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Adrien was sick. He never got sick easy but he was sicker than a dog today. His temperature was through the roof and the only medicine in the house was a bottle of Nyquil.
“Sounds like an easy day in.” Plagg said. “Chug it down and let’s get back to bed.”
Adrien shook his head. “I wanna go to school.”
“School?” Plagg rested on top of his head, “Kid, do you really want to attempt class today?”
“I have already missed normal human interaction for the first fifteen years of my life. I am not missing another day!” Adrien chugged down the Nyquil. “Let’s go!”
Despite Plagg’s protests to stay inside Adrien collected his bag and headed to school. He was doing well up until he stepped inside and the medicine really started kicking in. Right...the medicine wasn’t the non-drowsy kind.
“Hey dude,” Nino clapped him on the back to which Adrien almost fell face first into floor. “Dang, what’s wrong with you?”
“Fever. Medicine. Sleepy. Not missing class.” Adrien rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Got any coffee?”
“I have this.” Nino pulled out an energy drink from his bag. “You can have it if you really want it but I think you should just go home.”
“No, I’m fine. Hand it over.” Adrien took the drink and walked with Nino into class.
In the blink of an eye Adrien was no longer in class but back home in his room holding a half empty cup of boba. “What the...” Adrien looked around. “How did I...”
The sun was further down in the sky so it must be later. Oh god, where did he put his phone? On his desk was a new fencing trophy he didn’t remember earning. Hanging off the trophy’s miniature epee was the lucky charm Marinette had lent him.
This was strange. He checked the clock on his computer and was surprised to see that it was five in the evening. What had happened all day? He couldn’t remember a thing.
The sound of his phone ringing with a notification caught his attention. He rummaged around in his bag and pulled it out. The background on his phone had changed too. Instead of the picture of him and Nino it was him in his fencing uniform holding a trophy in one hand and his other arm wrapped around Marinette who was kissing his cheek.
Okay. What the heck happened today?
He went to his contacts and hit Nino’s number. Hopefully he could shed some light on this situation.
“Hey bro, what’s up?” Nino shouted over the roar of a crowd in the background, “You change your mind and want to come out to the party?”
“Party?” Adrien asked. “What party?”
“Well I guess it is turning more into a festival. I know Marinette said you should go home and rest but you sound a lot better. We’re currently out under the Eiffel Tower if you wanna stop by.”
“What festival? What’s going on?” Adrien couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying. He was fairly certain there wasn’t any parties or holidays today.
“Sorry dude, I can’t hear you.” Nino shouted over the noise, “Eiffel Tower! Come out! Have some fun!”
He hung up and Adrien was back at square one but with even more questions. Maybe there were some clues in his phone. He checked his pictures and saw that there were more pictures he had taken today. The picture he had set as his background was there. There was a group shot with the guys who held Adrien up on their shoulders. Those were taken around four.
Adrien checked his calendar and saw that he did have a fencing tournament today at three. So that’s where he must have been for that hour. And he ended up placing first while zonked out on cold medicine. Adrien wasn’t sure what to make of that. Either his opponents weren’t that great or he is just an amazing fencer when he’s blacked out. Neither sat right with him.
That’s still leaves the seven hours from school and the hour between when he won the tournament and when he got home. Wait! Plagg! Plagg was by his side the entire time! He’d know!
“Plagg!” Adrien called, “Plagg! Where are you?”
“Ugh, you said I could relax.” Plagg’s voice came from the cheese cabinet. Adrien opened it and saw Plagg nesting atop a large wheel of camembert. “Haven’t we done enough today?”
“Plagg, I don’t remember what happened today. You have to fill me in.”
“Seriously?” PLagg laughed, “You don’t remember a thing?”
“No! And it’s creeping me out!” Adrien pulled him out of the cabinet. “Please tell me what I did.”
“Well I don’t really know.”
“How do you not know? You hide in my bag all day!”
“I sleep in your bag all day. I only woke up for the akuma.”
“Akuma? When was there an akuma?”
“A bunch of akumas. We had another Scarlet Akuma pandemic going on before you ran off to go fencing. You and Ladybug were really struggling for a while there until your doppelgangers showed up. Something happened after the akumas got purified but I was tired and bored at that point and stopped paying attention.”
“No! Plagg, I need to know what happened! And what do you mean by doppelgangers?”
“Oh right, bunny girl brought future you and Ladybug back in time to help with the akumas.”
“My future self! Future Ladybug?!” Adrien was going to throw himself off a building. He had completely missed meeting his future self and seeing what Ladybug looked like grown up. She could have only gotten more beautiful.
“Yeah, it was trippy.” Plagg said. “That’s all I remember though. After you transformed back you had to go to fencing and I stayed in your locker resting.”
“So you don’t know anything else? Not even about this?” Adrien showed him the picture of Marinette kissing him.
“Awe, finally got that girlfriend of yours I see. But no. No idea.”
“You’re awfully helpful.” Adrien sighed. He needed answers. He wasn’t gonna be able to focus until he filled in the blanks from today. He got online and started combing through the footage from the akuma attack. Plagg wasn’t kidding. This was the most akumas Adrien had ever seen. It looked as if half of Paris had been infected.
Him, Ladybug, and some of the other heroes were fighting against them but losing ground fast. A shining portal opened up and...holy crap. It really was his future self walking alongside a grown up Ladybug. Bunnix also joined them. The footage sped by as the heroes, future and present fought side by side. Adrien had always thought that he and Ladybug were a well oiled machine but seeing their future counterparts fight made them look like fish flopping on a deck. It was as if they were thinking about each other’s moves five steps ahead.
There was an eruption of white butterflies as the akumas were purified. The people cheered. Future Chat grabbed Future Ladybug and spun her in the air in victory. And then...oh…present Ladybug grabbed present Chat and kissed him. Seriously?! Another kiss he couldn’t remember!
“PLAGG!” Adrien shouted, “YOU SAID NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED!”
“Nothing did!” Plagg shouted back.
“LADYBUG KISSED ME! THAT’S NOT NOTHING TO ME!”
“How is this any different then the other times she kissed you and you forgot?”
“Y’know what--!”
“Can’t hear you. Napping.” Plagg started snoring loudly.
Adrien sighed. He turned his attention back to the screen.
There was only more cheering as the two kissed. Wait. So he kissed Ladybug and Ladybug kissed him back and they both remember so why had Marinette been kissing him in his fencing picture? Once again, more questions.
The future miraculous holders went back through the portal. His present self and Ladybug waved to the crowd then vaulted out of frame. According to the akuma report online that was from 12:40 to 2:55. Another two hours accounted for. Yet it was the minutes in between that seemed to hold all the answers.
Adrien grabbed his school bag and dumped it out looking for more answers. There had to be something else. All of it looked pretty normal. Books, homework assignments, a couple empty containers of camembert, and a few loose papers. He picked up one and saw it was an excerpt of a script. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? What was this doing in his bag? They were supposed to start their Shakespeare period in literature class so it wasn’t so out of place.
The assignment was to recreate a scene from one of Shakespeare’s plays. At the top of the page was Adrien’s name as well as Marinette’s. He guessed they must have gotten partnered up. Maybe he should try calling her to figure out what was going on.
He picked up his phone and searched for Marinette’s contact, her name in his phone had been changed to Girlfriend with a bunch of sparkly hearts around it. So apparently she was his girlfriend now, according to his phone at least. He called her but the call went to voicemail. Okay, maybe Alya knows. He called her next and was relieved when she answered.
“Hey lover boy!” Alya was shouting over the same crowd as Nino had been, “Nino said you called. Feeling better already?”
“Alya, you have to tell me what I did today.”
“What?”
“What did I do while I was at school? I can’t remember.”
“How do you not remember?”
“I was zonked out on cold medicine! I don’t even know how I got home let alone how I won a fencing trophy and got a girlfriend in the past few hours.”
“Wow. Just...wow. I knew you were kinda loopy today but I figured you’d remember confessing to Marinette. Girl was over the moon.”
The memories tickled right in the back of Adrien’s brain but he just couldn’t get to them. They had been washed away in a tidal wave of medicine and energy drink. He needed answers. He needed to talk to Marinette. “Are you all still by the Eiffel Tower?” Adrien asked.
“Yeah, you coming out?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there in a few.” Adrien hung up and grabbed his coat. He felt much better physically than he had that morning which was nice. The walk to the Eiffel Tower gave him plenty of time to think about what it was he was missing. There was a significant piece of the puzzle missing, the one piece that would make the rest of the day make sense. If only he could figure out what it was!
He found his friends and everyone cheered when they saw him and pulled him into their circle. Standing with Alya was Marinette. Face alight with a smile and laughing. She turned when she felt Adrien’s eyes on her and her smile grew.
“Hey, I thought I told you to go home and rest. Or was it that you didn’t want to miss out on all the fun?” She grabbed his hands, “I suppose I’ll let it go this time seeing as how today was very taxing and we could do with some fun after that Scarlet Moth fiasco.”
“Yeah, about that,” Adrien said, “Can we talk somewhere a little quieter?”
“Sure,” She pulled on his hands as she led him away from the group. Their classmates whistled and teased as the couple left. When they were far enough away from the noise and people Marinette spoke to him, “What is it you want to talk about?”
“Right um…” Adrien felt heat climbing up his neck, “So I was kinda really sick this morning and I took a bunch of drowsy cold-medicine that I tried to counteract with an energy drink and now I don’t remember anything that happened today. Nothing whatsoever.”
Marinette stared at him, her wide, unblinking baby blue eyes piercing through his skull. “Are you joking?”
“No. I swear I am not. I’ve put together some of what happened but there are some things that I don’t understand like how um, you know, how you and I…” He looked down at his feet, mortified that he had to have this conversation with her. He felt like he was breaking her heart or something.
“You dumb kitty.” Marinette bonked the top of his head, “That explains a lot actually. I’ve always known you to be kinda spacey but today was something else. How is it that when you’re out of it you can still function as a human being?”
“Marinette?” Adrien looked up at her, “What did you call me?”
Marinette sighed and motioned for him to sit down on the bench. “Alright, so this morning when class started…”
*Earlier that day*
“Did that help at all?” Nino asked Adrien as they sat down for class.
“I guess we’ll see,” Adrien almost missed his seat when he went to sit down, “So far it is a rousing success!”
“I really think you should just go home, dude.” Nino shook his head. “I think the caffeine just made this worse.”
“Nah!” Adrien corrected himself and slid himself into his seat, “I am fine! Look how fine I am! I am super fine!”
“Sure are.” Nino snickered, he couldn’t help it. His best friend was essentially high as a kite right now.
Everyone took their seats as Ms. Bustier began the lesson. “For this unit we will be focusing on William Shakespeare. I figured we’d start off with something fun so I want everyone to get into pairs or small groups and perform a scene from any Shakespeare play you would like. Group up and figure out what you’re performing in class today. Go over your lines and we’ll do the actual performances tomorrow. Try not to do really long ones. Have fun!”
Immediately everyone around the room started pairing off. “Hey Adrien,” Alya grabbed his attention, “How’s about you and Marinette team up? You would make a wonderful Romeo and Juliet.”
“But I wanted us to do Romeo and Juliet, babe.” Nino pouted.
“That’s fine, Alya. You two can have Romeo and Juliet.” Marinette told her, her face tinted a cute pink. “Adrien and I can do something else.”
“Hernia!” Adrien shouted, “You can be Hernia and I’ll be Lightsaber!”
“What?” The other three teenagers stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You know, that play, the one with the donkey head?” Adrien mimicked large donkey ears on his head.
“Oh! I got it!” Marinette said, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You want us to be Hermia and Lysander.”
“Yeah! Those two!” Adrien nodded, “Hernia and Lightsaber.”
“Adrien, sweetie,” Alya looked at him with an amused smile, “Their names are Hermia and Lysander. Not Hernia and Lightsaber.”
“Got it. Got it.” Adrien continued nodding so hard he looked like a bobblehead. “We can be them.”
“Alright, I’ll find us a scene to do.” Marinette started looking for a good scene. They eventually agreed to do the opening scene when Hermia and Lysander plan to runaway together. Marinette was being super giggly through the reading which made Adrien start laughing which made her giggle more until they were in a perpetual loop of laughter.
When class ended everyone got up to move onto the next class. Nino and Alya went on ahead leaving Marinette and Adrien alone still chuckling over their inability to be serious during their scene.
“It may be the fact that I was laughing through the whole thing but I have to confess that I have no idea what Lysander was saying.” Adrien squinted at the text before shoving it in his bag. “Did you?”
“It’s pretty simple actually,” Marinette said, “The couple are lamenting that none of Hermia’s choices that she was given from Theseus let her be with Lysander. Lysander though figures that they don’t have to follow their rules and talks Hermia into leaving Athens with him and getting married where the Athenian laws don’t apply.”
“I wish I could do that.” Adrien sighed.
“Do what?”
“Runaway with the love of my life. I have this whole plan with an island and a hamster but I know you’d never go with me.” He slumped, looking utterly defeated. “Why don’t you wanna go with me?”
“Love--love--love--love of your what? Runaway? Me and you? To an island? With hamsters!” Marinette was stammering as she tried to piece together what it was Adrien had just confessed to her. Was this really happening?
“Oh wait,” Adrien frowned, “I meant my lady.”
“Huh?”
“Ladybug is so pretty…” Adrien murmured dreamily, “She’s so awesome but she only sees me as a tomcat which--just--boo! I love her! Why doesn’t she see that? My spotty lady! Buggy boo! I love her spots and her eyes and her pigtails…”
His green eyes turned to Marinette and batted a hand against Marinette’s hair. “Just like your pigtails.” He muttered, “You remind me a lot of Ladybug. You can be my Maribug!”
Tomcat? In love with Ladybug? No...there was no way. Surely someone like Adrien couldn’t also be her dorky partner in crime fighting.
“Hey Adrien,” Marinette smiled nervously, “Why do you think that Ladybug thinks you’re a tomcat?”
“Because I am a cat!” He stated proudly. Then his expression soured. “Or as Ladybug says, I’m a bad kitty that needs to stop flirting with her cause they’re working and she likes someone else. It’s sad that she likes someone else. I wish she could like me…”
Yep. Definitely Chat Noir. Although Marinette had never called him a bad kitty before. Chastised him for flirting an inappropriate moments? Yes. But she never berated him. She’d have to have a talk to him later as Ladybug.
WAIT! Chat Noir is Adrien! Adrien is Chat Noir! The love of her life is also her partner! Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy! Crap! Calm down, Marinette! More important things to focus on right now!
She looked over at Adrien who was still pouting like a sad little kitten. She put an arm around his shoulders. “Well I got some good news for you, kitty. I know who Ladybug is really in love with.”
“Really?!” Adrien looked at her with stars in her eyes, “Who? I’m gonna whoop their butt if they mistreat her!”
“Ladybug has a crush on Adrien Agreste.”
“Boo! He sucks!”
“Dummy, Adrien is you. Ladybug likes you.”
“Oh...SHE DOES?!” He nearly screamed and Marinette clamped a hand over his mouth. He moved his head away from her, gaping at the information. “How do you know that?”
“Because that’s who I have a crush on.” Marinette’s cheeks felt entirely too warm. When she looked at Adrien there was absolutely nothing going on behind those big green eyes of his.
“Adrien?” She waved a hand in front of his face? “Goodness, you silly kitty, you are really out of it, huh? Give it a moment. It’ll come to you.”
Marinette started counting in her head. She got to one hundred and seventeen before Adrien finally perked up like a meerkat. “Ladybug?!” He pointed at her.
“There it is.” She ruffled his hair, “I’m guessing you’re happy?”
“I--I--”
BANG!
*Present*
“Then that’s when Scarlet Moth and all the other akumas hit and we went to got fight them. Our future selves showed up to help kick some butt. We kissed. Then we went back to school so you could get to your fencing tournament. You won. You looked pretty tired so I walked you home after but you insisted we stop for boba first so we kinda went on an impromptu boba date. Got you home then I came out to celebrate with everyone about today’s akuma win.” Marinette finished, “Did that fill you in well enough?”
“So you are…”
“Yep.”
“And you like me?”
“Also yep.”
“And I somehow managed to do all this while disassociating to the point of amnesia?”
“Apparently so.”
“I am never mixing Nyquil and Red Bull again.”
“Turned out okay in the end though, right?” Marinette flashed him a bright smile.
As all the information settled within him Adrien smiled back and kissed her. She squeaked for a second not expecting it but eagerly kissed him back. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She giggled. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, kitty, let’s go have some fun.”
*The next day*
“Hey bugaboo,” Adrien entered her room holding a hot cup of tea, “Sorry for getting you sick. Probably wasn’t a good idea to have kissed you so many times while I had a cold.”
Marinette blew her nose. “Worth it.”