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Ladybug and Chat Noir yelped as they fell through the portal, Chat Noir getting the wind knocked out of him when his partner landed on his back.
“Sorry,” she winced.
The young man opened his mouth to quip something about landings, when several screams distracted them. People were running towards something. Wait, no, from something.
“Past or present?” Chat Noir asked.
And as if to respond his question, two figures flashed by above them, seeming to be wearing versions of their outfits they had never seen.
“I'm guessing future,” Ladybug commented.
Time traveling akumas were surprisingly few and far between. But when they showed up, they had a knack for being extra disruptive. However, this was the first time the heroes ever landed themselves outside of their time together. Which was... a problem.
“We must be so far in the future,” Ladybug worried, finally getting to her feet.
“How do you figure?” Chat Noir asked as he dusted himself off. To which Ladybug grabbed his jaw and turned his head to a billboard with a large picture of them, in what looked like their mid-twenties. “Ooh, I look good.”
“Not funny!” Ladybug scolded him. “Bunnyx has warned me about this. It's dangerous to know too much about our future.”
“Then Bunnyx should be on her way to pick us up, right?” he reasoned.
“I guess?”
CRASH
The two heroes covered their faces from the cloud of dust that erupted nearby from something that crash-landed into the street, breaking the pavement. To his shock, Chat Noir heard someone cough from the hole.
“LADYBUG!” someone yelled, landing near them. “Are you okay?!”
“Me?!”
“I'm fine.”
Two voices responded in unison. The dust settled and there, surrounded by rubble, was the older Ladybug, with her hands on her knees like she had merely run a marathon, and not had been thrown several meters away in the air.
“What the—” The older Chat Noir, who had been the one calling out, gasped when he took notice of his younger self. “Sweet catnip, it's them!”
“Us?” young Chat Noir asked.
“They’re here,” the older Ladybug whispered, her gaze switching between each younger Chat Noir and Ladybug as she straightened up. “I knew it would be any day now.”
BOOM
The ground shook and pieces of rubble flew from the north side of the city. Both the older Ladybug and Chat Noir gasped.
“My Lady, the apartment!” he said in a panic.
“Rena is there. She won’t let anything happen to her,” she responded. Yet, to young Chat Noir, the chewing of her lip betrayed her worry.
“I’m not taking that risk!” Without looking back, the older Chat Noir vaulted off, in the direction from where the rubble appeared.
“Wait, Chat—”
“You’re leaving in the middle of a fight?!” Younger Ladybug interrupted her older version, already swinging her yo-yo to jump away. “Get back here!”
Yet he didn’t seem to hear her, for he continued running off, out of sight. So, younger Ladybug threw the yo-yo and left after him.
“Wait! You’re not supposed to…” But the older Ladybug faltered. Chat Noir watched as his older self left his partner on her own. What could be so important that he would leave his duty?
“Should I go after them?” he offered.
“No!” Ladybug immediately responded. “I-I… I need a black cat with me. I remember what happens. She’ll be okay.”
“Does he remember he left you on your own?” he said, attempting to keep the anger with himself at bay.
“There are things that are more important than playing superhero for the city,” she responded, already preparing her own yo-yo to get back in the fight.
“I can't imagine myself abandoning you in the middle of a fight like that,” he retorted, waving around his baton. “He shouldn't be doing that!”
“Hey, Mini-Chat,” she snapped her eyes at him, making him gulp. “Trust me when I say that he has a damn good reason to leave. If anything, I rather he be the one who's there instead of Rena Rouge. Now follow me.”
As she swung away towards the akuma, Chat Noir stared after her for a moment, before snapping out of his stupor and doing as commanded.
“Wait, what does that mean?!” he shouted after her. But for as long as they fought the akuma, she wouldn't answer.
---
Ladybug had thought that Chat Noir was headed to where the rubble had flown from. But instead, he ran further north. And it seemed the years had been kind to his abilities, for she was having a hard time keeping up.
When she almost missed a ledge, she had to stop to regain her bearings. Luckily for her, his destination hadn't been much further, as he slipped through the window of an apartment. Was that his home?
“What do you think you're doing?” she asked under her breath. To think of all the times she had to restrain herself from checking on her family and friends, and he couldn't do the same. What was it? A parent? A best friend?
A girlfriend? Ladybug ignored the small leap her heart made at that thought as she quietly landed in what seemed to be a living room, just in time to see a flash of orange leave through a window on the other side. Meanwhile, the older Chat Noir was standing in the middle, seeming to be holding something.
“There, there,” he whispered. “Everything's okay. Papa is here now.”
“Papa?” Ladybug blurted out. Her voice seemed to have startled him, making him turn around, finally revealing what he was holding. Or more precisely, who.
“You're not supposed to be here,” he whispered-yelled, gently pressing what looked to be a three or four month old baby girl.
“S-Sorry, I w-was confused... y-you left, it seemed im-important...” she stammered, averting her gaze.
“It is, but not for your eyes to see,” he said. He then continued on a quiet rant about the dangers of time travel.
But Ladybug wasn't listening. As her eyes had run through the apartment when looking away, they hit on a picture that seemed to be of a wedding. A woman looking very much like her, wearing an updated version of the dress she had designed for herself, if she ever got married. And next to her was standing a familiar looking man.
However, the picture was suddenly slammed down to the bookshelf surface it was standing on. A black gloved hand over the frame.
“How much did you see?” Chat Noir quietly asked.
Ladybug gulped, and she whispered the first word that popped into her head: “Adrien?”
Chat Noir pressed his lips together for a moment, until a frown replaced the look of anxiety.
“How old are you?”
“Fi-Fifteen,” she stuttered.
And what looked like recognition crossed his features.
“So that's why you wouldn't tell me, yet. I would've changed the future.” He let out a sigh, once again using both arms to hold the baby. He then gave her a sympathetic look. “Oh, things are about to get rough, My Lady.”
“Rough?!” she parroted. “But... You're Adrien! Oh my gosh, you're Adrien. And we get married! This is the most amazing future I could ever dream of! It means that—”
But her elation was short-lived, suddenly remembering the secrets she had yet to reveal to him. Does he know?, she wondered.
“I know,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “We know everything about each other at this point. All of our secrets.”
“Even the bad ones?” she asked in a small voice.
His shoulders visibly sagged, yet his expression was as tender as always.
“It's going to be okay, Marinette.” Ladybug's heart made a much larger leap at hearing her civilian name come from him. Remembering that the last time she had heard it come from his suited self, the world had been destroyed.
Just then, a flutter of ladybugs travelled across the apartment.
“Looks like my wife and Mini-Me saved the day,” Chat Noir said, with a dopey smile crossing his lips.
“Wife,” Ladybug squeaked. “Y-You mean, big me—I mean, older me, the me you married, because you're older, a-and you know. You know. Oh my gosh, you know!”
“Easy, Mini-Bug, you might accidentally reveal something to your boyfriend,” he chuckled, just in time for a white-blue portal to appear out of thin air. And from it came the older Ladybug.
“Is she okay?” she asked, rushing to Chat Noir to check on their daughter.
“She's fine, didn't notice a thing,” he responded.
“Thank goodness. Thank you so much for coming for her.”
Young Ladybug's cheeks tinted pink when she witnessed her older self kiss Chat Noir on the lips with fervor. Yes, she had just learned that was Adrien, but it was still strange to assimilate.
“Ready to go?” The voice of Bunnyx said behind her.
“I-I...” Young Ladybug's eyes shifted from her future self to Bunnyx. She had so many questions, yet she also knew none would be getting answers that day. She would have to find out the long way.
“You got this,” older Ladybug suddenly said, catching her attention. “Just follow your gut, and you'll find the answers you're looking for.”
“Hm,” young Ladybug slowly nodded. Before she stepped into the portal, thought, she took one last look at her beautiful future family. Something that, lately, with all the secrets she had been keeping, had started to feel like an impossible dream to fulfill. Yet there it was, alive and well, with the cutest baby girl she had ever seen.
“Come on, Mini-Bug,” Bunnyx said, lightly grabbing her shoulder and pushing her through the portal.
On the other side, they were back on the street where the time-traveling akuma had caught them, with the Chat Noir from her time waiting for her.
“Ladybug!” He jumped on her to give her a tight hug. “I'm so sorry future me left you on your own. I promise to try to change that when the day comes.”
“A-Ah.” Her brain short-circuited.
“Where were you?!” Chat Noir asked with a light squeeze.
But all that came out of Ladybug were several ‘um's and ‘er's. How was she supposed to create coherent sentences when she now knew that it was her boyfriend in that tight leather suit? And that one day they would make a child together?
And now her face was about to combust.
“Did something happen?” Chat Noir asked, finally pulling back to look at her.
So much happened! She screeched internally.
“No-Nothing,” she lied. “Nothing happened. You're fine—I mean!” She smacked a hand over her mouth. “It's fine! E-Everything's fine.”
Chat Noir arched a brow. “Do you need a break?”
“No! No, no, I-I, uh... I could use the distraction. Let's just... Let's just get this akuma.” Without another word, she started making her way towards where they had been before being rudely taken to the future. Yet as Chat Noir vaulted away, Ladybug took one last look at Bunnyx, who was giving her a knowing look.am
There was no taking it back. She was supposed to have found out his identity in that moment, the way she did. While a bubble of anxiety about the future attempted to grow within her, the reminder that they still got married and made a family gave her hope for the future. That no matter what happened in the next few years, in the end, they would have their happily ever after.