your children's father

Marinette Agreste wasn't sure how long she could keep this up. After all, how are you supposed to tell your husband of six years that every night since before they were together she had been running around with a leather-clad superhero in the dead of night.

She wasn't cheating–god, no–there was no form of infidelity going on, of course. Sure, whilst in the early years (and when she refers to early years, she means a whole three years) her feline superhero partner made a habit of flirting with her, but that had since subsided. Marinette assumed he had settled down also, and didn't wish to be unfaithful to his civilian romantic partner. Still, she couldn't help but feel that perhaps 'I'm a superhero and my best friend is also one. Also, he's fairly good-looking and he wears leather spandex' was one of the first things a woman in a serious relationship should tell her boyfriend.

Marinette wondered for a moment whether or not Chat Noir – whomever he may be – had told his partner, before having her thoughts cut over by her husband entering the kitchen.

"You've got a meeting, right?" Adrien said, with the body of a five-year-old sitting on his shoulders. The tiny girl was gripping onto his hair, though the blond didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Yes, a meeting of sorts. A meeting on the rooftops of Paris.

Marinette bit back the thought, and instead went over to Adrien to give him a slight peck on the lips. "Yeah, you okay to look after Emma?"

"Uh, yeah," he says. Emma's bluebell eyes widen, "Daddy's looking after me tonight?"

"Mhmmm," Adrien says, lifting the girl from his shoulders and placing her instead placing her on the kitchen's countertop, "Just don't be... too late, okay?"

He says this with a slight shiftiness. Marinette supposes he worries for her safety, wandering out on the streets of Paris by herself in the late hours of the night. To this, Marinette would like to say, "Psht, I'm Ladybug. Anyone tries anything, and they'll find themselves decked before they can say 'my bad'."

However, Marinette smiled on the outside, despite how desperately she wished to tell her husband where it was she was actually going. She supposed it was too late now; he would probably hate her forever, demand a divorce, and take Emma with him to live in London, or Berlin, or anywhere but Paris.

She checked the time on her phone. "Speaking of meetings, I've got to go-" she crouched down so she was at eye-level with Emma's hyacinth-like eyes that were so eerily similar to her own. "Be good for Daddy, alright?"

"I will." Her voice is small, but delighted. No – she wouldn't tell Adrien the truth. She couldn't risk it.

Marinette pressed a light kiss to her daughter's forehead, before closing the door behind her.

Ladybug had always loved the thrill of being Paris' own heroine. The sharp, cool air as it rushed against her face, cleansing all worries and fears like a natural-born ecstasy. She had grown dangerously confident with the everyday heroics–so much that Marinette often looked back at the fifteen-year-old version of her that had been so anxious to receive a miraculous all that time ago.

She perched herself on the rooftop of the Conciergerie, overlooking the Seine. By now, Chat Noir should have shown up. Still, he hadn't and she was growing steadily restless. Perhaps she could go home, it was just five minutes away. Just as she was about to head in the direction of Agreste mansion*, Chat Noir's feet touchdown onto the roof's surface.

"Sorry I'm late. Needed to get a babysitter."

This was the first indication of Chat Noir's personal life that Ladybug had ever gotten, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"Oh? So you're a parent, Chaton?"

He seems to realise what he's just let slip as his face twists into an expression that can only be described as "oh shit." Undeterred by this, he continues.

"Yeah, uh, my wife has a meeting and well... my daughter... I..."

Ladybug smiles at her feline companion as his words twist, like a rug pulled beneath him. "Yeah, I totally get it. Whenever Adrien goes out and we have patrol, I have the same problem."

It takes Marinette a few moments to realise what she had just said, and suddenly she felt her world come crashing around her.

Chat Noir takes a step forward, intrigue and total incredulity filling every fibre of his being. "What did you just say?"

Marinette is stunned for a moment as to how she could have possibly slipped up so easily. What was wrong with her? Somehow, her lips were betraying her with words she didn't think she'd ever say to her cat friend. "I said... I said that, didn't I?"

The revelation turned to a wide brim on Chat Noir's face – like a real Cheshire cat. "You said Adrien."

"I did, didn't I?" Marinette exhaled audibly, accompanied with a furrowed brow. She wasn't sure why, exactly Chat was smiling so.

"Marinette," he spoke. His voice was lowered to a near whisper. It was strange, she had never heard him say anything in such a way since they were teenagers and he had a mild crush on her superhero alias. It was only after she had processed the fact that he had said her name, her real name, that she said:

"How could that have possibly given me away?" she breathed, "Adrien is one of the top boy names in France. I could be referring to any, any Adrien. Just because my husband is the most famous doesn't mean-"

She's cut off by the fade of Chat's transformation. She hadn't even heard him say anything of deactivating the façade, but there he was. It was like the leather was melting off his skin in shrouds of green flames. It began with his feet, trailing up the length of his body until finally only his mask was left, and that was soon disappearing. Marinette wanted so dearly to shut her eyes, yet she couldn't seem to manage it. With a final flash of blinding light across his face, the face of Chat Noir was now the face of someone she recognised just as well.

"You're not referring to any old Adrien, Princess. You're referring to me."

To this someone would expect some kind of chat to take place. Perhaps a talk about how remarkable it was that they had such enormous amounts of chemistry that it made its way into their civilian lives. That would be most likely the image one would have on the subject matter.

That didn't happen at all, for Marinette had fainted.

fin.

author's note: yes, i know this sucks. i randomly came up with this idea after seeing some comic on instagram ages ago, and i only recently decided to write this. hopefully in the actual show it won't take the reveal fourteen years. also, don't ask me how ladybug hid a whole pregnancy. i have no idea lol.

* agreste mansion consistently seems to change location throughout the series. in aerial shots, it is allegedly located at place du châtelet, 75001 paris, france (from the wiki) however, that is a good fifteen/twenty minutes away from the eiffel tower which we prominently see is directly behind the mansion in establishing shots.