Chapter Text
The weeks after Ladybug’s initial visit to Adrien’s home were some of the best weeks of his life.
Adrien was drowning in this girl, and he was loving it. The feel of her body under his hands and her lips under his own was tantalizing. Never in his wildest dreams would’ve he have imagined anything like this.
And then there was another, less physical aspect to their time together that began to develop, one that Adrien appreciated just as much.
It started unexpectedly one night. Adrien had been fidgeting at his desk, waiting for Ladybug to appear on his balcony. She had varied arrival times – perhaps because of homework or some extracurricular, Adrien thought – but she never arrived extremely late in the evening. And she stuck to her promise; every night there wasn’t an akuma attack during the day, and every night they didn’t have patrol, she was there at his door.
Adrien was wrapped up in imagining Ladybug of all people doing something like volunteering or playing a sport when he heard a tapping from the direction of his balcony. Smiling to himself, Adrien got up and opened his balcony door, extending his free hand to usher Ladybug in to his room.
“Welcome, my l--Ladybug!” Adrien stuttered out, silently cursing his near-slip. Calling Ladybug Chat’s pet name for her would undoubtedly reveal Adrien’s alter ego. And Adrien still wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Even if he was finding it harder and harder to act completely like Adrien around Ladybug. She brought out his Chat Noir side, for some reason, a fact that both terrified and excited Adrien.
Smiling at Ladybug as normally as possible and not explaining his strange phrasing, Adrien hoped Ladybug would assume he was just nervous. Luckily enough, Ladybug merely looked at him, perplexed, before shaking her head with a small smile.
As Ladybug moved further into Adrien’s bedroom, Adrien followed her quietly, feeling somewhat unsure given her pensive demeanor. Normally one of them took immediate initiative; their time was limited because of Ladybug’s miraculous, and was ever more precious to them because of that. But today Ladybug paused, unmoving, in the middle of Adrien’s room for a moment before turning to him with a hesitant expression.
“Are you doing this because I’m who I am?” Ladybug asked quietly, not meeting Adrien’s eyes. He tilted his head in confusion, before asking in response,
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just,” Ladybug said, moving to sit on the edge of one of the white couches that was adjacent to the balcony doors. “I’m Ladybug. People think of me as being this… this amazing, confident, brave girl who frequently saves Paris and—“
“That is who you are,” Adrien said, concern threading into his voice. Ladybug shook her head slightly before looking up at Adrien with melancholy eyes.
“Only when I’m Ladybug. Only when I transform, only when I have Ladybug’s powers and…”
Here Ladybug sighed and looked away, seemingly ashamed.
“It hadn’t bothered me before but… you like Ladybug, right? You like Ladybug, not me. You don’t know me.”
Adrien’s eyes went wide. This was not how he had envisioned the night going. And how was he supposed to convince Ladybug that he did know her without revealing himself as Chat?
And then Adrien stopped. How would he convince her he knew her at all? It was true that as Chat he had learned a lot about Ladybug, about her kindness and her humor, her likes and dislikes. But clearly there was more. Why wouldn’t there be? Ladybug was a person, as complex as anyone else. Maybe Adrien had forgotten that.
“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way,” Adrien began. “But I like to think I’ve gotten to know you at least a little during our… interactions. And not just the physical ones.”
Here Adrien wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, eliciting a snort of humor from Ladybug. His words held truth for him, though; even their bantering as Chat and Ladybug presented Adrien with a side of Ladybug he was sure she didn’t show to many others. And although they had traded few words during the past weeks, when they did Ladybug revealed even more pieces of herself to Adrien. There was a sweet, shy side of Ladybug, just as there was a sly, suggestive side of her strong enough to rival Chat’s.
Still, Adrien could empathize. He felt like he acted completely differently as Chat, even occasionally referred to Chat as a separate entity from himself because of how sharp the divide between them felt. Adrien knew intrinsically they were one and the same, but it was all too easy to imagine them as wholly separate.
“It may not be much consolation, but I think Ladybug is a part of you. She may just be a front or a projection, but everything she's done you've done. And I may like Ladybug, but I was always intrigued by you. I still am. I’d love to learn more about you, whoever that may be,” Adrien finished with. He knew, from being Chat, there was a clear line between what Ladybug would and wouldn’t reveal. But it was important that she knew how he felt.
“Really?” Ladybug asked, more surprised than Adrien expected.
“Of course.”
“Well maybe…”
Ladybug paused, looking conflicted. In a moment, however, she seemed to have come to a decision. Looking up into Adrien’s eyes, she smiled tentatively. “Maybe we could try.”
From there a new tradition unraveled. On nights when they weren’t up for anything physical, Adrien and Ladybug would sit on Adrien’s bed and talk. Adrien was careful with his questions for Ladybug, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. She still refused to answer some, however, and always carefully thought over all of her answers for the rest. Adrien, though, found himself speaking with her more openly than he had with anyone, save for Nino. He talked about his relationship with his father, his transition from homeschooling to classroom learning, his struggle to make friends his own age, and the pressure he felt to be and look a certain way. He almost forgot Ladybug didn’t know his secret a few times with how comfortable he was with her, and nearly spoke about his experiences as Chat.
What few things Adrien learned about Ladybug, though, became as enticing as the line of her jaw or the curve of her lips. Adrien’s mental perception of Ladybug expanded with every new fact, and Adrien continued to imagine what meeting Ladybug in civilian form would be like.
There were clues Adrien began to save, hidden messages in the answers, or lack thereof, Ladybug gave. Her parents were bakers, she lived in Paris, she went to a school (she wouldn’t specify public or private, or where in the city it was. Adrien left her answer alone, but the strange ambiguity of her statement stuck with him). She liked designing (a fact that she reluctantly gave up after a full 5 minutes of deliberation), and had a best friend.
“Girl or boy?” Adrien asked in response.
“Girl,” Ladybug said, sighing slightly as she leaned further back into Adrien. They were lounging on his bed, watching the last of the sun disappear over the horizon. Adrien twined their fingers playfully together before asking,
“Does she know you’re Ladybug?”
Adrien could feel her laughter against his chest.
“No. But she’s a huge fan.”
Ladybug’s answer made Adrien think of Alya, his classmate who was the most Ladybug-obsessed person he knew (aside from himself, of course). He laughed quietly, imagining her face if he told her he regularly spent time with Ladybug.
“Did you know me before meeting me as Ladybug?” Adrien asked after a moment of quiet. His room was now dark, the last of the sun rays having given way to the charcoal blackness of the Parisian night. The room was hushed as Ladybug considered her answer and Adrien waited patiently, nosing into her hair. The telltale beeping of Ladybug’s earrings cut through the silence, and Adrien gave an audible sigh.
“You’re Adrien Agreste,” was all Ladybug said before sitting up to stretch.
As she got off Adrien’s bed and headed toward the balcony, Adrien moved instinctively. He leapt off the bed, reaching to grab Ladybug’s wrist. Spinning her toward him, he dipped her slightly toward his bedroom floor, leaning down with a smile to press a kiss into her stunned lips. When he pulled her up her eyes were wide with shock, her mouth slightly parted. Adrien was about to say something more, send Ladybug off with flirty parting words, when she stepped abruptly away from him.
“I—I have to go,” she said, before turning and leaping clear off of Adrien’s balcony. He stood, stunned, for a moment, before rushing over to watch her silhouette swing away across the skyline. He didn’t know what had caused such a harsh reaction in her, but Adrien only hoped that she would get home safely.
It took Adrien exactly 2 hours, 34 minutes, and 51 seconds to realize what he’d done. The moment came when Adrien was just laying down in bed, thinking over for the sixteenth time that night what had caused Ladybug to leave so abruptly. He was even combing his memory of the past several days to look for traces of oddness in her behavior.
He knew Ladybug hadn’t visited him the day before, because they had been on patrol. Adrien remembered how Ladybug had been in a wonderful mood that night, laughing as she dashed across rooftops. He thought of the way the city lights had reflected off her eyes, how it had felt to dance with her, the way she had shown the barest hint of a smile when he dipped her toward the roof—
Adrien sat bolt upright in bed.
“Oh no.”
Needless to say, Adrien did not sleep well that night.