Archive of Our Own

“Alya, enough!” Marinette huffed, flinging a pillow at her best friend’s head.

“I don’t get it—how can you not ship LadyNoir?  They’re totally adorable!”

“Ladybug has said over and over again that she’s got a thing for a different guy!  Besides, everyone can see that they’re just really good friends, and that they’re both happy with their relationship as it is.”

“But look at this one,” Alya stated definitively while scrolling through her Archive of our Own bookmarks, then thrusting her tablet in Marinette’s face.  “It’s so sweet!”

Marinette read the tags, “LadyNoir smooches, LadyNoir flirting, LadyNoir rooftop snuggles… this is disgusting!”

Alya and Marinette rolled their eyes at each other.  The alarm buzzed on Alya’s phone, signaling the time she needed to leave.  “You get off the hook this time,” Alya teased, snatching back her tablet, “but just you wait.  I will prove to you that LadyNoir is the greatest ship in the entire Ladybug and Chat Noir fandom.”

“And who came up with the lousy LadyNoir name anyway?” Marinette retorted as Alya gathered up her things.  “I’m going to make you eat your words, just you wait Cesaire!”

Alya laughed raucously as she marched through Marinette’s trap door with a wave.  Marinette had only been teasing, but there was a deep-seeded truth to their argument.  As soon as Marinette was certain Alya was out of earshot, she flopped on her chaise and groaned.  “Why does everyone think Chat Noir and I are a couple?  Every single interview, taking photos out of context, and the fanfiction; ugh!” 

Tikki floated by Marinette’s cheek, “Maybe they see something you don’t!”

“Oh, not you too, Tikki!”

Tikki giggled, but then grew more serious, “I think they just don’t have anything to compare it to.  You are secretive about your relationship and your personal lives—”

“With good reason!”

“I know, I know; but they imagine things because they don’t have any idea what it’s really like.”

Marinette thought about that for a second, before sitting bolt upright.  “Oh!  That’s brilliant, Tikki, brilliant!  I could show them!”  Marinette was already loading up her word processor before Tikki started puzzling out what in the world Marinette was talking about.

“Wait, what are you doing?” the red kwami fretted.

“Writing my own fanfiction!  Ha!”

“Don’t you think that’s a little risky?  What if someone figures out that you’re Ladybug?” Tikki fretted from her perch on Marinette’s shoulder. 

Marinette giggled and shook her head, “That’s the beauty of the internet—I can use a pseudonym!” 

Marinette typed for hours.  Tikki tried to talk her out of it, but Marinette could be amazingly stubborn when she felt strongly about something.  Around midnight, Tikki dozed off and woke up with a start as Marinette proudly declared her first fanfiction—a one-shot loosely based on a recent interaction she and Chat Noir had actually had—complete.  Marinette pulled up the Archive of Our Own profile Alya had begged her to make and started filling out the information to post her very first work.  A Case for ChatLady by StrawberryChocolateChip, was soon formatted and edited, and if Marinette’s judgement hadn’t been clouded by the extremely late hour and her fading sugar rush, she might not have pressed post.  But she did.

Marinette accidentally sent Tikki flying when she startled awake a few hours later, “Holy crap did I actually post a fanfiction last night?”

Tikki rubbed her head and yawned, “Yeah, so?”

“Oh my gosh!  I thought that was a dream!  No!”  Marinette fumbled down the steps to her computer and grumbled at how long it took to load up her Ao3 page. “I have to delete it!  What was I thinking?  I’ll be the laughingstock of the school; of the whole city!  And what if my pseudonym isn’t anonymous enough?  What if they find out my identity?  Oh, this is a disaster!”

Tikki sighed.  “I tried to talk you out of it last night—”

At last, the computer loaded.  Marinette’s mouse hovered over her posted work and her jaw slowly fell to her chest.  “Wait,” she said, unbelieving, scrubbing her eyes and looking at the screen more carefully, “I have kudos.  Several of them.  And—” she swallowed hard, “—a comment.  Someone read my story!”

Tikki smirked behind Marinette’s back.  Yeah, that fanfiction wasn’t coming down.  Marinette opened up her inbox and trembled as she read the message out loud to Tikki, “It’s from someone calling themselves MisterPurrfect.  ‘Hey StrawberryChocolateChip, this is a wonderful story. It’s so refreshing to read Ladynoir—I mean ChatLady (love that ship name, by the way, and I’m with you 100% we should rebrand the whole fandom)—that is all about partnership and friendship.  I don’t know how you do it, but it’s amazingly accurate and captures our favorite heroes purr-fectly!  My favorite part was Chat Noir winning the pun battle.  The puns you came up with were off the hook!  I’m totally subscribing to you and hope you write lots in the future.  And if you want to hang out with other cool writers, come check out our Discord server.’  He gives the link.  Oh, Tikki!  He likes my story!”

“How do you know it’s a he?” she asked absently.

Marinette shrugged, “I guess I don’t, other than the ‘Mister’ part of his pseudonym, but wow.  Just… wow.  I didn’t think anyone would read it, not really!  But he likes it, and he says he’s going to subscribe!   Now I’ve got to start brainstorming more ideas!”

Tikki sighed and dug a macaron from Marinette’s purse.  What was one more hobby among Marinette’s hundreds?

StrawberryChocolateChip: I just needed to thank you again for that amazing story, @MisterPurrfect.  It was so perfect, or should I say Purrfect?

MisterPurrfect: Well, Purrfect is what I do best.

MisterPurrfect: I loved your prompt—thank you!

StrawberryChocolateChip: We’re probably the only two ChatLady diehards on the planet.  It’s so nice to have a friend.

MisterPurrfect: Agreed.  Thanks for coining the name!

StrawberryChocolateChip: Thanks for joining me in redesigning the fandom!

StrawberryChocolateChip: So, where’d you get the idea to send the two heroes to Disneyland?  It was brilliant.

MisterPurrfect: I dunno; just wanted to figure out something fun for them to do.  Can’t you just imagine them doing something as simple as going to Disneyland?

StrawberryChocolateChip: I can now, thanks to your writing. 😉

Their conversation continued for a while, discussing Ladybug and Chat Noir’s most recent akuma battles and some of their favorite fanfictions, but in real life, Marinette was freaking out.  They had a month to post their exchange fics for each other, and today was November 1.  Of course, her best friend in fanfiction world would post his half of the exchange on the first day.  She hadn’t even started writing her piece yet.  How would she ever live up to the gift fic he’d already given her? 

In the months since Marinette had posted her first story, her drabble had blossomed into a bona fide hobby, tilting toward obsession.  Every time she posted, she hovered around her computer to see the hits start racking up.  Every morning, she eagerly checked her email and counted the kudos that had come in the day before.  And always, always, his name was among them.  He always left the kindest comments.  It had only been a few days after that first fateful post that she’d joined the Discord server and started sending him direct messages.  At first, they’d been very formal, but soon she was asking him to beta for her, and he was sending her prompts.  It turned out that he was quite the talented writer as well, and Marinette stalked his profile for new stories.  Together, slowly, they’d drummed up a following of other ‘ChatLady’ shippers—their term for the platonic, friendly banter that both of them insisted was Chat Noir and Ladybug’s true nature.  So, when they’d both signed up for the November ChatLady exchange and been assigned each other’s prompts, it felt more like fate, or like gifting to an old friend at least.  At first, Marinette had been so excited to write for MisterPurrfect.  But after reading his prompt, she’d been baffled and nervous and self-conscious.  Her prompt had been so simple—“Give me some great ChatLady fluff with them doing some fun things as friends.”  Easy.  A quick one-shot he could knock out in his sleep.  Why did his need to be so intense?

“Marinette, are you still chatting with him?” Tikki teased from her perch on Marinette’s dress form.

“I’m trying to get more ideas without actually admitting I haven’t written anything yet.”

“You haven’t written anything?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I have until the end of the month… I just… Ugh!  I can’t wrap my head around his prompt!”

“Tell me again what he requested?”

Marinette flopped her forehead into her hand and groaned, “He wants an AU where the boy that Ladybug is in love with is, unbeknownst to either of them, Chat Noir’s alter ego.”

Tikki laughed a little too high and shrill.  “Really?  How odd!”

“I know!  As if, right?  But we’ve always avoided the ‘L’ word.  And absolutely no ChatLady kisses.  I don’t know how I can get through this without one.  I mean, it completely goes against the ChatLady ship!  We’re friends, just friends, and now he’s asking me to write about a complicated romance where Ladybug and Chat Noir are actually in love with each other but don’t know it! Ugh, I don’t even know where to start!”

Tikki pondered Marinette’s prattle for a while, then flew to her chosen’s shoulder.  “Take a deep breath, Marinette.  It’s going to be ok.  Why don’t you work on a different story for a while, maybe go on patrol with Chat Noir, and try to get some inspiration.  Give it a few days, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Marinette sighed, “Ok, I’ll try.” 

Adrien’s phone vibrated once and chimed the tune that could only mean one thing.  “Oh!” he yelped and his fingers smashed the keys of his piano disharmoniously.  Plagg grumbled from the desk where he was perusing Fine Charcuteries of 2020.  “She must have posted!”

“Your obsession with that writer is unhealthy!” Plagg grumbled from his magazine.

“No,” Adrien snipped back, “your obsession with cheese is unhealthy.”  Adrien had been practicing for an hour and a half already; he was certain a fifteen-minute bathroom break would be fine.  He had the newest fanfiction open and devoured it with a dopey grin.  She was incredible!  How did she nail his pattern of speech?  And Ladybug’s adorable responses?  Excellent!  He tapped out a quick comment and left a kudos, then went back to his practicing, feeling lighter and happier than before.  He was already looking forward to when he could get on Discord and discuss her newest piece in detail.

“Do you even know who your mystery writer is?” Plagg grumbled.

Adrien shrugged and picked up the tempo on the sonata he was rehearsing.  “Nope, and it doesn’t matter.  StrawberryChocolateChip writes so realistically.  Nobody else quite manages to capture the nature of our friendship.”

Plagg rolled his eyes, “Friendship?  Is that what you call all that flirting and joking?”

Adrien spared Plagg a quick glare, “Yes, friendship.  And I’ll have you know; I haven’t flirted with Ladybug in ages.”

“Right.” Plagg huffed, “And my favorite food is actually bananas.”

Adrien grumbled beneath his breath and turned to face his snarky kwami.  “Seriously!  Why does nobody believe Ladybug and I are just friends?”  Plagg chuckled and focused his attention on his magazine.  “She gets it.  She writes all these great friend stories.  She doesn’t call us ‘LadyNoir’ and parade us around as a pair of star-crossed lovers.  She acknowledges how great we are as friends and partners.”

“Which I still think is weird,” Plagg muttered.

“Why?  Why should two teenage superheroes acting as friends and partners be weird?”

“Because the only other person in Paris who doesn’t seem to think you two are destined for each other is Ladybug!” Plagg guffawed.  Adrien’s jaw fell to the floor.  Plagg immediately regretted this conversation.  “I mean, I guess plenty of people could be, what does she call it… ChatLady fans?  As if that’s any different.  I just… you know what?  Forget it.”

“Plagg,” Adrien whispered as the wheels in his head churned, “Do you think Strawberry… do you think she is Ladybug?”

“I think you’ve been reading way too much fanfiction.  You’re confusing reality with fantasy.”

Adrien blinked slowly, trying to process everything, and turned back to his piano.  “Maybe,” he whispered to no one in particular.  “Maybe.”  There’s only one way to know for certain.

Chat Noir stretched languidly on the rooftop.  Ladybug picked a piece of leaf from her pigtail and relaxed next to him.  Patrol had gone smoothly and now they had Montparnasse tower to themselves as the sun dipped below the horizon.  Chat knew the opportune moment to ask her had arrived, but he needed to be very careful with how he phrased this.

“So, Ladybug,” he unzipped the front pocket of his costume as his tail twitched with anticipation, “did you know that there’s fanfiction of us out there?”

She giggled, “Yeah, kind of crazy, huh?  Did you ever expect that people would be writing fanfiction about you?”

Chat Noir gulped.  Yes, people had always written stories about him, and taken his photo, and interviewed him for newspaper articles, and plastered his image on every flat surface in the whole city… He tried to turn his choke into a laugh, “It’s pretty purr-posterous, huh!”

She rolled her eyes and slapped his arm playfully.  He loved it when she did that.  “So, you like reading our fanfiction, huh?”

He smirked, “I’ve found a few fur-vorites, yes.”

She sighed, “Don’t tell me.  You just love all the LadyNoir romances!”

“No!” he snapped so quickly that she gasped.

“No?”

“No!” he repeated.  “I mean, I don’t mind the cute stuff, but that’s not us at all.  My favorites are the ones that characterize us more accurately.”

She gnawed her lower lip, “Really.”

“I’ve been thinking recently—"

But Ladybug wasn’t listening to him.  She suddenly burst, “And why LadyNoir?  It’s a lousy ship name!  When we had to swap Miraculouses to fight Reflekdoll, my name was Lady Noire.  That name’s taken, yet they insist on calling us LadyNoir!  I mean, use a little creativity!  A little originality!  Like ChatLady—that’s way cleverer.  And a pun too!”

Chat Noir gawked.  She looked at him expectantly for a second, and he hurried to say something of value, “I agree.  ChatLady.  For sure.”  It was her.  It had to be.  She was StrawberryChocolateChip!  Nobody else used the ship name ChatLady so passionately.  Chat’s heart hammered in his ribcage.  Even though it wasn’t her identity, it was still an intimate piece of her that only he knew. 

“Sorry, I interrupted you,” she said sheepishly, “I just hate the stories where we’re made out to be this made-for-each-other-romantic duo,” she acknowledged.

“Oh, I agree,” Chat nodded enthusiastically, even though he’d just been stricken with a fresh bout of longing.  Ladybug was the mystery author!  She wrote fantastical stories about the two of them, about their partnership and their friendship!  She’d complimented his jokes and his hair and written detailed descriptions of his tail and ears and published them for the whole world to enjoy.  She noticed his hair and tail and ears!  As the last traces of his resolve not to flirt with her any more slipped away, Chat Noir scooted closer, so their shoulders brushed lightly, and he extracted the envelope from his pocket.  “So, I was reading a story the other day, and I know we’re not supposed to use our Miraculouses for personal reasons, but it got me thinking… We should do some fun things together, don’t you think?  Just as friends?  Show all of Paris what our relationship is really like?  And maybe we could cement the ‘ChatLady’ term for good.”  He handed her the envelope and she pulled out the Disneyland tickets. 

“Wait, really?” she whispered as she looked at them.

Her arms flew around his neck.  Chat Noir’s stomach tumbled in elation as he returned the embrace.  “I guess that means yes.”

When she let go, she didn’t move back, so the two of them sat on the top of the tower, huddled together, and planned their masked outing to Disneyland.  But somehow, the conversation kept veering back to fanfiction.

“You know,” he said very carefully, “I’ve been thinking about writing a fic or two myself.”

“You?” she giggled, “Ha!  You’d give yourself away in a heartbeat!”

“I would not!” he scoffed, pressing his hand to his chest. 

“Your puns would be just the perfect level of bad.  The news would spread like wildfire through the fandom—Chat Noir is writing fanfiction of himself!”

He pouted playfully.  “Who knows, maybe it’d be pretty good.  Maybe you’d even like it.”  She laughed and rolled her eyes.  He pressed on, “What about you?  Do you ever write fanfiction?”

She pursed her lips and pointedly turned away, “If I did, you’d never know.”

He chuckled, “I think you grossly underestimate how much fanfiction I read—”

“No,” she deadpanned, “I really don’t.”  He flushed.  Their first conversation ever about fanfiction and she knew him well enough to know that he devoured the stuff every chance he got.  Dang.  He was equally mortified and flattered.  “But I also know how big the fandom is.  Anything I posted would be buried in hours, and even if I did write something, I’d use a clever pseudonym and you’d never know it was me.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” he teased, trying to elicit the same response in her that she’d just conjured up in him.  “I could see you doing it, writing a fantastical LadyNoir romance…”  She rolled her eyes and further cemented his knowledge that she was his favorite ChatLady author. 

“You’re delusional,” she teased back, standing to leave.  He didn’t want her to go, but it was getting late and she probably had fanfiction to write.  She had fanfiction to write!  Yes!  Oh, that wasn’t getting old. 

“Well, I guess I’ll see you on Saturday,” he bowed.  She nodded and smiled, then hesitated with her yo-yo at the ready.

He couldn’t help but press his lips to her knuckles.  He hadn’t done that in months, but like it or not, despite all his careful reassurances, Ladybug still had a vicegrip on his heart. 

Ladybug screamed in delight as their log-shaped boat tipped over the edge of the waterfall and plummeted to the splash pool below.  Chat Noir extended his baton just at the right second and caught a perfect photo of the two of them getting soaked.  She shook the water out of her pigtails, and he laughed as he wiped his face on his sleeve.  As they climbed out of the boat, Chat showed her the viewscreen of his photo.  “Oh, look how cute you are!”

“Cute?  I’m getting a face full of water!” she giggled.

“I don’t care, I’m still posting it.”  She laughed and the two of them sauntered up to a food counter and Chat ordered up a pair of ice creams for them, then he read off his Instagram post as he wrote it, “’Enjoying the day at Disneyland Paris with my best friend!  #ChatLady #Friendsfurever #WhereDreamsReallyDoComeTrue’”

Ladybug chuckled, “Did you really hashtag all that?”

“Of course!  How else are we going to get people to start calling us ChatLady if we don’t spread the word?”

She licked her spoon and nodded, “You’ve got a point there.”  Then, she fluidly pulled out her yo-yo and snapped a picture of him about to take a huge bite of ice cream.  She was smiling sweetly.  “Oh, perfect,” she grinned at the photo.

“Hey,” he said, swiping for her yo-yo, which she pulled out of reach at the last second, “that’s a super unflattering picture of me!”

“Like I said,” she teased, “purrfect.”  She quickly posted on her official Ladybug Instagram, and teasingly read off the caption, “‘Yup, that’s my best friend.  #ChatLady #HisIsLactoseFree #SuperheroesNotSuperModels’”

Chat Noir’s eyebrows lifted slightly as she tapped out the final hashtag, but he didn’t object further to her posting the picture.  He just laughed and led her to the next ride.  “Chat?” Ladybug said softly as they waited in line together.

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for bringing me here today.  This really is fun.”  He smiled softly at her, and before she knew it, a flash of light let her know that he’d snapped another photo.  “Hey, I was trying to be serious!  No fair taking pictures when I’m not ready.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at the view screen of their tender moment, “I’m not sharing this one with Paris.”

And that’s when Marinette got all the inspiration she needed.

Marinette paced her bedroom nervously.  “Maybe he didn’t see it?” she moaned, tugging at her pigtails.  “Though that’s not likely.  He’s said before that he set up his phone with a special ringtone just for my stories, isn’t that sweet?”  Her stomach plunged and she continued her fretting before Tikki could get a word in edgewise.  “No, he saw it.  It’s the last day of the exchange, he would be expecting it.  He… he must hate it.”  She gulped and refreshed her stats screen again.  Nothing from him—not a kudos, not a comment, nothing.  Discord was completely dead.  It had been hours and zilch.  “He hates it,” she cried, flopping down on her chaise and trying to rein in the tears that threatened to fall.

“That’s impossible,” Tikki consoled.  “Your story was fantastic.”

Marinette rolled over and smashed her face into a pillow.  “Then why hasn’t he said anything?”

“Try not to worry.  Everyone has more going on in their lives than just reading new fanfictions.”

“I know,” Marinette moaned, even though she felt that couldn’t be true.  The only possibility was that he’d hated it and couldn’t figure out how to let her down easy.  Ever the masochist, Marinette returned to her computer and pulled up the story she’d gifted to MisterPurrfect and tried to pinpoint what he would have hated most. Maybe it was the fact that she’d developed some original characters?  Well, that was to be expected—she couldn’t use her and Adrien’s actual names for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s civilian identities.  There was no other option but to develop original characters for those two.  Maybe he didn’t like the back story she’d come up with—Chat Noir was Paris’ most famous baker, quite the feat for a sixteen-year-old, and Ladybug was an aspiring model.  She’d included a couple well-disguised scenes from her actual relationship with Adrien.  Of course, when she’d written the story, she had laughed over and over again at the notion that Adrien could be Chat Noir, but envisioning the boy she loved as her goofy partner had given her writing an authenticity that she was really proud of.  Or, at least, she had been proud of it up until this moment. 

But as Marinette scrolled through the pages of her fanfiction, she knew with gnawing dread the scene that had put him off.  She’d done it—she’d broken the unspoken boundary.  She’d written a ChatLady kiss.

Chat Noir had been hurt in battle.  Ladybug saved his life, but not quite fast enough to give him a chance to get away before he detransformed. 

Ladybug’s hands flew to cover her face, but she was a millisecond too slow.  A wave of green light slid over Chat Noir’s features, but it was her knees that went weak and collapsed.  “Ch-Chat Noir?  Alexandre?  Is that really you?” she gasped.

He looked at her and whispered, “You know my name?”

“Of course I do,” she stammered, her heart racing, “You gave me your rain jacket.  You changed my world.  You’ve been the only one I could think about for the last two years.  You’re…” when the moment came, Ladybug couldn’t get her words out any more than Maibelle could without the mask. 

His face softened slowly in understanding, “Maibelle?” 

She nodded, unaware of the tears coursing down her cheeks.  “Tikki,” she whispered, “Spots off.” 

His arms were around her in an instant, “It’s you?  How could I get so lucky as to fall in love with you twice?”

“Twice?” she whispered, still in shock.

He nodded into her hair, “Twice.  You know I’ve always loved you as Ladybug, but finding out you’re also the girl who was always there for me, who’s been my inspiration?  That’s the real love I’ve always wished for.”

“I love you too, Alexandre.  Always have, always will,” she hummed into his chest.  He stepped back slightly, if only to get better access to her face, and leaned in and kissed her—carefully at first, with his hand cupped on her chin, but then growing in intensity as the two communicated everything they never could to each other.  They loved each other, both of them, on both sides of the mask.

That was it.  He was a true ChatLady shipper—friends.  Partners.  Platonic.  Not sappy romance.  Not complicated love squares and pining, bumbling, stuttering Ladybug madly in love with Paris’ sweetheart.  Marinette had misinterpreted MisterPurrfect’s prompt and turned it into this atrocity.  Oh, how could she be so far off the mark?  Was it her own wishful thinking?  The day at Disneyland had been so sweet and perfect.  She’d felt her own heart touched as she and Chat Noir had played the day away.  It had been easy, then, to write the self-insert of her tragic crush on Adrien… too easy, really.  Now, she’d sold out as a romantic and betrayed all her ChatLady fans, with MisterPurrfect the first on that list.  Why had she done it?  Hadn’t she always been the one to proclaim that Ladybug and Chat Noir were perfectly fine as friends?  Hadn’t the point of all this been to rebrand their public relationship to reflect their private one?  Wasn’t she supposed to be moving on from Adrien, not dreaming about him being her partner without his mask?  She banged her head into her pillow over and over again.  She didn’t blame MisterPurrfect for being angry with her.  She’d mangled his prompt and tainted the ChatLady ship forever.  She was no better than Alya, with her incessant LadyNoir—

There was a soft knock.  Marinette scrambled to her feet and looked at her trapdoor.  No, the sound hadn’t come from there.  The knock sounded again above her.  Above her?  Thoroughly confused, Marinette climbed up to her skylight and hesitantly opened it. 

“Marinette?”

“Chat Noir?  What are you doing up here?” she hoisted herself onto her balcony and tried to put on a smile, despite her thoughts still swirling down in the rubble of her catastrophizing session. 

He grinned at her cheekily, “You know,” he said pensively, tapping his chin dramatically, “I have a lot of nicknames.  You do too.  Sometimes I call you Princess, sometimes you call me Silly Kitty.”  He took a step toward her.  “Sometimes I call you Mari, sometimes you call me Hot Stuff—”

“Wait, I never—”

“Sometimes,” he whispered, now so close that his breath was washing over her, and her heart was thrumming madly in her chest, “I call you Bugaboo.”  She gasped, not sure what she was hearing.  Why?  Why right now?  “Sometimes you call me MisterPurrfect.  But my new favorite is calling you StrawberryChocolateChip.”

Marinette couldn’t feel her toes.  She couldn’t feel her face either.  Her mouth refused to work.  “I-I-gugh,” was all she managed.  He’d figured her out.  “How did, I mean, what—”

“You’re a great writer, you know?  I love ChatLady, I really do.  But I told you that my favorite is when authors write us more realistically.  And you’ve got to agree that platonic friendship was always leading to something more.”

She swallowed.  “Chat?” she whispered. 

“Ladybug,” he crooned, coming even closer to her, his hair so achingly soft and his arms so warm and inviting.  “I want to thank you.  You made my fanfiction come true.  That trip to Disneyland?  It was incredible.” 

Marinette nodded, still reeling from everything he was saying.  He knew her identity—not just her Ladybug identity, but her Ao3 pen name as well.  How?  More importantly, what was she going to do now?  All she could do was rock back on her heels and look into those wild green eyes and try to stay conscious.  “It was,” she agreed.  “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He winked, “Nice try, Strawberry.”  She flushed.  “Now, though, it’s my turn to make your fanfiction come true.”

“What?” she asked, her vain attempt to conceal her identity slipping away forever.

“Claws in.”  She screamed as the green light rippled up his body. 

It was… it was him.  It was… it was, “Adrien?” she gasped.

He didn’t play out the conversation she’d written.  He went straight for the ending.  But as her hands slipped into his hair unbidden, and as his lips caressed hers so tenderly, she couldn’t help but muse, “’They loved each other.’”

Adrien pulled back and smiled at her, then winked, “’On both sides of the mask.’”