Chloe's eyes soften; memories seemingly flashing behind them. Ladybug glances beside her when an akuma flies through the door. Abruptly, she yanks it out of the air with her free hand, crushing it before kicking the door closed. She turns back to Chloe and tentatively removes her hand as she asks, "Why did you come to me? Are you okay?"

Chloe shakes her head. "Forget that, you're Ladybug and you have a missing boy in your attic! Explain."

She groans, pinching her nose in an attempt to fight off the impending headache. "Chloe, I don't have time for this. Can you just pretend you don't know any of that?"

"Absolutely not!" Chloe stomps her foot. "Why is Adrien here?"

Ladybug sighs and reluctantly answers, "Okay, fine. Look, Adrien is hurt and I'm trying to help him. I know you guys are fighting, but if you care about him at all, you won't tell anyone that he's here." She pauses before adding, "or that I'm Ladybug."

The blonde crosses her arms and raises her eyebrow. "If he's hurt, why would he be here and not at a hospital?"

"I really can't tell you that," She starts.

"Did you kidnap him? Are you holding him against his will?" Chloe scoffs, "I always knew you were crazy Dupain-Cheng, but I didn't realize it was this horrendous."

Marinette's hands bury themselves in her hair and she presses her fingertips into her scalp. "Chloe, I did not kidnap Adrien! Come on, you at least know me better than that. Like I said before, I can't tell you why he's here." She whisper-yells.

She sticks her nose in the air, "Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!"

"Keep your voice down, or I'll kidnap YOU and lock you in the basement." Ladybug narrows her eyes.

Chloe huffs as she crosses her arms. "Like you could handle me in the first place."

"Chloe, I really can't do this today." Marinette groans loudly, slouching over and making a dramatic show of how exhausted she is by the blonde's presence.

"Do you even have a basement?" She raises her brow, unamused.

Chloe taps her foot impatiently. An awkward silence falls between them. After a moment, Ladybug finally responds, "No… But I do have a very big oven." She shoves her gently with her pointer finger.

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Oh, I'm so scared." Her words dripping with sarcasm. "So, you've known that he was okay this whole time and you didn't tell anyone? We've all been worried sick and you're here doing what? Just hanging out with him?!"

Ladybug makes no attempt to hide her frustration. "Actually, Chloe, he's NOT okay and we haven't exactly been living it up here. I've spent the last few days trying to keep him from DYING in my bedroom, alright?!"

The blonde scoffs and shakes her head in disbelief, "You are not a doctor! I get that you want to 'play house' or something but this is real life and there are real consequences!" She gestures wildly, working herself up the more she speaks, "If it's really that serious, he needs to go to a hospital."

"You don't think I know that?! I want to take him to a hospital for his own sake, but if I do that, he WILL die." That takes Chloe aback. She's still confused, but she makes no reply. "I am seriously begging you, Chloe, do not tell anyone what you saw or heard today. Please?"

When Chloe furrows her brow and turns away, Ladybug reaches out to hold her hand and whispers, "For me?"

She snaps around to meet Lady- no, Marinette's gaze, eyes wide. After a long pause, she suddenly pulls her hand back and breaks the tense silence, "Fine. I'll keep your secret." Then her voice softens as she adds, "and if you need anything," she ducks her head, "I'm here."

Without another word from either girl, Chloe leaves. The door clicks shut behind her and she pauses, holding her hand to her chest as she glances back with a frown before turning to walk away.

Inside, Marinette mentally curses herself, realizing she'd let Chloe leave without an explanation as to why she was there in the first place. She chuckles, After all of these years, you'd think I'd be immune to her deflecting.

"Tikki, spots off." She mutters. Ladybug once again becomes Marinette and she tosses her kwami a cookie.

Tikki takes a bite and begins speaking with her mouth full, "What was that about Marinette? I thought you and Chloe hated each other?"

"Don't worry about it, Tikki. It's nothing… Let's go check on Adrien!"

When she re-enters her room Adrien is sitting on her bed watching 'The Seven Deadly Sins.' He eyes her with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm back! Sorry about that!" She calls up to him.

"Um, did you get hungry on the way here?" He chuckles.

She scrunches her eyebrows, "Huh?"

"You said you were getting food…" He explains, slowly, unable to hide his amusement.

Her ears turn pink and she runs out of the room. "Oh! That's right- I totally forgot," She glances back up at him before closing the door, "I'll be right back."

He smiles, staring at the spot her head was in moments before. "Aww, she's so adorable when she's frazzled. I'm so lucky to have her as a friend." He sighs. Plagg snorts and Adrien casts him a questioning look.

Marinette reemerges from the trapdoor with a plate of food before Adrien can prod his kwami to explain his reaction.

Marinette is mid-bite when Adrien decides to break the comfortable silence, "Hey, what were you going to tell me before?" He asks. She chokes on the croissant.

"What?" She asks, catching her breath as she turns to him, "Oh that…" She looks down and chews on her lip. She really should tell him. "It's just that-"

He places a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Mar, whatever it is, you know you can tell me anything, but you also don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

Her hand reaches up to twist one of her earrings. He deserves to know.

"No, it's fine… I just-" She pauses and avoids his eyes, "I've been making deliveries to Chloe and I felt really bad about it because I know you guys are fighting." She grimaces after the words leave her mouth. Why can't you just tell him the truth?

"Oh, that's okay. I overheard you talking to Ladybug about that a while ago and I understand. It's not like you can avoid making a delivery just because I have a quarrel with her."

No, but I could at least tell you that she knows you're here… and that I'm Ladybug. She swallows hard, "Yeah, I should have known you would understand." Marinette forces a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

He can tell she's still uneasy and becomes determined to lighten the mood. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you, why didn't you design a Multimouse onesie?"

"Nobody really knows about Multimouse besides you." And Ladybug. I should've said that. What if he realizes?

Adrien covers his mouth in genuine shock. "Wait, are you serious? People don't know about Multimouse?"

She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding when he doesn't question her slip up. "She didn't make it into the news." If you just told him, you wouldn't have to tiptoe around it like this.

"That's awful! Multimouse was so cute." Adrien frowns.

Marinette takes another bite of her croissant to avoid responding to the compliment. She turns her head, attempting to hide the blood red hue of her cheeks.

After they finish eating, Marinette grabs a blanket off of her bed and lays it on the floor. Adrien watches her, head tilted. She tries to hide the inevitable smile that tugs at her lips when she notices him staring like that. "I need you to lay down, Kitty cat. We need to change out your bandages."

Adrien takes his shirt off and lays down on the makeshift bed. She presses her lips, trying not to react to the sight of his bandages.

She looks at the ground and subconsciously fidgets with her earrings. "I'm really sorry."

She messes with her earrings when she's nervous. Why is everything she does so cute? He blinks and shakes his head, "What? Why?"

She walks to the desk and reaches into the drawer, "I have to redo your stitches."

His eyes widen, "Uhhhhhhh so I'm gonna be awake for that aren't I," He gives a strangled sounding laugh, "Unless you're going to knock me out with a frying pan."

Marinette grabs one of the plates from beside them and looks at it contemplatively, "I could give it a go if you really want me to."

"No, no, please no." He starts to sit up and she gently presses his chest back down to the ground.

She laughs, "I'm kidding, you absolute chihuahua."

Adrien gasps, offended, "I am a mighty lion!" He lifts his neck to glare at her, since she won't allow him to actually sit up.

"We are tigers, mighty mighty, tigers" Marinette starts singing the Tony the Tiger theme song, mocking him.

"Mighty, mighty, tigers!" He repeats the jingle, suddenly smiling at her.

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Oh, come on, you're not even a little wounded?"

"No, I am. I'm just practicing hiding my pain because you're about to put me in a lot of it."

After she's got all of the bandages unwrapped, she sprays them with wound wash. Adrien hisses.

"Sorry!"

"It's okay, Mar, you're only helping." He grounds out, trying and failing to sound perfectly fine.

She nods and looks down at his stitches, taking a deep breath as she prepares herself to pull them out. Her hand is hovering above the thread when he looks down at himself and realizes his more minor wounds are mostly gone. "How am I healing that fast?"

Marinette pauses for a moment, raising her eyebrows at him, before replying, "Probably the magic ladyblood."

"Ew. Do not call it that."

Marinette laughs. "I thought you'd be proud of me, Kitty. I made a pun."

"I'm very happy you made a pun, Purrr-incess. But maybe next time you could make one that doesn't involve blood?"

"Unlikely." She shakes her head, with a smile. Her eyes widen when she remembers the blood bag in her closet. I'll have to do that later. Or you could tell him the truth and do it right now. She shakes her head. No, not now. He should be allowed to process the physical pain without also battling emotional pain.

She looks between her supplies and the wounds. "Okay, so I don't know how to do this at all."

"Well that's reassuring."

"It'll be fine… I'll just look up a tutorial on youtube." She pulls out her phone and searches, 'how to give stitches to an almost dead boy' before clicking on the one result that seems like it might actually be helpful.

"Wait what? You didn't do that the first time?" He is suddenly very surprised to still be alive.

"You were dying, Adrien." She says in a flat tone, "I wasn't exactly thinking straight."

She bites her lip as she stares at her phone. "Yeah... I definitely didn't do this right last time."

"Well… at least I didn't die." He laughs weakly.

"Of course not. You're not allowed to. No matter how ineffective I may be as a doctor…" She grabs the end of one of the threads in his abdomen with one hand, and grabs his hand with the other. She squeezes it in silent warning before she partially pulls the thread out of his skin. He squeezes her hand back and tries to stifle the pained groan in his chest.

"You're doing your best." His voice is strained.

She sterilizes the surgical needle before threading it and moving to replace the stitches she just pulled out. "Let's talk about something that makes you happy."

"Well, you were pretty amazing as Multimouse," he does his best to smile through the pain as she works. "So good that I even thought you were Ladybug at first."

Her eyes widen. I don't know what I was expecting him to say, but it was not that. "That's so cool that you thought I was her," she laughs nervously, "Especially since I could be Ladybug." She continues undoing and replacing the stitches, little by little.

He laughs, though it sounds more akin to a cough, "Could be?"

She pauses what she's doing and her eyes snap to his, "What?!" She blinks, "Couldn't be! As in: Could never be! Haha we're nothing alike!"

He forces another smile, "You'd be surprised, you both hate liars and bullies. More than the average person, you two just get so mad. But I know it's because you always have good intentions and you have a hard time understanding anyone who doesn't." He speaks in a dreamy tone until Marinette removes more of the thread and he has to fight to keep his voice even. "You both wear your hair in pigtails and have these beautiful bluebell eyes…" He stops and hisses when she digs the needle back into his skin before continuing, "You're both really smart. You think so quick on your feet and I don't know how either of you do it. Oh, and you both pretend to hate my puns, but I know you sss-" He hisses again, "secretly love them."

Marinette does her best not to stop working as he talks, despite the panic rising in her chest. Finally, her hands begin shaking and she has to take a break or she might really mess this up. "BUT I'M CLUMSY," She clears her throat, "She's not clumsy like me. We're worlds apart!"

"No, she definitely is," He chuckles fondly, "There was this one time that she took a single step back and somehow tripped so far that she actually fell off of the eiffel tower. She was nowhere near the edge before she tripped. I was laughing so hard at her shriek of terror that I nearly got thrown off of it too."

Marinette tries to keep her breathing steady. He's going to figure it out and all of that love will turn into anger. Why didn't I just tell him? I should tell him now. I could stop hi-

"When we first met, she bonked me with her yo-yo and introduced herself as "madly clumsy. Actually, the first thing I ever called her was 'clumsy girl'. You're just like her, Mari. I actually thought you were her at one point, but I realized that was just wishful thinking when I learned you were Multimouse."

Her breathing returns to normal when he says that last part. She sticks the needle into his skin again. "I can't believe you really thought that." She means it, too. She really didn't think anyone would ever guess her identity, let alone him. Adrien or Chat.

He answers through clenched teeth. "The nickname 'Everyday Ladybug' didn't come from nowhere."

"I still don't see it." She finally finishes the last of his stitches and takes a moment to inspect her handiwork before reaching for the bandages.

"That's because you don't see how amazing you are." He smiles at her warmly, "Another thing you two have in common."

Marinette fusses with the bandages to try to hide her growing blush, "Alright Adrien, I need you to sit up so I can get these bandages around your back."

"No more pain?"

She laughs softly. "No more pain. Well, the worst of it, at least. You did really well." As she helps him up, she finally looks at his face and notices the tear tracks. She fights the urge to cry herself, realizing just how much pain she must have put him in.

"Thank you for taking care of me, Super Marinette." He smiles. It takes everything in her not to flinch at his words. She's torn between the panic that maybe, just maybe, he does know and is messing her, the guilt that she hasn't told him yet, and the embarrassment of hearing him say such sweet things about her. It doesn't matter how you tell him now. He's going to be mad. He has every right to be.

She finishes wrapping him up and hands him his shirt. He slips it over his head and smiles at her warmly. She doesn't return it. She's too focussed on the tightness in her chest and stomach. He frowns. "What's wrong Marinette?"

Tell him. Tell him right now. It's the perfect opportunity. It doesn't matter how upset he'll be. Not telling him is selfish. "Sorry! I'm fine. I'm just thinking about how I have to go back to school tomorrow and I don't want to leave you here." Why are you like this? It's your own fault if he hates you for this. Just rip the band-aid off.

"Actually-"

"Don't worry-" They start at the same time.

"Sorry, sorry! You talk." Dammit.

"I was just going to say that I'll be fine. You don't need to worry about me." He laughs.

"I'm going to leave you a bunch of snacks. I'll cook you breakfast, too! And dinner!" Making sure he has food is a priority for her, but she knows it's really the guilt that makes her feel the need to say this, "You already know where to find my video games and my manga. If you need me, just message me on Instagram. I'll leave my laptop on the desk, you already know you can use it to watch whatever you want. Oh! And don't worry if you need to go to the bathroom or anything, my parents should stay down in the bakery while I'm at school."

"See? You've planned for everything." He gives her a big goofy smile, "I'll be fine."