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Chapter Text

Chat Noir smiled as he landed on one of the beams near the top of the Eiffel Tower a few seconds before Ladybug. It was a rare night when he won a race between the two of them, and he couldn’t help but let out a cheesy fist bump as Ladybug landed behind him with an eye roll that he could tell suppressed a smile.

“Well, well, well, M’lady. I think that since I won you might owe me a little reward,” he said, pursing his lips in anticipation of a kiss he knew he’d never receive.

“In your dreams, Minou,” she quipped, gently pushing his lips away with her fingers and giving his shoulder a playful shove with her other hand.

He dramatically stumbled backwards in mock-hurt at her response, and she giggled at his performance. Despite her unwillingness to acknowledge his victory, and the fact that it always stung a little bit that she didn’t return his feelings for her, he had to smile at her behaviour. Lately things had been a little too tense between the two of them. He knew that it was mostly the result of the stress she’d been feeling at having become the new guardian, but it was hard to shake the feeling that she didn’t really trust him even when she was constantly telling him that wasn’t the case.

It hadn’t helped when she’d told him a few months ago that she’d revealed her identity to one of her civilian friends. Intellectually, he understood that she’d needed to let someone in to help relieve some of the pressure she was feeling, and that it couldn’t have been him since there was too much of a chance of Shadow Moth targeting him in an Akuma attack and putting her identity at risk, but it still stung. 

Tonight though, racing across the city with her whoops of exhilaration following him, he’d managed to forget all of that. The pair sat down beside each other, letting their feet kick off the edge of the Tower. The conversation flew effortlessly between them as they stared out at the city lights.

About twenty minutes in, he had her in stitches after having recounted a rather embarrassing story—heavily edited to conceal his identity—about a wardrobe malfunction he’d had at a recent photo shoot.

He grinned despite himself. “I told you I’d win for most embarrassing story ever.”

“Psh. As if. Do you have any idea how many ways I’ve embarrassed myself in front of the boy I like? Seriously, there’s a world record in there somewhere I’m sure.”

It was impossible to ignore the twinge of jealousy in his stomach at those words. But still, he wouldn’t hate hearing about this boy that had so strongly captured her heart, if only to get an idea of what he was up against. He knew it was wrong. He should be letting her go. Letting himself move on. Except...that hadn’t really worked out all that well with Kagami…

“Sooooo...” he prompted, trying to shake himself out of his thoughts, “tell me about one of those stories.”

She frowned. “I can’t really tell you most of those. Identity reasons.”

“Oh. Right.” His stomach curled a little tighter at that, and he hated himself for it, but the wound was still there. Someone else in Paris was walking around right now, fully aware of Ladybug’s identity, while he was still in the dark. Still, there was no sense bringing it up again. He knew she felt bad enough already. So he forced himself to nudge the conversation forward. “Tell me something else then.”

She laughed. “Ok, well...now that I think of it, I actually do have a pretty good one,” she paused to let out another little giggle, and he tried not to zone out as he replayed the adorable cadence through his mind again and again. 

“Gonna leave me hanging there, Bug?”

She took a breath to calm herself before continuing. “No, no, no. I got this.” She grinned, staring out at the city. “I mean...it’s really not even that funny, it’s just ridiculous.” She looked over at him, but he just regarded her expectantly, so she sighed and continued. “Ok so, I was in my living room the other day, and it was just me, so I was talking to Tikki, and I hadn’t realized that my mom had come back up from the bak—uh...from downstairs. And then all of a sudden she asked me, ‘Who’s Tikki?’”

Chat Noir snorted. “Oof. I’ve been there. It’s a lot easier when your Kwami is named Plagg though. ‘What’s that Father? You thought I was talking to someone named Plagg? Don’t be ridiculous. I was just talking to myself about my history project that’s due soon. You know, we’re studying the bubonic plague.’”

Ladybug snickered. “I wish I’d thought of something so smooth. Honestly I don’t really know what came over me—I should have just said it was a friend I’d met online or something—but I was pretty tired that day, so I just panicked and blurted out ‘Oh, Tikki? That’s no one, she’s just my imaginary friend!’”

Chat burst out laughing. “Oh my God, her reaction must have been priceless. What did she say?”

“Nothing! I mean honestly, my parents are pretty used to me saying weird things and making crazy excuses at this point. Kind of comes with the territory, you know?” She gestured to her suit and he nodded in agreement. “So she just kind of smiled and said ‘Ok, dear,’ and walked away while I sat there trying not to die of embarrassment.”

Chat was still chucking. “Ok, I admit. That was pretty good. But I still think I can beat you. Did I ever tell you about the time…”

***

Neither hero expected anything to come out of their slightly mortifying conversation. It had simply been a nice night of hanging out underneath the stars. But later that week, after three days of back-to-back akumas, Adrien was exhausted, and as such he was not in the best state to be making up excuses. 

So when Nathalie walked by the slightly ajar door to his room as he talked to Plagg, and stopped in to ask who he was talking to…

He could have said he was talking to a friend on the phone. He could have said he was talking to himself. He probably could have even said he’d been watching a movie with the volume turned up too loud.

Instead, with his recent conversation with Ladybug fresh in his mind, he blurted out, “I’m just talking to my imaginary friend.”

Nathalie raised her eyebrows, but said nothing as she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.

***

All of this—while quite embarrassing for the two teens—probably wouldn’t have led anywhere else...were it not for the fact that parent-teacher conferences were taking place the next day at Collège Françoise Dupont.

As Sabine waited in line at the sign-in table, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around to see a somewhat familiar face that she realized after a couple seconds belonged to Gabriel Agreste’s assistant. What was her name? Nadia? Nadine? No, that wasn’t quite right...oh, Nathalie!

“Hello,” Sabine greeted her with a smile.

Nathalie returned a polite smile of her own. “Hello. You’re Marinette’s mother, right?”

Sabine nodded. “You’re here for Adrien?”

“Yes. This is the line for registration?”

Sabine nodded again, and wondered if she should just politely smile and turn back to the front of the line. She doubted that she and Nathalie had much in common. Still, she didn’t want to be rude, so she decided to at least attempt to keep up a conversation.

“Gabriel couldn’t make it tonight?” The question was asked under the guise of polite curiosity, but internally Sabine was judging the rich designer. How could he possibly be too busy to make an appearance for his own son? Having met Adrien a few times, and from what she’d heard from Marinette, that boy seemed to be constantly seeking his father’s attention and approval. He was a wonderful boy too, who certainly didn’t deserve such neglect. Still, it was no fault of Nathalie’s that her employer was a bad parent, and from what Sabine had observed, the woman did at least seem to care about Adrien in her own way.

Nathalie seemed to debate her answer for some time before answering rather honestly. “He could have. He decided it wasn’t worth his time when he could send me instead.”

Sabine raised her eyebrows, surprised that the woman had admitted as much. 

Nathalie’s eyes widened at Sabine’s expression. “I didn’t mean to imply that he doesn’t care for his son. It’s just that...administrative things like this aren’t really Gabriel’s thing. He does love Adrien very much.”

“I’m sure,” Sabine agreed. She wasn’t, but again, that wasn’t Nathalie’s fault. “How is Adrien doing? I haven’t seen him around much lately.”

“Oh, he’s doing well enough. He was somewhat down for a while after he broke up with his first girlfriend a few months ago, but he seems to be in much better spirits these days.”

“Ah,” Sabine sympathized, “Marinette also went through a break-up a few months ago. It’s so tough at that age.”

Nathalie nodded. “It is difficult, and I really wish I could be there for Adrien...someone should be, you know? But I have to admit...I don’t understand teenagers.”

At that, Sabine had to laugh. “I don’t think any of us do. We all forget as we get older what it was like at that age. How passionately we felt things and how new everything still was.”

“That’s true. But even all of their weird trends and stuff these days...I just can’t keep up with them. I mean just last night I was walking by Adrien’s room and he was talking to someone, probably some friend on his phone, but when I walked in to ask who he was talking to he said it was his imaginary friend.”

Sabine’s eyes widened. “Marinette said the same thing to me last week.”

Nathalie frowned. “They’re far too old for that though...I mean, it must be some joke we don’t understand?”

“That’s what I thought, too...but...you don’t think they were talking to each other, do you?”

“Hmmm...maybe. And neither of them wanted to admit it for some reason so they worked out some kind of code phrase? Although I can’t imagine why they’d keep their conversations with one another a secret unless maybe they’ve started dating or something.”

Sabine felt her eyes light up. “Oh, Marinette has had a crush on him for ages. Do you think something finally happened between them?”

Nathalie’s lips twitched into a tight smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Adrien has always had very nice things to say about your daughter, you know.”

Sabine frowned. “I’m not sure why Marinette wouldn’t have told me they were dating though…”

Nathalie shrugged. “Teenagers, right? Who can understand them?”

Sabine couldn’t find an argument to that.

***

The next morning, Nathalie gave a report to her boss about the teacher’s conference from the night before as Gabriel flipped through company budget reports. Of course the boy had received gushing reviews from all his teachers for both his considerate behaviour towards his fellow classmates and his excellent performance in his courses. This had come as no surprise to her, since she knew Adrien to be a kind and intelligent boy. At most there had been some concerned comments regarding the amount of class he’d seemed to miss for various photoshoots, but Nathalie had thought it best not to aggravate Gabriel with those details. He did seem to be in a relatively good mood that morning though, so she felt comfortable enough to slip in one last detail.

“Oh, and it seems as though Adrien might be dating somebody.”

Gabriel looked up from his papers. “I thought he and Kagami broke things off.”

“They did, sir. I was referring to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

He frowned, which in and of itself meant nothing. Frowning was one of Gabriel Agreste’s default expressions, as Nathalie well knew. However, she was well-versed in interpreting those frowns, and from the lack of severity of this one she could tell that he was not necessarily displeased, merely caught up in thought. 

“She was the girl who won the derby hat competition, yes? Her parents own the bakery near the school?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Hmm…”

“She seems to have a good head on her shoulders, sir, if I might say.” Nathalie wasn’t quite sure why she was defending the girl. But her mother had made a good impression last night. She was a kind woman, but with a sparkle in her eyes that spoke of a small amount of mischief. The kind of woman that Nathalie might have enjoyed having a drink with if she lived another life. And at the end of the day...Nathalie did like to see Adrien happy. 

Gabriel nodded. “I have no objections, if she makes Adrien happy.”

Nathalie smiled in relief as she turned to exit the room. She made it as far as the doorway before Gabriel spoke again.

“You’ll set up a lunch then?”

“Sir?”

“With the girl and her parents. Some time next week—I’ll be busy over the weekend.”

“I’m not sure that—”

“It’s important Nathalie. They should be aware of what dating Adrien might entail. Mlle Dupain-Cheng is not used to being in the spotlight, as she will be if she’s in a relationship with my son. I just don’t want there to be any funny surprises,” he said, his tone final.

“Yes sir,” Nathalie replied.

There was still the matter that she had yet to actually confirm with Adrien that he was in fact dating this girl...but she would find time to talk to him about that…

Unfortunately, the weekend did turn out to be very busy for the members of the Agreste mansion, and so when Monday rolled around, Nathalie had not actually had a chance to clear things with Adrien, aside from briefly informing him at breakfast that morning that Marinette would be accompanying him back to the house for lunch. He seemed a bit surprised at that, but Nathalie didn’t think he was any more surprised than was warranted for a lunchtime appointment he hadn’t previously been aware of.

Besides, surely Sabine must have had a chance to talk to her daughter by now. If they weren’t dating, Nathalie was convinced she would have heard back by now.

***

Sabine in fact, had not talked to her daughter about the impending lunch prior to that morning. She’d considered it, of course. But if her daughter was going to keep secrets from her then she could do the same. So she waited until Marinette was hurrying out the door, a croissant hanging from her mouth as she tried to stuff breakfast down her throat at the last minute, to drop the news.

“Oh honey, we’re having lunch with Adrien and his father today at their home. You can get a ride with Adrien and I’ll meet you there.”

The half-eaten croissant fell to the floor as Marinette’s jaw dropped open so low Sabine thought about teasing her that she should pick it up before it touched the floor. But she’d leave the goofy jokes to her husband.

“What!? ” Marinette shrieked when she managed to compose herself.

“Come on,” Sabine teased, “you didn’t think you’d be able to keep your imaginary friend a secret for long, did you?”

Marinette’s eyes, if possible, went even wider. “My...what?”

“Well honey, what are you waiting for? You don’t want to be late!”

Sabine watched in amusement as Marinette nearly tripped over her own feet as she stumbled out the bakery door.

***

Marinette walked to school in a panicked frenzy. Lunch with Adrien? And not only that, but Gabriel would be there. And her mother had decided to drop this on her with absolutely no warning.

The only clue as to why this was even happening was the comment her mom had made about her ‘imaginary friend’, but Marinette had no idea how that applied to Adrien. There had been a parent-teacher conference recently, she knew. What if her mother had told Gabriel about her odd comment, and what if he’d decided that as a result of her strangeness that she was no longer fit to be friends with his son? Or what if he was secretly Shadow Moth and he’d realized she must have been talking to her Kwami when she made the comment and he’d decided that the best way to take her miraculous was to invite her over for lunch?

Ok. She was Catastrophizing. But what else was she supposed to do?

Her panic must still have been evident when she reached the school, because Alya, waiting at the bottom of the steps with Nino, took one look at her and said, “Girl. Are you ok?” 

Marinette was struggling for a way to explain when Adrien walked up beside them. “Hey guys! Hey Marinette, I heard you’re coming over to lunch today!”

Alya’s mouth made an ‘O’ shape, and Marinette could tell she was holding back laughter. She’d obviously discerned the reason for Marinette’s panic, and was no longer worried, but instead taking joy from her pain. Well, somebody just got officially bumped down to being Marinette’s second best friend. Normally it was a tie between Alya and Chat Noir.   

“Y-y-yeah. Coming, I lunch...I mean I’m coming! To lunch!” She was pretty sure she felt her cheeks turn every possible shade of red all at once. 

Adrien gave her a friendly smile. “I’m sure it has something to do with your interest in fashion. I think my father was thinking about hosting another design contest, maybe he wants to talk to you about that. I know he really liked your hat last time.”

“O-oh. Right. P-probably!” 

That would make sense, Marinette thought, were it not for her mother’s cryptic comment.

“Well, I’ll see you inside,” Adrien said, and he fist-bumped Nino as the two of them started walking up the stairs together.

Marinette was left beside Alya, who was quietly snickering at her. 

“So,” Alya said, “lunch? What’s that about? Is this your newest scheme to get Buttercup to notice you? I thought you were taking a break from dating to focus on...you know....your responsibilities.” She winked.  

Marinette groaned. “I am taking a break. And I have no idea what this is about, my mom just dropped it on me out of the blue this morning, with some weird comment about—” Marinette broke off, her mind catching on one of the words Alya had said. Dating.

She played back her mom’s comment from earlier, seeing the way her mother’s eyes had been gleaming, hearing the teasing tone of her voice...Oh no oh no oh no.

“Marinette?” Alya waved a hand in front of her face. “You still with me?”

“Oh my God, Alya, I think that my mom thinks....I think she might think Adrien and I are dating,” Marinette said, her voice lowering to a whisper by the end so nobody else would hear her.

Alya’s laughter followed Marinette all the way into class that morning.

***

If Marinette had found the drive to the Agreste mansion awkward—a trip during which she’d barely been able to string two words together in response as Adrien had chatted away good-humoredly about topics she couldn’t recall—well...it was nothing when compared to how she felt when she finally sat down at the ridiculously long dining room table in the Agreste mansion. 

Adrien had taken one head of the table, and had directed Marinette to take one of the seats beside him. Nathalie was tapping away on her tablet, seated at the midpoint of the table on the side facing Marinette. When Gabriel and Sabine finally walked in—had they already been talking?!—Marinette thought she was going to die from embarrassment at the mischievous wink her mother shot her before sitting down in the chair next to her. Gabriel took the seat opposite Adrien, his presence so domineering that it apparently required half of the table to itself.

For a moment, before the conversation began, Marinette stole a quick glance at Adrien. His posture was tense, and his face was carefully neutral as he stared at his father. The exception to that were his eyes, which were wide with a certain childlike hesitance that she wouldn’t have thought to associate with the boy she normally thought of as being so confident. He turned to give her a tight smile when he caught her looking, and Marinette felt her heart drop a little at how it failed to transform his face the way his smiles normally did. She knew that Adrien and his father didn’t always get along that well. Everyone at school knew that. But she had never really imagined what it must feel like to have to exist in your own home, always afraid to do the wrong thing. Suddenly, Marinette had an overwhelming desire to punch Gabriel Agreste in the face.

Of course, she did no such thing, and when he began speaking she was reminded of the other things that had been worrying her all day. Her newfound desire for vigilante justice would have to wait.

“Mlle Dupain-Cheng,” Gabriel began, and Marinette had to wonder at how his voice could carry so easily across what seemed to be miles that separated his end of the table from her seat. “May I call you Marinette?” Marinette nodded, not trusting her voice, and he continued. “Well then, Marinette, it’s lovely to have you here.”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth a few times, until her mother subtly patted her hand that rested on the table, giving her a pointed look, and Marinette managed to force her words out. “Th-thank you sir. I’m very happy to be here. Although I must admit...I’m not exactly sure why you invited us here today.”

Gabriel actually turned up one corner of his mouth into the approximation of a smile and wow, how was it that that was somehow even scarier than his normal expression. 

“Yes...Your mother said that she hadn’t exactly enlightened you as to the purpose of this lunch. If it’s any consolation, we did not inform Adrien either, although I can’t imagine this is really much of a surprise. I’m not sure how long the two of you were expecting to keep this a secret.”

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Marinette didn’t dare look at Adrien to see his reaction.

A server had entered the dining room and had begun distributing fancy plates, filled with some sort of salad, around the table. Marinette hardly registered the dish that was set in front of her as she heard Adrien respond.

“Keep what a secret, Father?”

“Your relationship, of course.”

Marinette was very glad that she hadn’t started eating yet, or she definitely would have spat out her food. Adrien for his part, seemed to be choking on air, judging by the coughs she heard coming from his direction.

“Our...w-what?” Adrien managed to get out.

Marinette really wanted now to be the time that Tikki’s ability to phase through solid objects magically transferred to her, because she would have liked nothing more right then than to be able to disappear through the floor. Instead, her traitorous mind decided to draw attention to herself by making her burst into nervous laughter. Everyone turned to look at her, and she had no choice but to try and explain herself.

“Th-that’s um…We’re not dating! I mean why would you think...us? Dating? Ha! Me and Adrien? That’s j-just…so funny! I mean, not that dating your son would be funny, M. Agreste, I should be so lucky, e-except I’m n-not. W-we’re not! I mean I don’t know what gave you that idea, but—” Gabriel waved his hand, cutting her off.

“Adrien?”

“Sh-she’s right, Father. We’re just friends. I mean Marinette is amazing. She’s so talented, and she’s beautiful and creative and—” 

For the second time today Marinette wanted to punch Gabriel in the face, when he cut off Adrien in the middle of showering her with compliments. How was she ever supposed to forget about that? And he’d said beautiful ?! Well, that was that, she was just going to have to die right here, on the spot. No other option at this point really. Because how could she possibly go on knowing—

The sight of Gabriel’s intensified frown brought Marinette back to the present. “Well then. I apologise, Marinette, for making assumptions.” His eyes swivelled over to Nathalie. “Would you care to explain how this misunderstanding came to be?”

“I...Sir, I’m sorry. Sabine and I just thought...well, we were talking at the parent teacher conference last week and I mentioned how Adrien had made some comment to me about how he was talking to his imaginary friend, and Sabine had remarked that Marinette had made the same excuse the week prior, so we thought they must have been talking to each other, and…”

Nathalie continued rambling on with her explanation, but for Marinette and Adrien, time felt like it had slowed down so much that it froze. If she hadn’t known any better, Marinette would have thought that an Akuma was responsible for the sudden disturbance in space-time.

Because there was no way this was a coincidence. Teenagers did not just go around talking about imaginary friends. Marinette had told exactly two people about what she’d said, one of whom was Alya, and the other of whom was apparently sitting next to her right now. 

Even if she’d had a doubt, the way Adrien was looking at her right now, his eyes full of joy and amazement, was enough confirmation. Adrien was Chat Noir.

“So…” Gabriel’s voice tore Marinette’s attention away from Adrien. “You thought that the two of them were dating...because they both made a joke about having...an imaginary friend?”

And oh, Marinette’s heart was beating so fast at this point that she really shouldn’t have said anything, but her mind had jumped rapidly from ‘Oh my God, Adrien is Chat and I’ve been rejecting him this entire time, but he’s in love with me?!’ to ‘Oh my God we’re too old to have imaginary friends, I need to figure out an excuse for this because two teenagers making the same weird comment about imaginary friends is too much of a coincidence and we can’t have them figuring out our real secret!’

So she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “It’s a TikTok trend!”

Gabriel, if possible, appeared to be even less impressed as his eyes swung towards her. “A...TikTok trend?” 

“Y-yeah. It’s like...people tell their parents that they’re talking to their imaginary friend, because it’s ridiculous for a teenager to be doing that, haha! So then they film their parents’ reactions, and they post it on TikTok, because yep! It’s totally a trend. Everyone is talking about it!”

Gabriel turned to look at Adrien, arching one of his eyebrows. “You’re on TikTok? I thought I told you that all of your social media accounts had to be approved by Nathalie.”

Oops. She hadn’t meant to get him in trouble.

Adrien’s eyes went wide in alarm. “Oh, n-no Father. I’m not on TikTok...I just...I heard some friends talking about it—it’s like Marinette said, everyone is talking about it. And I thought it would be funny to try…” he trailed off and hung his head a little, eyes focused on his plate.

“Hmm...” Gabriel’s expression gave nothing away as he seemed to sit and ponder their story. Marinette glanced at her mother, and saw that her outwardly polite expression was tinged with judgement as she looked at him. Oh, her mom did not seem to like Gabriel Agreste.

“I guess there’s no point in me staying here then,” Sabine said after some time. “I should probably get back to the bakery to help out my husband, M. Agreste, but I thank you for your hospitality.” Marinette was pretty sure that nobody else picked up on the tone behind her words, but she was glad to know that her mother also disapproved of how Adrien—her chaton—was clearly being mistreated. “Oh no, sweetheart,” her mom added when Marinette rose to follow her, “you should stay here and enjoy your lunch with your friend.” 

Sabine sent a sympathetic glance in Adrien’s direction as she left, but Marinette realized that he still hadn’t looked up from his plate. Had Gabriel’s accusation really hit him that hard? The man had seemed to accept his explanation, hadn’t he?

Gabriel excused himself a minute or so later, apologising again to Marinette for the misunderstanding and assuring her that she was indeed welcome to stay for lunch. 

Marinette nodded her thanks, her mind still reeling from her discovery, then looked back over to Adrien. He was pushing his food around his plate, a dejected look still prominent on his face. Marinette reached over and placed a tentative hand over Adrien’s to comfort him. She ignored the voice screaming in her head about the fact that she was basically holding Adrien’s hand, because honestly, this was just Chat. Her best friend. She could do this.

“Adrien, are you ok?”

He turned to look at her, a sad smile on his face. “I’m fine Marinette. It’s just a TikTok trend, right?”

Marinette’s heart nearly dropped out of her chest again—seriously, the emotional whiplash from this day was going to take her years to recover from—as she realized that her silly Kitty had believed the lie she’d told. She wanted nothing more than to ruffle his hair and reassure him with a giant hug while she corrected her mistake, but Nathalie was still sitting right there, so she sighed, and started picking at her salad.

Talks about secret identities would have to wait.

***

Marinette couldn’t explain things to Adrien as they got back into the car to return to school either, since The Gorilla might have heard them talking. As such, it was a quiet ride back.

Adrien was clearly still upset, and although he politely responded to her two brief attempts to start up conversation, they fell into an awkward silence both times.

It was frustrating. After more than a year of falling head over heels for the boy beside her, she no longer felt nervous at the thought of talking to him. How could she possibly, when she knew this was the same boy she’d entrusted with her life, time and time again? She was finally sure she could have spoken to him without stumbling over her words. And yet, due to the circumstances she still couldn’t speak.

She did, however, have a lot of time to think. 

A few months ago, when the pressure of being the guardian had been eating her up inside, this revelation probably would have had her freaking out. But since letting Alya in on her secret things had steadily become easier, an ease that now allowed her to sit back and contemplate things objectively.

The truth was, although she now knew his identity, a small part of her still felt relief that he didn’t know hers. Things were safer that way. The memory of Chat Blanc calling her by name still haunted her nightmares at night, and the thought of seeing Adrien’s eyes overtaken by that icy blue tormented her even more.

Each time she looked at him now though, his shoulders slumped and eyes wistful, her resolve crumbled. She couldn’t stand to see Adrien like that. Bad enough that she knew how upset he was already that she’d let someone else in on her identity first

If this decision was going to destroy the world...well, Bunnyx had stepped in last time, so if she wasn’t here now...What did Marinette have to lose?

By the time the car pulled up in front of their school, Marinette had made up her mind. She slid out of the car after Adrien, running a little to catch up with him, since he was so out of it he apparently hadn’t thought to wait for her.

When they got to the foot of the stairs, Marinette reached out and grabbed Adrien by the arm. “Adrien, wait.”

She pulled him around the side of the stairs so that they were hidden from the rest of the students running to get to class on time.

He furrowed his brows in confusion. “Marinette, we’re going to be late.”

“I know, I don’t care. I—This is more important.” 

His expression changed to one of concern, and he took half a step closer. “Is everything alright?”

“I lied.”

“You...huh?”  

She smiled. She was still holding his arm from when she’d first grabbed it—he’d never pulled away—and now she slid her fingers down to grab his hand, giving it a small squeeze.

“The imaginary friends thing. It’s not a TikTok trend. I couldn’t exactly tell the truth in front of our parents and Nathalie, Chaton.”

His eyes widened. “M'lady? It really is you?”

She nodded, opening her mouth to say more, but her words were cut off by his arms wrapping around her in a hug so tight it almost knocked the breath out of her. He’d even lifted her up so only her toes still touched the ground.

“Can’t. Breathe.” She managed to get out after a few seconds, and he immediately set her back on the ground and released her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I just—I thought it was you before you know? And I was so happy, but then Kwami Buster happened, and I thought that was impossible—how did you do that by the way? Nevermind, you can tell me later—and then at lunch today I got excited again but after you said...well, you know, I just felt so stupid because I already knew it couldn’t be you so how could I have gotten my hopes up? But then I found it is you, and OH MY GOD I was so rude in the car ride back, I barely even looked at you I’m so sor—”  

“Minou, breathe.” She laid a hand against his cheek, smiling, and his eyes glanced towards it then back to her face in awe. The rambling was adorable—when it was coming from him and not her of course—and she could have listened to it all day, but she knew the bell was about to ring. “We’ll have lots of time to talk about this later, but we kind of need to get to class right now.”

He nodded, and for a moment they both just stared at each other in silence, taking a moment to appreciate how their world had shifted. Then the bell rang, and they both jumped.

Adrien recovered first, shooting her a smirk that was pure Chat—Oh God, how had she never realized that they had the same smirk? Not that Adrien was as quick to throw it around outside of the mask, but still there had definitely been times she’d seen that before . He held out his elbow for her to grab on to, giving a theatrical flourish with his other hand. She shook her head fondly, grinning, and accepted his arm. She leaned against his shoulder as they walked together up the stairs.

They spent the rest of their way back to class exchanging smiles with each other, and not even the terrifying look that Mme Mendeleiev gave them for walking in late as they reluctantly separated from one another to take their seats could ruin the magical feeling that had been brought to them by virtue of their not-so-imaginary friends.

Chapter Text

Marinette couldn’t help but smirk as Alya pushed a piece of paper across their desk towards her after having furiously scribbled something on it. She’d felt her friend’s eyes on her nearly the entire ten or so minutes since she and Adrien had wandered into class together and she could tell that a myriad of questions were swirling through the other girl’s brain. But since class had already been underway Alya hadn’t yet been able to interrogate her.

After a quick look at Mme. Mendeleiev to ensure that her attention was still focused on the equations she was writing on the board, Marinette slid the paper the rest of the way in front of her and read Alya’s note.

OMG! What happened at lunch?!?!

Marinette bit her lip hard to hide her smile as their teacher turned back to face the class for a moment, stressing some detail about balancing chemical equations which Marinette couldn’t be bothered to listen to, because honestly, she had enough things that she needed to balance in her life already. Under the guise of taking notes, she wrote back a hasty response to Alya before slowly easing the paper back towards her.

What do you mean? ;)

As their teacher turned back to the board, Marinette looked over to see Alya’s reaction, and grinned mischievously at the glare she received. Fiercely yanking the paper back, Alya wrote practically an entire paragraph before shoving her response back to Marinette with a dramatic huff. 

GIRL DON’T EVEN. You were ALL OVER ADRIEN when you came back.

And you didn’t even seem flustered? 

Like who are you, and what did you do with my best friend?

Are you guys TOGETHER? Did you CONFESS? Was there KISSING?!

I. NEED. DETAILS.

Marinette found it nearly impossible to suppress her laughter when she finished reading a mere second before Adrien turned around to wink at her. Since Mme. Mendeleiev was still occupied, Marinette winked back, and she could practically feel Alya burning a hole in the side of her head with the intensity of her stare as Adrien blushed and turned back to the front of the class. 

The humor of the situation faded a little when Marinette realised that she had no idea what to say to Alya. Her best friend was far too inquisitive to let things go, and Marinette knew that since Alya knew her secret, any version of the truth that she told would risk giving away Adrien’s secret identity too, and she couldn’t do that without his permission. But the impatient tapping of Alya’s pencil wouldn’t let the matter rest for long, so Marinette scrawled a hasty response.

No kissing, we just talked. 

It’s kind of a long story.

I’ll explain everything, but I need to talk to Adrien again first.

You’re KILLING ME HERE.

Come on. Just one detail.

One.

Fine.

The food wasn’t even that good.

MARIIIII

That’s not what I meant.

Marinette lips twitched as she fought off another smile, but she opted not to respond. After a minute or so of Alya’s decidedly not subtle attempts to gain her attention, her friend sighed and added an extra few lines.

UGH. You’re killing me.

I could get akumatized for this you know.

The painful betrayal of my best friend keeping me in the dark about her love life.

You’re really saving yourself extra work by just telling me NOW.

Marinette couldn’t help but let out a snort at her friends overdramatics, which made Adrien turn around to look at her again. His expression this time was less flirty as he eyed the paper that the girls had been passing back and forth suspiciously before turning back to Marinette with a questioning look.

Unfortunately, Mme Mendeleiev chose that moment to turn around again. 

“Mr. Agreste, you’ll have plenty of time to stare at Mlle Dupain-Cheng after class. For now you’d be better off looking at the board. ”

Marinette wasn’t sure if she or Adrien blushed harder.

***

There was no chance for Marinette and Adrien to talk privately throughout the rest of the school day. As time went on the looks they shared became less giddy and more impatient. Their entire world had changed and yet they were stuck here, confined by the menial shackles of school, unable to do anything but stare wistfully at the clock as the seconds ticked by. Marinette found herself almost wishing for an akuma attack so they could run away together and transform. 

Shadow Moth, being the thoroughly inconsiderate supervillain that he was, did not grant her wish, so by the time the last bell rang Marinette practically leaped out of her seat, scrambling to cram her things back in her bag and go talk to Adrien. Of the same mind apparently, he was already standing beside her desk when she stood up. Unfortunately, Alya was ready just as fast, insisting on walking with them to their lockers to try and pick up on what was going on. Nino trailed a little ways behind, but even he was regarding them strangely as they went.

“We need to talk,” Marinette whispered as she and Adrien managed to beat Alya out of the locker room after hastily grabbing their stuff. Her bag was heavier than it needed to be since she hadn’t bothered putting away any of her textbooks, but it was worth it for even these few seconds of time to talk.

“I know,” he smiled tightly. “I wish I had time right now, but…”

“Let me guess, piano lessons?”

“Nah. Mandarin today. I might be able to convince Nathalie to give me fifteen minutes or so, but...I kind of think this conversation needs longer than that.”

Marinette nodded as they walked through the front doors. She could see that Adrien’s car was already waiting for him, and Nathalie was leaning against one of the doors, appearing slightly more frazzled than usual, her signature tablet in hand. She glanced up and her eyes widened as she saw the two of them walking out, side by side.

“So...patrol tonight?” Marinette whispered to her partner as they descended the last few stairs. “Usual spot? Usual time?”

Adrien nodded. “Can’t wait,” he said with a smile. He looked like he wanted to say more, but they were now only a few feet away from the car, and Nathalie was walking up towards them.

“Mlle. Dupain-Cheng,” she began, “I must apologize again for the misunderstanding from earlier, I...Well there’s no excuse really.”

Marinette and Adrien exchanged an amused look. “It’s no worries, really,” Marinette assured her. Really, they ought to be thanking her.

Nathalie looked back and forth between the two of them, an unreadable expression on her face, before giving a curt nod. “Well if you’re sure...it’s time to go Adrien.”

Adrien nodded, and started to follow Nathalie, but after a couple steps he turned back and pulled Marinette into big hug—this time one that was loose enough to allow her to breathe at least. A part of her was almost too overwhelmed at being hugged twice in one day—twice—by Adrien to reciprocate the gesture, but eventually her arms remembered how to move and she squeezed him tightly around the waist in return. Sure, knowing he was Chat allowed her to talk to him, but still. This was going to take a lot more getting used to.

“I’m so happy I found you, Buginette," he whispered as he released her, placing a quick kiss on her cheek as he pulled away.

Marinette tried not to fall over as she watched him get into the car and drive away. When she managed to shake herself from her shock, she turned around to see that Alya was watching her from the top of the stairs, and judging by the expression on her face she hadn’t missed what had just gone down. 

Sure, Ladybug faced supervillains multiple times a week, but...their attacks were usually a lot easier to dodge than Alya on the hunt for information. So as Marinette saw her friend starting to rush down the stairs towards her, she just waved and shouted, “Bye Alya! Gotta go!” Then she turned and all but ran in the direction of home

***

Given that Marinette spent the entirety of the six or so hours between when she got home and when she had to meet Chat thinking about said meeting, the fact that she still managed to be late was nothing short of...well...miraculous. Then again, would she really be Marinette if she were on time? And, in her defense, she’d gotten stuck in a small cycle of the now-familiar state of Adrien-is-Chat-is-Adrien-is-Chat panic about five minutes before she was due to leave.

Her heart was still beating too fast when she landed softly on a familiar rooftop, but the second that Chat-is-Adrien-is-Chat-is-Adrien turned to look at her from his seat on the railing and grinned, all of her worries dissolved.

“It makes a lot more sense now why you’re always late, m’lady.”

“Rude.” She walked over and hopped up to sit next to him, giving his shoulder a playful shove once she was settled. “Wait...do you mean when I’m late as Marinette or as Ladybug?”

“Both,” he laughed.

“Like I said. Rude.”

“Aww, come on Bug. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

She regarded him pensively. “You really mean that, don’t you?” Of course he hadn’t seemed disappointed earlier, but he’d had hours to think things over by now... “You sure you wouldn’t prefer having a partner who didn’t trip over her own feet trying to walk in a straight line?”

He shook his head. “You warned me on day one you were madly clumsy, m’lady. It’s part of your charm.” He must not have been satisfied by her reaction, because he frowned and continued. “Besides, how could I possibly want anybody else? You’re Marinette.” 

His words were spoken like some indisputable fact, and the way he said it made it sound like he’d said you’re perfect. Wow. What had she done in her last life to deserve him?

Then again, in this life she was an actual superhero, so...she’d probably paid her dues.

They sat in contented silence for a while, staring at each other and letting things sink in a little further. Marinette wondered if they had enough time for her to commit every inch of his face to memory. Now that she knew who he was it seemed ridiculous that she’d never caught on to his identity. That was Adrien’s smile. Adrien’s cheekbones. Adrien’s nose. The eyes of course were different, but they were just as sincere as Adrien’s. Just as kind. 

He looked away first, a soft blush settling on his cheeks. Marinette blushed in response, but she wasn’t exactly embarrassed to have been caught staring, because knowing she had that effect on Adrien was just...surreal.

Eventually, he broke the silence. “And what about you? Are you...you’re not disappointed, are you?”

“What!? Are you kidding me? Mon minou, you could never be a disappointment. You’re...you’re…” she fumbled around for the right word, but their wasn’t one, not really. No language could really capture the enormity of what she was feeling. So she settled on the same  justification he’d given her. “You’re Adrien,” she breathed. And ok, probably she’d watched his perfume ad a few too many thousand times considering the breathy way that his name tumbled out of her mouth. He didn’t seem to be bothered by that though.

In fact, his reaction was...wow. Ok. Smiles from cute blonde superheroes shouldn’t be allowed to be that big. It was an occupational hazard, really. If any akuma struck in the next rest of eternity, Paris was going to be out of luck, because Ladybug was now out of commission indefinitely...

Ok no. Ladybug. She was Ladybug. She could function. Just because Marinette.exe refused to run didn’t mean that Ladybug.exe got to stop working too. Unsurprisingly though, considering the current state of her extremely bugged (pun intended) programming, Chat was the first that night to steer them towards more practical matters.

“So...we should probably talk things through, yeah? Figure out if this changes anything between us…” he trailed off, seeming uncertain.

“Well,” she said carefully, shaking herself up after a successful reboot, “of course it changes things—” Her eyes widened as his face fell. “Wait, no! Not in a bad way. Just...we’ll have to make sure it doesn’t affect the way we fight together, you know? It’s a lot to process, so maybe it will take some time...But it’s a good thing too! We’ll be able to spend more time together. I mean not necessarily more time...heh, I’m not saying you have to spend more time with me, but just that we could. Only if you wanted haha. But otherwise at least we’ll know who we’re hanging out with when we do hang out, and—”  

“I’d like to spend more time together too. I always wanted to know more about the girl behind the mask. And now that I do...well...I want to know everything. I’ve always wanted to spend more time with you, Marinette.”

“Heh. Cool. Cool, cool, cool...” Don’t melt into a puddle Marinette, don’t do it, you don’t need to go splat just because Adrien wants to spend time with you, think of your dignity! You’re Ladybug, damn it!  “I um...I’d love to get to know you better. I’ve always wished I could get closer to you too…” You have no idea how much. “Both sides of you, really…”

“You flatter me, m’lady,” he said. His hand inched a little closer to where hers rested on the railing, and she wondered it it was intentional or subconscious. She wondered whether she wanted it to be deliberate or not.

A silence followed, in which both teenagers entered a spontaneous competition to see who blushed more furiously. Honestly, Marinette hadn’t been prepared for the sincerity of his words tonight. Where were Chat’s jokes when she needed them? Eventually though, she did manage to pull herself together.

“We’re going to need to figure out what to tell everyone at school.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well...we’re probably going to be acting a lot differently together now that we know...to our friends it’s going to look like it came from nowhere. So we’ll need some kind of explanation…”

“Oh. I guess you have a point,” he tapped a finger to his chin in thought, “Well...what if we just sort of told...the truth.”

“CHAT ARE YOU INSANE? ” Well...at least the reveal hadn’t taken away her strong desire to sometimes bop him in the face with her yoyo. Then again...the lawsuits that awaited  her if she left a mark on his model-perfect face and Gabriel Agreste were to somehow find out that it was her doing...Guess she’d better stick to yelling. 

“Not the whole truth. Geez. Just a version of it. We tell them about the imaginary friends comments, and how that made Nathalie and your mom think we were dating. Except we give them the same line you gave my father about it being from a TikTok trend. Then we just say we got to talking and the whole thing brought us closer together.”

“Huh. That’s...not half bad actually.” She paused, then shook her head. “Except...it won’t work for everyone. Alya…”

“She’s the one you told, right? About...”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause, and Marinette felt a familiar guilt rolling in her stomach. She knew he was still upset about not being the first to find out her identity, or at least he had been before their reveal. What if he was still mad? What if...

“I’m glad you told her,” Adrien said eventually.

“You...are?”

“Yeah, I...I don’t know. I guess just knowing who you are...I can see now how everything was affecting you. You have so much on your plate, but you’re always there to help your friends and you’re the class representative and you’re always making commissions and stuff and that’s all on top of all your new guardian duties...you’re amazing Marinette, but even for a superhero...that’s a lot to handle. So I really am glad that Alya could help take some of the weight off of your shoulders. She’s a really good friend.”

“Yeah, she’s the best.” She punched him lightly. “After you, of course.”

“Really?! I get the top spot?” 

“Well...” she stood up on the edge of the roof, holding on to the railing behind her as she tried to shake off the cold that had started settling into her limbs as she’d been sitting. Then she turned to give her partner a devious grin. “It’s yours if you beat me to the Eiffel Tower.”

She tossed her yo-yo and swung away, her laughter intersecting midair with Chat’s cries of “Not fair!”.

***

“You seem happy today,” Sabine remarked as Marinette entered the bakery the next morning with a little bounce in her step. “And you’re even up a half hour before you need to be? Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

“What can I say? I had a really good talk with my imaginary friend ”—Marinette emphasized the words with air quotes—”last night.” 

Sabine’s eyebrows shot up. “I see...And just so there are no misunderstandings this time…”

Marinette giggled as she picked up a pair of tongs and started loading some pastries into a box to share with her friends before school  “This time I do mean Adrien. After you completely embarrassed us by jumping to conclusions we got to talking, and...it turns out we have a lot more in common than we thought we did.” Luckily the excuse came easily to her, probably since...well...it wasn’t actually a lie...

“Ah, so he’s your new phone friend?”

“Something like that.” Her mom didn’t need to know that they’d actually spent the night talking on a rooftop.

“I guess you should be thanking me and Nathalie for our meddling then. I do expect a shout-out at the wedding.”

“Maman! We’re not even dating, we’re still just friends, there’s not going to be a wedding anytime—” 

“What’s this I hear about a wedding?” Alya asked, suddenly appearing in front of the counter. Marinette jumped, not having realised her friend had come into the bakery.

When she recovered from her scare, she rolled her eyes. “Nothing Alya, my mom is just being ridiculous.”

“Oh-ho? As ridiculous as you and Adrien walking into class yesterday after lunch arm-in-arm?” Alya teased.

“Is that so?” Sabine asked, and Marinette suddenly wanted to flee from the two pairs of probing eyes she could feel were ganging up on her.

“Mhm. And she promised to tell me everything today.”

“And I will,” Marinette replied, closing the now full pastry box, “just not here.” Balancing the box in one hand, she grabbed one of Alya’s wrists with her other hand and started dragging her out of the bakery. “Bye maman! Bye papa!” she shouted. Their replies were cut off by the bakery door shutting behind the girls.

“Soooo,” Alya said, “something super-secret happen that you don’t even want your parents to know about?”

Marinette smirked, because really. Alya had no idea. “Just you wait.”

Adrien had agreed to let Alya in on his identity too, because any story they did come up with she’d probably be able to see through anyways given what she already knew. Luckily he trusted her with his secret too. They were a little conflicted on keeping Nino in the dark—both of them thought it was unfair to ask Alya to keep both identities from him when he’d be the only one in their little group not to know, but they also knew the dangers associated with more people knowing. Adrien was leaning a little closer to telling Nino, but he’d agreed to respect Marinette’s decision on the matter. She was still...mulling things over. But that would have to wait until later...  

“I’ve been waiting,” Alya pouted. 

“Don’t worry,” Marinette said as she registered the sight of a familiar blonde boy jogging towards them from the direction of the school. “Won’t be much longer now.”

“Hey Marinette! Hey Alya,” Adrien said as he came up behind Alya. The girl’s eyes widened as she watched him walk forward and take Marinette’s hand, planting a kiss on it and giving her a small mock-bow.

“Ok,” Alya grumbled. “You two are killing me. What the heck happened at lunch yesterday ?!”

Adrien laughed, a full-out laugh that Marinette realized was his Chat Noir side coming out. She smiled. Seeing this side of Adrien was new to her, or rather knowing that it was Adrien was new to her, but she could tell it made him feel comfortable, and she loved that look on him.

“I don’t think she’s ready for this,” he teased.

“Oh she’s definitely not. She’s going to scream.”

He frowned. “Should we not be doing this outside then? Where she could spill our secrets to all of Paris?”

“Nah, she’ll hold it in until she’s in private.” Marinette looked over to where her friend was standing, looking as if her head was about to explode. “Probably,” she amended.

“Marinette…” Alya whined. 

Both Marinette and Adrien laughed in response, and then Marinette took pity on her. “Ok, ok. But let’s find a nice place to sit first.”

Marinette led the group over to the park, and they settled on a bench far enough away from anyone else that their conversation could go unheard. Marinette took the middle, with Adrien and Alya on either side of her.

“So,” Marinette began, “remember that little story I told you about how my mom caught me talking to my imaginary friend?”

“Um...yeah…” Alya said hesitantly. Her eyes flashed towards Adrien, no doubt wondering why Marinette would risk bringing up a story linked to her secret identity in front of him.

“Well, I happened to tell that story to my co-worker too.”

The confusion on Alya’s face deepened. “Your co-worker...right. The one at the bakery, yeah?”

Adrien snorted, and Marinette had to stifle a laugh of her own. Was this how ridiculous Marinette’s own excuses for her superhero identity always sounded? Granted, if Adrien hadn’t already known what they were talking about it likely would have been entirely believable.

“You know which one,” Marinette continued. “Anyways, it turns out that he’s not creative enough to come up with his own excuses—”  

“Hey!” Adrien protested. “He was really tired.” 

“—soooo he ended up feeding his father’s assistant the same excuse to hide his little secret...“ Marinette trailed off as she noticed Alya’s eyes widening, knowing that her friend was starting to piece everything together. “So anyways, she talked to my mom and they ended up thinking that we were using that as an excuse to talk to each other in secret because we were dating, which of course we had to explain we weren’t, and we pretended it was some TikTok trend, but...You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” She waved a hand in front of her friend’s face, but there was no reaction except Alya continuing to stare wide-eyed at nothing in particular.

“I think we broke her,” Adrien said.

“Nah, she’s just rebooting. Give her a minute.”

A few seconds later, Alya did scream. “NO! There’s no way that both of you,” she clapped her hands over her mouth suddenly and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Mari I’m going to need you to tell me for sure what I think you’re trying to say, because I can’t start babbling on about what I think it might be if I might accidentally spill some secret I shouldn’t.”

Adrien leaned in closer, bumping into Marinette’s shoulder affectionately. “It’s ok Alya, the Chat’s out of the bag now. And the bug is out of...wherever bugs come from.”

Marinette turned towards him, an eyebrow raised. “That’s the best you’ve got?” she glanced back to where Alya was still silently freaking out, emotions playing over her face at record pace as she tried to process everything. “See, Alya. I told you he wasn’t that creative.”

“Meow-ch. Not my fault my imagination seems plain when it’s up against your creativity, Bug. Designer extraordinaire, even did the art for Jagged Stone’s album cover, lives in the best bakery in Paris...”

“Pfft. You think you’re so smooth, Kitty, but flattery won’t get you—”  

“You’re Chat Noir,” Alya interjected in a whisper, gaping at Adrien.

“The one and only.”

Her eyes flicked over to Marinette. “And you’re Ladybug.”

“Pretty sure that’s been established.”

And then Alya squealed again. “Guess that means your mom was right about the wedding!”

“Wedding?” Adrien asked, seeming way more into the idea than any fifteen-year-old boy had any right to be.

Marinette could feel her cheeks warming. “Um...don’t mind her. She’s just a hardcore Ladynoir shipper.” 

Technically true, but Marinette knew that her friend’s freakout was actually due to the fact that she and Adrien had technically been in love with each other for over a year without knowing their feelings were reciprocated. Chat’s ego sooo didn’t need to know that though. Not yet, anyways. Wrapping their heads around the reveal was more than enough to handle for now.

So Marinette just sheepishly offered Adrien a croissant (mostly to wipe the smug smile that had appeared on his face at the mention of Ladynoir) and took a pain au chocolat for her own breakfast while they waited for their friend to come back down from cloud nine.

***

“Dude, NO WAY,” Nino exclaimed, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of Chat Noir sitting in the place where moments before Adrien’s civilian self had been casually leaning against Marinette’s chaise. “You’re Cha—” Alya quickly slapped a hand over his mouth before he could shout loud enough that probably everyone down in the bakery would hear.

“Babe, shhhh. They’re supposed to be secret identities, remember?”   

He winced. “Sorry! I just...Dude. That’s so cool.” He looked at Alya and Marinette, both of whom were smirking at his reaction. “Wait...you two don’t even seem surprised...Why am I the last to find out?”

“Well,” Marinette said, “I found out by accident. And then we kind of had to tell Alya, because she would have figured it out anyways since she already knew about my secret identity…”

“Oh,” said Nino. “Wait...your secret identity?”

“Tikki! Spots on!”

“DUUUUDE, this is—”Nino slapped his own hands over his mouth this time, but kept squealing through his fingers. When he removed them, he continued in a loud whisper. “My best friends are Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

The superhero duo shared a grin. 

“We weren’t sure if we were going to tell you,” Marinette admitted after Nino had had a few seconds for the information to sink in. “Not because we don’t trust you, but just because...it’s dangerous information to have…”

“I understand,” Nino said. 

“Yeah, but eventually Adrien—”  

“I convinced her with an amazing powerpoint presentation.”

“I already told you it wasn’t the powerpoint!” 

Technically, that was somewhat true. After a couple days of not-so-subtly trying to convince her that telling Nino was a good idea and her trying to put off the conversation until later, he showed up one night on her balcony, pulled a laptop out of the backpack he’d slung over one shoulder, and proceeded to make her sit through a 100-slide-long presentation. Sure, the last 20 pages were a series of unrelated memes, and half of the other slides were just filled with various cat emojis, but still, he’d managed to come up with quite a few decent points. Even so, she would have probably still been on the fence, except...

The second object he’d pulled out of his backpack had been a tie—red with black polka dots of course—that he’d put on over his costume before the start of his presentation. At first, Marinette just laughed at how ridiculous it looked over his costume. She’d teased that Gabriel Agreste’s son ought to know that he was wearing the wrong kind of suit to pair with a tie. But something about the endearing way he smiled and the how absolutely adorable ridiculous his bell looked hanging over the top of the tie had gotten to her, and then...honestly she hadn’t really paid attention to the first ten or so reasons why Nino knowing their secret was a good idea.

She’d caved though, and now here they were...

“It was my kitty-cat eyes, wasn’t it? I knew you couldn’t resist my charm, m’lady.”

Oh, what the hell… “It was the tie, ok?”

Chat smirked, and Marinette regretted the entirety of her life’s choices, because she soooo didn’t need her partner knowing that she was completely undone by something as mundane as a tie. Was it her fault she’d imagined grabbing that tie and yanking him towards her until their lips pressed together and... NOPE. Abort that train of thoughts, don’t let it leave the station under ANY circumstances.

Thankfully, her mind didn’t have long to wander before Nino went back to freaking out.

“Dudes. This is so cool. We’re all super heroes. Duuuudes!”

Yeah...That went on for some time.

***

After the initial thrill of his discovery faded, Nino thought he managed to act pretty chill about the whole my best friends are superheroes thing. He was Carapace after all, and his girlfriend was Rena Rouge, so he was used to secret identities, even if being Ladybug and Chat Noir put their friends in a different caliber. Plus, it was easy for Nino to keep things quiet, since he wasn’t exactly their classmates’ usual source for gossip.

That role of course was reserved for Alya, and he found himself marveling at how well she was able to deflect probing questions about Marinette’s or Adrien’s whereabouts, or discredit theories on the Ladyblog that hit a little too close to home. Somehow she managed all of that without ever missing out on a chance to update her blog. She even found some spare time to investigate potential theories on Shadow Moth’s identities, something Nino realized that Marinette and Adrien had absolutely no time to do themselves (seriously, Nino wished he could have had the words with the person who had decided the best candidates to keep their entire city safe were two teenagers who already had ridiculously busy schedules and in Marinette’s case the habit of taking on more responsibilities than what was strictly good for her). Any actual leads, Alya would pass on to Marinette so she and Adrien could conduct more in depth evaluations.

So life went on without much change from the perception of everyone outside of their little quartet. But for Nino...knowing the truth made things really funny sometimes.

First, there was the fact that Marinette and Adrien had seemingly overnight gone from the class’s resident blushing mess and their resident oblivious sunshine to two ridiculous kids who were literally draped all over each other at any chance they got. But nope, no matter how much they looked and acted like a couple, they still weren’t dating. Nino was pretty sure that Adrien still didn’t know how Marinette really felt about him judging by the sheer quantity of longing looks he shot in her direction, but Nino figured she was probably seconds away from caving in and telling him at any given moment. Then again...he knew how seriously Ladybug took her responsibilities, and he figured she probably had a reason for keeping her mouth shut for the time being.

When asked about their newfound closeness, Marinette and Adrien would feed the rest of the class the fake story about how they’d been trying out the “imaginary friends TikTok trend”. Remarkably, nobody had questioned that, and Nino had nearly died of laughter when he noticed that #imaginaryfriends was trending on TikTok a couple weeks later. But in retrospect, knowing your best friends had accidentally started a viral TikTok trend was pretty anticlimactic when they were literal superheroes.

And then there were times like today, when knowing the truth was a mixture of ridiculously infuriating and downright hilarious. Because today was one of those times when Lila was being...Lila. 

Before, Nino had tried his best to stay out of the Lila vs. Marinette rivalry. He’d definitely wanted to believe Marinette—He’d known her since they were kids and she was nothing if not honest. But he’d seen Alya’s point about her jealousy potentially clouding her judgement. He’d ended up deciding that the truth probably lay somewhere in the middle of everything. Lila likely wasn’t being entirely truthful, but maybe Marinette was making a bigger deal out of things than she should.

Then he’d realised Marinette was Ladybug. He’d realised exactly why she’d always known that Lila was full of shit. And it had dawned on him why over the past few months Alya had been seeming more and more annoyed every time Lila tried to talk to her. And Nino? 

Nino was pissed.

Mostly at Lila, but somewhat at himself too, for not having seen through the girl’s lies earlier, because really, Marinette did not need to deal with this bullshit on top of everything else. He was even a little bit annoyed with Adrien too, because even now he tended to stay out of the conflict, and Marinette deserved better. The boy threw himself in front of Akuma attacks for her with little to no regard to his safety, but he kept trying to convince Marinette to take the high road with Lila. And sure, Nino could understand his investment in wanting to prevent unnecessary akumas from arising...But Lila was evil.

Sure, Shadow Moth was a supervillain, but at least he seemed to have a clear goal. Lila seemed to like causing chaos for the sake of pumping up her own ego.

That morning, Nino and Alya were seated at their desks already, chatting away before class about their plans for the weekend, when Lila walked in. Nino didn’t notice until she stopped by their desk and enthusiastically greeted the pair of them. 

Nino grumbled a half-baked response and turned resolutely towards the front of the class. He respected Alya’s ability to fake being nice to keep Lila from growing suspicious, but Nino wasn’t like that. He couldn’t pretend to gush over someone he couldn’t stand. Still, he couldn’t tune her out completely, so he was forced to listen to Lila rambling on about how she’d been out of the country last week, helping build shelters for the homeless in some country that even Nino, with his limited knowledge of geography, was fairly sure didn’t actually exist. The tone of Alya’s responses was perfect—it was only because he knew her so well that he could pick up on the tension in the way she enunciated her replies.

A few minutes in, Adrien and Marinette wandered into class together. Nevermind enhanced senses and Cataclysm, Nino was sure that Adrien’s most impressive superpower was his newfound ability to make Marinette regularly show up to class on time. As they walked in now, his face wore a dopey smile as she excitedly recounted some story accompanied by large hand gestures. His expression soured the second his eyes fell on Lila. Marinette noticed his change in demeanor, and her eyes flicked over to the scene taking place at her desk. She sighed, rolled her eyes, then gave Adrien’s arm a quick squeeze as she waved to Nino and moved to take her seat. Adrien tried to sink into his own seat unnoticed, but of course that was too much to ask for.

“Adrien! It’s so nice to see you,” Lila gushed. “I was just waiting for you to show up before I could tell Alya about my plans for the weekend. I thought you’d been interested, since I know you’re a huge fan of Ladybug.”

Beside Nino, Adrien tensed. Like Alya, he was good at playing nice. It was what he’d been raised to do after all, and boy did Nino want to have words with Gabriel Agreste about that. But unlike Alya, it seemed to take a lot out of Adrien to pretend, and Nino could see the deliberate breath he sucked in before schooling his face into a smile that seemed to forgot to tell his eyes what they were supposed to do. 

He turned to Lila, “Hey Lila. What are you up to this weekend?”

Nino glanced at Marinette, who was staring a bit worriedly at Adrien, because for whatever reason he hadn’t really tried to cover up the the disdain in his voice. Apparently even Sunshine had had enough of Lila’s shit today. It seemed to go unnoticed by Lila though. 

“Oh, well, Saturday I’m helping to cat-sit Jagged Stone’s new kitten”—which he definitely didn’t have—“but then on Sunday I’m supposed to have a picnic with Ladybug, you know, since she’s my best friend, as long as there’s no akuma of co—”     

Nino burst out laughing, cutting Lila off. He couldn’t help it. One look at Marinette glaring daggers at Lila—the contrast with the fact it was her who Lila was claiming to be best friends with—and the ridiculousness of the situation just got to him.

When four pairs of eyes swung towards him, he sobered considerably.

“What’s so funny, Nino?” Alya asked, an evident warning in her eyes to watch his next words carefully.

“Yeah, Nino, what on Earth could it be?” Marinette threw in. Nino could tell that she was trying to be stern with him, but she was biting back a smile.

“Oh come on, Alya. She said she’s Ladybug’s best friend.”

Lila gasped. “Nino, d-do you not b-believe me? I know w-w-what Marinette says about m-me, but I didn’t think—”

The rest of her sentence was cut off as Marinette’s gaze flicked briefly over to Lila’s theatrics before turning back to Nino, then she promptly burst into laughter. Nino followed suit, because really, he’d barely managed to stop laughing before, and after a few seconds even Alya started snickering. Only Adrien refrained from joining in.

“Guys,” He said, looking around at his friends warily. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”  

“Dude,” Nino interjected in between laughs, “Just imagine it. Imagine Ladybug being best friends with Lila,” he managed to get out, and Marinette howled even louder in response.

Adrien seemed to catch Marinette's eye, and then it was game over. He at least turned away from Lila before giving in, trying to conceal his chuckles, but soon the four of them were howling with laughter. The rest of the class regarded them strangely, save for Lila, who stood there for a moment, pretending to be heartbroken, before she ran out of the room.

A minute or so after the four of them managed to finally calm down, they heard a crashing sound coming from the direction of the locker rooms. Adrien sighed heavily and Marinette rolled her eyes, then both of them stood. There was little doubt that Lila had been akumatized. At least Mme Bustier hadn’t yet arrived in class yet that morning, so it would be no trouble for his friends to sneak out and transform without being caught.

“You owe me five euros,” Marinette said, holding her hand out to Alya.

“No way,” Alya grumbled. “I was sure Chloé was going to get akumatized again before Lila. It had been so long for her…”

“Well, you can blame your boyfriend for this one,” Marinette said with a shrug. “Actually…” she swung her gaze around to Nino with a smirk. “You started this, you can help finish it.” She gestured for him to follow Adrien, who was checking the hallway to make sure they’d have a clear path out of the room. 

And ok, that was...fair. He looked at Alya, who shrugged as Marinette started tugging her along too, then at Adrien, who was grinning as he jogged along with the rest of them as they searched for a place to transform. Nino grinned back as he felt adrenaline rush through him.

Had Nino mentioned yet that sometimes, being best friends with superheroes was fun?

***

“Ugh,” Marinette groaned, leaning her head on Adrien’s shoulder as they collapsed in a tired heap on the floor of her room. Alya and Nino thumped down across from them a few seconds later. The group’s Kwamis lounged around them, recharging with their preferred snacks. “That was not fun.”

“Nope,” Adrien agreed. “Lila is ruthless.”

While Marinette had hoped that having Alya and Nino help out would allow them to get back to class faster, it had actually taken even the four of them nearly the entire school day to take care of the Lila’s akumatization. At least that meant that school had been cancelled for the day and they hadn’t missed any lessons.

“Also, her sentimonster name totally stole your thunder,” Alya pointed out, and the group nodded tiredly. 

Lila had been Volpina again, since of course Shadow Moth had minimal creativity, but she’d been paired with a sentimonster she’d dubbed Imaginary Friend, who was an invisible sentimonster that had acted far less like a friend and much more like...well...Lila.

It had seemed at first like the sentimonster had just been going around whispering lies into everyone’s ears, but after some time it became clear that it also affected people’s judgement to some degree, making them more likely to act on their less savoury feelings such as anger or jealousy, to the point where they started taking it out on others. Best friends had been tearing each other to shreds over petty disagreements, parents had screamed at their children and even Mme Bustier had started taking things out on her students. Combined with Volpina’s illusions adding fuel to the fire, it had been an absolute nightmare. 

It was a small miracle that the affected victims had no memory of the events, but the four heroes had seen way too much fighting for one day. And the sentimonster’s name had definitely thrown a damper on their TikTok fame, not to mention the cute reveal story Marinette had expected to tell their future children one day.

“Guys…” Nino said after a while. “What if we just take down Shadow Moth?”

Marinette glared. “Gee, why didn’t we think of that?” She was sure Nino had a point, but she was too tired to try and suss it out.

“Yeah, I know that, I just mean...well their are four of us who know now, right? And it obviously helps to be able to coordinate our attacks and stuff, but now that we can get together any time we want, why don’t we go on the offensive? Try and find out who he is? We can meet up anytime we want to now and just go over theories.”

“Well...anytime we want might be a bit of a stretch,” Adrien said. “My dad still doesn’t let me out of the house that often. The only reason I’m here right now is because Nathalie still feels guilty about the whole uh...thinking I was dating Marinette thing, so she’s been running interference. It’s a good idea though. You guys should totally run with it, even if I can’t join in.”

Marinette frowned at him. “We’re not doing it without you, Kitty. It is a good idea though.”

“Ok…” Nino said, “What if we say it’s for a study group. We meet up a couple afternoons a week and tell our parents we’re doing homework, but really we’re gathering as members of the official, super-secret, Shadow Moth takedown club, Mari’s the club president obviously, Adrien’s the VP—”

“Nuh-uh, we’re co-presidents,” Marinette argued, and her heart warmed at the smile that Adrien gave her.

“Fair. Anyways, Alya’s in charge of finding leads from the Ladyblog since she does that already. I can provide musical inspiration or...something. Maybe we can even set up an anonymous phone line for people to call in tips?”

“Nino, be honest,” Alya said in a teasing tone, “Exactly how many Baby-Sitters Club books did you read growing up?”

Only snippets of his mumbled response were actually audible, and all that Marinette heard was, “only a few”, “they were my cousin’s”, and “really boring family vacation”.

Giggling softly, Marinette considered for a moment. “Ok...I’m not sure the tip line would be helpful. We already get enough of those tips to the Ladyblog, and at least ninety percent of them have no foundation. But the study group angle...Adrien, do you think your dad would go for that?”

“Maybe. I could probably talk Nathalie into allowing it.”

“Well in that case…” she grinned. “As my first act as co-president, I officially approve the Shadow Moth takedown club. Shadow Moth won’t even know...wait, why does he even call himself Shadow Moth? Most of the time he doesn’t even use a sentimonster, shouldn’t he still be calling himself Hawk Moth? Ugh. Nevermind. Stupid Moth won’t know what hit him.”

Adrien grinned. “Stupid Moth has a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah,” said Nino. “Stupid Moth won’t make it through the week with us on his tail.”

“Hell no, he won’t,” Alya chimed in. “Stupid Moth is going down.”

Chapter Text

“So, I know we agreed that we wouldn’t jump to conclusions again, but...they’re definitely dating now, right?” asked Nathalie as she poured herself another glass of wine.

The Dupain-Cheng’s sofa was one of the last places she’d ever imagined she’d end up before the events of the last few weeks, but she couldn’t say she was disappointed. One thing had led to another after what she’d come to refer to as the imaginary friends fiasco. She’d sent a long-winded apology email to Sabine after the disastrous lunch and had received a reply assuring her that there were no hard feelings, and that Sabine was just as much to blame. Nathalie had assumed that would be the end of their correspondence and that things would go back to normal. 

Then she’d seen the way Adrien and Marinette had walked down the steps of the school that afternoon with barely an inch of space between them. She’d snapped a quick, covert picture and attached it to an email she’d composed on the ride back to the mansion while peering at Adrien’s clearly enamoured face over the top of her tablet: 

Maybe they’re not together, but today seems to have pushed them in the right direction somehow.

Her tablet had pinged with a response not ten minutes later, and Nathalie had to suppress a snort of laughter at the email’s contents: 

Oh good. They won’t be forcing us to pay for their therapy after all.

After that, they’d somehow kept emailing back and forth, eventually upgrading their relationship to text messages. Mostly it was updates about the kids, but they’d discovered shared interests in impressionist art and true crime documentaries. Eventually, Sabine had invited her over for a drink, and after some hesitation—she didn’t normally do this sort of thing, after all—Nathalie had agreed. Escaping the sometimes stifling pressure that permeated every inch of the Agreste mansion for a while hadn’t seemed like the worst idea in the world, after all.

So now the two of them split a bottle of wine and nibbled from an impressive charcuterie board. The conversation was light and easy, and Nathalie had to admit that the evening was going much better than she’d expected. 

Sabine, as it turned out, was fun. She’d lost some of her usual poise two drinks in; her usual polite and restrained demeanor had faded. Her movements had become animated and clumsy in a way that explained a lot about Marinette’s less than stellar ability to balance on her own two feet. And Nathalie didn’t remember having laughed like this since before Émilie had succumbed to the effects of the damaged Peacock Miraculous.

Now, Sabine smiled and shrugged. “If they are dating then they’re not aware of it. I was teasing Marinette about it a couple nights ago and she just rolled her eyes at me and said ‘Maman, I’ll tell you when we start dating.’”

“She said when though? Not if ?”

Another grin escaped as Sabine swirled the last sip of wine around her glass. “She did.”

“Ugh. This waiting is torture. Can’t we do something to push it along? They’re obviously smitten with each other.”

“I have no idea. Marinette was insistent that she wants to take things slow and really get to know him better before jumping into things. And while I commend her for that, I honestly have no idea where her sudden wave of self-control came from. I mean this is the girl who used to have an entire corkboard dedicated to that boy’s modeling photos.”  

“Oh I remember that. It was on that TV show when Jagged Stone was filming in the bakery, right?” Sabine nodded, and Nathalie tried not to wince as she remembered the akuma that had been set loose as a result. “How did Adrien not find out about that?” 

“Oh he did. I think Marinette told him it was just because she was interested in fashion.”

Nathalie laughed. “Geez. Gabriel and Émilie really should have let the poor boy out more growing up. He’s so painfully oblivious sometimes. I mean seriously. He has 95% in physics, but there’s no formula for romance. And if there were...a fifteen-year-old kid who’s been homeschooled most of his life wouldn’t exactly know it.”

“Well Marinette could hardly string a sentence together in front of him up until a couple weeks ago, so she’s not exactly a prime example of romantic success.” Sabine drained her glass before adding, “You remember what it feels like when you’re a kid on Christmas Eve? Waiting for the next morning to come so you can open your presents?”

Nathalie didn’t really. Growing up, Christmas had never been much of a big deal in her family. When she was quite young, she could vaguely recall getting buoyed by the excitement of her peers looking forward to eating cookies, decorating the tree and opening gifts from Santa. But the majority of her Christmas memories centered around her parents yelling at one another over the stresses of having to deal with their extended family. Then her parents had separated, and the holidays had meant carefully scheduled drop-off points where Nathalie had been transferred from one parent to the other like she was an object rather than their daughter. Neither of her parents even bothered to call her anymore, and it wasn’t like Gabriel was much of a joy to be around during that time of year without Émilie.

But as socially inept as Nathalie might have been at this point in her life, she knew that wasn’t really Sabine’s question. And working for Gabriel had given her nothing if not the skill to hide her own pain and keep things running along smoothly.

So Nathalie drained the rest of her glass and forced a smile. “You’re saying you’re getting impatient?” 

Sabine snorted. “You could say that. Although I meant more that...it’s inevitable the next day is going to come and you’ll be able to celebrate. You know it’s going to happen. But the waiting? It’s still torture. And I know you’ve just joined team Adrienette, but some of us have already been waiting months for this. ”    

“Team Adrienette? ”

“Apparently it’s called a ship name. Alya told me all about it—you know, she’s friends with our kids, the one who…”

Sabine was rambling on about the concept of “shipping” two people together, saying something about LadyNoir and internet trends, but Nathalie had only been half paying attention after the words our kids had been uttered. They stung more than they should have, reminding Nathalie that she had no reason to be here. She wasn’t a parent. This wasn’t two moms meeting up over drinks to discuss their kids. She and Sabine weren’t even friends. They likely never would be. This wasn’t Nathalie’s life, as much as she might have wanted it to be.

It’s a stupid wish—Adrien wasn’t hers. She was sure he wouldn’t even want to be.  As much as Nathalie sometimes despised herself for keeping the boy at arm’s reach, well...it was necessary. Although as to why, she couldn’t really remember at this moment. Maybe because of her own cowardice. Because if he didn’t care for her, she couldn’t disappoint him. 

It’s not like she’d ever wanted kids either. She’d never thought twice about it.

But Adrien? She’d come to love him. 

And she could count on two fingers the people that she loved in this world.

“Nathalie?” Sabine asked, startling her out of her thoughts.

“Oh. Sorry. I think maybe the wine is getting to me.”

“And no wonder, look at the time! I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late.”

“Time flies.”

“Indeed.”

The two women fell into a somewhat awkward silence for the first time that evening. 

“I should probably go,” Nathalie said. “I’m sure you need to be up early, and to be honest so do I. I...had a good time tonight though.”

“Me too. We should do it again sometime.”

Nathalie felt herself smiling. “I’d like that.”

***

About a month after their reveal, a dreary Sunday evening found Marinette at her desk, finishing up a jacket she’d been commissioned to make for one of Kitty Section’s upcoming gigs. Meanwhile, Adrien had been lying on her chaise for the last ten minutes in relative silence, which was...somewhat of a relief. Nathalie had somehow managed to clear Adrien’s schedule and distract Gabriel with some work emergency so the two of them had been able to spend the whole day together. Marinette had been ecstatic, but the two of them had never really spent so much uninterrupted time alone before, and as much as she loved that boy, it turned out that an entire day of putting up with Chat’s antics was...a lot. 

It probably didn’t help that the weather had kept them stuck inside all day, and when they’d come back up from dinner, Marinette had been ready for some time to herself. The Gorilla wasn’t due to pick up Adrien for another hour or so though, so Marinette had announced that she had a sewing project to work on and had told Adrien to do whatever he wanted while he waited. That had turned into ten minutes of him distracting her by hanging over her shoulders as she worked, at which point she’d driven him away by threatening to tickle him, and then he’d grabbed the pillow from her chaise and thrown it at her before lying down with an exaggerated huff. At that point, Marinette was starting to finally hope he’d be quiet and let her work, until...

“Maribug...” said the falsely innocent voice of the boy draped dramatically across her chaise. 

She turned to look at him. “I thought I told you not to call me that.” she said, throwing the pillow back at him. In her defense, he’d thrown it first.

Even though she found it endearing that he’d taken less than twenty-four hours after their reveal to come up with the new nickname for her that meshed her two identities, she figured that the bug part was too risky to say in public. He’d agreed with that—only to start using it almost constantly when it was just the two of them, so a few days ago she’d vetoed it, worrying that since it was so close to her actual name that he might be more likely to slip up and use it in front of other people.

His eyebrows waggled up and down. “But it works so well! You could even call me Adrichat.”

“I don’t need any more nicknames for you, Chaton. I like the ones I have just fine.” 

There was also the fact that Adrichat sounded way too much like Adrichou, and Marinette didn’t want to hear Chloé’s voice in the back of her head every time she referred to her future boyfriend partner. Also, she was pretty sure that Adrichat was the ship name that Alya had told her about from that time she’d unearthed the cursed corner of the internet where the Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir fanfictions lived. In retrospect, that was pretty funny considering they were actually the same person, but six months ago Marinette hadn’t been so impressed.

“Hmph.” Adrien pouted, and Marinette had to laugh at his expression. If she’d known before that Adrien Agreste had such a flair for the dramatic, then she’d have been able to act normally around him months ago. Possibly.

She turned back to her sewing. “Did you have something to say, or did you just want to distract me?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him sit up abruptly, and when she glanced over his expression had grown serious. “I did have...something to ask.”

Marinette dropped the half-sewn jacket on her desk and turned her chair to give him her full attention. “I’m listening.”

His eyes dropped to the floor. “I was just wondering…No, nevermind. It’s silly.”

“Adrien, come on. You can ask me anything, Minou.”

He took a deep breath, and hesitated a bit longer before blurting out, “The boy. The one you...you know...the one you loved. I mean now that I know who you are, I just figured that I probably know who he is too. And I know it’s probably still none of my business, but I was just wondering…”

“Oh, Chaton...”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine! I just…” she laughed nervously. She’d been debating how to tell him this for some time, but it hadn’t seemed that urgent. Spending more time together outside of the masks and really getting to know one another over the past few weeks had been wonderful in and of itself, and dating...As much as she used to think that was all she wanted, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t quite ready for it. But now he was sitting there with that vulnerable look in his eyes, and...well...she couldn’t lie. “Um...actually...it was you.”

Marinette watched as he took a moment to register her response. She watched as his eyes flew wide open and his jaw dropped. She watched as he recovered from that shock and his face flitted through a series of other emotions that she pegged as guilt, confusion, and awe, before finally falling on a sort of contemplative expression that she couldn’t quite interpret.

“It was me?”

Marinette shook her head. She hadn’t missed the inflection he’d placed on the past tense. “It still is. There’s never been anyone else, really.” She laughed. “Except maybe you. Chat Noir you, I mean. I’m pretty sure I was in denial about that.”

Adrien gaped at her. “You...me?” He pointed to her and then to himself to illustrate his words. He opened and closed his mouth several times as if he was trying to say something else, but nothing came out.

Marinette giggled. “What’s the matter, Chat got your tongue?” She couldn’t help but feel a little smug that for once, it wasn’t her who was tongue-tied.

He recovered fast though. “Well, I don’t know about that...but he could totally have yours if you want him to.” He winked.

Marinette felt blood rushing to her cheeks. “I don’t…um. I don’t think…”

“Sorry!” His suave demeanor dropped in an instinct. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, I shouldn’t have just assumed—”  

“No! You didn’t do anything wrong. I...I really want to, I just...I can’t.”

“Oh.” That one loaded syllable sounded equal parts disappointed and confused. He regarded her with uncertainty. “Can I ask why?”

She wanted to be honest and tell him why. The one, big, Chat Blanc reason why.

But she hadn’t told anyone other than Tikki about that, not even Alya. It was stupid, but she couldn’t make herself say it, even now. She almost felt like talking about it would give it power, would make it real. And it already felt so much scarier now that she knew it was Adrien who had been behind the mask. The thought of losing him was just...too much.

So instead, she said, “I just...I want to wait. Before jumping into anything. Because it’s a big deal, you know. We have a lot riding on the two of us getting along, and if something happened...I mean I’m not saying that if we dated we’d break up, but...I just want us to really get to know each other better before jumping into anything.” Marinette felt guilty for using that excuse, but it wasn’t necessarily untrue. She had thought about those things, they just weren’t the entire truth.

Adrien took sometime to consider her words, and she worried she’d said the wrong thing, hurt his feelings somehow, but eventually he stood and walked over to her. He grabbed her hand when he was standing beside her—she hadn’t realized until now how used to that she’d become—and he lifted it and placed a quick kiss to it.    

“I can understand that. I would wait forever for you, m’lady.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks for understanding, Minou.”

“Of course, Bug. Besides,” he said, a grin spreading across his face, “I know you won’t be able to resist my charms for long.”

“Mhmm...I’ve made it this far alright, I think I’ll be fine.” 

“Oh but now that I know you feel the same way as me...trying to woo you is going to be so much more fun.”

“Adrien…”

His eyes twinkled, “with your permission of course, m’lady.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. She really needed to work on saying no to those eyes. 

Adrien just grinned wildly in response, and Marinette groaned. She was so going to regret this.

***

Marinette had expected Adrien to go wild with his flirtations after the way they’d left things Sunday night, but the next morning he acted just the same as he had been for the past month. Far from that being a comfort, it set her on edge. She knew something was coming, she just didn’t know what.

But Monday turned into Tuesday which turned into...still Tuesday, because was this school day ever going to end? And Marinette managed to mostly forget about the devious look he’d given her as he’d left her place on the weekend. It helped that they had plans to meet up with Alya and Nino after school, and she was mostly focused on trying to remember what snacks they had at home for her to offer her friends later.

It had been somewhat of a surprise that Gabriel had allowed Adrien to attend their “study group” twice a week, and the four friends had been excited to get started. Unsurprisingly, they had not managed to take down Shadow Moth yet despite their bold claims, and actually...their meetings really had turned into more of a study group. As it turned out, the frequent akumas they’d been dealing with lately hadn’t actually left them a lot of time for keeping up with their homework. At least this way, they managed to help each other out and get things done quicker.

So that afternoon, they were all sitting in a circle on the floor of Marinette’s room, pulling textbooks and pencil cases out of their bags, when Adrien spoke.

“Ahem,” he said, making a big deal out of clearing his throat before continuing. “If I could have everyone’s attention, I have a small presentation I would like to show to the group before we begin.” He proceeded to pull his laptop out from his bag, followed by...

“Oh no,” Marinette said, trying to hide behind her fingers. Not the damn tie again.

Adrien pulled her fingers away from her face, smirking. “Oh no, m’lady. I particularly want you to see this.”

He’d already buttoned the shirt he wore over his T-shirt on their walk over, which Marinette had found a bit odd at the time but hadn’t questioned. Now he added the tie to his outfit. It looked...slightly less ridiculous than the last time she’d seen it, but it was still a Ladybug patterned tie at the end of the day. He got up and set his computer on Marinette’s desk, then turned to the rest of the group with a grin as he displayed the title slide:

In bold red lettering centered on the screen were the words “Who I think Ladybug should date,” and in a smaller font in the bottom right corner, “A powerpoint by Adrien Agreste.”

Marinette groaned, and Alya and Nino—the traitors—laughed. 

Adrien’s grin widened and he flipped to the next slide, reading aloud. “Number one: Nobody. Ladybug is a strong, powerful, and intelligent heroine. She doesn’t need anyone else to make her decisions for her. Speculating over her dating life is quite immature, and it’s none of anyone’s business who she decides to give her heart to.

“Number two,” he continued, flipping to the next slide which, to nobody’s surprise, was filled with a series of photos of... “Chat Noir.”

After a few seconds, Adrien closed his computer and gave an exaggerated bow, making a show of carefully straightening his tie while looking intently at Marinette as he stood back up.

“Bravo!” Alya shouted in between bouts of giggles. Nino laughed so hard that he started choking. Even Marinette found it hard to fight off her urge to smile, and had to force herself to glare.

When they all calmed down, they got down to studying, threw in about ten minutes of talk near the end about Shadow Moth’s potential identity (basically just confirming that they still had no idea who he was), and said their goodbyes.

For the next two days, Adrien again seemed to be acting normally at school, and was no more flirty than usual during their patrol Wednesday night or the Akuma fight Thursday morning either. Marinette started to hope that he’d gotten things out of his system with his presentation and things would continue on as they had been. She ought to have known better. 

When the Shadow Moth takedown club met up again on Thursday, the laptop and the now-familiar tie made another appearance, this time for the purpose of a presentation titled, “What I think happened during Oblivio, and why this proves that Chat Noir and Ladybug belong together.” The title page of course featured a picture of the kiss neither of them could remember.

This turned out to be a significantly longer and much more elaborate presentation, if not one of the most absurd things Marinette had ever seen. He’d somehow gotten security footage of them in the elevator of Tour Montparnasse (Marinette really didn’t want to know how he’d managed that), and used that to lay the foundation for how things had started out. As cited references, he had used fanfictions written by some of the most well-known LadyNoir authors on AO3, drawing from them some of the most popular fan theories and breaking them apart. There were also several slides dedicated to the ways in which Ladybug’s and Chat’s personalities were complementary and well-suited to each other.

After that presentation, Marinette was definitely expecting more. Adrien’s powerpoint obsession had gone too far, and nobody was even trying to reign him in. She still didn’t expect him to pull out the cursed tie again at the beginning of their next meeting.

“Oh no,” she complained. “Please no. Not again.”

“But Bug, you said I could woo you.”

“I thought that meant flowers and more bad puns. This is getting ridiculous.”

He smirked. “You’re just worried you’re going to be won over by the tie again.”

“I am not,” she argued, crossing her arms adopting what she deemed to be her most stern Ladybug expression. “These meetings are supposed to be about taking down Shadow Moth, this is serious!” 

“Come oooon, Buginette. Just one more! It’s good for group morale”

“Ugh,” she groaned. She really couldn’t even argue with that. “Fine.”

“Great!” He said, then turned to address the group with an air of mock professionalism. “Now, we saw some great arguments last week as to why LadyNoir should become canon.”

“Hear, hear!” Alya said. 

“You can’t call it canon when it’s real life, Chaton,” Marinette pointed out.

“Thank you for your enthusiasm Alya. Now Bug, I’ll have to please ask you to wait until after the presentation to voice your concerns. I assure you I’m taking this very seriously, and I think it’s vital that you have all the information before you come to a decision.” She rolled her eyes as a response, but he pretended not to see her and continued. “The presentation you will be seeing today is entitled ‘Five reasons Adrien Agreste would be an amazing boyfriend to Marinette Dupain-Cheng,’ and it will cover what Alya has dubbed the ‘Adrienette side of the love-square’.”

“The love what now?” Marinette demanded, glaring at her friend. Alya shrugged unapologetically, and Marinette huffed, turning back to the presentation as her friends snickered.

The first slide was titled “Cuddles” and included a picture Alya had snapped last week of Marinette leaning on Adrien during lunch. He had an arm around her and they were both smiling softly, although they hadn’t known at the time that the photo was being snapped. She had to admit it was an adorable picture of the two of them, but that was beside the point.

“I don’t see how this is an argument for us to date,” she pointed out. “We’ve clearly already been doing this, as your photo points out.”

“Ah, but cuddling in a relationship is far superior to cuddling in a friendship.”

“Uh-huh. And what proof do you have?”

He narrowed his eyes mischievously. “Nino, who would you say you prefer to cuddle with? Me, or Alya?”

“Sorry dude, I’m gonna have to go with Alya on this one.”

“Oh come on, that doesn’t prove—”    

“Number two,” Adrien interrupted, switching a blank slide entitled “Puns.”

Marinette snorted. “This is supposed to make me want to date you?”

“Ah, I thought you might say something like that. In this case I direct you to point 2b.” He pressed a button on the laptop making a quote appear underneath the title, something she’d said under the influence of an akuma a while back. He pointed to the text, and then looked back at her. “Did you, or did you not admit under the influence of a truth akuma that Chat Noir’s jokes were your favourite quality about him?”

“So much for sticking to the Adrienette side of the love square,” she mumbled.

“Come on Bug, you can’t complain just because I’ve done my background research. Dating me means the possibility of spending even more time together, and as a result you would benefit from even more of my fabulous puns.”

Marinette facepalmed, and Adrien, seemingly satisfied that he’d won the argument, switched slides again. This one featured a picture of the Dupain-Cheng bakery, and bore the title “Pastries”.

“Ok Sunshine,” Alya interrupted this time. “You know I’m on your side, but I fail to see how Marinette is the one that will benefit from this if you two start dating.”

“Well, Alya, I’m so glad you asked. The way I see it is like this…”

The slide changed again and this time the screen showed a pair of equations...well...if you could call them that...

A.A. + 🥐 = 😸

😸 + 🐞 = 😊🐞

“Dude, why did you have to bring math into this?” Nino complained.

Adrien pouted. “It was the best way to illustrate my point.”

“I don’t get it,” Alya said.

Marinette sighed, but decided to take pity on him despite his ridiculousness. “Adrien Agreste plus croissants equals happy Chat. Happy Chat plus Ladybug equals happy Ladybug,” she explained, wondering at what point she’d started being able to read him so well outside of their suits.

“See?” he beamed. “And I’m sure that once we’re dating I’ll have even better access to croissants, so according to my calculations, Marinette will be very happy.”

Alya and Nino both turned to Marinette, as if expecting her to argue again. 

She couldn’t help but smile a little. “Honestly, I’m going to give him this one. It was...creatively argued.” Well, that and the fact that he looked so insanely proud of himself.

“Why thank you, m’lady.” Then he let out a small chuckle before switching slides again, this one titled “Kissing” and featuring a blown-up cat kiss emoji. 

“I think this slide is pretty self-explanatory,” he said with a wink, and Marinette felt her face redden as Alya and Nino laughed again.

Adrien waited for their reactions to settle before putting up the next slide. He seemed a little nervous all of a sudden, scratching the back of his neck with one hand and wiping the other against his pants. He swallowed, and switched to a slide that read “Compliments” in the center, surrounded by a bunch of pictures—of Marinette, of Ladybug, of some of her designs, of the album she’d done for Jagged Stone and a handful of other things related to her in some way or another.

Adrien took a deep breath. “If I were ever so lucky that Marinette agreed to date me, I would make sure to tell her every day how much she means to me. How amazingly creative and beautiful and kind and strong she is. How much I love her and how I couldn’t imagine being without her.” His explanation was delivered with such sincerity that Marinette suddenly wanted to cry. 

She could hear her heart beating too fast. Her eyes fell on the tie, and suddenly her resolve was seconds away from crumbling. Then a wave of panic hit her, reminding her of exactly why she couldn’t.

Looking away, she noticed that Alya looked like she was about to self-combust from the excitement of her favourite ship possibly getting together. “Damn, Mari. If you don’t date this boy, I just might.”

“Hey,” Nino protested, although he was grinning.

“Sorry babe. You know I love you, but that was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard.”

When Marinette chanced a glance back at Adrien, he was studying his feet, his cheeks almost the same colour as Tikki, who was hovering a foot or so behind him, eyes gleaming. Plagg floated beside her, rolling his eyes.

Slowly, he raised his eyes to look at Marinette, and she saw the guarded hope in his eyes. She saw how much he’d meant his words.

It broke her. 

“Adrien, I’m sorry…”

His face fell. “Oh, no. Bug, I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m the one who’s sorry, I was just trying to be funny, but I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just…I can’t, Adrien.” She started tearing up.

 There was another tense silence, this time broken by Alya, who was standing up, pulling Nino along with her. “We’re just going to go—”

“No,” Marinette practically shouted. She shot them a tear-filled look. “Please stay.”  

Nino looked like he’d rather be anywhere but there, and Alya seemed torn between wanting to support her friend and giving her and Adrien some privacy. Marinette didn’t have the words to explain it, but she was afraid that if they left she’d take one look at Adrien’s face and want to kiss him just to make the haunted look go away. Eventually Alya and Nino sat back down uneasily, and Marinette started pacing back and forth across her room. She could feel Adrien’s eyes on her.

“Mari, Bug...Please talk to me.”

“I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t do this.” 

“Marinette,” Tikki soothed, flying up beside her as she paced. “It’s ok. Just talk to your friends. They’ll understand. Adrien will understand.”

She was walking back and forth so disorientedly, tears marring her vision, that she didn’t realize Adrien was in front of her until she crashed right into him. She let out an audible sob as she leaned her head into his chest, and his arms wrapped around her, one around her waist and the other cradling her head in his hand as he leaned his face into her hair while she cried.

After a couple minutes, she managed to calm herself, and she pulled away from Adrien, wiping her tears. She was embarrassed, realizing how absurd it must seem that she’d just broken down in front of her friends because the boy she was in love with reciprocated her feelings.

She took a seat on her chaise, her eyes flicking back over to the laptop that held the slides she’d been laughing at maybe five minutes ago. God, had it really been so recent? It felt like a lifetime. As soon as she glanced at the screen, Adrien followed her gaze and hastily grabbed the laptop, slamming it shut and stuffing it back in his backpack. When she looked up, she saw he was regarding her hesitantly, the backpack clutched his chest like he wasn’t sure what to do.

“It’s ok, Chaton,” she said weakly. She patted the spot beside her. “Come sit.”

Adrien hesitated a few seconds before setting his bag on the floor and coming to sit next to her. He left an entire person’s worth of space between them, but when she inched closer and leaned against him he didn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

Then Marinette remembered it wasn’t just the two of them, and she looked over at her other friends, huddled awkwardly together on the floor as if they were trying to make themselves as small as possible. 

Marinette swallowed. “Sorry guys, I feel so stupid. I—”  

“Dude,” Nino interrupted, “It’s chill. We all have our things.”

“Yeah,” Alya piped in. “Nino cries every time we watch ‘Marley & Me’.”

“The dog dies, Alya. The fact that you don’t is concerning.”

Marinette giggled, and the rest of her friends joined in after a beat. 

When their laughter faded, Tikki flew up to sit on her knee, regarding her with her probing blue eyes. “Marinette, are you ready to talk about it now?”

She felt Adrien stiffen as she nodded, but he didn’t pull away.

She looked up at him. “Do you remember the beret I delivered? The one I said was from your Brazilian fan-club?”

“Yeah...what does that have to do with anything?”

“It wasn’t from them. It was from me. I transformed to deliver it to you because Nathalie wouldn’t let me leave it at the front gate, but I guess you saw me leave and then...I don’t know what happened next exactly. Bunnyx didn’t tell me everything. But I’d signed my name and you must have figured out my identity then, and—” she shuddered “—you were akumatized. You became Chat Blanc, with the power of some kind of supercharged Cataclysm, and…” her voice was barely more than a whisper at this point, “you destroyed the world Chat.”

There was a silence, and Marinette swore she could practically feel the tension humming between the two of them. “B-but...you saved me, right m’lady?”

“Well, yeah. Bunnyx had to bring me to that timeline to stop you. Because in that reality, I’d already…I was already…”

“No.” The horror in Adrien’s voice was obvious as he recoiled away from her. “I wouldn’t. I would never… ”

Marinette felt tears stinging her eyes again. “You said that our love was the reason you’d made the world like that. And that’s why we can’t...Until we defeat Shadow Moth...we can’t risk it.”

The room was silent. Having the truth out in the open hadn’t given her any sense of relief. If anything, she felt worse, especially seeing how much her words had affected Adrien.

“Marinette,” he said carefully after some time, his voice breaking, “I’m already in love with you though. And whether we’re together or not...I don’t think I could ever stop loving you.”

“Oh my God,” Alya squeaked, and Marinette shot her a glare to shut her up.

“And,” Adrien continued weakly, “unless you’ve changed your mind in the last week or so, then you’re in love with me too. So if our love is going to destroy the world...then isn’t it a little too late for that?”

Marinette just looked at him with helpless eyes, unable to explain herself. She knew he was right. That things were probably different this time. There was no Bunnyx here to stop them, and Chat Blanc had never specifically said they’d dated, she’d just assumed.

But she couldn’t shake the fears she’d held onto for so long. She couldn’t risk it. Not yet.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

“No,” he said firmly, his eyes were sad but kind. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

He wrapped her into another hug, holding her tight until she finally managed to rid herself of tears. She clung to him the entire time, as afraid of letting go as she was afraid she’d never want to.

Chapter Text

Marinette felt a pit in her stomach as she walked to school the morning after dropping the Chat Blanc bombshell. Since the reveal, she’d gotten used to Adrien coming by to walk her to school after his bodyguard dropped him off, but the bakery had been ominously lacking his presence today. After Alya and Nino had left the day before, she’d tried to reassure him that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but she could tell he still felt bad. She really just wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before, and she didn’t know how to make that happen.

He was standing on the steps in front of the school alongside Alya and Nino when Marinette walked up, but she could tell he wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation. As she got closer, she saw him glance over in her direction, and when his eyes fell on her he froze for a moment. An uncertain smile crossed his face as he waved, and instead of returning the gesture she ran the rest of the way up to him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. She felt him release a long breath before returning her embrace.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me today,” he whispered into her hair.

“I always want to see you, Minou.”

It was worth breaking their rule against superhero nicknames outside of the suits to see the relieved smile he gave her in return.

***

In some sense, things went back to normal over the next week. Marinette and Adrien still spent the bulk of their mutual free time together, their teamwork in taking down Akumas was as solid as always, and Marinette was tempted to stuff her ears with cotton balls to escape the constant onslaught of puns in her life. But there was a new tension between them too.

The tension was there in the moments after Akuma fights when their adrenaline wore off. It was there when their conversations fell into a lull they’d usually fill with cuddles. It was there when their classmates teased them about how they kept insisting that they were still “just friends”, and they had to smile or laugh it off while pretending that the entire world’s supply of canned worms hadn’t just been ripped open. Again. 

In retrospect, maybe not that many worms had been freed, because honestly, did anyone actually can worms in this day and age? But that wasn’t really the point...

“Alya, he won’t even flirt with me anymore!” she shouted as the girls climbed the staircase to Marinette’s room. It was one of the days that Adrien had fencing after school, so Marinette had jumped on the opportunity for girl time. 

If someone had told her a little over a month ago that Chat Noir would cease his flirty comments and she’d actually miss them...She’d have been less surprised to know that Shadow Moth had voluntarily surrendered his Miraculous from a sudden guilty conscious.

But Akuma battles without flirty banter just felt wrong now. 

And the loss of their spontaneous cuddle sessions? Absolutely unacceptable.

As Marinette pushed open the trap door to her room and turned back to her best friend—well, the one who wasn’t currently acting weird—she noted that Alya’s expression was a mixture of sympathy and amusement.

“I’m sure things will go back to normal soon?” Alya offered as she dropped her bag on the floor and took a seat on the chaise. 

Marinette sank into the chair in front of her computer and purposefully banged her head on the desk several times before resting her forehead on her arms and speaking stubbornly to the wood. “I can’t handle another day of this. It’s so awkward!”

“Hey, at least you can still talk to him normally. This is just a minor setback.”

“No it’s not. This is terrible. He’s probably regretting ever having had feelings for me, I mean I was a complete mess Aly—”  

“Hey. Nobody calls my best friend a mess,” Alya interrupted. Marinette raised her head to thank her friend with a grateful smile until the copper-haired girl smirked and added, “except maybe me. But only when you really deserve it. And Adrien is totally still into you, so don’t even go there.”

Marinette scowled to hide her smile, then slumped back in her chair with a small pout. “What am I supposed to do then?”

“I don’t know, girl? Have you told him you miss it?”

“Oh and how exactly is that conversation supposed to go? Hey Adrien, will you please start flirting with me again even though last time you tried I ended up getting snot all over your shirt and told you our love was going to destroy the world?”

“I’d suggest something a little more subtle.” 

Marinette tried to glare, but Alya was too good at making her feel better by making light of her overdramatics without ever actually discounting them, so she ended up breaking character and letting out a little giggle instead. 

“Look,” Alya continued, “Sunshine means well, but crying girls terrify even the best of fifteen-year old boys, so he’s not going to do anything right now that he thinks might make you feel uncomfortable.”

“So basically I’m doomed?”

“Nuh-uh. You just have to give Chat a taste of his own medicine.”

“Alya, no.”

“Alya, yes!”

“Did you forget how badly I failed every time I tried to confess to Adrien in the past?”

“Of course not. I’m keeping all those memories suuuper safe so I can tell them at your wedding one day. But you already told him you’re in love with him. Now you just need to seal the deal.”

“Alya! I never even said that’s what I want. I just want things to stop being weird!”

“Look, Marinette, if you keep looking for excuses about why you can’t date him then you’ll find them. But I think you deserve to be happy. And I think everything will work out ok if you just tell him how you feel.”

Marinette was silent for a moment. She wanted to believe her friend, she really did.

But...

“But—”  

“But Alya,” interrupted Alya in what Marinette deemed to be a terrible approximation of her own voice, “what if Shadow Moth finds out and uses our love to manipulate us?”

“I don’t sound like that.”

“Oh yes you do. I’ve heard that exact line from you like five times today already. And I’ll tell you again what I told you the last five times. Don’t date in the suits then. Ladybug’s never had a problem keeping things professional when she’s doing her job. I don’t see how that would change just because you’re dating Adrien.”

“But—”

“And I’m not even entertaining the Chat Blanc excuse again. Do you see Bunnyx? No? Cool, that’s what I thought.”

“Ok, but Alya—”

“Oh, you do want to ask Adrien out but now you’re just freaking out about how to do it?”

Marinette took her time to answer, lamenting over the fact that she’d apparently become embarrassingly predictable. “Maybe,” she finally admitted.

“Well,” Alya paused to let out an evil grin that probably would have rivalled one of Shadow Moth’s, “lucky for you, I have some ideas.”

*** 

The next morning, despite her grumbles about her alarm going off twenty minutes earlier than normal, Marinette was as ready as she’d ever be. After hours of planning with Alya (and a brief phone consultation with Nino before Alya had hung up on him several minutes in, claiming that his lack of enthusiasm in romantic scheming was killing her vibe), she had what she considered to be a pretty solid plan for the day ahead. All in all it was simple—she’d spoil Adrien during the day to try and ease some of the tension between them, and to prime him for what she had planned later that night, a little date of sorts.

She sent a quick text to let Adrien know she had an errand to run before school that morning and not to wait for her at the bakery, then she rushed through getting ready, stuffed the macarons she’d boxed up for him the night before in her bag, and ran out through the bakery door before her parents could question her too much about her sudden excitement regarding going to school.

She practically ran the few blocks to the one flower shop she’d found in the area that opened early enough for her to visit before school. Once inside she wasted no time either, taking a cursory glance around the shop to get her bearings before walking determinedly to the section where the roses were and plucking a single red rose from one of the white plastic barrels lining the wall.

While she waited in line to pay, she took out her phone and checked the time. She was satisfied that she still had enough time to pull off phase A of the plan, which at this point really just involved getting to school on time, but her nerves were tumbling around in her stomach a little bit. She decided to check her messages to give herself a little distraction, and tapped on her conversation with Adrien, seeing that he’d replied to her earlier text. 

Wow. You were up EARLY today?! Should I be worried about a personality-swapping Akuma or something? 😹😹😹

Smiling to herself, Marinette typed a quick reply. 

You silly kitty. Just had something important to pick up before school. You’ll see! 😻

After making her purchase, she walked to school as fast as she dared. It would be just her luck to end up falling into a puddle and getting soaked, or crushing the flower after tripping over a curb. 

Meanwhile, she was trying her best not to panic. It wasn’t just that she was nervous about putting herself out there, it was that she still wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the right thing to do. What if things didn’t work out between them? What if their attempt at a relationship flopped? If things somehow got more strained between them, it wasn’t just their friendship that would be in jeopardy, but the safety of all of Paris, and maybe even of the entire world.

She found Adrien just as he was closing his locker, and her worries melted away at the sight of him. He let out a small laugh as he saw her rushing towards him. 

“Only you would get up early and still almost be late,” he said. She stuck her tongue out at him in reply, and he laughed again until his eyes fell on the rose she dangled in her hand. “Should I be jealous of whoever gave you that?”

His voice was teasing, but the look on his face betrayed his uncertainty. 

She reached her free hand out to ruffle his hair in reassurance. “Don’t be silly,” she said, holding the stem out towards him. “It’s for you.”

Honestly, Marinette had gone back and forth on this part of the plan. Most teenaged boys wouldn’t exactly enjoy getting flowers. But it had been unanimously decided by her, Alya and even Nino that Adrien was probably the exception. The happy surprise that came over him at that moment was confirmation. 

“Really?” 

She handed it to him, letting her fingertips brush against his as she passed the stem between them. “Of course. You’ve gotten me enough flowers, I thought it was time that I rose to the occasion.”

“Ooooh, looks like we’ve got a budding punner in the mix.”

Marinette tried to roll her eyes, but she knew she wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding the smile on her face as she exchanged her bag for a couple of the books in her locker. When she finished up, Adrien was standing beside her, the rose between his teeth as he wagged his eyebrows at her like the goofball he was. She couldn’t help but giggle. 

“You sure you want don’t want to leave that in your locker? The other boys might tease you.”

Adrien shrugged, taking the rose from his lips and lying it across the textbooks he carried instead. “If they tease me it’s probably just because they’re jealous that they don’t have a pretty girl who brings them flowers.”

Marinette felt her heart flutter at the softness of his gaze. Her plan was working—she hadn’t seen him look at her like that all week. They started heading towards class, and the backs of their hands brushed together as they walked. Marinette didn’t hesitate to link her fingers with his. 

***

Adrien couldn’t figure out why, but something was different about Marinette today. The rose had been a cute gesture. A nice way to start the day and maybe cut through a little bit of the weirdness that had been hanging between them recently. He hadn’t thought there’d be anything more to it.

Then she’d spent the majority of their morning class—during which he and Nino had been turned around facing the girls to work on a group project—winking at him whenever she caught his eye, trailing her fingers up and down his arm (she was looking away as if she was doing it without thinking but he’d seen the glimmer in her eyes) and dropping terrible pick-up lines.

So yeah. Adrien was in agony. 

Oh sure, it was the best kind of agony—the special kind that could only be caused by drop-dead gorgeous, wickedly clever girls who occasionally saved Paris—but it was agony nonetheless. For all his overtures as Chat over the years, he had absolutely not been prepared for the day that Ladybug started to flirt back.

And he was confused, because she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want to date him, at least not yet. Probably not until Shadow Moth was taken care of, and even then it wasn’t like they’d specifically discussed it. 

But the rose, the hand-holding on the way to class, the coy winks and the sly glances, the passionfruit macarons she’d given him at lunch...If he’d known any better he’d have thought she was trying to woo him. Except she couldn’t be...Could she?

When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, she stood from her seat next to him, laying a hand on his shoulder and leaning in close to whisper in his ear. “Coming, my prince?”

The new nickname rendered him utterly useless. “I...uuuh. Y-yes. Yep. I’m coming,” he responded, but remained frozen in his seat. 

Only when she let out a small giggle did he remember that he actually had to move his legs to stand up and walk to class with her. He somehow managed to successfully make it to his desk, a good thing since Mme. Mendeleiev wasn’t known for her kindness in the face of truancy, and was surprised when Marinette sat down in the seat next to him. 

“I asked if it was ok for me and Nino to switch,” she explained, and Adrien nodded dumbly, knowing that he was absolutely not ready for this.

The first half of the class was taken up with note-taking as Mme. Mendeleiev went over a review of the Chemistry unit they’d recently covered, so Adrien was momentarily saved the wonderful torture he’d been enduring all day, but the last half she left them to work on a review worksheet for their upcoming test, and the second Marinette looked at him he could feel himself getting flustered.

“Hey, did you hear that oxygen and potassium went on a date?” she asked.

“Uh...no?”

She smirked. “Yeah. It went O-K.”

He laughed a bit too loudly in response, earning a sharp look from their teacher, and Oh God, if he hadn’t already known he wanted to marry that girl then he would have realized it right then and there, because she was telling science jokes now, and had she always looked so perfect? 

She then tapped a finger to her lips, adopting an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, and added, “I think it might have gone better for them though if they had as much chemistry as uranium and iodine.”

It took Adrien a second to piece that one together, and when he did he almost died right there on the spot. Uranium and Iodine. U and I. Adrien.exe has stopped working.

“Marinette,” he whined when he finally remembered how his voice worked. “What are you trying to do to me?”

She grinned. “Just trying to get a reaction out of you, my prince.”

Adrien let his head fall to the desk dramatically, then buried his face in his arms. He could hear Alya and Nino snickering behind him. 

He had barely a few seconds of relief before Marinette cuddled up next to him, and he felt her breath warm his ear before she whispered, “Do you know what kind of ion Ladybug works best with?”

“Uuuh...”

“A cat-ion”

Yep. Adrien Agreste was officially dead.

***

Adrien ended up getting pulled out of school before their last class of the day to attend a last-minute fitting for an upcoming photoshoot, and as such Marinette hadn’t had a chance to talk to him after school and set the last part of her plan in motion. So now, in the darkness of the early night, she was sitting on a rooftop across from his room in the Agreste mansion, trying to keep her anxiety from talking her out of putting everything on the line for the boy she loved. 

She’d been nervous earlier in the day of course, but that had been more of a game. The flower, the flirting, the puns...those weren’t really her, just a character she’d been playing. Just like how being Ladybug gave her an extra rush of confidence, a sort of freedom in the moment not to overthink how she was being perceived.

Huh. Maybe that was why Adrien acted the way he did as Chat. 

But now she was just Marinette again, costume or no. The girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Afraid of messing up, of being rejected. Of not being enough.

Logically, she knew that Adrien thought the world of her. And really, he was just a huge dork. She had nothing to be afraid of.

Her traitorous, rapidly pounding heartbeat disagreed.

So she sat, perched on jagged roof tiles, watching him quietly. It was probably a little creepy, but if he hadn’t gone running when she’d accidentally let slip that she’d had his entire schedule memorized for over a year then surely this wouldn’t be the tipping point. 

He’d been sitting at his desk since she’d arrived, with what she was pretty sure she recognized as their science textbook propped open. She’d been using that as an excuse of sorts not to disturb him yet. She knew he had a busy weekend planned, and it would be selfish to interrupt his study time.

Suddenly though, he slammed his textbook shut and started banging his head against the desk. A small giggle escaped her at the sight, accompanied by a small rush of confidence. After the way he’d been acting towards her at school today, she was pretty sure the head-slamming wasn’t because of his homework.

As if to confirm her hypothesis, he stood from the desk, picked up the rose she’d given him earlier, and proceeded to flop down dramatically on his bed. He lay on his back and twirled the flower a few times, looking up at it as he held it above his head, before dropping it on the duvet, rolling over, and burying his head in his pillow. She thought she could hear the faint sounds of him screaming into it.

Watching him toss and turn a little more, she stood, gathering the rest of her courage. She was so wrapped up in giving herself a last-minute pep talk that she almost missed the fact that he’d sat up and was staring vaguely off in her direction, but then she saw his eyes pick her out of the darkness, and for a moment they both froze. 

Seconds later, her body was moving of its own accord. She tossed her yo-yo across the street, finding an appropriate hold, and swung to land on the sill of his open window.

“Hi.”

***

For a while, Adrien just sat on the edge of his bed, blinking in surprise as he took in the sight of Ladybug’s silhouette in his window frame. He tried not to think too hard about all the dreams he’d had that had started out exactly the same way. Obviously things weren’t going to play out that way tonight. Maybe not ever.

And yet…

There was a trace of the teasing smile Marinette had been throwing around earlier at school on her face now. An adorable snicker escaping her as she watched him sit there dumbfounded.

Oh Kwamis, he was doomed.

“Hi,” he replied after he managed to remember that normally greetings were meant to be reciprocated, and that reciprocating meant somehow regaining the ability to speak.

She leaped down from her perch, landing softly in front of the foosball table. “Surprised to see me?” she asked as she started walking towards him.

He nodded. “Do we have a patrol I didn’t know about, or…” he trailed off, knowing full well from the twinkle in her eyes that that wasn’t the reason she’d come tonight, but not daring to hope.

Hoping lead to him making an ass of himself and hurting the girl he loved more than anything. Hoping lead to the end of the world, maybe.

Adrien might have been a bit oblivious at times. His friends liked to tease him about it and it wasn’t like he didn’t know that having spent most of his life in relative isolation meant that he’d missed out on some things. But he wasn’t stupid. He was actually quite intelligent. Logical. A lover of science.

So he knew that the future wasn’t set in stone, and that just because things had happened a certain way in one timeline didn’t mean they’d play out the same way in this one.

But when Marinette had told him about Chat Blanc, he’d still felt all of the guilt for what he’d never actually done in this reality. For what he’d done to her . When he’d learned that the Marinette from that timeline hadn’t even survived, it had altered him. He’d tried his best, then, to lock away his feelings for her. He knew, vaguely, that feelings didn’t really work like that, but couldn’t logic override that? Weren’t humans just overly complicated computers at the end of the day, with admittedly flawed programming?

And now the look in her eyes seemed to be trying to tell him it was ok, and he didn’t know what to trust. He was an oblivious little kid again.

“No patrol,” she said softly, and he could see that she was nervous.

He tried to catalogue everything in this moment. The hitch of her breath, the flutter of her eyelashes. Even if he didn’t dare to hope, he knew that tonight would be important. She was standing right in front of him now, reaching for his hands. She grabbed them both, and pulled him up off the edge of the bed to stand in front of her.

“So…” he said breathlessly, and he couldn’t help what he said next. The proximity brought out his inner Chat. And damn it, he did have hope. “You here to whisker me away into the night, m’lady?”

She laughed. “Something like that. I do have a little surprise prepared for you.”

“Oh? Where is it?” he asked. She wasn’t carrying anything with her, and he knew she didn’t have pockets in her suit like he did because she loved to complain about it.

“I’ll have to take you to it.” She winked.

“Oh reeeally? Are you going to carry me there like a princess, or should I transform?”

She giggled. “Definitely transform. I think it would raise a few too many eyebrows if I got caught carrying Adrien Agreste across the city.”

“You make a valid point.”

She started backing away from him, pulling his hands along with her so he’d follow. He was pretty sure it was supposed to be some kind of suave, seductive maneuver, but he had to bite back a laugh and hastily redirect her as she almost toppled right over his sofa. Because she was just so quintessentially herself. Ladybug’s grace and Marinette’s uncanny ability to trip over her own feet and God he was so in love with her.

“Oh, wait!” she exclaimed when they’d nearly reached the window, just as he was about to transform. “I almost forgot, I need you to grab one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

She smirked. “The tie.”

***

Chat Noir followed Ladybug across the city, laughing along as she let out little whoops of enthusiasm. To his surprise, the tie had been for her to wear, and he’d almost died of laughter when she’d made a big show of proudly looping it over her neck. He was pretty sure that somewhere amongst her antics there was a joke at his own expense, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Her joy was contagious.

He didn’t pay much attention to the route they were taking, but the path was definitely familiar. It wasn’t until she landed on a rooftop lined with candles that he realized where they’d been headed. It was the same rooftop where he’d once tried to set up a romantic evening for the two of them. It was set up in much the same way as that night, with a blanket and some pillows laid out on the ground. He noticed a couple of bags from Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie as well.

When he looked at Ladybug, he couldn’t read the expression on her face, which was not to say that it was unexpressive. Just that he saw the same indecision that was weighing on him in the lines of her smile. Was she giddy or apprehensive? Hopeful or afraid?

She was smiling though.

“Wow,” he said softly.

“You like it?”

“It’s...incredible, but...Why?”

“Because...you’ve done so much for me. More than I think you know. And I wanted to show you exactly how much I appreciate you.” She fell silent for a moment, fidgeting with the tie around her neck. It hung there loosely, since she’d stubbornly refused his help to tighten it, and clashed horribly with her suit, but it was perfect. She was perfect.

“I wanted to make you a powerpoint too,” she said, “but I kind of ran out of time, and I guess it’s also your thing, so...I just figured out what I wanted to say instead. A little speech of sorts.”

“And you needed the tie for that?”

She crossed her arms across her chest and regarded him defiantly. “Are you doubting the power of the tie?”

He laughed. “I am knot.”

“Oh my God, that was a tie pun wasn’t it?”

“...If I say yes do I still get to hear the speech?”

She stared at him sternly, but he could see the smile fighting against her lips. Finally she sighed and turned away. She walked over and sank down cross-legged on the blanket, patting the spot in front of her. He sat in front of her, looking straight into her wide, bluebell eyes.

She took a deep breath. “O-ok. I’m r-ready. I think. I—nope.” She stood up suddenly. “I need to stand. You can sit. You should sit, I just…” She shot him an accusatory glance. “I can’t d-do this when you’re s-sitting there l-looking at me like that.”

He was torn between amusement and worry as she began slowly pacing back and forth. “Buginette, just breathe.”

“Breathe. R-right. I do that, I can. I-I mean I can do that! Gah! Stupid stutter, why did I ever think I could do this? It shouldn’t be that hard…It’s just a stupid little speech. I practiced it like twenty times and it was fine, but now that I actually have to—”

“Hey, uh...Bug?” She stopped and turned towards him, a surprised look on her face as if she’d forgotten he was there. “What if I turned around?”

“Huh?”

“Well you said you couldn’t talk to me when I was looking at you, so what if I just...didn’t?”

“Oh. Y-yeah. I think that might work. Kind of defeats the purpose of the tie, but...”

“I can imagine it.” He rearranged himself so his back was to her. “Better?”

He heard her let out a breath. “Yeah. I think so.” She cleared her throat. “Ok. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok.” She fell quiet for long enough that he started to worry she’d chickened out again, but then she spoke again. “I missed you this week. And I know you were right there the whole time, and you were just trying to respect what I wanted, and I appreciate that. I really do. But it just felt so different, like I was missing something. And I don’t want that. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m missing part of you, because it feels like I’m missing part of me, and...wow I didn’t really think about how cheesy that sounded when I was practicing, but...it’s true. The thought of losing you, even a little bit, terrifies me.

“And I know that’s not a reason that we should be together. I shouldn’t want to date you because I’m afraid of losing you. But...I had a bunch of time to think this week, and lots of pep talks from Alya.” She laughed. “And I realized you were right, if it was going to be our love that destroyed the world, it’s a little too late for that. Because I love you so much, Adrien.

“I thought I loved you before, when I just had a ridiculous crush on you and posters of you all over my wall. But when we figured out our identities I got to fall in love with the real you. All of you. And I don’t want to run away from that anymore. So...if I haven’t ruined everything between us...if you still feel the same way...well…” She trailed off, and when she spoke again her words sounded from right behind him. “I guess you should turn around now.”

He didn’t hesitate, twisting around to see her kneeling right in front of him. Her eyes searched his face, and she gave a small smile at whatever she found there. She reached a hand forwards and gently flicked his bell.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too.”

Then she leaned in and kissed him.

It wasn’t some polished, movie-perfect moment. Her lips landed a little to the side of his at first, and she giggled as she corrected herself. Their mouths met for real a second later, and he panicked a bit, trying to remember what he was supposed to do with his tongue, or if he was supposed to use it at all yet. It wasn’t his first kiss, but it was the first one that meant this much to him, and it was hard not to overthink everything he was doing.

The kiss was slow. Exploratory. Promising of something more.

He didn’t want it to end, not only because he was enjoying it, but because a part of him was afraid this might be too good to be true. He was afraid it might fade from his memory the second it ended, much in the way he couldn’t recall their previous, Akuma-induced kisses. But when she finally pulled away, and he saw the look on her face, the moonlight illuminating her bluebell eyes and her lips slightly parted as she drew in a deep breath...he knew this was a moment he’d never forget.

“Woah,” he said when he caught his breath.

“Yeah,” she agreed. All traces of her nervousness from before had disappeared. She reached up and loosened the tie, smiling, then took it off and slipped it over his head instead. Then she grabbed the end of it, gently pulling him closer.

“Wanna try again?” she whispered, her lips inches from his.

“I really like that tie,” he retorted.

“Me too.”

Their lips crashed together again, and they didn’t do much talking for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Sabine Cheng wasn’t usually a heavy drinker. She certainly wasn’t in the habit of finishing an entire bottle of wine by herself like she'd done tonight, only to then consider going out to buy another. So really, it was hardly her fault that her decision-making ability was currently in tatters, and that she’d traipsed up the stairs to her daughter’s empty room to become the exact kind of parent she’d sworn she’d never be—the one who was about to rifle through her daughter’s things.

She threw the trap door open, wincing as it slammed against the floor with too much force. Thankfully, Tom had an uncanny ability to sleep through anything but his alarm, so the noise was unlikely to wake him.

She climbed the rest of the way up, turned on the light, and took a moment to survey the scene. She hadn’t been up here much recently. Some time over the last few months, Marinette had become defensive about having her personal space respected, and Sabine hadn’t objected to that. At the time, it had seemed like a normal request from a growing teenage girl. Now, Sabine knew differently.

At first glance, the room was largely the same as she remembered. But the sewing machine was covered by a thin layer of dust, like it hadn’t been used in months. An overdue permission form lay on the desk, one that Sabine had never even seen. The modeling pictures of Adrien had been replaced with sweet pictures of him and Marinette, alongside pictures of all her friends. There were even a couple action shots of Chat Noir, because of course there were.

Sabine took a deep breath, because drunk out of her mind or not, she wasn’t here to get emotional. She had a job to do.

She knew vaguely what she was looking for—a red, sort of oversized, jewelry box—but knowing her daughter, it wouldn’t be easy to find. She began by rifling through the closet, but that revealed nothing except that Marinette was long overdue for laundry day. She peaked behind the chaise, around the bed, and underneath the desk to no avail. She was about to give up when her eyes fell on the sewing box that sat atop the desk. Its sides were open to showcase the colourful spools of thread inside.

Curious, Sabine wandered over to it, turning on the desk lamp to get a better look. She tried to pull out a spool, but it wouldn’t budge. Examining the tops of the spools, she noted that most of them seemed untouched, while a few shone faintly with grease, or were smeared chocolate or jam. Sabine regarded the those ones carefully, until a she was able to match them in her mind to a recognizable pattern. The same pattern Marinette had used to unlock her phone since she’d gotten it.

Sabine pushed down hesitantly on the first spool of the pattern, surprised to find that it yielded to her touch like a button. Then she went on to the next one, and the next one, until her fingers hovered over the last in the passcode. She pressed it down slowly.

Her eyes widened as the panels of the sewing box opened, revealing the target of her search. The Miracle Box.

Sabine should have stopped there. She really should have.

Sober Sabine would have taken a step back, thought things over, and come up with an actual plan.

But Sober Sabine wasn’t there right now.

Drunk Sabine just smiled, took a moment to bask in her tipsy triumph, then pulled out her phone. She fumbled over her contacts a bit before finding the right one.

It rang twice before Nathalie answered. “Hello?”

“I’m in.”

2 weeks earlier

“Cheers!” Sabine and Nathalie shared a grin as they clinked their glasses together.

Nathalie kept her glass raised. “To...what did you say Alya called them?”

“You mean their ship name? Adrienette?”

“Ah. Right. To Adrienette!”

They momentarily hid their smiles behind sips of wine, and Nathalie found herself marvelling at how normal this felt. It was the fourth iteration of their now weekly wine night, which had quickly become Nathalie’s favourite part of the week.

Gabriel had been steadily distancing himself from Nathalie ever since he’d repaired the Peacock Miraculous. At first, Nathalie had assumed he’d been avoiding her because the illness she’d sustained from her time using it had reminded him too much of what had happened to Émilie. But as time had gone on, and Nathalie had mostly recovered, he’d only withdrawn further. He simply no longer needed her help as much now that he could use both Miraculous simultaneously. It was also clear that as more time went on, he was becoming even more desperate to bring Émilie back. He’d grown restless. Sloppy.

Truth be told, he’d become someone Nathalie couldn’t even recognize.

The situation had forced her to sit back and analyze some of the feelings she’d long held regarding her boss, and...she couldn’t say she liked what she saw. She’d risked everything for a man who only seemed to value her when she was useful to him. Her newfound friendship with Sabine, while new, had helped to shed some light on what a healthy friendship was supposed to look like. And the image of her and Gabriel, reflected back from the twisted mirror of the truth she could no longer ignore...wasn’t like that.

Nathalie took another hefty sip of her wine, hoping to wash away her chagrin along with it. It was too early in the night for this kind of thinking. She usually tried to keep the merciless self-criticism for when she was lying awake in bed, unable to fall asleep.

For now, she’d focus on lighter topics.

“Do we even know how they got together?” she wondered aloud. “I mean, last week...Adrien denied there was anything wrong when I asked, but something was definitely up.”

Sabine tilted her head to the side as she loaded a cracker with cheese. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. Marinette said she’d actually confessed her feelings to him a while back, and that she’d wanted to hold off on a relationship. I thought maybe they’d had some kind of argument, but Marinette didn’t seem angry or anything—and that girl can hold a grudge when she wants to. She seemed more...guilty, almost? Then she woke up on Friday morning with the energy of a small army and blurted out something about roses and pick-up lines on her way out the door.”

Nathalie chuckled. “Well I don’t know about the in-between. But Adrien was certainly lost in the clouds Friday afternoon, so I assume something happened at school.”

“I mean, maybe? But Marinette wouldn’t say anything when she got home. She ran right up to her room mumbling something about a speech to write. And, I mean, she does like to get a head start on her homework, but being so eager to get started when school had barely let out for the weekend was a little much. So, I think that was a cover of some sort. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that she confirmed she and Adrien were dating. And, when I asked her how it happened, she would only say that they’d talked.” Sabine paused. “It’s almost like they have a way to sneak out and meet each other without our knowing,” she joked.

Nathalie laughed along with Sabine at the comment, but something in her stomach clenched uneasily at the thought. She couldn’t put a finger on why, so she brushed it off. Surely she was just worried about what Gabriel would do if it were true, but that was a non-issue at this point. He never tore himself away from work and supervillaining for long enough these days to notice what his son was up to, and Nathalie saw no reason to enlighten him.

“Well,” Nathalie said, “regardless of what happened, I’m glad they figured everything out.”

“Oh, absolutely. It means we’re off the hook for any lingering trauma from the whole imaginary friends debacle.” They both laughed. “I’m really just surprised it took so long,” Sabine continued. “I thought for sure Adrien was going to break her down sooner. He seemed very persistent.”

“He gets that from Gabriel,” Nathalie said, then winced internally. She’d meant to stop thinking about him. Now, Sabine was looking at her like she’d sprouted an extra head or something, so Nathalie elaborated. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but back when Émilie was...around, he could be quite the romantic.”

Sabine regarded her wine with a thoughtful look on her face. “You...care for him, don’t you? Gabriel?” She paused, her eyes flicking up and assessing Nathalie’s face. “You love him.”

“I don’t know, anymore,” Nathalie confessed. “He doesn’t...He doesn’t see me, you know?” Sabine nodded, but it was obvious she was just trying to humour Nathalie. She didn’t really understand. The situation was so twisted, more so than Nathalie could ever hope to explain, so how could Sabine possibly comprehend? And yet, Nathalie wanted her to. She found herself needing to justify things somehow. “I know what it seems like. I mean, Hell. The man can’t even see how absolutely wonderful his own son is. Why would he ever notice me?” A bitter humph escaped her. “But...he used to be different. When Émilie was alive…he was different.”

I was different too, Nathalie realized. Somewhere in all of this mess, I lost myself.

“How?” Sabine’s question stopped Nathalie from wallowing. The woman’s forehead was scrunched in concern.

“Sorry?”

“How was he different?” Sabine clarified. Nathalie was quiet for a long while, prompting her friend to add, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. I just wondered...what you could possibly see in him. He seems so...cold. Unyielding. Like he doesn’t care to acknowledge the fact that other people exist and have feelings. And you…” she took a small sip of wine as she pondered her next words. “To be honest, I thought you were like that too, at first. But I was wrong. You’re methodical, yes. Calm. Certainly wound way too tight.” She smirked, showing she didn’t mean the words negatively. “But you’re funny, too. I can see how much you care so much for Adrien, even when it seems that Gabriel can’t be bothered. You’re tenacious, but in a good way. And you’re kind.”

Nathalie felt a sudden lump in her throat. She must have made a strange face, because Sabine snickered. “I can’t remember anyone ever calling me kind before,” Nathalie said.

”Maybe you just haven’t been given the opportunity to show it,” Sabine returned. “People can be put into all sorts of situations that bring out the worst in them. I imagine that, at least for the last year or so, the Agreste Mansion was probably one of those places. That doesn’t mean that somebody can’t rise beyond their circumstances and be a better person. I mean, look at Adrien. He’s one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met. True, it’s easier in some ways when you’re younger, but I wouldn’t doubt for one second that you have the potential to change too. You already have, really. I know it wasn’t Gabriel clearing Adrien’s schedule for the past month or so to give him more time with his friends. You’re a good person Nathalie. More than you give yourself credit for.”

The conversation moved on to lighter topics, but Nathalie was only half paying attention. She couldn’t get past Sabine’s assessment of her character. She wasn’t sure anyone else had ever seen her that way before. For as long as she could remember, she’d put up a walls with nearly everyone in her life.

It was to the point where even she forgot that there was an actual personality beyond the persona she presented the world. The one where she was useful. The one where she took up as little space in everyone else’s life as possible, because to take up more would make her an inconvenience.

Even Gabriel and Émilie, who’d known her as well as anyone, had always been too wrapped up in their own busy lives to take the time and see beneath Nathalie’s facade. How was it that in little more than a month, Sabine had broken everything down?

And the other thing—the part about rising beyond circumstances. Was that something Nathalie could do? What would that even look like? She was afraid to delve too far into that. To truly change, to unburden herself, she’d have to come clean.

But, if she did that? She’d lose everything.

***

Nathalie was still pensieve when she left Sabine’s that night. She was almost too lost in thought to pay attention to her surroundings as she crossed the street to the car waiting for her. But as she waved to the Gorilla and moved to open the car door, a black blur flying through the air caught her eye.

Without a thought, she tracked the shape, her head whipping around to see Chat Noir land on Marinette’s balcony. Through the quiet nighttime air, muffled only by the sound of cars passing by, Nathalie could hear the delighted tinkle of the young girl’s laughter tumbling down into the streets, as the masked hero struck a goofy pose.

The lights on the balcony provided just enough illumination for Nathalie to watch as the girl took a step forward, grabbed the hero by the bell, and pulled his face down so that their lips could press together.

For a split second, a wave of fury washed through Nathalie. She’d never thought that Marinette would be the type to cheat.

Then reality set in. Marinette wouldn’t do that. She’d had eyes for nobody but Adrien since she’d met him. Anyone could see that. And what’s more, photos had been released yesterday featuring Ladybug and Chat Noir locking lips. The chances of one half of both couples cheating with one another was...unlikely.

Any doubts Nathalie had disappeared when she saw Marinette transform into Ladybug a few second later. If Marinette was Ladybug, and Ladybug was kissing Chat Noir, then Chat Noir had to be...

Nathalie jumped when the Gorilla rapped on the window opposite the driver’s seat, motioning to see if she was getting in. She opened the door and sank numbly into the back seat.

When they arrived at the mansion, she waited for the Gorilla to leave, then snuck outside. She found an alley to hide in, from which Adrien’s room was visible, and waited.

Not an hour later, she saw Chat Noir jump through Adrien’s open window.

She took a few shaky steps forward, then promptly threw up behind the nearest dumpster.

***

Nathalie called in sick to work for the next three days. That should have been hard to do, considering the fact she lived with her boss, but Gabriel’s guilt for the damage she’d sustained using the previously broken Miraculous was easy to exploit. Under different circumstances, it might have been funny. He was the man responsible for terrorizing the citizens Paris by manipulating their emotions, yet Nathalie could play him like a fiddle.

Under different circumstances, she wouldn’t be working for a man who’d repeatedly come close to murdering his own son.

A man who, when she took a moment to think about it, actually had killed his own son—albeit temporarily—on several occasions. Nathalie was nauseous at the thought, so faking sick really wasn’t that hard anyways.

Sabine had texted her a few times since their last meeting. They were standard messages—thanking her for the evening, a picture of the kids studying, a link for the online book club they’d discussed joining. After three days without a response, the content of the messages changed.

Hi Nathalie 😊 Just wanted to check in on you since I haven’t heard from you in a few days! Adrien said you were sick. I hope you’re feeling better soon!!

Oh, and let me know if there’s anything I can do. 😊

Nathalie didn’t respond.

She slowly eased herself back into her work life when she couldn’t find any more excuses to keep hiding from it. Luckily, Gabriel hadn’t asked her to do anything Miraculous-related. She didn’t know what she would have done if he had. She kept most of her correspondence with him brief, but even so, she was a wreck. It was a testament to Gabriel’s one-track mind that he didn’t realize anything was amiss.

Nathalie couldn’t look Adrien in the eyes either. She sent all his schedules by email, and avoided him at all costs. She hated herself all the more for that. He was already hurt by the way that Gabriel avoided him, and now she was doing the same. She was a coward.

After a few more days of silence, Sabine reached out again.

Hey Nathalie. Adrien said you’re feeling better! I’m sure you’re busy catching up on missed work and such, so let’s take a rain check on drinks this week? Let me know when things calm down and we can plan something new. Cheers! 🍷 🧀

Nathalie wished she would stop.

Of course Nathalie had been foolish enough to make friends with one of the warmest, most kind-hearted people on the planet. While other people would have taken nearly a week without a response as a clue that someone was avoiding them, Sabine was nothing but understanding. And Nathalie didn’t deserve any of it.

She’d been endangering the other woman’s daughter.

Nathalie might not be a mother, but she knew that was unforgivable

In every free moment, Nathalie was riddled with worries about her next steps. She didn’t trust Gabriel with the truth. He was too blinded by the power of the Miraculous to consider what was in Adrien’s best interest. But if left to his own devices, he’d only make things worse. If only there were some way to make Gabriel see what he’d been missing this entire time.

Émilie would have hated what had become of her family. And, more likely than not, she would have known exactly what to say to fix things. She’d had an uncanny ability to talk Gabriel down from his more misguided ideas, because she’d been equally as stubborn when it came to her family’s well-being.

Nathalie wasn’t like that, but she did know someone else who was.

Unfortunately, she was probably the last person who’d want to help Nathalie once the truth came out.

Before she knew it, over two weeks had passed since Nathalie’s discovery, and Sabine was inquiring about meeting for drinks again. When the message flashed across her screen, Nathalie felt the now familiar, deep-seeded dread sink through her again. But she couldn’t avoid this forever.

She had to take her chance.

***

Nathalie chose a neutral setting for their meeting—lunch in a private room, at a quiet restaurant. The anxiety was eating her up so much that she couldn’t think straight the entire morning, so she ended up half an hour early.

When Sabine walked in, she was her usual cheerful self. “Nathalie! It’s nice to see you again,” she said, settling into her chair. “I’m glad you could finally find some free time.”

Her words sounded so genuine that it hurt. When Nathalie didn’t respond, Sabine’s eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes searched Nathalie’s face. Obviously, Sabine had realized there was something strange about this meeting, but she was polite enough not to bulldoze Nathalie with questions.

It dawned on Nathalie then that it was the middle of the day. Sabine must have been missing the lunch rush at the bakery. Nathalie hadn’t even considered that, because regardless of what Sabine thought, she wasn’t a good person. She was thoughtless. She was selfish.

She was a villain.

“Nathalie,” Sabine prompted when the silence stretched on long enough to be grow more awkward than one of Marinette’s stuttered attempts at conversation with Adrien before they’d gotten together. “Is everything ok?”

“I need your help,” Nathalie said. Her voice was hoarse, reminding her of the times during University when she’d fallen asleep after a party where she’d bummed too many cigarettes. When was the last time she’d spoken out loud to somebody? Had she even said anything to the hostess on the way into the restaurant? She couldn’t remember.

Sabine frowned. She reached a hand across the table towards Nathalie, then seemed to think better of it, stopping halfway and drumming her fingers on the table. “Ok. What do you need?”

Nathalie opened her mouth to reply—not that she had any idea of what she intended to say—when the waiter walked in. He took their drink orders and dropped off a bread bowl before disappearing. When Nathalie risked a glance back across the table, Sabine was eyeing her with concern.

“Nathalie, what’s going on?” Her tone was firm now. Not unkind, but insistent. “I’ve never seen you like this, and I...I’m worried about you, to be honest. You’ve been ignoring my messages, which I’m not upset about, but now you set up this lunch out of the blue...I want to help, but I can’t if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I know. I just...It’s hard to...I can’t just…” She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly when the waiter reappeared, setting down two sparkling waters in front of them. Sabine told him they’d need a few minutes before they ordered, and he left. Nathalie tried again. “When I tell you…you’re not going to want to talk to me anymore.”

Sabine was silent for a moment, her face unreadable. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” she said eventually.

Nathalie nodded, studying the rim of her glass. It was now or never.

“Gabriel has been doing something...illegal. And I’ve been covering for him. I’ve been helping him.”

“Okay,” Sabine said slowly. “Is he...hurting people?”

“In a sense...yes. But let’s just say there’s a very efficient way of reversing the damage.”

“You make it sound like he’s Shadow Moth, with his damage being wiped away by Ladybug’s Lucky Charm,” Sabine teased with a hesitant smile. Nathalie went still. The smile fell away from Sabine’s face. “That was supposed to be a joke, Nathalie.”

“I’m sorry.”

The colour drained from Sabine’s face. “Gabriel is Shadow Moth.”

“Yes,” Nathalie whispered.

“Why are you telling me this? You should be telling the police, or at the very least a lawyer, I mean I barely know you.” She let out a sharp laugh. Too high pitched. Too short. “Oh my God, I don’t even know you. I don’t know you at all.” Her hands were clenched into fists against the table as she leaned as far away from Nathalie as their chairs would allow. Her eyes were wide in a mixture of fury and terror. “Oh my God. Mayura. If Gabriel is Shadow Moth, then you…”

“Yes,” Nathalie whispered. It dawned on her then that the restaurant had been a terrible idea. She was lucky that Sabine wasn’t already shouting—likely because the shock was still setting in. But Nathalie had to take control of the situation soon, or her identity would be exposed to the restaurant. “Listen, Sabine, I know what I’ve done is unforgivable, but I...I can’t go to the police with this. It would ruin Adrien.”

The sound that came from Sabine’s mouth wasn’t one that Nathalie would have previously believed belonged to a human repertoire. “Oh, now you care about Adrien?” she hissed. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

“You don’t understand. I—Adrien’s Chat Noir.”

“No,” Sabine protested. “He can’t be. Adrien is dating Marinette. And I saw the photos on the Ladyblog the other day. Chat Noir’s dating Ladybug now, and if he’s Adrien, then that would mean that Ladybug is…” Nathalie refused to meet Sabine’s eyes, but she could feel them on her anyways. “No,” Sabine whispered. “No.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nathalie said. There was no point in saying the words. They meant nothing compared to what Nathalie had done. But they were the words one said in these sorts of situations, when there was nothing else to be said. And in her entire life, Nathalie had never meant the phrase more.

“Why?” Sabine asked after some time. “How could you?” Her voice cracked. “What could Gabriel possibly want? The man has everything. His house is practically a museum. The mayor of Paris bends to his will. He was a wonderful son he doesn’t even seem to remember exists half the time...Why is he doing this?”

“For Émilie. His wife. She’s...in a sort of magical coma.”

“Of course she is,” Sabine scoffed. “Let me guess. She was also doing something nefarious.”

“No,” Nathalie insisted. “She and Gabriel found the Peacock and Butterfly Miraculous years ago on a vacation in Tibet. When they discovered what they were, they wanted to use them for good.”

“Forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” Sabine said dryly.

Nathalie took a moment to sort through her memories, disentangling them from her feelings for Gabriel. How many allowances had she made for him over the years because she’d failed to see things objectively where he was concerned? Would she have stopped him sooner if she’d been able to rationally assess the situation without her feelings in the way? Nathalie feared the answers to those questions.

“You’re right,” she admitted. “Gabriel didn’t really care either way. But Émilie...she did want to use them for good. She never would have approved of what Gabriel was doing.” Nathalie looked down at her own hands gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “The Peacock was damaged when they first acquired it, and...eventually that took its toll. But with the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous combined, Gabriel can make a Wish to bring her back.”

“So that’s why he’s putting all of Paris in danger? To save one person?” Sabine turned her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Why doesn’t he just ask to borrow the Miraculouses? I’m sure Marinette would be willing to help. And of course Adrien would. It’s his mother for God’s sake.”

“The Wish comes with a price,” Nathalie explained. “It’s...dangerous.”

“Of course it is,” Sabine hissed. The sound of her chair scraping against the floor forced Nathalie to look up at her. “I think I’ve heard enough. I’m leaving.”

“Sabine, listen—”

“No, you listen.” Sabine was by no means a tall woman, but every last inch of her towered over Nathalie now from across the table. “I invited you into my home. I thought we were friends. And now you tell me you’ve been personally responsible for endangering my daughter’s life.”

“Please, Sabine. I’m don’t expect you to understand. I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. But—”

“But what, Nathalie? How can there possibly be a but to this?”

“Adrien,” Nathalie whispered. “This will destroy him.”

Sabine sank back into her chair and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “I do feel sorry for him, but Gabriel needs to be stopped. We need to turn him in. There’s nothing we can for Adrien now except be there for him.” Her eyes flew open, full of anger. “And by we, I don’t mean you. This mess is your fault, just as much as it’s Gabriel’s.”

“I know it’s my fault,” Nathalie said. “But that’s not all we can do for Adrien. We can take back Gabriel’s Miraculous. Just you and me. Ladybug...Marinette is the Guardian. She has all of the Miraculous which aren’t in use in her possession. If you and I can get ahold of a couple of them, I bet we can come up with a plan to take down Gabriel ourselves. The kids will be safe, and I think...Gabriel is blind with power right now. But if we can get the Miraculous and then I could just talk to him...I think I could make him see that what he’s doing is wrong. That he needs to put Adrien first, and give up on this foolish quest.”

Sabine blinked slowly, her eyes unfocused. “If Marinette...if she’s really Ladybug…”

“I saw her transform.”

Sabine reached for her water and chugged half the glass. “If that’s true, then she won’t just let this go. She’ll want to know how we got the Miraculous. She’ll want to know who Hawk Moth is. Adrien will find out anyways.”

“But it will give him time,” Nathalie said. “He and Gabriel will be able to get to know each other again. They can have a real relationship. And then—”

“It’s not a real relationship if it’s built on lies,” Sabine argued.

“Maybe not,” Nathalie allowed. “But I know Adrien. He keeps everything that causes him pain bottled up inside. And that’s our fault. We should have taught him to live with his emotions. I should have made Gabriel be there for him after what happened to Emilie. But regardless of the how, I know what this will do to Adrien if we tell him now. And maybe he deserves the truth, but he also deserves to be a kid. He deserves to be happy and carefree. And I’m worried that it we tell him now, the guilt will take that all away from him.”

Nathalie waited as silence fell over the table. She knew her argument was flimsy at best, but she’d had to try. Her fate was in Sabine’s hands now.

“I need time,” Sabine said eventually. “I can’t just…” She shook her head. “I need to think. I need to process, I…” She stood, eyes narrowed at Nathalie. “I need to get away from you, before I can think clearly about anything.”

***

Sabine stumbled home from the restaurant in a daze. She walked in through the bakery and past Tom’s worried questions with barely a glance in his direction and some mumbled excuses about not feeling well. The next thing she knew she was lying on her bed, clutching a pillow to her chest like a lifeline and trying to make sense of the world that was crashing down around her.

Marinette was Ladybug. Her daughter had the weight of saving Paris on her shoulders. She’d been doing it for over a year, and Sabine hadn’t noticed a thing.

It all made so much sense, though. All of Marinette’s crazy excuses. The missed classes. The fact that she never had the time to play video games with her parents anymore, or that she was constantly bailing when she agreed to to help them out in the bakery. She was just a little preoccupied trying to keep a supervillain from destroying the city. No big deal or anything.

The only reason Sabine hadn’t already gone to the police was that she could barely hold herself together. She needed a believable story. She needed proof somehow before she turned Gabriel in. She needed a way to ensure Marinette’s safety. And Adrien’s too, because she knew how much her daughter cared for him. And hell, how much Sabine cared for him too. The boy who regarded her daughter like she’d hung the moon. The boy who’d taken hit after hit to protect Ladybug. The boy who deserved so much more than this.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there when a quiet knock sounded at the door.

“Maman?” Marinette’s voice was soft. Loving. Beautiful. Sabine blinked back tears. How many times had she watched Ladybug come inches from death on the news, without even recognizing her own daughter? Marinette’s voice sounded again. “Papa said you weren’t feeling well? Do you want me to make you some tea?”

Sabine couldn’t find the strength inside to form a reply, and a few seconds later the door eased open. She shut her eyes as the light from the doorway streamed into the room.

“Maman, are you okay? Do you want me to go down and get papa?”

“No, sweetheart. I-I’m fine,” she said, forcing herself to sit up and wipe away her tears. “Just a migraine,” she lied.

The look on Marinette’s face showed that she wasn’t convinced. She walked forward slowly and took a careful seat on the bed next to her mother. “Are you sure?”

Sabine forced herself to nod. Marinette bit her lip and surveyed Sabine for a moment before she started to get up. And Sabine instinctively threw her arms around her daughter to keep her from leaving, her body shaking with silent sobs.

“Maman? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing, ma chérie. I just love you so much. And I’m so proud of you.”

Marinette tensed for a second, and Sabine could almost feel a physical weight in the pit of her stomach from the unspoken secrets hanging between them, then the girl hugged Sabine back gently. “I love you too, maman. Why don’t you get some more rest.”

Sabine let her daughter guide her back into bed, marvelling at the care Marinette poured into every movement. The same care she poured into protecting the entire city, no doubt. Sabine wondered when the hell her daughter had grown up so much, and cursed herself for having missed it.

***

Having fallen asleep in the early afternoon, Sabine stirred at around eight thirty when Tom crept into bed. Her throat was sore, no doubt she was dehydrated after spending the better part of the day crying. She quietly got out of bed and made her way into the kitchen for a glass of water. When she got there she realized she’d left her phone on the table. She unlocked it with shaking hands when she saw that most of her notifications were from Nathalie. She quickly downed a glass of water before reaching for the unopened bottle of wine sitting on the counter. She uncorked it and took a swig, not bothering with a glass.

She settled down on the couch, taking a few more sips of the bottle until the alcohol hit, and a slight disconnect with reality settled into her mind.

“My daughter’s Ladybug,” she mumbled to herself, then let out a hysterical laugh. “She can’t walk on her own two feet, but she can swing through the streets using a glorified toy as a weapon. Of course.” She took another drink from the bottle then set it down a little roughly, wincing at the noise. Luckily Tom didn’t seem to wake, and she remembered that Marinette was staying over at Alya’s tonight.

The next hour and a half passed in a blur as Sabine drank her way through the bottle. She opened the emails Nathalie had sent her, containing information about the Miracle Box and the powers of the various Miraculous residing inside it. Something about magical flying beings called Kwamis. Sabine read and reread everything she could. It wasn’t because she wanted to help Nathalie with her crazy plan. It wasn’t.

She just had to know as much as possible about what her daughter was up to. Like any responsible parent would.

No other reason.

When she eventually tilted the bottle in the air and only a single measly drop rolled into her mouth, she pulled it away from her lips and pouted. She got up, giggling despite everything when the world tilted around her a bit as she did so. Then she pondered her next move. It was barely past ten o’clock, and while normally she’d be asleep, she wasn’t quite ready for that tonight. She wandered over to where her wallet sat on the table, meaning to grab it and go out in search of more wine. Instead, her eyes found the trap door to Marinette’s room.

Ten minutes later, she’d broken into the Miracle Box and called Nathalie.

One way or another, this was ending tonight.

***

Nathalie couldn’t sleep either. But unlike Sabine, she’d been sitting stone-cold sober with her thoughts. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to make her feel better, and it wasn’t like she deserved to anyways.

A part of her thought that she should probably be doing something aside from staring at the dark ceiling over her bed. If this was going to be her last night of freedom before Sabine turned her in, then she ought to do something enjoyable one last time. But she didn’t have the energy to care.

Then her phone rang.

She was so shocked by the name on the caller ID that she almost forgot how to answer, but then her fingers moved instinctively—the job of any good assistant was to answer phone calls promptly, after all.

“Hello?” Nathalie said shakily.

“I’m in,” said Sabine, sounding a little breathless.

“You...what?”

“The Miracle Box. I found it. I’m looking at all of the Miracu—Wait. What’s the plural of Miraculous anyways? Miraculi? Miraculousousouses?”

“I don’t—I think it’s just Miraculous. But Sabine, what are you...Does this mean you’re going to help me?”

There was a pause, filled only by Sabine’s heavy breathing. “I don’t know. To be honest, I’m a little drunk right now.” There was a crash in the background, and a small giggle. A giggle? “Maybe a lot drunk,”

Oh dear God, Nathalie thought. Out loud, she said, “Maybe we should wait and talk things through tomorrow. We can come up with a plan, and—”

“I don’t think so,” Sabine interrupted with all the conviction of a petulant child. “This is a one-time offer.”

Nathalie pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and let out a heavy sigh. She did not get paid enough for this. And sure, maybe this wasn’t technically part of her job. Just the opposite, really. But still…

“This is a bad idea,” she said.

“Oh, probably,” Sabine agreed. Nathalie could hear rustling noises from her end of the line.

“If I were a friend,” Nathalie began hesitantly, “then—”

“You’re not.” The words stung, even if Nathalie had set herself up for them.

“Right,” Nathalie continued, “but if I were, then I’d be...a little worried about how you’re doing right now. About how you’re handling this.”

“I’m sorry,” Sabine hissed. “Is there a proper way to handle finding out that your fifteen-year-old daughter is a superhero?”

Nathalie considered how she’d reacted to the discovery of the kids’ identities a couple weeks earlier. “No, I suppose not. But—”

“Which one do you want then?”

“What?”

“Well, I’ve decided on the bee thingy—I really think stinging Gabriel would be funny, and arguably it’s also the most practical way to go about this. But I’m not sure which other one we should take.”

“Sabine, why don’t we take a minute to—”

“I wish we had the Cat Miraculous, really. I’d love to Cataclysm Gabriel in the chest. I mean I know that would be wrong. And we’re trying not to cause Adrien anymore trauma than he’s already bound to have, but—”

“Sabine! We should really—”

“OH! The mouse! You said a few weeks ago that Gabriel’s afraid of rodents, right?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Perfect! I’m taking that one then.” Sabine laughed. “You know, Tom and I are always joking about how useful it would be in the bakery if we could somehow make a few extra copies of ourselves. Little did we know, our daughter’s been hiding that power in her room all along.”

“Sabine, this is a terrible idea.”

There was a brief silence, and Nathalie swore she could actually hear Sabine roll her eyes. “Is it? Should I take the rooster one for you instead?”

“I can’t even remember what that one does.”

“Me neither. I only brought it up because you’re acting like a chicken.”

“Sabine, please—”

“Ok, I’m calling a taxi. Meet you at the mansion in about half an hour! Seeyoulaterbye!”

The line went dead, and Nathalie lay back in bed for a moment, stunned by what had just gone down. Then she reluctantly rolled out of bed and changed back into some clothes, praying against all odds that Sabine would fall asleep in the cab ride over.

***

Nathalie snuck out of the mansion and waited for Sabine at the front gate. A quick check had told her that Gabriel was still at work in his office, and Nathalie didn’t want the doorbell to alert her boss to the fact that they had a visitor. A cab pulled up a few minutes later, and Sabine stepped out of it. Her face was full of determination as she walked over to where Nathalie held the gate propped open.

“Nathalie,” Sabine greeted her cooly.

“Sabine. Let’s go over here.”

Nathalie led the way over to a spot on the side of the mansion, where the security cameras wouldn’t reach. When they got there, Sabine held out her hand towards Nathalie, then yanked it back just before Nathalie could accept what she offered.

“Wait,” Sabine said, “How do I know I can trust you? That you won’t just turn this right over to Gabriel?”

“Because if I wanted Gabriel to have the other Miraculous, I would have told him where the Miracle Box was already, and he’d have taken it.”

For a moment, Sabine seemed to be searching for a way to argue, but eventually she gave a curt nod. “That’s a good point. Here.”

She thrust the Bee Miraculous into Nathalie’s hands. Nathalie just stared at it for a moment, wondering why she wasn’t trying to talk Sabine out of this. If she was honest, a part of of her hoped that as stupid as this idea was, if she went along with with it, Sabine might forgive her in some capacity. Nathalie might get another chance to be her friend.

It was stupid. And it wasn’t going to happen.

But at least they’d get one last hurrah.

“Okay,” Nathalie said, “Do you have a plan?”

Sabine raised her eyebrows indignantly. “Am I the one with experience in trying to steal Miraculous? I brought the jewels. Now it’s your turn.”

Nathalie decided against pointing out that she and Gabriel had never actually been successful in their attempts. She did sort of have a plan, though.

It only took a few minutes to go over the details with Sabine—it wasn’t really that complicated. Gabriel was the one constantly getting in his own way with his convoluted plans. Not to pump her own ego, but Nathalie was certain that if he’d listened to her ideas a bit more they’d already have claimed the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous.

“Mullo, get squeaky.” Sabine’s eyes went wide as her transformation took hold.

“Pollen, buzz on,” Nathalie whispered.

Sabine stood in front of her a moment later, her costume a plain black jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled into little buns that rested atop her head like ears, tied with pink ribbons. A dark jump-rope wrapped around her waist like a belt, with pink tassels on its ends. Nathalie glanced down at her own costume, noticing that it was fairly simple as well. Another black jumpsuit, but with several yellow stripes forming a series of upside-down V’s across her chest.

“This is insane,” Sabine squeaked, checking herself over and bouncing up and down like an overeager child.

Nathalie couldn’t help but smile a little at her excitement, remembering what her own transformation had felt like the first time she’d been Mayura. “It is pretty crazy, isn’t it?”

Sabine’s expression fell into a frown as she saw Nathalie’s grin. “Don’t think this makes up for anything you’ve done. Just because you’re helping me now doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”

“I know. Now, can I trust you to be quiet as we make our way through the mansion?”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” Sabine grinned wildly. “Or a bunch of mice. Multitude!”

Sabine split into ten tiny copies of herself, and Nathalie led the way back inside. She left the front door unlocked in case they had to make a hasty escape. On their way in, the tiny Sabines zigzagged in all directions as they moved forwards. Luckily, they were quiet, but Nathalie nearly called off the entire operation when two of them ran straight into each other and fell to the ground.

When they reached the door to Gabriel’s office, one of the mini-Sabines nodded to Nathalie, who turned the door handle so that the tiny Sabines could push the door open. They ran into the room as Nathalie waited outside. About ten seconds later, she heard Gabriel scream.

“Nathalie! Help!” She could hear the scuffle of his desk chair being pushed back. Nathalie couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his reaction. “Mice! There are mice in my office.”

“Venom,” Nathalie whispered as she waited for Sabine to drive Gabriel out of his office.

He ran out a few seconds later, still squealing. Nathalie stung him—right in the butt, not that she’d been aiming for that—cutting of his screams before he could wake Adrien. His frozen expression dripped with terror. The fearsome villain taken down by what he’d perceived to be a bunch of mice. Honestly, Nathalie wasn’t sure what she’d ever seen in the man.

One of the tiny Sabines leaped up onto Nathalie’s shoulder. “Well, he’s been a pain in your ass for years, right? About time you returned the favour.”

Nathalie bit back a smile. At least Drunk Sabine was making this into a memorable experience.

The tiny Sabine leaped off of Nathalie, and reconvened with her copies. They morphed into her regular size as Sabine called off her power. Then, both woman maneuvered Gabriel back into the office. Sabine took her jump rope from around her waist and looped it around Gabriel several times before tying it tight. Nathalie hadn’t thought the cord was long enough to wrap around him so many times, but then again, it was magic, so she didn’t dwell on it. Once he was secured, they propped him up awkwardly against his office chair. Sabine ripped the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous from his chest, and slipped it into a pocket centered in the middle of her costume. One-time use or not, Nathalie couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous that her costume didn’t seem to have pockets.

“We should...probably unfreeze him now,” Sabine said.

“Right.” Nathalie froze. “I uh...probably should have asked Pollen how to do that before I transformed.”

Sabine shrugged. “Maybe just sting him again?”

Nathalie tried, and to her surprise, Gabriel unfroze. His eyes were livid as he struggled against his restraints. Sabine only smirked and tugged her rope tighter. Eventually he stopped fighting, settling for glaring at Sabine instead.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Sabine slapped a hand to her forehead. “Damn it. We forgot to come up with names, Nathalie!”

Gabriel’s eyes went wide as he whipped around to stare at the Bee heroine. “Nathalie?” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Gabriel,” she returned, meeting his gaze defiantly. The urge to look away from his cold, unflinching eyes was deeply ingrained in her after years as his assistant, but she forced herself not to yield. “I’m doing what I should have done from the beginning.”

A hand slapped against the desk, startling them both. “Listen here, Moth Man,” Sabine said. “We hold all the cards here, so you’d be best off just listening to what we have to say.”

“I assume Ladybug sent you,” Gabriel said. Nathalie had no doubt that his question was meant to subtly undermine Sabine’s authority, and Nathalie didn’t miss the way his eyes flitted around the room, as if searching for an exit strategy. She moved closer in case he decided to try anything. She didn’t think she could use her power again without letting Pollen recharge first, but a good wack on the head with her superhero strength could do the trick in a pinch.

“Well, you know what happens when you assume, Mr. Agreste,” Sabine said.

Gabriel’s scowl deepened. “No, I don’t.”

“You make an ass out of you and me.” Sabine giggled, and Gabriel turned to Nathalie with an Is she serious sort of expression on his face.

“Look,” Gabriel said. “I’m not sure exactly is going on here, but if you’re working with Nathalie, then I assume she clued you in as to why I became Hawk Moth in the first place.” He paused. “I’m not a bad person.”

The words were delivered without a tinge of irony, and when she saw the contrasting expression of bewilderment on Sabine’s face, Nathalie couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing. “Save your breath, Gabriel. This was always a fool’s errand, and now that you’ve lost, the least you could do is quit lying to yourself.”

Gabriel actually had the audacity to look hurt by that. “I thought you were on my side, Nathalie,” he said quietly. “You know what Emilie—”

“What, Gabriel? What she would have wanted?” Nathalie shook her head. “It certainly wasn’t this. She would have wanted you to actually pay attention to your son.”

Sabine snorted. “Understatement of the century.”

Gabriel turned back to the mouse heroine with a glare. “And what exactly is you plan on doing to me then? If you turn me in, then Nathalie goes down with me. And if you let me go, I’ll just get my Miraculous back. I’m starting to think that judging by the liquor on your breath that this mission wasn’t exactly sanctioned by Ladybug. Which likely means you know her well.” Sabine’s eyes narrowed as Gabriel continued, “It’s only a matter of time before I can track Nathalie to you, and then back to Ladybug. Nathalie doesn’t exactly have many friends. It’ll be too easy.”

Nathalie rolled her eyes. “Save it, Gabriel. You’d actually have to leave your office for long enough to observe what the rest of the world is up to to know who my friends are.”

“Ooooooh, burn,” Sabine said, punctuating her words with a little slow clap. “But I’m not here to protect Nathalie anyways. I’m here about Adrien.”

Gabriel froze. “You won’t hurt him.”

Nathalie scoffed. “Of course not. Do you really think I’d put Adrien in danger?”

“I—”

“Jesus,” Sabine interrupted. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you? Let me spell this our for you, Moth man. Nathalie is the only person living in this house who’s seemed to give a damn about your son since I’ve known him. She was the one talking to his teachers. She was the one clearing time in his schedule so he could see his friends and, oh, I don’t know...actually be a normal teenager for once? She was the one giving him advice about how to impress his new girlfriend. Did you even know he was dating someone? And where have you been the entire time? Oh right, putting his life in danger. Akumatizing his classmates. Twiddling your thumbs and practicing your villain laughs in that terrible costume. Honestly, for someone who calls himself a fashion designer—”

“That’s enough,” Gabriel said, his eyes downcast. He gritted his teeth. “I get it. I’m not winning any awards for my parenting. Why the hell do you think I need Émilie back?”

“Bullshit,” Sabine said. “What you need is to get your head out of your own ass long enough to actually try to be a parent for once.”

“But, with the Wish—”

“And what of the price, Gabriel?” Nathalie prompted. “We were arrogant to have ever thought we’d be able to control that. What if the cost of bringing back Émilie is Adrien? Is that supposed to help him?”

Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t…” He paused, looking slowly between the two heroines. “What do you two even want? You don’t seem to have alerted the police or Ladybug to this situation, but I highly doubt you’re just going to let me go. So what’s the catch?”

Sabine fixed Nathalie with a hard look. Nathalie swallowed, and turned to Gabriel. “We want what’s best for Adrien. We want him to have a father who’s actually involved in his life. Who shows an interest in what he wants instead of what’s best for your company. We want him to have a father who actually knows who his son is.”

“You...want me to spend time with my son. That’s it?”

“Oh-ho-ho, don’t you dare think it’s going to be easy,” Sabine taunted. “You’re going to have to be the father of the damn year to make up for what you’ve done. We’ll be watching. We’re trying to spare Adrien the knowledge of his father being Shadow Moth, at least until he’s older and more able to handle it. But the second you slip up? The second you forget your place? We won’t hesitate to turn you in. You do not want to mess with me, Moth Man.”

Gabriel shot an uncertain look in Nathalie’s direction. “Adrien...is he really unhappy? Does he think I don’t care about him?”

“I can’t speak to his feelings,” Nathalie said. “But I know he deserves better. From both of us.”

She peaked over at Sabine to see the other woman sending her a small encouraging smile, and Nathalie returned a tentative one of her own. There was silence for a while. Gabriel studied the floor until eventually looking back up at Sabine.

“H-how then?” he asked. “How do I do it? Be a better father?”

Sabine narrowed her eyes at first, but when Gabriel didn’t look away, she relaxed her expression a little. “Adrien’s girlfriend,” she said eventually. “You know who she is?”

“I...Kag—” he broke off as Sabine glared again, and cleared his throat. “Mar...Marinette,” he said. It sounded like a question.

“Gold star for you,” Sabine said sardonically. “You officially know the bare minimum about your son’s life. Now, I believe you’ve met her mother?”

Nathalie couldn’t help but stiffen. What was Sabine playing at? It was too close to giving away her identity, which would reveal the kids’ identities—which they’d agreed to keep secret—as well. But Gabriel didn’t seem to notice.

“Yes,” he said impatiently, “What about her?”

Sabine took her time responding, and Nathalie was almost sure it was just to piss off Gabriel a little more. “Tomorrow at 11 o’clock, you can meet her at the bakery for tea. I’ll let her know to expect you.”

Before he could so much as open his mouth to agree, Sabine yanked the end of the rope tied around Gabriel, bringing him to a standing position. Then she yanked again, and he started to unravel from it. Nathalie had to bite back her laughter as he spun around like a top before crashing into the wall behind the desk and sinking to the floor. He sat there stunned for a moment, and Sabine turned away.

“Goodbye, Gabriel,” she said. “Don’t forget, we’ll be watching.” She paused. “Oh, and for God’s sake. I have no idea what you pay her, but if I were you I’d give Nathalie one hell of a raise.” She walked away.

“Wait,” Gabriel said, sounding desperate, as Sabine disappeared through the door. She didn’t stop to listen, and he turned to Nathalie instead. “What about the Wish? You could talk to Ladybug when you return the Miraculous. Maybe there’s a way—”

“There isn’t,” Nathalie said. “You need to let it go, Gabriel. You need to let her go.” She didn’t pause to listen to his protests, simply moving to follow Sabine out the door.

“Well,” Sabine said once they were out in the hallway. “That was a little...anticlimactic.”

Nathalie nodded. She was glad that it hadn’t come down to a fight, of course. But she was currently failing to grasp that they’d won so quickly. That everything in Nathalie’s life would be changing, again.

“Thank you,” Nathalie whispered. She thought that Sabine was going to argue again, but she simply nodded.

“You’re welcome.” She held out her hand. “I’ll need your Miraculous back.”

Nathalie quickly de-transformed and renounced Pollen. “You didn’t have to offer to help him, you know,” she said as she handed back the Miraculous. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“I know that,” Sabine said. “But do you really think I’m going to let him around Adrien—around Marinette—without doing everything I can to monitor the situation? If he’s serious about this, he’ll come to see me tomorrow, and then maybe I’ll know we haven’t made a giant mistake.”

Nathalie nodded. It was as good of a response as she was going to get. “I’ll walk you out,” she said.

It was only a few metres to the door from where they were standing, and when they got there Sabine stopped awkwardly in front of the entrance.

“We’re still not friends,” Sabine said, “and maybe this is just the wine talking, but...maybe Adrien isn’t the only one who deserves better, Nathalie. Just something to keep in mind.”

She walked out the door before Nathalie could think up a response.

***

It was past midnight when Sabine arrived home, and she was exhausted. The buzz from the wine had worn off, and now she was just dreading the hangover she was bound to wake up with. But before falling asleep she traipsed back up the stairs to Marinette’s room and replaced the four Miraculous in her possession in the Miracle Box. One of the Kwamis—the snake one, she was pretty sure—popped out as she was laying them down.

She smiled at him. “You’ll let her know to check inside the box when she gets home? And that she has nothing to worry about? That they were returned by someone she can trust, but that you can’t say anything more?”

“Yesssss,” the Kwami said, and Sabine gave him an affectionate pat on the head before she closed the box and headed down to bed.

***

The next morning, Sabine allowed herself to sleep in for the first time in longer than she could remember. She felt a bit guilty about leaving Tom short-staffed in the bakery, but he’d been all too understanding considering how she’d been acting the day before, and he’d assured her he could ask Marinette for help once she got back from Alya’s if he needed it. When Sabine sauntered into the kitchen at around ten in the morning, Marinette was sitting at the kitchen table with Adrien. Sabine had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn’t entered the house through the front door.

They were engaged in an intense whispered conversation, and didn’t even seem to notice her arrival until she opened the fridge.

“Maman? How are you feeling?” Marinette walked into the kitchen to stand in front of her mother.

Sabine smiled. “I have a bit of a headache” —this time, she didn’t even have to lie about that— “but otherwise I’m ok. How’s your morning going?”

Marinette exchanged a look with Adrien before answering. “It’s been...strangely good, actually.” She smiled. “I think things are going to be really good from now on.”

“I’m glad,” Sabine said. “You deserve to have good things happen. You deserve the world.” She looked over to Adrien, meeting his eyes. “You both do.”

He walked over to stand beside Marinette, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck and eyeing the floor. “Thanks, Mme Cheng,” he said.

Sabine reached out a hand to ruffle his hair playfully. “It’s Sabine, silly. Now are you kids hungry?”

Marinette insisted on being the one to make breakfast instead, and Sabine only protested for a few seconds before yielding to the excitement on Adrien’s face when Marinette said she’d let him try flipping the crepes. If he ended up somehow dropping a few too many of them on the floor, Sabine certainly didn’t hold it against him.

He deserves to be a kid, Nathalie had said. He deserves to be happy and carefree.

Watching him now, Sabine had to admit that she’d been onto something.

They ate their crepes in happy conversation, and Sabine had all but forgotten she was expecting company when a knock sounded at the door. Marinette rose to answer it, but Sabine placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her back into her seat.

“I’ll get it, sweetheart.”

Gabriel Agreste was standing there on the other side when she opened the door, looking ridiculously out of place in his usual fancy suit.

“Hello,” he said awkwardly, his eyes fixed on the ground. “I was told uh...Somebody suggested that I come here to...uh…tea,” he finished lamely.

Sabine stepped out of the way. “Come in,” she said. He looked up and met her eyes briefly before walking in, only to stop a few feet into the apartment.

“Adrien?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The kids had stood up to see who was at the door, and Sabine saw Adrien tense. His eyes grew wide. Marinette put a comforting hand on his shoulder before taking a half step forward in front of him, angling her body she she stood between him and his father. She stared the old man down defiantly in a way that made Sabine feel almost like she the one who had over a foot of height on him.

Sabine answered before Adrien could come up with his own response. “He just stopped by to visit, and have some breakfast with us. Isn’t that nice, Gabriel?” she asked, her tone daring him to disagree.

Marinette tilted her head slightly towards Sabine, no doubt wondering what the Hell was going on. Adrien just seemed even more uncomfortable.

“Yes,” Gabriel conceded. His lips twisted into what Sabine could only guess was meant to be a smile. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

Adrien exhaled. “Thanks père.” He gave a timid smile. “So, um...why are you here?”

Gabriel seemed uncertain, so Sabine responded. “We just have some things to talk about.”

“Oh,” Adrien said.

For a moment, the surreal nature of the situation washed over Sabine. This was the villain and the two heroes who’d been fighting each other tooth and nail for nearly a year and a half.

And they had no idea.

Sabine did know, though, and she was filled with a sudden need to get the kids out of the way. Gabriel might not have a Miraculous anymore, but Sabine wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t still dangerous.

“Why don’t you two go over to the park while we talk. You can grab some pastries from the bakery on your way out.

“Oh,” Adrien said. “I don’t...I shouldn’t really have any more to eat. Model diet, you know?” He let out a strained laugh.

“I think a couple of pastries are fine,” Sabine said. “Don’t you, Gabriel?”

“Yes.” Gabriel gritted his teeth. “Whatever you want, Adrien. Just don’t stay out too long. You need to practice—” he broke off at the expression on Sabine’s face. “Nevermind. Just have...fun.” The last word was said as though Gabriel were unfamiliar with it.

Father and son stood frozen for a moment, until Marinette nudged Adrien forwards, and the teens exited the apartment. Sabine readied two mugs of tea while Gabriel took an awkward seat at the couch.

“So,” Sabine said as she settled on the couch and set the mugs on the table in front of them. “What brings you here exactly?”

“Ah. I thought you...knew.”

“I have a pretty good idea. I’d like to hear it from you, though.”

Gabriel nodded slowly, his finger tracing the edges of his tea cup. “I’ve been told recently...I mean, I’ve become aware of the fact that...I’m failing Adrien. As a father. And I need to...I want to change that.”

Sabine nodded, fighting the urge to dump hot tea all over his lap. Or maybe his face.

But he was here. He was trying. And this was for Adrien.

“Ok,” she said. “Then I think you’ve come to the right place.”