Work Text:
“So…what exactly is this surprise?” Adrien hummed as they ascended the narrow steps to the third floor of the apartment building in Paris’s fifteenth arrondissement.
“You’ll see when we get there,” Luka chuckled, causing Adrien to stick out his bottom lip in a pout despite the fact that Luka couldn’t see.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” he whined.
Luka held in a snicker, enjoying teasing his crush. “To an apartment.”
Adrien rolled his eyes, assuming a sarcastic tone. “Woooow. Really?”
“Really, really,” Luka affirmed, pretending not to hear the snark in Adrien’s voice as he led the way down the hall to the eighth and final door on the left.
Adrien gave a petulant snort, watching with interest as Luka pulled a key out of his wallet. “…Whom exactly are we visiting?”
He wondered if he should be concerned that Luka was apparently on good enough terms with this person to have unlimited access to their abode.
Luka hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend or girlfriend. Had he maybe just neglected to bring them up because Adrien’s massive crush on Luka was ridiculously obvious, and Luka didn’t want to rub his relationship in Adrien’s face and break Adrien’s heart and get him akumatized?
“No one,” Luka announced, sounding pleased with himself. “This is my place. I’m moving out of the Liberty this week.”
Adrien blinked as the door opened, revealing a small yet homey living space already furnished with mismatched pieces of furniture and band posters papering the walls.
“What do you think?” Luka prompted, closing the door behind them and looking at Adrien eagerly. “I mean, it’s not much, but…”
“I love it,” Adrien breathed, walking around and taking everything in in awe. “It definitely suits you. It’s the embodiment of organized chaos.”
“It wouldn’t be home without a little anarchy,” Luka agreed, motioning for Adrien to follow him into the small kitchen area at the back of the apartment. “But at least here I get to dictate how the spice rack is organized.”
He opened one of the cabinets so that Adrien could see a tiered, wooden spice rack, neatly arranged in alphabetical order.
Adrien burst out laughing. “Your mother would have a heart attack.”
“Shh,” Luka snickered with a playful wink. “Our little secret.”
Adrien mimed zipping his lips.
Next, Luka led Adrien over to the three doors lining the right wall, starting with the one in the middle.
“The bathroom,” he proclaimed like a herald announcing the arrival of lords and ladies at a ball.
It was a little cramped and much longer than it was wide. Adrien could probably stand in the middle and touch both walls, but the black marble tiles were surprisingly stylish, and the facilities looked clean and in good repair.
“Solid,” Adrien appraised. “I like the black and white subway tiles.”
“Should be easy to clean.” Luka nodded, crossing his fingers.
He then moved to the door closest to the front of the apartment. “And this is my humble boudoir.”
Adrien peeked in, seeing that it was just a little bit bigger than Luka’s bedroom on the Liberty had been. There was enough room for a full-size bed, a desk, and a small army of Luka’s various instruments and sound and recording equipment to fit snuggly.
“The closet space is generous,” Adrien noted.
Luka rolled his eyes fondly. “Says the guy with a closet so big he could get lost in it.”
“No, seriously,” Adrien, protested, slapping Luka on the arm. “I know what a normal person’s closet looks like. I can appreciate that this is very decent space for a plebian.”
Luka gave a snort, shaking his head. “Well, I’m glad it meets with your approval.”
“What were you going to do if it didn’t?” Adrien snickered.
Luka shrugged, leaning back against the doorframe. “Cry, maybe? Ask Marinette to help me redecorate?”
Adrien’s eyes narrowed. “Did Marinette know you were moving?”
Luka shook his head. “I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t really told anyone yet besides my family and the bandmates who helped me move all this stuff. This was kind of sudden—like, three days ago sudden.”
“Oh.” Adrien’s muscles untensed as he ascertained that Luka hadn’t been keeping some big secret from him and him alone, so there was no need for him to be jealous of blatant favoritism which clearly didn’t exist. “You don’t usually make quick decisions like that.”
Luka grimaced. “Well, I mean…I can be spontaneous sometimes.”
Adrien arched an eyebrow. “No. Not really. Should I be worried? Are you dying? Having a quarter-life crisis? Did you have a fight with your family? Why are you suddenly moving out like this?”
“I’ve been toying with the idea of getting my own place for a while,” Luka defended. “It just so happened that my friend who was renting this apartment broke up with the boyfriend she was living with three weeks ago, and now she’s moving back to Nice because her grandmother is sick, but her lease isn’t up for another seven months, so she was looking for someone to sublet.”
Adrien nodded in understanding. “So you thought, ‘Why not?’”
“Yep,” Luka confirmed. “It’s a nice place, nice corner apartment with good lighting—better lighting than my cabin. And it’s only a fifteen-minute walk from the Liberty, so I can go home to be with Maman, Juleka, and Rose whenever,” he enumerated his selling points. “I think it’ll be good to get a little more independence…don’t you think?”
Adrien looked away, humming neutrally as he thought of his own living situation.
“…Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah. That’ll be…nice. A good experience.”
He looked to the third door nearest the outer wall of the building. “What’s in there?”
Luka walked over and opened the door, revealing brightly lit empty space. “Nothing right now. My friend and her boyfriend used it as a kind of studio. It’s supposed to be a second bedroom.”
Adrien’s eyebrow slowly quirked into a questioning curve. “Are you going to have a roommate move in with you?”
Luka chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before answering carefully. “I mean, I don’t necessarily need a roommate in order to live here. Things are actually going really well financially. Between my school scholarships and the money I’m bringing in through various gigs, my expenses are covered, so I don’t strictly have to find someone to split costs with or anything.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool. That’s awesome,” Adrien responded encouragingly, relaxing now that the threat of someone living in such close quarters with Luka was no longer looming on the horizon.
“However,” Luka continued, and Adrien’s stomach turned itself inside out in dread.
Luka reached into his wallet and pulled out a second key. “I’d be happy to have your company, if you decide that moving out is something you want to do.”
He held the key out to Adrien who stared at it uncomprehendingly.
“It’s only about a ten-minute walk from the Agreste Mansion,” Luka began to lay out the benefits, hoping to sell Adrien on the idea. “There are Métro stations close by, so your commute to university wouldn’t be bad…and I think it might be good for you to get out on your own a little more, but I would be right here if you needed anything, so it wouldn’t be like totally diving into the unknown headfirst.”
Luka looked at Adrien expectantly, anxiously holding his breath for a response.
Adrien only gawked at him, clearly perplexed.
“So…what are you thinking?” Luka prompted patiently, trying to take Adrien’s metaphorical temperature on the proposal. “Does that sound like a good idea or completely preposterous or…?”
“You’re asking me…if I’ll move in with you?” Adrien tentatively sought to verify, half convinced he’d slipped into a daydream.
Luka nodded, a hopeful smile slowly playing out over his lips. “Thoughts?”
Dozens of images sprinted through Adrien’s head: Luka giving him a welcome home hug, making breakfast together and constantly getting into one another’s space in the tiny kitchen, sharing a bathroom with Luka and “accidentally” seeing Luka in a towel, using the fact that he was at home to run around the apartment half naked in an attempt to get Luka to finally notice how incredibly hot Adrien was, cuddling on the couch and falling asleep like that without ever having to worry about getting home before he was caught…
If they lived together, Adrien could spend his days and nights by Luka’s side without fear of interference. His happiness never had to end.
But then the pessimistic part of Adrien’s brain spoke up, seeking to ruin and spoil: if Adrien lived with Luka, Luka would have friends over sometimes, the friends that Adrien didn’t know well and didn’t have much in common with. Adrien would feel left out, and Luka would see how Adrien didn’t belong and think differently about him.
If Luka and Adrien lived together, Luka would tell Adrien when he was going out on dates. Adrien would know when Luka didn’t come home for the night. Luka would bring the people he was seeing over to their apartment, and Adrien would see them cuddling and making out on the couch where Adrien and Luka cuddled.
It would ruin things, suck all of the meaning and specialness out of them.
Luka would have people spend the night. He might even ask Adrien if it were okay, and Adrien would be forced to smile and lie and pretend to be happy for Luka when he was breaking on the inside.
The scent of Luka’s lovers’ perfumes and colognes would hang in the air even after they had gone, taunting Adrien, leaving him nowhere to escape.
“I think…my father would never allow it,” Adrien muttered, eyes downcast.
Luka misread Adrien’s dejection and reached out to rest a hand on Adrien’s arm, giving his bicep a bolstering squeeze. “Perfect Fifth, you’re nineteen—legally an adult and in charge of your own finances. He can’t stop you, if this is something you really want.”
Adrien bit the inside of his cheek.
Luka’s eyes widened, and his hand dropped away from Adrien’s arm. “I’m not trying to force you, though, if you don’t want to. I just thought…”
Adrien looked up, catching Luka’s hand as he pulled away. “No. I… It’s not that. I do want to live with you.” He averted his eyes again, sighing, “It’s just complicated.”
Luka pressed the spare key into Adrien’s palm and gently curled Adrien’s fingers around it. “Well, in case it gets less complicated…I’d really like to live with you too.”
“Really?” Adrien breathed, heart swelling as, once more, hope surged inside of him.
Luka nodded, the easy smile that Adrien loved curling up the corners of his lips. “Really. You’re my first and only choice for a roommate. The offer stands as long as I live here, so…maybe try bringing it up with your father. See if things aren’t as complicated as you think.”
Adrien started to nod as he began to think that Luka might be right.
The key felt warm in his hand, full of possibilities.
“So.” Luka cleared his throat. “Now that that’s settled, want to kick my butt at video games while we snack on some of the baking experiments Marinette foisted on me yesterday?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” Luka inquired for a third time as Marinette paced out her nervous energy in his cabin on the Liberty.
“No. I’d rather stand, thanks,” she sighed, coming to a stop to pick up the acoustic guitar she’d been borrowing from him to practice on.
“Suit yourself,” he chuckled, taking a seat on his bed and propping his right ankle up on his knee. “I find it easier to play classical guitar sitting, though.”
“I’m too anxious to sit,” Marinette whined, slipping the strap over her head and adjusting the instrument into place.
Luka cocked an eyebrow, placing his hands behind him and shifting his weight back onto them. “Why are you so nervous? It’s literally just me. No one else is home to overhear.”
She stuck her lip out and glared petulantly. “Gee. I don’t know. It’s not like I’m about to confess to the woman I love in less than twenty-four hours or anything.”
“Okay. That’s legit,” he allowed. “But you don’t have to be nervous about playing. You’ve made amazing progress, and Kagami is going to be blown away.”
She bit her lip, nerves abating slightly. “You think?”
Luka nodded encouragingly. “Just the fact that you learned how to play guitar so you could serenade her will mean a lot. She’s going to be really touched.”
“Yeah,” Marinette whispered, blowing out the rest of her jitters in a long breath. “You’re right. I’ll get points just for putting in the effort and being decisive about what I want. Confidence goes a long way with Kagami.”
“Exactly. And you’ve got this.” He gave her a wide grin and a thumbs up.
“I’ve got this,” she repeated, positioning her fingers on the strings and then looking up at him. “Ready?”
“Ready,” he confirmed.
She took another breath and quietly counted herself in.
Calm settled upon her as she closed her eyes and began to sing Aqua Timez’s Sen no Yoru wo Koete, accompanying herself on the guitar.
She had by no means become an expert in the month she had been learning, but she maneuvered her fingers with determination and sang with surety, and her performance was solid.
Luka knew for a fact that Kagami retuned Marinette’s feelings, and, so, he anticipated that that evening’s private concert would be a smashing success.
Marinette finished the song, letting the final chord ring for a moment before placing her hand on the strings to mute the sound. She opened her eyes and stared at Luka expectantly. “Well?”
He sat up straight, uncrossing his legs, and clapped in earnest. “Awesome job, M-M-Marinette.”
She rolled her eyes at the old nickname, slipping the guitar’s strap back over her head and placing it back in its stand.
“No, seriously,” she stressed. “This is important. Tell me what I did wrong.”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I am being serious. You did great.”
She raised an eyebrow in suspicion.
“Okay, you don’t sound like a pro,” he admitted, “but no one would know from hearing you that you’ve only been working on this song for a month. Your performance really was solid, and Kagami is going to be amazed. She’s always really touched when people go out of their way for her, so this is going to mean a lot…provided she can overlook your butchering of the Japanese language.”
“Hey!” Marinette whined, coming over to whack Luka’s arm. “Be nice! My pronunciation is fine; I’ve been working on it with Adrien.”
Luka quirked an eyebrow curiously. “Does he know you’re confessing to Kagami?”
She pursed her lips and looked away, tucking her perpetually stray bang back behind her ear. “I…don’t think so. It’s kind of weird talking about someone’s ex with them, so I don’t really bring Kagami up like that much.”
“I think he’s going to feel hurt that you kept him out of the loop,” Luka hummed softly. “He was kind of mixed up when he was kind-of-sort-of dating Kagami. He liked her, but it was never really serious. It’s nothing like if Nino and Alya broke up and you started dating him. It’s not going to be awkward for Adrien, so I think you should tell him sooner rather than later so that he doesn’t feel like you purposely kept something from him. He really cares about that kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” Marinette sighed, hanging her head. “I know you’re right. I just…” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’ll tell him before tonight. Heck, maybe he’ll even have some tips for me.”
“That’s the spirit,” Luka chuckled and then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, prompted, “…So…tell me about your plans for the night again?”
Marinette immediately perked up and started bouncing around as she described how she was going to decorate her balcony to create a romantic atmosphere and the snacks she was going to make and the dress she was going to wear and the speech she had prepared.
The whole time, she gesticulated wildly with her arms, frequently jumping up and down in her excitement and occasionally giving a spin. During one such spin, she lost her balance and began to tip over.
Luka made the mistake of trying to help.
If she had been left to her own devices, Marinette would have executed some crazy pinwheeling of her arms and managed to right herself like she usually did.
Thanks to Luka’s interference, they both ended up half sprawled in a heap on Luka’s bed, and Luka got Marinette’s elbow in his gut for his trouble.
“Sorry,” he groaned.
“No. That was on me,” she insisted, trying to push herself up off of him, not realizing that some of her hair had gotten trapped under her hand. She gave a yelp as her attempts to rise resulted in a sharp pain in her scalp.
“Here.” He gently tried to help her up, unable to keep in a fond chuckle.
She started to laugh too, shaking her head once she got her hair free. “Sorry. I’m such a mess.”
Just then, the cabin door flew open, making them both give a start.
“Luka!” Chat Noir choked out as he stumbled into the room, eyes wild and tears streaming down his cheeks. “My father is—”
The words died on his lips as his mind processed Marinette and Luka’s position.
The apartment key that Luka had given him dropped to the floor with a clatter and a resounding ring that echoed against the silence of the room.
Marinette blinked at her partner in confusion, trying to comprehend his presence. “Chat Noir?”
A hollow feeling expanded outward from the pit of Luka’s stomach as he realized what Adrien thought he was seeing.
“S-Sorry,” Chat mumbled, reaching to retrieve the key. He gripped it tightly, cradling it to his chest. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
His voice was dull, his eyes downcast, as fresh tears spilled over his mask and down his cheeks as a new wound opened up inside of his chest to match the one his father had just inflicted.
“Sorry,” he repeated, turning to flee.
“Wait!” Luka called after him, hurriedly pushing himself up and nearly knocking Marinette over in the process.
“Sorry,” he called back to her as he nearly tripped over his own legs in his haste. “Emergency.”
“No worries!” she responded, still puzzled and half wondering if she should suit up and follow.
Luka had no delusions of actually catching up to Adrien while he was transformed, but he reasoned that he could at least take note of the direction Chat Noir was headed and attempt to track him down.
He watched as the superhero used his baton to pole-vault himself across the Seine and head south along the Left Bank in the direction of the fifteenth arrondissement.
Luka frowned, remembering the key Adrien had been holding. Could he be heading to the apartment?
He tried calling Adrien as he scrambled to grab his wallet and his helmet, but there was no answer, so he hopped onto his motorcycle and set out for the apartment, keeping an eye on the rooftops for any sign.
The door was unlocked when he got there and slightly ajar.
“Adrien?” he called tentatively, pushing the door the rest of the way open.
“There is no Adrien anymore,” hissed a blue-eyed, completely white version of Chat Noir curled up on the couch.
Luka sucked in a deep breath. “That’s not true,” he disagreed calmly, carefully inching forward.
Chat Blanc arched an eyebrow but remained where he was, as if completely unconcerned with Luka’s advance.
“I’ve been akumatized before,” Luka asserted, “so I know Adrien is still in there. You’re a part of him, not someone else entirely.” He reached out as if to pet Chat Blanc but stopped a hair short, as if waiting for permission, whispering, “I know you. You’re still you, no matter what Papillon has done to you.”
Chat Blanc snorted, pressing his head up into Luka’s palm. “You always say such pretty things.”
Luka almost relaxed a bit as he stroked Chat Blanc’s hair.
But then the akuma’s icy blue eyes turned glacial as they narrowed into a glare. “…Do you say pretty things like that to Marinette too?”
Luka sank onto the couch with a sigh, taking Chat’s face in his hands. “That was not what you thought it was, Adrien.”
“Wasn’t it?” Chat seethed, shoulders hunching and hair standing on end.
Luka shook his head. “Marinette’s heart lies with someone else, and I got over her years ago. She was excited about something, and she was jumping around, telling me about it, when she tripped. I tried to catch her, and we both fell over backwards. You came in at a bad time. If you’d come two minute earlier or two minutes later, we would not be having this conversation.”
Chat Blanc opened his mouth to speak, but a purple butterfly outline lit up around his eyes, cutting him off and visibly stoking his fury.
“Shut up, Father,” Chat spat.
Luka’s jaw dropped.
“Can’t you see I’m a little busy right now?” Chat continued, not seeming to notice Luka’s reaction. He listened as Papillon spoke, his nose scrunching up in outrage as he did so. “…You know what, Father? No. I’m through listening to your orders. I’m tired of you always prioritizing yourself, and I’m sick of my wants and needs always coming last with you. I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I’m putting myself first because somebody has to.”
The butterfly outline disappeared without a fight, and Chat Blanc looked back at Luka as if daring him to say something.
“…Your father…” Luka gulped.
“Is Papillon,” Chat confirmed softly, looking down at his hands in shame. “…I told him I was moving in with you earlier. I just told him. I didn’t ask. I told him that that was what I wanted, so that’s what I was going to do.”
“I gather that he wasn’t happy?” Luka assumed.
Chat shook his head forlornly. “He tried to forbid me from leaving, but I told him what you said. I told him I was legally an adult and in charge of my own finances. He got angry and tried to intimidate me, but I didn’t let him, so then he tried to manipulate me emotionally. He took me to where he’s been keeping Maman’s body on life support, and he asked if I could…”
His voice caught as he choked on another round of tears.
He shook his head, forcing himself to continue. “He asked if I could abandon her. I don’t know what he was thinking. Clearly, he doesn’t know me well, what kind of person I am, because he told me he was Papillon and tried to get me to join him, to help him get the Miraculouses so that he could make a wish to bring Maman back.”
“Oh, Adrien,” Luka breathed, pulling Chat Blanc into his arms and squeezing him tight. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know how to make this right, but… We’re going to figure this out. I’m going to help you through this, and it’s going to be okay.”
Chat shook his head. “I don’t know that it’s ever truly going to be okay again.”
Luka held him closer. “We’ll find some version of okay. Just give it time.”
“I don’t think I have time,” Chat sighed. “…I left a voicemail for Ladybug on my way over to your house, so she knows everything by now…. I don’t know what she’s going to do.”
Luka drew in a sharp breath. “Well…whatever it is, I’m sure it will be a very good plan. It’s going to be okay, Adrien. I’m here for you.”
Chat Blanc pulled away so that he could look Luka full in the face and study his expressions. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
Luka blinked, clearly perplexed. “Why would I be afraid?”
Chat gave an offended snort. “I’m dangerous.”
He grabbed a tissue off of the side table and incinerated it in a burst of blue flame, stressing, “I’m an akuma.”
“You’re not acting much like an akuma,” Luka observed with a shrug. “You’re not terrorizing Paris, hunting down some person or other who’s wronged you. You’re not destroying things in order to get what you want.”
“I don’t need to,” Chat Blanc chuckled darkly. “I have what I want.”
Luka’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“I didn’t have to hunt you down,” Chat explained. “You came to me, so now I’m exactly where I want to be with the person I want to be with, and when Ladybug comes to rescue you, I’m going to take her earrings and wish for us to be together forever so that no one can take you away from me.”
“Oh,” Luka replied, feeling dumb as his stomach started to turn itself into pretzels.
“No one loved poor, gullible Adrien, not even his father,” Chat snickered bitterly. “So now I’m going to make my own little world, and I’m going to make you love me.”
Slowly, Luka began to nod, thinking that now Adrien sounded more like a typical akuma. He hadn’t really seemed to be any different than usual up until that point.
“You actually don’t need to do that,” Luka informed gently, taking Chat Blanc’s face in his hands once more. “Plenty of people love you, Adrien. Nino adores you. Alya, Marinette, Kagami, Chloé, Wayem, Rose, Juleka, Ivan…all of your friends care about you deeply, and they’d be really sad if they knew that you don’t know how much you mean to them.”
Chat Blanc shook his head. “That’s not good enough.”
Luka took a deep breath, hoping that he hadn’t misread the situation and what it implied about Adrien’s feelings for him. “Okay. Well…I love you. Is that good enough?”
Chat continued to shake his head, his eyes narrowing in hurt and betrayal. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do,” Luka whispered, taking a gamble and leaning in to kiss Chat Blanc.
To Luka’s surprise and relief, Chat melted into the contact, whimpering softly as he eagerly moved his lips against Luka’s.
Chat inched forward, maneuvering himself onto Luka’s lap without breaking away so that he could get more leverage and deepen the kiss.
Luka turned his head, cutting it off when things started to get heated.
“Sorry,” he panted, heart hammering in his ears. “I want to go further—I promise you, I do—but I want you to be able to remember it. I want to share everything with you for the rest of our lives, so… It’s bad enough that I’m the only one who will remember our first kiss.”
Chat Blanc sat back on his heels on Luka’s lap and studied him intently. “…You…love me?”
Luka nodded, easily able to meet Chat’s powder blue eyes. “I do.”
“And…” Chat swallowed. “You want to spend your life with me?”
Luka kept nodding, chuckling, “I guess it was confusing that I asked you to move in with me before we were actually dating, but…”
“You never said anything,” Chat pouted, giving Luka’s shoulder a half-hearted whap.
“Neither did you,” Luka accused, but then his gaze softened again. “I didn’t know how you felt about me, and I know that I’m one of the few people you feel truly comfortable confiding in, so I didn’t want to risk making things awkward. I didn’t want to take that safe space away from you just to get my feelings off my chest.”
Chat Blanc gave a snort. “Selfless idiot. You really didn’t know how I felt? I thought I constantly made a fool of myself mooning over you.”
Luka shook his head. “I wasn’t vain enough to think you’d be interested in me.”
“Well, I am,” Chat sighed, slipping off of Luka’s lap and back onto the couch beside him. “…So what are we going to do about this?”
Luka bit his lip. “…What object did the akuma possess?”
Chat Blanc unzipped his left pocket and pulled out the apartment key, holding it up. “I didn’t damage anything besides that tissue, so it’s not like we need Ladybug to fix anything, and I don’t really want to call her and have to explain things. If I break this key, could you get a new copy made?”
“Sure, but what about the akuma?” Luka reminded skeptically. “Doesn’t Ladybug need to purify it?”
“I can Cataclysm it,” Chat assured, somehow knowing that it was true. “I might be a little dazed when the akumatization drops away, so point me in the direction of the akuma when I come to so that it doesn’t get away.”
“I can do that,” Luka answered with a nod. “Ready?”
Chat Blanc took a deep breath and broke the key.
The white of his suit immediately faded away to the usual black, and Luka didn’t get the chance to open his mouth to warn about the akuma before Chat Noir was already Cataclysming it.
Luka blinked. “Wow. Um…are you okay? You don’t seem groggy at all.”
Chat’s gaze dropped to his hands as a furious blush that he hoped his mask hid rose on his cheeks. “I’m okay. I’m actually not… I should check on Plagg,” he interrupted himself in an effort to stall on having to talk about feelings.
Adrien’s transformation dropped, and Plagg materialized circling around Adrien’s head.
“Are you okay?” Adrien inquired anxiously as his kwami alighted in his palm.
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” Plagg responded gravely, deep trenches forming in his brow. “How are you feeling?”
Adrien winced. “Like the world is ending?”
Luka wrapped a protective arm around Adrien’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to work with Ladybug and figure things out. It’s…probably going to be rough for a while, but you’re not alone, Adrien. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“What he said,” Plagg seconded, flying up to give Adrien’s cheek a nuzzle.
“…Yeah,” Adrien breathed, relaxing back against Luka. “I’m…going to be all right…eventually.”
“Good,” Plagg sighed. “…Well. If that’s all taken care of, I want no part in the mushy stuff,” the little chaos deity snorted, “so I’ll be in the fridge eating you out of cheese. Have fun licking each other’s tonsils.”
And, with that, he flew off to make good on his word.
Luka awkwardly cleared his throat and retracted his arm from around Adrien. “So… Um… Do you…?”
“I actually remember all of it,” Adrien admitted, cheeks flaring up once more. He braced himself. “Sorry. About going all psycho on you. I didn’t mean—well, I guess I did—but I didn’t really mean—”
“—Adrien,” Luka cut him off gently, taking Adrien’s face in his hands and slowly leaning in for a kiss.
Again, Adrien easily melted into the exchange, but Luka broke things off before they could really catch fire.
Adrien gave a little whine of protest.
Luka laughed, lovingly ruffling Adrien’s hair. “Sorry. There will be time for that later, but, for now, I want to resolve all doubts that I am madly in love with you and want to be your boyfriend, your husband, and the co-father of your children.”
“Oh,” Adrien replied breathlessly, tears of overwhelming joy beginning to bead at the corners of his eyes.
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “I love you and want those things too.”
“Good,” Luka whispered. “It sounds like we’re on the same page.”
Adrien caught his bottom lip between his teeth and worried at it nervously. “I’m kind of scared to believe that this is actually happening.”
“Don’t be scared,” Luka coaxed, reaching up to stroke Adrien’s hair and face reassuringly. “You of all people deserve happiness. Don’t be afraid to accept good things.”
“We’re not going too fast, are we?” Adrien voiced his concern. “I don’t want to blink and realize it’s already over.”
Luka shook his head. “We don’t have to dive in headfirst. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about getting married and having children when we haven’t even gone on our first date yet. It’s just that that’s how strong my feelings are for you,” he explained, sheepishly, his own cheeks beginning to glow.
“We can take it slow and savor things,” he promised. “I want to savor things with you. We can start off by being roommates who hold hands and snuggle and go on dates and occasionally make out, and then we can see how it goes from there. I want this to last, so…”
He gave Adrien a shy, smitten smile.
Adrien started to return it, but then another worry floated to the forefront of his mind. “Are you really sure that you want—”
“—Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Plagg groaned, poking his head out of the refrigerator door. “Stop worrying about the logistics. You can sweat the details later. The guy you’ve been crazy about for years is literally throwing himself at you. Kiss him already!”
Adrien considered his kwami’s advice for a moment and reasoned that even when Plagg had steered him wrong in the past, he’d always had the time of his life along the way.
With a wicked grin, Adrien pushed Luka down on the couch and released his inhibitions.
The
End