Alya had presents she kept leaving on Marinette's computer… in the oddest places.
It was a mildly amusing, if childish, game…
She'd taken to leaving bits of video downloaded to Marinette's hard drive, hoping to finally - eventually - convert her over to the LadyNoir cause…
Marinette would change her login, and within a few days, Alya would figure it out, littering a few more choice videos and images throughout her hard drive.
Marinette had chuckled at the start, gleefully hunting up each little Easter egg and poking holes into each of Alya's pet theories.
And any other day, it wouldn't matter how many clips she'd managed to hide. Her amusing little game of hide and seek with Alya would be simply that.
But today?
Marinette gasped sharply, as if she'd been scaled. Her eyes painfully wide as the now infamous image from the top of Montparnasse tower crept up in the thumbnails. Clasped hands… serene faces…
Lips pressed together, in a memory she hadn't been allowed to keep...
Shaking her head, Marinette scrolled with every scrap of care and composure she'd gathered as Ladybug as she now struggled to plod through her homework.
Today, she knew too much.
Her fingers, drifted to her temples, wishing to massage away the memories...
Chat Noir had taken a hit for her, as he so often had done… only to fall as dead weight into her arms. Her Kitty had unleashed Cataclysm before he had fallen.
This afternoon's Akuma was putting everyone to sleep. She'd trusted Chat to his word when he'd struggled to keep his eyes open, assuring her that he wouldn't succumb the way everyone else had…
Marinette bit her lip at the memory; her head had been on the game… not the clock.
Resolute, Ladybug had pulled the battle away, to grant him the chance to recover. She'd just barely managed to tire out Dream Weaver enough that she slipped up, and got hit with a dose of her own medicine.
Her plan from then was simple, but she'd really needed Chat for another well-timed Cataclsym. She looped back to see where he was when he hadn't managed to reach her.
She'd just wanted to make sure he was safe…
But Chat wasn't there. Not anymore.
Instead, a blond mop of hair was in the place she'd last spotted him.
She'd looked away… only she hadn't been fast enough. She couldn't unsee the sunshine color of his hair any more than the familiar outfit she'd spotted.
Tikki knew she'd had far too many images of that very outfit on her walls over the years.
Wincing, she drew ever closer... trying to convince herself that she was mistaken; that she had to be. It just had to be another blond boy in that white overshirt, with those orange shoes, and the dark lined top that Adrien favored so. She was still in shock as she stooped down to try to jostle her crush awake.
Ladybug stared at the silver ring in accusation. Just how had she managed to miss that little detail all these years?
With a blush nearly as crimson as her own suit, she pulled him up into her arms to at least get him out of the open… trying desperately not to focus on the sweeter details of his slumbering face while her brain failed to compute the imposition of the mask and smirk she'd never expected to find the match to.
It had taken much longer than usual to gather her bearings and set (most) of the world to right again, but she'd eventually found the presence of mind to find a proper substitute to a Cataclysm that allowed her to carry out her Lucky charm.
Like a coward, she'd scrambled home, holed herself up in her room, and stubbornly struggled to brute force her way through this current events essay Miss Bustier had assigned.
She could face down the scariest monsters in Paris - and did so every day. But she didn't dare face Tikki. Not yet anyways.
Adrien was one of the few people she'd fought so desperately to keep safe. Only now she knew - he had been the one to sacrifice his own life for her, more often than she'd wanted to recall.
Her foot bounced anxiously. She still wasn't entirely sure what to do with this information.
She hadn't wanted to know who was hiding behind that mask, fighting at her side. It was one of the few ways she could keep her partner safe, especially with a few close encounters with Akumatization of her own.
But now she did know...she had to struggle with the idea of how to keep Adrien… her Chaton... safe.
If Tikki could see what had happened in every battle, she had chosen not to say a word, leaving Marinette to panic internally as much as she possibly could without anxiously pacing the floor.
Frustration built as she lightly knocked her head against the screen where amid her essay sat a blinking cursor.
"See you soon, Chaton…" an audio clip cut through the silence.
Flinching, Marinette peered up to meet Chat Noir's love struck eyes on the screen. "I love it so much when she calls me that."
She sighed, feeling just as hopeless as Chat Noir's expression looked, and she traced a finger slowly over his ears on the screen.
What was the use of finding out that the boy you had a major crush on actually returned your feelings in full… if the only way to ever be together would put you both - and your families and friends - into even more grave danger?
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Kellarhi for the beta read and to the Discord crew enabled me to get this out and done ASAP so I can focus back where it counts! ;)