Okay, just to clear things up: This is a oneshot... for now. I may or may not have more ideas and turn it into more so I'm leaving it as not completed. If you have any ideas, say so! I'm open to suggestions or prompts or anything! By the way, this story won't make any sense if you're not familiar with the show... probably.

Disclaimer: Yeah, guess what, at 14 years old I own an entire company and came up with the idea for a successful kid's TV show... All rights belong to Zagtoon Inc., Method Animation, Toei Animation, SMAG and our very own Hawk daddy, Thomas Astruc

It had been a fairly normal morning so far; in fact even the screams that echoed through the halls halfway through the troisième History class were all too commonplace. The class scrambled out of their seats, the teacher's single, less than half-hearted attempt to get them into order, ignored. Everyone and anyone knew that there was only one thing to do in the case of an Akuma attack: run, hide and wait till the resident superheroes sort it all out.

Well, that was unless you just so happened to be one of those superheroes.

- -.- -

He had been sat in the lesson, pretending to listen to what Monsieur Émine had to say about the Russian revolution. He had already heard all this and more from his private tutoring. Who would have ever thought that the seemingly cold-hearted assistant his Father hired would hold a place in her heart for the subject?

Still, when he heard the shrill screams he was immediately brought back into the present and he was one of the first out of his seat. Nino started for the door, Adrien right on his friend's tail, but he was rudely shoved aside by a determined looking Chloé. Nino stumbled back into Adrien and muttered an apology of sorts before making his own way out the door, swiftly followed by a stream of wide-eyed students.

He looked back to see that all his other classmates, and even the teacher, were headed for the exit. No, he took that back, all but one. He saw a rush of navy hair between the other figures, working to try and make sure everyone left the classroom.

He almost called out to her but something caught the edge of his shirt and he was pulled into the crowd. He felt an abnormally painful pang of guilt as he quickly lost sight of the shy girl who sat behind him in French; after all it was his job to look after the people of Paris, not hers. Admittedly, it was Ladybug's as well but she wasn't here and Chat Noir was or, at least, Adrien was.

Adrien tried to console his guilty conscience with the thought that at least this meant that he could get away to find someplace to transform in quicker. Marinette wasn't exactly incapable either, she could fight her own verbal battles when necessary and knew when to back off if it got physical, he hoped she did anyway.

Letting out a huff of frustration as he felt himself being yanked forwards again by the fabric of his shirt, he turned round and let his fingers deftly unhook a button from the buckle of what he recognised as Max's trouser braces. He looked for an escape and, finding one, headed straight for the first place he could think of that was most definitely private, the toilets. Through the students running for the closest exit, he could make out his general location in the school and he grinned in a Chat-like manner when he realised how close he was to his destination. Maybe some of his Lady's luck was rubbing off on him?

- -.- -

Or maybe not. The blonde stared stupidly at the place where the toilets used to be. Used to be because all that was there now was a gaping hole in the wall with piles of dust and rubble adorning the area. He looked to his right and spotted one of the many cleaning supply cupboards that were dotted around the building which he quietly slipped into.

As soon as the door shut behind him, he was plunged into complete darkness. He could feel the cold metal shelves that lined either wall brushing against his arms that were flat against his sides making the already tight space even more confining. Edging further in, Adrien tripped over something on the floor and fell into the back wall. The curse that slipped between his lips as he fell was one that- had his Father been here- he would have been swiftly reprimanded for.

"Plagg," he called quietly into the shadows, "Pla-"

The door behind him creaked, the sound sending warning signals to his brain. Instinctively, he jumped into the small gap between one of the shelves and the back wall, disappearing from sight right as the door fully opened and the sudden light exposed the many dust motes floating through the air.

"Hello?" The word was little more than a whisper and the silence that followed made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end because either everyone in the school had been evacuated or... or something else Akuma related had happened and he really didn't want to let his mind imagine what that might be.

Still, Adrien stayed frozen in his spot, hoping whoever it was invading his hidey-hole would just leave. Of course he wasn't so lucky and as the person closed the door he caught a glimpse of them through the many bottles of foul smelling bleach (one of the few substances vile enough to rival Camembert cheese for pungency). Bluish black hair in two feathery pigtails and the back of a warm grey blazer, a sight he often saw running in the opposite direction to him.

So that was brilliant, he was stuck in a cupboard with Marinette who didn't even know he was there so he couldn't very well try to excuse himself nor could he possibly sneak past her in this claustrophobic space!

"Tikki, looks like we're needed."

Wait, what? Was she talking to someone? Who could she possibly be talking to? Adrien leaned forwards to peer round the edge of the shelving but of course it was now pitch black so he couldn't see a thing either way. He would probably be better off trying to think of a way out of this -he would hesitate to call it a mess but still- situation anyway, especially seeing as his Lady was probably already out there fighting. If anything happened to her just because he was trapped in here...

"Let's go then Marinette!"

Adrien nearly choked at the sound. Another voice? But he could have sworn on his life that only one person had come through the door and-

"Tikki, Spots On!"

He stumbled backwards into the space, bashing his elbow on the edge of the shelving as a bright, pinkish light filled the cupboard. He bit his lip and cradled his elbow, the uncomfortable tingles that ran through his arm letting him know that he had hit his funny bone. Adrien could only hope Marinette hadn't heard the collision, probably about the last thing he should be worrying about in this situation but his slow brain needed a moment to process whatever the hell had just happened in front of him.

He leaned forwards again just as the door opened and flooded the room with light from outside once more. Though it was only a few seconds before the door slammed shut again- and rather forcefully too- Adrien immediately recognised the figure that jumped through the doorway and the sight left him frozen in confusion. After all, he prided himself on his ability to recognise people (blame years of his father forcing him into the world of high class socialites) and that had definitely been his classmate Marinette who had entered the cupboard but the girl who left...

Oh.

Well... darn.

They were right when they said realisation hit you. It hit you like a sack of flour thrown at your face. A soft impact that wouldn't leave a scratch but enough force and weight to send you flying to kingdom come.

Marinette had entered, Ladybug had left. At some point between then the two had switched and he would bet his entire heritance that neither had teleportation powers. And boy did everything that had happened in the past minutes only confirm his revelations. Random talking to something that certainly wasn't another person? An odd phrase followed by, well, a lot of pink light?

There really was only one reasonable explanation: Marinette was Ladybug.

Part of him wanted to deny it, how could a girl who was so shy and more often than not clumsy possibly be... oh who was he kidding, Marinette was more like Ladybug than anyone he had ever met apart from the girl herself. He had seen as much through his mask. The only reason he didn't want it to be true was because it would mean his Lady had been sitting right behind him all this time and he had enough naïvety to not realise.

He had been so, so sure that he would recognise her without the mask as soon as he saw her, so sure that his love would out do the masking magic that Plagg had so often reminded him of. And yet he had been seeing her almost every day and not recognising so much as a hair on her head. Only he would have been so childish to believe that love was stronger than anything.

At the same time though, he couldn't help but feel relieved. Not because Marinette was Ladybug- a fact he still hadn't quite fully processed- but because someone he knew was Ladybug. Not as in, someone he knew as a human but someone he knew as a person, if that made any sense. Despite how much he had always wanted to know who she was, he had always harboured a silent fear that the girl behind the mask might turn out to be someone entirely different from the girl he had oh so desperately fallen for- a stranger.

He had once briefly entertained the idea that he could be running around and flirting with a married woman but had dismissed his worries the next day when he had snuck up on her during patrol mumbling to herself about Physics homework. It had been comforting to know that his partner couldn't be far off from his age if she was old enough to be grumbling about the science workload, a few years at most.

For the second time that day, screaming was the thing to snap the blonde out of his thoughts, except this time it was a single, drawn out, ear splitting sound. An image flashed through his mind of Ladybug- Marinette- sprawled on the floor, writhing in agony as she screamed in such a heart shattering way and he mentally slapped himself for forgetting about the danger at hand.

"Plagg?" he whispered into the dark.

"Finally," came the sardonic drawl of his irritant Kwami, "Loverboy's back on Earth is he?" Adrien shook his head and rolled his eyes, the darkness surrounding them proving to make such an action pointless.

"Plagg, Claws Out!"

Okay, so that was a mess but I hope you liked it! I just wanted to get into Adrien's head in this situation, so many people have delved through his thoughts if he sees Ladybug detransform so instead of making myself look like an idiot by doing that again but worse, I wrote this monstroity!

Have a nice day!