Chapter Text
Marinette led Adrien in through the side door rather than the bakery. She didn’t feel like explaining to her parents right now. And it would feel like she was rubbing in Adrien’s face that she had two parents rather than one who was - off. She stopped off in the kitchen and grabbed sweets for Tikki and glasses of juice for her and Adrien. “What does Plagg eat?”
Adrien, staring out the kitchen window, startled at her voice.
“Cheese,” Plagg said plaintively, emerging from Adrien’s shirt.
Marinette grabbed the chunk of brie still in the fridge and added that to the tray. “Okay, let’s go up to my room.”
Adrien followed her, but his presence behind her was sort of blank, like he wasn’t really there. Marinette set the tray down on her desk, and when she looked around at Adrien, he was still just standing there. She set her purse on her chair and grabbed one of the glasses of juice. They’d just have to share, evidently, because she couldn’t herd him around with both hands full. She took his wrist, because it seemed intrusive somehow to take his hand again. He didn’t resist at all, following her to the chaise and sitting when she tugged him down. She took a sip of juice, and it was unbearably sweet and cool in her mouth after crying.
She passed it to Adrien, and he sort of stared at the glass before he took it, then nearly dropped it. He drained it all in one go and set the glass on the floor. Marinette shifted, bringing one knee up on the chaise so she could sit fully facing Adrien, more securely enveloped in the chaise. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
He tilted abruptly sideways, basically throwing himself against her. Marinette was glad she was already braced. “I don’t know, either. Is it okay if we just - stay here, for a while?”
“Of course,” she said. “Um. Unless you mean exactly like this, because your elbow is really pointy.”
He let out a choked laugh, and they rearranged themselves, ending up with Adrien on his side, arms around her waist and head on her ribs. He had to curl his legs up so they didn’t hang over the edge of the chaise, which meant that Marinette’s legs were folded over his, her feet tucked under his top calf. It was probably going to be a disaster to untangle themselves. Marinette wasn’t sure quite what to do with her arm, but ended up laying it across Adrien’s back, hand fisted in his overshirt.
Adrien sighed and nuzzled into her, his head very close to her breast. Marinette knew, in a disconnected way, that normally the proximity would have her blushing bright red and stuttering at the very least. Right then it just felt like comfort. They didn’t talk. Marinette wasn’t used to sitting still, though, much less having idle hands. She ended up running her fingers through Adrien’s hair. He sighed again, going boneless, and buried his face in her sternum. She knew they should talk about - a lot of things, her identity included. But it was so much easier to just not acknowledge the morning and fall asleep in the safety of the midday sun.
--
Tikki woke them up when the light was just starting to slant towards afternoon. “You have about an hour before your parents expect you back from school, Marinette.”
Marinette hummed and snuggled closer to warmth. Then she woke up enough to remember that she was snuggling Adrien, to remember the morning. She deeply regretted waking up.
Adrien’s arms tightened around her, and he nuzzled against her like an oversized cat. Which he was, in some respects, but he was also nuzzling her breast. Marinette was suddenly very awake and blushing very hard. “Adrien?”
He tilted his head up at her and blinked sleepily. He didn’t seem to have a sudden moment of realization or jolt to awareness, and Marinette realized that it was more like a cat’s slow-blink than a sleepy boy’s. That made her heart trip, because she’d thought that he’d at least have some problems trusting her once he knew she’d kept her secret even when he’d been in such distress. “So you’re Ladybug,” he said, sounding relaxed and faintly dreamy.
“Yeah.” She watched him carefully.
“I’m glad it was you,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, and her hand tightened involuntarily in his hair. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Do you think my mom’s okay?”
Marinette hesitated. Physically, she was fine. Miraculous healing also seemed to heal some of people’s memories of what they themselves had done while akumatized, though that might be a side effect of the akuma itself. “I think she went through a lot.”
She could feel the way he swallowed hard, throat moving against her chest. “I should contact Natalie. Do you think your parents would let me stay here for a few days?”
She wanted to reassure him that he’d be fine at home. She wanted him to be able to have a happy reunion with the mother he’d been robbed of. But she’d sent him home to Hawk Moth, and, while she was sure he’d go home if she asked, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to go back to that haunted mausoleum. “Yeah, I think so.”
He hugged her tightly. “Thank you.”
“Of course, Chaton ,” she said. She tried to think through what else was happening, what else they would need to do, but she kept coming back to blood on marble. The weight of everything she couldn’t deal with was oppressive. “Tikki, what do we do next?”
“I’m not sure, Marinette,” Tikki said, floating closer to the chaise. “Nothing like this has happened before. There are akuma everywhere, but nothing’s happened yet.”
“What about - everything else?” Marinette ran a hand over Adrien’s head so her meaning was unmistakable.
There was a loud snort from her computer desk, and Plagg zipped over to join them. “We might try, kid, but humans aren’t really our area of expertise. You’d honestly be better off asking your parents or your friend Alya.”
“Marinette’s parents,” Tikki tacked on, as if it weren’t perfectly obvious.
Adrien looked at Marinette. “Should we tell them?”
She’d spent so long not telling them anything as a way to keep them out of danger and keep them from worrying. But everything had gotten so complicated, and she wasn’t remotely qualified to decide what to do. Akuma she pretty much had a handle on. Death that stuck around and trauma that had made people inexplicably frightening were so far out of her experience that they were in the area on the map labelled ‘here be dragons.’ “Yeah. I’ll ask them to close up early.”
He didn’t let go. She waited a moment. “I need to get up.”
Adrien groaned, and then untangled himself from her enough that he could just fall back on the floor. Marinette smiled at him as she rose. “Maybe wash up, meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes?”
He nodded.
Marinette went downstairs, stopping to rinse off her face in the bathroom. She still felt grimy, but at least her face wouldn’t alarm her parents when she went into the bakery. There were a couple customers browsing and another one finalizing a purchase when she slipped in, so she went to her dad where he was wiping down his workspace. She wrapped her arms around him, and he wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “What are you doing home?”
“I skipped school,” she mumbled into his apron. “Can you and Mom close up and come upstairs to talk?”
He frowned, concerned. “Okay. You want to close things up back here while I help your mom?”
Marinette nodded and started putting things away and cleaning up. Her dad went up to the front, whispered in Sabine’s ear, and helped one of the remaining customers. They hurried through the last couple and closed up, leaving the baked goods in the cases to be dealt with later. When they got upstairs, both of them were surprised to see Adrien standing awkwardly in the kitchen. Sabine frowned at both of them. “You both skipped school?”
“Um. You might want to sit down?”
Sabine collapsed into a chair, hand over her heart. “Are you pregnant?”
Marinette gaped. “What? Maman, no!”
Tom sat heavily, taking Sabine’s hand. “You’re sure?”
Marinette felt a blush bursting forth violently on her face. “Very sure! How did you even get there?”
“You look like the world has ended! And you have a boy!” Sabine, distraught, lapsed into Mandarin. Marinette caught only a few words, about sneaking around and lies. Adrien obviously caught more, a blush rising to mottle his face bright red. He made the mistake of replying in the same language, and then he had the full force of Sabine’s attention.
Tom stretched out his free hand to Marinette, and she took it. He tugged her in to wrap her in a one-armed hug. “You’re okay?”
“Mostly?” She raised her voice. “It’d be better if we could talk about what’s actually going on.”
Sabine narrowed her eyes at Marinette, then said one last thing to Adrien in rapid-fire Mandarin. “Now sit,” she said, gesturing to the chair across the table from Tom.
Marinette sat, too. She took a deep breath. “Um, so, I know I’ve maybe been a little weird the last couple months? But there’s a good reason for it.” She lost her nerve, and twisted her fingers together. Adrien just watched her helplessly.
Sabine softened. “What is it, mon chou?”
“I’m Cat Noir,” Adrien said.
Marinette darted out her hand to clutch his. “And I’m Ladybug.”
Silence fell, smothering as a blanket.
“You mean that,” Tom said, and it sounded like he meant it to be a question but couldn’t quite get it there.
Marinette nodded.
“You’re heroes,” he said, and it didn’t sound like praise.
Her hand tightened on Adrien’s.
“There’s a reason you’re telling us now,” Sabine said. She jerked her head at Adrien. “And a reason he’s here.”
She felt him quail, and ran her thumb over the backs of his fingers. He pulled himself together, and it was weird to see him pull up an impenetrable shiny wall over the ball who’d been crying on her earlier. He took a deep breath. “My dad, Gabriel Agreste, was Hawk Moth. He’s the one who made all the villains we’ve been fighting. I only found out a couple days ago.” He stopped, and his shiny facade threatened to crack.
Marinette finished for him. “He died this morning. We also rescued his mom. Things are going to be complicated. Can Adrien stay here tonight?”
“Of course,” her parents said in tandem.
Marinette relaxed fractionally, and felt Adrien more or less collapse.
Tom patted Marinette’s hand. “I’m glad you felt you could come to us, but why didn’t you tell us before?”
“You could have been hurt,” Sabine said. “We’d never have known.”
Marinette took her hands back, folding them in her lap. “Knowing could have hurt you, though. And who we are - we heal. Everything that happens when we’re in a fight, the Ladybug magic cures.”
“Plus the suits make sure that none of the hits hurt that much,” Adrien offered.
Sabine reached out and smoothed a hand over his hair. He went very still, and his eyes went wide. “Adrien, you’re a child. No one should have been hitting you at all.”
“Mom,” Marinette said quietly. “No one else could have been fighting the akuma like we have.”
“Why?” Tom’s voice had a plaintive edge to it.
Marinette reached up to touch her earrings. “Um. We got these things - Miraculous? And then our kwamis showed up, and -”
“Stop,” said Sabine. “Kwamis?”
“Um -”
“I’ll get them,” Adrien said, and stood, his chair scraping loud on the floor in his rush to escape.
“They’re magic,” Marinette explained helplessly.
Tikki and Plagg preceded Adrien down the stairs. Tikki waved. “Hello!”
Tom blinked several times. “I haven’t even offered to make you food. I’ll make something. Adrien, what you you like? You two - I - what do you even eat?”
“I’m very fond of your macarons, M. Dupain,” Tikki said.
“Cheese,” Plagg said.
Sabine was watching Tikki raptly. “I’m glad you weren’t stress-eating and hiding it from us, mon chou. I’d been worried about how many sweets we’d been going through.”
Tikki flew over to hover near the table. “Did they ask you what to do?”
“We’d just kind of been explaining things,” Marinette said.
Sabine took a deep breath and shifted her attention, squaring herself across the table from Marinette. “Okay. What do you need help with?”
It was so strange, but such a relief, to have adults who knew all the information offer advice. While Tom made their strangely-scheduled meal, Sabine had Adrien call Natalie on Marinette’s cell. He ended up pacing the living room on the phone with her for several minutes, talking about things like ‘press conference’ and ‘paparazzi.’ Marinette didn’t eavesdrop too much, anyway, because her mom was talking her through the akuma situation now that Hawk Moth was dead, about scheduling patrols more stringently around homework, and keeping a curfew.
When Adrien was done on the phone, he passed it back to Marinette and collapsed in a chair. “My mom had a press conference. There’s paparazzi all around our house.”
“Ah,” Sabine said. “Then you’ll be staying the weekend.”
Tom set down a dish of green beans and another of chicken. “I can lend you clothes if you can’t go back for any.”
“No, I - I presumed? Or, well, I can’t go back right now. Natalie’s sending the Gorilla with a bag.” Adrien rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Good,” Sabine said. “No child needs to deal with paparazzi. Now, eat.”