Part 7

Word Count: 4181

Marinette, well, Ladybug got up from Adrien's bed, wiped her tears away before she looked through his room. Only then she had noticed, she'd never really been inside his room.

She had been inside a couple of times, but never long enough to actually look around. She had always wanted this to be his own private space, and she'd never invalidate his privacy.

He also never entered her room, which was only beneficial for her regarding to her being the guardian of the Miracle Box. The Kawmis did whatever they wanted, flew out of the box whenever, especially when Marinette wasn't there. Knowing Adrien would never just walk inside her room, she was sure he'd never found out about her identity, and her being the guardian as well.

She took a good look around his room, not finding anything odd, but she had also expected more, well, fanciness.

His room was big, had everything one needed. A huge bed, a couch on the other side of the room with right in front of it, a desk with his computer screens, a huge bookshelf, and even more stuff that was unnecessary to mention.

One thing that did surprise her though, he had tons of pictures hung up and sat on his desk in frames. Mostly ones with Marinette, a few with Nino, Alya and Kagami, even Luka. And of course a few of his mother, but not one picture showed him with his father.

She walked closer to his desk, taking a seat on his desk chair, taking one of the pictures into her hands.

The frame was golden, every other frame on the desk was white, only this one was in gold. It was turned around, as if Adrien didn't want anyone to see it. The backside of the frame had 'I love you' written over it, his handwriting.

She slowly turned it around, her eyes widening in surprise before her face softened immediately.

It was a picture of Marinette and Adrien, she couldn't even remember it was taken. It was the very first day they met. School was over and Marinette was about to exit the school, but it was raining and she hadn't had an umbrella with her.

Adrien was supposed to be the new student, but he never showed up to school that day until it was over. Marinette was just about to exit the school when Adrien was making his way up the stairs towards the entrance.

He smiled at Marinette from afar, chuckling even as he realised she didn't want to get wet from the rain.

"Are you made of sugar?" Adrien had asked her, not even knowing her yet and without anything else before that, "you certainly look like you are."

He gave her the biggest smile possible as he held his umbrella out to her. Marinette was just blushing as she carefully took the umbrella into her hand. Their hands touched, she was giving him a small smile while he continued to smile brightly, with bright, emerald green shinning eyes.

And that very moment was captured on camera, the very moment Marinette fell in love with a guy she had never met before, a guy she had not even known his name of before.

She smiled, yet tears were running down her face as this memory run through her head.

Marinette was wondering one thing though, if Adrien was Chat Noir, and Chat Noir had just recently found out Marinette was Ladybug, then why would he have written 'I love you' onto the back of the frame with a picture of Adrien and Marinette?

With the picture still in her hands, Ladybug went back to sit on Adrien's bed, continuing to stare at it with tears in her eyes.

"L-Ladybug?" an only too familiar voice then streamed through her ears.

She looked up from the picture, her eyes following the figure of a young man up until her eyes met his.

"Adrien," she was shocked, but immediately jumped off them bed to run into his arms, pressing her head right into his chest.

He was confused, yet tried not to let her notice it, she did anyway.

"Right," Ladybug mumbled against his chest, "Tikki, spots off."

Adrien's eyes widened, yet he immediately wrapped his arms around Marinette, pressing her against him tightly.

"Marinette, you-" he tried to say but failed as he was at a loss of words, "wh-what are you doing in my room?"

Marinette just would not let go of him, she was happy he was still around, yet at the same time it meant Chat Noir was definitely not Adrien, which then again made her upset since she had hoped it was Adrien all along.

"You're alive," she said happily, yet in a teary voice.

"I sure am?" Adrien said in a more questioning way.

And finally, Marinette would pull away from the hug, looking up into his eyes, seeing his visible confusion yet she was too exhausted to explain her behaviour.

"Are you okay, Mari?" Adrien asked, noticing her rosy and wet cheeks, red and puffy wet eyes, her swollen lips from biting onto it too much and her reddened nose.

She shook her head no, trying so hard not to start to cry once more.

"What happened?" He asked, intertwining their hands, luckily not the one she'd still hold the picture in, leading her towards his bed

They sat down. At first Marinette just sat on the edge of his bed but he would quickly pull her right onto his lap, tugging the few hair strands from her behind her ear.

Since she had the picture of Adrien and her still in his hands, she would try to hide it, but he had already seen it the second he walked into his own room.

He gave her a small smile as he turned the frame over, revealing the picture.

"You know, it's my favourite picture of us," he said in a soft tone, smiling at the memory.

"I'm sorry, Adrien. I- I didn't mean to invalidate your privacy," Marinette apologised, but Adrien just shrugged it off.

"I'm not hiding anything from you, Marinette. You could snoop around all you want for I care," he chuckled lightly, his eyes never leaving the picture.

"Why does it say," she turned the frame back around, revealing the handwritten 'I love you' on it, "that?" She pointed to the words.

"Cause I do," he said it as if it was the most normal thing ever to him, as if he had always known he was destined to love her.

"Adrien," Marinette began, "I- I thought you had a girlfriend?"

Suddenly his face dropped into a sad expression, which she luckily did not see.

He would have loved to tell her everything, but he couldn't, it was too dangerous. He knew Marinette was hurting, deeply. He knew watched her from afar as she'd been standing in the house, falling down to the floor as she'd think she had just lost the love of her life. And it hurt him. It hurt him to see her hurting, but he couldn't change it yet.

The fight with his father had him realise that if he'd ever find out who Ladybug was, Gabriel would try everything to get his Miraculous back, even if that meant killing his own son.

Knowing Marinette, if she knew Adrien was Chat Noir, she would ask him about everything, and he simply couldn't lie to her about it. She would go to see Gabriel and fight him, but she would be too emotionally involved to have a clear head, leading to Gabriels win.

So for now, until Adrien had figured out a plan, he would have to hide.

Anyway, Marinette's question brought up something he had not thought through. He was still dating her, but he also was not. In her eyes, Chat Noir was dead, as so was their relationship with it.

Adrien now had the chance to date Marinette, and he would not even have to hide his feelings for her, but he knew getting Marinette to like him back wouldn't be an easy fight.

"Let's watch a movie, alright? I think you could use a bit of cheering up tonight," Adrien smiled, before carefully pushing Marinette off of his legs, getting up and walking towards his room door immediately after.

"Where are you going?" Marinette asked.

"Getting some.. things," he said as he walked away into the kitchen.

Adrien hurried to grab a package of Ben&Jerry's ice cream and two spoons. Marinette went grocery shopping the other day, which meant there was quite the amount of flavours to choose from.

There were too many flavours to choose from, so Adrien actually had to use his brain to figure out which one would be the kind Marinette was in the mood for right now.

Well, if her current mood was an ice cream flavour, it would probably be tasting nasty; salty with a hitch of century egg, some chilly and probably vomit or whatever.

Good thing this was not an option at all. Yet Adrien figured it should definitely be something salty and sweet, so Netflix & Chill'd it was.

He went back into his bedroom, finding Marinette still looking at the picture as if she'd been seeing it for the first time over and over again.

He laid the ice cream and spoons down onto his bed. At first he wanted to take the picture away from Marinette, but then he didn't really care about it too much, after all she was the girl he was in love with all this time, and if it she was interested in it, he wouldn't want to be the one to take it away.

He walked over to his desk and grabbed his MacBook before going back to Marinette. He scooched her over just a bit so he would fit onto his bed as well, leaning back into his pillow.

Marinette didn't move, she just continued to sit, looking down onto the picture.

"Mari?" Adrien said, laying his hand onto her shoulder.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes before falling down into his pillow, letting out a sigh. Adrien's expression immediately softened, dropping into a sadder one as he knew her stage was his fault.

"What would you like to watch?" He asked as he wrapped his arm around Marinette, pressing her closer against him.

She would lay her head down onto Adrien's chest, wrapping her arm around his upper body, even nuzzling her head against him for a split moment, making him smile only slightly enough.

She'd never been this close to Adrien, despite the Chat Noir him.

"Whatever you like," Marinette managed to say in a soft tone.

He laid the MacBook down onto his body, allowing himself a good view onto, yet in a way Marinette could also see everything, then proceeded to open Netflix.

"Why are we not using your Tv I never knew you had?" Marinette asked.

"Cause we can't watch it from here," Adrien would answer in a sweet tone, "it's not gonna be anything sad. I got it, 365 Days."

Marinette began to chuckle as he slapped Adrien onto his chest.

"Yeah, right. Watching 365 Days on Netflix, while eating Ben&Jerry's Netflix & Chill'd ice cream," Marinette laughed painfully.

"But at least it's not a sad movie," Adrien said.

"Have you ever watched it?" Marinette asked, knowing the ending of that movie.

"Only until after the boat scene," Adrien laughed.

"Pervert," Marinette joked, taking over to look through the movies that Netflix had.

"A California Christmas," Adrien suggested as Marinette rolled right past it.

"It's not even September yet, Adrien," she said, rolling her eyes.

Maybe Adrien was not the best at getting hints, but he was good at cheering people up. Marinette had not forgotten about Chat Noir, but she also didn't feel like crying anymore for that moment when she was with Adrien. In fact, he even made her laugh, a genuine and happy laugh, even though she felt like crying.

"Fine, what about Spiderman?" Marinette suggested.

"Nah, not enough romance," Adrien said, earning literal laughter from Marinette as a response.

"Hey, I mean it. Spiderman is so not romantic. Like, yeah, the one with Tom Holland has these very few scenes but not the good stuff," Adrien defended, earning only more laughs from Marinette.

"So, Adrien Agreste watches romances before he goes to bed, huh?" She teased.

"Or Porn," he said boldly.

"What?" She giggled, yet she was somewhat in shock.

"I'm joking," Adrien laughed along, "I just jerk off to a picture of you."

"ADRIEN!" Marinette exclaimed, hitting his chest, before bursting out into laughter once again. "That's so nasty, I didn't want to know that."

"Good thing that's not true then," he smiled, "No strings attached then," he suggested, pointing towards the movie on the screen.

"Fine," Marinette gave in, laying her head back down onto Adrien's chest, listening to his heartbeat more than to whatever was happening in the movie.

[watching the movie]

"Are you trying to get rid of us?" Lisa said.

"You look like a pumpkin, bitch," Emma said in response.

"See, romances are shit. She's clearly in love with him, and he's clearly in love with her, yet they fuck it all up over and over and over again," Marinette complained about the movie.

"Well, they're just friends with benefits?" Adrien chuckled, not understanding the problem.

"And yet after all that, they end up in bed together, again."

"Yeah, because there's no strings attached, Mari," Adrien was defending the movie characters, shoving the spoon into Marinette's mouth, feeding her some of the ice cream.

He then proceeded to use the same spoon, scooping some of the ice cream onto it and showing it into his mouth.

"Hey, that was my spoon," Marinette said in a babyish voice, faking to be sad.

Clearly Adrien had not seen the problem with that one, after all it wasn't as if they had never exchanged their saliva before, just that Marinette had not known of it yet, which Adrien did forget she didn't know though.

"You'll survive," Adrien said as he shoved another spoon with ice cream into his mouth.

"And that was my scoop of ice cream," she said in the very same babyish voice as she did before, not pouting her lips as well though.

Adrien looked at Marinette, smiling as he shoved another scoop into his mouth, licking his lips as he was savouring it, teasing Marinette.

"You're an ass," she said, leaning back into the pillow, crossing her arms in annoyance.

"I'll take that as you don't want another scoop then," Adrien said, holding the spoon with ice cream in front of Marinette's mouth.

"You've had it in your mouth," she complained.

"Okay," Adrien said, leading the spoon towards his own mouth, but before he would stick it into his mouth, he would look at Marinette and drop the spoon back into the bucket of ice cream.

"I don't get it. Sex between friends over a great amount of time cannot just stay being sex only, of course there's eventually going to be feelings involved," she complained once again about the movie.

"Yeah," Adrien agreed, as he watched her nose scrunch in anger.

It was literally the cutest thing to him. Whenever Marinette was angry, she would scrunch her nose subconsciously, which only created the cutest facial expression possible together with her furrowed brows and pouting lips.

"Hey, uh, Mari," Adrien began. She'd immediately turn her face to look at him, giving him a slim smile as their eyes locked. "You've got something," he continued.

Adrien would raise his hand to her mouth level, resting his index finger underneath her chin as he stroked his thumb over the right corner of her bottom lip.

He removed some of the ice cream that accidentally got left there with his thumb, then brought his thumb up to his own mouth, licking the ice cream off.

Marinette just gave him a warm smile as she thought that was kind of the cutest, yet also hottest thing she'd ever seen Adrien do.

"Adrien, you can't do that," Marinette said in a rather sad tone.

"What did I do?" He asked, genuinely not understanding what he had done wrong.

Marinette then proceeded to tell Adrien what had happened, after all she had just de-transformed in front of him, so it wasn't like she'd still had to hide her identity.

"I could see the pain and fear in his eyes. When I saw him there, reckless, buried underneath these wall wrecks, I just knew it was over, but I-" she couldn't continue as tears and uncontrollable sobs would take over her body.

Adrien wrapped his arms around Marinette, feeling guilty for what he's putting her through when he could easily explain everything to her, but he didn't want to put her in danger.

"Did you not see him walk away or something?" Adrien asked, knowing damn well she hadn't.

"No, Adrien. He was just gone. Literally vanished into thin air." As of this moment, Marinette was still kind of suspecting Adrien to be Chat Noir, after all they did have certain similarities.

She thought maybe Adrien had his reasons to stay hidden as Chat Noir, maybe he lost his Miraculous and could not even proof if was him if he wanted to. Yet, she was fearing he wasn't Chat Noir, and if she felt happy even after this, she would feel as if she was betraying Chat Noir.

But nonetheless, Adrien and Chat Noir looked a lot a like, not to mention Adrien had never mentioned feelings towards Marinette until now, suddenly just admitting to it when he found out Marinette was Ladybug, acting differently towards her since the day Chat Noir found out.

Adrien didn't even act surprised as he saw Marinette de-transform, kind of as if he already knew.

Marinette pressed herself closer against Adrien's body as she wrapped her arms around his neck, carefully sitting down onto his thighs, her legs on either side of Adrien's legs.

"Adrien?" She whispered his name, she just had to know one thing.

He hummed in response, trying to control his intimate area as he could feel Marinette slightly shifting her hips right over him, grinding against him only softly enough for a short moment as she would adjust herself on his thighs, which still had him feel his crotch being on fire.

"Are you in love with me?" She asked straight forwardly.

Honestly, she could not remember ever being this straight forward with Adrien. Sure, they'd lived together for a while now and she had learned to say certain things to his face, just like things that annoyed her about him or whatever he did, but never anything like, well this.

Adrien took a deep breath, not having a clue how this could have ever been so difficult for him to admit. He had told Marinette he loved her a million times now, even if he hadn't known it was her for the most part. But she was still the woman he'd loved, unmasked and without the complications.

"Adrien?" Marinette interrupted his minute of silence as he wouldn't answer her question.

She knew what this silence meant, she had practiced it for many years, even with Chat Noir. She had done the very same to him as he had asked her if she'd loved him.

"I know we probably will never get to be together, Milady, but I just need to know, do you feel the same way about me? Do you, do you love ?" Chat Noir said with tears in his eyes as Ladybug was about to swing off the room after patrolling.

Before they started their patrol, Chat Noir had confessed his feelings to Ladybug. She'd always known he liked her, loved her even, but he still had never said it to her face.

Ladybug stayed silent as she didn't know what to say, she knew it was wrong, she knew the complications wouldn't be anything Chat Noir was ready to face, yet she also knew he deserved to know the truth.

As Adrien still would not respond, Marinette decided to do what Chat Noir had done.

She pulled away from their hug, cupped his face with her hands, forcing both of their eyes to meet, although he still tried to look somewhere else to avoid her gaze.

"Speak to me," she said in a low, quiet tone, "I can't help you if you're not honest with me."

Why was this to difficult for Adrien?

"Mari," he began, wrapping his right arm around her body, his hand leading into her hair that tangled right down her spine, his other hand making its way down her side to her butt, resting on it as he would finally look into her eyes.

Their faces were only inches apart, both of them could feel each other's breath on their skin. And once again, Marinette would shift her hips over Adrien's crotch, making it really difficult for him to control his arousal this time.

Marinette could feel his dick harden underneath her, pressing right against her intimate area.

Adrien's cheeks would redden as he felt embarrassed for his body's reaction, well, until he remembered he had no reason to be embarrassed. He was, with no doubt, attracted to Marinette. Sure he could have tried to keep it in his pants, but why would he?

He wanted Marinette to stay safe, sure he did, but that didn't mean he couldn't be with her as Adrien. It did not mean he couldn't try to make her fall in love with him all over again.

And Adrien was going to tell her he was Chat Noir eventually, just not yet. But until then, he would somehow have to deal with random boners in the most inconvenient situations just because his girlfriend-/ex-girlfriend-/crush-/best friend-/room mate, whatever you might want to call it, was around, being her attractive self.

Marinette tangled her hands into Adrien's hair, scratching his scalp as she continued to just stare into his beautiful green eyes.

Her face moved even closer to Adrien's, their lips onto paper thin apart. Marinette was just about to close the gap between their lips when she suddenly thought of the what if.

What if Adrien wasn't Chat Noir? She would be kissing her best friend, when she had just lost her boyfriend over what? Death? Could she do this? Was this reasonable? Was it responsible? No, definitely not responsible at all.

But she could really use the distraction. But then again, if Adrien was in love with Marinette, and he wasn't Chat Noir, Marinette could never again feel the same for Adrien as she used to back when they were at school.

"I'm sorry," she whispered in shame, scooting down from Adrien's legs and continuing to look at the screen, praying the movie was over soon.

"For what?" Adrien asked, furrowing his eyebrows, laying his hand down onto Marinette's thigh, drawing small circles with his thumb.

"For putting you in this situation, Adrien. I can't give you what you want, I'm not sure if I'll ever get over Chat Noir, and I'm not going to play with your feelings just because I could use some distraction," Marinette said truthfully, laying her hand down onto Adrien's.

Whereas Marinette felt terrible about the fact she would have completely gone in as far as he would have left her, only for some distraction, Adrien smiled to himself, finding it incredible how much Marinette loved him, well, Chat Noir.

"You're not playing with my feelings, Marinette," Adrien then said, feeling his arousal grow.

"So you're not in love with me?" Marinette would crook her head to the side, feeling ashamed that she had misread his silence from earlier.

"Oh, right, I've never answered that," Adrien chuckled awkwardly.

He took Marinette's hand in his, pulling it up to his mouth before placing a tender kiss onto the back of her hand, just as Chat Noir would have done it at all times.

Of course Marinette immediately picked up on it, but she wouldn't question it, nor would she question why he would not just tell her the truth. She knew if he wanted her to know, Adrien would just say it.

At the same time, Adrien knew Marinette was suspecting something. He could see her brain work, working with the little information and puzzle pieces Chat Noir had given her to work with, and the add-ons Adrien gave, hinting onto it.

He could see her putting two and two together, wondering why she wasn't questioning it at all.

"What are you doing?" Marinette asked as she could feel Adrien's other hand slide up her skirt, tracing over her panties oh so softly that it would send shivers down her spine.

"You'll figure it out, I'm sure you will," he then whispered, not sure if he was talking about his identity or the very scenario going on right now.