Note :

Hi !

This is a translation of my fic "Révélations", originally in french.
I translated it myself but English is not my first language, so feel free to tell me if you see any mistake. I'll fix it as soon as possible! :D

This story is not season 4-compliant.

Have a nice day :)

"I am Ladybug. "

Three words.

Three simple words that struck Adrien with the violence of a thunderbolt.

Paralyzed, his tongue. Short-circuited, his brain. Taken aback by the enormity of this statement, the young man froze for a moment, unable to react.

In all fairness, Adrien would be lying if he claimed to have never tried to imagine under what circumstances he and his Lady might reveal their identities to each other. On the contrary. He may no longer do so today, but at the beginning of his career, imagining as many hypotheses as possible about the day he would finally discover who was hiding behind Ladybug's mask had been one of his favourite activities.

Would she voluntarily confide her secret to him in the middle of a simple discussion, after years of solid partnership?

Would she transform under his gaze, caught by time and by circumstances preventing her from concealing the truth any longer?

Would she reveal her identity to him at the Grand Guardian, once their mission was accomplished, when they would return their miraculous to Master Fu?

Would she let slip her name between their burning lips, between two fiery kisses? (By far his preferred hypothesis).

Yes, definitely, Adrien had more than thought about what this moment could have been. But never, never had he dreamed of a shy "I am Ladybug" confessed by one of his classmates, in the middle of their classroom and in front of all the other students.

Without Alya's hiccups of surprise, Adrien could have sworn to have been hallucinating as the scene seemed so improbable to him.

But no. Given the young blogger's cries of excitement, he had clearly not imagined these last few seconds.

Around them, the excitement was at its height. Exclamations were coming from all sides, accompanied by gestures of surprise. The clamours of the other students created a hubbub which had the paradoxical effect of making the event more concrete while adding an ever more surreal dimension to the scene.

It was with a strange feeling of detachment that Adrien saw Alya leap from her seat, pupils dilated with excitement and phone in hand, ready to pounce on this extraordinary scoop.

"Ladybug?" He heard her yell at the girl who had just turned their peaceful late morning into chaos. "You are LADYBUG? Oh my God!"

Alya's enthusiasm was understandable. Normally, such a revelation would already have been the most extraordinary event of her life.

But here, the circumstances were particularly exceptional.

Ladybug and Chat Noir had not given any sign of life for precisely fifty-seven days, after a last appearance during which they had laconically announced that they had neutralized Hawkmoth and his accomplice for good.

How did they stop the famous supervillains? What was the identity of this man who had made Paris tremble so much? What had become of him? What would become of them, their heroes, now that their mission was accomplished?

Mystery.

The two young people had evaded all questions from the press before leaving the place as quickly as they had arrived.

Since then, no more villains, no more heroes.

All Paris despaired of ever hearing from its illustrious protectors, and Alya the first.

Ignoring both the "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod" that his friend kept repeating without interruption and the frightened exclamations of the other students, Adrien turned again to his interlocutor to look at her in shock.

Part of him still refused to believe that she had indeed just said these words which had just put the room in turmoil.

"W-what?" He stammered in a stunned voice.

"I... I'm Ladybug," Lila repeated, casting a falsely shy glance through her lashes.

So, no.

No, no and definitely no.

First, even in the most unlikely of parallel dimensions, it would be rigorously impossible that a person as detestable as Lila could be Ladybug.

Second, Ladybug was indeed one of his classmates and she was indeed in the room right now. But she was sitting a little further away, a wary eyebrow delicately raised since Lila's announcement, and her name was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

"It's not possible," said Adrien mechanically, still in shock.

Hi clenched his fists angrily, as anger now mingled with his initial surprise.

How? How dare Lila try to pretend to be her Lady?

"It's really me," she insisted in a pained voice. "I know it sounds hard to believe, but I couldn't bear to hide the truth from you any longer. I… I trust you - all of you, and I… I thought it was mutual," she concludes, her eyes shining with tears.

Adrien did not have the opportunity to answer. He and Lila were joined by an overexcited Alya before he had time to open his mouth. The other students followed almost immediately and quickly, almost the entire class crowded around them.

Chloé was the only one to move not to join Lila, but to go out of the room.

"Ridiculous," she declared with a haughty little snort. "Totally ridiculous. "

Arrived at the door, she turned to her best friend.

"SABRINA!" She barked. "I'm hungry! Let's go!"

Tearing her gaze away from Lila, Sabrina jumped sharply. She hastily gathered her and Chloé's belongings and hurried out after her friend.

This double departure was greeted with perfect indifference. It was common knowledge that Chloé was no longer Ladybug biggest fan since the latter had denied her the right to use the miraculous of the Bee. Sabrina, meanwhile, followed her best friend like her shadow.

No one was surprised that they both received the news with a certain coldness.

As the door closed behind Chloé and Sabrina, the other students continued to surround Lila. Questions were coming from all sides to the young girl's attention.

"Can you transform? "

"Why did you and Chat Noir disappear?"

"Do you know his identity?"

"What happened with Hawkmoth?"

"Do you -"

"What - "

"How - "

Adrien could hardly hear himself thinking in this feverish brouhaha.

It was only when Lila opened her mouth again that an almost religious silence took hold of the other students.

In a voice trembling with an emotion that Adrien knew to be false, she shared her story. She said she was Ladybug, and only claimed to be the famous heroine's best friend to make up an alibi in case anyone noticed that she knew a little too much about her. She confided that she had actually arriving in Paris much earlier than she initially told them - always to protect her identity, once again - and that she fought Hawkmoth from the beginning.

She told them about her desire to accomplish her mission at any cost, about her pride in looking after her adopted city that she loved so much in the shadows, about her fears, her hopes, as well as about her difficulties in living both a normal and a heroine's life at the same time.

Adrien could only savour the irony of the situation when Lila apologized to their comrades for having lied to them so much in the past.

Protecting her identity was necessary and involved not always being honest, she told them, dramatically bringing her hand to her heart. It wasn't for lack of wanting to talk to them, of course. She trusted them completely. If she had could, she would have told them her secret without hesitation.

But that would have been too dangerous, obviously.

It was out of the question for her to risk endangering them in this way.

"I... I care too much about you for that. A heroine can not afford to risk the lives of those she loves," she declared emphatically, at the very moment when she met Adrien's gaze a little too opportunely.

The seductive fluttering of her eyelashes which she then gratified him only confirmed the young man's suspicions - besides making him shiver unpleasantly. His admiration for Ladybug was far from a mystery and it was a safe bet that Lila was counting on it to try to win his favour.

But to his relief, she quickly turned away from him and picked up the thread of her extravagant stories.

To those who eagerly asked her to transform, Lila opposed tearful eyes.

Her powers were lost, she explained in a sob.

Sacrificed, with her miraculous, in her final battle against Hawkmoth.

Such had been the price of this victory for which she had given all her strength.

Thus deprived of her precious earrings, she could no longer transform. It was for this reason that she had disappeared, after having drawn on her ultimate magical reserves to remain metamorphosed during this hasty press conference which had been her last appearance.

But after fifty-seven days of silence, she could no longer see her comrades, her friends, plagued by unanswered questions.

"You like Ladybug so much," she exclaimed dramatically, her voice trembling with sobs. "I couldn't stay any longer without telling you the truth. Not when you worry so much for her... for me... "

As the other students crowded around Lila to console her, Adrien glanced briefly at Marinette.

Still sitting at her desk, his teammate rolled her eyes at the fables of their classmate.

"What about Hawkmoth?" Alya asked, phone extended to Lila to collect this extraordinary confession which would certainly propel the Ladyblog to new heights of popularity if her comrade granted her permission to publish it (which Adrien unfortunately did not doubt for a second).

Lila hastened to start another tirade.

She explained to her fascinated audience that Hawkmoth had been duly neutralized and arrested, before being then handed over to the Secret Service. She couldn't say more.

Oh, she would have loved to tell them everything, of course, but she was bound to secrecy. Impossible for her to give more information on the subject.

As awestruck murmurs rose around Lila, Marinette eventually reached the limits of her patience.

"There's no way you're Ladybug," she snapped, her clear voice cutting through the classroom like a thunderclap.

As Lila theatrically brought her hand to her mouth, a shocked gasp on her lips, Marinette began her demonstration.

"Even if your miraculous changes your appearance - because let's face it, you don't even look like Ladybug - I don't see how you could be her," she asserted. "You have already been seen at the same time. Ladybug has even fought against you before. You can't be her," she concludes, dramatically raising her arms in the air.

With the exception of Adrien, all the students turned to Marinette to give her a reproving look, as they did every time she questioned Lila's word.

Nevertheless, a heavy silence filled the room.

Marinette's assumed animosity towards Lila usually prevented her comrades from taking her seriously when she expressed her doubts about the young Italian's stories.

But still. Her remark was quite relevant.

"It's thanks to the miraculous of the Fox," Lila retorted, undaunted. "I used it to create illusions, to protect my identity. It's like this so-called fight against me," she added, placing her hand flat against her chest. "It was a ruse, organized with Chat Noir, so that no one could suspect me. "

Adrien clenched his jaws.

No matter how much he hated Lila, he had to admit that she was showing admirable composure. If he didn't know for sure that she was lying, if he wasn't staring at her at this very moment to look for any trace of confusion on her face, he would never have been able to see the slight twitch of the eyelid which was her only reaction to the accusations of his Lady.

Marinette's attacks had not made Lila lose countenance.

Quite the contrary.

There was an assurance from her that only supported her words. As if she were none other than the heroine she pretended to be.

"But I thought the Fox's miraculous was used by Rena Rouge, not Ladybug?" Marinette insisted, chin up as a sign of defiance.

"Yes, of course," Lila retorted in a silky soft voice. " I only used this miraculous once to make me an alibi. Then I gave it to a friend in whom I have complete confidence."

Adrien painfully refrained from wincing when he saw Alya's eyes cloud with emotion and her smile widen with pride.

Without Lila knowing it, her lies were tinged with truth. Alya had indeed received her miraculous because Ladybug held her in high regard, because she believed in her loyalty as much as in her courage and because she was one of her closest friends.

Alya had a lot to be proud of herself.

She was just mistaken about the true identity of the one who believed so much in her.

Adrien didn't know how to rectify the situation. To insist would be to risk seeing Lila wondering why he and Marinette were so keen on getting her to talk about the miraculous of the Fox. On the other hand, Alya now risked betraying her secret at any time by confiding in the wrong person, believing she was talking to someone who knew her identity.

It was a disaster.

Surrounded as he was by the crowd of Lila's admirers, Adrien could barely see Marinette. However, the little he saw was enough to confirm that his Lady was fuming.

He saw her jaw muscles contract as she gritted her teeth and noted the dull anger that burned in her eyes. Obviously struggling to keep calm, the young girl lowered her head towards her knees.

The haughty look Lila casted around her - and at Marinette in particular - left Adrien with a bitter taste in his throat.

Never mind. He didn't know how to defuse the coming catastrophe, but he had to act.

The young man opened his mouth to say something, anything that might bring his friends to their senses, when Marinette suddenly rose from her seat.

Did Adrien expect her to violently slap her palms on her desk?

Yes.

To raise her head to look at Lila with her piercing blue eyes?

Yes.

To open her mouth to address her in a loud, clear voice?

Yes.

To exclaim "Oh Lila, I'm sorry! "?

...

Not at all.