand. She'd recognize the delicate touch of her partner, Chat Noir, anywhere, even if she went a thousand years without it. He carefully used the points of his claws to lightly scratch her skin, gingerly enough to not leave marks, just enough to cause more feelings of bliss to violently shoot through her body.

The weight against her lips pulled away, and without thinking, she chased after it. It jerked away farther, just out of reach, and she heard a low chuckle that instantly made the butterflies that lived in her stomach burst to life. "Claws in," Chat Noir whispered, and when Marinette felt his hot breath ghosting against her face, she realized the warm, wet, soft thing had been his own lips.

Before she could think more about that — or how different it had been from the last time she remembered kissing Chat Noir, while he was under the thrall of Dark Cupid — his lips were back on hers, pressing against her more urgently. It was strange, but not unpleasant, to be kissed while the detransformation magic washed over her partner, swapping his superhero persona for his civilian one. The familiar, subtle vibrations of her own detransformation felt like live electricity when coming from the outside, but that seemed right, from what she remembered of transforming with Plagg the day they switched miraculouses.

She felt the leather on her face fade away to warm, bare skin, starting with the heel of his palm and traveling down to his fingertips, the sharp points the last thing to disappear. Adrien's hand was soft, not as soft as his lips, but definitely warmer. His other hand touched the other side of her face, holding her more tightly, but not painfully — as if now that he wasn't transformed, he was no longer afraid of accidentally hurting her with their huge gap in strength.

After what felt like an eternity, and yet not long enough at all, her knees buckled, threatening to send her to the floor. The hands were off her face in an instant, placed instead on her hips to help her stay upright and steady. The warmth on her lips disappeared, leaving her face cold and her heart empty.

"Careful," Adrien said tenderly. There was nothing but love and admiration shining in his pretty green eyes, but the self-satisfied smirk his mouth curled into did not belong to the model; it had been stolen from a certain cat-themed hero. "We don't need you to hurt yourself falling for me."

When Marinette did not respond — she couldn't; she wasn't sure what it felt like to be in shock, but if she had to guess, it was probably something like what she was feeling right now — Plagg laughed from his place floating just over Adrien's shoulder.

"Way to go, kid," he said, his voice filled with pride and delight. "You broke her. This is why ladybugs aren't supposed to be the Guardian. It's a pain in the ass to replace either of them, never mind both at once."

"Marinette?" The smile faded from Adrien's face and his voice flooded with concern. "Are you alright?"

"She'll be fine," Tikki said from her place over Adrien's other shoulder, but she didn't sound completely convinced. "She just needs a minute or two."

"And don't sound so thrilled, Plagg," Adrien admonished his kwami. "If Ladybug gets replaced, Chat Noir does, too. I won't do this without her."

Plagg's fur puffed out angrily. "Are you kidding me?! I won't let you do that! You're the best holder I've ever had and I'm tired of your renouncing me shit, Adrien!"

"Mmm, Adrien," Marinette sighed dreamily, a faraway look in her eyes. She lifted her hand and gently touched her lips with her fingertips.

"Yes, Marinette, that's good!" Tikki floated directly into Marinette's face. "Adrien is right here!"

"Are you sure you're okay, Marinette?"

"I'm food. You're grine. Meat," Marinette mumbled, trying to regain control of herself before she sighed again, still completely lost in her haze of pleasure.

"Yeah, she's lost it," Plagg declared. "None of that made any sense whatsoever."

"She said she's fine," Tikki and Adrien clarified at the same time. Adrien held out a fist to Tikki and Tikki, giggling, bumped one of her flipper-like arms against it.

Plagg just rolled his eyes. "Okay, I'm done with the mushy-gushy stuff for now. Unless it's mushy-gushy camembert." He opened his mouth wide and pointed into his gaping maw. "Feed me."

"Plagg!" Tikki sounded scandalized. "Is this how you always talk to your holder?"

"Um, yes?" Plagg turned back to Adrien. "I don't see any cheese. Chop-chop!"

"I'm so sorry about him, Adrien," Tikki said, shooting daggers at her counterpart with her eyes. "You'd think over the course of thirteen billion years, a kwami would learn some manners."

Plagg blew a raspberry at Tikki.

Adrien was already rolling his eyes and fetching a piece of camembert from his pocket. "It's alright, Tikki." Plagg greedily divebombed Adrien's hand holding the cheese and snatched it up before shoving the entire thing in his mouth. "Plagg means well, and I know he cares about me."

"See? He gets me." Plagg stuck his tongue out at Tikki, who crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out as well, in response.

"Adrien!" Marinette shouted breathlessly, suddenly snapping out of her weird mindset and coming crashing back down to Earth. This attracted everyone's attention and they all turned to her. She placed a hand over mouth. "You… y-you kissed me!"

"Yes? Did you not want me to?" Adrien's face flushed a bright, embarrassed pink and he anxiously scratched the back of his neck. "I won't do it again. Sorry."

"No, that's not—" Marinette made an annoyed growl and curled her hands into fists. "I just— no, no, Adrien, I really liked it, I just—"

She wasn't sure how to express with words what she was feeling, but Adrien wasn't her partner, her Chat Noir, for nothing. Although they were helpful, they didn't need words to communicate. His entire face lit up as he understood, relieved that he hadn't made her uncomfortable by overstepping her boundaries. "I'll give you some warning next time, then. I shouldn't have done it without asking, anyway."

Next time. He was planning on kissing her again. The thought almost sent Marinette back into orbit.

"Some… some warning would be nice, yeah," she managed to mutter, barely holding onto her consciousness.

Adrien smiled and held out a hand to her, which she took. "We should get going before Kagami comes looking for us. She'll definitely be mad at us if we make her wait much longer. She doesn't appreciate tardiness."

Marinette giggled. "And I'd appreciate not facing her as an akuma again."

"Me either. She's rough. Zero out of ten, do not recommend fighting Riposte. Especially with a twisted ankle."

Marinette's face paled as she put the pieces together, remembering that fight with the new knowledge that Adrien and Chat Noir were the same person. "Oh my god. That's right; you were hurt. Protecting me. Oh my god."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm fine. I'm still here." He readjusted his fingers so that they were interlaced with hers and gave her hand a squeeze. "Just breathe."

Marinette closed her eyes and attempted some deep breathing, but it sounded a lot more like she was about to hyperventilate.

 

= =

 

Adrien decided it was probably not the best idea to remind her that he regularly got hurt protecting her, so really, it was no big deal. It wasn't a big deal to him, at least — she always fixed him with her miraculous cure. Clearly it was a big deal to her.

"You two should probably hide," he said to the kwamis, who immediately disappeared back into Marinette's purse. Then he tugged Marinette behind him and headed to fencing practice.

Kagami was already there, waiting, dressed in her red fencing uniform. "Adrien, Marinette, it is good to see you both."

"Hi, Kagami!" Marinette, decidedly calmer now, pulled her hand out of Adrien's and held her arms open for a hug. Kagami awkwardly returned the hug as well as the cheek kisses Marinette gave her.

Adrien placed a hand on Kagami's shoulder and leaned in to speak quietly to her, in Japanese. "Do you mind keeping an eye on Marinette for me while I go get ready? I'm trying to keep someone away from her."

Kagami raised an eyebrow. "A love rival?"

Adrien frowned. "No. Nothing like that."

"An enemy." Kagami nodded. "Understood." Then she turned to Marinette and switched back to French. "Do you have your sketchbook with you, Marinette? I would love it if I could see some of your recent designs."

"Oh, n-no, I don't have any of my things with me."

"Then perhaps you would be interested in seeing some of my recent watercolor paintings?" Kagami slung an arm over Marinette's shoulder and led her over to the bench where she'd tucked her duffel bag out of the way.

"Oh, sure." Marinette looked over their shoulders at Adrien, anxiety dancing in her eyes, seeking his reassurance.

He just smiled and waved back to her before taking off at full speed for the locker room. He'd prefer that she wasn't out of his sight at all — Lila could still be hanging around, and he was never going to let that demon masquerading as a girl be alone with his Lady ever again — but he trusted Kagami to watch over her.

He got ready in record time, likely at least partly due to not having Plagg with him (which felt weird, he wasn't going to lie, but he knew where Plagg was and that was the most important thing). When he returned, Marinette and Kagami were sitting comfortably, looking through Kagami's art.

"Wow, Kagami! These are so good!"

"Thank you." Kagami blessed Marinette with a rare smile. She noticed Adrien approaching and then added, "If you find yourself needing something to do with your hands, you can use a few of the pages in the back of the book to sketch." She reached into her bag and handed Marinette a pencil. "If you don't mind me adding color to them later."

"Thank you, Kagami. I'm glad we're friends."

"As am I, Marinette. Are you ready, Adrien?"

Adrien nodded, not really paying attention to Kagami because he was too busy looking at Marinette. Kagami led him away and they took their positions.

"I see."

Adrien turned away from Marinette to focus his attention back on Kagami. She held her saber in front of her, twisting her wrist and watching with boredom as the reflection of the light on the tip of the blade changed with the motion.

"You see what?" he asked, having absolutely no idea what Kagami was talking about.

Kagami's eyes flickered to Marinette before returning to her weapon and she repeated, in a firmer voice this time, "I see."

"Oh." Adrien knew exactly what Kagami could see and he felt his cheeks tinge pink. Despite not being very good at expressing her own emotions or using them to bond with people, she was almost like a bloodhound when it came to changes in relationships between other people. Adrien thought it came from Kagami's very clinical and logical perspective on practically everything. "Did she tell you?"

"No," Kagami answered, still watching her saber with cold disinterest but moving it slightly more now, slowly swirling her wrist instead of just turning it. "You did, with how you're looking at her. Like she's a precious treasure."

"Hehe," Adrien coughed anxiously and rubbed the nape of his neck. "Is it that obvious?"

Kagami stopped studying her blade and stilled her hand; she finally looked him straight in the eye, a completely blank look on her face. And she said in that absolutely deadpan way that signaled to Adrien that she was being totally truthful, while also attempting to make a joke: "Adrien, it is so obvious that my blind mother could see it."

Notes:

It's about time that these two dorks kissed, right? Look at me taking almost as long as canon to get them there. The original plan was for them to kiss two chapters ago.

In case anyone was wondering, Adrien's Japanese is entirely self-taught, a lot of it through watching anime with the subtitles on, but also using various online resources. Since he and Marinette have an opposites-attract thing going on, and Marinette has a tendency to have trouble with her words when she gets flustered, I thought it would be fitting if Adrien was basically the ultimate language bro.

Chapter 6: And She Said

Summary:

The two teens stood silently, waiting, for a few minutes. Then Gabriel finally spoke, his fingers never pausing as they flew about his tablet. He didn't even glance their way to acknowledge them, even for a split second.

"I'm very busy, Adrien," he said brusquely. "What is it?"

"Father," Adrien replied, using his most formally polite tone, "you remember my friend and classmate, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

At her name, Gabriel's eyes did flicker briefly up to look at Marinette, checking her over critically. She felt her body stiffen and fought the urge to wave, remembering what Adrien had said; she settled for slowly curling her hand into a fist and then relaxing it. But in less than a second, Gabriel's attention was back on his tablet.

"Mmm, yes," he mused thoughtfully. "The laboring hands of a hatmaker. I remember."

"Well, she's my girlfriend now," Adrien continued, bringing their clasped hands into sight while still maintaining his just-ahead position. "We're in love."

Gabriel scoffed, sounding every bit like Chloé Bourgeois if she were a middle-aged man. "Don't be ridiculous, Adrien. You're far too young to have any idea what love is."

Notes:

I am ridiculously (utterly ridiculously) proud of this chapter; honestly, this was one of the first chapters I wrote, just because I wanted to write the part where Marinette describes the day she met Adrien. Though I also really enjoyed writing the bit where Adrien thinks about when he fell in love with Ladybug.

And when I was done, I said, well damn, that's almost a whole chapter, whoops, and I fluffed it out a little bit to bring it up to a length I was happy with. I also tried something different for this chapter, and I think I like it.

Adrien pushed open the front doors of the mansion he called home and gestured with the slightest tilt of his head for Marinette to step inside before him. This was the best part of knowing their identities: all the time they'd spent together while transformed, communicating in ways that were unspoken, translated seamlessly into their civilian lives. Adrien's bodyguard was trained to observe the smallest details, the tiniest changes, especially in his young charge, and even he didn't notice the movement; but it was practically a sign the size of a billboard to the girl who moonlighted as Ladybug and was the foremost expert in Chat Noir's body language.

After fencing practice officially ended, Kagami took guard of Marinette once more, without even being asked. When Adrien returned, Kagami was looking over Marinette's sketches appreciatively.

"Ready to go?" he asked Marinette with a big smile.

"I will be taking my leave as well," Kagami said, putting her things away in her bag. "I am sure my driver is here. It was good to see you both."

"Bye, Kagami! Let's go get juice sometime soon, okay?"

Kagami nodded. "I would like that. Goodbye, Marinette, Adrien."

After Kagami left, Adrien took Marinette's hand and helped her to stand. "So… are you ready?"

"Honestly… no," Marinette answered. "I mean, your dad is Gabriel Agreste, fashion genius."

Adrien just shrugged. "I mean, you've met him before. He knows your name. That's better than Nino can say." ('The boy with the hat' was what his Father called Nino.)

"Gabriel Agreste… knows… my name?" she squeaked out. She looked like she might faint.

Now Adrien laughed. "Yes. I've tried telling you before, Marinette, but you're insanely talented."

Nathalie Sancoeur, much as Adrien had expected, was waiting in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. She stood as she always did — perfectly straight and unnaturally still, as though she was just one of the many statues that decorated Agreste Manor and not its single most valuable employee. She held her tablet to her chest, like a shield, and her face betrayed absolutely no emotion. It was times like this that Adrien wondered if Sancoeur — heartless — was actually the name on her legal documents or if it was more of a professional name.

"Miss Dupain-Cheng," Nathalie said, as though they had been expecting her. She gave a very shallow nod, the closest they could expect to an actual greeting. "Adrien."

Adrien flashed one of his patented model smiles at his father's assistant. "Good afternoon, Nathalie," he greeted her politely. "Is Father in his atelier? I need to speak with him."

"Your Father is a very busy man, Adrien."

"I know," Adrien responded brightly. "But I won't take up much of his time. This is a matter that can't wait."

And he knew it really couldn't — the fact that Nathalie wasn't immediately kicking Marinette out of the house, stating that surprise guests (or any guests) could not be allowed into the manor, clearly showed that his Father was at least vaguely aware of the situation. Without waiting for Nathalie to answer, he gently took Marinette's hand and walked her over to the doors that led into his Father's atelier. 

Marinette and Adrien, hand-in-hand, walked out to where Adrien's bodyguard was waiting for him, leaning against the limo. The large man grunted disapprovingly when they approached and Adrien didn't let go of Marinette's hand.

"Please, let her come home with me. I'll take the blame for it if Father gets upset."

This got another grunt — it sounded like a question.

"We both need to talk to Father," Adrien explained. "I want to ask his blessing to let Marinette be my girlfriend."

This time, he received a grunt that sounded appreciative. He looked pointedly at Marinette and wordlessly grumbled, while rubbing his stomach in large circles.

Marinette looked to Adrien for guidance.

"I think he wants you to bribe him," Adrien said, a smile toying with the outer edges of his lips. "Since, technically, he really isn't supposed to drive anyone but me."

"Oh! Uh…" Marinette thought. "Please take me home with Adrien? I can bring you some fresh pastries tomorrow morning when you drop him off for school."

Adrien's bodyguard nodded, smiling, and he grunted appreciatively. Then he opened the limo's door and allowed both of them to crawl inside.

He stopped outside the doors and gave Marinette's hand a small squeeze. She gave off no outwardly obvious signs that she was about to have a panic attack, but to Adrien, expert he was in Ladybug's emotions, it was clear as day. Her breathing was arrhythmic and near silent, as though she was about to hyperventilate but trying to be polite about it. With his advanced senses, he could hear — and through the clammy hand he held in his, he could feel — the pace of her heartbeat skyrocket. He leaned in toward her so he could whisper in her ear.

"Hey, it's going to be okay." He stood so close to Marinette that he himself could feel the calming chill his words caused her sweep down her body like a waterfall. "I'll do most of the talking. Don't say anything unless he addresses you first. And when you do, just be yourself. Don't worry; he likes you." He gave her his most Chat Noir awestruck-by-Ladybug smile and then raised his hand to knock on the door.

Knock, knock-knock.

The game started here. That pattern of knocking — one rap of the knuckles against the wood, a brief pause, and then two more in rapid succession — belonged to his Mother. And his Mother went freely everywhere in the house, as she was the Mistress of the Estate, except for Father's private atelier. That was Mother's knock, and this was the only door she ever knocked on.

Two long seconds passed. Then Gabriel Agreste's voice rang from inside the room. "Enter," he commanded.

Adrien led Marinette inside, just three steps past the doorway. With their uncanny ability to be perfectly in-sync, he effortlessly positioned her beside him, but also ever-so-slightly behind him; their bodies touched in an unbroken line from their shoulders down to their still-linked hands, which were now behind Adrien's back directly in line with his leg. Marinette tensed when the significance hit her: this was meant to give off a united front as equals, but also show that he was her protector above all else. This was Chat Noir hoping to have a conversation without it leading to violence, but he was still ready to immediately throw himself in the way to defend her the second it got dangerous.

A quick squeeze from Adrien's hand made the newly-acquired tension instantly vanish from her body. They were Ladybug and Chat Noir, and together, they could defeat whatever they faced. If he said that everything would be alright, then it would be. Marinette tightened her grip in response.

The two teens stood silently, waiting, for a few minutes. Then Gabriel finally spoke, his fingers never pausing as they flew about his tablet. He didn't even glance their way to acknowledge them, even for a split second.

"I'm very busy, Adrien," he said brusquely. "What is it?"

"Father," Adrien replied, using his most formally polite tone, "you remember my friend and classmate, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

At her name, Gabriel's eyes did flicker briefly up to look at Marinette, checking her over critically. She felt her body stiffen and fought the urge to wave, remembering what Adrien had said; she settled for slowly curling her hand into a fist and then relaxing it. But in less than a second, Gabriel's attention was back on his tablet.

"Mmm, yes," he mused thoughtfully. "The laboring hands of a hatmaker. I remember."

"Well, she's my girlfriend now," Adrien continued, bringing their clasped hands into sight while still maintaining his just-ahead position. "We're in love."

Gabriel scoffed, sounding every bit like Chloé Bourgeois if she were a middle-aged man. "Don't be ridiculous, Adrien. You're far too young to have any idea what love is."

"But Father!" Adrien protested, his voice breathless, scandalized to the core. "Of course I know what love is. After all, I grew up with the greatest example of love."

What was his Father going to do, deny it? Deny that Mother had been not only his world, but his universe? Deny that although he owned this entire building and all the rare and expensive objects contained within, the most precious thing he had ever possessed was Emilie's heart?

He didn't need to explain to Gabriel how this now empty, desolate place was once filled to the brim with love and laughter. He didn't need to tell his Father how he'd seen every fleeting glance, every gentle touch, every stolen kiss and committed it to memory, longing for a love like that one day. He didn't need to say that the story of the love between Gabriel Agreste and Emilie Graham de Vanily was baked into Adrien's very bones. 

It was absolutely true, in Adrien's mind, that the way Gabriel and Emilie both truly, madly, deeply loved each other was the absolute greatest example of love there was. But he knew alluding to his Mother was also a surefire way to unsettle his Father. And both of those things together was what was going to make this particular play so successful. 

Gabriel's hands stuttered, jerking like a machine that wasn't sure if it should stop or not, but he recovered quickly, going on as though nothing had happened. Just one more push, while he was still emotionally off-balance. Adrien had to strike quickly, before his Father regained his composure, his cool and detached demeanor, and shut the entire thing down.

"I love her the way you love Mother."

He'd felt it that day, the day Ladybug stood up to Hawkmoth and vowed to protect the people of Paris as long as it took. There was no mistaking the sensation as it filled him completely. The familiar fluttering of his heart was comforting, like being wrapped in the coziest blanket; the tingling of his hands was as recognizable as an old lullaby; the igniting of his soul was like welcoming home a long-lost friend. It was the same burning passion that used to sweep through the now-lifeless, vacant halls of the Agreste mansion, the same way he'd used to feel whenever he caught his parents expressing their affections for one another. He had not a single shred of doubt that the intensity of the love he held for Ladybug was equal to, if not greater than, the strength of the love his parents shared. 

Adrien could practically hear the victory music playing as his Father's hands stilled. He'd chosen his words carefully for maximum effect — love, not loved. While Adrien was certain that his Mother was no longer in the world of the living, because her overwhelming, borderline obsessive love for her family would never allow her to stay away this long if she was alive, he knew that his Father had not accepted that, and most likely never would; besides, just because his Mother wasn't here didn't mean that his Father had stopped loving her (and most likely never would).

"Miss Dupain-Cheng," Gabriel Agreste said, his eyes softening a bit as he turned his face toward her. "Why is it that you claim to love my son?"

"He's kind," Marinette said after a pause, and to her credit, although she sounded hesitant, she didn't stutter. "I don't think I've ever heard him say a single bad thing about anybody, even if they deserve it. He always sees the good in people. He's constantly offering to help our classmates with homework and doing things for others. I've lost track of the amount of times he's knocked me out of the way of akumas."

Adrien had also lost count of that — between himself and Chat Noir, and Marinette and Ladybug, he'd probably knocked her out of the way of every akuma, at least once. 

Marinette's voice was stronger now, and she gave Adrien's hand the faintest squeeze. "I didn't like him very much the day we met," she admitted. "There was a misunderstanding. But he found me later and apologized, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. And then he offered me his umbrella, just so I didn't have to walk twenty feet in the rain."

Marinette smiled wistfully, remembering the moment her heart no longer belonged to her, and her eyes misted over; with their deep blue color, Adrien could almost see and feel the rain. "There was a bolt of lightning," she whispered, and her soft-spoken words tinged with nostalgia wove magic into the air, instantly transporting Adrien back there himself: the faint, pleasant summer breeze; the warm droplets caressing his face; the gentle brush of her soft fingertips against his as she took the umbrella; the blinding white flash of light that split the sky; the sharp snap of the umbrella closing over Marinette's head that was muffled by the low, distant rumbling of thunder.

Gabriel's expression morphed into a mirror of Marinette's — a look on his face that hadn't been there since well before Adrien's Mother became ill. Adrien knew he was right to trust Marinette with this. She'd done her part brilliantly; she had been herself, and she had absolutely killed it.

"And it's not because he's rich, or attractive?" his Father asked in an almost amused tone.

"Well… no," Marinette muttered, turning her eyes to the floor, suddenly shy from the vulnerability she'd shown. "But honestly, that… doesn't hurt."

After a moment of silence, Gabriel nodded. "I know what it is like to be young and in love," he said, the look on his face not changing, although he did return his focus to his design. "I will allow this relationship for now; however, if you are caught in public acting inappropriately, this ends immediately."

"Yes, Father," Adrien responded dutifully. "We understand and will conduct ourselves accordingly. I'll make sure Marinette is aware of all the behavior guidelines and expectations."

"Be sure that you see to that, Adrien. I will not suffer any scandals due to your teenage hormones."

"Yes, Father. Thank you. You won't be disappointed." He couldn't help but to smile. They'd actually done it.

Adrien elbowed Marinette gently, to prompt her to say something. He did it in an overly-obvious manner — he needed it to be noticeable to his Father. Father didn't need to know that they were practically capable of telepathic communication.

"Thank you so much, Mister Agreste," Marinette said enthusiastically, making a gesture that was part-bow, part-curtsey; in her anxiety, she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to make her body move to properly show her appreciation, especially without letting go of Adrien's hand.

"Is there anything else you need, Adrien?" Gabriel asked, his smile slowly fading.

"I thought, since Marinette is already here, that she could stay for dinner." Marinette could feel Adrien's whole body tense in a way that wasn't outwardly visible as he spoke; he was a cat ready to pounce – not on his Father, but out the door. "We would work on our homework in the dining room under Nathalie's supervision until then. Afterwards we would take her home."

"That is acceptable, so long as Miss Dupain-Cheng receives permission from her parents." Now Gabriel's face had returned to its stoic, neutral state. "You are dismissed."

"I still don't really understand why we need to talk to your Father," Marinette said.

Marinette, rather responsibly, was properly wearing her seatbelt. Adrien, on the other hand, was laying down, unbuckled, stretched out across the seats with his head comfortably in Marinette's lap.

"Well, like I said, Milady," he replied, the nickname rolling off his tongue easily since the partition was up so his bodyguard couldn't hear them, "I want to ask Father's blessing to date you. Not that I need his permission — he has no control over Chat Noir — but it would make things easier." He shrugged. "But it's not really about asking for his blessing; it's more about letting him know that we've decided to start dating and being upfront about it. If we hide it, and he finds out later, especially from someone other than me—"

"He'll probably get locked up forever," Plagg interrupted from Adrien's bag.

"Yeah," Adrien agreed sadly. "And we need to do this as soon as possible, because there's a chance Father already suspects something." He turned his gaze away from Marinette to stare at the empty seat across from them. "Uh, don't get mad, but I think Lila spies on me for my Father."

"She what?!" Marinette screamed.

"I don't have any proof!" Adrien held up his hands in surrender. "But ever since she started modeling for my Father's brand, sometimes he and Nathalie know things — things about me, or things that happened at school — that I didn't tell them," he explained. "And she always gets paired with me for couples' shoots, even though we hardly get anything usable out of it because she's so bad. Not to mention rude, or unprofessional — I think she must have some sort of agreement with my Father, because anyone else would have already been fired."

"Seriously. I could take a better picture than her and I don't even show up on camera!" Plagg chimed in, making Tikki giggle.

Adrien and Marinette didn't need to be told twice. They were out of the atelier in record time. After shutting the door behind them, Adrien shuddered. Marinette tenderly ran one of her hands up and down Adrien's arm in a comforting manner.

"I hate doing that," Adrien admitted to her, his shoulders slumping. "Manipulating others. Chloé doesn't mind, though, so I try to get her to do it for me, when I can." He quickly scanned the foyer for any sign of Nathalie, and when he didn't find any, placed a quick kiss on Marinette's temple. "But I'll do it when there's something worth fighting for. And you're definitely worth fighting for."

Notes:

I can't say for sure, but I think from this point on there will be fewer changes in perspective, as Adrien and Marinette get closer and more able to almost telepathically know what the other does. In the future, such changes will probably involve Plagg/Tikki, Nino, and maybe even Chloé.

(I don't even like Chloé that much, so I'm still really unsure how this became a Chloé Redemption story.)

Chapter 7: If Everyone Cared

Summary:

"There," he said, pointing up into the sky with the arm that wasn't around her. "See those three bright stars in a row, there?" He felt her nod, and then he continued, "That's Orion's Belt. It's a part of what makes up the constellation named after Orion, the hunter."

Chat Noir pointed out the other stars in the set, dragging a slender clawed finger through the air as he drew the shapes as imagined by ancient peoples. He showed her how they were meant to be a man down on one knee, brandishing a bow, one arm raised as he prepared an arrow to fire.

"Our story actually begins with Artemis, the goddess of the moon. She reminds me a bit of you, actually, Milady. She was a fierce warrior and a protector of specifically women and children, just like you protect the people of Paris from Shadowmoth. She was also said to be beautiful, which needs no explanation. And of course, just as you have me, Artemis had her own counterpart in her twin brother Apollo, the god of the sun."

Notes:

I don't know why I had such a hard time with this chapter, but it's finally done, and I have some exciting news - I now know how to use the horizontal lines! Now that that's out of the way:

Why. Why does this have over 100 kudos. I mean, thank you, everyone but... why.

With Adrien's assistance, Marinette got more of her homework done in an hour than she normally did in a week. But to be fair, since Marinette didn't have any of her school things with her, Adrien wasn't really 'helping' her but rather doing it all himself, while talking through his process out loud to make sure Marinette understood. Then he wrote down all the answers on a blank sheet of paper for her — very carefully, in his absolute best penmanship — so she could copy it into her own tablet later to submit it herself. He insisted upon it, even though Marinette protested that she could at least do that much.

Nathalie stood in the corner silently the entire time they worked. The only movements she made involved her tablet — swiping through Gabriel's recently completed designs, doing calculations on how much fabric would be needed and in what colors, and drafting emails to suppliers. Adrien was always impressed by how quickly she could type using only one hand. Her hand hovered over the screen, all of her fingers dancing over her keyboard like some sort of five-legged spider, and when you combined that image with her pantsuit and glasses, Nathalie looked every bit like a tech-savvy anime villain (which Adrien loved about her).

A sharp ping sounded from Nathalie's tablet, startling both teens. "Adrien," she said — the first time she'd spoken the entire hour. "Dinner will be served in five minutes, so I recommend you put away your things."

"Of course, Nathalie. We were just wrapping up this section, anyway." Adrien carefully packed everything up, making sure not to crush Tikki and Plagg, who were both currently in his messenger bag rather than Marinette's purse. He supposed that made sense; his bag was larger and thus probably more comfortable, but on the other hand, it probably smelled like cheese. If he was a kwami, he'd probably prefer Marinette's purse: cozy and smelling like baked goods.

Adrien took the answer sheet he'd made for Marinette and gently tucked it into the front of a textbook — the same one that Ladybug had once dropped, he noticed, leading Alya to suspect that Ladybug probably went to their school. Then he slid it over to her with a smirk on his face. "Don't lose this anywhere. I need it back."

Marinette briefly flushed, clearly remembering the same incident. "I'll be careful," she mumbled, sliding it over to her other side so the table in front of her was clear.

She eyed the plates warily as they were brought out. Yes, the food looked and smelled delicious, but there was hardly any of it. They were growing teenagers — never mind all the extra calories they burned running around in magic suits fighting supervillains. Marinette could feel the aggressive affections of her ancestors seep into her bones: she was going to make sure this boy ate properly if it was the last thing she ever did.

 

---

 

Marinette wasn't ready to leave, but Adrien's chauffeur had pulled the limo to a stop in front of the bakery. "Come on, Tikki," she said sadly, scooping her kwami out of Adrien's bag and tucking her into her purse.

"Don't sound so sad. You'll see me soon," Adrien reminded her with a wink as the door opened for her.

"Y-yeah," Marinette stammered, her face flushing. Adrien made a mental note to wink at her as much as possible. She got out of the car, clutching the history textbook he'd let her borrow to her chest for dear life. "See you soon." She waved dejectedly to him, even as he smiled comfortingly, until Adrien's bodyguard closed the door and she couldn't see him anymore.

She sighed and somehow managed to get her legs to carry her inside the bakery.

"Welcome home, honey," Sabine said warmly as Marinette came in and without even thinking, flipped the open sign to closed as she shut the door behind her. "Are you feeling any better?"

"Yes, Mama," Marinette responded, trying her best to inject cheer into her voice but knowing she failed from the concerned look her mother gave her. "I do, really. I'm just tired."

Sabine's eyes softened, accepting that as an answer. "Did you have a nice time with Adrien?"

"We mostly just worked on our homework, and then ate dinner." Marinette yawned. "I'm going to finish my homework and then go to bed. Goodnight, Mama."

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

Tikki emerged from Marinette's purse as soon as she entered her bedroom, and the other kwamis all flew out of hiding as well, clamoring for her attention. She ignored them for a moment, collapsing into her desk chair.

"Tikki?" she asked finally.

"Yes, Marinette?"

"Are you sure… are you sure this is all okay?"

"You are the Guardian now, Marinette. You should know Chat Noir's true identity, if only for logistical reasons," Tikki answered.

"The identity rule, when it comes to the ladybug and black cat holders, was never meant to be a hard and fast rule in the first place," Sass added. "There comes a time where it is appropriate for their true selves to be known."

"Please don't forget, Mistress, that the previous Guardian had not finished the training regimen the Order laid out," Wayzz cut in. "So you do not need to hold yourself to his rules. You can make your own decisions."

"I've told you not to call me Mistress," Marinette mumbled, rolling her head back and closing her eyes.

"My apologies, Guardian."

"It's okay, Wayzz. I know you don't mean any harm by it. It just… feels weird." She turned to face her desk and pulled out her school tablet. She had just gotten started inputting her answers when she heard a knock on her skylight. "Come in, Chat," she said, not even looking up.

Chat Noir dropped down through the opening onto her bed. "Claws in," he whispered giddily. With a flash of green light, Chat Noir was replaced with Adrien.

Plagg, unceremoniously ejected from the ring, was immediately swarmed by all the other kwamis. "Sugarcube! Save me!"

Tikki laughed. "Oh, Plagg, you know they're just happy to see you. Don't be so grumpy."

Adrien climbed down from Marinette's bed and came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder. "Almost done?"

"Yeah," she responded. "Then I guess it's time for patrol, but to be honest, I'm not really feeling up for it tonight."

"I can do it by myself, if you want," Adrien volunteered. "You don't have to work so hard all the time. You can take breaks."

Marinette snorted. "No, I really can't. Ladybug can't afford to take breaks. Especially not now that she's the Guardian."

"Okay, but that's what Ladybug has Chat Noir for," Adrien reminded her. "You can lean on me, Milady. I don't mind. I'm always here for you, for whatever you need. We're a team."

"I know, Kitty, but it's just… it's just hard. I spent all this time feeling like I had to do everything myself because of all the secret-keeping. Of course I knew I could depend on you, but… I don't know." Marinette sighed.

"Are you regretting it?" Adrien asked, sounding hurt. She could just imagine the droop of his leather ears. "Revealing ourselves to each other?"

"No!" Marinette answered immediately. "God, no. Adrien." She swiveled around in her chair so that she could look at him and reached up to put a hand on his face. "Kitty. I'm so happy to know who you are, finally. I do wish the circumstances were better. I do wish we didn't have to worry about Shadowmoth coming after us. But I don't regret it. I don't regret knowing you. Never."

"I'm honestly a little surprised you let them go through with it, Tikks," Plagg said, somehow managing to escape from the mid-air kwami cuddle-pile. "I thought you didn't think it was time."

"I do think it would be safer if they remained unaware," Tikki responded, "considering the powers of the miraculous they're up against. But Marinette's mental health comes first. You know better than anyone, Plagg, that when Creation falls apart, only Destruction can rebuild her."

Plagg nodded solemnly. "That was you, then. I thought so."

"What was her?" Marinette asked.

The cat kwami waved a paw toward Adrien. "Kid here was feeling stupidly anxious when he went looking for you. I felt it too. Tikki and I are connected, and we have the ability, in an emergency, to send out a sort of distress signal to the other. That's what she did, when you decided to start cutting yourself."

Adrien suddenly remembered the way his arms had mysteriously burned, in long, thin, invisible lines. "Is that what I was feeling?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry, Adrien," Tikki said. "But I didn't know what else to do."

"It's okay, Tikki. You just wanted to help Marinette." Adrien looked at Marinette pointedly, a very Chat Noir expression on his civilian face. "We all want to help Marinette."

The rest of the kwamis all made various sounds of agreement.

"Thanks, guys," Marinette mumbled, embarrassed by the overwhelming show of support."

"How about this? We could both use a bit of a break after everything that happened today," Adrien began, and Marinette nodded. "So after you finish your homework, I know a couple of good spots for stargazing. We can suit up and run over to one."

"Wow." Marinette smiled slightly, her tone teasing. "We haven't even been going out for twenty-four hours, Kitty, and you're already trying to whisk me away on a secret romantic date?"

Adrien's face turned a very familiar shade of red. "It's not a date! Unless you want it to be? I mean, I'd like it to be, if you do."

She just laughed. "Of course it can be a date. I'd really like that." She turned her chair back to her desk so she could finish her homework and they could go. "But remember, Adrien still has to take Marinette out on a date."

"Oh, Adrien won't forget; don't worry." She could hear the grin in his voice, but then he sighed. "We should probably talk about that, though."

"What about it?"

"Well, you heard what I said to Father. I promised I'd cover all the rules and regulations with you." He sat down on the chaise. "Firstly, we're not going to be able to tell anyone that we're dating. You can probably tell your parents, I mean; but we can't tell anyone else. More importantly, until we get approval to act otherwise, the most we're going to be able to do in public is hold hands, and even then, just on occasion. It's dumb, but it's a brand image thing." His eyes darkened as he muttered resentfully, quoting something his Father had once said verbatim.

Adrien, most of your value is the idea of you. Your status as a single, attractive young man drives young ladies purchase from us. They don't care about this company or the products; they just want to indulge in the fantasy of being in a relationship with you.

 

---

 

Homework finally done, they arrived at their destination, a beautiful meadow just on the outskirts of the city. Chat Noir picked out a spot in the grass and quickly ran his hands over it in large, sweeping circles to make sure there were no rocks or sticks that would be uncomfortable to lay on. Once he was satisfied, he flopped down on his back and looked up at the sky.

It was amazing, how much better he could see while transformed. He knew this would be a good place to see a lot of stars because the light pollution was low, but he hadn't considered his enhanced vision. The sight was mind-blowing.

Ladybug tentatively laid down next to him. "Wow," she said. "The stars are so pretty."

"Almost as pretty as you," he murmured softly, and even in the darkness he could see her blush. He rolled up onto his side so he could look at her and propped his head up by laying a cheek on his fist. "Do you know any of the legends about the constellations?"

"I don't," Ladybug admitted. "I don't even know that many. Though Papa used to insist the big dipper and the little dipper were actually called the teaspoon and tablespoon."

Chat Noir laughed. "Would you like me to tell you a few? Mother was very into astrology — she and Father used to read each other their horoscopes every morning over breakfast, even though Father would always mutter that it was a load of crock," he explained, his voice dropping low to imitate his Father.

Ladybug giggled at his impression of Gabriel Agreste.

"He did it for her, though. She loved the stars, and she loved mythology."

"That's sweet." She smiled softly.

Chat Noir felt a pang in his chest as he thought about his Mother. He missed her. But she was always with him; he could find her whenever he looked. "So, how about I tell you one of my favorites?" he asked.

"Sure."

He laid back down, and then, holding his breath, he dared to scoot closer to Ladybug. In response, she rolled over to be closer to him as well and snuggled into his side. His heart almost burst out of his chest — it was magic, how easily came to him and settled into place, and how perfectly she fit against him.

"There," he said, pointing up into the sky with the arm that wasn't around her. "See those three bright stars in a row, there?" He felt her nod, and then he continued, "That's Orion's Belt. It's a part of what makes up the constellation named after Orion, the hunter."

Chat Noir pointed out the other stars in the set, dragging a slender clawed finger through the air as he drew the shapes as imagined by ancient peoples. He showed her how they were meant to be a man down on one knee, brandishing a bow, one arm raised as he prepared an arrow to fire.

"Our story actually begins with Artemis, the goddess of the moon. She reminds me a bit of you, actually, Milady. She was a fierce warrior and a protector of specifically women and children, just like you protect the people of Paris from Shadowmoth. She was also said to be beautiful, which needs no explanation. And of course, just as you have me, Artemis had her own counterpart in her twin brother Apollo, the god of the sun."

"Sun and moon," Ladybug mumbled. "Yin and yang. Two halves of a whole."

"Exactly," Chat Noir agreed. "So it was Artemis's job to pull the moon across the sky at night, just like it was Apollo's job to pull the sun. And one night, she spotted a human man stalking a gorgeous buck through the woods. Artemis was also a goddess of the hunt and of all things wild and free, and she didn't take kindly to mortals hunting for sport rather than to eat."

"So what did she do?" Ladybug asked, entranced.

"Well, she went to confront him, of course," Chat Noir answered. "But as she approached, she saw that she had been mistaken. She had been too late to stop the hunter from firing his arrow. He had only taken one shot, and the buck was hit directly in the eye. This was a kill shot, and not a sporting one. He wanted to use as much of the deer as he could — the meat, the pelt, the antlers."

Ladybug hummed thoughtfully to show she was listening and Chat Noir couldn't help but to think of the parallels to their second first meeting. Marinette was a furious goddess who descended upon him, a mere mortal man, who misunderstood Adrien's noble intentions.

"Artemis was impressed by the man's archery skills and introduced herself. The hunter was named Orion. They developed a strange sort of friendship, one of friendly rivalry, because Artemis and her brother Apollo were both talented archers themselves. From there, she and Orion became true friends, and eventually, they became lovers."

As Chat Noir paused, Ladybug reached out to take his hand in hers.

"They needed to keep their relationship a secret," he said, sounding bitter, this part hitting a little too close to home. "Because of the dangers of being a mortal involved with a god, but also because Artemis was what was called a 'virgin' goddess; she was dedicated to a life of chastity."

Ladybug squeezed Chat Noir's hand comfortingly.

"Everything was fine until Apollo found out." Chat Noir felt Ladybug shiver beside him and he held her tighter. "He loved his sister dearly and worried for her reputation, which would be ruined if her relationship with Orion came to light. So, he decided to get involved."

"What did he do?" Ladybug's voice was anxious, barely a whisper.

"Apollo tricked Artemis by challenging her to a shooting contest. Artemis was very proud, often boastful, of her archery skills," Chat Noir explained, "so it wasn't hard to get her to go along with this. Apollo chose a very small target so far in the distance it could barely be seen, and of course she aimed true and hit her mark. When she approached to see what she had struck, it turned out to be Orion's head."

Ladybug gasped.

"And so, in her grief, Artemis raised his body into the stars," Chat Noir concluded. "So that she could still see him every night as she pulls the moon across the sky."

"That's… that's horrible," Ladybug breathed, tears in her eyes. "Knowing you, I thought for sure your favorites would have happy endings."

Chat Noir smiled wryly. "What can I say? I suppose I'm full of surprises."

"But why that one?" she asked.

"Well, part of it is in the telling. Mother could tell it much better than me. It was one of her favorites, too." He mulled over the rest of his answer for a moment. "But I think it's because of something she said once, when I asked her that same question."

Sometimes love ends in tragedy, sweetie, and that's okay. Without the sad times, the happy ones wouldn't be as precious.

"Oh," Ladybug said softly.

"I try to remember that whenever I feel sad that she's gone. I wonder if she ever told Father that. I wish he'd take that advice."

Notes:

I grew up listening to my parents read each of their horoscopes from the newspaper every morning (and sometimes the Dear Abby column), so that's a little bit of me projecting onto Adrien, I guess.

Also, this is maybe not the most accurate retelling of the myth of Orion, but shut up and let them be cute, okay?

Chapter 8: Just a Kiss

Summary:

"Do you want to know what I thought? I thought that somehow Chat Noir knew it was Adrien, and didn't come on purpose. Because Chat Noir always shows up late to akumas when they're targeting Adrien. Like… like Gorizilla! Oh my god!" She gasped as she smacked him on the shoulder. "No wonder you just jumped when I told you to, with zero hesitation! Only my damn cat would treat his life so casually!"

"I trusted you," he replied simply, flashing her a lovestruck smile. "And I know you're mad right now, but I really like the sound of being your damn cat."

"You didn't even transform while you were falling!" Ladybug pushed herself into a sitting position so she could wave her arms around angrily for emphasis as she spoke. "What if they hadn't let me go?! There wouldn't be anything left of you!"

"Adrien: The Lotion," he mumbled sarcastically under his breath — apparently too loudly, because she began to beat on his chest with a closed fist.

"That's not funny!" she whined, distressed.

Notes:

The summary is the summary mostly because I'm just so proud of the Adrien: The Lotion joke that I think everyone needs to see it twice.

I had to change the chapter title while I was writing it :( I got sidetracked by these two losers being cute again. Why are they like this? So anyway, the next chapter should have some plot. Hopefully.

"What about Apollo?" Ladybug asked, breaking the silence.

"What about Apollo?" Chat Noir echoed.

"Well, just, you said Artemis wasn't just the goddess of the moon; she had other duties, right? Like being a protector. What about Apollo?"

"Oh!" Now he was following her train of thought. "Apollo was also a kind of protector, but in a different way. He was a god of healing and medicine. He was also a god of music—" Chat Noir cut himself off with a loud groan. "Maybe I'm more like Apollo than I'd like to admit."

"Why? Because you play the piano?"

He groaned again, but then said, "No. Because Apollo's instrument was specifically the lyre." Ladybug didn't say anything, so he sighed and continued. "You know, a tiny harp. Like that thing Aspik had."

"Oh!" Ladybug's face lit up with understanding. "That's where I know that word from! By the way, I'm sorry about that," she added in a small voice. "If I had known— I never would have—"

"It's okay, Milady." Chat Noir ran a hand tenderly up and down Ladybug's arm. "That's not on you; that's on me. Even if you didn't know, I knew I had a miraculous already. I should've just said no to start with."

"Why didn't you?"

He turned his face away from her, to stare back up at the sky. "I was just so… happy that you'd picked me, out of anyone you could have chosen. I… I wanted to impress you, and thought maybe I could as Adrien, because I never seemed to be able to do it as Chat Noir. It was like a second chance — pun actually not intended," he added when Ladybug groaned. "But all I did was fail."

"Kitty, listen to me," she said seriously. "First of all, from my perspective, everything you experienced took about three seconds, even though I know it was a lot longer for you, so your supposed 'failure' really doesn't mean a whole lot to me. But I talked to Sass about it afterwards. Because I knew that Adrien was more than deserving of a miraculous, so I needed to know what went wrong so I could try to find the right one. Turns out I was never going to be able to, because the one miraculous he's best suited for is the only one I don't have authority to give."

Ladybug chuckled breathlessly and reached for his ring, beginning to run her fingers over it lovingly, touching each of the paw pads in turn. "But Sass said you did fine. You were an excellent hero. You did absolutely everything you could. The reason you couldn't succeed was beyond your control, he said."

Chat Noir thought about all of those loops he'd spent, as Aspik. The worst part about being Aspik was that the snake miraculous didn't allow you to lose count; he knew how many loops there had been.

25,913 — that was the number, branded into his heart, that captured just how overwhelmingly he'd failed.

The second worst part was that the snake miraculous heightened your sense of time. You always knew exactly how long you'd spent in a loop, and therefore how long you had left to activate Second Chance. 

Your mind was also constantly tracking the overarching duration of time that had passed — that is, the cumulative total of time you spent within loops, or the exact amount of time that would have passed if you hadn't kept resetting. Not all of the loops had come close to the maximum of five minutes; the shortest had actually been just thirty-seven seconds. But altogether, he knew he had spent just under three months straight trying, and failing, to keep his Lady safe.

Ladybug dragged him out of his thoughts. "Aren't you going to ask what it was?" 

"Hmm? Oh, did Sass give you a specific reason?"

"Yeah. He said Aspik wasn't able to help stop Desperada because no matter what happened, Chat Noir didn't arrive for you, and his presence was crucial for victory." She laughed and then asked, "Do you want to know what I thought? I thought that somehow Chat Noir knew it was Adrien, and didn't come on purpose. Because Chat Noir always shows up late to akumas when they're targeting Adrien. Like… like Gorizilla! Oh my god!" She gasped as she smacked him on the shoulder. "No wonder you just jumped when I told you to, with zero hesitation! Only my damn cat would treat his life so casually!"

"I trusted you," he replied simply, flashing her a lovestruck smile. "And I know you're mad right now, but I really like the sound of being your damn cat."

"You didn't even transform while you were falling!" Ladybug pushed herself into a sitting position so she could wave her arms around angrily for emphasis as she spoke. "What if they hadn't let me go?! There wouldn't be anything left of you!"

"Adrien: The Lotion," he mumbled sarcastically under his breath — apparently too loudly, because she began to beat on his chest with a closed fist.

"That's not funny!" she whined, distressed.

Chat Noir sat up and shrugged, taking her hand carefully in his. "Well, one way or another, you would have defeated the akuma and then used your lucky charm to summon the miraculous ladybugs to put me back together, and it would've been fine."

Ladybug looked like she wanted to scream.

"I know, I know; that's not the point," he said before she could. "I get it. I watched you turn into golden smoke to the sound of trumpets over and over and over again, and even though I could just undo it, it never got easier. I promise I'll start being more careful, okay?"

"Good," she responded with a firm nod. "What was up with your costume as Aspik, though? The skintight head covering was… certainly something."

Almost as bad as an akuma's design, he could tell she meant, but didn't say.

"I know it looked horrible, okay?" he groaned. "Plagg told me that your mindset influences your costume." It was true; Plagg had said that, just not about Aspik. "I was worried you'd recognize me if my hair was too similar to Chat Noir's, so apparently the solution was to… do that. If I had to do it again, now that you know I'm me, it would probably look better."

"Does it? You can change your transformation?"

Chat Noir shrugged. "Are you still able to retrieve the miraculouses from your yoyo? We can try it out and see. Claws in."

"Tikki never mentioned anything about this," she muttered to herself as the detransformation lit up the area. She mumbled something else he didn't quite catch without the double-hearing from his fake ears, but then she pulled the bracelet of the snake out of her yoyo and handed it to him.

"Hello again, Sass," Adrien said as he slid the miraculous over his wrist and the kwami appeared with a flash of light.

"Greetings, young black cat," Sass greeted him politely.

Plagg made an unhappy coughing sound that was not unlike a cat about to hack up a hairball. "Just what do you two think you are doing?"

Adrien could barely see Plagg in the dark; his black fur blended perfectly into the night around them and all that was visible of him was his vibrant green eyes. He briefly considered that maybe detransforming all the way out here had been a bad decision, because now neither of them had night vision, but Plagg did. And surely Plagg would never let anything happen to them, right?

"We were talking about Aspik, and we wanted to see how different his appearance could be, now that I'm not worried about being discovered as Chat Noir," Adrien explained. "Because that's what we were talking about when we discussed intentions changing a holder's appearance. Right, Plagg?"

Adrien tried to keep his voice even and level, so that Ladybug wouldn't suspect anything, while also begging to whatever higher power would listen to please let Plagg catch onto the fact that he didn't want to talk to her about Catwalker.

He'd let that particular cat out of the bag some time, just not tonight.

"Ooooo." Since Adrien couldn't see him, he had to just imagine Plagg wiggling his imaginary eyebrows conspiratorially. "Sure thing, kid. Yes, that's absolutely why we discussed that."

Leave it to Plagg to back up his story in the most suspicious-sounding way possible. Mercifully, if Ladybug noticed anything strange, she didn't comment on it.

"So, Sass, do you mind?" Adrien asked the snake kwami.

"Not at all," the kwami replied.

"Sass," Adrien commanded, "scales slither!"

The transformation was familiar — it felt wildly different from becoming Chat Noir, but much the same as the last time he'd become Aspik. Not exactly the same, however — maybe a little more free, a little less constricting, now that he didn't have to hide.

Once the light and magic had finished washing over him, there was a beat of silence. He hesitated, but then spoke. "…what do you think?"

The immediate response was a genuine howl of laughter from Plagg.

The next thing Aspik knew, he was blinded by the flashlight function of Ladybug's yoyo shining directly into his face. "So cute!" she gushed. "Much better. That's more like what I was expecting when I asked Adrien Agreste to be a hero. I'll take a picture for you. Smile!"

His model instincts kicked in and he instantly leaned back, adopting a smoldering glance with the barest hint of a smile.

"I see what you mean about being worried about your hair," Ladybug said as she passed her yoyo to him so he could see. "It's not quite Adrien, but it wouldn't immediately scream Chat Noir to me, either. It's very Mister Bug."

One look at the photo and Aspik agreed. From what he could see, the outfit was exactly the same, with the only change being the mask shrinking to a normal size and not covering his whole head. His hair fluffed out, exactly like it had when he'd been Mister Bug, except the tips were frosted a light blue that matched his suit.

"Don't lie to him, Pigtails," Plagg wheezed out between laughs. "He looks absolutely ridiculous!"

"You're just jealous, Plagg," Aspik shot back, "that my good looks as Chat Noir clearly aren't all from you." He dramatically shook his head, making his hair fan out like they were shooting a hairspray commercial. Ladybug could practically see the CGI sparkles.

"Hah! Me, jealous? As if!"

Ladybug giggled. Watching her partner interact with his kwami was so interesting — it was different from how she acted with Tikki, but it was so cute.

"Well, it's getting late," Ladybug said. "I think normally we would be ending patrol soon, and we do have school in the morning."

Aspik smiled, and it felt a little weird to see such a familiar Chat Noir expression on a face with a mask that wasn't black. "There's one more thing I'd like to do before we go," he said, leaning in close to whisper to her. 

Ladybug swallowed loudly. "Wh-what's that?" she stammered.

"I am going to kiss you, if that's alright," he replied casually, and Ladybug swore her heart stopped. "Then I am going to activate Second Chance so I can keep kissing you until I'm physically incapable of it."

"We… we shouldn't be using our miraculouses for p-personal reasons." Ladybug forced the words out, desperate to try to behave as a professional hero should, despite that that sounded like the absolutely most incredible idea. But she was the Guardian; she should at least pretend to be responsible.

"Ah, about that." Aspik smirked. It was adorable, the way she was trying to stubbornly insist on following the rules, as if they hadn't already been using their miraculouses for personal reasons all day. He raised one gloved hand and wiggled his fingers, the camouflaged silver ring glinting in the moonlight. "I'm not using my miraculous, though, am I, Milady? I'm just borrowing this one."

"But— but I won't remember, and you will. How's that fair?"

Aspik shrugged, and Ladybug could just imagine the slow, lazy slide of his tail from side to side had he been transformed differently. "Call it payback for Dark Cupid."

Slowly, he raised his hand to her face, lightly stroking her cheek with the back of his hand; the cool metal of his normal miraculous sent delightful shivers down her spine. 

"So," Aspik murmured, running a gloved thumb delicately over her lips. "May I kiss you?"

Ladybug's only response was to grab Aspik by the hair and pull him in toward her. He slid his whole hand from the thumb on her lips to the side of her face. It was different, she noticed — not in a bad way, necessarily, but it just wasn't the same without Chat Noir's claws. 

"Second Chance," Aspik hissed when he broke away momentarily to take a breath, and he noted with glee that the count had started again from zero, glad he'd never have to do any math to know how long he spent kissing his Lady.

 

---

 

Chat Noir, satisfied from an absolutely absurd number of Second Chance loops spent kissing Ladybug, accompanied her back to her house, as a gentleman should.

"Spots off," she whispered, detransforming on her balcony. Pink light washed over her, leaving Marinette in her place, as Tikki exited the earrings.

Seeing Marinette transform into Ladybug was incredible, of course, but Chat Noir couldn't help but feel it was somehow even more amazing to watch Ladybug fade away to reveal Marinette.

Marinette giggled nervously, feeling shy without her superhero disguise, despite knowing that they'd just spent an inordinate amount of time kissing (even if she didn't remember most of it). "W-why are you staring at me like that?" she asked, anxiously twirling a lock of her hair around one of her fingers.

Chat Noir's words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Every time I see Ladybug and think there couldn't possibly be anyone more beautiful, I see Marinette and get proven wrong."

The girl's face turned scarlet. "Marinette and Ladybug have the same face," she mumbled under her breath.

"Yeah, but the mask hides your freckles." Chat Noir grinned playfully. "You know, some people say that freckles are marks left behind after being kissed by an angel. And I believe it. What angel could resist kissing your face?"

Marinette flushed even harder and made a series of noises that closely resembled the sound of a helicopter crash. 

"That's very sweet, Chat Noir," Tikki said, startling them. "But don't you think it's time for you to go home?"

Instantly his ears drooped and his tail became lethargic.

"What is it, Kitty?" Marinette's voice flooded with concern and she took a step toward him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied, unconvincingly. He wasn't sure how to express his feelings without just seeming like a whiny, spoiled brat.

"Do you… not want to go home?" Marinette guessed correctly. He nodded mutely. "Oh, my poor kitten. Come here." She sat down on one of her outdoor recliners and held her arms open for him.

With no hesitation he dove into them, beginning to purr softly, sadly, in a manner meant to self-soothe. She ran her fingers through his blonde locks.

"You're always welcome here. I hope you know that," Marinette stated quietly, but she knew he could hear her.

"It's just… I hate it there," Chat Noir mumbled, closing his eyes and trying to lose himself in the feeling of Marinette's fingers against his scalp. She made him feel safe, like he could share his innermost feelings without being judged. "It's so… lonely." Then a thought occurred to him. "Milady… don't feel obligated to say yes; you can absolutely say no. But can I spend the night with you? Your parents get up early to prep and open the bakery, right?"

Marinette nodded. "Yeah, at around 4 a.m."

"I'm a light sleeper. I can get up when they do and be home before anyone checks on me. It's not like anyone will notice I'm not home," he muttered resentfully.

Marinette felt as though only her heart had been hit with a massive cataclysm. How dare anyone make her partner feel so unwanted?

"Of course you can sleep over, Kitty. Any time you want, okay? But no funny business; we actually need to sleep."

"What sort of horrid tomcat do you take me for, Princess?" Chat Noir responded with mock offense. "This lowly knight of yours is nothing but a gentleman."

"In that case, Sir Noir," she answered, struggling not to smile or roll her eyes, "let me up. Go on and detransform, and I'll go find something for you to use as pajamas."

Chat Noir did as he was told, detransforming while Marinette disappeared through her skylight. She returned a few moments later, offering him some plain pajamas — plain white t-shirt, plain black shorts — that Adrien thought, just by looking at them, were made to his measurements. He took them gratefully and then followed her back into her room.

"Just change up here," Marinette instructed, dropping down past him onto her floor. "I'll use my screen."

Adrien nodded, even though she probably couldn't see it in the dark. He was done changing in under two minutes — as a model, he'd perfected the quick change. He made himself comfortable while he waited for Marinette to rejoin him.

When she did, she flopped down onto the bed with a tired groan, face-first. Her breathing almost immediately evened out into slow, slumbering breaths.

"Hey, I want to ask you about something you said earlier…" Adrien whispered before Marinette could fall completely asleep. "You thought Chat Noir was purposely avoiding Adrien?"

"Something like that," she mumbled sleepily. "Thought he hated him, to be honest."

Adrien successfully (though with great difficulty) kept his laughter to himself — it would be extremely bad if he accidentally woke up Marinette's parents, and it would be very hard to explain to them just how and why he got into Marinette's room and was laying with her in her bed. "That's a good cover story, though. I'm not Adrien Agreste; I'm just never seen in the same place at the same time because I can't stand his guts. Honestly, I think I'm gonna go with that from now on. That's hilarious."

"Okay. No more talking now, Kitty," Marinette slurred, lightly smacking him in the face with her hand as she attempted to put a finger over his lips. "Sleep time. Goodnight."

Adrien adjusted himself so that he was curled up next to Marinette, touching as much of her as he could — in an appropriate manner, obviously. He placed a quick kiss to the side of her face. "Goodnight, Milady."

The rhythm of Marinette's peaceful breathing and the steady warmth of her body pressed against his lulled Adrien to sleep faster than he'd ever experienced in his life.

Notes:

Mister Snake, how many five-minute loops does it take to get tired of making out with Ladybug? Let's find out! One... two... three...

(The answer is that you measure that with your heart, like garlic. So however many you think is correct is the right answer to that.)

Notes:

I honestly have a lot of plans, but not a whole lot of plot planned out. To not spoil what I have in mind (and not force myself to stick to ideas that have been changed or abandoned), I'll add tags as things come up in future chapters.