Disclaimer: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is not mine. I wish.

Chapter 20 - Broken Hearts Mended

This was it. This was the truth Truth Seeker needed most right now. What happened to Marinette when she disappeared? What kept her so busy all the time? How on earth had she escaped from that bathroom.

He kept his eyes locked on hers.

"The truth is," she began to say, and the elevator lurched all at once. Marinette tripped into his arms, and he didn't mind. Not really. Not at all. If she would just tell him what was going on.

He closed his arms around her and held her tightly against him, exactly the way he thought it should be. Exactly how he wanted to hold her. "Careful," he murmured, and she shivered in his arms as the elevator continued up.

"Adrien," she said into his shirt, but he ignored her and caressed her hair. Maybe it wasn't just that he needed the truth from her. Maybe if he told her the truth, it would resolve all his residual feelings for Ladybug.

She pulled back as far as she could, and he was not happy to see that she didn't look nearly as calmed by the embrace as he felt. She looked downright distraught, and his attention on the truth shifted again. Did she love him at all?

The elevator door dinged and Marinette took the opportunity to slide by him. "I need to find Chat," she repeated again as she moved past him. "He's the one who needs the truth from me right now."

Truth Seeker followed her. The elevator had let them out on the fabric floor, and the whole place was a labyrinth of fine silk, bright cotton, expensive wool.

"Just what truth do you think Chat needs to know?" he said as she passed the polka dotted material his dad had mentioned earlier. "What do you need to tell him that you don't want to tell me?"

She turned back on him by a buttery yellow silk.

"Why do you even think he's here?" he asked her.

"There was an akumatized villain here," she said simply. "And I couldn't find him anywhere else in Paris."

Truth Seeker laughed. "He could be anywhere in Paris. You didn't have time to check everywhere."

"I had time to check most places," she said and she frowned at him. "Look, Adrien, I know you want the truth from me, but the truth is that I love Chat Noir. I'm always going to love Chat Noir. Even if he never lets me tell him."

Truth Seeker stepped forward. "I know you're in love with Chat Noir, Marinette," he said. "But are you in love with me?"

She grimaced like she was trying not to answer, but the truth came out. "Yes," she said. "I am. But it doesn't matter. Chat is more—"

He'd been right. She did love him as both Chat and Adrien. He could wait to find out where she disappeared to. He needed to kiss her now. He'd lost too much time not kissing her.

He was going to kiss her.

Marinette hadn't expected her powers as Truth Teller to backfire on her, but now she felt like she was suffocating in the truth. Adrien was the person who'd kept her from understanding her feelings for Chat for so long. If she'd never met Adrien, maybe she and Chat would have gotten together right away. Maybe she never would have broken Chat's heart.

And pinned between Adrien and a bolt of cotton, with his damned green eyes practically glowing despite that purple haze, she couldn't look anywhere else. Because she had told him the truth. She did love Adrien, even though she loved Chat more.

It apparently didn't bother Adrien to come in second place. He was still leaning toward her. His chest pressed up against hers, and she could feel his heart beating as fast as hers.

Why did he have to be so Adrien right now? When the person she wanted was Chat, why did it have to be Adrien who'd found her? Why were all the guys she was into so obsessed with getting the "truth" out of her!? And why…oh why did she tilt her lips up toward Adrien?

Then she stopped thinking about whys, because he was kissing her.

Adrien Agreste was kissing her. The boy she'd crushed on for oh-so-long. Because he was so sweet and selfless and wonderful, always there for his friends, always caring more about everyone else than about himself, always so good in every way.

And so good at kissing. It was impossible for her not to answer those warm, insistent lips. The part of her heart that had been his since he'd handed her that umbrella years ago cut her mind off from her body and took complete control. She responded to him like she'd forgotten all about Chat. Like this is how it was always supposed to be. Her mouth parted easily, her tongue found his like it knew its way there already. Her whole body began to quiver, and it was a response to the him shaking.

Then he drew her closer with his arm around her back, and in an instant, Marinette's entire world turned inside out. Was it the exact placement of his arm below her shoulder blades? The way his fingers curled around her ribcage? The precise mold of her hand over his chest? Which one of those things did it? What made her think just then of someone whose arms she'd been in a million times before?

Was this her heart's way of making a decision for her? Maybe her heart was telling her now that she did love Adrien, but Chat would always win if it came down to a choice between the two of them, and that made this wrong. It didn't even matter if Adrien kissed her exactly the same way Chat had kissed her that night on her balcony.

Her world turned again.

He kissed like Chat.

She tried to pull away from him, but he only took her effort to remove her lips from his as a reason to brush back her hair and go for her neck, and Adrien Agreste was apparently a lover, and oh God, that made complete sense, if…

"Tell me the rest," he said. "Where do you go?" His mouth pulled on the skin by her throat and made her knees woobly. "Where do you disappear to, Marinette? You can trust me."

She tried to twist away. Her mind was whirling, connecting dots so fast she wasn't sure what was happening. Was it really possible? Could it be that this was why she couldn't banish either Adrien or Chat from her heart? And how was she supposed to process it all right now? He was going to consume her with the kissing. There would be a time and place for that…especially if…but first…

"Adrien, stop, I think we need to talk."

"I know. I know. I don't want lies between us anymore," he said, but he was still kissing, and it was so hard to think with his body pressing into hers and his lips roaming free. "No lies. The truth is worth the risk." He paused to take in a quick breath and move back to her mouth, and she was helpless, unable to take advantage of any of the brief gaps between kisses. It was unfair. He wasn't so immobilized. He was taking advantage of those gaps to tell her what he apparently thought she needed to hear.

"You need to know…and I think you'll understand…and then I need you to tell me everything."

She'd wanted that too. The truth. No more lies. The akuma inside her still wanted it. But if she was right, Chat had been so upset at Ladybug…

"Everything…might be too much," she managed to say.

He leaned his head against hers—one tender moment in what had otherwise been a sea of passion. "Marinette," he whispered, "why do I always fall in love with the ones who don't want to tell me their secrets?"

That was when she knew for sure.

Adrien was Chat Noir.

Adrien was in love with Marinette.

Chat Noir was in love with Marinette.

And that meant…he didn't love Ladybug anymore.

Marinette felt her heart crack down the center, and a pain she'd never experienced before made her clutch her chest while a purple butterfly emerged. The akuma.

Truth Seeker's mind registered what had just happened while his heart lagged behind. Marinette had been akumatized, and just like him, the akuma had made its way into her heart, and now the akuma was free.

Which meant her heart was broken.

Something about what had just happened between them had broken her heart.

They both stood watching the purple butterfly—apparently uninterested in flying away just yet-dance around them, and Adrien felt something terrible rip through his own heart. How could this have happened again? Why was he constantly hurting the people he loved the most?

A purple butterfly blasted up from his own chest, and he sank down in the pain while the two purple butterflies fluttered around him and Marinette, still standing silently while Adrien's heart threatened to stop beating altogether. What was the point of having a beating heart when all it ever did was help you break other hearts?

And how much did it suck that he was going to have to tell Marinette who he was anyway? He didn't understand much of what had happened, but he did know that. She deserved to know.

"Ladybug should be here soon," he heard himself say, his voice coming out as a dead pan. "I need to leave before she gets here."

This was it. This was when he told her what he should have told her weeks before, when he'd first learned that she was in love with Chat Noir. He took a deep breath, and—

"Chat Noir."

He looked up. Marinette was clutching her hand to her heart.

"What did you just say?" he asked.

She swallowed visibly. "Chat Noir," she repeated. "I called you Chat Noir."

She knew.

She half-smiled at him. "You kiss like him."

Of course. That made perfect sense. And he'd totally broken her heart with the reveal somehow. He began to stand. "Marinette, I'm so—"

She held out her hand. "Wait." She pointed at the purple butterflies. "We need to take care of these."

He was confused. "I…I can't. Only Ladybug can capture the akumas, but if I transform, I can call her, and—"

"Tikki, spots on."

Adrien felt the air sweep up around them, saw Marinette spin, and watched her transform from the girl he loved to a superhero wearing a red suit with black spots.

He didn't understand. It couldn't be. But she pulled out that magic yo-yo, opened it up, and caught one of the akumas, then the other, whispering "gotcha" before she put the yo-yo away.

He stayed frozen, crouched to the ground, not knowing how to face her while she stood there. Her. Ladybug. And also…Marinette. It was hard to believe, and then again, as he thought about it, it made so much sense. Why was Marinette always disappearing? Because she was Ladybug and she'd been busy defending Paris against akumatized victims. Why had she been so tired the last few months? Because she was Ladybug and she'd been doing it all alone. Why had she been the one to show up and save his ass after the first time he'd been akumatized? Because she was Ladybug.

But all those things had happened because he'd cracked. He'd let his negative emotions get the best of him. He'd abandoned her.

He'd been a complete fool. And a jerk.

If his heart could have broken a second time, it would have.

"I'm so sorry, Adrien. Chat."

He looked up. She was looking at the ground like the world had collapsed and it was somehow her fault.

"You were right about everything. I should have told you who I was when you asked. Back after we defeated The Fan Girls. I wanted to." She cringed. "I probably would have, if I hadn't thought of…of Adrien. Right then."

He snorted. "I cause problems no matter who I am."

She leaned against that bolt of satin. "How? You knew you were in love with Ladybug. You always said you'd love whoever was under the mask. Now you're in love with Marinette." She laughed shortly. "You were right. But I didn't trust my gut instinct enough. Because I was in love with an Adrien I idealized, and when I started to fall for Chat—dorky, ridiculous Chat, who never once let me down, who was always there for me, who completely had my back—I rejected what I was feeling. I made a mistake. And it cost me everything."

Adrien's brain was turning in a new direction. "You…you think this was all your fault?"

She snorted this time. "Of course it was. If I'd been honest with myself, I would have seen the real you in Chat forever ago. And if I had trusted you the way you trusted me, you wouldn't have been akumatized. Then maybe you wouldn't have stopped wanting to be my partner." She paused and looked far, far away. "Maybe you would still be in love with Ladybug."

"What makes you think I'm not still in love with Ladybug?" he asked.

"You said you were in love with Marinette. And you're…you're Chat Noir. I know what you're like when you're in love." She rubbed her eyes. "You only have eyes for the one you love."

He stood up. "So is that what broke your heart? Thinking that Chat Noir didn't love Ladybug anymore?"

Marinette sniffed and rubbed her eyes again. "He's my partner, and I need him back, and without him I'm not even half as good at the miraculous business, and I hate every second of it. And I love him."

It was weird. All this time, Adrien had thought he was only capable of destruction, and he seemed to be destroying everything in his life, but just now, he felt like maybe there was something he didn't have to destroy. Maybe this one broken heart was something he could mend…

He picked up her hand. "Marinette, I always told you, it wasn't the mask I loved. It was the girl behind it. And like you said, I was right about that. When I got to know you—the real you—I couldn't help how I felt." He laced his fingers through hers. "Don't you see? It's not that I ever stopped loving Ladybug. I didn't. I just found the real girl behind the mask and fell in love with her."

There was a glimmer of hope in Ladybug's eyes. "So maybe you do still love Ladybug, then?"

He lowered his voice. "I could never stop loving you, Ladybug."

"Even…as Chat Noir?"

It had been a while since they'd been together as Chat Noir and Ladybug in any way that would have made either of them feel good. It occurred to him now that they probably both needed that again now. He smiled at her, hoping this could all be fixed. "Plagg, claws out."

They were still holding hands a moment later, and her eyes softening at him were very possibly the best thing Chat had ever seen. He reached up to brush a lock of hair away from her face so that he could see those bluebells better.

"I can't believe you're standing here with me after all that time," she said while he smoothed his hand across her cheek. "I didn't think you would ever want to stand this close to me again."

He wanted to stand a lot closer to her. He wanted his arm around her waist. He wanted to be kissing her again. He settled for leaning in to kiss her cheek. "I shouldn't have abandoned you, m'lady, but I never stopped loving you. Can you forgive me?"

She put her hand on his cheek. "I have been wanting to tell you this for so long now. I love you, Chat Noir. I hope you can forgive me for not seeing it earlier."

"Well, it was only because you were in love with that other guy, right?" he teased very lightly while his eyes drifted toward her lips. "What was his name?"

"Adrien," she said softly. "Adrien Agreste."

He decided there was no good reason to wait and leaned in to kiss those pretty lips again, just once this time, chastely, but he thought it was called for. "If you forgive me, I promise only to make bad jokes about that now and then." He kissed her again. "And only to remind you once every few weeks that if you'd let me tell you who I was years ago, we both could have had everything we wanted a lot earlier."

She put both hands on his shoulders. "Of course, I forgive you, Kitty. And I wish I hadn't been so stubborn about our identities. But…" She looked away shyly, only briefly, then looked back, lifted herself up on her toes, and initiated a kiss herself. "I'm not glad it happened this way, but I'm kind of glad I had the chance to fall in love with you as Chat Noir. You're…not exactly Adrien this way."

"Sure I am. I'm Adrien with freedom." He curled his tail around her legs and she laughed into another kiss.

"Freedom to be ri-dork-ulous," she said, but he didn't mind, because it seemed that all these little kisses had led them both to wanting a series of much longer kisses, and soon Chat was in some glorious realm of heaven, where cats and ladybugs were magically together, and no one needed oxygen or anything pointless like that. Here tails were meant for coaxing the girl you were kissing to come closer inch-by-inch, and when you purred in response to things getting rather passionate, she didn't push you away or act like you'd done something wrong.

Nope. She just sighed and made a little "ah" noise that made you think she was rather happy with cat bug heaven herself.

Also, somehow, when she murmured "spots off," and transformed back from a superhero girl to a civilian girl, it didn't take you out of that heaven. Actually, it only made things sweeter.

"It's the most adorable thing in the world that you love me as Chat even when you're Marinette," he murmured into her ear as he moved from her lips for a brief moment to kiss more delicate spots of skin.

"I'm Marinette all the time," she said. "I'm only Ladybug some of the time."

He considered that, then decided it was time for him to transform back, too. "Claws in," he said, and then cat bug heaven was Adrien and Marinette, and he decided that he would be cool with any combination of "them," as long as they were together. He didn't see any reason for the kissing to stop just because their costumes were gone.

"So does this mean we live happily ever after?" she asked somewhere around the time when he was starting to thinking that he would like to stay permanently in this little heaven they were creating, and it was nice that they were on the same page with that.

"Mmm hmm," he hummed into a kiss. "With two kids…a dog…and—"

"I meant happily ever after until we graduate," she said with a giggle.

"You don't want a hamster?" he murmured.

She laughed delightfully. "Maybe we should start with smaller goals. Like finding somewhere to go other than the dark fabric floor of your dad's office building?"

"Is it dark in here?" He hadn't noticed. And he liked that when she laughed it gave him the opportunity to find new places to kiss.

"Really dark," she told him. "I don't think we'll be able to see to get back to the elevators."

"Lights are on motion detectors," he said somewhere between her collarbone and that perfect hollow at the base of her neck. "We probably haven't set them off in a while."

"Then we should set them off again. Because we can't just stand here all night kissing."

"Oh…" He really hadn't been thinking, had he? "Sure. We should find…" Well, of course he hadn't. He was a little busy for thinking. This had been a while in the making. "…somewhere better to kiss all night long…"

But where would that be? The floor, after all, looked kind of hard, and Adrien didn't think his dad would be cool with them making use of any of his expensive fabric furniture of any kind.

"There's the office with you name on it," he suggested. "Or that lobby with the comfy couches."

She was giggling more than she was kissing now, and wait…was she actually trying to make him stop kissing? Why?

"That wasn't what I meant, Adrien."

Oh. Well then. "I know of a few dressing rooms with really plush carpet," he told her.

"Oh mon dieu, are you…are you leaving marks on my neck?"

Yeah, he probably was. "Does it feel bad?"

"No, but—"

"Oh, good. Don't worry. You wear a jacket with a collar. No one will see."

"Adrien, stop leaving marks on my neck!"

"You want me to leave marks elsewhere, m'lady?"

"Chat!" She pulled away from him with what was probably a very great effort and the lights flickered back on, and he was pleased to see that her hair was pleasantly messed up and her cheeks flushed all pretty and her lips a little plumper than normal.

"Fine," he said, feeling very Chat indeed. "If you don't want to stay here, let's transform and go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower or something."

"Where I left your dad?" she said looking very scandalized, then very pale all at once. "Uh, I should probably go get him down."

Adrien cracked up. "You left my dad on the top of the Effiel Tower?"

"I was akumatized!"

"You are so cute when you're flustered."

"You are so…" she waved her hand up and down at him.

"Sexy?" he offered. "Persuasive?"

"Chat Noir all the time," she said, but she didn't say it like it was a bad thing. Actually, she was grinning at him.

"But you like that, right?" he said hopefully. "Because you love Chat even more than you love Adrien.

She rolled her eyes and then threw her arms around him all at once and kissed him again. "I think Chat might be the person you become when you feel like you can be truly yourself, Adrien. And I love all of you. Every part. But the truly you you is always the best."

"Um, excuse me," a little voice said from on top of a nearby clothing rack. "But if this is all fixed, do you think maybe you two could find us something to eat? We're starving."

"Plagg! You're ruining the reveal!" another little voice said.

"No way, sugar cube," Plagg said to the adorable pink kwami perched next to him. "This reveal was a smashing success." He flitted over to Adrien's ear. "But if you have some extra cheese, I'd appreciate that," he muttered. "It's been a while since me and Tikki spent any quality time together, if you know what I mean, and I could use some energy to handle that sweet little bug."

Author's Note:

I currently have a lot of sympathy for the Zag folks. It found it very difficult to write a reveal that would live up to all the tension that went into these characters not being together for so long. I'm not sure I did justice to mine. Also, I watched Oblivion recently, and I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but let's just say it made me extremely nervous for Zag about how the actual reveal might go. They have a LOT to live up to.

As for this story...one more chapter and we'll call it the end. Thanks for fangirling out with me for so long. I hope you enjoyed the Chattiness of this chapter.