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Adrien sighed as he fell into his desk chair. What a day. He’d sent the video to his friends to thank them for their kind thoughts. He’d apologized to Plagg and the kwami had subsequently locked himself in his cheese cabinet. His father was in his study, as per usual. Everything was back to normal.
He laid his cheek on the desk and wiggled his mouse to dispel his screensaver so he could see the picture of his mom on his desktop. Normal. Or at least what had been normal for the past year. He sat back up to look over the picture, trying to find the similarities between him and his mom. Ladybug had told him once that he had his mom’s eyes. He touched his fingertips to the screen.
The fact that his friends had wanted to cheer him up was a small pinprick of light in the day. And the akuma battle and getting to see Ladybug was at least a distraction. Still. He wished he could’ve seen the messages they had tried sending.
He sighed and let his fingers slide down the screen. Missing. It was worse somehow than if she had died. There was always the lingering hope that maybe someday. Someday she’d miraculously return. He knew his father still held onto that hope. It was hard not to. They couldn’t even have a proper funeral; his father had put up the statue in the garden and said they mustn’t forget her. In a way, he was jealous of Félix. At least he knew for sure his father was gone.
Now that he was alone, he laid his forehead on the cool metal of his desk and let the tears he’d been holding start to seep down his cheeks.
There was a soft knock on his window. His ears perked at the sound, but he didn’t think it would be what he hoped it was. It was probably just a stray pigeon tapping against the glass. But when the knock was repeated, louder and more insistent, he raised his eyes to look.
Ladybug was hanging from her yoyo secured somewhere on the roof. She waved when she caught his eye. He scrambled off his desk chair to the window he always kept open. She swung over easily and perched on the ledge.
“Ladybug? What are you doing here? Is there an akuma?”
“Well, no…” she started cautiously, “but your friends… um, they asked me to check on you. In case.”
Her eyes scanned over his face and she reached out to touch a gloved hand to his cheek, but she pulled away at the last second, blushing shyly.
He touched his own fingers to his cheek and they came away wet. He wiped his tears away with the heel of his hand hurriedly. That seemed to settle her resolve and she stepped down from the ledge to be next to him.
“That boy today that looked like you. He was your cousin?” she asked after a pause.
“Félix. Yeah.” Adrien grimaced.
She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s awful, what he did. Your friends told me about their videos.”
He couldn’t agree with her that it was awful. Félix was grieving. It wasn’t his fault he was acting out. “I would’ve really liked to see them,” he said instead. “Especially Marinette’s.”
Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “M-Marinette’s? Why?”
He waved her over to sit on the couch instead of standing by the window, but she seemed embarrassed for some reason. He sat anyway. “She always seems a bit uncomfortable around me. But she’s the nicest person I know. I’m sure whatever she said would’ve been amazing.”
For some reason, Ladybug blushed a deep crimson. She stepped into his room and started looking around curiously, but it seemed like it was a distraction of some sort. A way to turn away from him to get her bearings back.
“This place is huge,” she said with a touch of wonder. “I bet you could make the best pillow forts with all this space.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve—I mean, I’ve never really tried.”
“You’ve never…?” She turned back to look at him incredulously.
Another shrug and he looked away. He didn’t really want to explain that Chloé had been his closest childhood friend and she’d been more interested in playing house or dress up at the hotel.
A pillow hit the side of his head and slumped to his side. Ladybug was grinning by his bed, having lobbed one of his pillows at him like a softball. He hadn’t even heard her move.
“Let’s make a pillow fort! It’ll be great.”
“I don’t… I mean… don’t you have superhero things to do?” He blushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Ladybug was in his room offering to spend time with him and he was trying to shoo her out the window?
She waved her hand at him dismissively, but she was still smiling. “Pillow fort first, superhero things later. Now. We need materials.” She scanned his room like she would for her Lucky Charm, her eyes flicking from point to point before they settled on him again. “Couch cushions.” She pointed and he stood to follow her direction.
“Um... are those the only pillows and blankets you have? On your bed?” Underneath her authority there was a shy hesitance to her question.
“I’m sure I have some more stashed away somewhere around here.”
“Do you mind if I look?”
His eyes were on his task as he disassembled the couch, but he hummed his assent. He heard her opening cabinets and bolted upright, remembering at the last second to tell her that there was one she shouldn’t-
And that was the one she was holding open. Plagg’s cheese cabinet. He could almost picture Plagg’s sheepish grin as he was discovered. Ladybug’s bluebell eyes met Adrien’s, shocked.
He froze in place and held his breath as he waited. Maybe Plagg had had enough sense to phase into the cabinet. Maybe she just thought he was a cheese hoarder. He winced. That wasn’t much better.
Whether she had or hadn’t found a little black cat kwami gorging himself on smelly cheese, she shut the cabinet doors resolutely and sat back on her heels. She opened her mouth once, then closed it again. She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought and her nose wrinkled adorably. When her eyes met his again, they were cautious—hesitant, even.
“Adrien?”
He swallowed thickly. “Yes?”
She let her breath out as she seemed to come to a conclusion or a decision, he couldn’t tell which.
“I can’t find any other blankets.”
“That’s okay.” He let out a nervous chuckle and started putting the couch cushions back. “It’s not a big deal.”
She huffed and stood. “I said we’re making a pillow fort. We’re making a pillow fort.” She tapped her foot impatiently as she looked around again.
“Hang on. I’ve got it.” She ran over to the window and paused as she pulled her yoyo off her hip. “I’ll be back, okay?”
He couldn’t help the dreamy grin that spread across his face as he nodded. Her answering blush pinked her cheeks before she slung her yoyo out the window and was gone.
She came back about an hour later. He had started practicing his piano, more out of force of habit and to dispel his nervous energy than anything else. He heard her light step as she came in, but kept playing to try to focus. Did she know? Did she suspect? She’d at least seen the pile of cheese, right? Ladybug was smart; that might be enough for her to connect the dots. He missed a few notes while he was preoccupied and stopped abruptly.
Ladybug had crept up to the piano to watch. When he turned to face her, she blushed as red as her suit.
“That was really pretty, what you were playing?”
“Thanks.” His hand found the nape of his neck and he rubbed at it self-consciously. “It was my mom’s favorite.”
She didn’t answer, but she offered him her hand. “I have a surprise for you.”
He accepted her hand and stood up. She blushed before she tugged him over to the window and then he was pressed close to her side. His hand fell around her waist on instinct as she slung her yoyo and zipped away.
She dropped to what seemed like a random rooftop and led the way over to an alcove that was hidden by one blanket draped across the entrance and another over the top. She pulled the blanket aside and showed him the mound of pillows waiting to be jumped into. She had also strung colored lights inside, which cast a warm glow over everything. He ducked under her arm to sit down and she followed, dropping the blanket behind her and cutting out the world.
She was painfully close when she sat, and he couldn’t tell if it was just a really warm night or if he’d started blushing. She reached around him and pulled out a thermos she’d set aside and two mugs.
“It’s more fun to make them together,” she explained quietly, “but I had to get some of this stuff… well… you know. Secret identity and all that.” She handed him a steaming mug of what smelled like hot chocolate. He glanced around again. The lights he recognized from Marinette’s balcony, and the cat pillow they were leaning back against was hers, too.
With a sideways glance at Ladybug, he decided not to ruin her surprise. It was maybe a conversation for another time.
He sipped his hot chocolate carefully. She leaned back into the pillow and tapped at her yoyo screen until quiet music filled their little space.
“I thought to get a projector up here, and we could watch a movie, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting too long.”
He held the mug between his hands and Marinette’s warmth was emanating from it. The entire space smelled like her, like the bakery, like warm sugar. He smiled even as tears started to slip down his cheeks again. “Next time, maybe.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his thumbs. “Thank you, Ladybug. This is... “ he looked around, smiling like an idiot. “This is amazing.”