Chapter Text
Marinette was tired.
At fourteen years old, she quite literally had the weight of the world- scratch that- the universe on her shoulders. Her being the guardian, Paris’ hero, a girlfriend, best friend, designer- it was all weighing on her.
Not to mention, the sleepless nights spent hunched over her desk, trying to draw her boyfriends stupid, evil father who no one else knew was evil (because she had told them all he was actually a hero). Sleepless nights spent strategizing, pouring over fight footage from Alya, scouring the ladyblog forum, trying (in vain) to figure out who the new holder of the butterfly miraculous was. On top of that, the new Hawkmoth had a passion for sending akumas in the early morning hours, when Marinette was trying to sleep.
Safe to say, Marinette hadn’t been sleeping well. Or enough. Her diet of way too many shots of espresso and sugar sweets from the bakery was bound to catch up to her, but that was future Marinette’s problem.
Current Marinette’s problem was the fact that one of her closest friends, Nino, had asked her for permission to give his and Alya’s miraculous to her and Adrient. Of course, he didn’t know he was giving it to Ladybug of all people, but still. She gave her permission, of course, since Alya was giving her that look and she knew that Nino was stressed out, so she wanted to do whatever she could to cheer him up.
Which brings us to the present, where Marinette and Adrien stood blindfolded with their two superhero friends in the underground of Paris.
Rena Rouge and Carapace stood behind Marinette and Adrien, removing their blindfolds. “Welcome to Miracle station!” exclaimed Carapace, as Marinette did her best to at least look surprised. Of course, she knew where they were, but only her and Alya knew that she knew.
Carapace continued with his explanation of where they were. “The mayor of Paris secretly remodelled this ghost metro station just for us miraculers.” As he and Rena detransformed, he continued “These are kwamis, they’re the secret to our powers.” Marinette could only stare with a fixed smile at the kwamis, who stared back with the same recognition. She could feel her frustration rising as Nino continued to explain to her and Adrien what kwamis were, because of course she knew what kwamis were, afterall she was the guardian who had lived with them for months. She also knew that Adrien knew what a kwami was, since he was the original holder of the snake miraculous. She was glad to see that for the sake of Nino and his secret identity, he was at least pretending to be surprised by meeting the kwamis. ‘His kindness and patience is truly endless’, she thought to herself, lovingly.
Alya continued to watch her, a warning in her eyes. Do not ruin this for him. She seemed to say silently. Marinette rolled her eyes in response. ‘Obviously I won't,’ she communicated back.
Sometime during this silent exchange, Wayzz had flown over to Adrien and was introducing himself. Trixx flew over to her, “Hello Marinette Dupain-Cheng” he said, mockingly. Marinette’s eye twitched. “Hello,” she said laughing nervously. Thankfully, no one questioned the kwami’s tone, although Alya shared the same panic as Marinette at her kwami nearly outing the guardian.
Nino handed Adrien his miraculous, telling him “to transform, just say Wayzz, transform me.” Adrien looked nervously at the tiny god, before saying the transformation phrase. A flash of green light overtook the boy, and his typical outfit was replaced by turtle themed getup.
Now, it was here that Marinette could feel the quadruple shot of espresso she had for breakfast this morning wearing off. She was exhausted, unfocused, and absolutely lost thinking about how fantastic her boyfriend looked as a superhero. As Alya clasped the fox miraculous around her neck, she vaguely remembered being told the transformation phrase.
Nonetheless, Marinette was still staring at Adrien (who was now Trionyx) and absolutely not paying attention to the world around her. The more she thought about her boyfriend as a hero, (which she was absolutely not thinking about how fantastic he looked in the suit) the more she thought about the snake miraculous, and Luka, and Brasil, and she was spiralling thinking about the new butterfly holder and how they would never retrieve the butterfly brooch-
-rinette?” Called Adrien.
“H-huh?” responded Marinette. ‘Real intelligent, Marinette’ she thought to herself.
“You zoned out on us, are you okay?” Asked Adrien, concern in his eyes. Marinette’s heart melted at the thought of him worrying about her. “O-Oh yeah I’m fine! I was just, um… thinking about a design I’ve been working on! No need to worry about me!” She responded frantically. Adrient gave her a small smile in response. “Whatever you say, Mari.”
“Anyway,” Alya interjected, “go ahead and transform.”
Right! That’s what she was doing here anyway. Kwamis, she needed to get more sleep.
“Oh! Right! Tikki, transform me!”
A flash of pink engulfed the girl.
Pink.
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Standing in the metro, Marinette was confused and honestly a little offended to see her best friends and boyfriend staring at her with such shock in their eyes. Like damn, was her fox costume really that ugly?
“What?” She asked her friends, incredulously. “My fox costume cannot be as bad as Volpina’s.”
After a beat of silence, Alya was the first to respond. “Girl,” she said slowly “Look down.”
Doing what she asked, Marinette looked at herself. Red suit, black accents, polka dots. She looked great! Normal! This is what her normal superhero suit looked like!
This is what her normal superhero suit looked like.
The last 30 seconds finally clicked for Marinette, realizing that she had said the wrong kwamis name when transforming.
“Umm… I wanted to test whether you could choose any suit you wanted when you transform?” Marinette/Ladybug lied, trying to get out of this predicament she had put herself into. “I wanted to see if anyone could try and look like Ladybug” she finished, laughing nervously.
Trionyx and Nino just looked at her, while Alya face-palmed. “Trixx is still floating next to you” Nino pointed out. Ladybug’s eye twitched. “Maybe it’s just an illusion. You know, since it’s the fox miraculous." Trionyx just continued to stare at her, mouth agape, trying to process that his girlfriend was Paris’ heroine.
Alya sighed “girl, there’s no getting out of this one.” Ladybug bristled. “Well not with that attitude” she shot back. She took another glance at Trionyx, who was still standing with his mouth open in shock. Seriously, he was going to swallow some flies if he didn’t close his mouth soon. She reached out to him, shutting his jaw for him. His eyes widened at the touch, jaw opening and closing as he tried to speak but no words came out. ‘This was going to be a long conversation.’ Ladybug thought to herself, sighing out loud.
After what felt like an eternity, Trionyx finally choked out “Wayzz, detransformation.” Marinette did the same, Tikki floating at her side after a flash of pink. Realization set in for her, and she could no longer meet his eyes as her lies crashed in front of her. Afterall, she was the reason his father was dead, right? The longer the silence continued, the more anxious she got, and she was convinced that he hated her for keeping this from him.
“Adrien,” she started, “I know this is a lot, but please, I need you to keep this a secret. You should never have found out this way” she finished, tearing up. Him not meeting her eyes, she saw an unreadable expression on her boyfriend’s face. “Please can you say something?” She begged him.
After what felt like an eternity, he looked up at her. Then, the last words she ever expected to hear came out of his mouth.
“Plagg, transform me”.
A flash of green, except this time, Chat Noir stood in front of her, not Trionyx.
Nino began spluttering. “Dude, what!” Alya stared in shock, realizing that her best friend, Ladybug, was dating Chat Noir all along. It was hysterical, really. Alya wished desperately that she could post about Ladynoir being alive and canon.
It was Marinette’s turn to be speechless. Chat Noir smirked at her. “What, cat got your tongue?”