Another one of those stories that's been burning a hole in my Google docs folder for too many months. Take it.
Your Number One
The city lights blurred all around them, bleeding upwards into the scant starry night as Adrien lunged, sprinted, and lunged from roof to roof, flying across Paris like the apocalypse itself was biting at his ankles. Every time his feet touched a surface, a pained noise of displeasure escaped Ladybug's mouth, and he would try to shift her into a better position. But it was borderline impossible when he had one arm belting her to his chest and the other on his baton, propelling them toward help. When he paused briefly on a chimney to check their progress on his baton's map, Ladybug lifted her face from the crook of his shoulder and asked, "Where are we going?"
Adrien used her distraction to discreetly examine her wound again: a ragged bloody tear straight through the muscle below her right shoulder, left behind after he had cataclysmed the arrow of out her chest. It looked too high to have punctured a lung, but her ragged breathing was not reassuring.
"Hospital," he said. "We're only three milesㅡ"
"No!" Ladybug blurted, though her brave face was tainted by her obvious pain. "No, you can't take me to a hospital, Chat."
He blanched at her, stumbling at the edge of the roof where he'd been about to vault off. "Bug, you're hurt."
"I'm okay," she lied. "Really, I…"
She went quiet and her eyes glossed over, sending Adrien's heart off a cliff. "Ladybug?"
When she snapped back into the conversation, she skipped over the lapse as though it hadn't happened. "If you take me to a hospital, that's lights out for my secret, kitty."
Adrien bit his lip hard, weighing his options. She was right, of course. By now everyone in France had seen the footage from tonight's hair-raising battle. Had seen the latest akuma rampaging across downtown Paris after losing his wife to cancer, using his temporary abilities to force the citizens of Paris to share in his grief by taking away their loved ones with debilitating arrows. Had seen as he tried to take Ladybug from Chat Noirㅡand when she proved too fast, settled for taking Chat Noir from Ladybug.
Surely by now everyone had seen footage of Ladybug shoving him aside and taking the arrow for himㅡseen it sink into her shoulder instead of his heart. God knew he'd be seeing it in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
There was no doubt in Adrien's mind that by now everyone had also seen as she purified the akuma Chat defeated alone while she bled. Had watched as Chat gently pried her hands off the arrow shaft (she had been trying to pull it out herself, which was tearing the flesh and accelerating her blood loss) and disintegrated it himself. Had seen as she reversed the abnormally high-level damage of the attack, but paid the price by not having enough magic left over to heal the damage to her own body. Had seen as Chat shoved past the reporters with the woman he loved tucked tightly in his arms, still bleeding, and leapt away from the scene.
Ladybug was right, as always. Her detransformation was only one minute off, now, and his nine. If he took her to a hospital, everyone would know her name and her face. Her friends and her family and her weaknesses. Hawkmoth would know.
But what else was he supposed to do?
Adrien wished he had a hand free to push her tangled bangs from her face, but since his were full, he could only touch their foreheads together and stare deeply into her cerulean eyes to convey the bottomless depth of his concern. "This secret isn't worth dying over, LB. You're losing blood."
"I'll be okay," she insisted, though her voice was strained and cracking. "I just need to rest and… and feed my kwami. As soon as I'm able, I can cast another charm and heal myself. It was too much this time. There was so much damage to fix…"
"I can't just leave you! Not like this," Adrien argued, because he knew that's the point she was working towards. They were probably twenty seconds from her forced detransformation, and they were long past the point where one of them would usually scamper away to protect their identities. "I won't."
"No," she whispered, closing her eyes to his unfiltered fear. "I know. And I.. don't want you to."
"Open your eyes," he urged, seeing that she was losing her grasp on consciousness and scared that he still didn't know what to do.
"You're a good cat," Ladybug mumbled. "They're... the cookies are in.. my bag. She likes cookies."
"Who? Your kwami?" Was she asking him to feed her kwami? "I don't understand, Ladybug, where do you want me to take you?"
And even though she was in pain and losing consciousness, the smallest ghost of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Home with you?" she whispered.
And then she was out.
Those three words echoed in Adrien's ears, bringing him to a complete mental stop.
Home with you.
She trusted him enough to take her home with him? Without even knowing who he was? Speaking of that, a red sparkle flashed in the corner of his eye, near her feet, and he sucked in a terrified breath. This was it. Should he keep looking? Look away? She had asked him to take her home, knowing full well she was seconds from losing her mask. In doing so, had she at last given him permission to know her face? Was she even lucid enough to give permission for something so monumental? Did she only do it out of necessity or because she really, truly trusted him?
Still undecided when the red light touched her neck, he swiftly adjusted her so her face was hidden again, resting on his shoulder.
But he couldn't help looking down her back, at her civilian clothes. The girl who was sometimes Ladybug had worn a flared navy blazer today, patchy skinny jeans, a pair of old pink flats, and a tiny rose-patterned handbag that he could have sworn he'd seen someone carrying before. Fuck me, he thought. She's cute.
"Chat Noir?" The small voice startled him from his observations. Must be the kwami. "I'm Tikki," the red fairylike creature offered timidly, peeking out from behind Ladybug's hair. "What happened?"
"Arrow to the shoulder," Adrien said. "Don't worry, I haven't seen her face. Although..." he sighed, pressing the side of his face to Ladybug's and preparing to change directions and head home.
"What?" Tikki prompted from his shoulder, and he found her with his eyes before swallowing thickly.
"It seemed like, maybe, she wanted me to."
Five minutes later they were dropping through the window of his third floor studio apartment onto the hardwood floor. By the time they arrived they were pushing 1:00am on what was now Saturday morning.
He closed his eyes to avoid seeing her face as he laid her gently on his bed, and listened to Tikki's assessment of the injury while he procured his emergency first aid kit from the secret dresser drawer compartment he'd had custom-made to hide all his Chat-related possessions. On his way back to the bedside, he grabbed Ladybug's (definitely familiar, where have I seen this?) purse from where it lay on the floor by the window. True to Ladybug's word, there were an ungodly amount of cookies inside. Eyes passing over her wallet, he tried not to think about the photo ID that was almost certainly inside it.
"Thank you," Tikki hummed as she accepted the nourishment. But her gratitude turned to shock as Adrien finally lost his hold on his own transformation with a flourish of splashing green lights. "Adrien?"
He raised an eyebrow as Plagg went straight for the food stash he kept in his desk. "Yeah, that's my name. You know me?"
Tikki forced down the bit of cookie she'd been choking on and refused to meet his eye. "It's not my place to say."
This reaction set him on edge, of course, and it was all he could think about as he went to tend Ladybug's mess of an injury. First he pulled a scarf out of a drawer and blindly tied it around her eyes so that he wouldn't be tempted any further to look at her face. Then he set about helping her. He eyed her blazer, thinking it might be easiest to just cut it off. But on further inspection the situation grew a bit more complex. Unfortunately, she was wearing a high-necked t-shirt underneath the blazer, so even if he got the blazer off, the wound was still completely out of reach. Which meant...
"Tikki," he fretted, and she too noticed the problem. "How soon till you're recharged enough to heal her?"
"At least…" She thought for a moment. "Three or four hours."
Adrien met her eyes pleadingly.
"Oh honestly," Plagg called out from the desk where he was gorging himself. "You humans and your hangups. Just cut it off!"
"Plagg," Tikki scolded, but then softened her voice for Adrien. "Really, she's not modest or shy," Tikki assured him. "I promise she won't be upset."
But Adrien wasn't so sure, and in the end he decided to try for cutting her shirt in a way that exposed the wound while maintaining the basic structural integrity of the garment. However, the second he nudged her onto her side to begin, she woke. Blindfold still covering her eyes and slurred mumblings falling from her lips, she fumbled in the dark until she found his hand with hers, and touched the cold scissors. The dots slowly connected. "Whuh.. th-e fu-uck're you.. doing."
Shit. Damn. Shit! "Iㅡyourㅡ" Adrien shifted away from her prone body on the bed, absolutely mortified. "You're still bleeding, LB, and your.. your shirt is in the way of me fixing that."
More awake now than before, she swore colorfully under her breath before going on. "So you were gonnaㅡjus' gonna cut it off?"
"Um." In that moment, Adrien was sure Ladybug had decided he was some kind of insane, psychotic pervert. That was, until she finished her thought.
"I can just take it off myself, you stupid cat! You don't have to bring scissors into this! Fuck! My day's already been bad enough without you mutilating my clothes!"
Well… this was definitely an unexpected turn. "LB," he worried. "There's a reason EMTs cut off patients' clothing instead of taking it off normally. It could seriously agitate the wound."
Gesturing wildly at the bedroom she could not see, Ladybug said, "Does this look like an ambulance to you? I made these," she stressed, and fisted her good hand into the fabric of her shirt protectively. "You are not touching them with those dollar store scissors."
"Ouch. Straight for the dollar store jokes," he laughed, bemused despite himself at her continued ferocity, even in the face of physical trauma. She was already trying to wiggle out of the blazer, so he decided to take pity on her. If she wasn't embarrassed, then it was okay, right? "Come on, at least let me help you."
And to his surprise she let him take over, only moving her arms when directed and hissing as the blood-wet fabric came away from her wound. Then it was off. Luckily it was dark, so there wasn't all that much to see, though that didn't stop his imagination (which didn't seem to have gotten the clue that this was Serious Business) from running away from him. After that ordeal was over it was about an hour of rinsing and cleaning and pressure and patching. Soon she was fast asleep once more. But as soon as he dabbed the area with a saline-soaked cloth, she gasped, bolting upright, and he almost had to fight her into a prone position again, all the while reassuring her of where she was and who he was and what had happened. After a long while he finished bandaging her and sank to the floor next to the bed, resting his tired head on his forearms. Plagg and Tikki had fallen into hushed snores in the corner of his room sometime in the last hour, and he wished he could do the same. But he couldn't sleep. Not when Ladybug was still suffering.
The pain itself seemed more subdued now. He had finally gotten her coherent enough to swallow some water and pain meds, and after that she had calmed down enough to let him finish wrapping gauze around the affected area. Now she was breathing softly with the unmistakable rhythm of sleep.
The steady rise and fall of her breath was soothing, and it had almost lulled him to sleep too when she spoke.
"Adrien?" she whispered in the dark, the word slurred but unmistakeable.
He leapt awake, his head snapping upright so fast he felt whiplash. She had seen his faceㅡand apparently she knew him well enough to recognize him from a strange angle, even in the dark. As his eyes adjusted he saw that she was propped up on one elbow, one hand pushing away her makeshift blindfold in confusion.
"Adrien," she repeated again, no less confused and no less sleepy, but this time with a degree of conviction.
And now that he saw her face, sans blindfold, he knew exactly why she knew him. Because this wasn't just Ladybug. "Marinette," he whispered back.
She cocked her head at him in concern. "Why are you on the floor?"
He bit his arm to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the question, considering the gravity of the multiple unfolding revelations. Instead of answering, he climbed onto the bed, coming to rest next to her, never taking his eyes off her for fear that this was a delicate dream and would shatter should he dare to blink. "How are you feeling?" he asked, instead of the billion other questions brewing in his half-asleep heart.
"Tired," she sighed, and closed her eyes, inching toward him to rest her head on his arm. Her hair had fallen out of its ponytail while she slept, and now it fanned out over his arm, loose and silken. "It hurts so bad, Adrien."
"It'll be okay," he soothed, and chanced a kiss on her forehead. "I promise. You'll be fine in the morning. Just rest now."
"I love you," she sighed.
"I loㅡ" He almost returned the sentiment casually before his tired mind had fully registered her words. What?! Something pricked in the corner of his eye, and he closed his arms around her waist, pulling her even closer. "I love you too," he murmured tenderly into her hair, but she might have fallen asleep again before he got it out.
And despite the frantic stammering of his heart, Adrien followed soon after.
.
.
'The lady is too fast. I think I'll slow her down with a bit of grief.'
Adrien skidded to a stop, forced to switch on a dime from offense to defense. An arrow sailed over his head as he dodged for his life, another under his arm, and another past his right eye. He hit a wall. Dead end. Then Marinette was there, slamming into him as the next arrow meant for his heart buried itself in her chest.
'Marinette!' Pigeons flew away as he guided her to her back on the sidewalk, away, away, through the crumbling bricks and into the yawning mouth of the sky. Their attacker cackled. All around them the sidewalk twisted and churned. 'What have you done, Mari? Why?'
'Chat...' She reached up to touch her fingertip to his nose.
'Yes?'
'Chat,' she pressed, more insistently, and the world dissolved around her.
'What, my lady?'
"Chat!" she hissed, and he startled awake.
It took a couple seconds for the events from the night before to catch up with him as a very male part of him realized he'd woken up in bed with a beautiful girl in his arms, a beautiful shirtless girl, with her back pressed flush against his chest. By the time he arrived on the name Marinette (gentle, shy Marinette) he was seeing stars. "Good morning, Marinette," he said carefully, his soft voice at odds with his accelerated heartbeat.
She sucked in a breath. "So you did see me."
"I tried not to," he defended. "Honest. I saw by accident andㅡ"
"It's okay," she said. "I knew you probably would when I told you to bring me here. Now, if you don't mind…"
"Oh!" He flushed and released her from his iron grip. "Sorry!" To his surprise, when she sat up she faced away from him, carefully keeping him out of her line of sight. Almost like she…
"You're not transformed, are you?"
Huh. She sounded nervous about that prospect. Unsure and excited. He deflated a bit, realizing now that she probably didn't remember that brief moment of consciousness when she had seen his face and spoken his nameㅡwhen just for an instant they were both unmasked. She didn't remember that it was him.
"No," he said at length, trying to decide how best to break it to her. "I fell asleep. How are you feeling? Have the meds worn off?" He glanced at the clock. 5:46am. Tikki should be ready by now to heal her; they should probably wake her.
Marinette drew in a long, shuddering breath as she prodded at the inexpertly tied bandage, then laughed. "This fucking hurts like fuck."
"Marinette!" he gasped, and then barked out a loud whooping laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth. It echoed in his vaulted apartment. Lovely, kind, soft-spoken Marinette who could barely say hello without blushing had just said the word fuck twice in one breath. He'd never heard Marinette talk like that in his life! (But you've heard Ladybug talk like that on occasion, a small voice remembered.)
"I need a minute to wake up before I can transform and fix it," she said, ignoring his reaction to her curses. "Your apartment is enormous," she noted, looking upwards at the distant ceiling, and around at the dark pristine bookshelves and the second floor walkway where it wrapped around a corner and hid his bathroom from the rest of the room. When her eyes fell on his two vertical windows, where the sparkling city sloped downward toward the Eiffel Tower and the sky was breaking periwinkle with the promise of day, she whistled. "This place is an absolute dream. I guess those scissors weren't from the dollar store after all."
Adrien flushed. "I know, it's overkill."
"I'll say. This is the most expensive looking studio apartment I've ever been in!"
"Right, about that…"
I'm Adrien, your long time friend from school. We've known each other five years and apparently you're also Ladybug, which is blowing my damn mind but is strangely unsurprising at the same time. And I've always loved you and somehow... now I love you more? I didn't think that was possible but here we are. I love you so much it physically hurts. I need you in my life. As Ladybug, as Marinette, as this oddly compelling mix of both that you apparently have been the whole time. I needㅡ
"Chat, I'm really sorry if I said or did anything weird last night."
What?
"I was really disoriented and I kind of…" Her shoulders hunched and she pulled the sheets up to cover her chest, even though he couldn't see her from here at all. "I dreamt that you were this guy that I'm… sorta in love with," she blurted quickly. "And I know I talk in my sleep, so I'm willing to bet I said some stuff that was just, weird," she finished. "If I did, I'm sorry."
Adrien sat up from his place among the pillows, simultaneously elated and heartbroken. "Adrien?" he asked, and she tensed up. Nino was always hinting that Marinette was interested, but he had no idea she was in love with him. So last night when she said it he'd allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, it had been the Ladybug in her, talking about Chat. "Yeah, you... called me Adrien and said you loved me."
"Oh, kitty…" She must have picked up the heartbreak in his voice.
It was definitely heartbreak that she was picking up on. "He must be great. A real catch. Give him my regards, won't you?"
"Please don't do that, Chat."
"I thought last night that you were finally opening up to me. I thought I…" He squeezed his eyes shut. It was too early in the morning for tears. How could he be so stupid? She didn't love Chat, she loved Adrien. Stupid, perfect, flawless Adrien. "I thought I had a chance, you know?"
"Chat." His reaction was hurting her, and he saw when she started angling her head toward him that she was toying with the idea of turning around and looking at him.
"Plagg," he yelled, waking the lazy kwami across the room. "Transform me."
After the blinding green light receded from the walls, Marinette spun to face him and moved to sit on the edge of the bed and look up at Chat where he now stood, dragging the sheets along with her. "You're not being fair. I can't control who I love," she defended. "You should know that better than anyone. I mean, because I... I love you, too. And you're the craziest psycho I've ever met," she added haughtily, almost as an afterthought served to soften the blow of that monumental confession.
This was enough to give Adrien pause in his downward spiral. "Wait. You do love me?"
Marinette threw her hands up and made a strangled sound, then catching the sheet at the last second before it slipped off. "Of course I do! It's not obvious? I leapt in front of an arrow for you, designed by Hawkmoth to take out people's most important loved ones. I love you. But..."
Adrien watched her face morph from determination into sadness, and tried to follow. This was getting more confusing by the minute. "But you love Adrien more?" he guessed.
Marinette pressed her lips together, and wouldn't answer that. "I loved him first," she evaded. "And I don't think I could ever be with you if I was still in love with someone else, which is why I've tried never to lead you on. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
Tapping his chin, Adrien considered her quandary and his options. This was far less upsetting than he'd previously assumed. Potentially, he could come clean right now and solve her dilemma. But then, he would never know for sure if she loved him for him or if she just loved the idea of him, would he?
After all, Chat Noir was his very essence; his mask was every unsmiled smile, every bitten-back laugh, every swallowed snarl, every strangled cry, every repressed emotion that Adrien Agreste was forced to hide as he went about his life. In a very literal sense, he was Chat Noir. Sure, it was false to imply that Chat was his true personality. Chat was more like a highly concentrated, unfiltered dose of Adrien. But that unfiltered dose was too much for some people. He knew Chat often rubbed people the wrong way and he knew not everyone found Chat funny and he knew that people saw Chat as somewhat dramatic. But, concentrated or not, all those emotions were his. They came from him. And if Marinette (if Ladybug) truly loved Adrien more than she loved Chat, who was basically the barest expression of his soul, he wasn't sure he could live with that.
"So you're saying," he said sadly, "that if you had to choose between Adrien and me, you would choose Adrien." Do you really prefer the watered down version of me?
"You're really not being fair," Marinette whispered.
"And you're being evasive."
"Fine, I don't know! Happy?"
"Ah, so you're on the fence then?" He broke into a shy smile, surprised at her answer and finally regaining a bit of the elation he had felt last night. "That's a different story altogether, my fair lady. It means I do have a chance."
"You're insufferable," she moaned, burying her face in her good hand.
"But you love me," he purred, and knelt in front of her to pull her hand from her face. "And I love you."
"It's not that simple, Chat."
He brushed his thumb across her chin, wishing that it was. "I know. But it could be."
"How?"
He brushed her nose with his, and she was either too shocked or too tired to object. "I've loved you from the day we met and I think I can get you to choose me. After all, I love a good challenge..."
A gust of air escaped Marinette's throat then, and she blinked at him in frustration. "For the life of me I do not understand you. Aren't you bothered that I just told you I'm in love with someone else?"
He thought carefully on his answer. "No," he finally said. "I don't care who you love, as long as I'm your number one."
This amused her. "Fine then, you crazy alleycat. You know what? You got me. Fine. Fine! You officially have my permission to try and woo me."
"Really?"
He knew his eyes must be sparkling, because she bit back a laugh. "What's your first move gonna be?"
"This," he smiled, and leaned in to kiss her.
Marinette gasped. For all her playful teasing, she had clearly not been expecting it. But after a moment she relaxed, moving her hand to his cheek as he pressed his lips to hers.
If it had been Adrien kissing her, he might have left it at that: a gentlemanly peck. But this was Chat, and he had to show her that Chat brought something to the table that Adrien never would. So he deepened the kiss, tilting her head until she gave him access, hearing the mattress creak below her in some distant and unimportant part of his brain. As he teased the tip of her tongue with his own she shuddered, and when after nearly a minute he pulled back she caught his lip in her teeth, silently begging him not to go. He caught her eye with the barest smirk then, taking note of her pleasant distress. She promptly came to herself and released his lip, flushing all the way up from the base of her neck.
Adrien stood again, tail springing to life behind him and ears twitching with delight. "Bet Adrien never kissed you like that," he said smugly.
This did not have the effect he was going for. Her dreamy expression wilted, and she sighed. "Adrien would never kiss me."
What?!
"How do you know?" he demanded. "Have you ever even asked him?"
"Well… No, but Iㅡ"
"Let me make this clear," he said, "princess," and she perked up at the unexpected usage of Chat's old nickname for her. "There is no doubt in my mind that if you ever asked this Adrien guy to go out with you, he would say yes in a heartbeat. Nuh-uh," he interrupted when it was clear she wanted to argue. "I'm serious. He would say yes, Marinette. But, since you've never asked, I'm going to assume you won't be asking any time soon. So until then, I'll be doing my best to steal your heart from him. Hope that's okay." On that note he gave her a sloppy wink, which drove her to stand and shove him playfully with her good arm.
"I don't get you," she laughed, trying to size him up but clearly failing. "But I don't see how it can hurt, if the situation truly doesn't bother you."
As she transformed back to heal herself he watched with awe, and when he left her on her own apartment's balcony later that morning it was with a torn heart. Because no matter what he said, the situation did bother him. That was why he hadn't told her he was Adrien in the first place. Because it bothered him that all the while when Chat had been trying to court Ladybug, Marinette had been falling in love with the part of himself he hated most. And if he was honest with himself, he was sure that if (more like when) Marinette knew what he was doing and how he was deceiving her, it would bother her even more.
...
Ooo a dark ending to an otherwise pretty fluffy-ass fic.
Few notes. You wouldn't know it from my writing track record, but marichat is far and away my favorite corner of the square. The problem is… I cannot get into reading (and find it almost impossible to write) baseless fanfiction. What I mean by baseless is skipping any kind of setup/exposition to get straight to a juicy trope. Enter: 95% of marichat fics. "Chat didn't know how this all started but suddenly he was visiting Marinette erryday" is such a cop out. Nothing against writers who write that way, because I know sometimes you just wanna write the good bits and don't feel like leading up to it properly. Me? I can't read it because it feels so fake and forced and unrelatable, and I can't write it because I will only write things that further my writing abilities and that Would Not. But again, nothing against people who like it or write it. I honestly wish I could get into it, because I Fucking Love Marichat, but there's absolutely no way to write a believable marichat story without extensive setup. I suppose that's why I don't write it very much. :(
So this one-shot was supposed to be the all-important setup for a multichapter marichat story. However, I only had this chapter and the last chapter actually planned out, and didn't realize till I'd finished this first one just how threadbare the rest of my plan was. So I just sorta put it on the backburner and it went cold before I could finish it. Luckily, it stands on its own rather well! Kinda cliff-hangery but I am sure you guys can figure out what happens from here.
(Chat Noir moves to Russia and Marinette quits the fashion biz to become a full-time clockmaker.)
I kid, I kid. I'm gonna spoil the rest of the story for you just cause I can, of course! Fuck yeah there are no rules in fanfiction! Wubalubadubdub!
So there were supposed to be a few lighthearted chapters of Chat trying to woo Marinette. His hopes are high at first, but he gets increasingly worried that he's not getting anywhere. Then, after a few chapters of this, something happens between them that makes him question the wisdom of this plan, and he realizes (A) that Marinette definitely still loves Adrien, and (B) if he hasn't been able to win her over as Chat by now he never will, and that means that when she inevitably finds out Adrien is Chat, in all likelihood it will negatively affect her feelings for him. So he furiously backpedals. Decides that he needs to show her Adrien can still be the 'Adrien' she fell in love with before coming clean.
So he asks her on a date as Adrien. He's expecting her to say yes, but still, the Chat in him is more than a little brokenhearted when she does. They go on the date. Adrien tries to act the way he thinks Marinette likesㅡas 'Adrien-y' as possible, as opposed to 'Chat-y.' To sort of re-win her over before telling her the truth. Yes I know he's a fucking idiot haha. (The whole story is from Adrien's perspective but you would see Marinette being a little weirded out in the date scene by the formal/flawless show Adrien is putting on for her. She knows Adrien and would know he is acting strange, she just wouldn't understand why yet.) Adrien thinks the date is going well, so he invites her up onto the rooftop garden of the restaurant he picked out. They go up and Adrien decides to go for it. Asks her if she's interested in being his girlfriend. (Maybe should have come clean first, but he's not making the best decisions right now lmao.)
Marinette is shocked. Like. 'Oh. Oh boy… Adrien, I… honestly, I've been in love with you since just right after we met. So in a way this is just the best thing ever for me. But also, it's kind of out of nowhere, y'know? And to be honest, I've kind of been dating someone, and I really like him a lot. You're really great, but this other guy… I need to see where it's going. I hope you don't feel like I've led you on by agreeing to this date. I mean, I sort of just accepted automatically before I had a chance to really think about it and I thought it was rude to back out. Adrien, oh my god, please don't cry, I'm really sorry!"
Adrien is sort of crying, sort of laughing. "Chat Noir?" he says, and Marinette stops cold.
"What?"
"You're talking about Chat Noir, right?"
"How..? How did you..."
Cue Adrien revealing himself as tactlessly as possible and Marinette being so pissed off at his stupid love games that she almost throws him off the rooftop. She's irate at first, but eventually calms down when she realizes why he felt the need to do that in the first place. The uncertainty and the self-doubt and whatnot, she's very familiar with all that. Idk, you get the point.
There's gonna be one more of these little 'piece of a story' stories. (Pure Adrienette this time.) See you then…
[insert shameless plug for my more high-effort fic, Strange Aeons]
