Tangled Webs

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

"Mari." Adrien was sitting on the couch in Marinette's bedroom, surrounded by the teetering piles of books and notes for her lycee finals. He was leaning forward, gazing into her eyes with deep distress. "I have to tell you something. I don't… god, I don't know how to say this."

He was wringing his hands and Marinette watched him in concern. She shifted the fabric she was working on into her lap and reached out to put a comforting hand on his arm.

"It's okay, Adrien. You can tell me."

He took a deep breath.

"It's… Luka," the boy said reluctantly. "He's cheating on you."

Marinette couldn't help the tiny laugh that escaped her, and Adrien frowned.

"I'm serious," he said, and there was a hint of a pout.

"What makes you think he's cheating?" she asked.

"I saw him." This time, the flat statement got her attention. "He was kissing… someone else."

Marinette was still having trouble taking this seriously. It just seemed so very far removed from Luka.

"Who?"

Adrien pressed his lips together, looking away.

"Adrien, who was Luka kissing?"

"Ladybug," the boy muttered, and Marinette accidentally stabbed herself with the needle in her hand.

"Wait, what?"

Adrien lifted his green eyes to meet hers with sympathy and resolve. She lifted her sewing to the desk behind her carefully, smoothing it out and folding it, trying to buy time while her brain caught up with what he'd just said.

"I'm really sorry, Mari. There's no mistake. I saw Luka kiss Ladybug last night, on top of the college roof, and it wasn't something that might have been a friendly kiss, or taken out of context. It was pretty… passionate."

Hell, yeah, it had been. Marinette fought to not let herself get distracted by the memory. She and Viperion had taken a detour together on the way home from an akuma fight. They'd been careful, they'd been out of sight of the street.

Ladybug and Viperion worked hard to keep it professional in the suits. Some time after Marinette had started dating Luka he'd let it slip that he'd known that she was Ladybug almost from the beginning – he'd always paid a lot of attention to Marinette, he told her, and once you saw it you couldn't unsee the clues. Once she'd finished freaking out about him knowing, she'd decided that there was no one safer with that particular secret of hers.

In the middle of a battle, though, wasn't the time to let themselves get distracted by romance, and letting on that they knew each other outside the suits would cut a little too close to an identity reveal anyway, but the fight last night had been a tough one, and they'd been running on adrenaline by the time it was done. She'd been so careful to check that there was no one else around before jumping her boyfriend, but not carefully enough apparently.

"-and I'm sorry I didn't tell you straight away," Adrien was still talking. "I should have told you last night when I saw them."

That would have been a bit hard, given that she'd been frenching Viperion at the time.

"You don't deserve to be treated like that," Adrien was saying furiously. "Ladybug doesn't deserve to be treated like that."

"It's okay!" Marinette interrupted desperately.

"It's not okay!" Adrien said angrily. "I thought Luka was a good guy, and Ladybug even trusted him with a miraculous, and then he goes and treats you both like this."

He must have been badly thrown by all this, otherwise he'd know that he shouldn't be telling good old everyday Marinette that Ladybug had given Luka a miraculous, even if he'd been the one to recommend Luka for the role of Viperion to the spotted heroine. Especially then.

"He's no hero, and the next time I see him-"

"It's okay!" Marinette repeated, getting more flustered. "I know about it. And Ladybug knows Luka's my boyfriend too. We're fine with it."

Adrien's eyes were growing wider by the second.

"Wait a minute, are you telling me that you and Luka… are in a threesome?"

Marinette hesitated for a heartbeat, then, "…yes?"

Well, it wasn't technically a lie. Marinette was definitely there every time Luka kissed Ladybug. And Ladybug was definitely okay with Luka doing a whole lot of things with Marinette.

"With Ladybug?" Adrien squeaked.

Marinette wondered if this was what it felt like to stroke out.

"… yes. With… Ladybug. We're all… kissing. A lot. Together."

This wasn't making it any better. A whole lot of emotions seemed to be chasing themselves through Adrien's face, and his mouth worked soundlessly. Surely he couldn't have just muttered and you didn't invite me?

Marinette's spinning mind finally screeched to a halt on something.

How the hell would Adrien have seen them last night? There had been no one in the streets below their former college, and even if there was, she and Luka had been well out of sight. And what on earth would Adrien have been doing up on the rooftops? The only one who might have been around up there to see them… was…

Chat.

Well, damn.

Marinette stared blankly at the wall while Adrien worked his way through freaking out. When he finally tottered away, his green eyes a little wild and his usually immaculately coifed hair all on end, Marinette dropped facedown onto her couch and let out a muffled scream into her cushion.

Some time later, when her phone rang, she reached out blindly and answered it without looking at the screen.

"Marinette?" Luka's velvety voice asked. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"

Marinette sat up and sucked in a breath, pasting on a strained smile.

"Just so you know," she told the screen brightly, "if anyone asks, we're having a threesome with Ladybug."

There was a long silence from her boyfriend.

"Wait, what?"

"And I think I know who Chat Noir is," Marinette added as an afterthought. "It's been a very strange afternoon."