Taking off his fencing helmet, Adrien made his way to the locker room for a quick break. The cool air felt amazing on his skin after being in the hot Summer sun for almost an hour. After some much needed water, he noticed the light on his phone blinking in the depths of his bag. An unknown number had left a voicemail message.

"It's gone to voicemail!" a frantic voice said, gulping. "Hello! Uh, Adrien's voicemail. This is Marinette, who, uh, has a message! For you, of course, 'cause it's, uh, your phone so, um, ahaha, call-me-see-you-later-bye!"

It was a surprise for sure that his good friend Marinette had called him. Adrien was looking forward to talking to her once his lesson was over, provided he could spare the time. As he began to move the phone away from his ear, he heard a low groan coming from the phone speaker; the voicemail wasn't over yet. He put the phone back to his ear to listen in.

"What? What did you expect me to say?" Marinette changed her voice to sound overly confident. "Hey, hot stuff, this is Marinette. I'd ask you on a date to a movie, but I've got such a crazy crush on you that the only way I can talk to you without foaming at the mouth is over this stupid phone. Pretty ridiculous, right?" Beep. The voicemail ended.

Several seconds passed as Adrien tried to digest what he just heard. It wasn't working. Never in a million years would he have expected that Marinette had a crush on him. He sat down on one of the seats, staring at the unknown number - Marinette's number - that had called him.

Plagg floated over to him, a mischievous smile on his face. "Hehe. That was quite the message, hey Adrien?"

As usual, Plagg was of little help. The only response Adrien could manage was burying his face in his hands to block out some of his senses to focus better.

"Plagg," he groaned. "What am I going to do?"

The coast was clear. Marinette snuck around the edge of the courtyard, keeping her back to the wall to avoid being seen. As she approached the doors to the locker room, she leant an ear to the door to listen in. To her relief, there was no noise coming from inside. It was deserted.

"Marinette, I don't think you should do this," Tikki whispered.

Pausing with one hand on the door, Marinette looked at Tikki to reassure her. "It's fine, Tikki. I won't take long. He'll never even know I was here."

The door opened quietly and she slipped inside. Glancing around at the rows of lockers, she quickly found Adrien's locker and pulled the handle. The door wouldn't budge. She turned pleading eyes on Tikki who sighed before phasing through the locker door.

"Uh oh," Tikki said as she opened it from the inside. It was empty.

Marinette frantically searched the barren locker, even fitting her whole head inside to check. "What! It can't be empty. What am I going to do?" she cried, slumping against the lockers in defeat.

"Try calling him," Tikki suggested. "Maybe he left his bag somewhere nearby."

It was a long shot but it was her only hope. Fishing her phone out of her bag, Marinette found his number in her contacts. She still couldn't believe she now had his phone number. Just as she pressed call, Tikki gasped at something and flew into her purse to hide. Moments later, a loud ringing sounded directly from behind, making Marinette jump in fright.

Slowly she turned around. There, with his phone in one hand, was Adrien. Neither of them spoke. The look on his face said more than enough.

The phone continued to ring until it went to voicemail again. Only the sound of his message playing through the speakers of her phone was enough for her to snap out of it and find the end call button. When she looked up, Adrien was nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

"Oh, hey… Marinette," he laughed nervously. "I got your message." He held up his phone, now showing a missed call from an unknown number.

As she stared at the offending phone, she could feel her cheeks grow hot. Oh God! she thought. He heard the message. She eyed off the exit, calculating how long it would take her to escape this nightmare.

The silence was quickly becoming too much for Adrien. "Uh… so, did you come here to speak to me?" he asked. Even as the words passed through his mouth, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. A strange strangled noise escaped Marinette's throat in response. "O- or we could just talk over the phone." He knew he needed to stop talking, but the words kept coming. He continued to ramble as he looked down at the missed call from her. "I know you said you can't talk to me in person because of your, um…" He finally stopped when she made an inhuman screech at the mention of the voicemail. Her eyes were locked onto his phone, almost ready to reach out and take it from him.

"Please, delete it!" Marinette yelled a bit too loudly. "Ah, I mean, that message, it was just a silly mistake! Ahaha… I sent it instead of deleting it, is what I meant! It doesn't mean anything."

Adrien felt terrible. She had spent all this effort to confess her feelings to him, and now she was too uncomfortable to admit it. He knew exactly how that felt. Another thing he was well-versed in was the pain of rejection. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to be honest with her. She deserved the truth.

He knew he had to be gentle with his answer. He took a step forward and attempted his most polite voice. "Marinette, you're a really amazing person and one of my closest friends." Marinette closed her eyes, waiting for the final blow to her heart. It was obvious what was coming next, but she forced herself to stay through the whole thing.

"But I'm afraid my heart belongs to someone else." He looked down at his wallpaper of his partner as he talked. "I know I don't have much of a chance with her, but it still wouldn't be fair of me to string you along."

Of course he was interested in someone else. Was he supposed to just stay single forever while she worked up the courage to talk to him? She wished this whole day had never happened. Then she could have lived in ignorance of this mystery woman, whoever she was.

She didn't want to know, but still had to ask. "Who is she?"

It suddenly felt foolish for him to answer. How conceited he must be to reject her for Ladybug. As though he could actually be in a relationship with a superhero.

She seemed to sense his hesitation. "I won't judge you. I promise."

"It's Ladybug."

"What?" The words took her breath away, leaving only confusion and a slowly blossoming hope in her chest. "You're in love with Ladybug!?"

"I know she's out of my league-"

"No!" He took a startled step back at her loud outburst. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't- I just… Ladybug." Images of their future together began to swirl in her mind. The two of them holding hands on top of the Eiffel Tower, their wedding, and their three beautiful children...

Adrien cleared his throat, catching her drifting attention. "So, you're not upset?" he asked carefully.

Marinette smiled radiantly. "Of course not, Adrien. Why would I be?"

"Oh, uh…"

Her sudden change in emotions almost gave Adrien whiplash. If it were him in that situation, he would have been hurt from hearing the news. But she seemed fine, smiling sweetly at him as she adjusted her bag. "Well, I wish you all the best with your… feelings towards her." She could hardly keep the smile from her face and had to quickly turn away once it got too much. She walked over to the door and gave him a smile and a wave that he returned in confusion.

He figured that someone as level-headed as her was just better at processing heartbreak than him. It just added to the ever-growing list of things he admired about her. He watched her open the door then just before she left, he remembered her wish to go to the movies with him. "Wait!" he said. She paused. He rubbed his neck nervously. "So, did you still want to go to the movies… as friends?"

"Sure," she said, smiling at him. "I'll ask Alya and Nino, too. The four of us can go together."

While it was a relief to know she wasn't upset by this, it was jarring to see how different she now acted towards him. Her stuttering was gone, and she no longer seemed flustered around him. The thought made him a bit sad. He had been growing fond of her reactions. While he loved seeing the confident Marinette he saw around everyone else, it was nice to have something reserved just for him.

After giving a cheerful goodbye, Marinette found herself alone in a corner of the courtyard. The excitement of Adrien's confession for her hero-self was almost too much. Giggling quietly to herself, she began to make her way outside, once again swept up in fantasies of the two of them. She continued to drift down the school's steps towards home, barely aware of her own surroundings.

"Marinette," Alya called out from the entrance to the park. Finally snapping out of it, Marinette looked up and found herself near the entrance to the park. Alya waved as she jogged over. "So, how did it go? Did you manage to delete the message?"

Marinette cringed, remembering the awkward conversation she just had. "No," she said, laughing awkwardly. "He listened to it before I got there."

"What!?" Alya cried, catching the attention of the crowd that had gathered. Several people glared at her. Her apology was cut short as Chat Noir arrived, energetically greeting the crowd as he landed. The responding cheers were deafening.

"Oh, it's starting," Alya said, her attention snapping back to the event. Her interrogation was briefly forgotten in favour of watching. Looking around in confusion, she asked, "Where's Ladybug?"

Marinette cringed as she remembered, having forgotten all about it after the events of the day. She should have already been there. "I think I'm actually going to go home," she said, backing away towards her house.

Alya looked at her concerned. "But you'll miss the unveiling."

Marinette smiled at her reassuringly. "It's okay. I'll watch it on the Ladyblog later." She turned to leave and then remembered. "Oh! By the way," Marinette rushed. "Adrien wants the four of us to go to the movies together some time."

Alya gasped in surprise. "It can be a double date! Don't worry girl, you got this." She clasped Marinette's hands in hers in a show of support.

Marinette laughed at the misunderstanding. "Oh, no," she laughed, trying to pry her hands away. "It turns out he's in love with someone else. We're just going as friends." Alya gripped her hands tighter, her face turning murderous.

Nino arrived just in time to see Alya's reaction. He looked to Marinette for an explanation but found that she was of no help, since she was still giggling uncontrollably. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to get involved.

After some time, Marinette managed to tug her hands out of Alya's grip. Once she was free, she waved goodbye to her friends and ran off to find a secluded space to transform. Chat Noir watched her leave and considered going after her, but he knew he couldn't leave the unveiling before Ladybug had even arrived.

It wasn't long before Ladybug flew in. The crowd went wild as she touched down and greeted them. Chat Noir smiled at her as she arrived, eager to have a distraction from the day's events.

Meanwhile, Alya hadn't even reacted to Ladybug's arrival. Her phone was still safely in her pocket, not recording the event for the Ladyblog. In fact, she wasn't even facing the unveiling. Her back was to the heroes, as she glowered angrily at nothing.

Nino, growing concerned with her strange behaviour, stayed with her at the entrance of the park. After several tense minutes, he had to say something.

"Uh, is everything okay?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder to get her attention.

"I'm going to kill him."

He was almost afraid to ask. "Kill who?"

"Adrien. I'm going to kill Adrien Agreste." Then, Alya began to laugh forcefully, catching the attention of several people nearby who moved away in concern.

In that moment, Nino was thankful that Adrien wasn't able to attend. He didn't want his best friend to be murdered before he could get some answers out of him first.

AN: Thanks for reading. I'm open to constructive criticism if you have any.