Last chapter! This story is now complete. :)

By the eighth time it happened, Ladybug and Adrien had their routine down to a science. Adrien would leave towels by the windows and the door every time he showered, just in case Ladybug had to barge in. She would grab the closest towel and chuck it at him with her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she entered, and Adrien would do his best to catch the towel before it could get soaked, either by the stream of water from his shower or by hitting the floor.

He hadn't done terribly well so far (read: he had fumbled the stupid towel every. single. time.), but the towel was really more to cover himself with while Ladybug briefed him on the situation really, really quickly and went to wait in his room. He had plenty of towels in the rest of his bathroom that were dry, because the household staff apparently thought that every teenaged boy needed a dozen fluffy monogrammed towels in his personal bathroom.

Adrien would get dressed quickly, of course. Sometimes he could only manage boxers (he hid his Ladybug ones in the deepest corner of his dresser as to avoid a repeat of that particular incident) and a dressing robe before he had to be whisked out of his house. Sometimes he managed to put himself almost completely together (with the exception of his sopping hair) before leaving. Usually it was somewhere in between.

What had caused this sudden flurry of attacks on the Agreste residence? It was a very simple answer, really.

The Paris Men's Fashion Week was rapidly approaching, sending fashionable tempers rocketing sky-high as stress mounted up. Gabriel Agreste was not exactly being laid-back in the best of times, and his normally abrasive attitude got even worse as the stress mounted higher and little things didn't go exactly to plan. In the weeks immediately prior to the start of the event, he had even managed to surpass Chloe in maximum number of akumas caused in a week.

And when the people Gabriel had upset inevitably turned into akumas, they went after his weak spot: his son. Adrien didn't particularly appreciate being a constant akuma target, but trying to get his father to control his temper around fashion week was like trying to tell the tides to ignore the pull of the moon. He could try, but it wouldn't do any good.

Despite what it probably appeared like to Ladybug, Adrien wasn't spending all of his time in the shower. His swim team was practicing more often so they could do one last mid-summer meet before disbanding until the next season, which Adrien wasn't planning on participating in. After three separate locker room break-in attempts by particularly rabid fangirls, Adrien had decided to tolerate the uncomfortable wetness and chlorine smell that came with the pool for the ride home and then shower in his own room. On top of that, fencing had resumed with a vengeance now that the instructor was back in good health. All of the afternoons Adrien didn't have swimming were filled to the brim with fencing and some days he had both, which meant double showers as he rushed to wash out the chlorine smell before donning his fencing gear. Lots of activity meant lots of sweat, which in turn meant lots of showers. It was unfortunate, because his hair was in danger of drying out from both the chlorine and the constant washings, but it couldn't be helped.

The way that the akuma attacks just so happened to line up with his showers was pure coincidence...with maybe a little (huge) helping of bad luck. Plagg loudly denied any involvement.

"I can't wait until this fashion week is over," Adrien sighed to Plagg as he stepped under the shower's spray. Today's exercise of choice had been fencing and he was exhausted. Mr. D'Argencourt had been pushing him to his limits so that he could compete in a citywide competition near the end of the summer, which meant a lot of getting his rear handed to him on a plate while he tried not to feel too bad about it. "At least I'll be done with swimming by the time the next one rolls around. That means, like, fifty percent less time in the shower."

Plagg let out an irritated squawk from his place on the counter. "There's more than one Fashion Week in Paris? I thought we were done for a year after this! Ugh, this is ridiculous!"

Adrien shook his head as he rubbed in his shampoo. It was a new one, extra-gentle so it didn't strip too many natural oils and dry out his hair. It also smelled like strawberries, which made Adrien suspect that whoever had done the shopping for him perhaps had either ended up in the woman's section, hadn't read the labels, or was trying to tell him something about how he normally smelled. "There's three. This one is the Men's Fashion Week, and then there's the Haute Couture Fashion Week, and then the normal Fashion Week in September."

Plagg groaned loudly.

"It's not like I participate in any of them."

"No, you're too busy showering," Plagg shot back. There was a loud gulp- Plagg swallowing his cheese, Adrien was willing to bet- and then the insufferable kwami continued. "And there's too many akumas coming after you when there's a fashion week. It's annoying."

"I don't do fashion weeks because I'm too young to model the lines aimed at older customers," Adrien shot back as he rinsed out the shampoo. "No self-respecting twenty-year-old is going to want to wear anything that's been modeled by someone who's fifteen. And didn't you say that Hawkmoth can't akumatize different people for the same thing? He'll run out of ideas soon."

There was a pause. Adrien couldn't tell whether or not Plagg was thinking or simply munching on another piece of cheese. He shrugged before squeezing conditioner into his hands and starting to work it in. It also smelled like strawberries, which led Adrien to strongly suspect that someone had finally noticed the cheese smell that always accompanied him and was trying to give him a not-very-subtle hint that he smelled awful.

"He might be able to possess the same people more than once if they get mad for the same reason," Plagg finally said, surprising Adrien enough that he fumbled the conditioner bottle and nearly dropped it. "So if the same designers and light techs and models and seamstresses and backstage workers are at the other weeks as well..."

"I'll talk to Nathalie about interacting with people for Dad," Adrien sighed. Not that Nathalie could be any better at times, but if he pointed out that he was getting targeted and it was interfering with his activities, she might be willing to help. Suddenly Adrien frowned. "Wait. Seamstresses? He hasn't gotten angry at any seamstresses yet-"

The familiar thud of feet landing on his windowsill shut Adrien up fast. He twisted towards the noise, shoving his sodden bangs out of his face as he peered through the falling water from his shower head. Sure enough, Ladybug had landed on his windowsill, eyes screwed shut as she blindly groped for the towel he had placed in the normal spot before flinging it in Adrien's general direction. This time, he managed to both turn the water off and catch the towel, abet a bit awkwardly. He held the towel in front of himself, waiting for Ladybug to leave so that he could get dressed properly.

Except she didn't.

"The Seamstress is right outside," Ladybug said briskly, opening her eyes as soon as she was certain that Adrien had all of the important bits covered. The color high on her cheeks was the only indication that she was at all uncomfortable. She snatched the towel that Adrien had left out for himself on the counter and wrapped it around him, making Adrien flush at the proximity since he still wasn't dressed at all what was she even doing. A second later, he found himself almost immobilized with his arms pinned to his sides by the fabric. Ladybug shoved something down the front of the towel, and then they were flying out of his window.

Adrien couldn't help the squeak that escaped his mouth. He pressed himself closer to Ladybug, hoping that the towel was tight enough that none of the people down below could tell that he wasn't wearing anything underneath.

He definitely had to talk to Nathalie about playing interception for his father. This was embarrassing beyond belief.

"Sorry I didn't show up sooner so you could have more time to get ready," Ladybug said as she deposited Adrien on top of the Great Paris rooftop. For whatever reason, none of the akumas had been bright enough to look there once they found Adrien's room empty.

Or maybe they did. Adrien just made a habit out of transforming and following Ladybug out into the fight as soon as he could, so it was possible that the akumas visited after he visited. He didn't really want to find out.

"It- it's fine!" Adrien stammered after a too-long second. He shifted a bit uncomfortably in his towel. "I- I'm just glad that it was you and n-not the akuma that got me."

That didn't sound weird, did it? He didn't think so.

"And this shouldn't last too much longer," Adrien added, finally finding his tongue. "I mean, this Fashion Week will be done in a couple days and then by the time the next week of shows happens I won't have so many activities that, uh, require showers."

Ladybug nodded furiously. A hint of pink tinted her cheeks. "That's, uh, good. But there's still a few days of this Fashion Week, and if these attacks keep happening..."

Adrien winced as well. He couldn't say that he actually enjoyed Ladybug crashing his showers (constant mortification was not fun and he definitely had played with the idea of wearing his swimsuit- the normal, non-Speedo one- while he showered), but he didn't want to put off showering until after his father was definitely no longer interacting with anyone for the day, especially considering that he wasn't actually positive that his father actually slept when Fashion Week was approaching.

"Maybe you could shower at a friend's house?" Ladybug suggested. "It would be harder for akumas to find you then."

Adrien nodded furiously. Honestly, he should have thought of that. "Yeah! I'll definitely do that. No more showers at home until the akumas have stopped, I promise." He'd probably have to endure some teasing, but it would be worth it if he could avoid these mid-shower interruptions.

Besides, he did have one friend that he knew wouldn't tease him...

"I should go," Ladybug said after a moment. Her eyes flicked down to the towel protecting what was left of his dignity before glancing back up at him, her cheeks even pinker than before. "Stay safe."

She was gone a moment later.

Adrien wasted no time making a beeline to the changing rooms next to the pool, where he knew Mr. Bourgeois kept the pool and changing room lost-and-found. If he was even remotely lucky, there might be a pair of swimsuit trunks that he could fit into, or a t-shirt and pants, or maybe even a complimentary bathrobe he could borrow. It wasn't until Adrien was standing in front of the door that he realized his problem.

He had no hands, and he couldn't wriggle them loose unless he wanted to risk flashing the world.

Luckily, Plagg had managed to trail along after him. The kwami was snickering away, sure, but he could open doors for Adrien.

"It'll cost you," Plagg said as soon as he caught on to what Adrien was thinking. "I don't work for free."

Adrien fixed his kwami with a dry stare. "Open the door and I won't feed you nothing but processed cheese slices for an entire month."

"Rude."

Adrien was very much done with folding to his kwami's demands. "I refuse to be caught on the roof by anyone. I'm lucky there aren't any guests up here. Open the door."

Plagg stuck out his tongue and phased through the door. It popped open, though Plagg had decided to be spiteful and only open it a couple centimeters. Adrien grumbled under his breath and stuck out his foot, carefully nudging the door open the rest of the way. Once he got inside, he hooked his foot around the door and slammed it shut. He really didn't need anyone seeing the open door and deciding to come and investigate.

The frosted-glass skylights gave off enough light for Adrien to make sure that nobody else was in the room. Unfortunately, it also showed an almost completely empty lost-and-found bin, bare except for the swimsuit trunks fit for a two-year-old.

That...wasn't good.

"I guess I'll just wrap my towel around my waist and transform," Adrien sighed. Yeah, he was definitely not showering at home anymore until Fashion Week was over. He wriggled, trying to loosen the tightly wrapped towel so that he could wrap it around his waist instead.

It didn't budge. Somehow Ladybug had managed to wrap him up so well that the towel was almost impossible to remove.

"Oh, this cannot be happening right now," Adrien muttered as he wriggled some more, then moved closer to the wall so he could try to snag his towel on a doorframe to get it loose enough to get out of. "Plagg, some help here?"

"Plagg is done helping for the day," a muffled voice said from deeper in the room.

Adrien scowled in the direction of the voice- he bet that Ladybug's kwami would actually be helpful in this sort of situation, but of course he would get the grouchy old man of a kwami- before realizing that he couldn't actually see Plagg. Adrien's scowl loosened into a frown as he peered around the dim room, trying to figure out where Plagg might have gone. If the kwami had found clothes for him and hadn't said anything...

It wasn't like Adrien could do anything about it until he got free and got the lights turned on. Without cheese, the only way to find Plagg in a dark room was to turn on the light, which obviously was a teensy bit of a problem with Adrien's hands pinned to his sides...

One more twist of his shoulder against a doorframe, and the towel's fabric snagged. A minute later, Adrien finally wriggled his way free of his terrycloth prison and let his towel hit the floor in a pile. As Adrien picked the towel up and shook it back out, several dark objects fell out and onto the ground. Adrien paused, confused, then wrapped the towel around himself loosely before bending down and picking up the fabric pieces. There was a shirt, shorts, and...a sock?

Aha. That was what Ladybug had shoved down his towel. There weren't any boxers and only the one sock, but it would do. Adrien pulled on the shirt (slightly damp and wrinkled from being in the towel) and wriggled into his jeans, wincing as the rough fabric settled around his waist. Going commando in jeans was possibly the most uncomfortable feeling ever.

Then again, maybe he didn't want Ladybug grabbing his boxers for him. He was going to transform in a few minutes anyway, so it wasn't as though he would have to deal with the sensation for very long.

After eyeballing the lone sock for a second, Adrien shoved it in his pocket and started his search for Plagg. Once he flicked the light switch on, it didn't take long for the kwami to come out of hiding and land on Adrien's shoulder.

"Yay, you're decent!" Plagg cheered mockingly. "Now let's go take care of the Seamstress, and I can get back to my cheese."

"The-" Adrien paused as the name finally sunk in. "The Seamstress? Weren't you talking about my dad upsetting a seamstress earlier? Did you know?"

Plagg sniffed and flipped off of Adrien's shoulder to hover in the air. "I don't know what you're talking about. Of course not." He sounded strangely smug.

That little..."You can sense the akumas, can't you!" Adrien accused, incensed. If he had had even a little more time, he could have been partly dressed by the time Ladybug arrived, both this time and all of the other times, and it would have saved him a lot of embarrassment. "And you didn't bother to warn me!"

Plagg finally sniggered. "But it's funny!"

"What am I to you, a source of entertainment?"

"And a source of cheese," Plagg claimed cheerfully. "Say-"

"Nope," Adrien said immediately. "You just ate. Transform me!"

Once this battle was over, Plagg wasn't getting anything but cheese from a can for a month.

Marinette banged her head against her kitchen table as she listened to the sound of her shower running. When she- well, Ladybug- had suggested that Adrien shower at a friend's house, she was thinking that he would go to Nino's house, since the boys were best friends. Maybe he would go to Alya's house if Nino wasn't around, since Alya and Adrien had been hanging out together for far longer than she and Adrien had been.

She had not been expecting Adrien to show up at her living room door, looking a bit sheepish and smelling like chlorine as his hair stuck out in a thousand directions, still damp from the pool water.

Marinette let him in, of course, because what else could she do?

Adrien had been far too happy to follow her to her family's bathroom and then Marinette had to suffer through teaching Adrien how to work their shower as he peered over her shoulder. Marinette had rushed a little through her explanation so that she could rush back to the safety of the living room to hide while Adrien stripped down and showered.

"It's really not that bad," Tikki sighed, hovering over Marinette as she banged her head against the kitchen counter. "You've been in his bathroom. You've seen him showering, even! So why is this a problem?"

Marinette groaned louder at the reminder, burying her head in her arms. "Don't remind me. It's worse because that's the shower I shower in. Every day. And I didn't take out my shampoo or conditioner or soap or anything oh my god-"

Tikki sighed in exasperation. "Marinette, Adrien won't care. I can assure you that he's probably more focused on if asking to use your shower was weird. He wasn't expecting you to clear your entire bathroom just for him to use it."

A long, muffled, drawn-out wail was all the response Tikki got.

Five minutes later, the sound of the shower cut off. Adrien wandered into the living room three minutes after that, fully dressed and toweling his hair dry. Marinette had managed to pull herself together in that time and perched on the couch, trying to look casual as she paged through a book of fashion history.

"Thank you so much for letting me use your shower," Adrien said as he squeezed out one last bit of water from his hair. He reached into his bag and pulled out a comb. "Ladybug suggested that I not shower at home until Fashion Week finished and akumas stopped attacking my house."

Yes, Marinette knew that. She was cursing Ladybug in her head right now for that particular suggestion.

"I-is there something wrong with the pool showers?" Marinette asked a bit timidly, letting her book lower a little and hoping that her cheeks weren't as red as she thought they were. The question was something she had been wondering for a while, since she had been to a few pool showers herself and while they weren't the nicest showers in the universe (and of course they were nowhere close to Adrien's gorgeous black-and-white tiled shower), they worked. She hadn't pegged Adrien as someone who would be particularly snotty about the showers he used, especially if the akumas kept targeting him while he was in the showers at his house. "N-not that I mind sharing my shower! I was just wondering!"

Adrien winced and pushed his bangs straight back out of his face. "Some fangirls found out I was swimming there and tried breaking into the locker rooms. The Gorilla caught them, of course, and they've been banned from the facility permanently, but I can't shower when I'm worried people are going to jump out at me at any moment."

That...was disturbing. Marinette didn't blame Adrien at all for choosing his own shower and the possibility of Ladybug barging in over the possibility of fangirls Adrien didn't know (not that he knew Ladybug that well at all or anything) interrupting his shower.

"I'm also just not used to showering in an open area like they have in the locker room," Adrien admitted. "So even with just the other members on the team there it was a bit awkward for me."

Marinette wasn't sure what to say to that. Her conversation skills, already only just holding on by the tips of her fingers, were faltering at the images that Adrien's words conjured up.

No, brain, stop thinking about it!

An outbreak of screaming cut off all further conversation. Marinette and Adrien turned in unison towards the source of the sounds, and Marinette silently thanked the akuma for an exit to what was fast becoming an awkward situation.

"Oh, shoot," Adrien sighed, picking up his bag and sliding it onto his shoulder. "Another akuma. I should go, I don't want it to disrupt your parents' business when it comes after me."

"Are you sure it's after you?" Marinette asked, even though her inner Ladybug was screaming what are you doing let him go so you can go transform. "I mean, there are some akumas that aren't, and wouldn't it be safer for you to be inside than out on the streets?"

"I know it might not be after me, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll just call my driver up to get home, so I should be safe." Adrien flashed a ten-megawatt grin at Marinette as he reached for the living room door handle, making her heart flutter. "Thank you so much for letting me use your shower. Would you or your parents mind if I continue using it until this Fashion Week is over? My dad should stop upsetting so many people after that."

"Oh, no, that's- I mean, you're fine! To keep showering here!" Marinette blurted, hating how the color was rising in her face again. She did not have time for another Adrien-in-her-shower-induced meltdown. If Adrien was going to be outside and potentially a target for whatever upset akuma was ravaging the streets, Ladybug needed to be out and in action as soon as possible. "I'm sure my parents would agree. They would want you safe."

"Thank you!" Adrien called over his shoulder as another roar shook the air and he dashed out the door. "Sorry I have to go, see you soon!"

"And I need to get going as well," Marinette said out loud as she closed the door and turned to Tikki, who had just come out of hiding. An akuma attack would be just the thing to get her mind off of the fact that Adrien Agreste had just showered in her house and would be doing it again tomorrow. She could (and probably would) freak out about it later, when Ladybug wasn't needed. But for now, she had a job to do.

"Tikki! Transform me!"