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Marinette is a pretty good problem solver.
She has to be, between all the crazy irrelevant objects Lucky Charm throws her way, scrambling to finish group projects with Alya the day before they’re due and trying to keep her head on along the way. Because when you’re living a secret superhero double life, you get very good at solving the issue before it can really escalate into a Problem.
But this. Oh, she was not prepared for this. At all.
In no world could she have anticipated to ever encounter an issue like this one. It defies everything, ever calculation, every crazy theory and out of context probability. It goes so far beyond her wildest imagination that every problem-solving cell in her brain just kinda collectively short-circuits and adamantly refuses to process any sort of information on the subject.
And so yes, it currently feels a little bit like the end of the world, but it starts a normal day. At least.
Marinette arrives to class five minutes late and takes her seat behind Adrien, spends a good ten minutes contemplating their ever-odd relationship, and promptly waits for Alya to arrive so she can chat away with her best friend for the rest of Algebra. A perfect setting for the Totally Normal School Day™.
Except that it’s not actually a normal day. Shockingly.
Because nothing in Marinette’s life is ever normal, or easy, apparently.
It all starts when Alya doesn’t show up, out for the day with a cold or some other minor disaster that Marinette was sure to hear all about tomorrow.
And so the seat beside her is empty, and Marinette is bored out of her everloving mind because her Math teacher is an absolute snoozefest and just can’t seem to shut up about completing the square or some equally abhorring mathematic equation.
And so, it is at this point that Marinette makes the executive decision to tune out her doorknob of a math teacher and listen in on the conversation going on between Nino and Adrien bellow her, because really, what better does she have to do?
This proves to be a fatal mistake.
“Hey, Nino” Adrien pokes his friend in the side with his pencil eraser, “did you understand the Biology homework last night?”
Nino, who looks like death incarnate and has at least ten shades of tired under his eyes, groans and slinks a little deeper into his chair.
“No. And to make it worse, I was up the entire night finishing the History project that’s due today.” Nino shoots a look Adrien’s direction, “With no help from you, I might add, Mr. ‘sorry I was MIA all freaking night for vague and notwithstanding reasons.’ ”
Adrien grins sheepishly and glances away, “Sorry…I was, er, kind of busy. Long night”
Marinette can sympathize, what with having been up half the night pounding the snot out of a baddie with an unhealthy obsession for baguettes and other bakery oddities. Needless to say, it had been quite the adventure.
Nino sighs dramatically and buries his head in his arms, “I missed the new episode of Dance Moms because of you!”
Adrien rolls his eyes and grins so wildly that it makes Marinette do a double take because she’s seen that look before.
And then.
Adrien laughs under his breath in a very un-Adrien-like way and the entire universe goes to hell in a handbasket.
“Oh, what a cat-astrophe.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes.
Her world. Goes. To. Shit.
Nino glares at his best friend and makes a comment on the unnecessary frequency of his horrible out-of-context cat puns, but Marinette hears none of it.
Because there is no way. Absolutely no way.
How could there be a way? Ridiculous. Completely preposterous, what evidence could even lead her to believe that he was—
Oh my god. There was totally a way. The puns. The convenient absence during akuma attacks. His freaking ring.
And now, now begins the mental breakdown, because how could she have not seen this holy shit holy shit HOLY—
“EXCUSE ME.” Marinette suddenly bolts upright in her seat and nearly gives half the class a heart attack, “I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM NOW LIKE RIGHT NOW.”
Marinette doesn’t wait for an answer as she scrambles out of her seat at the speed of light, grabbing Adrien’s shirt collar on the way down and enticing a confused yelp from the boy.
“Marinette what are you—”
“You. Me. Hallway. Now.” She hisses, and Adrien has admittedly never been more terrified in his entire life because holy hell this girl could be scary when she wants to be.
The entire class is in shock as Marinette takes off for the hallway with Adrien in tow. The only one who actually manages a sentence is their Math teacher, who looks more annoyed by the interruption in his lecture then the fact that Marinette is currently kidnapping her classmate.
“Must you two go to the bathroom together?”
“YES!” Marinette screeches as she yanks Adrien into the hallway and slams the classroom door behind her.
She practically shoves the poor sputtering boy into the unused storage closet at the end of the hall and promptly resumes having a mental breakdown.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my GOD—” She rambles as she paces back and forth between the boxes lining the walls of the closet.
Adrien, on the other hand, is seriously starting to question the mental state of his classmate, understandably.
“Marinette what is going on—”
“You!” She interrupts, jabbing a finger as Adrien instinctively takes a step back in surprise.
“..Yes?”
“How could I have not seen this earlier?! How could we not have known?!” Marinette throws her hands in the air and Adrien looks like he’s contemplating running for the door when suddenly she stops.
Marinette meets his eyes head on and he can’t help but feel like he’s seen this gaze somewhere before.
Without warning Marinette suddenly presses forward so close that Adrien’s back hits the closet door.
“Adrien. Look at me.” She demands, azure eyes flashing. Adrien’s head spins at her proximity.
“I am! I am looking! What on earth is this about?!”
Marinette groans, “No you oblivious cat, look harder! Don’t I look a little familiar to you?”
“Of course you look familiar we’re in the same class My L—”
Oh. No.
No way.
Adrien stiffens and lifts an uncertain finger her direction,
“You- You aren’t saying that—”
“Yes.”
“So then you know I’m—”
“Yep.”
“And that means you’re—”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god.”
Adrien slinks down onto the floor in shock, back against the door as his mind skyrockets into overdrive because two plus two is definitely not equalling four.
Mainette takes a step back with a sigh and crosses her arms in a way that is so familiar to him that he can’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier. How could they have not seen it earlier?
Carefully, she lowers herself beside him in the doorframe, close enough for comfort but not close enough to touch. Drawing her knees to her chest, she trains her gaze at the far wall, refusing to look at the boy beside her or even acknowledge his presence at all. He can’t really blame her.
Adrien is contemplating how to go about apologizing for being the worst partner in all of superhero history and trying to come to terms with how much Marinette obviously must hate him when suddenly she latches a hand onto his sleeve and nearly sends him jumping fifteen feet into the air.
Her gaze doesn’t meet his and she has her head propped up on her knees with an expression that looks halfway between terror and mild amusement. And yes, he can vouch for the authenticity of that emotion because oh dear lord is he in a similar state himself.
“I’m glad it’s you.” She mumbles in a very Marinette-like voice, but her gaze finally comes to meet his and if there hadn’t already been enough proof that this girl was Ladybug, the fiery spark of determination in her eyes would have done him in for sure.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier.” She adds with a little more conviction, and Adrien’s heart is doing backflips in his chest because with every growing second he sees a little more of the brave Parisian hero he loves in this girl with her knees drawn to her chest and lightning flashing in her eyes.
Marinette drops her hand from his sleeve and suddenly he’s in a panic because oh my god what if she thinks that I hate her or something I don’t I don’t holy shit I’m totally in lo—
And then, Marinette has officially decided the world has gone to hell because, get this: Adrien laughs.
And not the soft, under his breath airy laughter Marinette is used to or the short chuckle Chat is so annoyingly infamous for, but a real, whole hearted laugh.
He’s doubled-over, clutching his hands to his stomach and howling in laughter, so adamantly it’s getting hard to freaking breathe because honestly, what else is he supposed to do?
And it’s contagious because Marinette smiles so wide that eventually she dissolves into the wild laughter herself, sputtering with tears of mirth in her eyes and her stupid lovable catboy in civilian clothes gasping for breaths of air beside her.
“This is just—pft, ” Adrien can’t even finish his train of thought as the laughter gets the best of both of them once again.
Marinette desperately tries to suck in lungfuls of air and props a hand against Adrien’s knee in a half-hearted attempt for stability, to which Adrien instantly loses his balance and nearly topples over into her lap.
Marinette just barley catches his shoulder and Adrien is just in another world because his Lady has saved him again. Sort of.
“Thank god it’s you,” He manages, just barley, because there’s an entire ocean full of other words he wants to say and not enough air in his lungs for more then four of them.
And she grins, and he grins and they don’t even know why they’re grinning because it doesn’t really seem like the appropriate response for the situation but neither of them can really find a reason to give a damn.
They end up propped against eachother’s shoulders, out of breath and confused as hell but with a new kind of unspoken weightlessness between them. How long had they bottled these secrets within themselves? How long had they felt completely alone in the world, with no one to confide in or even really talk to?
Who could possibly understand their situation better then eachother?
And so maybe it feels a little bit like the end of the world, but maybe it feels a little bit like the beginning of the universe, too.
Maybe. It also still feels like the very foundations of their relationship just went through a meat grinder, but you know, it’s whatever.
“So, uh,” Marinette starts, twirling a stray stand of hair a little sheepishly as she trains her gaze on the far wall.
“Hm?” Adrien tilts his head back and hums in response, and Marinette angles her gaze back to meet his.
“How are we supposed to get back to class?”
“Oh. Right.”