Thank you all so much for your kind words and support! I've never had such a good response for anything I've written before and I'm truly touched and honored. Here is the Epilogue which is brought to you in two parts- pt 1 is later that night and pt 2- (coming soon) is the next day.

Guest 1- I think I did an okay job at keeping it from being too "I'm too plain/you only like Ladybug"

Guest 2- No, Marinette cannot compute XD

Guest 3- Yes, Tikki is the mature one and Marinette is freaking out. I'm sorry that I don't really have a lot of Plagg in this chapter.

Guest 4- I'm sorry you don't like rewinds, but that was done by popular request. Sooo sorry/not sorry. I can tell you that this one and the next one are not rewinds and I have no plans on doing it again this chapter.

Demi clayton- Thank you, I'm glad that you like it. It is almost done for real now.

I own nothing Miraculous Ladybug.

Marinette came around to the sound of voices.

"Are you sure we did it right?" That was Chat's voice.

"Absolutely. I've been around since medicine began. If she's pale, raise the tail. If she's red, raise the head." That was definitely Tikki's voice.

"You were also alive back when people thought snake venom and mud were magic cures for everything. Are you sure you're remembering current medicine?" That was a voice she didn't recognize at all. It was reedy and high and sounded from somewhere above her.

What was it doing here? What was she doing here? What were Tikki and Chat Noir doing here? The thought of Tikki and Chat Noir triggered her memories, and she sat up with a gasp-

Only to immediately bonk heads with someone who'd been hovering over her. Both groaned and backed away from each other, and when Marinette opened her eyes once more, she saw Adrien Agreste rubbing his forehead.

"My lady, I knew you could be hard-headed, but I didn't think quite so literally," Adrien said as he smirked at her in a very Chat-like way.

"Mph!" Marinette choked on her own words. She wasn't even sure what it was that she wanted to say. There was no freaking way any of this could be real.

Adrien saw her starting to slip into a panic again and reached out to put his hands on her shoulders. "Careful there. You only just woke up. We wouldn't want you fainting again."

Marinette groaned and sat the rest of the way up, noting that her feet had been propped up with the pillow from her lounge chair on the deck.

"What's wrong? Do you have a headache?" Adrien hovered beside her ready assist at a moment's notice.

"I fainted. Could I be any more lame?"

Adrien chuckled. "I thought it was adorable, after I got over my initial heart attack."

Marinette felt her cheeks heat up. "I- you- thanks."

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "Why do you do that?"

"What doing? Wrong nothing. You're fine. I mean, I'm fine!" She pulled her legs up to her chest and buried her head between her knees.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him purse his lips and tap his chin as he thought. "If you can't talk to me when I'm Adrien then- Claws out!"

Plagg let out a whiny "Noooo!" and was sucked into the ring. Marinette raised her eyes to watch the flash of green and the transformation overtake Adrien to leave a Chat Noir in his place.

He kneeled so they were at eye level. "Come on, Mari, it's just Chat. You've always been able to talk to Chat."

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. "Just Chat?" she said dryly.

His grin widened, and he reached down a hand to help her up. "But you can talk to Chat."

He had a point.

Tikki appeared just over Chat's shoulder and gave her an encouraging nod. Marinette took his hand. "Well then, I guess I'll show you my trick since you showed me yours. Tikki, spots on."

She closed her eyes, enjoying the rush of magic as it came over her. When she opened her eyes again she saw Adrien gapping at her in wonder. "Beautiful," he whispered.

Marinette blushed and looked down, staring at her gloved hands. "So, you were going to tell me how you found out."

"Last patrol, you had the lucky charm that I gave Marinette, you, for your birthday," Adrien explained.

Marinette facepalmed. "And you're Adrien- And I said- Oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot."

He grinned. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't get it right away."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "What did you first think?"

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Remember how right before I released my transformation you thought I had a crush on Adrien? Same thing, but reversed."

"You thought I. . . with Ladybug?" she doubled over laughing, gripping her sides as she did so.

"It's not that funny!" he said defensively.

"Probably not," she said once she calmed down enough to speak, though the occasional giggle still slipped through. "But right now my only options are to laugh or have a complete mental breakdown."

He winced, feeling a stab to the heart at her words. "Didn't know you hated the idea that much."

She snorted, still a little to hysterical to catch the hurt in his tone. "Hardly, my second best friend and my long time crush are one and the same. My life just got a million times easier and a thousand times harder."

And just as quickly as it had been stabbed, his heart was now healed and floating on cloud nine. "Only second best friend? Bugaboo, I'm hurt."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "You wanna fight Alya for the position."

He winced and held up both hands. "No thank you. Let's go back to where you called me your 'long time crush'. I liked that."

Her face turned the same color of her suit, but he managed to stare her down defiantly as she said, "Yes, I like you, Chat Noir, Adrien Agreste." Her tone seemed to carry an unspoken, sassy, "Do you have a problem with that?".

His heart slammed in his chest. "I like you too."

Her arms began to flail, and inarticulate sounds came out. Aww, he'd broken her. How adorable! He laughed. "Cat got your tongue?"

She snapped to attention and glared at him. "Can it, Kitty."

He couldn't decide which side of her he liked more- blushing, stuttering Marinette, or confident, collected Marinette. Why choose when he didn't have to? They were both the same girl after all. Fabulously, miraculously, one and the same. "Hey, how come you could never talk to Adrien, but you've never had a problem with Chat Noir?"

She blushed once more and looked at the ground, shaking her head to let him know she wouldn't answer this one.

"Aww, come on. Purrrtty please, purrincess?"

She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at him. "No. It's late. We should both go to bed."

"Just answer this one last question, and then I'll leave."

She shook her head again.

"Why not?"

"Because it's embarrassing, and now that I know you're the same person I'm kind of ashamed of it."

Now he really had to know. And he knew just how to get her to talk. "Purrincess, if you don't tell me, I'll sit outside your window all night telling baking puns."

Her face paled. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I think you'll find I am more than capable of rising to the occasion."

"Chat, no."

"I think you know that my threats aren't half baked."

"I will hit you."

"What's life without a little whisk?"

"Why?!"

"You know I'm a weir-dough."

"You bake me crazy," she said. There was a heartbeat of silence, then two and her eyes widened as she realized what she said. "MAKE! MAKE! I MEANT MAKE!"

"Too late Bugaboo, we're on a roll."

"Chat Noir, you stop this nonsense coming out of Adrien Agreste's perfect mouth or so help me I'll-"

"You'll what? I got all the thyme in the world to wait for you're answer. Donut underestimate this cat."

Suddenly, she grabbed his face in both her hands and slammed his mouth on hers. Their teeth clicked from the force of it, and Adrien was pretty sure he had whiplash from how quickly she'd moved, but that didn't stop his heart from nearly exploding with happiness. When they pulled apart, she tried to give him a serious face, but he could see she was blushing too. "Shut. Up."

"Just answer the question, and I will." Chat grabbed her to keep her from moving too far. Their faces were so close, and he could feel her shiver as she felt his breath ghost across where his lips had just been. He knew because her breath had just done the exact same thing to him. His brain was too scattered to even think of a pun for a come back.

She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. When she started talking, he almost didn't understand her because of how fast she was going. "I couldn't talk to Adrien because in my eyes he was this perfectly unattainable being, but Chat was easy to talk to because the fact that he so obviously liked and trusted me gave me confidence, plus his puns just make him too ridiculous to take too seriously, and now you're the same person and I rejected my crush for my crush and I feel guilty because you're life has already had way too many hardships and I think I made it harder with my actions as Ladybug and basically I'm a terrible person so I'm just going to go crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment now."

With that she wrenched herself free from his grasp, which wasn't hard in his stunned state, and threw herself down the open trapdoor to her bedroom, slamming it shut behind her. He stood there for several breaths, arms still stretched out to hold her, until his brain finally processed all of her words and he dropped down to start knocking frantically on the trapdoor.

"Princess, open up." Nothing. "Come on, Marinette, let me in." Nothing. "Please. I think we really need to talk about what you just said."

"You said if I answered the question you'd go away. So go away now, Chat."

"But Marinette!"

Tikki flew up through the trapdoor and held one tiny paw to her mouth to silence the cat-teen. "Marinette's not going to come out right now. It would be best to give her some space."

"But I-"

"Look, she just needs time to process. In the meantime, why don't you go home and try to think of ways you can help Marinette reconcile the fact that Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste are one and the same. I'm sure that given time the two of you will get along purrrfectly again."

"Did you just. . . " His eyes widened as he realized what she was hinting at. He knew what he had to do now. What a clever bug Tikki was!

She winked at him. "Well, that's all I have to say. I'm sure you know what to do. Get some sleep, Adrien. Tomorrow is a big day." With that, she disappeared back into Marinette's room through the trapdoor she'd just come through.

Adrien let her go without complaint. Afterall, she'd just given him the perfect idea for how to help Marinette overcome her nervousness. And if the results were going to be anything like last time, he couldn't wait!

I am so proud of my puns in this chapter! I'm doing unnecessary amounts of "research" to prepare for the next chapter. I hope it will be as amazing in real life as it is in my head right now. . .