Her All Along

Despite having separated from Ladybug after only conversing with her for a few moments, Chat didn't go straight to see Marinette until a couple of hours had passed. It mostly still felt way too early for him to go and see her, and he had to make sure that people knew he was around, so no one thought he went missing, or make it look like he was sneaking around to go to Marinette's on the off chance someone did see him.

The other part of him was wondering about various other occurrences that he should really be thinking about. The risks involved with talking to her as Chat were massive. If he was seen talking to her too frequently, that could impose a huge risk to her in itself. Then again, she had to be aware of those risks herself if she was the one who asked him to return, didn't she?

In spite of that, she had asked him to return, and so he would.

Another leap across a roof to another one brought Chat Noir ever closer to the bakery that the blue haired girl lived in. He could see her home from here, and thought to himself was she waiting for him? Expecting him? Or had she forgotten, and gone out with a friend?

Or maybe she'd changed her mind. Maybe she didn't want him to show up.

All very real possibilities, and all perfectly understandable in their own way. He wouldn't push her, regardless of whatever the situation was. If she asked him to leave, he would. He wasn't about to harass the girl.

He only wanted to confirm what he felt his soul was trying to tell him.

Making one final leap, there he was clinging from the bakery's wall, just above Marinette's window. He was here, after having done laps around the entire city for the last few hours. Now he was here, he thought to himself, what would be a fun way to mess with her?

He came up with a simple idea. He knocked on her window, and waited. Marinette did indeed open the window, and as well as proving she was in, proved that she had been waiting for Chat.

But he wasn't there. And the blue haired girl was clearly completely and utterly confused.

"What the?..." She muttered, looking around for any signs of Chat Noir, but finding nothing to indicate he had even been there. She scratched her head and went back inside her room, closing the windows.

She hadn't looked up, though.

Chat had been hanging upside down, almost expecting Marinette to certainly check up, where she would have seen Chat hanging upside down with a Cheshire grin.

This could work too though. Hell, this could be even better. He carefully lowered himself, so that he could see through her window. She was sat at her desk, sketching something in her drawing pad, constantly filling it with new ideas. Adrien had seen them all, and her talent was irrefutable.

He watched her for a little while. His plan was to wait for her to just happen to look out her window again. He imagined that she'd probably have a slightly angry reaction to that, but he was willing to take that risk. He smirked at the thought of seeing Marinette freaking the hell out for a second before realizing that it was just this dumb alley cat again.

Chat's jaw instead, despite being upside down, dropped.

"Uuuurgh, Tikki..." Marinette groaned, scribbling out one of her sketches, tearing out the page, and throwing it across the room in frustration. She couldn't get her regular drawing rhythm going. She was too distracted. by thoughts of Chat. By thoughts of Adrien. By thoughts of everything rushing into her head that set her skin alight. "Uwwaaaaaa, why are Soul Links so complicated?

"You're feeling frustrated?" Tikki asked. She had hovered across the room to collect Marinette's pencil sharpener, and held it out for the human girl to grab. Marinette showed the small Kwami an open palm, on which Tikki placed the metallic stationary equipment.

"Confused and completely frustrated, yeah." Marinette groaned, sharpening her pencil over the garbage bin she kept under her desk specifically for pencil shavings. The bin itself was about half full, direct results of previous art sessions. "My brain is fried, and my skin's like its on fire. I don't know what's going on with me anymore."

"When you and I merge, I get a vague idea for what emotions you're feeling." Tikki commented, landing on the desk next to the sketch book. "You're thinking about Chat Noir, right?"

A blush found it's way onto Marinette's face. Busted.

"You're falling for him, aren't you Marinette? Really falling for him."

Her brain screamed at her to deny it. It absolutely screamed. There wasn't any way she was really falling for Chat! The idea of crushing on him was bad enough, but the idea of seriously falling for him... That wasn't possible. He wasn't a bad guy, not at all. But the puns, the terrible jokes, his cockiness, the self-sacrificing recklessness that caused her to worry sick... The selfless acts... His total honesty...

The lines were blurring. Weren't those positive traits about Chat?...

The other half of her brain told her not to deny it. She had enough secrets as it was. She could lie to everyone in Paris. She could lie to her parents. She could lie to Alya. She could lie to Nino, to Chloe, to Ivan, to Alix, to Natheniel to everyone else. To Adrien. She had done that a thousand times this past year. Lying to others was something Marinette was, depressingly, very good at, hypocritical as it may be, when her most valued trait in a person is their honesty. She could hide a secret again and again. She could keep secrets, and defend them like her life depended on it. Many times, it did.

She could do all of that... But she couldn't lie to herself.

She really was falling for Chat Noir. Of everyone on this planet, she was falling for Chat-freaking-Noir.

She stayed silent for a few moments, staring at Tikki, who stared straight back, and then buried her head in her hands. "Oh God... Of everyone in this city, I fall for the most complicated one possible... And I still like Adrien..." She lightly punched her head in frustration. "Brain, work with me here, please."

In that second, Marinette heard what sounded like a scramble, and could have sworn she saw something shoot past her window screen at light-speed, leaving her with only a short, blurred, black glimpse of what it could have been.

She shrugged it off though. It was probably a pigeon. Paris was full of them.

That was a Kwami.

Marinette was talking with a Kwami.

Ladybug is the only other person in Paris he knows for a fact has a Kwami.

Marinette is Ladybug.

Holy crap.

Chat just hung there, now out of sight from Marinette's window. His hand was covering his agape mouth, and his eyes could not be any wider. He was struggling to intake air into his lungs, partly thanks to his hands covering his respiratory systems, but even if they hadn't been, he'd be in trouble. His body was tense as all hell, and his heart was going absolutely insane.

Ladybug is in the room below him.

And it's Marinette.

Holy-freaking-Christ.

"It's her?!" The cat themed hero couldn't even comprehend it. Ladybug had been there. Right there, all this time. Right there, essentially freaking next to him! How blind did he have to be to have not seen this?! The hair?! The attitude Marinette gave him as Chat Noir?! The convenient disappearances - He could punch himself in his own stupid freaking head. Of course it had been her! "Oh, bravo, Agreste, bravo." He muttered to himself, silently clapping.

It all made sense!

Ladybug's side-stepping straight up rejections of him! The posters and pictures of him! Ladybug had been crushing on Adrien Agreste this entire time?!

He wanted to go back in time and punch his previous self in the nose for being such a blind moron.

Of course, it was all well and good knowing who Marinette was now... But how the hell was he gonna even slightly bring that up in a conversation? That was about a thousand times more awkward than any double conversations that he'd have to have with her without letting her know who was behind this mask.

Then again, there wasn't any need for this mask anymore, was there?

Chat Noir loved Ladybug, and had grown to admire Marinette. The fact of the matter was, before he had come to understand Marinette more, he would have loved her anyway under the mask, simply because she was Ladybug. That was what he had told himself after the two of them have defeated Stoneheart together. But now... He had grown to like Marinette as a person, without even knowing she was Ladybug... He had this perfect image of her in his mind... This adorable, cute, talented and energetic girl, was the same fearless, confident and beautiful heroine he had fallen in love with as Chat?

His Soul Link was with Ladybug... And that was also with Marinette!

It had been that perfect?...

Adrien had never been one to believe in fate... But holy crap, this all made a convincing case.

The only question he had now was.... How would he reveal his identity to her as Adrien Agreste? It didn't strike him, for a second, that it was fair that he knew her identity, but she didn't know his. She deserved to know at this point... But... At the same time... This was a rare opportunity....

A regular grin appeared on the black cat hero. If he knew... Why should he waste this opportunity? There wasn't any reason he shouldn't... Get a little even, was there? He could rationalize it as a small bit of revenge for all the times Ladybug rejected him. Nothing too distressing or hurtful... But a bit of teasing wasn't a problem.

He almost laughed. About the situation. About learning who Ladybug really was. About his plan. Everything. The whole world seemed to make so much more sense, and he wanted to laugh it all off.

He was gonna have some fun with this.