Chapter Text
you might not have been my first love
but you were the love that made
all the other loves
irrelevant
rupi kaur
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Silence settled over the room as she ran into the elevator, suffocating the blond boy as the doors closed behind her.
He was insanely lucky. The girl who made his heart race with excitement and the hero who made him feel completely and utterly at peace were the same person. Marinette, who made him resort to blushing and stuttering and his Lady, who ignited the urge to flirt and protect with his life were one in the same.
He was insanely lucky and could jump in elation.
Evidently, Marinette couldn't feel farther from that.
“What the hell?” Alya muttered, gears turning behind her eyes as she stood up to join Adrien in front of the doors. The blond was still furiously pushing the button with much unneeded force. “You're going to go find her, right?”
“Of course I am!” he replied with vigour, just as the doors chimed.
The sliding doors closed behind him, a pointed look from Alya that simply communicated, “ Don’t mess this up.”
He didn't plan to.
“Kitten-” came the hoarse voice of Plagg, reaching out to pat his cheek with his tiny hand.
“How did I mess up this badly?” he asked while staring at himself in the mirrored surface as the elevator and his stomach dropped.
“She’ll figure it out, you know she’s uptight about the identity stuff-”
“Not the time to be making fun of her, Plagg,” he scolded as they came to a stop.
It was now or never.
And Adrien Agreste wasn't going to lose his Lady to the feeble idea of rejection.
*.*.*.*
The roof was pretty windy. Marinette never knew that such a breeze could be conjured in the dead of February, blustery with a tinge of warmth and humidity.
The stars were very pretty tonight. She never took much time to ponder the creation of constellations, connecting them until they resembled something of the knowledge Chat had spouted to her on late night patrols. It was fascinating, really, the fact that stars seemed so close together, yet in reality they were probably the same distance from each other as they were from her.
She wondered if stars ever truly aligned.
Sure, people used it as a metaphor as something or some events lining up perfectly, almost celestially so. They were seen as positive occurrences, optimism paying off with a reward of celebrated endeavours or returned affections.
Some would say that her stars had aligned, almost impossibly so.
She would rather dismantle the goddamned solar system than have them fall perfectly in place.
Adrien was Chat and Chat was Adrien.
There was no point in regressing backwards into denial. Ladybug dealt with solid proof and took accusations and allegations afterwards. There was indisputable evidence that they were one in the same.
Adrien gave her roses and lit dozens of candles on rooftops for Marinette.
Chat Noir strut down the runway in a hat that Ladybug has painstakingly sewed with faux feathers.
Adrien was impaled through the gut time and time again in order to save her life.
Chat made her blush uncontrollably earlier this evening.
They weren’t the same person (but they were).
It was selfish and inconsiderate to run out, she knew that, she knew that he wouldn’t hate her for keeping her identity a secret because he did as well.
The black cat wouldn’t hate her, but the white cat may as well have already dug her grave.
Bunnix hadn’t told her what caused the akumatization that turned him against everything and everyone, slaughtering innocent people. All she knew was that he didn't want to stop hurting people when she had arrived - if anything, it only added gasoline to the fire - but she knew that he knew her identity, the echoing of the word “Marinette” spat with such venom it made her chest cave in.
Her identity had played some role, however minor, and that was enough to make fresh tears appear in her eyes.
“Marinette!”
She shut her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line, head falling back to meet the flimsy pillow. This was the “talk” that she expected would inevitably follow that trainwreck.
“Mari-”
“Hi Chat,” she whispered, resigned to tiredness.
“I'm really sorry.”
She took a pause, eyes flitting between his and his fiddling hands. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I know that you didn’t necessarily want it to be me, you practically hated me for a year when we first met, and there are so many other people that would be better, but-”
And she laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.
“What? You think I’m disappointed? ” she wheezed out between laughs and wiping tears. “Why the hell would I be disappointed?”
“I don’t know?” he said while stifling a smile, “Maybe because the person who’s been confessing his love from day one is the same person you avoided for a year?”
Reality managed to sneak its way into their corner of the world, the suffocating fact that Chat Noir knew her identity weighing heavy in her mind.
“I didn’t avoid you,” she stated with a new sense of seriousness.
His expression morphed to one of skepticism, but moved on with the conversation, “Why did you run out?”
“Because we found out, Chat. We found out the one thing that we shouldn’t have.”
“But why? Why is it so bad? We can cover for each other, we can support each other, Mari!”
He ran his hands through his hair, staring at her with confusion and exasperation in those emerald eyes that only reminded her of Adrien.
“You don’t get it!” she spat with wet, raging anger. “You don’t understand because I had to go through it alone!”
“What, Marinette? What did you go through without me? I always tried and you always pushed me away!”
Bright blue flashed over his eyes, a trick of the dim light, her heart pounding even harder. “You- I can’t Chat, I can’t, I’m not allowed-“
“By who?”
“Bunnix.” the girl whispered.
“Mari,” he replied softly while moving to sit across from her, “I don’t care, remember? It’s bothering you tremendously and I’m not going to sit by and watch you crumble under the pressure. That’s not what partners do, M’Lady.”
She took a shuddering breath, staring back into those honest eyes that held no malice that their sky blue counterpart did. “In another timeline, you found out too early. We- We were in love, Chaton,” she confessed with a teary smile. “But then something happened, and- and you were akumatized. Chat Blanc, he hurt people, hurt me . You were akumatized because of me and discovering my identity. It was my fault, Chat, it is my fault.”
All the while she was soundlessly crying she looked into his eyes and saw tears reflected back.
“Mari,” he muttered in a mix of empathy and confusion, “I would never , never, give in to Hawkmoth just because the girl I’ve loved for so long is you .”
“But you were.”
“In that timeline. I’m so incredibly happy that you are you, Princess, because you’re all I’ve ever hoped you’d be and more.”
They both leant in to meet the other, foreheads touching as touch explained more than words ever could.
“I’m so glad it’s you,” she whispered as her eyelids stayed shut.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Who would be better?”
He pulled away at that, suspicion apparent in his tone, “Then why did you avoid me?”
“Number 1, I didn’t avoid you,” she sighed with a smile. “Number 2, why do you think a girl would be awkward around an international supermodel?”
“No!” he gasped. The look of utter embarrassment and glee on his face made her burst into giggles.
“You cannot tell me you didn’t notice.”
“You were just as clueless as me,” he responded with the cocky grin she had grown to adore.
“I knew you had a crush on Ladybug, dork.”
“Ladybug, yeah. Marinette? You were 100% in the dark, no doubt about it.”
That… that definitely blindsided her, and she blinked furiously for a second as her jaw hung open. “You- You like Marinette as well?”
“Marinette is pretty awesome, not gonna lie,” he joked, earning him a punch on the arm.
“Well, you’re lucky I like Chat Noir as much as I like Adrien Agreste,” she teased back to his utter bewilderment.
“Excuse me, could you repeat that? I need to get the camera,” he said, a smile escaping her as she remembered their past text messages and phone calls.
“Fine. I like Chat Noir,” she repeated, exaggerating the syllables and pauses.
“Good to know. How about that rooftop tomorrow evening?”
“Sounds nice,” she answered, a look full of optimism and pure affection spreading across her face in the form of a soft smile and twinkling eyes masking her nervousness.
“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Bugaboo,” he vowed with a wink, kissing her cheek as he stood up and took out his baton.
“See you, Kitty,” she replied with a laugh, desperately trying to hide her blush at the embrace.
Only when he had vaulted away, a glint in his eye and a grin on his lips, did she realise the absolute glee at the fact that she had a
date
with Paris’ most amazing boy.