The love square

The shocking truth

ya gave Nino a knowing look and he responded, "Glad after all this time you're finally realizing this. She's intimidated by you. You are THE Adrien Agreste after all."

Adrien furrowed his brows in confusion. "I figured that novelty would have worn off by now. It's been almost two years since I started coming here."

"And in that time, she's definitely come a long way, but I think that she's just still a little shy around you. She used to have a huge crush on you, it was pretty obvious." Alya stated.

Now that made a lot of sense, Adrien thought. Then something it him, "Wait, did you say used to?"

"Well to be honest, she probably still does, but lately it seems her heart has been elsewhere."

Nino nodded in agreement. "Well at least that saves you the trouble from having to let her down easy. As someone who recently got rejected, you should know how awful that can be."

"Wait whoa, back up! Adrien got rejected?" Alya said, a little too loudly. Thankfully, no one heard, except Marinette, but none of them noticed that Nathanaël had wandered off and she was listening in to their conversation.

"Nino! I thought I told you that I didn't want anyone to know that!"

"It's just Alya, she'd be bound to figure it out eventually."

"By who?" she asked.

Marinette sighed as she already knew the answer to that and left her seat to go and join Nathanaël, under the guise of asking him another question.

Adrien sighed. If he didn't tell her, Nino was sure to. "Just promise me you won't post this on your blog."

"WHAT?" Alya exclaimed. A few people looked over and she whispered to him, "wait, does that mean that you got rejected by Ladybug? Why didn't you tell me you knew her?"

"I don't really. I found her on patrol the other day and asked her out. She declined. Nothing more to it." he replied and looked back to where Marinette had been sitting, and noticed she was gone. He saw her talking with Nathanaël again, that feeling creeping back up in him.

"Dude, why do you have that look on your face again."

Adrien turned back around and sighed. "I don't know, I'm just wary of her being over there with him after the whole Evillustrator thing."

"She already turned him down you know." Alya said. That knowledge made the knot in his stomach loosen a little, but he still gave them one more glance. "Well I wonder if she rejected you because she's really in love with Chat Noir. I know I posted on my blog that it looked like he got rejected, but since then they've still been pretty close."

"She isn't." Adrien said with a sigh.

"What makes you say that?" Nino asked.

He was suddenly on high alert, having realized what he had just said. "Well uh, because... I asked her! Yea, when she turned me down, I asked her if it was because of him and she told me that it wasn't like that between them. As much as he wishes it was." He said, mumbling the last part.

"That's a bummer, but maybe she just said that to keep them a secret? There's total chemistry between the two of them. Chat is too charming for her to say no."

Adrien perked up. She was right, Chat was pretty charming so maybe if he visited Marinette as Chat, she would open up to him more.

Later that night, Adrien jumped of his balcony as Chat Noir, and leapt across the city until he was facing the Dupain Bakery. He knew from previous experience that hers was the top and he briefly considered jumping in through the window that he could see was open, but opted for knocking on the door to her terrace. He could hear her yelp of surprise and stifled his laughter. She opened the door hesitantly, poking her head out. She yelped again and almost fell down her stairs, but Chat's reflexes were too fast and he grabbed her arm.

"Falling for me so soon?" he quipped.

Marinette's look of surprise turned quickly to an eye roll and she pulled her arm out of Chat's grasp. "I wouldn't have almost fallen if you hadn't scared me half to death. What are you even doing here?"

"Can't I check up on my princess every once and a while?" he said innocently.

She raised an eyebrow. Why was Adrien doing this? He can't have figured out who I am so quickly, what does he want from me? she thought. Out loud she said, "It's been quite a while since you last came here."

"I thought I'd check up and see how you were doing." Chat said in a much more Adrien like fashion than usual. Or she was just starting to notice how much they overlapped anyway.

"Well I'm doing fine." she replied. For some reason, knowing he was Adrien didn't make it hard for her to talk to him in costume. She was relieved at this and asked, "Is something bothering you? You seem a little down tonight, and I doubt you're here for a visit without reason."

"Actually, I did just come by to see you. I enjoyed our conversations in the past very much, and decided I would like to talk to you more. That being said, I have recently had some... difficult moments to deal with. But I won't bore you with details."

"If something is bothering you, I don't mind listening. I'm not gonna go run and tell Alya about it so she can post on her blog."

Chat laughed. "I wouldn't think you too, but maybe later. Right now, I'd much prefer to talk about something less depressing."

Marinette nodded and tried to think of something that might cheer him up, even if she was sure that it was her fault he was like this. "I'm working on something new, would you like to take a look?"

Chat cocked his head in interest, and she gestured him to follow her inside. He had been inside her room before, but things were slightly more haphazard than the last time. There was sewing equipment strewn over most of the surfaces, as if she had been in the zone.

"My parents are out right now, so you don't have to worry about them coming up here. Sorry for the mess by the way."

"Not at all. I feel like I interrupted you."

She pondered this statement for a moment but shook her head. "I think I needed a break anyway. I've kind of been in a state of forgetting anything but doing work to try and distract myself."

"Something bothering you?"

"I guess you could say that." she said and her eyes flickered to him and quickly away. This didn't go unnoticed by him, but she continued talking before he could think about it. "This is the stuff I'm working on right now."

He followed her hands which were pointing to her sketchbook and the item lying next to it. "Is that a... rain coat?"

"Yup! It's for Alya, gonna be a Ladybug themed rain jacket for her birthday, it's in a couple weeks." She replied and Adrien stored that information in his head to make sure he got her a gift soon. "I'm working on some other stuff at the same time, but this is my main focus. That's why there's fabric everywhere, I kind of dropped everything to work on this."

He nodded along and realized he never knew how much work Marinette put into this. He saw the craftsmanship of the hat she designed for his dad's contest, and knew she had put effort in, but after having seen some of the designers in his life, he had forgotten what pure love someone could have for the work.

Marinette watched Chat, who had fallen silent to look at her things. She tried to figure out why he had really come here, to see her of all people. She knew Adrien had been paying closer attention to her, but Alya had confided in her, telling her that Nino had offhandedly made a remark to him about her. At that moment she also remembered how Alya had told Adrien about mega crush she used to have on him, and her cheeks went up in flames.

Chat turned around to make a comment about her work, but noticed her standing there, blushing furiously, trying to avoid his gaze. "Uh, Marinette? Are you alright?"

She squeaked, "I'm fine! I uh, I j-just, umm..." but she couldn't come up with anything. He looked at her and was reminded briefly of the way Ladybug looked when he realized he had been having an effect on her.