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“Good morning, Marinette!”
Marinette blinked.
There, right in front of her on the school steps, stood Adrien Agreste, hands in his pockets and smiling at her like they shared a secret. A groggy Nino trailed a few meters behind him, squinting at them as he polished his glasses with the hem of his shirt.
“Good Adrien… morning!” she managed to splutter back, heart racing. She hadn’t been prepared to talk to him so early in the morning—shouldn’t he be in the classroom already?
Marinette hooked her thumbs inside the straps of her backpack, shifting the weight against her back as an anchor. Adrien’s eyes followed her hands and his grin widened.
“Can I walk you to class?” he asked.
What?
“I can carry your bag for you.”
What!
“Not that I don’t think you can carry your own bag!” Adrien rushed to add in response to Marinette’s silence. “You know how much I admire your strong meowscles—I mean, your strength! Because you are very strong. Yes.”
Whatwhatwhat.
“You can carry my bag if you prefer.” He winked.
Adrien Agreste winked at her. At her! At Marinette Dupain-Cheng!
“Dude, is something in your eye?” Nino asked, his glasses sparkling in the morning sun.
“Oh, um,” Adrien muttered, his shoulders coming up to meet his ears. “It’s, just, ah, bright?”
“Hmmm,” added Nino.
Marinette said nothing, her brain still too busy processing “Can I walk you to class?” to bother with forming its own original words in response.
“Sorry, Marinette.”
Was he blushing?
“That was presumptuous of me. Of course you don’t want to carry my bag. Or for me to carry your bag. You probably already have someone to carry your bag, and you don’t need me getting in the way, I’ll just—”
“No!” Marinette screeched, interrupting his rambling before he could finish the sentence with something disastrous, like “leave.” Marinette had no idea what was going on right now, but she did know she absolutely did not want Adrien to leave.
Unfortunately, Adrien did not seem to know what Marinette wanted, and she watched with horror as his now-shaky grin slid right off his face.
Nino glared at her.
“I mean, no, I have no barry to cab, just you, please.” Marinette’s tongue felt like lead in her mouth, but she powered through. “Please carry my bag! Only you, Adrien.”
“Thank you!” he cheered in response, his megawatt grin once again at full power, sucking the capability of human language right back out of Marinette’s head like she’d never had it at all.
Adrien then cleared his throat before saying in a slightly lower voice, “At your service, ma belle.”
And then he… bowed?
Yes, he definitely bowed. And extended his hand out with a flourish, ready to take her bag.
Marinette experienced a full system failure.
She didn’t remember much of what happened next, except that Adrien’s eyes when he looked back up at her sparkled like summer grass after the rain. An amused Alya would later explain that Nino had taken it upon himself to slip Marinette’s backpack off her shoulders and into Adrien’s outstretched hand. Marinette wasn’t sure exactly when Alya had joined them.
Somehow, from there, they’d made it to the front of the building (Marinette couldn’t recall taking a single step; she must have floated), at which point Adrien had rushed forward to open the door for her. She remembered that moment because someone had to nudge her through the door (the floating had apparently stopped then, since whatever force that had pushed her along thus far was content to pause at the door and smile back at Adrien, whose beaming smile was only slightly strained by the effort of holding the door, his own book bag, and her backpack).
Thankfully, Marinette had managed to more or less return to a functioning plane of existence by the time class started. She lamented that she’d zoned out for most of the walk to class—surely this morning would be a treasured memory for many months to come. The sound of Adrien’s voice saying “ma belle” alone—and saying it to her—would’ve been something she’d play on repeat in her head for the rest of the day.
Would’ve been, except Adrien’s early morning gallantry turned out to be just a warm up for the rest of the day. At every chance he got—every pause in the lecture, every transition between classrooms, even when she dropped her pen—Adrien went out of his way to pay attention to Marinette. Not that he normally ignored her, but he usually didn’t seek her out like this.
Like he’d come to school specifically to dote on Marinette, and that every other part of his day was just something to pass the time between his moments with her. Like he was as eager to spend time with Marinette as she was to spend time with him.
Worst of all, every time she looked at him (something she could usually do at her leisure throughout class—and did), he was looking back at her. Not just making eye contact either, but full-on stares of adoration, complete with pink cheeks and unbearably cute heart eyes.
It was a wonder she’d made it through class without Miss Bustier sending her to the nurse, because she was pretty certain that she’d stopped breathing at several points.
To top the morning off, Adrien had bid farewell to Marinette on his way to lunch by kissing the back of her hand. Which she should’ve been able to handle, given that Chat Noir did it to her all the time, but this was Adrien and this was Adrien’s lips on her bare hand.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, right outside the door of the classroom, staring at the hairs standing up on the back of her hand and marveling at the phantom feeling of his lips where they’d softly lingered as he’d stared into her eyes. The heat in her cheeks still hadn’t fully faded by the time Alya approached her.
“I think he likes you,” she teased, shaking Marinette out of her reverie.
“I don’t know…” Marinette tugged at her lower lip with her teeth as she trailed off, averting her eyes from Alya’s knowing smirk.
“C’mon girl, did you see the way he was smiling at you today? And some of the things he said, woo, going after Chat Noir’s girl and stealing his moves? Bold.”
Marinette rolled her eyes. “I’m not Chat Noir’s girl, Alya, gross. It’s not 1965.”
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot. Chat Noir’s your girl, not the other way around.”
“Alya!”
“Just trying to get a rise out of you.” Alya winked. “You’ve been in a daze all day.”
“Can you blame me? Adrien has been FLIRTING with me!”
“Oh ho ho, so you admit he was flirting?” Alya’s eyebrows gave a self-satisfied little wiggle. “What was that ‘I don’t know’ about then?”
“Just because he was flirting doesn’t mean he likes me!” Marinette tried to explain, though honestly, she wasn’t really sure herself anymore. He certainly seemed into her, but… “Why would he like me?”
“Okay, first of all,” Alya started, ticking off one finger, “You’re amazing, Adrien is lucky to know you, and eventually he was bound to realize you’re more than a just a friend—”
“Alya, that’s not—”
“Uh-uh-uh, I’m not done!” Alya interrupted Marinette before she could explain it wasn’t her own likeability that was in question, just the suddenness of Adrien’s interest.
“Second of all,” Alya said as she ticked off a second finger, this time with slightly more vigor, “you know Adrien isn’t the kind of guy to flirt with a girl he’s not interested in. Heck, he’s not the kind of guy that flirts at all, so—”
“Exactly!” Marinette said, throwing her hands on her hips so quickly that sure-footed Alya almost stumbled back in surprise. Marinette winced, but Alya’s lips twisted with amusement and she gestured for Marinette to continue.
“Adrien doesn’t flirt,” Marinette proclaimed, ignited in the way one only was moments after several revelations had clicked into place. “Not with me and not with anyone else either. He never did any of this with Kagami, not even when they were dating. This is weird, Alya. Even if Adrien did just wake up one day with a crush on me—which I doubt—he wouldn’t be acting like this!”
With that, Marinette threw her arms in the air with a victorious emphasis (though her victory was a hollow one, tinged as it was with the paired truth that Adrien’s feelings were surely as platonic as ever).
After a thoughtful pause, Alya seemed to agree. “It is uncharacteristic of him, you’re right, but what other reason would he have?”
“Maybe his father told him that he’s arranged to be married to the Crown Princess of Sweden, and—”
“Isn’t she married already?”
Marinette ignored Alya’s interjection, not wanting to bring irrelevant things like facts into the conversation. “—and he has seven days to convince his father that he’s in love with someone else or he’ll be shipped out of the country where they’ll feed him nothing but lutefisk, and—”
“Marinette!” Alya interrupted again, this time with a pair of firm hands laid on Marinette’s shoulders. “Don’t you think there’s a slightly more likely explanation for this?”
Alya did have a point, she supposed. Sweden was a bit far fetched. “I suppose Monaco is much closer, it’d be much easier to arrange photo shoots than from Sweden…”
“Or,” Alya offered with a fond but long-suffering look, “There’s no arranged marriage to a princess at all, just an akuma.”
Oh.
Marinette had to admit that did seem more likely, but… “Why would an akuma make Adrien fall in love with me?”
Alya tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe the akuma is one of the girls, frustrated that you still aren’t together. Oh! Or maybe they missed their chance with a girl and so their power is to make every guy realize his feelings and act on them or maybe the akuma is someone who is in love with you and thinks everyone else should be too!”
“Or maybe their love was unrequited and they’re trying to spare me the same fate,” Marinette grumbled. She preferred the engaged to a princess idea, really. Then, at least she’d have the chance to make him fall in love with her for real as they fake-dated for his father’s benefit. An akuma wasn’t nearly as fun.
Alya hummed, then mused, “If there was an akuma like that, wouldn’t other people be affected? No one else was acting strange today at all really…”
Marinette had no choice but to take Alya’s word on that fact, since she barely had any idea what she herself had acted like today, let alone anyone else. Her brain had been even more laser targeted on Adrien Agreste than it usually was, and her brain was about 25% Adrien Agreste fantasies at a baseline.
“Maybe he just ate something weird,” Alya said with a nonchalant shrug, and suddenly, the bottom dropped out of Marinette’s stomach.
Because Adrien had eaten something weird. Something she’d given him.
Two days ago, on Sunday, she’d made her regular batch of magical cookies and Camembert for her and Chat Noir. She’d also boxed up some bakery leftovers for her friends and brought them to school the next day. Or, she’d thought she brought them to school, until Adrien had opened up his box to an array of pungent, multicolored cheese instead of the croissants she’d promised him.
He’d looked shocked at the time, but later pulled her aside to thank her with far more excitement than she’d thought a box of soft, oddly-colored dairy products warranted. She’d assumed he was just a fan of Camembert, and that without a Miraculous, eating the cheese wouldn’t have any effect.
But what if she’d been wrong? What if he’d eaten the pink one? Come to think of it, his cheeks had been looking a bit flushed when he’d thanked her…
He must’ve eaten the pink one.
“Alya,” Marinette croaked as the blood drained from her cheeks. “I think I put him under a love spell.”
Despite Alya’s valiant attempts at reassurance, Marinette remained convinced that she’d poisoned Adrien with cursed Camembert. She held this knowledge close to her heart as she endured a long, miserable afternoon of Adrien whispering words she’d longed to hear from his lips, fulfilling fantasies she’d dismissed as too unrealistic to bother dreaming.
Which is why she knew it couldn’t be real.
The dreams about wedding dresses, and hamsters, and rescuing him with true love’s kiss were just that—fantasies. A way to cope with the fact that reality was too scary, too uncertain, to look at directly.
The reality was: even if she managed to confess to Adrien, even if he was willing to give her a chance, that’s all it would be—a chance. She knew, knew, he hadn’t been dreaming of her the way she dreamt of him. That maybe he’d be interested if she said something, but he wasn’t holding his breath waiting for her to confess. And he wasn’t confessing to her, either.
Except today, he had been.
Every touch, every look, every word he’d spoken screamed “I love you, Marinette, as ardently and passionately as you love me.”
And that’s why she knew it couldn’t be real.
No matter how much she wished it was.
Which is why she had to keep squashing down the part of her that kept saying, Just go for it. This is what you wanted. Why she had to ignore that dark little voice in her head that asked, What if you just… don’t fix it?
Why she was sitting in her room now, pouring through the grimoire as the kwami sent her worried looks from across the room.
She’d tried asking them, of course, but they weren’t much help.
“You know kwami aren’t allowed to know the details of the power up potions, Marinette,” Wayzz said with a long-suffering look.
“Besides, are you sure it’s a love potion, Marinette?” Ziggy added. “Maybe he just realized how much he loves you!”
“This suddenly, though?” Marinette appreciated Ziggy’s optimism, but it just didn’t make sense. “Why, because I gave him cheese?”
Even in her most over the top daydreams, she’d always done something to earn his sudden, undying affection: given him the perfect gift, cheered him up when no one else could, said the right thing at the right time… giving him Plagg’s cheese was the opposite of that.
She’d been mortified when he’d opened the box.
“Maybe,” Tikki chimed in. “Maybe Adrien has someone in his life that really loves cheese, and when he opened the box, he realized that he really loves you!”
Marinette considered this.
“Do you think it’s the Gorilla?”
“Oh, um,” Tikki seemed to hesitate, glancing over at Sass for some reason, who simply grinned. “Maybe there’s someone else? Someone you don’t know about?”
Someone in Adrien’s life she didn’t know about? Marinette glanced over at the photos on her wall. Didn’t she know everyone in his life? Oh no, what if she didn’t? She knew everyone from school, but Adrien had a whole separate life that she didn’t know about!
What if it was another model? Or someone on his basketball team? Why hadn’t she tried out for basketball like she had for fencing? At least then she would know!
What if he had a very attractive Chinese tutor, who would invite him over to make bao and Adrien realized they were much better than Marinette’s bao, which were lumpy and misshapen even with Uncle Wang’s help, and he’d never want to eat Marinette’s bao again!
Wait, no. Adrien had told her about his Chinese tutor. Who was a ‘he’ and also, according to Adrien, very dry and boring.
Which Marinette knew, because Marinette knew everyone in Adrien’s life!
“No offense Tikki, but I think I know Adrien better than you do.”
Tikki gave her a flat look.
“I still think it’s a love potion,” Marinette concluded and turned back to her book. Which… hadn’t been very helpful. If the pink power up potion did have this effect when eaten, apparently none of the previous Guardians knew. Probably because none of the previous Guardians had accidentally dosed their crush with it.
Marinette slammed her forehead down on the table.
“Marinette?”
If the grimoire couldn’t help, the kwami couldn’t help, and Alya couldn’t help… then there was only one person left to ask. Luckily, he’d never let her down.
“Tikki, spots on!”
She really should’ve expected this.
“I guess the way to this boy’s heart really was through his stomach!”
“Chat Noir, this is serious! He’s been ensorcelled!”
“I’m sorry, milady.” He did not look sorry at all. “But I can’t take it seriously when you’re using words like ensorcelled.”
She glared at him. “My poor classmate is a victim, helplessly ensnared by a love potion, and you’re laughing?”
He giggled.
“Chaaat,” Ladybug whined. “I messed up! I need to fix it!”
“Okay, okay, I can be serious,” Chat Noir said with a wave of his hands, before settling them in his lap and schooling his features into an exaggerated frown. “If you did not intentionally spike his drink with a love potion, then why do you think he’s under a love spell? And why do you think you’re at fault?”
“Well,” she started, looking down at the city below them. “Last weekend, I made a batch of power up macarons for me and Camembert for you. I wasn’t paying enough attention when I boxed them up, and they got mixed up with some boxes I’d packed for some friends. He ended up with the box of Camembert.”
Chat Noir let out a strangled noise. When she looked up, his face was pale.
“Wait, so you didn’t—” he started, then slammed his lips shut.
“It was a mistake,” Chat Noir muttered, his ears drooping down as he spoke. “That box… just a mistake”
Ladybug furrowed her brows, taking in his disproportionately desolate response to her story. He couldn’t be that upset about not getting the Camembert, could he? Surely he knew she’d make him another batch.
She replayed her earlier story in her head, trying to figure out what could’ve upset him. She knew she hadn’t mentioned the boy was her crush, so it had to be something else, but what?
“Kitty, is everything okay?”
“Fine, fine!” he reassured her with a too-bright smile. “You don’t need to worry about me, milady.”
Ladybug frowned, but decided to let it go for now. She suspected she did need to worry about him, but there wasn’t much she could do—if Chat Noir didn’t want to tell her, he probably had a reason—like protecting his identity.
Besides, Adrien being under an accidental love spell was a bit more pressing at the moment. She’d circle back to whatever was making her kitty sad after fixing this.
“Anyways,” she continued. “I think he might’ve eaten one of them. And now he’s in love with me! He’s been following me around all day making heart eyes and holding the door open and telling me my cuticles look hydrated—”
Chat let out a high-pitched laugh at that. At Ladybug’s sharp look, all he said was, “What a weird thing to notice! No wonder you assumed he was under a love spell. How embarrassing!”
“I thought it was sweet,” Ladybug admitted, ducking her head to hide the blush she could feel forming on her cheek.
“You did?”
“Well, maybe not the cuticle part.” In retrospect, it had been a weird thing to notice, but she was pretty sure she’d responded with something along the lines of ‘your nail beds look well-maintained as well’ so she wasn’t in a position to judge. “But the rest of it was nice.”
“So he wasn’t… annoying? Not bothering you?”
What?
Ladybug whipped up her head to shoot her partner an appropriately affronted look.
“Of course not!” How could anyone find Adrien annoying?
The rational part of her brain reminded her that Chat Noir did not know the boy in question was Adrien, and that he was probably just trying to make sure she wasn’t being harassed by some creep.
With a sigh and a drop of her shoulders, she tried to explain.
“He’s my friend,” she added in what she hoped was a placating tone. “The only part that bothers me is that I did this to him. I messed up, like always, and now he thinks he’s in love with me, and when he finds out what happened he’s going to hate me, and—”
“I promise he’s not going to hate you, milady,” Chat said, reaching over to give her hands a gentle squeeze. It was only at his touch that she realized she’d been picking at her suit as she spoke.
“Maybe not.” Adrien was one of the most forgiving people she knew. “But he should.”
Chat gave her hand another squeeze. “For mixing up some boxes?”
“For making him fall in love with me!”
“It’s not like you wanted that to happen, though, so—”
“But I did!” Ladybug interjected, her face hot with shame as she pulled her hand out of his. “I wanted him to be in love with me!”
Chat Noir made some sort of interjection at this, but now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
“I wanted it so badly and I know it’s wrong but what if it wasn’t an accident? What if some part of me switched the boxes on purpose? What if I’m not working as hard as I should to fix it, because I don’t want him to stop being in love with me?”
She could feel a tell-tale heat pricking at the corners of her eyes, but she sniffed to blink back the tears forming as she wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing at her shoulders.
“You… want him to be in love with you?” Chat Noir’s voice was oddly shaky.
She looked up at him, expecting to find shock, or disgust, even jealousy maybe, but instead he looked… awestruck?
“Please, milady,” he whispered. “Tell me why you want him to be in love with you.”
“I can tell you’ve already guessed,” she mumbled, pulling her knees up to her chest.
“I need you to say it.” His voice was hoarse now, almost desperate. “ Please.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, the sharp heat building at the corners of her eyes again.
“I need you to say it,” he insisted. “Because he’s not under a love potion. He didn’t eat any of the cheese. He doesn’t like Camembert at all, actually, but his kwami really does.”
His… what? But then…
Chat Noir shot her a sheepish, apologetic grin. “He is a bit sad that he didn’t get any croissants, but he’d never hate you for mixing up boxes. And he’s really, really, sorry if he made you uncomfortable at all today because he jumped to conclusions and got a bit carried away. He was just so excited to get that gift from you .”
“Thank you for the Camembert, Marinette,” Adrien had told her earlier, eyes sparkling. “It means everything to me, and I was so happy to receive it from you.”
“Kitty? Are you saying—you’re, I mean, he’s…” She trailed off, scared to voice the possibility aloud.
Because she really, really, wanted it to be real.
And maybe this—something she’d never imagined—just maybe, this could be.
“Now you see why I wanted you to say it out loud, earlier,” he grinned impishly, but then his grin dropped into something smaller and more sincere. “Do you want me to say it?”
Of course, she almost answered. I want you to say it. I want it to be you.
But she looked at him again, at the way his shoulders were hunched and the nervous strokes of his fingertips across his tail, and she remembered the question was bigger than that.
Do you want me to reveal myself to you? He’d asked, between the lines. Do you want to be able to go home and pretend this never happened, to leave that sliver of ambiguity for denial? Do you want Adrien to show up at school tomorrow and greet you the way he had every day before this morning?
He would, if she said no. She knew he would. Pretend like nothing’s different, let her stew in doubt and consistency, let her pine forever and keep both their identities safe. Keep them safe.
He’d go along with it, if she wanted.
She should tell him no. That was the responsible thing to do.
But…
“Milady?”
…it wasn’t what she wanted.
“I want him to be in love with me because I’m in love with him.”
“O-oh,” said Chat, his cheeks reddening under his mask. She could feel that hers matched.
“So…” she drawled, taking the hand that had been nervously rubbing his tail. “If he didn’t eat the cheese, does that mean he… loves me, too?”
“He loves you,” Chat confirmed. “Adrien loves you so much. I love—”
She wanted to hear the end of his sentence, she did, but she’d already surged forward at “Adrien” and she couldn’t stop in time and now she was kissing him and his mouth was still open so she only managed to kiss his upper lip, but that was okay because his upper lip was wonderful, and he must not have minded because he’d closed his lips to better press against hers and let out a soft little hum of happiness as he leaned into the kiss.
When she pulled back, his smile was brighter than the stars.
“Marinette,” he said, grinning ear to ear. “Can I walk you to class tomorrow?”