Miraculous Reveals and More (A collection of One-Shots)

Broken Down: Part 2 (1307 words)

Marinette leans up against the wall behind the stairs, clutching her books to her chest. Tikki flies out of her purse, "Okay, so you just found out Adrien, the boy you're totally in love with, is Chat Noir; what's the worst that can happen at school?"

She could feel herself trembling ever so slightly, "Tikki, you don't understand, this changes everything! How am I just gonna walk into class and just act like I don't know Adrien is Chat? He has to know Ladybug knows! How can I face him as Ladybug?" She presses her hands to her face.

"Maybe it's time you revealed who you are as well?" Tikki says slowly, already knowing how that will go over with Marinette.

Fear takes over her eyes as she stares at her little Kwami. "Reveal myself?!"

"It's only fair,"

"But, but," her back slides down the wall till she is sitting on the tile floor, "Oh, of all the ways that I imagined that we'd one day reveal ourselves, none of them involved one of us knowing before the other, or ADRIEN!"

"Marinette?" The familiar voice sounds from around the corner. Alya turns to find her best friend on the floor behind the staircase, "Uh, need some private time or something?" She offers a hand.

Marinette smiles, taking her hand in hers to help herself up. "Yeah, uh, I just needed to clear my head" she explains, even though quite the opposite was true, with her head still swimming from the ordeals of the previous day.

Alya seems to accept this explanation for now, "Well class will be starting soon, come on."

As soon as Adrien sits down in front of her in class, she can't help but see Chat as well. How could she have missed it? Same hair, same green eyes, she'd been so blind. Her pencil absentmindedly taps her notebook, her mind far from the lesson being taught at the moment. Slowly she began to accept it, her ease in the presence of Chat Noir drifted into easing her reaction of being with Adrien. She had to tell him. Tikki was right, it was only fair.

'But what if you aren't what he hoped', 'What if he doesn't see you as Ladybug'. The thoughts swarmed her head the doubt. Her grip tightened on her pencil, 'No, I'm going to do this.'

The bell signaling the end of class shook her back to the physical world. Alya gets up from her seat, pausing a moment for Marinette. She waves hand, signaling Alya to go on without her, her eyes flitting to Adrien. Alya nods while giving her a look that says 'Girl, you better tell me everything later'. She does Marinette another favor by dragging Nino along with her, leaving the 2 heroes alone.

Marinette gathers her stuff quickly and jumps to her feet just as Adrien does. She touches his shoulder from behind. He turns, "Hey Marinette, what's up?"

Her heart threatens to jump out of her chest, as usual, but she finds her focus in the familiar green of his eyes. "Adrien..." all the rehearsals in her head meaning nothing as she searches for a way to form her words. "Adrien, are you busy after school today? There's something I need to talk to you about."

His eyebrows pull slightly together in confusion, but he complies. "Well my fencing class was cancelled today so yeah, I have time" he smiles, "Wanna meet up somewhere?"

"Uh sure, on the front stairs I guess" she stammers.

He nods, picking up his bag, "Okay, see you then." He waves goodbye and leaves the room.

She continues waving even after he's left the room.

-

The final bell rings after a whole day of tapping pencils anxiously on blank notebook pages. Marinette gathers her things quickly and practically runs out to the front steps, becoming one of the first to leave the building for the day. Realizing how early she is, she steps to the side a little and opens her purse to talk to Tikki. "I'm gonna do it." She swears to her Kwami.

"I think that's great, Marinette! It's going to go fine! Adrien will accept you as you have accepted him, I'm sure of it!" She encourages, nuzzling Marinette's hand in the purse.

She sighs, "I hope you're right." She pets her head and closes her back into her purse as more students start flooding out of the school.

After another minute, Adrien appears, watching her as he makes his way down the stairs, "Hey, so what did you want to talk about again?"

She opens her mouth to explain right before she's cut off, "Marinette Dupain-Cheng, don't you have some bread to burn or something back at the bakery?" Chloe cuts in between them, throwing an arm around Adrien. "Adri-kins, I heard you had the afternoon off so I was wondering if you'd like to come back to my daddy's hotel with me?" She turns her back to Marinette, effectively blocking her out of the conversation.

Adrien shrugs off her arm, "Sorry, Chloe, I actually have plans with Marinette." He looks around Chloe to make eye contact with Marinette.

Chloe is taken back, even surprised to see Marinette still standing behind her. "But, wouldn't you rather come hangout with me instead?" She throws her arm around him again, this time a little more protectively.

"That isn't your decision, Chloe." Marinette chimes in as Adrien backs up, letting Chloe's arm fall.

He shrugs, "Maybe next time" he says with a hint of a smirk on his face. This sends Chloe stomping off towards her car.

"I'm sorry about that," he rakes his hair with his fingers, somewhat embarrassed.

"There's nothing to be sorry for." Marinette replies sincerely, starting to walk away from the school.

It's a short walk to the park, the destination just ending up being where their legs took them. Marinette leads them to the bench furthest from other passersby, well out of earshot of anyone. "Sure is nice out today." Adrien stretches his arms out as he sits back onto the bench, "I feel like I rarely get to just sit out like this." He moves his eyes from the blue sky to Marinette, "I'm still wondering what you wanted to talk about that had to wait till after school to do so." He cracks a smile.

She turns her body to face him directly, her serious appearance bringing Adrien's tone down. He sits up, "What is it, Marinette?" he asks, slightly concerned.

She opens her mouth, "I-I'm..." her voice catches in her throat, finding that saying 'I'm Ladybug' is much harder in practice than in theory. She clears her throat and decides to go with another approach.

She lets her eyes drift to the grassy fields of the park, "You really scared me yesterday." She starts, vague. She doesn't bother to look back for his reaction, she just lets her mind play out yesterday's fight in front of her. "When you hit the ground like that, I thought you were gonna spring back up like you usually do, like you always do." She breathes out a laugh, "Always putting yourself in dangerous situations, you dumb cat.

"After the fight was over, you still hadn't moved-" her breath hitches, she lets it go, "Of course I thought the worst. Even when I saw you were still breathing; I thought the worst.

"I hid us behind that old pizza shop and you transformed back. Your Kwami said that you'd be fine, I guess he was right.

"I left you in your room and ran when you woke, I couldn't face you. But I am now." She turns to face Adrien and is immediately pulled into an urgent hug. He pulls her right against his body as she returns it.

"It's about time, M'lady."