Day 26. Rooftop date – Epilogue

10 years later

'You're sure this is the right place?' Plagg murmured, inspecting a crack in a floor tile.

Adrien watched the moonlight dancing over the now empty floor and walls of the bedroom. He listened to the sounds of the traffic from the street below. He took a breath full of dust and old wooden floors.

'Yes, I'm sure, Plagg,' he said. 'This is it.'

Marinette was probably going to kill him for not consulting with her. But the apartment was perfect. Three bedrooms, one of which could be turned into her workshop, the other - for now it could serve as kwamis' playroom, but he was hoping that after a while it could become a nursery. The apartment also had its own rooftop garden accessible from the living room's balcony. The view was stunning. The location practical.

But these were not the reasons that made him sign the papers upon first visit. It was this room - the main bedroom - and the play of lights on the walls. That was the room he'd visited ten years ago courtesy of the akuma DeLorean. That was the time and place he had learned what the future held. He'd been naive to think only good things awaited over the horizon. But as long as the good outweighed the bad, things were fine, and that was another good thing.

His mind wandered to the desperate and dark period of his last days of collège. He had thought he had hit the rock bottom and in a span of just a few minutes everything did a one eighty, starting with Ladybug, who not only revealed herself to him, but turned out to be the one person he had hoped she would be and the one person he had been convinced she couldn't be. He'd been akumatized over that secret.

Adrien chuckled under his breath. That revelation had pushed him in some kind of stupor and he had managed to seriously freak Marinette out. If it hadn't been for the kwamis she might have had called for help. When he had finally come around, the weight and meaning of her identity crashing down on him, he wouldn't let her leave his arms for quite a while. Marinette hadn't complained. Plagg had, but his heart hadn't been in it.

He patted the keys in his pocket, as if checking if this was real, and then sauntered to the balcony door in the living room. He saw Ladybug on the other side of the glass, enjoying the sights and admiring the plants.

'Hi!' Adrien greeted, opening the door.

'H-hi!' she jumped, startled with his sudden appearance. 'I thought I was meeting with Chat in this location.'

He burst into laughter, 'You are, aren't you?'

'Well, yes,' she rolled her eyes playfully, 'but when you asked me to come to this balcony I thought you meant another rooftop date, dork,' she hit him over the shoulder.

Adrien wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to his chest. 'I have a surprise for you, bug,' he confessed rubbing his cheek over her head. He would never have enough of her scent.

'A surprise?' Ladybug echoed.

Instead of explaining he lifted her up, earning a surprised squeak.

'Adrien, what are you doing?' she asked, when he strengthen his hold on her and carried her bridal style towards the balcony door.

'Carrying my lovely fiancée over the threshold of our new home,' he murmured passing the door.

'What?!'

He put her down and produced a set of keys. 'I signed the papers today, the transfer went through in the afternoon. This is our place.'

'H-how? W-why?' Ladybug stuttered, looking around. She didn't scold him, which was a good start. The place was lovely and he just knew she'd like it here.

'Why didn't you ask me?' she finally got her voice back and prodded him with a red finger.

'I didn't need to,' he shrugged. 'This is the place I visited when DeLorean hit me. I just knew it would be ours.'

Ladybug stared at him for a very long moment, soundlessly opening and closing her mouth.

'Remember that I knew what the future held.' Once again, he pulled her into his embrace, kissing her forehead. 'I know we'll be happy here. This is our place. It was supposed to be ours all along.'

'Okay,' she murmured in defeat.

The apartment was too perfect for her to argue. And he had checked if it met all the requirements she had formulated when they had started talking about getting their own place.

'But,' she withdrew from the hug, eyeing him suspiciously, 'this means, you're now that Adrien who appeared after DeLorean sent your teenage self here, right?'

'Technically,' he agreed. 'Not for another few weeks or months, but yes?'

A sly grin appeared on Ladybug's face. 'Grrrreat!' she drawled, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Somewhere in the kitchen Plagg cackled.

'Then boy, have I words for you, Kitty! A few long overdue words!' she added with a wild gleam in her eyes.

Yup. They were home. Just like he imagined. This was the best place on earth.

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading this story and accompanying me this extended month of June. I appreciate your support greatly! You gave me motivation to finish Maybugs. Thank you for all your reviews, favs and follows. They meant a lot!

Now that this story is complete, let me know what you think of the last update and of it as a whole.

A bow of thank you to Remasa for beta reading this last chapter, and for her advice throughout the whole writing process.

What now? I don't really know. I'm on vacation so writing is difficult. I have two new stories that beg to be written, and all those WIPs on hiatus... I hope to give you something to read soon(ish)!

Visit me on perditaalottachocolate-blog . tumblr . com , if you haven't already. That's a way of keeping up to date with my stories and doodles. Useful tags as follows: "perdita writes" for my drabbles and fics, and "perdita draws" for my art.