Chapter Text
“Bye-bye, little butterfly!” Ladybug waved at the purified Akuma as it flew away, heaving a sigh of relief.
“Pound it?” Chat said, wiggling his eyebrows with a grin.
Ladybug ignored the way her heart skipped at his derpy crooked smile. “Pound it!” They lightly bumped their fists together. “Great work today, kitty. That was close!” she said with a relieved laugh.
“Too close,” Chat said, shaking his head. “Hawkmoth is getting more and more desperate recently.”
“I mean, so are we,” Ladybug said with another laugh. “I don’t think I’ve gotten more than four hours of sleep at a time in the last three months. I’ve filled out five notebooks with Akuma notes!”
Chat snorted, his eyes crinkling in the way they always did when he thought something was genuinely funny. “What in the world do you have to fill out five notebooks with?”
She shrugged, biting back a smile. “I got carried away?”
A loud guffaw exploded out of Chat. “ Carried away? For five notebooks ?” he cackled.
Ladybug giggled with him. It was kind of funny, now that she thought about it. She wasn’t even sure Alya owned five notebooks, and she was the reporter.
Chat sighed, wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes. “Man, I love you.”
The pair froze. Chat winced, hands dropping to his sides. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I know you said not to-”
“It’s okay,” Ladybug interrupted. She sighed, hating the way Chat’s face had fallen so quickly once the words had slipped out of his mouth. “I know it was an accident.”
She knew those were the wrong words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Chat’s eyes dropped to his feet. “Yeah. Sorry.” Then, with a forced smile, “I should go. My Miraculous…”
“Yeah.” Ladybug rubbed her earrings. She hated herself for putting that look on his face. “See you later?”
Chat nodded quickly and turned away even quicker. In a second, he was gone, vaulting across the rooftops. Ladybug turned in the opposite direction, taking a deep breath before launching herself up to the nearest roof.
She didn’t make it more than halfway to school before her timer ran out, her transformation dropping on the top of an apartment building. Marinette ducked down, sitting against the short wall where hopefully no one would spot her before she could re-transform.
“Ouch,” Tikki said, sitting in Marinette’s palm. “Are you okay, Marinette?”
“Yeah.” She pulled a cookie out of her bag, handing it to Tikki. “I just feel really bad for Chat.”
“It’s not your fault, Marinette,” Tikki said between bites. “You told him your boundaries and asked that he respect him. And before you say anything, it’s not his fault either!” she added quickly as Marinette opened her mouth. “I never implied that.”
Marinette chuckled, rubbing the kwami’s head fondly. “Thanks, Tikki. I just… I hate breaking his heart like that. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Unfortunately, that’s just the situation you two are in,” Tikki squeaked. She gulped down the last bit of her cookie. “Ready?”
“Right! Class!” Marinette jumped up, closing her purse. “Tikki, spots on!”
The swirling ladybugs brought her supersuit and Ladybug launched herself off the roof, praying she wasn’t too late for class. If it had been with Ms. Bustier she might have been okay, but Ms. Mendeleiev was going to be out for her head if she didn’t show up in time.
Marinette was so preoccupied with Chat that it took all of Ms. Mendeleiev’s class (which she was late for by two minutes - thankfully Alya was there to cover for her) AND the last class before lunch to notice that something was wrong with Adrien.
“Alya!” she whispered, poking her best friend in the side as they walked through the cafeteria doors. “Is Adrien okay?”
Alya shrugged, squinting her eyes at the blond. “I don’t know. He looks kinda… sad?”
“I knew it!” Marinette frowned, watching as Adrien plopped down in his usual chair. He poked at his salad, watching as pieces of lettuce slowly fell off his fork. The look in his eyes, a melancholic pain, was heartbreakingly familiar.
“I should cheer him up,” she decided aloud.
Alya’s jaw dropped. “Girl! Seriously?”
Marinette nodded firmly, looking back at her friend. “Adrien looks like he needs someone to talk to.”
“Girl! Yes! Go get him!”
Marinette opened her mouth to protest that this wasn’t an attempt to confess to Adrien, he just looked like he needed a friend, and why did everything have to be about her crush on him anyway?, but it was too late. Alya grabbed Nino by the arm, hauling him towards the table. “Hey, Adrien! Mind if Nino and I eat over there? I feel like spending some alone time with my boy.”
Adrien looked up, glancing from Alya to Nino to Marinette. “Sure,” he said quietly.
Alya shot Marinette a grin, wiggling her eyebrows as she dragged Nino across the cafeteria. Marinette shook her head as Nino’s face went from confused to smug in a matter of seconds. He winked, shooting her a thumbs up.
Marinette sighed, sitting down next to Adrien and thanking the universe that she was finally comfortable enough with him not to turn into a stuttering mess. Now that she thought about it, it had been a while since the last time she’d tripped over her words - and her feet - around him.
“Hey,” she said with a hesitant smile.
“Hey.”
Adrien went back to poking at his food, pushing a small bit of tomato around his bowl.
Marinette bit off the end of her croissant, chewing as carefully as she could - croissants were messy and she didn’t want to spew crumbs all over him. “How’s your salad?” she tried.
Adrien shrugged. “Fine. Same as always.”
“Right. You always eat the same salad for lunch?”
Adrien nodded, finally taking a bite of his food. “Model life and all that,” he said glumly.
Marinette sighed, putting down her croissant. Even if she didn’t care about Adrien as much as she did, no friend should let another friend feel that sad. “Adrien, are you okay?”
He finally looked up from his food, meeting her eyes quickly before glancing away. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look that fine,” she retorted. “That lettuce looks happier than you and it’s been in your hot bag for hours.”
Adrien looked down at his bowl, the corners of his mouth turning up in a tiny smile. “It doesn't look that bad.”
Marinette raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “It looks awful.”
This time Adrien let out a chuckle. “Yeah, it looks awful,” he admitted. “I just try to pretend it doesn’t so I can stomach it.”
Marinette rolled her eyes. “That’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “It’s the model life,” he repeated airily, waving his fork around.
“Sounds pretty terrible,” she said dryly. “I couldn’t survive without my sweets. Speaking of,” she added, digging around in her purse. She bit back a smile when tiny hands pressed a cookie into her fingers.
“Here.” Marinette handed him the cookie, grinning when he took it even as he protested. “You look like you could use the sugar.”
Adrien gave up, pushing his salad bowl away and breaking off a piece of the cookie, gently putting the rest on his napkin. “Thanks,” he said gratefully, popping the chunk in his mouth. “It’s… been a rough day.”
“Wanna talk about it?” Marinette pushed gently.
Adrien shrugged, face dropping again. “It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary,” he said with a sigh. “Father missed breakfast, I was late to Ms. Mendeleiev’s class, I dropped my phone and cracked my screen and now I need a new one and Nathalie’s not going to be happy, and…” he mumbled something Marinette didn’t quite catch.
“Huh?”
It was muttered so quietly Marinette almost didn’t catch it again. “The girl I’m in love with rejected me again.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry, Adrien!” Marinette instinctually leaned forward, wrapping him in a hug. “That’s awful!”
After a moment of hesitation, Adrien looped his arms around her. He shrugged again, his movement shaking her torso. “I’m used to it by now,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
“No one should have to get used to that,” Marinette scolded gently. “Trust me, I kno-”
She froze.
She knew. Of course she knew. Because she loved Adrien, and he was constantly rejecting her (even if he didn’t know he’d been doing it).
So… why didn’t her heart hurt right now?
Marinette remembered the first time she’d learned Adrien loved someone else, the day after that awful prank at the wax museum. She’d cried for days. Alya had been worried sick about her.
But right now she didn’t feel like crying. She felt a little sad, but not for herself, for Adrien. She hated that her friend was hurting and she wanted to cheer him up.
Why…
For some reason, she had the distinct feeling that something was different. Something… something colossal had happened when she wasn’t looking and she had no idea what.
Marinette jumped as Adrien pulled out of the hug, almost forgetting where she was. He sighed, resting his head in his arms on the table. “She means well,” he mumbled. “It was my fault. I already know she loves someone else, but I just had to open my big mouth.”
Marinette’s hand automatically moved to his back, rubbing gentle circles. Her head was spinning. She blearily dragged herself back to earth when Adrien kept talking.
“I just… I love her so much, and I want her to know that, but every time I try to tell her, she shuts down. Or shuts me down,” he added wryly. “Depends on the day. She’s just- she’s smart, and pretty, and funny, and I just want her to know it, ‘cause I’m pretty sure she doesn’t. But every time I open my mouth to say something like that , all that comes out is how much I love her.”
Marinette nodded, doing her best to focus instead of allowing herself to be swept away by her churning thoughts. “Sounds like you really, really love her.”
Adrien nodded, blond locks shaking with the movement. “A lot.”
“I know what that’s like,” Marinette said with a dry laugh.
He finally looked up, curiosity shining through the melancholy. “Really?”
Marinette nodded, sighing, and words came out of her mouth before she fully processed them. “Yeah. I used to love this guy who had no idea I felt that way about him.”
…
Well dang. There it was.
Marinette wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. When had that happened? When did her love for Adrien turn platonic? How long had she just been going through the motions?
To her surprise, she kept talking, the words coming out before her shocked, sluggish brain could catch up. “He’s smart, and kind, and so handsome, and every time I saw him I would turn into a mess. All this random nonsense would come spewing out of my mouth and I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand half of it.”
Adrien snorted. “Sounds like you a couple months ago. I think no one knew what was coming out of your mouth. Including you,” he added with a snicker.
Marinette laughed easily (how long had laughing around Adrien been that easy?). “Yup. My mouth would just go and go and go and I told him I loved him a thousand times but he never realized. I was a disaster .”
Adrien turned his head so that he was facing her, one ear resting on the table. “What changed?” he asked softly.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” she said with a sigh. “I think… he became a friend. A really good friend. And the love… changed. It’s still there, but I don’t love him the same.”
Adrien sighed, closing his eyes. “But I don’t want the love to change. I’d rather hurt every day than stop loving her.”
Marinette swallowed. “That’s what makes you different from me,” she admitted. “I was ready to give up on my love a thousand times when it got too painful. And I guess it finally happened,” she admitted quietly.
Adrien sighed again. The conversation lulled and Marinette took a bite of her croissant, the flaky pastry bland on her tongue as her mind raced.
She didn’t love Adrien anymore.
She didn’t love Adrien anymore.
And… it was true. Her love had changed. And when she thought about it, it made sense. She hadn’t realized she didn’t love him anymore because, really, she did. She loved him- as a friend . He was one of her best friends, one of the people she’d trust with anything (apart from her secret identity, of course).
A part of her mourned the loss of her crush, in the way one might grieve for an old home, a favorite car. She’d loved Adrien for three years. He was her first real love.
But another part of her felt… free. No more disastrous conversations. No more (frankly unhealthy) obsessions. No more late nights spent thinking about ridiculous plans that would never in a million years work.
Marinette sipped away the dregs of her juice. In the last few minutes, Adrien had pulled himself up off the table and was nibbling forlorgnly on the cookie she’d given him. To her surprise, she still found him adorable, like one would find a puppy or little kid cute. It looked like he was still thinking about the girl, if his furrowed brow and melancholic eyes were to be trusted.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked finally, setting her cup down on her tray.
Adrien looked up. “About what?”
“About… all this, I guess.”
Adrien shrugged. “Probably the same as always. Keep loving her. Like I said, I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I don’t care if she doesn’t love m- actually, I care a little bit,” he interrupted himself with a wry laugh. “But it’s not like I'm going to try to win her over. I value my friendship too much with her to push her away like that.”
Something about the way he said it reminded her of Chat. He seemed resigned, but not in a sad way. In a… accepting way. Like he knew what he needed to do and while he wasn’t happy about it, he would die before he pushed her out of his life.
“That’s… that’s really mature of you,” she said finally.
Adrien snorted, turning to look at her with raised eyebrows. “Mature? Seriously?”
“Seriously! The fact that you don’t value your feelings about someone over your relationship with them? Not a lot of people are mature enough to do that. I bet she really appreciates it,” Marinette said honestly. She knew that Chat’s willingness to put their relationship over his own feelings for her was one of the best things that had happened to them, right alongside her finally learning to lean on him (something that had taken an embarrassingly long time to do).
Chat. Poor Chat.
As the bell rang and she and Adrien hurried to their next class, her mind wandered back to her kitty. Adrien’s tired eyes reminded her of the way Chat’s had looked after her blunder earlier.
She winced as the morning came flooding back. Marinette wished she had gotten a chance to apologise. The words had just flown out of her mouth, almost automatically, and Chat had been gone before she had a chance to try to fix it. She hated being able to hurt him so carelessly, accidently. He didn’t deserve that.
A little voice in her head, the one that popped up every time she really thought about this, hissed that Chat deserved much better than Ladybug. He should have a girl who loved him, who’d never make him suffer because she couldn’t give him her heart. Ladybug couldn’t be that for him, not while she still loved Adr- Right. Not anymore.
Still. She didn’t love Chat romantically. Her love for him was nothing like what she’d used to feel for Adrien. Her love for Chat wasn’t the kind she wanted to sing from the rooftops. It wasn’t loud, or crazy. It didn’t make her want to dance and cry and scream and draw little hearts on all her photos of him.
Her love for Chat was warm, and soft. It was gentle. It wasn’t in her whole body, sending tingles up her spine. It was in her heart, glowing like a comfortable fire. Her love for Chat made her want to smile. It made her want to laugh with him just so she could see the little creases in his eyes. It made her want to sit next to him on the rooftops and talk about nothing for hours on end. It made her want to track down his abusive father and sock him in the jaw.
Which, to be fair, was the same for Adrien, but she was too afraid of Gabriel Agreste to hit him. She was pretty sure she could go to jail for that.
Her love for Adrien had been overwhelming, consuming her soul since the moment under the umbrella. Her love for Chat was softer, sweeter, and had grown. It changed and developed and in the last few months, had blossomed into something very special.
But it wasn’t romantic.
Nope.
Not at all.