Chapter Text
“So.” Ladybug says.
Chat Noir swallows. “So.”
It has barely been an hour since Hawkmoth’s defeat. After handing Fa—Hawkmoth over to the police, the heroes allowed the police to take photos of Hawkmoth’s brooch, before returning it to Master Fu. They wouldn’t be allowed to do that if the Butterfly miraculous isn’t technically the heroes’ property.
Now they are once again standing on the roof, about to go their separate ways to complete their civilian duties.
“I should…probably go, right? Now that Hawkmoth’s defeated, Adrien has to go to the police station and give his statement and everything…” Chat’s lips twitch downwards. Just the thought of everything he still has to do makes a bone-deep exhaustion settle within his body.
Kwamis. It’s barely lunchtime, and all he wants to do is fall into bed and forget about the world for a few hours.
Taking out his baton, Chat Noir turns to leave, but then—
Ladybug puts her hand on his bicep. “Chaton, wait.”
Chat blinks, “Huh?”
“I—” Ladybug hesitates. “You don’t have to go now, if you don’t want to.”
“But—” Isn’t Ladybug the one who insisted on the proper paperwork and legislation process? That means Chat has to cooperate with the police to get all the procedure over with as fast as possible.
If it was up to Chat Noir, he would defeat Hawkmoth and then drop him off at the nearest police station, tied up with a note saying regards, your friendly local superheroes stuck to F—Hawkmoth’s forehead.
“You look dead on your feet.” Ladybug points out.
“It’s just this one more task.” Chat Noir tells her, though it feels like he’s trying to convince himself. “After that I can…rest.”
He doesn’t feel convinced.
Ladybug frowns, and then her eyes light up like a lightbulb. “Oh! I snuck out to see you this morning without leaving a note, so my parents are probably gonna ground me for the rest of eternity when I get home. But if I return with you—Adrien-you, not Chat-you—they’ll know I was keeping a traumatized boy company under superhero orders. Hopefully, they will feel sympathetic enough that they won’t ground me for too long. And technically, I won’t be lying.” She looks up at him slyly, “So, what do you say? Will you be this poor ladybug’s alibi?”
Chat Noir stares. He knows what she is doing; she’s trying to distract him with a task that he can’t help but agree to, so he’ll be forced to take a break while feeling useful.
And—it’s working.
“You—wait.” Chat blinks in realization. “You mean—you have to reveal your identity to me for this to work.”
“Why not?” Ladybug smiles. “We agreed to table the identity reveal discussions until Hawkmoth is defeated. He is defeated now.”
“We don’t have Master Fu’s permission.” Chat points out. “Besides, how will your lie be convincing? Our civilian selves aren’t friends.”
“What Master Fu doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Ladybug replies with faux innocence. “And…how do you know our civilian selves aren’t friends?”
Chat Noir frowns. Chloe was akumatized into Friendship Breaker, so she can’t be Ladybug. Nino was akumatized into the Bubbler, and he has never shown any interest in cross-dressing. Alya has also akumatized before, and so has most of his classmates. That leaves…
His eyes widen.
Ladybug grins cheekily, “I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”
As it turns out, it is a very good thing Hawkmoth is already out of the picture. The rush of emotions Chat Noir experiences can’t be very good for staying un-akumatized.
He chokes, “You—you—”
His Lady has been so close, yet so far, all this time. She has literally been sitting behind him for the entire school year, as he obliviously stared out of the window and read Ladybug x reader fanfics between lessons.
If only he turned around and asked the girl behind him out. Would they have been dating by now?
“Chat?” Ladybug frowns, as she watches her partner choke on air. “Chaton—are you—”
“This. This is ridiculous!” Chat gasps, a hysterical laugh bursting out of his throat. “You—you’ve been next to me this entire time! I don’t—you—”
“Oh.” Ladybug’s mouth twitches. “Yeah. I was trying not to think about it. Didn’t want to have a mental breakdown in the middle of the fight.”
“I—” Oh. Kwamis. “I let you look at my Ladynoir fanart! Kwamis, that’s so embarrassing, I think I’ll die now, thanks—”
“It was a good drawing.” Ladybug tells him solemnly. “I liked it almost as much as I like your Deku fanart.” She pauses, then blinks. “Oh. Oh. No wonder your art styles seem so similar.”
“What is my life?” Chat Noir despairs. “Hawkmoth is my father, and Ladybug is one of my closest friends. I totally expected not to recognize the face behind your mask you know. This—I—you—this is ridiculous. Am I an anime protagonist too?”
“Isn’t that your life’s dream or something?” Ladybug asks wryly.
“Oh, hush.” Chat waves his hand in her direction. “Can’t you see I’m busy having an existential crisis? I’m an anime protagonist. Do you think there are people watching us right now as cheap entertainment and laughing at how dumb we are?” He pauses. “Kwamis. We even shout out our attack names and use magical trinkets to transform. We are mahou shoujo.”
“Don’t you feel stupid?” Fifth sings. “Don’t you hate that you ignored our enlightening advice about your crush? Don’t you wish you didn’t deny your partner’s feelings for you? You’ve been pining after each other for months! If either of you got your shit together, you would’ve been dating already!” He cackles gleefully.
“Screw you, Banjo.” Ladybug sniffs righteously.
“He has a point.” Fourth mutters. “I thought your situation seemed like a love triangle, with Chat Noir pining after you while you pined after your civilian friend, but I was wrong. This isn’t a love triangle, it’s a love square.”
Ladybug huffs. “Since when were you a nerd?”
“Since I decided to swear off all human contact and become a hermit.” The duh is pretty heavily implied. “Did you think I spent all my time staring at the sky and contemplating the purpose of humanity? I had to have other habits too, you know.”
It takes another five minutes of hysterical laughter and existential crises before they are mentally stable enough to go to Marinette’s house without falling off the roof in another fit of laughter.
The moment they detransform, Tikki flies off to the bowl of cookies on the table. Plagg dives into Adrien’s pocket to forage for cheese. Marinette and Chat Noir’s phones start vibrating like it’s the end of the world.
Cha—Adrien blinks as he takes his phone out of his pocket. Marinette leaps at her own phone, which was sitting on her desk but is now attempting to make a swan dive off the table.
She grimaces as she finds that her voicemail is filled up by calls, not only from her parents, but also from her classmates.
Electing to ignore those calls, she checks her texts instead.
[Alya]
girl, where are u
class about to start
are u sick again or did u forget to wake up
marinette??
mlle bustier said u didn’t call the school for sick leave shes calling ur parents now
ur not home????
MARINETTE where are u did u get akumatized
there’s nothing on the news tho
!!!???
hawkmoth’s defeated
he’s adriens dad??????
akskskskskjdjd
ur still gone tho
girl where ru im worried
[Nino]
U and Adrien are both absent
did u sneak out tgt ;)
don’t worry I won’t tattle
alya thinks ur akumatized
!!!
GABE IS HM THAT FUCKING SON OF A BITCH HE SHOULD BE PUNCHED
is Adrien ok???
feel like hes with you somehow
weird feeling
call alya back she’s so worried
[Alix @class :3]
I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE KIM LOST THE BET HOW LONG B4 HAWKMOTH IS DEFEATED HA
NOW STOP RUNNING FROM ME YOU SORE LOSER
PAY UP COWARD
“Whoa…” Chat says in slight awe. “I don’t think I’ve ever received so many notifications at once.”
He shows her his lock screen. There are messages from his voicemail, iText, Moineau, Twitter, Instagram, the Ladyblog and basically every other social media that Adrien owns an account on.
It is impressive.
She squints at a particular number that she memorised when she became Ladybug. “Is that the police?”
Adrien nods, opening his mouth to reply, but then—
“Oh!” Plagg interrupts as he reads over Chat’s shoulder. “You finally rescued Nooroo. That’s why you’re not doing that secret identity business anymore. You could’ve told us instead of staring at those screens, ya know.”
Marinette blinks. Oh, right. “Sorry! Tikki—” Tikki looks up from her perch at the edge of a bowl of cookies. “Plagg—” Plagg takes another bite out of his camembert. “We defeated Hawkmoth and rescued Nooroo and Duusu. They’re with Master Fu now, so you can visit them the next time we go over there. Chat Noir and I know each other’s civilian identities now, but Master Fu doesn’t know we know, so please don’t mention it to him?” She pauses. What else… “Oh, and Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste.”
“Yeah, kid, I was there when—”
“What!?” Tikki gasps, abandoning her cookie to fly over to Adrien. “Oh, you poor thing—”
Adrien blinks, perplexed, as Ladybug’s kwami fusses over him.
Marinette can hear Papa growling into the phone the moment she opens her trap door.
“Look, I don’t care that you’re busy dealing with Hawkmoth’s arrest, my daughter—what do you mean I have to wait to file a report, I don’t, I know my rights! You—my daughter won’t run away, she’s missing! She’d never sneak out without leaving even a message! Plus, none of her classmates know where she is—how dare you suggest Marinette is a delinquent—”
Marinette grimaces.
“Um…” Cha—Adrien hesitates. “He sounds…”
Furious doesn’t begin to cover the extent of Papa’s anger.
Plagg snickers. “Someone’s in trouble!”
Marinette winces. “Let’s just get this over with.”
She begins climbing down the stairs, but then—
“My Lady, you’re still in your pajamas.” Ch—Adrien points out.
She—pajamas—Papa—Adrien—when they meet—Papa will assume—
Kami. Marinette’s face reddens.
After a change of clothes, Marinette crawls to the living room like a prisoner to their execution.
When both Marinette and C—Adrien have made their way down, with Papa’s back to them, Marinette clears her throat.
“Listen, officer—” Papa pauses mid-growl at the sound. Slowly, like a monster in a horror movie, he turns around.
His eyes lock onto his target. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng!”
Papa ends the call and tosses the phone onto the couch. He stands up and prowls towards his daughter, like a predator stalking prey.
Not even the greatest hero in the world can stand up to the force of nature known as a good parent.
The predator lungs. Marinette blinks, and finds thick arms wrapped around her shoulder. “Marinette,” Papa mutters, “don’t ever scare me like that again. I thought you were kidnapped or—or worse!”
Marinette winces. “Um…sorry?”
Not that she regrets what she did. She probably should’ve left a note though.
Next to her, Adrien shifts awkwardly.
Papa glances up, finally realising there’s another person in the room.
“Hi?” Adrien waves sheepishly. “Sorry to intrude. I’m Adrien, Marinette’s fri—”
“You’re that boy on TV!” Papa exclaims, his eyes widening in recognition. “The one who’s Hawkmoth’s son.”
C—Adrien blanches.
Marinette scowls, “Papa—”
Papa blinks, then rubs the back of his neck. His sheepish expression has always reminded Marinette of Toshinori. “Ah, sorry, son. I didn’t mean to give that impression. Though—I’m sorry you had to discover what you did, too.” He places a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “No child should ever be forced to make a decision between doing the right thing and betraying their bond between their parents.”
Adrien blinks, “…okay?”
“So, what are you doing here, son?” Papa asks, once they are all seated on the couch. “And where were you, young lady? You better have a good explanation, or you’re gonna be grounded until you’re thirty.”
“What are you doing here, Papa?” Marinette counters. “Shouldn’t you be in the bakery? It’s lunch hour right now.” Which is to say it’s the food industry’s version of a rush hour.
“You’re more important, mon chou. And don’t change the topic.” Papa scolds.
“I’m sorry, M. Dupain-Cheng.” Adrien looks down, abashed. “I’m afraid that might be my fault. Chat Noir thought I might feel better if I had—a friend with me, after what—what I discovered—so he asked Marinette to keep me company while Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated F—Hawkmoth. They dropped us off here after handing Hawkmoth over to the police.”
“M. Dupain.” Papa corrects, his face softening. “But call me Tom, son. Marinette, is that true?”
Marinette nods.
“Ah, well.” Papa sighs, sagging into his couch. “If that’s the case…I suppose I can let this slide, just this once.”
Marinette blinks, straightening her back. “Really?”
“But!” Papa turns to regard her with a stern frown. “You could’ve left a note or text or at least answered your phone, Marinette.”
Marinette winces. “Sorry? I left my phone in my room.”
Papa sighs, “Honestly, I don’t know if I should be glad you aren’t glued to that thing like most teenager or be worried about your forgetfulness, Marinette.”
“I’d prefer you be glad, Papa.”
“Of course you would,” Papa laughs, patting her head. “I should let Sabine know you’re safe at home. Your maman was very worried too, you know.” He turns to Adrien. “You can stay as long as you like, son. Today must’ve been…a lot. I’ll bring lunch up later; you don’t have any allergies, right?”
“Thank you, and I don’t.” Adrien smiles. “You’re much better than my father.”
Papa’s eyes widen as his lips twitch downwards. He looks stricken. “Of—of course, son.” He turns and practically runs out of the apartment.
Marinette elbows him with a huff.
Adrien turns to her, grimacing. “Too soon?”
Two police officers come to take statements from Adrien and Marinette this afternoon.
Apparently, some people at the precinct felt bad for him, so they volunteered to come all the way to Marinette’s home to take Adrien’s statement. And since Marinette is claiming to have been with Adrien the entire time—which she has, technically—she has to give a statement as well.
“It’s best if you don’t go outside for now, kid.” One of the cops tell Adrien apologetically. “Schools and companies have all let out for the day, and everyone’s on the streets celebrating Hawkmoth’s defeat.”
“Yeah, and Raincomprix’s having a prissy fit about the chaos.” The second officer mutters. “Lucky us.”
Adrien never liked M. Raincomprix. He’s so inflexible.
Half an hour after the police left, three unexpected visitors enter the apartment.
“Hey dude,” Nino greets Adrien solemnly, taking off his hat.
Adrien stares. Nino doesn’t even take off his hat for PE.
“I know I’ve made my opinion on your father clear, but I’m sorry, dude. No one should have to go through this.”
Adrien stares. Next to Nino, Alya nods. “Yeah. It’s—a good thing Hawkmoth is behind bars, but—I’m sorry.”
Why are they acting so weird?
Chloe sniffs. “I’ve known Mr. Agreste as long as you have, Adrikins. After your mother—I didn’t like him, but I didn’t think he could—I’m sorry.”
They—he—
First Tikki, then M. Dupain, then those two police officers, now his friends? Really?
Why are they all—
Wait.
Oh. Adrien knows what their behaviour reminds him of.
“Oh my—stop it.” Adrien huffs. “You’re being weird. Stop—stop apologizing for my father being Hawkmoth—you’re talking to me like he’s dead! It’s not—any of your fault, and it’s not mine that he decided to become a magical terrorist—so—so—just. Stop doing that.”
Nino blinks. He glances at the others, and sheepishly puts his hat back on.
“We’re trying to be sensitive.” Alya grumbles. “Do you know how hard it was to be that calm? I’ve been bursting with energy this whole afternoon.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nino pats Alya on her back. “Thank you for your sacrifice, babe.”
Chloe scoffs, turning around to look at the apartment. “Not bad, Dupain-Cheng. For an apartment.”
“Chloe!” Adrien protests.
“That’s a compliment! What more do you want?”
“Guys, did you know school’s cancelled for today?” Alya asks, ignoring Chloe, “Everyone’s out on the streets celebrating. They’re thinking of making this a Parisian holiday. People are petitioning to call today Hero’s Day. I heard the Mayor’s thinking of throwing together a festival this weekend.”
“Well, of course he’s gonna do that.” Chloe says, smirking. “I suggested it to him.”
Alya gasps dramatically, “The Chloe Bourgeois, using her power for good? Who could’ve guessed? People can change!”
Chloe blushes, “Shut up, Cesaire.”
“Oh, I get it now.” Alya gives her a shit-eating smile. “You’re a tsundere.”
Adrien snorts.
Chloe gasps, scandalised, “How can you betray me like that, mon chou?”
At some point, the conversation turns to Adrien’s living arrangements.
“My only relatives live in London.” Adrien tells them. “Nathalie and my bodyguard are still under investigation, so I can’t stay with them either. The police told me considering my age and the…circumstances, I might be eligible for emancipation, but since my bank account is under Father’s name and Father’s assets are all frozen, I won’t be able to buy an apartment for myself anyway.”
“You can stay here, C—Adrien.” Marinette immediately says. “We have a guest room waiting to be filled.”
“Of course not!” Chloe scoffs. “Adrikins deserves a suite at Le Grande Paris Hotel. You can have a butler, free cleaning service and a personal driver like always. If the Gorilla is cleared of all charges, we can rehire him as your driver and bodyguard.”
Marinette sniffs indignantly, “Well, if you live here, you will get to eat the best food each day. You will get two parents who dote on you and—”
“Whoa, guys!” Nino interrupts, “Let’s let Adrien decide, ‘kay? Though…” He looks at Adrien. “My door is open for you too. We also have a guest room, and didn’t you say you’ve always wanted siblings? My brother Chris can be your brother too.”
The three of them look at Adrien hopefully, while Alya facepalms next to them.
Adrien hesitates.
To be honest, after everything that occurred today, his living arrangements does not even appear on his top ten list of things to worry about. Now that his friends all want him to live with them, though…
Warmth blooms in his chest, soft and glowing like candlelight. Three of his friends want him to live with them. Three. Before, Adrien only had one true friend; now he has so many that three of them consider him close enough to family that they are willing to put up with him in their homes.
Adrien smiles.
Living with his two civilian best friends sounds great, but—
“Marinette, are you sure your parents will be okay with me staying here? If yes, I’d love to accept your offer.”
Living with his Lady, who knows him inside and out, who has fought with him and trusted him with secrets she never told another soul, sounds even better.
Marinette’s face lights up like Christmas came early. Nino groans, while Chloe complains playfully. Alya sighs heavily like a woman burdened with friends who are also idiots.
Despite everything that has happened today—or perhaps because of it—right now, with his friends inside and outside the mask surrounding him, Adrien feels…
Content.