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Adrien knew in an instant that he was never meant to see this. It wasn’t his fault really, when he saw the sketchbook on the floor his only intention had been returning it to its rightful owner. He had no idea what he might discover by his good deed. But the sketchbook had landed open on a rough sketch of a family, and there in the middle of the page was his face smiling back at him. Three small children were drawn near the bottom of the page with one appearing to hold a hamster. Drawn next to him, smiling just as brightly as his sketched self, was a sketch of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
The rapid increase in his heartbeat made Adrien feel dizzy. Butterflies were swirling around in his stomach and he felt like his face was on fire. What did this drawing mean? Had Marinette lied to him at the wax museum? She had always said they were friends, “just friends”, or was that his own projection onto her? And why did the thought of being just friends with Marinette cause his stomach to churn?
This sketch is not something just a friend would do, Adrien thought to himself. Marinette liked him. Amazing, talented, wonderful Marinette had a crush on him . He could feel the butterflies continuing to swirl inside him as a new feeling arose. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. The vibration of his phone in his pocket pulled him out of his thoughts. His driver was here and he had lingered too long in the classroom. Shoving the notebook into his messenger bag, Adrien headed down towards the front doors of the school, still trying to understand the feeling blossoming inside him.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
As soon as he got home, Adrien ran up to his room and pulled the sketchbook out from his bag. He opened it back to the page with the sketch, careful not to look at any of the other pages fearing he’s already invaded Marinette’s privacy enough. Plagg zipped out from the bag to see what Adrien was staring at but the boy didn’t seem to notice, he was too fixated on the image in front of him. A family with Marinette. He could feel his cheeks burning once more, but he couldn’t help but grin at the thought. Plagg’s cackle pulled him from his thoughts.
“So you finally admit that you’re smitten with pigtails then?”
“I’m not smitten,” Adrien responded weakly.
“You could’ve fooled me with the sketch of you two together and your big lovesick grin on your face,” the black Kwami shrugged and moved towards his cheese cabinet, obviously growing bored of his chosen’s love life or lack thereof.
“I just...it feels wrong Plagg. I love Ladybug. I can’t be smitten with Marinette. It’s not possible to love two people at the same time, right?” With a sigh, Adrien looked up at his ceiling. It felt wrong to say he didn’t care for Marinette. She had always been special to him. He had assumed it was because she was the first friend he had ever made on his own, but maybe it was more than that. Plagg zipped back towards Adrien, looking unusually serious.
“Look kid, Ladybug has made her feelings pretty clear. Holding out hope for someone who’s not interested isn’t healthy. You have a real girl here who obviously loves you…”
“LOVES?!” Adrien interrupted, nearly falling out of his chair.
“Yea, loves ,” Plagg stated, his voice growing more impatient. “People don’t daydream about futures together with people they don’t love.”
Adrien felt his entire body grow warm. The idea of Marinette loving him filled him with so much warmth and hope he felt like he was going to burst. It was a completely new sensation for him. Sure he had fangirls who proclaimed they loved him, but Marinette was his friend, he valued her opinion of him and the idea of her loving him was something he had never experienced.
The love Adrien felt for Ladybug was like a loud symphony playing in his heart. It was powerful, beautiful, and surrounding, vibrating in his soul.
This feeling he felt for Marinette was subtler, he hadn’t even noticed it sneaking up on him. It was a quiet song that was stuck in his head, a melody that he wanted to savour, like the song he used to play with his mom. The thought made him smile but he quickly shook his head turning back towards Plagg.
“Say Marinette does love me, that doesn’t solve the problem of me being in love Ladybug,” Adrien said surprised at how sad his voice sounded even to his own ears. “Even if I don’t pursue her anymore, I can’t just turn off my feelings and that wouldn’t be fair to Mari.”
“You taking the baker girl out on a date doesn’t mean you have to love her instantly. It’s not a marriage proposal. Just take it slow and give yourself time for your feelings to develop. Maybe you’ll realize that you love pigtails even more than Ladybug. The way I realized that camembert was far superior to mimolette.” Plagg shook a piece of camembert towards Adrien to emphasize his point. “Besides if it’s really bothering you, you could always talk to the bug about it.”
“You’re right Plagg,” Adrien rose from his chair quickly. “I should talk to Ladybug and sort out my feelings.”
“I didn’t mean right this second,” Plagg yelled waving his cheese in the air in an effort to stop Adrien from transforming. “You haven’t even had dinner yet, patrol isn’t for hours!”
Adrien slunked back down into his desk chair. He hadn’t even realized how short a time had passed since arriving home. It would be pointless to go out as Chat Noir right now when he was sure Ladybug wouldn’t even be out. He might even cause a panic that there was an akuma attack. No, this conversation would just need to wait until the evening.
With a sigh, he closed the sketchbook and set it to the side of his desk, hoping he could keep it out of his ming long enough to finish his homework.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Unfortunately for Adrien, his homework had been fairly easy and he had quickly finished, leaving him with his idle thoughts until dinner. He had pulled out his phone, purposefully ignoring the notebook on his desk, but he had been drawn to scrolling through a certain up-and-coming designers instagram.
When he had made it all the way down to her first post, he began looking through the few photos on his phone that he had with his friends. So few of them included Marinette, which astonished him. How could someone so important to him not have a larger presence on his phone? The thought had continued to bother him as he scrolled through Alya and Chloe’s feeds before dinner.
By the time dinner rolled around, Adrien was agitated. He sat at the empty dinner table trying not to inhale his food with Nathalie watching on, but he was growing impatient. He was unsure of these feelings for Marinette and he really needed to talk to ladybug. With the last few bites he quickly handed his plate to Nathalie and excused himself back to his room.
Plagg didn’t even bother to argue that it was still fairly early for patrol. Adrien knew he’d have to wait for ladybug but he had excess energy he needed to burn off. Summoning his transformation he quickly escaped his bedroom window and out into the Parisian evening.
Running along the rooftops of Paris had always been liberating for Adrien. The black cat miraculous had allowed him a freedom he had never tasted before and it was especially helpful on nights like this when there was so much weighing on his mind. Thoughts of Marinette kept filtering through his head. The way she stumbled over her words with him, the passionate way she stood up for others, and the creativity she showed not just in her designs but in her solutions to problems. She really was their everyday ladybug and it was no wonder to Adrien how he had developed feelings for her. But his heart still ached with conflict.
Twenty minutes later he spotted a familiar red heroine sitting on an abandoned rooftop overlooking the city. She was humming quietly to herself in this moment of peace for the city. It was these quiet moments together that had always been Chat’s favorite part of the super hero gig and he worried how it would change is he really let go of his feelings for his partner.
“Hey LB,” he called out as he landed beside her. She turned to him still smiling softly.
“Hey kitty,” she called back.
Gone was the usual spike in his heart rate at hearing her nickname for him. Or the blush he would feel from her soft smiles. Odd , Adrien thought. Ladybug must have seen his puzzled brow because her face instantly switched to one of concern. It was so natural for her to read him. Chat plopped down next to her and attempted his usual grin.
“It’s just, there’s something that’s been on my mind all day and I was hoping that we could talk before patrol?” Chat glanced over and waited for Ladybug’s nod before continuing. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but if it weren’t for that other boy, do you think there would be something between us?”
“Chat…” Ladybug reproached. They had discussed him declaring his feelings repeatedly and how uncomfortable it made her. Chat immediately waved his arms as if to stop her train of thought.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean...it’s just...ugh!” Chat sighed and stared out at the skyline. The sun had fully set but the lights of the city kept Paris as bright as the day. “I found out today that one of my really good friends has, or might have, a crush on me. Actually Plagg thinks she’s in love with me.”
Saying it out loud caused heat to rise in his cheeks once more. Thinking of Marinette loving him made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. The sappy smile that spread across his face couldn’t be helped.
“And, do you feel the same?” Ladybug asked gently, relaxing once more beside him.
That was the question he’d been asking himself all afternoon. Answering no felt like lying, but saying yes caused his stomach to drop.
“I don’t know. I care about her a lot. But it feels wrong to be in love with two people and my heart has always belonged to you, my lady.” A light dusting of pink appeared beneath Ladybug’s mask but Chat continued on. “But LB, she doesn’t just like me. She envisioned a future together, with a family, and love, and happiness. I know it should probably scare me off that she’s already planned our lives together but it just makes me feel...warm?”
Chat turned so that he was facing his partner fully and took one of her hands in his own. “So that’s why I need to know my lady. If there’s a chance for us, then I can wait because you’re worth it. But if I don’t have a chance, I need to know that too, even if you think it’ll hurt me.”
Ladybug smiled wistfully, squeezing his hand before looking away.
“I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t have any feelings for you at all. I understand having a conflicted heart in that matter. My feelings for the boy I love are pretty all consuming. But even if he weren’t around, we could never be together.” She released his hand and wrapped her arms around her middle, getting up to move away. Chat felt a chill run through him as he watched her, something pricking at the back of his mind.
“I haven’t told you this yet, wasn’t sure how to even say this,” she turned back to him for a moment, a solemn expression on her face, before turning back towards the city lights.
Chat felt his mouth grow dry. They had talked about secrets and how their partnership needed to have honesty in order to have trust. Outside of things related to identities they promised not to keep things from one another. Whatever it was that ladybug was uncertain of sharing had to be a big deal. Swallowing felt impossible.
“Last week, Bunnyx came to get me. She took me to a future where the world had been destroyed. You...you were an akuma.” Ladybug choked out with a shiver.
All air left Chat’s lungs. He had been sucker punched before but never had an akuma hit him as hard as this news. He had been akumatized. He had destroyed the world. Thoughts and emotions swirled around inside his mind until a nagging question pulled him out his self-loathing spiral.
“Why would that mean we can’t be together?”
Ladybug turned back towards him but she was unable to meet his eyes. Her arms still wrapped around her as if she was cold on this warm Parisian night.
“When I saw you in that future, you said our love had caused the destruction of the world.”
Chat felt the wind knocked out of him once more and was certain he wouldn’t remember how to breathe again. Him being with ladybug had lead to the end of the world, something he had been dreaming of for over a year now seemed completely impossible with just a few words. Ladybug had stepped closer to him now, her blue eyes meeting his green.
“We can’t be together Chat, not as long as Hawkmoth is out there.”
“Then we wait until his defeated. I’ve waited this long Bugaboo, I can wait a little longer,” Chat responded, but even he could hear the shallowness in his own voice.
“Chat we have no idea how long it is going to take to defeat Hawkmoth. We could spend our whole lives waiting for something that could never be. Imagine waiting around until you’re old and grey and you’ve missed a chance at a wife, and kids, and possibly even grandkids, all because you were holding out for a slight possibility of a future. A future I’m not even certain that I would want with you. I’m not meaning to be cruel, but I’ve told you my feelings and I know you Chat. Your face lit up talking about this girl and her dreams of a future with you. You have a chance at real happiness.”
The black clad hero knew she was right. All he had ever dreamed about was to be part of a happy and loving family. He had always pictured ladybug as a part of that future and yet, even with her saying that it was unlikely, he didn’t feel heartbroken. The image of his smiling face in Marinette’s sketch kept flooding his brain. She wanted him to be happy and loved. That was this warm sensation he felt thinking about her, it felt like home.
Patrol seemed to be forgotten as they sat together in companionable silence for a little longer.
“Thanks LB,” Chat finally said as they got up to move. “I think you’re right, I want happiness and I want to take this chance. I hope that you can find happiness with that blind idiot you are in love with!”
Ladybug rolled her eyes with a smile, clearly seeing through his teasing for what it was. “I hope that you find all the happiness in the world with this girl Chat.”
- - - - - - - - - - -
Adrien took a calming breath as he stepped out of the car the following morning. His talk with Ladybug had sealed his resolve to talk to Marinette. He had not been able to get her out of his mind last night and he was feeling really anxious to express his feelings to her. It would take time, of course, for him to get ladybug fully out of his heart. And he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to fully erase his first love, but he wanted to be with Marinette and he owed it to her to try.
It had hit him so quickly last night that Adrien had always had a bit of a crush on Marinette. He had simply let his feelings for Ladybug blind him. Plagg had been right along, something the kwami surprisingly didn’t gloat about this morning.
Flying up the stairs, Adrien looked around for the familiar pigtails. He knew it was unlikely that the perpetually late girl would be there early, but Adrien had been hoping for a chance to talk before class. Maybe the little bit of luck that had shown him the sketchbook in the first place could grant him just a bit more luck.
To Adrien’s disappointment, the courtyard was empty. He seemed to be one of if not the first student to arrive on campus. Not surprising really when he couldn’t sleep or eat in anticipation of seeing Marinette. At least he could get his books for the morning classes and be ready early so he could wait for her back at the stairs.
Pushing open the wooden doors to the locker room, Adrien froze in place at the sight of the girl that had been occupying his mind the past 24 hours frantically digging in her locker. He looked around quickly to see that they were the only two in the room. Maybe he did have some lingering good after all.
“Where could it have gone?!” Marinette muttered down to her purse. The action struck Adrien as odd but he quickly shook it off, stepping forward. A giant smile spread across his face as he approached Marinette’s locker. She really was adorable, especially when she was flustered.
“Good morning, Marinette!” Adrien exclaimed a bit too loudly. Marinette let out a squeak before falling onto her bottom, her bluebell eyes going wide. Adrien winced and moved to help her up.
“Sorry,” he said, raising a hand to the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You’re fine...I mean I’m Adrien...I mean, it’s fine, hi Adrien.” Marinette turned a bright shade of red and looked down at her shoes. Adrien frowned at the action. Before he had always wondered why she was so jittery around him, now that he was fairly certain of the reason he wanted to do everything in his power to make Marinette feel comfortable around him.
“Are you sure you’re okay, you seemed upset when I came in.”
Bluebell eyes finally met his own and she gave him a smile. The butterflies were definitely back in his stomach. Why was she so cute?
“Yes, I’m okay. I just can’t find my sketchbook. I know I had it with me at school yesterday but now I can’t find it anywhere!”
Adrien felt his face grow warm at the mention of the book . Opening his bag he pushed a napping Plagg out his way to retrieve it.
“Do you mean this sketchbook? I think it must have fallen out of your bag yesterday.” Adrien held the spiral bound book up for inspection. Marinette jumped with excitement and reached out her hand.
“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much,” she exclaimed. “Um...Adrien?”
Adrien realized he was still holding the book out of her reach. He had been too caught up in Marinette’s excitement. Blushing he handed the book back to its rightful owner awkwardly clearing his throat.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Um, Marinette…”
Bright blue orbs met his once more and Adrien lost his nerve to speak. He swallowed, feeling his heart rate climb and knowing his face must be as red as a ladybug. Why was this so hard? He had never had a hard time professing his love to Ladybug.
Cause there’s no mask to hide behind , an internal voice that sounded an awful lot like Plagg said. Adrien took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak again. Marinette, obviously puzzled by the pause had looked down at the sketchbook and then back up at Adrien. Her eyes were wide with fear and realization. Her whole body growing as red as Ladybug’s suit.
“I didn’t snoop through it or anything! But when I found it, it was open and…” Marinette paled and Adrien could see the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes. Gone were the nerves from before. Adrien acted without thinking, his only goal to stop Marinette from being upset or embarrassed. He took one of her hands in his own and gave it a squeeze.
“Please don’t cry. Seeing your sketch helped me realize that you’re not just a friend to me. I’ve always felt like you were more than that.” With his other hand Adrien cupped Marinette’s cheek, brushing away a loose tear with his thumb. “I understand why now.” The two of them stayed frozen like that for what felt like forever. Marinette’s eyes were sparkling as bright as Parisian lights Adrien had looked out at last night. He could stay lost looking in her eyes forever he realized.
“But I thought you loved Kagami?” Marinette asked finally breaking the spell.
“Kagami?”
“When we left the wax museum you said the girl I love. ” Marinette leaned away from him and looked at him fully. Her brows scrunched together in confusion as her eyes searched his face for answers.
Adrien dropped his hand from her face but didn’t move away, his other hand still intertwined with Marinette’s soft hand. He reached up to scratch his neck once more, chuckling nervously.
“Kagami wasn’t the girl I meant. It was a girl from work. But I realized that I had been denying my feelings for you because of this other girl.” Adrien sighed, dropping Marinette’s hand to move away. “I know that this probably sounds really shallow or something, but I care about you alot Mari and seeing your sketch made me realize it even more. I still have some feelings for that other girl but I promise that if we were together I would be fully committed to you. If you don’t want that kind of burden though, I’d understand. I’m kinda messing this all up.”
Frustrated, Adrien sat on one of the benches near Marinette’s locker and put his head in his hands. He was such an idiot! Why had he gone and mentioned Ladybug? Now Mari was going to think he was second best but she wasn’t! She had occupied his heart for awhile and he realized the idea of losing her felt worse than all the rejections he had faced with Ladybug. Adrien was so lost in thought that he didn’t register when someone sat next to him.
“Is that what you want” Marinette’s voice barely above a whisper. Adrien quickly snapped his head up to look at her. She was smiling shyly at her hands, her cheeks bright red but a look of determination in her profile. “For us to be together?”
Adrien nodded dumbly, feeling his mouth become too dry to talk.
“Yes,” he finally croaked out.
“I want that too.” Marinette turned to face him now. Her smile was as bright as the sun and Adrien could feel that warm feeling encompassing his whole body all over again.
“Can I...may I kiss you?” Marinette blushed again, a sight that Adrien loved seeing, and nodded. Cupping her face once more Adrien leaned in and gently brushed his lips against hers. It was a tender kiss, nothing passionate and fireworks inducing like Adrien had always expected. But it filled his heart with a sense of completion, like he should have been kissing Marinette all along.
“Wow,” he whispered against her lips. They stayed sitting frozen again, starting in awe of each other. Eventually their bubble of solitude was burst with students filtering in for the day. The teens blushed and separated, grabbing their respective backpacks. Adrien extended his hand to Marinette and led her out of the locker room. If either of the lovebirds registered the gasps and murmurs as they walked hand-in-hand to their classroom they didn’t show it, too wrapped up in each other to care about everyone else.
None of that mattered, today was the first step into a wonderful future.