"You know, if you didn't want to tag along you could have just said so, Nette."

Marinette was startled out of her thoughts and blinked at Nino. "What?"

"You were frowning as if someone just murdered one of your plants."

"Oh, I'm sorry, it doesn't have anything to do with you. God, I'm so…it's your birthday and here I am, being gloomy."

Marinette let out a deep sigh of frustration, hoping it would be enough to disperse the maelstrom of thoughts in her head. It wasn't. The thoughts persistently stayed where they were.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Sadly, the awesomeness of my birthday doesn't keep away bad thoughts. Though that would be pretty neat!"

She smiled. Nino always knew just what to say to cheer her up.

The two of them were on their way to a supermarket to get some last-minute party snacks. While Marinette had provided a cake and some macarons, everyone had for some reason forgotten to get the salty snacks as well. Alya, who had already been at Nino's, had agreed to watch Noël while Nino and Marinette were going on a quick shopping run.

"You wanna talk about it?" Nino asked and Marinette bit her lip.

"I'm just…worried, I guess," she eventually said, contemplating how to exactly express the mess of emotions inside her in words. "Adrien's been distant since Valentine's Day and I don't know why."

"Distant?" Nino snorted. "He's practically glued to your side, dude. Did something happen?"

"No, and that's just it! Adrien and I went to Le Jules Verne, ate there, went to my place and then we just fell asleep for a few hours. He seemed strange afterwards, like something had happened."

"Maybe you said something in your sleep."

Marinette shook her head. "I asked about that but apparently I didn't."

Technically, she had asked Tikki about that since Adrien had been way too quick to deny. But even her kwami had said that she hadn't said anything while asleep. It was weird.

"And I don't mean that he's physically distant," she said, because Adrien really wasn't. He was paranoid to a level where it was almost smothering. "But…emotionally. I don't know how to describe it. Like…"

She snapped her fingers impatiently while looking for the right words. It wasn't like Adrien had stopped loving her, that wasn't it. It was more like he was scared of something and therefore kept himself at a distance.

"Like he's keeping a secret from you," Nino finished.

"Yes, exactly!" Marinette exclaimed. "Which, honestly, isn't something new."

"But it bothers you."

She nodded. "Whatever it is, he's very distressed about it and I just want to help."

"I feel like we had this conversation already a few months ago," Nino sighed and Marinette could only bite her lip in shame. She had talked to Nino when things had started to get weird last October and the conclusion had been to not snoop under any circumstances.

"It's not like I'm digging this time," Marinette amended. "But I have a right to be worried about my boyfriend, don't I?"

It sounded probably a tad too defensive, because Nino arched an eyebrow.

"Is there something different this time to how it was last time?"

And that's where Nino had hit the nail on the head.

"Yeah," Marinette said silently. "He sometimes looks at me like…like he's scared of me and I just don't get how that would have anything to do with 'family stuff', you know?"

Those short few looks were always highly distressing, as was the lack of a reply from Adrien when she asked him what was wrong at those times. Sometimes, it looked like he was waiting for something horrible to happen. One time, she had caught him off-guard when he had looked at the pictures of them on her wall with a defeated expression like he had accepted a gruesome fate. It didn't make sense.

"Okay, I get how that'd be concerning," Nino said thoughtfully. "Have you asked him about it?"

Marinette nodded. "Several times, but he keeps saying that everything is fine or he doesn't reply at all."

They were both silent for a moment, Nino because he was thinking and Marinette because she was anxiously awaiting his reply.

"You know, if we were talking about anyone else here, I'd say that he's about to break up with you,"—Marinette paled at that revelation, but Nino was quick to continue and ease her worries—"but that wouldn't fit Adrien at all. When we hung out last week, the only thing he talked about was you. For hours. I think something might have happened at home that could involve you. Maybe his douchebag of a father told him he has to fake-date a model for publicity or something."

"No, he would have told me about something like that," Marinette immediately said.

"Or something else with his dad that he doesn't want to tell you that could involve you in some other way. You know how he and Félix always keep home-things from us."

Nino shrugged. Marinette, meanwhile, wasn't convinced.

"But what would make him look at me like someone is going to die?"

What Nino had said suddenly grabbed onto an especially nasty thought in her head.

"Oh god, what if he thinks that I'm going to break up with him? It would make sense for him not to tell me and of course that would make him distressed. But why would he think that?!"

They had arrived at the store. The myriad of voices and bustling activity made Marinette hesitate to keep the conversation up, but she really wanted answers and apart from Félix and her, Nino was the one who knew Adrien best.

"No way, dude. He doesn't trust anyone more than you and knows there's no reason you'd break up with him," Nino said when they walked towards the snack aisle.

"Maybe…maybe he thinks that there is something about him that would make me break up with him and he's afraid to tell me about that."

"Could be. With how much he keeps secret, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if those secrets turned out to be something nasty. And it would be just like Adrien to be overly afraid about the worst-case scenario. You rubbed off on him."

Marinette wanted to protest at first, but then had to admit that Nino had a point.

"But if that's the case, I can't just tell him that. Or what if we're wrong and it's something else completely?!" Marinette clacked her tongue in frustration. "I just want to fix this."

"Well, I don't know what you want to hear from me, Nette. It's not like I can read Adrien's mind and he didn't talk to me about any of this. If he's worried about something and doesn't tell you what it is, then I'd say just try to continue like you usually do and wait for him to tell you. After all, you can't help when you don't know what would help, so don't beat yourself up about it," Nino said while he skimmed the options of crackers.

"But—"

"I know you want to help," Nino interrupted her. "But you know there are times where you can't do anything but sit by and wait. This seems to be one of those times. Just be patient. Maybe he'll tell you eventually and then you can have a long conversation about it. Until then, just try to do what you know makes him happy and don't stress yourself out about it."

Marinette nodded mutely and took a bag of chips out of the shelf to throw it in the shopping basket.

"I'm tempted to dig out the crystal ball from your attic and ask it for advice," she half-joked—she really was that desperate.

"Nah, that thing is defective and you know it. Try the magic 8-ball instead since that is actually going to answer you."

"You mean that thing that denied that you would get DJ equipment for Christmas and then you got it after all?"

"Hey, all you gotta do is accept the absolute opposite of the answer it gives you," Nino said with a grin and then looked into the shopping basket. "You think that's enough?"

Marinette stared at the basket contemplatively and then threw another bag of chips into it.

"Adrien stress-eats and seeing how he's been lately; he'll probably get through one bag of chips in minutes."

"I thought he preferred sweet snacks?"

Marinette shrugged. "He's been craving salty things recently. No idea why."

They fell into silence when they went over to the check-out point, but Marinette couldn't help nervously tapping her foot while they waited in line. She could feel Tikki giving her soothing pats through the purse at her side, but it didn't help much. Once they got back, Adrien and Félix would probably have arrived already and she couldn't help but be nervous. Would today go flawlessly or would she receive one of those looks from her boyfriend again?

Nino—bless him—just nudged her encouragingly but didn't say anything until they left the supermarket again.

"Okay, enough worrying now," he said, snapping Marinette out of her thoughts. "It's my birthday and we're going to have an awesome party. I know it's a lot to ask but maybe you could pretend that all of those issues don't exist for a few hours and enjoy yourself? And I'll tell Adrien that too if he starts to be gloomy."

Marinette gave a small grin. "You're right," she said and to her surprise she even meant it. Perhaps she should just forget her worries for a few hours and relax a little. God knows there was plenty of time for worrying afterwards.

"Maybe you should think of a way to talk Alya out of making us all play spin the bottle again," she said to change the topic, which drew a laugh out of Nino.

"Yeah, as if anyone could do that," he said, which resulted in them recounting all the ridiculous things Alya had gotten them into since they knew her. It worked on distracting Marinette from her original line of thought for the rest of the way back and the party did the rest. They all had fun, did more ridiculous things to tell anecdotes about in the future and ended up going home with smiles on their faces.

Only when she lay in bed that night did she remember what Nino and she had talked about earlier. The smile left her face. Patience was key, but could she be that patient?

It had taken a lot of convincing to get Adrien to climb up to her bed and take a nap, and Marinette couldn't help but throw the occasional worried glance upwards. He had been tired lately, she saw it in his eyes and sluggish movements, but he had still insisted on staying to help her with homework that he had already finished. Ten minutes of arguing and bribing him with cake had eventually been persuasion enough to use the time in which she'd do her homework to catch up on some of his lost sleep.

She was worried about him. When asked, he said that he just didn't sleep well or that Félix woke him up in the middle of the night. It made it hard for her to concentrate on her reading assignment when she knew that Adrien might be suffering from nightmares.

A sleepy noise of distress from her loft bed was all the incentive she needed to put the book down and climb up the stairs. What she saw almost broke her heart. Adrien was still asleep, but he was crying.

Speaking of nightmares…

She didn't hesitate to gently shake him awake though he still startled and started breathing heavily. Adrien looked around in a panic, taking in his surroundings and then his eyes fell on her. Before she knew it, she was pulled down to the bed and wrapped in a tight hug. At least now she didn't need to ask about the nature of the nightmare anymore.

"Shh, it's okay. We're safe," she said quietly and petted his hair, knowing it would calm him down.

He stayed silent for a concerning amount of time until he softened the hug and let his head fall back on her pillow. She kept lying on his chest with her hands in his hair.

"Nightmare?" she eventually asked carefully.

He nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He nodded again, but then shook his head.

"Just scary nonsense," he said in a weak voice.

Whatever it was, he didn't want to talk about it and that was…fine. Honestly, it was the norm by now. She was curious, but she also knew that this wasn't the kind of situation where prodding was appropriate. Like so often as of lately, patience was the key.

"Do you want to try and sleep again?" she therefore asked.

Adrien shook his head. "Can you stay?"

"Of course," she said softly and kissed the back of his hand that had absentmindedly been playing with her hair.

Marinette didn't move from her position and instead laid her head down to listen to his heartbeat. It was faster than it should be, but he was still slowly calming down.

They spent a few minutes like that in comfortable silence while she kept listening to the calming ba-dum ba-dum of his heart. She almost fell asleep herself, but then Adrien started speaking again.

"I love you," he said quietly and kissed her forehead.

She smiled and leaned forward to give him a soft peck on the lips, knowing that anything further would be out of the question until he initiated it. Just another small thing that counted to the 'emotionally distant' problem but she would never force anything on him that he was uncomfortable with.

"I love you too," she said and was shocked to see his eyes shimmering with tears.

Apart from when she had woken him up earlier, she wasn't sure if she had ever seen him cry. Something in her told her she had, but she couldn't recall when that had been.

"I'm sorry that I'm such a disaster."

"Oh no, you're not going there. No one is allowed to say that about my boyfriend and mean it, not even you," she said, a half-teasing smile on her lips.

"But—"

"Nope, no self-deprecating allowed here. This is a safe place of love and affection!"

Adrien gave her a weak smile, which made her beam in return and give that smile a short kiss.

"I love you, disaster and all," she said.

His smile was still weak and then it died as he turned his eyes to her ceiling.

"Can I rant for a little?"

"Sure," she said, her tone soft and serious once more.

Adrien opened his mouth a couple of times and closed it again as he contemplated his words. He did that a lot lately.

"It's just not fair that the things are the way they are. I don't…I don't want this life. I think I never wanted it. Why couldn't I just be born in a normal family with normal problems and live a normal life where I don't have a spotlight on me?" A tear ran down the side of his face. "I just want a safe life where I don't have to worry about putting everyone in danger all the time."

Was that it? Had this been the reason he had been losing sleep and worrying so much over the past months? He was worried that his reputation and fame could put people around him in danger. A founded worry, she realised.

Marinette's first instinct was to tell him not to worry, but that would be cruel and inappropriate. What else could she say though? This was something she couldn't just fix with a Miraculous Cure. Adrien would probably always be haunted by his upbringing, even if he would decide to stop modelling in the future. This wasn't something she could help with.

"I'm here," she eventually said, not knowing if it would be much comfort at all. "And I won't leave, okay?"

Adrien hugged her tightly again and didn't say anything. He just cried.

Marinette pushed open the door to the café and deposited her umbrella in the stand next to it. Usually she would have used a rainy day like this to brainstorm ideas for designs or to study ahead a little in case Akumas would cut more into her schedule than she currently predicted. However, neither of those things were as important as the reason why she was at this random café in the seventh Arrondissement. She looked around for a bit before her eyes settled on the table in the corner.

As she walked over, she noticed a strand of hair had come loose from her braid and she tucked it behind her ear. Lately, she just didn't feel like her pigtails were an appropriate look. That, and her hair was growing longer and having it weigh down on both sides of her skull was easily giving her headaches. She was glad Tikki automatically styled it every time she became Ladybug, so she didn't have to lose time with rearranging her hair before a transformation. She made a mental note to ask her kwami how that worked later.

"Sorry I'm late. Must've been the weather," she said as she took off her coat and hung it over the back of the chair before sitting down.

"It's alright," Félix said, a half-empty cup of coffee already in front of him. "So, what is this about? You said you wanted to talk."

Marinette nodded and bit her lip. Talking to Félix about Adrien would be risky since he wouldn't give her any information Adrien himself wouldn't give her. But she still held out hope that she'd walk away knowing a little more than she did right now.

"I already talked to Nino about this but I want to get a second opinion on it," she said and took a deep breath. "It's about Adrien."

Félix sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."

When a waiter came over, Marinette ordered a hot chocolate. She looked back at Félix afterwards and he motioned for her to continue.

"He's been tired and sad and emotionally distant lately. I understand that he doesn't want to talk about whatever is going on and I'm really trying not to push it, but I just feel so helpless. Obviously, something is wrong and I want to be there for him, but I just don't know how if I don't know what it is. So, I gotta ask: is it me?"

Félix wore a thoughtful expression while regarding her. She could pretty much see the gears running in his head while he contemplated how much he should tell her.

"I can't say anything specific, but it's several things at once rather than just one sole reason. Every single one of those problems ties together, yes, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that someone specific is to blame for them," Félix eventually said and took a sip of his coffee.

"So, you're saying that part of it is my fault?"

She felt horrible. It wasn't just one thing, but several and she hadn't noticed either of those things while caught up in thinking that it was all about her. How self-centred could she be?!

"No, you're not to blame for any of it. However, you are included in the list of worries."

"But what can I do, Félix? There must be something!"

"Trust me, if there was a way to resolve this without risking…casualties, then we'd have done it years ago already. Right now, we just have to accept that we're naïve kids with only a fraction of an idea of what is going on out there. Mistakes will be made, feelings will be hurt and losses are to be had. Just because we want things to go right doesn't mean that they will."

Marinette was struck silent. She still had no idea what exactly it was that had Adrien and Félix so immensely worried, but it sounded like it was more than just their celebrity status. Maybe Félix was right about them just being naïve kids.

With all the time she spent as a superheroine that could literally rebuild destroyed buildings and even the Eiffel Tower, she sometimes forgot that not everything was fixable. There wasn't a Lucky Charm that could help her figure out the best way to victory for these kinds of problems. Perhaps there wasn't even a victory in sight. Accepting that, after not losing to life-threatening dangers ever, was frustrating and it made her feel powerless.

She thanked the waiter when her hot chocolate was placed in front of her and took a sip. The warmth was heavenly after walking through the cold April rain for half an hour.

"You're right," she said silently and mindlessly stirred her drink with a spoon. "But…but what if one of those stupid decisions is really stupid?"

"Elaborate please."

Marinette bit her lip and kept staring at the hot chocolate. "Adrien has been very evasive lately and I've thought about why he would be and Nino made a comment and…well, I guess my mind spiralled a little. The thing is…does he think I'm gonna break up with him?"

She couldn't help the tears that sprung to her eyes. Because, what if Félix would say yes? Or if he would say nothing and just look at her in pity? That could as well be a 'yes'. She wouldn't be able to bear the thought that Adrien wouldn't want to be her boyfriend anymore. They might stay friends, but it would hurt like nothing had ever hurt her before.

"No."

Marinette raised her head. Félix looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Never before had that expression been such a relief to her. She wiped away a stray tear that had escaped her eye after all and smiled.

"Good. That's good," she said and picked up her hot chocolate again to get rid of the raspiness her voice had involuntarily taken on.

"How did you…gods, Marinette, sometimes you draw even worse conclusions than Adrien does," Félix said, and she almost had to laugh with how bewildered he still looked.

Now that her doubts had been lifted and her world was almost safe and sound again, it was starting to be funny. But then she came crashing down to reality once more when she remembered that just because that wasn't true, the other troubles weren't just going to go away. There was still something worrying Adrien and Félix enough to make them lose sleep. It was very clear at this point that she wasn't going to figure out what exactly that thing was from either of them and they also wouldn't tell her how she could help, but maybe she could find out something else anyway.

"Please don't tell him I asked about that. I wanted to ask him, but I was afraid that if I was wrong then it would have stressed him out even more. And he's already worried enough as it is."

"You're right with that, so I promise to not bring it up. Though I've got to ask: How did you come to that conclusion?"

Marinette thought about how to put her observations into words without thoroughly embarrassing herself in the process. Then again, this was Félix. He wouldn't judge her…probably. No, he would most definitely judge her, though he'd do so silently.

"Like I said, Adrien has been evasive lately. For example, he has been avoiding my room, always finding a reason not to go up there. I don't know why. And the few times he has been up in my room since Valentine's Day we've just been sitting at my desk to do homework. Sometimes I even manage to convince him to take a nap, though that worked only twice so far." Marinette blushed because now came the embarrassing part. "And he…well…he kisses me differently than before."

Félix raised an eyebrow.

"Let's not go into detail about that and just say that he's…holding back, okay?" She quickly said to spare both of them some awkwardness. The last thing she wanted to do was to complain about the lack of hickeys to Félix of all people. He would never let her live it down. That didn't prevent the heat from rising to her cheeks though, and it definitely wasn't the hot chocolate that warmed her this time.

"It just looked to me like he was purposefully avoiding the romantic part of our relationship and I thought he was preparing himself for a worst-case scenario," she clarified.

"Well, I can certainly see how it would look like that to you," Félix said. "I'm sorry that I can't tell you the reason for those things, but Adrien will tell you eventually. It's a very sore topic for him though, so please don't bring it up before he does."

Marinette smiled. Finally, a confirmation that she wouldn't be kept in the dark forever.

"I'll wait then. No matter how long it takes."

"If you're unlucky, it will be soon," Félix muttered.