...I got run over by a plot bunny. Whoops.
Enjoy!
Despite all of the practice Marinette was getting in with Adrien, she wasn't actually doing much better in her pun war with Chat Noir.
In fact, she was doing worse.
It wasn't that her jokes and pun delivery was suffering at all. In fact, it was the opposite. Adrien was an actual master of pun delivery and he was endlessly helpful with hints on how to stick puns into words smoothly. She was a fast learner- after all, she had been doing some low-key punning pretty much her whole life and she had been around serious punners the whole time- and soon she and Adrien were having entire punny conversations, much to the combined confusion and amusement of Nino and Alya. She had gone to every patrol and battle with a spring of confidence in her step.
This time she would definitively crush Chat Noir with the sheer number of puns she was going to spout. This time she would use Adrien's original jokes that he had shared with her and Chat Noir couldn't cut off her punchlines.
It would be great.
Except it wasn't. Not at all.
Somehow Chat Noir was impossibly more on top of his pun game, and he still anticipated her jokes. He looked startled every time she used Adrien's jokes, and he had even used some of the jokes that Adrien had sworn up and down that he had made up himself.
It was, for lack of better words, really weird.
"I know that Adrien wouldn't lie about making up those jokes," Marinette told Tikki as she sat back, momentarily abandoning her design homework. "I mean, one of the jokes that Chat Noir told last night was one that Adrien came up with right in front of me. It just doesn't make sense."
"Do you think that Adrien just thought that he made the joke up?" Tikki suggested. "Maybe he read it in a book once and forgot that that was where he saw it."
"That would make sense," Marinette agreed. "If it had only happened once or twice. But Chat Noir knows all of Adrien's jokes."
They fell silent, puzzling over the whole situation. Marinette could believe that Tikki might be right about one or two of Adrien's jokes, but even if she was right something still didn't sit right. It was something about Chat Noir's reaction, how he was just as surprised about her knowing the jokes as she was about his knowledge. It suggested that he thought that the jokes weren't common knowledge.
...like he knew that someone had made those jokes up just recently and hadn't shared them with many people.
"Oh!" Marinette realized, sitting up straight as realization hit her like a lightning bolt. "I know! Adrien said that he has a modelling friend that he punned with a lot. His friend must be Chat Noir!"
Tikki blinked up at her, puzzled. "What makes you think that?"
"Everything!" Marinette threw her arms out, thrilled to have finally figured out the puzzle that had been bothering her. "Adrien must use the same jokes he tells me with his modelling buddy, who is Chat Noir! So then Chat memorizes the jokes because of course he would, the dork." The pieces were falling into place now, so fast that they were making her head spin. Chat Noir kind of walked and posed like a model a lot- he almost always looked ridiculously good in their press photos- and he must have started young, just like Adrien. For as long as she had known him, Chat Noir had walked and posed the same.
She had just assumed that it was the cat influence from his Miraculous and Chat Noir's over-the-top personality. Him being a model made so. much. sense.
Adrien wasn't entirely sure what in the world was going on with his pun war with Ladybug. He had come up with a whole slew of jokes that he could have sworn he had come up with, ones that Ladybug couldn't possibly know already...but she did.
He couldn't figure out what was going on.
"I've only told those jokes to three people," Adrien complained to Plagg, who was studiously ignoring him in favor of a large round of warm, gooey Brie. "Nino, Alya, and Marinette. And Nino and Alya really aren't the kind to go around telling jokes like that. Like, they joke around and all, but they aren't the kind of people to go around telling jokes where others would hear them."
"Mhmmm."
"So that just leaves Marinette," Adrien said, flopping back on his bed. "Normally, I would say that she doesn't tell jokes either, but clearly that isn't true."
It had been a pleasant surprise to find out that Marinette was the other person checking out The Big Book of Puns, because now they could share instead of passing the book back and forth. He definitely enjoyed spending time with Marinette, and he had been thrilled to find a new excuse to hang out with her. Marinette was such a cheerful person to be around, and while she groaned and rolled her eyes at Adrien's jokes just the same way Ladybug did, she couldn't hide her amusement. He had to laugh at how disgruntled she looked whenever she mentioned the pun war she had gotten caught up in.
Really, what were the chances that both he and one of his friends got caught up in a punning war at the same time? It was a rather amusing turn of events.
Punning war.
The revelation hit Adrien like a bus, and he sat up so suddenly that he nearly fell off the bed. Of course! Marinette was in a punning war with a classmate, so it made sense that she would be using some of the jokes that he shared with her.
If it was only a couple jokes of his that Ladybug knew, then he would probably suspect that Ladybug overheard Marinette and her mystery classmate punning away. But it wasn't just a couple jokes, it was a lot of jokes...
...which meant that Marinette's punning opponent was Ladybug's civilian identity. Which, in turn, meant that despite all of her grumbling about puns, Ladybug didn't mind them enough to freely enter another punning contest without being bugged into doing it.
Hah. So much for her apparently feigned disinterest in all things punny. Clearly it was just a front.
Adrien snickered as he thought about it. He couldn't believe that Marinette apparently knew Ladybug- well, civilian Ladybug. What were the chances of that? It really was a small world after all.
And then another realization hit Adrien, and this time he groaned. He had been hoping to meet the classmate that Marinette had been having a pun war with (after all, he never turned down the chance to meet potential new friends and someone else with an interest in puns? Sign him up!), but now, knowing that it was Ladybug?
He couldn't. He couldn't ever meet Marinette's classmate, no matter how much he wanted to, because he and his Lady still weren't supposed to share their identities with each other. If Adrien had been younger, he might have ignored that rule. But he was older now, and better able to understand the risks that would go along with them knowing each other's identities. He had seen firsthand the kind of variety in powers that Hawkmoth could give to his akuma, and if they ever had one that had the power to make them tell secrets...
Well. Needless to say, Adrien was all too willing to wait until after Hawkmoth was taken care of to find out his Lady's identity if it could help keep her safe.
"Why did you tell Adrien that you couldn't come to his photoshoot?"
Marinette sighed as she slumped into the chair in front of her sewing machine. Tikki swirled around her for a moment before landing and perching on the machine, head cocked to the side in puzzlement. "I can't. I wish I could, but now that I know that Chat Noir is one of Adrien's modeling buddies, I can't risk it. I know a lot of the other models working for Gabriel rotate, but since I've been using Adrien's newest jokes and Chat Noir already knows them, that makes me suspect that he and Adrien regularly work together."
Tikki frowned. "But Marinette-"
"And theoretically I could ask him if the other person he's been punning with is there, but then if he said yes, I would have to say no right away and that would look weird." Marinette carefully started threading her machine, tongue sticking out for a second as she slid the thread through the needle. "It's too bad that he isn't doing the individual shoots anymore, because then I could actually tag along to those. But now that his schedule is more flexible his father has him doing shoots with the rest of the models." Before, she had appreciated the change. It had meant that when she tagged along, she could see more normal working conditions for photoshoots compared to the individual shoots that had made up the majority of Adrien's modeling gigs when he was younger. She had enjoyed being able to see how the photoshoot team worked together with the designers to keep everything running smoothly as possible.
Now, though? She couldn't, because she wasn't supposed to know who Chat Noir was until after they defeated Hawkmoth for once and for all.
Beside her, Tikki still looked puzzled. "But if Chat Noir is there, don't you think you would have noticed before?"
Marinette shook her head. "Before, Chat Noir could have been any number of blond, green-eyed boys in Paris. But blond, green-eyed male models around my age? There's not as many of them." In fact, she couldn't think of any other male models that met those descriptions besides Adrien.
Huh. Perhaps Chat Noir's Miraculous changed his eye color. She had wondered about that before, since obviously there was some change already- no human had naturally green sclera, after all- so really, it wasn't a reach to think that maybe his eyes were a different color completely.
Still, she was 97% positive that if she saw her kitty as a civilian, she would recognize him, especially now that she knew he was a model friend of Adrien's. Even if he didn't have naturally green eyes, the punning would probably give it away right off the bat.
"Really? You're that sure?" Tikki asked a bit dubiously. "But you've interacted with Chat Noir when you weren't transformed before- you even worked with him for a while, and he didn't catch on! What makes you think that it would be different for you looking at him?"
"I was purposefully acting ridiculous and over-the-top," Marinette shot back. She had been really concerned about that whole ploy, especially since Chat Noir knew her so well, so she had gone out of her way to act as awe-struck as possible when he was paying attention to her. She had slipped a few times, of course- when they were with the Evillustrator and she had to get them out of the box before the ship sank was the most obvious example that came to mind- but by then she had hopefully thrown him so far off the scent that he wouldn't suspect her. "And I knew that I was talking to Chat Noir. If I go to one of Adrien's photoshoots as myself, then Chat Noir 's civilian self would probably just be his normal goofy self, and then that would give him away."
Tikki didn't look convinced. "Really? You don't think that Chat Noir might tone it down a bit while working?"
Marinette had thought of that, too. "Even then, I would just have to spot the blond male model on set that Adrien's joking around with. There can't possibly be many of those."
Tikki had to concede there.
"Chat Noir and I will just have to defeat Hawkmoth soon before either of us can slip up," Marinette decided as she picked up a half-complete dress and started carefully arranging it on the sewing machine. "Since he's Adrien's friend, I'm sure he would fit into our group well." She sighed and pressed her foot down, beginning to sew. "It's a pity we can't meet each other now. I bet he and Adrien are complete dorks together."
What followed was several months of Adrien and Marinette dancing oddly around each other, each trying to make sure that they didn't accidentally discover their partner's civilian identity. Marinette realized a week in that she might accidentally have pictures of her partner as a civilian, since she had all sorts of pictures from various Gabriel photoshoots, both men and womens' lines (after all, she now gathered the photos for inspiration, not (just) to ogle Adrien, so it wouldn't make sense to only have photos of one Gabriel model). She panicked and had Tikki gather up all of the photos and hide them, so she wouldn't accidentally figure it out or give in to temptation and peek.
"There wouldn't be the personality clues, of course, but if Adrien talks to him as often as I think he does based on Chat Noir's pun knowledge, then he's probably in a lot of Gabriel photoshoots," Marinette told Tikki as the kwami carefully pulled a page out of Marinette's inspiration binder. "And I would probably notice that, even if I wasn't trying on purpose." She cringed as she saw the number of pages Tikki was pulling out of the binder "...I guess it's a good thing I'm not really all that into menswear."
"Can I leave photos with just Adrien in them?" Tikki wanted to know, floating away from the binder to inspect the pile of pages she had pulled. "And what about pictures with guys in them if the guys aren't blond?"
"That's probably fine," Marinette decided. "Chat Noir hasn't ever dyed his hair, as far as I know. I just don't want to see pictures of blond Gabriel male models other than Adrien."
Tikki nodded and went back to shuffling her way through the modelling photos, putting pages that passed inspection back into the binder before continuing paging through. As she finished, she frowned.
"Marinette?"
Deep in a designing kick, it took a few more calls for Tikki to get Marinette's attention. When she did, Marinette looked up with a start. "What is it?" She noticed the lack of pages pulled out of the binder and frowned. "Did you hide the pages already?"
"There weren't any, Marinette!" Tikki exclaimed. "There aren't any blond male Gabriel models besides Adrien! They all have brown or black hair. I checked every photo."
That made Marinette frown. "But Adrien said... Do you think Chat Noir does dye his hair and he decided to do it brown instead? Mr. Agreste might just not hire other blond guys for modelling since he has Adrien, so maybe Chat Noir dyed his hair so he could get hired by such a large company. Could the Miraculous make his hair color show up as the natural color instead of the dyed color?"
Tikki frowned as she thought. "I don't know, Marinette. I've never had a Chosen who dyed their hair before. It's possible."
"So that could be a possibility, then," Marinette decided. "Or maybe Chat Noir could be someone who works on set who used to be a model when he was younger. A photographer, maybe, or something. That would explain the model walk and why there aren't any blond male models other than Adrien and how Adrien sees him probably every photoshoot." She groaned. "So now I can't go to any of Adrien's photoshoots without having to worry about accidentally recognizing Chat Noir. Great." She huffed in irritation. "I liked going to Adrien's photoshoots and seeing how they were run. Drat Hawkmoth and his stupid coward self. If he ever came out of his stupid lair, Chat Noir and I could have defeated him by now."
Curiosity was slowly killing one certain black cat in Paris. Now that Ladybug's identity was so close, he really wanted to know. He tried to talk himself in both directions alternately, one minute arguing that he shouldn't even venture close to Marinette's university out of fear of spotting her with a petite, blue-eyed girl with gorgeous black hair pulled back into pigtails, the next minute arguing that there were probably plenty of girls like that on campus and really, what were the chances that he would spot Ladybug right off the bat even with the additional clue of her being one of Marinette's friends.
"Or she could be just one of Marinette's classmates too, I suppose," Adrien told Plagg, who was So Very Over the entire discussion. "I don't remember if she specified or not. So maybe I wouldn't be very likely to see her anyway even if I visited Marinette over there." He paused. "Or maybe I shouldn't risk it, I don't know..."
As it turned out, the decision was taken out of his hands. Nino and Alya had teamed up with several of Marinette's friends from university to throw her a surprise birthday party. They invited all of Marinette's old friends from lycée and collège, which Adrien did know about, as well as all of Marinette's friends from university.
Adrien wasn't aware of that part until he walked into the door and nearly ran over a blonde girl he didn't recognize. As he apologized, he spotted several other people that he had never seen before. All of a sudden, his gut clenched.
He might be meeting Ladybug in her civilian form for the first time tonight.
I should go, his logical side argued. I need to go before I see her, because it's not safe to know! Besides, she doesn't want me to know right now! It's not safe for us to know yet!
But he couldn't. Now that he was at the party, there was no way to gracefully bow out. Besides, he had been looking forward to the party for quite some time, both because, well, party, and because he always enjoyed seeing Marinette. He would just have to hope that Ladybug wasn't coming.
Adrien was on edge as more guests showed up, praying with each new arrival that they wouldn't be his Lady. When the last guest arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief. While Marinette did have a couple friends with black hair, their hair was either too long or too short, and their eyes were brown instead of blue. In fact, Marinette was the only one at the party with the combination of black hair and blue eyes, though she had switched out her usual pigtails for a bun.
"Ladybug must not have been able to make it," Adrien told Plagg as an update when he stepped out to use the bathroom. Plagg didn't appear to care. "I guess that's for the better, but..."
But there was a small part of me that just wanted to know, he finished mentally. A small part that sounded very much like his fourteen-year-old self. He knocked that part of him over the head and sent it off to bed, then headed back out to join the party.
There was no point in dwelling too much on it now. He had a party to enjoy.
Besides, they needed to defeat Hawkmoth before they could share their identities with each other. He could only hope that it would happen sooner rather than later.
"Wow, another generic akuma," Chat Noir taunted as he dodged the Grocer, an akumatized grocery store employee who had gotten frustrated with customers asking about a sale item that was out of stock. "Hawkmoth really doesn't have enough backbone to face us himself, then, does him? No change there."
The Grocer scowled and Hawkmoth's glowing purple butterfly outline flashed over his face. Chat Noir smirked, unable to resist taunting a bit more. "What, is the Big Bad upset with the truth? He's never come out to fight us himself. All he does is send one lame akuma after another."
"Well, obviously he doesn't want to fight us on his own, he sees what we do to his akumas every other day," Ladybug chimed in, catching on to Chat Noir's plan. They had both been talking about needing to lure Hawkmoth out of his lair more and more often recently, and clearly taunting the supervillain out was the plan of the day. "So he hides in his sad little lair and sends out minions to try to do his dirty work for him- try being the key word here."
"That's it!" the Grocer finally announced loudly. "You're going to regret saying that soon! Do you really think you can take on both of us at once? He's coming out, and then you will lose! Mwahahaha!"
"Time to end this fast, then," Chat Noir said quietly to Ladybug. He was completely serious, jokes and puns completely gone for now. "Take down the akuma, then retreat and recharge fast before Hawkmoth gets here."
"Done." Ladybug nodded sharply as she eyed the akuma. "The corrupted item is his apron. I'll call a charm, and then we need to move."
They moved. A minute later, the Grocer was defeated and Ladybug had moved her Lucky Charm out of the way so they could repair the damage after the fight with Hawkmoth. She didn't want to tip Hawkmoth off to the fact that his akuma had been defeated before he arrived.
Hopefully he would be too distracted to notice via his link with the akuma.
Ladybug detransformed as soon as she landed in the alley. Tikki already knew what was going on, and she made a beeline for the cookies in Marinette's purse and started scarfing them down faster than Marinette had ever seen her do before. While Tikki ate, Marinette pulled out her phone to check the Ladyblog. If there were any signs of Hawkmoth being out, they could make a beeline for him and catch him before he discovered anything wrong. With any luck, they could take down Hawkmoth today with enough time for Marinette to do the reading for class that she had put off in favor of calling Adrien up and trading puns for nearly twenty minutes before the akuma had showed up.
"Ready to go, Marinette," Tikki told her, wiping some smudges of chocolate off of the edges of her mouth. "I'm super-charged up, so I should be able to hold your transformation for longer after you use Lucky Charm. Only up to ten minutes, though."
"All right." Marinette pocketed her phone, squaring her shoulders. "Let's do this and finish it for once and for all. Tikki, transform me!"
As Ladybug bounded back onto the rooftops to join Chat Noir and head over to meet Hawkmoth before he could retreat back into his lair, she couldn't help but smile. Even though the fight was bound to be one of the hardest ones they had ever done, she couldn't help but look forward to it. It would be great to no longer have to deal with akuma attacks, of course, no longer having to miss class or be late to get-togethers. It would be fantastic to work their frustration out on the man actually responsible for the years and years of attacks, and at the end of the fight know that it was finally over, not just another chapter in an endless battle.
And best of all, Ladybug mused as she and Chat Noir raced over the rooftops, it would be amazing to be able to hang out with Chat Noir as their civilian selves and be able to introduce him to her friends. He was one of her best friends, and being able to see him more often would be amazing.
She couldn't wait.
A/N: The end for real this time! Did anyone REALLY think that I would actually do a reveal? :D
(I already did a pun-book-related reveal with The Cheese Project, if anyone is interested.)
Please review, it really makes my day! :)