Marinette paced in her room a few hours later, pondering over the events of earlier that day.

"What should I do now that I know Cat Noir's identity?" she asked Tikki, who was now feasting on a donut. "I mean, do I tell him my identity in return? Do I just try and forget about it?"

Tikki swallowed a bite. "You shouldn't have gone into the room in the first place!"

"I know! But by the time I realized what was going on, I'd already seen too much, and now I've disobeyed an order from Master Fu!"

Marinette imagined how he might react:

"You found out his secret identity? Marinette, I told you that you two must remain anonymous!"

"I know, Master Fu, and I'm really sorry, but I—"

"No 'but's. I gave you my trust, and you let me down. I'll be taking your earrings back."

"Master Fu, please! NOOO!"

Marinette then snapped out of the fantasy and looked at Tikki, who was staring at her concernedly. "How much of that was out loud?"

"Only all of it."

Marinette groaned, reddening.

"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't react like that, but he'd still be upset. Just tell him what happened; he's a really understanding man."

"You really think so?"

Tikki stuffed the last bite of her donut into her mouth, and said through it, "Of coursh! Trusht me on thish!"

Marinette lightly hugged her, then slipped her into her purse and headed out.

—

"I see…" Master Fu began after Marinette had told him everything.

"Please don't be mad at me; it was an accident! I—"

He held his finger to her lip in a shushing gesture. "Marinette, I'm not mad at you."

"You're not?"

"No. In fact, I'm proud that you decided to tell me as soon as you could."

"Really?"

He chuckled. "Of course. After all, honesty is one of the traits that any good superhero — or any good person in general — should possess."

"But then why did you always tell me to keep our identities a secret?"

"I was afraid that you two knowing would put you in more risk of being found by Hawk Moth, or of faltering on the job. Tell me, was your takedown of… Mind Rewrite… impeded at all by this new knowledge?"

"Well, not really. We still worked together well. I'd even go as far as to say that I'm even more trusting in him now that I know who's under that mask!"

Fu nodded.

"So, what do I do now?" Marinette asked, "Should I tell him my identity?"

"Hmm… that is a tricky dilemma. Do you think that he'd respond the same way if he knew?"

Marinette pondered. "Yeah, I think so."

"Well, then, you know what to do?"

"Yes. Thank you, Master Fu." Marinette stood up and bowed to him, then scooped up Tikki and left.

—

When Ladybug arrived at the Agreste manor, the sun was beginning to set. She saw Adrien looking around his room contemplatively, his miraculous floating by his side.

"You know, Plagg, I don't really remember the color of my walls." she overheard Adrien admit.

"You don't?" replied Plagg, "What kind of kid doesn't know the color of his own room?"

"Well, I guess I was always just so eager to get out of here that I never really paid attention." He then pointed to the fish tank. "Though I'm certain I didn't have that before today."

"Who knows? Maybe you got it yesterday before your memory was wiped."

"It's not just that; the Eiffel Tower was also carpeted."

"That might've been something Mind Rewrite did."

"Then why wasn't it reverted when we reset everything?"

Adrien then realized: "Wait a second… If we set everything back to normal earlier, shouldn't my memories have returned?"

"I don't know…" Plagg trailed off.

They stood there silent for a while.

"Do you feel that Ladybug was acting strange?" Adrien finally broke the silence.

"What do you mean?" Plagg responded

"I mean that she was hesitating and stumbling over her words a bit more than usual."

"Maybe you're rubbing off on her," Plagg chuckled.

"Adrien."

Adrien jumped at the new voice in the room, turning to see Ladybug standing there. Plagg quickly hid behind Adrien.

"It's okay, Plagg, I know you're there."

Adrien was flummoxed. "Ladybug! Y-y-you know?"

She nodded.

"How long?"

"Since this morning when you went in to talk with Chloe. I'd gone into your room to get a closer look, but accidentally saw you transform."

Adrien blushed. "Well, what're you doing here now?"

"I thought it would be fair if I 'accidentally' showed you."

Adrien was flummoxed.

She reached up to her ears and — hesitating only for a moment — took out her earrings, changing back into Marinette.

Adrien was stunned. "Marinette?!"

"Yep," she began awkwardly, "that's me! Now you know!"

Tikki came out of the earrings. "And I'm Tikki, Marinette's Kwami!"

Adrien looked at Plagg. "Did you know?"

Plagg responded, "Only since the Dark Owl incident."

Adrien and Marinette looked at each other. "So, what do we do now?"

She looked around. "Now, we figure out why we still can't remember yesterday, and why everything seems off."

"Got it." They both called out to their Kwamis and transformed, then looked at each other and chuckled.

They leapt out the window and ran across some roofs, headed towards the Eiffel Tower.

When they got there, Ladybug inspected the carpet. She pried off a piece, and found a tag that read, 'Made in Paris. © Kristo Carpet Company.'.

"Huh," Cat Noir remarked, "That's just one 'C' away from being truly alliterative."

"I've never heard of Kristo Carpet Company, though the name sounds familiar." She read the tag further. "It says their headquarters is 16 Rue d'Astruc. Let's go!"

—

"Welcome to Kristo Carpet Company," began Olivia Kristo, the CEO of the company, "I'm Olivia Kristo, the CEO of the company. How may I help you?"

"Well, Olivia, we were recently at the Eiffel Tower when we noticed that its second floor had been carpeted by your company."

"Ah, yes, that carpet has been there since the famous 1888 deal with Gustave Eiffel himself! It was that sale that put us on the map."

"Actually, Olivia," interjected Cat Noir, "we don't remember it being carpeted before yesterday."

"Really? Oh, well I'm sure you just never noticed before."

"I'm fairly certain that we would've noticed. So tell us, has anything strange been happening with the company, or with your family?"

"I don't know why you'd be asking, but I do remember my son Honoré storming out of the house two days ago."

"Why?"

"I don't really recall. I think it had something to do with one of his fanfictions."

"Fanfictions?"

"Yeah, he's quite the writer. He especially likes to ship you two."

Ladybug and Cat Noir looked at each other and blushed. "Well, please tell him that we aren't comfortable with other people fantasizing about our — " Ladybug gasped, remembering something that put all the pieces together. "Come on, Cat Noir, I think I just figured it out."

Cat Noir then followed her as she swung herself out the window and onto the roof to talk to him privately.

"I remember now! I met Honoré two days ago, when he approached me after a battle and tried showing me one of his stories. I looked at it, and told him exactly what I'd just told Olivia! I guess he must've taken it really hard."

"Are you saying that he got mad at you, then Hawk Moth akumatized him so that he could trap us in one of his stories?"

"I'd say there's a high probability of it."

"Well, then what about the things that are off?"

"Not every writer can get every fact right. It just so happens that he got enough things wrong for us to notice."

"Well, then how do we get out of here?"

"I don't know for sure, but I have a hunch. This may be a bit weird."

"I'm ready if you're ready."

And at that, Ladybug said, "I don't love you, Cat Noir"

Everything shook for a moment.

"Did you feel that?" Ladybug asked him.

Cat Noir was too heartbroken to form a cohesive answer.

She grabbed him and smacked his face, bringing him back to their reality. She said, "Don't you see? He loves to write shipping fanfics about us! When I said I don't love you, that started to break the story, as well as this world!"

"Oh, I see how it is." Cat Noir winked. "Well, I have news for you, m'lady: I never loved you, either!"

The world shook, this time more violently.

There was a bright light, and a fifteen-ish boy in Victorian clothes appeared hovering next to them. "No, no, no! That's not how the story goes!" he took out a notebook and started writing in it. "I'm gonna have to make a few rewrites — "

"Now!" Ladybug and Cat Noir both stood up and ripped the notebook out of his hands, tearing it in two.

"No! I've been tricked!" He cried out.

The pages dropped, and an akuma appeared from the pages. Ladybug took her yo-yo, capturing it and turning it pure again with her signature catchphrases.

The guy turned back into his normal self, an ordinary-looking teen with orange hair. He collapsed into a fetal position and cried, "Why, Ladybug? Why do you hate my stories?"

Ladybug knelt down next to him. "I don't hate your stories, Honoré. I just didn't like the prospect of there being people out there that write… romantic stories about me and Cat Noir. But now I see I was being narrow-minded. As long as you don't become obsessed with those stories, and as long as they don't physically affect us, then it's okay to write them, because it's what you like to do."

Honoré looked up at her and sniffled. "Rea — "

But his thought was interrupted by the most violent tremor of them all. Everything around them seemed to dissolve into whiteness.

—

Marinette woke up in her room. She looked around for Tikki, who was also waking up. "What just happened?" Marinette asked.

"I think the world of the story broke apart because there wasn't anything left to hold it together. Do you still remember everything?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think Adrian still remembers?"

"Maybe. I should probably call him to make sure."

Marinette reached for the phone, but Tikki stopped her. "I've just had a thought: what if Cat Noir isn't really Adrien?"

"What do you mean, Tikki?"

"Well, I'm just spit-balling here, but Honoré got a bunch of details wrong; Who's to say he didn't get that one wrong, too? Or maybe he somehow looked into your subconscious and took the person he found would make his story work best?"

"I don't know how much sense that makes."

"I said I was spit-balling."

Marinette looked at her phone, torn.

And then she turned it off.