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Chapter Text

Of all the things - or rather people - Marinette Dupain-Cheng (hero name: Ladybug) expected to see on the private island in the middle of Paris the most recent akuma (villain name: Lady Love) had created for her and Ladybug specifically, Adrien Agreste (civilian name: Adrien Agreste) had not been one of them. Chat Noir (civilian name: not Chat Noir) maybe, but not Adrien Agreste.

They stare at each other. 

Adrien has a hand pressed against his chest, as if in surprise, his palm pushing down on the fabric of his jean jacket. Marinette, who is acting as Ladybug at this point in time, is peeking out from behind a marble column of the grand mansion on the previously mentioned private island. Somewhere in the distance, Lady Love (civilian name: Bella something) is calling out for Ladybug.

In Marinette’s head, a long chorus of previously fantasized fantasies about living alone, on a private island, with Adrien Agreste, whom she knows as a civilian and is friends with and also wanted to marry at some point in the future if the absurd possibility of him ever liking her back happened, sounds. Trumpets and cherubs included.

Marinette does not know what is happening in Adrien’s head, but he clears his throat and smooths down the lapels of his jacket. “Um, hi,” he says.

“How did you get here?” Marinette asks, way harsher than she meant to. Adrien winces. She winces back. “I mean. The akuma- Lady Love, she made the island just for us. No one else is supposed to be here.” That sounded like she liked being on a private island with Lady Love. Bella was nice and all, but not as an akuma, and not while Marinette was a superhero and in love with Adrien Agreste. “I mean,” she says, just to be clear, “not that I, like, want, to be here, I just meant. Lady Love pushed everyone out of the area before the island. Uh. Came up from the ground.”

“Yeah,” Adrien says. “I hung on.”

“You what?” Marinette nearly shrieks. The island was about a thousand feet from ground level. “You could’ve died.” 

Adrien smiles, gives her a shrug. “But I didn’t?”

“Don’t ever do that again,” Marinette says, maybe a little too emphatically, and Adrien looks at her, his expression quiet. His cheeks, Marinette notices, are a little red.

“But I wanted to save you,” he says.

Marinette splutters. Her brain goes to war with itself, trying to decide if that’s sweet or super dangerous. “But I’m the superhero! I want to save you!” she says, the ‘super dangerous’ side winning over.

Lady Love’s voice grows louder. They both look to the doorway of the mansion. Adrien looks back to Marinette, a crooked sort of smile sliding onto his face.

“So are you going to save me, Ladybug?” he asks, and Marinette wants to kiss him so bad it’s making her stupid. 

“Yes,” she says, trying to act cool. Her mind provides her with a plan, or a fantasy that could be considered a plan. She feels her cheeks grow hot. “And I know just how to do it.”

Chapter Text

When Adrien saw the island erupting from the middle of Paris’ business district and ran to it, grabbing onto the edge with no plan and no thoughts in his head other than the fact that this was Weird and Weird things were normally Akuma things (and in turn Akuma things meant Ladybug things), he’d expected to transform into Chat Noir, maybe share a joke with Ladybug. He had not expected to be sitting on a luxury bed in an akuma-made mansion as just regular Adrien Agreste, Ladybug sitting beside him with her hand warm on the back of his neck.

Her careful eyes watch the cracked door, and they hear Lady Love growing closer. Her eyes slide back to him. His breath catches in his throat.

“You’re sure you’re alright with this?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowing in concern, and he nods so eagerly he’s actually quite embarrassed with himself. But she just smiles. 

“Ladybug? Are you in there?” Lady Love calls, and Adrien can see her hand reach out to push open the door.

Ladybug looks back to him, blue eyes steady. He sees her jaw clench, her throat move as she swallows, and then she’s leaning closer, her eyes fluttering shut. The hand on his neck flexes, her fingers brushing into his hair, and her other hand comes up to rest his chest.

He can feel her breath on his mouth.

He closes his eyes.

He can almost feel the ghost of her lips on his.

“What are you doing?” Lady Love screams, and, just as planned, Ladybug leaps away from Adrien, expression guilty.

“I-I’m sorry,” Ladybug stutters, and Adrien has to admit that she’s a good actor. He also has to admit that he really wished Lady Love had burst in maybe a second or so later, or maybe just. Never. “The truth is, Bella…” She trails off, looking down at the floor, her ears tipped with pink. “I love Adrien-”

“NO!” Lady Love shouts, which should probably be worrying, but Adrien is very much thinking about how Ladybug had just said she loved him.

For an act, he reminds his brain. I love her so much, his brain supplies unhelpfully.

“You’re supposed to love me,” Lady Love says, stalking into the room and grabbing Ladybug’s shoulders. “You can’t love anyone else! You’re not allowed!”

He sees Ladybug’s eyes flick down to the Ladybug pin on Lady Love’s chest, her hand twitching up even as she continues her guilty act. “But Adrien is-”

Before Ladybug can get the pin, where no doubt the akuma is hidden, Lady Love pushes her away to advance on Adrien. 

“You,” she hisses, “it’s all your fault.”

Well, that’s not good.

Chapter Text

Lady Love has Adrien dangling out from the window before Marinette can even react, and she realizes with horror that the window doesn’t just lead out to a drop from the second story of the mansion, but also the thousand foot drop to the ground below the island.

“You were the one that intruded on my island!” Lady Love is saying to Adrien, whose hands are gripping Lady Love’s forearms as she shakes him by the jacket. The toes of his sneakers are curling desperately on the ledge of the floor-to-ceiling window. “You were the one that made Ladybug reject me!”

“Bella-” Marinette tries, but Lady Love interrupts her with a sick sort of cackle.

“Well, if you’re gone, she’ll have no choice but to love me,” she says.

Not good.

Her eyes catch on Adrien’s, her heart racing in fear. She shouldn’t have used him as part of her plan, she should’ve just figured something else out, she should’ve- 

Adrien doesn’t look scared.

He’s looking pointedly at her, eyes flicking down at her shoulders, and she remembers. She’d called on her Lucky Charm before sitting down in the room with Adrien, and it had been a parachute. She hadn’t used it because she couldn’t see how, not then, but now she knows. And so does Adrien.

“Catch me?” Adrien says with a smile, and then he’s letting go of Lady Love, sneaker stepping out into open air. Lady Love obligingly lets him go, and Marinette wants to scream, but she runs instead, jumping out of the window and diving, heart racing.

Adrien is falling, not even screaming, hands close to his chest. When he sees her, his face brightens, and he reaches a single hand out to her. She reaches back, the cold wind whipping at her cheeks, and their hands collide, holding on to each other.

She pulls him to her, and as soon as he has his arms wrapped around her, she pulls the cord on the parachute strapped to her shoulders, and then they’re floating instead of falling. Marinette breathes a sigh of relief.

And then she realizes she can feel Adrien’s breath on her cheek and that his arms are wrapped around her neck and she’s holding him bridal-style, and she feels as though she might be having some sort of stroke. This is fine. Normal, even.

They touch ground, and Marinette lets Adrien down as gently as she can while also wishing she could hold him forever.

“We make a good team,” Adrien says, when he’s standing on his own feet, opening up his hand to reveal Bella’s pin, where the akuma had been hiding. 

She takes the pin from his hand, and she can’t resist giving him a peck on the cheek. “I guess we do,” she says with a smile.

She breaks the pin with the heel of her foot, purifies the akuma, gathers up the parachute as best as she can to throw it up into the air for the Miraculous Ladybug spell, and as the magic ladybugs are swirling around in the air, she looks back at Adrien to see him touching his cheek. The cheek she kissed him on.

“Um,” Marinette says, suddenly embarrassed.

“Thank you,” Adrien blurts.

“Thank you,” Marinette replies because it’s the first thing that comes out of her mouth. She blushes hard. “I mean. You’re thanks. I mean. You’re welcome? For? Um, thank you,” she says, which just makes absolutely no sense, and so she leaves, cheeks steaming.

Chapter Text

Logically speaking, sunglasses are not much of a disguise. Adrien knows this. He still speed walks down the street with his head down, sunglasses pushed up against his nose. His hair is a mess, and if he strains his ears, he can still hear the crowd that had been chasing him close behind.

He turns a corner on the street, and promptly slams into someone hard enough for both of them to fall to the ground. Whoever he’d run into makes a startled sort of yelping sound, and then they’re grabbing Adrien’s hand and dragging him into a back alley before he can even get to his feet properly.

He wonders vaguely if he is being kidnapped.

But then he finally manages to gain his bearings, and he realizes that it was.

It was Ladybug who had bumped into him and dragged him into the alley.

Or at least, someone who looked a lot like Ladybug.

The girl who had dragged him into an alley and also might be kidnapping him is wearing a black dress with long sleeves and green stitching, black gloves, and black boots. She is also wearing a black mask and cat ears, both of which look distinctly reminiscent of Chat Noir’s.

And it’s not like. Well. It’s not like she really looks like Ladybug in that all black get-up, now that Adrien looks closer. But she does, kind of. He could see it in the mannerisms he’d unconsciously picked up on at first glance - the easy on-guard posture, the strength of her figure, the watchfulness of her blue eyes.

She has one hand on his chest, holding him gently up against the wall, and her eyes are watching the opening of the alley. They both watch two crowds run by the alley in opposite directions - his own crowd of screaming teenagers, and another crowd of shouting reporters. 

“Um,” Adrien says after the crowds have both run by without even a glance in their direction.

The girl finally looks at him, and her bright eyes widen in surprise, her hand retracting from his chest so forcefully she nearly smacks him in the face. “Adrien!” she exclaims, and he-

He knows that voice.

“Ladybug,” he says, and he sees a myriad of expressions fly across her face. She looks like she might deny it. Her hands curl into fists, and then she relaxes them.

“...How’d you know?” she asks, and Adrien’s heart flutters.

“The way you stand,” he says. She looks down at herself, as if trying to analyze how she’s standing.

She sighs. “I guess it really wasn’t a good idea for a superhero to enter into a superhero costume contest,” she says with a sheepish grin.

“Is that why you were running?” he asks, and she nods.

“I thought it would’ve been alright if I went as Chat, but…” She trails off, gesturing down to all of herself. “Apparently I give myself away.”

Adrien looks her up and down, at the way the skirt of her dress falls around her thighs, at the line of her collarbones. He notices she’s wearing a thin black choker, adorned with a little golden bell. It looks good against her neck, pale compared to her black attire. Adrien realizes he’s feeling quite warm.

“It’s a good costume,” he says.

“Thanks,” she replies.

He realizes that he hasn’t seen her since the Lady Love akuma, and he also realizes he’s never seen her out of costume. He wonders what would be the correct protocol for this kind of situation. He has no idea what to say.

She shifts on her feet.

“Sorry,” Adrien says, for some reason.

“You don’t have to be sorry?” Ladybug says, tilting her head at him. She looks so cute with cat ears, and Adrien tries desperately to gain control of himself.

“I. Yeah, I guess I don’t, but.” He shrugs. “I was just thinking about Lady Love. Sorry about that.”

She squints at him. “For rushing into danger as a civilian? For going along with my plan? For letting yourself fall a thousand feet? For helping me defeat an akuma?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Adrien admits after a moment, and she laughs.

“Well, I can’t tell what you’re saying sorry for,” she says, and Adrien finds himself laughing, too. He catches her eye, and her smile is still caught on the edges of her lips, at the stars in her eyes. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me here,” she says. “Without my transformation up.”

He realizes she’s trusting him. 

His heart races.

“Well,” he says. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me here. With my hair so messy.”

She laughs, and he wishes he could bottle the sound, drink it up, have it live inside of him. “See you later, Adrien,” she says, and then she transforms. She lets him see her transform. And the magic surrounds her, and then she’s waving goodbye, and she’s smiling at him, and she’s gone.

Adrien leans his head against the brick wall she’d had him up against, pushing up his sunglasses and squinting at the sun. “She,” he starts to say, but he has no idea how to finish, so he just lets the word hang in the air. The sun feels new.

Chapter Text

In retrospect, this is a bad idea. But when Nathalie Sancoeur came up to her and Chat after an akuma and asked them if they would please report to the Agreste Brand headquarters if they were interested in participating in a charity fundraiser the Agreste Brand was helming, and Chat had looked at her with his best kitten eyes, Marinette couldn’t say no. It was for the children, Chat had said. Children’s hospitals. So she’d agreed.

And then Chat had promptly told her that he couldn’t go, so now she was showing up at the Agreste Brand headquarters as Ladybug, completely alone, with absolutely no idea what to do or where to go. 

Thankfully a responsible-looking secretary led her to a room on the 20th floor where it looked like the materials of a photoshoot was being set up, and so Marinette stood in the corner of the large room, trying to feel like she shouldn’t just bail and blame Chat for the both of them being flakes. 

“Hey,” someone says, and Marinette looks away from where she’d been glaring at a chair, already composing her rant speech to Chat, and sees Adrien freaking Agreste standing in front of her, decked out in Agreste Brand Ladybug and Chat Noir merch, smiling at her like she’s the only person in the room.

Marinette chokes on her spit.

“Oh, do you need water?” Adrien asks, quickly jogging over to a table with refreshments as Marinette coughs up at least 12 lungs, 10 of which she shouldn’t even have and yet were inexplicably coming out of her in the form of super attractive hacking noises. “It’s always so dry and cold in here, I know,” Adrien says, returning and offering a little cup of water to her.

“Thanks,” Marinette says, taking the water and managing to gulp down a few sips without dying or ejecting any more lungs. Once recovered, she looks back at Adrien. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says again.

They smile at each other.

“Sorry Chat couldn’t make it,” Marinette says, clearing her throat and looking down into her water. “He actually has a really busy schedule.” Which, he did say, and Marinette is now feeling way less mad at him than she was seconds before.

“That’s alright,” Adrien says, a small sort of smile pulling at his lips. “I’m sure we can make it work.”

He leads her to the costuming and makeup teams, who deck her out in official Agreste Brand Ladybug and Chat Noir merch, just like Adrien, and who add little touch-ups to the makeup she’d already been wearing - adding glitter by her eyes, making her lips a little redder, etc - and then they shove her behind the camera with Adrien, instructing her to just act natural but also move your arms this way, definitely not like that, and don’t forget to smile, not like that, and what are you doing with your feet?

After an hour, they get a ten minute break, and Adrien finds her trying not to fall over in exhaustion by the refreshments table.

“Look on the brightside,” Adrien says, “you look great in cat ears.”

She snorts out a laugh, standing up straight and taking one of the water cups so she knew what to do with her hands. She touches a finger to her official Agreste Brand Chat Noir headband and gives him a cheesy sort of wink. “It’s because I’ve had practice.”

That was lame. That was so lame. She was referencing when he caught her out of transformation, all dressed up as Chat for that costume she definitely should’ve won but definitely didn’t because so many people were asking way too many questions about her identity, but what if he didn’t remember that? What would he even think? Did she even wink correctly? She couldn’t remember. She probably didn’t, and it probably looked super lame.

Adrien covers his mouth with his hand, looking away from her. She’s still spiralling. When he looks back at her, there’s a smile in his bright green eyes. “You’re right,” he says, and everything inside of Marinette stops.

She makes a small sort of squeaking sound, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“If only I had practiced wearing these antennae,” he says, gesturing to his official Agreste Brand Ladybug beanie, which had two antennae with black puffballs at the end sticking out of the top. “I’m afraid I look silly in these.”

“No, of course not,” Marinette says on instinct because Adrien could never look silly. But then she takes a moment to truly appreciate the puffball antennae. “...Yes,” she says, and he laughs. “But it’s supposed to be silly I think! You look great, just like always! I mean! I’m sure you always look great not that I’d know!”

“Thanks, Ladybug,” he says, and then he shakes his head to punctuate the sentence, making the puffball antennae wave back and forth. She laughs, and he looks up at her, his eyes brighter than the sun.

They get called back to the shoot, and it’s still tiring, but every time Marinette gets tired, Adrien nudges her with his elbow and nods his head, making the puffball antennae bounce happily. 

They’re instructed to pound fists like she normally does with Chat, which feels a little sacrilegious in some way, but at her hesitation, Adrien just smiles and says, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind?” with a little tilt of his head, offering her his fist. She smiles, nudging her fist against his and looking back to the camera.

“Pound it!” Adrien says so enthusiastically that his puffball antennae go insane, and Marinette bursts out laughing. The camera shutter clicks.

Chapter Text

Adrien lifts his chin for one of the sound techs to adjust his microphone, and when they’re finished, they give him a thumbs up. He smiles, and then he walks out onto the stage, the live studio audience erupting in cheers as the jazzy talk show music plays in the background. He sits down on the plush green couch on the stage, waving a hand out to the crowd and then reaching over to shake hands with the host, who sits on a bright orange armchair next to the couch. 

When the audience dies down, the host grins at him. “Welcome to the show, Adrien! How are you doing tonight?”

“I’m doing alright, Mme. Richards,” Adrien replies with an easy smile on his face despite the fact that he is, like, so exhausted. 

Cecile Richards (host of the Cecile Richards Show) laughs, looking out at the audience. “Mme. Richards,” she says, and the audience laughs. “Look at this boy! So polite!” The audience ‘aww’ s. She turns back to Adrien. “You can just call me Cecile.”

“Sounds good,” Adrien says, and he laughs even though nothing is really funny because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

“So Adrien, you’re here on your father’s behalf to talk about the Agreste Brand charity drive for Paris’ children’s hospitals,” Cecile says, and Adrien nods enthusiastically. “Why don’t you tell us about it?”

“Well, Cecile,” Adrien says, perfectly practiced, “my father saw a need in Paris’ children’s hospitals for funding, and he also recognized that many children in the hospitals may be looking for a little heroism in their everyday attire. With these things in mind, he created the Hero’s Charity line, which is a line of street clothing designed after Paris’ own heroes! All proceeds from the line go to Paris’ children’s hospitals, and with every piece you buy, an identical piece is given for free to a child who is a patient at one of the hospitals.”

“How heartwarming,” Cecile says, and the audience cheers their approval. “And am I mistaken in thinking that the Hero’s Charity line has a new poster face than the usual Agreste model?” she asks, and Adrien chuckles. Chuckles. Because that is what he is supposed to do, so he chuckles.

“Yes, Cecile, the Hero’s Charity line advertisements feature not only the usual Agreste face” - he gestures at his own face here, somewhat comedically (he is allowed to have some fun after all), and the audience laughs - “but also a prettier face that you’re probably more accustomed to seeing fight supervillains and save the city.”

“Let’s take a look at the official Hero’s Charity line ad to see just who he’s talking about,” Cecile says, wiggling her eyebrows at the audience, and then she and Adrien turn around to look at the screen behind them.

The audience cheers and gasps and cheers again, and generally reacts in the correct, expected way for audiences to react.

The Hero’s Charity line ad, featuring him and Ladybug, pops up onto the screen, and Adrien finds himself smiling, for perhaps the hundredth time, at the shot that ended up getting used. In the photo, him and Ladybug - decked out in their Hero’s Charity line wear, of course - have their knuckles pounded together, and Ladybug is caught mid-laugh, her eyes squinted shut, her free hand up as if she had meant to cover her mouth but forgot mid way through, her smile bright and warm. Adrien, as always, is looking at her.

“How cute!” Cecile exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Both the clothes and the picture!”

“Thank you,” Adrien says with a laugh. It is cute. Ladybug is cute.

“So is Ladybug going to be an official Agreste Brand partner?” Cecile asks, and Adrien tears his eyes away from the photo on the screen to look back at her.

“Sadly, no, she just partnered with the Agreste Brand on this project because of her good heart,” Adrien says, “but it really was a joy to work with her. Maybe someday we’ll have the opportunity to work with each other again.” ‘Someday’ meaning the next akuma attack, ‘we’ meaning Chat Noir and Ladybug.

“This is really a great ad,” Cecile says, looking back to the ad up on the screen. “Makes me want to go out and buy up the whole line!” The audience laughs. Cecile continues. “And Ladybug’s laugh looks so infectious.” She looks back at Adrien, her eyes sparkling. “Were you the one to make her laugh?”

Adrien blinks. This was not on the pre-planned list of questions he’d been provided. He smiles, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, I suppose I was.” He stops, but Cecile makes an exaggerated and comedic gesture to keep going, resting her elbows on the arm of her chair and plopping her chin in her hands. “Well, it was no big deal, really. It was just silly to see my antennae” - he gestures to the puffballs on the beanie he was wearing in the ad - “bobble around, and I may have purposefully moved my head to make her laugh.”

The audience ‘aww’ s. Cecile leans closer. “You wanted to make her laugh?” she asks.

“Yes,” Adrien says with a laugh, wondering why Cecile is not sticking to her pre-planned questions like she was supposed to. “I mean, it’s like you said - Ladybug’s laugh is infectious.”

“I see, I see,” Cecile says, nodding. She turns to the audience, giving an exaggerated wink. The audience erupts in laughter. “Well, it sure is nice to see that Paris’ two kind-hearted heartthrobs have such chemistry together.”

Adrien nearly chokes. “Chemistry?” he asks, and the audience laughs. He laughs too, feeling his cheeks grow hot. 

The rest of the interview is a blur.

When he goes home, he sees it uploaded to YouTube with the eye-catching title of “Adrien Agreste has a Crush on Ladybug?????” with over a million views. Adrien drops his head into his hands.

“Why are you so upset?” Plagg asks, devouring a triangle of camembert cheese. “I thought it was a good thing for the internet to tell the truth.”

“Thanks, Plagg,” Adrien says.

“No problem, kid,” Plagg replies.

Chapter Text

Marinette pauses the video entitled “Adrien Agreste has a Crush on Ladybug?????” and promptly screams into her pillow. Tikki makes soothing noises. Marinette plays the video without removing her face from her pillow.

“Chemistry?” Adrien asks, letting out a startled sort of laugh.

“You know,” Cecile Richards (host of the Cecile Richards Show) says, “with this ad! It looks like you two got along really well. And I heard a couple of weeks ago you actually helped Ladybug defeat an akuma. That’s chemistry!” 

The audience cheers.

“Honestly, it’s really just that Ladybug makes working with her so easy. She’s really smart and really engaging, as a person,” Adrien says. “You could put anyone beside her and be able to call it chemistry!” 

Marinette makes a noise into her pillow. “He’s right,” Tikki says, and Marinette lets out another noise.

“Adrien - and I’m asking honestly - do you have a crush on Ladybug?” Cecile Richards asks, her tone teasing. 

“I-I mean,” Adrien says, his voice smiling. “Who doesn’t?”

The audience cheers.

Marinette screams, bolting up from her place on her bed and chucking her phone across the room into the designated phone chucking area. It lands in her bin of extra fabric, beginning to play the next suggested video on YouTube, which just so happens to be a conspiracy theory that Ladybug and Adrien Agreste are dating.

“He has a crush on Ladybug!” Marinette says to Tikki.

“Who doesn’t!” Tikki replies, laughing, and Marinette runs around her room three times before picking up her phone and stopping the conspiracy theory video.

“When we talked! Before! When he saw me in my costume! And also when we almost kissed for the akuma! Do you think he had a crush on me then!” Marinette asks.

“Probably!” Tikki replies.

“I’m going to scream!” Marinette says, and then she does, quietly, because her parents are home. Feeling too energetic to contain herself, she transforms into Ladybug to burn off some energy, and she leaps out onto the city rooftops to run around and grin up at the sun.

Her hyper jaunt around the city becomes a relaxed patrol - one she wishes Chat Noir was on (she calls him, but it goes to voicemail; she hopes he’s having as fantastic a day as she is) - and she strolls around the streets, taking pictures with kids and high-fiving preteens and parents on their afternoon walks. 

She stops at the park, leaning against a tree and finishing up the ice cream she’d gotten - peach and mint, as always - and she sees a sort of bustle around the fountain. Cameras, tech crews, maybe a couple of makeup artists. They look to be on break, but she cranes her neck to see if she can see what the focus of the shoot is.

As she’s scanning the park, she sees a figure laid out on one of the nearby benches, the sun glinting off shining golden hair.

Her heart catches in her throat.

She finishes up her ice cream and walks over to the figure on the park bench. No one really seems to be stopping her, so she walks all the way up to the sleeping figure of Adrien Agreste.

He’s in some sort of armor - maybe medieval, flared out at his waist with sharp lines and corners - with gold etchings in elaborate patterns spanning across the silver. The helmet matching the armor is at the foot of the bench, Adrien’s armored fingers touching the dome of it like he’d set it down and immediately fallen asleep. 

She admires the armor for a moment, wondering what it could be for, and then she kneels down beside the bench, looking at Adrien’s face. His golden eyelashes brush against his tanned cheeks, and his lips are parted slightly. His perfectly tousled hair falls around his face like a halo, and Marinette wants so badly to run her fingers through it.

He looks like a prince, like a prince trapped under a sleeping curse. Only breakable with the power of true love’s kiss.

She touches a hand to his cheek. “Adrien?” she asks softly.

His eyelashes flutter.

Chapter Text

Adrien opens his eyes to the bluest blue he’s ever seen, bluer than the sky, bluer than any flower.

“Ladybug,” he says, and she blinks her eyes, bluer than bluebells, at him, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. He sits up, his armor clanking, and she leans back, giving him space. He rubs his eyes - gently, he remembers; he’s still wearing makeup - and looks around. 

He’s still at the new fragrance shoot his father had scheduled last minute, even though today was supposed to be his rest day. He sees the crew for the shoot waiting by the fountain, where they’d called break because he was so low energy and they were hoping he would brighten up after ten minutes of sitting down. He must’ve fallen asleep, but-

“Why are you here?” he asks Ladybug, and she’s still looking at him with that soft look of concern. She tilts her head at him.

“I was just on a patrol, and I saw you here.” She glances back at the crew that are trying their best to look like they’re not staring. “No one stopped me,” she says, looking back at him. 

“We’re supposed to be on break,” Adrien says, stretching out his arms, the armor clanking. He can’t believe he fell asleep in it - it was truly so uncomfortable. That really just said how exhausted he was. “It was only supposed to be ten minutes, but I have no idea how long I slept.”

Ladybug stares at him. She’s still kneeling beside the bench he was sitting on, looking up at him with her bluest eyes full of worry. “Are you alright?” she asks.

Adrien laughs. “Of course. I’m just tired,” he says.

“Okay,” Ladybug says, and then her lips pinch and her jaw flexes and her fists clench. “No, not okay, actually. You shouldn’t have to work so hard that you’re falling asleep at photoshoots. That’s not okay at all, actually.”

The way Ladybug said it, Adrien actually started to think that it really wasn’t okay at all, actually.

He stares at her, feeling a little dumb.

The skin below the bottom edges of her mask turns pink. “I-I’m sorry,” she stutters, her hands flying up and making a variety of gestures as she speaks. “I just think- I mean. Overworking is berrible. I mean tad. Bad. You shouldn’t be overworked no matter how pretty you are.”

“You think I’m pretty?” he asks.

“You’re a model?” she replies.

“Oh, yeah,” Adrien says. “Thanks.” He looks at her. “I think you’re pretty, too.”

Something in her face shifts, several times, in ways Adrien couldn’t even begin to describe. She runs her fingers through her bangs, looking a little embarrassed. “I know,” she says. He blinks. “Your interview with Cecile Richards,” she supplies.

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I was telling the truth.”

She giggles, and then she glances back to the photoshoot crew, who are now not even trying to hide the fact that they are staring, and she looks back to him, her expression serious. “I was telling the truth, too. You should really get some rest, Adrien.”

“I will,” Adrien promises. “After this shoot.”

Chapter Text

Marinette walks along the ledge of the Pont Au Change, keeping her arms out on either side of her as she walks, toe to heel, and hums to herself.

“All alone on patrol today?” an old man calls up to her, and she pauses to smile at him.

“Nope, Chat was with me earlier,” she says, turning and showing the man the red rose she held between her fingertips. “He had something to do, but I’m just hanging around.”

(Summer now, no class, just free time. Chat’s been so busy, though. Must be out catching mice.)

The old man nods, eyeing the rose. “And who’ll be the recipient of this one?”

Marinette looks down at the rose, bringing it up to her nose and taking a deep breath of its smooth, watery scent. “Don’t know yet,” she finally says with an easy shrug.

She always gives away the roses Chat gives her - to someone random she sees passing on the streets, someone who looks like they need a little brightening. Chat knows she does it, and he never seems upset about it, even when he sees her do it. He’s never asked why, so Marinette’s never told him.

(There is a reason, though.)

“He gave me a poem this time,” Marinette says to the man, easily jumping down into a sitting position on the bridge, swinging her legs against the thick columns. A few people that had been walking along the bridge stop and form a semi circle around her. “Would you all like to hear it?”

She gets a chorus of affirmatives, and so she clears her throat and brandishes the rose in her best impression of Chat Noir’s gentlemanly dramaticism. 

“Roses are red,” she starts, and she gets a couple of laughs at her Chat impression, “the seller was out of yeller” - she makes sure to say the word wrong, just like Chat had - “I have this great friend, and this is how I tell her.”

She mimes Chat giving her the rose, and her small crowd cheers. She smiles. “I’ll have to tell him the poem was well-received. I myself am a huge fan of his bending words to fit his rhymes.”

“Get that boy a publisher,” the old man says, and Marinette laughs.

She sits and chats with her little crowd for a few minutes longer, and then she stands back up on the ledge of the Pont Au Change, rose still in hand, and continues humming her way along.

At the end of the bridge, she stands on the ledge, looking out at the street that continued on and the big, historic buildings bathed in sunlight. She takes a deep breath, and she smells the hints of a storm in the air.

A head of golden hair steps out from one of the buildings, noble lines sagging with exhaustion, and Marinette watches as a golden hand runs over a golden face and shoulders a heavy-looking duffel bag. 

She jumps down from the ledge of the bridge, and she sees the moment he sees her - he looks down from where he’d been squinting up at the sun, and his eyes catch on hers, his hand drops, his shoulders draw up, his lips and his eyebrows turn up.

“Ladybug,” Adrien says as she stops in front of him, and she smiles.

“Hey, Adrien.”

They stand for a moment, in each other’s quiet, and Marinette sees the dark circles under his eyes. Her thumb rubs on the stem of Chat’s rose, and she starts to think of a poem.

“You aren’t giving that one away?” he asks, gesturing to the rose, and Marinette tilts her head at him.

“How’d you know I always give them away?” she asks, and he shrugs. His cheeks are red, maybe from the sun.

“Everyone talks about it. Everyone wonders.”

She looks back at the road, at the cars passing by, and she turns back to him. “You’re waiting for a ride?” He nods. She sits down on the steps out in the sun, in front of the building, and pats the ground beside her. He sits down, too, and Marinette holds the rose out to him.

He nods. “It’s pretty.”

She laughs. “Roses are red,” she says, and his eyes catch on hers, and it almost seems like he’s studying her, trying to read her expression like a book, “I hope you’ve been getting rest,” she continues, and his eyes widen, “because you’re a great friend, and I wish you the best.” She holds the rose out to him again.

His eyebrows twist together. “You’re giving it to me?”

“The poem’s about you isn’t it?” she asks.

“You could be workshopping poems to me,” he offers, and she snorts out a laugh. His lips twitch up at the sound, without him really seeming to know it, and she thinks about that interview, where he said he wanted to make her laugh. “It’s a great poem, by the way. Whoever it’s about will really like it.”

“It’s about you,” she insists, and this time he takes the rose.

“Thank you,” he says, looking down at the rose. “For the poem, too. I really liked it.” He’s smiling down into the flower, holding the soft petals up to his nose. He’s not looking at her, and Marinette almost wishes she could paint a picture of him in the sun, beside her. Or write a better poem - roses are red, his skin is gold, the sweetest boy in Paris, what a sight to behold.

“It’s extremely derivative,” Marinette admits with a shrug. “When Chat gave it to me, he gave me a similar poem.”

“I’m sure he’d be proud of you,” Adrien replies, his eyes sliding over to her, his smile soft and quiet, like he’s hiding a secret behind his lips.

“He’d probably find a way to slip a pun in there,” she says.

“Well, I can’t see anything wrong with it.” He looks down at his shoes. “Maybe a bug pun would’ve been nice.”

She laughs. “Like what?”

He thinks for a moment. “Bug cause I bug you,” he offers.

She feels her smile bloom up from her chest, stretching up to the top of her head, to the tips of her toes, to the pads of her fingers. “Pretend I said that, then.”

Chapter Text

Adrien twists the rose in between his fingertips, watching the petals twirl. He’d given it to her earlier that day, and she’d given it back to him, without even knowing it. She’s beside him now, drumming her fingers on her knees, and he wonders if she has someplace else to be. He wonders why she gives his roses away.

“Um,” he says, and her eyes snap back over to him. Her fingers still immediately, like she’d just been waiting for him to speak. “I have a question.”

She tilts her head at him, her lips pulling up into a smile. “I have an answer?”

“Why…” He trails off. Feels his cheeks grow hot. He looks away. “Nevermind.” 

She doesn’t say anything, and he stares down at the rose in his hands, at the familiar petals, already wilting from the summer heat. He thinks about her, as he always does, and he thinks about how he left her hours earlier, and he’d found her again, still holding his rose, but she’d given it away. Given it back to him. He’s connecting dots on a graph that probably doesn’t correlate, but the picture the lines make is one he can’t take his eyes off of.

“You were going to ask about the rose, weren’t you?” she asks softly, and he nods, feeling self conscious. He never wanted to push the issue as Chat Noir because he didn’t want to push her or have her feel like he was imposing his feelings on her, but he wondered. “That’s alright,” she says. “You can ask. I’ll answer.”

“You will?” he asks, looking up at her in surprise, and she shrugs, a little smile quirking the right corner of her mouth up.

“The only reason I haven’t before is because no one’s asked me directly,” she says, and he looks back down at the rose. Traces a finger along a butter soft petal, takes a deep breath.

“Why do you give Chat Noir’s roses away?” he asks.

“I can’t bear to watch them wither in my room,” she says, and his eyebrows shoot up. She laughs. “I’m not good at taking care of plants, and it makes me sad. To see the pretty flowers he gives me die, you know.” She pauses, taking a deep breath and tilting her face up to the sun, and it bends toward her like it’s traveled millions of miles just to touch her cheeks. “So I spend as much time as I can with them, and then I give them away. To someone who I think needs it. Someone who may need a rose full of love to brighten their day.”

Adrien thinks he might cry. 

“And you gave it to me?” he asks, and his voice cracks. She looks back at him, the sun caressing her face, and she looks at him like she’s a little sad for him.

“You looked a little tired.”

“I was,” he says. “I am.”

He is. God, this is the first time he’s sat down just to sit down in weeks, and it’s because Gorilla’s stuck in traffic.

“Adrien,” she starts, but then the black company car pulls up, right in front of them, throwing a shadow over them, and she stops. She looks at the car, her face pinched. She stands, and then he’s in her shadow, too, the sun making a halo around her head of dark hair. She offers a hand to him. He takes it. Her hand is cool and warm, all at once. 

“Thank you, Ladybug,” he says, gesturing to the rose, to the air around him.

“It’s no problem,” she says, but she’s still looking at him like she’s worried. “Get some rest,” she says, and she squeezes his hand, so lightly and so quickly he thinks he might’ve imagined it, “bug cause I bug you.”

He laughs, and she smiles, her face brightening. She lets go of his hand, and then he’s getting into the dark car, shutting the door to the sun outside.

The drive is silent, as usual, and when he gets to the mansion, his father is waiting in the foyer, up at the top of the stairs. Adrien stops by the front door, holding Ladybug’s rose tight in his hand.

“Nathalie has informed me that our most recent partners you’ve worked with have complained about your performance,” his father says, and Adrien’s shoulders drop.

“I’m sorry, Father, I’ve just been-”

“There is no excuse,” his father interrupts, and Adrien snaps his mouth shut, his jaw clenching.

“You’re right,” he says stiffly, beginning the long walk up to his room. He reaches the first landing, where his father is standing, and his father frowns down at the rose in his hand.

“Where did you get that?”

“From a friend,” Adrien replies self-consciously.

“Who?”

Adrien looks away from his father. He wonders if he could lie. His father’s expression darkens.

“Is this friend the reason you have been distracted during your duties?” his father asks, and Adrien blinks.

“What? No, of course not, Father, I’ve been distracted because of how tired I am. You haven’t given me a break in my schedule since school breaked.” He can’t help the frustration that creeps into his voice, and he regrets it immediately as he sees the ice in his father’s cool gray eyes freeze over.

“I have not given you a break because you do not have school to worry about,” he says, perfectly rational. “But if you have been forcing yourself to attend to other matters - such as this friend - in addition to your work, then that may be the reason for your exhaustion.” He says the word like it’s an insult. Adrien takes a step back. “As your father, Adrien, it is my job to help you prioritize. It will be best that you do not see that friend of yours from now on.” He looks away. The conversation is over.

Except it’s not over. Adrien is so tired, and he wants to get some rest, and he’s holding a rose full of love.

“I barely even see her as it is!” he says, his voice louder than he really meant it to be. He flinches, but then decides he likes the way his voice echoes across the empty walls, filling the dead air, and he continues. “I haven’t seen any of my friends since school has ended because I’m so busy doing everything you need! And maybe I could deal with that, knowing school will start again and I’ll be able to see them then, but you don’t give me time to rest, not even on the weekends. It’s always another shoot, another lesson, another interview, another day with a packed schedule. How am I supposed to work when I can barely stand?”

His father stares at him, and Adrien sees the muscle in his jaw clench. He sighs, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is why I never wanted to send you to public school,” he says, his cool voice pitying. “You never used to complain. That school has made you soft. Your friend has poisoned your mind.”

“Ladybug hasn’t poisoned my mind, Father,” Adrien snaps, holding his rose - her rose, their rose - to his chest. “All she wanted was to brighten my day.”

He realizes his mistake as soon as he meets his father’s eyes. “Ladybug was the one to give you that thing?” his father asks, and Adrien swallows. His father doesn’t wait for an answer. “She may be a superhero, but that does not mean she is a good influence on you and your work. If she is taking time out from your schedule and depriving you of rest, then she shouldn’t be around you.”

“She’s around the whole city, Father!” Adrien nearly shouts. “How am I supposed to avoid her?”

“Perhaps then you should simply stay inside,” his father replies coolly. Adrien falters.

“You’d isolate me from the entire city?”

His father raises his chin. “If that is what’s best.” Adrien feels something dark rise inside of him. Gabriel holds out his hand. “Now give me the rose. It’s best that you do not keep it.”

“No,” Adrien says, but Gabriel takes the rose anyway. He tries to hold on to it, to the sunshine still clinging to the wilting petals, but the stem slides through his fingers, easy and smooth. No trouble at all.

“Go up to your room,” Gabriel says, turning away from him. He holds Adrien’s - her, their - rose in his hands like it’s worthless. “And get that rest you so need. You have a shoot scheduled at five tomorrow morning.”

Adrien watches him leave through the dark hallway, feeling like he might fall to the ground. But he doesn’t. He turns and walks the long walk up to his room, step by step.

He registers that he’s crying when he realizes he can’t breathe as he opens the door to his room, and he closes his door, collapsing to the floor against it.

He doesn’t cry loudly - that would be unseemly, and he wouldn’t want to bother anyone - but he cries like he’s losing something, because he is, always.

Plagg comes out from his duffel bag. “Kid?” he asks, but Adrien is so blooming with emptiness, he doesn’t even hear him.

He’s so tired.

Everything goes black.

Chapter Text

Marinette sees the people sleeping in the streets two blocks away from home, and she stops mid-swing to drop down to the street. The cars and buses are idle, still on. There’s a woman curled up around the wheels of a stroller, the baby inside completely unharmed. 

She looks around the street, but everyone is asleep, like they’d stopped in their evening walks to just lay down on the pavement for a nap. She swings to the next street, and then the next, and it’s all the same. It’s so quiet.

She tries to call Chat. 

It goes to voicemail.

“Chat, it’s me,” she says into her yo-yo, running across a building and looking down at the sleeping streets below her. “There’s an akuma, and it looks like they’re putting people to sleep. Can you get to my location soon?”

She closes her yo-yo as the message goes through, and she catches sight of a lone figure walking down the street below her. Chat should get the message soon, so he’ll be by any minute to help her out. She drops down into the street in front of the lone walker.

He stops, tilting his head lazily at her. His skin is a midnight blue, speckled with glimmering stars, and his hair is the color of starlight. He’s wearing a simple sort of lavender pajama set, and there’s a duffel bag slung over his body, one of his hands resting in its depths. 

“Ladybug,” he says softly, and Marinette realizes his eyes are closed, like he’s in the middle of a dream. “Could you hand over your earrings?”

“Not in your wildest dreams,” Marinette replies cheekily, half-wishing Chat was there to appreciate her good one-liner, and she launches forward, brandishing her yo-yo. 

The akuma pulls his hand out of his duffel bag, and he throws a handful of glittering purple powder at her. She slices through the cloud with a few cycles of the wire of her yo-yo just in time to see that he’s somehow crafted his sleeping powder into a fencing foil, iridescent in the setting sun. He stabs out at her, and she only just manages to duck in time, jumping away from him.

She watches him push his duffel bag so that it rests against the small of his back, shifting his posture minutely until he’s in perfect fencing form - one hand held aloft behind his back, the other perfectly gripping the foil, his feet arranged and active. It’s perfect. It’s familiar.

Hours of her time have been spent analyzing and reanalyzing the way he stands, the way he holds himself when he performs. And if it hasn’t been hours, then, by God, it’s been at least a few minutes. She knows how he stands. She knows him.

Her heart breaks.

“Adrien?” she asks.

He draws out a lazy double ‘A’ with the tip of his foil. “It’s Catnap. Are you sure you won’t give your earrings to me? Fighting is so tiring.”

“I’m not giving you or Hawkmoth my miraculous,” Marinette says, her voice shaking as she slips into a fighting stance. Adrien - Catnap - sighs.

“Very well. En-garde, prêt, allez.”

He lunges forward.

Chapter Text

Catnap does not move slowly, even though he is so tired. He moves with speed and efficiency, the best to get the fight over with, so he can rest. 

Because that’s all he wants. Ladybug doesn’t seem to understand. She moves with speed and efficiency, but she’s doing that to wake everyone up. She doesn’t get it. If everyone wakes up, he’ll have to face them. They won’t rest, and so he will be forced to stay awake, too. He just wants to sleep.

The voice in his head understood.

Ladybug summons her lucky charm, and an extended baton falls into her hands. He doesn’t give her time to think of a plan, lunging forward, and she uses the baton to parry his strikes, clumsy imitations of the first, second, third, fourth parry positions. She’s been shown the sport before, maybe once or twice. She’s playing fair.

His eyes are closed, but he sees in this dream the way she moves, the sweat beading along her upper lip, the sun bouncing off her sad, fierce eyes. She moves in shapes and colors, dancing along his dream as he lunges and parries and wishes he could sleep without such a tiresome dream.

There’s a voice in his head, telling him to get on with the deed. He doesn’t need the ring, he already has that. Just the earrings. It’s not so hard. Why are you playing by the rules? Just take them, just take them.

Just take them just take them just take them.

He plays by the rules.

He listened to the voice before, but if she’s playing by the rules, then so will he. It’s as simple as that. If he wins the bout, then he’ll get the earrings. Simple.

She tries to catch him on the shoulder, but he moves to the side, easy and practiced. He thrusts the tip of his foil forward, by her hip, but she jumps back.

“Chat sure is taking his sweet time,” he hears her mutter under her breath.

“He’s dreaming,” Catnap replies. Something rubs against his mind.

They both falter.

“You got him?” she asks, her baton lowering just a few inches.

“Yes,” he says. “No.”

In his dream, she frowns.

This is your chance, this is your chance. 

He lunges forward, but it’s clumsy. He’s so tired. He’s so confused. There’s a rub against the voice in his head, a discomfort.

Her baton catches him right against his chest, right on his heart. 

Break the rules. Keep going. Take the earrings. Just take them.

Catnap doesn’t move. He lets the foil dissipate into sleeping powder, scattering around his feet, and he bows his head. “Touch,” he says. “You win.”

He hears her heavy breathing. Her baton slips down a few inches on his chest. “I win?”

He takes his duffel bag off his shoulders. The voice in his head screams. He’s so tired. He doesn’t hand the bag to her, but she understands. She takes it from his hands, and it rips under her steady hands.

The world slips to black.

And Adrien wakes up to an orange sky and the pavement beneath him, Ladybug kneeling down in front of him. She has her hands on his shoulders, and her blue eyes are like summer. She’s shapes and colors, a dream.

“I had a nightmare,” he says, without really even meaning to. He feels like crying. Her hands tighten on his shoulders.

“You were akumatized,” she says, her voice gentle. “It’s alright.”

Everything wells up inside of him. 

It’s not alright. 

Chapter Text

The people around them are waking up now. Marinette smiles at them reassuringly, and when she looks back at Adrien, her heart drops. 

He’s crying.

“Adrien?” she asks, but he just turns his face away from her, squeezing his eyes shut. She hurriedly looks around, her grip on Adrien’s shoulders tightening. She already purified the akuma and set everything right again with the miraculous ladybug charm, but if he’s still upset then he’s still at risk. And Hawkmoth is not the type to give anyone a break.

After ensuring that no other akumas are on their way, she returns her attention to Adrien, leaning in a little closer against the prying eyes around them. “Hey,” she says, ducking her head to try and get his attention, “hey, Adrien. What’s wrong? It’s alright. You’re not an akuma anymore.”

Adrien’s hands are curled up in his lap, his left hand worrying the ring he normally wears on his right ring finger. The tears slip down his cheeks, completely silent, and he takes a faltering breath, his eyebrows twisting together. He looks at her, and his lip trembles. “He knows,” he says, his voice breaking.

“Who knows? What’s wrong?” she asks.

Adrien shakes his head. He takes his silver ring off his finger, slowly, deliberately. And he takes one of Marinette’s hands off his shoulder, placing his ring in her palm, and closing her fingers around it. He looks back up at her, his eyes steady and serious.

Marinette feels her heart drop down to her stomach.

“Why are you giving this to me.” It’s hardly a question. She can’t breathe. 

She tries to give the ring back to him. He shakes his head, pushing her fist back toward her chest. “He knows,” he repeats, and his eyebrows twist together like he’s in pain. 

And then he’s tearing himself away from Marinette, standing up, leaving her on her knees, and he’s backing away, fingers gripping the strap of his duffel bag. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but instead he just holds her gaze like he’ll never see her again.

And then he walks away.

The gray clouds that had gathered as the evening fell let loose, then. Soft, little drops that cried onto Marinette’s skin.

Reporters and civilians are around her before she can even process what’s happening. And they’re all asking her questions, and she’s so overwhelmed by the voices and the rain and the press of the ring in her palm that it takes her what feels like hours to even understand what they’re saying to her.

“Where was Chat Noir?” someone asks. “Was that Adrien Agreste?” another asks. “Is it true that you and Adrien Agreste are in a romantic relationship?”

Marinette blinks. “What?” she asks.

The reporter with the microphone currently shoved in her face steps forward. “Rumors have it that you and Adrien Agreste are in a romantic relationship. Is that true? And does his akumatization have anything to do with that relationship?”

“No,” Marinette says, and her voice is strange and empty, and she has a ring in her hand, and she feels like she’s seconds from crying. “That’s not true.”

The soft drizzle turns into a torrential downpour, beating down on Marinette’s head and hands. The reporters and civilians bid her goodbye, running for shelter, and as soon as they’re all gone, she swings around Paris, hoping to catch a glimpse of Chat. Surely he was just busy. Surely he’s waiting for her, somewhere, ready to apologize with another rose. Yellow this time, if the seller restocked.

He has to be around, right?

She has the ring clenched in her fist.

It’s still raining.

By the time she makes it home, it’s dark. The rain has stopped, but there’s still the charge of thunder in the air. She lets go of her transformation in her room, and she sits down at her desk. The ring is still in her hand. Tikki looks at her, hands clenched over her chest. 

But Marinette checks her phone first, the ring burning a hole in her hand as she scans the titles of news articles Alya sent her about Ladybug and Adrien Agreste’s secret relationship and possible break up. Marinette doesn’t reply, tossing her phone to her designated tossing area, and it lands with a soft thump on her extra fabric.

And she turns back to her desk, staring down at her fist. She looks up at Tikki. “Marinette,” she says softly, but only that, and Marinette feels her throat close up.

She opens her fist. The silver ring stares at her.

With shaking fingers, she slips it onto her finger, and she watches it shrink to her size, the silver shifting to a delicate band of gold. Plagg swirls out of the ring.

“Kid!” he shouts, and then he realizes where he is. He looks between Tikki and Marinette, and his expression breaks. “Oh,” he says, and he sinks down to sit on Marinette’s keyboard. “Oh, no.”

Marinette drops her head into her hands, and she cries.

Chapter Text

Adrien is sitting alone in his room.

He is sitting at the piano, but he is not playing the piano.

It is raining outside.

It’s making the new day dark, the gray of it creeping into his empty room. He stares out the windows, but it’s all gray. His photoshoot in the morning was cancelled because of the gloomy weather.

The door to his room opens, but he doesn’t pay attention to that. He watches the droplets trace down the panes of glass separating him from the outside world.

He feels his father staring at him. It makes his neck prickle; Gabriel’s presence is different from Nathalie or Gorilla’s, somehow. He always knows when it’s Gabriel. He doesn’t say anything, even though he knows he should. 

“Due to” - Gabriel hesitates here, and Adrien can picture the way he clasps his hands behind his back to hide the clenching fists he makes when he talks - “recent events, I have decided to give you the rest of the week off.” He clears his throat. “I’m afraid I misjudged the sincerity of your complaints. I apologize, Adrien.”

Adrien looks away from the window to stare at his father. He feels like his bones are empty. Like his skeleton is shielding a black hole. “Okay, Father,” he says, his voice blank. “Thank you.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows twitch. He’s trying to read through Adrien, figure him out. He sits down on the piano bench beside him, and Adrien scoots over on instinct. They are quiet for a while, but it isn’t a comfortable quiet, like Adrien knows can happen with someone you love. It’s a quiet that itches.

“Consider today a sick day,” Gabriel says, his voice mixing with the rain on the windows. “The whole week a sick day. To rest and recover.”

“Okay, Father,” Adrien says.

They sit for an eternity of thirty seconds. Adrien finds himself missing when he was sitting alone, even though he hated that.

“Where is that ring you normally wear?” Gabriel asks suddenly, and Adrien jolts out of the sounds of the rain, looking down at the white band of skin on his right ring finger. He rubs his thumb against the naked skin.

“I lost it,” Adrien finally says. He hadn’t even realized his father cared that much about his things.

Gabriel stands suddenly, startling Adrien. He looks up at his father, who is attempting in vain to shield his anger behind a mask of indifference. Adrien frowns. 

“Where did you lose it?” Gabriel demands, and Adrien shakes his head slowly.

“I don’t remember.” Here, he thinks. Here where I let him get me. 

“You should take better care of your possessions,” Gabriel nearly snarls, and Adrien leans back on the piano bench. His father stalks out of the room. 

Adrien turns his head, and he continues staring out the windows. 

Time passes.

It stops raining.

It starts raining again.

The room is so silent.

He never thought he’d miss the stench of stinky cheese.

It’s still raining.

Adrien is still staring out the windows.

Where Ladybug is.

He blinks. 

She’s tapping on his window, the rain running in rivulets down her cheeks, and he stands so abruptly, he knocks the piano bench back a good foot or two. He runs to the window, and he opens it up, letting her and the rain climb into his room before he shuts the window again.

She shakes the water out of her bangs. They’re frizzy and messy, and she’s the best thing he’s seen all day. She has a huge backpack on her shoulders, stained dark with the rain, and she looks at him like she might cry. But she smiles at him.

“Hey, kitty,” she says.

Chapter Text

Marinette doesn’t even get a chance to get to the next sentence of her pre-planned speech she’d spent all day working over with Tikki and Plagg before Adrien is launching himself at her and wrapping her in so strong of a hug that she’s stumbling back against the windows. Her hands go around him on instinct, and she feels her heart pound as he tries to pull her even closer than he already has her.

Adrien Agreste is hugging her. Adrien Agreste. 

Chat Noir, she reminds herself, and something inside of her relaxes even as it pulses in pain. Chat Noir is hugging her, and he is sad, and she is sad, and it is all very sad.

She rubs comforting circles along his back, and he tucks his face into the crook of her neck, letting out a shaking sob. “You’re- today was so- I thought,” he starts, but in the end he just shakes his head, wrapping his arms around her tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she hesitates for only a moment before she strokes a hand through his hair. He shudders. “I was going to come sooner, but I had to make a couple stops.” 

And plan a speech, she thinks. A speech which, it seems, she does not need . She really should’ve listened to Plagg when he said she was being ridiculous.

She manages to pull herself out of Adrien’s grasp just enough to actually look at his face, and her heart breaks, a thousand times and more. She reaches her hand up and gently wipes the tears away from his cheeks with the back of her fingers. “I should’ve come sooner,” she says, and he shakes his head vehemently, taking her hand in his and kissing her knuckles.

And it’s so-

That’s Adrien, doing that. Golden Adrien. And silly Chat Noir. All in one.

“No, I’m more than happy seeing you here now,” he says, his lips moving against her knuckles. “I… It makes everything else worth it. I mean it, my lady.”

And oh, wasn’t that something. It was the same as always, but more. It was the same as always but it was also Adrien. 

“I brought you some stuff,” she says, and she gently pushes at his chest so that he’ll let go of her and allow her to walk over and sit on the couch. He stares at her for a moment, his expression drawn up and- something. Drawn up and something as he looks at her sitting on his couch. She pats the space beside her. He sits beside her.

She unzips her bag, and Plagg comes flying out, immediately zipping over to bury himself in Adrien’s surprised hands. At first, Adrien doesn’t seem to know what to do, and then his expression breaks, and he holds Plagg up to his face, letting out a dry sob as Plagg purrs in his hands. “Plagg,” he says, his voice breaking. “You smell so bad.” He laughs as he says it, like it's the best thing he’s ever said.

“You missed me,” Plagg tries to tease, but it’s also extremely obvious Plagg missed him, too. Marinette would know - he spent the entire day and the entire night before worrying about him. Adrien nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I missed you, stinky cat.” 

Tears are rolling down his cheeks, and Marinette looks away, wanting to give them their moment. She turns back to her bag, pulling out a box of sweets from her parents’ bakery and setting it on the coffee table. She also grabs the package of glow-in-the-dark stars she’d had to stop to go get as well as the flashlight she’d bought with them. Adrien looks down from where Plagg is nestling in his hair, furrowing his eyebrows.

“What’s that for?” he asks as she pushes the box of sweets over to him.

“For you,” Marinette says, gesturing to the sweets. “Obviously.”

He blushes, looking down at the box before opening it up and appraising the contents. She’d piled in a little bit of everything, but he goes for the chocolate cupcake with the red icing on it, artfully shaped to make a rose. He stares down at the cupcake rose for a second, his expression moving in ways she couldn’t quite understand, and then he looks back at her. “Thank you. But I, uh, meant that,” he says, and he gestures to the flashlight and package of stars.

It’s her turn to blush now, and she looks down at the stars and flashlight to avoid looking at him. “I, um, actually wanted to take you out” - she feels the blood rush to her face in a visceral race of blood cells - “I mean, like, physically? Out? You know? Not- you know. But, um, it started raining, but I.” She stops, ripping open the package of stars. They all go flying. She covers her face with her hands, and then gestures to the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars littering the space around them. “Stars,” she says.

“Stars,” he repeats. She doesn’t look at him, trying to gather the stars. She sets them up in straight lines along the coffee table, a quiet, meditative act, and then she’s moving down to sit on the floor to better arrange her stars. Adrien doesn’t say anything, and when she’s finished collecting the stars, she turns on the flashlight to charge them up a little more, just in case.

“Because, you know,” she says, because her heart rate has slowed to normal speeds and she’s just shining the flashlight beam along the stars instead of looking at Adrien, “we would watch the stars, a lot, right? And I wanted you to feel, like, maybe a little bit normal after everything that happened.” She idly fixes a star so that it’s straighter in the line. “So I was gonna give you back your ring - because it is your ring, you know - and we were gonna go out and sit on a roof and look at the stars and eat sweets. But it was still raining, so I had to make a change of plans.” She stops, twisting her lips to the side. “I guess I should’ve thought about where we were going to put these,” she says, and she looks around his huge room only for her eyes to catch on his face.

He’s staring at her. He looks like he might cry. He looks like he might laugh.

“You wanted to take me out to see the stars,” he says, and Marinette is so caught up in his gold, “but since that wasn’t going to work, you just decided to... make me starlight?”

Marinette opens her mouth. Something in her throat clicks. “Yes?” she says.

“Ladybug-” Adrien starts, but then the door to Adrien’s room is opening and Plagg is swooping out of Adrien’s hair and Marinette is diving under the coffee table, heart racing.

There’s a pause.

“Is there something wrong?” Nathalie Sancouer, Gabriel Agreste’s personal assistant. 

“Nope,” Adrien squeaks. “Everything’s fine.”

Another pause. “Very well. I was just coming to inform you that all the cancellations to your schedule this week have been finalized. However, just as a reminder, the Hero’s Charity Gala at the end of next week is required. Also, your father will not be joining you for dinner as he has some business to attend to.”

From under the coffee table, Marinette sees Adrien’s fists clench.

“Sounds great, Nathalie, thank you,” Adrien replies, and then there’s a click as the door shuts.

“You couldn’t have asked her for any camembert?” Plagg asks, peeking out from Adrien’s shirt.

“I literally gave you some an hour ago,” Marinette says, coming out from underneath the coffee table and managing to bump her head in the process. She winces.

“He’s insatiable,” Adrien says, but he says it so fondly that Marinette just laughs. 

They look at each other.

“She could come in again at any time,” Marinette says.

Adrien chews on his bottom lip. “Then that just means we’ll have to find a better place to hide.”

Chapter Text

Adrien watches as Ladybug finishes pressing her glow-in-the-dark stars to the walls of the pillow fort he’d constructed around them made out of nearly all the couch cushions and his blankets from his bed. He’d gotten his pillows, too, and some extra blankets to lay on the ground where they sat. He hugs his pillow to his chest, and Ladybug lowers her hand, squinting at it skeptically.

“I’m not sure how long this cheap adhesive will last against the fabric,” she says.

“Thank you,” Adrien says.

She blinks. It’s dark in their pillow fort, except for the small green-tinged glow from the stars and the little golden beam from her flashlight, and she’s never looked so beautiful to him. He missed her - it had only been a day since he’d last seen her, but he’d missed her. She brought him stars, and she has all the stars in her eyes, and he loves her.

He thinks he might cry.

“Adrien?” she asks, and she takes his hand, and he does cry, then.

Because he’d thought-

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he says (or sobs, more like - he is only human, after all), and she takes both his hands in his, squeezing so tight that it hurts in the best kind of way. “Not like this. I thought it was over. I thought I was over.”

“No, no, no,” Ladybug says, and she presses his hands to her cheeks, almost like she has no other idea what to do with them, and he holds her cheeks, and he realizes she’s crying, too. “You’re still Chat Noir, get it? You’re still my chaton,” she says, and she leans forward to press her forehead against his. “I’d never abandon you, Adrien.” And her voice is so vehement and fierce that he has no choice but to believe her.

Except.

She’d given him his ring back before he built the fort, and he holds it in his hand now. It’s warm and soft, like melting chocolate, and it’s too sweet. He rubs his cheek against where Plagg is resting on his shoulder, and Plagg lets out a small purring noise. Adrien squeezes his eyes shut, and he lets go of Ladybug’s cheeks, leaning his face away.

“I can’t,” he says, and he presses the ring back into her hand.

She looks down at the ring in her hand, and then back up at Adrien. He watches her expression break by the light of her stars, and she nods. “I know,” she says, and he hates to see that he’s breaking her heart. Because he is. And there’s nothing either of them can do about it. “But I won’t give it to anyone else.”

“You better not,” Plagg quips. Ladybug’s lips twitch up into a smile. 

“I promise,” she says, and she reaches her pinky over to Plagg, who shakes it with one of his hands. She offers the same pinky to Adrien, and he hooks her pinky with his, looking into her eyes. “You’re the only Chat Noir for me, Adrien,” she says, and Adrien swallows and nods. Her face draws up, and she presses a kiss to her own thumb, her eyes flicking back up to him. “To seal the promise,” she explains.

He leans forward and presses a kiss to his own thumb, too, and looks her in the eyes as he does so. She swallows.

She’s ethereal in the dark. Softer, closer. 

The air between them is the same - soft, close. Nearly intimate, if Adrien is the type to judge that kind of thing. Their pinkies are still linked together, and Adrien curls his pinky tighter around hers. 

“I’m hungry,” Plagg says, and Ladybug laughs, and the atmosphere expands. She lets go of Adrien’s pinky, turning toward the box of pastries on the floor beside them.

Adrien glares at Plagg. Plagg makes a face at him. “Dude,” Adrien hisses.

“Move faster next time,” Plagg says cheekily, and Ladybug looks up from where she’d been bending over the pastry box.

“What was that?” she asks, completely naive, and Adrien feels his cheeks heat up.

“Nothing,” Adrien says at the same time Plagg says “something.”

Ladybug just rolls her eyes at Plagg, holding up a cheese danish. “It’s not camembert because I thought you would be fine for an hour, but I do have this.”

Plagg dives down to give it a sniff, making little thinking sounds. He looks between the danish and Ladybug. “It’ll do,” he says.

“What,” Adrien says, utterly offended and outraged. “How many times have I tried to get you to eat literally anything other than camembert? You refused every single time! What is this!”

“LB just has better persuasion techniques,” Plagg says with a sniff, devouring the danish in two huge bites. “And besides, no one can say no to anything from the best bakery in Paris.”

Ladybug bristles at that, a little smile twitching at her lips, and she rubs a finger against Plagg’s little cheek. “You heard him,” she says smugly.

“Unbelievable,” Adrien grumbles.

They sit in their fort for a while longer, side by side leaning their backs against the couch, and they talk and eat pastries from the best bakery in Paris (which, Adrien realizes as soon as he takes a bite from the chocolate rose cupcake, is actually the Dupain-Cheng bakery; he thinks of Marinette and smiles). He tells her about being Chat Noir, how he and Plagg first met, what it did for him. 

It’s hard.

Being Chat Noir did everything for him. He can’t be Chat Noir anymore. He’s just Adrien Agreste. A toy for his father’s company, a blank face for teenagers to project love onto. 

“That’s not true,” Ladybug says, and she lowers the eclair she’d been snacking on, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. Adrien squeezes his pillow close to his chest, shrugging lightly. “You know that, right?” she asks, and she sets the eclair down in the box, shifting her legs so that she’s facing him fully. “You’re so much more than something your father or the public uses you for. You’re- you’re kind, and you’re genuine, and you’re funny, and you’re like-” She breaks off, shaking her head. “You’re like if the sun was a person,” she says, and she laughs, but she’d said it like it was the one truest thing she’d ever said.

Adrien stares at her.

He wants to kiss her, here in the quiet close of the soft glow of her stars and his pillow fort.

He smiles instead.

“If I’m the sun, then you’re the stars,” he replies. “Because, however great you think I am, you’re everything multiplied across the universe, infinite times over.”

Her breath catches. 

And then she frowns.

“Hey, you were supposed to take the compliment, not turn it back to me,” she says, and Adrien laughs.

They talk for a while longer, and Adrien manages to tell her how he got akumatized without crying (too much). When she hears about what his father said and how he took the rose (their rose), her face hardens and breaks, all at once. She holds his hand, and he can’t tell if she’s doing it for his benefit or for her own.

Eventually, she has to leave, and she manages to pry Plagg away from Adrien after ten minutes of the both of them squabbling back and forth, pretending they won’t miss each other but knowing they will. 

“I’ll come by to visit when I can,” Ladybug says, zipping up her backpack. It’s significantly less full than before; she’s leaving behind her stars and the box of pastries. Adrien blinks.

“You will?”

“Yeah,” she says, looking back at him. “So you can say hi to Plagg, so I can say hi to you, you know.” 

They stare at each other.

“I’d like that,” he says.

She leaves soon after, and Adrien notices the rain has stopped, the sunset brilliant gold. 

After she’s gone, Adrien lays down in their pillow fort, staring up at the stars she’d charged up with her own personal sun. She probably didn’t even need to, now that Adrien thought about it, but she had been so determined to make sure the stars shone that she’d made sure to bring enough light for them to drink up. 

It had worked. The stars still shone, in the soft quiet of their pillow fort. 

Adrien reaches a hand up, and he finds that these stars are stars that are close enough to touch.

Chapter Text

Marinette takes a deep breath, and then she’s dropping down onto the red carpet in front of the venue, smoothing down the skirt of her dress, and smiling wide at the cheering crowds and snapping cameras. The shimmering red ladybug wings she added to the back of her dress, dotted with black rhinestones that match the dress she made, flutter behind her as she walks up the red carpet and through the huge open doors to enter the gala.

For a small, blissful moment, no one is looking at her. 

She takes the moment to run a finger through her bangs and check to make sure none of the black rhinestones on her dress have fallen off. How embarrassing would that be? To walk into a fancy gala full of Paris’ philanthropic and fashion elite and have her dress be falling apart on the seams?

Before she can really even get a good check in, though, the mayor is grabbing her lace gloved hands and thanking her so much for coming and asking if perhaps Chat Noir might show up tonight. It’s been over a week since anyone’s seen him, after all. And there’s a crowd around her now, asking her all overlapping questions about her, the dress, Chat Noir, the Agreste charity line, and she grits her teeth and smiles through it all.

“Chat’s been hanging around,” she says with an innocent wave of her hand, “just making the most of his nine lives, you know?” The crowd laughs. It wasn’t really that funny; maybe she should take some pointers from Adrien on appropriate bug and cat-themed puns. “Oh, and the dress? It’s actually” - she pauses here, glancing down for once last check, just in case - “well, it’s actually made by a student. Marinette Dupain-Cheng? She offered to make it for me, and I accepted.”

There are a flurry of gasps around her, and everyone leans in a little bit closer, as if their proximity might make her claim more believable. 

“Remarkable,” someone says, and Marinette flushes with pride.

Eventually, she’s allowed some space to breathe, and she walks over to the refreshment table, scanning over the twinkling glasses of various alcoholic beverages until she finds what looks like orange juice until she takes a sip. Just as she’s trying to discreetly spit the (surprise, surprise!) alcoholic beverage back into the cup, Adrien steps into view, right in front of her. She chokes, the not-orange juice dribbling off her lips.

“Hey,” he says.

She tries to suppress her coughs, but that just makes her cough harder. She sets down her glass on the table beside her before she can spill it all over herself, and she moves to wipe her mouth off with her sleeve, but he stops her arm lightly, pulling out the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

“Here, no, use this,” he says, placing the handkerchief in her hands. “Wouldn’t want to get such a pretty dress dirty.”

Marinette flushes, taking the handkerchief and trying as daintily as possible to wipe her mouth. As soon as the fabric touches her lips, she realizes two things: that the fabric is silk, and that she’d put on lipstick. She yanks the handkerchief away from her mouth, but the damage is already done; her bright red lipstick made an imprint of her lips against the white silk. 

“Oh, my God,” she whimpers. “You wouldn’t happen to have tape? Or-or baking powder? Actually, I’d need both.” She looks around frantically, at the expensively-dressed men and women with the tiny purses and even tinier pockets. “Does anyone have any tape and baking powder? Cornstarch could also work?”

People are starting to look in their direction now, and some are shaking heads in confusion, but even more are whispering and suppressing giggles. When she looks back at Adrien, nearly beside herself panicking, he’s laughing. His eyes, glittering green under the gold light, meet hers, and he tries to reign himself in, but his laugh is still there, right on his cheeks.

“It’s alright, Ladybug,” he says, gently taking the handkerchief from her hands and refolding it neatly (it almost looks like a rose, she thinks) to place back in his breast pocket. Her lipstick stain peeks out at the curves of the folds.

“But… it’s silk,” she says helplessly.

“I promise you it’s better this way,” he says, and she feels her cheeks burn. “I mean, come on, a plain white pocket square with a red suit and black button down? Now it really matches.”

She looks down at his suit - the shiny red of his suit jacket and slacks, the black pinstripe running down the outside of his legs, his white and black shoes, the plain black button down (not buttoned up all the way - she can see his collar bones, Jesus Christ), and his now lipstick-stained handkerchief. She bites her lip. “I mean, yeah,” she finally admits.

“But really, beautiful dress, my-” He cuts himself, his cheeks flushing as he looks around them, seemingly realizing they aren’t alone. He clears his throat. “Beautiful dress, Ladybug.” His expression softens, his eyes trailing her up and down to appreciate the dress. His eyes meet hers again. “Really, beautiful.”

She fiddles with the fingertips of her black gloves, unable to resist the way her smile stretches from her toes up to her ears. “Not so bad yourself” - she leans in close, lowering her voice - “ kitten.” 

He lets out a rush of breath that turns into a laugh, running a hand through his carefully styled hair. “You’re trying to kill me,” he says, as if he’s just decided, and she laughs.

They lean against the table and talk, easy, for a while, looking out at the moving mass of glittering people before them. His expression brightens when she mentions her dress is made by Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and she then has to endure no less than five minutes of Adrien Agreste ( Adrien Agreste) rambling about his good friend Marinette, how much she’d like her, all the nice things she’s done, how well she gets along with his class.

“No, really, you’d love her,” Adrien says shifting on his feet so he’s leaning his hip against the table instead of his back. He’s talking with his hands, bright, excited, and Marinette is torn between wishing he would shut up to save her some embarrassment and wishing he would never stop talking if it meant she got to see him so happy. 

(He’s tried to hide it during her visits over the past week, but she can tell he’s still upset about not being Chat Noir. It’s heavy in the air between them, always, but he doesn’t bring it up and she doesn’t ask. It’s an unspoken agreement, to not ask too many questions, just like it always has been. Only the rules have changed, just a little. She tries not to think about it.)

“I mean, I even call her the everyday Ladybug sometimes,” he continues, and Marinette tries her best not to laugh.

“Do you now?”

“Oh, of course, if you knew her as well as I do, you’d think the same,” he says, completely genuine, and this time Marinette does laugh. He blinks. “What?”

“I just didn’t know you thought so highly of her, is all,” Marinette says innocently. “I mean, come on. The famous model Adrien Agreste gushing over the everyday class president at his public school?”

He snorts, nudging her with his elbow. “Yeah? And what about the literal superhero asking that same class president to design and make her a dress for a high-profile charity gala?”

Marinette finds herself grinning. “Point taken.”

She looks back at the people enjoying the gala, and she finds that they are less enjoying the gala and more, apparently, enjoying looking at her and Adrien. Even the people dancing are craning their necks to see them. 

“I feel like an exotic animal at the zoo,” Marinette murmurs, and she looks back at Adrien to see he’s looking at her carefully. “What?”

“You know what exotic animals at zoos are exceedingly good at?” he asks. Marinette raises her eyebrows.

“Being interesting and pretty to look at?” she asks. He laughs.

“Hiding,” he corrects, and he takes her hand.

Chapter Text

To make it less conspicuous, Adrien moves Ladybug through the staring crowds, moving her hand up so that it loops gracefully over his arm. She follows him with only a few questioning looks, smiling at the people they stop to talk to, squeezing her hand on his bicep.

As their shifting crowds, Adrien leans over to whisper in her ear, and the curls of her ponytail brush along his cheek. She smells like the sky, sweet like spring. “We’ll have to separate for a bit, but meet me out that door” - he nudges his chin to a door that leads out from the ballroom - “when you can.”

She nods with a smile and a laugh, catching easily onto his plan just as he suspected, and then she’s letting go of his arm to greet a cluster of business women with a wide smile and breezy excitement. He looks after her for a moment, admiring her ease and luster, and then he manages to tear her eyes away from her.

He moves through the crowds, standing and talking and answering questions for his father - who, as always, neglected to come - and finally, finally he makes it to the doors he’d told Ladybug to go through.

He’s been to events in this venue before, and he knew that this door led to a wide hallway normally kept dim during events to show that partygoers weren’t necessarily allowed there. But the doors are unlocked, and he slips through them, easy and unfollowed.

Just like he remembers, the hallway is dim, on the edge of dark. The lights are especially low now, and Adrien realizes it’s because standing candelabras have been set up at regular intervals on both sides of the hallway. The flickering light from the candles give the dim space a dreamlike quality, only heightened by the beautiful girl standing by the windows.

She hadn’t heard the doors open and close, and so she stands staring out into the night, fiddling with her fashionable frilled gloves, picking at each fingertip and then working the glove back on, over and over. Her dress glitters in the candlelight, the fire turning the black rhinestones on the bodice, collar, and shimmering wings to gold. 

The dress only falls mid-thigh - a bold move for a gala, where floor-length is normally the minimum - but the end of the swishing black fabric just reveals that she’s wearing her suit underneath. She’s put on a pretty dress (MDC Designs, of course - how could it be anything else, with how stunning it is?), but it’s just a ruse. She’s still a superhero, underneath, still powerful and striking, and she’s letting everyone know it.

Adrien leans his back against the doors, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Come here often?” he asks, and he watches her pensive expression break as she snorts, ducking her head as if to hide her smile before turning to look at him.

“You pull this move on all the pretty girls at galas you find?” she asks, turning around as he steps toward her.

“I’m offended that you can even think that I’d look at any other girl when you exist, my lady,” Adrien replies, hiding the truth of his words behind a dramatic tone and a kiss to her knuckles.

She laughs, poking his nose with her finger. “Sounded like you were waxing poetic about a certain Marinette Dupain-Cheng earlier.”

“It doesn’t count as waxing poetic if I’m just speaking straight facts, everyone knows that,” Adrien replies, and she rewards him with another cute little snort. 

It’s different now, under the candlelight. They’re closer here, Adrien feels. Outside, they had to put on a little act for the bright lights and the watchful eyes, but here, they’re just… Ladybug and Adrien. Just a girl and guy, playing dress up. 

She bites her lip, and he thinks that maybe she’s thinking the same thing.

“Care for a dance?” he asks, breaking the little silence between them, holding out his hand. The music from the gala is quiet through the doors, but he can still hear it.

Her mouth moves, like she’s thinking about pushing back her smile but decides against it. She takes his hand.

He moves her to the center of the hallway, and he places a nearly shaking hand to her waist as she lays his hand on his shoulder. They lace their fingers together, and Adrien looks down at her, the feeling of her thumb and forefinger bracketing his overwhelming him. 

“I don’t think you’ve ever really seen me wax poetic,” he says as he steps into a waltz, on beat with the faint music, flickering like the little flames surrounding them.

Her eyebrows shoot up. She follows him, without hesitation, as they dance. His heart races. “Oh, really? Could’ve fooled me.”

They’re moving in sync, slotted perfectly together. 

“Yeah, because if I was really waxing poetic about someone, I would say things like…” He pauses, taking her in as they dance. It’s quiet here, and he closes his eyes, feeling the rise and fall of her breath as they move. He opens his eyes, and he looks down at her, and he finds her looking up at him so fondly - as if she’s holding a laugh behind her eyes and an endearment behind her lips - that Adrien has to steel himself. 

“Like?” she prompts, tilting her head to the side. The candlelight catches on her. She’s a dream.

“Like you’re a dream among nightmares,” he says, his hand clenching hers, unconsciously. “An alchemist who turns mud to gold with a single touch. A poet by virtue of your smile. A harbinger of spring, a brilliant sun, a dewy rose.” 

They’re not dancing anymore, just standing, holding each other.

“Get that boy a publisher,” she murmurs, her voice breathless.

“What?” he asks, and he feels so much, all at once, that he wants to jump up into the air and hold her, always, forever.

She laughs, shaking her head. “Just- nothing. I shared a poem you gave me once to someone, and he said that you should be published.”

“That was nice of him to say,” Adrien says.

“Yeah,” she replies, and they’re staring at each other.

“Ladybug-” he starts, and then the candles all around them are blowing out, all at once, and a chorus of screams and shouts ring out from the ballroom.

“Of course,” he hears Ladybug say, as if the words are a swear, and then she’s breaking away from him, leaving his hands cold and empty, and running toward the doors. “Stay behind and get somewhere safe!” she calls behind him.

Adrien feels the empty band of skin on his right ring finger, and then he follows after her.

Chapter Text

When Marinette pushes open the doors to the ballroom, a blast of wind and a tide of people knock her back. Jewels and fine shoes snag on her, and she shoves her way through the panicking mass and harsh wind until she’s standing in the now nearly empty ballroom, home to a swirling tornado.

As the winds buffet against her body, she pulls out her yo-yo from where she’d had it slung around the waist of her dress, swinging it into a swirl that helps deter some of the wind from hitting her. She looks around, trying to find the source of the akuma, and sees that the people who hadn’t run fast enough to the exits are being swept up into the shifting, black wind tunnel, dissolving into the wind within a blink of an eye. With every person absorbed into the tornado, it seems to careen around the ballroom faster and louder, growing bigger and bigger. It’s loud, and it’s terrifying, and she realizes Adrien is standing right beside her.

“What are you doing?” she shouts at him over the swell of the wind. It knocks his neatly styled hair around, whipping it across his forehead and cheeks, and the starched collar of his black shirt flips up and down around his neck.

“You think I would run away from danger while you’re running into it?” he asks, grinning at her. “Come on, LB, danger is my middle name.”

“You have, like, three middle names and none of them are ‘Danger!’” Marinette replies, tugging him in by his suit jacket so he’s behind the protection of her yo-yo.

“One of them is, actually,” he says cheekily. “The ‘d’ is silent. Both audibly and visually.”

She gives him a look. “Get to safety,” she tells him, shoving him in the direction of the exit to the ballroom. But he hardly even moves, planting his feet against her. “Adrien,” she pleads, pushing against his firm chest with one hand.

He leans in close, pressing his forehead to hers. “I’m here, Ladybug,” he says, as quietly as he can over the roar of the winds. His eyes are green, so green, and Marinette’s heart clenches. “It’s me, you know it is. Let me help. Let me stay.”

He’s Adrien.

He’s Chat, he always has been.

Suddenly, she feels a little bit like crying. 

Before she can even think of what to say in response, his eyes are flicking away from her, widening, and then his hands are going around her waist, and he’s shoving the both of them to the side, all within the span of a millisecond. They tumble to the ground, and she lands on her forearms and knees, hanging over Adrien. 

His hands are still on her waist. He’s staring up at her, wide-eyed, and her hair is dangling down to brush against his cheeks.

“The tornado was going to eat us,” Adrien says, and Marinette remembers there’s a tornado in the room.

“Fine,” she says, climbing off him and offering a hand to help him up. “You can help. But if you sacrifice yourself to the tornado, then I’ll kill you.”

He’s Chat Noir, but she doesn’t think she could handle it if she saw that. Not like this. Not now.

“It’s okay, I still have, like, seven lives left,” Adrien says with a grin, and she shoves his shoulder.

“Don’t push your luck,” she says as they look back to the akuma.

“With you by my side? Never,” he says in a way that toes the line between truth and act, just in the way he always does. 

She feels her smile push at the edges of her lips. It’s just the akuma (villain name: probably something really lame like ‘Mr. Twist’), Adrien Agreste (superhero name: Chat Noir) and her (civilian name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng), just like always.

With a flick of her wrist, a polka-dotted lucky charm in the shape of a leaf blower falls into her hands.

“I think that guy has the leaves covered for right now,” Adrien says.

“When are you going to learn to trust my plans?” Marinette says, gripping the handle of the leaf blower in her hands as her eyes flick over the scene, picking and catching on the little details. 

“Haven’t you ever heard of the straight man in comedy? It’s a trope where you have, like, a character be the ‘serious’ guy outside of the joke,” he says, gently nudging her to the side so that they don’t get hit by a flying glass of wine.

The leaf blower, a slide of feet beneath the swirling winds, the harsh winds picking up debris, Adrien, the refreshments table high up in the tornado’s twist.

“Obviously, I’m not straight or serious, but I do set up the scene so that you can take it away with your brilliant plans,” Adrien continues. “I always believe in your plans. I’m just setting it up so you amaze me every time.”

“Chat,” Marinette says, rolling her eyes, and then she covers her mouth with her hand. He looks at her with raised eyebrows. They both look around the ballroom, but no one except the tornado seems to have witnessed the slip up. “Sorry, I just. You were talking so much. It’s like you were-”

“Chat Noir,” Adrien finishes. And there’s something drawn up in his expression. The moment is loud and silent, overwhelming and small. He takes her hand. “Just tell me what to do, buginette.”

She swallows down the lump in her throat. “Distract the tornado for me,” she says, squeezing his hand. “And don’t you dare die.” She presses a kiss to his cheek, and then she lets go of his hand, running straight for the tornado.

Chapter Text

Adrien stands alone in front of a tornado, wearing only his skin and a suit that is far too expensive for its own good. He runs the skin of his right ring finger with his thumb, and he takes a deep breath.

“Hey, titanic twist!” he shouts up at the tornado, cupping his hands around his mouth to keep the sound from whipping straight away from him. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to Oz? You’ve already got your collection of Dorothys!”

It’s hard to describe, but he knows when the tornado turns to face him. It swirls more threateningly in his direction, or something. 

He swallows thickly, and he sees the bright red and black shape of Ladybug jump into the tornado. He nearly screams, but then she’s on the edges of the swirling cone, clinging on to a broken table that steadily spirals up into the air. 

The tornado seems to realize she’s there, but Adrien waves his hands frantically, wishing he had his baton, his suit - the one he actually cares about - his bell, his bravery. All of it. He is so small, and everything else is big and bold and better than him.

“Kinda tiny for a tornado, though, aren’t you? Hey, how about we call you Tiny Twist! Can I hear a ‘please sir I want some more?’” he shouts up. That seems to make the tornado mad, and a whip of black wind thrashes out towards him. He only just manages to dodge in time, but it does seem to distract the tornado from Ladybug steadily climbing up its wind walls.

He plays more cat and mouse (or…tornado and Adrien) with the tornado, but he’s not a superhero. He doesn’t have the enhanced reflexes and increased stamina. He’s just a spoiled rich kid playing hero, and he’s tired.

A twisting arm of wind lashes out at him, and he’s too slow to dodge it. He feels it wrap tight around his stomach, to the point of pain as it chafes and beats at him, and it tugs him hard toward the wall of wind. He hears Ladybug scream, but she is far away and her voice rides on the wind away from him.

Ladybug is going to kill me, he thinks, and then he smashes into the swirling wind of the tornado, and he disappears.

When he reappears once more, he’s standing in a miraculously fixed ballroom, no tornado in sight, and he sees Ladybug picking up a skinny middle-aged guy from the floor, giving him her signature sympathetic, reassuring smile. She looks around, and her eyes catch on Adrien’s.

She’s upset, frustrated, maybe even a little mad at him. But she’s grateful to see him. In a millisecond, he can read her with only a tilt of her eyebrows and a twitch of her lips.

And then the press is overwhelming them both.

They ask him questions, commend his bravery, ask him how he got the courage, and they praise him, they praise him, they praise him. 

It doesn’t make sense.

Or at least, it shouldn’t.

He feels strangely like he’s going to throw up, but then he’s being lifted up into the air, a strong, warm hand wrapping around his waist. And he knows it’s Ladybug because she smells like the sun and because the crowds of people below him shout her name.

“Sorry,” she calls down to them, not sounding very sorry, “he’s got a curfew!”

And then she’s swinging them out of the ballroom and into the night. 

Adrien wraps his arms around her and tucks his face into her neck, breathing in something familiar and sweet. His breaths come easier, her hair tickles his face, her arm is tight and steady around him.

They land on a familiar rooftop, one they often met up at to do patrols, and he doesn’t immediately let go of her. It’s like he can’t, somehow. He’s so full of everything and nothing, and if he lets go, if he looks at something other than the shines of rhinestones on her dress and the smooth line of her jaw, then he’ll be lost. 

She runs his fingers through his hair, and he sighs. “I hope that was okay,” she says softly, her voice close and warm. “You just looked like you needed an escape.”

“Yeah,” Adrien says. And then he starts to cry

Chapter Text

Marinette has seen Adrien Agreste cry exactly two times before. Now, here at the third time, she should be able to handle it, right? Third times’ the charm, after all.

But, no, actually, it still breaks her heart. Probably more. Like each time she hears his voice crack and his shaking hands wiping at his face like his tears are unseemly, another point on a graph is plotted, making the line that symbolizes her love and pain and grief for him rise exponentially. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Marinette says, blinking back tears of her own. She gently pulls his face away from where he’s tucked in by her neck, and he ducks his head, his strong, heroic figure small and sad. “What’s wrong, Adrien? What’s happening?”

“It’s nothing,” he says, wiping his eyes quickly and shaking his head. “It’s nothing.” He looks back at her, and his bottom lip wobbles. “It didn’t feel right,” he says, his voice breaking. “They all thought I was so cool and heroic, but it was like they were thinking about it like it wasn’t normal for me to be that way. They weren’t thinking that about me. Just- just the image my father made of me. It’s not right. That’s not me.”

Marinette swallows down the lump in her throat. She takes his hand. “You are cool and heroic, though.”

A flicker of a smile moves at the corners of his lips. “I just… don’t like it. Not being Chat Noir.” He sighs, and they sit down on the ledge of the roof, dangling their feet over the edge. “Sometimes it feels like I’m not… strong enough to not be him, you know?”

“I get it,” Marinette says because she does, sort of. After becoming the guardian, being Marinette suddenly became so much harder. She felt like all of her problems, even the really small ones, were just these big, huge monsters that she couldn’t handle. Fighting the real life monsters was so much easier. “But you are.”

Adrien doesn’t say anything.

She nudges his shoulder. “I mean it. Just because the people at the gala or the other fancy, glamorous people don’t know who you are and how strong you really are, doesn’t mean that the people who really know you don’t. I mean, you have friends at school, don’t you? And you’re not your fancy-schmancy model self with them, are you?”

He makes a face, somewhere between a cringe and a grin. “No, definitely not.”

“And I know you,” she says, and something in her chest leaps. She knows him. “I know you, as much as I can, and I think you’re one of the strongest, bravest people I know. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; there’s no one on this earth that I would prefer as a partner over you. Because you’re Chat Noir, and you’re Adrien, and you’re my hero.”

His breath catches in his throat, and he looks over at her. His hair is a little messy now, sticking up at odd angles, and he’s still in his nice suit. His eyes are rimmed red around the edges, and his eyebrows have a little crease between them. His lips are a little chapped. He’s the most perfect thing she’s ever seen.

She clears her throat, looking away from him and swallowing. “You’re my hero, Adrien, even if I’m pissed as hell at you for dying.”

A laugh bursts out of him, like she surprised him with it, and he runs a hand through his hair, resting his palm on the back of his neck and shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, I sure hope you didn’t mean to!” Marinette snaps back at him, and he laughs. Marinette full-body relaxes at the sound of his laugh, and it’s an unconscious sort of thing. She’s just so relieved to see him smile that the relief takes over her, physically.

“I just got tired. You know how the suit gives you more stamina.”

Marinette bites her lip, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I know.” 

She fiddles with the tips of her gloves, and Adrien waits for her, as if she knows that she’s thinking. 

“Adrien, I’ve been thinking,” she says, and Adrien is already looking at her, already with raised, waiting eyebrows. He’d definitely known she was thinking. “And I… have an idea.”

“For what?” he asks, and she lets out a long breath, shifting so that she’s facing him, and he does the same.

“Hawkmoth knows you’re Chat Noir,” she says, and he winces. She takes his hand, squeezing him in reassurance - it’s not his fault, it really isn’t. She would never blame him for that. “And you gave me your miraculous to keep him from continuing to target you and get you while you’re down.”

“Right,” Adrien says slowly.

“But, um, it’s not easy, fighting akumas alone,” Marinette continues. “Hawkmoth also knows the identities of the other heroes, too, from when Miracle Queen attacked, so…” She trails off, trying to think of the best way to put this. “I still need someone to fight by my side. Someone I trust, and when you helped me tonight, I remembered that… I remembered that it’ll only ever be, um, you.”

His eyes widen, and his hand tightens in hers, almost involuntarily. But he shakes his head. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous. If he gets to me, it’ll only be a matter of time before he gets you, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

Marinette breathes in the stars, lets them out with a laugh. “I’m trying to tell you that I have a plan, Adrien. A plan to defeat Hawkmoth. Um, maybe.”

He squints at her, tilting his head to the side as he tries to sift through what she’s told him. “You want to give me my miraculous back to… defeat Hawkmoth?”

“Yes,” Marinette says with a nod. “We’d have to be careful, of course, because he’d be watching you very closely, but that’s the point. If he’s going to be close enough to spy on you, then that means that we would be close enough to spy on him.”

“We would be using Chat Noir as a decoy,” Adrien says, his face breaking into a smile. “A way to lure him in and distract him while we learn what we need to know.”

“Exactly,” Marinette says, and they sit, under the stars, and grin at each other. For the first time in a long time, she feels like she can do anything. Like she’s holding the world in her hand, and it’s holding her back.

Chapter Text

When Ladybug shows up at the studio, Adrien speedwalks over to her as fast as he can without looking overly obvious, but he can tell it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s watching them anyway. 

“Hey, Adrien,” Ladybug says brightly, strapping her yo-yo around her waist and smiling at him like he hadn’t told her multiple times that she did not have to come to this photoshoot.

“I really meant it when I said you didn’t have to come,” Adrien says, and Ladybug looks around, furrowing her eyebrows.

“But it’s for the charity line, right? I mean, it’s been super successful, so we’re doing another shoot for the line and interview about it, right?” she asks, and Adrien wants so badly to rub his hands over his face or run a hand through his hair but both have already been done up.

“I mean, yeah, but, Ladybug-” Before he can finish, a makeup tech is taking Ladybug by the arm and pulling her toward the makeup station. She just smiles and waves at him, letting herself be led away.

Adrien groans, flopping onto a chair and staring up at the ceiling.

“You mean you didn’t tell her that this photoshoot and interview is just a set-up for gossip magazines to figure out if you’re dating or not?” Plagg asks, head half sticking out from the pocket of his suit jacket.

“No,” Adrien says miserably. “I did not.”

Because literally how was he supposed to tell her that. ‘Sorry, Ladybug, don’t show up at this photoshoot to boost charity even though you have a good heart because it’s all a ruse for Paris to figure out if we’re secretly dating. Yeah, I know, that’s awful! And, you know, it’s even more awful because I wish those rumors were true, but they aren’t, and you’re probably okay with that, so let’s just do a favor for both of us and have you not show up to the shoot. Perfect, thanks.’ Yeah, as if.

“Hey,” Plagg says, “get me some camembert.”

“Dude, we are, like, so out in the open right now, and I don’t want to smell like stinky cheese in front of Ladybug. Deal with it,” Adrien snaps, stuffing Plagg back in his pocket, and then immediately feeling bad. “I’ll get you a whole boatload later,” he whispers.

So they do the photoshoot. 

It’s for the cover of a pretty big magazine, so it’s way more formal than the one they did for the advertisement together. The crew dressed Adrien up in a Ladybug-themed chic suit, and Ladybug is done up in a Chat Noir-esque gown over her suit, her hair half-up and vaguely reminiscent of artful cat ears. The photographer wants a serious shoot, so no real smiling, only smiling with your eyes and three other facial muscles you don’t know you have until you use them for an hour straight behind a camera.

They have Adrien sit on a stool with Ladybug standing behind him, and they want Ladybug to place her hand on his chest, which she does because she tries her best to listen to what the photographers direct her to do. Her hand is light and warm over his chest. She can probably feel him breathing. Maybe even his heartbeat.

“Okay, now look at each other,” the photographer says, and she looks down just as he looks up at her.

She’s beautiful.

It’s not even the make-up or anything, although the make-up artists have done their jobs in enhancing her features and tying both her look and his look together, but it’s just… her. She’s standing over him, and she has a hand on his chest, and she’s beautiful.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asks quietly, and Adrien lets out a laugh in surprise, and then she’s taking his chin in her gentle hand and tugging his face down so that he’s looking back at the camera. He feels his face doing something goofy and love-struck, entirely of its own bidding, and the camera snaps. 

After the shoot (which ended suspiciously soon after Ladybug grabbed his face and Adrien accidentally probably looked a little too in love on camera), they’re herded out of their nice clothes and into a different room to sit on plush couches and answer questions from a journalist from the magazine. 

“So, Ladybug, tell me what it’s been like working with the Agreste charity line,” the journalist, Jade Bernard, says, and Ladybug leans forward in her seat.

“Oh, it’s been wonderful! The line is full of such cute items, and I’ve actually dropped by some children’s hospitals to see that the kids are so happy with them,” she says, and she’s so genuine and nice about it that Adrien really wishes he warned her about the interview’s true intentions.

“That’s wonderful,” Bernard says, and then she turns to Adrien. “What are your thoughts about this line, Adrien?”

“I think it’s some of my father’s best work,” Adrien says with a smile. “He always has such fantastic designs, but being able to benefit the community of Paris and its children has been a great experience.”

“Now, you two have worked together in the advertising of this line since the very beginning,” Bernard says, shifting in her seat, and Adrien can feel the air in the room shift. He looks over to Ladybug to see if she noticed, but she’s just sitting and waiting for the next question patiently. “How has it been, Adrien, to work with Ladybug?”

“Honestly, we haven’t even really worked that closely with each other - we’ve only gotten together for one photoshoot prior to this one - but it’s been perfectly professional. Ladybug is a fantastic person to work with, as I have said before,” Adrien says, trying to put some gentle force to the words in the hopes that Bernard will back off.

But Bernard just raises an eyebrow. “Perfectly professional? It seems to me that some believe you two have some sort of friendship brewing behind the cameras. Is that true?”

“No-” Adrien starts just as Ladybug says, “sure.”

Bernard’s eyebrows shoot up. “Which is it?”

“We are friends,” Ladybug says before Adrien can even open his mouth. He gives her a look, and she ignores it. He knows she ignores it because her mouth twitches up into a smile, and she has that look on her face like she’s telling a joke and can’t wait to get to the punchline. “I mean, have you met Adrien before? How can you not be friends with him?”

“So do the two of you meet outside of work?” Bernard asks, and Ladybug laughs, waving her hand.

“Who has the time?” she asks breezily. “I’m a superhero, he’s a model. But even though we don’t see each other very often, Adrien is nice and funny, and that’s really all it takes for me to consider someone a dear friend. He’s also just a fantastic partner in work, as well, and I’ve very much enjoyed my experience working with him.”

“So you’re not dating?” Bernard asks, and Adrien chokes on his spit. Ladybug pats his back.

“Not that I know of,” she says cheekily. Bernard gestures for her to continue. “Do you know something, Jade? One thing I’ve learned from being a superhero is that I might as well just let people believe what they want to believe if it’s not hurting anybody. Maybe I’m 5,000 years old, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m dating a sweet, pretty supermodel named Adrien Agreste, maybe I’m not. I know the truth, and that’s what matters.”

Bernard opens and closes her mouth. She looks at Adrien, who is feeling similarly. “Adrien?” she tries.

“Well,” Adrien says a little helplessly. “It’s certainly not hurting me. I’m honestly flattered that anybody even thinks I’m good enough to date a superhero. And, well, I know the truth, too, so that’s that, I suppose.”

After the interview, Ladybug offers (publicly - not very publicly, but in a public space nonetheless) to swing him home, and what was Adrien going to do? Say no? So everyone in the studio knows Adrien and Ladybug left together.

“You knew the whole time,” Adrien complains when they make a pit stop for some afternoon iced coffee. Ladybug insisted on buying, and now they’re sitting on top of the coffee shop, as Ladybug and Chat Noir, and sipping their iced coffee.

“Well, yeah, I’m not blind,” Ladybug replies easily, swirling her coffee around and squinting down at the street below them. “I do use the internet every so often, you know. We’re in the digital age. Gotta keep up with the times and read internet gossip.”

Adrien shakes his head. “That’s why I was trying to get you not to go to the shoot.”

“Too bad, I wanted to go,” Ladybug replies, flashing him a grin. “We had so much fun with the first one.” She pauses, her eyebrows furrowing. And then she punches him in the shoulder. “‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind?’ You little twerp! It was you the entire time!”

“What?” Adrien asks, rubbing his shoulder.

“About pounding it! I got sad because Chat wasn’t there, but you said he wouldn’t mind! And you’re Chat, Chat! I can’t believe you, you’re so smug!”

“Well, did I lie?” Adrien asks with a laugh, and she laughs, too, shoving his shoulder again.

“Anyway,” Ladybug continues, “as I was saying, it works in our favor anyway if everyone thinks Ladybug and Adrien are close,” she says, waving between them. “If word really starts to get out, Hawkmoth will no doubt hear, if, of course, he’s also experiencing the joys of the digital age, so he’ll probably start to track both of us closely, so we can get him when he slips up.”

God, she’s so rational and smart it hurts.

“Oh,” Adrien says, and he hides his face behind his iced coffee, trying to swallow down his blush. He’s wearing his mask and it’s hot outside, though, so he should be fine. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah, it does,” Ladybug says, and she offers him a high-five, which he returns with an attempt at her enthusiasm. “Also, what was that about you not thinking you’d be good enough to date a superhero? You are a superhero. Any person - including superheroes - would be lucky to have you.”

Adrien opens his mouth. Thinks about saying something stupid.

An explosion a few blocks away stops him, though, and they both spring to their feet.

“It looks like that’s in the residential district,” Ladybug says, and the condensation from her cup drips down onto the roof below them.

Adrien stares at the smoke billowing up into the blue sky, and a sick feeling pools at the bottom of his stomach.

Chapter Text

As in turns out, Jade Bernard (Villain name: Cherry Bomb) really wanted Ladybug (civilian name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng) and Adrien Agreste (Hero name: Chat Noir) to give her the inside scoop on their ‘secret relationship’ in order to get her big break in the fashion-journalism-gossip community. As it turns out, Marinette’s tongue-in-cheek answer of the truth not really mattering to anyone else but Ladybug and Adrien personally made her a little frustrated. As it turns out, being ‘a little frustrated’ in Paris elevates you to supervillain status thanks to a certain middle-aged jerk in magic purple spandex. Happens to the best of us.

Marinette and Adrien (as Ladybug and Chat Noir) showed up to the studio they’d both just left to see it burning thanks to (actually quite cute) cherry-shaped bombs being lobbed by a newly cherry-themed Jade Bernard (whose villain name is Cherry Bomb).

In terms of akumas, Cherry Bomb is actually quite easy to deal with, and Marinette desperately attempts to stop herself from thinking that it’s because she and Adrien are a really great team, working together, as partners. And that, theoretically, they would work really great together as. Romantic partners. 

She forces herself to focus as Chat Noir (who is literally Adrien Agreste) jumps in front of her and shields her from a colorful explosion with his baton. He’s silhouetted by the fire and the smoke, the line of his back strong, protective, powerful. He looks back at her, his golden hair burning red in the light of the flames.

“She’s really bomb arding us, isn’t she, mon chéri ?” he asks with a smile. Two in one pun. It’s awful. Marinette is desperately in love with him.

Focus.

They get Cherry Bomb with the lucky charm (shaped like a butterfly net), a damp towel, and Chat’s baton. Easy and straightforward, and when it’s over, they pound fists, and they smile, and Adrien has these, like, little faint dimples that aren’t really dimples but give his cheeks depth, and Marinette maybe stares at them for a little too long.

They detransform back to back in an empty stairwell to feed their kwamis, and as soon as he’s out of the ring, Plagg starts complaining.

“You don’t even have any camembert on you,” he says, and Marinette and Tikki share an amused look. 

“It’s not like I expected an akuma attack to happen! I was going to get some more tonight,” Adrien says, obviously frustrated in that endeared way that he very specifically only gets with Plagg.

“It’s alright,” Marinette says with a laugh as Tikki munches on her cookie. “I have an extra cookie if he wants.”

“He won’t eat that,” Adrien says at the same time Plagg says “hand it over.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Dude!” Adrien says.

“What!” Plagg says back. “Ladybug only ever has the best stuff! Not as good as camembert, obviously, but it’s always up there!”

“Just say you like her more,” Adrien says.

“You first,” Plagg snaps. Tikki snorts.

There’s another space of silence.

“Could I have that extra cookie, Ladybug?” Adrien says, voice suspiciously even.

“Sure,” Marinette says, trying not to laugh. She turns around - because she knows. She knows Chat Noir’s identity, and he’s Adrien Agreste, but he doesn’t know her identity. She stands, as just Marinette, looking at Adrien Agreste’s back. He has his hand held out behind him, waiting.

And it’s not that big of a deal, it’s not. She’s just giving him a cookie for his magic cat, and she’s holding it in her bare hand. No magic suit on. Just her hand and his hand, nothing between them.

She places the cookie in his hand. Her fingers brush against his palm, and he sucks in a breath.

It’s just them, in the whole world. 

He slowly takes his hand away, and she’s vaguely aware of him handing the cookie to Plagg - who is sharing some sort of Look with Tikki - but she can’t move her hand. And his hand comes back to her, completing an orbit.

She sees the way his shoulders lift and move as he breathes, as he realizes she kept her hand there, waiting for him. And that he’d come back, not even knowing if she had been waiting. And Marinette thinks that means something, maybe, but the meaning gets caught behind her tongue, and his fingers are ghosting over the palm of her hand, as if trying to memorize the shape and feel.

“Ladybug,” he says, his voice hoarse.

Marinette lets out a shaking breath, taking a step forward and leaning her forehead on his back. He stiffens, but then he’s lacing their fingers together and tilting his head back until it’s resting against the top of hers.

“Tikki, transform me,” she whispers, and his fingers squeeze hers as the magic swirls around her.

He doesn’t move away.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and he shakes his head, probably messing up her hair, and she doesn’t even care.

“I get it,” he says.

“When we get him,” she says, very quietly, and it’s a promise. They both know it.

She takes him home because he had already called the Gorilla saying that he’d found an alternative ride, and he tucks his face into her neck as she swings him into his room. They step away from each other, and there’s just- there’s just something. 

Something that makes the space between them infinitely huge and infinitely small at the same time, something that makes her reach a hand out, something that makes her want to do something stupid.

The door to Adrien’s room opens, and they both jump away from each other.

Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancouer stop when they see her, and Gabriel steps forward, hands clasping behind his back. He tilts his head at her.

“What are you doing in my son’s room, Ladybug?” he asks.

“There was an akuma,” Marinette says, her voice coming out too loud. She clears her throat. “Um, at the studio where we were doing the photoshoot and the interview,” she continues, probably talking too much with her hands. Gabriel’s inscrutable gray eyes don’t let up. “I just figured” - her voice cracks, she clears her throat again - “I’d make sure Adrien got home safe because, we- we’re. We’ve, um, we get along. As coworkers.”

For a long moment, Gabriel simply stares at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Adrien swallow.

And then the stone of Gabriel’s face cracks into something that might be considered a smile. “Paris’ favorite heroine acting as a security detail for my son. I’m honored,” he says, in such a monotone it takes extra effort for Marinette to make herself believe it’s genuine and not sarcastic in some way, even if she has no real reason to believe he’s not being serious.

“It was really no trouble!” Marinette squeaks. “Um! I should probably go now! It’s been such a pleasure,” she says, and she bows - bows? - to Gabriel freaking Agreste, the famous fashion designer and her crush’s literal father, nods to Adrien, and swings out the window, narrowly misses the glass panes, shrieks “oh my God that’s so embarrassing I’m sorry” even though she didn’t hit the glass panes of Adrien’s windows, and swings the rest of the way home playing her panicked scream over and over again in her head.

Chapter Text

Adrien smiles at the open window, watching the silhouette of Ladybug swing across the blue sky before he can’t see her anymore. And then he takes a deep breath, feeling his smile slide from his face as he turns back to his father and Nathalie. “Was there something you needed, Father?” he asks

Gabriel stares at him for a moment, looking him up and down. “Was she the reason you called Gorilla to cancel your ride?” he asks, voice even.

“Yes, Father,” Adrien says because what’s the point in lying? He picks his battles, and this isn’t that big of a deal. “She offered before the akuma attacked, and after it happened, she felt bad for being the reason I was there during the attack, so she took me home anyway to apologize.” Not necessarily the truth, but not really a lie, either.

Nathalie and Gabriel exchange a look that he can’t quite place, and then Gabriel lets out a sigh, stepping forward in awkward, stilted steps as if he’s doing something he very much doesn’t want to do. He sits down on Adrien’s couch, gesturing for Adrien to sit beside him. With a frown, Adrien does.

“There have been certain… rumors that I’m sure you’re aware of,” Gabriel says, clearing his throat. Adrien raises his eyebrows.

“About Ladybug and I dating?” he asks. Gabriel purses his lips. Adrien nearly laughs. “Father, she’s a superhero. I don’t think she has the time to date, and neither do I. She’s just nice to me.”

Gabriel levels him with a look that Adrien can’t quite decipher, and then his cool, gray eyes flick down to Adrien’s hands, neatly folded in his lap. “I see you have found your ring.”

A little perplexed, Adrien looks down at his ring, flexing his hand and watching the sunlight from the open window bounce off the silver. “I suppose I have.”

“Since it was lost, you should have it cleaned,” Gabriel says, offering his hand out, and Adrien feels that same bad feeling from earlier pull at his stomach. His right hand curls into a fist, of its own volition.

“No, it’s alright,” he says with a smile, shaking his head and trying to shake off the strange, growing dread. “It turns out I had just lost it between my bed sheets, so it’s not dirty or anything.”

“Still, Adrien,” Gabriel insists, pushing his open hand further into Adrien’s space. “Have you ever had it cleaned? I’ll have someone take care of it for you.”

“It doesn’t need to be cleaned,” Adrien says, perhaps a bit too forcefully, and his father’s eyebrows shoot up. Adrien feels a stab of guilt run through his chest, and he wrings his hands in his lap, watching his father watch him. “I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to raise my voice. It’s just been a long day, with the akuma attack and all.”

For a moment, his father doesn’t say anything. Adrien bows his head.

“I see,” he finally says, and he stands, his imposing finger blocking the sun from the open window. Adrien looks up, and he sees the glint of his father’s tie pin, the one he wears everyday. 

A terrible, awful thought crosses Adrien’s mind.

“Father?” he says to the dark shadow of his father. “Where did you get that tie pin?”

It feels like the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. 

“Come to think of it, I don’t quite remember,” Gabriel says, but Adrien doesn’t miss the way his eyes flick down to Adrien’s hands. And Adrien knows he’s lying - his father remembers where he gets every article of clothing he wears everyday, who designed it, what part of the world he purchased it, what cloth it’s made of. He would remember where he got a tie pin he wears everyday. Gabriel clasps his hands behind his back, and he tilts his head to the side. “Do you remember where you got that ring from?”

“It was a gift from a friend,” Adrien says shakily, covering his right hand with his left.

“How quaint,” Gabriel says, hardly a compliment, “I’m sure this friend would be proud of you for being so reluctant to part with it.”

“I’m sure he would,” Adrien replies, raising his chin, and his father smiles at him.

“I would hate to see you lose it again,” he says, and then he and Nathalie are leaving his room, and Adrien is sitting on the couch, and he is thinking, and it’s not good, nothing is good.

It’s him.

It can’t be him.

“Kid,” Plagg says, snapping Adrien out of his thoughts. “We have to tell Ladybug.”

Adrien blinks. “Right,” he says. He feels like he might throw up. “Yeah.”

He transforms for long enough to send Ladybug an emergency message, and then he’s sitting on the couch again, and he’s thinking and he’s not thinking and he’s spiraling.

“Camembert,” Plagg reminds, and Adrien says “right, of course,” and he orders some camembert from the kitchen, and he sits some more before Plagg comments how boring the couch is. Way less fun than that funky little pillow fort he’d made with Ladybug that one time. And Adrien remembers that, yeah, the couch is boring, and the pillow fort was fun, so he makes the pillow fort, and he sits down on a blanket in the dark and looks up at the blankets above him, and he remembers the stars.

He’d saved them.

“It’s dark in here,” Plagg complains, gobbling his camembert, hungry even now. Maybe especially now.

“I’ll get the stars,” Adrien says, so he grabs the stars from his desk drawer along with some tape and returns to the fort, letting himself get caught up in the motion of taping the stars to the blankets instead of thinking.

He’d left the window open.

“I got your emergency message,” he hears Ladybug say, and she lifts up the flap of his pillow fort. “I’m sorry I took so long, I- Adrien?”

He looks over at her. He blinks. He wipes his eyes.

“Hi,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, like her heart is breaking, and she crawls into his fort, kneeling in front of him and taking his hands. 

There’s a lot of things he wants to say. There’s nothing he wants to say at all. 

“I, um, I think I need you to hold me,” Adrien says, and then his voice is breaking, and then Ladybug is throwing herself onto him in a fierce hug, and then Adrien is crying, or maybe he already had been crying, and Ladybug is running a hand through his hair and patting his back, and he’s tucking his face into the crook of her neck, and nothing is good, but she’s warm and soft in his arms. Like chocolate. Like sunlight.

He has to say something. He has to explain.

“I think we have to leave,” Plagg says softly, gentler than Adrien has ever heard him, and Adrien nods into Ladybug’s shoulder.

She pulls away, her sky bright eyes tracing over his face, her eyebrows furrowed. She brushes the hair from his face, the touch light, and then she’s taking his face in her hands and pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“Okay,” she says.

Chapter Text

Adrien doesn’t say anything more as Marinette gathers him in her arms and takes him out of his room. Logically, she knows that he could just transform and they could go somewhere together, but she takes one look at Plagg’s grim expression and decides that carrying him might be the best option. 

She doesn’t have a plan, and it makes her stomach curl. She has no idea what’s happening, and the thought that she can’t even fashion a way to fix it makes it all the worse. She doesn’t know what to do or where to go, so she just takes Adrien home.

When they drop down onto her balcony, Adrien looks around at her little roof garden and single lawn chair, furrowing his eyebrows. Marinette’s gut twists, fingers twisting together. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is how it goes.

“Marinette’s place?” he asks, and Marinette nods.

“I didn’t know where else to go, so…” She trails off, gesturing around them.

“So you brought me to a mutual friend’s,” Adrien says, and he sounds so relieved that Marinette doesn’t have the heart to correct him.

“Yeah,” Marinette says, releasing a breath of tension and anxiety. She doesn’t know what’s happening, but she feels like complicating anything further with her identity reveal may make it worse somehow. 

Or maybe it would make things easier, but she can’t ignore the way her stomach twists at the thought of Adrien knowing, after everything, that it’s just… her. A mutual friend. 

“She’s not here right now, but I know she wouldn’t mind if we went inside,” she says, opening up the door to her room, and Adrien raises an eyebrow at her.

“Are you sure? I don’t know if Marinette and I are that close,” he says, looking nervously down into her room. His eyes flick back to Marinette, seeming to try his best to give her a playful sort of smile. It falls a little flat because of the puffy eyes he gained from crying, but it’s sweet nonetheless. “Unless you’re that close with her.”

“Of course I’m that close with her,” Marinette says, jumping down into her room and gesturing for Adrien to follow. His meaning registers. She splutters. “I mean, no, I’m close with her, but it’s not- we’re like. We’re not close like that.” Adrien follows her into her room, his lips curling up in amusement. “I mean, Marinette’s cool - you know that? - but she’s. Not my type, I don’t think. I mean, I love girls! Who doesn’t! I also love guys! They’re great! You’re great! Um!” Marinette desperately feels like hurling herself into her designated throwing area. Her face is burning, and Adrien is just standing there, in her room, watching her burn. “Me and Marinette could be considered friends,” she says weakly.

“She’s a great friend,” Adrien says earnestly, and Marinette nods. 

They stand awkwardly for a moment, and then Marinette sits down on her desk chair, wheeling it over to the fainting chair in the corner of her room and gestures for Adrien to sit down on it. He does, gingerly, as if he still feels like he’s intruding in this space. He looks around her room and then he looks back at her, and she sees that he’s twisting his ring around his finger in nervous, shaking hands.

“Adrien,” Marinette says gently, taking his hands and rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles. “Tell me what happened?”

“My father is Hawkmoth,” Adrien blurts, and Marinette freezes.

“What?”

He tells her about the conversation he’d had with his father before he sent her the emergency call, and he tells her about the tie pin he started wearing after his mother disappeared. He tells her about the times his father zeroed in strangely on his ring, how angry he got when Adrien lost it, how weirdly intense he was when asking for Adrien to hand it over.

Marinette holds his hands, and she thinks.

“We thought it was him, before,” she says, after Adrien has finished.

“He got akumatized right when you got close,” Adrien says, miserably, and he turns his face away. “It was probably a diversion. He has Mayura’s help, after all, and…” His lip trembles. “Do you know what I just thought? The only person my father trusts that much is Nathalie. She’s probably Mayura.”

“That is if your father’s Hawkmoth,” Marinette says gently, and Adrien shakes his head.

“I know it’s him,” he says, and he sounds so miserable and heartbroken, but it’s like he’s saying the one truth he knows right now, like everything else he doesn’t get, but this one thing - the certainty that his father is a villain - is the one thing that makes sense. “It’s him, Ladybug. It’s him.”

“Okay,” Marinette says, nodding slowly. “I trust you. I believe you.”

They lock eyes, and he lets out a breath. His hands squeeze hers.

“I don’t suppose you have one of your brilliant plans, my lady?” he asks weakly, and Marinette gives him a smile.

“I might have one or two up my sleeve,” she replies, and she tells him the idea that had been brewing in the back of her mind as he’d told her everything. Even though she hadn’t wanted to believe it, the scheming part of her brain hadn’t been able to turn off, so she has an idea now. 

The new Ladybug and Chat Noir animated movie is premiering in two days’ time, and Adrien is one of the guests of honor, given that he voiced Chat Noir.

(“I can’t believe you got to voice yourself,” Marinette complains as she swings back and forth on her desk chair, tapping a pencil against the notepad she’s been writing on. Adrien grins, and she’s so full of everything at the sight of his light, joking smile, that she has to look away from him. But she looks back not even a second later because she loves him so much it hurts.)

Ladybug, as one of the main subjects of the film, is also invited. Chat Noir, of course, is also invited, but with a little luck, he won’t show up until about halfway through the premiere.

So they get the plan nice and laid out.

“Okay,” Marinette says, releasing a breath and closing her notepad, “cool. With that all done, I guess I should, um, go.”

Adrien stares at her. “I can’t go home, Ladybug.”

“I know,” Marinette says quickly. “I was just thinking that you could, um, stay here?”

He blinks. “Oh.”

“I’ll tell Marinette before she gets home,” she says, and Adrien nods a little dumbly, looking around the room as if imagining what the next two days will look like here.

“Okay,” he finally says, and Marinette lets out a small breath of relief, walking across the room and enveloping Adrien in a tight hug. At first, he seems a little surprised, but then he returns the hug, burying his face in the crook of her neck and taking a deep breath.

“We’re almost there,” she says, and he nods, squeezing her tighter. She pulls away, smoothing his hair back from his face and searching his eyes. She wants to say something, to apologize, but she’s not quite sure what to even think about saying.

Plagg clears his throat, and they both look over to him. “Shouldn’t you two practice for the plan?” he asks, and Marinette feels her face burn.

“It’ll be fine!” she squeaks, looking back at Adrien, who looks similarly red.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” Adrien says, and Marinette lets go of him, brushing off her suit even thought there’s nothing to brush off.

“Okay, um, see you tomorrow?”

“Right,” Adrien replies, clearing his throat and nodding.

She leaves through the roof, transforms behind the bakery, spends about five minutes babbling gibberish to Tikki (who simply nods sympathetically and offers small, comforting phrases), and then enters the bakery through the front door. She has a talk with her parents (who are sympathetic and understandably completely okay with letting Adrien crash in the Dupain-Cheng household) and then walks up to her room, opening up the trapdoor to see Adrien standing awkwardly in the middle of her room.

“Hey, Marinette,” he says, waving his hand stiffly. 

After an awkward talk where Adrien attempts to explain what happened without revealing too many details concerning superheroes and villains and Marinette attempts to seem more ignorant than she actually is, they end up in her living room, sitting on the couch and picking out a movie to watch.

“You’re sure your parents are okay with this?” Adrien asks as Marinette scrolls through the titles on the screen.

“Completely,” Marinette says with a firm nod. “My mom is going to pull out the futon when they close the bakery, and my dad is planning on baking extra just for you.” She gives him a little smile. “They like having company over.”

“Okay,” Adrien says softly. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees his fingers twisting at his ring. “How much did you tell them?”

“Just that your dad sucks and you need a place to stay,” Marinette says, and she only realizes how angry she is when she feels the plastic remote creak from the pressure of her hand. She clears her throat. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Adrien says. She feels him staring at her, so she looks over, raising her eyebrows. He smiles a little self consciously. “I was just thinking that you’re pretty amazing. I can see why Ladybug trusts you so much.”

Marinette softens, and she reaches over to take his hand and then thinks better of it, placing a hand on his shoulder instead, her stomach flopping. “Right back at you, buddy.”

He looks at her hand curiously, and then he gently takes it in his, looking down at it as if attempting to study it. He turns her hand over, staring at the lines on her palm. He looks back up at her, and he squints.

“So!” Marinette blurts, ripping her hand out of his grasp, heart beating fast. “Movie preference? I’m thinking something funny!”

“Whatever you’d like,” Adrien says, and he looks up from her hand, and that weird little halt in time breaks. He smiles.

Marinette picks a movie at random and really hopes she can survive the next two days.

Chapter Text

“Lift up your arms,” Marinette says softly from behind the pins she’s holding between her teeth, and Adrien obeys dutifully. She has her phone connected to a little pink speaker, and soft pop wafts over the room. Adrien thinks, vaguely, that it sounds pink. Marinette is wearing pink, too - a soft-looking pink shirt tucked into a pair of shorts. Effortlessly stylish.

Waking up in the Dupain-Cheng household had been perhaps the most peaceful waking up experience of his life. He’d opened his eyes to the warm smell of baking bread, and when he’d gotten up, he’d found an array of light fruits and bowls of yogurt next to a platter of warm croissants on the kitchen table. He hadn’t known what to do, so he’d sat at the kitchen table until Mrs. Dupain-Cheng came up from the bakery and expressed a small horror that Adrien hadn’t eaten yet, and then she’d stayed in the kitchen until he’d eaten his fill. 

He’d fixed up the futon, folded the blankets and stacked the pillows on the couch (and gotten a fond look from Mrs. Dupain-Cheng for his trouble), and then Mrs. Dupain-Cheng had pushed him down into the bakery to help Mr. Dupain. He’d tried to say he didn’t know what to do, but Mr. Dupain just shook his head and told him to fix up the sweet arrangements, watch the scones in the oven, clean up the counters. So that’s what he’d done. Mr. Dupain gave him a big, hearty clap on the shoulder with each completed task, a genuine “nice work, son” making Adrien simultaneously feel warm and sad at the same time. But not in a bad way.

When he saw Marinette, just before eleven, she was already dressed and made up for the day, and she’d looked between her parents and him, something small and quiet on her face before giving him a smile and telling him to come up to her room.

And now they’re here, her pink pop meandering around the room, her hands pinning a button-down and a pair of slacks around him to have them fit him, tailor made. 

She stands back, and she squints at him. She takes a pencil from her hair, swooping down and grabbing the journal she’d tossed to the ground and scribbling something down. 

“Marinette?” he asks. She looks up. He lowers his arms. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, of course, but, um, why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re my friend,” Marinette replies, just like that. Easy.

Adrien flushes.

When it’s time for him to meet up with Ladybug, Marinette excuses herself to go help her parents with the bakery, and Adrien watches her go. She seems to realize that he’s watching her, because she looks back at him. “Um,” she says, and he thinks her cheeks might be a little red, “good luck.”

Adrien feels the blood rush up to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, and then she’s closing the door to her room.

Plagg pops out of Adrien’s shirt. “How does your breath smell? I recommend eating some camembert for some improvements.”

“Ew, Plagg no,” Adrien says, playfully nudging him away. He tries to discreetly check his breath. Plagg cackles at him.

Ladybug shows up a few minutes later, opening up the door to the roof. She pops her head in and grins at him, a little off kilter, as if she’s nervous. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” Adrien replies, climbing up to the roof to meet her. 

They look at each other for a moment, and then Adrien starts laughing, and then Ladybug is laughing. She takes his hand, and he lets himself be pulled to her. He holds on as she swings them to the place they agreed upon, and then she’s gently letting him down, looking around at the people passing by the buildings they’re standing between.

“Okay,” she says, shaking out her hands. “Ready?” she asks, looking back at him, and he nods. She pulls out her yo-yo, opening it up and glancing over once more the message they’d drafted to send to the AdrienAgresteFanUpdates Instagram account. She presses send, and then lets out a breath, leaning her back against the brick wall.

Adrien mimics her, stretching out his legs until their toes touch across the alley. Her lips twitch up into a smile. “This’ll work, right?” he asks softly, and her smile slips a bit. 

“Yeah,” she says, and her eyes lock with his. “You’ll be okay if it works, right?” she asks in return, and Adrien swallows.

“I think I have to be,” he says, looking up at the harsh blue summer sky.

“I’ll be there, after,” Ladybug says, and Adrien looks away from the sky to smile at her. 

She smiles back. Time slows down. Adrien feels his heartbeat, right up against his ribcage, and all he can see is the blue of her eyes, the warmth and comfort behind her gaze.

And then a moment later they hear the tell tale signs of people coming closer, searching for something. Ladybug pushes herself off the wall, stepping closer to him. Adrien’s breath catches in his throat.

“Um,” Ladybug says. The people are getting closer. 

“So,” Adrien says, and Ladybug steps into his personal space. Which is fine, he never wanted it anyway. 

The sounds of the searching people are nearly on top of them now.

“Just to be clear,” Ladybug whispers, her hand tangling with his, “this is okay, right?”

“Yes,” Adrien says, squeezing her hand, voice absolutely breathless, and then he’s leaning down and she’s pushing up, and their lips meet.

And oh.

Yeah.

She tastes like warmth, like sunlight, like pink, like everything that’s ever made his insides flutter and his cheeks hurt from smiling. 

He uses his free hand to pull her face closer, his thumb along her jaw, his palm pressed along her neck, and she makes a little sound, right up against his mouth, the hand not squeezing his reaching up and pressing against his heart.

He feels like he can do anything, like he can be anything, so long as she has him, so long as she holds him. 

Distantly, Adrien hears the sounds of people gasping, of phone cameras clicking. He pulls Ladybug closer, wanting to block it all out, and he feels her smile grow against his mouth before she pulls away. For a moment, she’s nearly as close as before, her breath mixing with his, and she smiles bright as every sun in the universe, eyes alight. 

He’s caught. She has him, completely.

And then she’s tearing her eyes away from him, looking at the crowd they’ve gathered at the mouth of the alley, and Adrien manages to look away from her to see the way people stare at them. He laughs, his hand squeezing hers. He still has a hand on her face. She still has a hand on his heart.

“Hi,” Adrien says to the people watching them.

“Bye,” Ladybug says to the people watching them, and she pulls him tight to her before whisking them away. 

They take a long way around the city in case anyone follows, but they end up back at Marinette’s, and maybe Adrien is imagining it, but she takes a little longer to let go of him than normal. But she does let go of him, and she steps back, and Adrien has his personal space again. He wants to step forward, into her orbit again. He doesn’t. 

They stand, smiling at each other.

“Um,” Ladybug says. “Great job.” She offers her fist, and Adrien snorts, bumping his fist against hers, and he keeps it there.

“Right back at you, my lady,” he says, and her smile widens. She ducks her head, and she drops her hand.

“Until tomorrow?” she asks.

“Until tomorrow,” he agrees, and something dark pulls over them, sobering them. She reaches out, squeezing his hand. He feels her about to let go, but she hesitates. She lifts his hand, and she presses her lips to his knuckles.

Adrien sucks in a breath.

She looks up at him, her lips still pressed against his skin, and for a moment Adrien thinks she’s going to say something. But she doesn’t. She leaves.

When Adrien finally manages to go inside, he goes down to the bakery and is just in time to see Marinette careen into a bag of flour, spilling it all over herself, the counter, her parents, and anything else within a five foot radius, including Adrien.

The Dupain-Chengs look at each other and then at Marinette. She covers her face with her hands, letting out a small noise, and then she and Adrien are both being ushered upstairs to clean themselves off.

The rest of the day, Adrien hangs out in Marinette’s room, watching her make alterations to the button-down and pair of slacks they’d been working on earlier. She seems a little different from the morning - more skittish and jumpy, so Adrien gives her her space.

Around dinner time, Marinette pulls her phone out from a box of scraps of fabric, scrolling through the notifications with pink cheeks and a small smile. She jumps over to her computer, opening up a tab and searching something up, and then she leans back in her desk chair, grinning at Adrien.

He closes the fashion magazine he hadn’t really been reading and raises his eyebrows. 

“It worked,” she says, and she gestures for him to come over. He stands, and he leans over behind her desk chair. She dutifully moves to the side so he can see the screen, and he feels something jittery pull at his stomach.

The tab pulled up on the computer is on a gossip news site, which features an article entitled “Adrien Agreste and Ladybug’s Secret Relationship EXPOSED.” Marinette follows the link, and the page shows two pictures side by side: the cover photo from the charity shoot (the one of Ladybug smirking and holding Adrien’s chin as he grins into the camera), and a surprisingly high quality photo from earlier in the afternoon.

“Wow,” Adrien finds himself saying. He’s looking at a photo of him and Ladybug kissing. On a website where anyone can see it. This is actually happening. He actually kissed Ladybug.

Marinette scrolls through the article before moving back up to the pictures at the top of the page, and then she leans her head back on the chair. And, because she’s Marinette and wears everything out on her sleeve, Adrien can feel her thinking. She looks up at him, and he finds their noses only a few centimeters apart.

Time slows.

She whips her face away. “Um!” she says, her voice cracking. “Cool! That’s all I was going to say! Good for you guys!”

“Thanks,” Adrien says, blinking and leaning back a bit. “But you know the plan, don’t you? Ladybug told you it, didn’t she? It’s fake.”

“Yeah! But still!” Marinette says, waving her hands. “I mean, the plan is working, and Ladybug got to kiss you- I mean. You know! You know what! I don’t even know what I’m saying, I’m going to go down and see if my parents need help with dinner!” She springs up from the chair, nearly cracking an elbow into Adrien’s nose, and vaults herself out of the room.

Adrien looks back at the images on Marinette’s computer screen - him and Ladybug all dressed up, smiling at the camera, and him and Ladybug, just earlier today, caught with each other. Caught up in each other.

And despite the fact that this is all for a plan, that this is all for a larger purpose - a purpose that makes Adrien’s stomach sink and his blood turn cold - he can’t help but think that they look good together.

Chapter Text

Marinette steps back, squinting at each little green button on the outfit she’d tailored for Adrien and circling around him. He stands perfectly still until she comes back to his front, and then he drops his arms. She lets out a sigh, rubbing her face.

“It’ll work, just for tonight, but it’s definitely not as good as something a professional would do,” she says, trying not to look at the messed up thread on the third button up from the bottom. Her fingers itch to do something about it, but she only just barely manages to restrain herself by remembering that firstly, the outfit will mostly be worn to sit in a dark theater, and secondly, the tailoring on Adrien’s shirt and slacks are, like, the least important of all the priorities for tonight.

“I think it looks amazing,” Adrien says, turning a little so he can look into Marinette’s mirror. He twists his body back and forth. “I mean, I can’t believe just a day and a half ago, this shirt and these pants belonged to your father. They look like they were made for me.”

“That’s because they were,” Marinette says with a little laugh. Her father is a big guy, and although Adrien has gone through a couple growth spurts and now seems to tower over Marinette, he was still drowning in her father’s clothes the first time he’d tried them on. She’d had to cut it all apart and nearly start from scratch to make it not only fit, but also look good. 

And she has to admit that it looks good. All black suits Adrien, and she has to admit the exposed green stitching and green accent buttons are particularly inspired, considering what the movie premiere is. 

“I can keep fussing over it for hours, but we have to do your hair and makeup,” Marinette says, picking off a stray piece of lint from Adrien’s shirt. Adrien laughs softly, and he lets her guide him to her desk chair. 

They’d already talked about the lack of base makeup she’d owned that matched his golden skin, and he’d refused to let her go out and buy some that would match, so she makes do with a concealer she’d bought that one summer when she’d gotten a tan two years ago and her regular translucent powder. She keeps the eye makeup light, but she does add a tinge of green on his lower lash line, and she definitely gives him a smoky sort of cat eye with her pencil liner. 

When it’s time for lips, he looks her in the eye and opens his mouth, completely obedient and expectant. Marinette nearly chokes. 

She remembers the last time she touched his lips, which was in fact the day before, and she does choke. She hands him the tinted lip balm between coughs and tells him he should go ahead and do it.

Once she’s finished swallowing down her eleventh lung, she styles his hair into something artfully tousled, and then she spins him around with flourish so he can see himself. “Voíla,” she says. “Red carpet on a budget.”

Adrien turns his face in the mirror, smiling at his reflection, and then he meets Marinette’s eye through the mirror. “I really can’t thank you enough, Marinette,” he says, and his voice is so soft.

“Well, you already have. Thanked me enough, that is, so don’t even worry about it,” Marinette babbles, feeling her face grow hot. She presses her hands to her cheeks, taking in a steadying breath, and then looks back at him. “Anyway, you should be meeting up with Ladybug soon, so go ahead and wait on the roof.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Adrien says, giving her a silly little salute that has Marinette swooning even though it was profoundly lame. He gets up from the chair, and Marinette turns away, already mentally preparing for the next five minutes of frantically getting herself ready.

A pair of warm arms wrap around her, and time stops. She smells Adrien, warm and sweet, and she looks down to see his golden arms wrapped around her. Her heart races.

He leans his face into the crook of her shoulder. “Thank you, Marinette,” he says, so genuine it hurts. “However tonight goes, I just… thank you. For being here and for taking care of me.”

Marinette feels her throat close up, and she squeezes her eyes shut, reaching up and holding onto Adrien’s arms. “Of course, Adrien,” she says, and it would be silly to cry now, but the worry is getting to her, now of all times. “It’s nothing, really.”

“It’s everything,” he says, squeezing her tight before letting go and turning her around. His bright eyes scan her face, and he gives her another hug, this time facing her, and he holds her fiercely and gently, all at once.

“Okay,” Marinette says softly, and she rubs her hands over his back. She feels his worry, too, all coiled up inside of him. “I’ll be here, Adrien, always.”

He leaves her then, going up to the roof after giving her a meaningful look that she decided now was not the time to unpack, and Marinette pushes everything to the side to transform and get ready.

She didn’t make another dress for herself because she was busy enough with Adrien’s outfit and decided just going in her suit would be fine, but she does let her hair down (half-up, half-down is always an easy way to dress up any look) and fix up her makeup a bit. If she matches it stylistically to Adrien’s, then, whatever. That’s no one’s business but her own.

She meets Adrien up on the roof, and he smiles broad and wide when he sees her. He’s nervous. She can tell.

“Looking good, kitten,” Marinette says, and she walks over to him, fixing up the points in his hair she’d hair-sprayed up just the slightest to be vaguely reminiscent of cat ears. He watches her fiddle with his hair, something small and quiet on his face, and she drops her hand, feeling her face flush. “Ready for our big entrance?”

“Never been readier,” he replies, but his voice shakes. He clears his throat, as if he might try and correct himself with something a little more confident, but then he looks back at her and blows out a breath. “I’m terrified,” he says, and he reaches for her hand. 

Their fingers tangle together, and Marinette searches his eyes, trying to see if there’s an answer - something easy and good - to all of this. He thinks that maybe he’s doing the same with her. She smiles at him, squeezing his hand.

“Me too,” she says, and then, since they’re being honest, she says, “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

He doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. He presses his forehead to hers, their fingers still linked together, and when his eyes meet hers, she feels… A certain something. A certain fullness, a certain warmth. A certain certainty.

Marinette knows him. She loves him, and she knows him, and he knows her - as much as he can right now - and- and maybe he loves her, too. Maybe not romantically, but that’s not what this feeling is right now. It’s the certainty that they are meant to work together, meant to fight side by side, meant to be near for comfort, meant to be friends, meant to be partners. 

It’s the feeling, the certainty, that, no matter what else, they are meant for each other. Through all the choices they’ve had to make, they’ve chosen to be together, again and again - whatever ‘together’ means for them. And Marinette thinks that maybe that’s all that matters. Maybe that’s what a soulmate is.

“We’ll be okay,” she says, and her voice sounds so sure and confident that Marinette really does believe herself for once. Adrien looks at her, and he nods.

“We’ll be okay,” he repeats, and his voice isn’t shaking anymore.

They go to the theater the premiere is at, and they arrive together, arms around each other. The crowds outside the theater explode the moment their feet touch the ground, wild with questions and opinions and comments and concerns. Marinette takes Adrien’s hand in hers, and they share a look before greeting the crowd with wide bright smiles, fingers still tangled together.

Everything is going to be fine.

It has to be.

Chapter Text

Ladybug’s plan is working as it should so far. 

Adrien and Ladybug walk as slowly as possible through the crowd of paparazzi and fashion reporters, making sure to stop and talk to anyone who even shows a hint of wanting to flag them down, which, as it turns out, is mostly everyone lined up outside the theater. Everyone wants the inside scoop on their relationship, and Ladybug is… delivering.

She has one arm looped through his, and she isn’t shy about pressing their shoulders together or absently brushing away his hair while they’re answering some questions. It all seems to come naturally for her, and meanwhile Adrien is devoting most of his brainpower to making sure he doesn’t sweat through the shirt Marinette tailored for him.

As they step closer to the door, Ladybug stops under the guise of picking at a nonexistent fuzz on his shirt. “How are you feeling?” she asks, keeping her voice low, and her eyes flick up to meet his before returning to the nonexistent fuzz.

“Truthfully? I’m stressed out of my mind,” he admits, smiling and letting out a tasteful chuckle for the benefit of the crowd. Ladybug looks up, her expression somewhere between concern and endearment. 

“That makes two of us,” she says, and Adrien lets out - something. A pressure in his chest lifts, knowing that she feels the same as him. It’s heartening to know that they’re in this, both of them, together. She reaches up and brushes his hair to the side, leaning up on her tip-toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “But you’re doing great.”

Adrien feels a stab of warmth move through him, and he kisses her lightly on the temple. Her hair is warm from the sun. “So are you.”

They continue on. Everything is fine and normal. 

An interviewer with a cameraman stops them just outside the doors of the theater, and he and Ladybug both give their best winning smiles to the camera. “Ladybug, you’re walking into a film about you and your real life partner, who is voiced by your real life romantic partner. How does that feel?”

“It feels right,” Ladybug says with an easy laugh, leaning affectionately onto Adrien. “And, even though Chat Noir can’t be here, I’m sure he would think the exact same.” Adrien bites back a smile.

The interview turns to Adrien. “And Adrien, how does it feel to be dating a real life superhero? Isn’t this taking it a step too far in method acting?”

He and Ladybug both laugh at the joke, and Adrien makes sure to look fondly down at Ladybug before turning back to the interviewer. “Well, from my perspective, everything is working out great for me. I get to be with a smart, powerful, beautiful woman. Method acting doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing.”

Man, does Adrien wish they were actually dating. Because Ladybug looks up at him then, and she smiles in such a way that has Adrien nearly believing it all. That they’re just a regular couple with way too much media attention going to see a movie. Hopelessly in love and facing their first outing as a couple with grace and ease.

“Cute, super hot, and enviable couples aside,” the interviewer says, and Ladybug and Adrien laugh along, “Adrien, you normally attend events with your father. Is Mr. Agreste not joining us on the tablet today?”

“Oh, you know how it is with movie theaters and electronic devices,” Adrien says easily, waving his hand and acting casual about it even though this is exactly what the plan has been leading toward. “I know my father plans on coming, even if a little late. He loves a grand entrance, doesn’t he? And- oh, is this live?” he asks, pointing to the camera. The interviewer and cameraman nod. “Great.” He looks into the camera, smiling brightly. “And, Father, I know you wouldn’t want to miss out on the show. My lady and I can’t wait to see you.”

Easy enough. Smooth enough. 

They say their goodbyes to the interviewer and the cameraman, and then they’re walking into the theater, finding their seats and sinking down into the plush chairs. They’ve got the best seats, being the stars of the show, and Ladybug smiles at the reserved seat next to her, labeled ‘Chat Noir.’

“You don’t think I was too weird about it, do you?” Adrien asks, trying to relax in his seat and failing miserably. Ladybug looks over at him, raising her eyebrows. “Like, talking to the camera, to my father. Do you think anyone realized?”

“Aside from your father, hopefully?” Ladybug asks. Adrien nods. She shakes her head. “No, you did amazing. You seemed completely natural and genuine.”

“Okay,” Adrien says. His heart is still racing. He drums his fingers on the armrests. “Do you think calling you ‘my lady’ was too much? Would people know?”

“It could be seen as a joke,” Ladybug replies, as if she’d been thinking about it, too, and had come to this conclusion. “Everyone knows Chat calls me his lady, and the film uses that, too, and the film portrays my relationship with Chat as” - she clears her throat - “um, romantic, so. You play Chat in the film, so it could be perceived as you playing your character.”

“Cool,” Adrien says. His knees bounce. He feels like he’s trying to claw through his own skin. “Ladybug, I’m freaking out, I think.”

“Okay,” Ladybug says, and she takes his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. Something inside him stills, and he looks over at her. In the dim light of the theater, she’s the brightest thing he can see. The only thing he can see. She smiles at him. “Everything is a lot right now, and everything might go wrong, and I’m freaking out, too, so how about we take a break for a second?” she asks.

He blinks. “A break?”

“Yeah, a break,” she says, nodding her head. “We can’t be in ‘go’ mode nonstop because during the actual fight, we’ll have wasted too much of our energy being scared beforehand. It’s good being scared, but being too scared means being afraid to do what needs to be done, right? So we can’t have that. What do you like to do?”

Adrien stares at her. “I’m sorry?”

“We should talk about something else,” she says, talking very fast, “like, other than what we might be doing right or wrong or what might happen or what might not happen, so I’m asking you what your hobbies are.”

“Oh,” Adrien says. “Well. I fence. Fencing is fun.”

“Great,” Ladybug says, nodding enthusiastically. “Why do you like it?”

“I think it’s interesting, and I like the rules and etiquette of it all,” Adrien says, and something inside of him starts to unspool. “And I have this great friend who’s part of my fencing club - Kagami - and it’s nice to spar with her.”

“That does sound really fun,” Ladybug says, nodding her head up and down, and it really starts to sink in for Adrien that, no matter how good she is at acting, she really is just as freaked out as he is. He squeezes her hand.

“What about you? What are your hobbies?” he asks.

Ladybug opens her mouth and then closes it. She bites her lip. “I like to sew,” she says.

Adrien’s eyebrows shoot up. He looks down at his tailor-made outfit, and he looks back at her. She’s watching him, carefully. 

He opens his mouth.

And he sees his father walking in the aisle, Nathalie behind him. They look around the theater, and Adrien sees the moment his father sees him. They lock eyes.

His father’s face twists in something dark and angry.

Adrien grips Ladybug’s hand, tight enough for her to suck in a sharp breath. “He’s here,” he hisses. He can’t take his eyes off his father’s sick, angry face. He feels Ladybug squeezing his hand in return, just as hard if not harder than he’s holding hers, and it grounds him. He looks back at her.

“The plan,” she says, gently but firmly, and Adrien nods.

The plan is to wait. 

They wait.

The movie starts and Adrien is hyper aware of two things: Ladybug’s hand in his and his father’s gaze on him. He doesn’t turn his head to look back or to even check if his father is looking at him. He doesn’t need to. He knows. He can feel it.

Fifteen minutes in - Adrien is counting seconds - his father gets up, walking toward the exit of the theater. He leaves Nathalie behind, and Adrien looks at Ladybug, fighting back panic. She looks where he’s looking, sharp eyes catching on. 

“I’ll look after her,” she whispers, squeezing his hand. “Go after him.”

He’s frozen in his seat. 

Somehow, he manages to get up, his body acting on some sort of auto-pilot where he politely apologizes as he squeezes past people and makes his way to the aisle. His knees are shaking, but he walks out of the theater.

The light is harsh outside of the dark, and he squints, looking around for his father. The atrium of the theater is empty, and Adrien pulls at the collar of his shirt. Plagg flies out, looking around and then up at him.

“Time to transform?” he asks, for once not even bringing up cheese, and Adrien pets Plagg’s head.

“No, I just… didn’t want to be alone,” Adrien admits, letting out a breath.

Plagg stares at him. “Think they have any camembert here?”

Adrien snorts. “This place is fancy, but not that fancy.”

They walk through the atrium, and then down the two hallways leading to other theater rooms. His father is nowhere to be seen. Adrien looks in the direction of the bathrooms, and then he looks back at Plagg.

“Bathrooms seem like villainous places,” Plagg says with a shrug. “Especially men’s bathrooms.”

Adrien walks toward the men’s bathroom, his shoes screaming against the tile with every step. He reaches the door, placing his hand against it. He takes a deep breath.

He pushes it open.

His father is leaning against the sinks, and he looks up when Adrien enters. Plagg had slipped into Adrien’s shirt as soon as he’d opened the door, and so, for a second, Adrien pretends everything is fine. He’s just a concerned son, wondering why his father got up during a movie. 

“Is this when the show starts?” his father asks, the harsh smile pulling on his father’s face breaking the play-pretend. Adrien watches his father transform into a villain, and he’s not even surprised. Hardly even phased to be looking at Hawkmoth.

Perhaps because he’s been looking at Hawkmoth everyday for so long.

All of his nerves are gone now, and he’s just tired. 

He stares at his father, Gabriel Agreste, Hawkmoth.

“Why, Father?” he asks, and Gabriel seems to realize that he isn’t going to get the rise that he expected. He scowls. Adrien shakes his head. “What could all of this possibly have been for?”

“A child like you could never understand,” Hawkmoth snarls, harsh hands gripping his cane. “You’ll never know loss like I have, you’ll never know what sacrifices it takes to gain back what has been lost.”

“I lost my mother,” Adrien says hollowly. “I’m losing my father. I know what loss is, Hawkmoth. But I didn’t become a terrorist. Revolutionary concept, I know. Plagg, transform me.”

The green magic has hardly dissipated before his father is attacking him. And there’s a certain poetry to it, to the way everything has all turned out for them. A cold father, a villain. A sad son, a hero. It was all building up to this.

Adrien fights his father, and he does so with tears in his eyes.

Chapter Text

It takes Nathalie about three minutes after Adrien leaves the theater to get out of her seat, and Marinette follows quickly after. 

As soon as she’s out of the theater she hears fighting from the bathrooms, and then Adrien is flying out of the men’s bathroom and crashing into the front counter, right where Nathalie - now transformed into Mayura - stands. He’s got a bloody nose, and one of his cheeks looks swollen, and Marinette sees him see Mayura. His lip curl, teeth sharp and angry, and then he’s climbing out of the rubble of the front counter.

“You have no excuse,” he says, voice low and dark. “No excuse at all.”

“I love him,” Nathalie says evenly.

“How many times do I have to say it? Love isn’t terrorism. You’re thinking of obsession,” he says, and he’s angry, so, so angry. It breaks her heart. It enrages her.

Marinette sees the black butterfly fluttering towards him, and she grabs and flings her yo-yo, catching it faster than she can even think to react, and Adrien’s eyes snap over to the caught butterfly, to the yo-yo flying back into Marinette’s hands. He sees her, and that dark, sharp anger slides into something golden and righteous.

“You both think you know love,” Adrien says as Hawkmoth comes out of the bathroom, sharp gray eyes looking over the scene, flicking over Marinette and focusing on his son. “But you’re both so, so wrong. You haven’t known love until you’ve loved like I have.”

“You’re a child,” Hawkmoth snaps.

“And you’re a terrorist and a sorry excuse for a father,” Adrien replies with an easy shrug, cat tail flicking as he wipes the blood from his nose with his sleeve. “We all have our faults. I’ll grow out of mine, but, oh, look at that, you’re still a terrible person. Looks like I’m better than you.”

Marinette can hear the edge to his voice, the hurt. He’s always hid behind jokes - she hopes the fallout is gentle on him.

She turns to Mayura, just in time to see her plant an amok.

The fight is a blur after that. 

They’d hoped to get Hawkmoth and Mayura before either of them managed to make any sentimonsters or akumas, but no plan is perfect. The sentimonster is a gigantic popcorn machine, which is just, like, truly absurd. Of all the ways Marinette expected the fight to go, she never expected to be dancing around with Mayura while trying to dodge steaming popcorn balls. Given the venue, she probably should’ve considered it a possibility.

Mayura manages to get in a sharp kick to Marinette’s stomach, and Marinette falls off the popcorn machine, landing hard on the tile of the floor, right next to Adrien. They turn their heads to look at each other, and for a moment, it’s just them.

He’s crying.

“You and me,” he says.

“You and me,” Marinette agrees.

They help each other stand, and then they’re facing the fight, back to back, just like always. 

Marinette calls on her luck charm, and it lands in her hand shaped like a spool of thin red thread. And this one’s easy - it’s easy because Adrien is right there beside her, and she knows exactly what to do.

“Give me one of your hands,” she calls over her shoulder, and Adrien thrusts back one of his hands, using the other to spin his baton and shield them both. She takes the free end of the thread, ties it around his pinky finger, and then kisses his knuckles. “Run for me, chaton?”

He pauses to look down at the thread tied around his finger, at the spool she holds on each end with her pointer fingers. He smiles. “You never cease to amaze, my lady,” he says, and then they’re running in opposite directions.

Marinette sprints with the spool over her head, feeling it twirl on her fingers as the thin, nearly invisible red thread runs along the atrium with her and Adrien, keeping them connected as they fight and dodge and survive. She runs around the popcorn machine and then jumps onto it, where Mayura is waiting, and then dodges Mayura’s attacks by spinning and jumping and ducking all around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Adrien doing the same with Hawkmoth.

And when the thread runs out, Marinette looks up, and she makes eye contact with Adrien. He sees the look in her eyes, and he grabs onto the thread with his hands.

“Now!” she shouts, and they pull.

There’s crashing, and there’s yelling, and Marinette realizes now that there are people watching the fight, at the entrance to the theater, all crowded up by the doors, and when the chaos stills, she stares across the collapsed sentimonster, the struggling Hawkmoth and Mayura, and she finds Adrien.

He’s breathing hard.

“Can I?” he asks, and Marinette nods. He picks his way through the mess of tangled red thread, slipping the knot off his pinky finger as he goes so he won’t get caught. He goes to Mayura first.

She doesn’t struggle. He takes the brooch, and he looks sadly down at Nathalie Sancouer. 

“I’m sorry he convinced you to do this,” he says, and Nathalie shakes her head.

“It was my own decision,” she says firmly.

“That just makes it sadder,” Adrien says, and he leaves her, walking slowly to Hawkmoth. All the watchers hold their breath.

Hawkmoth manages to get his hand free, grabbing his cane and swinging it hard at Adrien’s head. Marinette shouts, but Adrien catches the cane easily in his hand before it can hit him. He doesn’t flinch or wince, just yanks the cane out of his father’s hand and throws it across the atrium. It lands on the tile with a hollow clatter.

“It’s done now,” Adrien says firmly, and he reaches down and snatches the tie pin from Hawkmoth’s suit. 

Marinette hears the gasps ripple around the room. People are crowding into the atrium now that the fight is over, but Adrien pays them no mind. He simply stares down at his father, face stony.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Gabriel Agreste snarls, struggling in the thread. “I was close, so close to getting her back. She’s waiting for me to wake her up, and I’m going to, no matter what.”

Adrien takes a deep breath. He lets it out, slow and even. “No, you’re not. She’s dead, Gabriel. She’s dead, you’ve been caught, and I never want to see you again.”

He turns his back to Gabriel Agreste, and he walks away.

The clean up is easy. All the fighting meant the police were close by, and Marinette hands over Nathalie Sancouer and Gabriel Agreste to the police after doing the miraculous ladybug charm and setting everything back to normal. She watches Chat Noir - with his broad smile and easy laugh - receive praise and congratulations for defeating Hawkmoth, and then she watches him slip away and come back as Adrien. 

Everyone gives him a wide berth, but he keeps his head held high until he reaches Marinette, and then he drops his head onto her shoulder, and he lets out a sob.

The crowd around them goes silent, and the atrium fills with Adrien’s tears, breaking on the tile.

Marinette holds him.

They’d planned to stay and explain to the press that their relationship was fake, that Adrien helped Ladybug and Chat Noir with their plan to lure out his father, that he was a good guy. But he’s crying now, and Marinette’s heart is breaking, and she runs her hands through his hair and asks “do you want to go?” and he’s nodding, so that part of the plan can wait as long as it needs.

She takes him away.

When they reach her roof, her earrings beep, and Adrien wipes his eyes, pulling away from her. “Go,” he says, turning his face away. “It’s alright, it can wait. Just go.”

Marinette steps back. She thinks about it.

And then she steps forward again, lacing her fingers with his. 

He frowns looking back at her. “Ladybug?”

Her earrings beep.

“If… If you just double dare me, I promise now that I’ll stay,” she says, and everything inside of her is shaking, but where she holds his hand is steady, certain.

His expression breaks, and he falls against her, pressing his face into the crook of her neck.

“Please,” he says.

She stays.

Chapter Text

“So what you’re saying is that Adrien actually helped you capture his father?” the interviewer asks. Ladybug and Chat Noir look at each other, and they nod.

“Adrien told us that he had some suspicions a few days ago,” Chat Noir says. “We took him very seriously, and Ladybug came up with a plan.” He looks at Ladybug, and she picks up where he left off.

“Because of how the media perceived our relationship, I thought it would be easier to play into that to make Gabriel Agreste lower his guard. If he thought I was close with his son, I figured he would try and take advantage of that closeness.” She pauses, looking down into her lap and then over to Chat Noir before looking back to the interviewer. “I was right.”

The video cuts to Adrien, alone, with the same interviewer. “Why did you agree to a fake relationship with Ladybug?” the interviewer asks.

“I wanted to do whatever it took to bring my father to justice,” he replies, and his expression is neutrally serious, carefully composed. “And I knew that if it was one of Ladybug’s plans, it was sure to work. I’m sorry for deceiving anyone, but I believe I did the right thing in order for Ladybug and Chat Noir to catch Hawkmoth.”

The interviewer nods. “And what about your mother, Emilie Agreste? Reports say she was found in a secret area of the Agreste mansion.”

Adrien’s expression does not change. “My mother is dead. My father intended to use the magic of the miraculous to bring her back to life, and he was preserving her body for that purpose. I’m holding an official funeral later this week.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the interviewer says, and Adrien nods. “Given that you are under eighteen and no longer have any fit parental guardians, what are you planning to do for your living situation?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Adrien says, and he takes a deep breath and straightens his already perfect posture. “I’m technically under the care of my bodyguard, who I call Gorilla, but I’m giving him a break for now and staying with a friend. After I sell the Agreste mansion, I will donate most of the money to charity, but keep some to buy the Gorilla and I a smaller place to live.”

“Do you have any contact with your father?” the interviewer asks.

“No,” Adrien says. “Nor do I ever plan to.”

The video ends, and Adrien leans back in Marinette’s desk chair, scrolling down the page and scanning the comments. Some talk about Gabriel, how bad they feel for Adrien, stuff like that. Others comment on how real they thought his relationship with Ladybug was.

Adrien snorts out a laugh.

The rooftop door to Marinette’s room opens, and Ladybug drops in with a practiced, familiar flourish. She sees him at the computer and walks over, standing behind him and bending over, draping her arms over his chest and leaning her chin on the top of her head.

“How was patrol?” he asks.

“Missing Chat Noir,” she replies idly, tapping out a rhythm on his chest. “Everyone wanted to see you, but I said you were celebrating with a big glass of milk and a well-deserved vacation.” Adrien laughs. He practically hears her scowl at the computer screen as she scans the comments. “People are still talking about me and you? After the big huge villain fight? Celebrity gossip is still the top priority?”

“Seems like it,” Adrien says, and she makes a little disapproving noise in the back of her throat. Her arms move so that she has them wrapped around his shoulders, and she moves her head so that her cheek is pressing against his hair.

“How are you feeling today?” she asks.

“Better with you,” he replies. She flicks his cheek. He laughs. And then he feels his chest tighten and his smile fall, and he reaches up and holds her arms where they’re holding him. “I don’t like feeling alone,” he says softly.

“You’re not,” she says. She reaches over and presses the sleep button on her computer, and then she spins him around, letting go of her transformation as she does so. The magic is still around her when he sees her. “I’ll always be around.”

“I know,” he says, tilting his face up at her. “Sometimes I forget, though.”

“That’s okay,” she says, and she leans back, smiling at him. “I’ll be here to remind you.”

She steps back, and she gets that look on her face, the one Adrien knows means she’s already thinking ahead to the next thing, already planning the next five minutes and the next five minutes after that. He’s struck with love, and he feels it, not sudden, but sharp, as he watches her think.

“Marinette,” he says, and she looks back at him, eyes bright. 

“Yes, Adrien?” she asks.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

She blinks at him, and he sees her cheeks flush. “Yes! I mean, yeah, if you want to. No need to rush, or anything.”

“I do want to,” he says. “And, if you don’t mind, I want it to mean that we’re actually dating. For real.”

“Okay,” she says, immediately, and Adrien laughs. She kicks at his shin, scowling at him. “Shut up! I was respecting your boundaries! You think I didn’t want to kiss you and date you and hold your hand and whatever! I just didn’t want to rush you, everything has been so weird for, like, the past month, people need adjusting time for that, you know!”

“Yeah,” Adrien says, and he stands, moving into her personal space. She shuts her mouth, tilting her head up to look up at him. “Thanks, Marinette.”

Her eyes flick between this, and he sees her chin wobble. “Please kiss me,” she says, taking his hand, and he laces his fingers with hers, and he kisses her. And she kisses him.

And she’s pink, like all the softest things that have always loved him, and she’s warm, like the sun, and she’s sweet, like roses and stars and chocolate and laughter that he wants to hear, always, for the rest of his life. 

They both cry. 

It’s only natural, Adrien thinks, to be overwhelmed when you click together so easily with someone whose every breath feels familiar. Plagg still makes fun of them, though. Adrien figures that was to be expected.

That night, they make a pillow fort in Marinette’s living room, draping the blankets over the TV, too, so that they can watch a movie. Adrien surprises Marinette with a box of glow-in-the-dark plastic stars that he bought at a convenience store earlier in the day, and she nearly cries again. They put the stars up together, side by side, and then they curl up together on Marinette’s plush pink pillows, wrapped up in her soft pink blankets.

Marinette takes his hand in hers, and she lifts it to her lips and presses a kiss there on his knuckles, and she presses play on the movie, easy and casual, just like that.

Adrien loves her.

“I love you,” Adrien says.

She looks at him, and she brushes his hair behind his ear. “I love you, too,” she says.

And they watch the movie, and midway through Marinette falls asleep, her head heavy on his shoulder, and he looks down at her, at the TV light and glow-in-the-dark stars playing along her face, and Adrien feels something inside of him well up when he realizes there was a time, so recently, when he didn’t have this. When he didn’t have her - as Ladybug or Marinette - everyday. And now he has her pressed against his side, and he loves her, and she loves him, and that’s how it’ll continue to be tomorrow, too. 

It’s so much. Everything in his life fell apart, all at once, and now he gets to build it all back up, with his own hands, with her by his side. It’s so much, he can hardly even think.

Marinette shifts in her sleep, wrapping an arm around his waist and squeezing him closer.

He’s speechless.

She has him, completely, and that’s all he’s ever wanted. He never wants to leave her side, and, judging by how hard she’s squeezing him to her, he never has to.

And it’s easy and casual, just like that.