Chapter Text
Marinette groans softly as she opens her eyes. It's been a couple of hours since she woke up last - she can tell from the way the light's moved, spreading across the office floor - and now it's nighttime.
"Evening," a voice says happily, and Marinette's body tenses as she remembers the akuma and, by proxy, her situation.
She cracks one eye open subtly as she runs a mental overview of her body (still not in costume, but unharmed bar a couple of bruises left over from her abduction a couple of days ago. Tikki's in the pocket of her jacket, biding her time - apparently the akumatised person hasn't left them alone even for a second yet, so they can't turn into Ladybug), pretending to still be groggy. And, yes, there she is, this new akumatised person - standing regally in a plain white wedding dress with a delicate tiara on her head. Her face is hidden behind the typical white veil, but Marinette can see a mouth curved up into a smirk.
This victim of an akuma - the product of an unlucky woman being abandoned at the altar - has proven herself to be subtle and sneaky, stealing Marinette away and knocking her unconscious before she's even digested the situation properly. Vowbreaker, as Hawkmoth has named her, has kept Marinette in an abandoned office building for a good two days, and she'd sprained her ankle before that, so she hadn't been out as Ladybug for a good week at least. She wonders idly if Chat's worried, if he's looking, if the city's looking for her yet. Are her parents? Is Alya? Nino? Adrien? Anyone?
Marinette lets out a large sigh and opens both eyes. "Why am I here?"
"I said," Vowbreaker says, just as cheerful as before. "You're my sacrifice."
"For what?" Marinette asks, more than tired of the game the akumatised woman is forcing her to play.
Vowbreaker leans in like she's going to say a big secret, which is completely new. Usually she just hums joyfully and avoids Marinette's questions, so the younger leans in a tiny bit in return, her entire focus on Vowbreaker.
(Neither of them notice a black cat pass by the window on a silver baton, then pause and peer through the window beneath them onto the floor below.)
"You're my sacrifice, sweetie," the lady whispers softly, tapping Marinette's lips with one finger. "You have such a nice, innocent heart - untouched by any of the dirt of man and the perfect sacrifice for the full moon ritual. I'm going to cleanse the world of lying, my dear, and then nobody can hide anything awful ever again."
Marinette's gaze flicks to the window, just a fraction of a second too late to see Chat's belt tail flick out of view, and scan the rooftops. She can't see the moon from here - she's been placed too far in the middle of the room and it's impossible due to angles anyway - but if there's a reflective surface on one of the rooftops she's looking at - yes!
The moon's in the waning gibbous stage - nearly full, for those who haven't recently googled the moon cycle in a sudden fit of curiosity - so she only has a couple of days. To say she had three would be stretching it.
That's not enough time.
Marinette's eyes snap back to Vowbreaker when the woman steps backwards and rocks on her heels. Her face is pensive, at least as far as Marinette can see through the veil, and yet curious at the same time, like someone's found a flower on their pillowcase and they're wondering how it got there. Although, if you add in the mild irritation and disgust written all over Vowbreaker's posture, it's probably better to liken it to finding a spider on the wall when you're about to have a shower or spotting rat in a clean environment.
"Excuse me," she says, voice still sickly sweet. "But I have a pest infestation to deal with."
Marinette hopes to all hell it's Chat Noir, because she's really not in the mood to deal with being a sacrifice to cleanse the world of lies.
@#£%&*&%£#@
Chat's just flipped neatly onto the roof when he hears something. He feels the cat ears on top of his head swivel to listen harder, and thanks his enhanced senses yet again when he hears careful but rapid footsteps. The person's trying to be stealthy, circling around to his back and hiding behind him.
Chat lets them, for now.
"You know, it's generally considered rude to kidnap someone," he says offhandedly, like he's just talking about the weather.
A deliberately uncaring hum, but Chat heard the subtle click of high-heeled shoes when she (because he doesn't expect a man to wear high heels) jumped at his voice. "Maybe in some cases, but I'm afraid this one was necessary."
Chat harrumphs in reply and turns around to see a lady in a white dress with a dainty tiara and a veil. "How is any sort of kidnapping necessary?"
He doesn't mention the fact that this akuma victim - because she so obviously is, what with her getup and the way she's grinning slyly at him - has taken a superhero, of all people, because Plagg's not sure if Ladybug's transformed or not, and he doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag for her when she's always been so careful with her secret identity.
"Oh, sweetheart," the bride purrs (and she's not allowed to purr, purring is his thing), strolling forwards. "You're a man, aren't you?"
Chat narrows his eyes. "How is that relevant? You kidnapped an innocent. My gender doesn't apply to this whatsoever."
"Definitely a man," she says, her smile's sweetness wilting into a sinister smirk. "Only men misunderstand these things."
Plagg scoffs inside his head. Cute speech. Twenty francs she'd been abandoned at the altar before she was akumatised.
Nah, Chat thinks back, choosing not to reply out loud (which is far easier, but looks weird). I don't want to lose twenty francs. He pauses, and then says - What would you spend it on, anyway?
Cheese, Plagg sings gleefully. Chat's surprised he didn't guess already. Stupid question.
The teen nods briefly and hums softly in agreement.
"Some men are pigs," Chat says, carefully starting to move in a neat arc.
She sneers. "All men are pigs."
He lets a grin come to his lips - right into our trap, Plagg whoops - as he leans on the top of his baton. "I don't know if you noticed," he says, just as sweet as this akuma was earlier, "but I happen to be a cat."
The akuma's lips curl up into even more of a sneer (which Chat hadn't thought would be possible until he saw it happen right in front of him).
"Cats," she says, the pure venom dripping from her words making Chat shift back into a position from which he can either go on offense or defense depending on the situation, "are worse than pigs. Sneaky and interfering and all-round nasty little things."
And she lunges forward in an attack.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Marinette only realises she's been left alone when Tikki sneaks a glance around through the opening of her pocket and, in a voice full of relief, gives the all-clear.
"Finally," the girl sighs happily, flexing muscles long cramped up from being suspended above her body and rolling her shoulders in an effort to get most of the ache out of the way so she can help Chat out - because it is him, up there, she's sure of it. Nobody could attack from the rooftop without any sound bar Chat Noir and Ladybug, and, since she happens to be Ladybug, it's got to be the former.
"Tikki, spots on!" She whispers, voice sounding out eerily loud in the emptiness of the office floor. The kwami grins lopsidedly at her and swirls gleefully into her earrings, instantly turning her (tired, ripped, dirty) civilian clothes into the (whole, clean, tight-fitting but comfortable) outfit of Ladybug. Some of her aches and pains disappear with a tingly feeling in their place, and her face spreads into a smile at the feeling of being so free.
Ladybug stretches, does a couple of moves to make sure she's ready for a fight after two and a half days of being shackled to a wall, and sprints for the elevator.
When she (finally) gets there, Chat's fending off little white pellets with his baton. He's losing ground against the sideways attack, though, moving glacially further backwards towards the edge of the building at his back. It's not a humongous fall - this building isn't anywhere near a skyscraper in terms of height - but Chat definitely wouldn't go unharmed if he did fall. Broken bones and a possibility of, at the very least, severe concussion wouldn't allow Chat to do any of his usual hero duties for a couple of months at least (and if he tries to attend to them before then, Ladybug's turning him right around and marching him back the way he came, alter egos and privacy be damned.
I don't have enough energy for a full fight, Tikki tells her through the bond forged by the transformation. We need to finish this quickly.
Ladybug nods her assent and calls Chat's name, making sure her yo-yo hits Vowbreaker just before she does so because she's managed to sneak up without him noticing, so the call of his name is going to make him jump, which, in turn, will make him vulnerable for a fraction of a second. She's not exempt to it, either. The two have learnt this the hard way, with broken ribs and guilty faces.
"My lady!" Chat replies, and Ladybug doesn't even try to deny the fact that her heart warms when his face light up at the sight of her. "I thought you'd been kidnapped?"
"She got me when I wasn't transformed," Ladybug replies with a tiny grin of her own. They're back to back, now, guarding each other and trusting one another implicitly. "Didn't feed me or anything, but what can I say? Villains. Anyway, I haven't got long, my kwami's hungrier than I am -"
"Men are the lesser gender!" Vowbreaker yells, and the white pellets turn into a hailstorm of large droplets of glowing purple water (does this akuma have any continuity?). "Prepare to be the first man to die, Chat Noir!"
The two heroes roll their eyes and adapt to the new attack in unknowing synchrony. They continue their conversation like it's bad weather they're battling and not an akuma-crazed lady shouting about superior women and honesty in life.
"You've gone a week without food?" Chat says incredulously as he moves his baton-shield around to defend against a particularly strangely-angled droplet.
"I - what?" Ladybug replies with equal shock. "No, she's only had me for two and a half days -"
"Where were you before that, then?" Chat demands, a twitch of his ears alerting the two just before a new attack comes along ("I'll oust your secrets to the world, men!"). "I haven't seen you in a week."
"I sprained my ankle," Ladybug admits. "Kind of badly, actually. I probably shouldn't have -"
There is no 'probably'! Tikki hisses in her head.
Ladybug rolls her eyes and amends her words. "Fine, fine, I shouldn't have gone out and sat on the Eiffel Tower with you. I thought my ankle was better than it was, but Tikki told me off afterwards and wouldn't let me out other than to do a quick patrol so I guess I must have made it worse."
Chat snorts. "And you tell me off for hiding injuries -"
"Lies must be eliminated!" Vowbreaker screeches. Ladybug winces slightly at the drastic change from earlier's sweetness.
"I highly doubt now is the time for this conversation," Ladybug says dryly.
"Really?" Chat mutters from behind her. "I think it's the purr-fect opportunity -"
"Not the time!"
"Sorry, sorry," Chat snickers. He doesn't exactly sound it. "Anyway, know anything about this crazy lady?"
"She calls herself Vowbreaker. Best I can tell she was abandoned at the altar by her husband-to-be, who was cheating on her with another guy, and has since been infected by an akuma. She's made it her job to "cleanse the world of lying," and seems to think that in order to do so she needs to cast a spell on every man in Paris so they can only tell the truth."
Chat digests that information quietly for a minute before asking, "Akuma?"
"In her tiara, I think."
"Seems easy enough," he says.
"Don't jinx it," Ladybug replies with a tiny smile only she's going to know about (sue her if she's missed her partner's bad puns and the easy banter that flows between them). "Anyway, wanna get started?"
"On what? Dating?" Chat answers cheekily. "Aw, bugaboo, I thought you'd never ask."
"CHAT!"
The cat laughs unabashedly, and the reprimand dies on Ladybug's lips when she realises that maybe he's just revelling in the fact that she's okay. He'd thought she'd been kidnapped for a whole week - he must have worried, and Tikki had told her once that she could sense Chat's kwami at all times (unless "something to be concerned about" happened, but Tikki hadn't specified what counted as that kind of situation and Marinette had got the impression that neither of them actually knew), so perhaps Tikki's presence had disappeared and Chat's kwami had fretted.
His name is Plagg, Tikki tells her softly, and is that -
Are you a thing? Ladybug lets her brain sing, the i in thing being drawn out like a piece of string that never seemed to end. She practically feels the kwami blush, and Ladybug takes the silence as an answer to the affirmative.
Her thoughts are torn away from their (both educational and amusing) path when a droplet comes a little too close to hitting her.
"We need a plan!" She yells over the roar of the water that Vowbreaker's now pouring on them in a deluge of purple.
"I thought you were doing that!" Chat hollers back. Breaking formation, he tugs her towards him and spins his baton parallel to the roof they're standing on, the umbrella-like activity protecting the both of them. "Never mind that now, though - think!"
"Thinking coherently is pretty difficult when you're in the middle of a fight!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Chat shouts back. "If you can use words like coherently in the middle of a fight I'm pretty sure you can make a pla- argh!"
"Chat?" Ladybug asks, desperation colouring her voice. She can't see him from this angle, she can't see. "Chat! Are you alright?"
There's a grumbled do I seem alright to you from above her, but she gets a positive grunt afterwards so Ladybug lets the panic go and allows her eyes to flit around, past the water, scanning the area outside the impromptu water tunnel for a liquid-blurred figure in white -
There.
Vowbreaker's just standing there, in the open and completely vulnerable to a surprise attack. Ladybug guesses all of her attention is focused on keeping up her purple water (and seriously, why is it purple?).
"Chat," Ladybug hisses softly, so Vowbreaker can't hear, and tells him her plan.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Chat quickly decides that he likes the plan. It's raggedy around the edges where Ladybug hasn't thought it through all the way yet, but all of the best plans start out that way, so it's not like Chat's complaining. If your plan is too watertight then there's absolutely zero wiggle room if something goes wrong or someone does something unexpected. He's highly suspicious, though, because Vowbreaker - as Ladybug had said she was called - can't just be limited to seemingly harmless (although Chat doesn't want to be the one to test that out) purple water and white pellets that look like they came straight from Undertale.
Vowbreaker would make a nice Flowey, Chat thinks idly as he bends so a branch of purple water (he's calling it paw-ter from now onwards) neatly flows past him instead of through.
"You play video games, my lady?" He can't help but ask, even though it's completely the wrong moment for it. He's not surprised, though - Plagg had warned him that the powers came with side effects, like purring and getting urges to attack weird things like dots on walls from laser pointers and trails of fabric rippling after girls in dresses. One such tendency was randomness - being fixated on something and then suddenly losing interest, falling asleep halfway through an activity (although he seemed to have managed to get that one under wraps after what Nino had dubbed The Salsa Incident) - and he couldn't help it sometimes. He just. . . lost interest.
(Nino still teased him about The Salsa Incident.)
(It was ages ago, man, c'mon. It's not funny any more. Get over it.)
(. . . and delete the pictures.)
Chat zoned back in just in time for the tail end of Ladybug's huff of frustration. He ducked to avoid another attack to the side, but the motion meant his baton-spinning faltered, which meant. . .
Chat has a vague notion that his loud curse made Ladybug look up, but he doesn't notice, too preoccupied with staring upwards in horror. He's fairly sure both of them waste a heartbeat's worth of time just standing, frozen, but his eyes are fixed on the paw-ter (told you) suspended above them like even it is shocked at his slip-up. He's certain, however, that both of them leap into action at the same time, muscles screaming at them at the sudden movement and brains scrambling to catch up as the strangely-coloured liquid descends with a massive crash a fraction of a second after the two vacate the space, just clipping Chat's foot as it descends. He doesn't register the pain yet, too caught up in adrenaline, and he knows he will later, but he just squashes down everything to do with the pain slowly growing in his ankle and focuses on the fight.
"I think we should take out the bit of the plan where we wait!" Chat yells over the sound of rushing water. It's crashing as it meets, surrounding them on all sides, the parts where flows of paw-ter meet frothing angrily and hissing noisily. It's making Chat's head spin, all the noise and all the sounds mashing together in a crescendo of confusion, and he pins his ears back in an effort to at least dull everything a bit.
"I agree!" Ladybug shouts in reply, seeming to have similar trouble with the noise but not having ears to pin back like Chat does (he pities her. It still hurts with his ears practically flat - talk about a me-ouch).
It takes him a little while to remember their conversation. He's just opening his mouth to suggest that hey, maybe they should go now, because the water's making a square around them and above - a prison cell of liquid that they don't know the properties of - and the only remaining gap is closing alarmingly quickly, but suddenly the golden window of opportunity is gone with an ominous boom. Chat's reminded of the heavy oak of his father's office doors slamming closed in one of his explosive fits of anger, and shivers a tiny bit, tail writhing slightly and then curling in on itself like it can defend from attack that way.
He shoots a loaded glance towards Ladybug and finds a near mirror image in her expression. They have a brief conversation that way - with eyebrows and lip movements and eye shapes.
Well, we're screwed, Chat tells her with a raised eyebrow and a wry smile.
Don't be so pessimistic, she replies with a roll of her eyes and a gusty sigh.
Can you use lucky charm? he asks, an enthusiastic quirk of his eyebrows and a sudden twinkle in his eyes no doubt giving away his excitement in the idea.
She snorts and rolls her eyes again (the action is more fond this time, and Chat finds it hard not to smile). I wish it were that easy. But, no. I can't use lucky charm for selfish reasons, or else -
Chat's honestly interested in her powers, but he also honestly can't pass up an opportunity as ripe as this one if he tried. Am I a selfish reason, then? He asks with a wiggle of his eyebrows and a suggestive smirk. A guilty pleasure, perhaps?
Shove off, cat, Ladybug snorts, pushing on his chest slightly and pulling an overdramatically disgusted face. You're just -
"DEATH TO LIES AND TREACHERY!" Vowbreaker screeches, descending on the pair from above and completely interrupting the conversation (rude, especially since Chat had just been about to find out what he was to Ladybug).
Another loaded glance to one another, and they put their plan into action, both leaping up like they're going to go into Vowbreaker's attack only to dodge at the last moment, each using of of her arms to spin themselves around to land on the still-confused akuma victim's back.
"Fancy seeing you here," Chat purrs when he comes abruptly (it can't be helped - this lady has a hella thin waist) face to face with Ladybug.
She rolls her eyes for the third time in a minute (is that a record?). "It was inevitable, really, this lady is super thin."
Great minds think alike, and all that.
The duo rip the tiara out of her hair - "NO! That's my -" - and Chat snaps it neatly in half before jumping off to catch the would-be bride in his arms.
Ladybug deals with the akuma quickly and efficiently, cleansing it, just like always, and Chat lets a little half-grin play at his lips as he follows the trail of her magic washing over Paris and fixing everything the akuma destroyed.
He's so distracted with watching the magic (and then the skyline) that he only notices that Ladybug's walked over until she taps him on the shoulder. Chat definitely does not make an eep noise as he turns around.
Ladybug's blue eyes are wide with surprise at first, but then a mischievous grin spreads slowly.
Chat regrets everything.
"Did you just eep?"
"No," the black-clad superhero says defensively. He crosses his arms and tries not to scowl.
Ladybug just grins wider - her eyes flare with amusement - but seems to let it go (for now), instead saying a simple, "Eiffel? Neither of us had to use our special moves today, so. . ." She looks nervous.
"Sure," Chat replies, easily vaulting off of the roof and making a beeline for the tower in the distance. It's dusk when they arrive, and the two lay down on the roof of the viewing platform to watch the stars come out.
"You were hurt, weren't you?" She asks suddenly, and the dam he's shoved everything behind just gives.
"Yes," Chat answers. It's easier to tell the truth than to lie (Ladybug just pokes him until she either does or doesn't find an injury, and even if she makes sure to do the deed gently he prefers to avoid it at all costs). "Left foot."
He can feel her glance, but he keeps his eyes trained on the stars. Ladybug huffs after a while, but lets it go to the same place as his eep went earlier.
All conversation lulls until it's just silence - silence and the stars.
"And, yeah," Ladybug says suddenly. Her voice is loud in the quiet of the Eiffel, breaking the comfortable silence they'd been cushioned in like a stone breaks glass. "I do."
Chat does a double take, eyes flicking away from the area he's pretty sure Polaris is going to come out from for a millisecond to glance at her face. Or what he can see of it, because she's still looking up at the stars. "Huh?"
He can hear a smile in her voice when she answers. "You asked earlier if I played video games. And I just answered you."
It takes him a heartbeat to recall what she'd answered with - yes, you moron, she does, Plagg hisses - and another one for him to put his words in the right order. "You play Undertale yet?"
A hum. "A little. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I think I'm pretty close. It's hard to tell. You?"
"I've played it twice," Chat answers ("- oh, shut up, you, some of us peasants have lives -"), and sue him if he says it a little smugly. "Are you going down the pacifist path, or. . . ?"
"Pacifist," Ladybug confirms. Chat feels her gaze prickle his neck - watching. Waiting. Expectant.
"I did pacifist on my first run," Chat supplies helpfully.
"And then?" Ladybug prompts.
He just laughs and keeps his eyes trained on the beautiful view of the stars, untainted by the light pollution from the city below and enhanced by his superior senses (and night vision, though he's learnt to turn that off because everything becomes tinged with green and he can't see anything).
@#£%&**&%£#@
Chat thinks they must have fallen asleep at some point, because he wakes up to the chattering of the very first stream of tourists flooding into the viewing platform beneath him. And he means both of them, because Ladybug's sitting up next to him and rubbing her eyes groggily.
Chat wonders briefly if she's like this every morning, or if it's a side affect of being transformed, but he brushes the thought away before he dwells too much on it. He doesn't want to be both late to school and distracted, thinking about Ladybug's alter ego.
"Morning, my lady," he says, deliberately cheerfully. He learnt a couple of months ago that Ladybug hates it when you're really upbeat as soon as you wake up (as far as he can tell, she's one of the zombie types until prompted), and since that fateful morning he's made it his mission to annoy her awake.
"Go away," she answers, grumpy and predictable. "S'too early."
Chat hums, watching her cautiously as he lets his hand slip closer to her unprotected side, silent and careful, unpredictable and -
"If that hand comes any closer to my side you're going to find it's been chopped off."
Chat laughs softly, not doubting her for a second. "I believe you, I believe you. Anyway, we gotta get up at some point, bugaboo, or we're gonna miss school."
A pause.
"Or I am, at least."
Ladybug scowls up at him, all messy hair and frowny lips, and Chat feels his heart melt a little bit. "The Eiffel opens at nine," she huffs.
Chat just smiles at her, waiting for her own words to sink in.
Her eyes widen and she sits up suddenly - a movement that, back when they were both new and unsure, would have knocked him back on his butt -, yelling "I'M GONNA BE LATE TO CLASS!" like it's going to save her before pulling a Tarzan and using her yo-yo to swing her way over to what Chat guesses is her house. The noises of the tourists below all move over to the area closest to where Ladybug jumped off of the roof as everyone floods over to try and get a glimpse of Paris' famous Ladybug.
Chat stands and bends out a crick in his back with a groan before jumping off of the roof on the opposite side to the tourists and making his way home too.
After all, he doesn't want to be late.
@#£%&**&%£#@
The teacher's droning on about the Second World War, somehow managing to make a subject Adrien actually finds interesting the dullest period he's had yet. He fishes around in his bag and hands Plagg a piece of cheese just for something to do. The kwami pats him on the hand in thanks, and Adrien grabs a loose pen to make it look like he actually needed to get something rather than just suspiciously fiddling around with his bag.
Why can't an akuma strike during the boring lessons, or the ones Adrien doesn't get? Why does it always wait until he's debating an answer in Physics with Marinette (one of the only moments she talks to him without stuttering or blushing) or writing out important notes on algebra?
Adrien lets out a gusty sigh and rests his head in his hands, staring at the table blankly. So tired. . .
A note slides neatly into view. Nino's handwriting.
You look like you're about to die of boredom.
Adrien glances over at Nino. At first glance, his friend is actually paying attention to what the teacher's saying. If you look closer he's actually writing bored bored bored over and over again, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Adrien can hear faint tinny music coming out of Nino's headphones - he forgot to turn his music off. Again.
I think I am, Adrien scrawls back. And you left your music on again.
He slides it back over, checking that the teacher's looking the other way before he does. Nino lifts one headphone to his ear experimentally, muttering a hissed curse when he finds that Adrien isn't lying, and taps pause on his phone under the table.
How you notice is beyond me, comes back.
I told you. Magic.
Nino huffs noisily. The piece of paper slips noiselessly back across the desk to Adrien again. But I'M the one WEARING the headphones, HOW DO YOU HEAR MUSIC COMING FROM THEM WHEN MY EARS ARE CLOSEST!?!?
You're partially deaf from blasting loud music at yourself? Adrien replies with a sigh of his own and a what can you do shrug.
Shut up, man. At least I didn't
Adrien tugs the paper away from Nino before he can write down any of the horrors of The Salsa Incident, ignoring the sniggering that results from the movement in favour of grumbling curses and complaints under his breath.
You sound like an old grandpa, a new piece of paper declares, complaining about youths these days and shouting GERROFF MY LAWN at squirrels.
Go away, Nino, I'm trying to work here. Positive environments are necessary for good work.
Yeah, right. If you're trying to work then I'm the Queen of England.
Adrien smirks. Whatever you wish, Your Majesty, he puts, even though he really isn't working.
Ugh, is all Nino scribbles, and the note very determinedly doesn't come back.
Adrien snickers.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Marinette's not sure if she was actually awake for midnight or not, sleeping as she was, but she remembers a glorious sky, peppered with stars from horizon to horizon, and talking about video games casually while looking up at one of the best views on the planet.
"Ugh," she lets out, the accompanying gust of air making all of her hard work flutter and flap in the brief breeze and Tikki's two feeler-y things (she still has no idea what those are) dance around wildly.
"C'mon, Marinette!" Tikki scolds. "You haven't got time to put your head on the desk and sigh! Class starts at half past nine, it's twenty past already, and you haven't even left yet -"
"Chill, Tikki," Marinette reassures. "It's gonna be fine, and I can run anyway."
"Do not take your education lightly," Tikki hisses, eyes blazing with anger at Marinette's ungratefulness and frustration that she can't get her point across. Marinette is reminded sharply that, as small and adorable as this kwami is, she's been alive for centuries. She'd probably been around when the Suffragettes were marching the streets, demanding the right to vote, and she was probably around when education was first given freely to everyone. There'd been a Ladybug in Ancient Egypt, of course Tikki got frustrated when people took certain things for granted.
Marinette winces at the idea that she's just a blip on the never-ending map to this ancient creature before her, and the kwami mirrors the movement when she realises she'd basically just shouted at her charge.
The little ladybug apologises (a lot, actually), but the thought of her life being something so fleeting to the kwami is enough for Marinette to be silent, and she grabs a jacket and her bag before starting the desperate sprint for school.
She's just set foot inside the threshold of the door when the bell goes, so she flashes the teacher a vaguely apologetic (but mostly winning) grin and says, "I'm not late."
This is a rule the class made up a while ago, after Kim came in half a second before the bell went and he and the teacher spent a whole lesson arguing over whether he was technically late or not. The class eventually reached the agreement that if you were inside the classroom when the bell went you were on time.
"Sit down," the teacher says with a defeated sigh, and Marinette shoots her another smile as she walks over to her seat and plonks herself onto it.
"Cutting it fine, girl," Alya hisses.
"Sorry," Marinette whispers back. "I slept in."
"Yeah, no kidding."
Marinette clocks Nino shooting Adrien a concerned look, the blond completely oblivious to it as he sways gently in his seat. She leans subtly towards Alya. "Hey, what's up with Adrien?"
Alya blinks. "Adrien? He came sprinting in here like a bat out of hell just a couple minutes before you. You didn't see him on your way in?"
Chat would have been late too, Marinette realises, and she narrows her eyes slightly at Adrien's turned back.
Everything points to it.
Blond hair, green eyes. The way black complements his skin. The way his eyes light up if he hears a pun. The way Adrien loves Ladybug to pieces, watching her interviews with Alya over and over again until Nino swears he can recite it word for word, and Chat can quote all of them as he deems necessary. The way both of them have a vaguely cheesy smell (like their jokes). The way Adrien seems to be talking to nobody sometimes, and the way Chat seems to have appointments to run to a lot. The mentions of class and school. Chat knowing all of the names of people in their class, and that Chloe is responsible for half of the akumas at school. The way Chat's always there if there's an attack during a school day, and the way he can fence/swordfight like it's nobody's business. Adrien's interest in what everyone thinks of Chat.
"No, I didn't," she answers Alya idly.
Could Adrien be. . . ?
Marinette forces her eyes back to the teacher and the lesson. She'll have to watch Adrien, to see if he's limping of if he's showing any signs of pain from his foot. If he isn't limping, he's not Chat. If he is. . .
The raven-haired girl lets her eyes flit back to her crush.
It would solve so many problems - her conflicting feelings for both Adrien and Chat solved in one go, with no heartbreak on any side - but she doesn't know if he knows it's her, and Marinette doesn't have the faintest idea of how to tell him -
Oh, she thinks as an idea comes to her. Perfect.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Marinette's mission begins at break. Adrien always gets up and moves about a bit - she guesses he gets restless, sitting at a desk for two hours solid without moving much - and she can check for ankle wounds then.
"C'mon, Adrien," Nino's saying. "I wanna buy some food, I forgot my lunch today and you know how far away I live."
Marinette hears a muffled groan. Adrien practically heaves himself out of his seat, scowling all the while, and mumbles something about how the nearest food store is nearly the same distance away as Nino's house is.
"Hey, Nino," she calls without thinking. She turns shy again when three pairs of eyes all turn towards her and stare. "U-Uh, I'm gonna go home, a-and I live above a bakery, s-so. . ."
"I think what my lovely friend is trying to say, here," Alya says, cheerfully throwing one arm over Marinette's shoulders and saving her from a lifetime of embarrassment, "is that we - we being us four - could all go back to her bakery and pig out on macaroons and croissants for lunch."
The boys' eyes light up at the suggestion.
"You live basically across the road, right?" Nino says excitedly, yanking her out of her seat by the arm. "That's way closer, man! Thanks!"
"No problem," Marinette replies, drawing on some of Ladybug's confidence so she doesn't stutter or trip as Adrien falls into step beside her.
"This was a really good idea," the blond says after a few heartbeats of silence. "Saves me from dragging myself to the nearest store, anyway."
Marinette snickers. "Saves you from a whole shopping trip, more like."
Green eyes turn to her, startled. "What?"
Her smirk softens into a smile. "Alya and I were Nino's friends before you came and graced us peasants with your presence in our class," she explains. "We know how he gets. We'd force him on shopping trips with us, and initially it'd be for clothes and bags and stuff like that - we wouldn't really buy anything, just hang out - almost all of them eventually turned into music shopping for Nino."
Adrien snorts as the four of them cross the street to the bakery. "That still happens. We go and buy a sandwich and bam! it's three hours later and we're browsing through old record shops and looking at DJ catalogues."
Marinette hides a smile when she pushes open the door to let everyone in and they all start drooling - even Alya, who's been over more times then Marinette has fingers (or toes). Adrien looks like he's in heaven. Nino looks like he wants to eat everything in sight twice over. Alya's eyeing the cupcakes she's so partial to.
"Marinette!" Her father cheers. "We were wondering where you were! But now. . ."
He shoots a mischievous look to his wife, who mirrors it, then says, ". . . we can see why you're late."
"I'm only a little bit late, Mama," Marinette says, moving around the counter so she can give her parents a hug. "Don't exaggerate it."
Her mother pouts slightly, then turns to Adrien and Nino, who are shuffling nervously on the other side of the counter. Alya's already slipped over, she knows the drill so well, and both girls exchange a knowing glance.
"C'mon, boys," Marinette hears her father say, amusement lacing his tone. "Just lift up the barrier and come on in."
"Okay," Nino says slowly, obeying with excitement and curiosity making his limbs tremble. Marinette remembers, suddenly, that Nino has been to the bakery before, but never her room -
Oh God her room.
Marinette wheels around and sprints up the stairs, tugging Alya along with her, and boots up her computer to change the background to a black cat. After a minute of desperate clicking, she turns around, ready to leap up and start tearing down photos, but Alya's just taking the last of them down with a smile.
"You are a blessing," Marinette gushes as she skids across her room to stuff a photoshoot magazine where he can't see it.
Alya laughs. "That's what friends are for, girl! Besides, your desperation was
enough for me to realise why we rushed ahead of the boys."
There's a pause where the two friends smile at each other like lunatics, but suddenly there are voices coming up the stairs and the both of them are making quick scans of the room for any lingering fangirl stuff (thankfully finding it clear).
"Yo!" Nino shouts as he pushes the loft door up and spots the two of them. Then: "It's so pink up here!"
Marinette shrugs with an unabashed grin. "Pink's a good colour," is all she says, and Nino's answering shrug closes the case. The teen carefully lets the hatch door drop to the floor as he steps into her room fully.
"I agree," Adrien says as he pulls up the rear. "Pink's a good colour. But all things in moderation unless they suit the context."
"A friend of mine once told me the colour pink suited me purr-fectly," Marinette answers with a tiny snort, completely missing the look of surprise that crosses Adrien's face at her words. She'd told Chat she liked the colour pink (and he'd told her the purr-fect joke) when the pair had been playing a game, one night when a patrol got too boring, and it had involved telling the other one truth and one lie about their alter egos. It had been exhilarating, once they'd run out of obscure material, to skim the surface of their other identities without giving too much away, and Marinette was fairly sure that both of them had come close to figuring each other out, if Chat hadn't already - yet another thing pointing to Adrien being Chat.
"Did he?" Alya says, crossing her arms with a huff. "He being the male friend you have who I can't meet, is awesome, you won't stop blabbering about after he visits - visits which, by the way, have no pattern - and adores cat puns? He being the mystery guy who you have no idea how to contact but you trust with your life? He being -"
"Yes, yes, we get the point," Marinette interrupts frantically, attempting to simultaneously hide a blush and throw something at Alya to shut her up. "Thank you, Alya -"
"WE COME BEARING FOOD!" Her father yells as he, indeed, comes up her steps with four trays expertly balanced on his arms. Her mother's following in his wake (and by the faint flush in her cheeks, she'd just been admiring her father's butt (which, ew, get a room)) with hot drinks - coffee and tea and chocolat chaud - balanced precariously on more trays.
"Papa!" Marinette yells back shamelessly, and flings herself across the room to take some of the trays (Alya doing the same with the drinks), because she knows he's got it, she knows how sturdy the not-actually-very-sturdy-looking hold on the trays are, but it's polite and she worries, damn it. "You could have called, I would have come and helped."
Her father laughs. "But where's the fun in that?"
She allows a small smile to take hold on her face. "Sure, sure, Papa, but you should know Mama was -"
"Thanks Marinette I think everything's good here Tom don't you think everything's good here let's leave the kids to it," Marinette's mother blurts, cutting into her daughter's sentence with a half-betrayed, half-mortified look.
Marinette's father chuckles and says, "Oh, come on, Sabina, I know perfectly well you were -"
"Let's just go back downstairs," Her mother mutters, and herds her father down. A little "You kids be good!" is thrown over her shoulder as an afterthought.
There's a stunned silence for a couple of seconds. The two boys' eyes are fixed to the place where they'd last caught a glimpse of the older Dupain-Chengs. Their stunned, vaguely shell-shocked expressions make Marinette and Alya giggle.
Marinette wafts a plateful of chocolate croissants under Nino's nose, effectively breaking the spell, and Alya does the same to Adrien with a plateful of cookies. The two boys rush over to the food like it's water and they're dehydrated men.
Marinette's not sure how it happens.
Maybe it happens like this: she notices that Adrien puts weight on his foot and winces.
Maybe it happens like this: she remembers Chat saying he has a weird love for triple chocolate cookies, and Adrien makes a beeline for them.
Maybe it happens like this: she catches a glimpse of something dark with green eyes, staring back at her from inside the folds of Adrien's jacket and not breaking shocked eye contact for the whole half-second it's visible.
Her eyes snap up to meet Adrien's. He's grabbed a cookie and turned towards her, but the cookie dangles limply from his fingers and his eyes are wide with a panic and surprise. The whole thing seems like an ridiculous, larger echo of the creature (kwami?) in his pocket's expression, and Marinette would laugh if she weren't so shocked.
The facts click into position, the final screw of certainty twisting into place.
Adrien is Chat, Marinette thinks, and the part of her that recognises truth hums happily and repeats it back in an eternal mantra.
Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat, Adrien is Chat.
Green eyes are locked with her blue ones. He looks nervous, hesitant, suspicious, hopeful. She hopes she looks like she didn't see anything, and leans forward to swipe a chocolat chaud from one of the drinks trays on her chaise before Nino inhales them all.
Marinette wants to play with the cat a little bit before she gives him the mouse.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Adrien is suspicious.
He's sure his jacket fell open when he leaned in for a triple chocolate cookie, and he's sure Marinette saw Plagg hidden there. He's sure he didn't hide his wince at using his foot well enough. He's sure she's seen more than can be explained away with a simple I fell over.
But Marinette isn't freaking out over Plagg, and she doesn't look very surprised at his wince. She's not shocked about his love for triple chocolate cookies like Nino was and Alya is ("But you're a model, aren't you supposed to be on some sort of horrific starving diet!?") - if anything, she looks like she wants to hide a smile.
These puzzle pieces all add up to make a picture Adrien isn't exactly, one hundred percent sure he wants to look at.
Plagg sneaks up the inside of his jacket to get a little bit closer to his ear (although he doesn't really need to, since having a bond with a kwami basically enhances your everything). "I think she saw me," he hisses as loudly as he dares.
Adrien nods imperceptibly and stuff the rest of his cookie in his mouth, dusting his hands off on his jeans with very little care.
Marinette's still eyeing him from across the room, gaze flicking down to his injured foot, to the place she must have seen Plagg, and then to his face.
She's suspicious.
She must be.
But the things Marinette seems to be mostly suspicious about are things that only he and Ladybug should know about. Most people would dismiss Plagg as a trick of the light or shadows playing tricks on them; he's only told Ladybug about his secret love of triple chocolate, so only she wouldn't be surprised; only Ladybug knows that Chat was injured in the last fight, and on his foot no less.
Adrien feels like he's missing something big, but he doesn't know what it is.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Marinette is pretty sure she's been busted - he's got to have an inkling, at least, because he's subtly narrowing his eyes at her as he thinks almost as much as she was to him a second ago. She wants to consult Tikki - have any other Ladybugs known Chat's alter ego and vice versa - but the kwami can't come out when three people who don't know are in her room, she hates the toilets, and Marinette would look even crazier than she already does if she talks to think air.
Adrien's whole body twitches a millimeter in her direction (she only notices because she's watching him so intently), but he pauses to stare wistfully at the plateful of cookies. The dark-haired girl is suddenly and painfully reminded that Adrien must be near-starved in the sweets department (at the very least) at his house because of his modelling career, and she feels a pang of sadness.
Ever the problem solver, however, Adrien just snags the plate (nobody else was eating any of those cookies anyway) and strolls over, nodding when Alya and Nino inform them that they're going to talk to Marinette's parents (they're not subtle).
"Hey, Mari," he greets, and, hello, nickname, you're new.
"Hey," Marinette answers, and rolls back and forth in her swivel chair a little bit with nerves. It's one thing ogling from across the room when he's not looking, but it's a completely different thing to ogle when he's standing right next to you, categorising your every move with (frankly unnecessary amounts of) suspicion.
"This was really nice of you," he says, leaning back against her desk with a cursory glance to make sure he's not going to crinkle any designs or break anything. "To give us four lunch, I mean."
Marinette shrugs. "It's fine. Alya was coming over anyway, and Papa always makes nearly twice the amount of food we need."
An interested hum, and then a pause. Adrien's eyes are on his feet as he shuffles them, obviously gearing himself up for something, but then they suddenly snap up to meet Marinette's blue ones.
"Just out of curiosity, what were you doing last night?" Adrien asks, narrowing his green eyes slightly. Marinette gets the feeling he's testing her, which means he's closer to figuring her out than she'd expected. She guesses it might be, that she's late whenever Ladybug would have been, that she has the same colour hair, the same colour eyes, the same stance if she's confident enough - and those are just a handful of reasons to be suspicious.
"I was trying to look at the stars," Marinette says, which is true, at least - she had been trying to watch them the night before last, but Chat's presence was. . . distracting. Because of the talk about video games.
Not the fact that he was lying next to her and they were on what could, in anyone else's book, be called a date, or the fact that they slept next to each other.
Marinette metaphorically slaps herself. If she lets herself get into the trap that is thinking about Chat Noir, she'll be stuck there for at least half an hour and she'll miss the majority of her day.
"Marinette?" Adrien asks softly.
"Huh?" She replies dumbly, realising suddenly that she'd zoned out. "Sorry, what?"
A wry smile pulls up the edges of the blond's lips. "I asked if you're okay. You look pretty tired."
The girl snorts. "I am tired. I fell asleep on the Ei- my balcony, so I'm basically sore all over, and it was really late so I'm shattered too."
Adrien's eyes narrow at her slip-up, and Marinette forces back a wince. Has she been busted? How much does he suspect, or does he just think she's lying about where she was?
Marinette has never wanted to be able to see inside someone's head more.
@#£%&**&%£#@
Disbelief and certainty are at war in Adrien's mind.
Marinette could be Ladybug, because she has the same colour hair and the exact same shade of blue as her eye colour and an eerily similar voice, but she stutters too much and doesn't like causing trouble and he's pretty sure she's never had a fighting lesson his her life. There's also the fact that Ladybug told Chat to look after Marinette, and wouldn't there be more hesitation or, at the very least, amusement in your voice if you were basically asking someone to guard yourself for you?
But then. . .
She knows things he's only said to or shown Ladybug. She sasses Chat and tells him off easily, with no trace of the verbally challenged wreck she is when she's with Adrien. She's late for things when Ladybug would be (like school that morning) and she even had a massive bruise on her arm when Ladybug would have been injured in the exact same place (he'd known her excuse of "Oh, I tripped and fell up my stairs yesterday evening. Clumsy, right?" hadn't been entirely truthful, but he'd passed it off as a coincidence.)
Adrien shakes his head subtly, but the thoughts don't leave.
There's a kwami in your pocket? What a crazy random happenstance, there's one in mine too.
You like triple chocolate, not gluten free or something else more model-esque? That's okay, Chat says he's pretty high up on the social ladder and he shouldn't really have them but he eats them anyway, too.
Your foot is hurt? Wow, that's weird, I was fighting an akuma with my buddy and he got hurt in the exact same place.
Adrien sighs softly, accidentally blowing crumbs across Marinette's room. And then there's the fact that Marinette slipped up and almost said what sounded like the word Eiffel - something that had to not be a coincidence. And she fell asleep there? Please.
Adrien knew that the best lies are ones that stuck close to the truth, but he's managed to find the link between the lie and (what he hoped was) the honest answer, and now he's made the connection everything fell neatly into place.
Plagg huffs with amusement, somewhere in the folds of his jacket, and Adrien pretends to itch his shoulder to cover the light whack he gives the kwami. It's not as heavy a hit as Plagg probably deserves, but the blond's mind is reeling, echoing with the words Marinette is Ladybug Marinette is Ladybug Marinette is Ladybug, and the force of it is so strong he can't concentrate.
He eats another cookie, just for something to do (how on earth is Marinette so thin if she has to opportunity to eat this kind of thing all the time?), and tries to zone back into reality rather than his thoughts.
"You alright, Adrien?" Marinette asks with concern, and the blond suddenly realises that he's sat down on the only unoccupied space on her chaise and is itching his injured foot idly as he thinks.
He places it back on the floor slowly, his mistake hitting him full-on like a slap to the face. He knows Marinette at least suspects something, if she hasn't worked it out already, so he hasn't really ousted himself like he would have done if she didn't.
Marinette doesn't say anything, just smiles knowingly at him, and he waves awkwardly because he's stuffed another cookie in his mouth so he can't put his foot in anything else.