Chapter Text
As a superhero dressed like a black feline, Cat Noir knew he had no business calling other people unlucky. Except given the current circumstances- stuck in a jail cell with a pants-less Marinette Dupain-Cheng while his magic ring counted down the minutes until he was returned to being boring old super-rich super-model Adrien Agreste- he was prepared to take the heat and say that Marinette was indeed bad luck.
In fact, standing there with his eyes closed (he was not wondering what her underwear looked like, he was not wondering what her underwear looked like, he was not wondering what her underwear looked like) he was starting to think she might be an Avatar of Kaos come to Earth just to mess with him for a crime he had committed in a past life. Or for seeking out and downloading those special drawings of Ladybug from the dark corners of the internet. One of the two.
His ring beeped again. Just one minute to go.
"Marinette," he said, keeping his eyes closed.
He heard her groan. "What?"
"I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of this one. You're about to learn my secret identity."
"No!" He was surprised at the vehemence in her voice. "I'll close my eyes, too. You came here to help me, and I won't betray that!"
Wow, she was such a great girl, not counting the whole Avatar of Kaos thing. If he had to suffer from rumors of a sex scandal that wasn't really happening, he was glad it was with her. "Thanks."
"Sure, not like there's anyone else here to worry about," the jail's other occupant chimed in.
Oh, yeah, Juleka was here, too, wasn't she?
Before Cat could apologize, he heard footsteps approaching the cell. Oh, kitty-litter, it was probably one of the guards. Why not just take out an ad: Adrien Agreste is the guy running around rooftops in a leather furry suit!
"Your staff, quick! Climb on top and go up" Marinette hissed. Now what did she mean by-
Cat Noir felt Marinette's hands grab his super-suit, then she yanked him to stand on top of grating he had popped off of the cell's air vent when he broke in to save her, and finally shoved his staff into his hands.
Ah! He got it. He propped one end of the staff on the ground, and then had it extend to carry him up, up, up into the air vent. That girl was truly a master of how to use his extending stick.
Hm, should he say that to her, or was it too lewd? Ladybug would slap him for such a thing, but Marinette?
A new voice, that of an older woman who had absolutely had no time for your kitty-litter, broke into his thoughts with, "Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"
"Yes?"
"You have a visitor for a conjugal visit."
The resulting pause was almost as pregnant as people thought Marinette was. Eventually, she said, "Huh?"
"Conjugal visit." Cat could hear the jingling of keys, and the sound of the cell door swinging open. "It's one of your rights as a prisoner. Your boy-toy Adrien Agreste apparently didn't think you'd be able to survive an hour in holding without his- hey, why are strutting around in your underpants?"
"I'm- I'm just so eager for my conjugal visit! I guess? I should get going and see him. Or do him. Or whatever. Tee hee."
Cat Noir frowned. Did Marinette just say the words "tee hee" instead of actually giggling?
More importantly, how dare Adrien Agreste try to horn on this special moment between Cat and his favorite civilian-
Wait.
He was Adrien Agreste.
So how could-
His ring gave one last beep just as he heard the sound of the cell door being closed again.
Then Cat Noir went away- supersuit, extending staff that the ladies liked, and all- leaving Adrien 10 feet off the ground with nothing beneath him.
At least he didn't yowl like a cat when he plummeted. That would have just been embarrassing.
He managed to yank his own shirt over his head before his tailbone impacted against the cold, hard ground.
Marinette had decided to stop trying to make sense of the world. It was taking far too much effort for far too little effect, and really, who ever said that the world was supposed to make sense? Just because it had for the first fourteen years of her life was no guarantee, and really, she should have started getting suspicious when a little pink bug-fairy-pikachu thing named Tikki gave her magical earrings and made her a superhero. That Marinette had persisted in expecting the world to make sense after that was just stupid, and today was her inevitable punishment.
People thought she and Adrien Agreste were doing the nasty three times every day? Sure, why not?
Her mother had transformed into a monster to go kill Adrien for the sex that wasn't happening? Groovy.
Now Adrien had somehow escaped her mother and had showed up at the jail where no one knew she was for a conjugal visit that she didn't want (kind of)? Just go with it!
And so when Marinette was escorted into a little room with a cot to find not Adrien, but Tikki wearing doll-sized jeans, a t-shirt, and a really bad blond wig, she did nothing more than blink once and say, "Hello, Adrien."
Tikki smiled. "Marinette, my cookie of love! Ready for your conjugal visit?"
"Sure, I-" And that's when she broke out in laughter. She laughed and laughed until her legs went weak and she had to sit down on the floor. She laughed while the guard asked if she was okay, and laughed while she made reassuring motions with her hands because she couldn't stop laughing long enough to speak. She laughed while she cried and the guard hurried away and closed the door, leaving Marinette alone with Tikki.
Tikki hovered over and pulled the wig off. "Marinette, are you okay?"
Marinette laughed. "Of course I am! I've never been better!" She wiped away at the tears streaming from her eyes as a sob escaped from her throat. "Why wouldn’t I be?"
Tikki patted Marinette's head. "There, there. I know it looks bad now, but things can still work out. And yes, most people don't usually have such bizarre experiences without hallucinogens, but look on the bright side: you get to try out weirdness like this without getting hooked on drugs! Yay!"
Marinette wondered if that might be the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "Tikki?"
"Yes?"
"Spots ******************ing on."
"Language!"
Seconds later, Ladybug was swinging away from the jail, racing to save the love of her life.
Adrien couldn't stay in jail for another minute.
The shirt over his head had stopped Juleka from recognizing him (he appreciated the Juleka’s unique style, but he knew that the only girl in his class who would ever be able to recognize him by the hem of his jeans was Marinette, and now that he realized that it sounded very cute), but that left him in a concrete box behind iron bars with an exhausted kwami named Plagg and no stinky cheese to feed him.
Adrien was starting to wonder if Plagg could be persuaded to try eating the cell bars when the kwami said, "Hey, that chick has smokes!"
"She's on fire?" Adrien didn't feel any heat, even through the shirt on his head, and he didn't smell any smoke.
"No, you sheltered nimrod, she has fags!"
"Plagg! That terms is highly offensive. We say 'homosexual' now. And her preferences are none of our business."
"Argh! I mean she has bones! Cancer sticks! Cigs!"
"I think," Juleka said, "he means the pack of cigarettes I stole for Rose."
Rose smokes? No, wait, that wasn't the point. "Plagg, what do you care about cigarettes?"
"Hey, why do you think I'm always jonesing for Camembert? You have to replace one addiction with another to kick a habit like that."
"You used to smoke? Aw, Plagg, that's gross. Is that why your fangs are yellow?"
Adrien could feel something soft and kwami-shaped bouncing on top of his head. "The point is, kid, that I can recharge by smoking one of the girl's smokes! But since I’m falling off the wagon for you, you owe me triple Camembert later!"
It didn’t take him long to consider it. "Miss Juleka, how much to buy your cigarettes? And a match?"
All of his spending cash and one quick cigarette break later, Cat Noir was able to Cataclysm the heck out of the jail's bars and race back home to be rescued by Ladybug. He vaulted across the city, barely even looking where he was going and relying on muscle memory alone to guide his way, all too aware of the beeping of his ring. He wouldn't have long before he was stuck as Adrien again, and he needed to find his Lady! He wouldn't be able to help her as Cat Noir, but even as himself he might be able to help her fight the newest akuma-victim.
Too bad he had spent so long in jail. (But he was hardly going to say that out loud, because he had only been in the clink for fifteen minutes, and his buddy Nino was always trying to stop him from complaining about "rich white pretty-boy problems." A fifteen minute jail stay sounded like one of those.)
He got to his house just as his ring was giving its last beep. He aimed himself as his bathroom window and angled his staff to send him flying through it. He passed into the bathroom just as his costume disappeared again and made a landing that was half-roll and half-crash that sent him tumbling into his bedroom.
When he came to a stop, he found himself sitting between Ladybug and a half-snake woman wearing a belt of white lily flowers, and they seemed to be in the middle of some kind of fight to the death. They both turned to stare at him.
Adrien waved. “I just got out of the shower. Did I miss any of the fight with the Echidna?”
Still locked frozen in combat with the akuma-victim, Ladybug blinked. “You mean like the little red guy from the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ games?”
“No, the supposed mother of all monsters from Greek mythology.”
“Greek? But M- er, the victim is Chinese.”
“What, a Chinese woman can’t turn into a Greek monster?” Adrien didn’t think he could have ever doubted his Lady, but this was just a step too far. “That’s kind of racist of you.”
The snake-woman took advantage of Ladybug’s shock to spin and use her tail to whip the spotted superhero across the room. She then turned to Adrien and screeched, "You knocked up my daughter!"
"No he," called Ladybug from where she landed on his bed, but then she coughed and restarted with, "I mean, I have no idea about the sex lives of these ordinary citizens, but I highly doubt what you're asserting!"
"The Mother of All Monsters will force him to make an honest woman of my daughter, or I will tear the flesh from his bones and use his blood to paint a warning to all other boys in my daughter's bedroom!"
Yeah, Adrien figured that would just about kill any teenage boy's libido.
Maybe coming home again wasn't the best idea?
That's when he heard two of the most beautiful words of all time, at least when they were uttered together in the proper order, as Ladybug's voice rang out with, "Lucky Charm!"
Adrien looked over and saw the magic red-and-black polka-dotted magic item drop into her hands. He couldn't quite make out what it was; it was fairly small and thin, almost like a pen, and it-
"A pregnancy test?" Ladybug's voice was clearly puzzled. Then her face took on a thoroughly appalled expression and she blurted out, "It's positive?!"
Adrien fainted.
He woke up when a yo-yo wrapped around his body and yanked him out of the way of the attack of the snake woman. He landed on the bed at Ladybug’s side, and she shot him an unreadable look before facing the monster once again. "Play along," she whispered to him. "I think I figured out what I'm supposed to do with this." Ladybug stepped off the bed and pointed at Mother of All Monsters. "You've got it all wrong, Ms Cheng. Adrien wasn't sleeping with your daughter. That was just a story he used to cover up the fact that he's been having an affair with me!"
Adrien gasped.
The snake-woman gasped.
Ladybug held up the pregnancy test. "And I'm carrying his love child! Marinette certainly won't test positive, I can guarantee you that!"
Adrien gasped.
The snake-woman gasped.
Ladybug put her hands on her hips. "So now if you'll excuse me and my hot teenage model lover, we have some major life decisions to discuss. Go home to your family and warn your daughter about getting caught up in the soap opera theatrics of people like me!"
Adrien couldn't help but break out in a grin. His Lady was a genius! He nodded enthusiastically to back up her story.
The snake-woman, however, didn't seem so convinced. "I think you're bluffing. You're a superhero and a role-model. There's no way you've been leading such a salacious life."
"Ha!" Ladybug turned around to Adrien, winked at him, and then sat down in his lap. He was suddenly, painfully aware of how tight and clingy her costume was. She laid her head on his shoulder and said, "Look how cute we are?"
Mother of All Monster snorted. "Yes, you're G-rated adorable. Nice try, kid."
"Yeah, well, check this out!" Ladybug squirmed in Adrien's lap in such a way that nearly made him faint again. "I'm a dirty, dirty girl."
"Impressive, Ladybug, but hardly what I'd call definitive proof."
"You want proof? I'll give you proof, Mother!"
That's when Ladybug smashed her lips against Adrien's and rammed her tongue down his throat while shoving him down on the bed.
The next minute was a perfect storm of wonder and saliva and moaning and choking and grace and awkwardness and Ladybug really had no idea what she was doing with her tongue because now she was picking some bits of lunch out from between Adrien's teeth and he couldn't breath and oxygen was really important and then the kiss ended and both he and Ladybug were gasping and coughing.
They looked to Mother of Monsters simultaneously.
The snake-woman blinked once. Twice. Three times. "Okay, fine, I'm convinced. That was the most disgusting kiss I've ever seen, and my husband once tried to kiss me with a mouth full of chocolate cake." She turned to slither away. "Good luck with the whole unplanned pregnancy thing."
That's when Ladybug flipped her yo-yo out and used it to snag a piece of paper from Mother of Monster's lily belt. The snake-woman turned and screeched as Ladybug tore it in half, releasing the black butterfly from within.
While the monster reverted to Marinette's mom and Ladybug did her whole "de-evilize" (which he was fairly certain wasn't actually a word) thing, Adrien investigated the remains of the paper that had contained the akuma.
It looked like a prescription for birth control pills.
And it was signed by Nathalie, who was claiming to be Marinette’s doctor. Well, that was one way to make use of a podiatry minor.
Ladybug's earrings beeped, and he looked up to see that she had already released the purified butterfly and used the magic pregnancy test to restore reality. She looked at Adrien with pain evident on her face and said, "I am so sorry about all of this. But, um, the kiss wasn't so bad, I hope?"
Adrien had no idea what to say to that.
Her earrings beeped again, and with an apologetic shrug, she used her yo-yo to swing out his window.
So, that was all done, then.
There were several things he could do at this point- feed Plagg, help Marinette's mother off the floor of his bedroom, set about clearing up the rumors about his sex life, pout at Nathalie for misusing her degree again- but he found himself going over to the open window and staring after Ladybug.
He didn't see his partner, but he did find Marinette standing in his backyard, banging her head against his house. "Um, Marinette, what are you doing?"
She looked up at him, blushed (of course), and tried to laugh. "Um, Adrien! I- uh- I was- well, you see, I had this sudden urge to give myself a concussion, and you're so strong and hard I mean your wall is so strong and hard and so I... came over here to smack my head against your house?"
"Oh." That made about as much sense as anything else today. And it was Marinette. "Well, when you're done, your mom is up here and she's not a monster anymore."
"Thanks!" Then she proceeded to start smacking her head against the wall again.
As he watched her, he couldn't help but think about the fact that she was apparently crushing so hard on him that everyone in their school could believe that their simultaneous absences were about sex. He thought about how she was a kind, good, funny, righteous, cute girl who seemed to regard him well. He thought about how much a hero she had been today, helping Ladybug with another secret mission, saving his identity, breaking three of Chloe’s ribs, and apparently somehow breaking out of jail. And it had been totally hot trying to pry her out of that magic chastity belt while she smacked him.
And Ladybug, it turned out, was the world's worst kisser.
He felt a dopy smile grow on his face as he watched her give herself a concussion on his house.
It was the start of a new day, and Marinette was not feeling any better.
New days did not mean that old days were forgotten. Quite the contrary, new days meant there was a whole day ahead in which people could talk about the old day, specifically things like her mother becoming a monster and attacking Adrien over the fact that everyone thought she and Adrien were totally doing the nasty all day long every five minutes. (Marinette didn't even know if that was physically possible!)
She had walked into school with her head bowed and her eyes firmly on the ground, unable to face the stares of all her classmates, and she wound up not even able to enjoy her solemn melancholy without walking into trees and doors and Juleka (who had apparently made bail) and at least one trashcan because she wasn't looking where she was going.
She definitely didn't look at Adrien as she walked to her seat and took her place.
That’s when Adrien Agreste turned around and reached out to take her hand.
"Marinette," he said.
"Asdfghjkl," Marinette replied.
"I know how embarrassing all those untrue rumors about us must be," he said loudly, his eyes momentarily looking around at the rest of the class- Sabrina and Alix and Nathaniel and Kim and Max and Rose and Juleka and Mylene and Ivan and Alya and Nino- before coming to rest on her with startling intensity, "but they've made me think about some things, and realize some other things, and it would make me very happy if maybe we could go on a date- a real date- and get an ice cream cone together sometime. What do you say?"
"Asdfghjkl," Marinette replied.
"Great!" He placed a soft kiss on her hand, and turned around again for the start of class.
"Asdfghjkl," Marinette said again. Then she added, "Wow."
Later that day, Ladybug was so confident in herself, she was able to find, unmask, and beat Hawkmoth. He turned out to be a pipe-collector from Poland with a thing for pictures of missing blonde ladies he didn't know. And so the world was freed from the threat of his insanity.
Let that be a lesson to people everywhere: teenage sex saves superheroes.