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Marinette Dupain-Cheng would not, under regular circumstances, describe herself as cool, chill, or collected. As Alya has lovingly reminded her many times, she’s about as clumsy as they come, and her emotions are almost as out-of-control as her two left feet. She loves fully, and while she’s well aware of her weakness, that doesn’t stop her from being loyal to her friends and family to a fault. On the flip side, Chloe Bourgeois could say about two snotty sentences and Marinette would immediately fire back a reply, giving Chloe exactly what she wants.
So, no, she’s not the most…put-together person, but her strengths lie elsewhere. Still, she’s able to feel proud of herself for being Paris’s most beloved, powerful, not-at-all clumsy superhero. (And for keeping that fact a secret from everyone she knows.)
At first, she hated lying to her friends and family about her disappearances to save Paris. She still doesn’t love it, but it’s gotten easier. She focuses instead on how well she’s been keeping the secret, rather than thinking about the fact that she’s lying to all those she holds dear.
She’s never been great at lying or keeping secrets, but no one has picked up on anything. Not even Alya, Ladybug’s biggest fan and Marinette’s best friend. And, as much as she hates lying, that makes her feel good.
Still, it’s pretty lonely being unable to talk to anyone but Chat Noir about her adventures as Ladybug. He knows all her stories, since he’s experience all of them right next to her, and his attention span isn’t all that long anyway. And she can’t talk to anyone about him, for obvious reasons, so she just has to keep it all inside.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she’s so susceptible to her own emotions. She’s got enough on her plate that she can’t talk about, so she has no room to bottle up things that she can.
Personal psychoanalysis aside, all she can really do is hope that Hawkmoth doesn’t decide to attack at inconvenient times, because really, he knows she and Chat Noir are teenagers and he should at least have the human decency to attack outside of school hours and leave Saturdays free.
“Marinette, what’re you thinking about?” Tikki’s voice snaps her out of her reverie.
“What? Oh, nothing.”
“C’mon, you can tell me. Were you daydreaming about Adrien again?”
“No,” she says defensively. “If you must know, I was thinking about how Hawkmoth is probably gonna decide to attack as soon as I start working on this school project with Alya, Nino, and Adrien.”
“So…in a roundabout way you were thinking about Adrien,” Tikki teases with a grin.
“No, I was thinking about how impolite Hawkmoth is, always attacking at the worst times. Now come on, I’m gonna be late.”
Tikki zips into her purse and she starts rushing out.
“Your backpack, Marinette!” Tikki reminds her, the kwami’s head peeking out of her purse.
“Right, thanks.” Marinette grabs her backpack and her phone and runs to the library.
“We were getting worried you wouldn’t show,” Alya says as Marinette sits down next to her.
“Sorry,” she says, setting her backpack on the table and trying to ignore the fact that she’s sitting right across from Adrien.
“Eh, it’s okay, girl,” Alya says. “So are we getting started?”
“Yeah, uh, we should probably figure out what exactly we’re gonna do for this project,” Nino points out.
“Where would we be without you, Nino?” Alya teases. Adrien snickers, covering his mouth with his hand. Marinette can’t help but smile. “So, who’s got ideas?”
“Well, all we have to do is find a creative way to represent each decade in the 1900s, right?” Adrien pipes up. “We could do clothing, maybe what teenagers wore in each decade? Marinette’s an awesome designer, and we could all help sew and stuff. Then we can all model it and put it together in a scrapbook or something.”
“Love the idea,” Nino says, “but I’d rather leave the modeling to the actual model among us. Besides, we need a photographer.”
“Okay, so me and the girls will model. What do we think? Marinette?” Adrien looks right at her, and she tries not to choke on her words.
“Yeah, I think it’s a great idea. I don’t know if I can design it all on my own though,” Marinette says. She mentally pats herself on the back. She’s gotten a lot better at talking to Adrien than she used to be, and now that they’re actually pretty good friends, she’s more comfortable around him too. Which means she embarrasses herself much less.
“We wouldn’t make you do that,” Alya says. “However, I don’t know much about designing. I’d be more help editing the pictures.”
“I can help,” Adrien offers with a smile. “I’ve picked up a thing or two from my father.”
Alya kicks Marinette’s leg under the table to express her excitement, and Marinette can’t help but grin.
“Perfect,” she says. “Let’s see if you’re more than just a pretty face.”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, her confidence crumbles. Alya looks impressed and Nino’s grinning like an idiot – no doubt those two have had words about Marinette’s feelings for Adrien – and Adrien has a tiny smile on his face. Are his cheeks turning pink? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’s a model, for crying out loud! He knows he has a pretty face!
Knowing her own self-destructive tendencies when faced with embarrassment, Marinette covers her probably bright-red face. “Somebody please say something.”
Someone says something, all right.
“Chloe?” Alya says, sounding bewildered.
Marinette uncovers her face to find the one and only Chloe Bourgeois pulling books off the library shelves, her eyes glazed over.
“Chloe, are you okay?” Adrien asks, getting up and touching her shoulder. Marinette suppresses her jealousy, especially because she’s kind of concerned for Chloe too.
Chloe doesn’t respond to Adrien. Instead, she brushes right past him and sits at a table with her books and a backpack, and she starts…doing homework.
“Something is definitely wrong with that girl,” Alya says. “Hey, Earth to Chloe!” Alya waves her hand in the blonde’s face, but she’s unfazed. “Chloe, what are you doing?”
“Doing?” Chloe asks distractedly, not looking up from her work. “Doing Sabrina’s homework. Then doing Sabrina’s chores.”
Marinette looks at her friends, who all look just as worried and confused as she is.
“Guys? I’m kinda freaking out. Are you guys freaking out? Because I feel like the natural response to this situation is universally freaking out,” Nino rambles, clutching Adrien’s arm.
Before Marinette can reassure Nino that everything will be fine, the doors to the library burst open. Four people walk in, carrying a throne on their shoulders. Marinette notices the same glazed look in their eyes as in Chloe’s. And sitting on the throne is…
“Is that Sabrina?” Nino asks, his voice cracking.
Other than the bright red hair and the glasses, Sabrina looks like a carbon copy of Chloe. She’s wearing Chloe’s signature black and white and yellow outfit, complete with white sunglasses on top of her head and her hair tied back in a ponytail.
“I am Queen Bee!” Sabrina announces.
“Queen Bee!” her minions echo.
“You will all become my servants,” Sabrina says with a grin.
Then she floats – literally floats – out of her throne and over to the librarian cowering behind her desk. Sabrina claps twice in the poor woman’s ears, short and sharp, and the librarian’s eyes glaze over.
“How may I serve you, Queen Bee?”
Sabrina smiles more. “Get the rest of them.”
The library erupts into chaos. Sabrina’s minions appear to be able to akumatize people just like Sabrina. People run in fear as double claps echo off the walls, a chorus of “Queen Bee” rising from the ever-growing number of Sabrina’s servants.
“You guys have to hide!” Marinette yells to her friends, ushering them to the back corner of the library. “You can’t let any of them go near you!”
“What about you?!” Alya asks. “You have to hide too!”
“I’m gonna go see if I can get help!”
“I’ll go!” Adrien pipes up. “Marinette, Nino, and Alya, stay here.”
“No, I’ll go. I insist,” Marinette argues. Stop trying to be a hero, you idiot.
“I’m sure Ladybug and Chat Noir will show up any second. How about we stay together and no one does anything stupid?” Alya suggests, wrapping an arm around Nino, who is cowering at her side.
“What if we all get out of here?!” he squeaks.
“No,” Marinette says. “You three, hide here. If help doesn’t come in five minutes, then you can figure out your next move.”
“Honestly, Marinette, I have a bodyguard that I can get over here – “
“No!” Marinette yells over Adrien. “You are not risking yourself to save us! None of you are! I will go. I have a plan.”
Adrien sets his jaw and she sees an odd glint in his eyes. “Marinette,” he says calmly, “I have a plan too. I know you want to help everyone, but I really think that this time my plan might be better – “
“Guys! Arguing like this gets us nowhere!” Alya interrupts.
“Hey, I’d really appreciate it if I could get a word in before someone starts talking over me,” Adrien pipes up, his voice still eerily calm. “How am I supposed to prove I’m more than a pretty face if none of you will let me?”
Marinette sighs, a wave of guilt washing over her. She knows that she’d get help the fastest – because she is the help – but Adrien doesn’t know that. To him, it must sound like she’s dismissing him off the bat.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Marinette says. “What’s your plan, Adrien?”
“Well…” His eyes shift down nervously. “I can’t exactly tell you. But – “
The bookcase they’re hiding behind wobbles precariously, and Marinette barely has time to push Nino and Alya out of the way before Adrien grabs her wrist and pulls her in the opposite direction.
“C’mon!” he yells, dragging her to the bathrooms. “We’ll both hide in the bathrooms until help arrives or Sabrina and her minions move on somewhere else. We won’t be any use to Alya and Nino if we get turned into minions trying to find help.”
“Fine. We both stay and hide until it’s safe,” Marinette agrees. “Neither one of us tries to be a hero.”
Adrien nods distractedly and shoves Marinette into the girls’ bathroom before sprinting into the boys’.
Not a second after the door closes, Marinette checks all the stalls to make sure she’s alone. Once she confirms that she is, she takes a deep breath and transforms into Ladybug.
Right as Marinette is walking out of the girls’ restroom, she sees Chat Noir walking out of the boys’. She freezes, her eyes wide.
Coincidence. Pure coincidence.
Chat Noir eyes her warily. “Hey…Ladybug.”
“Chat Noir,” she greets with a nod, trying to stop her voice from shaking. “Why didn’t you use the main entrance?”
“I could ask you the same question.” He speaks slowly, and she can almost see the gears turning in his head.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter, right? We have an akuma to stop.”
They spring into action, and Marinette hopes to all her Ladybug luck that he’ll forget what just happened.
“You missed the whole thing! Ladybug and Chat Noir came as soon as you guys went to get help! It was awesome! They were so fast you could barely even see the fight! They were all like…” Alya starts making cartoonish fighting noises with her mouth as she energetically recounts yesterday’s events to Adrien and Marinette before class.
Marinette can really only half-focus on what Alya is saying. Adrien hasn’t taken his eyes off her since she walked in the classroom, and while usually she’d be embarrassed or excited about the attention, all she wants now is for him to stop looking at her. At least stop looking at her like that, like how Chat Noir seemed to be studying her yesterday.
Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence.
“Yeah, speaking of which, a lot of help you guys got us,” Nino complains. “You left us alone in there and then got turned into zombies! If it weren’t for Ladybug and Chat Noir – “
“The important thing is that they were there,” Marinette says. “Right?”
“No thanks to you,” Nino says, crossing his arms.
“Marinette’s right,” Adrien says. “What really matters is that somebody came. It just so happened to be Ladybug and Chat Noir instead of one of us with backup, but either way everyone was saved. Catastrophe averted.”
He looks at Marinette pointedly, as if searching for her reaction.
Her eyes go wide. Not a coincidence, not a coincidence, not a coincidence. Then she narrows her eyes at him. Is he trying to give himself away?
He seems satisfied. He finally stops staring at her, and he tries to hide the tiny smile on his face by clearing his throat.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I guess,” Nino says.
Class goes agonizingly slow. Marinette looks at the clock after what feels like half the class, but she finds that it’s only been ten minutes. She bounces her leg anxiously. The sound of Adrien tapping his pencil on his desk isn’t helping.
When the bell finally rings, Marinette tries to pack up her stuff and race out of the classroom before Adrien can stop her, but thanks to those trusty two left feet, she trips down the stairs and the contents of her bag spill out. Chloe snickers and kicks one of her books across the room on her way out.
Alya starts moving to help her pick everything up, but Adrien beats her to it. “You okay?” he asks her, handing her one of her notebooks.
“I’m fine,” she mutters, avoiding his eyes.
“Hey, Nino, don’t you have to grab that thing from your locker?” Alya says, already dragging Nino out the door. Even the teacher walks out of the classroom for a quick break, leaving Marinette and Adrien completely alone.
For the first time, Marinette would rather be just about anywhere than here, alone with Adrien.
“So…yesterday sure was crazy, huh?” Adrien ventures, walking across the room to retrieve the book Chloe kicked away.
“’Catastrophe averted?’” she asks him. “Really?”
“What?” he says innocently, helping her put the rest of her belongings in her backpack.
“You know what,” she mutters, zipping her backpack and standing up.
A tiny voice in the back of her mind points out that she’s being kind of cold to him, as if she’s mad at him. Mad at Adrien. Oddly enough, it doesn’t feel as wrong as she thought it would. It feels…well, exactly like being annoyed with Chat Noir. She still loves him, sure, but she’d kind of like to punch him at this moment in time.
Punch Adrien Agreste. Who is she?
You wanna punch Chat Noir, she tells herself.
They’re the same person, her mind points out.
“Okay, are we gonna keep dancing around this or actually talk about the elephant – er, cat and ladybug – in the room?” he asks.
Even though she’s known it since the second she saw him walk out of that bathroom yesterday, her heart pounds when he acknowledges it out loud.
“I’d rather forget about it…” she says.
Adrien twists the ring on his finger. (How had she never noticed that before?) “Look, Marinette, I know you were dead set on us not knowing each other’s identities, but maybe this is a good thing.”
“One of us is gonna slip and call the other by their real name in battle.”
“I don’t think we will. Even after…yesterday, when we were fighting Sabrina, I looked at you as Ladybug and thought Ladybug. I knew Marinette was behind the mask, but to me you were just Ladybug in that moment.”
She hates that she gets what he’s saying. She always thought about Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste as if they were in two completely separate realities. The two of them are so different, it never even crossed her mind that they lived in the same Paris. (Not to mention that separating the two made her feelings for Adrien and her slight, barely even developing, almost nonexistent feelings for Chat Noir easier to manage.)
It’s a lot just to think of Adrien and Chat in the same plane of existence, much less as the same person. She already knows she could never mix up their names.
“That’s…fair, I guess,” she admits. “But Adrien Agreste, if you make one more cat pun in civilian form – “
“Got it. So, what now?”
“Life as normal,” she says with a shrug.
“Normal,” Adrien says wistfully.
“C’mon, we’re gonna be late for our next class,” Marinette says.
“After you, m’lady.” Adrien opens the classroom door for her with an exaggerated bow.
Marinette tries not to blush. “You’re making my brain hurt,” she says, trying to play it off cool.
Adrien looks up at her with a signature Chat Noir grin, and she finds herself smiling and rolling her eyes. Her cheeks cool off and she realizes she’s actually comfortable in this situation. She’s still head-over-heels for him – that much she’s certain about – but instead of being nervous around him she just feels at ease, like she does with Chat Noir.
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
“You know, LB, I don’t even think he’s trying to take our Miraculous,” Chat Noir – er, Adrien as Chat Noir – taunts as he deflects another blow from the latest akumatized victim. “I think Hawkmoth is running out of ideas.”
“I think I’m ready for this to be over,” she says tiredly, trying yet again to grab the akuma.
“This will be over very soon, Ladybug,” the victim says, sparks of electricity dancing off his hands. “Just give me those pretty little earrings.”
“Not a chance.” She walks backwards slowly, watching as the ‘Electrifier’ follows her. (Maybe Hawkmoth really is running out of ideas.) When he’s exactly where she wants him, she stops and smiles. “Hey, Chat Noir! How good are you at ring toss?”
“Let’s find out,” he replies, standing next to a freshly cataclysm-ed car and picking up one of the tires.
He quickly throws all three tires perfectly around the Electrifier, effectively trapping him in a rubber prison. Marinette grins. “Nice shot.”
“Next time the fair’s in town I’ll win you a giant teddy bear, but this akuma will have to do for now.”
Marinette captures and releases the akuma, and for the first time she doesn’t go into panic mode when her earrings start beeping their five-minute warning signal. She and Chat fist-bump and walk away from the scene after making sure the victim’s alright.
They manage to climb up to Marinette’s room just in time to transform back. Their kwamis immediately go for Marinette’s stash of cookies, and Marinette turns to look at Chat – Adrien. She’s found that it’s harder to imaging Adrien being Chat than it is to see Chat as Adrien, but no matter which way she thinks about it, it makes her brain hurt.
“Right. Um…what were we doing before…?”
“Talking about the project,” Adrien reminds her. “But we just saved Paris. Let’s save it for tomorrow.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying every day for the past week.”
He gives her one of Chat Noir’s signature lopsided smiles. “Have I?”
She tries to ignore the way her heart flutters. “Stop it,” she says, shoving him gently. “We have to get at least some of it done. Alya and Nino are getting impatient.”
“Can’t I take a quick little cat nap first? I’m exhausted.”
“Stop with the cat puns!”
He laughs, and her building frustration and annoyance dissipate. The rollercoaster her emotions have been going through lately concerning him is starting to give her whiplash.
“That one was unintentional, I swear.” The smile on his face suggests otherwise.
“C’mon, we need to focus. For each design we do, we can take a ten-minute break. Sound fair?”
Adrien sighs and nods. “Sounds fair. But Marinette, between school and saving the city, do you ever make time just to have fun?”
“Do you? You also have fencing and piano and modeling and – “
“Touché.”
For all the times Marinette dreamed about Adrien Agreste (and maybe, sorta, a couple times Chat Noir) coming to her balcony and whisking her away, she never thought it’d actually happen. And while he didn’t necessarily come to her balcony as much as come home with her after patrol, she still has trouble believing that both Adrien and Chat Noir are on her balcony with her, talking about…well, she’s not really sure.
“Marinette? Does that sound okay for the project?”
“Huh? Oh, um, yeah. Sounds good.”
He watches her for a second, his face almost impossible to read.
“Hey, uh, now that the…cat’s out of the bag – “
She narrows her eyes at him. “I’ll kill you.”
He smiles a little and looks away from her. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he looks nervous – the way he’s scratching behind his neck, avoiding her eyes.
“I just wanted to make sure you and I are…good.”
She knits her eyebrows. “I thought we were better than ever. Why wouldn’t we be good?”
“Well, knowing each other’s identities…now you know how I feel about you – “
“I’m sorry, what?”
He swallows and finally looks at her. “You know I’m Chat Noir and I know you’re Ladybug. I figured you put two and two together and that’s why you kept getting so…annoyed with me.”
“I haven’t been annoyed with you – “
“Come on.”
“It’s been…weird adjusting to all this. But I haven’t been annoyed with you. What are you talking about putting two and two together?”
“Me liking you.”
She almost chokes on her own breath. “You – what?”
His eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. “I haven’t really been subtle.”
“Chat Noir is a shameless flirt. I didn’t think – “
“No…it’s real.”
“But when you found out it was me…”
He smiles a little at that. “Are you kidding? You being Ladybug was the best news ever! I was kinda starting to like you – er, civilian you – and I was so confused and conflicted, but then you turned out to be the same person!”
She smiles on the inside, but she’s pretty sure on the outside she looks like a blushing fish struggling to breathe out of water. “You…what?” The world starts spinning.
“Don’t sound so surprised. Who wouldn’t like you?”
She grabs his arm to hold herself upright and brings her other hand to her head, trying to overcome her vertigo.
“Whoa,” he says, grabbing her arm. “You okay?”
She catches the sweet, concerned look on his face, his eyebrows scrunched together and a little frown on his lips, and she swallows nervously. She closes her eyes.
“I’m sorry, could you be Chat Noir for the rest of this conversation?”
“Um…sure. But you know Chat Noir is still a hundred percent me, right?”
“Yeah.” She clears her throat, trying to regain her composure. You’re gonna scare him off! She opens one eye, sees that Adrien is now in full Chat Noir mode, and then opens the other eye, sighing and feeling herself relax a little.
“Can I ask what that was?”
She glances at him nervously and then messes with the buttons on her jacket. “It’s just…easier to talk to you when you look like Chat Noir. I’m more comfortable around him – um, you in the costume. You know what I mean.”
He frowns more than before. “I make you uncomfortable?”
Her eyes widen and she looks up at him quickly, grabbing his arms. “No! No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. I’ve always felt so close to Chat Noir, like he was one of my best friends. But up until recently, I could barely even talk to Adrien Agreste without saying or doing something stupid.”
“I’m still not really following,” he admits.
She sighs. “Look, you know how different I was when I was with Chat versus when I was with Adrien. I was a little less of a mess as Ladybug, but still.”
“Okay…”
“So, I’m still getting used to you being the same person, which is why I’ve been acting weird lately, because I’m not really sure what our dynamic is now that we both know each other’s identities.”
“So…what does that have to do with me needing to look like Chat to tell you I like you?”
She swallows, her heart fluttering unexpectedly at hearing those words come out of Chat’s mouth instead of Adrien’s. She must’ve fallen for him pretty hard without even realizing it because she was so focused on Adrien. Thinking about it now, knowing they’re the same person, makes her dizzy.
“Well…I thought I’d freak out less hearing it from Chat instead of Adrien. But I was very wrong.”
He knits his eyebrows together again. “Freak out? Why are you freaking out?”
She takes a deep breath, holding on to the balcony railing for support. “I’ve liked you for a long time, Adrien. So much so that I didn’t think I had any feelings for Chat Noir whatsoever. Other than platonic, I mean.”
He smiles a little, but his glowing eyes are still riddled with confusion. “You could’ve led with you liking me, you know,” he teases. “But I’m still very confused on the rest. Tell me like I’m five.”
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly at his teasing, her heartbeat slowing just enough so that she can breathe again. “I like you too,” she says, meeting his eyes. “Both of you. I was so…um, consumed – not in a weird way – by my crush on Adrien that I didn’t realize how in love I was with Chat Noir until…this moment, actually.”
His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “In love?”
Her eyes widen, her body going perfectly still. She feels the blush spreading on her face. “I didn’t say that.”
He starts grinning. “You definitely said that.”
“I did not say that.”
“You fell in love with Chat Noir!” He pokes her stomach and she yelps, shoving his chest.
“I did not! Your cat ears aren’t working right. Maybe you should go see Master Fu – “
“You were in love with Chat Noir before you even knew it was me!” He gasps, his face lighting up but in a way that’s almost mischievous more than happy (although there’s definitely a twinge of joy in there, too). “You weren’t ‘consumed’ by your crush on me, you just didn’t want to admit you were in love with Chat Noir!”
“Okay, that is not true – “
“Is too!” He pokes her stomach again, and she swats his hand away.
“I’m way too young to even know what love feels like.”
“But you admit you said it.”
“No!”
“You did think I was charming after all.” He grins, flexing and looking at his arms.
“Shut up!”
He looks at her and rolls his eyes, his grin turning into more of an easygoing smile. “C’mon, Marinette, you know I’m just kitten around with you. You did ask to have this conversation with Chat Noir.”
She crosses her arms and looks away from him, wishing her face would cool down.
He sighs, tilting his head and trying to catch her gaze. “Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t tease you anymore. If it helps, I was telling Plagg how in love I was with Ladybug after our first akuma battle.”
She glances at him, and he gives her his best puppy – er, kitty – eyes. She almost gives in right there.
“Please accept my a – paw – logy?” He sticks out his lower lip.
“That wasn’t even a good cat pun,” she says. “I want Adrien back. He’s less of an idiot.”
“You’re the one in love with an idiot. So who’s the real loser?”
“Still you.”
He smiles. “Not denying?”
“What’s the point? You’ll never let it go.”
“You know me too well.”
“And besides, you may be an idiot, but you’re my idiot.”
“It’s truly an honor to be your idiot, m’lady.” He gives her one of his signature exaggerated Chat Noir bows, transforming seamlessly into his civilian self before standing up straight again.
For the first time, she truly sees the Chat Noir in him. From that sparkle in his eyes to that goofy grin to just the feeling she gets looking at him, she’s finally able to place Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir in the same person. A weight is lifted off her shoulders, and she finds herself smiling at him.
“Okay, kitty. Just kiss me.”
So he does. And Marinette isn’t any more cool, chill, or collected than she was before. In fact, when he tilts her chin up to kiss her, her legs start shaking so bad he has to stop and ask if she’s alright. But it’s okay, because now she knows that he isn’t just the flawless model; he’s also her silly, flirty, charming best friend and partner in crime(-fighting), who’s just as crazy about her as she is about him.