"And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."
― Libba Bray
IV. Part 2 of 6
"And she still won't talk to me." Chat sighs into the cold Paris night, propped against the warm bricks of a fat, smoking chimney.
Across from him sits Rena Rouge, one leg dangling over the side of the roof. She nods wordlessly, tapping her flute lightly against one booted foot. Considering, she continues her tap, tap, tap.
Each tap sounds like another nail in his Chat Noir-shaped coffin.
It's been two months since his disastrous night with Marinette. Two months since he bared both his soul and his identity, only to realize what a mistake he had made.
He doesn't quite regret finally telling Marinette the truth. It's more…that he gave her no choice in the matter. He took something away from her, and he can understand why she has refused to see him.
Chat is not used to be this selfish. He isn't used to feeling like his father.
"Did she recognize you?" Rena asks.
Chat hesitates. Rena may be his occasional patrol buddy and akuma-fighting partner, but that doesn't mean he wants her getting anywhere near Adrien. He's a little conflicted about his identity these days.
All he seems to be doing is disappointing everyone with the truth.
Chat hangs his head, both clawed hands pushing through his mess of blond hair.
"Maybe."
Rena's flute pauses midair. Her mouth hangs open, eyebrows drawn high.
"Wow."
"I know," is all Chat can say.
"Why did you tell her?" Rena demands, practically slamming the flute down onto the roof as her journalistic curiosity flares to life.
Beneath his mask, she can see a blush beginning to creep over his face and ears. He says nothing, but the red working down his neck tells her everything she needs to know.
"No! But I thought–" Rena pauses, gesturing between them. "Ladybug, right?"
"I know."
There's a moment of silence before she bursts into laughter. It echoes across rooftops high above the wintery bustle of Paris below. The incongruity of it all isn't lost on Rena; Chat Noir is in love with her very best friend. By all accounts, the ordinary, everyday civilian Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
"What a mess you've gotten yourself into, chaton."
"I know," he moans, looking as helpless as a stray caught in the rain.
"Wanna race?" Rena challenges suddenly, getting to her feet. She eyes la tour Eiffel glittering in the distance, unimpeded by the snowfall.
Chat shrugs, but Rena catches the glint of mischief in his eyes as he rises.
"Game on, Rena. Last one to la tour does Le Papillon's laundry!"
It's pure coincidence that he finds her.
The easy nights of slipping into her open windows – always the one to the very left, the window he liked to think of as his – had come to an abrupt stop. In their place were shuttered windows, a not-so-subtle rebuff of past privileges, and blocked phone calls.
Both Adrien and Chat were being kept at bay, distant and regretful.
It is nothing short of luck that he sees her during one last patrol sweep, standing alone against her old haunt – the Dupain-Cheng bakery balcony. Face up toward the dark, cold night, she stands illuminated by a single flickering lantern.
His heart stops in its chest, mesmerized, eager.
When he lands beside her, she jumps. Her shock turns into panic as she takes him fully in, from his black boots to the tips of his cat's ears.
"Adrien," she gasps, eyes widened and looking instantly to the exit to her old bedroom. Her hands are white-knuckled against the wrought iron, her cheeks pale from cold and a mixture of emotions he can't quite place.
"Marinette, please don't go in. Please talk to me."
She hesitates. She looks from the door to him, measuring. Deciding, he thinks. When she releases her grip on the balcony, turning to face him, he sighs a breath of relief.
He's won something, however small.
"What can you possibly say to me?"
She huffs warm breath into her hands, trying to thaw her fingers as she rubs them together. Her breath comes to life in the cold, puffing out like a smoke or fog.
"I broke off my engagement with Chloé."
Marinette shakes her head, bangs stirring over her forehead. As if she didn't know.
The news has painted the pages of the gossip columns and society articles all week, online and in print. Representatives of the Bourgeois' and Agrestes' have released their statements and apologies, affirming the ex-lovers are friends and will continue to support each other's personal and professional pursuits.
It's all so very amicable, so clean and simple.
"I know."
"You know? Why didn't you come find me?"
Marinette scoffs, folding her hands into her pockets. "What do you want from me, Adrien?"
She looks him in the eye, mouth turned fully down. He's never asked himself that before – no one has ever asked him what he wants.
What does he want? The question seems foreign, but he knows the answer. He's known for some time. He wants so, so much. Anything. Everything. Whatever she's willing to give...whatever she has. All of it.
"More," he settles on, coming toward her, arms spread as if to gesture what he can't quite say. Maybe it can explain to her what words can't. Maybe she will understand his eyes, his shoulders, his hands. "No secrets, no walls, no identities. Not anymore."
Maybe she will understand how much her friend has come to burn for her.
"It's different now." Her words are so quiet, he almost misses the grief in them.
"Nothing's different, Marinette." A lie, of course, but how can he show her what he sees? Here is someone he can share everything with – Chat, Adrien, every refraction of his identity. He wants it so badly, he could burst.
"Everything was so easy. Everything between Chat and Adrien was separate, organized. Now it's just so…"
"Complicated?" he completes.
"Too complicated."
"I'm still me, Marinette. I'm Adrien. I'm Chat, but I'm also Adrien."
"Adrien is exactly the problem," she huffs, ripping her hands from her pockets to point them toward him, accusing.
The words spark between them and sink deep into Adrien. Adrien is exactly the problem. Hope begins to burn, warm and hot and so, so hopeful.
"You mean, you are…Chat?"
She doesn't acknowledge or counter his implication, but that's its own answer.
Marinette loves Chat Noir – she loves him. Somewhere along the course of their friendship, he began loving her too.
Being with her, spending time with her…how could he not?
Day by day, he began getting to know his shyest once-classmate. He felt himself building a friendship with her…each night spent in Marinette's company was a night he learned. Before he could even account for it, she knew him. Every hidden, subdued part of him, she came to know and accept and understand.
He also knew her, in pieces and in parts, until they formed a full picture. By then, he was probably already half in love with her.
He almost can't believe his luck.
"Tell me you don't love Ladybug," Marinette says suddenly, tearing Adrien from his thoughts and into a little detail he could kill himself for forgetting.
The world knows Chat Noir is madly in love with his partner, Ladybug. More accurately, that he used to love her.
"Marinette, I have my regard for her. But it's different now. We aren't, we're not – I'm not–"
"In love with your partner of eight years?"
"Marinette, it's not Ladybug I want. It's you."
"You don't know what you want," she says, sounding too much like his father. Sounding too much as though she's looked him over and can sum him up with a single string of words.
Her accusation hurts. He readies his defense, but she isn't finished.
"You don't understand anything. You want nothing between us? No walls, no secrets, no hidden identities?"
She's crying now. Fat tears roll down her cheeks, over her nose, and under her chin. Instantly, Chat comes to her. His instincts swell to life – protect, protect, protect.
Marinette thrusts her arm out to stop him from coming closer. The gesture stings, but he stops in his place. Tentatively, he reaches a gloved hand out to her.
"Marinette?"
"Tikki, please," she says into her jacket, lifting the collar. "Just end this."
The hair on the back of Chat's neck stands as Marinette accepts his hand. Holding tightly to him, something flies out from her coat in a flash of red and spots.
It shouldn't surprise him that Marinette is right – she always is.
He really doesn't understand anything.
Not as his dearest friend is wrapped in a sudden whorl of red light. Not as his partner stands in her place, head to toe in polka dots, crying harder than before…her gloved hand in his.
Not as everything changes yet again.