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“I can’t,” Marinette insisted, trying to shove the thick hardcover book back into Alya’s hands. “I won’t! Alya, do you even understand what you’re asking from me?”
Alya rolled her eyes. “Girl, you’re being melodramatic! Your ex-boyfriend published a tell-all about growing up in Paris.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Don’t you want to see what he wrote about you?”
Marinette hesitated, holding the book. It was a monstrous brick, she thought. If nothing else, it could make for a good self-defense weapon if armed robbers ever broke into her apartment. “He wrote about me? We were together for less than a week before Hawkmoth—before Adrien broke things off!”
“Before he ghosted you and everyone else he cared about in Paris. I remember.” Alya looked solemn, but it only lasted a moment. “Marinette isn’t in the book,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m talking about the other you.”
Marinette’s mouth formed into a little o. All at once, their five years’ separation seemed to fall away. She was nineteen again, detransforming in an alley with blood dripping down her forehead and frantically dialing and re-dialing Adrien’s number. She was seventeen again, helping Nino sneak Adrien out of his bedroom window so he could make it to his own surprise birthday party. She was fifteen again, whispering goodnight to a collage of Adrien pictures every night before bed.
She had been so embarrassing. And it was all rushing back.
“He wrote about Ladybug?” Her voice came out as a squeak.
Judging from Alya’s smirk, she knew exactly what the squeak indicated. She pushed the book the rest of the way into Marinette’s arms, then stepped back, forcing Marinette to hold onto it. “Read and find out,” she said smugly. “After all, he’ll be here in five days.”
Right. The book signing was coming up. Not that Marinette paid any attention to Adrien’s movements these days. Ever since the day of his father’s arrest, when he had dropped all his friends and left for London without a word, she had determinedly ignored all celebrity news. She had only found out about Adrien’s memoir and book tour because no other woman her age would shut up about them.
Marinette sighed. “I can’t believe I used to feel sorry for him. Losing both his parents by nineteen… I know it was hard, even if I don’t agree with his choices.”
She looked down at the book. A perfectly polished headshot of Adrien grinned up at her from the back cover.
“But he clearly isn’t suffering that much,” she concluded.
Alya shrugged. “Read the book,” she said. “Then call me.”
Marinette took the Métro home. The book was too large to stuff into her purse, so she carried it under her jacket. At home, she heated up leftovers for dinner. The book sat on the kitchen table. No matter where she went in the apartment, Marinette imagined Adrien’s searing green eyes following her.
Her resolve lasted until 20:00, when her upstairs neighbors started their nightly argument. Then, cursing her weakness, Marinette made herself a cup of tea and took it to bed with her alongside the book. There, in a nest of blankets, she opened it to the first chapter.
Adrien surprised her again. Marinette saw at once why people were raving about this book. Celebrity power alone wouldn’t have been enough, but Adrien could write. Even assuming he’d had help from a ghostwriter, there were enough personal touches that Marinette was certain he’d been heavily involved. As she read through the first chapters, Marinette laughed several times. When Adrien talked about the process of grieving for his mother, she teared up.
Then she reached Chapter Six, which was simply titled Ladybug.
Marinette’s eyes widened as she read about Adrien’s teenage crush, which he said had been bolstered by the many, many times she had rescued him.
“Everything seemed to revolve around her that summer,” Adrien had written. “When my friends and I went out for ice cream, my flavors matched her eyes, her hair, and her lips. If I took a walk along the river at dusk, there she’d be, swinging from rooftop to rooftop on her way to perch on the billboard above the 19th Street bus stop.”
Marinette realized her hands were shaking. She had only told Chat Noir about that bus stop. It was where she went when she wanted to people-watch without being watched herself. How had Adrien figured it out? She read on.
“One warm night, I spotted her in one of the usual places and approached. When she smiled at me, it felt as if every star in the sky had dimmed by comparison. Over a box of passionfruit macarons, we had a long talk about life and love. She seemed to know me better than I knew myself. ‘You talk like you’re trapped in this city,’ she said to me.
‘I am,’ I said, because I did feel trapped in those days. ‘Maybe one day I’ll leave, but I love too many people here.’
Ladybug looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. ‘Your love will stay here no matter how far you go,’ she said. ‘Remember that.’”
Marinette slammed the book closed. “That bastard,” she whispered. She remembered that conversation perfectly, and she hadn’t had it with Adrien at all. She could still picture the look on Chat Noir’s face as he absorbed her words. Had she unwittingly convinced him to leave without a proper goodbye?
Was Adrien— But he couldn’t be. He had to be.
Marinette buried her face in her pillow and screamed. “He’s Chat Noir, isn’t he?” she said to Tikki. “Don’t answer that. But what am I going to do?”
“And without further ado, please put your hands together for Adrien Agreste!” the bookstore manager who was introducing him cried.
Adrien stepped out of the back room and was met with a wall of cheering fans. His agent had been right, he thought ruefully. The book was doing well all over, but Paris remembered him. And Ladybug.
He watched the news on French channels often enough to know that she was still out there. Every now and then, a landslide would swallow a party of climbers or a block of apartments would catch fire and there she’d be, throwing herself into danger to save as many people as she could.
As the manager instructed the amassed crowd to form a line in front of his book-signing table, Adrien looked from face to face. He had hoped, fantasized even, that Ladybug would notice the hints he had left for her in the book. But that was ridiculous. Why would a grown woman—and a superhero—take the time to read an ex-model’s memoir? It had been wishful thinking.
Adrien had signed his first autograph when he was six years old. By now, the process was almost as automatic as breathing. He had plenty of time to watch the faces in the crowd.
A selfish part of him had wanted to see some of his old friends here tonight. That was even more ridiculous than his tired, bone-deep longing for Ladybug. Who would bother with someone who had left them behind so easily, without looking back?
Not that it had really been easy. In his five years in London, he had never managed to build the kind of life for himself that he had had in Paris.
“How do you spell that?” Adrien’s mouth asked. “Felicia. That’s such a beautiful name.”
His mind was miles away, years away. He and Nino had planned to share an apartment in university. What would that have been like? Maybe on the weekends they’d have gone out drinking with Alya and Marinette. Adrien would have had a tiny room with just enough space for a bed and a desk. When he brought girls back he’d have made jokes about…
But here his imagination failed, because the only girl he could imagine bringing back to his room was Ladybug.
She rarely gave interviews these days. When reporters asked about Chat Noir, her answers were short and to the point. Adrien could see the pain in her eyes every time he came up. He had hurt her, badly.
“How do you spell that?” his mouth asked.
“M-A-R-I-N-E-T—”
“Marinette!” Adrien stood up so quickly that his chair toppled over and his pen made a streak on the page he was signing. Speaking of people he’d hurt…
His relationship with Marinette had been a new, tentative thing when he and Ladybug had unmasked his father. Adrien had been too scared and ashamed to say anything to her.
Now, seeing her again had rendered him utterly speechless.
“Hey,” she said, seeming completely ignorant of the fact that everyone in the bookstore was staring at her. “Long time, no see.” She handed him a folded piece of pale pink stationery. “This is for you.” Winking, she added, “Open it when you’re alone.”
With that, she picked up her half-autographed book, pushed her way back through the crowd, and left.
Adrien cleared his throat. He wished he could vault the table and run after her. He wished he could announce that the rest of the book signing was canceled. “Who’s next?” he asked instead.
It took another three hours for the crowd in the bookstore to disperse. Adrien retreated to the back room to stretch his wrist and read Marinette’s note.
To his surprise, it was very short.
“Meet me at the place where we used to eat ice cream with Mr. Ramier,” Marinette had written.
Adrien read the note two more times, scarcely able to believe it was real. He and Ladybug had eaten ice cream with Mr. Ramier. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and tweaked Plagg’s ear.
“It was Marinette all along?” he asked.
He could hear the sleepy smugness in Plagg’s voice. “Go get her already! It’s not every day that a tomcat like you gets a second chance with the girl of his dreams.”
A quick, feline smile spread across Adrien’s face. “Plagg, claws out!”