Sorry for the long wait guys.
I am finally all done with finals, and am now on Summer break! Expect more updates and more stories coming your way.
Also-
Please read this before reading story:
Ok so this chapter requires a little bit of clarification. In this story, the MLB movie in Animaestro is directly based on the character personalities that the anime trailer represents, not just the movie cover that we see in the show. You don't need to have seen the trailer for the Miraculous Ladybug anime to understand what is going on, but to summarize it- the creators of the movie in the MLB universe have essentially prospected what the hero's personalities could be like in their civilian lives. In this case, Chat is a jerk in real life while Ladybug is a clutz.
Ok that is it, continue on.
To Marinette, it felt weird sitting next to Adrien knowing he was Chat Noir. Any time before yesterday night, Adrien would have been the last person she would think is her crime fighting partner. Adrien was kind and sensitive, but Chat Noir was super annoying and seemingly never took anything serious; everything down to his pattern of speech was completely different. Was that who Adrien really was? Was he actually a flirtatious jokester with a massive ego, or was that just his secret identity? Because If there was some kind of middle ground to their personalities, Marinette wasn't seeing it.
And that sweet voice of his… Adrien's voice definitely sounded like Chat's, but his had this unique and reassuring tone of kindness that Chat's didn't really have. Chat's voice was confident and cocky, nothing like Adrien's in terms of tone at all.
Marinette looked over at the boy sitting next to her, and imagined him saying something… Chat-like.
"Can you take me to the vet purr-incess? because you've taken my breath away."
Marinette couldn't help but laugh at her own imagination, although it wasn't too far from reality. To her misfortune, the boy next to her looked over. Staring at him directly in his eyes made her laugh even harder. It was lucky Mrs. Bustier was in the bathroom, because this was a laugh that Marinette wouldn't have been able to contain in the middle of her lecturing.
"What are you laughing about Marinette?" He curiously asked.
Her laugh melted into a blush. "O-Oh, nothing really, just thinking about something funny."
Adrien quietly nodded his head and looked away from her gaze. Marinette noted the unsure expression on his face as her mind began to drift off.
Maybe Chat wasn't really as bad as she always thought, maybe she was just too quick to judge him. After looking at the stark difference between Chat and Adrien, it was hard to dismiss his silly humor and games as Chat just being well… Chat.
Marinette knew she didn't exactly act the most confident when she wasn't Ladybug, so perhaps Adrien was the same in his own way. Adrien's father had strict expectations for him, so it was possible that Chat was a manifestation of the parts of Adrien that he couldn't normally show others. She could hardly imagine how hard it would be trying to live up to the expectations of a father like Gabriel Agreste, and the immense pressure from public opinion he must be under to act perfectly mannered and behaved.
If this was the case, Marinette could very easily relate to Adrien's change of personality when in disguise, because she faced a similar situation as Ladybug. Marinette was clumsy and had terrible self-esteem, but Being ladybug allowed her to be freely confident in her abilities. It wasn't only the physical prowess the powers offered that contributed to this, but the very fact her identity was concealed made the risk of judgment by others much less intimidating. Although, it wasn't all good. Being a superhero had plently of other negatives to it that came with the job.
Marinette sighed to herself as Tikki's words from yesterday rang through her mind.
"Maybe you still have some things to learn about him."
She couldn't help but think how stupid she had been in assuming she understood Either of the boy's identites. Really, it was an insult to Adrien to have assumed so many negative things about him as Chat when he had nothing but love and admiration for Ladybug. If her assumptions were correct, Adrien was likely different than Chat for many of the same reasons Ladybug was different than herself. It was clear to Marinette now that trying to seperately work through his two identities in her mind was not the right approach to understanding Adrien. Rather, it made more sense to conclude that all the good things she admired in Chat were the very same things she loved in Adrien, she simply was too blinded by Adrien's perfection to see it.
Mrs. Bustier shortly walked back in.
"Ok class, before I dismiss you to lunch, I'm going assign you partners for the poetry project due next week."
A unanimous groan was heard across the classroom from nearly everybody, except for Adrien and Marinette. The black-haired girl couldn't understand what was so bad about poetry.
"I like poetry…" Marinette muttered.
Chloe had somehow heard this and scoffed. "Of course, you would like poetry Dupain-Cheng!" She hissed.
Adrien looked to Chloe with a confused expression. "And what's wrong with that? I like poetry too."
Marinette was relieved to know that at least Adrien liked poetry. She couldn't help but begin recollecting all the puns and word games her and Chat liked to exchange while fighting Akumas. It was always a verbal battle of wit between her and Chat, and It definitely made sense why he of all people liked Poetry.
Chloe immediately began to rethink her words. "W-Well I uh-"
Adrien looked sympathetically to his friend. "It's alright Chloe, you don't have to like poetry just because I do!"
Mrs. Bustier sighed. "Well I know poetry isn't the most exciting thing to most of you guys, but it looks like we have a couple students who think otherwise." She looked to Marinette and Adrien, handing them the papers that explained the project.
"It seems like both of you guys enjoy poetry, so I think you would make good partners!" Mrs. Bustier exclaimed.
Marinette and Adrien both looked over to each other as their teacher assigned the rest of the groups.
"I guess we're partners then?"
"So it seems." Marinette nervously laughed.
"This is so weird, me and Chat are going be doing a school project together!"
"Well, do you want to make arrangements for the project during lunch?" Adrien asked.
"Ok Marinette, don't stutter. Talk to him normally, he's just Chat Noir. You've literally thrown him across Paris, you've leapt across tall buildings with him, you've kissed h-"
A searing blush made its way across her face.
"Oh my god I've kissed him, twice!"
"Y-Yeah, totally." Marinette gave two weak thumbs up in support, but she desperately wanted to crawl into the closest dark hole. She wished she could just go home and save herself from embarrassment.
"Well where do you want to eat lunch?"
"Home!" She automatically responded without thinking.
"Ok, I'll tell Nino."
Adrien faced to tell Nino he couldn't make it to lunch today, and Marinette sat staring blankly off into the distance.
"Why did I say my house? This is going to be so weird..."
Mrs. Bustier finished assigning partners and dismissed everybody. They began making their way out the door, but Marinette quickly stopped, realizing she forgot to tell Alya. She turned around to see Alya looking over at her and smiling. The brunette gave an eyebrow wiggle with an okay sign, and Marinette instantly understand what she meant.
On the way to her house, Marinette kept having to mentally repeat to herself that she was just walking with Chat Noir; something she never had any problems doing before. She took a deep breath, looking over at his face from the side and imagining him with a mask and cat ears.
"Ok Marinette, Adrien and Chat are exactly the same person. Chat is just a big dork who tries way too hard to impress everyone, there is literally no reason to be intimidated by him."
"So A-Adrien, have you heard they're releasing a new Mecha-Stike game. Pretty cool, right?"
Adrien perked up. "Yeah, I did. I've heard rumors that some of the new mechs are going to be designed after Paris's heroes." He looked really happy at this, which made Marinette's heart flutter.
"Y-Yeah, they're getting more attention than ever now a-days. That reminds me, we never really got to talk about the movie premiere a few weeks ago. I've been wondering, what was voice acting like?"
To say the least, it was weird voice acting himself when no one else knew he was Chat. It didn't help that they constantly harped on him about getting Chat's voice right, even though he clearly would know his own voice better than anybody else would.
"It was really fun, but they kept making me redo lines saying that I wasn't 'channeling' my Chat Noir voice properly." He mocked sarcastically. "What did you think of the movie?"
Marinette thought about this. She enjoyed the movie quite a bit (who wouldn't enjoy a movie dedicated to themselves?), but she had a lot to say about how they depicted Chat in real life... They surprisingly got Ladybug very accurate.
"I liked it, but I have a hard time believing that Chat is so stuck up in real life." Marinette knew she had to be very careful about what she said when it came to Chat Noir, she was standing right in front of him after all. "Chat Noir has… saved me a few times, and let's just say there's not a mean bone in his body."
Adrien took extreme interest to this and blushed. He knew Marinette was in love with Chat Noir, although he wasn't sure if she still was. Talking about Chat made Adrien a little nervous knowing that Marinette might be on to his identity. "Oh really? I've always thought Chat was kind of a jerk. Definitely seems like an attention craver, he just loves showing off whenever he can."
Marinette laughed at the irony in his comment. "Of course Adrien would try to distinguish himself from Chat, he doesn't want me making any connection between them. I do the same thing with Ladybug."
Marinette decided she would tease him a little, giving the boy a knowing grin. "You got the attention craver part right! Chat just does that to put on a good show for people though. Underneath that mask, I bet he is a kind and sensitive person. Probably breath takingly handsome as well."
Adrien stared nervously into Marinette's pointed expression. Although she was being vague, Adrien couldn't help but feel like that comment was directed at him rather than Chat.
"Was that directed at me, or am I just being paranoid?" He thought.
"Marinette do you… like Chat Noir or something?" Adrien hesitantly asked on a whim, relatively sure she was going to deny it. He already knew Marinette liked him as Chat Noir, but he wanted to see if she would admit it to him as Adrien in an attempt to gauge her reaction.
Marinette wasn't at all shocked that Adrien would ask such a question, especially after outright claiming that he was "probably" handsome (definitely handsome). She blushed, but decided there would be no harm in telling him something he already knew as Chat Noir. "I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else alright?"
Adrien was surprised at her response, and nodded in anticipation.
"You see… Chat Noir is frustratingly annoying."
Adrien nearly tripped upon hearing her words. If he wasn't speaking to Marinette, he could have almost believed that it was his Lady saying that! Everything down to her tone and intonation was spot on. (haha, get it?)
"When Evillustrator fell in love with me, Ladybug sent Chat for protection. He literally stood in my doorway and flexed the whole time when he came to pick me up, not to mention how enamored he was with impressing me the whole battle."
"I'm so sorry! I thought that's what girls like!" Is what Adrien desperately wanted to say.
Marinette looked to Adrien's cherry red face, and couldn't help but think about how adorable it was. It made her almost break down in laughter, but she continued on. "Even though I thought Chat was just a stupid egotistical cat at first, my opinion of him began to change a few weeks after he protected me."
"A-and how is that?"
"Well basically, Chat had set up this elaborate candle light surprise for Ladybug, and I guess she didn't show for some reason. I really don't know why he came to my balcony of all places, but he did. He told me about his disappointment in Ladybug not showing, and instead invited me to see it with him."
Marinette gave an incredibly cute blush which made Adrien's heart skip a beat.
"That night, Chat showed me a side to him that I didn't think existed. I didn't immediately fall in love with him of course, in fact, I denied my feelings for a really long time. I think that was when I really started to see the kindness of his soul showing through the mask, and I just couldn't help but begin to like him more and more."
She paused and looked Adrien directly in the eyes as they approached the bakery door. "You see, I think Chat Noir probably lives the kind of life where he's unable to fully express himself without the fear of disappointing others or being judged. As Chat, he gets to be as free and wild as he wants, but he never loses his sense of kindness or compassion for others. I think that's what I respect most about him."
Upon finishing her words, Marinette began to realize that her confession had become increasingly less about Chat and more about Adrien. All the qualities she had begun to admire in Chat were the very ones she loved in Adrien. While she had never been able to muster the courage to confess her love to his face, concealing Chat as the true recipient of her impromptu confession made it so much easier to tell him directly.
Even if Marinette knew that Adrien was Chat, her assertion of the boy's life was deadly accurate; so accurate that it made the boy experience an uncontrollable whirlwind of emotions. He wanted to cry at how deeply his friend cared for him, he felt anger at himself for how he had initially dismissed her feelings; but most of all, he had the strongest urge to hold the girl in front of him and never let her go. No one had ever understood him on such a deep level.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she was the one to discover his identity.
"Marinette, why tell this to me? Have you told him these things?"
Marinette gave a funny look and rubbed the back of her head anxiously. "Well, I really trust you Adrien, and you've given me good advice in the past. And about telling him … I'm not going to go into the details about it, but let's just say that Chat doesn't feel the same way about me." Marinette intentionally left out the incident where her dad was akumatized because it would be a lie to tell him that her love confession was genuine at the time. Unbeknownst to Adrien, it was only since earlier today that she had really started to understand her feelings for Chat Noir.
Adrien honestly didn't know what to think. He wasn't used to her divulging so much information about herself to him, and there was a level of intimacy to her words that felt strange coming from Marinette. As Chat Noir, it wasn't odd letting others know that he was in love with Ladybug, seeing as how they were both superhero partners. However, in his personal life, he thought that admitting to being in love with a super hero would be a strange and extremely embarrassing thing for others to know, hence the reason he'd never told Nino or any of his other friends that he was in love with Ladybug. Was it actually normal for people to divulge such information to their friends, or was it something odd enough to warrant suspicion of Marinette in this situation?
The blond boy was very much still learning about the intimacies of friendship, so perhaps this really was just normal… Even so, he still had strong doubts in his mind. She was a good friend, but he still couldn't help but feel that they weren't close enough friends for her to be talking about such a thing with him. He figured he'd have to talk about it with Plagg later.
"Well... you can't help but like who you like, so definitely don't ever feel bad about your feelings. I still think that Ladybug and Chat Noir are meant to be together, however…" Adrien paused, thinking for a moment.
"If I know anything about Chat Noir, he has never given up his feelings for Ladybug despite her insistence that she doesn't like him. Because of this, I don't think he would want you to give up on your feelings either, Marinette. Keep going until you know for a fact that nothing will come of it."
Marinette smiled at him. His advice was strangely ironic, as he was unknowingly encouraging Ladybug to pursue Chat Noir, but non-the less beautiful. "Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep going until I know for sure."
They both walked into the bakery to be greeted by the smiling faces of Marinette's parents. The smells of delicious Chinese cooking filled Adrien's nostrils and it made him feel like he was on a cloud. Marinette happily conversed and laughed with her parents, Adrien taking note of her smiling face. He couldn't help but wonder if this was what real families were supposed to be like.
Even when Adrien's mom was around, his father was often preoccupied with work and was always extremely controlling of Adrien's life. He remembered the nights when it was just him and his mom sitting at the large dining room table. His mother liked to do things for herself, so she would often go into the kitchen and cook delicious meals for the two of them. The smells and atmosphere of Marinette's house reminded him back to those good times.
"Wow, I can't believe you got such as handsome boy to come back for a second time. It must be the free pastries." Marinette's mom joked, taking notice to Adrien standing in front of the doorway.
"Maman!" Marinette exclaimed turning red in the face. "He's my partner for a school project! I just invited him so we could talk about it."
Sabine and Adrien looked to each other and laughed at Marinette's reaction.
"Well Adrien, you can come by anytime you want." Tom added in, sounding rather suggestive.
Adrien clearly did not sense what Tom was hinting at, because he looked right to Marinette and winked, causing her face to flush. "I might have to take your dad up on that offer Marinette."
The young girl's mind hit new levels of complete chaos as Incomprehensible garble began to spill out of her mouth.
Marinette seriously wondered how she was able to hold a steady conversation with Adrien at all earlier.
"Anyways…" Sabine said awkwardly, while staring at her strange daughter still desperately floundering with her words. "lunch is just about ready. Why don't you take Adrien to your room until then?" Sabine gave Marinette a knowing smile.
Marinette's rambling stopped, as her brain immediately flashed to all the Adrien related things she had scattered around her room.
She shot her mom a dirty look. There were magazines, sketches of his face, love notes, and so many other things out that would send Marinette to her grave if he ever saw any of it.
"Um, one minute." Marinette stuttered out, quickly climbing up to her room. In approximately 30 seconds, Marinette had taken all her Adrien related things and shoved them in the big chest where she stored all 50+ of Adrien's future birthday gifts. She had contemplated removing the posters of him, but she knew he'd seen them before, embarrassing as that was.
"Ok Adrien." She hollered. "You can come up now."