This never stops being awesome! thought Alya as she scrambled across the roof, phone outstretched. The footage she'd already gotten would nicely make up for the Foxfire disaster, and now there was a chance to get an actual interview with Ladybug, even if it would have to be a bit rushed.

"Ladybug, anything you want to say to your fans?" she asked.

Ladybug glanced at the phone. "Yes," she said with a little smile. "I'd like to say how grateful I am to have the support of the people of Paris, and how grateful I am to have Cat Noir as my partner."

"Aw, you flatter me, Milady," said Cat Noir from off to the side. "If you'll ex-claws me, I'll just duck out for a moment. Got to take our un-fur-tunate guest down, after all."

He sauntered over to Chloe, who was still looking somewhat dazed, and grabbed her around the waist. Chloe let out a squawk of astonishment as Cat Noir lifted her off the ground like a parcel and leapt from the roof.

Alya turned back to Ladybug, and winced at the look in Ladybug's eyes.

"I would also like to say," said Ladybug, smile now replaced with a hard glare, "that while Cat Noir and I will do our best to protect you from Hawkmoth, or any other threat that may rear its head, we do not appreciate your making our job harder by taking stupid risks."

"Uh…" Alya had no idea what to say to that. Perhaps fortunately, the moment was broken by a warning trill from Ladybug's earrings.

"Ah, I'll need to bug out soon," said Ladybug. "Any questions before I go?"

"Actually, yes," said Alya, quickly seizing on the question she'd thought up moments ago. "Any idea why it was that Chloe Bourgeois is the first person since Stoneheart to be re-akumatized?"

"I don't really know," admitted Ladybug slowly, after a moment's thought. "But if I had to guess, I would put it down to simple probability. Most people very rarely suffer from the kind of negative emotions that make them vulnerable to Hawkmoth's akumas, and even when they do, it may happen that Hawkmoth is not in a position to send out an akuma, or has some other target he prefers. So it's not likely that the same person will attract Hawkmoth's attention twice in rapid succession. But on the other hand, it's not surprising that someone would attract Hawkmoth's attention twice, given enough time."

They were interrupted by Cat Noir landing next to Ladybug with a thud. "Package delivered, Milady," he said with a small bow.

"Either way," finished Ladybug more quickly, "I don't think there was anything special about Chloe Bourgeois. She just happened to be the first person to fall into despair at the wrong time twice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really do need to be going. I can give you a ride down, though."

"Thank you, Ladybug!" said Alya cheerfully. It was looking to be a good day for the Ladyblog.

She had just a moment to see a rather disturbing smirk on Ladybug's face before the superheroine wrapped an arm around her, tossed out her yo-yo string, and leapt from the roof.

This wasn't the first time Alya had hitched a ride with Ladybug, but in the past Ladybug had usually landed before letting go. This time, Ladybug's arc didn't touch the ground. Instead, she released Alya in midair, sending her flying into something soft…

"WHOOF!... Oh… uh… Hi, babe."

… which turned out to be Nino.

Good aim, thought Alya bemusedly.

Marinette swooped through the air, Cat Noir right behind her. They flew over the sea of students gathered outside the school, and the fire trucks which were just pulling up in response to the alarm, and landed on a rooftop on the far side of the road. A quick glance over the parapet showed the alley on the far side of the building to be mostly deserted, so Ladybug leapt down and tucked herself into a convenient nook, with Cat Noir squeezing in beside her.

"Ok," said Marinette, "If anyone asks, we ran back here to hide from the akuma, and got distracted kissing. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," said Cat Noir with a broad grin. "Especially the kissing part."

Marinette smiled. "Tikki, spots off," she said. The energy of the transformation poured out of her, and Tikki dropped into her hands. Marinette could kind of sympathize with her kwami. She always felt exhausted for a few minutes right after dropping the transformation, until she adjusted back to a normal human body. She quickly tucked Tikki into her purse, watched the little god snuggle into the handkerchief Marinette kept there for that exact purpose, and turned her head up just in time to intercept Adrien's descending lips.

All too soon, Adrien broke the kiss and murmured in her ear, "Not that kissing you isn't fun, Milady, but we're going to need to get our story straight before we go back. You know Alya's not going to let up, and the others will be asking questions as well."

"Aw," said Marinette, curling her lip in a pout. But she knew perfectly well that Adrien was right.

"So…" she said, "Any ideas?"

"Probably best to stick as closely as possible to the truth," said Adrien. "We'll say I'd had a bit of a crush on you for a while, but didn't know how to bring it up. Yesterday, we happened to be together… why would we happen to be together?"

"Maybe we were visiting the same park?" Marinette said tentatively.

"That works," replied Adrien with a nod. "I really did do a photoshoot in a park yesterday afternoon, so that will hold up to a casual investigation. So we were in the same park, got to chatting, and I accidentally mentioned something that led you to realize that I had some feelings for you. That let you work up the nerve to actually act on your crush, one thing led to another, and…" He trailed off and leaned down for another kiss.

Some indeterminate time later, the faint sound of the fire alarm in the distance cut out. Adrien murmured in her ear, "Milady, we need to go. Students will be going back to class. The last thing either of us needs is any more absences."

"You're right," admitted Marinette. She rose to her feet and took Adrien's hand in hers, feeling the smooth metal of the gold ring under her fingers...

She glanced down at her free hand, suddenly aware again of the corresponding weight of her own ring.

"Huh," she said in a low voice as the two made for the mouth of the alley. "I just now realized that I wasn't wearing this when I was transformed." She wiggled the fingers of her left hand to make it clearer what she was talking about. "Guess the magic treats it the same way it treats the rest of our clothes."

"Probably a good thing, if you want to keep that part of our relationship a secret," said Adrien. "You know Alya would spot it in half a heartbeat if we were wearing the rings transformed, and that would be just as bad as if I'd sent her the kiss picture. Not to mention that if she saw you and Ladybug wearing two identical rings, it would be one more clue to who we are."

They rounded the corner of the building, and saw the students disappearing back into the school. They switched to a rapid trot and soon had caught up with the tail end of the student populace.

"Wonder if anyone even noticed we were missing?" asked Adrien wryly as they slipped back through the doors.

As it turned out, the answer to that question was "Yes". Marinette and Adrien were the last two in their class to get back, and no sooner had Adrien slid into his seat than Nino leaned over and whispered "Dude, where'd you and Marinette go?" in his ear.

Adrien called up a light blush and a slightly sheepish expression, thankful yet again for years of training in making his face say precisely and only what he wanted it to say. "Well, we ran away and hid, and we hid in the same place. So we got kind of... distracted. Nearly missed the alarm cutting out."

Nino snickered. "You're going to need to get a handle on this thing with Marinette pronto, you know."

"This is our first day back at school since we got together," retorted Adrien. "Give us some time to get our balance back, ok?"

"Ok, ok," said Nino defensively.

"Alright, class," said Miss Bustier. "Now that we are all back, let's begin our discussion on..."

Adrien set part of his mind to absorbing Miss Bustier's words and then sneaked a peak across the aisle.

I can't let myself make the same mistake twice. Bad enough that it happened once. I of all people should have remembered how brittle Chloe can be if hit in the wrong way. There must have been a better way to break the news that Marinette and I are together now, a way that wouldn't have pushed Chloe into Hawkmoth's arms. But I was so giddy about finally having caught my Lady's eye, and then so furious at Chloe for threatening Ladybug, that I forgot to be gentle to her.

Well, I'll just have to pay more attention and be more careful from here on out.

Chloe still looked distinctly dazed, as if the shock of akumatization had yet to wear off. Her posture was remarkably neutral, neither slumped back nor leaning forward, nor really sitting up straight. She was just... sitting. And though Adrien couldn't really tell from this angle, he thought her eyes seemed out of focus, as though she wasn't actually looking at anything.

I suppose that's good. Bemused is better than furious or despondent, at least. But it's still odd. The Ladybug magic always leaves an akuma victim a bit befuddled when they first wake up and they don't know how they got where they are or where their fury went, but it usually wears off pretty quickly. Chloe actually seems to be going deeper. I wonder what's causing that? I'll have to ask Ladybug and her kwami, whatever her name was, tonight. Maybe one of them knows. And if neither of them knows, then I can pretty much rule out the Ladybug magic being involved, which will be a big help.

Either way, nothing I can do about it now.

"I'd better go back to the mansion for lunch," murmured Adrien in Marinette's ear as they headed out of the classroom. "Natalie and Father would freak out if I didn't. And... it's not that I'm ashamed of you or anything, but I really don't feel up to telling them about us right now. Not after the morning we've had."

"I feel the same way," admitted Marinette quietly. "I wonder what it says about me that I'm more scared of your dad than of..." She made a quick butterfly gesture.

Adrien smiled. "I'd say that shows good sense."

Marinette decided she'd rather laugh at that than wince.

For a moment, she considered heading home for lunch herself. But a quick glance over her shoulder showed Alya and Nino dogging her footsteps like wolves waiting for a deer to drift from the protection of the herd. She'd never make it back home before they caught her. Not to mention that going home for lunch would only invite a similar interrogation from her parents. With a mental sigh, Marinette resigned herself to a lunch-long interrogation from her best friend.

And sure enough, no sooner had she seen Adrien off and kissed him goodbye at the school doors than Marinette felt someone grab her shoulder.

"Hi, Alya," she said without bothering to look back.

"Come on, girl," said Alya. "You've got some explaining to do."

Marinette rolled her eyes, but permitted herself to be shepherded to the cafeteria. Marinette filled her plate with spaghetti with meat sauce, a couple of slices of cafeteria garlic bread (not a patch on what her parents made, but not bad even so), and a basic salad. She permitted herself a brief mental sigh of regret for the bag of Dupain-Cheng cookies she'd tucked into her backpack, which now held only crumbs. But such were the sacrifices being a hero demanded.

"Seriously, girl," remarked Alya, "How do you eat that much spaghetti without ending up as round as a beach ball?"

Marinette rolled her eyes. This wasn't the first or even the tenth time Alya had made that observation in recent months. Ladybugging burnt a lot of calories, and Marinette enjoyed being able to eat as much as she liked. "Some people have active metabolisms and get plenty of exercise," she replied.

"Exercise, eh?" said Alya with a smirk. "Is that what you're calling it, then?"

Marinette felt her cheeks blush red. "Seriously, Alya? Do you think Adrien would do that to me? Adrien?"

"He's a boy, Marinette," said Alya. "Boys always want to get between our legs."

"Hey!" protested Nino.

Alya shot him a look. "Do I need to tell Marinette exactly how we got together?"

Nino's complexion hid his blush a lot better than Marinette's, but not quite well enough. "Shutting up now," he muttered.

"So," Alya said as they settled down into their seats. "If you and model-boy haven't done the deed yet, what have you done? I want some deets, girl!"

"Well…" said Marinette, drawing it out a bit. "We've kissed a bunch of times, and there was some tongue, but that's about it." She let a little smirk settle on her face. "I have told him I'm not ready to get married just yet."

Alya blinked. "Really? After all those plans you've told me about, suddenly you're not interested in getting married?"

"Alya, I'm fourteen," said Marinette flatly. "I'm pretty sure it's not even legal to get married until you're eighteen."

"Who's getting married?" asked Alix as she plopped a tray down next to Marinette. "Oh, and congrats on finally getting your act together, Marinette," she said. "It'll be nice not to have to deal with that tension all the time."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so relieved just yet," said Alya. "Marinette's the sappiest romantic you've ever seen, and from what Nino says Adrien is just as bad. The two of them together? They'll be so sickeningly adorable it'll give you diabetes."

Marinette bent low over her spaghetti to hide her burning face.

"I am pleased to see you are all here," came Max's voice. "Based on the information I had access to before this morning, I would estimate there was less than a .342% chance that Marinette and Adrien would have become romantically involved during the past sixty-eight hours. As they clearly did become romantically involved sometime during that time period, I can only conclude that either something immensely improbable occurred, or there was some factor involved of which I did not know. I am curious as to what it might have been."

Marinette almost faceplanted in her spaghetti. Fortunately, she remembered in time that this would result in getting sauce all over her face, and settled for a tortured groan.

"Seriously?" she said, looking up. In addition to Max and Alix, they'd also been joined by Rose, Juleka, Ivan, and Mylene. "Don't you think this is a little over-the-top? I mean, we didn't all gang up on Ivan and Mylene like this when they got together."

"Sorry," said Ivan, getting to his feet and picking up his tray. "I just sat here because all the rest of the class seemed to be doing it. Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He moved over to the next table, followed by Mylene.

Rose blushed. "But the ring Adrien gave you was so sparkly!" she chirped. "I just wanted to take a closer look at it. Can I see it, please?"

Marinette sighed slightly, but you couldn't really refuse a request from Rose. It was like kicking a kitten. She raised one hand, fingers spread to show off her ring. Rose gently took her hand and ran her fingers over the ring, a look of awe on her face. Juleka ducked even further behind her hair than usual and murmured something Marinette couldn't catch.

"Oh my," Rose said in a soft voice. "That's a real emerald, and at least seven-fifty fine gold. Adrien must have spent a lot of money on this. Especially if his is a match for this one."

"It is," Marinette confirmed. "Not sure how much they cost, though. Didn't ask."

"And again I ask, what the hell happened over the weekend?" said Alya insistently as Kim took up the seat Ivan had vacated. "How did you manage to go from being a babbling wreck in Adrien's presence to getting expensive jewelry and kissing him in just two days?"

Marinette did her best to keep her voice casual. "Honestly, it wasn't anything that dramatic. He and I ended up in the same park yesterday afternoon, we got to talking – and yes, Alya, I am actually capable of talking to Adrien these days – and one thing kind of led to another. It turns out he'd been falling for me for a bit now himself, he just hadn't known what to do about it any more than I did. That's where the rings come from, he'd bought them a while back and been carrying them around ever since."

Alya groaned. "That's it? You just finally worked up the nerve to talk to him? After all that fuss, I was expecting something with akumas and tidal waves and breathless near-death experiences!"

"And you say I have a crazy imagination," Marinette deadpanned.

"Well," said Kim, "On behalf of all the boys in Paris whose potential girlfriends were crushing on Adrien Agreste, allow me to say, 'Congratulations and we wish you all the best'."

Marinette paused for a moment to parse that statement. "Thank you, I guess," she said.

"Ooh, can I help plan your wedding?" asked Rose. The slender blonde was practically vibrating with excitement, her large blue eyes sparkling.

Marinette threw her hands up in exasperation. "What is with you people?" she asked rhetorically. "I'm fourteen. I don't think you even can get married until you're eighteen."

"Actually," interjected Max, "while French law states that the minimum age of marriage as a right is eighteen, it also provides for marriage where one or both parties is under that age. The underage party or parties must secure permission from a court and from both parents, but there is no minimum age limit as such."

"Ok, so Adrien and I could get married early if I got my parents, Adrien's dad, and a court official to agree to it," said Marinette. "Still not going to happen. I don't think my parents would approve of me getting married this young, I really don't think Adrien's dad would, and there's no way Mayor Bourgeois would let the courts grant a special dispensation for anyone other than Chloe to marry Adrien. And the whole point's moot, because like I told Adrien, I don't want to get married just yet, not until I'm ready for it!"

"But when you do get married, can I help plan the wedding?" asked Rose hopefully.

"Of course you can," said Marinette, trying for a more gentle tone.

"Yay!" squealed Rose. "Ok, Alya, you can be the maid of honor, and Nino will be the best man… Nino, do you think you can be the best man and DJ the reception?"

"Uh… I think so," said Nino. "What exactly does the best man do?"

"Stands next to the groom, looks handsome, and then gives a speech embarrassing the groom to within an inch of his life at the reception," said Alya, ticking the points off on her fingers. "Speech usually comes at the end of dinner, before the dancing starts, so you should be good there."

Juleka murmured something.

"Don't worry, Alya," said Rose. "I'm sure that won't happen. Plus you could always marry him first."

"Wait, what?" asked Alya, looking utterly taken aback.

"I said, 'Theoretically, the best man is also supposed to marry the bride if the groom is unable or unwilling to fulfill his duties'," repeated Juleka in a slightly louder monotone.

There was a long moment of utter silence at the table.

Is that what I used to look like whenever Alya would tease me about Adrien? wondered Marinette as she tried not to giggle at the look on Nino's face.

"Anyway," said Rose just a shade too cheerfully, "we'll also need bridesmaids. Marinette, can Juleka and I be bridesmaids?"

"Um… maybe?" said Marinette. "I feel like we should wait until a little closer to the actual wedding to decide that. If nothing else, I've got a lot of cousins and I'm not sure which ones are going to want to be part of the wedding. And besides, who knows what the future will bring? Maybe in four or five years you'll be the Princess of Achu and too busy to come all the way back to Paris for a wedding."

Rose blushed adorably. "Good point," she admitted. "Ok, I'll put some thought into it. Does anybody know if the bride is allowed to sew her own wedding dress, or is that bad luck?"

I wonder if Adrien knew this was coming, and that's why he went to the mansion for lunch? thought Marinette as the conversation started up again around her. He's a clever kitty, he could have figured it out. I wish I'd figured it out. I might have gone back home for lunch instead. Telling Mom and Dad wouldn't have been much worse than this, and I'll have to do it eventually.

Maybe not this evening, though. I think I've been embarrassed enough for one day.