Here it is, the follow up to "It Had To Be You." Part two of the "Out of the Bag" Series.
AKA The One Where Alya Can't Even Because All The OTPs Are Canon Now.
Okay, yes, it's five in the morning on a Saturday but that's no excuse for Marinette to not be answering her phone. Especially since the Ladyblog is blowing up because oh my God this is only the best news ever. Alya races through the dark streets of Paris to the bakery and breezes in to see Sabine stocking the shelves with fresh loaves of bread.
"Alya," she greets with a smile. "What brings you over so early?"
The established blogger and aspiring journalist is grinning madly. "I only have the best news and Marinette's not answering her phone, so I thought I'd just come over."
Sabine frowns, but then she shrugs. "I suppose it's alright for you to go on up. Do keep in mind she's had a few late nights working on assignments for both school and her internship. She might be a little hard to wake."
"All right, thanks!" Alya says with a wave as she cuts through the back of the bakery to the stairs. She races up them and throws open the door to the Dupain-Cheng flat and takes the stairs up to Marinette's room two at a time.
She's practically vibrating with this news. Five years, she's waited for this. Five years and now she has undeniable proof.
Ladybug and Chat Noir are totally a couple.
Of course that news is nothing compared to what greets her in Marinette's bed.
Alya knows her best friend well enough to know how a late night goes. Marinette barely gets her pajamas on before she passes out face first in her bed and drools all over everything. If she's lucky she gets the covers over her.
So imagine Alya's surprise when she finds that Marinette is not alone in her bed. From the looks of it a half dressed Adrien Agreste is there, too, and he's spooned against Marinette, who is lightly snoring on her side.
"OH MY GOD!" Alya shrieks because she thought the whole Ladybug dating Chat Noir thing was huge.
She was so very, very wrong.
"Huzzah-wha?!" Marinette mumbles as she sits upright, looking around in shock. Behind her, Adrien groans and rolls to his other side because Marinette elbowed him in the kidney in her surprise. She blinks and rubs her eyes, scowling when she realizes that Alya is standing at the foot of her bed. "Alya? It's five in the morning!"
"Yes, yes it is," Alya agrees, smile tight. "So maybe you can explain to me why a half-naked Adrien is in your bed."
Marinette arches a brow. "You're not my mother."
"But I'm your best friend and frankly if you and Adrien finally figured it out that you're perfect for each other I should have been the first one to know!" Alya retorts.
"Sorry, we're just…keeping it on the down low," Marinette shrugs.
"Nuh-uh," Alya says, shaking her head. "Not good enough."
"Alya," Adrien pipes up from where he's lying with one arm flung over his face, "can we discuss this at a later time? Please? We'd really like to get a little more sleep."
"What he said," Marinette says, jerking her head towards Adrien.
Alya lets out an exasperated sigh, but relents. "Fine, but you seriously owe me. A lot!"
"Maybe I'll arrange an interview with Chat Noir for you," Marinette grumbles as she settles back down to sleep. Next to her Adrien snorts, then grunts when her elbow once again collides with his chest. But on purpose this time.
When Marinette finally appears downstairs at ten-thirty, she finds Alya camped out on the couch with her laptop, doing her homework. It looks as if Sabine has prepared a snack for her friend, and Marinette sighs and braces herself for oncoming storm.
Because Alya's face is positively thunderous when she turns to her friend.
"Hey, you're still here," Marinette notes as she starts fixing herself a small breakfast.
"Uh, yeah. I couldn't just leave after what I saw," Alya says, pointing up at Marinette's room.
"Shh! Shh! My parents don't know and I'd like to keep it that way a little bit longer!"
Alya sighs in exasperation. "We still have to talk about this. I'll wait until after you eat, but afterwards I'm going full on Barbara Walters on your ass."
"Better than Julian Assange," Marinette mutters as she finishes fixing her food. The people most definitely do not have a right to know.
With a plate of croissants slightly warmed in the oven and a cup of café au lait in hand, Marinette leads the way up to her room, where Alya's completely unsurprised to find Adrien sitting at the computer, checking his email. It's part of the reason why she camped out in the Dupain-Cheng living room. To see if she could interrogate Adrien on his way out.
"All right you two, spill," Alya says, crossing her arms against her chest and glaring at them.
"Well, we're together," Marinette says before taking a bite of croissant.
"What she said," Adrien agrees, snagging one of the croissants for himself.
"That was painfully obvious from earlier," Alya points out. "Mind explaining how?"
Adrien and Marinette exchange a look. They discussed it some before Marinette went down stairs in search of food, and the goal was to give Alya the information she wanted without spilling any of the bigger secrets. Like the fact that Ladybug and Chat Noir had been right under her nose for the last five years.
"Oh, you know how it goes," Marinette says with a giggle that doesn't sound convincing at all. "I started interning with Adrien's dad and as a result was spending more and more time around Adrien. Sure it took a year, but I was finally able to hold a conversation with him without stammering and spouting gibberish and I don't know, I guess we got closer."
"Yeah, that," Adrien chimes in.
"The next thing I knew we were spending time together outside of my internship and here we are!" Marinette says with a flourish of her hand.
Every warning bell in Alya's head is going off. She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, sure. Now how about the truth?"
"That is the truth!" Marinette insists, and Adrien nods in agreement.
"Mari, I love you like a sister, but surely you know by now that I know when you're lying to me," Alya says. "So, can I please have the real story?"
Marinette purses her lips, then drags Adrien up to the loft for a quick tête-à-tête. Hissing and whispering is all Alya can make out, despite her best efforts to hear more. A few minutes later the couple comes back down and Adrien starts gathering his things, as Marinette grabs Alya by the shoulders and leads her to the divan and sits her down.
"Okay, Alya, I need you to swear to me, on Ladybug's life, that what we're about to tell you isn't going to leave this room," Marinette says solemnly.
Alya blinks. It's not that Marinette can't be serious, but she's naturally a joyful and bubbly person, so when she's this serious, something must be wrong. "Wait, did you two hook up one night and now you're pregnant?"
"What?!" Marinette and Adrien yelp at the same time.
"Oh God no," Marinette adds. "We're more careful than that. Give us a little credit, sheesh."
Rolling her eyes, Alya shrugs. Oh what the hell. "Yeah, sure, I swear on Ladybug's life that what you're about to tell me will not leave this room."
Once again Marinette and Adrien share a wary glance. "I suppose I should warn you, this is more show than tell." She grimaces, recognizing she has little choice in the matter anymore. "Tikki! Transform!"
Alya's initial reaction is to record this on her phone, but before she can, Adrien grabs it and locks it in one of Marinette's desk drawers. She goes to protest, but he grabs her head and makes her look at Ladybug, who is standing sheepishly in the middle of Marinette's room.
"What the hell!" she screeches. Both Ladybug and Adrien attempt to shush her, but Alya will not be shushed. "For years I've been trying to figure out the identity of Ladybug and there you were, laughing at me the whole time!"
"What, no!" Ladybug protests. "Of course I would never laugh at you."
"Oh please," Alya spits. "Five years you've probably been laughing at me. 'Look at Alya! She's Ladybug's number one fan but she had no idea that Ladybug is actually her best friend!'"
"Okay, before I can explain, there's one more thing you need to know. Er, see," Ladybug says. She nods at Adrien, who moves to stand next to her.
"Plagg! Transform!"
For the love of everything that is holy in the universe life is not fucking fair. Alya gapes at Chat Noir as he sends her a smile and a shrug.
"You two…" she says, pointing at them.
"Alya, you need to understand that we couldn't tell you!" Ladybug insists. "Heck, I didn't know that Adrien was Chat Noir until a month ago!"
Eyes narrowed Alya looks between them. "Is that true?" she asks Chat Noir.
"It is," he answers with a nod. "We sort of… revealed our identities by accident."
Because Marinette moaning Adrien's name while she was technically having sex with Chat Noir was totally an accident. Not that Alya needs to know that particular detail. Ever.
"And we decided," Ladybug cuts in, "that after five years of partnership that maybe it was time to really know who the other one was, though we might have had a few good laughs about how close we were without ever realizing it."
"So why couldn't you tell me? I'm your best friend. Or at least I thought I was," Alya says, hurt evident in her eyes.
Ladybug sighs as she sits down on the divan next to her friend. "Because up until a year ago, we were fighting a really dangerous enemy. You had already been turned into an akuma once; I didn't want to see it happen again. I didn't want someone to use the fact that you're my friend against you. Against me. It was hard enough the first time."
"Hawk Moth was…he was the kind of person who didn't have any sort of reservation when it came to finding the Miraculous. He preyed upon people's anger," Chat Noir explains. "He got you when Chloe had you unfairly suspended from school. If you knew our identities and you became an akuma again, he'd be able to come after us, our families, or our friends, directly. It has nothing to do with us not trusting you, and everything to do with keeping you safe."
"So you kept this from me because you needed to protect me?" Alya asks.
"Exactly," Ladybug says.
"I'm not saying that I believe you," Alya says slowly, "but I guess I can see why maybe you had to keep this secret." She then swats Ladybug's shoulder. "But at the very least couldn't you have told me that you and Adrien finally figured it out? I've been waiting five years for this! Do you have any idea how annoying it was to watch you two idiots tap dance around each other?"
"Uh yeah, actually," Chat Noir answers. He looks at the clock on the wall and groans. "Okay, I need to get going. Nathalie is going to start wondering where I am and the last thing I need is for my secret to be blown. Now, here's hoping I'm lucky enough to get home without attracting any attention."
"This might help," Ladybug says slyly as she leans up and presses a kiss to Chat Noir's lips.
"Oh my God,"Alya squeals and she really wants to take a picture because can you imagine that picture as the header to the Ladyblog?! But her phone is still locked in one of Marinette's desk drawers so instead just watches the smooch and swoons.
Chat Noir reluctantly pulls away after pressing one last kiss to Ladybug's lips. "Okay, I really need to go now. I'll see you later!" He scrambles up the ladder to the skylight and lets himself out, and Alya's tempted to follow him, just to watch him bound across the rooftops. But she exercises self-restraint (sorta) and stays in the bedroom, staring down Ladybug.
The red and black spotted superheroine sighs. "Tikki, release transformation."
It's kind of cool, watching Marinette fade into Ladybug's place. A little red sprite smiles shyly at Alya and waves, then settles herself on Marinette's shoulder. Alya waves back, and suddenly she's got a million questions and no clue if Marinette can even answer them.
"So this Tikki…?" That's good. Start with the obvious one.
"She's a kwami. A spirit of the Miraculous that gives me my power," Marinette answers. It's just the first of many questions that Alya has for her friend. Some are serious, like how did Marinette and Adrien become the ones entrusted with the miraculous, others are silly, like seriously just how great is Adrien's ass in the cat suit? Because objectively, as an observer, his ass is pretty great in that cat suit.
Eventually the questions dwindle and the two friends lapse into silence. They've been talking for almost two hours, and it seems like every other phrase out of Marinette's mouth is an apology for hiding such a huge secret from her. Occasionally Tikki chimes in, but the kwami is largely silent.
"So," Marinette says after all Ladybug and Chat Noir questions have been asked, "why were you over here at five in the morning anyway?"
Alya smirks. "You need to check out the Ladyblog."
Marinette groans, but complies. She really doesn't keep tabs on the Ladyblog because, hello, she freaking lives it. Reading about it in gushing blog posts really doesn't do it for her ego. She pulls up the blog, scans the webpage, and does a double take when she realizes what the top trending post is. "Is that…?!"
"Last night the heroes of Paris were caught having a romantic rendezvous on the Eiffel Tower," Alya says, grinning madly.
"Augh, he said nobody would see it!" Marinette nearly screeches. "I don't know why I let him…oooh, he's gonna get it!"
Vengeance will be hers.
"If it makes you feel any better, pretty much the entire city let out a collective, 'Finally!' when it was posted," Alya says casually.
"No, it doesn't," Marinette grits out. "I should neuter him!"
"Uh, no you won't," Alya says. "If things keep going like they're going, you have a very vested interest in those bits."
"Oh, right," Marinette squeaks because she'd be lying if she said she hadn't thought about dark haired children with bright green eyes.
"Exactly."
"Still, I can't believe it's out! Now I'm going to have to deal with questions from fans and the press and oh God, now they're going to ask if we're going to get married, if we know each other's civilian identities…ugh," Marinette groans as he closes the web browser and rests her head on her desk.
"I promise to avoid any questions about those topics," Alya swears. "Though I may ask if you've thought about what the children might look like, being half ladybug, half cat."
"Not funny," Marinette mumbles even as Tikki and Alya giggle.
"If you don't think that's funny, you're definitely not going to find your wallpaper funny," Alya says, causing Marinette's head to pop up. Instead of the collage of Adrien, it's the picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir's Eiffel Tower rendezvous. No doubt the work of her cheeky boyfriend.
"Stupid cat," she mutters as she goes back to changing the wallpaper.
"Hey, Mari?" Alya asks, her voice much softer in tone than it's been all day.
"Hmm?" Marinette responds as she starts checking to see if Adrien also messed with her screensaver.
"You and Adrien, you guys are pretty serious, right?"
Marinette pauses as she considers her friend's words. It's only been a month but there's something undeniable between her and Adrien. They were friendly enough over the last five years in their civilian identities, but as Ladybug and Chat Noir there is five years' worth of trust and friendship. She never doubts if he has her back, she just knows that he does. The stupid cat's taken a number of blows meant for her over the years, and at one point she finally broke down and told him about the ones he didn't remember. He was, quite naturally, peeved that he doesn't remember their first kiss, but he does trot it out as proof that they've loved each other from the beginning.
She doesn't deny it.
"Yeah, we are," Marinette answers slowly.
"Like, marriage, kids, happily ever after serious?"
She's only twenty, but Marinette's definitely thought about long term. The youthful fantasies from secondary have given way to something much more practical. And possible. "Yeah."
"Whoa," Alya says.
"Yeah," Marinette agrees.
"So, when the big day finally comes, I'm gonna be the maid of honor, right?"
Marinette snorts and rolls her eyes, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"No, seriously. I call dibs on being the maid of honor and at the reception my toast is going to be about how you wasted five years trying to get the courage to talk to him and I'm going to tell everyone that everything came out in moron when you did try to talk to him."
"Moron?" Marinette scoffs.
"Honey, everyone knows that once your heart is involved that everything you say comes out in moron," Alya says with a dismissive wave. "Anyway, there are dozens of stories I could tell during my toast. It's just a matter of picking one."
Perfect. Just how Marinette wants to remember her wedding day: being absolutely mortified by her maid of honor who is sure to choose the most embarrassing story she can remember about Marinette's awkward years around Adrien.
"Hey, remember how you found out that I'm Ladybug? Let's go back to that, that's more fun to talk about."
Alya smirks. "You know what would make everything up to me?"
An icy feeling of dread settles in Marinette's stomach. She gulps. "What?"
"An exclusive interview with Paris' hottest couple. Think you can arrange it?"
Marinette groans. How did she know that Alya wouldn't just sit on this information? "Fine, I'll talk to Adrien. But for the record we aren't going to do interviews whenever you snap your fingers. We may, however, consider giving you exclusives."
"I think that's fair," Alya says with a half-smile. "Though I think I should warn you, you'll be paying for keeping that secret for a long, long time."
"Alya!" Marinette exclaims in exasperation. "I already explained why I couldn't tell you that I was Ladybug!"
"I meant you not telling me that you and Adrien were a couple," Alya clarifies with a grin. "A month and you didn't tell me." She glances at her watch. "And that penance starts, now…so tell me about the first hook up…"
Part 3 coming whenever I manage to iron out the details. But the base summary is thus:
Nino was certain that he was Adrien's best friend, and best friends tell each other things. Except when they're a super hero. Apparently that always has to stay a secret until you find out on your own.
So, a few more tidbits about this series:
1) "Out of the Bag" is a reference to the whole "the cat's out of the bag" saying. Basically this whole series is about various people finding out the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir. On accident. After five years you'd think that Marinette and Adrien would be more careful, but I digress.
and
2) There are going to be six stories in the series. So far we have Adrien and Marinette discovering each other's identities, and Alya. Nino is next, followed by Tom and Sabine, Gabriel Agreste (which will probably be a bit angstier than the others), and finally, because I do love me some dramatic irony, Chloe.
Finally, yes that is a Gilmore Girls reference.
RORY: I just don't want to do or say anything else that's gonna be remotely moronic.
LORELAI: I'm afraid once your heart is involved it all comes out in Moron.