Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The last rays of sun poured through the classroom windows in gold slants, casting long shadows across empty desks. The filtered light kissed the edges of notebooks and chairs, stretching them out like quiet echoes of the day. Most students had already trickled out, their footsteps fading into the soft buzz of hallway chatter and slamming lockers. Laughter bounced off the far walls, disconnected and distant, like a life happening somewhere else.

Adrien lingered in his seat, shoulders slightly hunched, his hands moving slowly as he packed the last of his notebooks into his designer bag. The classroom smelled faintly of dust, paper, and cheap markers, comforting in a way. Real. Tangible. Unlike most of his life.

He exhaled, low and quiet, the kind of breath you don’t realize you’ve been holding in all day. The tension in his chest loosened just a fraction, now that the curtain was down and the performance was over.

No cameras here. No spotlight. Just silence.

He rubbed the back of his neck absently, his fingers finding the usual ache just under the base of his skull. Glancing at the daily planner in his hand, he flipped to the evening’s schedule out of habit.

Fencing lesson. Piano rehearsal. Mandarin practice.

Of course.

He closed it without reading further.

Maybe if he told his father he had a headache, he could get out of at least one thing. Maybe.

He stood, slipping the strap of his bag over his shoulder, and turned toward the door. That’s when something caught his eye, just barely, a soft edge of leather peeking out from beneath the leg of the desk beside his.

He hesitated.

A small, well-worn journal lay there, half-tucked under the chair as if it had tried to hide itself.

He bent to pick it up. "Must’ve dropped it," he murmured to no one, turning it over in his hands. The leather was soft, warm from the sunlight, the corners worn and slightly bent from use. There was no name on the cover, no identifying stickers or school labels. Just a simple little book.

He glanced toward the hallway.

Empty.

It was probably forgotten in a rush, someone had packed up too fast and left it behind. He knew the feeling.

He turned back toward the window light and thumbed open the first few pages, intending only to find a name, just enough to return it discreetly.

But instead of homework or schedule notes, he saw… doodles.

They were adorable. Slightly chaotic. A tiny superhero cat, fanged and grinning, doing a dramatic pose. And there, in the corner, unmistakable strands of smooth blond hair and a faint outline of his face smiling.

Then his name. Written carefully. And beside it… a heart. A tiny, almost embarrassed heart, like it had been added last-minute.

He blinked, eyes widening.

Curious now, he turned another page.

“Today he smiled at me. I died. Actually died. Please bury me under the bakery.”

His eyebrows shot up, involuntarily laughing under his breath.

The voice in the writing was familiar, funny, nervous, painfully self-aware. He could almost hear the flustered stammer behind the words.

He flipped forward, slower this time, like peeling back the cover of something sacred.

“Adrien looked so tired today. I wish I could tell him it’s okay not to be perfect all the time.”

That one stopped him cold.

The smile faded.

A strange tightness wrapped itself around his chest. He could see the words, but they felt distant for a moment, like he was underwater. The air in the room shifted. The simplicity of that sentence, its gentleness, was louder than anything he’d heard all day.

Tell him it’s okay not to be perfect.

He paused, the journal open in his hands. One voice in his mind told him to close it, to stop. This wasn’t his. This was someone else’s inside world. But the words didn’t feel like a violation. They didn’t accuse or demand. They felt like someone standing on a rooftop, whispering into the wind, hoping someone might hear, but never expecting they would.

It was messy. Honest. Human.

Sweet.

He turned the page again, now more reverent, fingers brushing the edges like he might smudge the ink if he touched too hard.

“He’s so kind. He doesn’t even realize it. That smile kills me every time. I can’t even say hello without tripping over my own feet like an idiot. Ugh. Stupid Marinette.”

He froze.

Marinette?

He read the sentence again. Then a third time, slower.

The drawings. The chaotic but charming stream of consciousness. The handwriting, he’d seen it before. On notes passed in class. On fabric swatches she dropped when she sketched in the corner of the school courtyard. He flipped backward to confirm, heart starting to beat faster.

It was hers.

Marinette had written this.

He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling the full weight of the notebook in his hands. Guilt swept over him in a cold wave. What had started as innocent curiosity now felt heavy, wrong. He was reading Marinette’s journal. Her private thoughts. Her secret crushes. Her messy, vulnerable heart. And she had written about…

Him.

He shouldn’t know this.

His thumb hovered over the edge of the page. He should close it. He should put it in his bag and return it tomorrow. No explanations. No confessions.

But his gaze was drawn downward one last time.

“Sometimes I wonder if Adrien ever feels lonely.”

His heart clenched.

The pencil in his bag found his hand before he even realized he was moving. His fingers moved slowly, carefully, as if the page might shatter under his touch.

And in the space beneath her question, he wrote:

All the time.

He stared at it. The pencil still hovered, frozen in his hand.

It looked so small. So simple. But it felt like an admission he’d never made out loud.

For a few seconds, he didn’t breathe.

He shouldn’t have read this. He definitely shouldn’t have answered.

But something in her words had reached beneath the layers of his daily performance, past the polished exterior, and found the part of him that still longed to be known. To be seen.

He hadn’t even realized how badly he’d needed someone to ask that question.

With a sigh, soft and barely audible, Adrien closed the journal carefully. His hands lingered on the worn leather cover, as if reluctant to let go. It was warm from his touch. Or maybe from hers.

He told himself he’d return it tomorrow. That he wouldn’t read more. That this was already a line crossed.

But that night, when the house was still and the world outside his window was painted in soft gold and shadows, Adrien sat on the edge of his bed with the journal once again resting in his lap.

Plagg stirred lazily at the foot of the blanket, stretching with a yawn. His emerald eyes cracked open just enough to watch Adrien flip open the journal.

“You know that’s not yours, right?” the kwami mumbled.

Adrien didn’t answer.

His fingers trailed down the pages like he was searching for something without a name.

“Sometimes I think I like Adrien and Chat Noir and I don’t know what that says about me. Maybe I just fall for anyone who’s kind to me. Maybe I’m hopeless.”

He laughed under his breath, barely more than an exhale.

“It says you have great taste,” he whispered, then paused. That was too bold. Too telling. Instead, he scribbled softly in the margin:

“Hopeless? Or just honest?”

Entry after entry, he wandered through her world, her thoughts, her insecurities, the way she beat herself up for every mistake. She wrote about school, about her parents, about how she wished she were braver. She made lists of things that made her happy: fresh bread, soft sweaters, almond croissants, his laugh.

The doodles danced between the margins, scattered like freckles across the pages.

And now and then, she mentioned “LB” or “him.” Adrien assumed “LB” meant Ladybug, and “him”… well. He tried not to assume too much.

Then, turning another page, his eyes fell on a sentence that stopped his breath cold.

“I think I’m going to lose it. Being Ladybug is hard enough, but falling in love with Adrien on top of it? Disaster. Utter disaster.”

The air went still.

The journal didn’t move.

Neither did he.

His spine locked as he read the line again. Once. Twice. A third time.

The words didn’t change.

Ladybug.

Being Ladybug.

His brain scrambled, protesting what his heart already believed. The pieces slammed into place before he could resist them.

Marinette… is Ladybug.

His partner. His Lady.

The girl he teased on rooftops. The one who saved the city with fire in her eyes and courage in her heart. And also… the girl who blushed if he said her name too softly. Who tripped over her own feet in the hallway and bit her lip when she concentrated too hard.

They were the same person.

All this time.

He leaned back, stunned, the journal still open in his lap. The room spun slightly, or maybe that was just his pulse pounding in his ears.

It made sense. All of it. The sudden disappearances. The flashes of confidence that showed up when she was focused. The kindness. The strength. The loyalty.

It shouldn't have made sense. But it did.

And now he knew.

And he shouldn’t.

His stomach twisted into knots. She didn’t want anyone to know. Not even him. She had trusted this journal to hold the weight of a secret she couldn’t share, not with the world, not with their classmates, not with him.

Plagg stirred again, voice groggy and disinterested. “What is it now?”

Adrien didn’t answer.

He just stared at the pages, the handwriting, the girl behind the mask and the realization that he had just crossed a boundary she never gave him permission to cross.

After a long, aching moment, he flipped back to the first page and gently closed the journal.

He couldn’t keep it.

He couldn’t keep doing this.

Chapter Text

The sky stretched endlessly above Marinette in soft, velvet darkness, scattered with stars like drops of milk in ink. She sat on her lounge chair on the balcony, legs tucked beneath her, a loose cardigan pulled over her shoulders against the gentle summer breeze. In her hands, a ceramic mug warmed her palms, still half-full with something that had long since gone lukewarm. She didn’t care. The steam might have faded, but the ritual was the point, holding something warm while pretending the stillness meant peace and not pressure. A low instrumental melody floated out from her speaker, set quietly near the door. No lyrics. Just soft chords, the kind that hummed around her ribs and made her think too much.

She hadn’t been able to focus all day. Her sketchpad lay open beside her on the chair, untouched except for a half-hearted swirl of pencil marks in the corner. Her fingers had hovered above the page for an hour, pencil idle, eyes unfocused, like her mind refused to settle on anything. Something felt off in her chest, unbalanced, like she’d missed a step somewhere. But no matter how many times she retraced her schedule, she couldn’t figure out what it was. She’d been on time to class, remembered her homework, even dodged Mlle. Bustier’s question about post-graduation plans with a vague but convincing smile. Still, something gnawed quietly at the edges of her thoughts, a fuzzy tension just out of reach.

She tilted her head back and stared at the sky. From her spot on the balcony, the city lights below faded to a low shimmer, letting the stars take center stage. They blinked faintly, like shy companions watching from afar. Marinette sighed, exhaling slowly through her nose. She didn’t know what she was waiting for. Not a patrol, not an akuma, not even inspiration. Just… something.

A quiet thump broke the silence above her.

She didn’t flinch. She knew that sound.

The soft scuff of boots on tile followed a second later, barely loud enough to register over the music. Then came the almost comical clink of claws brushing the metal railing. She smiled faintly, lips barely curving. She didn’t turn to look.

“Hey, Chat,” she said, voice low and calm, still gazing up at the stars like they might give her the answers he couldn’t.

For a beat, he didn’t respond. No snark, no flirtation, not even a pun. Just the quiet presence of someone who arrived like the night air itself, unexpected but familiar. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than she was used to. Not teasing. Not playful.

“You dropped this, Bugaboo.”

That made her turn.

He was standing by the edge of her balcony, mostly cloaked in shadow, the golden lights barely catching on the curve of his jaw and the faint green glint of his eyes. He looked… serious. Gentle, but unreadable. And in his gloved hands, held carefully like something fragile, was a small, familiar notebook.

Her journal.

Her stomach dropped.

He stepped forward and placed it on the table beside her sketchbook without another word. His movements were precise, intentional, almost too gentle. Like he knew exactly what he was returning. Like he’d already held it too long.

She stared at it. The leather cover was unmistakable : cuffed edges, the faint crease along the spine. Her fingers itched to grab it, to hide it, to snatch it back before he could say another word. But she didn’t move. Her heart was pounding now, slow and hard like thunder deep underground. A sick sort of realization curled in her gut.

He’d read it.

He had to have.

There was no other reason he would return it like this, no jokes, no lazy grin, no purr in his voice. Just quiet, almost reverent stillness.

She finally found her voice. “Where did you find it?”

“School,” he answered simply, without explanation. No elaboration. No lie.

Her heart twisted.

She must’ve dropped it at the end of class. She hadn’t even realized it was missing. And now it was here, delivered by the one person she had written about far too many times.

Did he know? Did he know it was her journal? Did he know what she wrote about him? About Adrien?

About Ladybug?

The panic built like pressure under her ribs. She reached out slowly and touched the edge of the cover, fingertips brushing the leather. It was warm. Maybe from the night air. Maybe from his hands. She didn’t know which thought was worse.

She glanced up at him. “Did… did you read it?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t look away. But he didn’t answer either. He just tilted his head slightly, and the silence that followed was louder than a thousand words.

She didn’t need him to say it.

His eyes said enough.

“I shouldn’t have dropped it,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the music. She was ashamed of how small she sounded, how exposed. She hated feeling like this, like a prey. But the journal was everything. The only place she let herself unravel. The only place she wasn’t Ladybug or class rep or perfect daughter or pining mess. It was her.

And he had read it.

“I thought it was just a notebook,” he said at last, his voice quiet, almost careful. “At first.”

She swallowed, throat dry. “And then?”

He met her gaze, and for a moment, there was no mask in his eyes. No flirt, no game. Just Chat with a little je ne sais quoi in his eyes.

“And then it felt like it mattered too much to ignore.”

Her breath caught. Her chest ached.

She should be furious. Embarrassed. But all she could feel was this overwhelming hum under her skin, like the truth had slipped through and refused to be put back.

“Thank you,” she murmured, curling her fingers protectively around the journal. “For bringing it back.”

He nodded once. No comment. No fanfare. Just understanding.

He turned to leave.

“Wait,” she said quickly, before she could think better of it.

He paused.

She opened the journal slowly, her fingers trembling. She flipped to the page she’d written late at night, half-delirious, half-heartbroken, when everything felt too heavy and she wondered if anyone ever saw Adrien, not just the golden boy. And there, beneath her words, in handwriting that wasn’t hers, was a single reply:

All the time.

Her breath hitched.

She pressed her hand over the page like she could press the words into her skin, into memory. Her throat burned.

She turned to another page.

There it was again, his voice in the margin.

Hopeless? Or just honest?

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. He’d read them. All of them. And instead of laughing or running or teasing, he answered.

“You wrote back,” she said, her voice breaking just slightly.

He looked at her again. Still quiet. Still still.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “But I… I needed to.”

She couldn’t respond. Not yet. The wind stirred gently around them. The stars blinked softly above like they, too, were waiting.

After a moment, his voice dropped even softer.

“Thank you for writing it, it… lifted some kind of weight off of me.”

She didn’t know what to say. But the words curled around her like a blanket she didn’t know she’d needed.

He moved again, stepping toward the edge of the railing, ready to disappear into the dark like he always did.

But something about tonight felt heavier. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was her eyes. Maybe it was the way the air held its breath between them.

He crouched slightly, claws poised against the railing, but then paused. His gaze drifted back to her, her hair loose around her shoulders, cardigan sleeves pulled over her hands, fingers resting lightly on the journal like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the moment.

“Read the last page,” he said suddenly, voice low but firm.

She blinked, startled.

“What?”

He didn’t repeat himself. Just gave a small nod toward the journal and said, barely louder than the breeze, “Please.”

Then, without waiting for a response, he leapt into the night. The soft sound of his grappling line followed a second later, and then he was gone, swallowed by the Paris skyline.

Marinette sat frozen for a moment, the weight of the journal suddenly magnified in her hands. Her chest tightened as she slowly flipped through the pages, past the margins he’d marked, past the parts of her that now felt seen. Her fingers reached the back cover, and there, on the very last page, a folded sheet of lined paper had been tucked between the pages.

Not part of the journal.

Not hers.

She unfolded it carefully, the creases soft and deliberate. The handwriting was neater than his margin notes. Slower. Measured.

A letter.

---------------

To Marinette, Ladybug and the girl who saved my heart,

I wasn’t supposed to read any of it. I know that. I never meant to open something that wasn’t mine, especially something that held so much of you. But I did. And I can’t unsee what’s in these pages.

What I found wasn’t just words. It was a person. You.

The way you see the world, your world, is so full of hope and mess and love and fear and all these things I don’t let myself feel out loud. And you feel them. All of them. You write them down like you’re afraid no one will ever understand them, and somehow that made me feel more understood than I have in a long time.

You think I’m kind. You think I’m perfect. You think I don’t know what it’s like to be lonely or unsure or scared. But I do. I know it too well. I’ve spent so long pretending to be okay that sometimes I forget what it’s like to actually be okay. But reading your words reminded me.

You reminded me.

You, who stumble through sentences and still manage to save the world. You, who blush so hard you forget your own name, but still look danger in the eye when it counts. You are stronger than anyone knows.

And maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’m glad I know now.

I’m glad I saw you.

Thank you for writing the truth, even when it wasn’t meant for me.

Your kitty,
Adrien Agreste

---------------

Marinette stared at the letter, her throat tight and her heart racing, her fingers curling around the edges of the page like it might float away.

She pressed it gently against her chest, eyes stinging with something warm and painful and full.

The music had stopped. The sky was quiet.

And all she could breathe out, soft as a secret, was:

“Oh, Adrien.”