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The apartment was just how Marinette remembered it.
The faded green sofa where Alya and Nino would sit close together and whisper, his shield leaning against his legs. The wobbly wooden table where Max would do his calculations while Luka plucked at his lyre. The whiteboard where Alix would map out possible timelines and Kim would leave silly doodles. Even the faint perfume of the wall plug-ins Chloé had brought because “this ridiculous musty smell is going to make everyone sick!”
And of course, Chat Noir had been there too … always right beside her in the thick of it all, talking strategy or sharing theories or making them all laugh when the stress was too much.
“It’s been a while, huh?” Adrien asked, closing the door behind them.
“Yeah … how long now? Two years?”
“Something like that.” He stuck the keys in his pocket.
Tikki flitted out of Marinette’s bag. She dropped it by the door. “I feel awful that you’ve been paying for it this whole time. I’d almost forgotten about it, honestly. We haven’t had to have to crash here since …”
Since we finally closed in on Hawkmoth. Since we all found out. Since everything changed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Adrien said. “The money’s not a problem. Besides, I get some good use out of this place.”
“You do? How?”
He sank onto the couch, Plagg hovering over his shoulder. “I, uh, come stay here sometimes. When I need to get away.”
“Oh?” Marinette perched on the other end. “How often do you come here?”
“Not as often as I did when ... in the beginning. But … I don’t know. It’s just nice to have the option.”
“We were here a couple weeks ago,” Plagg piped up. “So the fridge is restocked with delicious Camembert! Come on, Sugarcube—want a snack?”
Tikki made a face. “No, thanks.”
Adrien smiled. “There are macarons in the cupboard.”
“Ooh!” Tikki flitted off to join Plagg in the kitchen.
“You were here a couple weeks ago?” Marinette asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not really. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least.” Adrien ran a hand over his face. He looked tired. So tired. But not the kind of tired that one good night’s sleep could fix. The kind of tired that seeps down to your bones and weighs down every footstep. The soul-heavy weariness that makes you ache inside.
She was hit with the sudden urge to grab his hand and squeeze it. To pull him close and rest his head on her shoulder. To kiss his forehead and whisper that it would be okay.
But she couldn’t. Things weren’t like that anymore.
Actually, they never had been.
“Do you want to go to sleep now?” she asked instead. “It’s pretty late already, and we’re going to have to get up early tomorrow if we’re going to try to scout out Chrysalis’s lair. We should get our rest.”
He turned to her, eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? This is the first time we’ve gotten to hang out with just the two of us in … I don’t know, months. We’re going to make the most of it.” His face lit up. “It could be like a slumber party!”
She laughed. “Slumber party? You make it sound like we’re fourteen.”
“Hey, let me have this. I never got to have slumber parties when I was fourteen.”
She frowned. “You didn’t? Not even with Nino?”
“Nah. You know how …” He swallowed. “Well, you know how my father was.”
His voice was even, but she knew him too well. She could see the pain deep in his eyes. Like a flame, low in the embers but still burning.
“Adrien, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay.” He flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It was a long time ago. I’m not that kid anymore.”
She wished he could be that kid again. She wished she could turn back time and make his pain disappear. Even with the rabbit miraculous, she couldn’t fix the past.
But maybe she could fix the present, just a little, just for a while.
“So …” she said slowly, “are you saying you don’t want to have a slumber party?”
Adrien’s mouth curved into a smile. “Oh, no. That’s happening. What’s our slumber party checklist?”
“Oh, you know. Just the usual. Watch movies. Eat pizza. Paint our nails. Gossip. That sort of thing.”
He chuckled. “Sadly, I left all my nail polish at home. But I think I can manage to get us some pizza.”
“Extra cheese!” Plagg shouted from the kitchen.
Marinette grinned. “Let’s get this party started.”
A half an hour later, they were in their pajamas, tucked up on the couch in front of the TV. They flicked through random channels until they found a movie to watch—a horribly cheesy romantic comedy that they made fun of the whole time while they stuffed themselves with pizza and downed cans of Coca-Cola.
Finally, the ending credits rolled across the screen. The light of the TV cast a blue glow over the room. The kwamis had fallen asleep on a pillow among scattered crumbs.
Adrien yawned. “So, what’s next on the docket?”
Marinette checked the time on her phone. “I think now’s the time we head to bed.”
“Noooo!” Adrien said. “There has to be more.”
“Well, we wouldn’t actually go to sleep. We’d just get in bed and keep talking until we fall asleep. It’s slumber party tradition.”
He grinned. “Alright, then.”
They cleaned up and stuck the leftovers in the fridge, careful not to wake the kwamis. Then she followed him into the bedroom.
Back when the squad still used the apartment as a base, they would just spread out sleeping bags on the floor. But since then, Adrien had put in a single queen-sized bed.
Oh.
“You can take the bed,” Adrien said. “I’ll use my old sleeping bag.”
“Oh—no, that’s okay! I’ll sleep on the couch.”
He frowned. “It’s only a two-seater. You won’t fit.”
“Sure, I will. I’ll just scrunch up a bit. It’ll be fine.”
“Really, it’s okay,” he said earnestly. “I want you to be comfortable.”
“Well, I want you to be comfortable too.”
“I will.”
Marinette bit her lip. “Well, maybe we … maybe we could … share?”
Adrien blinked. “Like, share the bed?”
Heat pooled on her cheeks. “Sorry—I didn’t mean it like—I just—stupid suggestion, forget that—”
“Well, I mean, if you’re comfortable with that, then, um …” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d be okay with it.”
“Oh! Okay. Sure. Um, let’s … let’s do that.”
She avoided eye contact as she peeled back the blankets and scooted as far to the edge of the bed as she could. Adrien turned off the lights so that only the lamp on the nightstand by Marinette lit the room in a soft glow. She lay on her back, staring straight up at the ceiling while he slipped under the blankets beside her. There were just a few inches between them.
“You know,” she whispered, “this is pretty normal for a slumber party, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmmhmm. Alya and I would share a bed all the time at sleepovers.”
“Okay. So … what would you talk about before you fell asleep?”
She blushed at the memory. “Boys, usually.”
“Oh? I’m all ears.” He shifted so that he was facing her, propping his head up on an elbow. “How’s Adam?”
“Uh … we broke up. A few months ago.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that,” Adrien said.
“Don’t be. It was time.”
“Well, uh … who are you crushing on these days, then, huh?”
His eyes had a playful glint. Inexplicably, she found herself blushing.
“N-no one.”
“Alright. Then who were you crushing on back when you and Alya had sleepovers?”
Her blush deepened. “Wha—why does that matter? It was so long ago.”
“Aw, come on. I want to have the full slumber party experience. Please?”
Ugh. She never could resist those big green pleading kitty eyes, whether he was transformed or not. She tried to ignore the burning in her cheeks. “W-well … I guess I had a bit of a crush on …”
“Oh!” Adrien said. “Hang on, I already know this. It was Luka. Duh.”
Right.
Maybe she didn’t have to say anything, because yes, technically she did have a bit of a crush on Luka at one point. She could just leave it like that. Let the moment pass. Let all of it go, finally, forever. After all, it had been ten years. What was the point of saying it now?
But something inside her wouldn’t let her stay quiet any longer.
“Actually … it was you.”
Adrien stared at her for a moment. “Wait, seriously? So all that flirting actually worked? And you just let me keep making a fool of myself?”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“I mean, I planned out this whole rooftop date, with roses and everything. I declared my love to you, like, three times a week—which, I admit, was a bit much. But still. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Realization hit her. “No, no—I didn’t mean Chat Noir. I meant … you. Like, Adrien Agreste.”
“Oh!” His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then they furrowed. “Oh.”
She looked down at the blanket, fiddling with a loose thread. “You were the other boy, actually. The one I always told Chat Noir I was in love with.”
She glanced up again. Adrien was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read—kind of shocked and sad and hopeful, all at once.
He sank back onto his pillow, gazing upward. “Wow. That changes … everything.”
“Does it?” She tried to keep her voice even, but she couldn’t stop her heart from rising in her chest.
“Well, I mean, I guess not,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”
Her heart plummeted. “Oh. Yeah.”
For a long moment, they were quiet.
“You know, I kind of had a crush on you too,” Adrien said.
All the heaviness hanging between them came crashing down. Marinette snorted. “Oh, really? I never knew. You were so subtle about it with all those cheesy pick-up lines.”
“No, I mean I had a crush on you. Marinette.”
Oh.
“Really?” she asked. Her heart soared straight back up again, like it was riding an elevator. Up and down, up and down.
“It was really confusing, actually. Being in love with two different girls. I thought I was a terrible person or something. Poor Plagg—he never heard the end of it.”
Her breath hitched. “In—in love?”
He turned his head to look at her. “Yeah.”
“With … me too?”
He nodded.
She rolled over to plug her phone into the charger so he couldn’t see her face. “That sounds like a bit more than ‘kind of a crush.’”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to know what a pining fool I was.”
“You just told me.”
“You forced it out of me.”
She turned around again. “Did not!”
“You know I can never resist you, bugaboo.” He winked.
The elevator ground to a halt, and then it was in free fall.
He hadn’t called her that in years. They hadn’t been this close—in any sense of the word—since the day they discovered Hawkmoth’s identity. It would have been a dream come true, finding out that Chat Noir was Adrien, but not like that. Not when he was on his knees, begging Gabriel to change his mind. Not when he had to watch his father be taken away in handcuffs. Not when he went cold and numb and silent for all that time.
Somehow, in the following months and years, there never seemed to be a good time to ask, “Do you still love me? Because I love you back.”
And by the time he seemed okay again, he’d moved on, and so had she.
(Or so she’d thought.)
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” he asked, pulling her back to the present.
He looked so much like Chat right then—the Chat Noir she used to know, before everything changed. The little smirk, the messy hair, the teasing glint in his eyes. It was like they really were fourteen again. So it was surprisingly easy to react the same way she would back then.
She shoved a pillow into his face. “Don’t start that again.”
Please don’t stop.
His laughter was muffled. He emerged from behind the pillow, grinning just like he used to. “Come on. No matter how much you deny it, I know you secretly thought I was funny.”
She smiled. “Your jokes were good, but you always had terrible timing.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, wistfully. “Yeah, I know.”
They both settled back on their pillows. For a while, they stayed silent, staring at the ceiling as they lay side by side.
“Want to know a secret?” she finally whispered.
“Sure.”
“I think Ladybug used to have a crush on Chat Noir too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“But that was a long time ago,” he said. She couldn’t see his face, but was that an edge of disappointment?
“Yeah,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
She leaned over to shut off the lamp, and the room plunged into darkness.
A long time ago.
The minutes dragged on. Marinette huddled into herself, pulling the blanket up to her chin. She knew it was late, but she couldn’t sleep. The silence pressed in on her from every side while the unspoken truth sat beside her in the darkness.
So much of the truth had been revealed tonight, but not the part that really mattered. Not the part that might still make a difference.
“Adrien?” she dared to whisper.
“What?”
Her heartbeat quickened. She almost decided to make an excuse, but she knew that if she didn’t say it now, the moment would be gone, maybe forever. It had taken ten years for this much of the truth to come out. Maybe there wouldn’t be another chance after this. And if time had taught her anything, it was that she would never be able to let go of Adrien Agreste. Not really. So it was now or never.
She took a breath to gather her courage.
“In case you were wondering … in case it still matters … I think Ladybug still has a crush on Chat Noir.”
He didn’t answer for a long time, long enough that she thought he might’ve fallen asleep. Or maybe he was thinking of a kind way to tell her that she’d missed her chance ten years ago.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears now. Had she ruined it all? Had this one final confession tipped the scales and thrown everything out of balance? Things felt more normal and more right between them tonight than they had in years. She’d never forgive herself if she had spoiled that because she was too selfish to stay quiet.
Adrien’s voice came out of the darkness, soft as a caress.
“Chat Noir never stopped loving Ladybug. He never could, even when he tried.”
She let out a gasp, so soft he probably didn’t even hear it. Her pulse throbbed in her fingertips. Every bit of her was tingling from her head to her toes.
She had to be sure, once and for all, that he understood. That he knew. She searched for his eyes in the darkness.
“Adrien,” she breathed, “I love you. Right now. And always.”
A beat of silence.
“I love you too, Marinette.”
All the tension in her body drained away. She felt like she had just released a breath that she’d been holding for a decade. Like she was a purified akuma, finally fluttering free.
Adrien shifted beside her, and automatically, she found herself moving closer. He wrapped her in his arms, and she curled into him, losing herself in his warmth and his scent. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek. Her own racing heart slowed until it beat in the same rhythm.
It felt exactly the way she had always imagined. Like finding safe harbor. Like coming home.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Right now and always,” he whispered.