Adrien sprinted into the locker room to get a drink and found Plagg gorging himself on camembert in his bag. "Plagg, you pig!"
The kwami sighed contentedly and burped. "You have one new message."
"Move, please, so I can check my voicemail. Hmm, don't recognize this number," Adrien mused. He still had a little time before the statue unveiling ceremony started so he clicked on it.
Marinette's usual nervous babble filled his ear. "Uhh, hello. Uh, Adrien's voicemail, uh, this is Marinette, who, uh, has a message for you, of course, cause it's, uh, your phone, so, umm, heh heh heh, call me see you later bye!"
He was about to put the phone down when a slightly more muffled Marinette continued smoothly as if talking to someone else. "What? What did you expect me to say? 'Hey, hot stuff, this is Marinette, I'd ask you on a date to a movie, but I've got such a crazy crush on you that the only way I can talk to you without foaming at the mouth is over this stupid phone.' Pretty ridiculous, right?"
His brain shut down. Marinette liked him? She'd always seemed so uncomfortable with him! Marinette—who he had seen take several people down with her words—was a nervous, stuttering wreck because of him? He could have stood there frozen for several sunlit days if Plagg hadn't reminded him of the ceremony.
"You wouldn't want to miss a chance to see Ladybug would you?" he said slyly. Plagg was forever teasing him about his crush. Ladybug! Marinette liked him but he liked Ladybug. Marinette was nice and he liked her well enough but not like that… So what to do about this new development? He didn't want to hurt her feelings but there wasn't really a way around it, was there?
He tried pushing it all out of his mind on the way to the ceremony but couldn't do it. So when the sculptor, Theo Barbot insinuated he was in love with Ladybug, Chat Noir couldn't handle it and snapped. What did it matter anyway if the artist thought he and Ladybug were together? If things went his way they would be anyhow. How wrong he was.
Adrien couldn't find his phone, which was annoying enough on its own, but finding out that a fake Chat Noir whose imitation of him was poor at best was stealing things was the icing on the cake. When he tried to explain himself to the police, they locked him in the Louvre. He had just escaped when he got the call from Ladybug. She seemed concerned.
"Chat Noir, what's going on?"
"You know I'm innocent, don't you Bugaboo?" he said as lightly as possible. He needed her to believe he wasn't capable of stealing.
She seemed annoyed. "Stop playing around and calling me Bugaboo. This is really serious!" Well, at least she cared that much.
"I'm gonna find the real culprit and save my tail. I'll get back to—" he tried to reassure her but cut off the call in surprise when he saw the police helicopter that was after him. He jumped into a metro terminal and detransformed, innocently striding out the other side.
"If you want my opinion, I'd say the thief was akumatized," Plagg said before chowing down on his cheese.
"That much I'd figured," Adrien sighed. "See that lollipop stick? The sculptor. How did I not see that jealousy coming a mile away?"
"Yours or his?"
Adrien chuckled dryly. "So funny." He had been jealous though. Jealous that his lady could be with anyone other than him. The sculptor didn't even know her! Well…technically he didn't know her behind the mask but he still saw her just about every day.
A few minutes later he found the sculptor's workshop and called Ladybug back to let her know.
"Huh? Chat Noir, where are you?" Oh, she was definitely worried about him. That was flattering.
"I found his den."
"Who?"
"My Copycat," he explained.
"I'm not getting you," Ladybug admitted.
He sighed. He'd wanted to see her today but not like this. "If you'd been there this morning you'd know what I was talking about."
She quickly changed the subject back to him. "Well? Tell me where you are."
Chat Noir didn't want her anywhere near the sculptor. If she ever found out he'd lied about their relationship because he was jealous…his lady hated liars. "No, this is between me and him. I got myself into this mess, so I'm gonna get myself out." He hung up before she could brook any further argument and landed in the studio.
He found a note on box in the empty workshop. "Cat's in the bag?" he mused aloud before the box opened and he was stuck in chains. "Cataclysm!"
Copycat appeared out of nowhere, grabbing his wrist and putting his hand on a random object, wasting the cataclysm. Great. Now he was stuck and didn't have much time left before detransforming. Way to go, Agreste.
"I don't get what Ladybug sees in you," Copycat scoffed. "A fool who so easily falls into my trap." He held up Chat Noir's staff. "Looking for this? Which one should I pick up, my one or my one?"
The staff started ringing and Chat Noir watched in horror as Copycat answered it with a semi-decent impression of his voice this time. Ladybug. "Ladybug, hurry up. I've caught the impostor at Théo Barbot's workshop."
Chat Noir heard his lady's voice coming from the staff. "I'll be there in thirty seconds."
He tried yelling loud enough for her to hear. "Don't come here, Ladybug! It's a trap!" It was no use.
"Too late, Chat. Ladybug's on her way, which was my plan all along," Copycat said with a smirk.
"She won't be duped. She knows me too well." Chat Noir tried infusing as much confidence into his voice as possible. They were partners. Maybe even friends. Ladybug had to know him when she saw him.
"I know you well too," Copycat insisted while looking at his akumatized photo. "And from now on, she'll love me, not you!"
Chat Noir was confused a moment. "Love me? ...You're right! She loves me! That's why she'll be able to reveal your true identity!" Much as it might backfire on him later, he'd have to use Copycat's crush to his advantage.
Hawk Moth's signature butterfly mask appeared over Copycat, communicating with him, and Copycat knocked Chat Noir down to steal his ring. Ladybug appeared right in the knick of time.
"There you are," Copycat said.
"Chat Noir! He really looks like you," Ladybug said with an edge of doubt in her voice.
"That's because I am me!" Chat Noir insisted. Come on, my lady, you have to know its me.
"Where's his akuma?" Ladybug asked the imposter.
"Inside his ring of course. Grab it," Copycat said tauntingly.
Chat Noir's ring beeped, reminding him how much he'd screwed himself over, and Ladybug eyed him even more suspiciously. "He even has the same powers as you."
"Simply amazing, isn't it?" Copycat asked.
Chat Noir was getting desperate. "If you don't believe I'm the real Cat Noir, ask him about our love for each other."
She looked even more confused. "Uhh…"
"Have I ever lied to you Bugaboo?" he pleaded with a wink.
This seemed to make her mind up. The other Chat Noir wouldn't have called her Bugaboo—he'd barely come up with the nickname.
Ladybug got up in Copycat's face. "I hope you didn't tell him about us."
Copycat shifted nervously. "What?"
"That we're... you know, we made a secret promise?" she asked seductively.
"Uh, yes, of course!" Copycat fumbled.
Ladybug smirked. "We never made a promise. Copycat!" Thank goodness. She knew he was the real one!
Copycat dropped the pretense. "I love you Ladybug! I'm way better than this mangy alley cat!"
"Sorry, but liars are losers. Chat Noir may annoy me to pieces, but he's never lied to me."
"Thanks for the compliment! I think," Chat Noir said as her words sunk in. Did she really think he was that annoying?
"If I can't have you, then nobody will! Cataclysm!" Copycat howled.
"Let's wrap this up," Ladybug said. "Lucky Charm! A spoon? What am I supposed to do with this?" She momentarily forgot about the spoon, thinking quickly and moving Chat Noir's chains so the imposter's cataclysm freed him.
"Excellent job, my lady," Chat Noir beamed at her. He could always count on her. Manipulation or not, he shouldn't have tried excluding her from facing this akuma.
"Where's his akuma?" she asked a second time.
"The photo in his pocket. Let's make it snappy." He didn't have much time left and the Gorilla had probably noticed his absence.
"You're going to change back before me," Copycat taunted as they began to battle it out.
"He's pretty good," Ladybug noted.
"No need to rub it in!" Chat Noir whined.
Copycat gloated. "I told you I was better than him."
Ladybug swiped Chat Noir's staff from Copycat and tossed it back to him. "But I'm better than both of you!"
As Copycat and Chat Noir continued fighting, Ladybug grabbed her partner's arm. "Hey!" he complained. "It's me!"
"He's lying," Copycat lied. "I'm the real one."
Ladybug stomped her foot. "Ugh, now you're both annoying me to pieces! Show me your ring. How many pads you have left?" Chat Noir gladly showed his, proving his identity, while Copycat hid his.
"Chat Noir, scratch attack!" Ladybug directed as she got to work making something of her lucky charm.
"Gladly. I love a good cat fight," he said before meowing and launching himself at Copycat.
"Time to go akuma fishing," Ladybug announced, holding up her homemade fishing rod. She used it to lift Copycat to the ceiling and retrieve the photo, ripping it and freeing the akuma. Once it was cleansed, Theo fell from the ceiling and Chat Noir caught him.
"Nice catch," Ladybug remarked.
"I'm so glad you could tell the real cat from the fake one," Chat Noir said, masking his true joy at this. She knew him. She wasn't fooled by the fake. On some level, she believed in him.
She shrugged. "Once I figured out which cat was really in love with me, it was a no-brainer." Oh. Oh. She didn't think his feeling for her were genuine. The flirting, the witty banter…it really did mean nothing to her.
He wanted to tell her it wasn't true, that he really did care, but his ring was on its final pad. "Better help the fellow out. His crush just got crushed." As he rushed out the door, he added under his breath, "That makes two of us."
His heartbreak and confusion would have to wait. He had to get back to the gym. Sure enough, his phone wasn't there either. Great.
The next morning he was talking to Nino about where his phone could possibly be when it spilled out of his bag. There was only one explanation. Marinette. She was right behind him and was the only one who could have put it back in just then. Why would she take his phone? Oh. The voicemail. Did she know he heard it? Did she not want him to know she liked him? Did she think she had erased it in time and he didn't know anything?
That was probably it. Well, if she thought he didn't know, he wasn't going to say anything. That would save him from having to hurt her. Considering—in her words—she couldn't speak to him without 'foaming at the mouth,' she probably wouldn't try again soon. That would buy him time to figure out what to do.
Try as he might, the rest of the day he couldn't quite look at Marinette in the same way now that he knew.