Author's Note: This is a fic based off of a comic written and drawn by hogeky on tumblr by the same name. Please go there to view images and support her comic!

Permission was received to write this fic.

The ladybug sticker stared up mockingly at Marinette. She had placed it there as a signature of sorts on the pink stationary, and now that she was about to give it away, she was scared. Biting at the inside of her mouth, her brows furrowed as she worked up her nerve. She was going to do it. She'd already written it and she was going to do it. She was going to deliver this letter; this reply.

Her heart pounded painfully in her chest; her breathing irregular. She swallowed, hoping to dampen the dryness of her mouth. She had to tell herself there was no going back. She had to tell herself that or she might not go.

Marinette didn't recall calling Tikki over, but she floated by silently, waiting for the girl's decision.

It's time to go.

She was over the rooftops before she had even realized it.

I hope everything goes well…

"You know, you'll have to say something to her sooner or later," Plagg pressed. Adrien was lounging rather happily on the couch in his room before his kwami decided he had to speak up.

"Say something? What are you talking about Plagg?" Adrien replied, his attention briefly pulled away from his phone. Plagg sat pointedly on the screen and stared unbelievingly at Adrien.

"Don't act dumb. You're perpetuating your own stereotype." Plagg turned and swiped at the face of the phone to reveal the lock screen contents. Marinette's smiling face peered up from Adrien's hand and he sat up, his cheeks reddening, and huffed. It had been a photo he had taken recently of a walk they had gone on together. It had been such a pleasant day that Marinette insisted that he take a photo of her in front of the view past the Seine. It simply had been she hadn't been made aware that he had cropped the picture to his preference and glanced at it occasionally.

Plagg laughed at the boy's misery before he was caught mid cackle.

"Adrien, look!" he cried, pointing off into the distance outside the window. Adrien's hands were over his eyes, meaning to cover the rising heat in his cheeks.

"Stop teasing me Plagg!" he whined, not at all refuting his kwami's earlier implication, regarding Marinette (and not having the energy to refute the comment on his profession).

"No you idiot! Look behind you!" Hearing the alarm in Plagg's voice, Adrien turned with a mild amount of panic. Perched on the edge of his window was Ladybug, entering with what she believed was practiced stealth. She froze when he noticed her, still sitting on the widow's ledge. For a while, they stared in silence. Adrien's mind had seemed to fizzle out, while Ladybug's was running a mile a minute. His eyes bulged from their sockets, his jaw went slack. Beginning to feel more than mildly uncomfortable, she continued her descent to his bedroom floor.

"I'm sorry for intruding," she started. When he didn't reply, her eyes drifted to the ground. "I'm here to return something."

"Return?" Memories rushed through Adrien's brain, searching for anything he could possibly have leant to the superheroine. They rarely even interacted outside of him being Chat Noir. In fact, the last time he had even spoken to Ladybug as Adrien had been…

His body jolted at the memory, and Ladybug rubbed at the back of her head, chuckling nervously.

"Uhm… yea," she said. It occurred then to Adrien that he didn't really want a response to his letter. His mind flickered back to what Plagg had mentioned not moments ago. Truly, he wasn't sure he wanted a response at all. Ladybug had hardly crossed his mind in the last while and he hadn't even begun to notice. He'd been too busy giving his attentions to…

"I… I don't. I mean, I uh. What? I, I don't know what you're…" he struggled, chuckling awkwardly, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. The possibility that he could have been even thinking of rejecting his long-time crush seemed foreign to him, and his body appeared to act a fool in protest. Something in the pit of his stomach was hollow, and for some reason, he was scared.

"I'm sorry," she interrupted. Adrien stopped mid stutter. She sounded as scared as he felt.

"What? What are you talking about? I don't..." Before he could bring himself to say another word, Ladybug produced a pink envelope, and he stared. Unfortunately, his suspicions had been spot on.

On the other hand, it had been the first time he had seen Ladybug so terribly bashful. Of course, there had been times before when he had seen her flustered, or embarrassed, and uncertain. But never bashful. Her strong gaze was submissively averted to the ground, her free hand behind her back, her head slightly bowed. Adrien thought that he must have been dreaming to see the confident Ladybug he thought he knew trying to hide herself in everyway possible except to duck under his couch or leap from the window's ledge.

Taking the letter in both hands, she thrust the paper toward him, her eyes finding intense fascination with a spot on his floor he was sure to investigate later on. He feared her lip would begin to bleed from the vigour with which she bit it.

"I'm so sorry," she began meekly, "for not replying sooner." He hoped his jaw hadn't gone as slack as he felt it drop. Blue eyes slowly gave him their attention. "I hope you can forgive me. And accept my letter."

Not without hesitation, Adrien eventually lifted his hand in a trembling fashion. He watched as his arm seemed to move on its own, his mind falling separate from the limb. When he reached the letter, he stopped. Breath shaking, Adrien closed his mouth, hating the sound of his indecision. The he inhaled so deeply his lungs burned, and pulled his fingers away from the letter.

"I… I can't."