Chapter Text
The wind is cruel as it slashes at her raw and exposed skin, but still she doesn’t stop. Desperation and freedom writhe within her, whirling until they thread out through the souls of her feet and send her arcing up against the faint stars.
The metallic screech of her yo-yo is deafening as she repeats the motions. Swing and anchor and pull and release.
Her eyes look for any signs of glitter, sharply bright as she runs away from one problem and towards another.
She doesn’t know how soon Chat Noir will catch up, but she hopes she’s stunned him enough so that he won’t have time to ask questions by the time she finds the akuma.
She’s looking for gold among golden lights, her eyes are burning and her lungs are screaming, and her mind is oddly blank.
It’s no wonder she doesn’t catch the hint of glitter on her side. It’s no wonder she gets caught up in Lovestruck’s attack…a whirlwind of rose gold dust that knocks her out of the sky.
Her nose burns and she wants cough because she may have breathed in some of the overpowering rose scented dust.
She shuts her eyes against the dust, falling roughly on top the flat roof of an office building. She rolls to a stop, sharp pain shooting through her shoulder.
The high pitched laughter that comes from the akuma makes her cringe. She slowly pulls herself up, wincing at the ache that permeates every limb.
Lovestruck may have been a handsome man beneath the ridiculously bright golden robes…she knows he’s a victim, but right now she’s really angry at the circumstance he’s caused.
A confession that wasn’t meant to be heard by the boy she strongly thinks might have a crush on her.
A revelation that she just might hold feelings for said boy, and the guilt that eats away at her is nearly unbearable.
Lovestruck simply presents an acceptable target for all that ire that burns in her chest.
“That was a cheap shot, Lovestruck.” She hisses, already standing again and swinging her yo-yo until it’s a solid disc.
“All is fair in love and war.” The akuma titters, his purple eyes peering over the edge of his gilded cloud. “Even if it means forcing the one you love to love you back.”
“That’s not love. Not at all…who hurt you?” She asks quietly, buying herself sometime.
A look of pain crosses his face, twisting his smile into a grimace.
“She promised. She said yes and then she kissed another man.” He says mournfully, more sorrowful than angry as he looks at the golden engagement ring on his left hand. “So I made her love me. I won.”
His smile is back, cruel and dreamy. And his focus is back on Ladybug.
She wants to shout. Tell him that love and war aren’t two sides of the same coin. That love takes patience and planning and that sometimes there’s no winning. But her distraction worked, she’d discovered where the akuma was hiding.
But by the time she’s dodged another whirlwind attack, Chat Noir makes his appearance.
He stumbles onto the roof, long legs clumsily eating away at the distance between him and her.
He doesn’t look ready for battle. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are dazed. There’s no one liner…just one long look of unidentified emotions in her direction…things that cause her guilt to twist in her gut and turn into fear.
But she shoves it all deep down.
“Chat! It’s the engagement ring!”
So they fall into the routine. They chase the akuma and he chases them. Chat serves as a distraction, but he’s strangely quiet. And he’s careless, distracted.
It’s inevitable that he would get hit.
He’s dusted. Chat Noir lands in front of a crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk. He’s okay, but his eyes are shut tight so that he doesn’t fall in love.
His name is torn from her throat, Lovedust shrieks his victory and it’s with dawning horror, she realizes they’ve been lured into a trap. They’d been so distracted, that Lovestruck had lead them to the Champs Elysees.
While many civilians had stayed inside, it hadn’t stopped everyone from going about their nightly business. The sidewalks are still crowded with milling pedestrians and the traffic is lighter than usual, but still slow.
There’s enough targets near a blinded Chat Noir…enough to hamper him as they’re love dusted and set their dreamy sights on him.
He’s still stumbling around by the time Ladybug manages to drive off Lovestruck for a bit. The love bitten victims are already grabbing onto Chat Noir, and he almost disappears behind a heaving crowd of admirers.
“Wait no…ah…I’m sorry, I have someone else I like…oh are you the same person? I can’t…I’m really sorry, but-”He says as he pushes people gently away, but the numbers are overwhelming with him unable to see.
It’s half horrifying and half hilarious as she sees him go down, all the while as he’s giving polite and kind rejections. She reaches him, suspended from the roof, just low enough so that she can catch his reaching hand through the mass of people.
His pretty green eyes are closed, but still he tilts his head in the direction of her sigh of frustration.
“Thanks…My Lady. I love-”
Her heart does a double take, stopping her complaints in her throat.
“I love that I can always count on you.”
And something like relief mingles with disappointment.
“Great. Fine. Just…ughh…first it was me and now you and we are so screwed.”She bites out, and she feels a stab of guilt again at the pained look that crosses his face. The way he seems to curl into himself tells her that she’s hurt his feelings.
“I’m sor-”
“No. Don’t apologize. It wasn’t…You’re just a person who got caught up in all the trouble.” She says bitterly, echoing his earlier words. “I’m sorry I’m not…Chat…about what I said-”
“Marinette.” He calls quietly, and his smile is soft…and the same as before. It’s his smile entirely, edged with affection. “I’m going to open my eyes now.”
He’s not bluffing, already she can see his eyelids fluttering.
Her heart nearly beats out of her chest, and she rushes forward, nearly scrambling on her hands and knees to cover his eyes.
“What are you doing?!” She hisses, but her voice is trembling as she asks. She’s so close, both of them kneeling on the ground, her nose inches from his chin.
He laughs and his warm breath ghosts over her clammy palms and even through the suit, she can feel the softness of it.
It sends shivers slithering down her spine, and her raw cheeks burn with something more pleasant than stinging wind.
“It’s okay…It’ll be fine.” He says blithely, his hands coming up to curl around her wrists delicately.
In the back of her mind, it occurs to her that they’re still in danger. That lovestruck will come back any minute now and that there’s people crying below them because the object of their false affections has gone missing.
“What are you talking about Chat? You can’t…you can’t fall in love with me and fight.” She chides, her eyes darting to his long fingers slowly pulling her hands away from his face. “Wait!”
He stops, his smile turning contemplative his brow twitches underneath her fingers.
“Why not? I’m already in love with you.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, so easily, that for a second she accepts it as fact. And then it hits her, the words tearing a hole into the wellspring of emotions she’d blocked.
Her cheeks are probably redder than her suit by now, she’s seeing stars because she’s not breathing right…but she glances at his fingers around her wrists. Her wrists cloaked in red and spots…not entirely her wrists then…not entirely her.
“You…you can’t. You’re in love with Ladybug…I’m not-”
“You’re Marinette.” He says easily, and he shrugs as if that isn’t the biggest thing in the world. “And you’re Ladybug. I love you.”
Her breath hitches and the tears bead over her lashes, because some part of her is elated. Some part of her she’s long buried underneath a mantra of “I love Adrien” and “I’m not her.”
And guilt, because even if some part of her loves Chat Noir, she still loves Adrien.
She hardly has time to come to a conclusion, when her hands are gently removed from over his eyes.
But they’re still closed.
“Do you trust me?” He asks.
This she can answer easily.
“Of course. More than I trust myself, sometimes.” She whispers.
He seems surprised at that, and then his eyes open. Beautiful and green, the color of sunlight through leaves as he returns her gaze.
She’s unsure of who moves first, but his hands are cradling her face and hers are winding softly around his neck.
I love…I love…I love…
The mantra twists and writhes, until it’s lost in the clarity that his touch brings. His forehead rests against hers, his eyes never leaving her bluebell eyes.
“Look at me. Never stop looking at me. He can’t beat us that way, because I love you and…” He pauses for a bit, his expression shifting with fear for a bit before resolving into determination.
She’s waiting. Because she won’t deny it if he says she loves him…maybe on some level she does. The spell didn’t work. That was the only answer. The only answer that made sense in the blinding colors of her own feelings.
“You love Adrien.”
She wants to apologize. She wants to say that she’s torn. That it’s not quite as clear cut as she had made herself believe…but then his smile is huge. So big that it crinkles his eyes at the corners.
“I’m Adrien.” He whispers, and then he pulls away.
“I don’t…what?!” She shrieks.
“Here, I’ll prove it.” He says as he peels back the edge of his glove and shows her a very familiar, very distinctive bracelet with jade beads. His smile is soft as he remembers. “You gave it to me for good luck.”
There’s nothing but an ear splitting soft screeching that comes from her.
Her mouth is working comically to say something, to say anything…but there’s a hint of glittering pink and the scent of rose that drifts around them.
“He’s back.” Chat announces, already settling into a crouch and pulling his glove over the bracelet. But he takes a moment to look back at her…Marinette…Ladybug…Marinette. “Keep your eyes on me, My Lady. And I can’t keep mine off of you, so there’s no problem there.”
He dashes off with giddy laugh, nearly manic with his relief.
(He’d always told himself, whoever the girl was beneath the mask, he loved her. Turns out, he’s not a liar. Not even to himself.)
And Marinette is reeling. She’s spinning, she’s crying, she’s laughing…on the inside. On the outside, her mouth is still mumbling incoherent curses. She’s keeping her sight on Chat and her other four senses on Lovestruck.
Something beyond it all rises in her throat.
It’s irritation. It’s anger at being interrupted from what is probably a life changing moment.
But she never takes her eyes off of Chat Noir. And he never stops looking at her.
They twist beautifully through the air, arching and swinging in something that seems choreographed as Lovestruck is overwhelmed.
His dust flies uselessly, aiming for two targets that slip away like mist in sunlight.
Her Luckycharm is blinding. A silky red ribbon that she stretches between her and her partner. A scintillating red ribbon that she wraps around her wrist and that he wraps around his as they move on tandem to bind him.
And they’re laughing. There’s fear in them. But there’s also love sparking between their gazes. Real love and it makes Lovestruck weak with jealousy.
By the time the ribbon completely binds him and Chat Noir holds his baton to his neck as a threat, he’s already given up. Hawkmoth’s screams of frustration fade away from his head as Ladybug crushes the engagement ring with her heel.
She purifies the akuma and sets the little white butterfly adrift without her usual goodbye.
The man who had been Lovestruck is still slumped against an air conditioning unit, slowly waking up from his ordeal
She’s too preoccupied not looking at Chat Noir who is…who is Adrien.
She goes through the rest of the motions, but when she’s about to throw the ribbon into the air to complete the ritual, she feels it catch on something.
She tugs a bit more, and finds Chat Noir holding the other end again.
He tugs on it this time, a small smile curling across his face as she stumbles closer until she’s nearly in his embrace.
She can’t really look him in the eye again. The adrenaline of the battle has gone away, she can’t justify it to herself anymore. She pulls back on the ribbon.
He doesn’t let go.
She frowns and clicks her tongue.
“Do you enjoy having a crowd of sobbing admirers or something?” She bites out, gesturing awkwardly to the wails still floating up from below.
“No. I enjoy having you as an admirer.” He banters, and she feels a little angry that he’s using this new development against her.
It’s still too new, too confusing for his humor to alleviate her roiling emotions.
“In your dreams.” She growls, before pulling hard enough to dislodge the ribbon from his grip.
She glares at him hard enough to make him bite back his retort.
Without missing a beat, she tosses up the lucky charm in the air, shouts Miraculous Ladybug!, and the spell curls around the city, healing everyone and bringing relief to a long day of uncertainty.
The man fully wakes in the warmth of the magic and runs down the stairs when he realizes he’s being given death glares by Paris’ famed heroes.
The door slams in his wake, and it’s too loud in the sudden quiet that rests between the two of them.
The silence stretches painfully, as taut as the ribbon had been when they’d been connected for a few brief moments.
A brief beeping that lets her know her time is running out.
“I have to go.” She says with relief, not moving despite her words.
“Please.” He pleads, his voice laced with a desperation she’s not used to hearing. He’s standing all alone now, half reaching for her and half recoiling from something he’s not sure is acceptance or rejection.
He’d been so happy…ecstatic…grateful when the full force of her confession and her identity had coalesced into understanding.
She loved him. He loved her. It was that simple in his mind. He’d always loved the girl underneath the mask. That had never been a lie.
But he wonders if Chat Noir is so different from Adrien…if she loves the other part of him that isn’t always making mistakes.
He just needs to talk. He just wants to know, because he’s irrevocably, entirely-
“-in love with you.”
Her words, not his. And he feels guilty again because he hadn’t been listening close enough to hear the first part.
“What?”
She closes her eyes, scrunches up her face in fear as if she’s been love dusted all over again and she’s afraid of falling for a random person.
That really hurts him. Stings enough to make him stop reaching for her and drop his hands to his sides.
“I’m in love with you.” She blurts out. “I’ve been in love with you since you gave me your umbrella.”
And it’s so tiring, this back and forth. This prolonged acceptance because he just needs to know what she feels and holy crap- she just said she was in love with him.
He’s already moving and she’s still talking with her eyes closed.
“Or maybe it was when you told me to believe in myself during our first fight. And I’m still trying to process all of this and I just…all I know is that I lo-”
Her words are muffled into his shoulder as she’s pulled into a breath stealing embrace.
He’s laughing into her hair, his nose nuzzling at the crown of her head as he tells her over and over “I love you too.”
And there’s so much more to be settled. So much more to ask and resolve and realize, but for now, the circumstance is only right for this.
For a moment where he tilts his head towards hers and a moment where she threads her fingers through his golden hair. And a moment where their lips meet in a sweet, simple kiss that marks their circumstantial luck as complete.