Half an hour after Chat had taken a blow to the head, the streets of Paris were dry, and Adrien had woken up alone on a park bench.

Oh no, he thought as realization dawned, Ladybug knows.

Plagg poked his head out of Adrien's shirt pocket. "Ladybug says she's sorry about ditching you here."

"Plagg!" Adrien could barely contain his excitement. "You were there! Did you talk to her? How did she react when she saw me?"

"Cheese," the kwami replied.

"What?"

"Cheese, then talk." He held out his tiny black paws.

Adrien grumbled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small plastic container. "I only have a bit of brie. It was all I could find on short notice."

Plagg eyed it for a moment before accepting the offering. "It'll do." He popped the morsel into his mouth before he continued. "I only talked to her long enough to save your butt. And she seemed shocked more than anything."

After considering it, Adrien decided that shock was definitely better than disappointment.


That evening, it was Adrien's turn to be shocked.

He'd heard a tapping noise at the window, but considering how high off the ground his windows were, he assumed it was a bug or a bird... until it happened again, but louder. He glanced up from his homework to see... Ladybug? Dangling in his window?

She waved at him with a nervous grin and motioned for him to open the window.

He scrambled to let her in. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd-I mean, not today, anyway."

"I-it's fine," she replied, nimbly dropping to his bedroom floor. "My arm was getting tired is all."

Awkward silence reigned for about twenty year-long seconds.

"S-sorry for coming over on such short notice," Ladybug said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Um... would you mind transforming and meeting up with me a few roofs down? I'll give you a few minutes in case your kwami needs to eat something."

She didn't give Adrien a chance to reply before she swung out of his window and made her way to a roof that was clearly visible from his room.

Marinette wasn't quite sure how Tikki had managed to convince her to confront Adrien so soon, but it had to be done, and there was no turning back now.

Chat Noir caught up to her pretty quickly-considering the dazed state Adrien had been in when she'd left. "What do you need, M-Milady?" He was nervous now. Her request to meet up felt very much like a foreboding we-need-to-talk text message.

Ladybug sat down and invited him to sit beside her. Then she took a deep breath. "Ask me anything." She scrambled to add, "Anything except, 'Who are you'."

A short pause.

"Do you know me?" he asked. "I mean, not just as Chat Noir, or as a model in a magazine, but... do you know me?"

She nodded, a small smile flickering across her face.

"Are you... disappointed? About who I am, I mean." He wrapped his arms around his knees, bracing himself for the answer.

Marinette wasn't sure how to feel about it. "Um... this might sound weird, but I had kind of hoped you'd be a total stranger."

Chat's eyebrows knit together, and Ladybug rushed to continue, putting a hand on his arm.

"Not that I don't like you! It's just... it would have been easier for us to keep our identities secret from each other if we had been total strangers."

Chat nodded, satisfied, and returned to vague questions surrounding her identity. "How long have we known each other?" he asked.

Ladybug knew where he was going, but didn't stop him. Him finding out her identity in a roundabout way was basically the point of this game of "Twenty Questions." She answered honestly. "Since the beginning of the school year."

He leaned away from her, surprised. "You go to my school?"

She nodded.

He leaned toward her now, studying her face. "Are you in my class?"

She hesitated but smiled shyly. "Yeah."

Chat Noir began to list off the girls in his class, and she just let him work it out. "You're not Chloe, because she was Antibug. You can't be Sabrina, because she was akumatized before Chloe was. You're not Alya because she was Lady Wifi. You're not Rose, Juleka, or Alix... and you can't be Mylene, so..." He put a hand to his mouth, emerald eyes wide.

Ladybug waited.

"You're... not a guy, are you?" he asked, a smirk giving his joke away.

She punched him in the shoulder. "Please be serious, Chat," she said.

"...Mme. Bustier?" he tried, finally earning a laugh.

"Come on," Ladybug replied, still grinning.

"Fine, Marinette, but you can't blame me for getting a little confused. You were being pretty vague." He poked her arm. "Also I have one more question."

Ladybug shrugged, considering the hard part was already over. "Shoot."

"Why are you so weird around me at school?"

She froze, her face starting to blend in with her mask. She had been sorely mistaken. The hard part had only begun. "P-pardon?" she said, hoping she'd heard wrong.

"You know," he said, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back a little. "You act totally normal and cool around everyone at school except me. I just want to know... Why?"

Nope, she'd definitely heard correctly. She drew her knees to her chest. "W-well, I kind of find you... intimidating."

He laughed. "What, 'cause I'm a model?"

She shook her head, blushing harder. "It's stupid."

"I'm sure it's not," Chat replied, sitting up to put a hand on her shoulder. "You know what? You don't have to answer. I'm happy just knowing who my Lady is."

He stood up to leave, but Marinette had made up her mind to answer every question he asked that night. She grabbed his wrist. "Wait. I want to tell you. Just give me a minute."

He allowed her to pull him back down beside her. "Alright, I'll wait."

She had to give herself a silent pep talk, but she finally found the words, quiet as they were. "I... well, I kinda... have a crush on you."

Chat was, well... surprised, to say the least. "You... what?" he asked in a similarly hushed tone.

Ladybug covered her flushed face with her hands. "I said I like your stupid face, okay?" It came out louder than she'd meant it to.

He let out a triumphant laugh as he tackled her with a hug. "That's what I thought you'd said, Bugaboo."


I apologize for being terrible at endings. I hope you liked it anyway. :3