After Marinette dropped her ice cream cone, Adrien started to feel guilty. She was obviously nervous; he worried that he had pushed her too hard to agree to this. What if, when they were able to finally stop this charade, things didn't go back to normal and were forever awkward between them? His sweet friend was willing to get ice cream with him, Adrien, when he was sure that there were a million other people she would have rather gotten Andre's Ice Cream with. There certainly had to be a number of other guys that she would rather be sitting next to on a park bench, people watching and enjoying the warm summer day. He had taken away any chance of that, just so he could make his father happy. Who knew how long the two of them would have to keep up this whole fake relationship, anyways? For how long was it acceptable for him to ask her to keep doing this for him?

"A... are you all right?" and here she was, asking if he was alright.

"Are you sure I can't get you another ice cream Marinette? It really wouldn't be any trouble. Or you can have some of mine if you want!" It didn't seem fair at all that he still had his cone and hers was melting into the concrete.

"No, no that's alright. Maybe we could just go for a walk instead?" She was now the color of the ill-fated strawberry ice cream she had ordered earlier.

"Yeah, of course!" Adrien said, standing up and being careful not to drop his cone. A walk sounded good. It wouldn't help to see what was going on around the park, anyways. You never knew when Hawkmoth was going to akumatize his next victim. The friends walked in silence together for a ways before Adrien broke the silence.

"You don't have to do this for me Marinette. It... It's not fair to you to have to pretend to be with me when you could be with someone else." Even though Adrien meant these words, for some weird reason saying them made a small part of him almost sad. He shook this off- it was probably just a brain freeze or something from the ice cream.

"But I want to do this, I want to be with you." Adrien felt a rush of affection for her. She really was the best. "I mean, I.. I want to help you. Through this. To help you through this and to get your dad to get off your case."

"You realize this means you won't get to be with anyone else, right? You won't be able to actually date anyone for as long as we're doing this. I'm sure you have your eye on some lucky fella. I wouldn't want to keep you two apart." Here it was. He'd done all he could, and he would respect her choice.

"It's the least I can do, really, It's no trouble." So this was really happening, then. She was choosing to help him with this, no matter what it meant for her.

"Awesome, thanks. We should probably set some ground rules though, I don't want you to have to do anything you're not comfortable with."

She was about to reply when the pair spotted a dark colored butterfly heading towards a very angry Xavier Ramier, the very same civilian Adrien remembered having to fight as Mr. Pigeon. Some teenage punk was messing with his birds and mocking him, and he was not having it.

"I.. I have to go throw the wrapper that was on my cone away." Thankfully, Marinette didn't think that was too weird.

"I have to go find a.. bathroom, yeah, a bathroom. I'll be right back. The two set off in different directions.

Even as she transformed into Ladybug, Marinette couldn't help but think about the fact that she had somehow managed to drop the ice cream that Adrien had gotten for her. In all her daydreams in which she and Adrien had gotten Andre's ice cream, never had her cone ended up on the cement. Of course, never in all of her daydreams had the date been fake either. How was she supposed to keep going on fake dates with Adrien without letting him know that she did actually have genuine feelings for him? She decided this question would have to wait, however, as she noticed that the akuma had almost made to Xavier. She needed to make this quick, she needed to get back to Adrien before he noticed that something was up.

"What seems to be the problem here?" She asked, addressing the punk that was causing the poor pigeon man to be angry enough to attract the dark butterfly.

"Seems like he's being particularly unpheasant to our poor friend here." Ah, so Cat Noir had decided to join her.

"Look, pigeon man was asking for it. It's not my fault he's so sensitive." the punk crossed his arms over his chest defensively. Xavier looked even more upset than he had before.

"Xavier, it's all right. I don't think you're at fault here. Can you tell me what happened?" at this, Xavier did relax a bit. As he did, the butterfly finally flew away. Both she and Cat Noir breathed a sigh of relief.

"This kid came up to me and started calling me weird and all other sorts of mean names. I didn't do anything!"

"We believe you. Seems like you have a fowl attitude, kid. You should get out of here and leave him alone." Cat Noir gave the punk a pointed look. The punk finally gave in and walked away. After the almost Mr. Pigeon had thanked Cat Noir and Ladybug, and the two were out of range of prying ears, Ladybug knew that there was one last thing she had to do before she de-transformed and went back to Adrien.

"Cat Noir, there's something I should probably tell you."

"What is it, m'la-ladybug?"

"I... I'm seeing someone. As my other self." Cat Noir considered this.

"As in, dating? Is this the guy you've liked for years now?"

"It is. We just started dating a few days ago".

"I see. This is probably a good time to tell you that I started seeing someone too." What? Cat Noir was dating someone? Also, why did that thought bother her so much? She brushed it off. She was sure it was just utter disbelief at the thought that someone was willing to listen to Cat Noir make bad puns 24/7.

"Yeah, and she's great. I'll be spending more time with her, but I promise it won't get in the way of me helping with patrols."

Ladybug couldn't help but wonder who this mystery girl was that Cat Noir had fallen for. She had to be pretty, probably very kind, and probably didn't have to spend most of her free time patrolling Paris before Hawkmoth managed to akumatize anyone. Ladybug felt a pang of jealousy for the normal life this mystery girl was able to have.