Chapter Text
Chat has never been this nervous. Adrien has been nervous - plenty of times, some of the most vexing instances today, even - but until now the green glow of his transformation always seemed to whirl away his woes. Rather than saunter, Chat stomps; rather than a purr, he feels a growl stuck in the back of his throat.
What irritates him most is the lack of certainty. Months ago, when they’d set their patrol schedule, it had been with the intent of alternating nights. It had seemed reasonable at first that they would split the duty to keep either one of them from burning out, or to allow the other person a few free nights in their civilian life. But that had been months ago, and in the last two months both had fallen into the habit of joining the other on patrol even on their off day. It had started by accident, he thinks, the night after a particularly nasty akuma attack. The attack had been in the very arrondissement Chat was scheduled to begin in that night, and when Ladybug looked down on the street and realized where they were, she’d offered him a shrug and a light ‘May as well keep you company’.
Tonight was technically Chat’s night on. Ladybug had shown up every night for his patrol for weeks on end, but that didn't mean she would show now.
He picks up his pacing, on his way to wearing circles in the rooftop. The vintage bookstore below has been closed for over an hour, leaving any detection of him unlikely. That doesn't mean that he shouldn't be wary. The last thing Chat needed was an akuma or law enforcement, or worse, an unruly fan, to interfere with what he hoped would be happening tonight.
“Come on,” he hisses under his breath. Chat pauses long enough to kick at a small chunk of concrete dislodged from the roof.
Just his luck, that Ladybug would decide to be a no show on what was arguably the most important evening of their lives. Would she push him away without a word, trying to keep her identity her own at the cost of their partnership?
No. Chat shakes his head, trying to fling the thought away. Questions and uncertainties were Adrien. Chat had to be answers.
Five more minutes. That’s all he would give her. His patrols should have started nearly twenty minutes ago, and he wasn’t about to let his feelings get in the way of his duty. Definitely not.
From behind him something creaks. He spins on his heel towards the sound. His hand is already on the baton at his back when he processes Ladybug paused halfway through the door to the roof, staring at the door knob as though it had personally affronted her. Her nose wrinkles and her brows dip as she pouts at the thing.
“Sorry I’m late,” she whispers, like they’re not on a roof, like she didn’t just come through the oldest, loudest door in all of Paris.
It’s her. From toe to tip. From the way her shoulders scrunch up towards her ears in annoyance to the pop of her hips as she swings past the door, letting it shut behind her. Marinette.
“I got held up by a friend,” Ladybug continues, walking towards him, “I don’t know how it’s going for you, but mine are starting to get a smidge suspicious about all of my sudden disappearances. There are only so many times that ‘last minute babysitting’ and ‘I can’t, I’ve got to wash my hair’ are going to fly.”
The tension in his chest unbuckles. Chat can breathe.
“I know you would never avoid me on purrpose,” he says. Chat tries to shoot her his classic smirk, but a giddy smile slips out instead.
She returns his smile, and her shoulders go slack as whatever concern had held her stiff loosens. Her walk is pure confidence, like she’s never been more comfortable in her life. Deep in his gut there’s a hot and heavy twist. His pulse picks up in his ears.
“Doing alright?”
It’s with ease that she loops an arm around his elbow and rests her hand on his upper arm. The struggle is not to melt into her right then. Blue eyes peer up at him. The mask does a good job of obscuring much of the dark circles planted just below her eyes, but they two of them are close enough now for him to notice. He puts a hand on her arm to keep his hands from drifting up to cup her face. His thumbs twitch - they want to trace under each eye and sweep the weariness away.
“Better now that you’re here, My Lady,” he says on a happy sigh. His smile doesn’t falter, not once. “Last night and this morning were… pretty pawful for the cat on the other side of the mask, but everything turned out okay. Wonderful, even.”
Ladybug huffs at his pun, indignant, but holds smiles nonetheless. She tugs him over to the edge of the building so that they can look over the Jardins du Luxembourg. Chat watches as Ladybug’s eyes track the gentle paths of the pedestrians below. The look seems part benevolent shepherd watching her flock, part queen surveying her holdings. Both suit her. He could watch her watch them for days. He knows he doesn't have much time left.
“Good,” she says softly. Ladybug doesn't pry - never pries - though just this once Chat wishes she would. Oh, the things he has to share.
“Ready to go?”
“Almost,” Chat says. He looks down at her and finds her staring back up at him.
“I wanted to say thank you first,” he continues.
“For what?”
Adrien had spent hours rehearsing what he was going to say. Each word, every intonation, down to the breath and the bend of his brow. But what’s easy in front of a bathroom mirror becomes impossible in the mirror of her eyes, when they’re inches apart and all he wants to do is learn how her lips feel under his. The breath he takes to steady himself comes out shakily. All those poetic sentiments seem to vanish with it.
“Thank you for my scarf, Marinette.”
It’s two-part reaction. For a split second she smiles, warm and shy, and then she freezes. Ladybug’s smile jerks into a harsh line.
“What did you just say?” she whispers.
Her hands are still on his arm, but her grip has tightened painfully. Chat’s never seen her expression this wide open, this fearful.
There’s no taking the words back. Forward is the only direction left to him.
“I wish you hadn't felt like you had to keep quiet about it. I wish we could have started being friends all that time ago. At school, I mean.”
Hundreds of akuma, hundreds of life threatening moments, and Chat has never seen Ladybug as scared as she does now. Her lips part, she blanches. He knows there will be bruises under his suit from where she holds on.
“What did you call me?”
“Marinette.”
He could say her name forever. But she recoils, finally letting go of him. She staggers back and nearly trips on her own feet. Never does she break his stare, but she’s no doubt maneuvering towards the door.
“Marinette, stay. Please.”
The pleading in his voice is all Adrien, and he realizes he’s doing this all wrong. Ladybug hesitates long enough for him to hiss, “Plagg, come on out.”
His transformation peels away with a flash. Scorched, it takes his eyes a moment to readjust.
Ladybug’s lips form a delicate circle, an unspoken Oh. As if in slow-motion, her hands rise to cover her mouth. She’s gone red, and gets redder as Adrien approaches. He’s a few feet from her when she breathes something.
The warmth is unbelievable. Bathed in a soft pink light, Adrien marvels at how much power comes off of her fading transformation alone. He’s blanketed in a gentle caress of feeling - it trails around his neck and winds up to ears, as if to say All is well, now. The magic dims.
Marinette peeks out from over her fingertips. Her hands don’t drop, trying to hide what her mask no longer can: the redness of her cheeks, the smattering freckles on her nose.
“Adrien…?” she says in a muffled voice.
“C’est moi.”
“You’re Chat.”
It’s not a question.
“Yup.”
Adrien spreads his arms and shrugs a little, opening himself to her gaze. Instead, Marinette squeezes her eyes shut and groans.
“I-I’ve been such an idiot,” she says, “You must be so disappointed. We, ah, we don’t have to-”
He closes the final few feet between them and places his hands over hers. She doesn’t resist when he pulls her hands away from her face, but the discomfort, the worry, is evident. Keep yourself together, Adrien repeats to himself, Don’t freak her out. It’s a hard impulse to control. To not intertwine his fingers with hers and tug her to him seems an impossible feat.
“I’m not disappointed,” he says softly, “You could have been Chloe.”
What he thought would be a comfort only seems to upset Marinette more - her lips purse, and he can feel her shaking.
“I also could have been anyone other than boring old Marinette.”
Her eyes drift down to their hands and she shakes her head.
“All of the boys in all of Paris, and you had to be Chat,” she says.
The edge in her voice cuts with shocking force, and his heart gives a painful thud. Just last night she’d said- she couldn’t really mean-
“I… I thought you liked me?” His words sound frailer than he’d like.
The “I do!” that follows comes out more as an anguished moan than actual words. Marinette draws her hands back like she wants to cover her face again, but only succeeds in yanking him forward. Their knees bump and their bodies sway to regain balance.
“I do,” she says again, quieter, “I really, really do. A minute. I need a minute, I think.”
He lets her go and shoves his hands in his pockets to keep himself from pulling her back. Marinette ducks past him and stiffly walks over to the roof’s ledge. Carefully she sits and crosses her legs, back to him. There’s a flutter of movement at her shoulder - something small and bright red - and Marinette cocks an ear towards it. Her kwami, he realizes, and the desire to simply know everything about her surges up from his chest.
Plagg, hovering at the back of his collar, floats past his ear and beelines for Marinette. Adrien is so stunned he almost doesn’t catch him, but at the last moment he plucks the tiny kwami out of the air.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Adrien mutters. Plagg wriggles and sticks his tongue out at Adrien before going limp. He floats, belly up, and glares at his captor.
“To catch up with Tikki, duh. What gives?”
“Tikki?”
Together, they glance over at the girl. It’s impossible to hear what she’s saying, but it’s clear she’s deep in conversation with her small companion. Marinette is gesticulating wildly, occasionally grabbing her head and tugging at her hair. He can just make out Tikki’s tiny arm patting the girl on the back.
“Yeah, she’s a bit of a goody two-shoes,” Plagg says, rolling his eyes, “but she’s okay company. It’s been forever since us kwamis have had a good get-together, with your Ladybug all up in arms about her identity.”
“I’m sure you’ll get your chance,” Adrien says, still keeping his voice low, “But I think... maybe... we should just leave Marinette be for right now.”
Plagg snorts and tugs a little at his tail, but Adrien holds firm. “You humans and your crushes. At the rate you two go, I'll be 6000 and you’ll still be all ‘Oh, ah, euh!’. It took you two long enough to figure each other out as it was.”
Adrien narrows his eyes.
“Well I was about to let you go, Plagg, but now I think you have some explaining to do. Did you know Marinette was Ladybug? This whole time?”
The kwami’s gaze slides to the side and he crosses his arms. “Just because you were too dumb to see all of the obvious signs…”
“Plagg…”
“I may or may not have been able to sense Tikki every time you two were close. For a while it was hard to tell which one of your classmates it was, but after that weirdo art kid got possessed by the akuma and you guys were stuck on that boat together, it was pretty obvious.”
His black nose goes up in the air, an attempt at defiance, but Adrien can see Plagg’s ears flatten.
“And I guarantee Tikki’s known since then, too,” Plagg finishes with a sniff.
“Why didn't you tell me!” Adrien yelps, throwing his hands up in the air.
Judging by the way Marinette’s head whips around, she must have heard. Her eyes are still wide, though now rimmed in red. Adrien and Plagg shrink back simultaneously.
“Sorry- just- Plagg…?” Adrien says. He lets go of Plagg’s tail, and the kwami shoots her a wave and a grin.
She rubs her eyes and returns a watery smile. Tikki pops up over her shoulder and spots Plagg. Her two antenna stick straight up at the sight, and she tucks back besides Marinette’s ear to whisper something. After a moment, Marinette nods.
Tikki zooms over, flying straight for Adrien’s face. He feels the rush of air as she speeds past his ear and collides with Plagg. The two tumble away in a buzz of laughter and groans. When the two finally stop spinning, Tikki flutter-drags them both back around to Adrien’s front.
“Hi, I’m Tikki!” she chirps. Tikki sounds like trilling flutes and honey, and it’s so warm, it makes so much sense. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Adrien.”
He shakes the tiny paw she offers, utterly charmed. And it’s clear he’s not the only one: Plagg’s taken to nuzzling up under her chin, only stopping to scowl and look away when he notices Adrien noticing.
“I thought it would be better for you and Marinette to find each other on your own, but…” Tikki glances at her charge, who has gone back to staring out at the gardens below, “Maybe I should have said something.”
Adrien bites his bottom lip, a weight in his stomach. He wishes he’d known forever ago, wishes he’d seen it as easily as Tikki and Plagg. Wishes one of them had spilled. But he can’t hold it against Tikki, knowing how hard Marinette had fought to keep her identity safe. As unlikely it seems of Plagg, he must have had some respect for Ladybug’s wishes as well.
“Is she mad?”
She shakes her head. “Confused, mostly. A little scared.”
“Scared? Of what? Me?”
This time, Tikki nods a sad affirmative and sighs. “Marinette doesn’t always see how wonderful she really is. She thinks there’s no way you could possibly love her.” She pauses and drifts a little closer, smile returning to her face. “But I know that’s not true.”
The blush that burns his cheeks is impossible to quench, and she laughs delightedly at the sight of it. As red as his face, Tikki swoops up to his cheek and places a light kiss there. Adrien stammers out something that ultimately fails to be words.
“Don’t worry, Adrien. Marinette is the bravest person I know. It won’t be long at all until she’s ready to face her fears.”
“Ch- Adrien?”
They freeze at Marinette’s voice. Her back still faces them, but she’s sat up straighter and unfolded her legs. Adrien can tell she’s tipped her head back and is listening, waiting.
“See?” Tikki whispers. She pats him in the same place she left her kiss and then zips away, Plagg following behind.
A deep breath is necessary before he crosses the roof to her. Adrien exhales slowly, bracing himself and trying to swallow the nerves clawing up into his throat. He goes.
Marinette’s legs kick lightly at the air as they dangle over the building’s ledge. At first glance the motion comes across as carefree, but Adrien can see how she squares her shoulders. On the precipice of something this big, Marinette is steeling herself for battle.
“Marinette…”
She turns to look up at him. Her lips purse and one brow pops up, curious. Just like that, he’s taken captive.
“When did you figure it out?” she asks, unwavering.
“Last night. Just last night, when you starting talking about, ah, you know, about…”
Adrien can’t bring himself to say it.
“About you,” Marinette supplies, “You you. Like, current you.”
“Yeah. You talked about the scarf, and sitting behind me, and it all just clicked.”
She nods along with his words, face unreadable. Marinette doesn’t pick up when his sentence trails off, leaving his heartbeats to fill the silence. Were it not for the suffocating tension, he’d be content in the lull to simply take her in. Even disguising her emotions Marinette proves lovely, especially framed as she is by the darkening sky.
“Why did you leave when you figured out who I was?”
Adrien flinches - it’s clear she tries to hide the bitterness in her words, but it still scrapes over him. There was no way she could have determined why he freaked out and fled. The memory of her from this morning, unenthusiastic and tired, makes him wish the roof below his feet would collapse, swallow him.
“You making my scarf meant that it hadn’t been a gift from my father. He hadn’t known about it, or cared. After thinking for all of that time that he might have been different, it was… it was a shock. My mind went blank. I just didn’t think.”
Sadness worms its way onto her features, and the fact that she could still be upset for him, could care so much as to let her own feelings go unknown for his sake astounds him. Disbelief and wonder pound at his chest in equal measure. Marinette’s eyes slip closed for a moment and she takes a long, heavy breath. Her head rises an inch and when she opens her eyes again, it’s with a look somewhere between cautious and defiant.
“It wasn’t because I’m… me?”
“It wasn’t because you’re you,” Adrien says firmly, “The only disappointment from last night was my father. Never you.”
The sound she makes is so slight that he almost doesn’t catch it. Another ‘oh’, soft and happy, curls around her lips as they toy with the idea of a smile. He catches her glancing up at him and decides that he never wants to look away again.
“So this is it, huh?” she asks, “Us? Ladybug and Chat Noir, insufferable idiots, Paris’ heroes brought down by their own awkward timing.”
The setting sun weaves golden streaks into her hair and drapes over her shoulders, radiant. Adrien would curse the lost year, the months of inattention where Marinette sat on his periphery, were in not for the desire to stay on this roof and make up for all of that lost time in one sitting. The void of her only made greater the space she could fill - he would take in the sight until all of him was overrunning with her.
“A-at least now I can put together most of a sentence,” she says, still stumbling on her words when she registers how intently he’s staring, “Adrien seemed so impossible to talk to, but Chat? Easy peasy. When I could get a word in edgewise, of course.”
And suddenly, she’s teasing him. No masks, no secrets. Marinette teasing him. Adrien. Wholly awed by the change, he complies when she pats the space on the ledge next to her.
“Let’s play a game,” Marinette says. Her thigh rests against his; neither shift away.
“It’s called two truths and a lie. Heard of it before?”
It takes him a moment to respond, frozen as he is by the cold trickle of fear. She shatters the sheen of ice when she nudges him in the ribs with an elbow.
“Don't worry, I'll start.”
A flicker of concern passes over her face now. She breaks the hold she’d had on his gaze and stares down past her knees, down to the city. Marinette takes a deep breath.
“I like Adrien Agreste. I like Chat Noir. I've definitely never thought about kissing either of them.”
Adrien doesn’t need to breathe. Not now, not ever, not when Marinette’s words knock the air right out of him and replace his insides with absolute fire. He knows he should ask but he doesn’t - he grabs her hand and presses it to his lips. They’ve gone through this motion a million times, but somehow the intensity becomes exponential now that they’ve dropped their masks. Her skin feels soft. Her eyes are very, very blue, and she does not roll them to the heavens when he lets go.
“The last one,” he says, “is the lie, I think. I hope.”
“You’re right,” Marinette says slowly, feeling out the weight of each word as it comes, “You are good at this game, Adrien.”
If it were within the realm of scientific reality, he might have started glowing then and there. Every nerve in his body lights up, thrumming with the way Marinette intones his name: sweetness and a shiver, like she’s been waiting to say it, like she can’t believe it. What follows is nothing new, not to either of them, but it seems truer than it ever has before.
“I am in love with the most incredible girl,” Adrien says, “I have never met someone more beautiful. I’ve also never thought about kissing her.”
And to think, he’d been getting used to hearing her voice without her tripped and stammered syllables. Marinette makes a series of embarrassed noises, each rising in pitch and becoming less and less coherent.
“But, I’m-” she gestures to herself, wrinkling her nose. I'm Marinette, she wants to say, as if that would dampen the surge of fire just under his skin. Adrien can’t - won’t - help it, he leans in until it is not just their thighs that touch, but the entire line of their bodies, hip to shoulder. He wants the air left between them to vacate. He wishes he could lean in a few inches closer, but the last thing he wants to do is crowd or push her away. Instead, he settles for words.
“You’re what? The only person on Earth who knows my secret? The girl who has saved my life more times than I can count? The creator of the best gift I've ever gotten-”
“Ch- Adrien,” she groans, hiding her face in her hands once more. Pink still stands out on her skin. He'd never get tired of that color.
“Too kindhearted for your own good? The best friend and partner I've ever had?.”
The words pass his lips without thought because he’s so flooded with what’s true. Adrien had known Ladybug since the first day he sat down in front of her and returned her choked, timid hello. He’d known Marinette since the first day she’d swung down from the Paris skyline, yo-yo spinning at her side. To separate the two struck him as impossible, needless.
“Stop it!” she whines, sounding mortified, but her protest is weak. Adrien catches a sliver of a grin from between her fingers.
“Why should I?”
Marinette’s response is low and garbled. Despite his best efforts, Adrien can’t make it out, but he gets the feeling it’s more than a little embarrassed.
“What was that, Marinette?” he asks, trying and failing to control his teasing tone. He can’t tell if he’s Chat or Adrien anymore, and for the first time ever, he doesn’t have to care because she likes all of him.
Her arms go limp and her face is revealed to be a spectacular palette of pinks and reds and blue. Marinette puts on her best exasperated face and won’t meet his eyes, but she can’t control her quiver as she says, “You should stop because I would like to kiss you, Chat. You, I mean. Adrien. Kiss you. And you’re talking too much for me to do that.”
You’re the one who’s babbling, Adrien wants to say, but he’d rather not give her a reason to go back on her sentiment (and he knows Ladybug would, if only to tease him). So he nods and produces a jumble of sounds that might mean something like ‘I would like that,’ and then Marinette is turning her body toward him and stretching up just a little, staring at him with want and worry and ghosting her lips lightly across his.
The touch sends lightning down his spine - Adrien grabs her by the hips to ground himself. Wordless, they shift until they’re no longer half-dangling on the side of the roof. There’s an awkward shuffle as knees and elbows and feet are arranged to something resembling comfortable on the hard concrete. Satisfied, Marinette leans in to Adrien’s pull and kisses him again. She wraps her arms around his neck and their knees bump together and Adrien forgets what being cold ever felt like.
For the first few forevers they simply press their lips together. It would be ungainly if it weren’t so perfect - neither of them knows quite what to do with their hands or their mouths - but presentation is ignored for the sake of sensation. Eventually he settles for running his hands up and down her sides, while she dedicates herself to gently dragging her fingers through his hair.
The nighttime sky is lit with stars and the Eiffel Tower glimmers, hazy in the distance, by the time Adrien deepens their kiss. It’s a hesitant question that he starts with a flick of his tongue and ends by letting his teeth graze gently across her bottom lip. Her answer is punctuated by a heady gasp and a sudden pull at his hair. Marinette’s lips part.
Where they go from there, Adrien can’t keep track of, but he knows it’s marked by too many painful collisions with their teeth, a moan he isn’t able to swallow in time, and a shocked giggle from Marinette the first time their tongues slide together. Eventually they find a rhythm. From that point on, Adrien is certain he’s never known anything except for the feel of Marinette on his skin.
Only once does Marinette pull away. The two of them are lit in the gleam of streetlights and passing cars, but he can see how undone she looks even in the dark.
“We should probably stop. Patrols,” she says, chest heaving as she sucks in forgotten air.
“Paris can survive one night without us,” Adrien says. He dips back in to leave a quick kiss on her lips. Marinette tries to follow his lips as he leans away, showing her hand.
“That’s a lie,” Marinette says, laughing, but she lets him kiss her again and again anyway.