A) I know everyone says this but if I was rich I would buy my friends the sickest presents ever. If you think this wealthy ray of sunshine wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on presents for his friends, you are hereby extended a cordial invitation to fucking fight me. Also, idk how trust funds work. I mean does it LOOK like I have one? Haha… Oh shit I made myself sad. : (

B) I cannot be stopped; I will continue to write Chloe as a socially-color-blind bitch with 24 karat intentions.


A 'Coming of Age' Story


Despite her increasing desperation as time wears on and despite the fact that they've become good friends, Marinette doesn't get up the nerve to ask Adrien on a date until the very last day of lycee.

She's sworn to herself that she was going to do it every day for a year, and every morning she psyches herself up in the mirror, then scowls every evening in the same mirror, promising herself she'll do it tomorrow. But on the last full day of classes before graduation, she still hasn't done it. She smiles a sad smile at a disappointed Alya that morning, thinking that perhaps it was meant to turn out this way. It's not as though her chance is gone; after all, there's all of university stretching out before them. But honestly, if she hasn't been able to gather the courage to do this by now, she probably never will. And maybe that's okay. At least she won't have to live the rest of her life with the memory of Adrien telling her 'no.'

She contemplates a long happy life where they're only ever 'just friends,' and for once the idea is not so heartbreaking. The close bond they've formed in the last few years is rewarding enough on its own. Asking the universe for any more feels like testing her luck.

Near the end of the last class period (it's technically calculus, but since the day has been almost an endless party it's merely the eighth hour of an eight hour party) Adrien goes around passing out criminally expensive gift bags like candy and tearily thanks everyone for making his only three years in public school the best he could have hoped for. When he gets back to the table where Nino, Alya, and Marinette have taken up residence after relinquishing their hold on the N64, he sets his backpack on the table and pulls three unique gift bags from inside.

"Aw, bae, it's our anniversary already?" Nino jokes. "But I didn't get you anything!"

Adrien rolls his eyes and Marinette accepts one of the bags with hesitant hands. Hers is done up in pink bows and polkadots. "I was going to give these to you three later tonight but I can't wait any longer," Adrien rushes. "I just, I wanted to do something nice since you guys have been such amazing friends to me over the last three years. Yours are kinda different than the other ones I passed out though, so maybe don't open them untilㅡ"

"Oh my god," Alya gasps. "Oh my god. Adrien what the shit?!" Nino and Marinette ogle her; she's staring into her giftbag like Adrien put a dancing baby koala in it. When she pulls out a chunky Nikon cameraㅡthe one she's been saving up to buy for two years and is still only halfway thereㅡand cradles it in her hands, she looks like maybe she's fighting back tears. "Adrien, this camera costs more than my dad's car! Youㅡyou can't just give me this!"

"I already did," he says pointedly, and then watches with barely concealed earnestness as Nino tears through his own bag with a string of expletives rolling off his tongue. "No give-backs. Now you can use that money you've been saving up for textbooks instead, or for whatever else you need for university. Seriously, guys, there's no need to make a big thing of it. You three are the best friends I've ever had." (And maybe that's a teensy bit of a lie, he thinks to himself, but none of them need to know about Ladybug). "Just let me do this for you. Nothing would make me happier."

"Um… Adrien," Marinette says, and her voice barely makes it out of her tensed-up throat. When Adrien turns in his chair to face her, the expression he wears is so bright and sunny it's a wonder her skin doesn't flashburn. "I don't understand," she squeaks. Which isn't strictly true. She understands the present she's just pulled out of her bag, it's just that she's so shocked she doesn't know what to say or what to do or how to proceed from here or whether she's alive or dead. Oh, that's it. She's dead!

A blush dusts his cheeks then (though it's got nothing on Marinette's). "Oh, maybe I should explain yours," he laughs, and gently plucks the freshly opened envelope from her hands. "It's not a gift card, it's a debit card. For supplies, you know, like fabrics and tools and displays and stuff like that. It's connected to a trust fund I set up for you. And this one," he says proudly, pulling out an unassuming folded slip of paper, "is the deed to your new shop!"

On the word 'shop' Alya chokes on her own spit and nearly drops her new camera.

Adrien blushes even more furiously when Marinette still doesn't answer (she's sure she must look as windblown as the time she battled three akumas at once) but stays willfully insistent. "I know it's maybe a little overboard, but, I don't know. I got so excited when you said you were going to take a break before university to set up your own shop and I hope you're not offended that I want to help."

At last she finds her voice, though it sounds as though she's trying to speak with a jinglebell lodged in her trachea. "I'm not offended," she says breathily, "but I… Adrien, I can't accept this." She shies away as he tries to hand the envelope back to her, slinking into her chair. "You're incredible and I can't believe you would do this and I'm so thankful but I just absolutely cannot accept. It's too much!"

"I know, I know, you want to make it on your own. I know that's why you wouldn't let me snag you that internship with my father, even though you wouldn't say, so that's why I did this for you instead. You want to make it on your own. I get that. I do, and I respect it so much. So what if you think of this as an investment instead of a gift? Would that be okay?"

The whole classroom is spinning around her as Marinette turns the envelope over in her hands. Does he even understand that he is handing her, on a silver platter, something she thought she would have to work for years to attain? The contents of this envelope will change her life if she accepts them. When she finally gathers her scattered wits enough to meet his eyes again, which are a dangerous shade of green under these fluorescent lights and wide and happy and hopeful, it occurs to her that of course he understands. That's exactly why he's doing this.

In that moment she falls in love with him all over again.

"Okay," she accepts, giddy and drunk on excitement. If possible, he lights up even more. "Okay, but you get thirty percent stock in my company in return for the investment."

"Ten percent," he haggles immediately, taken aback at the insanely high stock she's just freely handed him. An entire third is far, far too much of a brand he's sure will someday be large enough to rival Agreste.

"Twenty percent. Take it or leave it, Agreste."

He opens his mouth to argue some more, but the determined set of her jaw reminds him that this is Marinette he's dealing with, and if she's made up her mind then he isn't going to win. He's lucky she's accepting his gift at all. "Fine," he relents. "You've got yourself a deal, mademoiselle." To seal it, he shakes her hand with a satirical level of formality. She barely makes it through the age-old gesture of new partnership without screaming her delight for the whole city to hear.

Alya leans away toward Nino, face askance at this fabulous new development. "What the fuck just happened?" she whispers.

"I think they just became business partners," Nino whispers back, and pokes a mysterious button on his new soundboard to see what it does.

Everything makes sense when on the steps outside school, Marinette overhears Chloe loudly and pointedly (almost like she wants Marinette to hear) telling Sabrina about Adrien's acceptance letter.

"To Harvard," Chloe yaks, and needlessly tacks on with even more transparent emphasis, "which is in America."

For a second, the whole world slopes at a dangerous angle and Marinette starts slipping down it into the open void of space.

Alya has to catch Marinette as she trips down the next step, and then sit with her right there on the stairs as she begins to hyperventilate, petting Mari's hair, freaking out because she has no idea why Marinette is freaking out.

And make no mistake, Marinette is Freaking. Out. Now it makes sense, why he went all out with these presents! Because they aren't just graduation presents. They're goodbye presents. And as okay as Marinette was this morning about relinquishing the idea of dating him, she is not even in the same dimension as being ready to part ways with him. So when she looks up and sees him below waving goodbye to Nino and sliding into that familiar black car, she springs to her feet and flies down the stairs, leaving behind a thoroughly bewildered Alya.

"Wait!" she shouts, "Adrien, wait!" She's running too fast and so she careens full-speed into the closed car door before backing up to yank it open. "Will you go on a date with me?" she blurts, registering his surprise at her sudden reappearance but unable to do anything less than blurt out the question that's been burning her tongue for three long years, in one breath, one pitch, full-volume.

Unclicked, his seat belt slides back out of his hand.

"I always meant to ask you but I was too afraid of what you might say and I know my timing is terrible and it's a little late for this but please," she begs, "just one date. Just once before you go."

Adrien blinks up at her, his face still a startled blank slate. "Go where?"

"To America," she says, and to her embarrassment a tear has formed in the corner of her eye. "I know you got accepted to Harvard."

Understanding creeps up on him. He leans to the side, peering around Marinette's curled hair until he can see Chloe standing on the bottom step in front of the school, giggling into one hand and giving him a bold thumbs up with the other. He furrows his eyebrows at her, then exchanges a wordless glance with the driver and climbs back out of the car, shutting the door behind him. Marinette's shyness finally catches up with her veracity, and she backs away from him so fast she almost falls, watching with horrified curiosity as the car drives away without its passenger.

"Marinette," he says gently, "I'm not going to America."

Her stomach takes a nose dive into the sidewalk. "W-what? Butㅡbut I… Chloe."

Adrien touches her arm as she turns to glare at the girl in question, trying to keep her attention on the more important matter. "My father forced me to apply, and I did get accepted, but I'm not going. I never intended to. Chloe thinks she's helping," he adds with a sigh, giving his oldest friend a disparaging look over the top of Marinette's head. Chloe flashes him another shameless toothy grin and saunters away with Sabrina, swaying her hips all the way.

"O-okay," Marinette says quietly, and her voice hits an octave unmatchable even by mice. Then if you want to forget everything that just happened I hope we can still be friends. At least, that's what her brain tries to say. She tries to say that, honestly, she does. But her adrenaline is still pumping wildly through her bloodstream, which means Ladybug is at the reigns. So what she actually says is this: "Is that a yes to the date?"

Adrien bites his lip. "Well, since I'm staying right here in Paris, it would be cool if… you know, if we could go on more than one."

On the steps outside the school, Nino has just joined Alya, and together they watch as Adrien and Marinette blush all over each other like it's a 'coming of age' story and they have a front seat and popcorn. The two in question briefly argue over something and then Adrien apparently wins because he takes Marinette's backpack from her, slinging it over one shoulder. Marinette looks up at Alya and Nino and waves, glee pouring off of her like sparkles of sunshine off the rolling surface of the sea. "Adrien and I are going for coffee!" she shouts to them. "We'll see you at the party later, okay?"

"Yeah, okay!" Nino laughs, then nudges Alya to wave back, who has fallen catatonic. She lurches to life, waving weakly with one hand.

"What the fuck just happened?" she asks Nino, her mouth falling open in shock when a ways down the road she sees Marinette boldly thread her fingers into Adrien's.

"I think they just started dating," Nino replies, then whips out his phone to continue his game of tetris.


...

That's the end of the self-contained bit. But since life is short and the universe is doomed to eventual heat death, I'm gonna go ahead and spoil the rest of the would-have-been, could-have-been story for you! Fuck yeah no rules and nothing matters!

This story was supposed to go like this. Adrien and Mari are dating, and then they both find out each other's identities, but don't know that the other knows. Mari gets sad because she assumes if Adrien is dating Mari, then he must have fallen out of love with Ladybug. Her questionable plan of action is then to aggressively flirt with Chat as LB until he re-falls for her. BAD PLAN, MARINETTE, because unbeknownst to you, Chat knows you're Marinette. Do you see where this is going? Hahaha. So then ADRIEN gets sad because he thinks Marinette is falling out of love with Adrien in favor of Chat. HIS plan of action is then to court Marinette as Adrien as aggressively as possibleㅡy'know, flowers, chocolates, the worksㅡwhile he tries to figure out what the hell is going on with her. This was supposed to be a slow burn fic that I'll just never have the time or motivation to finish when I have more exciting projects to work on, and would have culminated in some sort of breaking point where Chat and Lady end up making out. They both think the other is cheating on them, only to find out by accident or something that nope, they both know actually, and then they feel fucking dumb. Or something. Idk, that's why I never finished this lol. But here, have two deleted scenes to make up for it.

...

Deleted scene #1: Marinette finds out

...

"So I'm seeing someone," Chat says, and Marinette's so surprised by the mere fact of it that she doesn't think about the odd coincidence that he's just said exactly what she was going to say. She thought he was in love with her. With Ladybug. "I know I can't tell you her name," he goes on, unaware of her confusion. "But I just wanted you to know, that I... I'm in love with her. And I'm really happy, y'know?" He gifts her with a blissful, dazzling smile that blinds her and, for a split second of insanity, she hates this unnamed girl more than she's ever hated anything.

And then he says it. He says the sentence that changes everything.

He says, "Last night she tried to kill me over a game of monopoly. But, to be honest, I really deserved it for all the stupid train puns I made when I was buying up the railroads. Hey Ladybug?" He waves his hand in front of her unresponsive face. "You feeling okay?"

"O-oh yeah," she lied, waving him off with feigned nonchalance. "I'm fine, I just have a headache, that's all.

"Bummer," he says with genuine sympathy, and then rises deftly to his feet. "Maybe we should call it a night? I'm going to a morning matinee at the little theater down on Fontaine anyway so I should probably get some sleep."

"Yeah, me too," she breathes, then chokes. "About sleep, I mean! I mean I should get some sleep too!"

But when he leaves, Marinette stays.

And cries.

And cries, and cries, and cries, until she can scarcely draw in a breath without shaking.

Because Chat is Adrien and Adrien is Chat and if Adrien has fallen in love with Marinette then that means that Chat has fallen out of love with Ladybug. And Chat is Adrien, and Marinette is Ladybug so... ad infinitum.

Even when she finally plucks up the willpower to get herself home, Marinette stays up half the night crying, trying to think of one single way this doesn't spell disaster for their relationship. But the morning eventually dawns and then she sees him, waiting for her outside the downtown theatre-in-the-round with their tickets in hand, leaning against the wall with one foot propped up and looking for all the world like he just fell out of a centerfold into her reality. She watches his affection wash over him like daybreak when he catches sight of her, and feels her broken heart starting to mend. That single way she was searching for hits her. There's a simple solution, here. All she has to do to fix this is get Chat Noir to fall in love with Ladybug all over again!

Shouldn't be too hard, right? After all, she's done it once before without even trying. She's sure she can do it again if she pulls out all the stops.

...

Deleted Scene #2: Adrien finds out

...

When it happens, they're alone in her new shop, and it's Cleaning Day.

Twice a week for the last month they've come here together to throw away abandoned furniture and tear up old linoleum and rewire the lighting and scrub down the windows and whatever else this musty old first-floor hole-in-the-wall requires of them. It's small, and it's old, and when Adrien first brought her here he laced the visit with profuse apologies about the state of it. He paid for it out of his own savings, after all, and he isn't the wealthiest man alive. That is, until Marinette took him by the shoulders and he saw the happy tears in her eyes. With the peeling paint as a frame for her lovely face she told him, "I love it," with such passion that he was struck by the impression that really, it was him that she loved. The impression turned out to be right when, later on that afternoon, Marinette confessed to having been in love with him since the day they met.

Boy, how he wasted his time.

Today the goal is to repaint the walls. They've just come from a hardware store and as Adrien carries in all the cans of paint from the car, Marinette slips into the bathroom to change out of her sundress and into something more suitable for splashing paint all over the place. They switch places when she comes out, although Adrien lingers for a moment at the bathroom door with his change of clothes in hand to look back at her. The cute tank top she wears is decorated with the phases of the moon, and she's so cute, oh my god, and on top of that the jean shorts she's wearing turn her flawless legs into actual visual weapons. He takes a moment in the open doorway to lament this fact and wonder why in the hell she never wears shorts.

And then he sees it. He sees the mark that changes everything.

There on the back of her thigh, just below the edge of her shorts (yes he was looking there, how could he not look, her back is to him and she's bending over with a screwdriver to open all the cans) is a little brown birthmark in the loose shape of a clover. In his shock, Adrien's hand slips off the doorjamb and he smacks his head on the wall. Marinette straightens and gives him a worried glance, then sees the blush creeping up his neck and into his cheeks and realizes that he's been staring at her.

"Adrien," she chides, albeit halfheartedly. Because honestly, she was kind of hoping he would stare when she packed these shorts earlier. But she wasn't trying to give him a concussion, though.

"Sorry!" he squeaks. "It's just that youㅡ And Iㅡ I'm just gonnaㅡ" He trips into the bathroom and slams the door shut between them. "Oh my god," he hisses into the sink, sure for a second that he's going to throw up the gelato they ate earlier.

He's been in love with Ladybug for three long years, and when a boy is in love with a girl he hardly knows he'll do anything to feel closer to her. It isn't his fault that he retains all the information she lets leak about her personal life like an unwitting sponge. He's never been consciously trying to uncover her identity. Quite the opposite, actually. He respects her wishes. That's why he eventually gave up on pursuing her in the first place. It was never going to work if they didn't know each other's identities. But still, he can't help the way her words stick in his subconscious like bugs in honey. Because even though his brain has moved on and his heart has latched onto Marinette, a deep, unshakeable part of him has always held out. It was this part of him that stowed away the knowledge for future reference when Ladybug mentioned offhand one da that she had an ironic birthmark on the back of her left thigh.

"Ironic?" he laughed. "How can a birthmark be ironic?"

Ladybug wrinkled her nose and bit back a laugh. "Because it's shaped like a clover, that's how."

Chat laughed and laughed at that. "I knew it!" he exclaimed. "My lady has been lucky since birth! I told you it's got nothing to do with your miraculous," he purred, and she ducked out from under his arm.

"Flatter me all you want," she sassed. "I'm not showing you."

Adrien splashes water on his face and then steadies himself on the sink, staring into his own eyes in the mirror. Really, the odds that two people in Paris, France have a clover shaped birthmark in the exact same spot are so astronomically obscure that he can't bring himself to entertain it, not even for a second. Which means only one thing. Marinette is Ladybug.

Okay, two things. It also means that Ladybug is Marinette.

Which means Ladybug has been in love with him for as long as he's been in love with her and he's dating her. He starts to laugh, then claps his hands over his mouth to dampen the sound as he quickly loses control. But he can't help it. It's so fucking funny. This whole time

Knock, knock.

"Adrien?" Her voice through the door is enough to startle him to life. "Are you almost finished changing? I'm not tall enough to tape off the line between the walls and ceilings and I need your help."

He changes clothes so fast he almost falls through the old drywall. And somehow, as they paint her new shop shades of pink and blue and grey, he manages to merge the two girls he loves into one. And he thinks, this is fine. This is great. All he has to do is confess to her that Adrien is Chat, and hope her love of Adrien is large enough to transfer over to the crazy cat as well. He even starts to draw up a plan. As they flick paint at each other, he imagines a date: he takes her out on a boat on the Seine, and he brings her flowers, and the stars are alight, and somehow he manages to get the words out. I know you're Ladybug and I want you to know that I'm Chat.

His eyes flick down to the birthmark every time she turns around to dip her roller back into the paint, and he smiles. This is the best thing that has ever happened to him, and for the first time in his life, he feels like there is literally nothing that the universe could dig up to ruin this for him.

But everything is blown out of the water when later that night, the universe manages to dig up something after all. What happens is something unprecedented. Something unfathomable. Something obscene.

They're on patrol, and when Chat flirts with Ladybug (newly inspired by his tantalizing knowledge), Ladybug flirts back.

...

Sorry to leave you all high and dry like this but that IS where this ends. XD (There's more to the WIP but it all falls apart after this and that's why I never finished.)

Oh, you know what? Fuck it, we're all gonna die someday anyway. Have an excerpt from a much farther on, deleted marichat scene. *tosses up shrug-emoji-shaped shaped confetti* (Remember, they both know, but they both think they're the only one that knows.)

...

Deleted Scene #3: Marichat intensifies

When he lands in front of her she nearly drops all her books.

"Chat Noir!" she finally splutters out. "Fancy seeing you here." On the rare occasion he's needed to interact with Marinette as Chat, she's always been somewhat sarcastic and sassy. Now that he knows she's Ladybug, it makes sense. But what she says next is nothing like that at all. "Are you here to carry my books like a gentleman?" she jokes, though she bats her eyelashes at him like she isn't joking at all. What is with her?

"Au contraire," he purrs. "A true gentleman walks a lady home." He has no idea what he's doing here, talking to her as Chat when all the while he's been trying to hold onto her as Adrien. Is he planning to confront her about it all? He doesn't know. "May I?"

She smiles coyly at him, and there's a flash of Ladybug in her eyes that makes his heart surge in his chest. "You may."

But instead of taking the elbow she offers, he sweeps her up in his arms, drawing the attention of the pedestrians in the crosswalk nearby, and takes off across the rooftops of Paris, following the unnecessary directions that she knows he doesn't need. When he lands on her balcony and carries her inside, he considers just coming clean right here and now and demanding to know what is going through her head when she flirts with Chat as Ladybug.

She catches the serious turn of his gaze, and the playful comment dies in her throat. His eyes drag downward, and she realized he's stepping closer. Is he going to kiss her? As Chat? Holy shit. She swallows thickly, almost ashamed by how much the idea of it thrills her. But not ashamed enough not to tilt her face up when his thumb comes to rest under her chin, urging her to do so. Only an inch more.

She's really going to let me, he thinks incredulously.

But on the other side of the apartment, her roommate speaks up and they fly apart.

"Marinette, is that you? I'm going to work now, do you think you could switch the laundry for me later? Thanks!"

Marinette swears and shoves Chat toward the balcony in desperation, worried that his appearance here might compromise his identity. After all, Rachel knows all about Adrien. She rushes out of her room to bid farewell to her roommate, missing the fact that instead of leaving through the open sliding glass door, Chat Noir shuts it with himself still on the inside.

"Have a good day!" Marinette waves goodbye, and then sighs, wondering what she was thinking, letting Chat Noir take her home like that. They almost kissed. (Which, wouldn't that mean he'd think she was willing to cheat on him?) Oh god. This game of hers is going to ruin their relationship. She needs to come clean. She needs to tell him who she is, and that she knew who he is.

She jumps out of her skin when the front door moves on its own accord, then looks behind her to see that Chat Noir is the one closing it. He didn't leave?

"Chat?" she whispers.

What is he doing? Why isn't he gone? She turns around but the moment she does he pushes her up against the door, staring down from less than a foot away with a wilder expression than she's ever seen him wear. What is he doing? If she lets this go any further he's absolutely going to think she's willing to cheat on him! What is he doing? Trying to test her, maybe? Or just caught up in the moment? Despite her misgivings, when he brings his hand to the back of her neck she's helpless to do anything else but let it happen.

Adrien watches her eyes flutter shut and for the first time since the beginning of this disaster, he's not worried about the fact that Marinette is so suddenly and inexplicably open to the idea of Chat Noir. In this moment, he just wants to know if she loves Chat enough to cheat on the boyfriend she loves so much. Suddenly, instead of heartbreaking the idea is thrilling. After all, he is Chat, so why is he fighting this in the first place? The door is hard against her back and he is like an unstoppable force, slowly descending toward her until finally, finally, she breaks. She throws her arms around his neck and crashes into him, kissing him with a passion that she reserves for Adrien on their latest nights, when their past-midnight talks on her bed turn into tender words and roaming hands and heated breath.

He responds like a lit fuse, and she has no time to wonder what he thinks of her because his hands are on her, running down her sides, lingering on her hips before surging downward to lift her up onto him. She moans around his tongue when he presses her harder against the door, now with her legs wrapped around his waist. He's never been so forward before. And god help her, she can't think. She can't do anything but kiss him back and tangle her hands with his hair.

He ruins her hairdo with his own wandering hands, and smears her lipgloss, and bites her lip when she tries to pull back for breath, then moves to her neck when she tries to speak, drowning whatever words she tries to say with a breathy sigh.

"Oh, Chat," she breathes then, and it's like she's touched his skin with jumper cables. He lets her slide back to the ground, and she looks up at him like she knows she's done something wrong. Well, she hasn't really, but she doesn't know that yet and he kinda sorta maybe wants to ride this out for as long as he possibly can before telling her the truth. So with a dangerous grin he lifts her up again, throwing her over one shoulder like a sack of flour. "Chat!" she gasps, this time in outright indignance instead of lust.

"Yes, princess?" he hums.

"Put me down!" she hisses.

"As you wish." He drops her onto her bed, and she goes white as she realizes where he's taken her. "May I?" he asks, mimicking his earlier inquiry when he wanted to take her home.

She has no idea what he's asking permission for, but she swallows and nods up at him. Yes.

...

I know, I'm literally satan for dangling this in front of you. I'm really off the rails now, haha, I never should have started listened to that shoulder-demon of mine. Just publish the half-finished works you piece of shit, she said. Wash your hands of them, she said. Well, look at me now. I've gone mad with power. Haha. Anyway, that's the last of the mutilated WIPS. For now… Good riddance lmfao, now I can stop feeling guilty every damn time I scroll past them. Eyyy.

The next one-shot will be a return to your regularly scheduled programming with a rewritten scene of the Vulpina episode. O SHIT WADDUP!