Reply to Guest: You have so many amazing ideas, OMG! It makes me blush that you love this story so much. Honestly, it sounds like you should write one of your own! I would definitely read it! I also agree that Cerise/Lila is probably not actually a teenager, she seems waaaayyyy too sure of herself and her master plan to not actually be an adult in disguise. The idea you had for bringing in nightmares had me SHAKING, that would be INCREDIBLE! I'm not sure if it will work with the plan I'm already most of the way through, but if you were to write it I'm sure it would be absolutely jaw dropping and I'll definitely try to incorporate some bits and pieces into this fic, even though I don't think Nighttormentor will actually happen in this one as I'm trying to take a more AI/techy approach than the show.

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Thanks to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed! Sorry this chapter took me awhile, most of my time was spent figuring out what actually needed to happen in this chapter versus the next one and the ones to follow as we get closer to the finale! Trying to avoid as many plotholes as possible. Here we go!

(::)

Chapter 13

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Ladybug slipped around the corner from the hospital, ducking into an alley and settling behind several overflowing trash bins. Letting out a long breath, she detransformed.

Tikki flew out and landed in her palm, blinking up at her with a tired smile that matched her own.

Sinking down into a squat, Marinette pulled out a cookie for her kwami to munch on. "What am I gonna do, Tikki?" she sighed. Then, a little gasp. "My parents! They're going to be wondering where I am!"

Pulling out her phone, she found several missed calls and messages.

-sorry maman-

Her fingers pounded the keys.

-i've been at alya's. there's been a problem with-

Twisting her lips, she hesitated to come up with a believable excuse.

-with her and nino's relationship, call you later!-

With a pang of guilt, she hit send.

"With Alya and Nino's relationship!?" Tikki asked incredulously. "I'm sure THAT won't come back to bite you in the butt later."

"I can't worry about that right now, Tikki! Coming up with excuses is the last thing on my mind. The fate of the whole world is at stake!" Marinette tugged at her cheeks, laying her forehead over her knees exhaustedly. "Tikki," she started, feeling her throat start to close.

NO! This was not the time for becoming a crying mess!

"Tikki, you remember Chat Blanc."

Revived from her snack, Tikki flew up and looked her in the eyes, concernedly. "What about Chat Blanc? That's in the past, Marinette, you fixed everything."

"But that series of events started after Adrien found out my secret identity!" Marinette exclaimed, a few hot tears starting to pour down her cheeks. "Which now makes sense, because Adrien is actually Chat Noir!" She gasped, feeling her heart pound in her chest as realization slowly sunk in. "And his father is Monarch! I just stood up to Monarch, Tikki! As LADYBUG!"

"Marinette!" Tikki flew to her chest, nestling there in an attempt to calm her down. "Take a deep breath! It's going to be okay, you were brilliant standing up to Gabriel Agreste, just like you've done before!"

"Is it?" She blinked away a few more tears, coming a bit more to her senses as the panic quelled and wiping at them with her sleeves. "How is anything going to be okay ever again, Tikki? How can I ever be okay when Adrien has been suffering, and is going to suffer even more, and there's nothing I can do to fix it? I would do anything for him, but nothing will change how miserable his life will be no matter what happens to his father. What if M. Agreste goes to jail? Where will Adrien go? How will we ever stay together?"

"It's not your responsibility to decide what happens to him, Marinette," Tikki scolded her softly. "That job belongs to the police. As Guardian and Ladybug, your job is to stop him from using the Miraculous to hurt others, and to recover the ones he's stolen along with the missing kwamis. You can only move forward one step at a time."

Marinette hiccupped slightly, sniffling as she gave Tikki a slight smile. "Taking things one step at a time is not really my specialty, is it?"

"Your style is more like taking a thousand steps at a time, in several totally unpredictable directions!" Tikki giggled good-naturedly. "You should trust your instincts. What's the next, most important thing to do?"

"Getting Adrien to safety," Marinette stood up, smoothing her pigtails with conviction. "We need to get him out of the hospital and to another, more secret location. Then we can contact Argos and Kagami and see if they've found anything more that will clue us into what Monarch is planning."

"Normally I'd say you're just in love and wanting to spend more time with Adrien, but for once, I agree with you!"

She adjusted her purse and began walking to the end of the alley, headed back to the hospital entrance.

"Wait!" Tikki cried. "Aren't you forgetting to transform?"

Marinette gave her a grin, her confidence having returned. "Not for this part, Tikki. It's time for Marinette to take her own position in this plan."

(::)

"...hink we should call Marinette?"

"Hmmm...oh, I think she already knows...she told me she might be dropping by later..."

"...I feel bad, hate to have her out of the loop like this..."

"...yeah..."

"...think she knows? That Adrien's...you know who?"

Adrien's eyelids were heavy, but he forced them open at the sound of familiar voices, blinking as his vision cleared and he looked around.

He was still lying in the hospital bed-or maybe he'd been moved back. His oxygen mask was gone.

He took a test breath, cautiously, and nearly cried from relief when it wasn't anywhere near as painful or difficult as before.

His body felt almost detached from the rest of him, and he experimentally wiggled his toes to try and remember where they belonged. Starting to feel more awake, he reached up to his face, and felt tubes...what was that? Oh, he had oxygen tubes in his nose. That made sense. It wasn't as bad as the mask, anyway.

"...hey, he's up!"

"Oh my god, he's awake!"

"Adrien, buddy!"

Adrien suddenly realized, as his head started to clear a bit more, that it was Alya and Nino in the room with him, with no sign of Ladybug anywhere.

Nino was right beside him in a flash, relief evident on his face. "Dude, I'm so glad you're okay, man. You had us really worried. I mean, we had that whole meeting and nobody knew you were injured, let alone that it was serious, and then it was...YOU...the whole time? I just-"

"How about we give him a second to wake up, babe?" Alya grinned, placing a hand on his shoulder to slow Nino's ongoing brain dump.

Adrien should have been happy to have two of his best friends there with him, but panic was taking over quickly. "W-where's Mar-Ladybug?" he ground out, his voice barely functioning after several hours unconscious.

Alya gave him a knowing look. "She's been in and out. She went to make some calls, and to feed her kwami and contact Bunnyx to see if she can help us with the...situation."

Nino handed him water, which Adrien took a few grateful sips of. His throat felt raw.

There was a moment of awkward silence when he finished as he realized both of them were waiting for HIM to say something. He knew he should, there were a million things to say, but his head was spinning. He just stared, blankly, at the quilt in his lap, having no idea what to say.

"Hey. You okay, man?" Nino laid a hand on his shoulder, his amber eyes expressing concern and sympathy. "I had no idea you were going through all this, man. Your dad, your being a superhero, getting sent away. I just wish I could have been there for you."

Adrien was still quiet, hardly meeting his friend's eyes.

"You know," Nino hesitated. "You could have told me all that. You-you know you can trust me, right?"

Adrien swallowed a lump in his throat, and nodded.

"Did anyone know?" Alya asked quietly. His eyes flitted up to meet hers. "Your identity? Did Kagami know?"

Adrien swallowed to clear his throat, then shook his head. "Kagami and Felix found out last night. Or-morning. I can't remember," he sighed, savoring sweet oxygen in his lungs.

He felt a poke on his left shoulder and reached up, finding a weird tube attached to his skin under the hospital gown.

It was weird, thinking he'd just had surgery. All he knew about surgeries was from TV, and he'd half expected to wake up with his chest cut open or something freaky like that. Maybe he'd discover a giant scar as soon as he looked in the mirror, but at the moment, he couldn't find anything terribly obvious.

Nino's eyes were bugging out of his head. "NOBODY knew? Like, you mean all this time, you didn't have anyone there to help you out, or talk about superhero life with?"

Adrien blinked. He hadn't ever really thought about it. He'd just assumed...well, he knew Ladybug would never tell anyone her identity, and he'd been pretty shocked when he found out she had been okay with Alya and Nino knowing each other's. "I have Plagg," he shrugged one shoulder, immediately wincing and regretting the movement.

At the mention of his name, something stirred to his right just under the blankets.

Adrien shifted a little, suppressing a groan. "You can come out now, by the way."

A pair of pointed ears, followed by tiny, slitted eyes, popped out from under the blanket. The green orbs darted back and forth from Alya to Nino and back again. Plagg's brief shy moment over, he shot out and started flitting about the room.

"It's about time I actually got to meet you kids; the name's Plagg, I know literally everything about you, I sit in Adrien's bag at school and Tikki and I gossip about you and go through your phones."

Alya and Nino's faces both turned a dark shade of red.

"And believe me, BLEGH. My curiosity did not last long," he assured them. "You two are disgusting. So much lovey-dovey nonsense, it made me queasy. THIS kid on the other hand," he gestured in Adrien's direction, "Can't seem to figure out love to save his life. Until now, of course! Can you believe it?!"

"For not caring much about 'lovey-dovey stuff'," Alya held up air quotes, "You sure do talk about it a lot."

"Eh, life gets boring when you're stuck in some boy's shirt all day! Speaking of, you don't look too bad at all!" Plagg cheered triumphantly to Adrien, flying from one side of him to the other checking him over. "I watched everything the doctors did, and it all went according to plan! They also said you'd be as fine as a ripe cheese in no time!"

Adrien couldn't reply, couldn't even look Plagg in the eye. His eyes welled up with unshed tears.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Plagg zipped around the other side of him, ears perking up in alarm.

"NOTHING is fine, Plagg." He swallowed a painful lump as a few drops ran from his eyes. "Didn't you hear who my father is? And as long as I'm stuck here, I can't do anything about it."

Plagg looked around awkwardly at their company, before patting Adrien's head with his tiny paw. "There, there."

Nino and Alya both stepped forward, putting their arms around him. Adrien's chest hurt more when he cried so he tried to stop, focusing on taking breaths instead.

"Hey, I'm sure it's gonna be okay, dude," Nino attempted to reassure him when they sat back down. "Ladydude-I mean, Ladybug-she's always got a plan, right? She'll know what to do. She's already gone into action, sending us here to look after you while she took care of stuff."

"Nino," Adrien's voice was watery, "If Alya were Ladybug, how would you feel if you couldn't have her back?"

Nino startled, looking over to his girlfriend and then slowly back to Adrien, surprised by the question.

Alya avoided eye contact with him. Also strange.

"I mean, if Alya were Ladybug-that'd be different, man. Alya's my girlfriend."

Alya was glaring daggers at Adrien now, who responded by shrugging off the question and lying back, making Nino even more suspicious.

"Besides," he added, testing their reactions, "it's not like Ladybug's going in alone, she knows all of us are going to help her."

He was met with more silence.

"Okay," Nino crossed his arms over his chest, frowning deeply. "What's going on here? And why am I the only one here who doesn't know about it?!"

Just then, he was interrupted by the door bursting open.

Adrien sat up, his eyes going wide and hopeful.

"Adrien!" Marinette ran inside, beaming when she saw him awake and pushing past their friends to take his hands in her own. "Hi," she added, more shyly as color tinged her cheeks.

"Hey," Adrien said softly as well, gazing deeply into her eyes. He was so relieved to see her.

She leaned in and kissed him, leading Alya and Nino to lean back with slacked jaws.

"Oh my god, PLEASE tell me that wasn't your first kiss?!" Alya nearly shouted as they finally pulled apart, both of them pink and rosy from the neck upward.

Marinette just shook her head, unable to hold back a smile. Adrien acted like he hadn't even heard her, still gazing at Marinette. Like he wished they had never pulled away.

"Girl, I'm gonna need details later."

"So am I," Nino shot back, narrowing his eyes at Alya instead of at Marinette.

Alya cringed. "I'll-explain everything later, I promise."

"Explain what?" Marinette's ears perked up, turning to them in confusion.

"Oh," Alya grumbled, "Nothing that YOU would know. Seeing as you're NOT Ladybug."

"Wait," Adrien's drug-hazed brain finally started to catch up as he stared at Alya. "How do you-"

There was a moment of tense silence as Alya shot him yet another SHUT UP NOW look, returned by his own of confusion, then looks exchanged between the four of them, Nino looking increasingly frustrated until finally-

"Oh, damn it all!" Marinette exploded. "Nino, I'm Ladybug!"

"WHAT!?"

"Wait, Alya KNEW!?"

"FINALLY!"

"If you're Ladybug, then that means-"

"And you're Chat Noir?!"

"And Alya and Nino were Rena Rouge and Carapace!"

"Yes, I'm aware," Adrien shot a look toward his best friend, who cringed.

"You TOLD him!?"

"You didn't tell me anything!"

"What's the point in having a secret identity if it's not a secret!?"

"I mean, it's not like I didn't WANT to tell you-"

"You know, it would have been NICE to confide in my best bud too, if I'd known you told Alya-"

"Ha!" They were interrupted by Marinette, who had doubled over the bed, practically shaking with laughter. "Ha, ha ha!" She dissolved before their eyes, laughing and clutching her stomach for a solid thirty seconds before finally catching her breath, wiping tears from their eyes. "I'm sorry! It's just that-" She stopped, taking another steadying breath, sensing their eyes on her. "It's just that I wish we had done this sooner. I was so afraid-"

She decided to start her explanation from the beginning.

"A few months ago, Bunnyx showed me what would have happened if I let Adrien discover my identity," she began. "It was horrible. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. And she didn't let me see the details, just showed me the end. You got akumatized," she added in a low voice, leaning into Adrien beside her, whose eyes widened.

Instinctively, he held onto her, sensing how upset she was.

"After that, I was so afraid to let anything like that happen in our timeline, I became so paranoid about protecting our identities that I let it get in the way of our friendship. As Ladybug and Chat Noir," she added, to clarify.

A tear dripped down her nose and landed on his chest.

"I stopped trusting you like I used to. I started pushing you away. And none of it was your fault." She sniffed loudly, her eyes apologetic and ashamed as she gazed into his. "You were always there for me, you're the perfect partner. Both in and out of the suit. And I started acting like I had to fix everything myself, because I was afraid of losing you. That's why I also revealed my identity to Alya, because it just got to be too much to handle alone and I was afraid if I opened up to you as Chat Noir, we'd fall in love and our love would blind us to what Monarch was doing, and the whole world would be destroyed because of me!"

Alya and Nino just gazed at her, stunned into silence, before exchanging a glance and grasping each other's hands.

Adrien's arms trembled where he held her, her words both soothing and alarming him at the same time. It all made so much sense. The pain she'd caused him was no less real, but he knew she hadn't meant to hurt him. And the whole time he'd commiserated to Plagg about how amazing and perfect she always was, how strong and confident, how-well, how much she just didn't seem to need him anymore-

She'd been struggling just as much as he was.

"At least we all know each other's identities now," Alya spoke up, thankfully breaking the silence. "Finally, no more secrets."

"Yeah, dudes, we can finally work together for real! Can you believe it? It was just us the whole time."

"No more secrets," Marinette echoed, sighing as she gazed up at Adrien, who for his lack of words still couldn't tear his eyes from her face.

He nodded in agreement, holding her a little tighter, even though it made his chest hurt.

He didn't care.

He was never letting go.