A/N: Merry Christmas/Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to everyone who's been taking the time to review.
Adrien knew Alya was there when he arrived at the school—the pictures on her blog had made that much clear—but he couldn't spot her in the crowd. News of the fight had spread and it looked to him like most people were just hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, so they could tell others what they'd seen. He supposed people were more curious than usual, with Ladybug unable to erase the damage done. At least the lack of chatter about Blademaster—nothing more substantial than rumours and whispers, at least—meant he hadn't escaped.
Plagg and Tikki were tucked safely into pockets inside his jacket, so when Adrien spotted Nino, he waved and moved to join him. "Have they found out anything new?" he asked when he arrived.
Nino shook his head. "Not yet. You probably know as much as we do: that Ladybug and Chat Noir were here to deal with the villain but couldn't reverse everything like they usually do. Unless you noticed something different before you managed to get away?"
Adrien shook his head. "It all seemed as normal as it ever is off the start." He paused, then took the plunge. "Alya's still around somewhere, isn't she? I saw she had pictures on her blog already."
"She's up near the front," Nino said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the main doors. "Still with the kid she's babysitting but trying to learn more, as far as I know. I think she's kinda hoping to stick around to see if Chat Noir or Ladybug come back to reset everything but I don't think Manon's going to let her get out of ice cream." Adrien shot his friend a quizzical look, so Nino added, "The girl she's watching. Passed her off too me for a few minutes while she went inside and I promised Manon ice cream later if she listened to me."
Adrien couldn't quite bite back his chuckle. "You had to bribe her to watch her for, what, five minutes?"
"Hey, it worked. Don't knock it. You wanna join us for that ice cream?"
"I'll have to see. Might have a photoshoot." He'd told Nino earlier today that he was free, but what he said now wasn't entirely a lie. If Alya saw Chat Noir, she'd try to document it—a fact he was counting on. He still wasn't sure what he was going to say in response to some of her inevitable questions, but talking to her as Chat Noir was the only way he could think to get a message to Ladybug. He wouldn't put it past her to try to find the source of an anonymous message, and that carried too much of a risk that Ladybug would disregard it. "I'm waiting to hear if it's rescheduled."
"Have you at least called to find out?"
"I didn't want to pester them. They have a lot to…." Adrien trailed off as Nino held up a hand.
"Listen up, dude, to a piece of advice that will serve you well in the world." Nino looked at him with all seriousness. "Pester. Rattle their chains. The squeaky wheel gets the grease."
Adrien smiled. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt to at least try them," he conceded. He had no intention of phoning his photographer or anyone else, of course, but it was a plan to let Alya know about Chat Noir. Anything to draw her away from the crowd.
Adrien knew the surrounding streets well enough to know a relatively quiet place for Chat Noir to be spotted. He could hear sirens in the distance, something he might have checked out had Alya's blog not been clear of anything unusual besides the fight with Blademaster. Knowing Alya would be using her phone to post updates of that on her blog, he sent her a quick text message saying he thought he'd seen a glimpse of the hero. He was fairly sure she had chased down rumours from considerably less reliable sources than him, so he transformed and used his staff to get a good perch above the street. It jutted out from the building like a flagpole, and he crouched far enough above eye level to avoid some notice and waited.
It came as no surprise that Alya was looking up as much as around when she rounded the corner, and she spotted him in no time.
"Chat Noir!" Alya had her phone in her hand and was recording their conversation within seconds—exactly as he'd expected. "Why are you here? Are you going to tell us why things are different this time?"
"Someone put a bug in my ear," he said, dropping to the ground beside her and shortening his staff back its baton size. Ladybug was used enough to his puns that she ought to put two and two together if she was looking for something, and he had no doubt she would be looking. Ladybug. Earrings. He waved his right hand dismissively, although the action was more to showcase his ring with the Miraculous than anything else. He needed to drive the point home.
Alya chuckled. "Ladybug," she guessed.
"Friend of hers, actually. Cute little thing." Tikki. "Gave me the feline I should reassure you that you're all safe—" She's fine. "—and that Ladybug and I will get together and set things right as soon as we can. It's nothing to worry about." We can meet. Don't worry. Ladybug will be back in no time.
"But why was this time different? Why wasn't it fixed right away?"
"I had my paws full," he admitted with a shrug. "Sharpened my claws at the wrong time and spilled a bit of milk, but it's nothing worth crying over." In a loud whisper, he confided, "It's not always like it was depicted in that statue. Sometimes cats don't land on their feet." He hoped Ladybug would be able to figure that one out, but the statue dedicated to the two of them was the easiest landmark to reference that wouldn't seem out of place—or be in too populated a place for an inconspicuous little rendezvous.
Alya gaped at him, perhaps because he'd as good as said he'd been the one to mess up. That didn't jive with his usual cocky, confident front, but better people believe that than discover the truth.
"Look," he said, spinning his tail around with his right hand, "this mess? My mess?" Might as well admit that; there would be fewer people coming up with alternative reasons for its existence that way. "It's not because I was on the losing side of a cat fight. I'm going to meet Ladybug tonight—" if she received and deciphered this message, at least "—and we'll just make sure everything's up to scratch for both of us." He smiled at Alya and winked. "If the cat's not away, the mice can't play."
Alya frowned. "Why consent to an interview now? You must have known you were going to be seen, and…." She trailed off as Adrien's smile grew to a grin.
"I can't let the cat out of the bag, now can I?" He chuckled and, without giving her a chance to ask anything else, turned and scampered.
Marinette couldn't see Alya when she arrived, but she spotted Manon above the ground and, when she got closer, realized the little girl was sitting on Nino's shoulders. "Hey, Nino, Manon," she said. "Where did Alya go?"
"She ran off that way," he said, pointing down the street.
"She wouldn't let me come," Manon pouted, "even though it was something about Chat Noir."
"What?" Marinette jerked her head back to look in the direction Nino had pointed. "I'm going to, um…."
"Go. I've got this covered."
Marinette shot Nino a grateful smile and took off at a run. She rounded the corner and smacked into Adrien, sending them both tumbling to the ground. She knew her face was beet red as she tried to stutter out an apology. "Ah, um, s-sorry, I, uh…."
He laughed and offered a hand to help her to her feet. She accepted, hoping it didn't make her face flush a deeper red. "Are you all right?" Marinette nodded furiously, not trusting herself to speak. Adrien chuckled again and Marinette forced her head to stop bobbing, but there was no ill will in his laughter. "I'm sorry," he said, and she got the impression he'd been laughing at himself as much as at her. "I should have watched where I was going." He smiled and stepped to the side. "But if you're in such a rush, I suppose I'd better let you go."
"No! I mean, uh, that, well, I…." Marinette wished she could speak even two sentences to Adrien without putting her foot in her mouth. She didn't want to leave, but he was right: she had to go if there was even a chance Chat Noir was still around. "I'll, um, I mean, ah, yes, I should, but, uh, maybe I'll, er…run into you again? Not run into you run into you!" she quickly added. "Just…see you. Around. Sometime. Again. Right?" She clamped her teeth together with a smile, but a nervous laugh still escaped her throat.
Adrien smiled at her again. "Sure."
"Maybe," Marinette added in a fit of bravery, "tonight? We could, er, see that movie that we, um, didn't quite, y'know, actually see last time." Unless Hawk Moth made another move to draw out Chat Noir, Marinette would have to give up her search until morning anyway—and if Hawk Moth did try something, she'd know through Alya sooner rather than later and could make her escape under the pretense of one crisis or another.
Adrien's smile vanished, and Marinette's heart dropped. "Tonight doesn't really work for me," he said slowly.
"That's okay! Tonight didn't work for me, either!" She sounded like an idiot, overly chipper and already contradicting herself, but she knew his schedule. He had nothing planned for tonight. Nothing regular, at any rate, and she'd overheard him telling Nino in class earlier today that he was free after fencing. "But, uh, yeah, I, um, I should go." She pointed, gave another nervous giggle and a wave, and then fled. She thought she heard him calling after her, but she couldn't face him after that.
She'd made a complete fool of herself.
When Marinette finally slowed, she couldn't see Alya anywhere. She pulled out her phone to send a quick message to her friend when a little voice said, "You really should pretend he's Chat Noir when you try talking to him."
Marinette screeched and dropped her phone. Tikki's head peeked out from beneath Marinette's jacket. Marinette cupped her hands and brought them close to her face as Tikki settled into them. "Tikki?" she whispered. "Where have you been?"
Tikki glanced in the direction Marinette had come. "I was trapped until Chat Noir freed me," she answered. "He found me and your Miraculous. He left a message for you with Alya."
Marinette blinked. "He left a message for me?"
"For Ladybug," Tikki clarified.
Marinette frowned. "But…didn't you just tell him who I was?"
"He…." Tikki paused. "He didn't want me to."
"But…." She knew he wanted to know. She supposed he could have changed his mind, but she would've bet that curiosity would have killed that cat if he gave it the opportunity. "Why not? That would be easier. And faster."
"He wanted you to choose to tell him."
Despite herself, Marinette laughed. "He's an idiot," she said, but the gesture was strangely heart-warming. Chat Noir meant well. "Who is he, Tikki? Do I know him? We need to talk, either way. Is he back in that crowd?" She wasn't even sure when Tikki had come back, although she knew quite well Tikki was smart enough to keep quiet if it had been in the crowd.
Tikki hesitated.
"You do know who he is, don't you? He can't have maintained his transformation for that long."
"He didn't," Tikki said slowly. "Marinette, Chat Noir was right about one thing. You should not hear this from me. And you should both think very carefully before you make your decision."
"Tikki, we don't have time for this. We still need to find the akuma—"
"Chat Noir has it," she said. "He'll bring it, your Miraculous, and the Lucky Charm when he meets you tonight at the statue dedicated to you both. That's what he wants; it's why he left the message. He didn't know you would be close enough that I could come to you without being seen."
The message, whatever it was, couldn't have been that clear or the statue would be swarmed by followers of Alya's blog, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heroes when they weren't fighting to take down a new villain.
Marinette picked up her phone, meaning to check Alya's blog but noticing that she had a missed call and a new text message on it from Alya. It informed Marinette she must check out the Ladyblog—not mentioning Chat Noir but with an urgency that was unusual even for Alya—and inviting her out for ice cream. Marinette ordinarily would have been tempted, but at the words Adrien's coming, words that would ordinarily make her reply immediately and with far too much detail of her future dreams, Marinette felt her heart clench in her chest.
Can't, she typed back. Getting an earache. Think I just need to go back home and rest.
The response was almost immediate: Adrien's coming. I have painkillers in my purse.
Marinette groaned. Alya knew her well enough to know that, barring hospitalization or getting caught in an attack by the newest villain—and maybe not even the first—Marinette would push through anything to have a chance to be with Adrien.
Of course, that had been before she'd put her foot in her mouth in the most embarrassing manner.
Again.
She called Alya, who picked up on the first ring. "What's wrong, Marinette? What aren't you telling me? It's not just an earache holding you back."
"I can't…." Marinette hesitated. "I can't face him yet. Alya, I'm so embarrassed. I ran into him—literally ran into him—and then I was so flustered I kept jumbling my words and…." She tried to ignore Tikki, who was giving her an almost pitying look.
"Adrien, you mean." Alya must have been moving, because the background noise faded on her end. Wherever she had gone to meet Chat Noir, Marinette had missed the turn and missed Alya completely—not to mention Chat Noir himself—and Alya was already back with the others.
"He said no," Marinette said in a small voice. "I asked him to the movies, like we'd planned, except with a lot more, um…."
"Um, uh, er, I, uh…."
Despite herself, a small, desperate laugh escaped Marinette. "Unfortunately. Adrien was really nice about it. He didn't even say no outright, but I know that's what he meant."
"I'd ditch the boys so we could go for ice cream, but it only came up because Nino promised Manon some before I took her home. I'll feel out the situation when I'm there; maybe you misinterpreted it. You don't tend to think when you're around Adrien. Don't panic until I report back, all right?"
"I won't," Marinette promised. Her relief over finding Tikki—well, Tikki finding her—and the puzzle of Chat Noir should serve as sufficient distractions. Maybe Adrien just didn't want to go out after his encounter with Blademaster.
Although that theory kinda went out the window, considering he was going for ice cream with the others.
"I'm holding you to that," Alya warned. "As a distraction, check out the video I uploaded to my blog. I actually got an interview with Chat Noir. Me! I mean, I think he sought me out, but I haven't figured out why. I need to sit down and analyze it, but it sounded…off. Like he was trying to say something else, something I wasn't hearing."
"Like a code?" Or a hidden message. It didn't surprise her that Chat Noir followed Alya's blog. Even if he didn't know her otherwise, she had no doubt that he was like her and had scouted out every report he could find that even remotely pertained to the two of them or the attacks. They weren't always lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to discover the villain—and the motive, which was inevitably a cue to what Hawk Moth had used to form his little agreements—before the damage was too great.
And then there were days like today, when she had practically been on top of the latest victim and Chat Noir hadn't been far behind, judging by how quickly he'd shown up.
"Maybe. Maybe just double meanings hidden in plain sight. But you can always see if you can puzzle it out for me."
Marinette chuckled. "I can't make any promises. Figuring out things like that is your forte, not mine."
"So trust me to figure out the real reason Adrien turned you down, okay?"
Marinette sighed. "Okay. And thank you. I'll talk to you later?"
"As soon as I know the truth," Alya promised.
Marinette hung up and looked at Tikki. "You don't need to say it again," she said as Tikki opened her mouth. "Talking to Adrien like I talk to Chat Noir is just…." She shook her head. "If you know who he really is, you should know why you can't compare him to Adrien."
Tikki's mouth closed, but a moment later she opened it again. "Watch his message," she advised, "and meet him tonight, and if you decide to let the truth be known, let Ladybug be the one to tell him who she is because she wants to, not because she has to."
Marinette stared at her kwami incredulously for a moment. "You like him," she realized. "You think I'll like him, that we'll be able to be friends if he knows—as if that won't set Alya after me with questions and maybe even ruin any chance I have with Adrien, if I haven't done that already. Tikki, it's not like I've never met Chat Noir. I know how he is. You don't have to convince me he's a nice person." Cocky, reckless, and prone to making puns and flirting with Ladybug, but a nice person nonetheless.
Tikki shook her head slowly. "Marinette, you know Chat Noir, just as he knows Ladybug. You don't know the person who's really behind the mask. You've never stopped long enough to look."
Marinette frowned. "Is he really that different?"
"Are you?" Tikki countered. "He still is who he is; Plagg makes no more changes to him than I do to you. But the face you show the world—"
"—doesn't show all of me," Marinette finished slowly. "Tikki, what are you trying to tell me?"
"You don't need to fear the truth for that reason. The boy wearing the mask and the boy beneath the mask are the same, and he truly cares for Ladybug. That really is why I didn't tell him who you were, Marinette. He thought you wouldn't want me to. He wasn't just looking for a challenge."
"I didn't think that," Marinette protested. Sure, she wouldn't put it past Chat Noir to turn small things into games or competitions between them, or even just a puzzle for himself, but he'd know what her loss of Tikki and her Miraculous meant. He could become serious in an instant if the situation called for it.
"Don't judge him by his mask. You are better than that."
Perhaps Tikki was right, and that was what she was doing. If Chat Noir's light-hearted flirting and cockiness could be dropped as easily as a switch was flipped, maybe they were part of the mask he wore. Granted, it all seemed genuine enough; he just knew when there wasn't time for flirting or puns, and his cockiness gave way to real bravery—or sometimes real stupidity, depending on the situation—when it was time to act and not just banter. It wasn't all a mask, not entirely. It couldn't be.
But perhaps his occasional recklessness, especially when it came to her safety, wasn't just due to a general belief in his own invincibility.
Maybe she wasn't just seeing what he showed her but also only seeing what she wanted to see. Chat Noir was nice, he really was, and if he weren't so cocky maybe she would have responded to all his attempts to flirt with her, but with her heart set on Adrien….
Although if Chat Noir really did want to get to know her better in that way, it certainly explained a few comments she'd gotten from his copycat that one time, and it really explained his behaviour when he'd been hit by that arrow…. And it added a whole new depth to his character, what with his accepting her terms to keep their secrets even between themselves—and taking it to this extent.
"Tikki," Marinette said slowly, "when you say he cares for Ladybug…." She didn't need to finish. What she'd taken for harmless flirting was clearly more than that. She sighed. "All right. I'll watch his message and meet him tonight, but I don't see how he thinks that'll let me keep my secret if I wanted to. He can see in the dark."
"You always trust him in battle; you can trust him in this, too."
Tikki was right; she did trust Chat Noir. She trusted him with her life—she'd had to—and he'd never failed her before. She might have mixed feelings about letting him know the truth about her—what Tikki said hadn't helped, however she'd meant it—but this fiasco drove home the point that this lack of knowledge was a major flaw in their arrangement. At the very least, they needed to agree on a way to contact each other if something happened. At most….
Well, at most, Chat Noir had already promised he wouldn't tell anyone who she was, and she didn't doubt his word. He'd never given her a reason to, and he had as much to lose as she if Hawk Moth ever discovered the truth.
Adrien didn't notice Tikki's absence until after he'd gone out for ice cream with his friends. When he did, he woke Plagg—who was resting after gorging himself on Roquefort—and the kwami claimed he hadn't noticed when she'd gone but that it must have been her decision because he was still here. Adrien had rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Ladybug could have been almost anyone in the crowd where he'd met up with Nino and Alya, and the little shop where they'd stopped for ice cream had been busy, too.
"Look at it this way," Plagg said in between yawns once they were safely back in Adrien's room. He was resting on the package of cheese he'd emptied earlier, and Adrien had collapsed into the computer chair. The Lucky Charm and the jar with the akuma remained untouched, half hidden behind his history textbook. "At least you know Ladybug will have gotten your message."
That was true, and Plagg's other point—that if Tikki hadn't left on her own, it was likely that he would have been kidnapped at the same time—gave Adrien some comfort that Tikki really had been returned to Ladybug.
"What do you think she'll say when I see her?"
Plagg blinked open bleary eyes. "That you're a fool?" he guessed. "For not just finding out her identity at the start to save both of you this trouble?"
Adrien scowled. "You know it's better that she chooses to tell me herself."
"If she does choose that. You should have asked Tikki when you had the chance." Another yawn escaped Plagg before he added, "Ladybug might just come to you before tonight, anyway, if Tikki tells her who you are. She might, if she still thinks she needs to."
Adrien blinked; that thought hadn't even occurred to him. "Do you think Ladybug will ask?"
"She's as big a fool as you if she doesn't."
"Aren't you supposed to be more supportive of me?"
Plagg stared at him, going so far as to fly up so he floated a foot in front of Adrien's nose. "This is the second time you've had the perfect opportunity to find out the identity of the girl of your dreams, and this is the second time you've let that opportunity slip through your fingers." He flicked his tail and spread his front paws. "I don't understand you. If I had an entire wheel of camembert in front of me, do you think I'd just close my eyes and ignore it?"
"This isn't the same!"
"You're ignoring a golden opportunity to get something you want. That's the same."
"Yeah, but the cheese won't be around to let you regret a decision if you eat it right away," Adrien countered. "Forcing Ladybug into a situation she doesn't want isn't going to win me any favours with her, Plagg. What if I did that and she never wanted to see me again?"
"Ladybug would never make that choice," Plagg said practically. "She can't, not unless she plans to shirk her responsibilities; the two of you are most effective when you're working together. Besides, she was chosen, just like you were, and Tikki hasn't made a poor choice in centuries."
Adrien blinked. "Centuries? Then that Egyptian—?" He couldn't make himself finish. "Are you telling me you're five thousand years old? You and Tikki?"
"You think I've only been around five thousand years?"
Adrien opened his mouth and then closed it, not sure if the kwami was joking.
"Besides," Plagg added, "you're still going to find out who she is when you meet her tonight, aren't you? All you've been doing is making the waiting more painful for yourself and making this harder on both of you."
Adrien shook his head. "No, I want this to be her choice. That's the point."
"So it's her choice to come, and that makes it better? Are you even thinking this through?"
Adrien chuckled. "Plagg, I'm not going to betray her trust. If this proves to her that I mean what I say when I promise not to tell anyone, then all the better."
Plagg had dropped a few inches, so slowly that Adrien wasn't sure the kwami had even noticed. When he spoke, his confusion was evident in his voice. "How exactly do you plan to meet her and not actually see who she is?"
Adrien grinned. "That's where you come in."