Chapter Text
The next day, Alya's alarm woke her up at five AM. She turned it off and turned to her back, everything coming back in a groggy fog.
Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette is Ladybug.
She sat up and got ready just to prevent herself from lingering on it all.
Another day, she might have gone to do maintenance on the Ladyblog or checked the news for whatever happened the night before -- a late night akuma attack that she slept through, maybe, or interesting pictures caught of Ladybug and Chat Noir patrolling together. Instead, though, she checked her phone.
Nino: R u ok? Heard u got akumatized. Call when you can
Sent 11:38 yesterday
She sighed and messaged back. Fine. Spent the evening w Marinette. See you at school <3.
Keeping secrets from Nino wasn't something Alya liked to do, but she was relatively well versed. He couldn't keep a secret to save his life, and though he would do it for something as big as this, she still couldn't betray Marinette's trust like that. She'd kept Rena Rouge's identity a secret from him for months -- this would be easy.
Leaving her room to grab something to eat, Alya considered what had happened earlier that day.
I talked with the girls about how Marinette broke up with Luka but refuses to talk about it. Marinette broke up with Luka after Luka got akumatized, and his akumatized persona was searching high and low for her secret.
That made considerably more sense. Her secret wasn't that she was in love with Adrien, it's that she was Ladybug, and because of that she couldn't be present for everything, and she'd never be able to be entirely honest with him.
We came into Marinette's room and she wasn't there at first, or at least it didn't seem like it, but suddenly she was.
On the roof, maybe? Just detransformed?
Rose accidentally broke her doll house and she told us she didn't want us as friends.
Looking for an excuse, or something else? What was in that dollhouse?
We were akumatized. Ladybug cornered me and I broke my akumatization, then she told me that she's the Guardian.
That must have been what changed, then. When? How long had it been since Marinette was left feeling alone, isolated? And why would Ladybug tell her that? If not...
A test of trust. Alya promised not to put it on the Ladyblog or tell anyone else about it, and Marinette knew that Alya would do that for a piece of information bigger, more dangerous.
"Alya? What are you doing up?"
She looked up to see her mom standing in the kitchen, already prepared for work wearing her chef's whites, pulling her hair into a bun. She had to leave early every morning to start with the rush of people looking for a morning buffet and room service.
"Oh, I was just.... heading out. To get some pictures. Yeah, the fencing club has an early morning practice and I was heading out to get pictures."
That much was actually true, or it was supposed to be, anyway. Early morning was a great time to get pictures with dramatic lighting and few interferences, but Alya doubted that she would be going there today -- too much on the mind.
"Do you want me to drop you off before I head off to work?" her mom asked, seemingly not suspicious of anything. Alya wiped her hands on her jeans -- surely someone would realize that she was holding a secret. Surely she'd be found out.
No. I can't share it. Not for Marinette.
"I'm good," she answered. "Thank for the offer, though."
"Alright, then. Love you, sweetie. I'll see you for dinner."
"Bye!"
The room was still dark, the only light coming from above the sink, making everything shine but nothing quite clear. Once her mom left the room, Alya curled up on the couch and opened her messages with Marinette.
Are you awake? she asked. The girl always needed more sleep -- that made sense too, now.
It took seconds for the typing bubble to pop up, and less time for a reply to be sent. Yes. Before she could respond, though, Marinette began to text again. Want to meet up?
Only if you want to, girl. I can wait.
Let's meet at that bench by the Seine, okay? Twenty minutes?
See you then <3.
Alya took less than twenty minutes to get to the bench, and even though she wasn't technically early, Marinette arrived on time -- which was early for her, anyway.
They wordlessly hugged when she sat down. Alya felt a weight lift off her shoulders -- she hadn't realized how heavy a burden like this would be, to keep it to herself with no promise of anyone else ever knowing. It wasn't like being Rena Rouge -- that was an exciting hour and a hard-to-write article for her, and not much else. But this changed everything.
"Hey," Marinette said. "Are you okay?"
"Girl, I can't believe you're asking me. I mean, I'm just -- we -- you're --"
"Ladybug?" Marinette finished.
"Yeah. That."
A breathy chuckle escaped Marinette's nose, and Alya found the corner of her mouth quirking up. "God, this is weird. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." The words were immediate, urgent, honest -- perhaps the only honest thing Alya had said before she found out the truth.
"A little late for that, but..." Her words trailed off, the only movement the fog of their breath in front of them. The air was crisp and cool; though it was warming up during the days, nights were still wintery and dark, and the sun hadn't quite risen yet. "Do you have any questions?" Marinette finally asked, turning her face toward Alya's. "It seems only fair that I answer them."
She did, but suddenly, everything overwhelming her, she didn't know where to start -- with Chat Noir? Or Luka, maybe? At the beginning? Her mouth parted and her face froze in the terrifying reality of how many questions she had left to ask.
"I -- Well -- Um --"
Marinette sighed. "Let's start simple. Tikki, come out."
Alya was about to ask what she meant when she saw a little red thing float forward and settle between them -- a kwami. Ladybug's kwami, with a red body and a little black dot on its head.
"Hi!" it said. "I'm Tikki." Its hand stuck out, and Alya did the only thing she could think to do: held out her finger. They "shook," so to speak, but really it was more of an up and down motion with contact.
"She knows pretty much everything about you. Possibly more than me, since she spends so much time just observing the people in our class, but she's relatively responsible with other people's secrets."
Though Alya knew that Ladybug and Chat Noir had their very own kwamis, she'd never considered what they looked like, that they had an impact on things and interacted with the world in their downtime. And she definitely never considered that they could be watching her while she barely pays attention in geometry.
Geometry, though... with Ms. Mendeleiev...
"Oh my God! When Ms. Mendeleiev got akumatized, did she actually find your kwami?"
Marinette nodded. "Yes. Tikki was floating around trying to corral Plagg, Chat Noir's kwami. Why Chat's kwami was around I can't be sure. My best bet is that he came once specifically to bug Tikki and kept coming because he found a piece of cheese."
"Chat Noir's kwami... Cheese?"
"Oh, yeah. The nasty little creature eats some disgusting things. Chat loves him, but I don't think I'd be able to stand him."
Alya laughed, and slowly, Marinette did too. Despite everything, Alya realized, being Ladybug wasn't a burden on her -- she seemed to love it. To love saving the city, to love spending time with her partner, to love her kwami and her life.
"So you and Chat Noir...?" Alya waggled her eyebrows and Marinette rolled her eyes.
"The fool's in love with me and he has been from day one. I mean, I love him, too, just... not that way. And it's not like that's really an option right now. After everything that happened with Luka..."
"You're afraid of hurting the people you love."
"To put it lightly, yes."
They sat there for a moment, silence surrounding them, coldness slowly seeping in rather than all at once, somehow making it worse, making it deeper. "Luka wasn't trying to find out that you're in love with Adrien. He was trying to find out that you're Ladybug."
Marinette nodded. "Had Chat not saved me when he did, I might have even told him."
"I feel like an idiot for what I told Luka."
"No, what you told him was good. It kept me safe."
Alya met Marinette's eyes. "You didn't deserve what happened to you that night."
"I should have known it wouldn't work out with Luka so long as Hawk Moth -- and now, Shadow Moth -- it hot on my ass."
"Don't you dare say that, girl. You deserve to be in a relationship if you want to. Hell Moth or whatever he wants to be called can suck a big one."
She chuckled but stayed silent.
"When did you become the Guardian?" Alya asked.
Marinette sighed. "When Chloe got akumatized into Miracle Queen. It was -- I messed up and accidentally revealed the location of the last Guardian, my Guardian. Hawk Moth used this to his advantage and nearly got the Miracle Box. In a last minute plot to save it, he passed the box to me."
Alya sensed tears resting at the back of Marinette's throat. This wasn't the whole story -- or, at least, something else had happened. Instead of asking, though, Alya just pulled Marinette into a hug, arms wrapped tightly beneath her shoulders.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"His name was -- is -- Master Fu. He carried the Miracle Box with him for damn near two hundred years and for a long time he was the last Guardian. Now, though, he's lost his memories and most of what he had to teach me will be tossed into the void. I can't -- it -- everything just came down at once, and now here we are."
They stayed in silence, hugging each other for a moment, Alya closing her eyes. When Marinette pulled away and she opened them again to notice that the sun was starting to peak through and golden light was reflecting on the side of Marinette's face. It might have been beautiful, but all Alya could notice was that her skin was breaking out, worse than she'd ever noticed it being before. And her hair was still oily like it had been the day before, and deep bags marked where the hollows of her eyes began.
"Now that I know, you'll tell me everything, right?" she asked.
Marinette nodded. "I can't keep more secrets all to myself. It was killing me."
"Now that I know, I'm along for the ride whether you like it or not," Alya said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Marinette smiled back, and though it was most certainly fake, it at least gave Alya hope that she had the energy to fake a smile.
"One question," Marinette said.
"Yeah?"
"You once told me that Ladybug was your bisexual awakening."
Alya's eyes went wide. "Oh my God, I'm -- you're -- this is the worst timeline, actually. I'm so sorry for saying that to you, I never would have --"
Marinette smiled. "It's fine, Al. Just promise me you're not gonna go around hitting on me. I'm a bit overwhelmed for romantic prospects right now."
Alya couldn't shake the deep embarrassment that suddenly expunged any cold from her body, but she found a laugh rising from her throat. "Promise. But I can't take Ladybug off my freebie list with Nino, it'd be too suspicious."
"I get it. Besides, maybe when we're in college... Who knows?"
Alya and Marinette both laughed together, both genuinely, both weightlessly, for the first time in a long time.
Finally, they could begin to heal.