He'd spent days trying to be perfect, if only his father would look at him with love and pride in his eyes, dressed up, pretty for the cameras, kind, patient, perfect.

Stepping into school, the act stayed, but he knows that not everyday will it remain strong; it starts with a simple confession before her under the rain, and a part of that old charade breaks down, crumbles.

May be it's no mistake or misguidance that Plagg accuses them of young, love birds, but he doesn't think of it, because every day with her afterward becomes this weird hodge podge of stutters, of still glued on charade.

It's with Ladybug when his guard falls, and may be he exaggerates under the joy of letting a certain mask fall and crumble, but he loves it.

She unties every old facade, makes him feel alive, and makes him feel real even with the masks even with the other facade that's only half on.

Cat Noir is real, but he's also fake; Ladybug is his sense of reality that tugs away often too fast.

He reaches out for her when he finds some of the charade falling with Marinette again, unsure of how things are, and he's not quite sure.

Cat Noir reaches out for her in a way that is purely Adrien and yet isn't; it takes months until he can't resist dropping by her bakery, speaking to her, trying to fight back tears when he undoubtedly reveals too much, but she's so soft, reaching out, gingerly helping his tears become something admirable.

He doesn't know until the day when she finally tells him that he'd fallen in love with both sides of her, because she just has a way of breaking down those old walls, those tall, suffocating walls, and he loves her more for it.

Adrien reaches out to her, letting that mask fall away, becoming just Adrien again and yet something so much more, because he's a sure Adrien, not just a pretty face, or a perfect son; he's something that only she manages to tear down the walls to see.

"I love you," Comes out as a gasp, and Ladybug, no, Marinette, reaches out despite her suit to pull him in, and she kisses him.

It's almost like the last wall finally completely collapsed, and he lets his kiss hold everything in the world of his heart; she pushes up into him like she's desperate for something in him that makes her stronger.

It's weird, because she's always been so much stronger and yet he becomes putty in her hands even though she gives him control, surrenders under his false bravado that is always a little bit shattered around her.

He doesn't need facades with her, never has, and he loves that; all of the masks that he's adopted, Cat Noir, Adrien Agreste, and something that falls in between falls apart at the seam, and he's just everything beneath the hard, gem-like surface that he'd tried gluing together in the past.

Adrien loves her, and this he knows as he tries to blend her skin into his with the intensity of his kiss, and he knows that it isn't quite taking on a new facade, because he doesn't want to become her, he just wants to cling to her.

Cat Noir's belly fills up with a sort of joy, and it doesn't matter anymore whether he's wearing a mask or not.

"I love you," He murmurs, already knowing that with every mistake, every fumble throughout his life, that he'll let her in for even more than she's already seen.

His words don't feel like enough, but when she murmurs back, "I love you, too," It becomes something a little more.

She doesn't even say any of his names and yet that feels all the more real, like she sees the mix in him and then some; she scratches more than the surface of who he is.

Adrien pulls her close, and he loves how she follows like she's addicted to something real in him, and he falls harder for her in the span of half a second, not even a full heartbeat.

He can't even contain his joy even knowing that he was going to go back to each and every mask of his soon; he's in love with this moment where Cat Noir's mask, more than just physical, and Adrien Agreste's mask, more than just mental and emotional, falls away.

Marinette, Ladybug, and all that she is, some perfect mix makes them shatter, and he loves her more than anything; he knows that there has to be a hint of a mask to each of her identities, and yet it's so much more fulfilling, so much more loving, to know that she doesn't need those masks before him either.