[Gravity]

Newton's law of universal gravitation:

A particle attracts every other particle in the universe; it does so with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

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Due to an extended photo shoot, Adrien arrived late to his classes on Friday, just after lunch, and shuffled to his seat feeling somewhat less embarrassed about it than usual. He'd been preoccupied all morning. Between Ladybug, Tikki, and Marinette, his mind was a whirlpool of uncertainties and possibilities, and by the time he settled in his school desk he had long since accepted that he was not going to absorb anything this week, either in school or at work. He was simply too far away.

So he gave up, and spent the majority of the afternoon daydreaming, only paying attention to the teachers when absolutely necessary. All classes at all grade levels were heading toward review-mode anyway, with the end of semester exams only two weeks away. This left his mind free to wander.

And wander it did, about four feet behind him, where the elusive Marinette Dupain-Cheng sat quietly scratching in her notebook.

The girl had always been somewhat of a mystery to him and, after last night's rendezvous with her as Chat, she was more so than ever. The day they met was seared into his brain; after all, it was his first day of public school, and that made her the first true friend he ever made outside of the realm of his father's influence. Needless to say, that made her profoundly special to him. But that first day had been a whirlwind. First she had hated him, then she had avoided him, and then she had finally seemed receptive to his offer of friendship.

It wasn't until much later in their seconde year that he realized she aspired to be more.

Yet two years later, halfway through their terminale year, they were not much closer as friends than they'd been back then. After he realized that Marinette had feelings for him, he'd always been too nervous to pursue a deeper friendship. Because, well…

Adrien snuck another glance over his shoulder at the girl in question. It was nearing the end of history-their second to last class period-but she seemed as energetic as if the day had just begun. She leaned far over her notebook, gripping her pencil tight with her eyebrows furrowed and her tongue poking out slightly from the corner of her mouth. There was no point denying the obvious. He'd be flat-out lying if he said he didn't reciprocate at least some of Marinette's feelings. She was kind and clever and resourceful and beautiful and…

(He sighed, turning his textbook page along with the rest of the class.)

...and not Ladybug.

Sure, he'd love to date Marinette. If (and that was a big 'if') he wasn't already irrevocably in love with Ladybug. But he was, so he couldn't. Sure he might never stand a real chance with Ladybug, and sure he was an idiot for sidestepping an amazing girl who (for whatever crazy reason) genuinely liked him. But even if he gave up forever on LB and gave it a shot with Mari, he'd still be in love with LB. That wouldn't be fair to Marinette. He could never do that to her.

But it didn't help that Marinette was basically everything that Ladybug wasn't.

Guilt riddled him with bullet holes even as he thought that horrible thought. But it was true. The girl sitting behind him had everything that Ladybug lacked.

Marinette was here, for starters. Within reach. (Which he proved when the teacher passed out a review sheet and he turned around to hand her the pile with a grin.) Marinette was a name and a face, with a life and friends and family and hobbies and aspirationsㅡin other words, she was the physical embodiment of everything that Ladybug kept hidden from him. Everything he so desperately wanted from Ladybug but would never get. So how could Adrien not look at Mari and want her?

With that thought he realized he was, in fact, looking at her again, and swiveled around in his chair to look back at the eighth chapter of the physics text. He really needed to stop thinking about this.

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Alya couldn't help herself when she caught Adrien staring at Marinette for the tenth time that day. She nudged Marinette just in time for her to see Adrien hastily returning his attention to the textbook. But the implication must have gone way over Mari's head, because she turned to Alya with squinty-eyed confusion before looking back at the teacher and the whiteboard.

Alya groaned. Leave it to Mari to be suddenly involved with the lecture, right when Adrien became obsessed with her.

Little did Alya know, Marinette had not been paying a lick of attention to anything all day. She didn't notice the way Adrien kept looking at her, didn't hear anything the teacher was saying, and didn't really see anything in the classroom. As soon as she woke up that morning she'd retreated into the armchair in the back of her head, where she spent the day sifting through countless scrapbooks of memory and possibility.

She just missed Tikki so much.

And…

And the idea of sharing her identity with Chat had all but consumed her since yesterday.

But she couldn't consider the reveal without also considering what might come after. The two of them would probably (scratch that, definitely) start to spend time together outside of their masks. They would grow much closer than they already were. Best friends. She would introduce him as the new guy in his civilian clothes to Alya, to her parents, to Nino, to… Adrien.

That thought stopped her cold, and she totally missed the page turn until Alya reached over and turned it for her.

Now why was the thought of introducing Chat to Adrien so unnerving and unimaginable? Come back to that later…

In turn she too would get to meet Chat's friends, and the mysterious father figure he so rarely mentioned. Over time she would learn his favorite places to eat, what he did in his spare time, and what he wanted to do with his life. He would tell her proudly that he's taken fencing for years and that's why his baton behaved like an extension of his arm, and Marinette would finally have a chance to say I know that you silly alleycat. I know a fencer when I see one.

(Because of her crush on Adrien… Ugh, why, Mari? Come back to that later!)

Halfway through the last class of the day, she shook her head to clear it and reached into her bag for her sketchbook, setting it on top of her blank page of history notes. School was almost over for the day anyway, and she couldn't concentrate. So she drew while she thought.

As scared as she was to reveal herself to Chat and to learn who he was in turn, she had to admit the inevitable truthㅡif only to herself. If they revealed, they would become inseparable. It was just the way of it. They were simply too compatible not to work out as friends once they knew the truth.

At the word 'compatible' she blushed to herself and accidentally smudged the line she was drawing.

She hadn't meant to think of it that way, but still. There it was. There'd been a time when she'd written off Chat's flirting as harmless and fun and totally unserious. But in her heart of hearts, she knew he loved her. So she knew what would come. Maybe not right away… but in time, he would ask her on a date.

Would she say yes? Now, that was the million dollar question.

He'd asked her before, and she had always laughed and booped him on the nose before turning him down. After all, it was impossible. She could just picture it now: Ladybug and Chat Noir showing up at a restaurant downtown to share a plate of spaghetti by the light of the moon. Ha! She snorted under her breath at the mere idea of it. Alya would have to be hospitalized for a heart attack.

But just as quickly as it came, her amusement vanished. A totally different scenario entered her imagination in place of the silly spaghetti scene.

Instead of Chat Noir asking her for a date, she took a moment to picture someone she had yet to meet. The boy beneath the mask. She surprised herself with the intensity of her curiosity as she imagined such a thing. Vividly she envisioned a tall, lean blonde, his face obscured by the glare of the morning sun, pulling her knuckles to his lips for a chivalrous kiss. What would he wear? How would he stand? What might it be like to walk with him down a dark unlit road for fun for once, instead of necessity? Most importantly, what sort of man lay dormant below the surface of those neon catlike eyes?

When the history teacher turned the students loose to study with their seat partners for the final fifteen minutes of class, Marinette didn't hear. She was too stuck in her drawing and her circular introspection.

Looking over, Alya giggled and snatched up Marinette's sketchpad. "Mari, you haven't been paying any attention, have you? Stop drawing and copy my notes. We just found out that the history exam will be open book, and I think it's gonna be on history, ma cheri, not on Chat Noir."

Flushing like mad, Marinette dove for the sketchpad. But Alya held the smaller girl back at arm's length, her playful teasing turning into intrigue as she drank in the details of the drawingㅡthe drawing of Chat Noir that Marinette had been slaving over for the last twenty minutes of class. Kill me now. She was never going to hear the end of this.

Noticing the skirmish, Nino turned around in his seat and snickered at Alya's easy long-armed victoryㅡuntil he actually saw the drawing. When Alya flipped it one-eighty to show him he stopped laughing immediately, adjusting his glasses as he took the book from his girlfriend's hands.

"Woah, that's uncanny." Nino appraised Marinette with slack-jawed admiration. "Didn't know you could draw so well, Mar. Ohh yeah," he remembered suddenly. "I forgot. You designed a cover for Jagged Stone back in seconde year. Man, that's so cool!"

The poor besotted artist in question was profoundly embarrassed by the attention, but way too nice to demand her notebook back from anyone but Alya. All she could do now was stew in mortified silence. "Well, I started learning when I was little," she admitted, cringing eternally as Nino flipped through the rest of the book before returning to the recent-most Chat page. "Back when I first got interested in designing," she elaborated weakly. "You can't really design without drawing, so…"

"Can I see?" Adrien asked politely. Marinette froze solid. Nino tried to pass it over, but Adrien only scowled at him. "I was asking Mari," he told his best friend. "It's not very nice to look at people's sketchbooks without asking. Art can be really personal."

"Shit, uh… sorry, Mar." Both Nino and Alya became suddenly contrite, looking to each other with a grimace.

"No, it's okay!" Marinette said with a noncommittal hand wave. She wasn't angry, just embarrassed. "Really," she assured them. "Uhm, thanks for asking first, though, Adrien." Why was he so nice? It wasn't fair! Every time she thought she'd begun to escape, he reeled her back in. "You can look. Everyone else already has, anyway," she growled at Alya as Adrien accepted the notebook from Nino.

Adrien's heart fluttered wildly when he saw the drawing that Marinette had done. It was just so… "Amazing," he said out loud. He'd seen a lot of Chat Noir fanart (being a devoted follower of the Ladyblog) but this one really took the cake. It was a detailed graphite sketch in shades of soft black and gray, and was likely unfinished. It was simple and modest. But it was just so real.

Normally people drew him in typical superhero poses. The three-point stance, or lackadaisically waving his baton, or claws out mid-fight, or even bowing to his lady, as he was wont to do. But Mari had drawn him standing still. On the right half of the page he leaned tiredly on his baton; his hair was ruffled beyond belief, his lips were curved in a rueful half-smile that spoke of almost-but-not-quite guilt, and his eyes burned with devotion. It was the way he looked at his lady after a particularly rough fight. The way he looked at her when he was toying with the idea of saying I love you.

There was no praise for the drawing that would have been adequate. Marinette had bullseyed him.

"Amazing," he repeated. "Mari, could I…" Oh god, no, what are you saying? Don't ask her that! "This might be weird, but can I have this?"

Marinette's jaw flapped a couple times before she found the words to respond. "Buㅡbut it's not even finished!"

"I'm so sorry, that was rude, it's your drawingㅡ"

"No no, you can have it!" she interrupted, desperately ignoring Alya and Nino's raucous laughter. "I don't care, it's just a drawing. But umm… maybe I could finish it first?" She tapped her fingertips together. "I was gonna add Ladybug too. I mean, if you want."

"Really? Wow, Marinette, I would love that. Thank you. You really don't mind?"

"I don't mind!" She took the notebook back, biting her lip. Why was he so nice? "What are friends for?"

"I'll photocopy my notes for you later," Alya whispered, knowing a lost cause when she saw one.

Marinette spent the last ten minutes sketching in Ladybug. She'd been thinking of the akuma they fought two weeks ago when she put her pencil to the paper. The fight had led them out over the Seine, and when Chat put himself between her and a careening motorcycle it had sent him into an unconscious dive off the side of the bridge. She'd been forced to abandon the fight to leap in after him, terrified that he would be swept away orㅡor drownedㅡ

In the end it had all turned out fine, of course. As usual.

Win. Fist bump. Warning beep.

Wave goodbye. Run away. Change back.

Life goes on.

But between the warning beep and the farewell, she had scolded Chat for being so flippant with his own safety. With his life. You could have died, she'd reminded him, willing her voice not to crack with emotion. But it cracked anyway, and for a moment all of Chat Noir's gallant confidence cleared, leaving behind something a little bit too real for her to write it off as empty flirting.

He'd leaned on his baton and given her that look, the one that screamed 'we both know I'll do it again,' and told her, There are worse ways to die than protecting the ones you love.

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The temperature dipped to even lower that night after an hour or three of sporadic flurries, which meant Marinette had to bundle up in triple layers (her warmest shirt and pants plus an ugly Christmas sweater plus her (faux) fur-lined trench coat on top of it all) before slipping out onto her balcony and scaling down the side of the house. She shivered as she readjusted her clothing on the street below. It was far more difficult and dangerous to sneak out as Marinette than as Ladybug, and she was appreciating her powers now more than she ever had.

But when she arrived at the building where she was supposed to meet Chat and craned her neck skyward, she ate her words. Now she appreciated her powers. Why hadn't this problem occurred to her before now?

It took her a few minutes to climb the stairs up to the fifth floor where they ended, but then nearly twenty more to get from there to the rooftop, using a series of ledges and pipes until finally clambering onto the angled roof tiles with relief.

But the relief was immediately replaced with nerves when she laid eyes on Chat; he stood with his back to her about fifteen meters away, facing the long downward slope of rooftops that led to the bright Eiffel Tower, whose stargazing spire disappeared into the clouds and thus spread its golden glow for miles around in the sky.

None of this would have been necessary if he knew who she was. She'd made up her mind today. She was going to tell him.

It was at that moment that Adrien realized Ladybug had arrived, because Tikki wigged out. The little kwami leapt off his shoulder and went zooming across the rooftop behind him toward her miraculous holder. His cat ears perked toward their happy reunion, and he dug his boots a little deeper in the snow, revamping his resolve to stay where he was. It was all he could do not to turn around.

"Chat, how did you find her?"

At the sound of his name on her tongue, he released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Her musical soprano voice was like water on the desert sand in his bones. Two whole days with no Ladybug! A longer absence would have killed him.

"Luck," he laughed into the chill wind. "Pure luck. You should really be more careful with your kwami, my lady…"

Marinette's stomach turned over. Hearing him call her that while she wasn't in costume brushed a weird, vulnerable place in her heart. She nuzzled Tikki's cheek and then ushered her into the old messenger bag she'd dug out of her closet, where the kwami would be warm. "Thank you so much for taking care of her, and returning her. I don't know how I could ever repay you."

"No need," he assured her, gesturing to the air. It was weird. Talking to her like this.

"Chat. I…" She lied; she knew how to repay him. "I want you to know who I am." Long sure steps closed the gap between them, but still he didn't turn.

Fuck, he thought. Fuck me sideways. "Ladybug, I can't. We can't! You-you know why we can't."

"Yes, I know, but I…"

A few meters shy of him, Marinette faltered. She was touched by his resolution not to turn around, and simultaneously confused by her desperate need for him to just give up and look at her. A few days ago he'd been as keen as ever on learning who she was. Had he changed his mind? Her bag rustled then at her waist and she found herself glaring daggers at it. Of course. Tikki must have gotten to him.

"But Chat," she launched anew, "wouldn't this all be so much easier if we knew?" She'd been thinking too hard about this to back out now, and once Marinette Dupain-Cheng decided something there was no dissuading her. "It would be better. Different." She hugged her coat tighter to her chest, her voice suddenly small as she gave weight to the possibility that had been flitting around her head like half-realized sparks. "We could be different."

A few feet ahead, Chat's shoulders slouched forward. "You don't have to convince me," he sighed wistfully. "You already know how badly I want that. But I won't endanger you, Ladybug."

Marinette fought the urge to stamp her feet on the snow-layered tiles; she had to tread carefully here or she might slip and slide all the way off the roof. Tikki! Of all the times for him to shift his stance, did he really have to do it now? Now that she was finally ready to take the leap? Marinette shook her fist at the wispy night sky for a moment, cursing her fate. What kind of cruel joke is this, universe?

She tried one more time. "I know it would be a little reckless. But doesn't the reward outweigh the cost, at some point?"

Adrien hung his head. "No reward could outweigh the cost if I were to lose you."

"Oh, chaton."

He jumped in surprise when he felt Ladybug's arms snake under his own and around his waist. She was hugging him from behind. He looked down in shock, seeing two arms covered in the pastel pink cotton of a winter coat, empty of a Ladybug pattern of any kind. The brown gloved hands that crossed over his chest were so small they barely poked out of her coat sleeves. Swallowing thickly, he rested his arms on hers, spreading his hands out over her wrists. This moment was wrong, all wrong. She should have her mask on. Or he should be maskless, like her. What he shouldn't be was completely unable to turn around and look his lady in the eye.

All the muscles in his neck pulled taut when she laid her head on the middle of his back.

"Please," she whispered. "I want you to know. I want to know."

His bpm accelerated into the redzone. Ladybug's maskless face was pressed against his shoulder blades and he was dying. This was it, he was dead, he was actually dead andㅡ

"I'm coming around to the other side now," she warned, and he felt her following through with it. In a panic he closed his eyes; she had entered his peripherals. Why was she doing this to him? Why now?

Tikki! he cursed internally.

Face to face with Chat, standing before him as Ladybug but without her spotsㅡMarinette thought she would feel a rush of adrenaline. Exhilaration! But now, her heart only ached. There was a new level to Chat's devotion that she was uncovering here with sadness, and that was just how far he would go to protect her. That he would sacrifice everything he wanted to hold a thin umbrella of security over her head.

And that pained look on his face was a knife in her stomach.

She raised a hand without thinking, bringing it to his cheek. His frown deepened even as he leaned into her hand, and she pushed farther, running her gloved fingers past his jaw around to the backside of his neck where his blonde hair feathered out. This quiet, pensive side of her partner was hard to look at, in the same way the naked sun was hard to look at. In a manner of speaking, the person standing in front of her right now with his eyes barely shut wasn't Chat Noir at all. He was something beyond all that red-hot bravado. Something rounder. Deeper. Something with much softer edges than he pretended to.

For once she was able to see with crystal clarity the boy beneath the mask. And as she considered that boy and everything he had done, the bottom of her stomach dropped out.

Oh no, she thought. I love him.

It took less than five seconds after she realized that for her to pull him down by the neck to kiss him, rising up on her toes to meet him halfway.

Even so, she was an inch too short and didn't make contact until Adrien caught onto her motives. Head bowed, he opened his eyes by the thinnest sliver, just enough to see her bottom lip and register that yes, Ladybug is trying to kiss me. So he did what any fool in love would do. He kissed her. For the first millisecond, his plan was to play it chaste and gentlemanly. It really was. But their lips had scarcely made full contact when he shuddered and dragged her all the way all at once into a desperate, iron embrace.

At that point the unending inner monologue that narrated Marinette's life took a giant gasp and flat-lined. She'd always assumed the whole 'there were fireworks' thing was just fluffy poetry by lovesick exaggerators like herself. But when Chat closed his arms around her and pulled her entire body flush against his, persuading her mouth to open for him without using any words, it dawned on her that poets only settled on the word 'fireworks' because there were simply no descriptors, in any known language, to describe the static electric tidal wave of raw physical sensation that one human could inflict on another.

Everything else fell away. For a minute, Chat Noir and Marinette Dupain-Cheng were the only things keeping the other tethered to this earth.

And a long, long minute it was.

Even when Marinette pulled back an inch, the kiss didn't seem quite over, since they still shared a hot island of breath in an otherwise freezing environment. Chat rested his forehead on hers, a small noise of complaint rising at the back of his throat at her withdrawal. Marinette's brain had yet to resuscitate. The top of his leather mask pressed into her forehead, his nose nudging insistently against hers. All she could see from here were his closed eyes. Each individual eyelash…

She didn't realize that she had brought the pad of her thumb to his right eyelid until he made a strained, growling sound that shocked her to life, and spoke. "You're really testing my self-control here, LB."

A long, exasperated sigh on her part warmed his neck and jaw, and caused him to accidentally slacken his grip on her. Which then caused her to fall six inches through the loosely packed snow to the roof tiles with a surprised oof. Whoops. He had no clue he'd actually lifted her off the ground.

Judging by the sound of it, she was now rustling around in her purse. "Transform me, please, Tikki."

Only when the flash of pink light that bled through his eyelids had totally faded did Adrien finally deem it safe to open them. Even still, he opened them slowly, hardly daring to believe that the life-changing kiss had truly happened and that the person it happened with was truly his lady. But as his eyes adjusted swiftly to the low light, there she was. In all her glory. Her cute freckled cheeks were far redder than usual below her spotted maskㅡdue to the cold, perhaps. Or perhaps because they had just kissed and it was better than he'd ever dreamed and Ladybug was the one who initiated it (!) and what was even happening right nowㅡ

Nope. Stop. Justㅡ

Slow down.

One thing at a time.

Reeling himself in at lightspeed, Adrien chanced a cocky grin. "Hey," he greeted, as if Ladybug had only just shown up to meet him.

"Hey," Marinette returned with equal casualness, mirroring his smirk. Holy heck I just kissed Chat Noir. What was I thinking?

(Do it again! the little demon on her shoulder shrieked, while the angel on the other side went on packing her suitcase.)

"Did you, um…? Feel? That?" As she spoke her voice raised in pitch until it was almost inaudible. She was at a loss how to phrase the question burning on her tongue where his had so recently been.

But somehow, despite the vague phrasing, he knew exactly what she meant. There'd been a sharp, distinctive, very physical tug behind his heart before he collapsed into that kiss like a neutron star into a singularity. It was a dose of gravity that he still hadn't escaped. It occurred to him as he lowered his forehead back to hers that he probably never would.

"Chat?"

Oh crap, he still hadn't answered her. He nodded. "Yeah, I felt it. I uh… I thought it was just me."

Her fingertips threaded back into his hair and she blinked up at him slowly, distantly, like she was trying to figure out where a puzzle piece fit. "No," she said, "it wasn't just you. I definitely felt it."

They searched deep in each other's eyes for longer than they'd ever dared, trying to decide whether that jolt when they kissed had just been the result of a particularly mind-blowing liplock, or if it harkened of the same higher order of power that gave them their abilities. Of something magical.

Tangentially… if it was magical, what did it mean?

It was Marinette who broke first, dancing a few steps backwards out of his arms. "Chat," she eased, wary of the unbridled elation that was slowly spreading across his face. "You mean so much to me. More than anyone ever has. But you know we can never…" Another bouncy step back. "We can never be anything more than friends if all we ever see of each other is red and black."

Adrien was unphased by Ladybug's shift. He may have been standing on a roof in the middle of Paris but his soul had lifted off and was currently doing laps around the moon. He crossed his arms and puffed up his chest. "I know," he lamented, "but it's a small price to pay if it keeps my lady out of Hawkmoth's line of sight."

Marinette had to look away. She wasn't so sure. The price was looking steeper and steeper to her by the minute. "It's late, chaton. I should go."

After a single gallant bow, Chat slid the twenty feet down to the edge of the sloped rooftop, dislodging an entire shelf of snow that cascaded past him over the edge, then snapped his baton out to its full extent. From there he looked back at her, an echo of their moment flashing briefly across his face. "Till next time, lovebug."

Ladybug stuck out her hip, wrinkling her nose at him. This she could handle. "Ugh," she groaned. "That one is so not going to stick."

If anything, Chat's grin grew wider. "Whatever you say, lovebug." By the time he leapt from the ledge she had already zipped away.

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Author's notes:

Vital PSA! Please note that this story is canon divergent, around the time where Adrien steals the book from Gabriel. All that stuff with Lila and the extra stones (and their new holders) would have severely complicated this already complex story. You can safely assume that stuff still exists, they just haven't found out about the rest of them yet, or seen the book or anything. None of that stuff will be touched on here.

Additionally, I started writing this story weeks and weeks ago, way before the Christmas special ever aired. So that episode does NOT exist in this story's universe. This means any plot-relevant information we found out about in the Christmas episode is SUBJECT TO CHANGE in this story.

(Perhaps most importantly: forget anything you learned in that episode about Adrien's mother).