Daylight broke through the large bay windows in his room, but for the first time in all of these repeated days, Adrien hadn't woken up feeling rested.

He felt truly exhausted.

He could use the sleep. But he couldn't bear to let Ladybug down. He owed her all the attention he could spare….even if that attention was definitely being divided.

Thank God, Marinette could keep her head in the game.

He tugged his comforter up over his head to block out the light. He was sure that he didn't have long before Nathalie would be by to drop off his schedule for the day.

Marinette and the others had stayed for a few hours, but he had been utterly useless.

He could barely focus. Nino and Alya definitely noticed. Marinette, on the other hand, was super focused.

They all managed to do most of the heavy lifting, though he had to hope he could remember a few of the names and faces they dug up.

Thank goodness they wouldn't remember anything today.

Unfortunately, all their hard work probably wouldn't matter, as his foggy brain could do very little at the moment, which didn't bode well for the day.

He had a decision to make. Nathalie's knock was coming soon.

Plagg grumbled echoes from his trash can. Plagg must have been tired too, or he would be relentless in his teasing.

Adrien? Are you awake?

He winced, getting up out of bed, and answering her at the door. He's lazing about a bit, letting his eyes droop. "What is it Nathalie?"

"Adrien," she started to drone automatically, before she halted, blinking as she took in his appearance. "You need to get dressed and moving. You have a photo shoot this morning."

"That was today?" His jaw dropped, eyes wide and innocent. "I already had plans with classmates to work on a school project."

Nathalie blanched, clearly at an impasse. Schoolwork was on of the few exceptions his father had the grace to allow. "When is your project due?"

"Monday we need to do a presentation. And one of the members of our group has a family wedding to attend on Sunday afternoon, so we have to work on it today."

"So you really can't get out of it."

He winced, looking sympathetic. "Sorry. It counts for about 20% of our grade for the term."

She set her jaw, ruthlessly resettling her glasses on the bridge of her nose. "Very well. I expect you'll be ready tomorrow if I postpone everything for today."

Adrien plastered on a grateful smile and nodded enthusiastically. He would be ready for another awful photo shoot - when and if tomorrow ever came.

Chat Noir was a little less sure-footed than normal as he leapt the familiar eaves between his house and Marinette's.

Today was the first day he knew her secret. Well, the first full day anyways.

Marinette couldn't know that he knew. And he couldn't tease her about it as Chat Noir. Not even though he had so many questions to ask her.

It wasn't that he was unhappy that she had a crush on him. Far from it in fact.

Both in and out of the costume, there was hardly anyone else - outside of Ladybug herself - who impressed him more.

Chat's grip on the baton tightened as he bridged over one gap far too long for him to leap at this speed. He had to figure out how to act like a human being around Marinette, and last night had not boded well. Not when he had been such an awkward mess around her the night before.

Because all of the sudden, the pressure was suddenly on him. His focus was almost entirely on her.

Suddenly it was her opinion that truly mattered. Marinette didn't just like the model and she didn't just like the hero. She had actually met all three and had a crush on the boy he was behind it all.

Ladybug didn't know him. She didn't want to know who was behind the mask. He understood why but it didn't mean he had to be happy about it. It just meant but no matter how much he felt for ladybug but she would never allow him to truly get close to her. Certainly not in any way that he wanted

He sighed, letting the breeze ruffle his hair.

Was this what it had been like for Nino all those months ago? When he'd been encouraging his best bud to pursue his feelings for Marinette.

When he had the audacity to claim that talking to girls was easy?

At least that ended well. Alya and Nino were actually really happy together.

And the fact that they had paired off together meant that he got to spend more time with Marinette, finally getting to be friends with her despite her weird aversion.

Which now totally made sense. Because he spent a fairly long amount of time last night awkwardly failing to form sentences in Marinette's presence.

He had faked his way through, pretending to be super focused on the city hall profiles and the video feed.

But he knew better.

And Plagg definitely did.

He'd spent the better part of last night devouring every scrap of Camembert in the fridge and snickering about karma.

It seemed like no time at all before he was back to sitting in the Dupain-Cheng kitchen, far more anxious than he had been the day before. Try as he might, he could not sit still.

His tail waved anxiously, his ears perked and at full attention for the slightest hint of motion from the room he knew all too well was overhead.

Sabine followed his gaze with interest but said nothing, until he'd dropped his transformation.

"Oh!" she gasped, her hand pressing against her mouth.

He hadn't noticed how wide her eyes had grown as she gaped at him and then watched with amazement as his gluttonous kwami darted for the fridge. "Have you ever done that before?"

He smiled. "You mean, have I ever dropped my transformation? It is pretty risky. Usually."

"Usually?" Sabine echoed, tilting her head before realization struck. Her wide eyes were like a darker shade than Marinette's. "Ah. I suppose won't remember tomorrow."

"Not if everything happened as it did yesterday." He smiled, awkwardly half shrugging a shoulder. "Of course, Ladybug won't be happy with me if she finds out. She is sure it is safer for our identities to remain hidden."

She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms. "Marinette is that necessary?"

"Absolutely." He nodded, certain that he cheeks had grown warmer. Had it been so warm in here yesterday? "I can't actually get to Ladybug until after the ceremony, she's the one I need to work with. Marinette has been amazing and finding new ways to try to track this Akuma before it can harm anyone. So Ladybug and I can be ready to keep everyone safe."

Sabine's eyes softened. "And you'll protect her?"

"Of course!" His eyes flashed, posture straightening. His fists clenched tight across his chest. "I couldn't bear to see her hurt in any way."

Sabine set her mug down on the counter, her steely gaze focused on him, assessing. "Do you have anything else you need to do?"

He blinked, trying to remember what he had said the day before.

She smiled. "Your time is precious, right?"

He nodded, frowning at the tiny beast who was currently stuffing an impossible pile of cheese into its tiny mouth. "Plagg, behave yourself."

Sabine smirked. What was little bit of cheese in the service of keeping Marinette safe? "I suspect I'll need about 45 minutes to get my daughter up and out of bed. Think you could find your way back here by then?"

He grinned. "Absolutely. I'm sure I can find some way to keep busy."

He snagged out of the air, speaking softly. "C'mon, Plagg. Claws out."

Half an hour and exactly two amazing chocolate croissants later, he and Plagg were both fed enough to get them through lunch time. It was amazing how nice Marinette's parents were.

In spite of how anxious we was, he was fed and happy. It also didn't hurt that Marinette's father was hilarious.

It was pretty clear that was why she appreciated his sense of humor.

He sighed heavily, wishing his own father would be even the slightest bit open and relaxed again, as he had been when he was very small. But with his mother gone, that seemed to be an impossible hope.

Anxiously, he paced in the living room, pacing as Marinette's mother turned around at the stove.

It had been a hard enough to keep his composure around her parents, but now Marinette would be coming.

He had to be on his game because she was actually really clever. He knew that all too well.

She could probably even give LB a fair run for her money. It must have been why Ladybug knew she could trust Marinette to handle the whole instance with Nathaniel.

He stopped in his tracks, eyebrows raised. Maybe Ladybug went to school with Marinette when she was younger.

He bit his lip as his eyes strayed from the stairs over to the bookshelf; now he really wanted to see what was in that book of photographs.

Sabine kept watching the superhero in her living room with a secretive smile, as she finished cooking breakfast at the stove. She had known about her daughter's crush on the boy. Considering Adrien had been nothing but genuinely kind and polite both times she had met him now, she had no cause to disapprove of either him or her daughter's judgement.

She already had to fight with her tendency to feed any of Marinette's friends who dropped by, but in spite of the fact that he was well off, it was clear his parents were not taking proper care of him.

To know that poor boy was also running himself ragged saving the whole of Paris? That was an awful lot of responsibility to shoulder for anyone, let alone as one of two teenagers. She shook her head, wondering who it was that had saddle Adrien and his partner with that heavy of a burden.

Sabine couldn't help but notice how nervous he was, blushing and pacing and sneaking not so furtive glances up at the stairs as Marinette's movements occasionally creaked through floorboards.

She filled up his plate again with fruit and eggs...and a bit of cheese for the little cat as well...in case he was still hungry, and slid it across the countertop. "You don't get to eat enough."

He smiled, snapping his attention to her from the bookshelf. "Not really. My nutritionist would have fits if he saw all of this."

Sabine's smile thinned. "Do they know just how many...extra curricular activities you are involved in?"

"Well," he hedged, "I definitely can't talk about this one. But I do have some more active sports they do know about."

"And they are not watching carefully?"

"To be honest, I think they only get concerned when I am on the high side of the pounds." Chat sighed. "I have to sneak food from the kitchens to feed Plagg, so maybe they thinking I'm eating all of that."

"You still need to eat well. You're a growing young man." She crossed her arms, tapping a toe. "I have half a mind to go and speak to your father about all this. It is one thing for you to be so busy and to eat healthy to keep in shape, but it is quite another to have you starving yourself."

He gaped. "That...I appreciate it, but I think that wouldn't exactly go over well. He's very...stubborn."

She ruffled his hair. "Parents usually are. Especially when it comes to their children."

"I want you to promise me something. If you need food, I want you to come here. Even if I don't remember all this."

"You're always protecting the city. And today you're protecting my daughter." Her eyes narrowed, arms crossing over her chest. "The idea that you don't have an adult really knowing what you are dealing with and watching out for you troubles me."

Chat Noir's grin widened. It was remarkable just how striking the family resemblance was between mother and daughter. He didn't get to see it all that often, but in those moments he had seen Marinette unguarded and standing up for others in the classroom or standing up for her uncle. Or just standing up to Chloe who oddly always seemed to always be involved in all of the circumstances.

He grabbed the fork, selecting a modest bite of eggs. It hadn't occurred to him just how much he's noticed her over the past year without really even trying.

The first echo of her footsteps on the stairs drew his focus.

"Chat?!" She'd shouted, bounding down the steps. Her hair was still damp and clothes were not as neatly in place as they usually seemed to be at school. "What are you doing here?"

Chat smiled, closing his mouth to keep it from betraying him. How had this gone yesterday? Slowly, he placed his fork beside his plate, his claws weaving behind his neck. "I'm afraid that's a bit of a long story, Princess."

When Sabine snorted indelicately, he blushed. Thankfully, that was what pulled Marinette's attention so he try to breathe and steady himself for what needed to happen now.

"I'll just take this down to your father while you both catch up."

Chat leaned his head on the hand, watching in fascination as Marinette grew more and more animated as he relayed the plan to her. Her blue eyes sparkled as she met him measure for measure through the details.

Just getting the chance to chat with her like this was nice. There was a certain freedom in her not quite knowing who he was. Like how he got to watch the pretty blush settle into her cheeks when he told her he needed her to work with his alter ego. How he got to understand what that actually meant to her...and what her reaction meant to him

He smiled softly, feeling more comfortable, more confident.

Until she caught him watching her. Then he felt the fiery blush hit him like a freight train.

Her eyes widened for only a moment, tilting her head as she was taking his measure.

"What's the matter?" Especially when she smirked right back at him, those gorgeous blue eyes filled with a delightful bit of mischief. He might have backed away, tilting back in his chair ever so slightly when she drew a few inches closer to him. "Chat got your tongue?"

As he picked himself back up off the floor, he know it was going to be a very long day.

Author's Notes:

So, that took much longer than planned to finish! :D Luckily, I got a good chunk of time to write over the extended weekend. The rest of this day should be much shorter in terms of chapters and such...and is already mostly drafted.

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