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And so it goes, every weekend, the same party
I never go alone and I don't seem broken-hearted
My friends all say they know everything I'm going through
I drive down different roads but they all lead back to you
Marinette sighed at her reflection in the mirror. Nothing was objectively wrong with her outfit, just a simple, classic dress, with simple, classic black shoes. But something felt missing.
She’d felt like that a lot recently. She couldn’t bring herself to create any more designs, there was always something off about whatever she made. She was falling asleep more easily in class, despite getting more sleep than all of high school combined probably in the past month. She couldn’t even write in her diary without putting it down after a few lines of uninterested scrawling.
Marinette took a strand of hair between her fingers. Maybe she needed a ribbon in it. Or bangs. A new hair color.
Alya found her thirty minutes later, still staring in the mirror, a growing mountain of just-not-right accessories growing beneath her feet.
“Girl, c’mon, you look great!” Her best friend gripped her shoulders, jostling her a bit. “You’re going to outshine everyone there.”
“I dunno,” Marinette mumbled, extracting herself from Alya’s hold to clasp a pearl necklace around her throat. She wrinkled her nose in the mirror and placed it back down in the case.
“Y’know, we can’t be late,” Alya said, watching as Marinette tried on a pair of bright blue pumps she’d impulsively bought when she was feeling a bit down. She’d regretted it as soon as they arrived, but has been determined to find a way to make them work. This was not the way.
“Zoe won’t mind,” Marinette said absentmindedly, desperately searching every inch of her room for something. It never took her more than five minutes to figure out how to use a Lucky Charm, but her eagle eyed vision didn’t translate the same way with fashion. “And Chloe doesn’t want me there.”
“Well, Adrien will be there, and you’ll want to be on time for him.” Marinette saw Alya wiggling her eyebrows in the reflection of the mirror, and rolled her eyes.
“That hasn’t worked on me since I was fourteen, Alya. You know I…you know.” She finally gave up on searching for whatever magical item was going to save her outfit and crossed her arms awkwardly, avoiding her best friend’s gaze. Alya stepped forward, and wrapped her arms lightly around Marinette.
“I know. But he’ll come back eventually, and it’s only been a month. He’s around our age, right? Probably just trying to figure out university, all that jazz.”
Marinette smiled weakly. “Probably. Thanks. Things just don’t feel right, he’s not the kind of person to disappear like this.”
“Trust me, I know. And he was head over heels for you, so something really big must have happened for him to stop showing up. It’ll all work out.”
Marinette sucked in a breath and nodded. “Okay. I guess I’m ready.”
“Finally,” Alya groaned, looping her hand in hers. “I’m going to start laying out your outfits days in advance, this is getting excessive.”
Marinette giggled, but it felt a bit fake.
The party was fancy, as expected from the Bourgeois family. Numerous cocktails were being spun around the room by waiters, along with appetizers as the various food stations were being set up for the buffet dinner.
“I can’t believe Nino showed up in jeans and a t-shirt,” Alya muttered, and Marinette laughed.
“Did you expect anything else?”
“No. But I thought maybe Adrien would talk some sense into him.”
Marinette focused on Adrien. He was dressed nicer than most of the boys there, but not in a full on tux. Just nice, black dress pants, a crisp shirt, and a jacket. His hair was still as blond and fluffy as ever, but his eyes looked like they were being forced open, and his lips couldn’t manage staying upward for more than ten seconds at a time.
Marinette and Alya made their way over to the boys. Nino grabbed onto Alya’s arm immediately, raving about some type of Spanish tapa they’d been serving.
Marinette gave a small wave to Adrien. He returned it, not even bothering to smile. She was oddly touched by the gesture. She and Alya had come by the Agreste household a few times a week since his father had been sent to jail for terrorism, often with food, sometimes with movies, to make sure he was at least having some form of social interaction. Marinette wished she could say he’d gotten better, but if anything, the worried lines on his forehead became deeper, and the bags under his eyes larger.
For the first few days, he’d at least tried to keep up a cheery demeanor, but a week and a half ago, when Nino and the girls were there, he’d just broken down and hadn’t stopped crying for two hours. He hadn’t smiled at her since.
“Do you need anything?” Marinette asked, placing a hand on his arm. Adrien jumped for a second, but then shuffled a bit closer to her, and leaned his head on her shoulder.
Marinette would be lying to say her teenage crush being so close didn’t send some form of electricity through her body, but it wasn’t the paralyzing kind she’d had at fourteen, and she ignored it easily. She was more grateful each day she’d decided to put her feelings for Adrien on the backburner and try to become friends with him, because it meant she could actually talk to him now. And he was actually a good person to talk to, even when borderline depressed.
“I’m okay,” he said, so softly his voice tickled her ear. Marinette nodded, bringing him off her shoulder. She didn’t mind or anything, but an elite party probably wasn’t the place.
“Want to get drinks?” Alya offered, a grin on her face. Marinette was pretty sure both her and Nino planned to get plastered on Chloe’s expensive wine.
“I’m good,” both Adrien and Marinette said, and Alya shrugged, saying something about it being their loss.
“Want me to help you make the rounds to see everyone?” Marinette asked.
“Yes, please.” The relief was obvious in Adrien’s voice.
They first went up to Kagami. Marinette figured it was easiest, because she was a mutual friend, so Marinette could carry most of the talking, and she had come with Marinette to visit Adrien a few times. Not many, as Kagami wasn’t the best person to talk to when you needed a comforting few words, but enough she knew not to push him.
“I hope you are feeling better, Adrien,” was what she finished the conversation with.
“Thank you,” he said, putting enough spirit in his voice to make Kagami satisfied, and they moved on.
Their school friends were next. They all fussed over Adrien, with Rose fixing his collar, then Mylene and Ivan asking desperately if he was feeling alright, and telling him to call more.
“You look like shit,” was all Alix said, and everyone paused for a bit, including Adrien.
After a few more seconds of silence, all he said was, “Thanks,” and they quickly moved on.
They met up with Luka, who made a comment about Adrien’s melody being sadder than usual, and Marinette almost thought Adrien was going to say “no shit” before Jagged Stone interrupted them and asked Adrien if he was looking into doing some acting for a music video. He said not at the moment, but thanks for the offer.
After half an hour, they were done saying hello to everyone besides the hosts, who were busy anyway, and both Adrien and Marinette sunk into chairs.
“That was a lot,” Adrien said.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for helping me. I know it’s lame, but it means a lot that you care. Alya and Nino, too.”
Marinette smiled at Adrien. “I don’t mind. If I weren’t with you, I’d probably be sipping orange juice with Kagami, or getting wasted with Alya.”
“Neither of those options sound too bad,” Adrien said.
“You’re right. But I like being with you.”
That brought the closest thing to a smile to his face she’d seen in ten days.
She didn’t tell him she didn’t mind because for half an hour, she forgot how much she missed Chat. She stopped worrying why he’d suddenly disappeared. She wished she could tell Adrien that; he would probably listen, and understand. He’d be one of the easiest people to tell about her being Ladybug, actually. But she didn’t. There wasn’t much keeping her from doing it now the Hawkmoth was defeated, but it wouldn’t feel right to tell people her identity, without Chat knowing hers first.
By the end of the night, Alya and Nino were indeed very drunk, and Marinette had to call a cab to make sure they didn’t stumble through the streets and end up dead in a ditch.
“Are you walking home?” Adrien asked after they watched their friends giggle their way into the taxi. He was fiddling with his hands.
“Yeah. You?”
“Um, yeah. Want me to walk with you?”
The Agreste mansion wasn’t really on the way back from the Bourgeois’, but Marinette nodded anyway. “Let’s go.”
They didn’t hold hands, or link arms, but they did walk close together. Adrien kept in step with Marinette, and she fiddled with the ends of her hair.
“What are you gonna do when you get home?” she asked.
“Probably crash. Then watch a lot of TV, the usual.” Adrien let out a breath. “I have to work on some more financial stuff with my father’s company, too. I’m not the best at it, so the lawyer is helping me, but it just makes me feel dumb. I spent all these years working under my father, but never learned how any of this actually works.”
“Well, did you ever expect to take over the company?”
Adrien thought for a second. “No. I always figured I’d find a way to get out of it by then, or just sell it off. But I don’t want to do that now, I want to prove the Agrestes can be more than terrorists.” He said the last word with spite, and his steps became heavier. “I dunno. Maybe that’s all anyone will think of when they see me.”
“It’s only been a–” Marinette stopped herself before finishing the sentence. She was starting to sound like Alya.
The truth was, a month was a long time, to have to live alone, to be scrutinized in every media article, to miss a best friend. Someone who was more than a best friend, but never knew you felt that way.
“You can do it,” she said instead, her voice steady and firm. “You’re doing as much as you can, and you can only improve from here.”
Adrien sighed. “I feel like I can barely stay awake. It’s so hard.”
Marinette saw the tears welling up in his eyes, and a little bit of her heart broke. A lot of pieces of her heart had broken in the past month, but for some reason, being alone with Adrien on the streets of Paris, only the dim glow of the streetlight illuminating his tears, was excruciating pain.
She couldn’t believe she’d thought Adrien was perfect all those years ago, untouchable. As she wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him as hard as she could muster, she remembered all the times she’d broken down in front of Chat, and how he cheered her up every time. She could do this.
“Adrien?”
He let out a hum.
“Want to hear a joke?”
He pulled away from her, a quizzical look on his face. “A joke?”
She cracked a smile, but also winced a bit through it. “Yeah. I mean, a friend of mine used to tell me them to cheer me up. But I’m here for whatever you need! I can stay up all night baking croissants if you want, or you can come over and watch movies until you fall asleep. Whatever you need!”
Adrien stared at her for a second. “You’re a really good friend.”
She ignored the blush on her cheeks. “So do you want a joke?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Uh…” She had forgotten she didn’t know many jokes, and all of Chat’s weren’t as funny out of context. “Why don’t scientists trust atoms?”
“Because they make up everything,” Adrien said, his face blank, but a twinkle in his eye. “Marinette, Miss Bustier told us that one.”
“I’m sorry! I’m not too good with jokes. You try one.”
Adrien thought for a second, and Marinette watched his face, as flickers of excitement passed through it, then faded, and a frown developed. “I can’t think of any good ones, either.”
It wasn’t too odd of a thing, to not remember any jokes, but the dejected tone of Adrien’s voice reminded Marinette of how she felt when she ripped out another failed fashion sketch. So she dropped the subject, and when she arrived at her house, she thanked Adrien with a kiss on the cheek for walking her home, without another word.
'Cause they don't know about the night in the hotel
They weren't ridin' in the car when we both fell
Didn't read the note on the Polaroid picture
They don't know how much I miss you
Marinette flopped onto her bed with a large exhale, staring up at her photo wall. The photos of Adrien that used to bring her comfort were long gone, replaced by pictures of her with her friends and cutouts from magazines of pieces Marinette liked.
Adrien was still in some of the photos, but Marinette was in the frames as well, this time. She liked those photos better anyway.
The secret about her wall was if she were to flip a few certain photos, they would reveal another one behind it. Like the photo of her and Alya playing video games, there’d be one she’d taken from the Ladyblog of her and Chat playing cards. One of her and Nino high fiving, one of her and Chat fist bumping.
They were mainly photos most people wouldn’t think too much about. So Marinette was a bit of a fan of Ladybug and Chat. So was 99% of Paris.
There were a few photos she had to hide more carefully, taping to the back of the other to make sure they couldn’t accidentally be seen when the wind blew.
They were photos only Ladybug had, of Chat making goofy faces into the camera of her yo-yo, the two of them in the middle of tackling each other (a screenshot she got from a video she’d accidentally taken), a few of them doing acrobatic tricks for the camera.
Maybe someone wouldn’t be able to tell they hadn’t been taken straight off the Internet, but Marinette liked to be cautious.
Her most prized picture, however, was under one of her and Alya. It was a random one, to make sure no one would think to take it off, just them smiling while eating ice cream.
If you were to lift that picture, as Marinette did at that moment, and peel off the tape with extreme care, as she did, a small polaroid picture would be revealed, of her as Ladybug crashed onto a queen sized bed.
She remembered how she’d made fun of Chat Noir, going “Why on earth do you need a Polaroid camera on a patrol?” with him responding “For the memories, m’lady!”
Marinette couldn’t figure out whether to smile or cry at the photo. She did a bit of both. An akuma had gone miles from central Paris, leaving both her and Chat exhausted after leaping from rooftop to rooftop at 2am. Hawkmoth apparently had as bad a sleep schedule as Marinette.
After capturing the akuma, Miraculous Ladybug-ing all of it, blah blah blah, Chat proclaimed he couldn’t leap from another rooftop. Seriously. He was worried he would collapse.
Ladybug had agreed, and she was too tired to protest Chat getting them into a hotel after they recharged their kwamis. The two of them basically carried each other up the stairs to the room and dragged each other onto the sole bed (it was all the hotel had left, apparently, but Ladybug hadn’t been sure it was some hotel attendant thinking they were cheeky and setting the heroes up Paris up), and promptly fell asleep.
Or, Ladybug promptly fell asleep. Chat found her position, her legs bent in different directions, one arm stretched over the back of her head, and the other 90 degrees from it, so hilarious, he fought off just enough exhaustion to snap a photo. Ladybug had only found out when she noticed the photo, signed with a heart and a paw print, stuck in her belt the next morning after they parted ways and Ladybug tried to rush home before her parents found their sixteen year old missing.
Tikki zipped toward the picture as she noticed it. “He’ll come back, Marinette,” she said.
Marinette tucked the photo back, and slumped beneath her covers. “That’s what everyone says.”
I wish I could fly
I'd pick you up and we'd go back in time
I'd write this in the sky
I miss you like it was the very first night
Ladybug was on patrol alone for the 34th time, and she was this close to putting an advertisement up. Saying what? Something like looking for Chat Noir, if you’re him, please show up to patrol for once or at least maybe give me a call?
She didn’t think it would help much, but she was getting desperate.
Nothing was even happening in Paris, she mainly did the patrol just in case Chat decided to claw himself out of wherever he was and join her. She was losing hope.
She found herself coming closer to the Agreste household and squinted. It almost looked like there was someone out on the balcony. Weird.
As she got closer, she realized she was right, and there was Adrien. He was still in his pajamas, and she could tell even from a distance he didn’t look much better than he had at the party two days ago, but he was outside! Ladybug’s heart filled with a bit of brightness, some of the pieces that had shattered over seeing him crying molding back together.
He’d spent all of the past month holed up in his room, blinds down, under five blankets, eyes glued to his television. So this was definite progress.
She found herself moving closer to him without realizing, and by the time she wanted to turn back around, he’d already spotted her, and gave her a hesitant wave. She gave one back, and swung her yo-yo onto the balcony and pulled herself up so she was on top of the railing.
“Hi, Adrien,” she said. She didn’t interact with him much in her superhero form, but they’d talked enough to be on a first name basis. Or she hoped.
“Hi,” he said. His voice was small, but in a different way than around Marinette. He sounded more sad here, than empty. “You’re on patrol?”
“Yeah. Looking for Chat Noir, mainly.” She let out a sigh. “He’s been taking a bit of a break, I guess.”
“You deserve one too,” Adrien said, and Ladybug smiled.
“I don’t mind patrolling,” she said. “It’s nice to be able to help people get their cats from trees instead of fighting off magical evil butterflies.”
Adrien let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “That makes sense.”
He was twisting the ring on his finger in a way that made Ladybug think he wanted to say something else, so she waited. His eyebrows furrowed together as he thought. His eyes darted up to hers, and when he saw her looking back, he looked back down.
“You heard about my father,” he said, his voice slow.
“Yes.” She waited, and his ring continued twisting.
“I didn’t know, just so you know,” he said, looking up at her. “I would have told you.”
“I believe you,” she said, and he held her gaze now. “And I don’t blame you.”
He let out a breath that was so long Ladybug worried his lungs collapsed. His entire body almost deflated against the railing, and he leaned his forehead against it. “Thank you.”
“It’s alright,” Ladybug said. She wasn’t sure what she was allowed to do. She wanted to hug him, but something told her that was too much. She looked back toward the city. “I should probably get going.”
Adrien nodded, picking his head up. His face looked less tense than Ladybug remembered, and the warmness in his eyes had almost returned. “I’m sure Chat Noir will come back, Ladybug. He probably just needs time.”
“I know,” Ladybug said. “I just hope he comes back soon!”
I wish that we could go back in time
And I'd say to you
I miss you like it was the very first night
Adrien seemed a lot better the next time Marinette visited. When she and Nino walked in, the blinds were up, and he had a bowl of acai half eaten in front of him.
“Dude!” Nino exclaimed, running over to hug Adrien. “You’re back!”
Adrien laughed, and it didn’t sound exactly the same as before his father was arrested, but it was getting there. “Almost, yeah.”
Instead of watching a movie, the three of them played ping pong, alternating between being ref and opponents. Marinette wasn’t the best at it, but Adrien was patient with her, and let her win a few rounds. Nino was a lot less forgiving and won against her every time except once, where he claimed she cheated.
They ate dinner together, and Adrien was able to keep somewhat of a conversation going. Nino was so excited Marinette practically had to drag him out of the house to keep him from overwhelming Adrien.
“I’m glad things are getting better,” she told Adrien before they left.
“Thanks,” he said, and he actually managed to smile at her without it looking like a grimace. “I just got one more thing to do, and then I can get to work on the company for real.”
Nino talked Marinette’s ear off on the walk home, and Marinette let him. After all, she was just as relieved that Adrien was getting closer to okay.
Ladybug sat at the rendezvous point with her chin in her palm. She’d finished patrol a few minutes ago, but didn’t feel like going home just yet.
She started to get up to wonder if she could find Andre, when a buzz from her waist made her jump.
She brought up her yo-yo, fearing the worst. A new akuma? Mr. Agreste had broken out of jail! Someone had stolen all the kwamis?
Instead, it was an incoming call. From Chat Noir.
Ladybug nearly fumbled the phone in her hurry to pick up, and let out a squeak as she lifted it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hi.” The voice on the other end seemed less bright than she remembered, but that was to be expected, considering he’d been missing for so long. “Sorry I left you to patrol alone.”
“I don’t mind!” Ladybug’s voice was higher than she intended, and she cleared her throat. “Really, it’s fine. I wasn’t able to do this as much since I became Guardian; it’s nice to have the chance again.”
“Cool.” There was silence for a few seconds, and she was worried he’d hung up, but then he said. “Can we meet up tomorrow? The usual spot, 17:00?”
“Sounds good.” She basically hiccuped through her words with excitement, and then jumped up and down. Chat was coming back!
That night, she created ten new designs. By the end of the week, she’d finished them all, with Adrien Agreste whining most of the time for her to stop designing and kiss him already. Or at least get out of the room to go on patrol with him.
She ignored him. A month and seven days was way too much time spent not designing in Marinette’s book, and she had a lifetime to kiss Adrien Agreste, Chat Noir, whatever you wanted to call him.