Okay, soooo this was the first oneshot I wrote after the initial one, Secrets Secrets. Because I wanted an opposite scenario where Chat is hurt…but I kind of took it a bit further. Originally this was pre-reveal, but I felt it worked better after.
Set: About 6 months after the reveal, 17/18 years old.
The akuma had to have been some kind of fisherman, given his outfit of tall boots, ratty raincoat, and—oh yeah, the huge ass harpoon he kept shooting at them.
"This is getting tiring," Ladybug admitted, leaning heavily against him behind a chimney.
"Early morning, My Lady?" Chat murmured down at her before peeking around the bricks.
"More like late night. I've been going since I got up for school yesterday."
Chat hummed in response, but his mind was elsewhere. She'd been off for most of this fight, sluggish and lethargic. He'd pulled her out of some close calls already. It wasn't like they hadn't had their off days over the last two and a half years of fighting, but usually it was him who was off his game.
"We need to get him in an open area and distracted," he thought aloud.
"The courtyard in the center of the park," she mumbled. "With the huge fountain in the center."
"Alright," he nodded, "let's go."
Everything was typical, usual. Make a plan, execute plan. Take down the akuma. Right? They planned to get him out in the open, where they had a better field of view and could keep an eye on a potentially lethal akuma.
Chat let out an irritated breath and extended his baton just in time to jab into the back of Ladybug's knee. It buckled beneath her, dropping her head low enough that the harpoon missed her.
"Focus, My Lady," he reminded, helping her up quickly.
"Sorry," she sighed.
"C'mon. We can do this."
"And then naps."
"And then naps," he agreed with a chuckle.
"Going for the gun," she breathed before launching forward before he could stop her. She was running in without a plan.
Chat let out an involuntary breath, a force knocking him back on his feet a few paces. His eyes connected with Ladybug's and he frowned. Why were they so wide, he wondered. She looked terrified, but the akuma was behind her. She said she was going for his gun, why did she stop? His eyes met her deep blue ones and he tried to warn her, remind her of the danger lurking just behind her.
Chat, he saw her mouth soundlessly before flying across the vast space that separated them, ignoring the akuma hot on her tail.
He tried to tell her that he was fine, he was okay, but no words left his lips, only a choked breath. Chat looked down at himself, where Ladybug had been staring, and blinked at the sight of the harpoon protruding from just above his right hip.
The pain was as instantaneous as the realization then, and he dropped to his knees, hands moving to encircle the metal pole. It was slippery, and he shakily pulled a hand away to see his own blood glistening wetly on his glove.
Shit, this was bad. This was bad.
"Chat, oh my god, oh my god," He reached out and pushed Ladybug back as she dropped to a crouch in front of him, but his hand slipped right off her shoulder and he nearly lost his balance on his knees.
"Go," he managed through strangled breaths. "Finish it."
"I can't—Chat—I—you—" Ladybug was nearly in tears now, watching him struggling to focus, the pain evident on his face. He'd never made that face before, he'd never been that pale. It was terrifying. What a day for Chloe to be out of the country. And there was no longer any time to get a miraculous to Alya or Nino…
"The only way to help me," Chat panted, pulling at the harpoon. A strangled grunt forced past his lips and he released it. "Purify the akuma. Turn things back."
She stood next him, moving to push him out of the way of another attack. He let out a shout when they hit the ground together in a tangle lump, and she immediately moved off of him. "I'm sorry!" she cried, turning away from him as she spun her yo-yo wildly in front of them to deflect any further attacks.
Chat let out another pained yell and Ladybug whipped around to see him gripping the harpoon with both hands again, still attempting to pull it out.
"Stop!" she commanded, noticing the green glow beginning to flicker around the wound. "You're going to transform back if you keep it up, just stop! I'll get the gun and purify the akuma—"
"Then go," Chat ground out between clenched teeth, hands on the ground in front of him as he breathed heavily. Blood was dripping to the pavement now, and Ladybug felt her blood running cold, adrenaline coursing through her blood and fear beginning to take over.
Her footsteps pounded away, or maybe that was his heart in his own ears. His vision was darkening, and he blinked a few times and tried his hardest to focus on the dirt in front of his face. Was this how it was going to end? Numb and cold, to a really, really stupid akuma? Deep sea fisherman.
If he could just get the thing out of him…he could help his Ladybug finish it off.
Chat pressed his forehead into the ground, curling around the harpoon painfully.
Ladybug ripped her gaze away from Chat completely, knowing if she didn't she'd turn back to him instead of trying to finish off the akuma. The faster she could do that, the faster she could use her Miraculous Ladybug to turn everything back.
But would she this time? Last time she'd been injured, she couldn't heal the wound…what if she couldn't…
"He has always been your weakness," the akuma hissed with a smirk before he lifted his gun towards Chat Noir, who was trying to push himself off the ground.
She didn't even have time to scream. She didn't have time to think, and she reacted too slow to stop the harpoon from launching towards Chat Noir.
But she did manage to knock it off its course, and it missed Chat by inches. Without wasting anymore time, Ladybug launched herself back towards Chat. She wrapped her free arm around his shoulders and tried with all her heart to ignore his yell of pain as she jerked them out of the park and in between buildings on the neighboring roads.
"I'm sorry," she whispered with a horrified sob as she saw the bleeding increase. He was dripping onto the alley ground, his breathing heavier. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what to do." She dropped to her knees in the entrance to the alley. Chat Noir gripped the bricks next to him tightly, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"I can't do this, I can't do this," she chanted, pacing back and forth in front of him. "What am I supposed to do? I can't do this without you—"
"Ladybug," Chat breathed, trying and failing once again to get to his feet.
"—I might have time to get help from Rena or Carapace if I go right now, but what if I can't even turn everything back and—"
"Marinette." The yell left him breathless, but it did its job, and Ladybug was immediately on her knees in front of him, wishing she could transform back just to use her jacket to stop the bleeding.
"I'm sorry," she cried, "this is all my fault, Chat, I'm sorry."
"Stop," he shook his head before gnashing his teeth and tossing his head back against the bricks.
"Chat, don't," she cried when she noticed him trying to tug at the harpoon again.
"Ladybug—" Alya froze over Ladybug's shoulder at the sight of an impaled Chat Noir. "Oh, my god," she breathed in horror, dropping her phone.
"Alya, no!" Ladybug snapped moving to stand between her and Chat. "I can't deal with this right now! You need to run, please."
"LB," Chat panted, gripping the harpoon again.
"No! Don't touch it!" Alya commanded, crossing the short distance from the street to where Chat was sitting against the brick wall on his side. He had a hand in the air, and Alya knew what he was about to do before Ladybug did.
"Cataclysm!"
"No!" Ladybug screeched as his hand landed on the pole, quickly turning it to dust. The reaction was almost instantaneous. As soon as the harpoon disintegrated, the green light flared up from the wound and Chat Noir changed back into Adrien.
Plagg landed in his lap and Ladybug dove to check the little kwami for wounds to match Adrien's, but found none.
"Oh, my god," Alya gasped once before it turned into a chant. "Adrien?"
Adrien twisted weakly so that his back was pressed into the bricks, and his eyes fluttered shut.
"Adrien, no." Ladybug straddled him and lifted his chin so their eyes could meet. "Look at me."
"Six months ago," he started between breaths.
"Stop talking, Adrien," Alya demanded, coming up to Ladybug's shoulder and quickly stripping down to her tank top so she could press her t-shirt into the now-gaping wound.
"Six months ago, I asked you," Adrien pressed on, ignoring them both, "what you would do if I was hurt, and you said you would leave me to do what had to be done."
"Please don't ask me…"
Adrien held Ladybug's eyes with his own. "You have to go," he mumbled. "I'm…asking you…to leave me."
"You guessed right, I don't want to go," she whispered quickly, cupping both his cheeks in her hands. "I need to get you help."
"Help him by purifying the akuma," Alya interjected, placing a hand on Ladybug's shoulder. "I'm here now, Ladybug, I'll call an ambulance and get him help until you're finished."
"I—"
"We don't have time for you to have a breakdown right now!" Alya snapped, reaching out and slapping Ladybug across the cheek. "Get it together! You've fought tons of akuma without Chat, you can do it one more time."
Ladybug sucked in a breath and straightened, a new resolve boiling her veins. She leaned down to place a kiss to his cheek, lingering close for a moment. "I promise, I'll fix everything."
"That's my girl," Adrien sighed quietly as Ladybug took off towards the screaming in the street.
"You have so much to explain," Alya grumbled as she scrambled across the ground for her phone with its new cracked screen. She dialed an ambulance with one hand, leaning her weight onto Adrien's abdomen with the other.
Adrien felt so tired and numb now as the adrenaline was wearing off. He couldn't hear Ladybug fighting anymore. He couldn't sleep until he knew it was over. This was such a stupid way to go. Such a dumb akuma.
"Don't you dare go to sleep on me, Adrien Agreste," Alya snapped, poking him in the cheek with her phone. "The ambulance is coming, I can hear it. And your girlfriend isn't picking up."
Adrien spluttered a watery laugh that turned into coughing. "You are such a bad journalist sometimes," he sighed, thoroughly amused.
"Why? Because I didn't know for almost three years that you were Chat Noir?" she accused, but her tone was light.
"That's half of it," he chuckled, then winced as she shifted on her knees and the pressure she was applying changed. He let out a harsh and shaky breath as the pain returned to a distant throb again.
"Hey," Alya said quickly, "look at me."
"I'm awake," he murmured, moving to sit up straighter but he couldn't summon the strength in his arms. His hands were wet, he realized, and lifted them out of the puddle beneath him to look at his hands. They were dark and glistening. Red smeared the pale surfaces, and he stared in confusion for a second before he realized slowly that they were coated in his blood.
"Don't go to sleep," Alya was saying when he dropped his hands next to his sides. "You have to tell me how long you two have known about each other."
"Me and Marinette?" he asked drowsily.
Alya frowned. "No, you and Ladybug."
"Since she got hurt," he breathed, fighting to keep his eyes focused on her face. "Months ago."
"Jesus," Alya choked out, readjusting the wad of cloth, trying in vain to find a section that wasn't already seeping with blood. "You guys should just let me hang onto the necklace. I could have come help. This wouldn't have happened."
That woke Adrien up a little and he started laughing weakly. "Of course you're Rena Rouge," he laughed. "Of course she would pick you. Nino is Carapace, isn't he?"
"You didn't know?" Alya was genuinely surprised, to be honest. "It's been us for years."
Adrien tried to shake his head in lieu of a verbal response. "She wanted identities kept secret."
"Well, it's a little late for that," Alya mumbled before she noticed Adrien's eyes glazing over. "No, no, don't go to sleep." She reached up and nudged his cheek, smearing him with his own blood. She looked down to see the blood pooling between her fingers again. "You just had to Cataclysm the harpoon, didn't you?"
"She's fighting alone," Adrien whispered, lips barely moving. "I need to help her."
"No, Ladybug is fine," Alya insisted, turning her head when she heard the sirens wailing strong enough that she had to raise her voice. "Think about Marinette, okay?"
"I am…"
The panic Alya had been fighting back burst through her walls like a dam when Adrien stopped responding. "Help him, help him" she begged as a paramedic gripped her shoulder and moved to replace her at Adrien's side. "He got impaled by the akuma, but I'm not sure how bad—" She noticed the little black creature in his lap, remembering how it had appeared as his transformation had vanished, and she dove to pick it up before she could be completely ripped from his side.
Another paramedic pulled her away and began calmly but quickly shooting her questions, only half of which she knew the answers to. Allergies? Feathers, but she wasn't sure beyond that. His families phone numbers? She had his girlfriends, but not his father's.
She let out a breath as a gurney was quickly rushed past her, and then back with Adrien strapped in. She was amazed at how quickly they had loaded him up and gotten him into the ambulance.
"You coming?" one paramedic called to her from the back of the ambulance, and she didn't need to be asked twice. She jumped up into the back, taking a seat out of the way of the other two working on getting an IV into the back of Adrien's hand. "Help keep him awake for the time being."
"Adrien," one paramedic was saying. "Gotta keep your eyes open, alright? You know, you're much better looking in person. Those billboards don't do your eyes justice."
Alya spluttered a giggle at that. "His girlfriend has been saying the same thing for years."
"Oh?" the paramedic hummed, attaching a blood pressure cuff to Adrien's arm. "Tell me about your girlfriend, if she's anything like you I'll bet she's gorgeous as hell. Model?"
"Designer," Adrien sighed. "Savior of Paris."
Alya smiled and reached out to squeeze Adrien's knee. "It feels like that sometimes, doesn't it. She always does her best to help everyone around her."
"BPs way too low," one paramedic murmured to another.
"He going into shock?"
"Probably, only surprised he held it off this long."
"Heart rate dipping."
"Adrien?"
Alya looked away from the three trying to keep her friend alive right in front of her, down at the little black creature in her lap. It looked like a stuffed animal, but she could see its little chest rising and falling softly.
Alya squeezed her eyes shut against the measured demands of the paramedics…
-x-
"Adrien?"
He heard her frantic calls echoing down the hallway before he heard her feet pounding on the linoleum.
"Open the door for her so she doesn't run into it?" he asked Alya with a pleading grin from where he sat on the edge of the hospital bed, shirtless, as a nurse looked over him.
Alya wordlessly opened the door and flattened herself against the wall as the black-haired girl tore in and made straight for the blond. She froze in the middle of the room, though, when she noticed the nurse.
Alya quickly moved and laced her arm through her best friend's.
"Are you still hurt?" Marinette asked, and Alya looked up to see the girl was beginning to cry. "I know last time I couldn't—"
"He's fine," the nurse cut her off gently. "He's got a pretty nice bruise left over, but it's nothing we don't usually see after severe injuries from akuma attacks."
"This is typical?" she asked the nurse breathlessly, getting a nod in return.
The nurse turned back to Adrien, who was putting his shirt back down—a new, clean one, Marinette noted. Not the bloodied white one she'd seen him in when she left him in the alley.
"You might feel lingering fatigue, muscle aches, ghost pains," she explained quickly. "All normal. The damage might have reverted but anything your mind remembers of the incident is still a form of damage."
"Thanks," Adrien grinned, standing.
"Your father signed your discharge papers before he left, so you're free to go whenever you're ready."
As the nurse left, Adrien turned to the girls. "Ready?"
Marinette broke down right then, and Adrien jumped, looking towards Alya a little startled.
"Hey, I'm okay, I'm okay," he said, pulling her into his arms.
"I'll be outside," Alya whispered, quickly giving them the room as she shut the door behind herself.
"I'm sorry, Adrien, I almost got you killed," Marinette sobbed, gripping the back of his shirt tightly.
"We're a team Marinette," he murmured into her hair. "We'll adjust."
Marinette sucked in a shaky breath, trying to regain her composure. Adrien rocked them on their feet the way his mother used to do for him, and it seemed to help her breathing even out.
"We had too much on your plate. We'll stop doing joint patrols, cut back to maybe one joint patrol and one solo patrol each a week," he suggested.
Marinette pulled away and frowned at the implication. Was he trying to say she was becoming a liability? "We've never had this issue before—"
"Just until finals are over," he said softly, closing his eyes and dropping his forehead onto hers. He let out a sigh. "We've never had to juggle so much at once before."
Marinette pulled herself closer to him again, relishing the warmth of him against her. As soon as the red bugs had dissipated, she hadn't even stopped to make sure the man that had been the akuma was alright. Because her world was still not alright. She ignored the beeping in her ear until it was nearly too late.
The whole time it took her to get to the hospital that Alya had texted her, she wondered. Was the last kiss they shared that morning the last kiss she'd ever get from him? Was the last time they touched going to be when he was bleeding out in an alley?
"Let's go home," he suggested quietly. "I'm hungry and tired."
Marinette jolted then. "Where is Plagg?" she asked, realizing Tikki wasn't with her. She couldn't remember if Tikki had even followed her into the hospital or not. She hadn't paid attention, her mind was so focused on getting to Adrien and seeing with her own eyes that he was alright.
Adrien stepped away and picked up the wad that was his jacket off the bedside table carefully. "My dad brought me a change of clothes," he explained, carefully unraveling the cloth to see Plagg sleeping next to Tikki inside. "He hasn't woken up since."
"I didn't see any wound on him," Marinette said, running a finger gently over Plagg's forehead. "So I was more concerned about you."
"He'll be okay," Tikki said softly. "Just tired."
"We should go," Adrien said again, covering the pair up again with his jacket. "Alya is waiting in the hall."
"Oh my god, Alya saw," Marinette realized.
"I took care of it," Adrien waved her away, heading for the door.
"Took care of it how?" Marinette demanded flatly, stopping on her journey to leave the room behind Adrien.
He stopped when he heard her freeze and turned back around. "What?" And then he realized and rolled his eyes. "She doesn't know about you," he whispered, bending down and giving her a quick kiss. "Just me."
"Wait, Adrien!" Marinette whispered in a panic as he opened the door. "I have more questi—Alya!"
"Better?" she asked, uncrossing her arms and pushing off the wall she was leaning against across the hallway from Adrien's room.
Marinette grabbed Alya in a hug. "Thank you so much for helping him."
"I didn't do much," Alya said, cheeks turning pink. "The doctors and paramedics were the ones that kept him around until Ladybug fixed everything."
"Let me buy you lunch to say thanks at least," Adrien offered. "It's the least I can do, I don't know where I'd be right now without you."
"We don't know if Ladybug can bring back the dead," Marinette added seriously. Her arms moved to wrap around herself at the thought. "Really, you saved him."
"Alright, well, I have been craving that bistro on the Seine," Alya said with a small smirk.
Adrien checked the time on his phone. "Well, let's go now, we have an hour and a half before my dad is expecting me to be home so his own doctors can check me over."
"That's a little psycho," Alya commented as Adrien started leading the way. She latched onto Marinette's arm before hissing in her ear, "we need to talk."
Marinette's heart dropped. Alya couldn't keep a secret this big. Of course she couldn't.
That didn't last long…
-x-
"Meet me at the bakery for dinner?" Marinette asked when they'd finished lunch and walked Adrien back to his place. She saw Alya prepare to rip her away from Adrien to tell her whatever it was that she was itching to tell her, but she wasn't quite ready to part with Adrien yet.
But Alya smiled softly and conceded. "Alright. Text me when you're done here."
Marinette waved from the gate as Alya turned and headed away.
"She's going to spill, isn't she," Adrien muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"I think so," Marinette sighed.
"Well," Adrien sighed, "let's go get this over with so I can go lay down."
Marinette frowned up at him, but wrapped a hand around his arm and walked inside with him. Of course, his father was waiting for them in the foyer with an equally pencil-straight, no-nonsense looking man in a white coat.
"Dr. Baudelaire will evaluate you in the front parlor," Gabriel murmured in a tone Marinette had never heard him use before. His hand lifted and he gently brushed some of Adrien's blond hair from his eyes. It was short and intimate, but ended quickly as it had happened when his hand dropped to join the other behind his back. "We will speak at dinner. Will Marinette be joining us?"
Marinette pressed her lips against speaking out against being spoken about like she wasn't there, and let Adrien respond after his eyes flicked down to her.
"No, she has plans. She just wanted to make sure I got home alright."
Gabriel nodded once and gestured down the hall towards the parlor. "Give your parents my regards," Gabriel said to Marinette with a short nod as he took his leave back towards his office.
"Yes, Sir," she mumbled.
"Meet me upstairs." The whisper in her ear sent a chill down her spine and Adrien left a kiss on her cheek before following the doctor down the hall. She waited until she couldn't see him anymore before she moved and slowly made her way up the sprawling staircase and down the hallway towards his bedroom.
It was crazy. Half a year ago, the thought of waiting for Adrien in his bedroom, alone, would have had her heart pounding through her ribcage. Maybe it was the fact that she had run through every bit of adrenaline over the last couple of hours, or the fact she hadn't slept since the night before, but she was surprisingly calm.
Mindlessly, she found her way to his bed and perched herself on the end. Like a horror movie on repeat the fight played over and over in her head. Marinette ran her hands down her face as she analyzed every little thing that she'd done wrong that had ended in her partner nearly dying.
"I'm fine."
The voice made her jump from her skin, her hands flying away from her face to see Adrien entering the room.
"Two doctors now have said I'm fine," he bragged jocularly.
Adrien dropped back onto his bed and let out a loud sigh. He closed his eyes and almost immediately got silent. Marinette watched Adrien in wordlessly for a few moments, before slowly climbing onto the bed to sit next to Adrien. She bit her lip and nudged his shirt up over his hip where she'd been, just hours before, staring at a harpoon lodged there.
The skin was smooth and tan, just as it had been, but the blotchy purple bruise was a pretty big reminder that what had happened, had happened. The edges of the bruise the size of her fist were yellow and green, making it looks a week old rather than hours new. In the center where it was the worst, she could see a ring, roughly the size the harpoon had been. She traced it lightly with her fingertip.
Adrien flinched as her fingers touched him, a sharp pain shooting through him for half a second before it was gone and he realized he'd imagined it. Ghost pains, the nurse had called it. He blinked up at Marinette, who has jerked her hand back and was holding it to her chest and looking down at him apologetically.
"C'mere," he murmured, reaching up for her, whining her name when she didn't immediately lay down with him.
"Adrien," she sighed when he finally managed to pull her down next to him. "I am so sorry. This shouldn't have ever happened."
"We made it three years before it did," he tried, earning himself a dry look in return.
Marinette pulled herself out of his arms and sat up on her elbows to look down at him. "This is serious."
"I know," he said, sobering.
"This is completely my fault, and completely avoidable." Her anger was bubbling again, but at herself.
"We'll avoid it next time—"
"I already almost got you killed once, Adrien," Marinette snapped, jumping up from the bed.
"That's usually all it takes," Plagg chimed in lazily from his perch inside one of Adrien's trophies above the bed.
The pair glanced up to see an exhausted Plagg and concerned Tikki peeking over the edge down at them.
Marinette gasped and jumped up onto the bed to be eye-level with the kwami.
"Woah—hey, you're messing up my pillows."
Marinette ignored Adrien. "Plagg, oh my gosh, are you alright? I'm s—"
"No," Plagg whined, dropping down into the bowl of the trophy, where Marinette could see a little pillow now. "I had to listen to this already. And let me tell you, it only ever needs to happen twice."
"Plagg," Tikki warned sternly.
"Well, sometimes it happens more than once, and we lose a holder—"
"Plagg!" Tikki snapped loudly. Plagg only let out a groan, and Marinette twisted, dropping down onto Adrien's mountain of pillows. She dropped her face into her hands.
"Marinette—"
"Don't—"
Marinette jumped away from Adrien's touch, leaping off the bed again. This time, Tikki followed her.
"It happens, Marinette," she tried to soothe as Marinette hastily rubbed the tears from her cheeks. Adrien slid to the edge of the bed and rubbed his thighs with his hands. He felt useless, but he honestly didn't want to brush the situation off.
"We will figure it out," Adrien said slowly. "Like you said, it's avoidable."
Tikki nodded. "Adrien is fine."
"We got lucky," Marinette hissed.
"And let's not waste that." Adrien stood and took a step towards her, hands hovering above her arms. "We're adults. We can learn still, it's not illegal just because we're eighteen."
"You're eighteen," Marinette grumbled. "I've got a few months."
"Even better, small child," Adrien teased, wrapping his arms around her. "We will adjust."
Marinette huffed. "You keep saying that."
"And I'll keep saying it until you believe me," he murmured down to her. Marinette tilted her head back so their noses brushed. "You're not going to stop being Ladybug, and I have no intentions of ceasing my antics as Chat Noir. So really, we have no choice."
"I almost lost you today," she whispered, their lips brushing once, twice, a third time.
"You're never going to lose me." He dipped his head to capture her lips solidly and she pushed him back towards the bed.
"Promise?" she whispered as he spun them and bent her backwards, pushing her down gently into the mattress. Automatically, she scooted up so her legs weren't dangling off the end of the bed.
Adrien crawled until he was hovering over her. Her mind always short circuited around him, but over the last month or so it had gone to new levels as they explored their feelings and relationship. She couldn't help but focus on his leg between hers, the way their thighs brushed, how close they were.
"I promise," he breathed, and she didn't wait. Conjuring up all her courage, she gripped his collar and pulled him down to her. Satisfyingly his lips found hers. His body instinctively moved to get more comfortable pose and he curled around her. She twisted beneath him in response until they were both pressed together.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think of anything other than the image of him bleeding on the ground in an alley. Feeling daring, she flipped them over and he did exactly as she expected her partner would and moved to her neck without fighting her. They moved in sync and it still amazed her how well the worked together, in and out of the suits.
Marinette moved her hands from his chest and felt lower for the hem of his t-shirt. It needed to disappear. Adrien broke away from her at the request of her hands and reached behind him to jerk his shirt off by the back of the collar. Marinette bit her lip as she watched, the muscles so much more rewarding than she imagined they would be.
"This is hardly fair," Adrien breathed before flipping the tables. Marinette blinked and suddenly she was on her back again. "Do you always get what you want?"
Marinette sputtered a laugh as his lips returned to her neck. "If I got my way, we'd have been doing this years ago."
"Could you have handled this years ago."
"Probably not…" She reached down and looped her fingers through his beltloops. But the reaction came when he wrapped a leg around his thigh. He jumped in a way she hadn't anticipated, but she couldn't hold back the quick giggle.
"You need to go before we get too far," Adrien panted above her. He flicked a chunk of her bangs off her forehead. "Feel better?"
"A bit."
He smiled. "We just need to be more careful."
Marinette nodded slowly before frowning. "I was promised naps."
"Yeah, well, you decided making out with me was a better use of your time."
"It's always a better use of my time…"
Adrien grinned, but pulled away and plucked his shirt off the ground. "Well, you have a date with our lovely reporter tonight about a secret identity."
Marinette watched in a trance as Adrien pulled his shirt back on, eyes lingering on every single toned muscle as he did so.
He turned back to her and put his hands on his hips. "Oh, that reminds me. Rena Rouge and Carapace?"
Marinette rolled her eyes and sat up straighter to straighten out her skirt. "You promised."
"She told me."
Marinette stood with a sigh. "Is she really going to reveal three identities in one day?"
Adrien shrugged. "I was bound to find out sooner or later. To be fair, I think I panicked her a little."
Marinette raised a brow. "A little? You had to destroy the harpoon…"
"I wasn't thinking, and I'd bet anything you'd have done the same thing." She moved to her side and tapped her nose in such a Chat Noir way she giggled. She loved when Adrien felt so comfortable around her that his Chat came out.
"Let's not find out, okay?" she shot back with a hand on her hip.
"We can finish this later, I'm pretty sure Ladybug and Chat Noir usually patrol tonight, but I heard they were taking the night off. Chat Noir had a princess alone in a tower to woo." He looped a finger into the top hem of her skirt and pulled her towards him gently.
Marinette raised her eyebrows. "Oh?" she challenged in her most alluring voice as she pushed away and slung her bag over her shoulder, heading for the door. "I wonder if Chat knows that my parents are going to be out all night and he could stay the night if it just happened to get too late…"
"Don't toy with me," Adrien called after her.
Her laugh echoed down the hall as she headed out.
-x-
Alya was pacing around Marinette's room, much to her amusement. It wasn't too often that she saw her best friend this way.
"Just tell me, Alya," Marinette encouraged. "I promise not to be upset with you, whatever it is."
"I'm not worried you'll be upset with me," Alya exclaimed, throwing her arms out.
Marinette frowned. "Then why are you so worked up?"
"I think there's something going on between Adrien and Ladybug," she blurted out in a rush.
Marinette blinked a few times, and the realization hit her then that Alya wasn't trying to rat out Adrien as Chat Noir, but how she as Ladybug had acted towards Adrien in the alley, namely kissing him. "Oh yeah," she breathed, sobering a bit, before the amusement returned full force.
"Oh yeah?" Alya scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. Marinette began to laugh, and she couldn't stop. Huge, gasping laughs. "Girl, what is wrong with you?" Alya dropped down onto the bed next to her friend and pried her hands from her face. She immediately regretted telling Marinette when she saw the tears running down her face, but felt confusion at the huge grin also there.
Marinette sucked in air, and ran her hands across her cheeks. She looked down at the wetness and let out a final giggle. "Relief," she explained breathlessly. "I am so relieved."
"And I'm confused, Marinette," Alya said slowly. "I'm telling you Adrien might be seeing someone else behind your back—"
Marinette shook her head quickly. She grabbed Alya's hands in her own and hoped this wasn't about to be a mistake. "Alya, I have something I've wanted to tell you for a long time…"