2. Deductions

A/N: Wow! Haha I was not expecting such a response - thanks to everyone who alerted/reviewed, you all made my day. I can't promise that every update will be daily or even weekly, but I'll do my best to be rather prompt. Hope you enjoy! Just to clarify, each chapter is its own separate reveal oneshot, so the chapter titles and descriptions will denote what kind of story it's going to be.

Deductions: Adrien and Marinette add up the evidence and come to surprising conclusions.

Adrien was fairly sure he had figured it out.

He had been observing Marinette for months. This was easy to do now that they were close friends, and even easier due to the fact that Adrien was an insatiably curious individual.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Plagg had joked to him on a few occasions, but Adrien ignored his kwami. He was too motivated to figure out what Marinette was hiding from him. If his hunch was correct, it meant that he was running around Paris with her alter-ego, defending innocent civilians while both of them wore tight spandex costumes...yikes.

Yet he wondered. Could his friend really be Ladybug? There were a lot of similarities.

Adrien got up off his bed and walked to his desk. His father had just bought him a new ergonomic chair that looked somewhat like a torture device, but Adrien hardly noticed. He was too busy thinking.

He pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, and split the page into two columns with two titles.

Proof that Marinette is Ladybug, and Proof that Adrien is simply a wishful thinking idiot.

In the Proof that Marinette is Ladybug column, he brainstormed several notes.

He thought back to their study sessions or when they had spent time lounging on the sofa at her house watching movies. They'd played board games and cooked and walked in the twilight. He had courteously pretended not to notice her parents watching them from a conspicuous hiding place. During his time with her, he had noticed some odd things about Marinette.

First, there was the way she always won at cards. Or video games. Or even waste paper basket tosses. She had insane luck, even compared to a notoriously unlucky person such as himself. He'd always been rather ill-fated, but Plagg had simply made it worse. Yet Adrien had never seen anyone as fortunate as Marinette...except one black and red spotted superheroine.

Second, there was the way Marinette jumped and flinched every time someone said the word Ladybug. Was she responding to it because it was her name? Adrien had done that countless times when someone had mentioned Chat Noir. He knew it was a hard habit to break. Of course, Marinette could simply be a big fan who got excited about anything related to Ladybug. But so was Alya, and even she didn't act the way Marinette did.

Third, she and Ladybug had never really been seen together. Marinette was always mysteriously absent during the Akuma attacks...she always claimed she had been late or had been a victim of entrancement, but as Adrien also lied to cover his own tracks, he realized how glaringly obvious it was how often both of them consistently did it.

He thought about the way Marinette never let anyone get things out of her bag. She'd nearly had heart failure the last time someone had even tried to touch it. Perhaps she was protecting a kwami hiding inside it? Adrien knew he'd react the same way if someone tried to look in his jacket pocket. He feared someone would find Plagg and realize who he was. He also feared that someone would discover the stockpile of Plagg's atrocious Camembert in that pocket and judge him, but that was beside the point.

Adrien sighed and wrote more down on the paper. The evidence was starting to add up. He found himself rather pleased...if anyone could be his lady, who better than strong, modest, confident Marinette?

Besides, he had zero proof Marinette wasn't Ladybug. He wanted to be right...but there was only one way to be sure. He'd have to get her to reveal her identity, or tell him the truth.

It would require catlike stealth. And charm. Lots of charm.

But in the midst of his plotting, someone came through his open window. Someone wearing black and red with polka-dots. Someone who, come to think of it, looked a lot like Marinette in a mask.

"We need to talk," she said shakily, and crossed the room to where Adrien sat, frozen.

"We do?"

"I have a question and I need you to tell me the absolute truth." She pulled a piece of notebook paper out of - well, Adrien couldn't figure out where from, her suit didn't have pockets - and handed it to him.

"I've made a list and have been trying to do some thinking. And I want you to tell me. Are you Chat Noir?"

Adrien glanced at her list, which was divided into a table like his. Proof Adrien is Chat Noir...and then, Proof I Am Wrong.

Under the "Proof Adrien is Chat Noir" side, she had written: "Shares a love for puns. Inexplicably smells like cheese – and so does Chat. He even looks like Chat. Is never around when Akumas attack. Has incredibly bad luck (spilled four different water bottles in class within fifteen minutes once), flinches whenever someone mentions Chat, and hates dogs (he even hissed at one once)."

There was nothing in her other column.

Adrien read all of this and was impressed - she was right on all accounts, of course. He was Chat Noir. Had it really been that obvious?

But then he realized that the both of them had just made the exact same deduction in the same way. They'd both reached the same conclusion. They really were made for each other.

He threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh, no! I'm wrong, aren't I?" She blushed scarlet. "I should go."

But Adrien stood up, still laughing. He handed her his own list, and said, "I can't believe you figured it out. We really must think alike too, because I was about to say the exact same thing to you. I'm pretty sure you're Marinette."

She read it, her eyebrows climbing higher and higher. "Okay, but how did you-?"

"So you admit it? You are?" Adrien felt his pulse quicken.

She sighed and gave a small chuckle, and de-transformed. Her red kwami hovered silently at her side, staring at Adrien happily. Marinette just stood there, her face like a ripe tomato under her black hair. "Yeah, it's me."

"So we have been working together this whole time?"

"I guess. No wonder we got along so well. We were already friends," Marinette said. "This is Tikki, by the way."

Adrien opened his jacket and Plagg zoomed out. "Plagg," he gestured. Marinette nodded politely but seemed a bit at a loss of what to say next.

"You know, in my head, this was far less awkward," she said.

"It's only awkward if you make it so," he replied smoothly. He wanted to kiss her or something, but didn't know if that would actually make things worse.

"What do we do now?"

"The same things as before. We fight evil, we exchange witty puns and banter, we go to school like normal people. But this time, we can have each other's backs. All the time, not just while under our masks."

"I like the sound of that," Marinette smiled, looking into Adrien's eyes.

"As do I. Man, I'm so glad we were both right. I thought you were going to bug out when I handed you my list."

Matinette's eyes widened at the pun and she gave him Ladybug's trademark "not-amused" face.

It was the best thing Adrien had seen in his life.

"My lady, I do believe this is the continuation of a beautiful friendship."

"Take your arm off my shoulder. Just because I know who you are doesn't mean you get to be sneaky. I know what you're trying to do." Marinette said calmly, and Adrien let the hand he'd been draping around her shoulders fall down. He thought he'd heard Plagg snicker, but he didn't mind. Marinette's reaction was the same as it always had been, and that was encouraging. It meant things were the same between them.

"Eh, my charms will work on you someday."

Marinette transformed again and leapt onto the windowsill. "Not on your life, Chat," she said with a coy smile. He knew she was just messing with him, and he loved it.

As she took off into the air, he called after her, "Then I guess it's a good thing I have nine!"