Friday morning seemed to drag on for each of them, knowing the significance of what their meeting that evening would be. Classes, even the classes they typically found most interesting, would alternate between dragging on as they tried to focus on the subject matter and being zoned out as their attention was focused so intensely elsewhere. They even noticed something was up with each other due to both of them being called out at different points by the teacher in the classes that they shared.
At lunch time Adrien approached Marinette in the cafeteria. "Hey girls," he greeted, Marinette and Alya being sat together as they ate their lunch.
"Oh hey, Aaaadrien!" Alya emphasized with a jab to Marinette's side so that she'd actually look up from her plate and make eye contact with him and Nino.
"I was hoping I could chat to Marinette for a bit if that's ok with you Alya," Adrien explained. "Would you be ok having a lunch date with Nino today?" he suggested pointedly.
"Dude," Nino jokingly objected, "kicking us out like that when we've only just gotten here, that's no fair!" But he smiled and offered Alya his arm as she rose from the table.
"Have fun you two," Alya winked at Marinette, who shifted under the table, finally giving a goofy grin to Adrien as he sat down. "Come on, darling," she addressed Nino, "we're not wanted here," she joked dramatically as they wandered to the other side of the cafeteria finding a table where they could still watch their friends.
Noticing that they were still being watched but knowing that they couldn't be heard, Adrien turned to Marinette. "How are you today Marinette?" he asked politely.
"Uh, I'm, um, doing ok, thank you Adrien," she responded nervously. 'What are you doing?!' she asked herself, 'you kept it together talking to him as Ladybug, just pretend you're doing that now!'
"I hope you don't mind me saying, but you seem pretty distracted today, and I think I know why," he told her.
Marinette's heart skipped a beat. How could he know?! How had he figured her out?! Had she not been careful enough interacting with him the last few days? What was it she had done that had revealed her? She thought she had been careful. Perhaps he was realizing her awkwardness around him was similar when she was Ladybug and when she was Marinette.
She realized she had been staring at him, not saying anything and needed to speak up. "What are you talking about?" she asked. 'Great,' she thought, 'that didn't sound like a typical deflection at all.'
"I heard Cat Noir sort of kidnapped you yesterday, didn't he?" Adrien elaborated, having himself been thinking about the foolishness of the start of that interaction in light of experiencing it from the other side himself.
Marinette breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know. She regained her composure, doing her best to channel her Ladybug confidence. "Well I wouldn't say kidnapped, but I did tell him off for grabbing me like that," she informed him. "Word did get around huh…?"
"Yeah, a number of people saw it happen," Adrien covered, having not actually spoken about it with anyone else at the school.
"And I heard you had a visit from Ladybug the other day?" Marinette enquired, knowing that he had had several visits, but figuring only one of them would probably have become public knowledge.
"Yeah," he confirmed, specifically not alluding to the other visits. Marinette appreciated the discretion he showed, as she herself was doing by not mentioning the other visits she'd had with Cat Noir.
"Is that what you wanted to talk about, the fact that we've both gotten to see our city's superheroes this week?" she asked him, wondering what this conversation was supposed to be about.
"Yeah, sort of," he started. "I wanted to ask about what you talked about – I figure it's probably somewhat personal so you don't have to share, but I'm thinking we were probably all discussing the same thing." Adrien, of course, knew that they were discussing the same things.
Marinette did too, but she knew she was supposed to be ignorant of Adrien's conversations with Ladybug as Adrien knew he was supposed to be ignorant of what Marinette had discussed with Cat Noir. "Why are you asking?" she queried him, not really knowing if she should reveal something that Cat Noir had shared with her in confidence, and not sure how she felt about Adrien seeming to be ok with sharing what Ladybug had told him.
"I'm not sure if I helped Ladybug – she had some questions that I won't get into in detail, but I'm hoping I've been helpful in general." Well, he wasn't going to reveal intimate details, so that was good, perhaps it was ok to talk about this situation in general. Marinette recognized the opportunity to have a personal connection with Adrien here, and weighing up everything together decided that he would be ok to talk with in generalities.
"You mean," Marinette started, looking around to check no one was listening and trying to think about how to phrase questions in such a way that they would reflect what she had discussed with Cat Noir, but not what she had discussed as Ladybug, "that they might not be around much anymore?" That seemed non-detailed enough that it didn't reveal them stepping away completely whilst leaving some opening for further conversation.
"Yeah," he agreed, similarly checking for any potential eavesdroppers, "that unless there's a strong need to come back, they'll stop being them. I mean the superhero thems." Yep, Cat Noir had said that, and she had told Adrien that. "Based on your distractedness today I'm guessing you've been thinking about them too?"
'True,' she thought to herself, 'except I'm distracted because it's me'. But Adrien had given her the excuse she needed to explain her behavior today. It also illuminated why he had been acting strangely. "Yeah, you could say that. I didn't realize you were distracted for that too, I had thought it was probably because of your da…" she suddenly stopped, very conscious of the fact that that must still be a painful topic and not sure she would be allowed to ask about it.
"It's ok," he reassured her, noticing her hesitation, "you can say it."
"Your dad," she finished. "Can I ask? How are you doing with that?"
"Of course you can, Mari, you're one of my best friends." She nearly fainted to be told that. "It's been a shock for sure, and there's still so much to figure out because of it, but I'm doing ok. Having this to think about has actually been taking more of my time," he told her, suddenly realizing that it probably didn't sound right that he was more concerned about people who should be relative strangers to him than with what was going on with his own family. "I mean, it's been a good distraction," that didn't sound much better, he figured, as that seemed like avoidance. "I mean, uh, it's all just a lot to deal with, you know?"
"Yeah," she nodded, putting all of his stumbling down to this whole thing with Gabriel being a lot to handle. "So your distraction today is because of Ladybug?" she asked, secretly pleased with the attention that meant she was getting from him, even if it was indirect. How different things would be after tomorrow, when she hoped to tell Adrien it was her.
"Yeah," he confirmed, suddenly embarrassed as he realized he was talking to another girl about his crush, even if he wasn't telling her that. 'Am I being insensitive to Marinette?' he wondered.
"What did you want to ask me?" she carried on, still trying to determine why he was talking to her about it in the first place.
"Well," Adrien said, returning to the main conversation, "what do you think they should do?" he asked. Noting the expression on her face that said he needed to clarify his question (she had gotten quite good about feigning confusion about things she really knew the answer to), he added "about sharing their identities with each other?"
"Ladybug shared that part with you too?" she asked for the sake of appearances.
"Yeah. I'd always just assumed they always knew who each other was," he lied, strengthening the case for his ignorance. "So I didn't really understand why there was a question about it at first, I just figured they'd share for sure." That sounded like a good enough explanation to him for him to be able talk from a place of his real feelings as Cat Noir without revealing that to be who he was.
"Yeah," she pretended to agree, "imagine working all this time with someone and not knowing who they are!" Not that that was hard for her to imagine at all, nor for Adrien, who nodded in agreement.
"I know, and yet they seem so close," he observed. "So what do you think? Shouldn't they just share?"
"I guess," she explained. "Though it sounds a little more complicated than that, from what Cat told me at least."
"Yeah, I know," he concurred, not willing to reveal the conversation about 'the other guy' – that would be breaking a trust. He hoped Ladybug had been able to reflect on weighing up the choices they had talked about last night and that she would come down on the side of sharing. How could he know she was in front of him? "But I still think they should share, all things considered. Was I wrong to try and recommend that?"
"Why would that be wrong?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he answered truthfully, looking down at the table. "I guess, just, with everything that happened with my father I want to try and make sure I do something that really helps them, to sort of make up for it, even if only in a very small way. Is that silly?" Here was another example of the kind of person that Adrien was, the kind of thing that drew Marinette to him. He was so thoughtful, so selfless, so kind. She looked at him and let out a contended sigh before realizing that she was staring at him again.
She cleared her throat and momentarily averted her gaze. "Adrien that is the nicest thing," she told him and smiled. He looked up at her tentatively but her words and positive expression gave him the reassurance he needed to carry on. "That's not wrong at all, you shared what you believe is best from a place of wanting what is best – how on earth could that be silly?"
"Thanks Mari," he responded, "I needed to hear that." Marinette had become all the more precious to him this week, something she was achieving with him when he was both in and out of the mask, and he looked all the more forward to soon being able to tell her who he was. "How were your conversations with Cat Noir? What did you talk about?"
Thankfully she didn't notice the slip, referencing other conversations he shouldn't know about. "Similar things I think," she agreed, "the factors affecting what might happen if they do share."
"And do you believe they should share?" he asked, keen to know her honest thoughts about what she had already told him as Cat Noir.
"We talked a lot about it, but ultimately they have to figure it out for themselves," she told him. A disappointing answer, until she added, "but yes, I think they need each other in a way and shouldn't lose that, so they should share." This was the first time she had expressed it with such certainty, making it a moment of clarity for her as well.
"Well let's hope they do then," Adrien stated, beaming. "It will be weird to not have them around anymore though, and that no one will know who they are." What questions Paris would have. What theories would its people concoct about them? It would be an interesting few months ahead, whatever happens, maybe even longer.
"Yeah, I can't say I want there to be another reason for them to come back, but at the same time I do hope they get to come back."
"Marinette!" Alya suddenly called as the other two came back over to them.
"What?" she cried back.
"Class is in two minutes and you haven't touched your food!" Alya pointed out.
"You too, Dude," Nino added, gesturing to Adrien's plate. "Distracted by the view?" he queried knowingly, elbowing Adrien in the side. Both of them blushed at that, before looking at each other and trying their best to eat as much of their food as they could whilst maintaining composure in front of one another.
"What were you talking about then?" Alya enquired.
"Ladybug and Cat Noir," Marinette informed her with a grin.
"What?! My favorite people in the world and you left me out of it?" she expressed, clearly exasperated, before calming and adding, "except you three."
"We've gotta go guys," Nino reminded them, Marinette and Adrien stuffing whatever suitable lunch items they could into their bags, taking the final bites of food they could manage before clearing the table.
