30. Chapter 30

Her Saturday began with the stark realization of just how badly she’d fucked herself over.

Despite the fact that she hadn’t set her alarm, Marinette’s eyes still popped open nearly a half hour before she was set to work downstairs — and for perhaps the first time in six days, she wasn’t instantly assaulted with tears. No, instead she woke to the ever-present guilt in her head as it whispered scalding truth down the back of her neck.

The voice spoke of mistakes. It described Adrien’s anguish as Marinette pushed herself from the covers, it illustrated his hurt as she pulled on her clothes. 'You’re the problem here,' the sinister speaker murmured, managing to make itself heard even as Marinette furiously brushed at her teeth, 'you’ve always been the problem.'

Needless to say, her week of thinking was going just swimmingly.

The day was long, with too much quiet that left too much room for reflection. Marinette would have preferred to work up front where needy customers would require her undivided attention, but unfortunately her duties lay in the kitchen, helping her father prepare the seasonal sweets that were in high demand now that autumn had rolled around. Her shift positively dragged, minutes stretching into hours as the teen tried not to let her thoughts spiral away from her tasks, but the recollection of that night wouldn’t leave her.

The recollection of Chat’s shattered expression wouldn’t leave her.

 And every time Marinette recalled their confrontation, her stomach only churned in shame.

Adrien’s first response — his very first response — to having his identity exposed was to try and put her at ease. He didn’t point fingers, hell, he hadn’t even taken a moment to process the implications this would have on his own life. The boy had just immediately fallen into that protective stance, wrapping her up in easy words and soothing promises as he worked to assure her that everything would be all right.

‘And what did I do?’ Marinette thought, moping around the bakery and kneading her sorrows into the yeasty paste beneath her rolling hands. ‘I was silent. Then I yelled! Then I basically told him I didn’t want to see or hear from him before bolting away like a coward!’ There was a loud smack as the dough was thrown against the powdered surface of the pastry table, and Marinette felt her ribs twinge in response.

“Woah, does that phyllo owe you money or something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you work with that much ferocity!”

“No, Papa,” Marinette sighed, scrunching her neck down into her shoulders as the large man pressed a forceful kiss to the top of her head. “Just getting some pent-up feelings out is all.”

“Oh, I know how that goes,” her father said, dusting off his apron before sliding up alongside her at the work space. “Baking is a great way to work off one’s troubles… So what’s wrong, kiddo?”

Well, wasn’t that just the question of the day?

Somehow Marinette didn’t think “my latex cat-suited boyfriend, whom I’ve been sneaking out at night to see every week for the past four years, turned out to be the same guy I’ve been pining after for the same amount of time and now somehow I’ve managed to shove both of them away despite the fact they are two of the most important people in my life” would go over particularly well, but a part of her reasoned that maybe she did need to talk this over with someone besides Tikki.

“I kind of got into a fight,” she replied, ducking her head as she continued to work, “with someone who’s really special to me… a-and I think I really messed things up between us.”

To say things were merely "messed up" between her and Adrien was a gross understatement, but it was the most accurate description she could come up with at the moment.

 “I see,” Tom said, bending to catch her eye as she snapped from her reverie. “And this special person, they mean something more than just a friend to you, I’m assuming?” Marinette nodded, gauging her father’s reaction with a measured glance. The man just looked thoughtful, giving her a sincere look of understanding before continuing on. “I thought that might be the case… Do you want to talk about it? I promise not to pry any more than a father should.”

“That depends. How much prying constitutes ‘what a father should’?” she asked warily.

“You don’t have to name names, but I’d still like to know a bit about this person who’s seemingly got a grip on my little girl’s heart.” Marinette let him swipe a line of flour across her nose, relaxing at the playful gesture and breathing deeply to steady her nerves. Her father was an excellent listener, having lent her his ear for many a crisis before. So she gathered up her thoughts, trying to present her situation in a way that was vague enough to avoid any more trouble but truthful enough to warrant some applicable advice.

“So I’ve known this person for a long time,” Marinette started slowly, “but it was just recently that we began to talk about our deeper feelings for each other…”

‘Well, at least on my end, anyway.’

“It was kind of overwhelming at first. I never really saw myself falling for someone like him but… I mean… here we are. Years later and somehow everything is all messed up.” She sighed, leaning into the familiar presence beside her until another kiss plopped itself onto the crown of her hair.

“Well, as frustrating as it sounds,” her father began, his voice filled with a gentle compassion, “I’m sure you and Alya will—“

 The man cut himself off, screwing up his brow and peering down at her in concentration.

“Wait, did you just say 'he'?” A nod. “Really now? I could have sworn…” Marinette cocked her head at her father’s apparent confusion, watching as he just gave a shrug. “Ah well, I guess that means I owe your mother a foot rub.”

 Realization dawned on the girl, and she gave an incredulous gasp. ‘They did not….’

“Unbelievable!” she yelped, throwing her floured hands up in defeat. “You two have a running bet on my—” She floundered, brain adamantly refusing to use the term “sexuality” around her father. “—my orientation?!” Marinette finally sputtered, eyes bugging in disbelief.  She knew her parents had a habit of making wagers as a way to pass the time, but this was just outrageous.

“Not really a 'bet', per se… well, okay. Yes, we made a bet.”

“On whether I like girls or guys?” Marinette prodded, stabbing a finger in his direction.

“Amongst other things,” Tom said with a hearty laugh, seeming to thrive off her stricken expression before settling back into a paternal stance. “But anyway, that’s not the point. This boy… You said you had a fight and you think you messed things up?” Marinette let out her breath in a whoosh of air, turning back to her work as a silly bet suddenly seemed the least of her worries.

“I found out something about him… something I didn’t want to know. And I didn’t really react all that well.”

“The thing you found out was bad I’m assuming?”

“Not…exactly?” Marinette said, tilting her head in consideration. “It just came as a pretty big shock to me, is all.”  

“So you found out something surprising about your… let's go with friend. Then, when you confronted him about it you two argued?”

“More like I argued…” she muttered, the guilt bubbling up to boil in her stomach just as it had every day since she’d spoken with Adrien.

 “Ah, let me guess,” her father said with a knowing look. “Alternating bouts of screaming and silence before ultimately avoiding your friend altogether?” Marinette stiffened.

“…Papa, have you been following me?” she accused. Tom laughed again, putting his hands up in the presence of his daughter’s pointed stare.

“I don’t have to follow you around to know you are the very reincarnation of your mother,” he said, seeming to grow a tad melancholy in the next second. “Trust me when I say I’m very familiar with the situation you find yourself in, having been on the receiving end of that treatment many a time before.”

“How does it feel?” Marinette asked quietly, chewing her lip as she recalled Chat’s downright wrecked expression. “To have someone treat you like that?”

“Oh, it hurts to be sure,” her father said, capturing her eyes as the girl let out a wince, “It’s not poetic in any way, fighting with the person you care about, but it will happen from time to time.” The man gave a smile then, one that was sweet and sad and looked to have years of memories behind it as he placed a comforting hand atop his daughter’s shoulder. “Obviously, I don’t know the entire situation, so I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t hand you a magical answer to all your problems, even if the dad in me wants nothing more than to do just that.”

“I wouldn’t mind some magical answers right about now,” Marinette murmured, imagining her father riding in on some shining steed and delivering an all-powerful solution on a silver platter. The ridiculous mental image almost made her laugh despite the tightness in her chest.

“Listen,” Tom said, hunkering down so they were eye to eye. “You’ve grown into a responsible, smart, and resourceful young woman, and I trust you to make the right choices for yourself. But if I could give you one piece of advice, it would be this: Talk it out. I’ve seen too many good relationships, both friendly and otherwise, fall to pieces purely because one or both people refuse to sit down and be frank with each other.” Here he stood again, drawing up to his full height and throwing a hand out to gesture to where his wife stood at the counter up front. “Your mom and I have been married for more than twenty years now, and that’s all thanks to the fact we continue to tell each other things. Sure, the conversations sometimes turn into arguments, but at least we talk. We tell each other what we’re thinking: no guessing games, no avoidance, just simple communication… and that has made all the difference.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Marinette said, processing his advice as her mind ticked away.

The words coming from her father’s mouth seemed obvious, seemed like the type of cliché lines you’d hear in a self-help video, but somehow their simple knowledge resonated with the girl, and Marinette felt herself flare up at her own foolishness. ‘Tell each other what you’re thinking… no guessing games… just simple communication.’

 “And it’s not even that hard,” Tom said, breaking through her musings, “just sit the boy down and tell him why you’re feeling the way you are. If things are still bad between you after that, well then at least you know you tried.” He paused, looking up with a wry expression. “Of course if you need me to break out the gruff father persona and have a sit-down with him, I’ll be sure to iron my tough guy pants.”

“Papa, you are the least gruff person I know,” Marinette said, giggling at the thought of her sweet father attempting to be intimidating. “But I’ll be sure to let you and your tough-guy pants know if I need someone to father him into oblivion.” She slipped her apron over her head, hanging it on the peg by the door before regarding the clock. She wanted to…

“Go ahead,” Tom said, releasing her from her shift despite the fact it wasn’t quite five o’ clock yet, “Seems to me like you have some scheming—“

“Only mama schemes.”

“—Seems to me like you have some scheming to do, Sabine Jr.” Marinette swallowed a grin at his tease, unconcerned by the comparison (there were worse things she could be than her mother) as she made her way towards the staircase, mind doing sprints. Right as she was about to ascend, however her fathers voiced called out once again, halting her mid-step. “Oh, and Marinette?”

“Yes?” she questioned, itching to go get some well-needed scheming planning done.

“After you two are done talking… tell Adrien to come over any time he’d like.”

Marinette gulped, avoiding any response to her father’s keen observation and instead giving the man a shallow nod. She raced her way up the stairs, heart beating a nervous staccato along with her banging feet as the girl made for her room. Upon reaching her loft, Marinette immediately sought out her kwami, launching into discussion with the tiny red creature as she ruminated on her newfound knowledge.

Five minutes later, her head was clearer than it had been for nearly a week.

Ten minutes later, Tikki was assuring the girl she wouldn’t mind transforming later that night.

And fifteen minutes later, Marinette was tapping the little ‘C.N’ in her contacts.

It wasn’t the worst week of Adrien’s life (no, not by a long shot), but boy did it hold a spot near the top of his list.

The days were mostly filled with silence, keen and familiar. It was the same silence that Adrien had grown used to in his years of relative solitude, the kind broken only by the occasional “Lift your chin, Mr.Agreste” or “Dude, are you feeling all right?”

His cavernous bedroom only seemed to amplify the sensation, the panes of his windows throwing prison-bar-like shadows in the dying light of the evening as Adrien’s phone sat maddeningly silent. At times, the absence (of sound, of contact) grew oppressive, and more often than not the teen had to fight down the urge to yell in some last-ditch attempt to counteract the stillness. To make something happen.

But Adrien didn’t yell any more (there had been plenty of that on Monday, feral yowls that had all but drowned out the sound of rusting metal and ripping canvas as the wreckage had fallen to the earth around him).

Adrien didn’t cry any more (there had been plenty of that on Tuesday, blubbering tears that worked their way past his eyelids at the most inconvenient of times as her last murmur of “us” drew a seemingly unending pulse of sorrow from the ventricles of his heart).

In fact Adrien didn’t even get mad any more (there had been plenty of that on Wednesday, a building frustration that'd all but fled the second Ladybug had intercepted the blow meant for him).

No, Adrien didn’t do any of that and instead pushed on, unceasing… unfaltering…

Unfeeling.

His lived his days unfeeling, stitching himself together with twine spun of false assurances only to feel his strenuously-held composure unravel the second he found himself alone at night. It was a practiced way of existing, one Adrien kept in his back pocket for when life came close to stomping him out, and it was what kept the model from toppling due to the worries of his alter ego. Well, that, and the whispered thoughts he repeated to himself each time things grew especially bleak.

‘Ladybug never said she was disappointed by you, she just needs some time to think is all.’

‘Ladybug promised she wasn’t breaking up with you, she just needs some space is all.’

‘Ladybug is probably reeling just as much as you, she just needs to make some choices is all.’

God, he wished she would make her choices already.

Because in all honesty, Adrien had never truly grasped how deeply Ladybug had become rooted in his daily routine until he had to cut her out of it. There were hiccups in his schedule now, little points throughout the day that ticked disjointedly in reminder as he fought against the urge to contact her. Every morning came with the instinct to text her awake, every night with the struggle not to send off a wish of sweet dreams, and Adrien still found himself reaching for his phone nearly every hour only to be met with an absence of notifications. The silence was maddening.

Saturday is when he began to feel again.

 It was also, coincidentally, the day Adrien had discovered he could sync his phone up to his surround-sound speakers.

“Oh would you make it stop?!”

Plagg bobbed around their shared room, watching as Adrien laid spread-eagle atop his large bed with unseeing eyes staring up at the celling. A truly terrible soundtrack of angsty music [x] swung into its tenth repetition of the night, and Plagg was seriously considering chewing through the wires in an attempt to quell the infernal noise. But one look at the utter loneliness painted across his chosen’s face all but dashed his destructive urges, and the tiny catlike creature instead decided to attack a different source in his quest for silence.

“All right, you’ve worn me down,” Plagg said with a dramatic sigh, hovering above the mattress and glancing down at the human’s prone form. “We’re going to talk about your feelings until I finally get my peace and quiet back.”

“You hate talking about feelings,” Adrien mumbled, not bothering to meet his kwami’s eyes as he continued to sulk.

“Well I hate this music even more.”

“My music is applicable to the situation.”

“It’s horrendous.” The teen didn’t argue, merely shrugging as he absentmindedly picked at the blanket beneath him. Plagg huffed, feeling a deplorable swell of actual concern rise up at the sight of his friend so broken up. True, emotions weren’t exactly his strong suit, but even a being made of concentrated bad luck could identify inner turmoil when he saw it, and Adrien was the very picture of a lost kitten. So the kwami channeled his other half, putting on a Tikki-like expression of concern that felt foreign on his mischievous features as he plopped himself atop Adrien’s chest.

“I don’t like that look,” the boy said, dipping his chin down to regard the creature. “That is a very worrying look.”

“This is the look of someone who is about to pull you from this funk, so suck it up and start talking.”

“You’re serious? You really want to talk this out with me?”

“I’m may be gruff, but I’m not cruel,” Plagg said, throwing a paw out to gesture before him, “and I’m certainly not blind. Ladybug did a hell of a number on you, kid, and it seems to me like it’s going to take something more than trashy music to help you through it. So tell me, what’s eating you up?”

‘Well, that was a loaded question,’ Adrien thought, tossing his gaze back up at his bedroom ceiling, mind whirring. He decided to start with the obvious.

“Ladybug is angry with me.”

“Wrong.”

“That’s not how people talk about their feelings, Plagg!”

“Well I’m not people,” the kwami countered, “and I’m telling you you’re wrong.”

“In that case, why is she avoiding me?” Adrien asked, voicing the question that had been gnawing away at him for five days now, “Why did she say she didn’t want to hear from me?” His tiny friend heaved a massive sigh, floating so he could grab Adrien’s chin with a firm tsk.

“You’re really going to have me break this down for you, aren’t you?”

The blank stare he received was confirmation enough.

‘Note to self: Next time, pick a Chat Noir who’s a bit more perceptive,’ Plagg thought, swinging into his explanation.

“What do you think would happen when a girl who’s too self-conscious to let her own boyfriend see her face finds out that said boyfriend is a famous supermodel?” Adrien tensed at the hypothetical, but Plagg wasn’t finished. “How do you think that girl would feel when she was immediately asked to drop her transformation and introduce herself to her aforementioned supermodel boyfriend?” Now the teen sat up, face twisting in thought as he contemplated the words coming out of the kwami’s mouth. “And lastly, why do you think that girl would want some time to think after going through such a jarring discovery? Because she wasn’t interested any more???”

“Well—“

“Oh, please!” Plagg cut in, waving off Adrien’s attempts at explanation, “That girl is still head over heels for you! I’ll bet she wants nothing more than to come running back into your arms right now.”

“Then why doesn’t she? Why doesn’t she make up with me??”

“She’s scared,” Plagg said simply, shaking his head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Adrien’s brow furrowed further, pinching his face into a mask of disbelief as he rushed to correct his friend.

“No, Ladybug isn’t scared of anything.”

“See, that right there is exactly why she can’t come running back to you.”

“And just what do you mean by that?” Adrien questioned, lifting himself from the bed and pacing across the room in an attempt to outrun his tumultuous thoughts. ‘I didn’t drive Ladybug off, she ran away on her own…'

“I mean you’ve put the girl on a pedestal!” Plagg scoffed, following the boy as he trekked across the floor. “For years you've idolized her, made her feel like she was some sort of otherworldly goddess.”

“She is!”

“No she isn’t, she’s a human just like you!” Plagg practically yelled, zipping in front of Adrien’s face until two pairs of green eyes were locked in silent confrontation. “And just like you can’t be Chat Noir all the time, she can’t be Ladybug all the time. She can’t always be the superhero you worship and that scares her!” The kwami then snapped his jaw shut, breathing through the strange burst of protectiveness he felt for Tikki’s chosen as Adrien just continued to stare. After a few seconds of quiet absorption, the teen seemed to gather himself, making his way back to the bed and slumping down onto it with a huff.

“So, what you’re telling me is…” Adrien began, rubbing the back of his neck as he continued to mull over his kwami’s theory. “You think Ladybug is avoiding me because she’s self-conscious?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re telling me she thinks I’ll reject her purely because she’s not the same when she’s out of the suit?”

“Yep.”

“…well that’s dumb.”

“I never said she was the brightest of thinkers,” Plagg said with a humorless chuckle. Adrien just threw his hands up in frustration.

“No, I mean that’s really, really dumb! Of course I don’t expect her to be some flawless being made of good luck and sparkles and shit. Hell, I’m a borderline disaster without my transformation!”

“Agreed.”

“God, did I really make her feel like she has to be perfect?” Adrien moaned, burying his head in his hands.

“Maybe calling her a ‘divine ray of light that guides you to the very heavens’ was a bit overkill.”

“I’m an asshole.”

“Also agreed,” Plagg piped up, flashing his chosen a dry smile before his voice grew serious. “But you should know this is as much Ladybug’s fault as it is yours. You two are both young and prone to acting stupid, so it’s going to take both of you to fix this mess you guys created for yourselves.” Adrien seemed to take the words to heart, chewing his lip in concentration.

“How do we do that?” he asked, letting his mind work at a mile per minute. ‘Ladybug isn’t mad. This isn’t anyone’s fault. We can fix this.’ Those whispered thoughts brought out the first sliver of hope he’d felt in nearly a week, prompting his heart rate to climb with tentative longing.

“I say you start by treating her like an actual person,” Plagg said, subtly edging his way towards the bedside table. “No hero worship. No sugar-coating. Just confront her about how you’re feeling.” The idea seemed almost hilariously easy, and Adrien had to fight down an incredulous snort at its simplicity.

“I think I can manage that,” he conceded with a shrug. “But what about—“

BLEEP.

Both teen and kwami alike jumped at the loud alert, the sound cutting through the music to blare out of the speakers stationed around the room. “What did you do?” Adrien asked, eyes narrowing to where Plagg hovered atop his phone as the boy bounded over to the table.

“Don’t look at me,” the creature cried, putting on a look of pure (fabricated) innocence, “I was just trying to stop the first racket when the other racket started."

“I swear, if you texted someone, I’ll—“

The words died on his tongue the minute he caught sight of the (1) next to “L.B <3”.

[ can we talk tonight? ]

Adrien grabbed for the device, snatching it off its charging deck and pausing the music mid-croon. Plagg heaved a sigh of relief, flying off with murmured thanks as the teen set out to reply. Ladybug’s message didn’t inspire its usual flurry of excitement — he was still hurting a bit too much for that — but it did alert Adrien to the fact she seemed to have reached a few conclusions herself, and that notion did elicit a modicum of relief from the boy.

For better or worse, they were communicating.

[ can we talk now? ]

[ I don’t want to do this over the phone… ]

'...this...'

He was really getting tired of her using that word, but Adrien found he was too drained to worry about her ambiguity. His fingers were apathetic in their reply.

[ what’s “this?” ]

[ my apology ]

Now that took him aback, and Adrien blinked down at the text for a solid two minutes as he ruminated on its implications. ‘Ladybug feels like she owes me an apology…’ He didn’t know how to feel about that. He didn’t know how to feel about any of this.

[ im free after 9 ]

[ meet you at the usual place? ]

[ k ]

Adrien didn’t want to type “k”.

He wanted to respond with paragraphs of reassurance, wanted to tell her everything would be just fine because they were Paris’ mightiest heroes, capable of getting through anything life threw at them, but Adrien didn’t do any of that. Instead he let his phone lock up with a click and slipped it down into his pocket.

He didn’t do any of that because (as Plagg had so wryly pointed out) he and Ladybug weren’t merely superheroes, they were also teenagers. Two brash, emotionally-driven teenagers who’d let their inexperience blow things way out of proportion, and frankly Adrien was tired of it.

He was tired of them dancing around each other like this, tired of having to guess what his partner was thinking instead of just letting her speak. He was tired of fixating on the girl out of the suit when he hadn’t even begun to understand the girl in it.

Adrien loved Ladybug far too much to continue keeping her atop a pedestal. He of all people knew just how lonely that kind of treatment could be.

So instead of sending Ladybug some pussy-footed reply, Adrien treated her like he would any friend who had hurt him. No sugar-coating and no idolatry, just a frank response to a frank inquiry.

[ k ]

For the second time that week, Marinette saw Chat before their scheduled meet-up.

When she’d spotted the story trending under the #Ladybug tag on Twitter, the girl had to fight the urge to look away, to pretend that the akuma simply didn’t exist and go back to her evening of contemplation. But responsibility had won out yet again, drawing Marinette from her task with a sigh. She’d looked down at her handiwork one last time, knotting off her simple slipstitch and admiring the shiny new eyes affixed to her grinning cat pillow before calling out to her kwami.

The seamstress had decided to use green buttons this time.

Turns out Hawkmoth hadn’t gotten the memo that Paris’ heroes were going through a rough patch, as evidenced by the raging monster plowing its way through downtown. ‘Or maybe he did realize we’re in a bit of a rut and he’s just being a dickhead,’ Ladybug thought, touching down at the scene before assessing the situation. True to form, her partner was quick to follow, obviously having gotten her message despite the fact he hadn’t responded, and Chat wasted no time in falling in beside her.

Marinette’s ribs ached throughout the entirety of the fight, and not wholly as a result of her still-healing injury. Sure, the two of them were more in synch now than their last disastrous attempt at crime-fighting, but there were still stumbling blocks in their tandem, little moments that were overwrought with side-eyed glances and silent questions. ‘Tonight,’ the heroine reminded herself, summoning her Lucky Charm as Chat continued to dance around their target. ‘You get to talk to him tonight. Do your job first.’

A taunt, a maneuver, a half-hatched plan that somehow pulled through.

A shatter, a shriek, a snap of her compact.

'Easy' wasn’t the right word to describe the confrontation; 'manageable' seemed to be more accurate. They managed to take down the akuma, in the very same way they had managed everything in their partnership up until now.

Together.

After allowing the cleansed butterfly to pop free of her yo-yo, Marinette turned for their usual fist bump from force of habit alone. When her outstretched hand was met with Chat’s cross-armed stance, she flushed and quickly lowered the appendage. Thus ensued an awkward shuffle as the boy simultaneously raised his own fist in a delayed reaction, prompting them both to flutter their arms in indecision. The heroes eventually settled on exchanging thumbs up, Marinette wincing out a huff of air as her partner rubbed at the back of his neck.

To say things felt awkward between them would be like comparing a puddle to a pond.

“So… I guess I’ll see you in two hours?” Chat Noir prompted, slicing through the heavy silence of the street corner. He shifted, belted tail swinging in a mindless dance behind him as the boy looked up between the strands of blonde hair curtaining his face. ‘God, I wish he could turn off the whole model thing,’ Marinette thought, devastated to find that her partner looked good even when he was upset.

“Y-yeah,” she responded, swallowing the unbidden anxiousness that had taken root in her throat before continuing on. “The regular spot, right?”

“Yeah.”

Ladybug’s Miraculous spared her from having to craft a response, the sound prompting both heroes to take a step back with murmured goodbyes. Marinette turned, breathing through her flood of emotions as she scanned the sunset skyline for her exit route. She wanted to go home, wanted to make use of every second she had between now and their scheduled talk to organize her thoughts. Her eyes caught on a likely ledge, her hand winding up the shot before Adrien’s voice halted the yo-yo in her grasp.

“Hey, wait!” he called out, digging around in his pockets as she swiveled back to face him. “I know this is probably late but I didn’t really get to see you on the fifth so…ugh…”

‘He didn’t…’ Marinette thought, feeling her stomach clench in response to something so very different from her earlier trepidation. She watched Chat glance up with the barest hint of a smile, and its whispered presence sent of flurry of akuma flapping around her insides. His look was a tentative thing, as were his gloved fingers as they extended an offering out before him — and if the fluttering expression hadn’t already done her in, his next words certainly finished the job.

“Sorry about your uterus,” Chat murmured, the dying light of the evening glinting off a familiar foil-wrapped treasure as it sat perched atop his palm.

‘She isn’t doing anything,’ Adrien observed, straining to keep his polite expression from crumbling off his face as Ladybug continued to gape. ‘Why…why isn’t she doing anything??’

The morsel in his hand grew heavy, looking more and more like a bad idea the longer it sat unaccepted. Adrien hadn’t meant it as a joke or flirt (true, he was still a bit socially oblivious, but even he knew this wasn’t the right occasion to be messing around); he'd simply brought Ladybug chocolate because he knew she liked it. Nothing overly-reverent about that, was there? Nothing that could be construed as hero worship?

Yet his partner’s wide-eyed reaction to the innocent gift inspired a jolt of panic in the boy, and her silence hearkened back to that night by the billboard.

A.k.a. the last time he had majorly fucked up.

A.k.a. the last time they had nearly broken up.

Adrien backpedaled immediately.

“Sorry,” he choked, retracting the truffle as he fought down a wave of disappointment. “I guess I’ll just see you—mmfggtf!”

The tail end of Adrien’s sentence was mangled as a mass of polka dots crashed into his torso. He staggered for a second, trying to force the wind back into his diaphragm as Ladybug clung to waist in a rib-splitting hug.

BEEP!

“I'm s-so sorry…” she said, the words muffled against his collarbone and nearly drowned out by her fourth Miraculous chirp. “I’m sorry I yelled, a-and I’m sorry I ran from you… oh god, C-chat…” Adrien allowed himself only a moment to be stunned before his brain kicked back into gear, registering both the single dot on her earrings as well as the crowd advancing towards them from across the block.

“Ladybug,” he began gently, equal parts joy and fear mixing in his stomach as the situation pressed in around him, “we really can’t do this right now.” The only response Adrien got from the shuddering girl was a shake of her head as it burrowed further into his chest, and suddenly his worry outweighed his relief. “Bugaboo, I’m serious, your Miraculous—“

“Chat Noir, what’s wrong with Ladybug?” A abrupt wave of reporters rushed the duo, and Adrien dragged his near-incoherent girlfriend closer as his mind scrambled for a reply. ‘Not good. This is really, really not good.’

“Was she injured in the fight? Were you injured?” The paparazzi shrieked and swarmed, speaking over each other like a band of harpies as they descended on the heroes. “Why have you two yet to leave the scene? What is that noise?”

BEEP! BEEP!

“I’m so s-sorry…” Ladybug continued to blubber, seemingly oblivious to the way her earrings were now shrilling out their last frantic warning. “I’m so…I-I’m sorry... I didn’t…”

Too much.

There was too much happening at once. Adrien felt himself being stretched out in million different directions, heartbeat thudding as he tried to take control of the situation.

“We need to go,” he hissed, wrapping an arm around Ladybug’s waist as the other grabbed for his staff. He planted the end of the sterling baton into the pavement, vaulting them over the raucous crowd to land on an adjacent rooftop.

Immediately after touching down, Adrien was sprinting. One hand cradled the back of his partner’s head, rubbing soothing circles into the dark locks as she hooked her legs above his hips. The other stayed pressed against her lower back, pinning the now-sobbing girl against him as frantic green eyes searched for a private alcove to duck into.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

‘She’s not ready,’ Adrien thought desperately, heart breaking with each new shiver that echoed across their joined bodies. ‘She’s in no place to do this right now.’ The realization was less jarring now than it had been a week ago, the notion inspiring concern rather that irritation as Adrien continued to run.

‘There!’ 

His eyes snagged on a convenient alleyway, boots skidding to a stop as he approached the drop-off. Ladybug’s Miraculous was dangerously loud now, pulsing in his eardrums as Adrien more or less dove off the roof. He swiveled in midair, using his claws on the brick wall to slow their descent while the girl strapped to his torso gasped.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

‘She’s not—‘

A flash of light enveloped the pair as they crashed down into the dark side street.