Archive of Our Own ^beta

Adrien tries to plaster a smile on his face as he shuts the car door— trying not to slam it no matter how frustrated he is, because all it will get him is a lecture about behavior and attitude after school, and if there’s anything he’s not in the mood for, it’s that.

He waves at Nathalie with his plaster smile, feeling no more disappointed than usual when she doesn’t wave back, and spins on his heel to face the school. Anxiety weighs down on him like an anchor, one that holds him back for a moment even after the first bell has rang.

He skids into the classroom, seconds after the bell has stopped ringing.

Ms. Bustier raises an eyebrow at him before marking him down as late.

Adrien winces as he takes his seat. When Nathalie sees the tardy on his attendance report, she’ll have words.

He hates when Nathalie has words.

Adrien tries his best to focus on the lesson, but he can't. His father’s voice is echoing in his head, over and over and over again.

“She used to be your best friend!”

He grips his pencil tighter.

If he could’ve kept his childhood best friend, he would’ve. But both him and Chloé have changed over the years. Homeschooling just meant that he hadn’t seen how much she had changed until now. And now— Now he has to make some choices about the people he hangs out with. And he is not thrilled by that.

“Her father is very powerful—”

Adrien squeezes his eyes shut.

“You okay, man?” Nino asks softly, putting a hand on Adrien’s back.

Adrien nods and opens his eyes, staring down the whiteboard. He writes down what Ms. Bustier has written — though none of the actual words are really processing — and focuses on just getting through the day.

Just one day.

Nino watches silently as Adrien hauls his bag on and leaves the classroom without a word. Adrien turns away from the school’s entrance and gym. He must be headed to the library.

Nino chews on the end of his pen. Something is wrong and he doesn’t like it. After a moment he sighs and twists around, knocking on the desk to break up Marinette and Alya’s conversation.

Marinette leans away from Alya, blushing a little. “What’s up?”

“Have you noticed something…off about Adrien today?” Nino asks, trying his best to sound casual and totally not at all concerned.

Alya and Marinette exchange a look.

“Something was definitely wrong,” Alya says, pursing her lips. “But he hasn’t said anything to me.”

Marinette shakes her head. “Sorry, Nino,” she apologizes. She pats his hand. “You could try asking him?”

Nino looks toward the door. “I don’t know. I don’t think he really wants to talk about it…”  

“What?” Alix asks, hopping on top of Nino’s desk and criss-crossing her legs. “Are we talking about the clouds blocking out the sun?”

Marinette rolls her eyes.

Nino adjusts his hat. “You know what’s wrong with Adrien?”

“Duh.” She blows a bubble with her gum.

“I’ll pop that,” Alya says flatly. “Come on, girl! Details!”

Alix leans back on her hands and pops the bubble herself. “I don’t know how none of you have heard. His dad is being a jerkass. Told him that he wasn’t spending enough time with drama queen over there,” she juts a thumb over toward Chloé's desk, “and that he’d get cut off from public school unless he either talks to her more or has a good reason not too.” Alix raises her eyebrows, says, “Juicy stuff,” and blows another bubble.

“What kind of bullshit ultimatum is that?!” Alya protests, crossing her arms. She turns to Marinette. “Have I told you today that I hate Gabriel Agreste, because I hate Gabriel Agreste.”

Marinette shakes her head. “Exactly the kind of ultimatum you’d expect from someone like Monsieur Agreste,” she points out.

Alya deflates a little. “Yeah,” she murmurs.

Nino taps his pen against the desk a few times before he shoves it in his bag. “I have to go,” he mumbles, yanking his bag onto a shoulder.

“Give him love from us!” Alya shouts as Nino hurries out the door.

Adrien rubs his temples as he stares at his history textbook. He’s found a quiet spot in the library, he’s listening to calming music, he’s been careful about his breathing. Why does he still feel like the world is closing above him?

The Marquis de Lafayette is doing something in history, and Adrien can’t seem to read enough of his book to find out what it is.

“Adrikins!” he hears someone whisper shriek from across the library.

Adrien holds back a groan and forces himself to smile and pull out an earbud. Just one. Classical music still plays in the other ear, sixty beats per minute, calming. Relaxing. Soothing. It’s fine. “Chloé! Hi!” He tries not to wince. Has he always sounded that fake?

“So,” she drawls, leaning on the table. “Adri, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to Restaurant Lasserre tonight for dinner!” Her voice is high and bright— her camera voice. Her public voice. Her performing voice.

Because that’s all this ever is.

A performance.

He can think of all the times that it was something more, but right now, they’re both nothing more than two names, two names with large numbers attached to them. He can see it in how her mouth smiles more than her eyes do, how her body language is exaggerated to the extreme.

Adrien swallows thickly. “I…”

Chloé bats her eyelashes. He might be seeing things. She seems more desperate than usual.

He sweeps his eyes around the library. He needs time. He needs more time. He needs to decide what to do and say before—

Adrien makes eye contact with Nino, who’s peering out at them from behind a bookcase. Nino’s eyes widen in surprise.

This might work.

He very well might ruin his friendship with Nino forever and expose his feelings along the way, but fuck it, he needs a way out of this conversation and he needs it now.

“I wish I could, Chlo, but I have— I have a date,” he stutters.

Nino’s jaw drops.

Adrien grabs Nino’s hand and yanks him around the corner to stand next to him. “A date! With Nino! Yeah!”

Nino is perfect. Ridiculously cute, way too nice, his best friend— there’s the problem of his dad but he’ll figure that out later, and besides, Nino is really, really cute.

He leans over and kisses Nino on the cheek. He can feel the heat of Nino’s blush under his lips and knows Nino is resisting the urge to pull his hat down over his eyes.

Chloé forces a laugh, sort of high and hysterical. “What?!” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, what ?”

Yup, Adrien hadn’t been planning to come out this way either, but hey, plans change.

“You can't date him,” Chloé starts.

“Why not?” Adrien asks, crossing his arms.

“He’s—” She gestures wildly to Nino. Nino pulls a face.

Adrien huffs and tries to hold himself together. “What is he?”

“First of all, a guy— ”

“So?”

Chloé blinks a few times. “So…you’ve…” She puts her hands on her hips. “You like girls!”

“Bisexuality exists,” Nino supplies helpfully.

Chloé shoots him a dangerous glare and Adrien knows it’s time to step away from the situation. Of course Chloé knows bisexuality is a thing. If anything, she’s probably just annoyed that Adrien never mentioned it whenever they talked about stuff like this.

He'd never found the words or courage.

“Sorry Chloé, but I’m going out with Nino tonight,” Adrien apologizes, lifting their joined hands.

“Where?” she asks sharply.

“The Restaurant Lasserre,” he says trying not to wince. Yikes.

She narrows her eyes at him. “You better actually be going. I will be there. You need a backup plan.” She glares daggers at Nino.

“Wow, fuck you,” Nion mutters under his breath.

“Bye, Chloé.” Adrien hopes he looks confident and cool because he honestly feels like he’s going to throw up.

She scoffs and turns on her heel, storming out of the library.

He’s going to have to talk to her later and that thought is almost worse than everything else that just happened. He should have enough money to buy more time, but it doesn’t work like that and now everything is—

Oh no.

Adrien turns to Nino with wide eyes, knowing his expression is probably one of pure panic and anxiety. “Oh god, I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.”

Nino blinks quickly a few times. “Uh… I mean, it’s fine, dude. I’d do anything for you.” He pauses for a second, eyes wide. “Sorry for making you go out with me,” he adds quickly.

Adrien tilts his head. “Making me ? Didn’t I ask you out? Sort of? In a weird—” He shakes his head and cuts himself off. “I mean if you’re fine with doing this because you don’t have to if you don’t want to, I can go tell Chloé the truth right now if you—”

“Dude,” Nino puts a hand on his shoulder, “it’s fine. I’m always up to going out to dinner with my best friend.”

Right. Best friend. They’re still just friends, no matter what bullshit Adrien’s mouth says when his brain to mouth filter vanishes.

“And I’m okay with keeping up the act as long as you need,” Nino continues. “I don’t mind.”

“You’re sure?” Adrien asks.

“Anything for you,” Nino repeats. “I have to get to work now, but I’ll text you about tonight later, cool?”

Adrien nods. “Yeah, thank you so much.”

Nino gives him a little salute as he leaves the library.

Adrien sinks into his chair and buries his face in his hands. He is so fucked .

Nino gets halfway to work on pure adrenaline. Then he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and says, “Oh shit ,” really loudly.

Someone with a little kid gives him a dirty look.

He grimaces and starts walking again, pulling his phone out of his pocket and selecting Alya’s number. They don’t call often — texting is so much easier for both of them, plus, emojis — but he doesn’t actually think he can handle typing out words right now.

Alya picks up mid-ring. “ Hey, Nino! Listen, why didn’t you— ”

“Adrien asked me out,” he blurts out. How is he standing up right now?

“ One second ,” Alya says calmly. He hears her put her phone down and say something, but it’s too muffled for him to make out the words. Then he hears a very loud “ Holy shit! ” and someone scream.

“ You’re on speaker now ,” Alya says.

“ He asked you out?! ” Marinette asks. “ Oh my god, Nino! That’s so— ”

“He only did it because of Chloé,” Nino explains quickly. “He didn’t want to hang out with her today and I was there and—”

“ Boo ,” Alya interrupts.

“ Hey, at least someone took a move, ” Marinette says. “ Even if it’s…not really the way you wanted it? ”

Nino can practically see Alya nodding. “ We can work with this ,” she insists.

Nino rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’ve never even said anything to you two about this before, how do you even know that I—?”

“ Nino, I love you ,” Marinette says simply. “ But you are just so so so obvious when you have a crush. ”

Alya hums in agreement.

“Fuck my life,” Nino mutters. “Do you think he— wait hold on, I’ve got another call.” He pulls his phone away from his ear to find out who’s interrupting his crisis.

Adrien.

“Sorry, guys,” he says quickly. “I have to go, Adrien’s calling.”

“ Boy, ” Alya says, “ you better— ”

Beep beep beep.

“Hey, dude, what’s up?” He tries to see if there’s any change in his voice when he talks to Adrien. He doesn’t doubt that he’s super obvious, but what had Marinette and Alya noticed specifically?

“ I have news ,” Adrien says, in a sort of breathless way that makes Nino smile despite himself.

“Yeah?”

“ Yeah! Big news! I mean, maybe not that big but considering… I mean— ”

“You’re rambling,” Nino points out gently.

“ Right! I talked to my dad. ”

Nino stops walking, blood cold.

“ Because…um yeah, I know that didn’t go well last time. But uh— it went well! He actually approved of…you know. ”

Nino swallows. He’s about to respond when he realizes he doesn’t actually know what Gabriel approved of. If it’s the bi thing or the dating thing or the Nino thing. “Uh, I don’t think I do? What part of like…all the stuff that happened today did he approve of?”
“I mean…specifically the dating part. Specifically the you part. I’m guessing that means he’s okay with all of it.”

Nino laughs nervously. “Seriously? Like… seriously ?” He has made a very clear point to steer clear from Gabriel Agreste whenever he can. He hasn’t exactly gotten past the whole Bubbler incident. He probably will one day. When Gabriel stops being a dick. Or when Adrien moves out and gets far away.

Nino is making sure he gets far, far away.

“ Hey, you’re great ,” Adrien says sincerely. “ No matter what my dad may say. I’ll see you tonight? ”

Nino nods before he realizes that Adrien can’t see that over the phone. “Yeah man, I’ll see you then.”

Adrien takes a deep breath as he adjusts his tie in the mirror. He’s probably adjusted it three or four times at this point, but he’s nervous. Fake date or not.

“We’re going to miss patrol tonight,” Plagg wines. “We’re going to miss patrol, and why? Because the boy can’t keep it in his pants that’s why.”

Adrien rolls his eyes. “So when I want to patrol, you’re so tired that you don’t think you can move another inch. But when I want to skip —”

“Yada yada yada, it’s all just noise to me, kid.” Plagg floats up to block his face in the mirror. “If you’re going to make me suffer through this, do you at least have some Camembert?”

“Nope.” Adrien steps to the side and runs his hand through his hair, checking his reflection. “You’ve had enough—” Plagg scoffs. “—and I need to save some for tonight when I go on patrol.”  

Plagg eyes him. “So you’re going to ditch your date? Your best friend date? Your ‘I have a disgusting crush on you and refuse to say anything for whatever reason or another and it’s gross’ date? And I thought you were smart.”

Adrien gives him a flat look. “I’m going to do a quick, five minute patrol, and then go back to Nino. Just make sure everything’s okay.”

Plagg stares at him for a long moment and then zips away, off to find something more interesting to do. “It’s your funeral,” he says from his trash can.

Alya grins and throws open the closet doors. “You have to give us something to work with here. Give me an angle to shoot for.”

Nino sits in his desk chair, that Alya had dragged to the center of his room and shoved him into, and tries not to glance back to the drawer Tikki is sleeping in too often. Marinette is standing behind him, resting her arms on the back of the chair and slowly making it turn back and for a bit. It’s kind of comforting among the whirlwind that is Alya Césaire.

“An angle?” he asks.

Marinette taps his head and smiles down at him. “She means ‘what do you want Adrien to think of you as’.” Nino stares at her. “Do you want cute?” Marinette continues, waving a hand. “Mysterious? Nice?”

“Sexy?” Alya asks, wiggling her eyebrows.

Nino sinks down lower in his chair. “I don’t trust you, can’t Marinette do this?”

Alya scowls and crosses her arms as Marinette laughs.

“It’ll be fine,” Marinette promises. “I’m here to make sure that Alya doesn’t send you out in something awful. But believe me, Alya is better at the actual dating aspect of this.”

Alya flips her hair over her shoulder. “Of course I am. Now come on,” she snaps, “ angle .”

Nino sighs and pulls off his hat. “I don’t know man, I just want Adrien to see…me? I guess?” Marinette coos above him. “I want him to like me because of me, not because I’m wearing a nice outfit. Plus, he asked me out to get out of dinner with Chloé so it’s not like…” He gestures with a hand for a second before shrugging.

Alya puts her hands on her hips. “Please. I’ve — we’ve — seen the way he looks at you. If this was just an accident, then I’m Ladybug.”

Nino bites back a smile as Alya disappears into his closet.

“Don’t worry so much,” Marinette says, spinning Nino around to face her. “If it helps, don’t think about it as a date too much. You’re going out to dinner with your best friend. If it becomes something more, just go with the flow. You’re good at that.”

He smiles weakly. “Thanks, Mar.”

“I’ve got it!” Alya shouts from his closet. Marinette turns Nino so he can see the shirt she’s holding up.

He looks up to Marinette for a second opinion.

She gives him a thumbs up.

Adrien checks his watch. He takes a sip of water, puts down his glass, and checks again.

He’s a little early, but he’s also kind of paranoid. He doesn’t think Nino would stand him up, but what if ? He shoves those thoughts to the back of his mind and checks his watch once more. He’s trying to keep from obsessively watching the door, but obsessively checking the time isn’t much better. If anything, it probably just looks sad .

He can’t stop himself and glances toward the door.

Nino is standing by the door, and he’s somehow managed to look more attractive than usual.

He’s wearing a blue button up shirt with grey vest over it and slightly darker gray pants. His hair looks slightly different, but Adrien can’t place exactly what he did differently, because he’s kind of distracted by just… all of Nino.

That was a gayer thought than Adrien was ready for.

“Adrien!”

Adrien winces as Chloé comes running up to the table, fake worry painted on her face. “Hey, Chloé,” he mumbles.

“Poor Adrien,” she croons. “All alone and—”

“What am I? Chopped liver?” Nino asks. He bumps Chloé’s shoulder as he passes her to sit down. “Sorry I was late, thanks for waiting.” He gives Adrien a crooked smile. He looks up to Chloé with a bored expression. “Hey, we’re sort of on a date so could you…” He makes a dismissive motion with his hand.

Chloé scowls. “But—”

“Bye.”

She spins on her heel, dress swishing around her legs as she storms off.

Adrien puffs up his cheeks and blows air out of his mouth. “Thanks for that.”
Nino shrugs. “No problem, dude. She’s a lot to deal with when you’re not in the mood.” He gives Adrien a knowing look as he picks up his glass of water.

Adrien gives him a relieved smile. “Yeah, she’s…yeah.” He spent most of the day trying to decide what to do about Chloé and he’s still coming up blank. Dating Nino is a good reason not to be around Chloé until he decides, but he’s not sure how long he can handle the fake part of this fake dating thing.

Crash!

The building shakes as someone lands on the pavement outside, the sidewalk buckling under the force of their landing.

Adrien grimaces as the murmur of the restaurant gets louder and looks outside, dread pooling in his stomach. An obnoxiously colored akuma laughs as people run away screaming.

Really? Tonight?

“I am the Bookworm!” they shout. “Let all children learn!”

“Well that’s lame,” Nino mutters.

Adrien hears Chloé shriek as the akuma shatters a window near her. He turns to Nino, cursing silently. “Get out of here! I’ll follow you!” He watches the Bookworm leap into the air out of his peripheral vision.

Nino shakes his head. “No, I’ll follow you.”

“ I’ll follow you.”

“No, you .”

Adrien gives Nino an exasperated look. “No, you—”

The Bookworm lands with another crash, denting the top of a car.

“Go!” Nino shouts, grabbing Adrien’s hand and throwing him forward.

Adrien’s mind goes blank and he runs . He sprints to the bathroom without looking back and ducks into one of the stalls, eyeing the tiny window near the sink. He can make that work.

“Plagg,” he hisses, “claws out!”

Chat forces the bathroom window open and squeezes his way out, tumbling out onto the street right in front of the Bookworm.

He stands and dusts off his hands. “You know,” he drawls. “I was having a really nice night before you showed up.” He glares at them for a moment before he leaps into action, hoping that Ladybug is nearby, because he has to apologize to Nino for skipping out on their date.

It doesn’t take Ladybug and Chat too long to defeat the Bookworm.

They stand on the roof, looking out over the rooftops of Paris. The lights of the streets against the colors of the sky is something else. Artistic and beautiful and all that.

“So,” Chat says suddenly, “how’d you get here so quickly?”

Ladybug looks to him in confusion. “What do you mean? You were here first?”

Chat shrugs. “Yeah, but I know what I was doing. I have no clue what you do with your time.” He looks to Ladybug with large, questioning eyes.

They’re weirdly familiar.

Ladybug shrugs. There’s no real reason to soften it, no matter how Chat might feel. He knows at some point Chat had feelings for him but… “I was on a date,” he says simply.

Chat perks up a surprising amount. “No way! So was I!”

Ladybug blinks. “You…were?” He glances toward the restaurant across the street. “What were you doing?”

“Getting dinner. Or, you know, starting to when…” Chat hooks his thumbs together to make a butterfly. “Only got to the drinks part of dinner. You?”

“Same here.” Ladybug throws his yoyo up and down a few times. “Feel kind of bad for abandoning my date.”

Chat sighs. “Yeah mine was…kind of a mess.”

Ladybug frowns. “What happened? Bad date?”

Chat shakes his head. “No it was… I mean, it wasn’t the most ideal situation, which made it kind of a mess.” He shrugs. “I asked out my best friend.” Ladybug whistles lowly and Chat winces. “Yeah but it was like… I wanted to ask him out for a while, but I was kind of scared because…friends have never been part of my life before, you know?”

Ladybug didn’t know, actually. They don’t talk about their personal lives, it’s just not how they roll. He tries not to stare too much as Chat continues on.

“So not only was I trying to figure out a way to ask him out without potentially ruining our friendship, but that would also mean coming out and I wasn’t really sure if I was ready for that and then—” Chat laughs awkwardly. “Then one of my old friends asked me out to dinner.”

Ladybug’s yoyo hits his hand and then clatters to the ground when he doesn’t throw it.

Chat rubs the back of his neck and stares out across the skyline. “She asked me to dinner tonight and I’m kind of working through something with her, so I panicked, and he was there so I just…”

Ladybug stares at him, frozen in place. There’s no way, right? Chat can’t be— But it’s so specific, and there’s no way this is a common thing.

“We were having dinner nearby,” Chat says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Restaurant Lasserre. Which Ladybug only knows because they were there together .

“I, uh, gotta go,” Ladybug says. He ignores Chat’s questioning look and spins away, shouting, “Have to check on my date, bye!” over his shoulder and running down the length of the roof before leaping off. He throws his yoyo and swings around the corner, trying to keep from panicking until he’s somewhere other than a hundred feet above the city.

He drops to the ground in an emptier part of Paris, earrings beeping. He ducks into a dark alleyway and detransforms in the darkness, slumping against the brick wall.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes a deep breath and pulls it out, squinting at Adrien’s text in the darkness.

From: model boy
To: mixtape master
     Hey are you okay?? I didn’t see you leave

Nino closes his eyes tightly and presses the screen to his forehead.

This is a mess. His entire life is a goddamn mess .

“Are you okay, Nino?” Tikki asks, pressing her paws to Nino’s nose.

“Adrien is Chat Noir.”

It feels weird saying outloud. Part of him feels like…he already should’ve known this? Or something? It’s kind of like a weight off his shoulders as an anchor drags him down.

Adrien is Chat Noir. Of course he is.

Tikki hums in agreement. “Yes he is.”

Nino cracks open an eye. “You knew?”

She smiles sheepishly. “Yeah.”

He groans and hits his head against the wall.

“Careful!”

“You know he has the biggest crush on Ladybug, right?” Nino mumbles.

“ You’re Ladybug,” Tikki points out.

“Yeah but—”

She crosses her arms. “Nino Lahiffe, we are not having this conversation in a dirty back alley. If you’re going to put yourself down, at least do it while on a full stomach.”

Nino takes a deep breath and pushes away from the wall. “Yeah, yeah you’re right. Let’s go home.”

He tries to stay positive, but it’s a long walk and Adrien has always been the more optimistic one in their relationship.

“What did I do wrong?” Adrien checks his phone again as he paces around the room, Plagg lazily floating behind him. “I don’t know— What did I do?”

Plagg yawns. “I don’t know. You’re the genius here.”

“ Plagg .”

Plagg floats toward the computer. “My fee is one piece of camembert per hint.”

Adrien tugs his hands through his hair. First, Ladybug bolts. Then Nino ignores him. He can deal with Ladybug later, but right now he really just wants to know if Nino is okay.

The rational part of him is saying ‘yes, of course Nino is okay, Ladybug fixes everything!’ The irrational part of him has been loudly freaking out for over an hour.

“Think about what you said to Ladybug,” Plagg says, voice flat. “Anything stick out to you?”

Adrien sinks into the chair in front of his computer. “I don’t know? I told him about my date with Nino? But I didn’t use names or anything—”

Plagg groans loudly.

Adrien spins around. “Is it something I said? When I was telling him about the date?” He chews on his lip as he tries to remember the conversation. Ladybug had seemed sort of weird when he was describing the events that lead up to the date but… “Ladybug is Nino’s friend,” he says slowly. “Do you think he knows— Would Nino have told him—?”

“How can you be missing something so obvious ?” Plagg asks. “It’s literally staring you in the face .”

“What do you—”

Plagg flies over and yanks on Adrien’s hair until Adrien turns the chair to face the computer. The Ladyblog is up on the monitor, like it usually is. Right now, a video from the Pharaoh is playing silently.

Adrien shakes his head and looks to Plagg, who’s sitting next to the mouse. “Well if it’s really that obvious , I think you’re going to have to hit me with it a little harder.”

Plagg scowls and hits the mouse.

Adrien glances up to find himself staring at a hi-res picture of Ladybug. An incredible closeup that he can only thank Alya’s surprisingly good camera phone for. He finds himself staring into Ladybug’s eyes, something he’s spent way too long doing, when he suddenly gets the strangest feeling of familiarity. And a different type than the usual.

He’s seen those eyes before, behind something other than a mask.

He hears Ladybug’s voice in his mind, but it’s not the Ladybug from the videos or the Ladybug in his mind, it’s—

Adrien shoves away from his keyboard, almost falling backward in his chair as he does so. As soon as he regains his balance and his senses, he pulls himself closer again and types rapidly. He searches the Ladyblog, watching the people in the background instead of just Ladybug for once. The one person he’s never noticed was missing before.

The ‘Could You Be Ladybug?’ link in the upper righthand corner catches Adrien’s eye. He’s never bothered to click it before; Ladybug didn’t want him knowing who he was, so Adrien never tried to find out. But now—

He clicks the link and opens up a digital yearbook Alya had thrown together for everyone in the class while the page loads. He screenshots the picture and closes it, uploading Nino’s yearbook picture to the Ladyblog.

Adrien takes a few slow breaths as the little yoyo loading icon spins in and out. And in and out. In and out. In and out.

The yoyo vanishes. And Ladybug is smirking at him as he poses for a school picture.

Nino groans and pulls his pillow over his face. He’s about to complain to Tikki that he doesn’t want to be awake right now when she shushes him.

He lifts the pillow and squints into the darkness, looking over to glowing red numbers next to his bed. 24:37. He sits up and looks to Tikki when a dark shape lands on his balcony, catching his attention.

He’s about to go into fight or flight mode when he sees the cat ears against the dim glow of the city and realizes the footsteps are too light for anyone other than a feline superhero.

Tikki hovers by Nino’s shoulder and whispers. “He said he was coming a few minutes ago. I thought we had more time before— I’m sorry.”

Still half asleep, he pats the top of her head with a finger and says, “It’s chill. Gotta do it eventually, you know?” He throws off his covers and almost trips over the cable of his laptop charger, running a hand through his hair.

Nino pulls the balcony door open and Chat’s ears flick toward him.

It’s kind of cold out. Nino’s arms are covered in tiny goosebumps and he finds himself thinking that Chat probably shouldn’t remember his address still but— yeah. It makes sense that Chat knows.

Chat turns to look at him, eyes glowing in the darkness. He tilts his head at Nino, like he’s trying to piece something together. Which doesn’t make sense, because don’t they know everything now? All cards on the table?

Nino takes a few steps out on the balcony. The distance between them feels sort of impersonal. Too big for two people who are supposed to be best friends and went on a date a few hours ago, fake as it might have been.

They’re close enough that Nino could reach out and touch him. So he does. Just to make sure that Chat is actually there and he’s not dreaming or hallucinating or something. There’s a lot of magic in his life right now.

Nino’s palm presses against the textured spandex of Chat’s suit.

He’s definitely real. They’re doing this.

They stare at each other for a few moments, Nino’s hand on Chat’s chest and Chat’s eyes bright green and questioning.

“I don’t know what to do, LB,” Chat whispers. He looks away from Nino and down at his feet, ears pressed flat against his hair.

Nino pulls his hand back, not really sure what to do either. So he does what he always does when he’s not sure how to react to Adrien. He hugs him.

Nino wraps his arms around Chat’s neck and pulls him close, burying his face in Chat’s ridiculous, windswept superhero hair. Chat hugs him back, squeezing him tightly as ever, like Nino’s going to disappear from his arms or something.

This is whole thing was kind of a mess, wasn’t it? Chat falling for Ladybug, Nino being Ladybug. Nino falling for Adrien, Adrien being Chat. A weird love circle. Pretty messy and totally pointless.

It’s funny, because they probably could’ve and should’ve figured this out earlier. But they didn’t and now they have lost time to make up for.

So Nino pulls away and presses his lips against Chat’s and he’s sort of terrified but mostly just relieved. Because there’s no longer a circle of love, there’s just the two of them.

His lips taste like euphoria, like the feeling in the pit of Nino’s stomach when he reaches the top of the roller coaster and knows the drop was coming.

Chat is still for a moment and then he’s kissing Nino back, lips soft and hands gripping Nino’s shirt. There’s a flash of light that Nino sees behind closed eyelids, and he pulls away to see Adrien standing in front of him, breathless and smiling and perfect in all his imperfections.

Adrien cups Nino’s face in his hands and kisses him again, smiling widely against Nino’s lips.

“Did you know,” Nino asks when Adrien breaks the kiss, “that I have like, a really really big crush on you?”

Adrien presses their noses together. “That’s kind of gay.”

Nino laughs against Adrien’s lips before kissing him again and again. There’s nothing he wants more in the world than to be able to keep kissing Adrien Agreste under the starry night sky until the end of time.