A/N: Hi guys. I'm so sorry for the delay- writing two fanfics at once is definitely time consuming, and Dudley's Daughter ate up a lot of my time these past two weeks. But, I did manage to write a low-key fluff piece for your enjoyment and relaxation.
In light of publishing two stories today (whew!), I'm going to take a week off so I can come back refreshed with some more chapters for you all. Thank you so much for reading, as always. Your reviews continue to be a pleasure to read and respond to. See you in July, everyone.
Elementary: Alya, Chloe, and Adrien have a debate to find the biggest Ladybug fan, and Marinette is forced to participate. But what happens when she and Adrien start disclosing information that only Ladybug and Chat Noir know about each other? Idea by Amaezing.
As if chemistry class wasn't going to be fun enough, Marinette was now Chloe's lab partner.
To make matters even worse, by some stroke of luck, Alya had been paired with Adrien. Both Chloe and Marinette looked on in jealousy from across the bench the four of them now were expected to share.
Marinette gave Alya a desperate expression, but her friend simply made an apologetic face and tipped her head toward Nino, who sat with Sabrina in the front of the room. Alya's face said it all: Sorry, girl, but they're assigned. Just be glad you're not Nino's partner. He's hopelessly clumsy. As if to punctuate this point, Nino knocked over a beaker full of deionized water and it smashed to the floor. He ignored Sabrina's glare, looking embarrassed but not entirely surprised. Marinette glanced back to Alya in wordless, reluctant agreement.
"Well," said Adrien cheerfully, "looks like we're going to do some bonding over the next few weeks of labs."
They all put on their safety glasses, trying to ignore the pun while Chloe swooned. "I love it when you make puns. They're hilarious."
Marinette and Alya both pretended to throw up into their beakers when no one was looking.
"Uh…thanks," Adrien said, already distracted with attempting to set up their buret. "Do you need some help?" Alya asked him. "Nah, I'm okay," he said once it was secured in a vertical position. "We should try and do the calculations together though."
Marinette looked at Chloe to do the same, but the blonde was picking at her cuticles and surveying Adrien with falsely disinterested coolness. Who did she think she was fooling? Rolling her eyes, Marinette set up the buret and began calculating the doses for their titration. So much for shared labor, she thought. When she relayed her numbers to Chloe, Adrien perked up, looking pleased. "That's what I got, too. Maybe we're doing something right after all," he laughed. "You must really get chemistry."
She shrugged, feeling her cheeks turn pink. "I think it's interesting."
"Well, I'm glad we have chemistry together," Adrien said. Marinette could have sworn she saw him give her a wink, but before she could question it, he was bent over his notebook again, smiling. Running over the double meaning in her mind, she wondered if she was reading too much into it.
She had the strange feeling Adrien wasn't talking about elements.
Nino dropped another beaker, derailing her train of thought. She looked back at the lab instructions, but looked back up as she realized Chloe was talking.
"I was totally dreading this class," she simpered. "I hate chemistry. I was secretly hoping we'd have an akuma attack so I could avoid it. It's much more fun to watch Ladybug save the day."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of agree with you. I'm a huge Ladybug fan," Alya said, measuring out one of the clear liquids into a small flask. "I take every chance I get to update my blog."
"Please," Chloe scoffed. "Ladybug and I are really close. I don't need some blog to be her biggest fan." A small wrinkle appeared between Adrien's eyebrows as he frowned. "Define close," he challenged.
She stared at him, surprised at his tone. "We talk," she said vaguely. "Can you hand me that pipe thing?"
"You mean pipette?" asked Marinette. Chloe just shrugged dismissively. "Yeah, that. But it's true- I'm totally Ladybug's biggest fan. Her confidant. She saves me on, like, a weekly basis."
Alya and Adrien exchanged a look of skepticism. "Why do you think she has to save you so much?" he asked pointedly.
"Because she likes me and cares for my well-being."
Marinette and Adrien both stifled derisive laughs, and then looked up at each other in surprise.
"If you're Ladybug's confidant, what do you guys even talk about? I'll bet all her secrets are already on the Ladyblog," Alya said defiantly as she poured liquid into their buret. Marinette followed suit, making sure the thin glass tube was secure on its stand between herself and Chloe. She decided to only listen to the conversation, too afraid to contribute. Who knew what could happen? She might accidentally expose herself as Ladybug.
"She told me once that she hates puns," Chloe said. Adrien snorted, "Everyone knows that."
"Well, did you know that Ladybug is a historical figure? She's been around for centuries," Alya said smugly.
Chloe rolled her eyes. "Of course she hasn't. She told me she was school aged."
"What if she was lying?"
Adrien cleared his throat. "Guys, it's not that big a deal. Let Ladybug and Chat have their secrets. I mean, even I know some."
"Oh really?" Chloe put a hand on her hip. "Tell us, then."
"Ladybug's afraid of heights."
Marinette blinked. How did he know that? No one knows that except…Chat. But…that would mean…No. That is just not right. There has to be a more logical explanation.
"That's not true," scoffed Alya. "She runs across rooftops every single day."
"Because she has to," Marinette clarified. "Maybe not because she wants to. Besides, how could she keep up with Chat if she stayed on the ground? He needs her."
"Ooooh, don't get me started on Chat," sighed Chloe happily.
"I don't suppose you have secrets about him too," Alya snapped.
"Of course I do. How else would I know Chat obviously has a crush on Ladybug? Every time he rescues me, he's obviously looking for her out of the corner of his eye."
Adrien nearly dropped his flask. "It's not that obvious," he protested. He received three surprised stares, mumbled something indistinct, and dropped his pencil on the ground. As he bent to pick it up, Alya narrowed her eyes at Chloe. "Is that all you know?"
"No. Chat likes to hang out in the park when he does patrols."
"Do you know why?" she asked.
Chloe looked down, a nonverbal no. Alya smiled. "It's so that he can watch Ladybug patrol the rooftops. The park has the best vantage point to admire his crush from afar."
Adrien emerged from under the table, spluttering. "How do you know that?"
"Like I said, I care about my blog; it has the most accurate content and the best observations about our famous duo."
Chloe frowned. "That whole park thing just makes Chat seem like a sap."
"He is not a sap," Adrien protested, looking angry. Marinette looked down at her notes for a distraction. This conversation was getting difficult to handle.
"How would you know?" the other girls asked him.
"I happen to be friends with Chat Noir too," he said quietly. "I know things about him and Ladybug that you guys don't know."
They all raised their eyebrows. "Like what?" Marinette finally asked. Adrien and Chat were friends? Chat had never mentioned that to her.
"Well, Chat hates pickles. He's allergic to feathers, like me. He has a small crush on someone at his school, but he really likes Ladybug. He likes to sit on the rooftop of my house because he can see the best view of Paris that way – that's how we know each other. And, yesterday he told me he's had twelve near-death experiences in the past month. Does that sound like a sap to you?"
Chloe muttered something like, "Guess not," as everyone awkwardly turned back to their experiments. Marinette's head was swirling. She knew all those things about Chat already, but for a different reason. They were things Chat had confessed to her…in private, when they were alone at their favorite spot at the top of the Eiffel Tower. No one else could have known, but it was almost as if Adrien had been there…
Nope, no way. It was probably just a coincidence. Maybe Chat told Adrien about it later.
"Okay, well if he has a crush on two girls at once, does that mean he's a huge flirt? Maybe he's just leading Ladybug on. I've seen the way she looks at Chat," Chloe was saying. "She'd be crushed if she found out Chat was a player."
Marinette gasped audibly, and so did Adrien. This time, it was Alya who gave them a puzzled look – why were they reacting the same way to this news?
"That's not true, Chloe. Chat's not a player," Marinette confessed heatedly. "He said Ladybug was his only love – no matter who she is."
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. What had she done? That was supposed to be a major secret. Chat had told her on top of the tower that same night. In ordinary circumstances, she'd never have told anyone that kind of secret. But…she'd been so angry at what Chloe had implied that she'd lost her head. Although, maybe it was safe to tell in this case, simply to defend his honor.
When she looked up, Alya was looking at her like she'd just won the lottery and Adrien's mouth was hanging open in astonishment. Chloe looked upset at being shown up. "Whatever. Competing for who knows the most about them is stupid anyway." She threw up her hands in frustration and accidentally knocked the buret off its stand. The glassware fell to the tile floor between them with an earth-shattering crash. Nino turned in his seat, looking smug. Marinette knew what he was thinking – at least this destruction of school property wasn't his fault.
"Girls!" cried their teacher, hurrying forward. "Are you all right?"
"I'm injured," Chloe muttered stonily, showing everyone the small cuts on her arms and legs where the glass shards had sliced her exposed skin. The teacher sent her to the nurse immediately, then turned on Marinette. "I'm fine, I think," she said, and the teacher left her alone. Her lab grade would be postponed until she and Chloe could make it up another time, much to her chagrin. There was too little time to start over now.
In the aftermath, the bellicose nature of the group seemed to have subsided slightly. Adrien still had a shell-shocked look on his face, and kept staring at Marinette's eyes like they were the answer to the universe.
Maybe they were, but the last time she'd checked, they were just blue.
She packed up her materials and simply watched as Adrien and Alya completed their experiment, chatting carefully about anything but Ladybug and Chat Noir. After a few minutes, Adrien looked up at Marinette again, this time with concern. "Wait, you're bleeding," he said.
She looked down. A stray shard must have nicked her bare elbow – a thin, bright stream of blood trickled down onto her right wrist. She hadn't even noticed, but now that the injury was acknowledged, she felt the pain for the first time.
"Oh. Ouch."
"I have some band-aids in my locker, but we'd have to go get them…would you rather go to the nurse?"
"No, it's fine. I don't want to make a fuss. I've had worse," she smiled good-naturedly.
"I bet you have," he said as if he knew about all the scrapes and bruises she got as Ladybug. He was still giving her that look…thinking back to their discussion, there was a ghost of a thought blooming in her mind. Did he really know? Could he be…
They obtained a pass from the teacher, washed out the cut at the sink in the back of the classroom, and walked slowly to his locker, leaving Alya to clean up the lab bench. She seemed only too happy to let the two of them share a moment alone.
When they got to Adrien's locker, he turned to her and appraised her, sweeping some hair off his forehead. "You know, there is one thing about Ladybug that I found out without Chat's help."
"And what is that?"
"Ladybug smells like oranges and peppermint. It's from her shampoo. And it's always the same."
"Actually, it's ginger, not peppermint," she corrected him before she could stop herself. His eyes looked triumphant. "Aha," he said quietly. "I see…Ladybug."
And just like that, she was exposed. Adrien knew her identity.
There was something mischievous in his expression that made her pause before panicking. She'd only ever seen Chat make a face like that. And sure enough, the thought she'd been suppressing rushed at her like a tidal wave.
Two can play this game, she thought. "Fine," she acknowledged. "But as Ladybug, I know quite a lot about Chat that he probably never shared with you," she said.
He cocked his head to the side. "You do?"
"Yeah. He likes the same sandwich shop as you. The one around the corner. Faraday's."
"Interesting."
"I know. He went there with Ladybug once. But it wasn't a date. They were just doing surveillance to prevent the robbery of the bank across the street."
She was testing him now. It hadn't been a bank robbery. It had been a jewel heist.
"Are you sure it was a bank?" The ends of Adrien's mouth were slowly climbing upward into a conspiratorial smile. "I seem to remember it was a jewelry store."
That mission had been so ordinary and uneventful that Chat wouldn't have told anyone about it. It was another run of the mill operation, as far as he and Ladybug were concerned. The only way Adrien would have known the distinction was if he truly was Chat...
The satisfied look on his face assured her she was right. "So you've been Chat all along?"
He nodded and pulled out a bandage for her. "Do you want me to put it on for you? It would be hard to reach on your own."
"Uh, sure," she said, distracted by the normalcy. They'd just revealed their biggest secrets, and he was still trying to bandage her up. This was either a classic Chat move or an oddly affectionate effort from Adrien. Maybe it was both?
She flinched slightly as his warm fingers brushed her skin. "Am I hurting you?" he asked kindly. "No," she whispered.
When he was done patching her up, he said, "I want to know that all this is still pretty weird for me. I never expected we would find out like this, but after things got heated back there, part of me wondered why we were willing to stand up for each other the way we did. It seemed like a pretty big coincidence that you and I knew things only Chat and Ladybug would know."
She nodded, and he continued talking. "I hope you're not mad that I tricked you into revealing anything; if it's any comfort I knew before you confirmed it anyway."
"You did?" she raised her eyebrows.
"Well, yeah - I knew as soon as you told us about my confession to you when we were on the tower. You know, about my feelings for you. But, I mean, I didn't think you'd straight-up tell me you were Ladybug, though. I thought I was going to have to pretend to believe whatever lie you came up with."
Adrien shut his locker again and they started to walk back to class. But then she realized something that made her feel like ice water was being dumped on her head. Ladybug was his self-professed one love. Which meant Chat loved her. And Chat was Adrien…
She stopped walking. "Does this mean that the girl you've been in love with - Ladybug-"
He turned to face her, looking endearingly exasperated. "It's still you, Marinette. And when you were Ladybug, you told me you felt the same way about whoever I was. We talked about this."
"You love…me? But what about your other crush? Someone at school? Who is it?"
He just looked at her and raised his eyebrows in an I'm looking at her sort of way, and she blushed scarlet. "Oh."
"Marinette, when I said we had chemistry earlier, I actually meant it," he laughed and walked back to her. He grasped her upper arms gently, making sure to avoid her injured elbow. "It has always been Ladybug, but I think some small part of me liked you because you reminded me of her. Maybe I always subconsciously knew you were the same person."
She wrapped her arms around him tentatively. "And to think we've been bonding together as superheroes all this time." She slipped in a dreaded pun just to make him smile. "If only we'd figured this all out sooner. I can't believe how obvious it should have been. How did we not realize this earlier?"
"It's like your cut," he said, looking at her elbow. "You didn't feel the pain until I told you you were bleeding. Sometimes people don't see what's right in front of them until it's pointed out. It's pretty ionic, if you think about it." he said, leaning close until their noses were almost touching.
She closed her eyes, savoring the moment. This was not at all how she'd assumed chemistry class would go today…but how could she complain?
"Umm...I'm all out of chemistry puns," she whispered to him. "How do you keep coming up with them?"
"Oh, it's elementary, my lady," he whispered.