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After nearly a year of fighting by Ladybug's side, and a week after her impressive solo defeat of Monarch, they were finally going to reveal their identities to each other. He'd always wanted her to know and now he'd finally get to tell her, plus learn her name and face in return. This, on its own, was cause for celebration.
But what was more… he thought he might already know.
He couldn't quite say when he first started suspecting. It wasn't one thing, but several, all building into a small, quiet thought that burrowed into his heart: what if Marinette was Ladybug? The idea was outrageous. His girlfriend, also his superhero partner? It would be so staggeringly perfect that he was reluctant to entertain it.
Entertain it he did, though. There were superficial details. Dark hair. Brilliant blue eyes. There were sensory details. Her laughter. The crack of her voice when she lost her composure. There were behavioral details. Her passion. Her righteousness. He'd even called her their Everyday Ladybug!
Adrien wasn't sure how to explain her stint as Multimouse, but knowing Marinette, she would have found a way.
He wasn't certain, of course. He still had trouble truly seeing Marinette beneath the mask when he patrolled or fought alongside Ladybug. It was presumably part of the magic, shielding identities from all but the most undeniable proof. When they weren't suited up, though, it felt easier.
He watched her across the lunchroom table as she poked at her salad while Alya ranted about something or other, and tried to picture her with a mask. Was he really able to? Or was it just wishful thinking?
When Alya stepped away to take a call from Nora, and Nino went up to get more water, Marinette's whisper shattered his reverie.
"You okay?" she asked, concerned, leaning in close to be as discreet as possible.
Adrien shook himself out of his thoughts.
"Hm? Oh. Yeah! Yeah, sorry."
"You sure? You were kind of staring at me for a while there." She grinned. "Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but I was starting to worry I had salad dressing on my face or something."
"No, it's not that. I was just… lost in thought. Do you— I'm going to be meeting someone and I'm just thinking about how that'll go."
"You never mentioned that," said Marinette. She wasn't accusatory; just surprised and attentively interested. "Family?"
"Oh no, it's—" He was about to fall back on old excuses and mention a model or someone at his father's company, but seeing as he didn't model anymore… "Someone joining the fencing team," he lied smoothly. "They go to another school, like Kagami, and I was asked to show them the ropes. I'm just not sure what they'll think of me."
He never liked lying to her, even about hero stuff. Hedging as close to the truth as possible was the only way to minimize his guilt.
"I'm sure they'll love you," Marinette said affectionately, leaning in to place a soft kiss on his cheek. "How could they not?"
His cheek scorched under her touch, and he delicately touched it with his fingers as she sat back and resumed eating.
"We'll see," he said hollowly.
She held up a hand to cover her mouth as she chewed.
"When is this?" she asked.
"Tomorrow evening," he said. "So I won't be able to see you. I'm sorry, I should've told you earlier but—"
"No no, that's fine!" she reassured, waving her hands. "I've got stuff to do, so I'm busy anyway. But we can hang out the day after, right?"
Adrien smiled.
"Yeah. Of course."
Marinette gave an excited little wiggle. When her attention returned to her salad, he once again pictured the mask.
It was just before midnight when Chat Noir arrived at the appointed meetup spot, a beautiful rooftop terrace atop one of the taller buildings in the Latin Quarter. There were flowering plants, a small vegetable garden, and even a furnished patio with a table and chairs, all discreetly hidden behind some hedges for maximum privacy. He'd found it months ago and scoped it out again the night before, just so there'd be no surprises.
Now he sat waiting, the warm summer wind tousling his hair while his heart thrummed in excitement. Simply sitting still was work. He wanted to dance and sing, work out the nervous anticipation, celebrate. His brain kept telling him to prepare something to say once their masks fell, but his heart reassured him that he didn't need to.
Ladybug touched down ten minutes past the hour, rattling off a hurried apology about taking longer than expected to get out the door because she had to help her parents. Chat Noir could only smile. He knew Marinette was often late, so this was unsurprising. He didn't mind. He never minded. Helping her parents was such a Her reason.
He wondered if she'd propose that they still do a normal patrol and save the mask-shedding for afterward. Personally, he doubted his nerves could survive that. Already his palms were clammy, sweating, itching to get this over with. To his great relief, she was equally impatient.
"Are we ready to do this?" Ladybug asked, wiggling in excitement.
"Yes."
Was this really happening?
"How do you want to do it?" she asked. "Should we close our eyes, detransform, and then open them together?"
"No way! If I'm seeing you detransform for the first time, I want to see it."
She laughed, and some of his nervous energy seemed to dissipate.
"Fair enough, kitty. Okay. Count of three?"
This was really happening.
Chat Noir nodded. His veins burned electric.
"Okay." She took a steadying breath. "Okay."
He exhaled.
"3," she said quietly.
"2," he whispered.
"1," they both finished.
"Plagg, claws in."
"Tikki, spots off."
He intentionally shed his transformation first, just so the green flash would subside sooner. He didn't want to be blinded for this. He didn't want distractions. He needed to watch with clear eyes and savor this once-in-a-lifetime moment. He held his breath as he did so, and the wind seemed to pause right along with it. A half-second later, the pink light faded to reveal a short girl in faded black jeans and a purple-and-white striped tank top. She had long, wind-swept, dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes that blew wide in surprise.
"You're Adrien Agreste!" she gasped.
She stared, her lipstick-covered lips forming a tight O, and he stared back.
She wasn't Marinette.
"Your billboards used to be everywhere," she finished.
How was it not Marinette?
"Oh," Adrien said, mentally scrabbling to regain his footing.
Who was this other girl? Sure she was Ladybug, and nobody knew Ladybug better than Chat Noir, but… he suddenly felt like he didn't know her as well as he thought. He tried to hastily rebuild the image of everything he knew about his lady, divorced from everything he apparently didn't, and to ignore the sick sizzle in his stomach.
"You look… different," he noted.
She continued to stare for a moment, then giggled.
"Yeah," she said, and her surprise was replaced by that self-satisfied smirk he'd seen a million times, whenever one of her plans went off without a hitch. "Tikki thinks I was a little too scared the first time I transformed. Like I was so afraid of what was happening that I was trying to hide even from myself. But I kind of liked the different look, so… everytime I transformed it just kept doing that. All the better to hide my true identity, though! Pretty clever, wouldn't you say?"
She was undeniably clever. That was never in doubt.
"Y-yeah," he said weakly.
"So… I know your name. Want mine?"
He honestly wasn't sure, but he nodded politely all the same.
"Sophia," she said with a smile that would level any other man. "Sophia Renault."
Plagg didn't say anything when they returned home.
He didn't really need to.
The frantic hand waving in front of his face dragged him back from the void.
Behind it was Marinette, an amused smile twinkling in her blue eyes.
"You okay there? It's not really a fair fight if you don't fight back, you know."
Adrien looked past her at the game they'd been playing. His robot was still in his starting position and she'd already taken a few chunks off his health bar—probably within the first few seconds and easily enough for her to question his inattention.
"Sorry." He chuckled, an act of pure sheepishness. "I guess I wasn't paying attention."
"I'll say. I wasn't even sure if you were in the room with me. You okay?" she repeated.
Of course he could hardly explain that he hadn't been paying attention to her because he was thinking about her.
"Yeah. I guess I might be a little tired."
This was true, at least. Adrien could count on one hand the number of hours he'd slept last night.
"Up late?" she asked. Then a spark of remembrance brightened her eyes. "Oh! You never told me how your meet-up went."
"It was… It was fine."
She nodded. He could probably leave it at that and Marinette wouldn't press for details, but some unknown force spurred him on, as though he desperately needed her to understand this thing that he couldn't possibly explain. He unexpectedly found himself adding…
"I kinda wish you were there."
For a moment, the only sound was the video game's quiet pause screen music
Then Marinette raised an eyebrow.
"At your fencing practice?"
Of course that made no sense to her. Marinette often came to his competitions, seeing it as her duty to cheer him on. She almost never went to practice, though. Why would she? She didn't need to; it wasn't nearly as exciting, he needed to focus, and he'd much rather give her that extra time for projects.
Marinette studied him intently. She must not have liked what she saw, as she placed the controller down on the desk and spun her chair around to fully face him. The game may as well have no longer existed. When she spoke, her voice was one of delicate concern.
"Are you sure nothing's wrong, Adrien? You seem really off tonight. Did I… Did I do something?"
Her words jolted him into motion. As weird as the situation was, as conflicted as he felt about his own feelings, Adrien refused to let her believe any of it was her fault. Not for one second. He immediately reached out to grasp her hands.
"No! No, of course not! You could never do something wrong."
To his relief, she laughed.
"Well that's definitely untrue. You've met me, right? I screw up all the time."
He winced. Sure, Marinette made mistakes just like anyone else, and sometimes she could be clumsy and lose her balance, but he hardly considered that screwing up. She was a normal girl, beautifully imperfect.
"I mean," he said emphatically, "you could never do anything to upset me."
She exhaled softly.
"You sure?"
It shouldn't have been funny. There wasn't really anything humorous about this. But her hesitation, her uncertainty, her concern, it was all so unnecessary and yet everything he'd come to expect from her. So he chuckled.
"I'm positive. You make me so happy, Marinette. Just thinking about you…" Adrien cleared his throat. "You make me happy even when you're not around."
She melted at his words, just a little, but it was obvious that her concern wasn't fully satisfied. She wriggled in her computer chair, scooting it just a little bit closer so that she could take his hand in hers.
"You do look kind of disappointed about something, though," she said.
She was persistent. Always so persistent. Adrien took in the set of her jaw, the sparkle of her eyes, the intensity of her gaze. He surrendered to guilt as he allowed his own to trace where he wished a mask could sit.
"Yeah, I guess I kind of am."