note: I ditched the prompt for the last chapter in favor of listening to Hamilton's Helpless on repeat. Picture: Adrien singing the lines as he looks at Marinette with adoring eyes.
Chat waits for almost an hour, but Ladybug never shows up for patrol. Instead, it's Marinette that steps out from the shadows of the Fontaine Du Palmier. Even in the dim glow of the streetlights, her puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks call to Chat like a beacon. Heart sinking, he drops down from the top of the monument to land a few paces away.
The moment he touches the ground, Marinette bursts into fresh tears.
"Mon minou," she chokes out, "I need to tell you something."
—
—
"I'm s-sorry," Marinette cries. "I should have told you the second I figured it out."
Adrien's face is inscrutable, and all of a sudden he is as untouchable to Marinette as he was a few short weeks ago.
She'd lost him. Not just Adrien, but Chat—her partner, her best friend, the only one she'd trust with her life and finally her secrets.
Marinette crumples in the wake of the boy's silence, head bowing and body curving inwards with the force of her sobs. A pair of hands gently curl around her wrists, and through the spaces between her fingers she watches the light shift until Adrien's shadow closes the distance between them.
Nearer and nearer, until his warmth chases away the chill of the night.
Marinette is quiet when Adrien carefully pulls her hands away from her face. "Oh Marinette; my brave, wonderful lady. I should be the one apologizing."
A feathery lock of blond hair drifts across her nose as he dips his head and leans closer still: "I've known for almost half a year."
—
—
Adrien's smile shrinks as Marinette's red rimmed eyes grow wider and wider.
"Marinette? I'm sorry I didn't say anything...I know La—you didn't want us knowing each other's identities and I never had any proof. I...I didn't want to ambush you until you were ready to tell me."
Marinette makes a choking gasp, and Adrien hastily steps back, scanning her face in alarm.
"Marinette?"
"Y-You—You Chat Noir! "
It'd been a laugh, Adrien realizes, as relief buoys his heart and a familiar grin makes itself known. "You're calling a cat a cat, My Lady."
Marinette halfheartedly shoves at his chest, another laugh bubbling out of her. It reminds him of the happy fizz of a glass of champagne; Adrien hopes he'll get to hear it again and again.
"All this time! All this time and you just let me—" she pales. "But the flirting! You never stopped—!"
"Ah, that." Emboldened by Marinette's positive change of mood, Adrien moves closer and drinks in her soft sigh of surprise when he releases his transformation.
Suddenly shy but unwilling to look away, Adrien takes Marinette's hands in his, "That's because everything comes back to you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."
—
—
"I thought I was in love with Ladybug, but I was wrong. It was you. E-Every part of you. Your kindness, and your courage, and how you always try to do the right thing. You're a hero even when you aren't in the suit."
—
—
Marinette stares at Adrien dumbly as he speaks, her pulse a pounding roar in her ears. She thinks this might be another dream, except she's all too aware of every unnecessary detail: the out-of-order streetlight flickering in her peripheral vision, the sharp rock in her shoe, and Adrien's hands—clammy with nerves—in hers. Adrien had never had clammy hands in her dreams.
But this is so much better, because—
—
—
"You changed my life, Marinette. You change my life every single day."
—
—
He'd seen the truth of her, and still—
—
—
"It's always been you."
When Marinette finally kisses him, Adrien is more than just warmth and light and hazy shadow. She greedily loses herself in the softness of his hair, the solidity of his shoulders, the way she knows exactly where she ends and he begins and where they start to overlap. It's all so real that Marinette almost cries again.
When they separate, they're both breathless and grinning.
"Are you okay?" Adrien whispers.
Marinette looks at him: her boy, her cat. Says, "Never better."
She leans in again.
fin
note: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed what is essential tooth-rotting fluff with a dash of angst.
