Wedding Bells
By: Ferrero13

"Chat?" Ladybug whispered one night, words almost lost to the gentle breeze brushing past their cheeks like a lover's caress. They were, for once, perched on the Eiffel Tower instead of the rooftops—the only acknowledgement of their anniversary. It had been ten years since their first collaboration.

Chat Noir tilted his head. Ladybug's eyes were sparkling with the lights of the city. Maybe, if it were still ten years ago, Chat would have fallen all over himself to tell her how paw-sitively radiant she looked. But he wasn't the same person anymore, was no longer the boy who stumbled to chase after her, so he just said, "Yes, my Lady?"

"I'm getting married next spring," she said, blinking up at him. In another lifetime, perhaps, he would kiss her when she looked at him like that, eyes large and earnest, like his opinion meant the world to her. But not this one. Not anymore.

"Huh. What a coincidence." Chat paused to grin at her. "So am I."

She laughed. "Finally worked up the courage, huh? Scaredy cat. I told you she'd say yes."

Chat huffed. "I don't see you taking the initiative either. You probably just sat there and told him, 'Why, of course I'd marry you. In fact, I've been waiting for you to pop the question for the last three years. Didn't you know that I've been planning our wedding since the day we first met when I looked into your lovely eyes and walked straight into a wall?'"

Ladybug punched his shoulder. It hurt. She'd gotten a lot stronger since their first fumbling attempt to protect Paris together. "You're terrible. I don't know why I ever confided in you. My fiancée's just as bad as you, actually, and it makes me wonder why I ever liked him." Despite her words, she had such a contented smile on her face that Chat melted a little. She may not be the one to hang the stars and moon in his sky anymore, but a part of him will always nurture a soft spot for this woman who first showed him how it was possible for suns to shine at night.

Chat nudged her shoulder. "I've known you for ten years. I'm allowed a little teasing."

Paris was a sheet of gold beneath their feet. It sprawled in winding rivers of light and disappeared off into the horizon like a sun sinking into the ground. It was a quiet night. The streets were dusted with a thin layer of first snow, and streetlamps sparkled like delicate crystals.

"Would you come?" Ladybug said suddenly.

"As Chat?"

"Only if you want to stand out," Ladybug said. "I could give you an invite. You're free to blend in with the rest of the guests."

"But then I'll know who you are."

"It's about time, don't you think? I should introduce you to my fiancée too."

"Does he know that you sneak out at night to rendezvous with another man?"

Ladybug scowled at him. "Not yet. Does yours?"

"She'd probably skin me if she knew," Chat grimaced. "I'd never have guessed that she'd be capable of eviscerating me with her words alone when I first met her. She was so soft-spoken and adorable."

"Our fiancées are basically two-faced demons, you mean," Ladybug grinned.

Chat snapped his fingers, winking. "Purr-cisely."

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "But we'd never have fallen for them if they remained so vanilla, would we?" she said. "In some sense, I'm glad he's such a dork. I like him more because he's so ridiculous."

Chat fixed his gaze on the lights that came from a house he knew almost as well as his own. "Don't tell her I said this, but I'm glad she can bulldoze through tasks with sheer tenacity alone. If we left the wedding planning to me we'd still be deciding flower arrangements on our deathbed."

"You would get along so well with my fiancée. He can put together an outfit for any occasion in the blink of an eye but ask him to pick a bouquet and suddenly he spends five days choosing from two options. I don't know what to do with him sometimes."

"Sounds like a man after my heart." Chat shifted his eyes back to Ladybug and gave her a broad grin. "I'll come to your wedding."

"We've finally printed our invitations," Ladybug said a few months later, after they'd restored Paris back to its splendour. They bumped their fists, and their knuckles fit between each other's like the teeth of a key into its lock. It felt like a missed opportunity, like a lover's kiss goodbye. Chat had loved that once. But he'd fallen in love with other things now.

"I'm beginning to think that you're my evil twin. Our invitations were finished today too."

Ladybug raised an eyebrow as they leapt up to the rooftops to make their way to a more secluded area where there were fewer people pointing their phones at them.

They came to a stop just as Chat's ring gave its first warning beep.

"I wanted to give this to you earlier today. But, well." Ladybug gestured somewhat wryly to where they had come from. She produced an ivory envelope from absolutely nowhere that Chat could tell. There was no way he hadn't noticed a stiff paper product hiding in her skin-tight suit.

"Great minds really do think alike," Chat said. "Here's mine."

They held their invitations, still sealed, and looked at each other.

"I guess our little charade is finally over," Ladybug said, smiling warmly at Chat.

"Not so little. It spanned ten years after all." Chat's lips pulled wide into a grin. "Whoever you are under the mask, whatever the name on your invitation, just know that it's been a pleasure serving Paris with you, my Lady."

"As it has been for me."

"Shall we?"

There was the quiet, crisp sound of envelopes being flipped over and open, and then the dry slide of embossed card against textured envelope paper.

And then there was just. Quiet.

"I don't know whether to be upset you didn't tell me you were leaving me every night to meet me or upset that I had to leave you every night to meet you," Chat finally said.

"I think we can safely say that both are perfectly reasonable responses," Ladybug remarked, dragging her eyes up slowly from the invitation to Chat.

Chat stared at Ladybug for a bit.

"Come here, you ridiculously headstrong woman," he finally said, a hopeless grin on his face, holding out his arms. "You've just invited me to my own wedding and I for one think that I deserve at least a hug to make up for so many lost opportunities when we didn't know it was each other we met up with every night."

Ladybug stepped toward Chat, but it was Marinette who finally settled into his embrace and squeezed him tightly around the waist.

"Yes, Adrien, you stupid cat. You're lucky your fiancée loves you too much to banish you to the couch for sneaking around with a woman behind her back."

"My Lady," he whispered into her hair, smiling.

A/N: This story came from absolutely nowhere. I didn't think I was into the fandom enough to write for it, but there. I am. I hope you enjoyed it. I think they'd be past overreacting once they're in their mid to late twenties, so have a calmer-than-usual identity reveal.

Cross-posted on AO3. (Come say hello!)