"Merry Christmas!" six teens chanted as they pulled out the gifts they had prepared for each other.
Marinette would have preferred to celebrate Christmas with only Nino, Alya and Adrien, but the two latters had heavily insisted on inviting Lila and Lyssa as well and, despite her burning hatred towards the liars, she had been forced to accept. It was with them or not at all.
Luckily, they had decided to meet in a café next to the school instead of in her house. At least she didn't have to let them see the inside of her home, a place where they didn't have any influence. Still, she had had to find gifts for them as well. Choosing had been a difficult choice. She could have offered them a bag of trash for all she cared, but she couldn't do that in front of Adrien. Despite his choice, she still wanted to stay friends with him. It was something that she refused to lose.
The first gift Alya opened was Marinette's. Her eyes widened as they laid on the fabric and she pulled it carefully out of the wrapping paper with a gasp. It was handmade overalls that imitated the outfit of Lady Wifi – with a much better fashion sense, of course. The wifi logo was still placed in the middle of her chest, but from it flew gentle dark silvery lines like irregular waves to create small motives and slowly fade away when going down to the legs' part, making the fabric seem like it was glistening in the light.
"Did you do that all by hand?" Nino couldn't believe his eyes.
Adrien was speechless. He had already seen the gifts that he and Nino would receive since she used him, or rather Chat Noir, as a model, but she had kept this work hidden. And, even though she had explained in detail what she would do, he never imagined that it would be this beautiful. Honestly, he found that the villain's outfits were a blasphemy to the mode. Hawkmoth's fashion sense was terribly lacking, but Marinette had still archived the feat of making something out of it. And not just something, but something stunning.
Lila and Lyssa stared at the overalls with visible jealousy. Had they been a certain blonde with anger issues, they would have immediately started to plan ripping it apart and blame someone else under the excuse that it was too beautiful to fit someone like Alya. Or just called it a worthless piece of trash, just because it was crafted by Marinette's hands and belonged to the reporter that often stole her place as Ladybug's greatest fan. But they couldn't do that, not because it would have been out of character and mainly just a stupid thing to do, but because that would mean lying to themselves.
And, despite refusing to do so, they had to admit that there was something that they couldn't take from Marinette: her talent. Besides, the designer was smart. Even if they tried to steal one or two of her designs, she would always find a way to prove that it was hers. She wouldn't have survived Chloe's constant jealousy if it wasn't the case.
"Thank you, Marinette." Alya whispered and delicately brought the cloth closer to her with mesmerized eyes to admire every stitching.
Her friend smiled. Making the overalls had been difficult, but fun. She thought of them as one of her best creations. Watching the reporter's reaction, she wondered how the two boys would react to their gifts and slid the packages over the table towards them.
After seeing Alya's gift, they eagerly opened theirs, discovering a Bubbler-themed hoodie and a purple butterfly-themed jacket. Since Adrien hadn't been akumatized, she had added Hawkmoth to the villain's clothes collection for him.
"A Hawkmoth jacket? Adrien, is there something you're hiding from me?" Lyssa joked.
"Maybe I'll tell you the truth if you give me your miraculous." he grinned, holding out his hand like he was expecting her to take her earrings off to hand them over.
"Never!" she exclaimed, protecting her ears with her fingers, then burst out laughing.
The laughter of her friends joined hers. Marinette felt her heart drop when he reached out to ruffle Lyssa's hair lovingly. Unable to force a laugh out of her mouth, she opted for a smile. At least he was happy. Was that all that counted? No. She wanted to be happy, too. But it would take some time for her to accept this, to not feel her heart break a little more when seeing them, to grow over it. And there was nothing she could do but wait. Wait for her heart to heal, even if at the moment, it seemed impossible.
Her three friends thanked her with amazement in their eyes. She knew that they expected her to have prepared something similar for the two liars, but even if she had wanted to, she wouldn't have had the time.
"As for you, Lyssa and Lila... I'm sorry, I had to prepare this in a rush, I didn't plan that you would come along. But still, here it is." She forced a smile on her face while offering her ridiculously small present to Lyssa.
The girl took it with vigilance. Who knew what Marinette was capable of when it came to her? But all of her friends were here, she wouldn't dare to give her something suspicious. In the end, it would only be an excuse for Lyssa to steal her friends, too. But her reassuring thoughts didn't prepare her for what she discovered under the Christmas-themed wrapping paper.
"A ladybug-themed earring?" she said, surprised, lifting a single handcrafted dangling earring with a small red open-winged ladybug hanging at the tip of the metallic piece. Why would Dupain-Cheng offer her that? The gift seemed to be an ironic reminder that she knew about her lies. "That's really nice, thanks, Marinette. But... I'm really sorry, I don't know if I'll be able to wear it."
"That's not a problem." the designer grinned. "Earrings are really popular in fashion, and the more, the better. You can fit this earring with your usual one on one ear if you pierce it again." It was true. Adrien nodded at her words, remembering how his father considered letting his son pierce his ears, too. "But this gift only has a meaning if Lila opens hers."
All heads turned to the brunette, who hastily ripped the wrapping paper open to pull out a similar earring but with the face of a fox dangling at the end of the earring.
"Matching earrings!" she exclaimed with a smile. "That's so sweet! You've figured us out quite well, Marinette."
The blue haired girl smiled proudly back. Of course Lila would take this opportunity to make the people around the table believe that she is Rena Rouge. And, judging from Adrien's wide eyes, she already convinced some of them. But what she didn't know was that the real Rena Rouge was sitting right across her and glaring at the earring with jealousy.
Marinette wondered if Alya felt exactly like she had felt when the reporter had exposed her theory of Lyssa being Ladybug, weeks ago. Maybe it would slightly open her eyes, maybe she would realize slowly that what had been a theory was and stayed one without becoming a truth just because she wanted it to be. But she didn't want to get her hopes up: a single earring wouldn't change much, she knew it. But it was better than nothing. It was her way of fighting back.
"What else would I have offered to a master of creation and a master of illusion?" Marinette said.
Master of illusion, more like master of lies. But only Lyssa and Lila understood the real meaning behind the sentence. The designer noticed how Alya clenched her fist under the table when speaking. She felt bad for having found it satisfying during a second. Alya deserved recognition as Rena Rouge, not Lila. Just like Marinette deserved recognition as Ladybug instead of Lyssa.
The conversation went on, gifts were opened, jokes were exchanged. The laughter of the small group of friends filled the air of the café. Marinette received a pretty noteblock, some fabric of rare colors, a fashion magazine, an alarm clock and, surprisingly, a Chat Noir plushie. The last one was a gift from Adrien. She couldn't decide if his proud grin made the gift better or just worse.
She mentally decided that it was the best of the Christmas gifts she had received that evening. Not because it was Chat Noir merch, of course, but because it came from Adrien. Her choice had nothing to do with the hero, she convinced herself while mindabsently playing with the small cat ears attached to the plushie's hair, unaware of the model's eyes that followed the movements of her hand with a satisfied glimmer.
*
With a red christmas hat, Ladybug heard her partner land behind her, right on time. She turned around with a grin on her face.
"Merry Christmas!" she sang.
"Merry Christmas, M'Lady!" he grinned back, obviously hiding something behind his back.
But he wasn't the only one.
"Can you close your eyes for a second?" she asked. "I'll tell you when you can open them again."
"Anything for you."
He winked then did as she said. He could jump off the building with closed eyes if she had asked, but she didn't ask for anything else. Instead, he felt her move closer to lay something on his hair, installing it carefully to not twist his cat ears.
"You can open your eyes now." she indicated.
He did, lifting his hands to what was now attached to his head. "A hat?"
She nodded. It was a black bonnet with two green button eyes and cat ears that covered his own. Now he was a cat with not only two pairs of ears, but also four eyes.
"Thank you! The ears fit perfectly. How did you do that?" he wondered while planning to cherish it until the day he died.
"I have connections."
He guessed she did. Not too long ago, Marinette had asked him if she could measure his cat ears, as an experiment. It turned out it hadn't been just to satisfy her curiosity. Ladybug had probably asked her to do so. Which also meant that she knew that he visited the girl regularly.
"My turn." he announced.
She closed her eyes. It wasn't necessary, but he didn't let her know. He simply and delicately laid the gift in her hands and watched closely as she fluttered her shining blue eyes open and lifted the corners of her mouth in a gentle and adorable smile, trying to engrave the image in his mind.
She unwrapped the gift delicately, refusing to rip apart the silly wrapping paper with small cats wearing christmas hats, to reveal a book whose cover showed how she exasperatedly rolled her eyes at his proudly grinning face.
"A collection of Chat Noir's best puns and 10 reasons why his jokes are the best." She read the title out loud and bursted out laughing. "You know what? I've been exchanging presents with my friends, but this one is definitely the best one I've ever seen. And I thought I was good at making gifts!"
"Oh, what did you offer them, then?" he asked, knowing very well the answer to that question.
"Handcrafted things. A bit like yours, but more sophisticated."
She had chosen a vague answer on purpose, knowing that, if one knew about the gifts she had given to her friends, it was him. But he seemed way too surprised for someone who had received only handcrafted presents from her.
Handcrafted things? Lyssa had bought all of the gifts she had offered for christmas. He knew it, he had been there when she had bought them and given them out. Was she lying? It didn't make sense, there was no way for her to guess that he knew about her identity. Sure, there was Marinette, but she had 'successfully convinced Chat Noir that Lyssa was only acting'. Maybe she was talking about other friends. After all, she had had friends before coming to his school, other than Lila.
He stared straight in her eyes. She looked back, a bit surprised. There were the eyes in which he had gotten lost oh so many times. He knew them by heart now. But tonight, they seemed different. Not different from the ones he had grown to know before meeting Lyssa, but different from the ones that he stared into behind the mask. How had he not noticed it before? Or was he just seeing things? He found it strange but didn't dare utter a word. It would have blown his cover and he hated the fact that he started to doubt.
After that evening when he confessed, she had shared her fears with him. She was scared to not be able to share enough with him, to not be able to spend enough time with him. She was holding in so much and had to bear incredible responsibilities. He had promised that it didn't matter to him, as long as she was honest with him. So she had told him. She had admitted that she was Ladybug. He believed her. And, despite these strange differences, it wouldn't change. Because she deserved and needed to be trusted. And that's what he did.