AN: I'm a little paranoid that someone might have already wrote something like this since it's such an easter egg, but oh well. I'm not stealing, I promise! (Also, I'm a sucker for the French version, since I did study French for several years.)
~o~
"Tell her... Je t'aime, Marinette."
Adrien's heart suddenly throbbed, a shiver running down his spine and shoulders. He went warm, even as he grew confused by his own physical reaction. Hidden away behind the bushes as he was, there was no one there to help him interpret. His confusion only mounted when he felt relief mixed in with shock when his best friend flubbed again, calling Alya of all people his crush.
However, he didn't have time to think on it as the zoo was invaded by animals (er, loose animals) forcing him to act as Chat Noir. Then the gut-wrenching scare of seeing Ladybug get eaten by a T-Rex just about occupied his every thought for days afterwards, keeping him up at night with terrifying thoughts of 'what if'.
Days later, when his heart was calmer, the words abruptly came back to haunt him.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
The words stared up at him from the page of his second love letter to Ladybug. Mocking him. Worse, that strange throb was back, making his face heat with embarrassment (and something else). How had he put the wrong girl's name on his love letter?!
Unfortunately, it meant he had to write the thing all over again, since he wrote in pen. On his second try, he got the right name at least, but he was still warm and unsettled. He ended up balling up both his letters, stuffing them in his school bag. After Valentines, he didn't trust that the letter with the wrong girl's name wouldn't end up in Ladybug's hands if he just tossed it.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
Why did he keep thinking those words?!
After a day thinking about it, the only conclusion that Adrien could come to was that it reeked of unfinished business. Of course the words would haunt him, because they'd never been spoken properly to the girl in question. So he went to the instigator of all this and told him as such.
Nino stared, his eyebrow raising. "Tell, Mari that I... Dude, didn't you listen to me earlier? I'm kinda seeing Alya now. Why would I go and tell her best friend I'm in love with her?"
Adrien frowned. He had the unfair thought that the DJ was awfully fickle. Nonetheless, he persisted, "I didn't say in love. I said, 'Je t'aime'. You can still love her, can't you? Don't you love your parents? Why don't you just tell her?"
"You're getting weirdly hung up about this," Nino said, frowning before he shook his head. "And I'm not doing it. No way. I've already accepted that it was fate that things turned out the way they did. I'm not going to mess things up with Alya and that's final."
Adrien glared at his friend's back as the DJ stalked off to class. He could just feel by the strange giddy twisting in his gut that Marinette deserved to have someone say those words to her. That was the only way he'd get these thoughts out of his head.
Giving Nino up as a lost cause, he went to his second option: Nathanaël.
The artist stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "You want me to tell her what?" he cried, his face turning the same color as his hair.
"Je t'aime Marinette," Adrien repeated uneasily, feeling the way the words wound around him and made his shoulders shiver. It was as if he were casting a spell over himself and it only grew worse each time he spoke the words.
Nathanaël blushed, growing flustered as he looked to his sketchbook. "No, I can't do that," he said, his eyes darting shyly towards the designer's empty seat. "I-I'm okay with the way things are. Besides everyone knows she's got a cru-"
"I'll help you," the blond cut in quickly, as a strange sense of deja vu came over him. He took Nathanaël by the shoulders, as if trying to transfer a little Chat Noir confidence into him. "You can do this, Nathanaël. I'm counting on you!"
Blinking in confusion, the artist could only nod.
So for the second time in a row, the model tried to fix a date with his pig-tailed classmate. He and Nathanaël found her in the school courtyard, chatting away with Alya and Nino. "Good morning, everyone!" Adrien said brightly as he approached with the redhead in tow.
The three of them looked up, Marinette brightening in a way that made her glow. "G-good morning, Adrien! Ah- I mean a-afternoon good! I mean-"
"What's up, guys?" Alya cut in, before Marinette's stuttering could devolve anymore.
"Oh nothing much," the blond replied lightly, before he gently but firmly pushed Nathanaël out in front of him. "It's just that Nathanaël has something he'd like to ask Marinette. Go on, Nathanaël."
Nino stared at the model incredulously, his jaw dropping. Adrien staunchly ignored him.
Meanwhile, Nathanaël nervously fidgeted, not quite able to meet Marinette's eyes. The added pressure of having an audience probably didn't help, but Adrien needed to make sure this was done properly this time. "Um, Marinette... I was just wondering, if, um... Would you like to go to Palais Galliera with me this weekend? They have an exhibition this weekend with fashion in watercolours that you might really like. I-if you're free, that is."
Adrien couldn't help but cast a self-satisfied smile over at Nino. Now this was how you were supposed to ask a girl out. The DJ glared in reply.
Marinette blinked. She suddenly looked uncomfortable, but that wasn't unusual around Adrien so he didn't think too much of it. When her bluebell eyes looked to him, he gave her as encouraging a smile as he could. That seemed to do the trick, since she nodded, "U-um, okay. That sounds really fun actually. Ah... l-looking forward to it... Nathanaël," she said, giving the artist a strained smile.
"You two will have a great time!" Adrien beamed, putting a hand on each of their shoulders, not noticing the way that the entire cohort stared at him.
Finally! He was going to get those cursed words out of his head!
When the fated day actually came, just as he had with Nino, he had Nathanaël on an earpiece.
"Y-y'know, I don't think I really need this," Nathanaël said over the line, frowning as he touched the device. He stood outside the Musee de la Mode, keeping an eye out for his official date. Adrien hung back across the street, wearing a hoodie, cap and sunglasses so that no one would recognize him while he was doing reconnaissance.
"Nonsense, everyone needs some help sometimes!" Adrien replied cheerfully. Not just that, but he needed to hear for himself Nathanaël say the words to Marinette. Otherwise, they would haunt him forever. "Oh, heads up. Here she comes."
Marinette arrived, wearing a cute yellow dress and her usual jacket and purse. She waved, giving Nathanaël an uneasy smile as she walked up to him. "Hi Nathanaël, how are you doing?" Adrien heard her over the line.
"Oh good!" the artist replied awkwardly. "Um, th-thanks for coming..."
"No, it's alright!" Marinette insisted. "I looked up the exhibit online and it actually looks really fun! Thanks for thinking of me." She smiled in a way that made Nathanaël blush up to his roots.
Watching from afar, Adrien's heart thumped in his chest, heat rising to his cheeks. It was anticipation. It had to be. He just wanted this to be over. That was all.
Unfortunately, the timing wasn't right, so he was forced to continue to follow at a distance as the pair of them headed inside to explore the fashion museum. Nathanaël did significantly better than Nino, requiring no help at all to chat with Marinette about art and design. They were friendly, the initial awkwardness fading into smiles and laughter. As if they were made for each other.
Something twisted in Adrien's gut as he watched them. "Nathanaël, just hurry up and say it," he whispered over the line, when the pair took a break on one of the museum benches.
"Why are you so-?" Nathanaël hissed back, frowning as he turned away from Marinette.
"Say it!" Adrien insisted. "Tell her Je t'aime, Marinette." As ever, the words sent a tremble through him, ensnaring him even more as he felt his blood flutter and heat. Guh! He needed to get this over with!
Casting a dark look to the model lurking by the doorframe, the artist finally did as he was bid. His cheeks glowing with a blush, he coughed and caught Marinette's attention. "Um, Marinette?" he said, "Thanks for coming out with me. I'm having a good time."
The designer smiled in reply. "Me too. You're actually a lot of fun to hang out with."
Je t'aime, Marinette. Je t'aime. Adrien repeated in his mind, willing the artist to repeat them. His whole body felt tense and hot. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.
"Ah, well, I really like hanging out with you too," Nathanaël said, his blush growing worse. His eyes flicked up to hers and he said in earnest, "Marinette, I just wanted to tell you- I like you."
...No. No! Those aren't the right words! Damn it! Adrien had to fight against the sudden crushing sensation threatening to push him into the floor. How was he supposed to get them out of his head now? So consumed in his thoughts, he nearly missed Marinette's voice over the line:
"I... I'm so sorry, Nathanaël," the designer said softly. "I like someone else."
Just like that, the dark crushing pressure was replaced with a wash of cold that turned Adrien's blood to ice.
Nathanaël laughed weakly, his head ducked more in resignation than heartbreak. "Ahaha... yeah, I kind of figured. I thought I'd give it a try anyway, even if you're way out of my league. I mean, you have your eye on him right? On A-"
"I KNEW IT!"
Adrien very nearly jumped out of his skin, the earpiece sent clattering to the ground with the suddenness of his movement. Whirling around, the blond found Nino and Alya glaring at him with disapproval sharp enough to cut diamond.
"Ugh, you stupid boy!" Alya cried, taking the opportunity to stomp and crush the earpiece underneath her boot. Ignoring the model's cry of indignation, she loomed over him. "What on earth do you think you're doing?!"
"I'm just helping out a friend!" Adrien insisted, backing up into the wall. The fiery-haired reporter was seriously terrifying when she was mad!
"No, you're not! You're just fixated on your weird word obsession!" Nino accused, thrusting a finger in the model's guilty face.
...Well, he wasn't wrong.
Adrien was saved from coming up with a lie and denial as an explosion rocked and shuddered the building, punctuated by screams. (Thank GOD for akuma.) "Oh, look at that! Gotta go!" the blond cried, before he bolted for 'safety'. Seconds later, he was outside as Chat Noir, battling the latest supervillain, Glitter Bomb.
Afterward, when Paris was once again safe, Adrien was forced to confront his error. It wasn't enough to have just some random boy confess his love to Marinette. (Je t'aime, je t'aime.) He had to find the right boy. Marinette had a crush on someone. Therefore, that boy had to be the one to say those words to the designer or else his unfinished business would never be resolved.
Nino wasn't wrong when he said that the fixation had become an obsession. Now driven by his new mission, his daylight hours and sleepless nights were all spent trying to figure out who his pig-tailed classmate might have a crush on.
After what happened at the Palais Galliera, asking Nino and Alya was simply out of the question. When he asked Nathanaël about it, the artist merely glared daggers into him and refused to talk. Thus it meant that Adrien spent all his extra time (what little of it he had), watching Marinette and seeing who she acted differently towards.
Worse, the curse was only growing. Every time he looked at Marinette, the words haunted him, echoing in the back of his mind. Je t'aime, Marinette. His mouth would go dry and his heart tightened, as if each new incantation Je t'aime Marinette added another rubber band around it, until it pounded from the sheer effort of getting through the day. At night, the words kept him up, fueling fever dreams whenever he managed to catch a few minutes of shut eye.
After a month of rather severe sleep deprivation, he came up with nothing. Zilch. Nada. Rien.
With no other recourse, Adrien had no choice but to turn to the source itself. After his fencing club was over, he was lucky enough to catch her alone in the schoolyard after most of the school had already gone home. Maybe she had been working in the library? Well, it didn't matter, he wasn't about to question it.
"Hey, Marinette!" he called to her back as she headed to the school gate.
The girl gave a fierce start, spinning around with an almost guilty expression on her face. However, Adrien couldn't find himself concerned with that as he was suddenly hit with the full force of her undivided attention.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
He swallowed hard, feeling his throat tighten up. Had her eyes always been so blue?
Je t'aime, Marinette.
She worried a soft pink lip, looking behind Adrien as if expecting someone else. After the last time, he couldn't exactly blame her. Then she looked up to him again and said, "H-hi, A-Adrien. W-what can I for you do? I mean-! What can I do for- uh, you?"
Je t'aime, Marinette.
"Um, actually, I was wondering if you had some free time later to talk?" he asked, his rubbing a hand against the back of his neck to hide the way his fingers shook with nerves. "Maybe for coffee after school tomorrow?"
Her bluebell eyes widened, as if incredulous. His heart began to sink. She was going to say no.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
Then Marinette suddenly surprised him with a series of rapid nods. "Y-yes! I like coffeetea! I mean uh- I mean, just, yes, please!"
Unbidden, a broad smile spread across Adrien's face as he was granted a small reprieve from his torture. He felt so light for some reason. This had to mean that he was going in the right direction! "That's great! I'll meet you tomorrow at four then," he said, giving his classmate a wave, before he dashed to his waiting car. Grinning to himself, he coasted on his happy high through the rest of the day, managing to annoy the hell out of his photographer when he couldn't wipe the smile from his face during his Gothic Noir shoot in front of Notre Dam.
Unfortunately, the relief did not last.
Once again, he couldn't sleep, thought of the impending meeting (not date) consuming him as he stared up at his darkened ceiling.
As the fated hour approached the next day, the curse only infected him more. His whole body wound up as tightly as a coiled spring, growing worse and worse as the hour hand passed. He fidgeted all through class, driven to distraction, as his hand wrote those fated words over and over in his tablet of its own volition in place of notes. By the end of the day, it was all he could hear; je t'aime, je t'aime replacing the th-thump th-thump of his beating heart.
He dreaded seeing her. If he did, he might actually go mad.
Get ahold of yourself, Adrien, he scolded, shutting his eyes tightly as his hands gripped the edge of his desk until the wood threatened to crack. All he had to do was ask Marinette who she liked. Then he was going to track this boy down, corner him, grab him by the front of his shirt and- and... politely convince him to say the right words to Marinette. Right. That was all. Then he'd be free.
Resolute, Adrien took a huge breath and headed to the front gate to meet Marinette. He found his classmate waiting for him, a bundle of nervous energy. The spell gripped him hard, tighter than it ever had, but he managed to work through it. It would be over soon.
All smiles and chivalry, he had Gorilla take them to one of the nicest cafes in Paris, though secluded enough where they wouldn't be bothered by any paparazzi. With his bodyguard on the lookout outside, Adrien and Marinette were left alone at one of the small tables.
"Thanks for coming out," he said as he took a sip of his cappuccino. It was supposed to be one of the best in Paris, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it tasted like. All his mental faculties were focused entirely on the girl in front of him.
Marinette gave him a strained smile, her hands wrapped around her untouched cup of matcha green tea. "N-no problemo!" she stammered, "You uh- um, you s-said you wanted to... talk?"
"Oh, yeah, um..." Adrien worried his lip. Je t'aime. Je t'aime. Je t'aime, his heart thumped, beating faster as he felt the words form at the back of his throat. He was nearly there. It was so close. He just had to spit it out! "I just wanted to ask... Do you like anyone?"
Her bluebell eyes flew wide open, the blood draining from her face as if he'd just asked if she would help him hide a dead body. (At this rate, it was going to end up being his own.) "D-d-d-do I like anyone?!" she repeated, her voice pitched with an almost panicked note. Just as suddenly, she couldn't look at him, her face growing redder and redder by the second as if it threatened to overheat. "W-well, that's a- I don't know if- Wh-why do you want to know?!"
Adrien leaned forward, his gaze desperate as he took her hand. "Marinette," he breathed, begging for release, "please tell me."
Je t'aime, Marinette.
With that, her head ducked down, unable to look him in the eye. Even so, he could see the way that she worried her lower lip, cheeks still flushed, trying to find the means to express her thoughts. He waited with bated breath, willing her to speak. Finally, she did, in a voice that was tiny and shy:
"N-no, I... don't like anyone."
Adrien froze. His jaw went slack, his whole body turned to ice at those five simple words.
What?
No...
No, that couldn't be!
She said she-!
That was when Adrien remembered. She'd been talking to Nathanaël. M-maybe she'd just been trying to let him down easy. Which meant...
Which meant that he was doomed.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
Je t'aime, Marinette.
JE T'AIME MARINETTE.
Adrien suddenly reared back from the table, the chair skidding back as he stood. The words wouldn't stop, wouldn't relent. He had to leave. "I-I-I'm sorry!" he said, unable to look at her stunned face, "I have to go!" Throwing down some bills, he fled from the cafe. The Gorilla came up fast and furious in pursuit, but he didn't steal him into the car right away as Adrien tried to outrun his own treacherous thoughts.
He didn't know what to do. There wasn't a crush for Marinette to be told those spellwrought words to. He had no idea how to lift this curse off him. In a hysterical moment, he even wondered if it was an akuma that caused this, before he recalled that he'd had these thoughts before Glitter Bomb came around.
When he very nearly walked into the Seine, the Gorilla finally snatched him up before he could fall in and drown. Then he was brought back to the car and escorted home.
Being left to his own devices in his room didn't help matters either. Ignoring a sudden deluge of calls from Nino, Adrien curled up on himself on the couch as his thoughts spiraled further and further out of control, rocking slowly back and forth as he tried to think of some way out of this.
Plagg was... concerned. "Okay, kid, I've seen you lovesick before, but this is bordering on Fatal Attraction now. It's scary!"
That knocked just a little bit of sense back into the blond, but his eyes were feverish when he looked at the kwami. "How do you know what Fatal Attraction is?"
"It was on TV," Plagg replied dismissively, waving a paw. "Never mind that! Your crush is free and clear! You can date her now!"
Adrien blinked. "How do you know Ladybug's free and clear?"
"I'm talking about Marinette, you simpleton," the kwami retorted flatly.
Adrien blinked again. Then he let out a hysterical laugh that bordered on manic. "What?! I don't like Marinette, you're crazy!"
Plagg gave him a wary look that said those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Particularly when that glass house was already cracked.
"No, I am completely and totally in love with Marinette," the blond continued, folding his arms over his chest.
"Yyyyees... Marinette..." Plagg replied, his frown growing worse.
"No, not Marinette. I meant Marinette. What did I say?" Adrien frowned.
The kwami began to back away slowly. "...Did you mean Ladybug?"
"Yes! Marinette!"
Plagg stared. If he didn't do something about this, the kid was going to dissolve into a gibbering mess. He couldn't have another cracked up Chat Noir. He barely survived the last one! This human child was just so simple, so oblivious, that nothing less than smacking him in the face with the frying pan of truth was going to get through to him. (Though he couldn't tell the child what he really wanted to. He'd take ten crackerjack Chat Noirs over an angry Tikki any millennium.)
Cautiously, the kwami went to his twitching Chosen and put a hand on his shoulder. "Kid, what do you think is going to fix this?"
"If someone tells Marinette, Je t'aime, Marinette." Even as he intoned the words, his face heated with a blush so dark, Plagg wondered if there was any blood in the rest of his body.
"So, why can't you?" Plagg demanded.
"W-well, because I..." Adrien paused, "because..." The rocking finally ceased. "...Oh."
"Yes, oh," the kwami said with a roll of his eyes that required his entire head. "You should have done it at the cafe, before you tore out of there like a Tazmanian devil. So tonight, you will sleep. Then tomorrow, you're going to wake up, you're going to shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast. Then you're going to go to school, find Marinette and tell her those exact words. Capische?"
The blond slowly nodded.
"Good," Plagg sniffed. "Now go to bed before I knock you out myself."
The next day, per his kwami's instructions, Adrien did everything that a perfectly normal, rational person would do in the morning. It was very important that he looked sane, Plagg had insisted. He didn't really remember what had happened last night due to his desperate need for sleep, but apparently it had been a pretty terrifying episode.
Now, however, he was awake and refreshed with a plan in place.
When Adrien arrived at school, he was immediately accosted by Nino and Alya on the school steps. "Dude, what the hell!" his friend cried, "I was trying to get a hold of you all night!"
"Uh... sorry?" the blond frowned, a little alarmed. That was when he spotted Marinette coming from her house across the street. "Sorry, can we put a pin in that? I have to go talk to Marinette."
Before either of them could object, Adrien jogged over to his pig-tailed classmate. "Marinette, hi!" he called, hearing an echo of the familiar mantra as he came closer. When she looked up, he saw that her eyes were red and her face was a little puffy. However, she started in surprise, eyes going wide as she looked him up and down. With a sheepish smile, he said, "I'm glad I caught you. I'm so sorry for running out like that. I forgot all about a shoot I had to go to for my father."
It was a well practiced lie. He had to do it a lot as Chat Noir.
"O-oh!" Marinette said, sucking in a breath. Her cheeks bloomed into a pretty blush that made his heart Je t'aime, je t'aime. "Okay, I sh-should have realized. Your father busy keeps you, uh - I mean, keeps you busy, huh?"
"Kind of an understatement," Adrien smiled warmly in reply. "I'm sorry we didn't get to finish our talk. I actually have something to tell you, if you don't mind."
"I'm all arms! U-uh, I mean ears!" the designer replied earnestly. However, she only squeaked when Adrien took her hand in his. He leaned in, close enough for just her ears alone. Then he spoke softly against her cheek:
"Je t'aime, Marinette."
When he pulled back, Adrien was beaming. All at once, the unrelenting pressure and compulsion had fallen away, as if he'd fulfilled his geas. All that remained was a general giddiness that made him glow. "Whew!" he cried, making a gesture as if to dust the thought from his mind, "So glad to get that off my chest!"
Marinette just gaped at him, jaw dropped.
The warning bell rang, signaling the students to start heading to their classrooms. All smiles, Adrien drew away from his pig-tailed classmate. "Well, we better get to class. Thanks for listening, Marinette!" With that, he bounded off, past Nino and Alya who looked torn between following him and watching Marinette.
The raven haired girl slouched over, shellshocked and incredulous, her face going redder and redder until she was as bright as a cherry. When she finally gathered enough wits to even move, only one word escaped her lips.
"Wh-WHAAAAT?!"