Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, Chat, I just don’t feel that way about you. It’s… you need to let it go. It’s just not going to happen.”

His heart was breaking.

No. Broken.

He leapt across the rooftops of Paris, struggling to keep the tears that blurred the vista from falling. Ladybug didn’t love him back. She didn’t want him. The knowledge felt like a ball of ice in his stomach.

As he landed on the roof closest to his house, he found himself stopping. When Ladybug had given him her answer, all he had wanted was to escape into his room and hide from the reality of it. But now that he was here, looking at the cold, formal, empty building—his father was out of town—he couldn’t stand the thought of being alone.

Alone except for Plagg. God, he just could NOT with Plagg right now.

His mind raced desperately, trying to think of someone he could turn to for company at a moment like this. Nino? No, he would want to know details and would not let it go until he got them, and obviously that was out of the question under the circumstances. Alya would be even worse. Chloé? He couldn’t even work up a dismissive snort to that one—it was too horrible to contemplate. One by one, he mentally flipped through everyone he knew, trying to think of someone who could possibly not make him feel worse…

Marinette.

Of course.

She was so kind—she always went running after people when they were hurt (usually by Chloé). She was always trying to fix people’s problems, encourage them, and cheer them up. And she wasn’t pushy in the least; he suspected she was too shy to try to drag details out of people who didn’t want to share them.

Marinette. She was the perfect choice. He felt calmer, less desperate, just thinking about it.

Adrien Agreste, still wearing his Cat Noir disguise, turned and began making his way across the city toward the Dupain-Cheng patisserie.

He didn’t go in as Chat Noir, of course. That would be weird.  

He dropped to the ground in an alleyway two blocks from the bakery and detransformed.

“Not now, Plagg,” Adrien said as soon as the kwami started to question him, grabbing him and stuffing him into his bag as he stepped out onto the crowded Paris street, forestalling any arguments.

It was a short walk to the bakery. He was greeted warmly by Marinette’s mother, who was working the counter.

“Is Marinette available, Mrs. Cheng?” he asked politely.

“She’s in her room,” Mrs. Cheng answered with a smile as she helped a customer. “You can go on up.”

As Adrien climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the entrance to the family’s living quarters was, he wondered if this was a mistake. Marinette was kind, certainly, but he always secretly wondered if she didn’t like him very much. She was so friendly with most of the class (not Chloe), but she barely talked to him. Things had gotten better in the past few months, but she was still kind of… off… when he was around.

For a moment he considered just turning around and going home. But the thought of that echoing, empty house… he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Marinette, of course, was not in any way expecting Adrien Agreste to knock on her door that day. And the shock of opening the front door and finding him standing there would have set off a really epic spaz if it had not been for the fact that he looked completely devastated.

And that was when Marinette Dupain-Cheng discovered the trick to not freaking out when Adrien was in her general vicinity. All that was necessary was for him to show up at her door with a broken heart.

Adrien didn’t even have to say a word. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but five minutes later he found himself ensconced on Marinette’s chaise lounge, wrapped in a fluffy pink blanket, holding a mug of steaming tea, and with a plate of baked goods from downstairs on a plate at his elbow. And Marinette seated on a stool next to him, looking at him with wide, concerned blue eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.

“I… I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to. But you can if you decide you want to.”

There was an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry to intrude on your afternoon. I’m sure you have better things to do,” Adrien said, looking down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marinette said. “I was just working on some designs, but I was a little stuck, so a break is welcome.”

“Can I see them?” he asked. He knew she was talented, and it might take his mind off of... Ladybug. His stomach sank again as he remembered the finality of her words to him.

“Um, sure,” said Marinette, a slight blush creeping across her cheeks. She lifted her sketchbook from the desk and handed it to him.

Adrien had been right—the sketches did distract him. There were an assortment of styles, beautifully rendered. There was a creativity to them, a blend of cute and elegant, that was uniquely Marinette’s, as if her personality was waving at him off the page. They were amazing, and he told her so (she blushed much darker at that). He especially liked her problem design, a men’s shirt that paid a subtle homage to the male half of Paris’ superhero team. When she pointed out the design element that she couldn’t get right, he made a tentative suggestion that earned him a blinding smile.

“Perfect!” she said, sketching the new and improved lines in the margin. “I’ll do a new rendering tomorrow. Thanks, Adrien!”

“You’re welcome,” he replied absently, flipping through the book. There were a couple of designs that seemed to be inspired by Chat Noir, but none at all by Ladybug.

“Not a Ladybug fan, I take it?” he asked, then held up the sketchbook at her quizzical look. “Nothing red and spotted in here.”

“Oh, um, I guess I don’t feel like that particular look is really me, ” Marinette replied, giggling nervously. “I’m more into pink than red. Obviously.” She gestured wryly at the admittedly very pink room around her, then, noticing that Adrien was looking notably more miserable than a minute before, placed her hand comfortingly over his.

Adrien, who had been suffering a wave of pain and heartsickness brought on by his own mention of his unrequited lady love, looked into her sweet, caring face and found himself blurting out the problem.

“There’s this girl I like,” he said. Some emotion crossed Marinette’s face for just an instant, but he couldn’t tell what it was. “But she doesn’t like me back. That’s really all there is to it.” It wasn’t, of course, but what could he say? I’m Chat Noir and I’m in love with Ladybug and she doesn’t want me. Yeah, right. Funny, though—put aside the superhero costumes and it was the same story anyway.

This is when he’d learn if he’d really made a terrible mistake. This is where Nino—or anyone else he could think of—would demand details. Aggressively.

“That seems somewhat… unbelievable,” Marinette said.

“What? Why?” Adrien asked.

“Well—um.... I… I mean, you’re pretty a-amazing. I g-guess I have trouble imagine anyone n-not being into you.” She was flustered. And blushing again.

Adrien shrugged one shoulder, looking down. “I don’t know. This girl knows me pretty well. I have a lot of admirers, you know, but really I’m just a pretty face with not much behind it.”

A finger touched him under the chin and gently lifted his face up to meet her eyes.

“Don’t you ever,” she said quietly, “say something like that about my friend again.”

It took him a split second to understand, and then to his horror the tears he had been holding back for the past hour overflowed and spilled down his face.

“You are smart,” Marinette’s was soft but firm. “You are talented. You are kind, and people really truly like you for the person you are—not because of who your father is or the modelling do for him. And no, you’re not particularly hard to look at, but that is the least of who you are, Adrien.”

Warmth spread through his chest, combatting the ball of ice in his stomach.

Marinette slid onto the chaise next to him and put her arms around him, pulling his head to her shoulder. She didn’t say anything, just held him and gently stroked his shoulder until he was done. Then she handed him a box of tissues with a crooked, encouraging smile.

“Thank you, Marinette,” Adrien said. “You’re really good at this.”

She blushed again, then jumped up. “I know what you need!” Marinette went to a cupboard and pulled out a cardboard box, which she handed to him. The top was printed with their class picture—the one they had taken in the park. Adrien slid off the top and found a tangle of brightly-colored, irregular pieces of cardboard.

“I need to do a puzzle?” he asked, confused.

“You need to do this puzzle. To remind you of all the people who like you and care about you,” she said.

“Did you have this made?”

“Yep. There’s a place that will make any picture into a puzzle for you. I’ve done it with all my class photos. I like this one the best, though.”

Adrien had noticed something sticking out of the pile of puzzle pieces. He dug it out and found that it was three pieces of the puzzle, pieced and glued permanently together and tucked into a miniature ziptop baggie. From the pieces, Juleka’s face beamed happily, a section of Rose’s head to her left and his own shoulder visible behind her.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Couldn’t risk losing that part. It’s the most important,” she replied.

Adrien remembered that day, of course. Juleka’s “curse,” Chloé’s bad behavior, and how it led to Juleka’s akumatization and an epic battle that he spent most of wearing platform heels and a pink dress. And how, after he and Ladybug had defeated and purified Reflekta, Marinette had been the one to talk the photographer into taking another class photo at the end of the day. Ladybug had solved the akuma problem and disappeared, but Marinette had fixed the underlying issue.

Looking at Juleka’s radiant smile, he couldn’t help but think that her part in the incident had been just as vital as Ladybug’s. “You’re pretty amazing yourself, you know that?”

He looked up. Marinette was bright red, avoiding eye contact, and fussing with some stuff on her desk. She’s great at giving compliments, he thought, but not good at taking them. After only a few seconds, Marinette pulled herself together and ushered her guest downstairs to a more puzzle-appropriate table.

She was right. It was exactly what he needed, distracting him from his troubled thoughts while reminding him that people cared about him.

Adrien left the patisserie feeling fairly decent. But with each step he took away from the warmth of the Dupain-Cheng home and toward the coldness of his own, his spirits sank. He could feel despair rising inside him. He discovered, though, that thinking of Marinette’s warmth and caring made him feel a little better. So he focused on thinking of Marinette instead of… her. And that made things a little easier.

Chapter Text

Adrien wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through the next day at school. He dragged his way into the building. He hadn’t slept well the night before. Ladybug’s words echoed in his ears, and in his dreams he saw her face—regretful, but determined. Rejecting him.

He opened the door to his classroom, wondering what he’d say to Nino. He had some reasonable acting skills, but he didn’t think he could hide how depressed he was. But standing next to Nino, speaking to him with a gentle smile, was Marinette. Marinette, whose face lit up when she saw him.

“Adrien!” she said. “I brought you something!” She held out a small cardboard box like an offering.

He took it, curious, and opened the top. Inside were six slightly lopsided macarons.

“They’re not the best, I know,” Marinette said sheepishly, “but I wanted to make them myself.”

“You made these?” Adrien said, eyes wide. “For me?” In his peripheral vision, he saw Alya making confused gestures at Nino.

“Yep,” Marinette said. Then, she leaned a little closer and murmured, “How are you doing today?”

“Not great,” he murmured back. “But these help. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Marinette smiled.

“Hey, dude,” Nino said as they took their seats. “Marinette said you had some private stuff going on. It’s cool if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m totally here if you want to.”

Adrien turned to look at Marinette, marveling at how she had known exactly what he needed and made it happen. She gave him a truly adorable thumbs-up. You’re amazing, he mouthed at her, then turned back to look at Mme. Bustier, who was beginning class. He didn’t see her cheeks color a delicate pink in response or Alya excitedly scribbling notes to her best friend.

That afternoon, Marinette insisted that she, Adrien, Alya, and Nino all have lunch together. She kept up a constant cheerful chatter that kept his mind on his friends instead of on Ladybug. On their smiles, and the clear way they showed that they cared about him.

She didn’t let him forget it. Marinette threw herself into keeping him focused on other things; she wouldn’t let him wallow in his grief. She brought him baked goods. She insisted on lunch with friends every day. In the afternoons, if he didn’t have a lesson (somehow she always knew), she’d invite him out—to roller skate, to a bookstore, to a free concert or the zoo. Sometimes she took him to her house to play video games (she never let him win, which he appreciated), watch movies, or play games. Some days other friends came along; sometimes it was just them. But she was always there, watching out for him, keeping him distracted, and making sure that no one bugged him for details of what had happened.

In the evenings, she invited him to eat with her warm, loving family, who were happy to include him whenever he could convince Nathalie to let him eat there. When he couldn’t, and later in the evening after he had to go home, she’d send him cheerful, chatty texts, funny links, and memes until late at night. She wore him out so when he went to bed, he slept hard and dreamlessly.

She was his savior, his miracle. She was almost like a drug. She was the first thing he thought about in the morning, besides Ladybug, and the last thing he thought about at night before he fell asleep, besides Ladybug. But even thinking of Ladybug was less painful when he thought about her next to Marinette’s friendly smile.

So, when after two weeks of Marinette’s constant attention, an akuma attacked, Adrien found himself dealing with the situation better than he had expected. Things were terribly awkward for the first few minutes, but luckily the need to dodge the Redhead’s energy blasts quickly drew their attention and they soon fell into the familiar pattern of saving the day. They even managed to share a friendly laugh when Chat Noir got caught with a blast, which turned out to just turn its victim’s hair red (apparently the person was sick of being teased about being a redhead). They learned three lessons that day: Cat Noir was never meant to be a redhead, they were going to be okay… and they weren’t okay yet.

“Miraculous Ladybug!” the heroine shouted, setting free the swarm of beetles that repaired destruction and returned people’s hair to its accustomed shade. They were halfway into the fist bump when the sheen of normalcy wore off. They both drew their hands back, looking at each other awkwardly. Their Miraculouses beeped softly.

Ladybug spoke first. “How… how are you, Chat?” she said in a concerned voice. He hated it. He knew she was sorry that she had rejected him, but only because she had caused him pain. She didn’t regret the decision. He thought he heard pity in her voice, and he could barely stand it.

Deep inside he wanted to lash out as a cat in pain is wont to do. But he knew that she had a right to choose who she wanted to be with, and she shouldn’t be blamed that it wasn’t him. He was not the kind of guy to get mad at a girl for not wanting him, and he refused to give in to his desire to punish her for it.

So he did what he always did now when he needed something to make his negative emotions more positive: He called up Marinette in his mind.

“I’m okay,” he said honestly—he couldn’t lie to Ladybug. “I’m not, like, singing and dancing my way through Paris or anything, but I’m dealing.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she mumbled to her toes.

He shrugged. “You feel what you feel. Don’t worry about me.”

“I do, though,” Ladybug said. Their Miraculouses beeped again, more insistently this time.

He smiled, a crooked, sad smile. “I’ve got people who are there for me.”

She reached out and gently touched his arm with her fingertips. “You know I’m there for you, too, don’t you?”

He looked back at her. She was trying. He had to give her credit for that.

“Yeah. As much as you can be, anyway.”

She drew her hand back. “Chat…”

He was saved by his Miraculous. “I’ve got to go.” He held it up so she could see that only the center of the paw was left. “See you around, Ladybug,” he said, and fled before she could respond.

He didn’t look back.

Adrien felt strangely good as he made his way into the school building the next day. He had faced his greatest fear—how awkward it was going to be with Ladybug the next time he saw her—and he had survived. And he felt like they were going to be okay eventually.

And I get to see Marinette!

He was glad it was Monday. He had been at a photoshoot for most of the previous day, then fought the akuma, and then he had to finish his homework. They had been texting back and forth much of the day, of course, but it wasn’t quite the same thing as being around her and her unrelenting sunniness.

Adrien was making his way through the courtyard when he heard Nino’s voice, speaking low, coming from the other side of the pillar.

“...taking care of Adrien. It’s not healthy.”

Adrien stopped. Were they talking about him? Normally, he wouldn’t eavesdrop on his friends, but he wanted to know what they thought wasn’t healthy. Was it him? He thought he was doing so well.

He peeked around the pillar to where Alya and Nino were deep in conversation.

“I know,” Alya was saying, “but what am I going to do? Tell her to stop taking care of him? Like that’s going to happen.”

“Yeah,” Nino replied, “But she’s putting too much of herself into it. I don’t think she’s sleeping much.”

Are they talking about Marinette?

“She’s not,” her best friend confirmed. “She’s staying up till all hours of the morning texting him memes, and she gets up early to bake for him. I think she’s running on like three hours a night.”

Was Marinette running herself ragged for him? He hadn’t noticed her acting any differently.

“Can’t you talk to her? Get her to take a day off?”

“ You try telling her to take a day off. See where it gets you,” Alya’s voice rose in an imitation of Marinette’s. “‘But Alya, I can’t! He needs me!’”

Adrien sank down onto a nearby bench.

He was so selfish. He had never even considered how much time and energy Marinette had been pouring into him these past few weeks.

God, it takes so much emotional energy to be me, he thought. How much must it be taking out of her to be carrying so much of that for me?

I am such a jerk.

Alya and Nino were, gone, taking the conversation to the classroom. He trailed after them, but paused to peek in the room before he opened the door. There was a box of bakery goodies on his desk. Behind his seat, Marinette was blearily lifting her head from where she had apparently been dozing on the desk.

She looked awful.

Her eyes were red, and there were bags under them. Her whole face seemed to sag in exhaustion. As Alya began talking to her, she nodded wearily.

Did I do that to her?

His horrified realization was interrupted by the second-to-last bell. He jumped and pulled the door open.

“Adrien!” Marinette exclaimed brightly, waving to him.

Holy crap, he thought, looking at her. It’s like magic.

No bags, no redness about her sparkling blue eyes. She was smiling, and her whole face glowed. There was not the slightest trace of the exhausted girl he had been looking at seconds before.

How did she do that? No wonder I didn’t notice that anything was wrong.

“They’re chocolate chip today,” she was saying. “And if you have time this afternoon, I got a new game over the weekend that I want to try out. I’ve never played it, so you might even win!”

Adrien didn’t know what to do. He wanted to spend the afternoon with her—he wanted to spend pretty much every minute in her cheering, soothing presence. But the memory of her exhausted face, glimpsed through the door, weighed on him. She had done so much for him—she had done everything for him, just because she was kind. A good friend. And now he had to be a good friend, too.

“I actually do have plans this afternoon,” he said. “But thanks. Maybe later? Anyway, I’m sure you could stand a little Marinette time—you’ve been spending so much time with me!”

He expected, honestly, to see relief on her face; he was sure she was dying for a nap. But instead, something like disappointment, and maybe… hurt? flashed across her face. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Oh. Okay. Sure,” Marinette said quietly.

“Oh, and you know I love the cookies,” Adrien added, “but I kind of need to cut back. I need to watch my weight. For the modeling, you know.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Marinette said, her voice sounding a little strange—from exhaustion, he assumed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.”

“No problem!” he replied as the last bell rang. He turned to the front of the room, knowing he had done the right thing… but somewhere deep inside he suspected that he had made a terrible mistake.

Chapter Text

Adrien threw himself down on his bed. He was bored . He had been home for three hours. He had played a few video games, climbed around on the wall, and tried to study. But nothing was interesting. It was amazing how quickly he had become used to doing things with someone else. And now he was going out of his mind.

Which is why he got really excited when his phone beeped that he had a new text message. It was exactly what he had been secretly hoping for, and also secretly dreading: It was from Marinette. He opened it and found an image of a sad-looking cat that said “I want to sleep on the keyboard… but no one is using the computer.”

He laughed to himself as he typed out at reply.

Adrien: Hey Marinette, what’s up?

Marinette: Just checking in. You seemed a little off today.

Adrien considered. He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t late—surely a little chat wouldn’t hurt?

Adrien: I saw her yesterday.

Marinette: !!! How was it?

Adrien: Weird. Awkward. But not as bad as I was afraid it would be. We talked a little.

Marinette: What did she say?

Adrien: Not much. But she was cool about the whole thing.

Marinette: I would hope so, after breaking your heart like that.

Adrien: She’s a nice girl. You’d like her.

Marinette: I doubt it. We disagree fundamentally about some things.

Adrien found himself blushing. He had no idea what he had ever done to deserve this kind of friendship and loyalty.

In fact, he was sure he didn’t deserve it. Here he was, taking up her time and attention again, when he was sure she had better things to do with her time and energy. He needed to stop thinking about himself, and start thinking about her.

Adrien: Well, anyway, I feel better about the situation.

Marinette: That’s great!

Adrien sighed. Now that he has assured her that he was fine, it was time to be better than he had been. Slowly, reluctantly, he typed:

Adrien: Hey, I’ve got to go. Good night! See you tomorrow.

He waited for a response. It was a long time coming.

Marinette: OK. Good night.

Adrien looked around his big, lonely room.

Then he called Plagg to transform him and spent the next several hours wandering the city’s roofs, very carefully keeping his distance from Marinette’s house.

Tuesday sucked .

It didn’t start out that way. He had worn himself out enough to sleep pretty well, and he had nice dreams. He couldn’t remember anything about them, though he had some feeling that there had been a lot of pink.

When he got to school, things started to go wrong. He had taken another moment to peek into the classroom, wanting to see if Marinette looked more rested. But she wasn’t there. His heart sunk. Her smiling face first thing in the morning was something he looked forward to seeing every day.

He slunk into the classroom and to his seat.

“Hey, dude,” said Nino as Adrien slipped into his seat.

“Hey,” Adrien greeted him. “Where’s Marinette?”

Nino exchanged a sidelong glance with Alya, which was quite a feat as she was sitting behind him.

“She’s probably running late,” Nino answered.

“That’s not like her,” Adrien said absently.

“Dude. It’s exactly like her,” Nino corrected him. “Marinette always runs in at the last minute. Sometimes after.”

“But she’s always here before me,” the blond boy said, bemused.

“That’s just been the last couple of weeks,” Alya broke in. “Since she’s been baking for you. But since you told her you didn’t want her cookies anymore, she probably didn’t get up at four in the morning.”

Adrien wasn’t sure what was going on with Alya. He knew she wanted Marinette to start taking better care of herself, and he could hear that in her voice, but she also seemed mad at him, and he didn’t know why.

“It’s not that I don’t want the cookies,” he said. “It’s just—”

“You have to watch your figure,” Alya cut him off. “Yeah, I heard.”

Adrien was opening his mouth to defend himself, but was stopped by the simultaneous ringing of the last bell and Marinette bursting into the room and launching herself into her seat. Her face was red from rushing, her hair was falling out of its pigtails, and she looked extremely flustered… but she also looked a lot less tired.

And cute. Really cute.

How come I never noticed how cute she is before? Adrien wondered.

“Hi, Marinette,” he said with a smile.

“Hey, Adrien,” she smiled back—but it was different . Less, somehow. Less sunny. Less friendly. He felt something sink in his chest as he turned back to the front of the room and Mme. Bustier, who was starting class. He didn’t know what was going on with his friends, but he knew he didn’t like it.

Things didn’t get any better from there. Adrien was really looking forward to his usual lunch with Marinette, though he was a little nervous that it would be one of the days that Alya and Nino came along, too, since he was pretty sure the Ladyblogger was upset with him for some reason. But as soon as they were released for lunch, Marinette grabbed Alya and took off.

“Marinette?” he called after her, a question in his voice.

“Alya and I are having lunch and girl talk at my house today,” she called back to him, already halfway out the door. “See you!” And she was gone.

Adrien turned to Nino. “What’s going on with them?”

His best friend shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno, dude. I don’t know if Alya would want me to tell you…”

“Come on, man,” Adrien said, a little desperately. “How can I fix this if I don’t know what I did wrong?”

“I guess you have a point. But I want to ask you first,” Nino said, “Why did you suddenly shut Marinette down yesterday?”

“Shut her down?” Adrien asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really, dude?” Nino said, sounding exasperated. “So you come in one day with some kind of personal problem that has you moping all over the place. Marinette somehow already knows about it, and she’s all over it, because that’s the way she is. She turns herself into your personal cruise director for two straight weeks, and you let her—you go along with whatever she says, you spend all your time with her, the two of you are practically joined at the hip—and then suddenly one day you want nothing to do with her. You don’t have time for her and you tell her her cookies are making you fat. And you don’t know what I mean by ‘shut her down’?”

Adrien gaped at him. “But… that’s not... what happened…” He trailed off. Is it?

“Isn’t it?” Nino asked. He didn’t seem as mad as Alya, but he certainly didn’t seem pleased. Adrien knew he had a soft spot for Marinette, whom he had known for most of his life.

“I wasn’t trying to shut her down,” Adrien said softly, studying his shoes.

“Then what were you trying to do?” Nino challenged him.

“I… I’m sorry, Nino, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard you and Alya talking yesterday morning about how tired Marinette was and it was all because of me and I just wanted her to have time to relax and take care of herself instead of taking care of me.” Adrien blurted it out, feeling himself turn red with embarrassment at his confession that he had been spying on his friends.

Nino was quiet for a moment.

“You were trying to help her?” he said.

“She’s been such a good friend to me. I… I wanted to be a good friend to her, too.”

“Well, dude,” Nino said (Adrien was ecstatic to hear that the friendliness had returned to his voice), “it didn’t look like that to me. Or to Alya. Or to Marinette.”

“Oh, God,” said Adrien, finally starting to understand. “What did it look like?”

“It looked like you were using her while you needed her and then you dropped her once you didn’t anymore.”

“Oh, no,” Adrien moaned, sliding down the nearest wall until he was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. “I told her last night I had talked to… the girl on Sunday. I told her I felt better…”

“Wait, what girl?” Nino asked.

“The girl who broke my heart,” Adrien answered absently.

“Is that what’s been going on?” Nino asked. “I didn’t even know you liked anyone!”

“Yeah, well, it’s not important.”

“So wait… let me get this straight: Marinette knew you had a broken heart and that’s why she was giving you so much attention. Then you talked to this girl on Sunday, you pulled back from Marinette yesterday morning, and then last night you told her that you had talked to this girl and felt better about it?”

“Yes…” groaned Adrien.

“Dude, this is way worse than I thought.”

“How mad at me are they?” Adrien asked, afraid of the answer.

“Alya’s pretty mad,” Nino said. “I think Marinette’s just hurt.”

“The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her,” Adrien told him. “Not after all she’s done for me. I am such a jerk!” By now he had slid all the way down so he was prone on the floor, arm covering his eyes.

“But not on purpose, so at least there’s that!” Nino patted his arm. Adrien guessed that semi-support was about all he deserved right now. “Come on, dude, get up. We’ll get some lunch and start figuring out how to fix this.”

Adrien shifted his arm so he could look at his friend. “Do you think I can fix it?” he asked hopefully.

“Sure. Marinette likes you a lot,” Nino said, pulling Adrien to his feet. “Get her to forgive you and Alya’ll come around.”

Adrien took a deep breath. He had messed up, bad. But maybe he could make it up to Marinette.

He really, really wanted to make it up to Marinette.

When Marinette and Alya came back from lunch, Marinette’s eyes were suspiciously red, like she had been crying, and Alya was glaring daggers. Adrien sunk down in his seat, wishing he could die of shame.

The only bright spot was the start of a plan Nino had helped him come up with. Obviously, an apology was in order, and that was the most important thing. What came after that was pretty dependant on how Marinette reacted to the apology, but they had some ideas. Before he apologized, though, he needed to soften Marinette up a little—at least according to Nino. A nice gesture was in order, and after several minutes of brainstorming, they had come up with a good one.

All I have to do is pull it off, Adrien reminded himself. Easier said than done, but I’m pretty smart. I can do this. Nino had explained that thinking positive was a very important component to undertaking something new and scary. Adrien was doing his best. But every time he heard Marinette try not to sniffle behind him, he found it harder.

Focus. Just focus on fixing it.

It was, as he had feared, easier said than done. The first day, he timed it very poorly and didn’t get anywhere close to finished. He had to go to school empty-handed, shrugging sheepishly at Nino and spending the day weighed down by guilt.

The second day, he got up even earlier, but there was something wrong with the dough and it wouldn’t stick together.

The third day he managed to get the mess he made in the oven on time, but the cookies were underdone in the middle and burnt on the outside.

That was the evening he got called down to the kitchen (that had never happened to him before) to get a lecture from the cook about leaving the kitchen an absolute disaster for her to discover and clean when she arrived for work later in the day. She was bright red with frustration as she asked him why on earth he couldn’t just ask her for whatever cookies he wanted and she’d make sure he got them.

She deflated, though, when he explained that he had to make them himself because they were for a girl. The turnaround surprised him—she went from enraged to helpful in under a minute. She gave him some advice (like that macarons weren’t a great choice for a beginning baker) that really helped him. In fact, she volunteered to spend some time over the weekend giving him lessons, both in baking and in cleaning up after himself.

He knew Nino wasn’t pleased with him for taking so long, but he did understand that Adrien wanted his gesture to be, if not perfect, at least edible. He had to admit, though, that each day was progressively harder as Alya stewed—he could feel her angry eyes burning the back of his neck all day—and Marinette just got quieter and sadder.

Hang on just a little longer, he’d tell himself—or maybe her, in his head— I just need a few more days…

At last he succeeded. At 7:30 on Monday morning, Adrien pulled from the oven a very respectable sheet of simple chocolate chip cookies. He waited—not quite long enough—for them to cool enough to taste. They were… not as good as Marinette’s, but still pretty good. Adrien did a little dance as he slipped them into a box that had been waiting for this very thing for five days now. Then, with a little skip, he went to get ready for school.

Adrien’s heart was pounding in his throat as he walked into the school that day. He desperately hoped Marinette would only be running a little late; the box was still a little bit warm and he would be so happy if he could give the cookies to her before they cooled completely.

He was in luck. She was actually there before him, talking to Alya and Nino about something that obviously wasn’t him, because she was smiling. He paused for a moment before he opened the door, basking in the warmth of that smile, even though it wasn’t directed at him. He pushed down the part of him that worried that she’d never smile at him like that again, gripped the box of cookies a little harder, and opened the door.

Marinette’s smiled vanished. She hadn’t even said hello to him on Friday, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t again today, not without prompting. So it was up to him.

“M- Marinette?” he said. Oh, God, I’m stuttering.

She turned her big, beautiful eyes to him. They were full of things he didn’t understand.

“I… I brought you something,” Adrien said, holding out the now slightly crushed box like an offering. She looked at it, then back at him as if she was unsure what to do.

“Please take it,” he said, horrified to discover that he might cry if she refused. But she didn’t. Marinette slowly reached out and took the box from him. She looked wary as she lifted the lid, then looked back at him, brows slightly furrowed.

“I m-made them for you,” he said, feeling his face heat up. He was sure he was blushing.

“You… made me cookies?” Marinette said softly.

“Y-yes. You made me so m-many wonderful things, s-so I wanted to return the favor.”

Marinette was sitting very still, looking at the cookies. Alya and Nino were very still as well, but he didn’t dare look at them. He couldn’t look at them.

“I… I… I was a jerk to you, Marinette,” Adrien said. “I, um, was hoping we could talk about it sometime—if it’s okay with you—but even if you don’t ever want to talk to me again, and I understand why you wouldn’t, I’d still like you to have these as an apology and as a thank-you for everything you’ve done for me.”

He held his breath.

“Are they any good?” Alya said from next to her friend. Adrien thought that was a good sign. He turned toward her, relieved to see that she didn’t look nearly as angry as she had a few moments ago.

“They’re not as good as Marinette’s, but they’re not terrible,” he said. “I spent almost a week learning how to make them.”

“You’ve been working on these for a week?” Marinette spoke, and his attention snapped back to her. Her head had tilted slightly as she studied him.

“Um, yeah. There were a lot of failures,” Adrien told her, letting just a hint of a self-deprecating grin creep onto his face. “Apparently I shouldn’t have tried to start with macarons.”

Then, to his astonishment, Marinette laughed. Actually, she kind of snorted, like she had tried to hold it in and failed. But once it had escaped, it was followed by the most beautiful, precious giggle he had ever heard in his life. It was like stars. Rainbows. Glitter. Hope.

“I’m kind of scared,” Marinette said, lifting a cookie from the box. Delicately, she took a small bite. She chewed, considering, then smiled. “Not bad for a newbie,” she said.

Adrien was flooded with emotions—relief, joy, hope… and something else. Something he didn’t have a name for. It was all so overwhelming that he struggled to make his voice work. Before he could manage it, though, the bell rang, and he was forced to take his seat. But Marinette was smiling at him—a real, genuine Marinette smile—Nino was nodding and giving him a thumbs up, and even Alya, glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, looked like she might be contemplating upgrading him from “scum” to something slightly better.

He clasped his shaking hands together, took a few deep breaths, and listened to Marinette chewing quietly and the rustle of her passing a cookie to Alya.

The sound of a faint buzz made him glance toward Nino, who had apparently just received a text message. He opened it under the table, read it, typed something, then tilted it toward Adrien so he could read it as well.

Alya: A week?

Nino: Since Tuesday.

A moment later, there was another buzz.

Alya: Maybe we’ll let him live.

Chapter Text

Adrien closed his locker and paused to give himself a mental pep talk. Marinette had agreed to talk to him after school, and he was meeting her in a few minutes.

You can do this, he told himself. You’re freaking Chat Noir. You face akuma all the time. You can handle apologizing to Marinette.

She was waiting for him in front of the school, holding her bag with both hands and looking very neutral. Alya and Nino were casually chatting a little way away. Well—casually chatting and also watching.

“Hi, Marinette,” he greeted her.

“Hello,” she replied.

Okay. So far so good.

“I was thinking we could walk to the park. This feels a little, um, public. Would that be okay?” Not that the park wasn’t public, of course, but probably at least a few people at the park wouldn’t know them.

“Okay,” Marinette said. As they began walking, Adrien careful not to get to close or too far, he saw Alya and Nino fall in behind them, keeping far enough away that they couldn’t overhear, but close enough to keep an eye on them.

Good, thought Adrien stubbornly, trying to pretend it didn’t bother him a little that his friend(s?) didn’t trust him alone with Marinette for a few minutes. But it’s good that they’re here. Just in case I mess this up and she needs some support.

Things were awkwardly silent between them; luckily the park was only a few minutes away. He instinctively moved toward a park bench—the same one that he and Marinette had once sat on to share one of her parents’ quiches. Once he got there, though, he wasn’t sure what to do; wanted to face her, not sit beside her, for this at least. So he turned toward her, clasped his hands behind his back, and began.

“So first of all, I want to apologize for how I’ve behaved. There’s no excuse for hurting you like I did, but if it’s all right I’d like to explain.”

Marinette just looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

“You have been so amazing these past few weeks. You were so kind to me when I needed a friend, and you gave me exactly what I needed to start getting over… that girl. But I think I needed you too much—I let myself rely on you more than I should have.”

He couldn’t quite parse the look on Marinette’s face, but it didn’t look positive. He continued quickly.

“On Monday, I was looking forward to seeing you so much—I missed you over the weekend, and I wanted to tell you about talking to her. But then I overhead Nino and Alya talking about you.”

Marinette’s eyebrows shot up.

“It’s not their fault!” he said. “I’m not trying to blame them. They didn’t know I was there, and they were worried about you. They were talking about how you were so tired—you weren’t sleeping enough, and it was because you were taking care of me . I thought they were nuts, because you always seemed fine. But then I peeked in the door at you, and you looked terrible .

“Not that you didn’t look pretty—” she gave him a strange look at that; “—but you looked so tired and I realized that I had been taking advantage of you and you were harming yourself for my sake and I just felt so awful and I didn’t know what to do!”

“Adrien—” Marinette started to say, but Adrien was busy spilling out all his emotions and he just couldn’t stop.

“No, please, let me… I know I should have talked to you, it’s so obvious now, but at the time I just wanted you to take care of yourself so I was stupid and I just told you I couldn’t hang out and I didn’t want the cookies even though I really really did and I didn’t mean to be all rude over text, I just wanted you to get some rest and then you were so sad and I didn’t know why but I do now and it’s all my fault and I’m so sorry, Marinette, I’m so, so sorry!”

He dropped onto the bench and buried his head in his hands.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel used. I didn’t want to stop being friends just because I was ready to start getting over… her. I just wanted you to have a break from babysitting my stupid feelings...”

He trailed off as he felt an arm slide around his shoulder. He felt Marinette settle onto the bench next to him.

“It’s okay, Adrien. I understand. Don’t worry about it…”

“No!” he said, jumping to his feet. Marinette looked startled, to say the least. “Even now, I’m making this all about me , when it should be about you .”

He dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Please let me make this up to you, Marinette. Please.”

“You don’t have to,” she said softly. “I forgive you.”

“You may not need me to,” Adrien said. “But I need me to. So I can forgive myself.”

“All right,” Marinette said after a moment. “If that’s what you need. Just… don’t, like, hire skywriters or hang banners on the Eiffel Tower or anything, okay?”

“Of course not, my lady,” Adrien said, rising to his feet and sweeping into a gallant bow in one smooth motion. “I shall be the soul of discretion.”

He turned toward Nino and Alya and waved them over, too busy to notice the strange look that Marinette was giving him.

Adrien threw himself into making things up to Marinette with all the enthusiasm of—well, of Marinette trying to heal a broken heart. He brought her a treat every morning—not always baked goods; sometimes he made her, Alya, and Nino a picnic lunch or stopped at the florist for flowers. He assigned himself lunch duty; when he didn’t bring a lunch he took them out, and when she told him to stop buying her things he dedicated himself to making her smile all through the period.

He was very careful to make sure he wasn’t taking up all her time, but he always had a game or activity ready whenever she was available. He was a little concerned that those times would overlap with his extracurricular activities, but somehow she never wanted to hang out during those times. After a while, he figured it out—she had obviously memorized his schedule back when she was caring for his broken heart and was making sure she didn’t interfere with his activities. He would have ditched them for her—but it would have made his father angry, and so he was grateful to her for for her consideration. It just drove home what a caring person she was, how lucky he was to have a second (or third, really) chance to be her friend, and also how imperative it was that he didn’t screw this up.

At the beginning, he felt desperate all the time—desperate to prove himself, desperate to make Marinette (and Alya too) like him again. But as the days went by, he found that he was calmer and more focused. He discovered something he had never really realized before—that doing things to make other people happy made him feel good . Marinette especially; he found himself living for the moments he could make her laugh or even smile.

Which is why his stomach dropped out of him the day she said, “Adrien, it’s time to stop trying to make it up to me.”

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Paris. The sun was shining brightly down on the two teenagers, who lay side by side on a picnic blanket in their favorite park. Alya and Nino had other plans that day, and it had just hit Adrien that he and Marinette were alone together for the first time in several weeks, as their two best friends had been constantly present buffers since Marinette had accepted his apology. He was practically vibrating in excitement from being so close to her, feeling the warmth of her skin radiating across the few inches of air that separated them. He searched for something funny to say, something that would make her laugh and maybe smile that amazing Marinette smile at him, but it was as if all intelligent thought had drained out of his head.

That’s when she said it.

“No,” Adrien said, sitting up. “It hasn’t been enough yet.”

“It’s been more than enough,” Marinette said gently, sitting up as well.

Adrien’s stomach sank. Was she tired of him? Was he coming on too strong? Was she rejecting his friendship? Was this what it was like for her?

“Stop that,” Marinette said, as if she had read his mind. “We’ve done that once already. We’re not going to do it again.”

He looked up, hopeful. She had to be talking about him feeling rejected right now, right?

“Remember how you said you should have talked to me about it? This is me talking to you,” Marinette continued. “This has gone on long enough. I’ve forgiven you. Alya’s forgiven you. As far as we’re concerned, everything’s all squared up.”

“But Marinette,” he objected, “you did it for two weeks .”

“You’ve done it for three already.”

That can’t be right, Adrien thought. He started counting. Can it?

“I have, haven’t I?” he said despondently.

“Have you really not forgiven yourself yet?” Marinette asked him.

“I… I guess I have,” Adrien admitted glumly. “I’m just having so much fun with you…”

Marinette laughed. Adrien looked up, surprised (but pleased, as he always was when he made her laugh).

“One of us doesn’t have to be—what did Nino call it?—the other’s cruise director to have fun together. You know we can hang out and have fun together just because we’re friends, right?”

Adrien stared at her.

“I’m an idiot,” he said in wonder.

Marinette laughed again (she was so cute ). “Don’t say that about my friend.”

“Marinette?” Adrien said nervously. “I’d like to make one more gesture.”

“Adrien…” she said, clearly planning say no.

“Please?” he broke in. “I know that I’ve made it up to you. But… well… you were so kind to me when I showed up at your door all those weeks ago, and so kind to forgive me for being such a jerk—”

Marinette was giving him a look that said that she wasn’t going to put up with much more of that “I’m a jerk” talk.

“And I’d really like to thank you,” Adrien continued. “Like formally. Officially. So, would you let me take you to dinner? To say thank you?”

Marinette made a face at him—the kind that said she wasn’t sure about the idea.

“Just think about it. And then I won’t buy you anything else except on your birthday or holidays or whatever.” He thought that might be helpful in convincing her. Adrien didn’t think much about buying things to make his friends happy—he certainly had enough money—but it obviously made Marinette uncomfortable, so he was trying really hard to not do it too much.

“Well… how fancy are we talking here?” Marinette asked suspiciously.

This was the deciding point. Adrien went with pure honesty.

“Pretty fancy. I’m really grateful. Also I’ve been wanting to try that new restaurant named after Ladybug, La Coccinelle .” (He was so proud of himself for saying her name so calmly and with only a little squiggly feeling in his stomach.)

“Isn’t there a, like, five-month waiting list for La Coccinelle ?”

“I don’t want to sound like Chloe here, but… not for me. My dad knows the manager,” Adrien told her sheepishly.

“Huh,” Marinette said. He was feeling cautiously optimistic. She and Alya had spent several hours pouring over photographs and reviews from La Coccinelle’s grand opening, so he felt fairly sure she’d be interested. It was his ace in the hole, in fact. “Okay. I’ll go. But then you don’t buy me stuff anymore.”

“Deal,” Adrien said. “But I can still make you stuff, right?”

“Yes,” Marinette smiled at him. “But not every day, okay? And sometimes I’ll make you stuff, too.”

“Okay,” he said. “But most of the time you’ll bring stuff your parents already made.”

“Deal,” she said—Marinette really did value her sleep.

“One more thing,” Adrien said. Marinette gave him an exasperated look. “Since it’s a pretty fancy restaurant... if you want, I can borrow a dress from my father’s new line for you to wear. I mean, you could keep it if you wanted, but I get the feeling you’d rather borrow one.”

Marinette looked at him. She seemed to be struggling with something—excitement about wearing a Gabriel dress, he was betting, and probably reluctance to borrow something that valuable from him. But he was wrong.

“Actually,” she said. “As much as I appreciate the offer—and I do—I’ve been working on something of my own that would be appropriate, and I’d love to get an opportunity to actually wear it. Unless you don’t think my work would be high enough quality?”

“I’m sure it will be!” Adrien said loyally. He had seen some things that Marinette had sewn, and she was very talented. The designs went without saying—even his father liked those. “I’m excited to be part of the Marinette label’s public debut!”

Marinette laughed at him.

In that moment, Adrien was perfectly happy.

Chapter Text

Nino: U getting ready 4 ur date, dude?

Adrien: For the last time, it’s not a date.

Nino: Sure its not. Did u get her flowers?

Adrien: No, because it’s not a date.

Adrien: Wait, do you think I should?

Nino: Totally dude. Flowers always get dates off to a good start

Adrien: Goodbye.

Nino: Have fun on ur date

Nino: If u kiss her goodnight Alya wants details

Adrien put down his phone, shaking his head fondly. Neither Alya or Nino would stop teasing him about his “date” with Marinette, no matter how often he explained—calmly and logically—that he was just taking her out as a friendly thank-you.

He kind of loved it, though, because he knew they were just doing it out of affection.

It’s been harder on Marinette, he thought. She’s so sensitive to that kind of thing. She’s barely stopped blushing all week. Like, she’s perpetually pink, except when she’s red.

It’s adorable.

Adrien couldn’t wait for the dinner. He enjoyed spending time with Marinette so much, and he knew that having several hours to bask in her company, doing something nice for her that would make her happy, sharing stories and thoughts and ideas, would be wonderful. Possibly the best evening he’d ever spent outside of his Chat Noir costume.

Maybe even better than that. I doubt anything will try to kill or brainwash me tonight.

He looked in the mirror one last time, straightening his tie. He looked pretty good for having put himself together without any help from the stylists who usually did him up for his photo shoots. He was a little unsure about the bow tie—would Marinette think it was quirky and charming or just dorky?—but he loved the matching vest and the way the bottle-green color brought out his eyes.

Adrien was surprised to find that his stomach felt a little jumpy as he climbed into the car. He didn’t think he’d be so nervous about going out to dinner with his friend. He supposed it must be because it was so fancy that it felt like a big deal, or maybe because Nino and Alya had been teasing him so much. But whatever the reason, his heart was pounding and his breath was coming a little fast.

Maybe I should have gotten her flowers. Girls like flowers, right? And what with the dinner and all, it’s not a big deal to spend a little more, right? They don’t have to be expensive…

He checked the time. He was early.

Already knowing he was going to regret doing this, he pulled out his phone and typed out a text to Alya.

Adrien: What color is Marinette’s dress?

Alya: LOL pink

Alya: There’s a swatch in the seat pocket

Adrien looked up in surprise, then dug into the seat pocket in front of him. After a moment he pulled out a piece of light pink fabric. When had she done that?

She’s like a ninja or something.

Adrien: Thanks.

Alya: Anytime. Go get ‘er, Tiger.

Adrien put his phone away. He could feel himself blushing, which was ridiculous, but true nonetheless. He leaned forward and spoke to the Gorilla.

“Could we swing by a florist real quick?”

Adrien clutched a small bundle of pink baby roses that perfectly matched the swatch as he stood in the Dupain-Cheng living room and gaped at Marinette.

The dress she had designed and made herself was light pink with a vintage ‘30s feel. The triangular panels set into the skirt seams, ruffles around the v-neck, and flutter sleeves were pink as well, but with large black polka dots in a familiar pattern. Her hair was pulled up on the sides and held with dark-colored combs, but fell loose at the back of her head. A sparkling pink necklace, her usual round black earrings, and low black heels completed the look.

She’s beautiful.

How did I never notice that before?

Adrien forced his mouth closed and held out the flowers awkwardly.

“Th-these are for you,” he managed to say.

“They’re lovely. Thank you,” Marinette said, taking them. “But you didn’t have to, you know.”

“Tell that to Nino and Alya,” Adrien muttered. Marinette heard him and laughed.

“They’re ridiculous, aren’t they?” she said. “Hold on a minute, I want to do something with these.” Marinette disappeared and returned a few moments later with a vase holding most of the roses. A few of them, though, had been fastened in her hair where it was pulled up on the left side. Adrien admired the contrast between the soft pink flowers and the black of her hair.

“Nice,” he said approvingly, using all his years of modeling experience to pretend he wasn’t reeling. What is wrong with me? he wondered.

“Well,” said Marinette’s father, whom Adrien had almost forgotten was there, along with her mother, “You two’d better get going. Wouldn’t want to miss your reservation.” He clapped Adrien on the shoulder and winked at Marinette, who blushed.

“Have fun!” Sabine said. “Back by eleven, Marinette.”

“Yes, Maman,” Marinette said with a roll of her eyes aimed so that only Adrien could see. “Honestly,” she said to him as they descended the stairs, “they’re as bad as Alya and Nino.”

“ Almost as bad,” Adrien said, laughing.

“Maybe for you,” Marinette retorted. “For a second I thought I was going to get The Talk. ”

A horrified pause occurred, during which Marinette clearly realized that she had just said that to a boy who was taking her out to dinner— even if it was only as friends—and Adrien put two and two together and realized what talk she was referring to. They froze, and both of their faces went from normal to Ladybug-red in no time flat.

“Um. Can we pretend I didn’t say that?” Marinette managed to squeak out after a moment of petrified horror.

“Didn’t say what?” Adrien replied gallantly, except that his voice cracked. He didn’t think he could blush any harder, but he was wrong.

“Thank you,” Marinette muttered, and they continued awkwardly to the car.

“So…” Adrien said.

They had managed to get past the awkwardness after a few moments, and conversation during the car ride had turned to the usual subjects—video games, the kids in their class, even some speculation about akuma and the mysterious Hawk Moth. It was a popular topic in Paris at the moment, and Adrien had perfected his ability to talk about it as if he were someone who only knew what had been publicly reported.

But now he was sitting in one of the most exclusive restaurants in Paris, across from a beautiful girl who seemed to be glowing in the subdued candlelight, and he couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. Or at least not a thing that didn’t sound stupid.

“Are you nervous?” Marinette asked him. It was unexpected—Marinette wasn’t nervous around him anymore, but she had been not that long ago, and it seemed strange that she would be asking him that particular question so straightforwardly.

“I guess a little?” he answered her. “I don’t know why.”

Marinette pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Telling Alya that you’re nervous,” she said with a teasing grin.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, “please don’t.”

“I wasn’t really going to,” she said, putting the phone down. “I’m not a monster . But you don’t have to be nervous, Adrien. I know—”

“ What? ” a voice shrieked from across the room. Adrien’s eyes widened and met Marinette’s, which were also wide. They both knew that voice.
“ WHAT? ” the voice repeated, and with a wince, they both turned to watch their doom approach.

Chloé Bourgeois was marching across the room in high dudgeon, steam almost coming out of her ears. She was dressed for a night out in designer clothes, of course (Adrien had a stray thought that Marinette’s dress was much more classy), and behind her they could see the mayor looking after her in confusion.

Chloé had not been pleased with the amount of time Adrien had been spending with Marinette and Alya recently, but he had mostly ignored it, which was usually the best way to deal with Chloé. He knew she had been extra vicious to Marinette, but Marinette never seemed to let it get her down—it was one of her more amazing traits. When Chloé couldn’t seem to get any control over Adrien’s behavior or get a rise of of Marinette, she had taken to giving them both the silent treatment (the kind where she talked about how she wasn’t talking to them loudly, at length, whenever they were around). But apparently the silent treatment had been abandoned, and Adrien didn’t think that ignoring her was going to work tonight.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to Marinette. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Adrikins, what are you doing here with her ?” Chloé demanded, stomping up to the table.

“We’re having dinner, Chloé,” Adrien replied reasonably, “As I assume you’re here to do as well. Actually, it looks like your dad is waiting for you.”

He had hoped that would be sufficient to defuse her, but he had underestimated the strength of her imagined claim on him.

“But with her ? Why? I don’t understand,” Chloé said, expertly communicating through her tone that she found it utterly inconceivable that anyone would be here with Marinette by choice.

“Come on, Chloé,” Adrien said annoyance creeping into his voice (he already knew he was making a mistake, but he couldn’t quite help himself). “Because I like her.”

“Oh my God,” Chloé said. “Is this a date ? Are you on a date with her ?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Adrien saw Marinette opening her mouth to reply, but he saw his chance to get rid of Chloé, and he grabbed it.

“Yes, it’s a date,” he said fiercely. “Marinette and I are dating, and you need to deal with it .”

The sound Chloé made was indescribable—something between disgust, horror, rage, and misery (which he did feel a little bad about). But then, to his immense relief, she whirled on her heel and stomped back to her father, screeching something about the restaurant being full of hoi polloi and she wouldn’t be caught dead eating here as she dragged him out the door.

“Whew,” said Adrien, turning back to Marinette… who was looking at him with one of those expressions she got sometimes that he couldn’t read. It only took him a second to realize why.

“I- I’m sorry!” he said, panicking. “I wasn’t trying to… I didn’t mean to… I just wanted…”

“I get it,” she said quietly. “You wanted to make her go away, and it worked.”

He gulped a few times, not sure what to say.

“Don’t worry about it, Adrien,” Marinette said. “I know this isn’t a date.”

He felt a surge of relief, but also something else. Something like… regret?

“But you are going to pay for it,” she continued. He tensed a little, unsure what she meant. “There’s no way Chloé’s going to keep that a secret, and you will never convince Alya and Nino this wasn’t a date once it gets out.”

“Oh, no,” Adrien moaned. “You’re right, I’m an idiot.” Then, with a sly look that might have been more suited to his other persona, “Maybe we’ll have to start dating out of self defense.”

He was inexplicably eager to hear her response, but she just laughed, maybe a tad uncomfortably, and changed the subject to the inspiration of his father’s most recent line. He sighed to himself and politely went along with the conversation. They had a tacit deal about Gabriel’s work: Marinette was careful not to talk too much about it, but he always tried to give her some good inside perspectives when she did.

The conversation had not gone on long when it was interrupted by the thing that Adrien wanted least to hear in the world at this moment (after Chloé’s voice, that is)—the yells and crashes that meant akuma .

Even as he thought the word, he heard the otherworldly shriek: “ You are not always right! ”

Crap, he thought. Crap crap crap.

“Akuma!” someone yelled nearby, accompanied by a series of bangs.

“Marinette!” Adrien said. “You have to—”

“I’m going to go hide in the ladies’ room,” she cut him off. “It’s usually pretty safe because there are rarely windows in there.”

He blinked. He hadn’t realized that Marinette had put that much thought into hiding from akuma. Then again, now that he thought about it, he almost never saw Marinette around during a battle. She must have figured out some tricks for staying out of the way.

Smart girl, he thought. It’s so much harder when civilians run toward the akumas… like Alya.

“Sounds good,” he said. “I’m going to make sure you’re not followed, then I think I’ll follow your lead and head for the men’s.”

Marinette nodded and ran off. Adrien made sure she was out of sight before finding a place to transform.

This time was easier. Chat Noir and Ladybug fell easily into their old patterns, and the akuma was quickly dispatched. It turned out to be someone in the service industry who had been abused by a customer (Chat had a sneaking suspicion he knew who).

“Pound it!” the heroes said in unison, fist-bumping for the first time since the incident. They both stood still for a moment, looking at each other awkwardly.

“Um,” said Ladybug. “I guess I’d better get going…”

“Got a hot date?” Chat asked, expecting it to come out more bitter than it actually did. To tell the truth, he didn’t really feel bitter at all.

“No,” said Ladybug. “Just hanging out with a friend.”

“I’ve got to get back to someone, too,” Chat replied, surprised to find that he was more interested in getting back to Marinette than in wondering whether Ladybug was just trying to protect his feelings.

“Hot date?” Ladybug asked him.

He thought about it. “No,” he said, then, perhaps being honest for the first time, “Maybe. I don’t know. I like her.”

She reached out and touched his hand softly. “I’m glad, Chat.”

He smiled weakly at her. His pride was still bruised, but he saw clearly now that his heart was healing.

“You’d better go,” Ladybug said. “You don’t want to keep her waiting.”

He really didn’t.

She wasn’t waiting for him; he spent several nervous minutes wondering if he should go knock on the bathroom door before she appeared.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding a little breathless as she dropped back into her seat. “There was a woman having a panic attack in the bathroom and I was calming her down.”

He smiled at her. He still marvelled sometimes at how kind she was.

“I didn’t mind waiting. You were safe, then?”

“Oh, yes, I was fine. The akuma never came anywhere near the bathroom; I think this woman had an encounter with one before, though.”

“Marinette?” Adrien asked, hesitant to bring it up but needing to talk about it. “Do you think that akuma was my fault?”

She understood immediately. “Do you think it was Chloé who set the victim off?”

He nodded.

“Maybe,” she said. “But if it was, it’s not your fault.”

“I lied to her,” he said. “I did it on purpose because I knew it would make her mad.”

“But she didn’t have to take it out on that person, if that’s what happened. She didn’t have to be mean .”

Marinette looked at Adrien’s doubtful expression.

“Look,” she said. “Things happen that make us angry, or sad, or guilty, or a hundred other emotions. We can’t choose to not feel what we feel—it doesn’t work that way. We can’t force ourselves to feel something we don’t, even if we want to.” For a moment, her eyes were far away, and he wondered what she was thinking about. “But what we can control, what we can choose , is how we behave—how we react to things that make us mad or sad or whatever. And if Chloé took her anger out on that person, it was a choice . She could have been kind—she always has the option to be kind. She just rarely takes it. And that is her choice, and her doing, and her responsibility. Besides, how many people has Chloé akumatized when she wasn’t even in a bad mood, when she was just being Chloé? You know it’s more than one.”

“How did you get to be so wise?” Adrien asked. She had a really good point, and his guilt was quickly draining away.

“I made someone very angry once,” Marinette said, and her eyes were distant again. “He never said it, but I know he was. But he didn’t take it out on me. I’m so grateful for that, because it’s how our friendship survived.”

“I don’t know how anyone could ever be mad at you, Marinette,” Adrien said with total honesty. “You’re so… good .”

She looked him straight in the eyes, and the blueness of them hit him like a ton of bricks. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Adrien,” she said. “I’m flawed like everyone else. I’ve hurt people. I can be petty and selfish and I get jealous.”

“Who do you get jealous of?” he asked, something not unlike that very emotion churning in his stomach.

“Let’s not dig too deeply into my flaws,” was her evasive answer. She broke eye contact and added, “or we’ll have to dig into yours, too.”

The waiter came to see if they were ready to order now that the akuma threat was passed. The mood lightened, but Adrien’s mind churned with thoughts and emotions he didn’t know how to name or handle as he looked at the smile of the girl across from him and couldn’t quite remember if it was her or Ladybug that he longed for.

Chapter Text

Nino: hey dude how’d it go?

Adrien: Fine.

Nino: u kiss her?

Adrien: No.

Nino: but u wanted 2

Adrien: Shut up.

He had wanted to kiss her.

He had tried to put the idea out of his head on the car ride back to Marinette’s, but it kept sneaking in there. And then he had found himself standing awkwardly outside her door, trying to get up the guts to lean in…

She had thanked him and hugged him goodnight.

It was no kiss, but it was special anyway. They were not usually very physical with each other; when they touched, it was generally friendly hand or arm taps. So when she reached out and gave him a quick hug, it was outside their current definition of normal.

For Adrien, it was magical. Her slim body seemed to fit perfectly in his arms, and it felt strangely familiar, like she had been there before. It was exciting and comforting at the same time, and when she pulled away after only a few seconds, he felt like she took away a part of himself with her.

And then she smiled, said goodnight, and was gone before he could even think of starting to gather his courage for a maybe-kiss again.

A short car ride later, and Adrien found himself leaning against the bathroom counter, staring himself down in the mirror.

“You’ve got to get your head on straight, dude,” he told his reflection severely.

“Do you really think he’s going to listen to you?” Plagg asked sarcastically, floating up to sit on his shoulder. Adrien had, of course, closed and locked the bathroom door, and it had, of course, been a useless gesture.

“Not now, Plagg,” Adrien said, brushing at his shoulder to dislodge the kwami, who simply dodged out of the way and then returned to the same spot.

“Hey, c’mon, kid, I’m trying to help here,” Plagg protested.

“You are?” said Adrien. “I never would have guessed.”

“Talk to me. I’m, like, thousands of years old. I’ve got to have more insight than your own reflection.”

Is he serious? Adrien could hardly believe it. Plagg actually sounded as if he meant it… like he was maybe concerned . Adrien shrugged his non-bekwamied shoulder.

“Okay, fine, you tell me to get my head on straight,” he said.

“What’s crooked about your head?” Plagg asked. “Is it because you like that Marinette girl?”

Adrien groaned and buried his head in his hands.

“Sorry, kid, I can’t help if I don’t understand. What’s wrong with liking her?”

Adrien sighed. Ladybug.

Plagg left his shoulder and floated around so he could look Adrien directly in the face.

“Adrien. I’m not saying this to be mean,” the kwami said, serious like he very rarely was. “But Ladybug turned you down. She said, and I quote, ‘It’s just never going to happen.’ So why would you waste your time clinging to a dream that will never come true when there is a perfectly lovely girl that you legitimately like who things could actually work out with if only you were to remove your head from your butt?”

Adrien gaped at him.

“Get over yourself,” Plagg added grumpily.

“You’re right,” Adrien said with a touch of wonder in his voice. “But it just feels so… unfaithful.”

“Could you remind me,” Plagg retorted, “what Ladybug said just a few hours ago when you told her you liked another girl?”

“She said… she said she was glad,” Adrien said.

“Ladybug cares about you, kid,” the kwami said. “You know she hated to cause you pain. She wants you to be happy.”

“I know,” said Adrien, a touch petulantly.

“Do you think that Marinette could make you happy?”

Adrien thought about it. He didn’t actually have to, but he was so used to pretending that he wasn’t interested in Marinette in that way that he had to take a moment to tell himself that it was okay to be honest.

“Yes…”

“Well then,” Plagg said. “I think you owe it to Ladybug to be happy with Marinette.”

Adrien stared at Plagg, something rising in his chest. Joy, maybe? Relief? Both?

“You’re right,” he said, a determined look on his face. “Thanks, Plagg!”

As he ran out of the bathroom, he heard the kwami say, “I am so good.” Then he thought he heard something that sounded like, “Tikki will be so proud of me,” but since he didn’t know what that meant and he had plans to make, he ignored it.

Adrien had a problem.

As soon as he admitted to himself that he had a crush on Marinette, the full weight of it had come crashing down on him. And to his surprise, it turned out to be a really big crush . Apparently, he was very accomplished at hiding things from himself.

He fell farther every day. He lived for her smile—any smile, though he shivered with joy every time one was directed exclusively at him. Each laugh was like fireworks in his chest. Every moment he spent in her company was so exhilarating he was starting to think it was better than the feeling of freedom that came with being Chat Noir.

The problem was that even as he longed for her, he wasn’t quite sure how to make it happen. He knew Marinette liked him, as a friend anyway, and he was determined to charm her into liking him as more. But he couldn’t figure out how to do it.

He had promised not to buy her anything else, so flowers or gifts were out. He could make her cookies or lunch—and he did—but he had been doing that for a while, and they had agreed to keep doing it at a reduced rate, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary or special in any way. He had considered frosting some cookies to spell out “I love you,” but he felt like that might be too much, too out of the blue. He had tried to write her a poem (several, actually), but it had all gone as wrong as the one he had once tried to write for Ladybug. There wasn’t a single one that was good enough to send to Marinette.

He was stymied.

“So, you ready to talk about it yet, dude?” Nino said, startling Adrien out of his reverie. They were sitting on the school’s steps enjoying the sun; Marinette and Alya were inside, putting the finishing touches on a project that was due that afternoon.

“T-talk about what?” Adrien said, too quickly.

“Oh, I dunno,” his friend replied. “The fact that you’ve been constantly staring at Marinette like she’s the sun, moon, and stars rolled into one?”

“Is it that obvious?” Adrien groaned.

“To everyone but Marinette,” Nino said. “As far as Alya and I can tell, she’s completely oblivious.”

“Great,” muttered Adrien sarcastically.

“Why don’t you ask her out?” Nino asked, cutting to the chase.

“You say that like it’s easy,” Adrien muttered.

“Isn’t it?” Nino said.

“No! What would I even say?”

“Try ‘Can I take you out to dinner again, but not just as friends this time?’” Nino suggested, then added, “Wow, I didn’t know you could turn that shade of red. Really makes your eyes stand out.”

“But I promised not to spend money on her anymore,” Adrien said.

“Dude. You don’t think she’d revise that if you were spending it on a date ?” Nino said patiently.

“Do you think she would?”

“Are you serious right now?” Nino asked him. “Yes. Yes, I think she would. Go ask her.”

“I was kind of planning to charm her a little first…” Adrien protested, trailing off as his friend rolled his eyes.

“How?” Nino challenged.

“I don’t know…” Adrien muttered petulantly.

“I think you should just talk to her,” Nino told him. “That’s how Alya and I got together.”

“I’m scared to,” Adrien confessed.

“I know,” said Nino. “Believe me, I know. Remember me when I had a crush on Marinette? But you’ll never know if you never ask, dude.”

Nino was right. Everything he said was completely reasonable, and despite being a teenager in love, Adrien decided to listen to reason.

“Okay,” he said, standing up with determination. He was a superhero, for God’s sake. He could do this. “I’m going to talk to her now.”

“You can tell Alya I have something to tell her so she’ll leave you two alone,” Nino offered.

“Thanks, man,” Adrien said, “but won’t she get mad that I lied?”

“You won’t be lying. I totally have some stuff to tell her,” Nino said with a wink.

Oh. He means about me. And Marinette. Sigh.

He shot Nino a shaky thumbs up and made his way into the building. Marinette and Alya were sitting on one of the benches, chatting as they finished their project. Adrien paused behind a pillar to psych himself up, taking a few deep breaths before peeking around the pillar.

They were talking about Alya’s favorite subject—Ladybug and Chat Noir. He listened for a moment, then grimaced; they were talking about Alya’s very favorite subject—her unrelenting and shameless shipping of the two superheros.

“They are absolutely in love, Marinette,” Alya trod the well-worn path. “You can see it in the way they look at each other, the way they touch each other, the way they work together…”

“I don’t think so, Alya,” Marinette said, sounding a tad annoyed. She lifted her head.

There was a vertical banner hanging from the rafters between Adrien and the girls. It was red, and had an inverted V cut out of the bottom. As she looked up, Adrien’s perspective caused the points of the banner to block his view of Marinette’s eyes, hiding the upper part of her face like a mask.

“She just doesn’t feel that way about him. You need to let it go. It’s not going to happen,” Ladybug said.

Adrien’s world shattered.

Chapter Text

Marinette is Ladybug.

Marinette is Ladybug!

The words were the same. The inflection was the same. With the banner over her eyes, the face was the same.

The hair.

The build.

The smile...

Adrien fled.

He had the presence of mind to run out a side door so as not to run into Nino, but that was the extent of thought he was capable of outside of the horrifying realization pounding inside him.

Marinette was Ladybug.

Out the door, down the street, no concern for the rest of the school day, no concern for his bodyguard or Nathalie, no concern for anything but getting away .

He ducked into an alley and transformed, cutting Plagg off before he could ask what was wrong. Then across the roofs and up the tower to the very top where he could be absolutely alone.

Unless Ladybug shows up.

No, he thought dully. She has that presentation today.

He curled up around himself. His eyes darted around desperately, dry with panic.

How can this be?

But it was. He was sure. Some things, once seen, cannot be unseen, and this was one of them.

It’s not fair. He winced at how childish it sounded in his head. I was over Ladybug. I was moving on. I was in love ! But I never got over her, did I? I just fell in love with her all over again…

Worse. This is worse.

He didn’t know how, but it was true. He had loved Ladybug, but she had been distantly wonderful, coming into his world for short spurts of adrenaline-filled time, followed by days, weeks sometimes, of waiting to see her again. But Marinette… Marinette he knew —her likes and dislikes, her favorite jokes, the things that made her sad and the things that made her laugh. He had watched her drift off to sleep on a lazy Saturday afternoon—the opposite of the intense moments he spent with Ladybug. And maybe that was why this heartbreak was so much worse.

Because his heart was breaking again.

Ladybug had been absolutely clear: she didn’t want him.

And Marinette was Ladybug.

So.

Adrien might have a chance, he knew. Marinette liked him, and she might have said yes. He could still ask, and try to hide from her that he was Chat Noir. But he knew it was a losing proposition—it would come out eventually. And he knew how Marinette—Ladybug—felt about Chat Noir. He knew how that would end.

He couldn’t go through it again.

And he knew he couldn’t lie to her like that. Not to Marinette, his friend, or to Ladybug, his partner.

No. It was over.

The pain swirled through him, ripping from his throat in a strangled yowl of misery that floated away on the breeze, high above Paris. The tears came after.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was when he sat up, his tears spent and his chest hollow. He had to figure out how to deal with this knowledge going forward.

Adrien remembered what she had said to him on their not-date, just a few days ago. He couldn’t help what he felt (and he was feeling a lot of things). But he could choose what he did with those feelings. It would be so easy to be cold, cruel even, to use the shards of his shattered world to slice at those around him.

But he wouldn’t. He cared too much about his friends to do that. He cared too much about Marinette.

But he wasn’t going to tell her that he was Chat Noir.

He didn’t like the idea of keeping secrets from her, but he couldn’t stand the thought of losing the friendship he had with Marinette now. He knew she’d draw away from him if she knew the truth; it would be too much to learn that her close friend was also the boy she’d been so carefully keeping at a distance for so long and had hurt so badly. He knew they’d never be together the way he wanted, but he couldn’t stand to lose her friendship, too. And for his own sake—he couldn’t stand to see the pity she had for Chat in her eyes when she looked at Adrien.

He was going to have to lie a little.

Ladybug had never wanted him to know her identity, and he wouldn’t betray that. Not as Chat, not as Adrien. It would keep both of them safe.

His decision made, he made his way down the tower, found an empty alley, and became Adrien again.

“What’s going on, kid?” Plagg asked him, worried.

“We’ll talk later,” Adrien said, shooing the kwami into his pocket. “I have some music to face.” He started home slowly, knowing that he was going to be in major trouble. If he was lucky, Nathalie wouldn’t have told his father that he ditched school and hadn’t come home yet, and he would just be getting it from her and the Gorilla.

He pulled out his phone to see if he had gotten any angry calls from his father and saw that he hadn’t, but he did have a large numbers of missed calls and texts from Nathalie, Nino, Alya… and Marinette. The texts from Nathalie got progressively angrier; the texts from his friends progressively more worried. Adrien shot off a quick text assuring his friends he was fine and would explain later, then went to face his caretaker.

Adrien was lucky, to his surprise—he didn’t think this day was going to cut him any breaks. Nathalie hadn’t told his father that he had gone missing.

He thought about making up an elaborate lie, but decided to just blame it on a teenage rebellious streak and leave it at that. He knew that Nathalie thought his father was too restrictive sometimes, so he managed to play effectively on that and get off with a stern warning and only one weekend’s restriction to the house. He did have to do a little fast-talking to keep her from blaming his friends for being bad influences; luckily, he was able to show her his phone with all the worried messages on it, proving that they had been in school when he was out “rebelling.”

Adrien dragged himself up to his room, wrung out emotionally and physically. The moment the door closed behind him, Plagg popped out of his shirt.

“Seriously, kid, what’s up? Something happened, but I couldn’t tell what,” the kwami said impatiently.

Adrien pulled up his phone and opened the group text he had with Marinette, Nino, and Alya.

Adrien: Sorry about worrying you, guys. I felt really sick all of a sudden and had to go home. I basically passed out once I got here and didn’t hear my phone going off.

He turned to Plagg. “Marinette said something that upset me.”

“Upset you!” the kwami said. “Kind of an understatement, isn’t it? Besides, you didn’t even talk to her.”

Marinette was the first person to respond to the text.

Marinette: Are you OK?

Adrien: I’m feeling better now. Maybe it was food poisoning? It came on fast and seems to be almost over.

To Plagg, Adrien said, “I know. It was something she said to Alya.”

“What did she say?” Plagg asked.

The next text was from Nino, separate from the group text.

Nino: Did something happen w/ Mari?

Adrien: No, I got sick before I talked to her.

He answered Plagg, “Something that reminded me of Ladybug’s rejection. I panicked.”

“You mean overreacted,” the kwami said.

“Probably,” Adrien lied.

Nino: So, u going 2 ask her out tomorrow?

Adrien: I don’t think so. It just feels wrong.

Nino: What does that mean?

Plagg, who was reading over his shoulder, echoed Nino’s text. “Yeah, what does that mean?”

Adrien: I don’t know, it just does.

“So you’re giving up?” Plagg demanded. “Just because she said something that reminded you of Ladybug? How stupid are you?”

“Pretty stupid,” Adrien answered viciously. “But it’s my choice.”

Nino: ok dude. It’s ur life

Plagg made a disgusted noise and floated off to his stash of Camembert. Adrien clutched his phone harder when another text from Marinette came up on the group chat.

Marinette: Feel better, ok?

Adrien: Will do.

He set down the phone with a sigh, then crawled into bed and pulled the covers over his head.

He needed to hide for a while.

Adrien hadn’t expected the days that followed to be easy , exactly, but they turned out to be harder than he expected.

Nino was constantly on his back to ask Marinette out, or at least explain why he had changed his mind. Adrien knew better than to depend on an elaborate lie to explain the situation (the more elaborate the lie, the better the chance of slipping up), so he stuck to his “it doesn’t feel right” reasoning.

Nino didn’t buy it. Neither did Alya. They were constantly asking him for more details, which he stubbornly refused to give. He knew they were both miffed at him, but he didn’t know what else he could do, except pretend he wasn’t really that interested in Marinette, which required him to try really hard not to stare longingly at her whenever anyone else was around.

And he had to work really hard at it. To Adrien’s great distress, he was still falling, no matter how hard he tried not to. Now that he knew the truth, he could see in Marinette the roots of all the things he loved about Ladybug, and now he knew who was under the superhero’s mask, he adored her all the more.

He wished desperately that circumstances weren’t what they were so he could go to Marinette for comfort like last time. The irony was not lost on him—that he had gone to the very girl who had broken his heart for comfort and that he craved the same comfort again from the same girl, who had now broken his heart twice .

He didn’t blame her. Marinette didn’t owe him her love—she didn’t owe him anything. Her friendship was a gift he was grateful for, and her love would have been as well, if she had chosen to give it to him. Heck, she didn’t even know she had broken his heart the second time. How could he be angry at her for it?

Still, it was hard to be around her now. He was excruciatingly aware that she was Ladybug, and he was in a constant state of tension and worry that he would accidentally give something away. His original goal had been to be utterly normal around her, but that turned out to be impossible. He was stiffer, more awkward, and when she took him by surprise he tended to blush and stutter.

Adrien was trying to walk a delicate line between putting up a wall between them to protect his heart and not letting his new knowledge affect their friendship. He was failing. He knew Marinette had noticed him pulling away from her. He could see it in the puzzled way she looked at him sometimes, when he made an excuse to avoid being alone with her or carefully placed Nino and Alya physically between them when he could.

She had asked him what was going on with him a few times. He had avoided answering, and after a couple more tries she told him that she was always ready to listen if he wanted to talk, then stopped asking.

There were moments when he felt okay with the new paradigm—moments when he almost felt proud of how mature and reasonable he was being. How strong he was to keep smiling and chatting with Marinette, when all he wanted to do was throw himself down in front of her and beg her to love him. And then sometimes—mostly at night—he thought he would drown in the misery of having to hide everything from the amazing girl he loved, but could never tell.

They had become a close-knit group, the four of them, and because of it she was ever-present in his life. Every moment he was around her was exquisitely bittersweet; he longed to get away from the pain of being with her but not with her, but could not bear the thought of being away from her.

He lied to Plagg constantly. The kwami had missed the moment of recognition, holed up as he was in Adrien’s bag at the time. Adrien wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Plagg to know the truth of what had upset him so much, but he couldn’t stand the thought of telling Plagg and then listening to the inevitable lectures and mockery. So he lied when he had to, and refused to talk about it the rest of the time.

Plagg knew that something was wrong. Adrien pretended to be normal when around his friends, but when he was by himself he was dejected and apathetic. He had taken to wandering the city rooftops by night as Chat Noir, sometimes crossing the city multiple times as if to exhaust himself, sometimes choosing a roof to sit on for hours, just staring into the distance. But Adrien refused to talk to him, and Plagg had his pride. He wouldn’t beg, no matter how worried he was.

And so it went for an inestimable amount of time (or nineteen days, to be precise) as four teenagers and one kwami struggled with their own individual cocktails of pain, unhappiness, confusion, annoyance, frustration, and concern.

Something had to give.

Chapter Text

Adrien was kicking himself.

He had been trying so hard not to be alone with Marinette whenever possible, but Alya and Nino had just disappeared on him, and now they were standing awkwardly in the park, just the two of them. He was sure they had done it on purpose.

He was laughing internally, though—a little bitterly—because their plan had been foiled by the akumatized person who had just stormed around a corner, bellowing something about pedestrians having the right of way.

He felt like a jerk for being so grateful to Hawk Moth for deciding to make trouble today.

Adrien didn’t even bother to come up with a reason for splitting up—it seems futile and pointless now. He just grabbed Marinette by the shoulder, pointed in a random direction, yelled “Run!” and headed off in the opposite direction. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran—she had looked after him strangely for a split second, but she was too professional to let her bemusement get in the way of her duty.

Adrien found the nearest private spot and did his thing. But when he returned to the site of the akuma attack, he found that he had sent Marinette in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of finding a private place to transform like he had, she had apparently run into a crowd of people who were being controlled by the villain. A group of them had surrounded her and were closing in.

Chat Noir wasted no time, using his baton to push the crowd out of the way (as gently as possible, since it wasn’t their fault), grabbing Marinette, and extending his baton to lift them up and over the surrounding people. He jumped onto a nearby roof, but went only a few blocks before spying a nice, empty alley, which he dropped into.

“I’ve got to get back,” he said brusquely. “If you go out that way”—he gestured at the end of the alley that was further from the park—“you should be able to make your way home safely.” He knew perfectly well that she wasn’t going to do that, of course—she was going to wait until he left and transform—but the charade had to be maintained.

“Thank you, Chat Noir!” she called after him as he vaulted out of the alley.

Fighting with Ladybug turned out to be easier than being around Marinette, strangely enough. He had been awkward with her on some level since she had turned him down, and he found the familiar embarrassment to be oddly comforting.  

As they went through the familiar motions of battle, they found themselves falling into sync—communicating wordlessly and instinctively. It was a heady feeling; the best he had felt in a long time.

Until the akuma almost took Ladybug down, that is. Chat Noir almost didn’t see it in time; he sprang towards her in a panic, pushing the terrified cry of “Marinette!” back into his throat before it could escape. He barely managed to push her out of the way… then everything went white and silent until a wave of magical ladybugs brought him back to himself.

Ladybug stood above him, a heartening smile on her face as she held out her hand to boost him to his feet.

He felt his face heating up as he looked at Marinette, the mask doing nothing to disguise her now that he knew the truth.

“Thanks for saving me, Chat,” she said seriously as she pulled him upright.

“That’s my job, my lady,” he said, then blushed again because he hadn’t called her that since that day. He was saved from further embarrassment by a beeping from her earrings.

“Got to go,” she said. She reached out and touched his arm gently. “See you around.” She deployed her yoyo and was gone. Chat Noir watched her go.

His stomach twisted as he remembered how close she had come to being hit by the akuma. She had been in danger twice today, both as Marinette and Ladybug. The longer he thought about it, the sicker he felt.

The feeling persisted as he found a place to transform back and headed back to the park. A few minutes later he got a text from Marinette saying she had ended up near her house after fleeing the battle and had decided to just go home.

It persisted as he headed back to his cold, empty house and watched the sun set over Paris.

He needed to see that she was okay. He knew it was a bad idea… but at that moment he didn’t care.

Shaking his head at himself even as he did it, Adrien transformed, then crawled out the window and set out for Marinette’s house.

He tapped on the skylight timidly. Would she be angry that he was here?

The moments before she answered felt like hours, but eventually her pretty, confused face appeared, framed in the glass. Brows furrowed, she climbed the ladder and opened the door.

“Chat Noir?” she said, concern in her voice. “What are you…?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “That was a close call you had today.”

To his surprise, she backed up a little, still holding open the hatch. A little gesture of the head confirmed that she was inviting him in. He followed her down the ladder and into her familiar pink room.

“I’m fine, thanks to you,” she said with a smile. She turned to her desk and picked up a plate. “Can I offer you a thank-you cookie?”

Charmed, he took one. “Thank you.”

“You can’t say ‘thank you’ for a thank-you cookie,” she said, teasing him.

“I can’t not say ‘thank you,’ either, Princess.”

“Fair.”

They stood in silence for a moment while he chewed. He looked around the room, remembering happier times, when he was at home here.

“You seem sad, Chat,” Marinette said, watching him.

He smiled a half smile and shrugged with one shoulder. Unable to look at her, he picked up a pencil and began to doodle on a scrap of paper that lay on the desk.

“I’m…” he began, intending to shrug it off. It was Marinette, though, so instead he said, “There’s this girl, you see.”

“Ladybug?” she asked. He looked up at her; her eyes were pointed at his hands. He looked down and realized that he had drawn a little ladybug. He pushed it away.

“Yes,” he admitted. It wasn’t a lie. The girl was Marinette, but she was Ladybug, too.

“But I thought…” she began, then cut herself off.

...that you liked another girl now, he mentally finished for her. But that girl is you, too, Marinette.

“Thought what?” he asked out loud.

“Um… that you two were close,” Marinette said.

“We are,” he replied. “But not like I want us to be.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Chat shrugged.

“It is what it is. Ladybug doesn’t love me the way I love her.”

He started when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe… maybe she would… if she could,” his partner said softly. “Maybe she wishes she could…”

What does she mean?

“But if she wanted to…” he began.

“Maybe there’s someone else,” Marinette said.

Someone else?

It had never occurred to him. Jealousy clawed its way into his throat; he swallowed it and felt it sink to the pit of his stomach and throb there. Who?

And yet… she wished she could feel the same way about him that he did about her? Chat didn’t know how to feel about that, but it brought him… not hope , but something like it.

A slim arm slid around him, then another. He looked down in surprise. Marinette was hugging him, her face turned down as she squeezed him hard.

“I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time, kitty,” she said. “I’d fix it if I could.”

“I know, Princess,” Chat said, hugging her back. When she pulled away, he placed a hand on her cheek and smiled as best he could. It was shaky, pained, but it was all he had for her in that moment. “Thank you.”

He didn’t stop to look at the pity and sorrow he knew would be in her eyes. He just left as quickly as he could, her “Good night, Chaton” floating in the air behind him.

Maybe there’s someone else…

The words echoed through his head, jabbing at his mind like needles.

How has this never occurred to me before? But she’s never said anything to me… but why would she? It made sense. Girls don’t tell their guy friends about crushes, do they? She and Alya are always talking and giggling about things but clam up when I arrive. I always thought it was… girl stuff… but what does that even mean? Of course it’s boys. A boy.

His teeth and hands clenched.

Who could it be? Not Nino, obviously—Marinette was not the kind of girl to covet her best friend’s boyfriend. Not Ivan, either; no one shipped Ivan and Mylene harder and more devotedly than Marinette. (That made a whole lot more sense to him now that he knew she was Ladybug, actually). Kim? As if. Max? Possible. Nathanael? Chat’s fist clenched a little harder as he considered the quiet artist. Marinette had been very sweet to him during the Evillustrator incident. (His mind took a momentary detour at this point as he realized what Ladybug’s undercover work had been that night.) But she knew Nathanael liked her after that day, and he couldn’t imagine Marinette sitting on a crush after she realized her liked her back. So it couldn’t be Nathaneal, he thought, fist relaxing. So it had to be Max, he guessed. Or…

Chat stopped short, so short in fact that he almost fell off the building.

What if it’s me ?

It couldn’t be, could it? He’d know, wouldn’t he?

Would he?

Still tottering on the edge of building, he remembered how Marinette had acted around him months ago, before he had shown up at her door with a broken heart. He remembered how she’d stutter, and trip, and blush… the same as he did now, at least when he didn’t see her coming.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered that her room had looked different that day—there had been more posters on the walls. Pictures of him, maybe? He thought so, but he hadn’t really been paying attention.

And Alya and Nino, Marinette’s loyal friends, were very aggressive about trying to get Adrien and Marinette together.

What if…?

Two steps back, and he dropped to the roof, a hysterical giggle escaping him. What if she had turned Chat down because she had feelings for Adrien ? Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top of this whole ridiculous mess?

The question at hand, then, was this: How would she feel about Chat if she knew he was Adrien?

He had assumed that her feelings of disinterest for Chat would take precedence over any possible burgeoning feelings for Adrien. But if she had more than burgeoning feelings, and if she truly wished she could return Chat Noir’s feelings for her…

Maybe.

There was only one way to find out.

But he was putting the cart before the horse. He was very protective of his poor, bruised heart at the moment. As he resumed his journey home, he decided that the first thing to do was try to figure out if it was really him Marinette liked. Then, maybe he’d be brave enough to be vulnerable one more time.

He jumped in his window and dropped his transformation.

“Plagg,” Adrien said. “I’m starting to think I might have been wrong about everything.”

“You don’t say,” the kwami said, and floated off to his cheese stash.

Chapter Text

It turned out not to be too hard to get Marinette alone. He was the only one who had been trying to avoid it anyway—Nino and Alya had given that up when they transitioned from “make sure Adrien doesn’t screw up again” to “get Adrien and Marinette together.” All he had to do was propose studying together when he knew their best friends had other plans. She looked at him a little suspiciously, but cheerfully acquiesced. It may had been wishful thinking, but he got the feeling that she was pleased that he wanted to spend time with her, just her, again.

So here they sat in their favorite park, as they had done so many times. Marinette had brought a blanket to spread out on the grass, and she sat with a book in her lap, notebook open beside her. She kept stealing little glances at him, and each one sent a wave of pink across his cheekbones. Had she always done that? Had he just been oblivious?

She caught him looking at her and smiled at him across the few feet that separated them. His heart beat faster. Now that he was looking for them, he kept seeing what seemed like signs that she was interested, but… well, he was so afraid of being wrong.

But he had to know.

“Marinette?” he said, wincing as his voice shook.

“Yes?” she said, looking at her book as she scribbled something in her notebook.

“Why did you help me out that day?”

“What day?” she asked absently, still looking at her book.

“The day I showed up at your house. And… after.”

She looked up at him. “Because you were hurting and you needed a friend.” Like it was perfectly obvious. Which it was, of course—that’s why he had gone to her that day, after all.

“Was that the only reason?” he asked her in a small voice.

She put down her pencil and turned her full attention to him.

“No.” She considered for a second, then continued. “That day… I never told you this, but I have a friend who likes me. As more than a friend, you know? I was kind of aware of it, but I never thought it was a big deal. But that day he asked me… I tried to let him down as gently as I could, but, well, I could see how hurt he was.”

She took a shaky breath.

“He’s one of the most important people in the world to me,” she said. “I hated so much that I hurt him. And then, just a little while after I got home, you showed up. You had the same look in your eyes that he did. I couldn’t comfort him that day, but I could comfort you.”

Her eyes met his.

“I always secretly hoped that whoever broke your heart was out there somewhere, comforting my friend.”

Oh, the irony, Adrien thought. She was. You were.

“So… it was just because you felt guilty for breaking your friend’s heart?” he asked her.

“No, not just,” Marinette said. “But that was part of it. Mostly I just wanted to help you.”

“Why did you turn him down?” Adrien asked. She looked down, turning her face towards his notebook so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes.

“There… there’s someone else,” she admitted in the general direction of his knees.

“Marinette…” he said, as gently as he could. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to… but will you tell me who that someone else is?”

She gulped. She raised her eyes to look at him…

He didn’t need an answer. It was staring him right in the face, radiating from those bluebell eyes. He saw her fear—the fear of being vulnerable, of rejection—but more than anything he saw… well, yes.

It was him.

Her eyes dropped again and she took a few deep breaths as she tried to work up the courage to answer him. He thought about sparing her the necessity, but he really, really wanted it out in the open, once and for all.

She had gone very still. Unusually still.

“It’s okay,” he said, affection radiating in his voice. “You can trust me, Princess.”

Her eyes flew to his.

“Oh my God. You’re Chat Noir,” she said.

“Wh- what?” he stammered, hand finding the back of his head. “N-no—”

“You’re Chat Noir,” she said again, more to herself than to him. “Oh God.”

“Marinette—” he said, but she was leaping to her feet.

“You— and I— and then— oh God oh God oh God.” And then, with a whirl of pink fabric and black hair, she had snatched up her purse and fled, leaving everything else behind.

“Marinette!” He was on his feet too now, but it was too late. She was too fast.

He sank to the ground, wondering how this could have gone so very wrong. His eyes fell on his notebook… where drawn in the margins were several of the very same ladybugs that he had doodled in Marinette’s room the night before.

Damn it.

Well. That was a disaster.

Adrien didn't blame Marinette for running. He had done the same thing when faced with the reality of her identity. He wished he knew what she was thinking, though.

He went over the possibilities as he waited. She could be mad. Disappointed. Guilty. Happy (but she wouldn't be hiding then, would she?).

Marinette had been MIA for two days. He had called her as soon as he had gathered up their things and gone home, but she didn't pick up. She hadn't answered any of his texts, either, and when he stopped by the bakery her mother told him that she didn't want to see him.

She didn't come to school the next day.

So he waited. He was determined to give her all the time she needed to figure out what she was feeling and what she wanted to do. But he was also determined to let her know that he would be there whenever she wanted him.

He pulled out his phone and checked the messages he had sent two days ago.

Adrien: I need to talk to you.

Adrien: Please text me back.

Adrien: Please, Marinette, we need to talk.

Adrien: I'll be here whenever you're ready.

No response yet.

He sighed. He was going crazy, waiting. He thought for a moment, then started typing.

Adrien: I'm going to be [he added a cat emoji] for a bit. I'm taking my phone.

He called for Plagg to transform him, tucked his phone in a pocket, then left through the window.

Chat Noir ran for a while, enjoying the release of tension and feeling of freedom that the exercise gave him. Then he found a nice, comfy roof and sat for awhile, looking at the lights of Paris.

He wasn't expecting her; when she sank down next to him almost silently, he was surprised. He hadn’t considered that when she was ready to talk, she would do it as Ladybug. It made sense, though, as she was always more confident when she was wearing the mask.

"Hello, Chat," she said quietly.

"Good evening, my lady," he replied, newly careful of his nicknames.

"I need to talk to you," Ladybug said. She hadn't met his eyes yet.

"I'm all ears," he said, wiggling his cat ears, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She didn’t start speaking right away; he waited patiently, willing to give her all the time she needed.

“I… don’t know how to start,” she said finally. “I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am, or how stupid I feel, or how wrong I was.”

“My lady?” he said.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Chat.”

“I know,” he said. He wanted to reach out to her—to comfort her in whatever way he could, but her body language was telling him not to.

“I never wanted to disappoint you, either,” she said, “but you need to know.” And with that, her transformation melted away. Marinette sat beside him on the roof, hugging her knees. Her shoulders hunched a little and her gaze was aimed steadily forward and down.

“What…?” He trailed off. He didn’t understand. “Why are you apologizing?”

“It’s just me, Chat,” she said, still not looking at him.

He stared at her for a moment, and then the penny dropped.

“Do… did you think I’d be disappointed that you’re Marinette?” he said incredulously. This, he had not expected.

She didn’t answer, just folded in a little tighter on herself.

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. She flinched, but she also looked at him for the first time. Her face was a mix of pain and fear and outrage.

“Oh, my lady,” he said, and now he did reach out—just light fingertips on her arm. “I don’t think I could ever have been disappointed by who you were, even if I hadn’t fallen head over heels in love with Marinette long before I found out you were Ladybug.”

She looked at him, eye wide and disbelieving.

“You… wait, you knew ? How long have you known?”

“Remember the day I disappeared from school and went missing for hours?”

“That… that was why…?” she said.

“You’re not the only one who ran,” he told her wryly.

“That’s why you’ve been acting so strange.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how to be around you.”

“I know the feeling,” she said, and this time she was the wry one. “But… why didn’t you say something?”

“I knew you didn’t want me to know who you were,” he said, and then, because he didn’t want to be dishonest with her anymore, “and I knew you didn’t like Chat, and I didn’t want to mess up our friendship.”

“I do like Chat!” she protested.

“But not the way I wanted you to like me,” he said.

Marinette looked down.

“Marinette,” Chat said in a low voice, “what you said the other day… about there being someone else. Will you answer my question now?”

She flushed pink, but she only hesitated for a moment. Her eyes met his.

“It’s you, Adrien,” she said. “It’s always been you.”

Then, because she was still a fifteen-year-old girl, she hid her bright red face in her hands.

He let his transformation melt away before gently tugging her hands away from her face.

“And now that you know?” His heart was in his throat. “Something must have changed. Do you feel about me like you did about Adrien, or like you did about Chat Noir?” He held his breath.

She looked him full in the face, and even without her mask, Ladybug shone through.

“Are you kidding? I turned down a superhero for you. You think I’d turn down you plus bonus Chat Noir?”

And then he was kissing her. It was awkward and sort of uncomfortable, as sitting side by side on a roof does not provide an ideal kissing angle. It was, nonetheless, the hands-down best moment of his life. And he felt pretty confident at this point that he would be able to try again, many times, under better conditions.

They pulled apart. For a moment, no one said anything.

Then, “Hey, Chat?”

“Yes?” he practically purred.

“Remember when I said I didn’t feel that way about you, and it was never going to happen?”

“Yes…” he said warily.

“I was wrong,” she said, and kissed him again.

Adrien’s heart was dancing in delight as he walked into school on Monday morning, proudly holding Marinette’s hand. He had spent a good chunk of Sunday with her, mostly working on better angles. They were making good progress.

When he had arrived in her room, he had been a little shocked to see the walls papered in posters of himself, mostly from modeling gigs. Marinette had giggled saucily and declared that it wasn’t creepy anymore, since they were together now. Adrien had immediately taken to snapping pictures of her; he couldn’t wait to see her face once he had redecorated his own room in a similar, Marinette-themed style.

“What’s this?” a loud, delighted voice brought him up short. Alya and Nino were approaching, enormous grins on their faces.

“Did you two finally get this whole mess sorted out?” Alya continued.

Mariette nodded shyly. Nino gave Adrien a high-five.

“Well, Agreste,” Alya said, poking him in the chest. “I don’t know what you did last week to make Marinette miss school, but I’ll forget it this one time because of the size of the smile on her face right now. But don’t do it again.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied. Any further conversation was cut short, though, by a scream from further inside the school.

“Akuma!” the four teens said in unison.

“I’m on it!” Alya said, already running toward the scream as she pulled her phone from her pocket.

“Alya, no!” Nino yelled, chasing after her.

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a grin. Then, still holding hands, they ran off to find a nice, quiet spot to become Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Together.