.

[Eye Contact]

Despite having been prepared for this day for two weeks, Marinette launched herself out of bed the instant her eyes fluttered open, skidding on a stray bobbin on her way to the Serious Yet Lovely™ dress she'd laid out on her vanity the night before. It wasn't until she was brushing her teeth while simultaneously trying to put the dress on that her sleep-addled brain remembered the photoshoot wasn't until 11:00am. She leaned out of the bathroom to glance at the oven clock.

6:41am.

She wilted. The toothbrush fell out of her mouth.

At any rate, she had a bit of time to slow down and breathe deeply as she mentally prepared herself for the day. The only last minute change she made to her methodical plan was to take off the pink flats she'd picked to match her grey sundress (a modest flowy number with flowy sleeves to match) and replace them with her black converse shoes. Sneakers with a dress wasn't normally her style, but today, it just felt right. Down on the street below her studio apartment, the cabby helped her stuff all her bags into the car, responding with amicable amusement when she frantically reminded him to lay them all perfectly straight or her life was over. With all the garment bags laid out flat or hung up over the back seat, Marinette slid into the front, careful to keep her dress from wrinkling up underneath her.

"Big day?" the young driver asked, his eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Oh yes," Marinette breathed. Hell yes. She felt like she was going to pass out from the excitement. "I'm sorry, I'm normally not this fussy."

All the way over to the address she'd been emailed two weeks ago, Marinette stared at the succulents and wildflowers she'd embroidered onto the sides of her shoes, complete with her usual hidden signature near each heel. Nervous as she was, she knew that she deserved this. Her entire life's work so far had been leading up to this crossroad. The photographer's apartment was even ritzier than she'd imagined; although she only got a brief, dazzled glimpse of it all as his assistant answered the door and led her to the roof. Abstract paintings taller than her lined the walls in odd places, and sharp jagged architecture sculpted the interior into something of an Escher-style dreamland. The assistant pointed out an assortment of crackers and cheese and teacups on a coffee table next to the whitest couch Marinette had ever seen, where a few of the models were currently waiting. She urged Marinette to help herself as well, since the shoot would last for around three hours.

"As long as the planets are aligned," the assistant tacked on with a smirk.

If ever the planets were aligned, Marinette thought to herself, it's today.

Watching the photographer work was a learning experience in itself. While she'd had pictures of all her clothes taken before for her website, they'd been done for free by Alya, and the models had always been generous friends from her university classes. This was nothing like those fun afternoon hangouts, where Marinette's friends had pillaged her fridge and she'd fawned over how beautiful they all looked in her clothes while Alya tried to figure out how to use her new DXL camera. This was the big league. When she'd first been approached by Converse to clothe their models in an upcoming ad, she'd understood that it was a relatively small job by the industry's standards. It was like being asked to play a song at a wedding. It didn't mean she was a star; it was just a one time deal. Still, it was the biggest player she'd ever been approached by, and something in her gut told her that this was a turning point for her tiny unassuming shop. It was publicity. And they were paying her.

At first she'd been surprised to learn that the photoshoot would be at the photographer's own apartment. Dennis McCorkle was his name, and once Marinette stepped out onto the rooftop terrace, she was no longer surprised. This place was a garden utopia. Lush bushes dotted with exotic breeds of flowers poured out of every surface, and against the northern end stood a picket fence archway threaded with vines. With the unmarred cerulean sky serving as a background, the set was flawless. It could have been a digitally rendered painting, and Mari could have cried at the perfection of it all.

But after she got the models into the clothes she'd selected using the size chart the Converse rep sent her, and the shoot began, the day took a definitive nosedive. Dennis was a bonafide sweetheart, but the models…

It wasn't that they sucked. Or were mean. (Well, besides that one blonde girl that kept snapping at everyone between takes.) They all seemed talented, but didn't seem to click with each other. Unfortunately, Converse ads were almost never solo modeling ventures. The group photos came firstㅡwherein Dennis herded all five models into cute, wacky setups around the terrace. But only twenty minutes in they fell to bickering, and soon Dennis split them into smaller groups, where the chemistry was heinously out of whack, obvious even to Marinette who was by no means a photographer. The young designer groaned at every little mistake, running in every once in awhile to adjust a collar or reroll a sleeve after the models had finished rolling their eyes at one another's slip-ups.

About two grueling hours in, Dennis gave three of the models the greenlight to take off, irritated at the lack of motivation or cohesion and pinning all his hopes on the remaining two, who he was more familiar with: a tall muscled guy wearing a jacket/hat combo that she'd slaved over for months to perfect, and the loudmouthed blonde wearing an off the shoulder blouse and some ripped jeans from Marinette's earliest collection.

But it was clear even this last resort was not working. Another half hour of forced shots later, the guy stepped on the girl's foot and she swore loudly, shoving him so hard he almost knocked over the archway.

"God dammit, Chloe," Jean spat. "It was an accident!"

Chloe was the lanky blonde, her hair done up in a ponytail so tight that it was no wonder she had been pissy all morning, and she'd made sure they all knew how little she wanted to be here from the start. The two models fell to bickering for the umpteenth time, and Dennis lowered his camera, turning to Marinette to mirror her exasperation and disdain.

He swiped a hand through his curly salt and pepper hair. "Fun in the sun, eh?" Dennis cackled to Marinette in his thick irish accent. "Bummer this had to be your first day on a big set, dear."

Just then, the pencil skirt assistant reemerged onto the terrace and leaned in to whisper something in Dennis's ear.

"Well, tell them this is a closed set," Dennis snapped quietly. "They can give Chloe her coffee after we're done shooting."

After a moment of internal deliberation, the assistant leaned back in and whispered two short words. They were too soft for Marinette to hear, but she watched with fascination as Dennis's tired eyes lit up with fresh energy, as if he'd just downed a triple shot espresso.

"Is that right?" he trilled. "Why didn't you say so in the first place? Take five!" he shouted to everyone, abruptly ending the two models' heated argument.

"Again?" Jean complained. "You've gotta beㅡ" He watched with gobsmacked incredulity as Chloe sat down on the ledge beneath the archway and immediately pulled out her phone to text someone. "Okay," he seethed. "That's it. I'm through! We've been here two hours and we're not even halfway done. You are insufferable, Chloe! This is the absolute last time I'm working with your spoiled ass."

"No, no!" Marinette shouted, pushing past the studio lights onto the set to intercept him. "Please, I really need this to work out and it won't if you leave. We'll just hurry through the last hour, okay?" But he brushed straight past her with an indignant huff. Nothing else she said was to any avail and so, fighting back tears, Marinette retreated to the wooden bench where she'd set up camp since arriving and slumped forward to cradle her head in her hands. Marinette's dream shoot had started out in the clouds but immediately spiralled down into flaming wreckage. Would the whole thing be scrapped? Was her dream in shambles?

"Sorry Dennis," Jean shrugged.

Dennis only glowered at him as he passed. "That's fine," he chirped back. "I have a perfectly timed replacement." Jean gave him a confused eyebrow quirk, but understood when he opened the door to the staircase that led back downstairs.

Coffee in one hand and a dog-eared book in the other, Adrien Agreste waved as best he could manage, giving Jean a genial smile. He was pretty sure he remembered working with this guy at some point, though he couldn't remember his name.

Jean only rolled his eyes, recognizing Adrien straight away. "Great," he sassed, and nudged past Adrien onto the staircase. "Have fun with the self-appointed queen of Paris."

Adrien watched him go, torn between confusion and annoyance. What was all that? Before he could locate Chloe to give her the coffee she'd begged for over the course of fifteen texts when she'd realized he was in the vicinity of Dennis's uptown flat, he was assaulted by his old friend Dennis McCorkle.

"Adrien!" Dennis greeted him with the same old delight he always had, even though it had been a few years now since they'd last met. "Adrien, Adrien, here to save the day as usual. Please, salvage my photoshoot, will you? Show the plebeians how it's done."

Even though he was the shorter of the two, Dennis managed to get his arm around Adrien's broad shoulders in order to steer him across the garden toward the cameras and equipment. Hot coffee sloshed out of the foamy latte onto Adrien's hand. "Nice to see you too," he laughed. "Look, you know I love you but you also know that I quit years ago. I'm not interested in being in a shoot, Den. I'm just here to bring Chlo some coffee."

"Hey hot stuff," Chloe called out on cue without looking up from her page-long-and-still-growing text message. "Hang on, I'll be over to get that in a minute. You're the best!"

"I know," Dennis lamented over Adrien's retirement, ignoring the loudmouthed Chloe. "The tragedy; it keeps me up at night!"

Adrien flushed. For a once-prolific model, he'd never been very good at taking compliments. "Dennis."

"I joke," Dennis relented, and went on in a far less grandiose tone. "But please, kid, I'm asking this as a friend, not as a colleague. This girl hereㅡlook," he said, pointing to Marinette across the meandering garden where she sat dejected and alone on the bench, face in her hands. "This is her first big time shoot with a big name brand. She's got an amazing one man show thing going on with her own online clothes store, and she's just sweet as pie. But she's relatively unknown, see? So her whole trajectory is banking on this lucky deal with Converse working out. We're four models short now that Chloe scared off Jean, and two seconds from scrapping the whole shoot. You could be the difference between a lifetime of obscurity for this girl's brand, and a legacy as big as your father's."

The rest of the speech hadn't even been necessary; Adrien had been sold at "this girl here," when he'd spotted the devastated designer with her head in her hands at the end of the cobblestone walkway. Adrien frowned. They were almost to the bench where she sat now, and Adrien cleared his throat, setting his book and the coffee on the foldout work table next to her, a healthy distance from the cords and equipment.

"Hi," he offered warmly.

He hadn't modeled in almost five years now, and had never planned on it again. But this girl… The way she was drooped over on herself was breaking his heart. If it meant fixing that, Adrien would jump into shark tank wearing a suit of raw steaks. He could stomach one last photoshoot for her. Registering the two men now standing directly in front of her, the girl hastily wiped at her eyes, flattened her dress out a little on her lap, and then stoodㅡraising her head as she went with dignity.

Their eyes met, and time stopped.

You?

So startled was Marinette to see those eyes in this place that the disaster of a photoshoot might as well have been a long forgotten dream. Each acid green with a ring of yellow fire, and those familiar eyes blinked in abject shock. If Adrien had still been holding that coffee or his book he would have accidentally disintegrated them now in a blaze of fire. In the designer's eyes were two stained glass seas that he'd have recognized anywhere, even if he went colorblind. It may have felt like several strange aeons that they stood spellbound by each other in the golden afternoon, but in reality it only took one second for the spark to jump from the question mark to the periodㅡfor their madly fluttering hearts to find footing on a life-shattering truth.

You.

"Hi," Marinette echoedㅡhis greeting from an eternity ago. What else could she say?

Looking back and forth between the two awestruck young adults, Dennis couldn't control his glee. "What's all this, then?" he wondered. "Know each other already, do you?"

"What? No!" Marinette floundered, while Adrien jump-started back to life in order to gesture at the photographer in frantic denial.

Dennis didn't seem to buy that, so Adrien cleared his throat again (using his vocal chords was suddenly a monumental task) and offered a distraction. "I'll do the shoot."

Clapping his hands together under his chin, Dennis bounced in place. "Magnifique!" he cried. Then he rounded on Marinette, who was doing all she could to maintain composure and not succumb to an immediate heart attack. "You know who this is, right honey?" Marinette choked on her own saliva, the words Chat Noir halting at the tip of her tongue. "That's right," Dennis hummed, unaware of Marinette's ever-rising panic. "Who better to slingshot your brand into the spotlight than the son of Gabriel Agreste?"

Oh.

Oh.

Clumsily pushing her bangs out of her eyes, Marinette offered out one quivering hand to shake his. "Nice to meet you, Adrien," she said, but her soul was screaming out nice to meet you, Chat. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"Marinette," Adrien repeated, softly and meaningfully. Like a vow. Ladybug. When he took her hand he was so enraptured by the paralyzed look on her face that he forgot he was supposed to be shaking it. Instead he just held it, perhaps a tad too tightly, heart fighting free of his ribcage, stomach making friends with the street three stories below.

To the left, Dennis McCorkle stood with both hands still clasped piously beneath his chin, watching this fascinating interaction unfold with the shameless eyes of an artist. 'Never met before' his ass. This was the most sexually charged handshake he had ever seen in his entire life, and he spent his free nights at the sort of clubs where CEOs shook hands with strippers. "Oh my god," he groaned under his breath. "This is too perfect." Without turning around, he raised his voice to add, "Chloe, honey, you're fired."

"What?" The incredulous 'what' came from Marinette, Adrien, and Chloe all at once. "Are you serious?" Chloe screeched. "After all this time in the sun? I put on sunscreen for this, Dennis."

"Relax," Dennis soothed, "you'll still get paid. Just go take a big fat relaxing day off, okay? We're done here."

Marinette's jaw flapped, devastation returning full force. "But what aboutㅡ" She couldn't finish, as Dennis took her by the hand and begun to tug her unceremoniously across the rooftop toward the staircase. "Where are we going? What is happening?"

"Shh, Mari, just follow me to makeup. We're saving your photoshoot, that's what we're doing."

"Makeup?" Marinette shrieked, and in his place by the bench Adrien had to clutch his heart. Holy shit, it was seriously her. He wasn't imagining things. It was her. "Nooo," Mari protested, "no no no, not me, what are you talking about? I can't!"

"I'm talking about you and Adrien and that instant chemistry," he hummed over his shoulder at her. "My horoscope said I'd have a meeting with lady luck today. Normally it's all bullshit, but now? Heh! I'm starting to wonder, y'know?"

"You don't understand," Marinette whined. "I can't." She knew she sounded like a child, but the prospect of going through with what Dennis was suggesting was absolutely terrifying. Modeling with a professional for a professional photographer? Her nerves could probably (maybe) handle that on a good day. After all, she'd modeled more than a few of her own pieces for her website. Modeling with Chat Noir two seconds after accidentally discovering his civilian identity? Fuck that all the way to China. She wouldn't survive. So reluctant was she to follow Dennis back into the apartment that she almost fell over backwards when he let go of her hand.

"Listen up," Dennis barked at her, and Marinette jumped in her skin. Even throughout the frustration of the shoot with the models' constant arguing, she'd never seen him look so serious as he did in this moment. "I am the photographer and what is happening right now is magic. You will learn as you progress in this industry, you sweet summer child, that you do not pass up these blue moons when they unravel before you like fresh woven silk. Look at you, you came so prepared." Examining the eyeliner wings off the corners of her eyes, he wrinkled his nose in appreciation. "You hardly need but a touch-up. Downstairs," he commanded, ripping the door open and pointing inside. "Now."

Marinette wilted under his ferocious gaze. Down the stairs she went.

Over by the work table, Chloe was sipping on her coffee and eyeing her flustered childhood friend with a degree of amusement. She'd never seen him act this way over a girl before. "You're seriously gonna have that designer model her own clothes?" she asked as Dennis returned.

"Are you kidding?" Dennis deadpanned at her, dropping to his knees to sift through the piles of shoes Converse had sent over, looking for Adrien's size. "I'm pretty sure the sparks were hitting you way over by the arch, Chloe. You can't tell me you didn't get a little singed. Perfect, I thought I saw a size eleven in here. The red does so nicely against the rich green background." He lifted a crisp, fresh off the conveyer belt pair of shoes from the bottom, too engrossed in his task to see how close Adrien's complexion had come in the meantime to matching the firetruck shade that Dennis had selected. "Besides," Dennis tacked on, "the two o' you look like frickin' Lannisters. It's in poor taste."

"That's fair," Chloe laughed, and reached over to ruffle Adrien's hair. The 'twins' thing had been a running joke between them since they were kids and on more than one occasion they'd managed to convince people of its veracity. Their record was with another photographer named Fionaㅡas far as they knew, she still believed it to this day.

"Oi, hands off the merchandise," Dennis scolded, shooing away Chloe as he handed Adrien the shoes he would wear for the duration of the photoshoot. "Now go trade off with Marinette so she can pick out your clothes."

They passed each other on the stairs as he descended and she drifted back up. Don't look, Marinette thought, but in the end there was nothing she could do to stop herself. Something flickered between them when they caught each other's eyes. Something sharp and unspoken. And then it passed, and Adrien sat numb on a stool in the kitchen as the makeup artist danced around him, and Marinette stood in front of the rack that housed the clothes she'd brought for the other models, trying to decide which ensemble would fit Chat Noir.

Chat Noir, the son of Gabriel Agreste.

Holy fucking shit. She had to sit down for a moment, abandoning the clothes rack as it all washed over her afresh. How had she never seen him before? She'd read his name a thousand times, in various biographies about her personal hero, the head of the largest fashion empire in modern France. If she'd taken just a single moment's interest in the models that were wearing the clothes she so desperately devoured like the growing artist she was, perhaps she'd have realized years ago. Perhaps she could have given up on her career way back then so as to avoid the natural disaster opening beneath her feet like a bottomless pit.

"Um… Are those for me?"

Marinette snapped to attention. Adrien was standing in front of her at a cautionary distance, avoiding her eyes, one hand half-covering his face in derelict confusion. Honestly, what was he supposed to do in this situation? He was playing with hellfire here but he wasn't about to just leave her on her own. It was his job to protect her; that's what he'd always done and that's what he'd always do, even now that everything was about to change. And everything would change. He knew, as he took his clothes behind the foldout dividers, that nothing would ever be the same again, because the mysterious, elusive, love of his life was suddenly a name and a face and lord have mercy, she works in the same industry as me.

Yes, everything was about to change.

For better or for worse? Now that was the question burning holes in his lungs, and as he reemerged wearing her impressive designs, he thought he saw the same question hanging over her head like a thundercloud.

"This just keeps getting better and better," Dennis was saying. He was currently crouched at Marinette's feet, touching the intricate embroidery on her black Converse with a sparkle in his eye. "Don't bother with the ones I brought you from the pile. Leave these ones on, will you?"

"Butㅡbut I altered them." Marinette strained around backward to follow Dennis with her eyes as he crawled around to look at pattern on the other shoe. "Is that ok? This is an ad for their product."

"Trust me on this one," Dennis hummed. "Leave these on. Besides, you obviously picked them out to match this trout colored dress of yours. Lovely choice, honey, it'll clash marvelously with Adrien's red shoes and that button-up you put him in."

"Uh.. clash?"

"Don't ask questions," he replied cheerily.

It was strange, this tonal shift of his. Perhaps the Dennis from earlier was all show, and only now was she seeing the real Dennis at work. All too soon Adrien was finished changing and Dennis was ushering them both toward the archway, reminding them they only had about fifteen minutes left to work with before his next engagement was scheduled. "But if our luck continues," he chuckled, "we'll only need ten. Adrien, help her along, will you? Just freestyle. I've already hit all the major compositions Converse asked for, so we're free to do whatever."

Marinette stared so hard at Adrien's feet that if her eyes were lasers his shoes would probably be on fire. Hands clasped together in front of her, she eyed Dennis. "Freestyle?"

"It means we improvise," Adrien answered, one hand combing nervously through his hair. "Interact with the set, and uh… each other. Don't worry, I'll walk you through it, okay?" It would have been the polite thing to do if he'd really been a stranger. But it was Chat, and she was almost positive he knew she was Ladybug, so what was he really saying then? Trust me like always. She wondered then, would he come right out and air the obvious?

Marinette jumped as the camera flashed.

"Nice. Remember, this is Converse, Adrien," Dennis emphasized. "Cheesy young romance and all that coming of age junk. Heart eyes. You get it."

"Yeah, I get it," Adrien grumbled, and if Marinette wasn't mistaken he looked even more flustered than she was. "It helps if we talk," Adrien said to her. "Makes it look more natural." He quailed at the terrified look on her face, wondering if she would have preferred her big day go down in flames than he turn up in her life like this. "Or uhㅡwe don't have to talk," he floundered. Jesus, he hardly dared to hope he'd ever meet her, and he certainly never thought they'd have an audience if it ever happened. "Let's just walk, okay?" Timidly he took her hand, leading her away from the arch down one of the long winding paths through the flowers, trying to shut out the light of the camera flash as Dennis followed them.

"I'm sorry," Marinette squeaked. "I'm justㅡI'm nervous." That much was true, and it was all she could safely admit without exposing the scary truth. That she knew. That she knew he knew.

Peering sideways down at her, Adrien realized just how scared she actually was. And he had a feeling she wasn't camera shy. Guilt lapped at his heart; he was supposed to help her, not scare the shit out of her by accidentally ambushing her on the biggest day of her career. She'd been gushing to him for weeks about this (in that vague, nonspecific way they talked about their personal lives) on their patrols and now he had been handed a golden chance to help her not only in the battlefield but in her personal life as well. He would not squander it. Time to take a huge gamble.

He stopped at the far end of the terrace, where the rooftop ended with a sheer drop to the street below and the wealthy penthouse suites level with them across the way stood as a backdrop, the sound of smooth French jazz drifting out from an open doorway on the balcony halfway up the parallel building. Adrien turned to Ladybug (Marinette, he thought incredulously) and rested his hands gently on her shoulders. "Listen," he said quietly. The words were for her and no one else. "Ads like this are all about acting and getting into the moment. Just pretend that I'm... someone you love," he ended cryptically. He wouldn't pretend he wasn't hoping she still loved him as madly as he loved her. "Forget about the camera. It doesn't exist. It's just you andㅡand whoever you want me to be."

That finally drew Marinette's eyes from their grip on his shoes. She peeked up at him with a slight furrow in her brow. A burning question. She knows it's me, he realized. Adrien's mouth went dry and the rest of his pep talk fell out the back of his head.

"Magnifique!" Dennis crowed for the second time that afternoon, and the camera flashed thrice in quick succession. "Now kiss her."

"Dennis!" Adrien snapped, heart going wild, though more from that intense moment of eye contact than from Dennis's blunt directions. He'd always been fairly sure that Plagg was going to be the one to get him killed, but now, he was starting to think the words 'eye contact' would end up somewhere on his headstone. "It's her first shoot!"

"I-it's okay," Marinette managed. "If Dennis says so, then who am I to turn up my nose?" She tried to laugh off the nerves. Despite the multifaceted disaster of this rendezvous, she did really need this shoot to work out, and she wasn't about to argue with the accomplished photographer just because she had the world's most complicated history with the model in question. She'd kissed him before. She could do it one more time without opening the floodgates, right?

Right?

As he turned back toward her with softened eyes, he wondered what was going through her head. What he wouldn't give to be alone with her right now. "If you say so," he said. "Just remember…" He brushed her hair from her face, the other hand coming to rest at her hip closest to Dennis. "Forget about the camera."

Done and done. When his nose brushed hers she would have been hard pressed to even remember her own name. She rose onto her toes, dress flapping in the high summer breeze. His bangs tickled her forehead and she closed her eyes, thinking of the last time they kissedㅡalmost four years ago. They were so young then, and naive, and oh so stupid… Her hands came to rest on his chest and he sighed, thinking of the exact same thing she was, his breath caressing her skin far more gently than any breeze.

Their lips had almost connected when the camera abruptly stopped flashing.

"Okay, that's a wrap," Dennis called out. "That's all I need, kids." They untangled themselves with comic ineptitude, with limbs carved of molasses. Adrien couldn't help glaring at Dennis. He knew the man well, and he knew when he was being purposely screwed with. But Dennis pretended not to notice.

"Is that really it?" Marinette wondered. It can't have been more than eight or nine minutes since Adrien emerged from behind the dividers.

"Great, are you done?" Chloe shouted, and Adrien was surprised to realize that Chloe had never actually left, having instead taken up residence on Marinette's workbench with her coffee. "Nathalie is blowing up my phone looking for you."

Adrien pulled his sleeve up to check his watch, and hit Marinette with an apologetic gaze. "Looks like I'm late," he laughed. He held his hand out tentatively before taking leave of the rooftop. "It was nice to meet you, Marinette."

She shook it silently.

Once he was gone and Marinette was left to sort through her emotions and gather her supplies, Chloe sauntered by to tower over her (goodness, she was tall) and fold her arms with an odd expression that was very different from the resting bitchface Marinette had come to know so well over the last few hours. Amusement and pity fought for control of her facial muscles. "Don't even think about it," Chloe said.

Marinette struggled to avoid her, moving this way and that to continue packing up her things. "About what?" she replied absently.

"Him." She said it while staring at her nails. Honestly, the people next door could have seen the hopes in the young designer's eyes. Chloe wasn't in the business of doling out charity for the poor and downtrodden, but she wasn't cruel. It felt cruel to leave without saying anything.

"Him?" Marinette choked, almost dropping the garment bag she was currently stuffing a dress into. How transparent was she? Was it seriously that obvious? "Come on, I don't even know him!" she laughed nervously. That's right, Marinette, play it off. Just play it off. "Why?" she wondered suddenly, a horrific thought occurring to her. "Are you dating?" No, I said play it off, you idiot!

"What?" Chloe answered, her lip curling in surprise and bemusement. "No," she laughed; a short derisive bark. It occurred to Marinette that this must be Chat's imfamous best friend. "No way. Adrien doesn't date, that's why I'm saying this. Like, at all," she emphasized. "Anyone. Ever. So you should spare yourself the heartache and just forget about him. Been there, cried over that, all that jazz. That guy's heart is a closed door. You ask me, I'm pretty sure he's had a secret lover of some kind hidden away from the world for like ten years."

"Oh," she said, and it was all she could do to keep the tears that had just sprung into her eyes from breaking free. She had just spotted Adrien on the street below, and as she watched him wave down a taxi he paused and looked up. Right at her.

"Secret lover," Chloe echoed at her side, waving down at Adrien. A taxi screeched to a stop in front of him and Adrien hesitated with one hand on the door handle before waving back.

Marinette's hand went to her heart, unbidden.

It's me.

.

.

I know the whole 'Marinette gets roped into a shoot with Adrien' thing is kind of a trope in this fandom, but by jove I needed it. Forgive me. Also, yeah I sort of kidnapped Chloe and put her somewhere else for this fic. She's just a model here and not the mayor's daughter.

EYYY are you starting to wonder what the hecking heck is up with Lady and Chat's complicated history? Great, me too! I mean, uh, buckle up for the next installment. The mystery unfolds… (Also, tentatively, this fic will be around 16 chapters. Longest fic I've ever embarked on so wish me luck and give me encouragement if you want more.)

wink wonk ;)