A/N: Last one, guys. Enjoy!

It's an interesting prospect to consider. She could go meet another person, get that second (sixth) chance that she'd dreamed of. Break off that bond, keep Adrien firmly in the friend zone, and finally, finally advance their professional relationship.

A pipe dream is a pipe dream, but when the smoke's hazy and misty, there's few reminders of reality. Marinette sat back and dreamed of the door the matchmaking services had just handed her, and wondered if she could get out.

Looking back, she thought about it the way she thought about her college decisions. It was almost like yes, she has options, but on the other hand, she's just going to say no to them anyway. Maybe she'll entertain the thought for a while longer, just to satisfy her own giggles that she actually beat the matching department, and then carefully pass the opportunity along to someone else who sorely needs it. Goodness knows that by declining many of her acceptance letters on time, spots on the waitlist opened up to her fellow anxious students. Marinette decided that she'll send her regrets in later, in perhaps a day or two. Besides, she already liked Adrien too much to say no.

She hoped that he liked her enough that he'll say yes. Who needed a ring when there was a delightful certificate of marriage from the government sitting on the bedside drawer? (Who was she kidding, she'd take a ring any day).

Adrien, surprisingly, was easily found. Well, she amended, she doesn't find him – he found her in the grocery store near the tomatoes.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello," she replied absently. The fruit (high school bio's taught her that technically most edible "vegetables" were fruits too) was softer than she liked, so after a final prod, she set it back into the pile of its brethren. Surely, there were some decent tomatoes hiding in this pile, right?

She spotted a more promising one. Its flesh was firm and the skin was a pleasing red, so she dropped it into her basket.

"How are you?" He's looking a little peaky, but that might just be from the harsh fluorescent lights of the supermarket.

"Good." Clearly, it's a rote answer. "You?" Social niceties were still robotically programmed into everyone, apparently.

"Fine. Well, fine as I'll ever be." She considered another tomato in the silence, and then added the subpar specimen of fruit along with her other tomato. That was two; she now has enough to make egg and fried tomato for dinner. Now, for the garlic.

Marinette hoisted her basket up from the ground and marched in the direction of the garlic bulbs, and then sidetracks to the racks of tofu when she realized she just wants to eat it raw. Silken or soft? So many choices to choose from, so little space in her stomach.

Adrien had followed her to the racks of tofu. It was unlike him to be so quiet, and in the softer lights of the display, the shadows under his eyes deepened. Ah. So it wasn't just the lighting; Adrien was actually sick. She had to quash down the urge to ruffle his hair and hug him. He probably wouldn't welcome those impulses right now.

"You don't look well." She frowned, and then remembered that he had probably sought her out for a reason. "Did you have something you needed to do?"

His forehead wrinkled. It was a little cute, and she wondered if he didn't do it more because he didn't want premature lines or if he just wasn't confused often. "Yes, actually. I was wondering if you also got an email from the match department?"

She blinked. "Yeah." She slid her eyes back to the rack to give herself an excuse of not looking at his face. "Was yours about the chance of finding another match?"

He nodded. "They said that they had messed up one of my choices, and that I was now entitled to another chance, but that it would be my last one."

"Oh. Me too." A little glob of something froze and clunked to the bottom of her belly. Why was he bringing this up? Did he want to take that chance? "So, are you going to take it?" She reached out and impulsively decided on the silken tofu. The purple packaging on it appealed more than the green sticker on the soft tofu did.

"Take it? No, I was planning to decline but I wanted to tell you first so we were on the same page. Why? Do you want it?"

She shook her head, waving her hands in front of her in pacification. "Nope, not at all. I was just starting to like you, too," she teased.

His shoulders dropped and his neck drooped forward a little. The tension drained out of him instantly."Oh, good. I was hoping you'd say that."

She smiled back, rocking back and forth on her feet a bit. "I've got to get going to cashier. Are you going to get anything?"

"Um, just some green beans and salt."

"Alright. See you Sunday?"

"Sunday sounds great."

Impulsively, she gave him a hug and tried not to rock into his warmth, and then headed back home. She has an irrationally warm feeling in her chest when she realizes that no, Adrien's not going to pass her over; from a ruthlessly logical viewpoint, they both cared far too much about their kwamis than to ever pass each other over, but she'll take the heady, cloud-nine feelings as long as they last.

Dinner was uneventful, as things usually were now. No more akumas, no more rushed and panicked pedestrians, no more screaming….earrings?

Sure enough, the small black stones were emitting a high-pitched whine; they were also vibrating slightly, just enough that she couldn't get a firm grip on the backing to twist them off.

"Tikki?" she called. "What's going on?" Her kwami didn't appear. She was probably off in another tea session with Plagg and Wayzz at Master Fu's place. "Tikki?" No answer.

Marinette tapped the earrings again. A light tinkling sound emerged, a stark contrast from the dull clinks from before. Should she transform? Perhaps the excess energy in the Miraculous was doing this; she hadn't transformed into Ladybug for a month.

A flash of light later (she mentally apologized for interrupting Tikki from her break), she's looking at a completely different Ladybug.

Well, it's not that different, but it certainly feels that way when one has been wearing the same costume for close to a decade. For starters, she's surrounded by a myriad of miniature weapons floating in midair. They range from ancient to modern to fantastical – there's a tiny lightning bolt and a ballpoint pen – and when she prodded cautiously at a wooden rod, it expanded and shattered on her rug, only to form a whole again. Most of these were patterned in the signature red and black lacquer of the ladybug, but some others seemed to be missing spots in inconvenient places. She would've sworn that some of the dots formed something like a paw print, but when she looked away and then back at it, the image was no longer there.

There were also additional weights on her back: light, gauzy wings smacked against the hardened shell of her costume. They shouldn't support her weight, just based on their size alone, but when she attempted to give them a flutter, she effortlessly rose above the ground. Marinette noted that although she couldn't feel the wind on the wings, she could control them with a thought. Interesting.

Lastly, she's sprouted antennae on the top of her head and her yo-yo is no longer slung on her hip – it's attached to her forehead. A closer look in the mirror revealed that her eyes have shattered into kaleidoscopes. Her vision doesn't seem to be any different, but the looking glass tells another story.

"Tikki!" she calls again, panicked. Tikki doesn't usually show up out of the blue, and she rarely materializes after the transformation occurs, but this might be an occasion that warrants her appearance.

"Tikki," Marinette repeats, attempting to keep her buzzing voice down so her neighbors won't report her for sound disturbances, "Tikki, where are you?"

There's no answer. How much energy does this transformation take up? Marinette frantically attempts to remove the transformation, but the costume just doesn't budge. She can't even take the glove off – even though the material moves with her fingertips, the latches for the gloves have disappeared.

She bit her lip and worried it between her teeth. Master Fu probably had the answers – and probably would withhold information from her for her own good. Adrien might have them, but he might not have the whole picture. Either way, she trusted Adrien much more, so now the problem was to find him without the populace noticing a strange, insect-like superhero leaping through the streets in broad daylight without the appearance of an akuma.

Adrien, it seemed, had a knack for finding her these days. He tapped a claw against her apartment window and let himself in through the latch.

"Adrien!" She leaped a foot into the air, and without conscious thought, nearly rammed herself into the ceiling with her fluttering wings. The antennae on her head bobbed up and down.

"Marinette, calm down," he said, approaching her with two hands held with the palms up, reminiscent of how someone would approach an injured dog. She resented the comparison.

"Calm, okay, I can do calm," she muttered to herself. She willed her wings to stop moving, and she sent herself crashing down onto the rug. Banging came up through the floor. Clearly, her neighbors were already sending out noise complaints to the landlord.

Marinette crawled upright, cradling her right wrist. She'd landed badly on it. "So, how can I help you today?" The throbbing in her right hip intensified. "Actually, let's go into the kitchen. I need to get some ice."

"Yeah, sure." He followed her into the tiny kitchenette and plopped down onto a chair; the belt tail lashed around Marinette's wrist before letting go.

"I didn't realize that tail was sentient," she nodded towards the tail.

"It's not," he grimaced. "Just…part of the transformation package today."

She looked at him closely, something she had forgotten to do in the confusion before. Chat's costume had changed; he too had miniature weapons, but these were slung on charms adorning his new belt.

"You too?"

"Yeah. The ring starts vibrating, and poof! Here I am, stuck in my costume with no way out."

"Oh, that happened to me too. Except I couldn't contact Tikki at all." She turned around and pulled out a bag of frozen peas. "Juice? Tea?"

Adrien shook his head. "I don't think we'll be here long enough for that," he said.

"Are we going to Master Fu, then?" She sighed. "Just when this Hawkmoth thing was done, too."

"Yeah." He sounded a little down, and she realized she probably shouldn't have reminded him about his estranged cousin who turned into a supervillain.

"Okay. Let's go now, then, when it hasn't gotten too dark outside."

Her sore wrist is now throbbing in time with her hip; she's holding the frozen peas to her right hand, but the throbbing hasn't decreased. She can feel it just as much as before, and it's beginning to verge on the edge of irritating and frustrating instead of just painful. She's shifting from side to side on her feet in Master Fu's room, waiting to see if the calling ceremony worked so Tikki could, perhaps, shed a bit more light on her questions. The transformations had mysteriously disappeared halfway on the trip to Master Fu's massage studio, so Marinette was left in a breezy blouse and shorts in the Parisian winter. The peas needless to say, were not helping with her discomfort.

"Is Tikki alright?" She motioned towards the circle of crystals in the center of the room. "She hasn't appeared yet. This has never happened before."

Master Fu lifted his head from the tea set. "The kwamis often retreat within the Miraculous during the power surge. I dare say that it is Tikki and Plagg who have successfully reversed the transformations; we simply need to wait until they stabilize the Miraculous enough to emerge."

Privately, Marinette thought that it was alright for someone like Master Fu who had a bit more time than she had to wait around all night, but Marinette had a morning class she had to wake up ridiculously early tomorrow. It's been an hour, and there's been no change in the Miraculous at all.

"Master Fu?" She frustrated herself with how her voice lilted at the end. "I've got a morning class tomorrow. I know that waiting an hour is nothing, but I do need to get home. Should I just leave the Miraculous here?"

He shook his head. "No. Tikki may use you as a focus to draw herself back from the Miraculous. Leave them on; you may find Tikki nearby in the next day or so. If she hasn't appeared in the next 48 hours, come back immediately."

"Of course, Master Fu." She thanked him and left, and thanked the gods above when Tikki fell into her hands and not the cup of scalding tea on her kitchen counter.

"Tikki!"

"Marinette!" Her kwami seemed as good as new; her spots were darker and shinier than before, and Tikki seemed to have slightly expanded in size. "Marinette, you've got to get to Adrien!"

"Now?"

Tikki nodded frantically. "The transformation's coming; you've got to get to him!" Her kwami bounced in her hand, too frantic to float. "Marinette, why aren't you moving?"

"The transformation? But I've already gone through one today. Do you mean the one where I've gotten antennas and a myriad of weapons? "

"No! The one where you become Ladybug!"

"I was Ladybug, Tikki. It just wasn't the normal Ladybug costume. I had wings on my back, the suit was a hard shell instead of soft fabric, and I couldn't take my gloves off."

"Oh. Oh, yes, that was the one I wanted to warn you about."

"My earrings were vibrating right before, and I couldn't find you at the moment. I thought there was too much excess energy in the Miraculous, but once the transformation was on, I couldn't get it off. Chat said he had the same problem."

Tikki, much more calm now, floated and whizzed about Marinette's head. "That sounds perfectly normal, and it's a good thing you found Adrien."

"He, uh, he actually found me."

Her countenance brightened. "Oh! Oh, that's better; clearly, Plagg had been more successful than I was at relaying the message." She smiled; her cartoon face stretched into a caricature of the emojis she so loved. "We were trying to get both of you to meet because it calms the jewels. You were right, there was too much energy in the Miraculous, but having both of the pairs be together definitely helps with stabilizing your powers, even if the Miraculous did go overboard at first with the weapon selection."

"That's never happened before, though, so why did it decide to – to –" She struggled with her word choice. "Activate? Is that the term?"

"Sure. Usually, the Miraculous decides to upgrade the wearer when the relationship between the holder and his or her partner progresses."

"Chat and I have been friends for ages, and we've definitely moved beyond casual acquaintances to beloved friends. It's been like that for a while now. "

Tikki sighed. "It's more of a heightened level of trust. Most often, the Miraculous decides to upgrade when both partners have revealed their identities to each other."

"Okay. Okay," she repeated, to let her reality sink in. "So we're essentially progressing to the next step?"

"Just about, and that's where these complications come in."

Ding-dong!

"Hold on, Tikki, I've got to get the door." She started up to move, but the lock disengaged with a snick and a shock of blond hair moved past the doorway.

"Adrien," she noted.

"Hey, Marinette. That was Plagg's doing, I promise. I try not to break into people's homes."

"I'm sure," she replied sardonically, and then had her attention caught by Plagg. Again.

The black furball zoomed straight into Marinette's fridge, and then popped out again, distinctly disappointed. "You've frozen camembert!"

"I do cooking experiments, Plagg."

"Sacrilege!"

"It's not your food, anyways," she said, spikes of irritation peeking through in her tone. "I bet Adrien has some fresh cheese for you; he carries it with him all of the time."

"I'm not hungry," he whined. "It's the principle of it. Cheese, in the fridge."

Marinette sighed and decided to ignore him. Granted, there was little success in ignoring one of the forces of creation, but she could try, especially when the god in question displayed the maturity of a toddler.

Adrien had made himself comfortable on her couch. She decided that she was feeling petty today, and that he could get himself his own tea, which he promptly did. He also raided her cabinets for her prized chocolate biscuits that she made herself. Clearly, she'd been letting him come by too often lately – without Hawkmoth as an excuse to meet, Adrien often invited himself over to Marinette's place for un.

"Adrien!"

"What?" Crumbs lined his mouth, and his cheeks were already fatter than a chipmunk's.

"You – you can't just come here and stuff these in your mouth! I saw you at the store last week, and you were sick. In fact, you're still sick!"

"Am not," he protested before swallowing and blowing his nose. "Besides, everyone knows that cookies are a proven cure to sickness. Well, at least yours do," he added before filching two more from the box. "You put turmeric in yours, and everyone knows that turmeric has healing properties."

She huffed, just for show, and plopped down next to him. Marinette hurriedly took a prized biscuit and nibbled on it before they were all gone. "So what brought you here, anyways?"

"Plagg suggested that you two meet up," Tikki broke in. Her face was suffused in a look of disgust as she watched Plagg inhale one ginger cookie after another.

"We thought this might be a – a –" Plagg sighed, and shoved another cookie down his gullet without choking.

"Remember that discussion we had before they entered the door, Marinette?"

She stiffened. "Right."

"It's best that we have the conversation together, so that we don't have any misunderstandings, do we, Plagg?"

"Charmaine only broke his nose the once, Tikki," he grumbled.

"Once is more than enough, especially since you told him that he had to crawl up the castle walls and serenade Aalis with screaming yowls, in the 'true nature of the cat.'"

Marinette bit back a laugh, especially since Chat had tried to do that in the early days of their partnership. He'd simply replaced the castle with an apartment building.

"Anyways, let's get started."

"Does Master Fu have to be here?" Marinette asked.

"He's busy these couple of weeks," Adrien said. "He's on a two-week trip to the Himalayas, and he's leaving tomorrow."

"Let's get started then," Tikki repeated, and then had to forcibly stop Plagg from eating the entire box of cookies. The kwami was so stuffed that he resembled a little balloon with a cat head on top, a far cry from before when he looked more like a bobble head.

Well, that was a frustrating conversation. Apparently, with Hawkmoth gone, there were no further threats to vanquish. As Tikki pointed out, they could join the police force, but that wouldn't fulfill the Miraculous in the way that fighting Hawkmoth would. So, Tikki had presented them two options: either find supernatural crime and fight it, or leave the Miraculous to those who would.

Upgraded weapons and costumes also meant that the Miraculous needed a stronger power source – the marriage between the cat and the ladybug would suffice, as usual, but it also meant that there needed to be stronger foes to fight. And no, taking down terrorist organizations didn't suffice. One couldn't interfere with geopolitics all willy nilly – otherwise, it'd turn out like Borneo and DDT, as the States had demonstrated.

But she loved Tikki! Tikki had been her friend for ages, her confidant for just as long. It would be a terror to give her up. Who would taste test her cookies for her? Try on the model's clothes? Remind her to sleep and to not buy coffee she wouldn't drink?

She supposed that life would adjust – life always adjusts, but she can't imagine a life without Tikki in it at the moment. Although, if she were being honest, not being Ladybug would take a huge pressure off her shoulders. She could finally let go and be free, do the things that she'd always wanted to. God knows she has a list of things that were firmly marked off as a solid no – travel, for instance.

Maybe sleeping on her decision would help.

As it turned out, sleeping on her decision was like sleeping on a hard rock. Whoever said that decisions were clearer after a good night's rest was lying.

It's been a month and the decision isn't clearer. She feels like she hasn't slept; the weight of the choice is nibbling at her brain, eating chunk after chunk in its effort to render her senile. Tikki had made it firmly clear that keeping the Miraculous or not was Marinette's choice; Tikki had her preferences, but she wanted what was best for Marinette.

One thing did get cleared up, though. She turned in her regrets to the opportunity the match department gave her, and requested that it be passed along to someone else. The department helpfully kept her updated and informed her that the one with the sixth chance had, indeed, met their match, pun not intended.

Another bright thing in her life was that winter break was coming up. In between the fiasco that was Hawkmoth and the subsequent mess of a transformation, she managed to throw herself into her schoolwork. Her designs were finally stabilizing in quality and style, even as her versatility and ability to work with fabrics grew, and she was optimistic about the job offers she'd applied to. Graduating in June with a bachelor's degree in fashion design and fashion business, she could find work as a retail buyer or merchandiser or something else, if it struck her fancy. There were plenty of internship opportunities available, and she'd applied to many, just in case her dream jobs didn't offer.

"Marinette!" Alya's voice came through the phone one day just after break. Did she accidentally butt-dial her friend? She looked up, and Tikki was holding the phone in front of her, gesturing for Marinette to take it. She plugged her earbuds in instead and hoped that no one saw the bright red kwami on the park bench.

"Alya?"

"Marinette, have you checked your email yet?"

"My email? Why?"

"The fashion design contest! Gabriel Agreste's contest! The results are coming out today!"

"Today? It can't be! The results are on January fifteenth!"

"It is January fifteenth, you dummy," Alya's fond voice reprimanded. "If you don't believe me check the calendar on your phone."

"I could've sworn it was the fourteenth, though," she said absently.

"In your dreams it is." Marinette could feel Alya shaking her head. "Girl, how do you even function some days?"

"With my phone," she replied, and then waited in tense silence as her email refreshed. Come on, come on, come on, she chanted. I just want to know!

"Marinette? You still there?"

Alya's voice was like a shock of cold water. "Yeah, still there. My phone's slow, and this email is just not loading."

Her friend begin to chatter to fill the silence. "I don't even know what this means. Adrien called to say to remind you to check your email, and I just want you to get it so bad because Agreste is like your dream. Like if you don't get in, I'll literally make you one, I swear."

Marinette could see the edge of the email, but the description was accompanied by a phrase instructing her to open the log into her account she had to make on the Agreste contest website. She entered her username and password with shaking fingers, cursing when her combination was wrong.

"Damn it!"

"Marinette, what's wrong? Did you not get in?"

"No, no, I entered the wrong password. Let me try again."

With a laser concentration, she entered the combination again, and successfully logged into the sight, only to be greeted with the notification that there was an update to her profile. Rolling her eyes, because there was a point to which she could take suspense, Marinette tapped on the update and had her screen filled with confetti.

"Alya, Alya, if the phone screen fills with confetti, that's a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, if there isn't an akuma hanging around."

Underneath, she could make out the words 'congratulations,' 'offered an internship,' and 'await your reply.'

"Oh my god. Alya!" Her shriek echoed off the trees in the park and attracted more than her fair share of glares.

"Did you get in?"

"I got in! I got in, do you know what this means?"

"That you no longer have to dream of being a designer at Agreste's?"

"That I can actually be an intern at Agreste's! Thank goodness, I can actually get a job now."

Alya snorted. "We both know that you'd get a job anyways with your fabulous skills. Congrats! I'm so happy for you. Let me send you a cookie."

"Thanks, but let's make it into coffee, so we can both get it cookies."

"Too late for that." A large cookie appeared under her nose. Alya slid onto the bench next to her.

"Congrats again." It was weird how she could hear Alya through the phone and next to her ear simultaneously.

Marinette pulled her earbuds out. "Alya, you really don't have to do this."

"You mean Adrien doesn't have to do it."

She frowned. "Adrien's not here."

Just then, guilty laughter emerged behind the bushes. "Surprise?"

"Oh my god. Adrien, you came?"

"You called, milady?" He, too, was holding a large cookie.

"I guess this is the time to say that congrats as well."

Marinette whipped her head around. "Nino?"

"The one and only."

"We were going to surprise you at your apartment, but then Adrien spotted you walking to the park, so we followed you and hoped that you didn't mind," Alya explained.

Adrien's cheeks flushed. "I was on my way to the bakery anyways," he defended. "And I didn't want us to show up to your place and find out that you weren't there."

"So we followed you here," Nino added. "Luckily, I had two reserve cookies in my bag, Adrien bought the third – "

"-he was very insistent on doing so," Alya sniggered.

"I was almost there!"

" – so here's the third one," Nino finished, magicking a third one into her lap.

"Guys, thank you so much! I seriously can't have all of this, though, so let's share. And I, uh," she smiled a little guiltily, "I brought my own," and withdrew her own very large cookie from the depths of her bag. It was for a guilty pleasure, and the reason why she'd originally come to the park – she had brought it to eat it. Tikki had finished hers long ago.

"Oh my god, is that a gallette?" Alya squealed. "I'll trade you for the brownie fudge?"

Marinette snorted. "Sure."

Her best friend danced away with the thin cookie in hand. With a bit more swapping, Marinette ended up with peanut butter and oatmeal, Adrien with the gingersnap, and Nino, the lover of everything chocolate, with the brownie fudge. She noticed that Adrien had guessed her preferred flavor the best out of all her friends, and savored the fact with a little more warmth than it warranted.

Tikki was the one who eventually came up with the solution to their problem. "Marinette," the kwami began one day, "I think, sometimes, that we just need to choose. Like biting the bullet."

"Tikki, I don't want to give you up," she pleaded. "I don't want you to feel like you're unwanted, because you're not."

"I know I'm not," Tikki said. "But don't you think that sometimes the Miraculous has been holding you back in life?"

"It's opened up so many experiences, though," Marinette said. "I've made great friends and learned new skills."

"You also can't travel, learned to do your own first aid, couldn't commit to anything as much as you'd like, and put some of your life on pause just for the Miraculous," Tikki added. "I don't want you to do that. As amazing as the Miraculous is, I don't want you to live a double life forever. It's just not healthy for your state of mind, and as amazing as you are, I don't think you're cut out for that."

"So I'll just hand this back to Master Fu? You'll stay dormant for all these years?"

"It's not as bad as you think, Marinette. We usually stay with our partners for five, ten years, and then we leave because we want them to have a normal life. Only some choose to dedicate their lives to us, but we discourage that."

"So you're leaving me for my own good." Marinette knew she was being a child, but she was furious with the fact that no longer being Ladybug was tempting. And the past few months of her life had never been better.

"I'm saying that you no longer have to be Ladybug if you don't want to," Tikki told her gently. "And if it bothers you that much, then why don't we give this a trial run. Give the miraculous back to Master Fu for two months, and come visit me once in a while. I don't just sleep when the jewels are back in their case," she added amusedly. "My consciousness expands so I watch all of the world. It's how we identify problem areas and who we want to give the Miraculous to," she explained.

Marinette sat in silence, contemplating it slowly. "Alright," she said slowly. "I should talk to Adrien before I make a choice."

"Just make sure that you're doing what's best for you, not for anyone else," Tikki urged. "Please, Marinette."

"I will," she said, and then went into her room to make a call.

Life without Tikki, as it turned out, wasn't so different than life with Tikki. It was burning and bitter realization that as Marinette had grown up, she had relied on Tikki less and less, and as a result, they had drifted apart. Adrien, too, had confirmed her theory. Plagg had always been like a younger annoying and endearing friend that often played the role of the devil, and that his life no longer had as many crashes and collisions in it. He didn't say it, but Marinette suspected that he missed them a bit.

Adrien had also added that Plagg had wanted Adrien to get on with his life without the Miraculous dragging him behind, so Plagg chose to retire to Master Fu. They had both visited their kwamis a few times a week at first, but as life settled, the visits were reduced to once a week.

New villains hadn't popped up yet, and Master Fu had confirmed what she had suspected – that he had all of the Miraculous, and that Nooroo was still deep in recovery inside the butterfly Miraculous.

She supposed that she couldn't stall with the marriage now, so she decided to start filing for the marriage certificate. Adrien and she had agreed to go for it, during one of their talks, and although they discussed who would be filling out the form, Marinette decided to go for it.

When she tried turning the intend-to-marry form in to the office, though, the clerk wouldn't accept it.

"We can't take this, Miss Dupain-Cheng," he explained. "We don't take duplicates of the same file."

"I haven't filed a certificate here before," she frowned. "I haven't progressed far enough with any of my matches."

"As that may be, even if you haven't filed one, if your match has, then we can't take the one you filed. See, Miss," he turned the computer and pointed at a digital file, "it says here that a match between you and one Mr. Adrien Agreste has been filed has been processed a month ago."

A month? But they hadn't verbally confirmed the match together until last week. "Ah. I don't suppose this Adrien Agreste is blond and tall?"

"I'm not allowed to say," he said, "but between you and me, a lot of people file the paperwork first in preparation for the proposal."

"Proposal?"

"Yes; most people like to get the paperwork out of the way before asking their match to marry them. It saves a lot of stress and it streamlines the entire process. So maybe act surprised if you see a ring in a future."

"I will," she said faintly. "You've been a great help. Thank you."

"I can shred that copy for you," he offered. "Seeing that it's of no use to you."

"That would be helpful, yes," she told him, and then walked out of the department in a haze.

Adrien had already filed the paperwork? But a month ago, they were still working through the kwami separations, and although there was a tacit agreement to get matched to each other, she didn't realize that he'd just turn in the paperwork already.

Where would she live? What was her last name? She knew the difference between the intend-to-marry and actual marriage certificate were different, but they were quite close. Would she have to change residences? Dear god, what would her roommate do? Marinette hadn't given her the notice for moving out yet, and one must move in with one's match a month after the marriage certificate was filed, which had to be turned in a mere month after the intent to marry form would file.

Was Adrien planning to propose to her this week?

It was a mess in her head, so she decided to stow it all away until her dinner with Adrien tomorrow.

Great. He was planning to propose tomorrow, wasn't he? What was she going to do about the ring?

As it turned out, he didn't have a ring with him when they met up at a nice little place that served Indian food. Instead, they had a long discussion about what it meant for their future: getting married, that was.

Cohabitation was one very large elephant in the room, and several pink elephants – and a couple of donkeys – followed after. Budgets? Finances? Just how and when were they going to come home? Where would they live? Would they be getting a pet? What about children? Her schedule wasn't calming down anytime soon, and neither was Adrien's. They decided to table the discussion to "the future, but no later than 32" for the first kid.

It was one long uncomfortable topic right after the other. Being in public and eating food helped a bit, she reflected, because she couldn't actually escape via the windows or the door. The environment forced her to face her problems head on like an adult and fully embrace the understanding that this was her life now.

Well. That was a somber and depressing one. She supposed that part of the reasons why she liked having so many options was that so she could always feel free. But she couldn't once she was married. And she'd been trapped for a long time, hasn't she? With college, with her friends, with her internships and job applications and classes and Ladybug. But as long as she wanted them, she wasn't trapped. Well, with Adrien, she wanted him, too. She wanted that security and domesticity, the idea that she'd successfully found a person to spend the rest of her life with (with or without the help of algorithms) and that she'd conquered one of the most important stages of her life, right next to walking, talking, making friends, and getting to college.

They were heading out to find rings tomorrow – Adrien had confirmed that yes, because he had already turned in the intend-to-marry form a month ago, they would have two days to fill out a marriage certificate and find a new place to live.

It wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. The ring, at least, was easy. They sort of walked into a department store and after trying several on, got the thing after a couple of hours. Truth to be told, Marinette had been looking at rings for ages now, so it didn't take too long to find what she wanted. Adrien had picked up one for himself, and they split the cost of both. "Going dutch," the retailer had called it. Well, they were the modern sort of people, so going dutch it was.

For the time being, Marinette and Adrien decided that they were going to just move into Adrien's apartment. He had two bedrooms and no roommate; the latter which was of more importance. Marinette could get her things moved quickly, and most of her furniture came from the landlord, so she couldn't take it with her anyways. She notified her roommate so there wouldn't be too much financial pressure for her roommate before Marinette had to move. His apartment was nice, she knew from several visits, and it was close enough to the fashion district that she could easily get to work without waking up too early.

There weren't any particular arguments throughout the process, although Marinette had the feeling that they were both holding back quite a bit so they wouldn't trod on each other's toes. Like life without Tikki, though, she settled into it fairly quickly. It was good, actually. Really good.

"Isn't that beautiful?" She asked, pointing at Buckingham Palace. "The architecture is gorgeous." Marinette turned her head, only to find that Adrien was looking at her instead. The green of the tree overhead framed his face and she had to resist the urge to take a mental snapshot.

"Not as nice as you are," he murmured, and then leaned down to give her a peck on the cheek.

"Of course not," she grumbled, secretly warmed. "I'd imagine how you'd sleep in bed next to a palace every night."

"I'd imagine that would work very well, wouldn't it? I'd just cuddle up to you instead and move to the bed without the palace in it."

She sighed, and leaned her head onto his shoulder. "Come on, let's go take a tour."

"Another one?" Adrien pulled his face into a caricature of dissatisfaction, but she secretly knew that he enjoyed learning about history just as much as she did.

"Yeah, I think Plagg's trying to eat the silverware inside already." She fingered her own earrings, where the ladybug Miraculous resided. Master Fu had allowed them to wear their Miraculous out occasionally, and there was nothing like striking fear into crime when Ladybug and Chat Noir popped up all around Europe. Besides, she missed perching from rooftops, and she knew Adrien missed the feeling of his baton.

"You're right, we'd better go." He grabbed her hand and, laughing, pulled her out of the shade and into the blinding sun.

A/N: This is it, guys. It's the last chapter. I just wanted to say a very large THANK YOU to everyone who has read and interacted with this in any form or way. I seriously value you guys, and I know I was the worst at updating, but after two years, this thing is finally done.

I don't know if I ever want to do something this long ever again, and if I do, it probably won't be anytime soon. Just look at how long this one took :). I will say that I have always wanted to write a novel over 50k, probably because I like the number 50, and having done so, this makes me happy.

I did hope you enjoyed this fic, though, and if you didn't and just wanted to see how this ended, well, I know I did that many times too, so I hope you're happy with what you found.

Happy reading and writing, fellow readers and writers!