Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It’s going to rain,” Chat Noir sighed, casting the ominous clouds on the horizon an apprehensive glance as he balanced on Marinette’s balcony railing.

“I like the rain,” Marinette chuckled coming to lean next to him.

“I don’t,” Chat muttered, his tail flicking dubiously. “…Why do you?”

“It’s peaceful…relaxing…. I like curling up with a sewing project on rainy days, and I sleep really well during thunderstorms,” she volunteered with a shrug.

A far-off, wistful expression settled on her face, and she added, “…I fell in love in the rain.”

The hair on Chat’s arms stood up straight, and his stomach turned sour.

He tried to keep his tone light and nonchalant so that she wouldn’t realize how invested he was in the answer when he asked, “Whom are you in love with, Princess?”

Marinette shook her head, an impish smile imbuing her with a certain glow that Chat didn’t like the look of because he knew it had nothing to do with him.

“Come inside and I’ll make you some hot chocolate, Minou.” Marinette tugged on his tail, laughing at his scowl because she didn’t understand the true reason behind it.

Chapter Text

“Get up!” Marinette hissed urgently, roughly shaking Chat’s arm.

He made a disoriented sound that did not resemble proper French.

“We must have fallen asleep. It’s morning, and my mom is going to come up any minute and think-think…” Marinette made a vague gesture of impending doom.

“Marinette, Sabine already does think…whatever you’re afraid she’s going to think,” Chat sighed, wishing things could be made true by thinking and wishing alone. “I’m over here all the time. I eat meals with your family. I help out in the bakery. You treat me like a body pillow. She already thinks there’s something going on between us.”

“Yeah, well…she doesn’t need to find you in my bed to further fuel her delusions. Get up!” Marinette hit him in the stomach with a pillow for emphasis.

“Watch the laptop,” Chat groaned, motioning to the device they’d been using to watch movies when they must have fallen asleep the night before.

“Sorry. Just…hurry,” Marinette whispered, voice strained.

Chat took a minute to really look at her and realized how terrified she was to be caught in a compromising situation with him.

At least he apparently still registered as male to her. That was a plus.

With a sigh, he got up, depositing a kiss on her cheek as he hopped down from the loft and headed for the trapdoor.

“You’re going out the front?” Her eyes were wide in horror.

“I left all my stuff down in the living room. If Sabine sees it, she’ll know I’m still here. I’ll grab it and come back up to leave through the skylight,” he explained.

“Just leave it and say you forgot it,” she urged.

“Princess, my shoes and gloves are down there,” he snorted, the entire situation beginning to seem strangely comical.

“Fine,” she yielded, collapsing back down into the covers. “But hurry!”

Chat met Sabine in the kitchen and wilted at her raised eyebrows.

“You stayed the night.” She sounded pleased.

Chat avoided her gaze as he gathered his things. “We fell asleep watching movies. Marinette would adamantly like you to know that nothing happened, that nothing is ever going to happen….” He paused to look up pleadingly at one of his mother-figures. “Sabine, why do I keep falling in love with women who don’t want me?”

She set down the long stirring spoon and went over to him, reaching up to take his face between her hands. “Adrien, she’s too blind right now to see how wonderful you really are. Hang in there and keep working at her…maybe on both sides of the mask. Have you ever considered telling her? How you feel? Who you are?”

Chat sighed yet again, pulling away. “I can’t. It’s complicated. I…” It wasn’t as if she liked Adrien any better than Chat. She treated them both pretty much the same.

Sabine hummed in dissatisfaction, wondering not for the first time whether it would prove disastrous for her to intervene.

“Well. Hang in there, Chat Noir, and keep considering telling her the truth.”

He nodded, grabbing his things and making his way back up the stairs. “Please don’t tell Marinette you saw me.”

Sabine mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. “Chat, go drop your things off at home and then come back here to eat breakfast, okay? I’m making enough for you.”

“Can you adopt me?” Chat snickered.

Sabine shook her head solemnly. “No, Dear. I’m counting on you to marry my daughter, and you can’t do that if you’re her brother.”

“Guess not,” Chat tried not to laugh as he headed back to Marinette’s room to “sneak out”.

Chapter Text

“Okay. Stop,” Marinette sighed, reaching out to physically keep Chat from jogging his leg. “You have been antsy all evening. What’s wrong?”

Chat bit his lip and angled on the couch to face her. “You’re not going to like it, and I knew you weren’t going to like it, but I did it anyway,” he confessed, cat ears drooping.

Marinette attempted patience as she nervously waited for her partner to continue. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very forthcoming with the details.

At Marinette’s further urging, Chat reluctantly pulled out a little square jewelry box and set it on the couch between them. “I know you don’t like me spending money on you, but I got you a gift. They weren’t expensive, I swear.”

That probably still meant Cartier. She could tell he’d switched out the original box for an unmarked one to thwart her efforts at determining their value.

“Chaaaaat,” she groaned, the one word summarizing all the arguments they had ever had about his penchant for buying her things.

“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled. “But just look at them before you tell me to take them back.”

With another sigh, Marinette did as bid, opening the box to find two lavish, yet tasteful dangly garnet earrings.

She gasped.

“Do you at least like them?” Chat inquired hopefully, leaning forward slightly in anticipation.

She nodded, stunned by their beauty. “Oh, Minou…”

“I know. I shouldn’t have,” he parroted sullenly. “I know you always wear the same ones, but I know you’re going to that gala thing as that Agreste guy’s date, and I thought…maybe it would be nice to have something special for the occasion. Not that there’s anything wrong with your jet ones, but…”

Marinette set down the jewelry box so she could take both of Chat’s hands in her own. “Chat Noir,” she cooed softly. “The gala with Adrien isn’t a date,” she insisted, looking him in the eye and shoving the knife in a little deeper with her kind, reassuring smile. “I’m just going with him as a friend because Adrien needs a plus one and I adore fashion, unlike everyone else in our group. There’s nothing more to it than that. Adrien and I are just friends. There’s nothing going on between us.”

“I know,” he whispered. She had no idea how well he knew. “…Why are you telling me this?”

It sounded as if she were trying to keep him from being jealous. Why would she need to keep him from being jealous unless she knew about his feelings for her? Did she know how he felt? If she did, why hadn’t she said anything? If she felt the same (she didn’t. She couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself think that she did. This was Ladybug all over again, and it was going to crush him so badly he’d never recover this second time around) she would have said something. She didn’t feel the same. She was trying to keep things from becoming awkward. She was ignoring his feelings in order to save their friendship.

Marinette pulled back with a shrug, picking up the box to admire the earrings once more.

Why earrings? she thought. Why did it have to be earrings? Why not a necklace or a bracelet or something she’d actually be able to wear? There were only two holes in her earlobes, and those spots were permanently taken…not that he knew that. Not that he could know that.

“Both you and Adrien get really weird when I mention other guy friends,” she sighed. “It’s like you two think that if I get a boyfriend or even make other male friends I won’t be able to be friends with you anymore.”

Chat pursed his lips.

Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe he should tell her. Maybe he should explain that, “This is called jealousy, Marinette. We’re jealous because we’re in love with you. I am in love with you.”

No. That was a bad idea. That was a very, very stupid idea because he knew what the answer would be. He’d spent nearly four years listening to that hellish sound bite: “I’m sorry, Chat Noir, but there’s someone else. You’re a precious friend, but I can’t think of you that way.” He’d heard it enough from Ladybug. He didn’t need a repeat performance with Marinette.

“Will you try them on? I’d love to see them on you,” he prompted, causing Marinette to go as white as a porcelain teacup.

“If I try them on, you can’t return them,” she countered, thinking fast.

“I’m not returning them,” he snickered, deciding that obstinance was his best course of action.

“I don’t really like taking these earrings off,” Marinette muttered. “They’re a family heirloom, and if I take them off, knowing me, I might lose them, so…” She gave him a watery smile.

He nodded slowly as realization dawned on him. He smiled glumly, reaching out to take back the box. “It’s okay…. I knew they were too much when I bought them. If you really don’t want them, I’ll take them back. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot like that.”

He smiled, but the look in his eyes spoke of pain and resignation to more pain in the future.

Marinette placed her hand on top of his, pulling the box towards her. “No. I’m sorry. I do want them. I’m sorry for being so ungrateful, Minou. You’re too good to me. Thank you.”

She inhaled deeply and cautiously took out her earrings, making sure to grip them tightly in her fist as she slipped the pair Chat had bought for her on.

She looked up at him and smiled. “How do I look?”

His eyes filled with a swirling cocktail of emotions—awe, pride, contentment, affection—as he whispered a reverent, “Divine, My Princess.”

His smile was so warm and full of delight that it made the anxiety Marinette was feeling at being without her Miraculous worth it.

Chat leaned in and brushed the barest ghost of a kiss to her temple. “Will you wear them to the gala? Please?” he entreated, beautiful green eyes so full of hope that Marinette couldn’t deny him.

“Okay,” she agreed.

The trill of joy that shot through Chat was plain on his face.

Internally, Marinette sighed. She was going to have to go get another set of holes put in her ears before the gala so that she could wear both pairs of earrings.

The things she did for blonde, green-eyed boys.

Chapter Text

“Oh my gosh, Minou, you’re soaked! Get in here,” Marinette urged, stepping out of the way and waving her shivering friend inside.

“Thanks,” Chat Noir muttered. “Sorry,” he added when he noticed the rapidly growing puddle forming at his feet.

“Stay here for a sec. I’ll run and get towels,” Marinette instructed, already dashing up the steps.

She returned and started drying him off herself, ruffling his hair with a fluffy, sunshine-yellow towel that smelled like her.

He stood there and willingly submitted to her fussing, savoring the contact, the feeling of her hands gently gliding over his body. For a minute he could pretend there was no towel or leather suit between them—just her hands and his skin—and it was a nice thought.

He was in sore need of that little daydream just then, as it had been a pretty awful day. (Understatement.)

The toweling-dry motions eventually came to a stop, and Chat opened his eyes to find Marinette staring up at him with those piercing, knowing ice blue eyes.

“Princess?” he whispered with a tip of his head.

Her frown softened slightly, and she pulled away, taking the towel with her. “We’ll talk about what’s bothering you in a minute. Come upstairs. You can detransform in the bathroom and take a shower to warm up while I dry Plagg off and get him something to eat. He’s going to catch a cold if you keep him transformed and wet like that.”

Chat didn’t think to challenge her assertion that kwamis could catch colds and, instead, obediently followed her up to the apartment.

“Chat Noir, you’re drenched!” Sabine exclaimed, leaving a boiling pot on the stove to hurry over and mother him.

“Sorry, Sabine.” He blushed sheepishly. “I’ll clean—”

“—No, no, no,” she insisted. “That is not the problem. You need to get changed out of those things before you catch your death. Leather is not suitable for this weather.” Sabine took Chat from Marinette and started ushering him towards the little bathroom behind the kitchen, to the right of the entrance, herself.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her, and she turned to Marinette. “If he detransforms, does the wet go with it?”

Marinette opened her mouth to answer but then frowned. “Maman, why are you asking me? How am I supposed to know?”

Sabine chuckled at her mistake. “Right. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Normally it would,” Chat helpfully replied, “but I’m soaked underneath the transformation too. I sort of ran out of the house without thinking and was walking around for a good ten or fifteen minutes before Plagg got me to transform and come here.” 

Chat averted his gaze, knowing he’d get a lecture from both Sabine and Marinette separately later. He could feel their eyes on him, feel them thinking some versions of, “Adrien/Minou, you know you come here. You come here immediately when something happens, and I will personally make it better.”

“Are you okay?” Sabine asked instead, voice gentle and ever patient.

He held out a hand, palm down, and fluttered it. “Meh.”

“Do I need to speak with your father?”

The downside of Sabine knowing his identity was that she could and would have words with his father, and there was nothing Adrien—or Chat, for that matter—could do about it.

“Please don’t,” Chat mumbled.

Sabine stretched up on her tiptoes to give his unruly golden locks a reassuring tussle. “We’ll talk about this later. Go get warmed up in the shower. Marinette?” Sabine turned to her daughter. “Go get some of the clothes you made using Adrien’s measurements. I think Chat and Adrien are about the same size, so those should work well enough.”

“Right.” Marinette gave a nod and flew up the stairs to her room to find a suitable outfit.

Chat watched her go longingly.

“Come along, Adrien,” Sabine chuckled as she tugged gingerly on his arm. “Leave Plagg with me and go take care of yourself.”

His transformation melted away with a word and left a sopping wet, distraught teenager standing in Sabine’s foyer.

Plagg, in an uncharacteristic show of affection, landed on Adrien’s shoulder and gave his chosen’s neck a comforting nuzzle. “Oh, Kid.”

“S-Sabine?” Adrien’s voice cracked, the tears he’d been stuffing down finally overtaking him. “What would your first thought be if you found a secret room in your house full of butterflies? The-The white ones…like the ones Ladybug has purified. That’s…” He made himself continue to meet her gaze even as her expression turned horrified. “That’s not something that you could just explain away as something an eccentric rich person would do, right? That’s…pretty…pretty conclusive, isn’t it?”

She took his face in her hands and wiped away the streaming tears as she cooed, “Oh, Adrien. Oh, Sweetie… I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pulling him into a bone-liquefying hug.

“If you don’t feel safe at home, you can move in with us. Marinette will just have to get over finding out your identity. You’re not alone, Adrien. You’ve always got a place to go. Do you understand me?”

She could feel him nod.

“It’s okay. I don’t feel unsafe. My father would never hurt me, and it’s not like he knows, so…I should be okay. I’ve been okay for four years now…. I just…when people find out about my father…if it’s really true and he really is… When people find out…” He shuddered. “When Marinette finds out… She’s not going to want—not that she ever wanted—but now especially, she’s never…never—”

Adrien choked on a sob, and Sabine pulled him in closer.

Plagg gave Adrien another nuzzle, feeling utterly helpless. This wasn’t a problem that could be fixed with destruction.

“Oh, Sweetie,” Sabine cooed, beginning to rub soothing circles on Adrien’s back. It proved less effective than usual due to the fact that he was soaked. “Adrien, everyone in this house loves you, and they will continue to do so. Irrespective of any possible romantic attachment, Marinette is your friend, and friends stand by one another. What your father has done has nothing to do with you—and we’re not even certain that he really has done what you think. You need to calm down, Sweetheart.”

Sabine pulled back to look him in the eye. “Can you calm down, Adrien?”

Adrien nodded obediently, reaching up to rub the tears from his cheeks.

“Okay,” she hummed, smiling in praise. “Good. We can talk more about this later, but, in the meantime, let’s not jump to conclusions without more proof. Let’s focus on what’s directly in front of us. Right now, we need to get you in the shower before Marinette comes back down. Okay?”

Adrien nodded again, pulling himself together for the moment.

“Plagg, why don’t you come with me?” Sabine held out her palm for the kwami to step onto, but Plagg shook his head.

“I’m going with the kid. Someone’s got to make sure he doesn’t space out and accidentally drown himself in there,” Plagg grumbled, anxiety written plainly in the way he kept glancing at Adrien.

“I’m not that bad,” Adrien mumbled down at his feet.

“Kid. You were catatonic earlier,” Plagg snorted. “You were wandering around for over half an hour before you even seemed to realize that I was talking to you, and then it was another thirty minutes before you could calm down enough to realize that you needed to come here, that it was still okay for you to come here.” Plagg turned back to Sabine. “I’m going with the kid. If I catch a cold, we’ll deal with that later.”

Sabine didn’t argue. She merely nodded and informed Plagg that Marinette would be anxious to fuss over him once she returned.

“She’ll have to drag me out of the shower herself, and, somehow, I doubt she’s got it in her to pull that off.”

Marinette returned a few minutes later with an armful of clothes. “I think I’ve got several options that could work,” she reported.

“Marinette?” Sabine called, a fretful quality to her voice.

Marinette quirked an eyebrow. “Maman?”

“Honey, I know you’re nice to him anyway, but today I need you to be extra sweet to Chat Noir, okay?” Sabine entreated. “Anything you can do to be a little more attentive, a little more affectionate.”

Marinette felt her body go cold. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Sabine shook her head as she stirred the pot of soup. “Don’t ask, Honey.”

“Did someone die?” she asked anyway. “Is it his father? Did something happen to his pseudo-step-mom? His bodyguard? Is his father taking him out of school to be homeschooled again? Did their company go bankrupt? Did his mother turn back up after all this time? What did Chat say?”

Sabine continued to shake her head. “It’s about his father. He thinks his father has done something wrong, but he’s not completely sure yet. On top of that, he’s worried about what people will think of him if it is true and people find out. Do not ask him about it.”

Marinette pulled in her lips and bit them. “Shoot.”

“Yes,” Sabine sighed. “He doesn’t want you to know, so please don’t ask him about it. Ask him if he’s okay, and ask him if he wants to talk about it, but do not say ‘What’s wrong?’ because he’ll feel like he has to tell you something to explain himself, and he’ll feel awful about lying to you. It’s better if you don’t ask.”

Marinette was silent a minute as she distractedly made her way over to take a seat on the back of the couch. She chewed on her lip as she studied her mother. “…Why doesn’t he want me to know? If he told you…if he talked about it with you, then why—”

“—Marinette, he cares about what you think of him. Your opinion of him is extremely important because he respects and adores you,” Sabine explained.

“And he doesn’t care what you think or respect and adore you?” Marinette snorted. “Maman, he idolizes you, but he can tell you about this and not me?”

“It’s different,” Sabine replied simply.

Sometimes she wanted to shake her daughter for being so oblivious. Sometimes she wanted to shout, “He loves you! He is so miserably in love with you! He’s been slavishly in love with you—both of you, Marinette, first one and now the other—for four years now, and you’ve never been able to see it. He is Adrien, so just kiss him already!”

Instead, she sighed, “Marinette, this isn’t about you. You need to make it about him. He’s not okay.”

Marinette sat with those words a minute before nodding. “Right. Okay.” She took a deep breath and pushed herself up, taking the clothes to the bathroom. She looked over her shoulder and smiled weakly at her mother. “Thanks.”

Sabine returned the smile with a tired one of her own.

Gabriel Agreste was truly the bane of her existence.

Marinette gave the bathroom door two warning knocks and announced, “It’s Marinette.”

There was a muffled, “Come in” from the other side of the door.

Marinette tentatively entered the steamy room. Chat already had the mirror all fogged up. “You’re not boiling yourself alive in there, are you?”

“I like scalding showers,” Adrien muttered in return.

“I’d hate to see your hot water bill,” she snickered, trying to keep things light.

He didn’t respond.

With a frown of concern, she set the clothing down on the counter next to the sink. “I have a couple different outfit choices for you. Hopefully you’ll find something that works.”

“Thanks, Princess,” he murmured, too tired to really put much effort into it, even for her.

She bit her lip. “Are the clothes you were wearing distinctive at all, or can I take them down and throw them in the wash for you?”

“I wouldn’t say distinctive,” Adrien sighed. “You can go ahead and take them. Sorry for the trouble.”

“No trouble,” she assured. “…You wear Gabriel.”

“A lot of people wear Gabriel.” He tried not to sound defensive. He was pretty sure he sounded a little defensive.

“Maybe rich people like you,” she chuckled. “But you forget you’re dealing with a plebian. We of the hoi polloi do not often get to witness such finery.”

He snorted at that, a little humor and emotion seeping back into his voice. “Plebian? Please. You are the first among princesses, and you know that.”

“Says you,” she snorted.

“The next time that Agreste guy invites you to an event, I’m buying you a diamond tiara to wear with whatever dress you make. I could buy you a designer dress too, if you wanted, but I feel like whatever you came up with would be better.”

“Minou,” she groaned, pretending to scold. “Seriously.”

“Is it so wrong to want to make you feel like a princess?” he teased, only he wasn’t teasing.

“You do make me feel like a princess, you goofball,” she giggled. “God. If you weren’t wet and naked right now, I would hug you.”

Adrien forced himself to keep breathing, grateful for the curtain between them that kept her from seeing how red his face was, how much he wanted her in his arms.

“How about after I’m dry and wearing clothes?”

“Deal,” she agreed. “…Can I take Plagg with me now? He really needs to be looked after.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Plagg decreed.

“Go on and go with her,” Adrien urged. “I’m getting out as soon as she leaves.”

Plagg grumbled a little under his breath before asking, “Are you sure you’re getting out? You’re not going to forget and space out and accidentally drown, are you?”

Adrien rolled his eyes and turned off the water. “Go. I’m getting out, drying off, and getting dressed so I can get my hug from Marinette. I need you to go get pampered so you’re ready to transform again so that I can get out of this bathroom without giving away my identity.”

Plagg frowned. “I’m not going to be able to transform for a few hours.”

“What?” Adrien stared in disbelief at his kwami.

“Plagg, are you okay?” Marinette’s voice jumped an octave in concern on the other side of the shower curtain.

“No. I need cheese. I need to be dry. I need rest. I need this day to not be happening. I’m not transforming for a couple hours, so you’re either going to have to suck it up and learn his identity or just not look at him for the foreseeable future, Princess,” Plagg griped.

Marinette opened and closed her mouth several times, but words did not come to her.

She picked up Adrien’s clothes and took Plagg with her to the kitchen where she gently dried him off with a hand-towel and fed him some of the chocolate-covered cheese cubes she had made previously while she explained the situation to Sabine.

“I don’t see what the problem is.”

Sabine’s answer absolutely floored Marinette. “The problem is that we have an unmasked superhero in our bathroom. We can’t keep him in there and we can’t send him home and we can’t let him out either without learning his secret identity. That is vital for his safety!” Marinette stressed, waving her arms wildly.

“Careful with that chunk of gouda,” Plagg reprimanded. “I’d like to eat that, but I’m not going to if you fling it on the floor.”

Marinette set the piece of gouda down.

“Marinette…your father and I already know,” Sabine confessed.

Marinette went very still as she stared at her mother.

“It’s just you,” Sabine continued. “I figured it out first, and then Tom found out a few months later. We’ve known for over a year now.”

Marinette slumped back against the counter and didn’t say anything.

Plagg and Sabine let her be, each going about their own business of munching on cheese or cooking dinner respectively.

Ten minutes later, Marinette tentatively knocked on the bathroom door. “It’s me.”

“Come in?” Adrien gulped, steeling himself. This was not the when, how, where, or why he’d imagined for revealing his identity to Marinette, but…

Marinette smiled awkwardly and held out her hand. “Come on out.”

With a disappointed sigh, Adrien took her hand and gave it a squeeze before looping his arm through hers and carefully guiding her back to the living room.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Marinette suggested.

“How are you going to watch a movie blindfolded?” Adrien snorted.

Marinette grinned. “I’ll be using you as a body pillow like normal. If I have my head on your chest, I won’t see your face unless I look up, right? so I can take off the blindfold to watch the movie.”

Adrien shook his head, looking over to Sabine who shrugged and smiled sympathetically.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Works for me…but I believe I was promised a hug, and I want that first.”

“Can do.” Marinette carefully reached out for him, finding his chest and lightly sliding her hands over it to find the proper position for a hug.

Adrien internally facepalmed at the realization that he liked blindfolds.

She wrapped her arms around him, and he melted into her as she cooed, “Oh, my Minou. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll always be there for you, okay? I’ll always be your friend.”

He nuzzled her hair, her neck, letting himself have that moment.

He wasn’t sure if he just imagined it, but he thought he heard her whisper, “I’ll always be your princess.”

“You’re sure you’re not cheating?” Marinette sighed as Adrien moved Marinette’s game piece an extra square forward.

“Why would I cheat?” he snickered. “I’m not competitive. You’re the competitive one.”

“No, I’m not,” Marinette argued as Adrien took his turn.

“Six,” he announced, moving his piece and shorting himself a square.

Sabine snickered at the children’s antics.

“Remember that time when we played Twister and you almost broke my nose?” Adrien hummed accusatorially.

“…That was an accident,” Marinette murmured, reaching out for the die and carefully rolling it.

It was a one.

“Three,” Adrien announced, moving her piece, audibly tapping it to the board three times.

“And yet you still play Twister with me, so you couldn’t have been too terribly scarred,” Marinette added in her own defence.

“Princess, I will play Twister with you any time you want,” Adrien purred.

Sabine laughed outright.

“Maman, do not encourage this behavior,” Marinette admonished before turning back to her partner (or, rather, turning in her partner’s general direction, as it was hard to be completely accurate with the blindfold on). “Minou,” she warned.

“Princess,” he cooed, letting all the affection he felt for her show plainly on his face and in his eyes while she couldn’t see just how much he loved and wanted her. It was nice to be allowed to look at her and not have to hide how he felt.

“You’re incorrigible,” Marinette sighed.

“You make me this way,” he accused without heat.

“You came this way,” Marinette protested. “I had nothing to do with this.”

Just then, Tom came up from downstairs, breaking in on the scene. He spotted Adrien and smiled, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey, Son. Joining us for dinner? Why is Marinette wearing a blindfold?”

“Tom,” Sabine cut in urgently. “Chat Noir needed to get out of the house, so Chat Noir is going to be with us today. The problem is that Plagg, Chat Noir’s kwami, is feeling a little under the weather, so he’s not able to transform Chat Noir right now. Marinette is wearing a blindfold to keep from discovering Chat Noir’s secret identity.” There was the implication in his wife’s voice that Tom was not to screw this up by accidentally saying “Adrien”.

Tom nodded in understanding, his expression slowly turning into a frown. “How upset is everyone going to be if I accidentally say his real name?”

Sabine shrugged, nodding at Marinette as if to say, “Not on my own account but only because I’ll have to deal with her reaction.”

Adrien matched Sabine’s shrug and tipped his head pointedly at Marinette. The look on his face heavily implied, “I’ll only be upset if she’s upset, and I’m expecting her to be upset, but I really wouldn’t mind too much if you outed me…. Please? Help.”

“Papa, you can’t,” Marinette stressed, completely unaware of the others’ responses. “It’s too dangerous for me to know. What if Papillon finds out and tries to use me against Chat? None of us should know. It’s bad enough that you two do. We’re putting Chat in danger.”

Tom, Sabine, Adrien, and Plagg all rolled their eyes.

“Right,” Tom sighed, coming over to the table where Adrien and Marinette had the game board laid out. “So what are you two up to?”

“Just playing a game,” Marinette informed. “Chat is moving the pieces for me, since I can’t see. Does it look like he’s cheating?”

Tom arched an eyebrow at the board. “Who’s red?”

Adrien raised a hand sheepishly.

“Yes,” Tom snickered, shaking his head at his future son-in-law. “Honey, he’s letting you win.”

Marinette cocked her head to the side. “Really?” she wondered in disbelief.

“Yeah. Really. Marinette, you need to take that blindfold off and look at that boy.”

“What?!” Marinette squawked, hands going up to hold the cloth in place. “No! Papa, I can’t know. It’s not just for Chat’s safety or the safety of our family. All of Paris could be at stake! This is so much bigger than the question of me wanting to know or not.”

“You sound like Tikki,” Plagg grumbled from his towel fortress on the counter beside the board. “How would Papillon even know you knew?”

Marinette did not reply.

“Leave her alone, everyone. Please,” Adrien sighed softly in resignation, accepting that today would not be the day. “She doesn’t have to know if she’s not ready.”

Sabine and Tom both nodded, respecting Adrien’s request.

Tom reached out and patted Adrien on the back with a massive hand. “Hang in there, Son.”

Sabine gave him an encouraging smile, nodding her agreement with her husband.

“You guys make me feel like the bad guy,” Marinette muttered sullenly.

“Never, Princess,” Adrien assured, placing a hand on top of hers.

She flipped her hand over to take hold of his, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Are you really letting me win, Minou?”

“Nah,” he laughed. “You’re kicking my butt fair and square.”

She wasn’t so sure she believed him. “Whose turn was it?”

“Yours,” he lied, handing her the die.

She rolled a three.

“Five,” he announced and moved her piece six spaces.

Chapter Text

Chat came barreling through the skylight, leapt down from the loft, and collided with Marinette, knocking her over.

“M-Minou?!” she gasped, grunting as they hit the floor by her chaise longue. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?”

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t reply. All he could do was sob and choke and hold on to her in order to keep himself grounded.

He fell apart anyway.

“Oh my God, are you okay?!” she tried again with similar results.

He sucked in big gulps of air periodically, unable to find his voice to speak. He shook his head in response to her question, burying his face in her stomach.

He was trembling, his whole body shaking as he cried.

His fingers gripped the back of her shirt, tightening and releasing as he rode out the waves of emotional pain.

“Shhhh.” Marinette gave up on problem solving when she saw there was no point. She switched instead to damage control. “Shhh. It’s okay, Minou. Shhh,” she cooed. “Oh, My Minou.”

She bent over the best she could in their awkward position and kissed the top of his head. One hand rubbed up and down the length of his back while the other gently ran through his hair, massaging.

“Shhh, Minou. Shh. Whatever it is, I’m going to make it okay, all right?”

He laughed at that: a high-pitched, hysteric bark of laughter.

“You don’t think I can,” she observed.

He shook his head, his breathing ragged.

“You’d be surprised what I can do,” she muttered, unsure if he could hear her over his own strangled sobs. “I’d figure out how to break all the laws of nature for you if that would make it better.”

It physically made her chest ache to see her partner, her dearest friend, in so much pain, especially when there was nothing she could do about it. She could only watch, and it was excruciating.

She kept petting his hair and rubbing his back with one hand while the other reached for her phone. She texted her mother, “chat is up here in crisis” “what do i do”.

“Is he hurt?” came back Sabine’s reply.

“only emotionally” “come help”

“He came to you, Honey. He might not want to see me. You can ask him, though.”

“Minou, would it help if Maman was here?” Marinette inquired softly.

Chat shook his head and croaked, “Y-You.”

“Okay.” She held in a sigh, feeling completely in over her head. She wanted her mother to step in and magically fix everything. “Just me,” she assured.

She sent Sabine a quick text, “he says no what do i do”

“Just hold him and let him cry,” Sabine advised. “Call or text if you need anything. I’ll start on a batch of cookies.”

So Marinette held him.

She made shushing noises and kept stroking and massaging, peppering in the occasional kiss to the top of his head.

Eventually, he calmed down a little and adjusted his position so that his head rested on her shoulder instead of her stomach. “S-Sorry,” he hiccupped.

“Shh.” She gave him a squeeze. “No. There’s nothing to be sorry for. Whatever you need, Minou.”

He lifted his head to really look at her, assessing the truthfulness to her claim.

Marinette gave him a wide, reassuring smile. “Seriously. Tell me what you need, and it’s yours.”

“You,” he thought, knowing she was thinking more along the lines of a head rub or a hug or a half dozen pain au chocolat. She could have no clue what he was thinking.

“Th-Thank you,” he choked, another bout of tears catching him by surprise.

She cupped his cheeks in her hands and leaned in to give his forehead a kiss.

His eyes slipped closed, and he felt her kiss each of his cheeks in turn.

Her lips burned his skin, changing the despair inside him to greed.

He opened his eyes and gazed intently at those marvelous pink lips. He looked up and found her staring wide-eyed and curious, concerned, unsuspecting.

Chat angled his face slightly and leaned in.

Marinette blinked in confusion at first, but then realization struck, and, after a brief instant of shock, acceptance and resignation settled onto her face, and she closed her eyes, waiting to be kissed.

She was going to let him.

She was going to let him kiss her.

Everything he wanted, right there, inviting him to take it. Take her.

He could see it playing out. Vividly. All he would have to do would be…

Chat leans in, brushing his lips against hers hesitantly at first, testing the waters.

Marinette puts up no resistance, simply letting it happen, but then Chat opens his mouth, sucking and nibbling hungrily at her lips, entreating entry.

Marinette gasps, parting her lips and letting him inside. At first she is unsure, but her doubts quickly vanish as his tongue slides in and coils around hers, coaxing her into his dance.

She kisses him back.

His hand goes to the small of her back, drawing her closer, pressing every molecule of air between them out of the way.

He does this little thing with his tongue that makes her groan impatiently, and she hooks her leg around his hip, pulling him down to the floor on top of her.

Things deteriorate quickly.

He presses his thigh between her legs, and she arches into him, making his toes curl.

They break briefly for air, and Marinette takes the opportunity to gasp, “Oh, Adrien. Adrien!” because she knows it’s him. She knows it’s him, and she wants him.

She wants him.

She wants him.

Only…Marinette did not want Chat. She did not want Adrien either.

She was only sitting there waiting to be kissed because she thought that it would make Chat feel better. She was doing this out of love, yes, but not the kind of love he wanted from her. She was doing this as a friend. Platonically.

If he kissed her now, he would ruin something between them. She would think he’d kiss anyone just to feel better, just to escape from the suffering. She wouldn’t know how much he meant it. She wouldn’t realize that she was the only one he wanted to kiss—now and until the day that he died.

If he took advantage and seized the opportunity, he would spoil any future kiss, inject misunderstandings into the friendship, and make it harder for her to believe him when he finally did get up the courage to say, “Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I am in love with you”.

If he kissed her, it would diminish…everything.

Yes, he desperately wanted to disappear into her lips and forget about the pain, but he had planned how he wanted his first kiss with Marinette to go as both Chat and Adrien, and this was not it.

He angled his head up and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “Thanks, Princess,” he whispered. “Sorry. I’m not feeling quite like myself right now, so thanks for riding this out with me.” Chat rested his head back on her shoulder, nose to her neck.

“It’s okay, Minou,” she whispered, promising, “Anytime.”

“You’re such a good friend, Marinette,” he sighed and then hesitated before adding, “…I love you.”

“I love you too,” she giggled as if it were the most obvious thing, and why did he even need to say it? There was no question that they loved one another.

Chat decided that telling her she was a good friend before telling her he loved her probably obscured the meaning of “I love you”. Oh well. He hadn’t really intended to confess to her that day anyway, so it was okay for the moment.

“You doing all right?” Marinette checked in a minute or two later.

“Yeah,” he assured. “I’m feeling better now.”

“Good,” she sighed in relief, laying her head against his. “You scared me, Minou.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, breathing in her scent and trying to calm down.

“No. It’s fine, really. I’m glad you came to me. I’m really, really glad you came to me…. I was just worried,” she clarified.

There was a beat before Marinette decided to risk prying. “May I ask what happened, or do you not want to talk about it?”

Chat tensed. “I…don’t ask, please. I don’t… I’ll talk to Sabine later. …Sorry. That must be really weird for you.”

“It’s not,” she assured. It wasn’t. That wasn’t the problem.

“It must feel like…you’ve got to be wondering why I can talk to your mom about it but not you,” he continued.

“Yeah,” she confessed in a sigh. “I have to admit I’m a little jealous, but…at least you’re talking to somebody. Even if it can’t be me, I’m glad you’re talking to somebody.”

“Don’t be jealous, My Princess,” he chuckled at the irony. “It’s something I need a mother’s help with. It’s about my father, and my pseudo-step-mom is too close to the situation, so I can’t go to her like I usually do.”

Marinette nodded, feeling slightly better. She hesitated before continuing to press her luck, “…Is it what you talked to Maman about a couple weeks ago?”

“Mmhm,” Chat hummed against her neck.

“Okay,” Marinette whispered, letting go of her confusion and resentment over the issue. “…Do you want to go downstairs? Maman is making cookies, and I bet she saved the bowl so we can eat the dough.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Chat chuckled, pushing himself up.

Sabine was in the kitchen, setting the timer when they came down the steps. Sure enough, the bowl with remnants of cookie dough was sitting on the counter.

Sabine looked up, worry in her eyes. “Chat Noir. Are you okay, Honey?”

He shook his head as he came to a stop by the refrigerator. “You know how a couple weeks ago you said I should wait until I had more concrete proof before I jumped to conclusions about my father?”

Sabine nodded.

“I have more concrete proof,” he muttered down at the floor.

Sabine had him wrapped in a hug in seconds.

“We’ll talk later, okay? Right now, you two should go fight over the cookie dough. Cookies will be out of the oven in ten minutes.”

“Thanks, Sabine.” Chat gave her a quick squeeze before going over to join Marinette who handed him a spoon.

“Or we could use fingers, if you’d rather,” she suggested, waggling her eyebrows in a scandalous fashion.

He laughed as he took off his gloves. “Today’s the kind of day to use your fingers.”

Chapter Text

Dammit.

Damn.

It.

Chat Noir, also known as Adrien Agreste, had only ever been in love with one woman in his entire life.

Not two, like he had believed for the past year or so, but one.

He’d fallen in love with one woman twice.

He’d been out as Chat Noir doing a lowkey patrol of the neighborhood simply because he had some extra energy and didn’t feel like being at home.

He spotted Ladybug over by the park by Marinette’s house and had been about to go say hi when she landed on Marinette’s balcony; took a quick, cautious, suspicious look around; completely missed him in the shadow of one of the surrounding chimneys; and detransformed as she’d dropped down the skylight.

This left him with the inconvenient truth that Marinette Dupain-Cheng, current love of his life, was also Ladybug, previous love of his life.

Ladybug, who had spent almost three years rejecting his advances. Ladybug, who, likely, still wasn’t interested in him.

Adrien thumped his head repeatedly into his pillow, swearing softly under his breath.

“Kid, this is not a meaningful use of your time,” Plagg sighed. He had ceased to be helpful and supportive two hours prior after the true period of crisis.

“This is exactly what I want to be doing right now because I am destined to die alone,” Adrien replied cheerfully.

“Okay. Good. Glad we’re making progress,” Plagg sighed, phasing through the minifridge to get more cheese for himself. When he came back, Adrien was still banging his head against the pillow. “Would now be a bad time to inform you that there are other human females on the planet besides the one you’re agonizing over?”

“I’m not capable of loving anyone else,” Adrien returned, again in that hyper-gleeful tone of voice that was bordering on hysterical once more. “When I tried to get over Ladybug by finding someone else, I only ended up falling in love with her again. Ergo, it’s Marinette or nothing. Clearly the universe intends for me to die of unrequited love. My life has no purpose but suffering.”

Plagg groaned loudly, wishing, not for the first time, that the universe had given him a less dramatic kitten. “Kid…cut the theatrics.”

Adrien put his pillow onslaught on pause for a minute to pout at his kwami. “Plagg, I am serious. This is soul-crushing for me. I had hope with Marinette. Yeah, I was getting a lot of mixed signals, but I had hope. It wasn’t enough to risk confessing my feelings to her, but it was enough to keep me going, keep me fighting for her, keep me thinking that one day she’d love me too and that we’d be happy…that I’d be happy and all this pain would be worth it because she’d look at me and really see me and want me and…”

Adrien gritted his teeth, dropping his face into the pillow. He stayed like that, unmoving for a minute, as he tried to calm down so as not to give his father—his freaking father!—any ideas about akumatizing him.

Because that was the day he was having. The last thing he needed was Adrien getting akumatized and Marinette finding out he was Chat Noir because of it…or Adrien getting akumatized and Chat Noir not showing up and Chat having to explain that the next time he saw Ladybug…who was Marinette too.

Shoot. He was going to have to act like a normal human being around both Ladybug and Marinette after this so that they wouldn’t know that he knew. He had the feeling they would not like him knowing, and it would just make things more awkward for him who had been extremely vocal and persistent about his obnoxious, embarrassing crush on Ladybug for three whole years.

“Kid?” Plagg called softly, dragging Adrien out of his mental spiral.

Adrien turned his head to the side to look pitifully at his kwami.

“…Plagg…Ladybug has actually rejected me. Marinette has rejected me. Every time it was Ladybug, it was Marinette, and now I have to go back and, every time, see Marinette scoff at my attempts to flirt, turn down my advances, tell me no. Marinette has already said no a dozen times. What point is there in keeping all this up? Her answer isn’t going to change,” Adrien muttered, the fight gone out of him.

“You can’t know that,” Plagg sighed, summoning up the strength to make an effort for his kitten once more. “It’s been over a year since the last time you confessed to Ladybug, and you and Marinette have gotten a lot closer since then. You’ve gotten a lot closer as both Adrien and Chat Noir. Maybe she has changed her mind about you. You can’t rule the option out until you try it.”

Plagg crossed his fingers that he was right. He knew that, at one point in time, Marinette had had a crush on Adrien, but four years had passed since then, and her behavior towards his charge had shifted in that time. Plagg was aware of other suitors in the girl’s life to whom Marinette had shown favor, so he wasn’t sure how exactly she felt about Adrien and Chat Noir now, but he knew that she had at least had feelings for Adrien at one point, so couldn’t those feelings be rekindled?

Plagg prayed that he wasn’t giving his kitten false hope and steering him towards heartbreak…. Plagg had a bad track record with destroying things.

“You think I still have a chance?” Adrien immediately latched onto the hope.

“Yeah. Why not?” Plagg prayed really, really hard. “I mean, she’s not indifferent to you, Kid.”

Adrien hummed thoughtfully as he rolled over onto his back. “You think so?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not just saying that to get me to calm down so you can go to sleep?” Adrien cast his kwami a suspicious glance.

“No,” Plagg confirmed.

He was just saying that to get his kitten to calm down so he wouldn’t be in such horrific anguish. Plagg felt completely out of his depth with the whole feelings thing, and it was hard for him to watch his kid struggle like that, alone in his head. Anything he could do to make it better…he just hoped it didn’t backfire later.

“Okay,” Adrien sighed, letting his eyes drift closed. “I’ll just…not lose all hope yet then.”

“Good plan,” Plagg whispered, crawling from his own pillow over to Adrien’s to give his charge a reassuring nuzzle.

“Adrien! What a surprise,” Sabine greeted, eying the two cups of coffee in the boy’s hands. “Marinette isn’t in right now, I’m afraid.”

“I know,” Adrien informed sheepishly. “She, Nino, and Alya are at Alya’s house hanging out.”

Sabine frowned. “Actually, I thought you’d be with them.”

“I was supposed to be, but I begged off, saying something came up,” Adrien explained.

Sabine waited, brow furrowed, for further explanation that would hopefully clear up what he was doing on her front doorstep with two coffees from her favourite café instead of spending time with her daughter and their friends.

When Adrien only shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, Sabine took it upon herself to ask, “What came up?”

“Something that I was hoping I’d be able to talk to you about?” His smile was clearly a cry for help. “May I come in? I brought coffee.”

“Oh, Honey,” Sabine chuckled, putting a hand at the small of his back and ushering him inside. “You don’t have to bribe me into talking with you. It’s appreciated, Adrien, but not necessary. I’m here for you whenever you need me.”

“Thanks, Sabine,” Adrien whispered, an immense relief settling upon him.

“So,” Sabine began when they were seated at the table in the kitchen. “Is this about your father?”

“Not this time.” Adrien nervously swirled the straw in his drink, mixing the whipped cream with the rest of his frappuccino.

The fact alone that he was drinking a frappuccino told Sabine it was a bad day. Adrien typically drank a cortado or cappuccino when they met for coffee. His father would have an aneurism if he saw Adrien drinking the sugar/calorie bomb that was a frappuccino, and yet, there Adrien was, foregoing the caffeine and risking his father’s wrath for the sugar hit.

Sabine took a sip of her banana-espresso latte and waited patiently, letting Adrien take his time and get his thoughts together.

“I’m not sure if you can help me…. I’m not exactly sure what I need help with, actually.” He winced. “I’m probably bungling this, but…I need someone to kind of bounce my thoughts off of, and Plagg…Plagg is great, but—”

“—I’m no good with feelings,” Plagg freely admitted, floating up to sit on the counter next to Adrien’s elbow. “I got him through last night somehow, but I really need you to tag-team with me on this one, Sabine.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sabine provisionally agreed. “What’s going on, Adrien?”

He bit his lip. “I don’t know how to bring this up. I mean…if you know, great. If you don’t…and I accidentally tell you…you’re not going to be happy, and she is going to kill me, and—”

“—Adrien?” Sabine called gently, reaching out and placing a hand on top of his to ground him. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath.”

Adrien did so. “…Okay. Here goes.” He looked up and studied Sabine’s face intently, ready to read any change in her micro-expressions. “Do you…know…?”

Sabine frowned. “About?”

Adrien bit his lip, obviously discouraged. “About…Ladybug?”

Sabine blinked and then her eyes narrowed. “What about Ladybug?” Her tone was cautious, suspicious, guarded.

That was good, Adrien decided. That was promising.

“About how…” Adrien wet his lips nervously. “You know.”

Sabine thought she did, but if she was wrong…she would not be the one to tell Adrien—Chat Noir—that her daughter was Ladybug. That was not happening.

“I think I do, Adrien, but you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that so that I know we’re talking about the same thing,” Sabine granted judiciously.

He frowned, gaze dropping to his drink.

His fingers tapped on the table in frustration as he strategized.

Suddenly, his face lit up, and the answer was obvious.

“Sabine, I know who Ladybug is. I accidentally saw her detransform last night,” he explained. “Do you know who Ladybug is?”

Sabine breathed a sigh of relief, letting the tension melt. She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do. Goodness. She let you see her? She’s getting careless.”

Adrien shook his head. “She couldn’t have seen me, and I doubt anyone else could have seen her, but…so…now I know, and now I have a problem.”

Sabine nodded for him to continue.

“I thought I was over Ladybug. I thought I had moved on, and I thought maybe now I had a chance to find love with someone who could return my feelings,” Adrien sighed. “I mean, this past year, Marinette hasn’t exactly said she was interested in me—either of me—but sometimes I got the impression that…maybe she’d say yes or a least consider it if I ever got up the courage to ask her out…but now…”

Adrien shook his head and took a long pull from his straw. “Sabine, Ladybug consistently turned me down for three years, and now here I am putting all my hopes in her again in the form of Marinette when I’m probably just going to get told the same thing if I confess to her again: I’m a dear friend, but there’s someone else…. And I’m just so lost, Sabine. I’m confused, and I’m frustrated, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

“What can I do to help you, Adrien?” Sabine prompted.

Adrien bashfully averted his gaze. “I know I’m kind of asking you to break mother-daughter confidentiality here, but please. I need to know if I stand any kind of chance with her or if I need to give back my ring and move to London for a few years to get away from her and maybe get her out of my system.”

“It’s really so bad that you’d consider giving up your ring and Plagg and Chat Noir?” Sabine gasped, stunned.

Adrien shifted uncomfortably, nodding gravely. “I hope you have no idea how painful it is dedicating four years of your life to one person, letting them determine whether you feel like you’re on top of the world or lower than dirt. It was one thing to let Ladybug have that much power over me for three years, and it was one thing to let Marinette do the same for a year when I thought things with her would go differently than things with Ladybug, but if they’re the same…”

Adrien shook his head, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Sabine rested a hand on his arm in sympathy. “Oh, Adrien. I’m so sorry.”

Adrien went still, his body tensing as he dropped his hands and looked at her, a stricken expression on his face. “W-What? What do you mean you’re sorry? You mean you don’t think she—”

“—No!” Sabine quickly corrected. “No, Honey. No, that’s not what I meant. I just…am sorry you’ve gone through so much.”

“Oh,” Adrien whispered, looking suddenly exhausted. “Then…does she…? Do you think…” He shook his head and spit it out: “Sabine, do I need to move to London, or do you think your daughter could ever love me? I know you and Tom joke about me being your future son-in-law, but, be straight with me. Is that a realistic possibility?”

Sabine bit her lip and tried not to fidget under Adrien’s intense, pleading gaze. She took a deep breath. “All right. What I’m about to tell you, you didn’t hear from me. I’m telling you this in confidence, and I’m only confiding in you because you’re a mess, and someone has to help you. I think all of Paris and Ladybug both owe it to you to give you a hand.”

Adrien tipped his head to the side, holding his breath as he waited.

Sabine shook her head. “I don’t know, Adrien. That’s the honest answer. Marinette doesn’t talk to me about those kinds of things often. I do know that she did like you as Adrien in the past.”

“When was this?” he cut in eagerly.

“Shortly after you first met. I don’t know if she really liked you, Adrien, or just the idea of you, but, for about two years, Marinette had one of those huge, embarrassing crushes on you,” Sabine chuckled fondly at the memory.

“How do you know it ended?” Adrien pressed, trying to get as many details as possible.

Sabine shook her head again. “I don’t. That’s just when she stopped acting so silly around you. I’m not sure if her crush petered out as she got to know you better or if she started liking someone else or if maybe her feelings changed and she started to care for you more deeply in place of the more superficial crush she had on you before. I honestly don’t know how she feels about you right now.”

Adrien nodded, shifting gears. “And what about Chat Noir? Has she ever…said anything? I know there was that one weekend where Marinette suddenly told Chat Noir she loved him, but that kind of felt like it came out of nowhere and went back to nowhere just as fast. Did she ever mention Chat in a romantic capacity after that?”

Sabine grimaced. “I’m sorry, Honey. She talks more to Tikki and Alya about these kinds of things than she talks to me, but she never went through a phase where she hung Chat Noir posters all over her walls.”

“Okay,” Adrien sighed, swirling his straw once more. “All right. That’s fair. If that’s all you know, that’s… Okay….”

“Adrien? To be fair, as a mother, I see things. I pay attention. That’s how I figured out Ladybug’s identity, and that’s how I know that that girl adores you—both of you. I don’t know if it’s the kind of love you want, but it is some form of love. I can’t tell you if it’s enough to keep you from going to London to try to purge your feelings for her, but…you are precious to her. It might be worth talking to her about your identity and your feelings and seeing what she has to say.”

She was silent a moment, letting her words sink in. “…Do you think that helps?”

Plagg looked up questioningly at his kitten, praying that Sabine’s words had given him some direction.

Adrien smiled—soft, tired, but grateful—and gave a small nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I think that helps. I don’t know that I’ll be able to confess to her any time soon, but…I think it might be worth it to try to ride things out. If Marinette actually says no once all the cards are on the table, I’ll go exile myself then, but…it might be a good idea to stick it out.”

A small, relieved grin bloomed on Sabine’s lips, and she took a sip of her banana-espresso latte. “Good. I’m glad I was able to help out in some small way…. Now. You know where to come the next time you need to talk something out, don’t you? Before you resign as a superhero and flee to London?”

Adrien chuckled sheepishly, pushing away his frappuccino. “Straight to you, Mama Sabine.”

“That’s right.” Sabine gave his hand an approving pat. “Do you need anything else while you’re here, Sweetheart?”

Adrien gave a quick shake of his head. “No. That was the major issue. I do have a few questions, though. Does Marinette know that you know about Ladybug?”

Sabine let out a boisterous bark of laughter at that. “Goodness, no! Tikki and I talked about it and decide it would be best not to tell her. If she knows that I know, she’ll worry about making me worry, and it could affect her performance in battle. She’s better off not knowing.”

“What about Tom? Does he know?”

Sabine laughed again. “No, Dear. Tom wouldn’t sleep nights if he knew what his precious baby girl was up to. Sometimes you have to keep things from your loved ones in order to keep them smiling. I believe you’re familiar with the concept.”

“Mm,” Adrien grunted melancholically.

Sabine’s serene smile slowly faded into a quizzical frown. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Adrien encouraged.

“Aren’t you angry at her?”

Confusion flooded Adrien’s face. “Why would I be angry?”

“She’s been keeping this from you all this time,” Sabine explained.

“No,” Adrien corrected. “Not by choice. Plagg explained the way Tikki is to me. Marinette is just doing what Tikki tells her is best. She trusts Tikki the way I trust Plagg.”

“You trust me?” Plagg snorted from his seat on the table.

Adrien cast him a wry glance. “About the important things. When you’re being serious.”

He turned back to Sabine. “Besides, Ladybug has almost told me before. She’s wanted to, but something has always held her back. Now that I think about it, there have even been times when I was Chat and it seemed like Marinette was trying to get up the courage to tell me something…but then she always had second thoughts or something in the room would unexpectedly break or fall over as if poltergeists were trying to keep her from saying anything. That was probably Tikki. So, no, I’m not mad at her.”

“Does her being Ladybug change the way you feel about her at all?” Sabine wondered. “Not that you’ve really had enough time to consider it, but…I’m sure some things must be different now that you know.”

Adrien blushed, giving a little shrug. “I think the only thing that’s changed so far is that I am possibly even more in love with her now. I mean, I always thought Ladybug was stellar, but then I got to realize how phenomenal Marinette is and fell in love with her. Now, they’re the same person, and how can one girl be so perfect?” Adrien groaned in painful ecstasy. “I am dooooomed.”

Sabine tried not to laugh at him too hard. “Perfect, is she? Adrien, dear, I know my daughter is wonderful, but I also know that she is a flawed human being. Be careful putting her on a pedestal; she’s a bit of a klutz. She might fall off.”

Adrien rolled his eyes, waving her comments away dismissively. “Sabine, even Marinette’s flaws are perfect. Trust me.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” Sabine snorted.

“No,” Adrien insisted. “Your daughter is objectively a divine being.”

“That ‘divine being’ is no angel,” Sabine muttered. “I should know. I gave birth to her. If she doesn’t marry you, I’ve raised a fool.”

Adrien opened his mouth to reply, but just then the door to the living area flew open and Marinette stomped in, proclaiming, “Maman, my friends all suck.”

Everyone froze as they took stock of the scene before them.

Plagg phased straight through the table and zipped into Adrien’s messenger bag, hoping Marinette had been too stunned by the sight of her mother and Adrien Agreste having coffee at her dining room table to notice the kwami.

Sabine was the first to recover. “Hello to you too, Honey. If you’ll notice, we have a guest.”

“Adrien.” Marinette blinked at him stupidly.

He raised a hand in greeting, not trusting his voice because Marinette was Ladybug, and it was so beautiful the way she was gaping at him like a fish. He could watch her stare at him all day long.

“What are you doing here? I thought you said something came up?” Marinette’s voice sounded halfway between confused and hurt, and Adrien realized that she thought she had caught him lying to her.

He mentally kicked himself. “It did. This is the thing. I mean, this is the thing that came up. I had to come here. To talk to your mom,” he concluded eloquently, trying to sell it with one of his signature smiles.

Marinette wasn’t buying it. She came over to lean against the couch, crossing her arms as she gave him a scrutinizing look. “You had to talk to my mom. What about?”

Pick something plausible.

“I needed to ask her for your hand in marriage.”

No. Just no, Agreste. Not that.

Despite the fact that she was standing still, Marinette tripped. “Wh-What?!”

“Sorry!” Adrien backpedaled. “Joking! That was a joke. Sorry. Clearly that was a bad joke. I apologize. Honestly, it was just something personal that I needed a mom’s perspective on, and since I don’t have one of my own, I thought I’d borrow yours—if that’s okay. Sorry. I mean, I know I have Nathalie, but she’s not always—Sorry. This must be really weird for you.”

“No!” Marinette waved her hands almost violently, guilt clearly written on her face. “No, it’s fine. You can borrow her whenever you need. I’m sorry. I didn’t even—and I’m probably interrupting, aren’t I? I’m just…gonna go up to my room now. Sorry, Adrien.”

She had only gotten a few steps before he was up off his stool, catching her by the wrist.

“Wait,” he softly entreated. “Um…We were pretty much done, so you don’t have to go.” It occurred to him that he should probably let go of her wrist. “…Did you want the rest of this frappuccino? It’s vanilla bean?”

“You don’t want it?” Marinette tipped her head curiously as she approached the beverage.

Adrien shook his head, retaking his seat and pushing the drink towards her. “No. I’ve just decided that today isn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Good to hear?” Marinette chuckled, claiming the stool on the end and taking a long pull from the frappuccino straw.

The straw that his own mouth had just been on.

The Japanese had a word for this: indirect kiss.

Adrien tried to keep his blush under control as he suavely inquired, “So I hear that all of your friends suck? What’s that about?”

“You abandoned me, and Nino and Alya were canoodling in my presence again,” Marinette announced saucily as she reached out to tussle Adrien’s hair. “Therefore, you all suck.”

Sabine tried not to laugh as she smiled into her banana-espresso latte.

Chapter Text

“I legitimately cannot tell if this shirt is too low-cut,” Marinette sighed, angling this way and that in the mirror.

The shirt in question had a neckline like any regular t-shirt, rimming her collarbone. The problem was that directly below the neckline was a large panel that had been cut out between the neck and the chest. A modicum of coverage was provided by thin strips of fabric running vertically along the panel like cell bars.

Chat Noir looked up from his position sprawled out on his stomach on her chaise, reading a comic in the original Japanese.

He nearly fell off of the chaise. “Uh…well…what’s your typical standard for too low-cut?”

Marinette pursed her lips and turned to face him, one hand going to her hip. “This is weird, but there’s a mole in the center of my chest.” She tugged one of the strips of fabric out of the way to reveal a cute little mole situated in the valley between her breasts.

Chat tried not to stare, but…this was incredibly pertinent to his interests. That mole was going to make appearances in future dreams, he just knew it.

“Normally, if the mole shows, I know the top is too low. If the mole is covered, I’m good,” she elaborated. “With this top, though, the panel goes lower than the mole, but the mole is covered by the strip of fabric, so…it subverts my usual standards. I can’t… How am I supposed to tell if it’s too low?”

“Does the shirt make you feel uncomfortable?” With a great deal of effort, Chat forced himself to look her in the eye.

She shrugged. “Not especially. It’s just cleavage. It’s not like you can see…well…you know. It’s not like I’m bare-breasted.”

Thank you oh so much for the mental image, Marinette. I really needed that.

“Does it make you uncomfortable? As a man in general, I mean.” She cocked her head to the side and awaited his judgment call.

Yeah. I mean, with all this talk of your breasts, my pants are a little tight, and I’m kind of uncomfortable, but what’s a little arousal between friends, right?

“Let’s put it this way,” Chat sighed, shoving down his frustration. “If—big if—” he prefaced, “I were your boyfriend,”

She raised an eyebrow.

He wasn’t sure if it was a skeptical eyebrow raise or an eyebrow raise indicating interest. Maybe it meant nothing and he was just overthinking things.

“I would want to be with you whenever you wore that shirt,” he informed. “I would want you on my arm or within arms’ reach at all times because the second you were out of my sight, some horn-dog would be flirting with you, and I’d have to rearrange his face for him.”

“Hm,” Marinette hummed in amusement. “Really? That sexy?”

“Yes,” he answered with deadly certainty. “Marinette, if you want guys to trip over their own feet for you, wear the shirt. If you want guys to look at your face and listen to what you’re saying, wear something else.”

She chuckled at the gravity with which he made the statement. “What I’m hearing you say is that you don’t think I should wear this to the benefit concert with Adrien this Friday.”

“You can do whatever you want, but if you wear that shirt, you’ll be torturing that poor slob. He won’t be able to concentrate on the orchestra at all,” Chat declared, imagining sitting beside her in the dark for two hours with a perfect view down her top if he gave into temptation and looked to his left.

He wondered if he could get away with resting his hand on her thigh. No. Definitely not. Too forward. Completely inappropriate. Maybe her knee? He could try it. Maybe if he was feeling brave. But what if that made her uncomfortable but she was too polite to say something? Maybe he could slip his hand into hers. That was benign enough, right?

She drew him out of his thoughts with a musical snort. “Adrien isn’t like that.”

Chat returned the snort in indignation. He was glad she thought highly of him, but…there had to be more realistic expectations between them. “Princess, is he a teenage guy?”

“Yes.” Marinette rolled her eyes, turning back to study her reflection.

“Then he’s like that.

“He’s not,” she insisted.

“I guarantee he’s thought about you naked.”

“Chat Noir!” she gasped rounding on him.

He shrugged and kept going. “He’s had at least one dream about having sex with you.”

Her face went scarlet, but he couldn’t tell if that was from embarrassment or anger.

“He’s a guy, Marinette. However nice you think he is, however polite and gentlemanly he acts, he’s still a teenage guy, and teenage guys think about sex.”

“I suppose you would know,” she retorted sarcastically.

“Yes,” he laughed tersely. “Because I’m also a teenage guy, and I’m thinking about having sex with you right now.”

Internally, he cursed. Had he said that out loud? He mentally cursed again.

She scoffed, however, waving a hand dismissively and turning back to the mirror.

He wanted to scream. She didn’t even believe him.

“He likes you, you know,” Chat spat bitterly. She drove him insane sometimes.

“False,” she decreed. “How many times do I have to tell you that Adrien and I are just friends? Get your jealousy under control, Chat Noir. You do not have a monopoly on my friendship, and you’re going to have to learn how not to be threatened by the other males in my life one of these days.”

“This isn’t jealousy, and I am not threatened by Adrien Agreste,” Chat sulked. “I’m just stating a fact. Agreste likes you. Why else does he always buy you presents and ask you to be his date for things? He’s courting you.”

“By that logic, YOU are courting me. And you’re not. He is not. We’re friends. That’s just what friends do,” she groaned in exasperation. “They hang out and give presents. Believe me, he is just expressing friendship.”

“He has other friends, Marinette. There are other girls in his life he could ask to be his date from time to time. Heck, he could even bring Nino as his plus one, but he never does. It’s always you. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“It doesn’t have to,” she muttered, sounding suddenly morose.

“Just because you’re only friends now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings for you,” Chat warned. “That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want you two to be something more.”

“Can we drop this?” She met his eyes in the mirror, looking downtrodden. “Please?”

“…Sure,” he whispered.

It was quiet between them for nearly a full minute as Marinette studied her reflection, not really seeing herself. “…I think it is too low-cut after all,” she eventually sighed, slipping the shirt off over her head.

Chat was treated to yet another look at her red and black polka dotted bra. He’d decided that she was going to be wearing that bra in his next “First Time with Marinette” fantasy. He hadn’t made up his mind yet if he was going to be Adrien or Chat. Usually Adrien got the lacy pink lingerie set. Maybe the red and black polka dots could be Chat’s.

“Does it not bother you, changing in front of me?” he wondered in a neutral tone.

“No. I mean, I’m wearing my bra. It’s not like I’m stripping naked….” She whipped her head around to look anxiously at him over her shoulder. “Does it bother you?”

She was only now thinking of asking after having changed in front of him how many times?

“No,” he fibbed. He wasn’t “bothered” in the sense that she meant. He didn’t mind her changing in front of him.

Yes, it kind of irked him that she didn’t see taking articles of clothing off in front of him as a problem, but…

“It’s just…I’m not neutered, you know. I am a boy under the leather cat suit, and you’re alone in the house with me, taking your clothes off. Have you ever thought about that?” he inquired in a level tone, not letting his annoyance show.

She shrugged into a long-sleeved, off-the-shoulder red top that covered the mole at the center of her chest. A delicate lace band ran teasingly around the top just above the tops of her breasts. “It’s not something I’ve ever had to think about. You’d never.”

He wanted to leap at her, crush his lips to hers and prove her wrong, make her see him as a man.

But then she killed that line of thought with a chuckled, “I trust you.”

He sighed, letting his face fall into the throw pillow on the chaise. “Bugger me,” he grumbled, but it came out muffled.

“Hm?” She peered back over her shoulder. “What was that?”

He lifted his head. “Nothing.” He took a single look at her new top and froze, entreating, “Please wear that.”

“I think I will. I can wear the earrings you gave me with it,” she decided happily. “Yeah, this one’s much better.”

She pulled the top off and slipped back into the shirt she’d been wearing when he’d arrived. “I think I’ll pair it with my black pencil skirt and call it a day.”

“Super,” he sighed, picking up his manga and trying to figure out where he’d left off.

“…Is it weird to rely on a mole to determine the decency level of your wardrobe?” Marinette wondered, picking up the five or six rejected outfit choices from the floor and putting them away.

“I don’t think so. But, I mean, I do the same thing, so either it’s normal or we’re both the same kind of weird,” he answered with a shrug.

“You do the same thing?” she echoed quizzically. “How?”

Chat sat up and rubbed at the back of his neck. “You know how sometimes I have to do promotional photoshoots for my father’s company?”

She nodded.

“Sometimes that involves swimsuits or underwear or low-cut jeans,” he explained, “and I have this mole on my hip that, if it shows, that’s too much skin.”

“Where?” she prompted.

He stood and pointed just above the crease of his leg.

“Show me?” Marinette inquired curiously, a mischievous grin playing on her lips.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I showed you mine,” she pouted.

He shrugged. “I suppose fair’s fair.”

Without breaking eye contact, he pulled off his gloves and slowly began to tug down his zipper.

She watched the hypnotic descent of the bell with what he thought was undue interest, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being the center of her attention.

He leisurely slid out of the sleeves, letting the top half of the suit hang around his waist behind him.

“How are you wearing boxers under that skintight leather suit?” Marinette giggled.

“Magic,” he snickered. “Do you like my magical boxers?”

“What are they made out of? Is that regular fabric? How does this even work?”

All of the sudden, she was kneeling on the carpet in front of him, touching the band of his boxers, investigating the suit, and trying to figure out how it was lying flat over the boxers.

Chat tried really hard to keep his mind out of the gutter. He did not succeed.

He cleared his throat. “Princess?”

She looked up questioningly, utter innocence on her face. She’d gotten caught up in the clothes and wasn’t even thinking about their position.

“You had wanted to see the mole?” he reminded.

“Oh, right!” she laughed sheepishly, sitting back on her heels and watching him expectantly.

He rolled down the waistband of his boxers, revealing the mole on his hip.

“That is pretty low.” She reached out and poked it.

“I didn’t get to touch yours,” he teased.

She cocked an eyebrow up at him. “Did you want to?”

Despite the fact that she had just poked his mole, she sounded as if she couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to touch hers.

He looked away, hoping the angle would hide his blush. “Nope. I’m good. Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to put my clothes back on now before Sabine gets home and decides to walk in on us.”

“Ugh,” Marinette groaned at the thought, rocking back and pushing herself up to standing. “Please no. It was bad enough the other day when you accidentally spent the night. I think she could sense something was off.”

Chat hummed noncommittally as he pulled the suit back on.

“Can I zip it?” Marinette inquired with all the enthusiasm of a six-year-old.

“Why not?” he chuckled, willingly submitting as she grabbed the bell and slowly tugged.

“I love the bell,” she chuckled.

“I love that you love the bell,” he confessed breathily.

Chapter Text

Did Chat Noir know he was sexy?

Scratch that.

She knew that her partner had a narcissistic streak going. He knew he was sexy.

The real question was: Did Chat Noir know that Marinette thought he was sexy?

Maybe? Probably not. Yes. Yes, he definitely knew. He had to, but…no. No. No, he was clueless, wasn’t he?

The way he stretched out on her chaise like the subject of some provocative painting…he was her own personal odalisque on display for her viewing pleasure as he changed the tilt of his head ever so slightly, his brow creasing as he tried to remember the meaning of the Japanese kanji on the page suspended above him in one hand. The other arm was thrown back lazily…invitingly.

He yawned and gave a stretch, and she wondered why she had said no all those years as Ladybug. Well, objectively, she knew, but why had she never even realized how attractive he was until after he’d stopped pursuing her?

It was as if she’d been so blinded by Adrien that she hadn’t even been able to see Chat before.

She saw him now, and it was too late. He was over her. Over Ladybug. Never interested in Marinette romantically. He was a precious friend, but that’s all he would ever be.

“Princess?” He caught her staring at him. “You stuck?”

She was supposed to be working on her Clac, and he was there for moral support and a bit of tutoring whenever she found herself in a pinch.

He got up and came to her desk, leaning over her from behind, his cheek brushing hers.

He smelled like chocolate and mint with a touch of something floral.

She could drown in his scent…not that she let it show. Her days of being painfully obvious were long over. Nowadays, she knew how to keep her cards close to her chest.

It would ruin them if he found out about her feelings. She didn’t want to make things awkward. There would be no repeat performance of Papa Garou. It was bad enough she had put him in that position once. It was bad enough her parents still—nearly three years later!!!—talked about what a cute couple they made and how they were going to get married.

Marinette didn’t know how Chat stood it, but she wasn’t going to make it worse on her end by admitting that she wasn’t entirely opposed to maybe being his lady and giving birth to his kittens after all.

Chat squinted down at her Calc worksheet, completely oblivious to her internal struggles. “You’re on the right track, Princess. You just need to keep working it out. What’s wrong?”

He looked at her, their faces less than a handspan apart.

Marinette did her best to act like a normal human being. “Just tired, I guess,” she chuckled awkwardly.

He thoughtfully hummed before leaning in to drop a kiss on her temple.

A little part of her died inside every time he did that.

“Finish up the problem you’re working on, and then you can take a break to pulverize me at Mario Kart. Sound good?” he proposed with a wink.

“You know how much I love putting you in your place,” she snickered.

“Ooh-ho. And you know how much I love it when you talk dirty to me, Princess,” Chat purred.

Ladybug had always thought the purr was weird, but Marinette adored the purr. It was her personal goal to one day give Chat the ultimate head rub and turn him into a messy goo pile on the floor, massaging until his purr broke.

She worried that that might be pushing the “just friends” boundary, though.

She wanted to shatter that boundary…but she had missed her chance with him.

Plus, there were other things to consider…other people…one other blonde, green-eyed boy in particular.

She turned back to her homework and finished the problem quickly before looking up to smirk at Chat. “Okay! Ready to be punished, Minou?”

“Oh, I am always ready for you, Princess,” he flirted right back without missing a beat, his tail flicking behind him in excitement.

“Oh, yeah?” She trailed a coquettish finger from the top of his shoulder down his chest.

“Always,” he assured with a cocky grin, leaning into her touch.

No. Chat Noir had no idea what effect he had on her. Otherwise, he would never throw fuel on her fire like this. He wasn’t cruel.

He was just oblivious and incredibly, undeniably attractive.

Chapter Text

If Chat Noir was Problem Number One in Marinette’s love life, Adrien Agreste was Problem Number One A. He had always been the complicating factor between herself and Chat, and that had never stopped, even when her crush on him died down a bit.

Being persistently and vehemently friend-zoned for two years straight (besides being just plain demoralizing) had helped Marinette to tone down her feelings for him, but they had never gone away entirely (despite an additional year of somewhat less intense friend-zoning). In fact, her feelings had only changed from a schoolgirl crush into genuine adoration as she became able to have real conversations with him and got to know him better.

Marinette was resigned to the fact that Adrien would never see her as anything more than a friend. She was mostly okay with that. They were good friends…but that didn’t stop her insides from melting every time he touched her or grinned or winked flirtatiously.

The same was true of Chat Noir. For as much as they could tell each other anything and for all their skinship and all their flirting, they would only ever be friends. Yet he fried her brain with every purr of, “Princess”, every affectionate nuzzle, and every kiss on her cheek.

In conclusion, those two were going to give her a heart attack, and there was nothing Marinette could do about it.

…And yet…for as much as Marinette felt stuck in the friend-zone with them, sometimes they’d do something that made Marinette think that her Cinderella moment had come at last.

“Wow,” Adrien breathed when he caught sight of her coming down the stairs.

The long-sleeved, red dress shirt with the lace trim around the top had looked magnificent on Marinette the other day when she’d tried it on in front of Chat, but the shirt combined with the black pencil skirt with the updo with the makeup with the garnet earrings Chat had given her all put together was overwhelming.

“You look…” He searched for adequate poetry. Finding none, he settled on, “…wow.”

Marinette blushed, giving a little shrug as she came to a stop in front of him. “Thanks. You look pretty wow yourself, beau gosse. You clean up good, Agreste.”

“Yeah?” he chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Thank you. I’m afraid I can’t take all the credit. Good genes go pretty far.”

Tom, who had originally been the one to open the door when Adrien knocked, chuckled approvingly at the scene. “If you two stand around here flirting much longer, you’re going to miss the benefit concert,” he teased.

Adrien nearly jumped at the sudden intrusion into his and Marinette’s own private world. Everything had melted away once he’d caught sight of her, but Tom’s voice ripped him back into the present moment.

“Right!” Adrien cleared his throat. “But before we go, I have a present for you, Marinette.”

Her eyes widened in apprehension. Usually, Adrien’s presents were too expensive, too personal, and left her feeling confused about the status of their relationship. “A present?”

“I swear it wasn’t expensive,” he prefaced before pulling out an oblong jewelry case.

“Oh, Adrien,” she sighed, reluctantly taking the box from him.

“I know. I shouldn’t have,” he groaned, very well-versed in the back and forth that was about to occur. “But I noticed those earrings you wore to the last gala, and when I saw this, I thought they’d go together, so…”

Marinette opened the lid and stared speechlessly down at the garnet necklace that matched the earrings Chat had given her exactly. She took out one of her earrings and held it next to the necklace.

They could have been a set.

“Do you like it?” Adrien inquired nervously. Usually she said more, put up more of a fight.

“I do,” she whispered, but there was something a little off in her voice. It sounded like she was overthinking something. “Where did you get this?”

Adrien shrugged. It wasn’t as if he could tell her that he’d inherited a small fortune in jewelry from his mother. Something told him Marinette wouldn’t like that. She’d probably say something about giving away family heirlooms, and she’d probably piece together that the earrings and the necklace were from the same set, and that would cause identity issues. Now that he thought about it, it was really stupid of him to give her the necklace as Adrien instead of Chat, but…

“Why do you ask?” he countered breezily, as if the information was of no consequence.

“Because I think a friend of mine shops at the same jewelry store as you, and I’m very impressed by the jeweler’s work. I was thinking maybe I’d like to shop there for myself sometime, and I was hoping you’d tell me where that is.” She smiled sweetly, her voice dripping treacle.

He rolled his eyes. “You want to know how much money we’re spending on you,” he deduced.

She shrugged. “Maybe. Hold for a second.” She handed the box back to him so that she could take off the necklace she had been wearing. She held it out to Tom. “Papa, could you please take this up and set it on the kitchen table?”

“Sure thing, Sweetie,” Tom chuckled, taking his leave. “You two have a nice night.”

Marinette took the garnet necklace out of its box and undid the clasp before offering it to Adrien. “Will you do the honors?” She turned around and waited for him to put the necklace on her.

Adrien fumbled with the clasp twice before he managed to get it. He hoped Marinette would chalk it up to his inexperience with necklaces instead of attributing it to his nerves.

Once the necklace was securely around her neck, Marinette faced him, smiling.

“Thank you, Adrien. I love it.” She leaned in to delicately deposit a kiss onto his cheek, effectively short-circuiting his brain.

That night at the benefit concert, near the very end of the second half, Adrien surreptitiously slipped his hand into Marinette’s, and she had to wonder if maybe Chat had a point. Maybe Adrien did like her…at least a little bit…at least enough to hold her hand…or maybe it was just the influence of the Rachmaninov piano concerto. She couldn’t be sure.

It was late when Adrien dropped her off at her house, and Marinette sluggishly moved about her room, getting ready for bed. She caught a glimpse of herself in her cheval mirror and paused to stare for a moment.

As she studied her reflection, running her fingers over the garnets dangling from her ears and the garnets encircling her throat, Marinette wondered—if all the gifts and the flirting and the subtle pushing of their platonic boundaries actually meant that both Chat and Adrien were genuinely interested in her romantically—how she was ever going to choose between the two of them?

Chapter Text

Marinette was just coming home early from a particularly unsuccessful shopping trip with Alya when she heard voices from upstairs in the kitchen. They were speaking Chinese—her mother and the owner of a young male voice. It was either Chat or Adrien. She had a hard time telling their voices apart in French; in Chinese it was impossible.

Marinette paused at the door and listened carefully, seeing if she could pick out any of the handful of words and phrases that she knew. Chat and Adrien frequently practiced with her mother, and they always spoke so quickly it was hard to even isolate individual words. She did hear Adrien or Chat say her name, though, and the “ma” at the end of the sentence signaled he was asking a question.

Marinette pressed her ear to the door.

Sabine was quiet for a minute, thoughtful, before replying in the negative to Chat or Adrien’s question. The negation was the only part Marinette understood.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” the boy groaned in French.

That was Adrien. It was a very subtle difference, but Adrien’s voice was softer, shyer, more subdued, less confident. Even when Chat was pouting, his voice had more swagger…unless Adrien was feeling particularly bold. Then it was impossible to tell the difference.

“How do you say, ‘It was worth a shot’?” Adrien chuckled, and now that Marinette was really listening, maybe that was Chat after all.

Only one way to find out.

Marinette pushed open the door to find her mother and Adrien Agreste in the kitchen, having tea and baking macarons.

Marinette pretended to be surprised to see a guest. “Oh, Adrien! Hi.”

“Ni hao, Meinu,” he greeted with a wink.

Marinette’s entire epidermis went red. Since when did Adrien Agreste call her “Beautiful”?! Was he teasing her? Did he think she wouldn’t understand?

Sabine rolled her eyes and replied in Chinese simple enough for Marinette to comprehend: “Really?”

Adrien shrugged and answered flippantly. Marinette could only make out a question-ending ma and then “your daughter is pretty”.

“I didn’t realize you’d be here,” Marinette broke back into the conversation, hoping her blush wasn’t too bad. Her face felt like the inside of the bread oven. “Were you waiting for me, Adrien?”

Suddenly Adrien looked guilty. “Uh…not exactly.”

“I invited him over,” Sabine informed.

“Oh,” Marinette answered eloquently, beginning to feel awkward.

It was kind of weird how her mother hung out with Adrien and Chat. They had coffee dates and cooking lessons, for goodness sake. Marinette didn’t mind that her mom got along well with her crushes, but…it was just kind of weird sometimes.

Marinette knew her mom was awesome, but…was Sabine hot? Did Chat and Adrien like older women? Was her mother a cougar? Was Marinette’s love life even more complicated than she had at first realized? Was Adrien sneaking around with her mother? Were Chat and Sabine going to elope? What was wrong with Marinette that the two blondes preferred Sabine?

“It’s the anniversary of my mother’s disappearance, and I happened to mention that Nathalie and Father would be out of town on business,” Adrien explained, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “Sabine invited me to spend the day with her so that I wouldn’t be alone.”

Marinette immediately felt like a horrible person for making everything about herself. This was about his mother, and Marinette was a terrible friend because she hadn’t even thought about the important anniversary coming up.

Sabine was acting as a stand-in for Adrien’s missing mother. It was probably the same for Chat Noir whose own mother had walked out on him and his family shortly before he’d become Chat Noir. Sabine was stepping up to be a mother-figure to two motherless boys, filling in the best that she could, and Marinette had never realized it before.

Suddenly the fact that the two boys were always over made a lot more sense.

That was fine. Marinette could share her mother. After all, Sabine had more than enough love to divide between the three of them.

So long as Adrien didn’t trade in “Marinette’s just a good friend” for “Marinette is practically my sister”. If Marinette got put in the sister-zone, Ladybug might go over to the dark side.

“I’m so sorry, Adrien,” Marinette responded with heartfelt remorse. “I’m sorry it completely slipped my mind.”

He shrugged, feigning indifference.

She had gotten so that she could usually tell the difference between his real emotions and when he was putting on an act. Chat was the same way, always acting for other people’s sakes.

“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it, Marinette,” Adrien assured.

She marched over to him and pulled him off his stool, enveloping him in an enormous hug.

He tensed for a split second but then relaxed almost immediately, resting his head against hers and wrapping his own arms around her, melting into her.

“Oh, Adrien,” she sighed.

The subtle sweetness of his aftershave made her head swim.

She pulled back a bit to meet his slightly unfocused gaze. “Adrien, it is a huge deal,” she stressed. “I am awful.”

“You’re really not,” he chuckled, voice low and incredibly sexy. He sounded like Chat.

“I am,” Marinette insisted. “And I’m going to make it up to you. How can I possibly make it up to you?”

“You could start with a kiss,” Adrien teased, the words leaving his lips before his brain’s content filter could come back online.

And then her lips were on his cheek before he could backpedal and assure her that he had been joking.

“What else?” she whispered, lips still brushing his skin.

“Ngh,” he replied intelligently.

Marinette pulled further back to arch an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“He would like you to come join us for tea,” Sabine translated.

“What she said.” Adrien grimaced through a blush, motioning for Marinette to take a seat. “Would you like some tea?”

Sabine picked up the kettle and began to pour a cup for Marinette before Adrien could. She smirked at Adrien and teased in Chinese so that Marinette wouldn’t understand, “Let me pour. I don’t think I trust your coordination at the moment, Romeo.”

Adrien winced but kept smiling. “Yeah,” he sighed in French. “You’re probably right.”

Chapter Text

The sky burst into one disorienting flash of white, and the immense crash of thunder followed closely on the lightning’s heels. Solid sheets of rain battered the attic room where Marinette and Chat Noir lay curled up in her bed, lazily watching the storm through the skylight.

Marinette shifted slightly, and Chat felt it all the way up his left side. He was surprised because he’d thought the left side of his body had gone numb a good twenty minutes prior from her weight on him.

She was lying on her side, her head using his chest for a pillow, her left arm lightly draped across him. She’d hooked her top leg over his, resting it teasingly between his legs.

He tried not to think about what would happen if he raised his hips or shifted marginally. He was about ten centimeters away from doing something incredibly stupid that would ensure she would never snuggle with him ever again.

“You’re lying in this bed with the girl of your dreams on top of you because she trusts you. Don’t screw this up, Agreste,” he mentally chided himself, taking a slow breath to clear his head.

Unfortunately, he ended up with a nose full of her scent, and that only made his problem worse.

“I love her enough not to act on these feelings,” he coached himself. “I love her, and will, therefore, not give in to stupid hormonal impulses. I am in control of my thoughts. I am in control of my actions. I love her, and she does not want this, so it is not happening, and I am okay with that because what she wants supersedes teenage urges.”

Only, it wasn’t okay because he was miserable. It was hard to shove down his feelings for her, especially when she only seemed to be getting more and more affectionate with him over the past few months since his periodic breakdowns started when he’d found out about his father.

Let it never be said that she hadn’t been there for him. The only problem was that her methods of being there for him often left his body so wired, it was hard to keep her from finding out how he really felt about her.

He wasn’t ready to confess. He was still processing the Ladybug thing, even after all these weeks, and he was still afraid he’d lose her if he admitted how he really felt. And yet, her thigh was ten centimeters away from discovering how badly he wanted her. Everything was so precarious. Everything was going to blow up in his face.

Maybe he should just shove the Jenga tower over himself and be done with it.

I’m sorry, Marinette, he would say. I love you. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, but either you need to be my girlfriend or we need to stop doing things like this because I am drowning over here. You don’t realize it, but you are holding my head under water.

“What are you thinking?” Marinette whispered as if she could sense his mental turmoil.

I want you to take your clothes off.

I want you to want to take my clothes off.

I am a pervert.

There’s no way that you want me.

I am going to die alone.

I could really use some attention from something other than my own hand.

I am pathetic.

Your hair smells wonderful.

Do you ever think about me like I think about you?—I mean! Like…on accident? Do you ever just happen to find yourself thinking about me? Even just me holding your hand or kissing you? Do you ever consider it?

How about Adrien?

Do you think about that other guy like I think about you? Do you think about…about being with him?

Do you think about him when you’re with me?

…Do you ever pretend I’m him when we’re lying together like this?

“I…” His voice cracked. “I’m not thinking about anything.”

She raised her head and pushed herself up to stare curiously down at him. “You sure are thinking about nothing pretty hard,” she observed.

Her eyes skewered him, and he thought, why not tell her? Why not destroy everything and get it all over and done with?

“I’m…in love,” he whispered, staring unblinkingly into her eyes. “I’m in love with…”

He paused, watching her eyes go wide in shock and horror. Her face might as well have had “abject terror” and “Please stop! I don’t want to hear this!” written on it.

Mentally, he unleashed a litany of curses.

Well. That answered that question: Marinette would much rather they keep to the status quo. Romantic advances were not welcome.

“…your ears,” he finished. “I love the double piercing on you.” He made a show of crinkling his nose and forehead in confusion. “What the hell are you making that face for, Princess?”

Marinette flopped over onto her back beside him and let out a nervous, near-hysterical barrage of laughter. “Oh my gosh!” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry, Minou! I thought…I thought you were going to tell me—tell me that you were in love with some girl and maybe ask me advice or something. I’m sorry. I just kind of freaked.”

It was obviously a lie, but that was okay because he was lying too. Together, their lies would make the relationship okay again, so that was fine. It was nice of her not to stomp all over his feelings.

“I thought you had sworn off women after Ladybug, so I was just really taken aback. Sorry,” she reiterated, her laughter dying down as she rode out the panic.

“Right,” he snorted, pretending to be amused. “Well.”

She didn’t need to know that the moratorium on women had lasted approximately three weeks, and he was pretty sure that he was at least half in love with Marinette by the middle of week two. Adrien fell in love like a boulder dropped into a lake. It was swift, not subtle, and he quickly found himself dragged to the very bottom.

“Your ears,” he stressed. “I never really thanked you for doing that for me so that you could wear the earrings that I gave you.”

She shrugged, propping herself up on an elbow to study his face. “It wasn’t a big deal. I love my earrings, Chat.”

“Marinette, you put another set of holes in your ears. That’s not something that one does lightly, so thank you. And I’m sorry,” he added softly, shame building in his cheeks.

“Why are you sorry?” Marinette frowned.

“I didn’t listen to you when you said you never took your jet earrings off, and I kept pushing, even after you had said no. I’m sorry, Princess. I didn’t realize how important the earrings were, and, yet, instead of pushing the earrings back into my face, you went out and got another set of holes so you could wear them.”

She was so gentle, so thoughtful, so kind. He loved her for her compassion.

“You’re such a wonderful friend, Marinette,” he whispered in awe of her, hoping that that would repair the rift between them that his thoughtless, almost-confession had caused.

“Yeah. Friend,” Marinette mumbled, lying down at his side. “What are friends for?” Her voice sounded hollow.

There was a beat during which the storm continued to rage outside the attic, and the tempest oddly echoed Marinette and Chat’s feelings.

Marinette was quickly able to push aside her brief melancholy, however, when she realized, “You weren’t thinking that intently about my ears.”

Chat grimaced. “Wasn’t I?”

“No,” she scoffed. “Talk to me…unless it’s something you’d rather talk to my mom about.”

He shook his head. “I was wondering…do you remember when you told me you’d fallen in love in the rain?”

Marinette lifted her head marginally to study his face. “No. I told you that? When was this?”

He bit his lip and tried to recall. “Almost a year ago, but not quite. Maybe…like nine months?”

She nodded, taking his word for it because who else would he have heard that from? “What about it?”

“Do you still have feelings for that guy?” He held his breath.

Marinette sighed. “Yes, but they’re not quite the same as they were.”

“You don’t love him anymore?” Chat inquired, allowing himself a smidgen of hope.

“I love him differently,” she corrected. “At first my feelings were merely infatuation. I thought it was love, but I didn’t know him well enough to really be in love with him at the time. As I got to know him better, I legitimately started to fall for him.”

“I see,” he muttered, wondering if there was any way he could subtly slip in a question that would elucidate her supposed crush on Adrien that Sabine had mentioned. Had it been similar? Had she started with a crush but then slowly began to dial it down as she actually got to know the wreck that he was? At what point had he lost her? “So…he’s the love of your life, you’d say?”

Marinette hummed thoughtfully, nibbling at her bottom lip. “Yes and no?”

“Huh?” He arched an eyebrow. “Explain?”

She shook her head. “He’s the love of my life…but not the only love of my life.”

His eyes flew wide open, and he propped himself up to look down at her.

She covered her face in shame. “I’m in love with someone else too.”

“O-Oh?”

Damn. There were two of them. He had to compete with not one but two other guys for her heart.

“Yeah,” she groaned. “So much for being faithful, right? I’m horrible.”

“You can’t help what your heart wants,” Chat whispered, knowing that truth well. “And it’s not like you’re in a relationship with either of them.”

She flinched at the reminder.

“It’s okay to love two people at once,” he assured, trying to push his own feelings on the matter aside in order to comfort her.

“I didn’t mean to fall for the second guy,” she mumbled, dropping her hands away from her face and looking him right in the eye.

“No one ever means to fall in love.” He rolled onto his side, his body bracketing hers.

“Hm,” she hummed distractedly, letting herself get a little caught up in his eyes. “He’s just so wonderful,” she breathed. “And sweet and funnier than I would have believed. It took me three years to really see how amazing he is, and now…when it’s too late…”

“It is never too late. Haven’t you ever seen a rom-com?” he chuckled quietly.

She surged forward and pressed a kiss to the juncture of his jaw, just below his ear. It was brief, but he thought he caught a sense of desperation in it. Maybe he was projecting his own desperation onto her.

Marinette pulled back and smiled sadly. “I love you, Minou,” she breathed. 

His heart soared but then crashed just as rapidly as she continued, “I love you for saying so, even if…” Her brave smile was an open wound.

He kissed her.

Just a light, reverent butterfly kiss—there and gone in under a second—but he’d kissed her.

“Don’t cry, My Princess,” he whispered. Because even if she wasn’t crying at that moment, he knew she had cried for this second boy. He could see that this second love tortured Marinette like Chat’s love for Marinette tormented him.

The dam broke, and Marinette choked on a sob. She pulled him down on top of her, his face landing on her chest, his body between her legs as she held him like a life preserver. 

He was going to have bruises in the shape of her hands on his arms. He was weirdly excited about that, being marked by her. He wrapped his own arms around her and squeezed her carefully but firmly as she cried.

When she’d calmed down, he cleaned up her face with tissues, giving her left temple an affectionate nuzzle, before going to get her a bottle of water so she could rehydrate.

“Stop being wonderful,” she grumbled, ducking her head so that he wouldn’t see her face.

“After you,” he snorted. “Ladies first.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not wonderful.”

“What a coincidence. Neither am I.” He put on a wide grin, playfully tussling her hair in an attempt to lighten the mood.

She laughed sarcastically but seemed to take his cue to cheer up. “Thank you, Chat Noir. Sorry I’m a little…” She grimaced.

“What? Perfect?” he snickered. “I mean, it’s not your fault, Princess, but you could try to tone it down a little. You do tend to make the rest of us feel bad.”

She picked up one of her throw pillows and smacked him. “Charmer.”

“Oh, you know you love me,” he teased, inadvertently hurting them both.

Another explosion of thunder shook the house, giving the teens pause.

Marinette looked back at Chat, her brow furrowed, lips pursed. “Minou, I need you to stay the night. I don’t want you out in this.”

“As my princess desires,” Chat easily acquiesced with as much of a bow as he could manage from his seated position. “Should I set up on the chaise or head down to the couch?”

She bit her lip. “Those…aren’t very comfortable….”

He shrugged. “They’re fine.”

“…We could share my bed,” she offered tentatively, looking so sweet and innocent and…

He opened his mouth to say no. He intended to be responsible. Instead, he answered, “…Okay….”

An hour into bed sharing, it became apparent that the idea had been a mistake. Every accidental brush of skin was like an electric shock to the both of them. It was torture being so close to the object of their affections. Neither of them could sleep.

“I think I’m going to head down to the couch,” Chat whispered at just past one in the morning. “Love you, Princess.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before making his retreat. “Night, night.”

“Night,” she sighed, getting ready for a lecture by Tikki about boys in the bed and hurting herself by pretending and taking more from Chat than she was entitled to.

The lecture did not come. Instead, she received a comforting nuzzle and a longsuffering sigh of, “Oh, Marinette.”

“He kissed me,” Marinette whispered in a bit of a daze. “It was really quick, but…he kissed me on the lips.”

“I saw,” Tikki sighed again. “Marinette, I think you need to talk to Chat Noir. The longer this goes on…I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Talk to him? And tell him what? I can’t just tell him Marinette is in love with him without going back and explaining the whole Ladybug thing and the Adrien thing and apologizing for screwing everything up. I’m not going to lie to him, Tikki. If I’m talking to him, I’m talking to him about everything. Is that what you want?”

Tikki was sullenly silent.

“I didn’t think so,” Marinette grumbled, rolling over onto the spot Chat Noir had just vacated. His body heat made her stomach flutter.

The guy she loved had been in her bed wearing only his boxers. This was a special circle of hell concocted to punish her for three years of refusing him as Ladybug.

“Besides,” Marinette muttered. “He doesn’t need drama from me right now. He’s got enough on his plate with…with whatever he’s been talking to Maman about. I can’t just dump this on him when he needs me to be there for him as a friend.”

“Marinette, I think he likes you.”

“No,” Marinette whispered. “He doesn’t. He told me he doesn’t think of me that way.”

“When?” Tikki snorted. “A couple years ago when you lied and told him you loved him to keep him from figuring out you were Ladybug? I hardly think that counts, Marinette. Even still, maybe he’s changed his mind. YOU have changed your mind since then. You need to address this. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Let it,” Marinette returned defiantly. “I’m not doing this to him. I’m not messing everything up when he needs me. I hurt him as Ladybug for years. Maybe this is karma and now it’s his turn to hurt me. If he can take it, so can I. The most important thing is to protect our friendship, so if I have to suffer a little to that end, so be it.”

Tikki groaned, slumping into the pillow. “Marinette…that’s not how this works.”

Marinette shrugged, turning her head away. “Goodnight, Tikki,” she replied pointedly.

She lay awake for some time after that, trying to quiet her whirlwind thoughts as she listened to the unrelenting storm.

She had no idea that, downstairs on the couch, Adrien was doing the same.

Chapter Text

It was still raining when Adrien woke up. The diffused grey light streaming in through the Dupain-Cheng’s living room windows told him it was destined to be a dreary day, perfect for his current mood.

He smelled tofu and veggie scramble, and the soft sounds of Chinese were drifting in from the kitchen—Sabine and Plagg. 

Sometimes he forgot that Plagg could speak languages other than French. The way Adrien understood it, Plagg could sound like he was speaking whatever language his listener understood, but now Plagg was choosing to be heard in Chinese.

Adrien sat up and gave a stretch. “Good morning,” he mumbled in Chinese.

“Good morning, Adrien,” Sabine returned.

“Hey, Kid. How are you doing?” Plagg gave his chosen a quick once-over.

“I feel like it’s raining on me personally,” Adrien grumbled, kicking off the covers and getting to his feet. He straightened his rumpled clothing and set about folding up the sheet and quilt he’d used.

“Come get some coffee, Honey,” Sabine coaxed.

Adrien reluctantly padded over and helped himself to the coffee and milk.

Sabine waited until Adrien was situated at the table before gently inquiring, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Adrien blew bubbles into his coffee.

“You’re not obligated,” Sabine reminded, taking the pan off the stove and dividing the contents between three plates. She placed two pieces of toast on one of the plates and set it down in front of Adrien. The second plate she put at her own place, and the third she covered and set aside for Marinette.

“Thank you, Sabine.” Adrien wanted to cry. Even after all these months of being mothered by this woman, he still had a hard time really accepting that someone truly cared for him enough to do this. Nathalie tried, but mothering didn’t come naturally to her. She did her best to fill in for Emilie, and Adrien loved and appreciated her for that, but because of her position as his father’s assistant, because Gabriel and Nathalie’s relationship was a secret, because Nathalie didn’t feel right “taking Emilie’s place”, Nathalie had never really been able to meet all of Adrien’s needs.

Sabine, on the other hand, fed him, gave hugs, made cookies, taught him to cook, gave advice. Even in the old days, Emilie had never really been quite like that.

“Your daughter is going to be the death of me,” Adrien muttered, hoping he’d gotten the expression right in Chinese.

Sabine sat down across from him and arched an eyebrow. “Do you mind me asking what she’s done to you now?”

Adrien looked down into the tofu scramble. “It wasn’t entirely her fault; I’m just as guilty for always going along with whatever she wants.”

Sabine’s eyebrow arched higher. If her child had hurt her other child again… Sabine was going to have to talk to that girl whether Adrien wanted her to or not.

Adrien shook his head. “We were talking about…I don’t remember. It seemed important at the time, but it was getting late, so I said I needed to get home, but she asked me to stay. You know. With the tugging on my arm and the big, puppy-dog eyes?”

Sabine nodded knowingly. “And you couldn’t say no to her, especially when you didn’t really want to leave.”

“Right,” Adrien continued, spearing a piece of broccoli. “And then the storm started up, and she said I should wait it out before I tried going home. Which was fine because I really didn’t want to go out in that anyway, but then she suggested that we watch the storm through her skylight, so we were up on her bed, and then she started snuggling with me, and she was like, ‘Is this okay, Minou?’, and I was like, ‘Of course, Princess. Whatever you want. Why wouldn’t it be okay?’, but it wasn’t okay because she was pretty much on top of me, and—"

“—Adrien,” Sabine interrupted, her voice pitching up in concern with a touch of alarm. “Did she…” Sabine cleared her throat and tried again. “Did she have sex with you?”

Adrien’s entire face lit up like a stop light. He sheepishly shook his head.

“Did she ask you to make out with her?” Sabine worked her way down the list.

Adrien shook his head once more.

“She didn’t suggest any kind of friends with benefits arrangement, did she?” Sabine verified.

“No,” Adrien muttered, blush softening.

“You know what you should say if she ever does, right?” Sabine prompted.

Adrien nodded. “I should tell her no.”

“Right,” Sabine replied soothingly. “Please don’t let her hurt you like that. I don’t think she has any idea what she’s doing to you, since you haven’t told her about your feelings yet, and I know she would be horrified if she knew what she was putting you through.”

Sabine’s voice was gentle, but her words contained the undercurrent of “It’s been a few months. You really need to sit down and talk with her about your feelings”.

She reached out to give his hand an encouraging pat. “I’m sorry. I try not to tell you what to do, Adrien, but I see how miserable you are, how much pain you’re in, and it’s hard to sit on the sidelines and watch. I’ve respected your wishes and haven’t said anything about your feelings to Marinette or Tikki, but…Honey, I care about you. It hurts to see you like this and to do nothing.”

“You’re not doing ‘nothing’,” he assured. “You’re my moral support.”

Sabine pursed her lips. “All right. I won’t interfere. It’s your life, but know that I am strongly urging you to talk to Marinette.”

“I tried,” he sighed. “Last night.”

Sabine fumbled her fork. “What happened?”

Adrien poked at his breakfast, picking up a piece of toast and taking a bite. “We were snuggling, and I wanted her so bad. At the same time, I was feeling really guilty because I’m basically lying to her, letting her snuggle like that with a guy who’d sleep with her in a heartbeat. And she has no clue. But I was too scared to say anything. I was terrified she’d press her thigh a little farther up between my legs and find out. I was kind of panicking, and then she asked me what I was thinking about.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“…What did you say?” Sabine bit her lip.

Adrien slumped, pushing his plate out of the way so he could rest his head on the counter in defeat. “I said, ‘I’m in love’. I got as far as ‘I’m in love with’ when the look of horror on her face told me I needed to shut up. So I told her I was in love with her ears, what she had done with the double piercing, and she laughed, completely freaked out. She pretended to be relieved. She…I forget. I don’t remember what she said or what I said, but we just built this wall of lies around what had just happened and pretended that it hadn’t happened…that I hadn’t just told her I was in love with her.”

Adrien lifted his forehead only to drop it back down to the countertop once more.

Sabine reached out, putting a hand on his head to keep him from doing it a second time. “Oh, Kitten,” she cooed. “Do you need a hug?”

“I need a ride to the airport tomorrow,” Adrien muttered. “I have plans for this evening, but, if I’m successful tonight, tomorrow I need to move to London.”

Sabine turned to Plagg who had been quietly munching on a wheel of Edam. “Plagg, what really happened?”

Plagg tipped his head to the side. “You think he’s lying?”

“I think he’s catastrophizing,” Sabine corrected. “He’s not able to give me an objective narrative. You tell me what happened, please.”

“It’s like he said.” Plagg shrugged. “He said, ‘I’m in love’, and Marinette went white. I seriously thought she was going to pass out. She looked really freaked, scared,” he recounted. “Then, when the kid said, ‘I’m in love with your ears’, she started doing that laugh she does when she’s panicking but wants everyone to think she’s okay.”

“What did she say?” Sabine pressed for details. “Do you remember?”

“Something like how she thought he was going to tell her he was in love with another girl and ask her for dating advice…or something,” Plagg grumbled. “At the time, I was kind of busy feeling the kid’s heart split open to really listen.”

“She said she thought he was going to tell her he was in love with someone else?” Sabine repeated, mystified. “Well. That’s very interesting.”

“What’s interesting about it?” Adrien mumbled, lifting his head to meet her gaze.

“Adrien, why did you think Marinette was lying?” Sabine challenged.

Adrien’s brow scrunched up. “Because I had just told her I loved her, and she was trying not to hurt my feelings, so she was pretending she was freaked out for some other reason besides my confession.”

“Adrien, I’m not convinced that Marinette knew you were trying to tell her you loved her,” Sabine informed gently.

Adrien’s frown deepened. “Okay. Well. What other explanation can you come up with for last night’s events, then? I am willing to entertain alternatives to ‘the girl I’m in love with was so freaked out by my confession that she had to pretend that it didn’t happen in order for our friendship to be okay’.”

Adrien looked at Sabine skeptically but expectantly.

Sabine leaned in. “The girl that you’re in love with freaked out because she thought you were about to tell her you were in love with someone else and then ask for her advice.”

Adrien shook his head, pulling his plate back in front of him and shoving a forkful of tofu into his mouth. “That makes no sense,” he grumbled. “Why would that freak her out?”

“It would if she liked you and was afraid she’d lost you to someone else,” Sabine replied, a knowing smile tugging at her lips.

Adrien froze, staring down at the piece of yellow squash he was about to spear. He had to force himself to breathe.

“Perhaps she was panicking because she was trying to push her own feelings aside so that she could be there for you as a friend and give you advice,” Sabine suggested.

“People don’t help the person they like date other people,” Adrien scoffed openly, pushing the tofu around his plate.

Plagg snickered. “Remember when you tried to set Marinette up with hat-boy?”

“That was before I was in love with her,” Adrien retorted.

“No, it wasn’t,” Plagg countered.

“That was before I knew I was in love with her,” Adrien amended.

“Ah, yes,” Plagg snorted mockingly. “The ‘she’s just a friend’ phase. I don’t miss that.” He took a big chomp of his cheese.

“Actually, Adrien,” Sabine attempted to steer the conversation back on track. “It isn’t so strange for Marinette to push aside her own feelings for the sake of a friend. Do you remember when she went on that double date with you with Luka to help you out with Kagami?”

Adrien went still. “Y-Yeah?”

“Marinette still had a crush on you at the time.” Sabine let those words sink in before adding, “It’s not unprecedented for her to offer her own crush dating advice, so I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that she likes you and was panicking because she really did think you were going to tell her you liked someone else.”

Adrien sat with that for a minute, quietly cleaning his plate as he considered the theory.

Sabine was silent, allowing him to think.

A minute or two later, he muttered, “So…maybe she likes me too?”

“Maybe,” Sabine agreed. “You won’t know for sure until you ask her.”

Adrien winced. “And risk going through that again?”

Plagg gave a little snort, stealing one of he red peppers off of Adrien’s plate. “It sounds to me like you’re really risking losing her if you don’t say something.”

Adrien groaned, shoving the remainder of one of his toast slices into his mouth.

“I’d counsel you to talk to her about it soon,” Sabine added pointedly. “I’m assuming you beat a hasty retreat after your almost-confession; that could lead to misunderstandings.”

Adrien’s shoulders rose up to meet his ears. “Actually, no. I didn’t run away at that point.”

Sabine quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No,” Adrien sighed. “After that, she said that I couldn’t possibly be thinking so hard about her ears, so I asked her if she still liked this guy she’d mentioned being in love with before.” Adrien set down his fork, covering his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see Sabine’s reaction as he continued, “She said she did still love the guy, but she said that she was also in love with someone else too, and she felt really bad about it, and she seemed to think that things were doomed with the second guy, so I was trying to comfort her, but then she said she loved me—you know, in a platonic way—but…”

Adrien lowered his hands, meeting Sabine’s eyes as he confessed, “She was upset and kind of on the verge of tears. It hurt seeing her put on a brave face when she was hurting because of this other guy, so…I kissed her.”

Sabine stared blankly for a moment, thinking she’d misheard. “…You kissed her.”

Adrien nodded. “Just a peck, but on the lips.”

Sabine switched to French, thinking she had misunderstood. “You kissed her?”

Adrien frowned, stubbornly sticking to Chinese. “Yes, Sabine. Last night, I accidentally kissed your daughter…and she burst into tears.”

Sabine winced, going back to Chinese. “Oh, dear.”

“To be fair, I don’t think the kiss in and of itself made her cry,” Adrien elaborated. “I think she was just feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed, so…she held me until she calmed down, and then we went to bed. She said I should share her bed,” Adrien quickly turned himself in, cheeks blazing.

“And you said, ‘No. I owe it to myself to set boundaries’, right?” Sabine sighed, rolling her eyes because she already knew the answer.

Adrien hung his head.

“And yet you still ended up on the couch somehow,” Sabine observed, passing Plagg a bamboo shoot.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I was keeping her up, so I gracefully bowed out,” Adrien muttered. “…I’m not good at setting healthy boundaries.”

“You’re really not,” Sabine confirmed. “All right. So you two didn’t talk about the kiss?”

Adrien shook his head, piling some of the tofu and vegetables onto his toast and taking a bite. “I don’t think we’re going to either. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“No,” Sabine intoned firmly. “Don’t start that. You’re on a slippery slope, Adrien; don’t let yourself slide down it. It’s dangerous to shrug things like that off.”

“It wasn’t that kind of kiss,” Adrien insisted. “Don’t worry. I won’t allow myself to get dragged into any kind of friends with benefits situation.”

“She doesn’t believe you,” Plagg helpfully informed, tearing off a hunk of Adrien’s toast. “I don’t believe you either.”

Adrien glared at his kwami as he responded sarcastically, “Thanks, Mom and Dad…. It’s not like Marinette would be interested anyway.”

“Ah. We’re back to denial,” Plagg noted, scaling Adrien’s coffee mug to lap up a mouthful. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”

“I think the temperature is fine. It’s a good thing that it’s my coffee and not yours,” Adrien snickered.

“Adrien,” Sabine broke in. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Sure. What do you need?” he agreed readily.

“Get some closure for yourself. Stop keeping yourself in limbo,” she urged. “Promise me you’ll tell Ladybug that you’re in love with Marinette.”

“Tell Ladybug?” Adrien blinked rapidly.

Sabine nodded encouragingly. “Tell Ladybug. Say the actual words: ‘I am in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng’. Promise me you’ll do that for yourself.”

“But…” Adrien squirmed on his stool. “What if she doesn’t like me?”

Sabine shrugged. “If you tell Ladybug, she can’t start acting strange as Marinette without giving away her identity, can she? …But you really need to do this, Adrien. You owe it to yourself to take this risk, and if she says no, I will personally drive you to London to help you get settled in. Okay?”

Adrien sat in silence, thinking about it seriously for a minute before he tentatively nodded. “Okay. I’ll…I’ll tell Ladybug…eventually.”

“Soon,” Sabine stressed.

“Soon-ish,” Adrien hedged.

He was saved from further argument by a loud thump from the attic above them.

“Sounds like my Sleeping Beauty is up,” Adrien chuckled, a love-struck expression settling comfortably onto his face.

“And she’s probably expecting Chat Noir to be down here, isn’t she?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Adrien chuckled nervously.

“That would have been the worst reveal ever,” Plagg hummed, happily munching a carrot slice, eating around the tofu.

“You ready, Plagg?” Adrien turned to his kwami.

Plagg sighed dramatically, letting everyone know just how put out he was. “I guess. Thank you for breakfast, Sabine.”

“Any time, Plagg,” Sabine assured as Adrien called on his transformation. “No matter how many times I see it, that’s always impressive.”

“Good to hear it,” Chat Noir chuckled, picking up his coffee mug and taking a sip.

“Now what were the plans you mentioned for tonight?” Sabine moved on to a more conversational subject. “Something fun or just work-related?”

Chat smirked. “Secret mission. It’s either going to go seamlessly or it’s going to blow up in my face…and then I’m going to need you to adopt me for real.”

Sabine’s features were just twisting into a deep frown of concern when Marinette opened her trapdoor and plodded down the steps.

“Ni hao, Meinu,” Chat sang, giving Marinette a winning grin that Sabine had thought he didn’t seem capable of until the minute her daughter entered the room.

Marinette paused, taken aback at first. Her face went red, but she shook her head and smiled, countering with, “Ni hao, Shuaige.”

“Your tones are terrible,” Chat laughed, switching back to French for Marinette’s benefit.

Marinette shrugged as she grabbed the third plate off the counter by the sink and took her place at the table. “It’s not my fault that someone decided to raise me as a French girl, denying me a part of my heritage.”

“It’s not easy to be biracial.” Sabine took a serene sip of her tea.

“It’s not easy to be biracial anyway, despite your parents’ best intentions, and feel like an imposter,” Marinette snorted, picking up what little remained of Plagg’s wheel of Edam and taking a bite. “You know, they have a word for people like me.”

“And it’s ‘beautiful’,” Chat interrupted, steering his two favourite women away from the sore subject.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Is that, like, a common pickup line or something, ‘meinu’? Adrien’s called me that before too.”

Sabine snickered into her teacup.

Chat Noir attempted to derail that train of thought. “Where did you learn ‘shuaige’? Somehow, I doubt your mom taught you.”

Marinette paused with a forkful of tofu scramble halfway to her mouth. She blinked and then smiled when a plausible answer that wasn’t “Tikki” came to her. “Adrien,” she replied simply.

Chat had to chuckle. “Adrien? Why was he teaching you that?”

Marinette shrugged. “I asked him to teach me how to flirt in Chinese so that I could whip something out on you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Princess, you can flirt with me in French any time you want. You don’t have to practice flirting with Agreste in Chinese to impress me. I appreciate your efforts on my behalf, though. It’s really flattering that you’re so enamored of me,” he teased.

Marinette kicked him playfully under the table. “Sorry to disappoint, Minou, but I was only using you as an excuse to get Adrien to flirt with me.”

Chat feigned anguish. “Princess, am I not enough for you? Why would you cheat on me with that trashy model?”

Marinette gave his calf another kick. “Watch it. That ‘trashy model’ is my friend, and he’s an absolute Prince Charming.”

Chat shook his head sadly. “Sorry to break it to you, but your Prince Charming is a slut.”

“Language, Chat Noir,” Sabine mediated, trying not to choke in laughter on her tea. “That’s not a very nice thing to say about Adrien, and I’ll have you know that that boy is like a son to me.”

“Sorry, Mama Sabine.” Chat beamed at her before turning back to Marinette. “Anyway. I’m much better than Adrien Agreste. You should flirt with me instead.”

Marinette sighed down into her plate, grumbling, “I would say you two are actually in a dead heat at the moment.”

There was a rueful tone to her voice that Chat couldn’t parse.

Before he could ask, she looked up, eyes searching his. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he echoed.

She bit her lip, fidgeting but maintaining eye contact. “About last night.”

Chat tensed, and Sabine got to her feet to start on the dishes, giving them slightly more privacy without completely abandoning Chat.

“I’m really sorry,” Marinette mumbled, cheeks glowing champagne pink.

Chat waited for her to continue, for her to clarify that she meant she was sorry, but they couldn’t be friends anymore because it was too weird with his feelings for her.

When she didn’t qualify her “sorry”, he found himself asking, “What do you mean you’re sorry?”

“I’m…sorry about last night,” she rephrased, beginning to squirm in earnest.

He let confusion have free reign on his face. “I don’t remember there being anything you would need to apologize for. I mean, I think I should be the one apologizing.”

Her head tipped to the side. “What do you mean? You’re not the one who did anything.”

“Well, neither are you,” he riposted.

She pressed her lips into a tense line. “But…I’m sorry I made things weird.”

“I think that was me making things weird,” Chat chuckled darkly.

“I’m the one who was all clingy and emotional. I’m the one who started crying,” she protested.

“Yeah, well, I kissed you,” he challenged, putting it out there. If Sabine wanted them to talk about it, fine. They would acknowledge that the kiss had happened.

Marinette went pale, panic washing over her face like a tsunami. “Are you…apologizing…for the kiss?”

Chat opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say before, “No?” left his lips. He cleared his throat and answered with more certainty, “No. No, I’m not.”

Marinette nodded, a little of the color returning to her cheeks. “Okay.”

“…Okay?” He couldn’t have heard her right.

Marinette shrugged, a little smile dancing on her lips as she went back to her breakfast. “Okay,” she reiterated.

He sighed in relief. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

The rain had finally let up that evening, but the rooftops were still slick from the deluge. Chat Noir nearly lost his footing twice as he raced to Marinette’s side. It was late, past midnight, and he had a feeling that he’d have to wake her up, but it would be worth it.

His pockets felt heavy with their cargo, and the sooner he was free of it, the better.

Two blocks from the bakery, on the other side of the school, he was surprised to find Ladybug sitting on a rooftop, feet dangling, gazing up at the stars.

“Good Evening, Buginette,” he greeted, breaking out the old nickname that suddenly felt so perfect.

Ladybug gave a start at the intrusion on her thoughts but smiled once she registered her partner landing on the chimney beside her. “Good Evening, Chaton. What are you doing out so late?”

“I’m sneaking out to see a girl,” he snickered with a wink, pressing a finger to his lips.

When her eyes widened and her coloring drained, he added, “Marinette Dupain-Cheng at the bakery. You remember her—super cute, couple of akumatized people in love with her, unhealthily brave as a civilian.”

That put the roses back in Ladybug’s cheeks. “Yes, I remember Marinette. Why are you meeting her so late? …Is she your girlfriend or something?” Ladybug teased just to spite herself.

“I wish,” Chat snorted, but Ladybug didn’t get time to process the statement before he continued, “Something important happened, and I need to talk to her. I have to give her something.”

Ladybug arched an eyebrow in a manner so reminiscent of Sabine, Chat almost laughed. “Are you okay, Chat Noir?”

He shrugged off her concern. “Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about it, Buginette.”

Ladybug considered him intently for a moment before deciding to let it go. “…It’s been a while since you’ve called me that, you know. It’s been a while since you’ve called me ‘Milady’ too. I’ve been ‘Ladybug’ or ‘Bug’ for a little over a year now.” She put the statement out there and then waited to see what he would do with it.

He hopped down from the chimney, settling beside her on the ledge. He looked up at the stars as he replied in a soft voice. “I needed some space to get over you. Pet names weren’t really appropriate anymore.”

She nodded, only half comprehending. “But now they are?”

“Just for tonight,” he whispered with a touch of wistfulness.

“What makes tonight special?” she wondered.

Chat turned to her, wearing an impish smile. “I’ll tell you later. So. What is Milady doing out late?”

Ladybug winced and then tried to pretend that she hadn’t. “The stars are so pretty after the storm. It’s calming, sitting here and looking out into the universe.”

“Ladybug, that wince wasn’t subtle,” he chuckled. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “I was…I’m kind of going through something, trying to figure things out, make up my mind, make some decisions. I want to share my identity with someone…someone I’m in love with…and Tikki…Tikki wouldn’t shut up. The only way to get some peace and quiet was to transform, so…here I am…sitting on a rooftop, thinking futilely and not wanting to go back home because that will only mean disapproving glares and lectures from my kwami.”

Chat nodded, trying to keep his face neutral. “Um…this guy…and feel free to tell me it’s none of my business, but…the guy you want to share your identity with…would that happen to be the guy you always…the one you rejected me for? Sorry,” he backpedaled. “It’s really not my business. I shouldn’t pry.”

Ladybug sighed, reaching out to give his knee a reassuring pat. “No. It’s…there’s another guy.”

“I see.” He was doing a pretty good job of keeping his voice even. He was proud of himself, especially considering how much he had riding on what she was saying.

“I’ve kind of…this past year since you decided to give up on me, I’ve…gotten to know someone. As a civilian. He’s a friend, but…he’s really wonderful. I want him to be more than a friend, but I can’t help but think I owe it to him to be honest, so…I want to explain everything.”

Chat nodded again, biting his lip to keep his anguish from showing. “Do you think he likes you too?” he asked conversationally. The night before it hadn’t sounded like Marinette had any hope for either of her loves. Chat wondered if he’d accidentally given her the resolve to do something about her feelings for the second guy.

Whoops. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

He was moving to London the next day. He was going to get Sabine’s little assignment out of the way, and then she was going to have to personally drive him to London to settle him in so that he could start getting over her daughter a second time.

“I didn’t think so,” Ladybug broke back into his thoughts. “I never thought so. He’s always been a bit of a flirt with me, even before we actually knew each other, so I never thought he was actually interested. I thought that was just the way we were together…but…” Her face was beginning to match the hue of her suit. “last night,” she whispered, touching her fingertips to her lips. “he kissed me.”

Chat’s head whipped around. He frowned. “What?”

“He…kissed me,” she repeated, rubbing at her lips, looking anywhere but at him. “It wasn’t—I mean, it wasn’t like a real kiss—Well, it was because our lips technically touched, but-but it wasn’t like a deep kiss or a long kiss or… He just gave me a little peck, but—”

“—Oh my God,” Chat gasped, hand flying to cover his own mouth as he stared at the love of his life twice over and realized that—holy crap—it was him. She loved him. HE was the second boy. HE was the one she was thinking about revealing her identity to. He was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He was not moving to London!

Ladybug gave a start at his exclamation, turning to stare at him in alarm. “What?! What happened?”

He looked away. “Nothing. Sorry. Just…He must have some kind of feelings for you if he kissed you. I mean, people don’t just kiss people, right? You should…You should go for it.”

Ladybug blinked, feeling like she should ask him what he’d really been reacting to, but… “You think so?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, slowly regaining his composure. “Yes. Definitely. Go home and tell Tikki that it’s your life, and she needs to butt out a little. It’s not like you’re revealing yourself to the whole world. Just one guy who’s probably hopelessly in love with you.”

Ladybug gulped. “You think?”

Chat turned to her with a tender grin that held so many promises she couldn’t even begin to decipher. “It’s painfully easy to be hopelessly in love with you, Buginette,” he assured. “If that guy doesn’t return your feelings, he’s a twice-damned fool.”

She chuckled and shyly looked away. “Thank you, Chaton.”

“Any time.”

It was peaceful in the silence of the night for a minute as they both looked up at the stars, lost in their own thoughts.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” Ladybug muttered. “I’m not keeping you, though, am I?”

Chat shook his head. “I was planning on having to wake Marinette up anyway. She should be asleep, so it doesn’t really matter what time I get there. I can sit for a while longer with you, if you want me here.”

“Your company would be nice,” she admitted.

“…Wanna play a game?” he suggested.

“What kind of game?” Ladybug knew firsthand as Marinette that Chat’s games were usually tricky.

“A hypothetical game.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Is the game itself hypothetical, or is it a game comprised of hypotheticals?”

He rolled his eyes. “Semantics. A game of hypotheticals. I’ll go first. Hypothetically speaking, what would you say if I told you I knew your identity?”

Ladybug nearly fell off the roof. She pinwheeled her arms to regain her balance before squawking, “What?!” loud enough to rouse the dead of the Catacombs.

Chat raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. “Wow. That bad, huh?”

“Wh-What?” she repeated.

“Hypothetically, Bug,” he snickered. “But your reaction answers the question. Your turn to ask me one.”

“Uh…” She blinked, trying to get a handle on her heart beating in her ears. “Um…Hypothetically…what would you do if you had to choose between saving me and saving a bus full of children? You know. One of those classic supervillain ploys with the girlfriend and the sidekick hanging over vats of acid or whatever.”

“Save the kids,” Chat snorted, “if you hadn’t already broken free and saved them yourself.”

Ladybug hummed at that, sounding pleased with his answer.

“Hypothetically, what would you say if I told you I was in love with you?”

Ladybug nearly fell off the roof again. The look on his face was so earnest, it shook her. “Wh-What?” she choked. “A-again?”

He shrugged. “Still,” he chuckled. “I hypothetically fell in love with your civilian self while trying to get over you. This was before I hypothetically found out your identity and hypothetically realized I’ve been in love with the same woman for four years.”

Ladybug was silent.

“…So…hypothetically…what would you say?” he prompted.

“This is a weird game,” Ladybug sighed, looking away. “You’re making my head hurt. I just told you I was in love with someone.”

“Yeah, but that was in real life. This is entirely hypothetical,” he teased, enjoying the attractive blush crawling down her neck.

This was fun now that it was no longer soul-crushingly painful.

“Hypothetically?” she snorted, unable to share in his certainty about his feelings for her.

“Hypothetically,” he confirmed.

She rolled her eyes and turned to glare at him. “Let’s hypothetically get married.”

“Hypothetically yes!” he cheered, unable to hold back giddy laughter.

Ladybug sighed and reluctantly joined in his chuckle. “Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying this. Hypothetically, where do you want to have the wedding?”

“Well, I had always hypothetically wanted to marry you at Notre Dame, but…”

They jointly winced, looking across the river to the Ile de la Cité.

“Maybe…by the time we’re actually old enough to seriously think about marriage, hypothetical or otherwise…Notre Dame will be an option again,” Ladybug whispered, reaching out and finding his hand.

He gave hers a reassuring squeeze. “Yeah…. So…hypothetically…what would you say if I told you I know who Papillon is?”

Ladybug jumped. Their hands separated. “Let’s go hypothetically kick his butt.”

Chat grimaced, looking away. “I have an amendment. What would you say if I told you I know who Papillon is, and he’s my father?”

Ladybug stiffened. “Chat Noir, you have a really twisted imagination sometimes. I know from what you’ve told me that your father kind of sucks occasionally, but he’s not evil. Let’s not hypothetically put him on the Papillon list…unless he’s done something to you. Did he do something to you? Are you okay?”

Chat shook his head. He looked tired. “I’m fine, Bug. He hasn’t done anything to me. He wouldn’t. He loves me…even if we are on different sides sometimes.”

Ladybug gave him a lingering look, unsure if she should let it go. “You’re okay?”

He gave her a smile. “I’m okay. It’s your turn.”

She pursed her lips. “Okay. Same hypothetical scenario with two vats of acid. Me and Marinette. Which one?”

Chat rolled his eyes. “There wouldn’t be anything for me to do. You’d both save yourselves and then team up to kick the villain’s butt. All I would have to do would be bring popcorn.”

Ladybug matched his eyeroll. “We’re both unconscious. Pick.”

Chat shrugged. “Fine. Marinette.”

Ladybug’s eyes widened, her mouth forming into a little “o” of surprise.

“And then you because the hero always manages to save both the sidekick and the girlfriend…but Marinette first,” he elaborated.

“You didn’t have to think about that very hard,” she observed, not quite sure what to feel.

“Do me a favor and scoot back away from the edge of the roof. I don’t want you falling for real. Please,” he requested.

She frowned. “Why would I fall off the roof?”

“I’m about to say something surprising,” he sighed, steeling himself.

She begrudgingly did as he’d asked. “Okay. What?” she prompted.

“This is in no way hypothetical,” he prefaced. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, shaking her head.

“I am one hundred percent serious. I am telling the truth. I’m not joking,” he clarified.

“I get it, Chat Noir,” she groaned.

He nodded, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t have to think about it. It wouldn’t even be a conscious choice for me anymore. If Marinette were in danger, my body would just move on its own. I’m in love with her.”

Ladybug proved that Chat had made the right call in asking her to come away from the edge. “Wha—” she tried. She made two more aborted efforts before getting, “Really?” out half a minute later. She managed to sound hopeful and terrified at the same time.

“Really,” Chat cooed softly, smiling as he finally looked her in the eyes and confessed. “I am irretrievably in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Her hand went to her mouth in shock, covering the burgeoning smile there. A delicate blush slowly spread across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, partially obscured by the mask. She was trying to temper her response as Ladybug, but she looked so happy, like she couldn’t believe her own luck.

“I’ve been hopelessly besotted for over a year now. In fact, I fell for her within two weeks of deciding to give up on you. I fought with my feelings for a while, but…she’s like you, hard not to love. I was doomed from the start.”

Chat stopped there, smiling as he looked up at the stars, surreptitiously sneaking glances at Ladybug as she tried to sort through everything he had just laid at her feet. He wasn’t concerned with the fallout, though. She looked over the moon.

“She’s…really lucky,” Ladybug whispered, a giddy laugh raising in her throat.

That was Marinette’s laugh. How had he never heard his Princess in his Lady before? He hadn’t been listening.

“I hope she thinks so when I tell her,” Chat sighed, getting to his feet. “Well, unless you need me for anything else, Buginette, I’m going to go drop in on the love of my life. I’m thinking about taking the scenic route to clear my head, so I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes,” he added helpfully.

Ladybug scrambled to standing as well. “Uh…No. No, I’m good. I actually think I’ve reached a decision, so…” She smiled and laughed nervously.

He found himself chuckling at how adorable she was. “Good deal. In all honesty, I think things are going to work out for you, Ladybug.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t keep herself from smiling, and her face was beginning to hurt from it. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Best of luck to the both of us, then.” With a wink and a finger salute, he was off.

Chapter Text

Chat Noir had not been expecting to find Marinette pacing her room wearing a little black dress. It was a snug, off-the-shoulder number that hugged each of her curves just right before flaring out at the knees.

“Hey,” Chat greeted dumbly, stunned at how beautiful the girl he loved was. With fifteen minutes’ prep time, no less.

Marinette chuckled nervously. “Hey.” Her hair was down, and she self-consciously tucked a strand behind her ear, revealing the garnet earrings he had given her.

Seeing his present on her gave him an instant shot of confidence…as if the fact that she had raced home to change into that dress for him hadn’t been enough.

Marinette cleared her throat. “I mean… Hey, Minou. What’s up? Did you need something? It’s kind of late,” she chuckled giddily.

He crossed the room with a fond laugh, taking both of her hands and pressing a kiss to each. “Funnily enough, I do need something, Marinette.” He tugged her over to the chaise and sat her down.

“What is it?” A bit of her excitement faded as she noted the serious expression on his face and in his eyes below the surface of the pure love she also found there.

He released her hands to unzip the pockets of the suit. “I have something for you. Hold out your hands, please.”

She did as requested, and, one at a time, he pressed a small, cold, strangely weighty object into each hand, curling Marinette’s fingers around them.

“Okay.” He blew out a breath slowly. “Open them.”

Marinette found herself with a brooch in either hand. One was a small, violet cabochon. The other was a peacock pin.

“Wh-What…? What are…?”

Chat pointed to the peacock pin. “Peacock Miraculous.” He then indicated the purple stone. “Butterfly Miraculous.”

Marinette stared at Chat, waiting for him to tell her that he was joking.

He didn’t. He just stood there watching her with a neutral expression on his face.

She looked down at the brooches in her hands, felt their weight in her palms.

She looked back up at him. “You’re supposed to tell me that you’re joking now.”

He sat down beside her on the chaise with a bit of an anxious laugh. “Marinette, My Princess, I am not joking.”

Marinette’s eyes narrowed, her brow furrowing as she studied his face. “Oh my God, you’re not joking!” she squeaked. “Oh my gosh.” She set down the Miraculouses on the seat before she could drop and break them. “Oh my gosh, Minou,” she repeated. “H-How? How did you…? I don’t understand.”

Chat shrugged and pointed to the Butterfly Miraculous. “Stealth mission. I’ve been doing recon on Papillon for the past few months.”

He ignored the flummoxed look on Marinette’s face in favor of continuing the speech he had prepared.

“He keeps the Miraculous in a safe in his beside table at night, so I waited for him to fall asleep, snuck into his room, and had Plagg magic open the safe. I mean, I could have opened it the traditional way—I saw him put in the combination…it’s the day he takes off every year to spend with his son…in theory. Sometimes that just means dinner or a movie or a board game before having to work anyway, but—but my hands were shaking too badly to input the combination, so Plagg opened the safe, and…” He met Marinette’s stunned gaze and smiled nervously. “and I stole the Butterfly Miraculous. The Peacock Miraculous was easier. Mayura shut down the security system and stole it from the safe Papillon was keeping it in for me while I was getting the Butterfly Miraculous, so…here we are. Supervillain defeated. I did pretty well, didn’t I?” He bit his lip. “Or are you mad I never mentioned any of this before? If you are, I understand, and I’m sorry. I can explain. I—”

Marinette stretched out her hand and placed it over his mouth. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You…You broke into Papillon’s house and stole the Butterfly Miraculous, and then Mayura gave you the Peacock Miraculous.”

“I broke into Papillon’s room,” Chat corrected around her fingers. “But yeah.”

“Mayura teamed up with you against Papillon…and gave you her Miraculous…which she had to steal from Papillon for you,” Marinette said slowly and deliberately, trying to sort out her partner’s outlandish tale. “You broke into Papillon’s house with Mayura, and she helped you steal the Miraculouses from Papillon.”

Chat winced as her voice when shrill. “Sort of?”

“Why would she do that?” Marinette asked in exasperation. “Every time we’ve faced her, she’s seemed so militantly loyal to Papillon. She’s like how you used to be for Ladybug. She takes all kinds of risks for Papillon. Why would she help you?”

“I asked her to.” Chat shrugged. “She loves him and wants him to be happy. That’s why she became Mayura to begin with, but she never planned for…” He made a vague, all-encompassing arm gesture. “…for all of this to happen, and she’s regretted it for a while. She wants what’s best for him, even though she knows how much this will upset him, so she’s been wanting to end all this for some time now…she just never had the resolve.”

“And she told you all these things?” Marinette was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the two missing Miraculouses were sitting beside her on her chaise longue.

Chat nodded.

“And…she just gave you her Miraculous?”

He nodded again.

“Because you asked her to,” Marinette clarified. “Why would she trust you? It would be one thing to steal both Miraculouses and give them to you, but…why? To betray Papillon like that…if she really loves him… She just teamed up with you right away when you asked her?”

“Pretty much?” Chat replied patiently, letting Marinette process the complex situation.

“What would make her do that?” Marinette shook her head, baffled at the sudden apparent change of heart in their adversary.

Chat took a breath and slipped his hand into Marinette’s. “Because it was me asking. I think I’m the only one she would ever betray him for,” Chat whispered, gearing up for the second half of the revelation.

“W-Why?” Marinette could feel herself developing an eye twitch.

“Because she loves me,” Chat replied.

“What?!” Marinette squawked.

Chat forced himself to meet her eyes. “She’s my pseudo-step-mom. Mayura is my pseudo-step-mom.”

Marinette’s mouth fell open, and she sucked in a huge breath.

“And Papillon is my father,” Chat completed. “So we didn’t have to break in. Talk about an inside job, huh?” He tried to smile, but it was hard when she was gaping at him with such horror in her expression.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, barely above a whisper.

“So maybe you can understand why I didn’t tell you right away when I found out.” He gulped. “Hopefully you can understand why I didn’t say anything.”

She was on top of him in seconds, squeezing the life out of him, nuzzling his face and neck and hair, depositing kisses.

“Are you okay? Oh my gosh, how could you be okay? Is this what you’ve been talking to my mom about? Please tell me you haven’t been dealing with this all on your own for months, Minou. Please tell me you talked to someone. Please…” She couldn’t think of what else to say—what did you say when someone’s father was a supervillain?—so she just lavished attention on him and repeated, “Please…”

He leaned back on the chaise, lying down with her on top of him, between his legs. By all estimations, this was going well…better than anticipated.

“I’m okay,” he sighed. “Yes, this is what I’ve been talking to Sabine about. All those times I’ve broken down in tears these past few months and you had to hold me until I calmed down? This is what I’ve been freaking out about. Don’t worry, Princess. Even though I didn’t tell you about it, you’ve been helping me through this the whole time, so…I’m sorry for not telling you, but…thank you for being there for me anyway.”

“Oh, Chat Noir,” Marinette whispered against his collarbone. “Oh, my Minou. It’s okay. It’s…It’s fine. I just…I’m horrified that I had no idea what you were going through. I…wish I could have done more.”

Chat shook his head. “I didn’t want you to know. You would have been worried about me constantly. I never would have been able to escape from it. This way, you were my refuge. When I was with you, I could forget about it all. I think things were better this way…unless you’re mad at me for keeping secrets?”

“No,” she assured, pushing up to look down at him. “No, Minou. You get a free pass for this one. Just…maybe…if it can be helped…no big secrets like this between us in the future?”

“If it can be helped,” he repeated with a serene smile. He sat them both back up on the chaise and retrieved the two Miraculouses from where they had been knocked to the floor. He placed them in Marinette’s hands once more, closing her fingers around them.

“You’re okay?” Marinette sought to verify once more.

Chat nodded, putting on a brave smile for his princess. “For now. I do have a favor to ask of you, though.”

“Of course.”

“Depending upon how my father reacts once he realizes what I’ve done…could we maybe not advertise the fact that my father is a domestic terrorist? I realize that that’s a really selfish thing for me to request, and I know he and my pseudo-step-mom should really do jail time, but…maybe…if they’re on their best behavior from now on…could we not turn them in to the police?” He hesitantly looked at her, his eyes pleading. “I’ll understand if you say no. I know they deserve whatever punishment they get, but… You can say no, Marinette.”

She rolled her eyes, pulling him into a tender side-hug. “Chat Noir, how could I say no to you? How could I make you turn your parents in to the police? How could I rip your family away from you? If your father gracefully accepts his defeat and doesn’t do anything else illegal, I don’t see why we couldn’t just let this all go.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, letting his head come to rest on her shoulder. “Thank God. Thank you, Marinette.”

She pressed a kiss to the side of his temple, giving his hair a comforting nuzzle.

They stayed like that for a minute until they’d both regained their equilibrium. They separated reluctantly.

“So…” Marinette pursed her lips and looked down at the Miraculouses. “What now?”

“My plan was for you to return them to Master Fu, since you’re the one who knows where he lives,” Chat informed, moving on to the third stage of his night of mass-revelations.

Marinette blinked. “What?”

“Please take them back to the Guardian…My Lady,” he enunciated, turning the nickname into two, distinct, unmistakable words.

Her eyes flew wide, and she slapped a hand over her mouth. A shriek of disbelief came out unintelligible from behind her fingers.

He waited patiently for her to calm down.

He wasn’t expecting her to slap him on the arm and exclaim, “Oh my gosh! You know! You really do know!”

It was typical Marinette, so he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been expecting it.

He smirked and shrugged. “Yes. Check the shadows of surrounding chimneys before detransforming on your balcony, Buginette. A couple months ago I was just about to call out to you when you dropped your transformation on me like a ton of bricks. I was a mess…even more so than usual.”

“You’ve known for months?!” she scoffed.

He nodded, confessing, “We’re coming up on three months.”

“You didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t want me to know.”

“Tikki didn’t want you to know! I—I…may have been on the fence about it,” she admitted, looking down at the Miraculouses. “It was complicated. A few years ago, I wanted you to know, but Tikki said no—really, really convincingly with graphic stories about previous holders who had gotten themselves or their partners killed by revealing identities—and then you didn’t like Ladybug anymore, but you were becoming friends with Marinette, and it felt wrong to lie to you, but Tikki still said no, and I waffled, and it would have been awkward, and…I was going to tell you. I’ve been fighting with Tikki recently about it. Like, we stop talking to each other for a few hours at a time because we’re fighting about it. I was going to tell you, though.”

She looked up at him and was met with a gentle smile of affection and acceptance.

He leaned in to nuzzle her hair. “Yeah. I know. You told me you were thinking about revealing your identity not forty minutes ago. I was really banking on it being me you were referring to.”

She gasped. “I told you that I loved you.” She pulled back to gape at him in horror.

He shook his head, still smiling, eyes full of adoration. “No. You implied that you loved me. I am the one that told you that I was in love with you.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “You knew. You knew you were telling me—telling Marinette—when you told Ladybug earlier.”

He nodded. “I kind of wanted to space out the bombshells I was dropping on you. The hypothetical game was supposed to be a bit of a shock absorber.”

“I think it worked. Other than the fact that I had no clue that you really did know my identity and that your father was Papillon and…and that you were in love with me…until you told me in no uncertain terms that you really were in love with me,” she giggled, setting the Miraculouses aside once more to take his hand in both of hers. “Will you say it again? To me this time?”

“I love you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” he whispered. “I’ve fallen for you twice, and I hope to keep falling even deeper in love with you each and every day, if you’ll let me.”

“I’d love that,” she hummed in ecstasy. “This is like a dream.”

She leaned in to kiss him but stopped short, realizing something important just as he said, “Wait” and put a finger on her lips.

They blinked, realizing that they had both stopped.

“What is it?” Marinette wondered, drawing back.

“I’ve got one more bombshell for you, but you go first,” he urged. “You were pulling back even before I interrupted you.”

She pursed her lips. “I still haven’t told you I love you.”

“I inferred that you love me,” he chuckled, delighting in that knowledge after so long spent suffering.

She shook her head. “But I need to say it. You deserve to hear it. I love you, Chat Noir.”

His sappy grin began to slide into a frown. “Why does it sound like there’s a ‘but’ on the end of that sentence?”

Marinette took a deep breath. “I don’t want to keep any more secrets from you. I owe you an explanation.”

“Okay,” he agreed, settling in to listen.

“I owe you an apology,” she added, face filling with shame. “I never gave you a fair chance as Ladybug because I was in love with someone else.”

“The guy you fell in love with in the rain?” he prompted.

She nodded with a sad smile. “You know how I get, Minou. Once I get an idea in my head…and I got it in my head that you weren’t serious, that you legitimately loved something but that that something wasn’t me, not the real me, so I never gave you a chance. It was only after you told Ladybug you were giving up on her and after you started hanging out more regularly with Marinette that I was finally able to see how spectacularly I had screwed up and missed out. I fell for you then when I thought it was too late, so I never said anything, and I tried to keep my feelings a secret so they wouldn’t mess up our friendship. I didn’t want to tell you because…I mean, how stupid am I? I turn down this great guy for three years, and then as soon as he’s not interested anymore I decide I want him. I am objectively the biggest idiot.”

Chat shook his head, giving her hand a squeeze. “Princess, the most important thing is that we’re both on the same page now.”

She bit her lip. “Not quite. I am desperately in love with you, Minou.”

“But?” he prompted with a sigh.

“I’m desperately in love with someone else too,” she groaned. “You have to know that before anything happens between us. My heart is divided directly down the middle, and if he were here now, telling me he loved me, I’d be in his arms in a second. You have to know that. I know I’m awful, and I know it’s not fair to you, but…I’ve been struggling with this for a year now, and I don’t see any way out of it.”

She met his eyes as she promised, “If you decide you want to be in a relationship with me, I won’t physically be unfaithful…but my heart will be. My mind will cheat on you. I’ll still think about him and long for him and dream about him. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. He’s a close friend, so it’s not like I’d be able to cut him out of my life. I…can’t cut him out of my life; he’s woven into the fabric of it. That’s what I had to tell you. I love you, but I love him too.”

Chat took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he carded a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She didn’t sound as if she believed him.

He nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I needed to hear that, so thanks for telling me.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking down in her shame. “I’m horrible.”

“Stop,” he insisted. “You’re not. You’re not, Marinette. I respect your honesty. I appreciate it…even if it really, really…really, really sucks. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she sighed miserably.

They sat with the heaviness of the situation for a minute. Chat squeezed Marinette’s hand, and Marinette squeezed back.

“You don’t have to make a decision right away,” Marinette whispered. “But just let me know if you think you could still be in a relationship with me despite all that…and even if the answer is ‘no’ now, let me know if you ever change your mind. I don’t foresee me getting over you any time soon, so…”

“Answer one question for me, please,” he entreated, cupping her cheek with his free hand. “I know I’m prying, but I have to know: who’s the other guy? I want you so badly, I love you so much that it doesn’t matter if I can only have half of your heart. I won’t say I don’t care, but… My answer is yes, yes, of course I want to be with you, but please tell me now whom I’m sharing you with because I don’t want to find out later and have it catch me off guard. I won’t do anything with the knowledge; I just need to know.”

She nodded with a timid, “Okay”.

She swallowed, took a breath, and announced, “Adrien Agreste. I’m in love with Adrien Agreste…. I have been since he gave me his umbrella to walk home with shortly after we met.”

Chat stared at her dumbly. “A-Adrien Agreste?” he repeated.

She nodded self-consciously.

“All this time you’ve…?” He felt dizzy. There was no way he could be this blessed.

She nodded. “I’m sorry, Minou.”

“No! Don’t be sorry!” he insisted, trying to keep his panic and euphoria under control. “This is perfect! I-I…”

He took note of the concerned, confused way she was looking at him.

“I sound nuts. I can explain,” he assured. “This is the other thing I was going to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “Detransformation.”

The cat suit melted away in a neon green light, and suddenly Adrien Agreste was sitting on Marinette’s chaise, holding her hands.

She gasped, her eyes beginning to sting.

“I love you so much, Marinette,” Adrien whispered, tears coming to his own eyes. “And to think that you love me too…both of me…” His voice faltered at the overwhelming emotions.

“M-Minou?” Marinette whispered, taking her hands from his to reach up and touch his face.

“My Princess,” he sighed, one hand stroking her cheek while the other went to rest on her hip possessively.

“Thank God,” she hiccupped, relief washing over her. “You have no idea how I’ve been torturing myself over you two, and now…”

“I’m yours,” he swore. “Both of me. All of me. Yours. Yours the second you decide you want to slap a collar on me.”

“We’ll go collar hunting as soon as the shops open tomorrow,” she giggled.

They looked at each other, hesitating for a breath before simultaneously leaning in, meeting in the middle for a kiss that was four years overdue.

The next morning, Sabine found Adrien asleep on the couch.

“Marinette’s not up yet, is she?” were the first words he managed to slur sleepily.

“Not yet,” Sabine confirmed. “Who is she under the impression is sleeping on that couch so that I can wake you up to transform if I hear her stirring?”

“Her boyfriend,” Adrien snickered.

“Oh?” Sabine exclaimed, trying to contain her joy and relief. “And whom do I have the honor of congratulating? Chat Noir or Adrien Agreste?”

“Both of us. I told her. Everything.” Adrien burrowed further into the covers.

“Let him sleep,” Plagg urged, flying over to meet Sabine in the kitchen. “He’s had a busy night between stealing the Butterfly Miraculous from his old man, telling Marinette everything, going with Ladybug to return the stolen Miraculouses, and then making out with your daughter for a couple hours. He needs his beauty sleep.”

Sabine pursed her lips, opened her mouth to reply, and then pursed her lips once more. “All right, but I would like the full story at his earliest convenience. I have been waiting for that boy to end up with my daughter for years, and I think I deserve the play-by-play.”

“If you want,” Plagg proposed. “Give me some cheese, and I’ll give you my version.”

Sabine shrugged and went to the fridge. “I still want him to tell me later, though. You know. With all the sighs and the drama and the starry-eyed looks whenever he says Marinette’s name.”

Plagg rolled his eyes. “The sappy version.”

“He’s adorable when he talks about her,” Sabine snickered.

Chapter Text

The note Gabriel found on his desk read:

Dear Father,

By now, you will have realized that I’ve stolen something from you. I’m sorry.

I think I sort of understand why you’re doing this, but I can’t believe that this would be something Mother would have wanted. You’ve hurt so many people, and, now that I know what you’re doing, I can’t let you keep hurting more. I miss Mother, but if you’re doing this in any part because of me, I need to ask you to stop. I don’t want Mother back if it means other people have to suffer.

I’m sorry I couldn’t find the courage to talk to you about this in person. I’m sorry I had to steal it instead of talking to you and asking you to give it up voluntarily. I want to believe that you would have given it to me if I had asked. Part of me was afraid you wouldn’t, not even for me. I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. I’m sorry I took the choice away from you. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the opportunity to do the right thing.

Father, I forgive you. I love you so much, and I don’t want this to come between us. I know a lot of people have let you down in your life. I know people you loved have left you. I don’t want to be one of those people.

I know you’re probably beyond mad at me right now, and that’s okay. If you don’t want to forgive me, that’s okay. Not that I mean that I’m okay with that. I’m not okay with that, but I mean that that’s an option you have. Not to forgive me. You’re allowed not to forgive me. You’re allowed to kick me out. You’re allowed to cut ties with me.

I hope you won’t.

When you’re ready to talk, if you’re ever ready to talk, come find me.

Love,

Your Son, Chat Noir

P.S. I know you track my phone, but I’m planning on spending the night at a girl’s, so maybe wait until tomorrow morning to call. Failing that, I’m sleeping on the Dupain-Cheng’s couch. Failing that, I’m heartbroken and miserable on several levels, renting a room at a hotel. In that case, please come find me sooner rather than later, even if you are mad. Thanks.

It took Gabriel one hour and three additional readings of the letter before he was able to find the strength to log on to his computer and pull up the tracking data for Adrien’s phone.

He was at Tom and Sabine’s.

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief and shut down his computer.

“Nathalie!!!” he bellowed, and she came running.

He frowned as he noted that she was slightly disheveled despite trying her best not to look disheveled.

“Gabriel?” she inquired, voice more timid than usual.

Gabriel stood and handed the note to her. “I am ill. I am going back to bed for the remainder of the day. No one but you may disturb me for any reason whatsoever.”

He strode past her but paused in the doorway, turning back. “Except…if anyone hears from Adrien or if Adrien tries to get in contact with me. But no one else. No one but you and Adrien may disturb me.”

“Yes, Gabriel.” Nathalie nodded obediently, unsure whether she could yet be relieved.

Two days later found Gabriel Agreste knocking on the side door of Tom and Sabine’s bakery.

Sabine was the one to answer, and she did not look pleased to see him. “Yes, Monsieur Agreste?”

“I’ve come to see my son, Madame Dupain-Cheng,” Gabriel announced wearily.

Tom Dupain was suddenly behind his wife, making Gabriel think twice about any ideas he’d had about pushing past the diminutive Chinese woman.

“Please,” Gabriel added, his mouth moving awkwardly around the foreign word.

“Wait here.” Sabine instructed, leaving Tom to bar the door while she went to the stairs, calling out in Chinese: “Kitten? Your father’s here. Do you want to talk to him?”

There was a beat before Gabriel heard his son’s voice answering: “Does he look angry?”

Admittedly, this was not something Gabriel had foreseen when he’d decided to have Adrien learn Chinese. Perhaps he should have learned Chinese himself so that his son could not have conversations in front of him in languages that Gabriel did not understand.

Sabine looked back at Gabriel appraisingly. “No, Honey. Just tired.”

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“…Okay,” Adrien called in French. “I want to talk to him.”

Tom moved out of the way, still glaring fiercely at Gabriel, and Sabine motioned for Gabriel to follow as she guided him up the stairs.

She led him up to the apartment where they found Adrien and Marinette waiting, Marinette standing in front of Adrien protectively. Adrien had his arms around her from behind and was resting his chin on top of her head.

“I’ll be just downstairs,” Sabine announced, and it sounded like a threat.

The door closed behind Sabine, and Marinette turned to Adrien. “You’re sure you don’t want me to stay?”

Adrien smiled in gratitude at the fierce girl, and Gabriel saw so much more than mere gratitude on his son’s face. “No, Princess. Thank you.”

Gabriel found himself incredibly relieved when Marinette turned to his son and kissed him. The feeling was obviously mutual.

“I’ll be right upstairs, Minou,” she assured, pressing another kiss to the tip of Adrien’s nose.

It was a cute pet name, and it indicated that Marinette knew about his son’s identity. Adrien trusted this girl.

Marinette glared at Gabriel on her way to the steps to the attic, and then it was just the two of them.

“Hello, Father,” Adrien gulped.

“Hello, Adrien,” Gabriel sighed.

“Um…can I offer you something to drink?” Adrien was off to the kitchen, fetching two glasses of water before Gabriel could answer. Adrien set the glasses on the coffee table and motioned for Gabriel to sit. “Please make yourself comfortable.”

Gabriel did as instructed with a wry smile. “What, do you live here now that you’re playing host?”

That hadn’t been the first thing he had intended to say to his son. Internally, he kicked himself.

Adrien shrugged, taking a seat on the couch cattycorner to the one on which Gabriel was seated. “Tom and Sabine unofficially adopted me about a year ago. I have a key…not that I feel comfortable just letting myself in, but…I could if I wanted to. That was kind of the idea when they gave it to me. Sabine gave it to me a couple months ago…after I found out about the whole Papillon thing. She said I could come over whenever, let myself in, even if it was the middle of the night… She was a little concerned about my safety, honestly, even though I told her you’d never hurt me.”

Gabriel grimaced, his grip on his water glass tightening. “She knows?”

Adrien nodded.

“Do they all know?” Gabriel hissed—not at Adrien but more generally.

“Tom and Marinette just found out this week. Sabine, I went to right away,” Adrien explained down into his own glass of water.

Gabriel realized then that the water was for more than drinking. It was a prop so that they didn’t have to look at each other.

“She’s like a third mother to me. I knew I could trust her.”

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow at that statement. “Who’s your second mother?”

Adrien looked up in surprise. “Nathalie.”

Gabriel felt his face flushing. He looked away. “I see.”

“But it’s not like I could go to Nathalie about this…so I went to Sabine.”

“I see,” Gabriel repeated.

Silence fell between them, and it was hard to break. Most of their relationship had been silence, so they weren’t sure how to communicate with one another now that it was truly important.

“Are you mad at me?” Adrien sighed, setting down his water glass and looking straight at his father. “You’ve got to be furious.”

Gabriel inhaled deeply and met his son’s gaze. “I was angry. I am angry still at times. It comes and goes, but I am not angry with you.”

Adrien frowned skeptically.

“Because you were right. I never would have given my Miraculous to you. Your course of action was the only one available to you. I am upset, and I will continue to be very, very upset for a long time, but after lying in bed for two days thinking about it, I’ve realized that there is no point in taking my frustrations and my grief out on you. Your mother is gone. Even if I had continued, there was no guarantee that I would have succeeded. Chat Noir and Ladybug and their team have only gotten stronger over the years, and I have only grown tired. Now, knowing that it was you I’ve been fighting, you I’ve been sending those monsters out to attack…” Gabriel winced, averting his gaze as he shook his head.

“Adrien, you are all I have left of your mother. If something happened to you…I have almost given up several times over the years when Adrien was put at risk due to an akuma. This…cannot continue.”

Adrien scooted closer on the couch and tentatively reached out a hand to rest on Gabriel’s knee. “It’s okay, Father.”

Gabriel sighed, patting his son’s hand, careful not to touch the ring. “Adrien, it’s not.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Adrien revised, a touch of hope in his voice.

Gabriel shook his head. “It’s not.”

“Dad,” Adrien called, using the English word.

Gabriel looked at his son in surprise, meeting Adrien’s eyes.

“Dad,” Adrien repeated. “I am willing to make it okay if you’re willing to help me. Do you want it to be okay?”

Gabriel had to think about this for a minute. He’d been carrying a heavy burden for so long, it was hard to relinquish it. Finally, he nodded. “Yes. I think I would like to try.”

“Okay.” Adrien beamed like Gabriel hadn’t seen in a long time. “Thank you, Dad.”

Gabriel hung his head, resting a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “I am so sorry. I got lost. So lost that a part of me still thinks I’m right…but I can’t fight you, Adrien. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Adrien assured. “I can understand why you did it too. If something happened to Marinette, I’d stop at nothing to get her back. I can’t say for certain that I wouldn’t do the same thing you did…at least…until I realized that Marinette would never forgive me for hurting other people, so…but I forgive you, Dad. Maybe, in a few weeks or months or years you’ll be able to forgive yourself.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel whispered. “And thank you for your letter. I’ve read it many times these past few days, and it’s shaken me. I appreciated your words. I appreciated…knowing that you didn’t despise me, that you still wanted to be my son. That made it easier to get out of bed and come here. I’m glad I came here.”

“That makes two of us,” Adrien chuckled, giving his father’s arm a reassuring pat before pulling away.

It was quiet for a minute as they both mentally regrouped.

Gabriel broke the silence first. “So…that girl before…Marinette…she’s your girlfriend?”

An embarrassed smile made its way to Adrien’s face, but he couldn’t hide his elation. “That’s my girlfriend.”

“How long have you been seeing each other?” Gabriel wondered how much of his son’s life he’d missed out on or hadn’t noticed.

“Just this week, but we’ve been crazy about each other for years. There were a lot of misunderstandings, but…we finally managed to work them out the other night, so now I’m officially hers.” Adrien sounded so overjoyed by the prospect.

Gabriel remembered when Emilie had asked him to be hers and smiled gently.

Then a thought hit. “You’re not sleeping with her, are you?”

Adrien shook his head, seemingly unfazed by the question. “I told her I wanted to wait.”

“You want to wait?” Gabriel frowned.

Adrien shrugged. “Because reasons. Things have been ridiculously complicated with her for a long time. Sex would just be another layer of complications, and that’s not what I need right now or any time soon. I want to marry this girl, Dad, so I don’t want to screw things up. I just need to be in a stable, supportive relationship right now. Once Marinette and I have that down, maybe then we can talk about taking things further.”

Gabriel nodded, feeling completely overwhelmed. “That’s…very mature of you.”

He hadn’t realized that his son was anything but reckless and naïve. When had Adrien grown up?

Adrien shrugged again.

There was a beat.

Adrien wrinkled his nose. “Sorry. This is super weird for me. I’m sure this is super weird for you too. I mean, I’m used to talking to Nathalie and Sabine like this, but…is this okay? Do fathers and sons talk like this? I don’t know how I’m supposed to interact with you.”

Gabriel grimaced. “This…this is fine. I…I would like for us to get to a point where this isn’t ‘super weird’ for either of us. …I don’t think I ever told you, but my own father…he was abusive. He wasn’t…around, and when he was, he was violent. I didn’t talk to him, so…I don’t know how this is supposed to work either. I always let Emilie or Nathalie handle this sort of thing—interacting with you.”

Adrien’s eyes widened. No wonder he had never met his grandparents. “Oh. Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Wow. I’m sorry. That makes…a lot more sense now.”

“…So…” Gabriel sighed. “I don’t think it will be easy to repair eighteen years’ worth of damage, but…maybe we could try?” he tentatively suggested. “Maybe…if you’re not too busy with Marinette, as I’m sure she is far more interesting to you than I am…I could use the time I’ve been devoting to supervillainy to…possibly…eat meals with you or play board games or…we could talk. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else parents do with their children.”

“Those would be good,” Adrien assured. “I’d really like that.”

Gabriel nodded, feeling some of the tension dissipate.

Adrien bit his lip. “Um…hey. Would you like to stay for lunch? I’ll go back with you to the Mansion afterwards, but Sabine, Plagg, and I were going to make Mami Gina’s signature lasagna with some garlic cheese breadsticks and salad. Sabine’s been teaching me to cook. You don’t have to, if you don’t want or if you’re busy or something,” Adrien added, giving his father an out. “But it would be nice if you got to know Marinette’s family and if they got to know you. I mean, they love me and don’t seem to have any reservations about letting their daughter marry the son of a supervillain, but…it would be really great if you guys got along and they saw that you’re actually a regular human being sometimes. I mean, I’ve seen you be charming before. But only if you want to stay for lunch.”

Begrudgingly, Gabriel smiled. If it meant so much to his son, he’d stay for lunch. “I would be happy to attempt to convince the Dupain-Chengs that I am not a psychopath.”

“Thank you!” Adrien nearly bounced off the couch.

“I’m interested in tasting your cooking,” Gabriel added. “Two questions, though. One: who is Mami Gina?”

“Tom’s mom. She’s Italian, and she is awesome. She has a motorcycle!” Adrien’s eyes went wide, and he quickly amended, “which she has definitely never let me drive.”

Gabriel laughed, raising an eyebrow at his son. “Oh, really?”

Adrien shrank. “She taught Marinette and me last summer. Driving around Paris with Marinette’s arms wrapped around me was awesome.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I’m sure. Two: who is Plagg?”

“I’m Plagg,” Plagg announced, sticking his head out of Adrien’s shirt collar to glare at Gabriel. “I don’t like you.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. “Your kwami.”

“Plagg, be nice, please. He’s trying,” Adrien mumbled to his protector.

Plagg snorted, floating over to hold out a paw to Gabriel. “I don’t like you, but we’re going to get along because you happen to be the biological father of my kitten, and my kitten wants his family to play nice.”

“You’re the one that’s been burning holes in my cravats,” Gabriel realized.

“Try to tell me you didn’t deserve it,” Plagg snickered.

“Plagg did you seriously?” Adrien sighed.

Gabriel took Plagg’s paw between his fingers and shook it. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

“Liar,” Plagg snorted, a wide grin on his face.

“Sometimes it is polite to lie. Did you not say that we were going to get along?” Gabriel challenged.

Plagg hummed appreciatively. “Let’s call it a truce and get started on lunch prep. I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Adrien sighed as Plagg came over to rub affectionately against his cheek.

Adrien guessed that this was for Gabriel’s benefit and that Plagg was trying to make Gabriel jealous.

Adrien got to his feet and called the Dupain-Chengs together. “I want to introduce you all to my dad,” Adrien announced.

“Things went well?” Sabine tentatively inquired in Chinese.

Adrien hugged her. “Things went perfect. He’s sorry. We made up. We’re going to try to get past this and be a real family. Can you please be nice to him so he doesn’t get discouraged and stop trying? Maybe invite him to lunch?”

Sabine went on her tiptoes to give Adrien’s forehead a kiss. “I can do that for you, Kitten.”

She switched back to French, giving Gabriel a warm, welcoming smile. “Gabriel, won’t you join us for lunch? We would love to get to know you better.”

Tom gave his wife a funny look but then followed Sabine’s lead. “Please,” he added. “We’d be delighted to have you.”

It was the first time Adrien had ever seen his father act timid, but, timidly, Gabriel accepted the invitation.

“Come.” Tom clapped Gabriel on the back, ushering him back to the couches. “Let’s sit and chat while Sabine and Adrien whip up the lunch. Come along, Marinette.”

Marinette blinked, confused and unsure how to feel about things. She was happy for Adrien, but…this felt a little surreal, having Papillon sit in her living room and have lunch with her family.

Adrien caught her by the hand and gently herded her over to the couches, announcing, “Fa—I mean, Dad, I want you to officially meet the best thing that’s ever happened to me. This is Marinette.”

The lovestruck expression on Adrien’s face made Gabriel smile warmly. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Marinette.”

Marinette thawed a little, taking a seat next to Gabriel on the couch. “Likewise…Gabriel. Your son this the most wonderful human being I’ve ever met. I fell in love with him twice, you know.”

The

      End