[Hey guys i finally finished! This is the last chapter of Chocolate Cake and i hope you all enjoy! Thank you so much for sticking with me and for being so patient with me! :3]

Chapter 7

Adrien was terrified. He was sure he had been mistaken, but he thought he had just heard his name, his real name, escape his lady's lips. Deep down he knew what she had said, but he didn't want to accept it. It was impossible. It had to be! Because if Ladybug could deduce his identity from eating his cake, there was only one person she could be. One person, one girl who had tasted and loved his cake only an hour earlier. But how could that be?! Ladybug? Marinette? Who was who? How could they be one in the same?

But of course. He knew how. Adrien had seen the signs but refused to acknowledge it. Her appearance was a dead giveaway. They looked identical, how had he not known? But her personality. Ladybug's strong and confident side was plainly seen in Marinette when she stood up for what was right. And Marinette's sweet kindness was all too clear in the loving heroine. It was so obvious. And she was right here. Sitting directly across from him with an unmistakable expression of disbelief. She was probably having a very similar conversation with herself now that he thought about it. But, what was she thinking. Was she thinking about him? About him being Cat Noir and Adrien all at once? What if she hated him? What if she ran and wanted nothing to do with him anymore? She looked astonished, yet terrified at the same time. Would she even accept him how he was? Could she?

Cat felt his hand move to the ground, ready to jump and run if things went south. Ladybug watched his hand and her eyes grew even wider than they already were. He couldn't decide what emotions were running through her mind. He didn't know how she had chosen to see their situation. He desperately hoped she would be okay, that they would be okay.

"Adrien…" He tensed, ready to run yet hoping he wouldn't have to.

"Y-yeah...M-mari-i…" The hero berated himself for stuttering so much. He honestly didn't know why he was so nervous. Yeah they had just figured out their identities after months of wondering, but was that a bad thing? Of all the people Ladybug could have been, she was Marinette. The sweet, fantastically magical girl he was falling in love with. The girl who sat behind him in class, too kind to ask for help when she desperately needed it. The girl who had stolen his first kiss, and unknowingly, his heart.

"It's you…" Cat was stunned to finally hear her voice again. Her purrfect voice full of sincerity and hope. And at the same time, he noticed she no longer looked quite as terrified.

"It's mew…" And then, all of a sudden, the calm, pondering face of his lady contorted into a fit of giggles which she tried to hide with her gloved hands. It was enchanting.

"Well Adrien, now I know where all those puns at dinner came from." Adrien smiled and felt himself relax. At least they could still joke a bit. He was relieved that their accidental reveal had gone...somewhat well.

"Yeah, so...Umm, M-mari. What do you think of all this? Are we...okay?" When Ladybug didn't respond right away, Adrien panicked. But yet again, the panic left at the sound of Mari's soothing voice.

"Yes, I'm okay. And I think we will be too. Umm...A-are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I will be. As long as umm, we can still hang out and stuff, maybe?"

"O-of course, if you want, yes. I just don't want to lose my two best friends…" That sold it for Adrien. Not only was Cat her best friend, but so was Adrien. Plain old goofy Adrien...

"Yeah me neither. But I think I need some time to think and stuff...So…"

"Oh yeah, me too...Umm, since tomorrow's a Saturday, would you want to come over? We could talk about everything or just hangout...whatever you want!"

"Y-yes! That'd be great! I guess i'll see you then Mari!"

"S-see you!" The heroes finally stood, only then realizing they had hardly touched the cake. After a short, awkward conversation, the two decided to just take them home. And if Adrien took part of the tupperware, he would have an excuse to come back the next day.

The two then turned and parted ways, but as Cat reached the edge of the roof, he turned. Ladybug was still there, staring off into the distance with her back to him. She looked spectacular. And knowing that his lady was Marinette just made her so much prettier. So much more...magical.

"Ladybug?" At the sound of her name, the heroine turned. Her curious blue eyes watching, waiting for her Cat to speak. And then he did. Conveying everything he felt into those four, simple words. "I'm glad it's you."

And then he was gone. Escaping into the night, to meet with his lady again once the morning came.

Marinette had had a long night. After finding out that her best cat friend was her best guy friend, she was kinda feeling out of it. She hadn't gotten much sleep either now that she thought about it. Even though she had gone straight for her bed once she got home, sleep just didn't want to come. Mari had been up for hours, thinking about Cat and Adrien, Adrien and Cat. It was astonishing, really, that she hasn't figured it all out till now. The designer couldn't help but find it comical how a slice of cake had, in the end, been the cause of their reveal. Because out of all her imagined reveal scenarios, that one was the least feasible. Well, almost.

But the one thought that kept coming back, was how maturely they had handled their situation. Yeah, they were both terrified beyond belief, but only because they didn't know what would come next. They still stuck together and laughed it off. Mari guessed that was one of the things she liked about him.

At the moment, she was lying in her bed, pretending to be asleep and not knowing what to do next. She finally attempted to open her eyes and groaned. The light was blinding and she was still exhausted from such a restless night. She instead buried her face in her pillow, grabbing her phone on the way. It was only when Mari saw the current time appear on her phone screen that she careened out of bed, nearly tumbling down her stairs along the way.

"It's noon?! Tikki why didn't you wake me?"

"Whaaa?" As Marinette turned, she saw the groggy kwami rubbing her eyes as she floated up from the bed.

"Sorry Tikki, it wasn't you fault, but, wait...ahhhhhh!"

"Marinette what is it?!"

"I-i have 57 unanswered texts...from Adrien…" Tikki squealed with joy and let herself plop to the floor. Marinette just stood dumbfounded.

"Well Mari, at least that's a good problem to have, you should probably answer them though. Gaping at the phone won't help much, will it?" Marinette didn't say anything, but silently agreed as she searched through her messages. The first few were your basic 'hello' and 'good morning' texts, but they slowly changed to the 'hey can I come over yet?', and 'are you awake now?' texts. She eventually got down to the random, bored texts of 'did you know a small cat can swallow a wheel of cheese whole?', and 'how does one perform cpr on a cat?' She was slightly concerned, only slightly.

The last, and most recent text simply went, 'srry i just realized that i sent u over 50 texts, i'll stop now. just text me when u can. thx!'

It was endearing to say the least. Though the strange thing was, she couldn't recall giving him her phone number. Maybe he had gotten it from Alya? But in the end, she decided to let the thought go and send a quick reply which turned into a long summary of the answers to all of his questions.

However, not a minute later, she received yet another text from the model (as well as a dozen or so from Alya that seemed to appear out of nowhere). After a short conversation, and a period of ignoring Alya's crazy texts, her and Adrien had decided for him to come over in half an hour, so that the two would have time to get ready.

As she put her phone away and sat on her bed, Mari couldn't help but rest her mind on the model once again. It was still strange for Marinette to be thinking of Adrien and Cat as the same person. She kept trying to let it go, but the thought seemed to be stuck at the back of her head, coming out at the most inopportune moments. She just didn't know how to control it. Marinette laughed quietly to herself. She needed to stop lying to herself, because she knew exactly how to control it, but if she could, well, that was the real mystery.

The girl quickly shook her head to jumble up her thoughts before getting dressed and ready for the day. It only took her a few minutes before she was ready to head downstairs. She turned around one last time to make sure her room was ready for Adrien. And that's when she saw the photos. Adrien's face was covering her walls, just like they always had. But the real Adrien had just been in that room the day before. She never took them down. He had probably seen all of them. So, like the reasonable, non-hysterical girl she was, she walked over and tore down the pictures one by one; carefully piling them up under her mattress, where no one would find them. Then she attempted to walk downstairs. Except, she didn't open the hatch. Maybe she could just walk through...nope.

After a few minutes, or maybe it was more like 20, she made it down to the kitchen, where a cold breakfast was waiting on the table. She ate it in silence, looking out a window, and wondering what she would do once Adrien got there. Wait a sec..wasn't Adrien supposed to come around-

And then the doorbell rang. He was here. Cat was here, but Adrien was too. All Mari could do was panic. She took her dishes as she shoveled the last of her breakfast down her throat and twirled toward the sink like a ballerina, dumping the dishes in as Adrien looked on in mild amusement.

After their newly named 'breakfast ballet', the two teen made their way to the now Adrien free room upstairs. They had taken their usual seats by Mari's computer, but neither could start up a conversation. It was just so...weird. They both knew now, yet they both denied it as well. But after long enough, Marinette couldn't take it any longer.

"So...You're Cat…"

"Yup...and you're Ladybug…" And then came the silence. Neither of the two knew what to say. They sat in complete, utter silence, looking anywhere but at the other. It felt like their quiet lasted for hours, but according to any clock, it had been only seconds. Adrien nearly jumped out of his seat once the silence was finally broken by Mari's sweet, quiet laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"I-it's just silly how we never knew. It was so obvious. I mean, how could we not know? It just makes so much sense now!"

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe we were just a little preoccupied with baking some delicious pastries."

"W-was that a pun?"

"Yes of course! Pie! Cause you work in a bakery. Get it? Come on that was genius."

"Pppshshhh, yeah right. Your puns are breadful. Mind, on the other hand, are simply miraculous."

"Oh don't even go there. You want a pun war, i'll give you a pun war."

"Oh it's on kitty!" The two heroes then proceeded to have a pun war that lasted much longer than it was meant to. Though neither of them complained, it had been nearly two whole hours when they finally ran out of puns. Marinette was extremely grateful for it though, because the puns didn't occupy the entirety of their time. They used their pun war to talk about themselves. Both hero and civilian selves. It was not only efficient, but a fun way to communicate their simultaneous worry.

Unfortunately for Mari, after their pun war subsided, Adrien had discovered that his friend was extremely ticklish. Marinette deeply expressed her hate for tickling, seeing as she couldn't resist laughing like a madman when tickled. So Adrien, being the gentleman he was, chased Mari around the room until he finally caught her by the arm and proceeded to tickle her mercilessly.

"A-adri-haHA STop! Ahhahaha nooo! T-tikKI HELP! Hahaha!" The red kwami spun into the air, watching Marinette suffer while she simply laughed cutely from a distance.

"TikKI!"

Marinette then heard a soft knock from behind and turned to see her mother poking her head through the hatch with a sweet smile on her face. Thankfully, Tikki had already hidden herself and Adrien had stopped his relentless tickling. For now...

"Oh hey Mom. Did you need me for something?"

"Not this time dear. I was actually hoping to speak with Adrien if that's alright." Mari turned to her friend, a puzzled expression lurking on her face that was reflected back in his. She didn't know why her mother needed to talk to Adrien, and neither did he apparently. She was fairly certain it wasn't bad...Well, she hoped so.

Adrien just shrugged though, and leapt off the couch, following Mrs. Dupain Cheng downstairs. It would be a lie to say he wasn't nervous. It wasn't everyday that your best friend's parents wanted to speak to you alone. His mind couldn't help but wonder as to why they wanted to talk to him. He hadn't done something wrong had he? No, he was pretty sure...wait. Maybe they found out about that kiss from fencing? They weren't mad were they?! Adrien screamed internally, hoping against all odds that they wouldn't talk about that. The moment with Mari was great of course, but would her parents approve? Had she ever even kissed a guy before?

Now Adrien was freaking out. He was both ecstatic at the prospect of being Marinette's first kiss, but also dreadful of possibly being her only kiss. What if her parents knew and were kicking him out right now? They might not let him come back! Adrien panicked and started looking around frantically for a way out, but he was stunned to already find himself in the all too familiar kitchen. Tom was washing dishes by the sink, with his back to the two. Sabine briskly walked over to her husband, her back also to Adrien, and the two adults had a short, whispered conversation before inviting the boy over.

Adrien did his best to smile, to seem the perfect boy and in no way one who would go kissing their daughter without permission. Was that even a thing? But now he was standing in front of Mari's parents. He had no more time to think, because all of a sudden, Sabine was speaking.

"Sorry about pulling you out of there sweetie, it looked like you and Mari were having a good time. We didn't mean to scare you, but we were hoping to surprise Mari."

"What are you planning a birthday party or something?" Adrien shut his mouth. Though his outburst was probably way off, he would rather speak something coherent than simply screaming in frustration.

"Oh not yet Adrien, there's something else we wanted to ask you though. Tom?" The baker smiled down at his wife while scratching his head before turning his gaze to Adrien.

"Uh yes, of course. Well I'd rather just get to the point so here goes. We-"

"I'm sorry I kissed Mari I didn't mean to I'm so sorry please don't kick me out!" The baker and his wife blinked in confusion. They clearly hadn't been expecting that and Adrien couldn't help but grow more and more terrified with every second. He was almost ready to transform into Cat Noir and Cataclysm his way out before he ruined anything else.

"Uhh, sweetie I'm sorry but we don't know what your talking about.." Adrien paled at Sabine's words. At the same time he noticed a snickering Tom making coughing noises to hide his proclamation of "I do!"

And then Adrien paled even more. Tom knew something. But what? And why was he laughing?

"Tom, stop laughing already you're making him uncomfortable."

"Sorry honey, and Adrien don't worry about it. It's fine, really, more than fine-"

"Tom."

"Okay, okay, back to the point. So what we wanted to do, was ask you if you wanted to work here. Basically, do you want a job making food or what?" Adrien was stunned. He felt like he was in another world. One where sound was silent and time stood still. His relief at the question was unbelievable. His shoulders sank, his breath slowed, and all his muscles relaxed the tension he didn't know he was holding. He didn't realize that he hadn't answered until he looked up to see the two parents looking at him expectantly.

"Oh, yes! Yeah I'd love to work for you guys, that'd be great!"

"Thought so kiddo, now go tell Mari the good news! We can figure out all the details later" Adrien nodded vigorously as Tom stepped over to give the boy a fatherly noogie. Adrien laughed a bit and gently pushed the arm away, and once he was free, he ran upstairs and threw the hatch open, nearly causing Mari to fall out of her seat.

"Mari guess what?!"

"If you're back to tickle me again then the answer is NO."

"Heh, no it's so much better! You're parents just offered me a job at the bakery!" Adrien made sure to throw his arms open for emphasis.

"What?! THAT'S AMAZING WE CAN WORK TOGETHER!" Marinette had hopped out of her seat and was now twirling as she spoke. At the same time Adrien felt his heart melting. He smiled goofily and pranced over to where Mari stood spinning. But he only made it two steps before he felt his foot hit something soft and black. He looked down to see Plagg grinning up at him with mischief written all over his face. And then he was falling. It would have been easy to catch himself if Plagg hadn't moved to block his other foot as well. But alas, he was going to fall flat on his face, in front of Ladybug.

What Adrien didn't see, was Marinette's face as she saw him trip over the reckless kwami. Her quick reflexes as Ladybug kicked in, and she rushed forward, catching the boy by grabbing his upper arms as she awkwardly smiled down at him for once. He looked up and smiled, though that wasn't enough to mask the enormous blush covering his face. He sighed internally at the perfection that was both Ladybug and Marinette all at once. And yet again, being so close to her magical face made him speechless. He couldn't tell if he was smiling goofily or charmingly, but he didn't care, as long as he could stare at the beautiful perfection that was Marinette's face. Her deep blue hair, shining sapphire eyes, and her soft pink lips… Just perfect.

Marinette must have been thinking the same thing he had, because she was now closing her eyes, and slowly, gently pulling him closer. His weight was still being supported by the girl, so he did the only thing he could. He leaned his face forward to close the gap, and before he knew it, he felt the soft, pink lips of Ladybug brush against his own for the second time. Now that he thought about it, his first kiss with Marinette had been just that. But now, he was with not only Marinette, but Ladybug, the love of his life! It just felt so right. So magical. Like Marinette and Ladybug had always been one in the same, just as he had been both Adrien and Cat Noir. The designer wasn't complete without the heroine, and the heroine not complete without the designer. And Adrien wasn't complete without the both of them. That's just what they did. They completed each other.

As they ended their impromptu kiss, and he opened his eyes, Adrien fell in love with her all over again. And though he didn't know it, she was falling in love with him as well. He could then feel joyful tears stinging the back of his eyes, so he lifted his feet and stood, now taller than Marinette, before encasing her in a nearly crushing hug.

This was how it had all started… Adrien remembered the day he had chased Mari out of the classroom, the day he sat there and hugged her, comforted her, and just listened. That decision had brought about all of this. It was the best decision he had ever made. Because now, he was complete. He was okay. Together, they would always be okay.

[And there you have it! Thank you all again for reading and I'm glad so many of you liked it! I plan to write more in the future but for now I'm going to take a break and work on other things. And with that, thanks for reading Chocolate Cake!]