Marinette Dupain-Cheng did not like horror movies. That's not to say that she's never watched one, in fact she's watched two or three of them with friends over the past few years, but she'd never been able to finish one. Usually she would get too scared halfway through the movie and leave until it was over. It was a little inconvenient for both her and her friends, but she was less likely to have nightmares that way, so she dealt with it.

Sometimes it got her into awkward situations. Like the time that she ran into a movie theater with her crush and freaked out over the possibility of watching a horror movie. Granted it wasn't the most embarrassing thing that she'd done that day, but it still happened.

Sometimes, an akuma put Ladybug through a similar experience to a horror film, like horrificator. Although usually they weren't that bad, she had her friends and partner with her and was too busy keeping everyone safe and together to worry about the setting.

Sometimes though, there was an akuma that forced her and her partner to go into the foggy equivalent of a horror film forest in order to capture said akuma and probably end up saving Chloe too. Yeah. So that's where Ladybug found herself. In a creepy forest, with her partner, with creepy noises, and the creepy feeling of being watched. Creepy.

Now, it was in her partner's nature to defuse tension and break silence when he could. It made fighting akuma more fun if Ladybug was honest with herself. However, that combined with the fact that he could feel the tension radiating off of her should have been her first warning.

Her second one came in the form of a budding smirk that she caught on her partner's face, which she ignored in favor of some leaves rustling in the distance.

She of course heard him creep closer to her when she went to go examine something, though she once again chose to ignore it. That was her third mistake, as in the next second she was shrieking and jumping up in surprise before promptly bolting forward and nearly colliding with a tree.

By the time that she realized that there was no immediate danger she had one hand on her trusty yo-yo and the other against the tree, taking in heaving breaths in an attempt to keep up with her rapidly beating heart. She gave herself a second to calm her racing heart a little and turned her head slowly.

There standing behind her was her partner, his body frozen in place. His hand was still raised from where it had drawn a line up her spine and his mouth was hanging open as he gawked at her in complete shock. Then, as if her eye contact with him had miraculously unfrozen him, he doubled over and burst out laughing.

Ladybug watched completely unamused as her partner fell into peals of laughter, nearly crying as he struggled to stay upright. Ladybug watched for minutes on end as Chat Noir would get a grip on his laughter only for him to look over at her and start laughing all over again. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment after she mentaly replayed what had just happened, and it didn't really help that she had to wait while her partner calmed down.

Each time his laughter died down though, Ladybug couldn't help but to be struck with a sense of familiarity. Like it was at the back of her mind, teasing her with how familiar it sounded. Then on the fourth time that it died down, each wind-down being a little more controlled than the last, it hit her like a punch to the head.

Oh, that's Adrien's laugh.

Her thoughts began to race. It wasn't like it could have been anybody else's laugh, nobody else she knew had such a unique laugh. And they both had blond hair, and beautiful green eyes, and were allergic to feathers. There were too many coincidences, and just like that it clicked.

Adrien Agreste is Chat Noir.

Because it seemed so outlandish, but at the same time it made so much sense. His generally over exaggerated personality in the suit was probably just his way of making the most of being able to be who he wanted to be. Yet despite that the fact that he was still kind, and mannerly, and never crossed any lines. Also his habit of randomly disappearing to the bathroom at the same time that she did. Actually, she was kinda surprised that nobody had come up with any rumors that they were sneaking off to go make out or something. But besides that there were a million little things that she could recall that just screamed her kitten to her, all the thing that she'd grown so fond of between the two boys, things that she loved about them.

I'm in love with Chat Noir.

And it was true, she was in love with her kitten. It wasn't just his civilian form, not that it ever was, but everything that made him him. Because Adrien Agreste wasn't just Gabriel's son in the same way that he wasn't just Chat Noir. Rather, he was a mix of the two personas, one of which Marinette had been trying her hardest to discover more about, but now had somehow discovered both. And she loved him, she really did, but he knew nothing about her, and it's only been about eight seconds since she'd figured all of this out, and it was just too soon.

And so she brought herself back to reality, and let her face relax from its previous shock into a softer look of fondness as she watched her kitten's laughter die down.

It took a while, but eventually he calmed down enough to look her in the eye without laughing... mostly. He would still giggle at random times and his wide smile showed no signs of faltering. Ladybug kind of wished that Adrien would genuinely smile more, she'd already known that he had a fake smile for modeling, but it felt even worse to think about now that she knew his real smile. Because Cat Noir wasn't afraid to smile after a good joke.

"G-glad to finally have you back," she said, or rather, tried to say. Learning that your crush and your partner were the same person, and that you loved both of them, in the span of a few seconds was rather disconcerting. She'd have to work on her stuttering.

"Glad to be back, my Lady, but I have to say, your reaction to that was purrfect, much more than I was hoping for," he replied, giggling again. Ladybug rolled her eyes but let a fond smile cross her face, reassured that her partner was still the same person that she'd started fighting akuma with, regardless of who was behind the mask.

"Let's just go find that akuma kitty," she resigned, accepting the fact that he would probably tease her about this little incident in the future. Speaking of which, she'd probably have to tell him that she figured him out eventually.

Chat stretched his arms and directed his smile towards Ladybug, letting it soften into more of a love struck look as he looked at her. Ladybug felt her cheeks warm up again, because really any doubt that Chat was faking any part of his crush on her had just been obliterated. She had been slightly afraid that her partner had been faking it somehow, but she knew for a fact that if Adrien was really behind the mask that he would never intentionally lead anyone on, would never intentionally lead her on.

They both prepared to keep on tracking the akuma, sharing a look when they were ready to leave. Of course, that meant that Chat couldn't help but start laughing again, because Ladybug jumping ten feet into the air and shrieking was just that funny apparently. Thankfully his laughter only lasted a few seconds and was followed by a smile directed at Ladybug, who was playfully glaring at him.

She had to tell him what she'd figured out, because she needed clarification, and she would never lie to her partner without good reason. She already had to do that enough. But she also wanted to learn more about the boy next to her, and if she was honest she wanted him to figure her out as well. She loved him, but she wanted to take things slower, for each of them to learn more about the other. That is, if everything turned out well.

Who knows, maybe we could even be best friends.

Because being friends and just knowing him was really all that she needed at the moment.

Both of the heroes turned to continue on their hunt when Ladybug paused and smirked to herself. "hey Chat," she said, looking over at his curious expression, "maybe after this fight we can go hang out on a rooftop, like we do sometimes. There's something that I have to tell you about too, a secret of sorts, if you remind me that is." Like she could forget.

Still, the slight shock on his face was worth it as she turned back around and continued towards the akuma, leaving her partner to process what she said. A few seconds later she even heard him let out a shocked 'wait really!?' behind her. Oh revenge was sweet, even if she did mean her words.

Besides, nobody said that she couldn't mess with her kitten a little bit.

Woah, two stories in a year!?

Yeah, Miraculous Ladybug is basically a cult, I can't leave even if I want to.

Idk, this makes me laugh and that's what counts right? It doesn't? Didn't think so lol.

Also I wrote this at like four am a few days ago lol.

~Kat