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Chat and Ladybug smile, embrace strongly one last time before the miraculous magic takes effect on their memories. Chat is holding back tears, he’s happy but is disappointed that he has to forget. The moments they shared, the teamwork, the kiss.. He can’t stop thinking about it.
Ladybug pulls away with a shocked face. Chat is confused, the magic hasn’t made them forget yet. Chat is looking at Ladybug with a stunned face
Ladybug waves her hand in front of Chat’s face, “Hello? Earth to Chat?” , Chat snaps out of it and looks to the side. There’s Alya and nino. Wait, Alya and Nino? How does he know who they are? Chat asks them if they’ve seen the supervillain, Alya shyly, as if she was embarrassed, says that she and Nino were Oblivio and that Chat and LB already defeated them. Chats and Ladybug make a surprised noise and do their usual fist bump.
Suddenly as Chat turns his head to his young friends, Alya is holding up her phone, Chat looks at it. He’s looking at the picture on Alya’s phone, a picture of.. Him and Ladybug- kissing. The same kiss he had moments ago, the kiss he should have forgotten about. He didn’t, he didn’t forget anything. Ladybug looks over, before glancing at the screen she asks, “Chat, what’s gotten you so amaz-”, LB drops dead quiet. Her whole face goes red, she looks at Chat and says “Chat, do NOT think this means anything.”. Chat grins,“I mean, we do make a good couple- at least according to this picture, even though you always seem to insist the opposite ”. Ladybug’s earring beep, “This conversation is NOT over Chat!” she tells him and yo-yo’s off.
Chat helps Alya and Nino down from the roof, after dropping them off he goes around the corner to transform. “Well damn boy, I guess it wasn’t your lucky da-” Plagg said before Adrien interrupted him. “Plaggg, I remember everything. Who Ladybug is, what we did, everything” “Oh no” . “I mean, I’m glad, but what are you going to do? I doubt Ladybug remembers, considering her reaction to the kiss” Plagg asks, “I don’t know. I have to think about it. But I know that I want to become more close with Marinette. That’s going to be hard, since she’s always so awkward and intimidated around me, but I have to try. Heck, I might even find out why she acts like that around me.” he says to Plagg with enthusiasm, “ Oh! And I can talk to Mari as Chat, since she has a crush on Cha- me.”. Adrien smiles and heads towards the bus to get back to school with his fellow classmates.
On the bus he goes down the lane quickly, hoping to spot Marinette. He reaches the last occupied spot and there she is- Marinette, sitting and watching out the window, facial expression saying that something is bothering her.
Adrien slightly coughs, “Hey Mari, mind if I sit next to you?” and smiles at Mari. Mari is surprised, turns slightly red by the face and nods.
“I thought I should let Nino sit with Alya, and there’s nobody else that I’d rather sit with” he says, scratching his neck and smiling sincerely at Marinette. Marinette’s slight blush turned into her face being completely red, Mari says that it’s a good idea to let Alya and Nino sit together and that she enjoys sitting next to him too. Adrien was just about to ask Marinette what made her look so worried, but he was interrupted by Alya, Nino and Ms. Bustier walking into the bus. Alya explains how Nino and her got akumatized because they were embarrassed because they got caught playing Super Penguino and were embarrassed. Different classmates say with who they play the game with, most who play together are in a relationship, which is awaited because- well, pretty much everyone know what playing Super Penguino actually means. Adrien says “You know, I haven’t played it yet, but it seems fun”, Alya quickly says “All you need is to find the right partner, right Mari?” and grins at her. Adrien looks over at Marinette, who seems to be a even more red shade than before and offers “You know Marinette, we can play sometime, I mean, if you’re up to it” and smiles. Marinette becomes a mess, but manages to get a "Yeah, I’d love to” out of her.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Adrien lies awake in his bed, tossing and turning- never comfortable enough. Plagg, who’s sleeping on his pillow wakes up to Adrien walking around the room.
“What’s the matter kid?” Plagg asks grumpily from the kid, as he was still half asleep.
“I’m just, I don’t even know, worried I guess? I don’t know what to do.” Adrien says as he paces around his room, the big room filled with the feeling of loneliness and coldness, which lacked the warmness of an actual ‘home’. “You know what you should do?”, Adrien finally looks up at Plagg. “Go to sleep” he says as he falls back on the pillow. Adrien is in quite the interesting situation- he finally knows the identity of the love of his life, but the love of his life doesn’t want her identity to be known, even by her partner, her friend- Chat Noir. Adrien doesn’t know how to move on from here. He knows that he wants to build a better relationship with Marinette, as Chat noir and as Adrien. He wonders, if he should tell her that he knows her identity, should he? And if he does, as who does he reveal the truth as? Adrien to Marinette? Chat noir to Ladybug? Adrien to Ladybug? Chat noir to Marinette? What would he do if she was mad, well, she’s going to be mad no matter what, her secret identity that she’s been trying to hide so hard is now out, only to her partner but she’d still be mad. She’d probably be mad at the situation, not Chat noir. Chat didn’t decide to remember. Chat Noir was the lucky, or unlucky- depends on what you think of the situation- person who got to remember, and resist the Miraculous magic.
Adrien is feeling overwhelmed, he can’t catch a breath in his own mind.
“Sorry Plagg” Adrien whispers, before saying his magic catchphrase- “Plagg, claws out!” As he’s running on top of the Paris rooftops, he stops for a moment and stares at the sky. It’s spring, the sun rises early and the stars are barely noticeable. Sure. he likes daytime and the sun, but he prefers nighttime. The moon, the stars, the undisturbed quietness- well, when hawkmoth isn’t bored at night. He just enjoys it, it’s the time he can be by himself and act how he pleases. Chat Noir lands in the park near Marinette’s house- the one where Ladybug and his statue was standing, the statue made by the creep who tried to hit on Ladybug.
“Does anyone even know how old Ladybug is?”
he whispers to himself, he never really put much thought to it. He assumed that she was around the same age as him, maybe even a little older. But he never thought that she was over eighteen, everybody referred to her as a “teenage superhero”. The sculptor was definitely around his twenties, it just made Chat uncomfortable to think about.
As the birds start to chirp, Chat Noir realizes he should do what he came here to do- check up on Marinette.
Seeing Marinette calmed him, the presence of her was soothing and relaxing. She felt like home to him, something he hadn’t felt about anyone ever since his mother's disappearance. Sure, Ladybug was always close to him and he cared about her- hell, he loves her. But Marinette, she has this feeling of softness, acceptance and everything nice. She was such an amazing person, Chat could talk about her being amazing for hours.
He couldn’t believe that pre-Oblivio he couldn’t see his crush on her, but he can’t really blame himself either- his love for Ladybug was blinding.
Chat was worried, he had seen Marinette talking with Luka. C’mon- she took him on their double date. Chat didn’t have anything against him, he was just scared Marinette preferred Luka to Adrien. “Wait” Chat thought, “there’s no way that Marinette has that many pictures of me on her phone and walls just because she’s a ‘fan of my work’. Holy shit, Marinette has a crush on Adrien! And Chat Noir!”
Chat realizes that it’s 6:30am.
“Shit, I should head back before Nathalie comes and wakes me u-” he thinks, but his train of thought gets stopped when he notices Marinette, a very sleepy and confused Marinette, standing on her balcony. The balcony where Chat is standing on, at 6:30am.
“Chat, what the hell are you doing on my balcony at 6:30am?” Marinette asks, not mad, but confused.
“I-, um- I wanted to have breakfast with you” Chat says quietly, as if he’s ashamed. He figured he needed to bond with Marinette as both sides of him and he was handed the best opportunity for that.
“And uh-, I wanted to check in and see if you’re feeling okay after yesterday’s akuma”.
“Do you check up on all civilians after an akuma attack?” Marinette smiles
“Only on my favorite one, don’t tell the others” Chat says half whispering as he laughs.
Marinette blushes a bit, smiles and lets Chat into her room.
“Well, I’m glad you want to have breakfast. I probably would’ve slept in again if you weren’t standing on my balcony” she says as she quickly packs her school bag.
Chat suddenly realizes that Nathalie will be in his room in a bit to wake him up.
“Her Princess, do you have any cheese?”, he scratches his neck.
Marinette brings up cheese, not asking why he needs it, “Is this okay?” she asks,
“It’s perfect, thank you” Chat Noir smiles at her. He can’t help but wonder how someone can be so sweet and cute, while doing such a simple task.
Chat Noir quickly goes into Mari’s bathroom, de-transforms and feeds Plagg. He sends Nathalie a quick message saying that he had to meet up with a classmate before school to talk about a school project.
Adrien sends the message and walks out of Mari’s bathroom.
“Ready to cat-ch a bite, Princess?” he says as he heads toward Marinette.
“Yeah, just give me one secon-” Marinette say, as she turns around to reveal Adrien.
“aDRIEN?” Mari squeaks.
“Ah fuck, I thought I forgot something” he whispered to himself.