"So what are we supposed to talk about at these things? Boys? World domination? The ever existent drain it is to be a woman?" Inette flopped on Marinette's bed, looking up at her twin eagerly as her elbows propped her up.
"If it's alright with you, I'm still going to try to get a tiny bit of sleep tonight."
"ERR! Wrong answer." Inette swung her legs out before dropping down to the main level.
"Don't poke around my stuff!" Marinette awkwardly placed herself in front of the sewing box guarding the miraculous as she watched herself snoop.
"Ooh, who's this?" Inette teased, pulling out a picture of Adrien from the trash bin. She laughed to herself. "Cutie pie."
"He's just a model. I used to use him for inspiration for my projects." Technically not a lie.
"These projects?" Inette lifted a cover off one of Marinette's mannequins. A half finished dress - she had started it with intent to wear it to the winter dance, even though it had passed several months ago.
"Yeah, I need to fix that one. All of these, really. The seam ripped on Alya's blouse over there, and the stitch is too tight on Nino's glove here." Inette rifled through each of her friends' items as Marinette explained their problems.
Her twin tilted her head, suddenly becoming oddly serious. "You really take it on to fix everything, huh."
"Well, you know, that's who I am."
"Is it?" The two Marinettes stared at one another. "I suppose you would know better than I do. It just seems like a lot. I thought I would be more fun."
"I am fun!" Marinette protested, trying to hush her whispers so as not to wake her parents. "I'm fun. I go to movies and things. I have friends."
"Ooh, tell me about movies. When was the last time you saw one?"
Marinette paused, racking her brain. "Okay, maybe I don't see movies with friends too often. That doesn't change my point."
"Sure, whatever. I'm going to see that new Ladybug & Paon movie when it comes out after I leave Paris. In the crazy 4D IMAX. I saw ads for it on my walk over here."
Cue Marinette's mandatory eye roll.
"Not a fan?" Inette asked, pausing from her scavenging to look up.
Marinette hesitated, her normally knee-jerk answer caught in her throat. "I don't idolize superheroes, I guess. They've all got their own problems," she said, after a while.
"Oh, don't be all deep about it. He's hot."
Marinette laughed, relaxing her arms. "Well then maybe you can stay here and deal with him and I'll fly off somewhere."
"Nah, I think the whole superhero-ing part is better suited for you." Marinette took a deep swallow, not quite understanding what Inette was saying.
"The whole Ladybug thing," her twin casually clarified. "What, I'm a magical object created out of a miraculous, and I've got your smarts! Of course I'm going to notice your identical earrings and that box you seem so intent on protecting."
"That's - me? What?" Marinette chuckled nervously. "No way. I couldn't be Ladybug."
"You can't lie to me, I'm you!" Inette grabbed Marinette's shaking hands, eyes shining. "I know we've got it in us."
Marinette chewed on her lip, tightening her grasp around her sister's hands. Carefully stepping away from her protective corner, the two girls sat down on Marinette's sofa.
"So, what if you're right. You can't tell anyone."
"Duh. I'm leaving tomorrow anyway. Just giving myself a little pep-talk is all, self-love and all that." Inette laid her head on her twin's shoulder.
They sat like that for a while, Marinette finally enjoying the silence. She remembered confessing her secret to Alya a while ago on this very same couch. It had been a while since she had truly been able to talk to her friend about everything that was going on. She missed it.
"Hey, if you've got all my great advice and are in the pep-talk business, I've got this guy. My friend. His name is… Buttercup. I used to have this enormous crush on him, but then I learned we totally disagreed on something really important and, well, I kinda screwed it up. The friendship and the crush. But Buttercup doesn't know it was me who screwed it up, and so I don't even know how to apologize, or if I have anything to apologize for, or if I should just give up on love in general since it seems like I suck at it."
Marinette let everything from the past year fly off her chest. She was just talking to herself anyways, right?
She got a snore from Inette in response. An answer for another day then.