Author's Note: Dramatic irony! Fake kisses that are actually real kisses! Costumes within costumes! Acting that's not actually acting! I'm not entirely sure where this story is going yet, but you can be sure that all the great theater tropes are coming your way. Enjoy :))

LADYBUG: Marinette Dupain-Cheng

CHAT NOIR: Adrien Agreste

Even though the cast list is fairly long and includes almost everyone in the class, Marinette only focuses in on the two names on the top, and her heart stops for two reasons:

A) Adrien is her co-lead, which means that she might get to kiss him on stage.

B) Alya is convinced that she is the best person to play the role of Ladybug. When did that happen? How did that happen?

Marinette is not sure what worries her more more, and she's afraid of where this might go, even though the idea of spending hours in rehearsal with her crush is extremely tempting.

She remembers when Alya first came to her with the idea for the play, bursting with excitement.

"It's my special tribute to Ladybug and Chat Noir. I did some research on their relationship and wrote a three act play based on it. I think this is the best way to show our appreciation to commemorate the one year anniversary of their first appearance in Paris! I'm calling it My Fair Ladybug. What do you think?"

"Wow, that's impressive," Marinette had said, slowly. She didn't want to seem too excited, didn't want to give too much away. And she had been a little nervous about what Alya had discovered through her probing.

"Isn't it a great idea?" Alya had said as she waved her script around Marinette's face with a bright smile. "I showed it to Professeur Seydoux at the theater department and she loves it! She told me she wants it to be the next official school play."

"That's wonderful! Congrats, Alya!"

Marinette had decided to be supportive of the whole endeavor. After thinking about it, she figured that one school play wouldn't be a big deal, since she herself wasn't an actress—it wasn't like being backstage would compromise her own secret identity.

She had even been willing to sign up as a producer—even though she didn't want to deal with any more productions that involved Chloe. Alya had promised her that Chloe would not be cast in an important role, and that someone else in class would be cast in the role of Ladybug.

She remembers wondering who would be cast in the role. Perhaps Alix, who was naturally athletic. Or maybe Juleka, since she had dark hair. Mylene of course was without a doubt the best actress in the class, even after the whole Horrificator episode. And Chloe would die of jealousy if Sabrina were to be cast in the role—though that was unlikely, given how devoted Sabrina was to her overlord/best friend.

But she never thought it would be her. What was Alya thinking?

The thing is, nowadays, Marinette feels like she's acting most of the time as it is. It's not that she's lying about who she is at any given moment, it's just that in order to keep her friends and family safe, she has to play it by ear.

It means being both flirty and friendly but ultimately impersonal with Chat Noir. It means playing along with Alya's obsession with Ladybug without letting on anything about her true identity. It means telling her parents that the reason she's so fatigued in the morning is from a lot of homework and not because she's spent the last two hours fighting an akuma in the Louvre. It means coming up with excuses when people notice that she disappears whenever Ladybug is in the same place she is.

So she's never really been interested in being an actress, because she already is. And she likes to keep those roles separate from each other and does her best not to mix them, except when she has to do it to help someone—like doing a video interview as Ladybug for Alya, or surprising Manon at her birthday party.

So her hesitation to take on the role isn't just because she has to do her best to keep from making a fool out of herself in front of her crush during rehearsal for the next two months—it's because she's afraid that she's going to start having trouble keeping her life as Ladybug separate from her life as Marinette.

When she puts that costume on, she feels differently, talks differently, acts differently.

Will they all notice the difference, even though she'll be wearing a handmade costume and not a magical one?

Marinette is a little afraid of what Alya has written in that script.

After school, Adrien wanders over to the classroom bulletin board to look at the cast list for Alya's new play. He's not expecting any surprises when it comes to the male lead—over the past year, he has never actually auditioned even once for the school productions—he simply always gets the lead role, along with either Mylene or Chloe as the female lead. (Well, usually Chloe. Mylene got the role only once, and that was because Chloe decided the role wasn't glamorous enough for her)

At first, he thought it was because he was the new kid in school and they were trying to be nice to him, but eventually he figures out that the casting decisions are typically a combination of Chloe threatening the show directors and the show directors assuming that he's the best for the part anyway, given that he's a famous model.

Most of the time, Adrien doesn't think that's quite fair. There are a lot of boys in the class who could probably do just as well, if not better, in most of the parts that he is cast in, if they were just given a chance.

But not this time. When he learned that Alya had written a play about Chat Noir and Ladybug, he knew that the cat was in the bag. Even if he knew the role wasn't going to just be handed to him, nobody was going to be able to play the part better than him. Because he is Chat Noir. It's no act.

And in many ways, it's a relief, since most people at school believe that Adrien's a put-together, calm, collected prince of sorts. And okay—he is a nice guy, but there are so many times that he wants to burst out with a pun or two, and he doesn't do it. He doesn't know why. It's easy enough to let the puns fly when he's alone with Plagg or the Gorilla (and occasionally Natalie or Nino), but he never feels truly himself until he's behind the guise of his superhero persona.

Maybe playing Chat Noir without actually being Chat Noir will make it possible for him to show that more relaxed side of his to his friends at school. After all, they deserve to know a little bit more about him. And he's got far too many great puns lying around to wait for only Ladybug to hear them all.

So it's not the fact that he's been cast as Chat Noir that's surprising to Adrien. It's the fact that Marinette has been cast as Ladybug.

She's not someone who he had ever pictured on stage. But when he thinks about it, he can see how it works. She's the class president and she's best friends with Alya, who wrote the play. Increasingly, she's been taking on leadership roles in the school, and he can see shades of Ladybug's natural commanding presence when she coordinates classroom events.

There's also the fact that even though she was only the producer for the student film the class had made, she had been willing to step up and take the role when Mylene had gone missing.

And it's also true that she has the same hair color and style as Ladybug. So perhaps the casting isn't so unusual after all.

The one thing Adrien is most concerned about is whether she'll be able to act opposite him. He knows Marinette is not a shy girl around everyone else in the class, but she always seems so tongue-tied around him, and he doesn't know why.

He remembers how he had to help her calm down when they were about to film the kissing scene for the student film and how nervous she had been—though in retrospect, that might have been because she was about to kiss him, not because she was acting—but either way, he hopes that she'll be fine doing the role. And he looks forward to getting to know her better during rehearsals.

At any rate, it's going to be a nice change of pace doing a play with someone other than Chloe playing the female lead.

The first day of rehearsals, Marinette walks up to her best friend and taps her on the shoulder.

"Hey Alya, I've got to talk to you about something," says Marinette. "Why did you and Nino cast Adrien as Chat Noir? I just don't see it. They have nothing in common!"

Alya shakes her head. "No way. He's perfect for the part. He's got blond hair and green eyes and they're about the same height—"

"But they're nothing alike!" counters Marinette. "Adrien is so sweet and quiet, how can he possibly play Chat Noir?"

"I don't know, Marinette. I know you like him, but I don't think you know Adrien all that well. Nino says that he loves bad puns, just like Chat Noir."

"That's impossible. Nobody could possibly like bad puns as much as Chat Noir," says Marinette flatly.

Alya laughs. "Either way, he's just playing a part. It doesn't actually matter if they have the same personality. And you know he usually plays the lead role in our school plays! Just wait till you see the script—everything will make sense to you once you read the actual story."

"Actually, that's another thing I wanted to talk to you about," says Marinette, slowly. "Why did you cast me as Ladybug?"

Alya looks at her, eyes wide. "Wait, did I not tell you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm so sorry, Mari, it must have slipped my mind!" says Alya, lightly smacking the side of her head. "So remember how I promised you that I wouldn't cast Chloe in the lead role?"

"Of course."

"Well I went to Mylene next, and she said she didn't feel comfortable playing the role on stage, because it was too intense—she said that she had enough anxiety playing a secret agent without playing a secret superhero. And then she suggested you for the part."

"Mylene suggested me? Why?"

"Well she says—" starts Alya before Professeur Seydoux, the theater teacher, walks in and interrupts.

"Bonjour, everyone!" she says. "Welcome to the first day of rehearsals. Where are my Ladybug and Chat Noir? Please come to the front of the room."

Nino and Alya push their best friends to the front of the group. They stand several feet apart and wave awkwardly at the teacher.

"Hmm," says the Professeur, shaking her head in disapproval. "The two of you don't seem comfortable together yet. This is unacceptable. Ladybug and Chat Noir are best friends, but you two seem to be complete strangers."

She turns to glare at Alya and Nino. "Casting directors! I thought you said you had chosen two leads who had perfect chemistry! Where is Chloe?"

"Pardon?" says Marinette, confused. She quickly turns to look at her best friend, who has turned red and is wearing a sheepish expression on her face and avoiding direct eye contact with her. So Alya did this on purpose, to speed things up between her and Adrien. Marinette doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or shake her head.

Nino laughs nervously. "They do, Professeur! They're just feeling nervous, since they haven't seen the script yet. Isn't that right, Adrien?"

Professeur Seydoux interrupts before Adrien can answer. "I don't care. But we have to fix this right now."

"But how?" asks Alya. "It's too late to change the cast."

"It's simple. Adrien and Marinette need to feel physically comfortable around each other. They need to be completely in sync, just as Ladybug and Chat Noir are."

Adrien and Marinette both blush bright red. Neither has ever actually thought about how close they get to their partner while fighting. In the heat of the moment as they're trying to shield each other from attacks or they're sailing through the skies of Paris, they've never had the time to actually think about what it means when their bodies are pressed together. Especially Marinette.

But now, she thinks about the feeling of Chat Noir's face brushing against her cheeks when he embraced her to keep Timebreaker from touching her. She feels the weight of his body pressing on her legs when he collapsed onto her after she rescued him from the ice box at the hotel, and she thinks about the infinite number of times when his hands have been wrapped around her waist or when they've held hands while running from the akumas.

But mostly, she thinks about the pressure of his lips on hers when she kissed him to break Dislocoeur's spell and how he forgot it all afterward, and she momentarily forgets how to breathe.

"I'm not sure where you're going with this," says Nino, confused.

"I mean that we're going to start rehearsals with the kiss scene from the finale," says Professeur Seydoux.

Adrien and Marinette startle in shock. And for the first time since the beginning of rehearsal, they make direct eye contact, eyes wide, before turning to their teacher and asking, in unison:

"What kiss scene?!"