hello just casually cross-posting this chaotic mess from ao3 because I CAN.
TBH whenever I'm writing for MLB I feel like I'm writing some dramatic soap opera script fjhfjkhdj why is this.
101 Love Letters to my Lovebug
It was a fine morning, Marinette thought, as she strolled across the road to school. She woke up on time for once without feeling like she'd been hit by a truck, and the week had been going relatively well with no akuma attacks and little crime that heeded the attention of her alter ego, Ladybug.
She met with her friend Alya on the stairs.
"You seem awfully happy for a Thursday morning," Alya commented as they entered the locker room. She leant in close and lowered her voice. "Did you have another sweet dream about Adrien?"
Marinette flushed. "Uh, no! Of course not!" she exclaimed, stopping in front of her locker. She fumbled with its lock, trying to play off her embarrassment. "It's just a really nice day, don't you think? The weather is nice, I feel refreshed, and— WHAUGH!"
Her sentence was cut short as she swung opened her locker door and an avalanche of envelopes spilled out of it, all over her and onto the floor.
"Marinette!" Alya cried, fishing her disheveled friend out of the sea of letters and helping her to her feet. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine! But… what are these?" Marinette reached out and plucked an envelope from the pile to examine. It wasn't addressed to anyone, and after checking others, it seemed all of them were blank.
At least, on the outside.
"Ooh, open one!" Alya said, before grabbing one herself. She tore it open, pulling out a folded piece of paper from inside. "Maybe they're love letters?"
"Love letters?" Marinette echoed, the blood rushing to her cheeks. Who would fill her locker with love letters? "Give me that!" She snatched the paper from her friend's hands and unfolded it to read the contents inside.
Today, I could only smile at your beautiful silhouette,
Your midnight hair and bluebell eyes
I wish you looked at me the same way I did at you,
My sweet Lovebug.
The letter wasn't signed, which irked her even more than the fact that the contents inside seemed to be referring to her. Your midnight hair and bluebell eyes… she shuddered.
"What does it say? Who's it from?" Alya grew restless and poked her head in front of the letter.
Marinette quickly snatched it from her line of vision, folding it and stuffing it back into the envelope. Her cheeks were so warm, she was sure she was glowing. "It… It was just a prank! I think!"
"A prank? Who would put a pile of love letters in your locker as a prank?"
She began to scoop up the letters before Alya's beady eyes could read through them, shoving them into an empty locker nearby. "I don't know!" Her head was spinning at the thought of who would even write the letters, but she came up short. Some hopeful part of her wanted to think it was Adrien, but that was a very, very hopeful part.
"Anyway, we should go to class now," Marinette said, ushering a protesting Alya and her prying eyes away from the locker full of letters. "We'll be late! Quick, quick!"
When the two girls disappeared from the locker room and it was finally quiet, a certain cat kwami emerged from the shadows, chuckling to himself mischievously.
As they walked into class, Alya kept pestering her about the letters.
"Seriously, Marinette! You have to tell me!"
"Tell her what?" Nino asked, having eavesdropped on their conversation. He turned back in his seat to look at them, raising an eyebrow.
Alya grinned. "Well, Marinette opened her locker this morning, and all these letters fell out—"
"Shh! Alya!" Marinette hissed, slapping a hand over her friend's mouth. "Don't say it too loud! It's embarrassing."
Adrien turned. "Letters? What letters?"
She squeaked. "N-nothing! It's absolutely nothing!"
Alya didn't care about Marinette's plea for privacy, seeing this a good chance to investigate whether the letters had come from a certain oblivious blonde boy. "Someone put a heap of love letters in Marinette's locker. You wouldn't have to know anything, would you, Adrien?"
Adrien tapped his chin in thought. "No."
Despite the lack of association he had with these mysterious letters, Alya kept babbling on. "What did the letter you open say, Marinette? It was like a poem, or something, but you wouldn't let me read it…"
But Marinette wasn't listening. She was too busy recalling the last line of the letter she read. My sweet Lovebug, her mind echoed. Lovebug… Lovebug… Love… Bug… BUG … Lady… Bug… Ladybug.
Wait, LADYBUG?
Her soul left her body as the worst thing that had happened to her since the Frozer incident happened. Someone had figured it out. Someone had figured out Ladybug's identity. Someone knew SHE was Ladybug.
She clutched the side of her desk to keep her from falling down the stairs and into Adrien's arms and into an imaginary crack in the floor that would eat her up whole. This was horrible. Terrible. Awful. Someone had figured out her identity, and decided to imply they knew it by cramming a million bajillion soppy love letters into her locker at school.
"Marinette?" Alya was waving a hand in front of her face. "Marinette, are you okay?"
Marinette started screaming.
Then she ran out of the classroom, still screaming, leaving her friends sitting in confusion. She ran into the closest bathroom and locked herself in the furthest stall, sinking down onto the toilet seat.
"Oh my god, Tikki," she said, tearing open her purse with a crazed look in her eyes. "Someone figured it out. Someone knows who I am."
Tikki peered up at her with a look of concern. "What? Marinette, are you sure?"
"Someone put a kajillion love letters in my locker and one of them was addressed to Lovebug. BUG, Tikki, BUG! Someone knows I'm Ladybug."
Her kwami blinked. "Are you sure it's not just… a coincidence?" she asked.
"I mean, who in their right mind would call someone Lovebug?!" Marinette frowned. "It sounds like an akuma's name— unless it was a very horrible play on words with Ladybug and love, and even that's pretty stupid."
Tikki resisted the urge to face-palm. "I doubt anyone has figured it out. Although, Lovebug is a pretty weird pet name…"
Marinette groaned. "I should try to figure out who wrote the letters. That way, I'll know for sure whether they called me Lovebug because of Ladybug, or Lovebug because they're dysfunctional."
The kwami opened her mouth to interject, but closed it again, hesitating. "Just be sure not to reveal yourself if they don't know," she said eventually.
"Don't worry, Tikki. I'll get to the bottom of this."
Marinette spent the rest of her day on edge, taking notes of every suspicious glance someone gave her and being as attentive to her surroundings as possible. So far, not many—if any—people made the list of suspects.
Whoever had done this was very good at staying lowkey.
Alya was a little scared. She didn't really understand why her friend was so desperately looking to out her romancer, but it was starting to make her consider calling the school counsellor.
"Are you sure you didn't see anyone put stuff in her locker this morning?" she asked Nino and Adrien when Marinette was out, somewhere, probably checking the fingerprints on her locker.
The boys exchanged glances and shook their heads innocently.
Alya sighed. "This is crazy. She was never this obsessive when, like, Nathaniel was crushing on her. Whatever that letter said must've been pretty serious." Maybe it was a dirty letter? Some lemon fanfiction? That could've explained it, but…
"She didn't let you see what it said?" Nino questioned.
"Nope," she answered. "Now I'm wondering whether it was something lewd."
The three teenagers looked at each other with worried expressions.
"We should go find out," suggested Adrien, stupidly, because he was stupid (although in that moment he thought he was just being a Good Friend™).
Alya and Nino nodded in agreement, and they all stood from their seats to move to the locker room.
"She hid them in this one." Alya gestured to one of the spare lockers in the corner of the room. "Can you keep an eye out, Nino? In case Marinette comes…"
"Roger," Nino said, saluting with one hand. He turned away and cracked open the door slightly, keeping his eyes peeled for a certain panicked, pig-tailed girl.
Meanwhile, Alya and Adrien opened the locker, envelopes spilling out onto the floor in a similar fashion they did onto Marinette earlier that day.
Adrien whistled. "That's a lot of love letters," he judged, despite feeling the situation was off. In fact, the envelopes looked a little… familiar. Hmm.
"You should've seen Marinette's face," Alya said with a smirk. She helped herself to the pile, fishing out a letter and opening it. "Wow. This is quite… sappy. It's like Shakespeare read too many YA romance novels."
Curious, Adrien picked up a letter himself. Ignoring the feeling of impending doom upon him, he opened it and started reading the first line:
To my lovely Lady,
Hmm, that sounded familiar. Actually, the handwriting was sort of familiar as well. That was strange.
He kept reading:
Yet again, I am left staring at you
as the sun set on your beautiful face.
No matter my many confessions,
you hold me at a pace.
One day, I hope you'll love me true
My Dearest Lovebug.
His jaw just about hit the floor and all the blood drained from his face.
No. No. The writing was not just familiar, it was his writing. It was his letters that he wrote about Ladybug.
Which were, in fact, not supposed to be in Marinette's locker. They were supposed to be in his super top secret drawer of Ladybug stuff ™.
"I wonder why this person keeps calling Marinette their 'Lovebug'," Alya wondered aloud.
Adrien tried to play it off cool, despite his internal panic, tossing the letter back down to the ground. He swallowed. "Yeah. I wonder. That's pretty weird."
He didn't know how on earth his letters grew legs and found themselves in Marinette's locker, of all places, but he suspected it had something to do with someone whose name started with a P and ended in G.
Of course, only Plagg knew about his 'Shakespeare read too many YA romance novels' poetry collection dedicated to Ladybug.
But then… why did Plagg put them in Marinette's locker?
It was a mystery.
Nino slammed the door shut in alarm, shouting, "She's coming!"
Alya cursed and started cramming the letters back into the locker, her boyfriend running to assist. Adrien stood there a moment, dazed, before he realised he should probably help too.
Just as they managed to close the locker on the letters, Marinette walked in, her eyes falling on the trio standing not-so-suspiciously in front of the locker that held her letters.
"Heeeeeeey Marinette," Nino said casually. "What a surprise to see you in the locker room."
She squinted at them, taking note of the guilt-ridden looks on their faces. "...Right. It's a surprise to see me, a student, in the locker room, where my locker is. Right. Why are you three looking at me weirdly?"
Then she realised where they were standing and blanched.
"You read the letters," she said, her voice surprisingly even despite how much she wanted to freak out at that moment. "You read the letters. Oh no. Oh no. What did you—what—whuh—"
"Lovebug," Alya blurted.
Marinette froze, a finger in the air. "H-huh?"
Alya burst into laughter, followed by Nino, followed by Adrien who looked a little shell-shocked.
"Why are you guys laughing?" Marinette asked, confused, but also terrified. Hadn't they just read the letters? Didn't they just figure out her secret identity?
"Lovebug," wheezed Alya. "It's such a stupid name. I'm only going to call you that from now on. Marinette, my Lovebug."
Adrien wanted to die, but it was fine. This was fine.
Marinette was red up to her ears. "Don't call me that! Please, oh my god. I told you not to read the letters!" She stomped her foot and threw her hands up in the air, before bringing them down to hide her face.
"Why Lovebug, though?" Nino then asked, probably the only sane person in the group.
Alya stopped laughing, wiping away some tears. "You're right. That is a pretty strange name. What's so 'Lovebug' about Marinette?"
Marinette held out a finger. "Y-yeah! It—it sounds like the name of an akuma!"
"It does!"
"Is Hawkmoth running out of victims to akumatise, and tried turning you into Lovebug by humiliating you with love letters?"
"That's crazy! But definitely sounds like something Hawkmoth would do. That guy is desperate."
Meanwhile, Adrien was sinking back into the corner, plotting how to kill his kwami. This was awful. But it was fine. No one needed to know he was the one who wrote the letters, and no one needed to know they were supposed to be for Ladybug.
...Wait.
Ladybug.
Plagg knew who Ladybug was.
And if he knew who Ladybug was, then…
Adrien audibly gasped, and everyone in the room turned to look at him. He stared at Marinette. She stared back at him, confused, and he saw it.
They had the exact same hair. And the same eyes, too. Oh God.
Oh God.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng was Ladybug.
"Adrien, dude," Nino said, startling him from his epiphany, "are you alright?"
Adrien quickly fixed his expression. "Um, yeah, I'm fine. I need to—uh, I just remembered I had a, um, a photoshoot like right now. I better go. See you!"
Not letting his friends get another word in, he sprinted out of the room.
Marinette stared at the door once he left, and she knew that he knew she was Ladybug.
Oh no. She was screwed.
Alya slung an arm around her shoulders, shaking from her daze. "Maybe Adrien wrote the letters," she joked.
Marinette swallowed. Well, no, he didn't, because he just figured out her secret identity—oh God, oh God this was so bad—and whoever wrote the letters already knew her secret identity anyway. So it couldn't've been Adrien.
Right?
She shook her head. "I doubt it. Adrien doesn't seem like the type."
Alya and Nino exchanged glances. "Actually," Nino said, "you'd be pretty surprised."
Marinette ignored his statement and turned to the locker of doom. "I should get rid of the letters before someone else snoops— " She looked pointedly at her friends. "—and everyone starts calling me La— Lovebug."
"You're going to throw them away?" Alya asked.
"Of course not," Marinette said, pulling a scrunched plastic bag from her purse. She'd run home just before to grab some bags to put all the letters in. "I'm going to analyse them at home and see if I can figure out who they're from."
"They weren't signed?" Nino asked.
The girls shrugged at him. "Not from the ones we've seen," Alya answered.
"That's strange."
Marinette frowned as she shovelled the letters into her bags. "I guess it is."
She managed to shrug off her curious friends and survive the rest of the day without major calamity. A part of her was relieved Alya didn't connect the dots, considering her friend was obsessed with Ladybug.
But Adrien did.
And that was probably worse.
Adrien was her crush. The boy of her dreams (and nightmares). And if he'd figured out she was Ladybug, then… then… oh God. He would think Ladybug was so uncool, knowing it was just her.
Marinette paused her letter-sorting to scream into her hands, then resumed shortly after.
"It can't be that bad, Marinette," Tikki reassured. "I mean, it's not like he actually figured it out! He didn't say anything. He just said he had a photoshoot and left."
"No, Tikki," Marinette said, wincing at the fifth papercut she'd gotten while opening the letters. She was searching for any indication of the author's identity, but to no avail. "He looked straight at me with this weird expression. I could tell. He definitely worked it out."
Tikki frowned. "Well, it's bad if your identity gets out, but is Adrien really the worst person to find out?" I mean, he's Chat Noir, so it really could've been worse, she added mentally.
"Yes! If he knows I'm Ladybug, he's going to think I'm so uncool, I mean Ladybug is uncool, because Ladybug is just weird old Marinette from class who can't speak to him without sounding like a suffocating chicken, and he's going to like, hate me forever, and we'll never get married and have three kids and a hamster named—"
"Marinette! Get it together!" Tikki cried. "I'm sure he doesn't think you're uncool. I mean, didn't he refer to you as a friend?"
Marinette gasped, clutching her head. "That's even worse!"
Tikki face-palmed. She desperately wanted to drop the bomb that Adrien was Chat Noir, and it was all probably fine, but doing so would breach the Great Kwami Code™ that Master Fu swore her and Plagg to before they were handed over to their Chosens.
Then again, it was kind of… strange Adrien—Chat Noir—had only figured out Marinette was Ladybug in that moment when there were plenty of other times before he could've easily worked it out. Not even Alya had put two-and-two together with the Lovebug thing, and she was a lot more attentive and obsessed with Ladybug's identity than Chat Noir.
The whole situation smelt rather cheesy.
Actually, wait, no—
"Marinette, incoming!" Tikki cried, diving into the pile of letters just as someone knocked on the skylight.
Marinette stood, panicked, before calling, "Uh, who is it?"
"It's Chat Noir."
Her mouth popped open and she peered down at Tikki in the letters, shooting her a confused look. Tikki simply shrugged. "Uhhhhhhhh, can I help you?"
"Um, yeah. Can I come in?"
"Hold on a second!" Marinette called, shoving the letters under her desk. She apologised to Tikki, before climbing up to open her skylight.
She crawled through it and onto her balcony to face a very nervous-looking Chat Noir.
"Hello," she greeted, eyeing him suspiciously.
He blinked. "H-hi. Marinette."
Okay, well, this was weird. "Is… there an akuma, or something? Why are you on my roof? How did you even—wait, no, nevermind. What's wrong?" She folded her arms over her chest.
Chat flushed. "W-well, uh, I believe there was a… mistake…"
Marinette raised an eyebrow. "A mistake…?"
He twiddled his thumbs, eyes on the ground. "Yes, a mistake, that um, yes, uh, someone, um, put something of mine, in, um, your l-locker—"
She inhaled sharply. "Wait, you wrote the letters?!"
Chat winced. "I didn't say I—" He sighed. "Yes. I wrote the letters."
Marinette looked like she was about to combust.
"I didn't—it wasn't—it was an accident," he said, holding up his hands in defense. "I didn't put them there, I swear. I didn't, uh, they were, um, oh God—"
"Wait, so," Marinette interrupted, "if you didn't put the letters in my locker, who did?"
He groaned, ears flattening against his hair. "You know, it was, um, hmm, ha, er—well, it was my kwami."
"Your kwami?!" she shouted, before realising that if Chat Noir had just openly admitted it was his kwami to her, meaning that he knew she was—shitshitshit. "You—I—we—you know that I'm—"
"Ladybug? Yeah. I figured that out separately. Also by accident."
Marinette wheezed, throwing her hands up in the air, before clutching her head and moaning. "Oh no."
"Um, Marinette? Also, I'm, uh, I'm Ad—"
She turned away before he could finish his sentence. "Great! Now two people know my identity. Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste. I don't know which is worse, but Master Fu is going to kill me—no, us— and this is awful—"
Chat Noir grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her back around to face him. "Marinette," he said, very serious. "M'Lady. Marinette. Two people don't know your identity."
"Wait, do you mean there's more? Oh my God, did Alya find out? If she found out, you can just kill me—"
"No," he interrupted, smacking his forehead in exasperation. "I meant only one person knows your identity."
"What?" Marinette blinked, not quite comprehending what he implied.
Chat Noir held out his hands. "Chat Noir," he said, waving his right one, "and Adrien Agreste—" He waved his left one, before bringing his hands together with a resounding smack.
She tilted her head, eyes going wide. "Are you… are you telling me you're dating Adrien?!"
Chat's eyes bulged and he groaned. "Oh my— no! What the he—oh, God, just— claws in."
Marinette yelped and slapped her hands over her eyes as her partner exploded in green light. She then proceeded to hide behind her hands. "Chat, what the hell are you doing?"
"Marinette, I am Adrien Agreste."
Her hands dropped. So did her jaw.
Adrien stood in front of her sheepishly.
Marinette pointed at him in disbelief, her mouth still open, but no sound coming out. Then she disappeared down her skylight, shouting, "Tikki! Tikki! I think that Sandboy akuma is back again!"
"Marinette, don't be stupid!" a high-pitched voice—probably Tikki—said. "You aren't dreaming."
"I have to tell Alya!" A gasp. "Wait no, I can't tell Alya! Oh my God, Tikki, you knew?!"
Adrien looked at Plagg with concern, who just smirked back at him knowingly.
Marinette clambered back up the skylight and pointed at him once more. "You! Give me five minutes!" she exclaimed, before disappearing again and slamming the skylight shut behind her.
It sounded like she was renovating her room below him.
"I told you she'd be impressed," Plagg said smugly.
"I don't think she's impressed," Adrien said with a frown. "More like… incredibly freaked out. Should I go?"
"No, she told you to wait."
He rubbed his forehead. "Plagg, I really hate you for this."
The skylight swung back open and Marinette dashed across the balcony towards him, before dragging him down into her room by the arm.
She sat him down onto her chaise, then began pacing across the room. "This is—I'm just—argh!"
Adrien cleared his throat. "Are you mad—"
Marinette stopped and swung around on her heel to face him. "What was your kwami thinking?!"
He gaped. "Uh. Um. Plagg?" He forced the kwami from his hiding place in his pocket.
Plagg grinned sheepishly. "Look, I was just trying to help. Just giving Adrien a little push… in the right direction."
"You could've outed our identities to everyone! I mean, you outed my identity to Adrien!"
"It was an accident! I thought sneaking the love letters into your locker would clue you in to who wrote them—I didn't expect everyone else to read them!" Plagg protested.
"I was panicking all day because I thought someone knew my identity!"
"I didn't realise it would cause so much panic! The idea sounded a lot better in my mind."
Marinette gritted her teeth, looking like she might grab Plagg and defenestrate him.
"That's enough from you, Plagg," Adrien said, plucking the kwami out of the air before he could cause any more damage. He shoved him back into his pocket and stood from the chaise. "Look, Marinette, I'm really sorry. I didn't know Plagg had done this and I'm sorry for the stress it caused you."
He reached out to touch her arms and she froze in place like a statue.
"This is bad, though," Tikki said, flying in between them. "Now that you know each other's identities, this puts you in so much more danger! And Master Fu will be so disappointed."
"It was going to happen eventually," Plagg retorted from his pocket-slash-makeshift-naughty-corner.
"It would've been even better if it happened after Hawkmoth was defeated," Tikki shot back with a sniff.
Marinette suddenly became animated again. "Well, it happened," she said, taking a calculated step away from Adrien as heat rose to her cheeks. "We really ought to be careful, though. This is dangerous."
"Yeah," Adrien agreed. He then fixed his gaze on her, looking solemn. "Speaking of which, are you… okay?"
She flushed an even brighter shade of red, if physically possible, and took another step backwards. "Yeah. Fine. Fine as you can be if you discover that—and uh—yeah. Fine. I'm fine."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't sound that fine."
"Were those letters actually… serious?" Marinette asked, ignoring his concern.
Adrien's cheeks turned pink. "Of course they were. I-I thought you already knew how I feel, M'Lady."
That word just sounded so weird coming out of his mouth. She took a breath, trying to keep herself from doing something stupid like screaming in his face. "I still can't believe you're… you're Chat."
He grinned, his green eyes twinkling in this mischievous Chat Noir way, and it was just so damn weird. But in an adorable way. God, this just might kill her.
"Did you… did you find it… weird when you found out… I was… me? I-I was Ladybug? Uh, I am Ladybug?" She averted her gaze to the floor, her cheeks so warm her brain was probably cooking.
Adrien was silent for a moment. "Hmm. Not really. I mean, once the initial shock faded, I figured it made sense. I don't think anyone else could pull off Ladybug as perfect as you, Marinette."
Yeah, she was going to die.
Marinette looked up from her feet to see his stupid grin, his twinkling eyes, his pink cheeks, and she shrieked just a little. His eyebrows shot up in surprise—or maybe it was panic, or confusion, she couldn't tell—and she snapped her jaw shut. "Sorry. I'm just—well. This is a lot."
"I… understand. Do you want me to leave? Give you some time to, uh, process everything…?"
"No!" she yelled, and he jumped. "Sorry—I mean. Yes. I mean, no. Can you wait upstairs for a bit? Just a bit. I need a moment to, uh, think. I don't want you to leave, though. Not yet. Please stay."
Adrien nodded, an eyebrow furrowing in concern, before turning to climb up to the skylight. He shut it behind him, and she let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding.
"You knew this all along, Tikki?" Marinette asked her kwami.
Tikki nodded.
She groaned, putting her head in her hands. "I'm an idiot."
"It's okay! I mean, isn't it good Chat Noir is Adrien?" Tikki asked, drifting in front of her. "I thought you would be happy."
Marinette peeked through her fingers. "I am happy! I guess. But…" She dropped her hands. "Chat Noir loves Ladybug. Not me. And me love Adrien. I mean, I love Adrien. Oh God, wait, he can probably hear me—"
Tikki reached out to pat her cheek, cutting her short. "But you are Ladybug, Marinette," she said. "Besides, Chat has always wanted to know your identity. If he loves Ladybug, he loves the girl she is underneath the mask, as well."
Marinette bit her lip. "I… well, maybe."
"Did you see the way he was looking at you?" the kwami asked. "I don't think his love is so shallow if he wrote Ladybug 101 love letters."
"I guess you're right… hold up. How do you know he wrote 101?"
Tikki shrugged. "I counted them while you were freaking out upstairs."
Marinette's mouth opened, then closed. "Wow."
"Are you going to tell him about the schedule?"
"No. Never. Only a villain would do that, Tikki."
They looked at each other for a moment, before they burst out laughing.
"Okay, okay. I'll go… talk to him. He probably heard it all, anyway," Marinette said with a nervous smile. She climbed up to the skylight and popped it open, peeking out.
Adrien was sitting cross-legged on one of her lawn chairs, chatting to Plagg. He beamed when he spotted her emerging from below.
"Is everything alright?" he asked as she sat beside him.
"Yeah. I mean, I'm still in panic mode, but I think I'll manage," she answered. "What are we going to do about tomorrow, though? Both Alya and Nino are going to ask me about whether I figured it out and…" Her bottom lip puckered out in thought.
Adrien scratched the back of his head. "Oh, right. Yeah. That's tough. Well, I could admit to it, but…" He winced at the thought. "Then again, Alya outright insulted the poems I wrote. And I acted oblivious the whole day."
"Oh no, what did she say?"
"She said my writing was like Shakespeare had read a lot of YA romance novels."
Marinette snickered and thought back to all the letters she had read. "Well, she's not wrong…" When she saw his face fall, she quickly added, "But they were still pretty sweet, Adrien."
He blushed at her words and averted his gaze to the floor. "No one was supposed to read them."
"Not even Ladybug?"
"Not even Ladybug. I thought I'd die if she did…"
"Did you die?" Marinette asked with a smirk.
Adrien gave her a solemn look. "Right now, you're speaking with Adrien Agreste's ghost." They stared at each other, before he cracked a grin. "Surprisingly, I didn't. Although I was really scared you were going to hate me when you found out."
"Funnily enough, I felt the same when I knew you figured out I was Ladybug." She smiled to herself. "But that was before I knew you were Chat Noir."
"So, um, does that mean… we're good?" he asked, looking away.
"Good?" Marinette echoed.
"Well, you know… you're not going to replace Chat Noir or anything."
"Why would I do that?"
Adrien flushed. "I don't know! I was just worried you'd be… disappointed, or something."
"Disappointed?" Marinette turned her head to look at him properly, and he mirrored her actions. "Why would I be disappointed? More like pleasantly surprised."
His eyes glistened. "Really?"
"Of course. I mean, you know how a while ago I told you there was a guy I like?"
The glistening suddenly stopped. "Y… yeah?"
"It sounds kind of stupid, but that guy is… you."
Adrien looked confused. "Me? But wait, you don't— oh. Oh. You like me, as in Adrien Agreste?"
Marinette's face was burning. "Yeah."
He opened his mouth, silent words coming out, before he pressed his lips together. Then he said, "So because you like Adrien, you didn't want to lead Chat on."
"Obviously."
Adrien snorted. "That's really stupid."
"Right! It's stupid now that I know…"
"Marinette," he said. Her eyes snapped to his. "I like you. Ladybug or not, I like you. Do you still like me, even if I'm Chat Noir?"
Marinette's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't believe she was hearing those words from his mouth. It was like a dream. A terribly good dream.
She found herself nodding. "Of course," she said in exhale. "Of course I still lo— like you."
Adrien grinned, and his whole face lit up like the sun, like he was really, genuinely happy. She was sure, on the other hand, she was going to have an aneurysm. He leant forward to press a chaste kiss to her cheek, and she bit down on her lip to hold in another scream.
Then he got up from his seat and called his transformation.
"Where are you going?" she asked him dumbly.
"Um… home before someone discovers I sneaked out," he responded. "Why?"
Marinette stood as well, stepping up to him. "Uh," she spluttered.
"What?"
"Can I kiss you?"
"What?" he repeated, before blinking. "Oh. Yes."
In one swift movement, she closed the space between them. It was short, but it was sweet and warm, and his lips were everything she'd ever dreamed of and more.
When they parted, Adrien—Chat Noir—looked down at her again with those excited, glistening eyes.
"I'll call you when I get home," he promised. "And we can talk a little more about things, if you want."
"That'd be good," Marinette said, smiling up at him.
"Goodnight, Marinette."
"Goodnight, Kitty."
He leapt off her balcony, disappearing off into the late Parisian afternoon.
Alya screamed in Marinette's face the next day. "Is it true?" she yelled. "Adrien said it was him!"
Marinette flinched. "Yeah, it… it was." She glanced over at the boy who was talking to Nino, remembering the kiss from yesterday. She wasn't even sure if it was real. "He told you how a friend of his from fencing did it as a prank, right? So it wasn't really him, but… but we talked it out and…"
Alya leant forward. " And?"
As if on cue, Adrien walked over to join their conversation, linking his arm with Marinette's. "And what?" he asked.
Her eyes fell to their arms, and she let out another scream. "Oh my God, I have to take photos of this for my blog—"
Marinette help up her free hand. "Hold on. Hold on. It's supposed to be lowkey. We're taking it slow. Adrien's not exactly sure how his dad is going to react, so…" She looked up at him, and he smiled down at her.
And we're both superheroes who have to protect Paris, so we need to be careful.
Alya jumped up and down. "I'm still so happy! I'm so happy for you two! Oh, you're both so cute, I'm dying." She wiped at an imaginary tear. "Please invite me to your wedding."
Marinette and Adrien exchanged looks. "Sure, Alya," Adrien said.
Alya ran off to babble excitedly with Nino, and the two sighed in relief.
"I'm glad that plan worked out," Marinette admitted.
Adrien grinned. "It's a lot simpler than what really happened, anyway."
"Oh yeah," she said. Her gaze dropped to his lips for a moment, and she thought about yesterday again, the heat rising to her cheeks.
He raised his eyebrows at her in amusement. "What are you thinking about, M'Lady?" He hesitated, thinking. "Or should I say… Purr-incess?"
She scrunched up her face. "Stop it!" she said. "I was just thinking about… yesterday."
"The kiss?"
"The kiss."
"We could do it again if you want."
Marinette was almost as red as her suit. "Not here."
"Okay." Adrien grinned, and lifted one of her hands to his lips, murmuring against her skin, "Will this suffice?"
She huffed. "Sure. But Alya and Nino are watching us."
The pair looked over at their friends, who were smiling like a couple of madmen.
He lowered her hand and quickly bent forward to steal a kiss from the top of her head. Then he stalked off to join their voyeurs, leaving her to melt into a pile of Marinette-goo on the floor.
This was going to take a lot to get used to.
"By the way, Adrien?"
"Yeah?"
"Please don't ever call me Lovebug. Ever."
"Okay, Ladylove."
"Adrien—"