Work Text:
Marinette and Adrien had been dating since high school. It was amazing and great and they were in love. And then they got engaged. That was amazing and great, too, until it wasn’t.
Ladybug sighed, sinking down next to Chat. “I think…I think my fiancé might be cheating on me.”
Chat’s arms wrapped around his knees. “Mine too.”
It was strange, really, that both their fiancé’s would be cheating on them at the same time. Probably they were cheating on them with each other. That would just take the cake.
“He’s always leaving in the middle of the night,” Ladybug continued. “And it’s always when I have to go out for patrol so I can’t even say anything and I just…” She trailed off, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t know what to do.”
Chat didn’t know what to do, either, about Ladybug’s fiancé’s cheating or his own.
Alya was fairly certain that Marinette was paranoid. She’d sympathized when Marinette first brought it up, ready to storm into Adrien’s photoshoot until Nino calmed her down, saying that Adrien was definitely not cheating on Marinette and that Adrien was just as sure that Marinette was cheating on him.
So, in the eyes of their best friends, they were both delusional.
“I just…I don’t know where she goes every night,” Adrien was saying, collapsed on the couch at the Lahiffes’ with a beer. “It’s like she just…”
“…disappears.” Marinette leaned forward against the counter, scowling at Alya. “He’s sneaks out and back in and has the worst…”
“…excuses.” Adrien groaned loudly, his beer sloshing.
“Well,” Nino started, a handful of chips on its way to his mouth, “don’t you think maybe you should…”
“…talk to him about this?” Alya pointed out, refilling her wine glass. “I mean, honestly, Mari, you could be…”
“…overreacting from nothing.” Nino shoved the chips into his mouth.
“But what if I’m not?” Adrien wanted to know. “What if she’s got someone else and she’s more in love with him than with…”
“…me?” Marinette’s eyes widened with tears. “What if he’s going to leave me for her and they’re going to get married and live happily ever after with three kids, a house, and a cat?”
Alya sighed, pushing the wine away to steeple her hands wisely in front of her. “You two are the most disgustingly in love people I’ve ever met,” she said with all seriousness. “And I had to deal with Rose and…”
“…Juleka all through school.” Nino shot his friend a look. “So I know what I’m talking about, man. You and Mari are gross. I had six cavities last time I went to the dentist, Adrien, and it was because of you two.”
Adrien snorted despite himself. “I think that’s probably…”
“…because you drink so much wine.” Marinette rolled her eyes, before turning serious once more, staring into her own wine glass. “Al, I love him so much. I always have. There’s no one…”
“…else out there for me. She’s it, you know?” Adrien looked up at his friend for confirmation, and the other man nodded. “If it turns out she’s going behind my back with someone else, I don’t think I could go on. It’d…”
“…probably kill me.” Marinette looked down again, biting her lip. “I don’t know what to do.”
Alya sighed, her hand coming across the counter to rest on her friend’s. “Talk to him,” she instructed. “You’re not going to get anywhere from just…”
“…getting drunk and crying on me. You need to talk it out with Mari.” Nino lifted his feet onto the coffee table. “Trust me, dude. You’ll feel better.”
Of course, Marinette and Adrien being Marinette and Adrien, they didn’t talk to each other. They just continued on for weeks, pretending they didn’t notice to each other’s faces but ranting and crying to their best friends, both super and non-super.
It took two weeks before Nino and Alya cracked.
It was after their weekly dinner, this week’s being at the Lahiffes’ place, and Alya and Nino had just put Ila, Hettie, and Perrin to bed when they made their move.
“You need to talk,” Alya said, her arms crossed as she stood beside Nino, the pair glaring at their friends.
“To each other,” Nino added, mirroring his wife’s stance. “Not to us.”
Marinette sent Alya a pleading look, and Adrien leveled his friend with a glare, but it was clear that they weren’t going to budge.
It was Marinette who made the first move, her fingers twisting together as she avoided Adrien’s eyes.
“Are you cheating on me?”
Satisfied with their work, Alya and Nino sunk onto the opposite couch with a bottle of wine, ready for their friends to realize what idiots they were being.
Adrien blinked, mouth hanging open as he spluttered out sounds, trying for anything coherent. “What? No, Mari, I—I love you. I’d never—why would you—?” He paused, swallowing hard and reaching for her hands. It didn’t matter that she might be cheating on him. He needed her to know that he’d never do anything like that to her. “I’m not cheating on you, Marinette. I love you. Where would you even get an idea like that?”
Marinette snatched her hands away, levelling her fiancé with a glare. She wanted to believe him, really she did, but it still didn’t make sense. “Then where are you always disappearing to?”
“Where am I disappearing to?” Adrien let out a harsh laugh. “Where are you disappearing to? Where do you go that I come back to find you missing and the bed cold? Where do you go when akumas attack and you just vanish from thin air? Do you have any idea how worried I get? Where the hell do you go, Marinette?”
Marinette’s eyes met Adrien’s now, full of the anguish and cold fury she’d been hiding for months. “What are you suggesting?” she demanded, turning to fully face him. “That I’m cheating on you?”
“Yes!” Adrien’s hands flew into the air, and he scowled at her. “Do you have a better explanation? Please, share it with me if you do, because I honestly can’t think of one.”
“I can’t tell you, but there’s no way in hell I’d ever cheat on you, Adrien.” She scowled at him, waving an accusatory finger in his face. “But you! You just leave whenever the fuck you want! And your excuses are absolute crap.” She dropped her voice into a mocking imitation of his. “Oh, I’m Adrien and I spend hours in the bathroom at a time.”
Adrien scoffed. “Like yours are any better. I’m Marinette and I saw a bird and that’s why I missed dinner. And the fucking movie after.”
“I’m Adrien and I take six showers a day.”
“I’m Marinette and I was stuck in traffic all day even though I took the Metro.”
“All my money disappears on cheese that neither of us actually likes.”
“I’m sorry I missed meeting your father. I lost my foot.”
“I never said that!” Marinette snapped.
Adrien all but growled, his face nearing hers. “Yes, you did. Do you know how awkward it was having to tell my dad that he couldn’t meet my girlfriend and I didn’t even know where she was? And then your fucking excuse was that you lost your foot. Your foot, Marinette. I hate to break it to you, but you still have both your feet. Anything, literally anything, would have been a better excuse than that to go meet up with your other boyfriend. It’s been years, Mari. You should have picked one of us by now.”
“There is no one else!” Marinette let out a cry of rage, rising to her feet. “There’s never been anyone else! You’ve been the only person I’ve been remotely interested in since I was fourteen!” Except that brief stint of post-akuma make outs with Chat Noir when they were fifteen, but that had been Ladybug not Marinette, so that really didn’t count. Not right now, anyway.
As she belted out another argument, and Adrien rose to tower over her, Alya popped a second bottle of wine, refilling her and Nino’s glasses. Apparently their friends had a lot more pent up emotions than either of them had though.
“Have they ever actually had a fight?” she whispered to Nino as Marinette brought up something from senior year of high school. Nino shrugged in response.
It was a good hour before Adrien threw his hands up in defeat, an actual legitimate growl coming out of his throat.
“Fine,” he said, his voice hard as it was icy. His eyes glared daggers into his fiancée’s. “You really want to know where I go?”
Marinette let out a sigh. “Yes,” she grit out from behind clenched teeth, her hands tensed into fists. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Adrien ran a hand through his hair. Was he really doing this? Yes. Would Ladybug be pissed? Oh, absolutely. Could he find it in himself to give a shit? Not at all.
“I’m fucking Chat Noir, okay?” His eyes were closed, the weight of the only secret he’d ever kept from Marinette rising off his shoulders. “That’s why I have to leave.”
No one said anything. No one knew what to say because, really, what do you say when your friend slash fiancé admits to regularly sleeping with a superhero?
Tikki and Plagg face palmed from their hiding place under the sofa.
Adrien eventually opened his eyes again, to find his friends all staring at him. His eyes met Marinette’s, and he was shocked to find tears welling up in hers, a total devastation rising up from their depths and mixing with a hot anger. Was it really that bad that he was Chat Noir?
Marinette was the one to break the tense silence, her hands falling limp by her sides and a quiet “What?” slipping from her lips.
“You heard me.” Adrien was still being snappy, he knew, but he was the one who’d given a logical excuse for his disappearances, not Marinette. She still couldn’t defend her cheating. “That’s why I leave in the middle of the night, and why I disappear, and—”
“You’re cheating on me with Chat Noir?”
It would have been better if she’d yelled at him. He would have been able to handle her yelling. But the cold, calculated fury that poured through her words sent shivers down his spine and froze anything he could have said in his throat and he couldn’t understand what she was talking about because her words made no sense.
Whatever dam was holding back her anger broke, tears streaming down her face as she shook. “What the hell, Adrien?” she demanded, choking on a sob. “We’re engaged! If you wanted to end this, you should have said something!”
Adrien blinked at her, his voice finally coming back. “What are you talking about?”
Marinette let out an ungodly scream. “I can’t believe you,” she growled, swiping her fists under her eyes. “I can’t fucking believe you, Adrien. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to track that stupid cat down and kill him. I can’t believe I listened to him go on about how he thought his fiancée was cheating on him when he was sleeping with you the whole time!” She turned away, burying her face in her hands as she sunk onto the couch, her next words muffled and broken. “I didn’t want to believe it, Adrien. I hoped you had a good reason, but.... I can’t do this. I can’t be with you if you’re cheating on me. We’re done.”
Adrien’s heart was ripped out of his chest, and he looked to their friends for support. He didn’t find any, as they were glaring daggers at him, and it looked like Nino was barely restraining Alya from attacking.
What was happening? Those two words were repeating in his head, over and over, like the bells tolling out for his execution.
We’re done. We’re done. We’re done.
And then he processed the rest of what she said.
“Who said I was cheating on you?” he asked, eyes wide. His hands hovered over Marinette. What the hell should he do? Comfort her? That didn’t seem like a good idea. “I’m not cheating on you! I love you, Marinette! What are you talking about?”
Nino released his hold on Alya, but the girl only went to wrap herself protectively around Marinette. Nino was the one who crossed the room, leveling his best friend with a glare that would make giants quiver as he got right into Adrien’s face.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. “You can’t just admit you’re sleeping with Chat Noir and then take it back.”
Wait.
What?
“That’s not what I said!” Adrien tried to protest, but Nino wasn’t hearing any of it.
“Get the fuck out of my house, Agreste,” he growled, pushing the blond backwards. “I can’t even look at you right now. You can’t treat Mari like that and expect to get away with it.”
Adrien couldn’t breathe. What was going on? Was he really about to lose everything because he’d chosen a shitty way of phrasing his words?
“Marinette,” he pleaded, eyes trained past Nino’s head as he was backed towards the door. “Please. That’s not what I meant. That came out wrong. Let me explain. Please. I’m not sleeping with Chat Noir.”
“Fuck you, Adrien,” Alya snarled from the couch, pulling Marinette’s face against her chest. “Fuck Chat Noir, too. Oh wait—you already are.”
“Get. The. Fuck. Out,” Nino growled, shoving Adrien so his back hit the front door. “Now.”
Adrien stared at them in panic, his heart threatening to break through his chest. “Please—I’m not—I’m—” Nino’s eyes bored into his soul, but he stared past. Marinette was peeking out from Alya’s arms, her eyes red and puffy, and the utter betrayal on her face shattered what was left of his heart. She had to believe him. He had to make her see—
See! That was it! They had to believe him if they saw it.
“Plagg,” he choked out past the lump that had made itself at home in his throat. “Claws out.”
A green light flashed through the room, and Nino took a stumbling step back, but Adrien hardly noticed.
“Please, Marinette,” he begged. “I’m not cheating on you. I’m Chat Noir. That’s what I’m doing every time I disappear.” He couldn’t read her face and it was scaring him. “Please, Mari. I love you.”
Nino backed away, ducking his head. “I’m sorry, man.” Adrien didn’t care at this exact moment, brushing past him and retracing his steps across the living room and crouching in front of his—hopefully still—fiancée. He bit his lip, hesitantly reaching out for her hands.
“Please,” he said again, gently taking her hands. She didn’t pull away. “I’d never cheat on you, Marinette. I love you so much. You’re it for me. There’s no one else. Just you.”
Marinette sniffed, giving him a watery smile as she pulled out of Alya’s embrace. “You’re it for me, too,” she whispered. “God, I can’t believe we’ve been crying about this on each other for months.”
Adrien’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean?”
Marinette let out a half-hearted chuckle. “We were both wrong, Chat,” she told him, pulling her hand from his to run it through his hair. “I’m not cheating on you either. Tikki. Spots on.”
For the second time that night, an unnaturally coloured light lit up the room.
Adrien surged forward, wrapping his arms around Marinette, his Lady, his partner, pulling her tight against his chest as he laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “We’re such idiots,” he whispered into her hair, and Marinette nodded against him in agreement.
Alya and Nino were less than impressed with the situation. Of course, they were thrilled that neither of their friends were cheating on the other, but that was beside the point.
“Idiots is the understatement of the century,” Alya said, rising from the couch and crossing her arms. “I can’t believe we had to spend months with you two thinking you were cheating on each other with each other.”
“Not with each other,” Nino argued, holding up a hand as if to ward off protests. “Adrien did say he’s been cheating on Marinette with himself.”