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Marinette was used to tough situations. Heck, she faced Akuma on a regular basis without blinking twice. But this? This was chaos. While they were touring Europe, her uncle’s family stopped by the Dupain-Cheng bakery. They would only be here for the weekend, so her parents had insisted on taking her aunt and uncle out for the day.
Now here she was, in the middle of her three cousins… and none of them spoke French nor could understand her rough Chinese. In a mild but rapidly increasing panic she called Alya for help.
“ALYA!!! IDON’TKNOWWHATTODO!”
Across the city, Alya winced and pulled the phone away from her ear. “Wait, wait, wait! Just calm down a moment and explain what’s going on first!”
Shrieks and squeals echoed in the background as Marinette tried to speak slower. “My cousins from China are over and I’m babysitting and they don’t speak French and don’t understand my Chinese and it’s a mess! Save me Alya!”
“I gotchu sweety! Help is on your way!”
Marinette stared into her phone, the dial tone beeping back at her. Turning to look at the three bundles of chaos that whirled through her house, she gulped hard and prayed for her help to arrive soon.
~0~O~0~
Adrien knocked on the door to Marinette’s house, feeling a sense of deja vu. He could hear the screeching of children inside the house and the door opened to reveal a rather frazzled Marinette. Her hair, normally tied into two neat pigtails, were partially undone and her eyes were wide with fear.
“A-Adrien! Oh! Hi! What are you doing here?” She hurriedly brushed back her hair, apparently aware that it’d become undone. Not that he cared. From the sounds of the children behind her, he was surprised that her hair was even partially up.
“Alya gave me a call and said that you were having translation problems! Well! I offer my services to you!” He bowed deeply, feeling pretty proud for the smooth line and execution.
Marinette could feel her heart pounding harder in her chest. He was so amazing! In any other situation, she’d probably turn him down, but she was at a complete loss for what to do. Admitting defeat was hard, but at this point, she’d accept any help she could get.
“T-thank you! My cousins are… everywhere.” She looked over her shoulder at the mess. “Uhhh… if you’d like to come in, I… I just can’t communicate with them, so it makes it impossible to keep any order…”
Adrien nodded, “That’s completely understandable. Ummm… Let me see if they’ll respond.”
He called out to them in Chinese, “Hey! Did you guys want to play?”
The three kids approached him excitedly, thrilled to find someone that they could talk to. Adrien felt slightly overwhelmed, but managed to get the gist of what they were saying. He turned to Marinette questioningly. Her face brightened and she ran over to grab some toys. When she returned, she had a handful of dolls in her hands. They looked suspiciously like the same dolls that had been used in the Puppeteer incident…
Suppressing a shudder at the memory of being controlled, he looked to the children and asked them, “Do you want me to tell you a story about the brave superheroes of Paris?”
Their eyes widened and the three of them looked at each other before nodding eagerly. Frowning slightly, Adrien hesitated before asking, “Do you guys understand French?”
Once again, the children glanced at each other before nodding, embarrassment highlighted on their face as their eyes flicked to Marinette. Adrien sent them a reassuring look, then responded in French, “I’ll tell the story in French then. Just listen carefully.”
Taking the dolls from Marinette’s hands, he pulled out the Chat Noir, Ladybug, and Evillustrator dolls and began his tale.
“Your cousin is incredibly brave. She went face-to-face with a bad guy named the Evillustrator. The Evillustrator had the power to create or erase things by drawing. He was very powerful. He wanted revenge on this other girl, but stopped by to talk to Marinette and try to impress her. Most people would be very scared, but not your cousin.” He picked up the Chat Noir doll and brought it in front of them. As he spoke, Marinette fought to suppress a blush, only to fail as he continued to compliment her.
“This is Chat Noir. He and his partner Ladybug go and save Paris from bad guys called Akuma! Now Ladybug had to go away for a super secret mission, so she told Chat Noir to go protect your cousin!”
Marinette frowned. She hadn’t mentioned the “reason” why Ladybug was absent during their plan to capture the Evillustrator. The only people that knew about it were her and… Chat? She looked at Adrien again. He was engrossed in telling this story and she noticed that he tended to expand on things from Chat Noir’s point of view. Things that even if you watched the Ladyblog, you wouldn’t have known. So how did Adrien know?
“And then, Chat Noir was going to swoop in and save Ladybug and the girl, Chloe! But the Evillustrator drew a big, heavy ball and attached it to Chat’s leg! He couldn’t move! Even worse, Evillustrator started erasing the floor under Chat! He ended up hanging there, trying not to fall! It was up to the amazing Ladybug to save them all!”
The children gasped and squealed at the appropriate times. She didn’t think that she’d ever seen Adrien so dramatic or enthusiastic. If anything this sounded like… Chat.The memory of Alya shoving a picture of Adrien with Chat Noir’s mask and costume painted over him, came to mind.
C-could it be? Could Adrien and Chat be one and the same? In front of her, Adrien waved his arms wildly, using the Ladybug and Chat Noir dolls to demonstrate their final fight against the Evillustrator. She supposed that Chloe could have told him the details, but his description of the fight was completely different from her version of the story. In fact… it lined up more with how she’d seen the fight.
Her eyes widened as the truth hit her. Adrien was Chat. ADRIEN was CHAT. Her crush was the same as her partner… who constantly was confessing his feelings to her alter-ego! She staggered backwards, gasping, and pointing. “C-chat!”
Adrien froze. She wasn’t pointing at the doll in his hand, but right at him. Quickly turning to the children, he handed them the dolls to allow them to make up their own story. As soon as the dolls left his hands, Marinette grabbed his arm and ushered him out the door. “T-thank you for helping, but I think that I’ve got it now.”
He stood stunned outside her door. Marinette had just shoved him out the door… after pointing at him and calling him “Chat”. Oh no. She couldn’t know! No! Ladybug was going to kill him for this! They’d sworn to keep their identities secret. Although, if anyone had to know, Marinette was definitely a good choice. He didn’t THINK that she’d rat him out, but after this, he supposed that he should definitely come by and check. It looked like someone would be getting a visit from a black cat tonight.
~0~O~0~
Marinette paced the length of her room. Her uncle’s family and her parents were all watching a movie downstairs, but she’d escaped, telling them that she was feeling sick. Tikki hovered nearby, fluttering about with nervous energy. She could tell that her charge was thinking things over, but she didn’t know what to do to help.
Suddenly, Marinette spun around to look at her and declared, “Tikki! Adrien is Chat Noir.”
Sensing that Marinette was about to finalize how she would treat this revelation, Tikki flew towards her and bobbed up and down in agreement, “Yes! Isn’t that great?!”
Taking a deep breath, Marinette nodded. “I don’t know about great. I mean, I guess it sort of is, but I think I need to tell him. I feel guilty about knowing and not sharing this. We’re partners. Things are equal between us. And the way this is right now? It feels lopsided. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Is… is that okay, Tikki? I don’t want that kind of secret to be between us. I mean… I love him as Adrien and now he’s both Adrien and Chat. It makes me love him even more. But I really don’t want this secret between us. It’s not right…”
Looking up at her kwami, Marinette begged her to understand where she was coming from. Tikki had told her that they needed to keep their identities safe, but… she loved him and he was her partner. If Tikki really asked this of her, she’d do it of course. But it’d kill her a little inside.
Tikki’s eyes widened and the little kwami hurried over to nuzzle against Marinette’s cheek. “Of course you can tell him! I wouldn’t ask that of you! I told you that you had to guard your identity at the beginning because I didn’t know much about you and I wanted to emphasize that you need to protect yourself. It’s been 5 years since then. If anyone can be trusted with your identity, it’d be Chat.”
Relief flooded Marinette’s body, making her flop down onto the floor. Feeling a little boneless, she looked at Tikki. “You have no idea how much of a weight that lifted off of me. I wouldn’t do it if you told me that I couldn’t… but it would have hurt a lot. Thanks, Tikki.”
Giggling, Tikki zipped down to hover above Marinette’s head. “You don’t have to thank me. You and Adrien have both proven yourself worthy. Although you can bet that Plagg’s giving him some pain for all of this.”
A tapping sound came from the skylight, causing Marinette to jerk upright and Tikki to dart behind the computer. Only one person could be up there at this point… and Marinette supposed that his timing was actually decent for once. Now if only her heart could stop trying to break through her chest, everything would be fine. Taking a deep breath, Marinette got up and climbed up her ladder to open the skylight. Stepping aside and heading back down the ladder, she tried to calm down and brace herself for his reaction. Chat reached up and closed the skylight behind him, then hurried down after her.
“Marinette… I…” At a loss for words, he stopped and looked down awkwardly. Without thinking, his hand rose to rub at the back of his neck. Now that she knew, it was so obvious. She’d seen that gesture from both Chat and Adrien countless times. And the fact that he was nervous too somehow gave her a bit of courage.
“Chat, I know you’re Adrien. It’s okay.” She held up her hand to keep him from interrupting when his head jerked up to look at her. His mouth snapped shut and he watched her with wide eyes. Licking her lips and swallowing hard, she continued, “But… I have something to tell you too.”
She could see confusion and concern wash over Chat as he watched her step into the center of the room. The atmosphere felt tense and it was apparent to both of them that this moment would have an immense impact on their future. Marinette was tempted to close her eyes. Revealing yourself like this was scary. It was like baring a portion of your soul and in this case she was showing it to the guy that was both her best friend and the boy that she loved wholeheartedly. And yet, it was because of this that she refused to close her eyes. This moment was important.
Looking directly at him, she called out, “Tikki! Spots on!”
Zooming out from her hiding spot, Tikki soon wrapped her in the bright light of her transformation. When the light died away, she stood before him wearing her suit. Her eyes registered the shock on his face, his eyes widening as the light faded away.
“Marinette… My Lady…” For the third time that day, Adrien appeared to be speechless. Marinette held her breath, waiting for him to respond. A grin slowly spread on his face and mischief entered his gaze. “Well, well my Lady. I must say that you are as purr-fect in costume as you are out.”
Her hands flew to her mouth and a small giggle escaped her. “Those are your first words to finding out that I’m Ladybug, minou? What am I saying? Of course your first words have a pun in them.”
He released his transformation, green light swirling down his body and revealing his civilian clothes. A black kwami popped out next to him as the transformation finished. It flew over to her, inspecting her.
“Not bad. Not bad. Tikki got a decent one this time. I’m Plagg. Got any Camembert around? He won’t feed me.” The little cat-like kwami pouted, giving her wide eyes that begged and pleaded for food.
Adrien huffed, “I fed you just before we left! Don’t give me that! Get back here and leave her be.”
Grinning, she cocked her hip and admonished him, “Now now minou, you shouldn’t be so mean to your kwami. He works so hard!”
Smugly, Plagg looked at Adrien before going to nuzzle Marinette’s cheek. “You hear that? You shouldn’t be so mean to me! I work hard!”
Glaring at his traitorous kwami, Adrien argued, “Really, Marinette. You don’t have to get him the Camembert. I feed him it all the time and he’s an absolute pig.”
“Nono! Don’t worry about it. I’ll run downstairs to get some. Just wait here.” She released her transformation and Tikki rushed over to tackle Plagg in a hug. As the kwami were busy with their reunion, Adrien and Marinette both realized that this was the first time that they’d seen each other out of costume with the knowledge of each other’s identity.
They stilled and looked at each other for a long moment. Marinette flushed and she felt rather giddy. Adrien Agreste, also known as Chat Noir, was standing in her room and looking at her with the same awe that she was sure was on her own face. Simultaneously, they stepped toward each other, halting a few inches away and maintaining eye contact.
“H-hi,” she murmured tentatively. It was so silly to feel shy now, but somehow she couldn’t help it. She’d completely bared her soul to him and now he’d seen all of her. What did you even say after that? She certainly didn’t know.
Yet somehow, he did. Closing the gap between them, he wrapped her in a hug. And in that moment, she knew it’d be alright. Just like when they’d fought Stoneheart, somehow he was always her foundation, helping to reassure her that they’d be fine. Her arms came around his waist, squeezing him tightly to her. Pulling away slightly to look up at him, she was caught by his eyes.
Green eyes that entranced her and drew her in. And in that moment, she took another chance. She was sure that if she’d been forced to think through her actions, there would have been a great deal more panic and anxiety. But here, in his arms and caught by his eyes, there wasn’t anything to think about.
She leaned upwards and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. They were soft and a little bit chilled from the night air. He froze for an instant when her lips touched his, then let out a breathy exhale and kissed her back. The moment was still. Between the two of them, the only things that moved were their lips, pulling apart for a brief breath and then coming back together in gentle caresses.
Yes, they were partners and friends. They had each other’s back in costume and out… but this moment? They were now more than that. This moment was a beginning for them, just like Stoneheart had been, just like their first day of class together. For now, they hadn’t defined what this was the beginning of… but beginnings should always start with a greeting.
“Hi, mon minou.” They stared at each other with only a few inches of space between them. Adrien’s mouth spread into a wide smile that was a familiar feature on Chat Noir and as usual, Marinette’s smile grew to match it.
“Hi yourself, my Lady.”