Ladybug swung through the streets of Paris, tears streaming down her face. Faster and faster she went, until she finally landed hard on a rooftop and dropped to her knees.

Breathing hard, Marinette fell forward on to her hands and glared at the roof tiles.

The tears fell from her cheeks to the rooftop, and she angrily reached up to wipe them away.

Mistake after mistake. She thought she had been doing the right thing by calling Lila out in class earlier that day, but she had managed to turn half the class against her instead. She should have learned from the multiple times it had happened in the two years since Lila has arrived, but Lila truly had everyone wrapped around her finger. She was sick of the mistakes she made as Marinette.

As Ladybug, however, she didn't make mistakes. She simply couldn't. One mistake in a fight, and her miraculous would be taken away from her in a heartbeat.

The sound of a window opening brought her out of her daze.

"Ladybug! Ladybug, are you ok?"

Adrien Agreste stood across the street in his house, looking like he was half a second away from jumping out his window.

Marinette scrambled to her feet. She hadn't realized where her anger-fueled race across the city had taken her. She hesitated, fingering the string of her yo-yo while she tried to organize her thoughts.

Abruptly, she slung out her yo-yo and swung the short distance to Adrien's open window. He moved back quickly, giving her space to land softly in his room.

Adrien looked shocked to see her standing there, and she suddenly felt self-conscious.

"Oh, sorry. I should have asked before-" she waved vaguely behind her.

His shocked expression melted away. "No, it's fine. I mean, you're fine, I mean-" he cut off with a groan as he put his hand over his face, before moving it to the back of his neck. His sheepish expression turned to concern as he looked into her eyes. "Are you ok? You look like you've been crying."

Marinette shifted her weight, glancing back out the window, wondering what she could even say to her crush.

"No," she said finally, "no, I guess I'm not."

Adrien's arm jerked out like he was about to pull her into a hug, but he stopped himself. "Can I help? Do you want to talk about it?"

She struggled with herself. It was a bad idea to come in here, she thought. She should leave. She shouldn't be doing anything to risk her identity. Ladybug was needed to save the city, not to cry about her problems to civilians.

Unable to pull herself from the room, Marinette stared at him for a few moments, lost in his bright green eyes. Even though they had grown closer as friends over the past two years, she never felt like she inched anywhere past "friend" on Adrien's radar. It was hard to be upset about it, however, because Adrien was the type of person to be thrilled at having friends, period, and hanging out with him, Alya and Nino always seemed to leave her in a great mood. Even as his free time dwindled under the constant pressure from his father to stay busier and busier, he still seemed to shine with positivity. And with her group of close friends seeming to dwindle thanks to Lila's attempts to make good on her promise to leave Marinette friends-less, she was less than willing to ruin one of her best friendships with a confession of her crush.

And though Adrien might not think anything of Marinette…as Ladybug, he always seemed to act differently. There was a bit more stuttering, more blushing during their brief conversations whenever she was needed to pull him away from an Akuma's path.. Almost how she used to act back when she was first getting to know Adrien. Just maybe…could it possible he had a crush on Ladybug?

It would be wrong to take advantage of that, to use her superhero persona to get what she wanted.

But for once, she didn't want to do the right thing. She wanted to be happy. So with steel in her eyes, she marched forward, and pulled Adrien into a searing kiss.

It was...better than she had imagined. Frozen shock quickly melted into equal fervor, to her immense relief, as she felt his arm snake around her back, leaving warm trails along her suit that matched the warmth of his lips.

She reached her hand behind his head and ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He let out a groan against her mouth, and she immediately parted her lips to deepen the kiss. He gripped her tightly as he met her tongue with his, and Marinette had to steady herself to keep from melting to the floor in a puddle of goo. Perhaps if she had been Marinette at the time, she might have done just that. But right now, she was Ladybug.

And Ladybug was not afraid to take what she wanted.

She released his mouth with a gasp for breath, but immediately began kissing along his jaw to his ear, grazing his earlobe with her teeth as she moved to his neck, eliciting another low groan. She backed him up until his legs hit the edge of his couch, and he fell back onto it. Ladybug followed immediately, straddling his hips as she kissed his neck, alternating between nipping his skin with her teeth and smoothing over with her tongue.

He sucked in a breath as she twirled her tongue along his skin. "Not fair," he said in a ragged voice, raising his hand along her back until it grazed her neck, covered by the black material of her suit.

The words knocked her out of her haze, and Ladybug jerked backwards. Adrien's flushed face looked up at her, watching her scramble to her feet. She needed to leave now, before she did something she, and he, would regret. She was not in the right state of mind to keep going.

"I should go," she whispered, before darting back to the window. She looked out into the night to line up her target and took out her yo-yo, but paused, glancing back into the room. Adrien still lay dazed on the couch, shirt rumpled and riding up from their quick encounter. Slowly, her lips lifted up into a smirk and she started spinning the yo-yo. "Bug out."

She launched out of the window.

Plagg floated over. "Are you ever getting up?"

Adrien was still sprawled out half-way on the couch. "I think I died and went to Heaven."

Plagg snickered. "Well Heaven better have good cheese, cause I'm hungry!" A pillow flew towards him and he dove away, still laughing.