Author's Note: Thank you all for reviewing, favouring, and following this fic. I'm glad you all enjoyed it and I hope you continue to enjoy this final chapter.

There was many things that Ladybug thought that Chat Noir would say.

Please be this hot sexy actress or model…please be this clever witty scholar…please be this ultra-amazing athlete…please be some other, confident, cool, girl that I am secretly in love with…

It never occurred to her that he would beg for her to be….well her.

He wanted her to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

He wanted the boring, clumsy, pathetic girl that can be incapable of stringing two words together when she's flustered. He wanted her to be the temperamental silly person that jumped to conclusions and made the situation worse. He wanted the girl that aspired to be an original and creative fashion designer but sold out to confirm to other people's ideas or do the easiest thing the first time round.

He wanted someone who was always making mistakes and probably shouldn't have the Miraculous in the first place.

He actually wanted to have the girl behind the mask.

He wanted her.

Her breath caught in her throat at that and she almost choked as she tried to speak. It took several, deep, calming breaths before she was ready to try again. She opened her mouth and then –

….immediately closed again when nothing came out.

She remembered Tiki's stern warning about how no one should ever know who she was. It was a rule she held fast on for many reasons, because it was the rules, because it would protect her loved ones from her enemies, because it saved her from being hounded by the press and the fans, but mainly because it would mean she would never disappoint anyone when they found out how boring she truly was.

But Chat Noir wanted her to be herself.

And he would never tell.

She could still feel him trembling in her arms and there was a growing, warm, damp patch on her neck where she could feel his tears, and she felt her determination and stubbornness turn to steel.

Her partner was tearing himself apart over this.

Her silly insecurities and the stupid rules meant nothing compared to Chat's happiness and well-being. The consequences of her telling someone who was in the same boat as her about her identity was insignificant compared to the consequences of her crime-fighting partner having a complete nervous breakdown that reduced him into being incapable of fighting by her side.

And she so desperately and selfishly needed Chat Noir by her side.

Slowly, she tried to pry him away from. He resisted at first as he arms clamped down round her waist and he buried his face even further into her neck but she remained undeterred as she gently but firmly pushed him away by the shoulders and took several slow steps away.

"Chat," she said softly as her partner avoided her gaze to stare down miserably at the floor, "Chat," she repeated, "I need you to look at me." His eyes didn't even flicker at that. "Look at me, please!"

Slowly and reluctantly he did as she asked, and for a moment his beautiful deep green eyes stole away all the air from her lungs. She had to forcibly remind herself to actually breathe by taking a deep, almost agonising, breath.

"Watch," she said, "just….watch me."

And with one last deep breath as she tried to squash all of her irrational fears and insecurities… she dropped her transformation.

MLBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLB

There is a shower of pink glittery light and as soon as it vanishes Marinette stands in Ladybug's place.

He blinked and she was still there in front of him.

She was still real.

He tightened his grip on her waist to reassure himself that she was solid and real and here. Marinette smiled nervously as hr own hands covered his and squeezed tightly to give himself reassurance.

"I-I-I'm me," she stammered, "I'm Marinette."

He is vaguely aware that there is a red Kwami hovering over their heads but his attention is solely focused on the girl standing before him. His hands glided up her sides determined to feel that she's real. He couldn't help but grin as he felt every inch of her beneath the palms of his hands. He could feel her body move ever so slightly at every breath she took. She was really here! He squeezed her small, slight, shoulders in awe. How many times had he squeezed her shoulder before and not truly appreciate that he was touching the girl he loved?

He was an idiot.

His hands moved up to cup her face. He wished more than anything right now that he wasn't wearing thick leather gloves so he could feel how soft and warm her skin really was. "You're real!" he whispered in awe.

She smiled radiantly as one of her hands covered his. "I'm real," she murmured back.

Happiness couldn't even begin with describe how he felt right now. It was too simple and inadequate to explain the excited contentment that bubbled up within his stomach. Ecstatic came close but it still wasn't close enough. He felt liked he could sing and dance and laugh all at once.

He wanted to pick her up and spin her in the air.

He wanted to lead her away into a messy, silly, waltz as he sang her praises.

He wanted to hold on and never let go.

He wanted….

His eyes bore into her big, beautiful, blue ones that got bigger and wider the closer he leaned into her. His lips were mere millimetres away when she suddenly squeaked and shot a hand up between their lips.

Her palm felt warm and soft against his lips, and any other day he would appreciate the chance to kiss her in such a loving manner but he could see the alarmed look in her eyes and her pink flush was more likely connected to her indignation rather than any flattered feelings.

"I-I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry!" she stammered out. "But…but…I can't…I just….can't!" she choked out despairingly.

Oh.

Oh!

OH!

He had been so caught up in proving that Marinette was Ladybug, so obsessed with that one aspect of his dream, that he had forgotten about all the other parts of his dream. He had forgotten to actually whether or not check that Marinette had any romantic feelings for him as either Chat Noir or Adrien Agreste.

Well…crap.

"It's not that I don't like you!" Marinette blurted out. "Because I do! You're kind and brave and adorably silly and I wouldn't still be here fighting the Akumas if I didn't have you as a partner," he couldn't help but smirk slightly at that. She did like him. There was hope. "It's just….well…I also like someone else."

His breath caught in his throat.

Hope rose up within him….

Please!

"And he's just as nice, and brave, and so honest," Marinette babbled, "he makes me trip over my own feet and suddenly become incapable of forming coherent sentences. I must come across some sort of stammering blushing idiot in front of him. I love him but I lo – really, really like you too, and it's not fair on either of you so I erm, ah, you know…" she trailed off hopelessly her face as red as her superhero costume.

Her words were achingly familiar they echoed his dream almost perfectly to the point that the hope he was clinging onto was beginning to become a heavy weight in his chest.

Please!

"And who exactly is this perfect Prince Charming?" he inquired. Marinette shot him a suspicious look and he gave her his best soft reassuring smile. The one that his father liked to plaster on all of the magazines. "I won't do anything," he promised, "I would just like to put a name to the competition."

That didn't seem to ease her suspicion whatsoever but she also trusted him too much to believe he wouldn't keep his word so instead of refusing she almost broke down immediately. "You can't laugh," she muttered as she ducked to look at the floor, "it's not what you think."

"I don't know what to think because I don't know," he pointed out, "but I won't laugh," he added reassuringly. "Purr-mise."

She rolled her eyes at that before she looked up to meet his eyes again. After a long, hard, stare where he was sure she was examining the darkest corners of his very soul she finally relented with a sigh. "All right," she conceded, "it's….AdrienAgreste!" she mumbled very quickly.

He almost didn't hear her but, thankfully, his hearing was far superior with the mask on and he was able to catch it in time before he missed it completely.

There was a beat of silence as he digested what he heard, and then –

"Pfft!" he snorted.

He couldn't help it! He just couldn't! He had spent weeks thinking he must be the scum of the earth for loving two women while simultaneously trying to figure out if they were the same person or if he was just mad. It almost did drive him insane! Then in the space of five minutes he had been on a gigantic emotional rollercoaster filled with twists and turns and upside-down moments as he went from the verge of despair to the biggest relief to full of happiness and love to heartbrokenness to hopeful to extremely happy again so quickly it was a wonder he hadn't suffered motion sickness!

Now he just couldn't stop laughing.

And he means hysterical, tear-inducing, laughter that might result in some rolling on a floor like a jerk.

Marinette was less than impressed with this. "You promised you wouldn't laugh!" she hissed furiously.

"Sorry, sorry!" he giggled as he wiped his tears of mirth away. "I didn't mean to. It's just…..heh….I finally understand what they mean when they say you should be careful what you wish for."

Marinette's fury faltered into confusion at that. "What do you mean?" she asked bewilderedly. "Be careful what you wish for?"

"Why," he grinned, "it might come true."

And that was when he dropped his transformation. He could hear Plagg cackling away like a demon as he joined Marinette' Kwami and he's barely aware that the two of them are murmuring between themselves as his attention was solely on his red-faced Princess.

"Mpfl!" Marinette squeaked she blushed all over again. "I…you…..ah…erm….guh!" she babbled incoherently.

He couldn't help but laugh, utterly delighted, as he pulled her in for a hug. He savoured every second of it as he nuzzled her silky soft air and took in her sweet perfume of cookies and floral shampoo. "It looks like you were wrong, My Lady," he grinned, "my dream was real after all."

"So I was," Marinette agreed happily, "but I'm not complaining. There's worse things to be wrong about."

Yet in another way she was completely right.

His dream induced by the Akuma was nowhere near to being real because no dream, magically induced or not, could ever capture how deliciously sweet her kisses truly are.