Chapter Text
Chat Noir looked down at his fingertips, stunned to see the blue haired heroine completely detransformed in front of him. His brain was still foggy, but he remembered clearly the look on her face when she saw him, unlike any he’d seen from her before. It was a look of understanding, of knowing. And it left Chat with an empty kind of confusion. His eyebrows met as he thought about it, holding her close with both hands. He felt oddly normal doing this, like back when they met on the night Ladybug stood him up. He straightened slightly. On the night that Marinette as Ladybug stood him up. He looked down at her again. She was still lost within whatever had happened moments ago.
Then, it dawned on him, slowly but surely as he stood there and he inhaled, feeling nervous. It happened -- it had to have happened. There was no one around who would have been akumatized, and his memories felt like a low hanging cloud. Present, but not tangible. His worst fear had come true. He must have submitted to the akuma and betrayed her. A feeling of dismay washed over him. He suddenly felt sweaty and uncomfortable under her body weight.
“Marinette,” he said quietly. He tried to keep his voice from breaking.
“What happened to me?”
She looked up at him, her tears drying on her face from a couple of minutes ago. Her eyes were soft with compassion. Chat Noir stood uncomfortably in her arms, feeling exceptionally hot underneath the suit. What about this was so different? She was his Ladybug. He didn’t understand why this was suddenly so difficult. His eyes widened as her hand came up to meet his face, fingers tracing the outline of his neck. She was completely, totally unafraid of him, and that stunned him for what it was worth. Marinette was always shy, what was with the change of heart? She was not the clumsy Marinette who tripped over her own words, not right now. He felt confused at the transformation of character that appeared to happen in front of his very eyes.
“I need to explain some things,” she said quietly. Her eyes flickered with something he didn’t quite recognize. “And I need you to promise me that you’ll be okay when I tell you what really happened because I almost lost you to a mistake I made, but it’s important that you know.”
A long sigh escaped her and she placed both hands on his shoulders, standing back from him. She held him firmly under her palms.
“I want to talk about this somewhere else,” she said, her gaze wandering behind him. “Where there’s less people around to overhear.”
In a couple of moments, it was all familiar again. Just the two of them on her balcony, Marinette in her full self. He was still fully suited, having not used the cataclysm. The empty silence hung between the two of them, and above the bakery occasional noises could be heard from the street. He could remember when it was not that long ago that he was up on this balcony for different reasons, but it didn’t feel as melancholic this time around. He broke the silence first. Partially out of fear for it lasting too long.
“Marinette,” he breathed, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “You’re… You’ve been all this time?”
She didn’t answer, but brushed the dark hair from her face, her earrings glittering under the light of the street lamp. It was enough of an answer for him, but even with logic, the knowledge still rattled him to the core. They stood in stunned silence for a few more minutes.
“Adrien,” she said. He felt his eyes widen at the sound of his name.
“You knew too,” he said. In the seriousness of the moment, he tried to hide his utter happiness at hearing his name from the lips of someone he had loved for years. His name, not an alias. Everything. All of him. “You knew all this time?”
She shook her head and looked at the ground below, arms delicately folded over the wrought iron rail. It was a couple of long moments before she answered, like she was trying to decide what to say.
“Tonight I was walking home from Alya’s place. I was on my way back when I heard something. And I never picked up on Hawk Moth’s voice so fast,” she began to explain. Her nervousness was obvious. Her fingers turned a wisp of hair between them as she spoke. “But I did, I heard him and I saw him. So I traced him to where he was going and he turned the corner. And the next thing I knew I wasn’t looking at Hawk Moth anymore.”
He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander to her lips as she spoke. Something changed in her expression and she covered her face with her hands. When she lifted them off again, her eyes were wet with tears again.
“Hey, no, no, no,” he said softly, coming up behind her from where he stood to her left. He ran his thumb over her face to brush them away and she let him, wordlessly.
“I was looking at your father of all people,” she breathed. He felt his heart stop for a brief moment. “So I followed him and when he transformed again I made a mistake. I was angry and I tried to stop him with violence.”
It sounded like the last words had to be choked out. Adrien kept his hands where they were, under her chin as she turned to face him, looking up at him with eyes full of despair.
“And that’s when you saw me,” she continued, sounding exhausted. “And you saw me trying to do something to someone you only recognized as your blood.”
She looked up at him, no doubt remembering what they had gone through that day. He couldn’t stop running his fingers over the edge of her face. She reached up to stop him by grasping his wrist with her hand and he paused.
“I must have made a mistake,” he admitted under his breath, reaching up with the other hand to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t know what to do right now. What can I do? He no doubt knows who I am now, too.”
Marinette put her hands on his neck with the gentlest touch he’d probably ever experienced and pulled herself closer to him. He allowed her to, the comfort of his suit making it feel less awkward. He was still Chat. The brave part of him was still here, he reminded himself.
“I thought I’d lose you.” she said. Her voice sounded like it was shaking.
Adrien tried to let that thought sit in his mind for a moment. The thought that their team could have been broken apart forever in one night. He didn’t really want to think about that. He returned her embrace and let her sink into him for a couple of moments.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back as they stood there together, wrapped in the warmth of each other. “I’m so sorry. I wish it could have gone differently. I don’t want to scare you.”
She looked up at him with her glassy eyes and he returned her gaze. They spent a long moment just sharing eye contact with mutual understanding of each other. Knowing who they were, under the mask, too. For each of them.
“I hope I didn’t say anything hurtful,” he said carefully.
“You did,” she answered.
The silence hung low over them for a moment, tension between them feeling like the humidity of a hot summer wind.
“I was under the akuma,” he ventured, feeling guilty.
“I don’t remember what I said or how I said it.”
Before he could finish, Marinette interrupted him.
“Is it true,” she asked, careful and articulate about each word. “Chat Noir, Adrien Agreste, both and neither. Is it true that you regret knowing me?”
Inside him, he felt his heart tear away at her words. He spoke up quickly.
“No,” he said simply. “I don’t regret anything except for being akumatized. I regret that. But knowing you and calling you my partner and my best friend? I don’t regret anything, not in the slightest.”
The words came to him easier as he spoke.
“Since I met you, my world changed, my lady. At home and at school, I felt myself crumbling under the weight of carrying everything that I was expected to take. My father at home, my mom’s disappearance. Expectations from my friends on how I was supposed to act.”
His fingers found their way into her hair again and she didn’t object.
“Ladybug never expected any of that from me. We jumped in together and she was okay with me making decisions and taking initiative. She didn’t try to carve me into something I wasn’t, or fit into boxes that weren’t made for me.”
He paused for a moment.
“You,” he whispered, pulling her face towards him with his hands, relishing in the fact he had the love of his life between them. “You were amazing and confident, and so smart and beautiful,” his voice lingered on that last word and a blush crept onto her unmasked face. “And you accepted me instantly for everything I was and you didn’t even know me. And that’s more than I’ve gotten from anyone in my whole life.”
Marinette slipped her hands behind his neck and he felt himself lose his mind a little bit at her touch. He never expected this. Not in a million years. The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile as she stared up at him.
“I can’t believe it was you this entire time,” she whispered to him. Her voice was quieter than ever. He had to lean over more to hear her words but he hung onto every one of them like a lifeline. “All this time and I was falling in love with one person.”
Adrien felt his entire soul crushed under the weight of what she just said. It took him practically a full minute to recover before answering her.
“Falling in love with one person?” he echoed. “You mean you were…”
“I am.” she responded.
He melted into her and pulled her as close as possible, resting his head on hers, his hands tangled up in her hair again. From there his voice echoed in the evening air, hardly more than a whisper.
“I love you too.”