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Their confessions come after a solid few years of practice in the mirror. Whether or not they thought it would even happen is beyond them now. Their last years of high school have been interesting to say the least, their respective double lives making it more so. And as their time together slowly comes to a close, the feeling of change is ripe, and within the span of a week, Marinette decides to confess to Adrien and Cat Noir confesses to Ladybug.
They turn each other down and both Alya and Nino are forced to watch as their friends fall into painful despair. The sadness, mumbling and pouting over the past, grows progressively tedious. Adrien, straining, has lost a friend and his first love. Ladybug has lost much the same and does her best to put on a brave face during their missions, their patrols and their banter. The rawness of the situation stings, so much so that Adrien briefly entertains the thought of leaving Paris entirely so as not to be afflicted visually by what he cannot have. Plagg forces him to rethink, being rather cryptic as he says, “I don’t think you should give up quite yet.”
“And why is that?” he asks into his pillows.
“I just don’t. My cats don’t give up so easily, and Ladybug didn’t seem in the best mood.”
“Girls are always weird like that; I can’t do anything about it.”
“Go talk to someone who really knows how a girl thinks then.”
The name Plagg is prompting does not go unnoticed. “Marinette? You want me to see her?”
“Well, she’s a girl, isn’t she? She could help you out with Ladybug.”
“But I-” He hasn’t spoken to her all week after he turned her down as Adrien. He has taken the light from her eyes and the cheer from her smile and it is all his fault. The looks that Alya gives him these days are filled with an emotion he can’t quite describe, a mix of pity and annoyance, nearly disdain. “I can’t.” He swallows hard. “She won’t talk to me at all. Probably hates me too.”
“Maybe she does.”
The sharp pain in his chest is entirely unwelcome. “Not helping, Plagg.”
“I mean that she’s not talking to Adrien,” scoffs the kwami, eyeing the mini-fridge that Adrien usually keeps the camembert in.
“And?”
Plagg’s bright eyes flicker back to him, exasperated. “You’re not always Adrien.”
“I-.” Oh. “Plagg, you’re a genius.”
“I know. You owe me cheese.”
“Sure.”
A plate of camembert later, Cat Noir is a swing away from the bakery where she lives. It is lit up, the shop still wide open, and after pacing around on the roof for a while, he knocks on her window. He hears footsteps approaching, sees Marinette pull back her curtain and jumps back in surprise. She mouths his name and when he gestures for her to open the window, she shakes her head and gestures for the balcony instead.
The moment he sees her (it has felt like an eternity away), he takes her hand and makes to kiss it.
“Princess.”
She lets him in and right away he can tell that she is missing her usual soft smile. Her voice, which is usually filled with equal parts warmth and teasing, is merely tired. “What are you doing here, Cat Noir? Is there an akuma loose?”
“Not at all. You ask that every time you see me. Is it so hard to believe that I came simply to visit you?”
“Well, I have to be sure. Not many people want to just visit me.” Her shoulders relax just a tad, and she sits on the cool wooden landing with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Taking a seat next to her, Cat Noir deliberates on what to ask her. To soothe himself, he would give her his situation: that of Ladybug’s rejection. But the look of forced bravery on her face changes things. He knows she has suffered from Adrien’s rejection, he knows the guilt he felt from it. It’s one of the reasons he won’t bother Ladybug about her rejection. Because if his Lady is feeling even a fraction of the guilt Adrien feels for Marinette, then he does not want things to be more difficult for her.
He wants nothing but her happiness.
“Princess?”
“Hmm?”
“Is there something bothering you?”
He tries not to feel too guilty when he notices her flinch but the feeling sticks to him anyway. “Kind of.”
“Want to talk about it?” Marinette is more open with her life in comparison to Ladybug, but he’s pretty sure that has more to do with the fact that she has got nothing to hide.
“I don’t know, Cat Noir. It’s late.” Just the thought of Adrien, it seems, makes her want to withdraw and Cat Noir grabs onto her wrist to hold her still. He’s missed her so much. It feels like he never sees her anymore.
“You don’t have school anymore,” he says quickly. The winter break is a blessing, truly. “Stay out with me and talk.” They stare at each other for a while before she concedes with a nod of her head. “So, what is it?”
“It’s a boy.”
“What kind of boy?” he asks, knowing full well what the answer will be. “Do I have worthy competition? Yet another knight vying for your hand?”
“No, he’s not interested in me like that at all. Trust me.”
He wants to tell her that that isn’t true. He knows Adrien- is Adrien- and while Cat Noir could never truly stop loving Ladybug, that didn’t mean a part of him did not also care deeply for Marinette. “You are too lovely not to like, Princess. Too purrfect.”
She tilts her head against the railing. “That’s sweet, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’m just me.”
“Shall I beat him up for you?” It would be hard to beat himself up physically but he’s already been doing it to himself mentally for the last week or so so he figures it can’t hurt to offer.
Turns out, he’s wrong.
“No. It’s not his fault. He loves someone else.”
“He does?” Cat Noir freezes up. As Adrien, he has never mentioned this to Marinette. Marinette could not know how much he cares for Ladybug, could she? Do his true feelings for Ladybug bleed through him even as a civilian?
“Yeah. Ladybug. But then again, everyone does.” She says it with a bitterness he’s never heard before. It sounds wrong in her voice. “Even you.”
“I-” He doesn't know what he can do with that sort of accusation. She’s not wrong, not in the slightest.
Meanwhile, she sighs. “Me and Ladybug...She is the better one.”
“Marinette-”
“Don’t worry about it, Cat Noir.” Her smile feels so forced that Cat Noir’s heart burns a little, hurting far more than before knowing that in some strange way he has made her pain worse, and not just because that smile seems a little too familiar. He wants to reassure her that she is important to him and that someone will love her truly. He loves her, in his own way, as Adrien. His heart is dedicated to Ladybug but a part of him, the most human part, will admire Marinette’s honesty and dream of her warmth when he is alone. He knows, deep down, that Marinette is much more than a friend. But he doesn’t get a chance. He takes too long to think and the next moment, she is gone, hidden away, and his heart breaks for her. He loves her, but she’s not the one he’s in love with.
And all he can think is that if he had but met her first, maybe they would be different.