lost and found

Marinette Dupain-Cheng watched with dissatisfaction as her best friend, Alya Cesaire, pulled on her bright orange, down-filled coat. Nino Lahiffe, another longtime friend and Alya's boyfriend, was doing the same with his decidedly less fussy jacket.

"Do you really have to go?" Marinette whined.

Alya wrinkled her nose. "I know, Mari, I'm sorry! It's just that I have to get back home to finish this video project. It's due in three days and I'm so close to being done that I can taste it."

Nino held a hand up apologetically. "And I have to be—"

"A supportive boyfriend, I know," Marinette said, waving one hand toward them dismissively as she took a sip out of her drink with the other. She pursed her lips, but then gave them a goofy grin. "Get out of here already."

"Is it really that bad to be stuck here with me?" came a sheepish voice from beside Marinette.

Nino laughed. "Where'd you pick up those guilt trip skills, Adrien? Your dad?"

Adrien Agreste, the fourth and final member of the inseparable quadrant of friends, sat in the seat beside Marinette's with his hand in his chin, looking playfully morose.

Marinette turned beet-red. "Oh, Adrien, you know I didn't mean it like that—I just haven't seen Alya all week, and she already has to go—"

Adrien placed a reassuring hand on Marinette's shoulder and threw her a bright smile. "It's fine, Mari. I'm joking."

Alya leaned in to give Marinette a hug and air kiss, and then Nino did the same. "I'll see you in a few days! I'm camping out at Nino's to finish this project, and then I promise I'm all yours for all of next week after this hell is over."

"I'm holding you to your word!" Marinette said, before she waved them off.

As Nino and Alya exited the bar, Marinette turned back around and noticed that Adrien's hand was still on her shoulder. He was absentmindedly chewing on the straw of his drink, apparently totally unaware of the continuing bodily contact.

Marinette marveled; just four years ago, she would have melted on the spot. Adrien Agreste, with his kind heart, brilliant green eyes, stylish mop of blond hair that always seemed to fall the perfect way over his forehead, tall, built body, and impossibly sweet smile, was touching her without a second thought. But now—

Marinette had long since gotten over her teenage crush on Adrien, which she occasionally remembered with embarrassment—not at the fact that she'd liked him, as she'd always found him quite likable, but at how she'd been rendered positively speechless whenever he was around for at least two years. Now that they were twenty and they'd known each other so well for what felt like forever, it seemed laughable that Adrien Agreste, dork and cat-lover extraordinaire, could ever have made her nervous, beautiful and sweet as he might be.

"You okay there?" Marinette said, waving one hand in front of Adrien's glazed eyes.

Adrien startled, sitting up a little straighter and removing his hand from her shoulder. "Huh?"

"You seemed to zone out for a minute. You have been quiet today," she added with a frown. "What's been going on?"

Adrien shook his head quickly, and his lips curled up into a smile. "Nothing. It's been a long exam period, that's all."

Marinette took a sip out of her own drink and grimaced at the amount of alcohol in it. She envisioned the liquid traveling down her throat and burning smoky holes in it along the way. "You sure? I know how you are about hiding things," she chided.

Adrien, as Alya liked to say, had always had the poor-little-rich-boy thing down to an art form. As a professional model who had never let his popularity get to his head and remained perpetually sweet and hard-working, even as he climbed higher and higher peaks to success, Adrien was revered by all except the person who mattered most to him. Gabriel Agreste, much to Marinette's confusion, never seemed satisfied with his son's performance in anything. She wondered if Adrien had spoken with his father today.

"I'm fine," Adrien reassured her, and he looked pointedly at her glass. "You, on the other hand, need to catch up."

Marinette frowned down at her drink. "It's too strong," she complained. "I'll be out like a light if I finish this."

Adrien laughed, and without a word, he slid his glass across the table and took hers.

Marinette stuck her tongue out at him, but she picked up his glass and sipped. Something floral, with just a hint of sweetness, seemed to melt over her tongue. She pursed her lips. "Much better," she admitted. "Thanks."

Adrien clinked his newly-claimed drink against hers. "Bottoms up, Marinette. Let's celebrate the end of a spectacularly terrible semester."

Even while half-slumped over, disheveled, and reeking of alcohol, Adrien Agreste managed to look relatively glamorous. It made Marinette, who looked like a creature from the underworld when she was that drunk, sick to her stomach. Or maybe that was the liquor.

Exhausted, excited, and probably not full enough of carbohydrates, both of them had outdone themselves at the bar, although Marinette at least knew she'd make it to the next morning alive. She wasn't so sure about Adrien, whose forehead was hot against her shoulder as he snoozed, snoring softly.

It was like stepping into the taxi had somehow hit Adrien's "off" switch: one moment, he'd been talking and joking animatedly, convincingly, to Marinette, to the point where she'd wondered if the alcohol had even affected him at all, and the next, he'd been out.

The taxicab pulled up to Adrien's townhouse, and Marinette turned to gently shake Adrien by the shoulder.

"Adrien."

"Mmmph."

"Adrien, come on. You can't sleep here."

Adrien lifted his head and looked at Marinette through one bleary eye. "Whudtimeizit?" He peered past her through the taxicab window. "I don't wanna go in there."

Marinette frowned. "What do you mean?"

Adrien shrugged, eyes half-lidded and glassy. Even in his intoxicated, barely-there state, his expression was like a parody of someone who was trying very hard to look casual. "I just don't want to."

"Adrien… Are you okay?"

Marinette caught the cab driver looking impatiently at them through the rearview mirror, and she bit her lip, thinking quickly. She knew it. He hadn't been himself all night, but every time she'd tried to approach it, Adrien had masked whatever he was burying with another goofy smile and a stupid pun. But something was very clearly wrong, and she couldn't just leave him alone in that big house, where she knew he lived all by himself.

Marinette nodded to herself. Right, then. She was going to take care of this.

She turned to the cab driver and gave him the address for her flat. Adrien could sober up there, tell her what was going on, and then spend the night and let her force-feed him a hangover-curing breakfast the next morning, even if it killed him.

"Here," Marinette said, pushing a large glass of water into Adrien's hands. "Drink all of it."

Adrien stared at the water for a moment before downing it in four loud gulps. "Thank you."

Marinette sat down beside him on her couch, observing him with a critical eye. He was still glassy-eyed and smelled as though he'd dragged half the bar into her apartment with him, but he was, at the very least, more lucid than he'd been in the cab.

"Adrien."

Adrien raised his eyebrows and glanced at her sideways.

"What's going on?" Marinette paused, and then added firmly, "And don't try to tell me it's nothing!"

Adrien pursed his lips, his gaze fixed on an indeterminate spot on the wall, before he turned his eyes to her. Marinette was momentarily stunned—she wondered how she managed to be surprised, time after time, at how very green they were.

"Marinette…" He swallowed. "You're going to think I'm crazy."

Marinette felt her heart sink into her stomach. Adrien looked as though he might cry and didn't sound too far off from it, either. She thought about all the secrets she'd kept over the years from her closest friends, even Alya, and reminded herself that she'd want any one of them to react with acceptance and an open mind if she ever chose to reveal those secrets to them.

"Try me," she said softly. "You'd be surprised."

Adrien's eyes remained trained on her own for five long seconds before he pressed his fist against his mouth. "Okay," he mumbled. "Do you remember Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

Marinette felt her brow furrow in a knee-jerk reaction. She almost wanted to laugh. Did she remember Ladybug and Chat Noir? She had lived and breathed Ladybug and Chat Noir. They formed a core part of her soul. But it had been a long, long time since Paris had needed its heroes.

After the defeat of Hawkmoth, Chat Noir had disappeared. And after a few weeks of showing up on rooftop after empty rooftop waiting fruitlessly for her partner to come out from the shadows, Marinette had forced herself to retire Ladybug as well. After a tearful goodbye with Tikki, she'd handed the earrings back to Master Fu and assured him that if evil ever returned to Paris, she'd take them back in a heartbeat.

The depression that had ensued had been unfathomable in its depth. The eighteenth year of Marinette's life was a black hole that she hardly remembered.

Subconsciously, Marinette raised a hand to one unadorned earlobe. It was only when she saw Adrien look at her curiously, cautiously, that she realized she hadn't responded yet. "Uh—uh-huh," she said, nodding.

"Well, what if…" Adrien's eyes fell to his hands, which were folded in his lap, but he appeared to force himself to look back at her once more before continuing to speak. "Mari, what if I told you that I was Chat Noir?"

There was only silence then, and Marinette could only begin to guess what her expression must have looked like in those few seconds following Adrien's statement.

Truly, she hadn't even realized it was possible to feel so much at one time. A string of jumbled words—Wait what did I hear that right he can't be serious can he—buzzed through her brain as a dim roar, like water rushing to a shore, filled her ears. Simultaneously, a particularly prickly sensation crawled up her body in a wave, until it reached her heart.

"Wh-what?" she whispered.

Adrien let out a shaky, mirthless laugh. "I told you you'd think I was crazy."

Much to Marinette's surprise, Adrien didn't look shocked or hurt at her apparent disbelief. This made the moment more painful, somehow. She scrambled to pull herself together. "No—no, Adrien, I'm just—"

"I know it's a lot to take in," he interrupted, and he looked at her with such pleading in his eyes that she found herself unable to speak once more. "And I don't have my miraculous anymore, so I don't think I have any way of proving it to you. But..."

Out of the corner of her eye, Marinette saw him absentmindedly rubbing his thumb against his ring finger, and it was as if someone had splashed a bucket of cold water over her head. Blinking rapidly, she started to see him in a totally new light, dizzy with how quickly her brain was suddenly connecting the dots. The same bright green eyes, framed by the same long lashes. Of course. The same perfectly unruly sunkissed hair, just a little more windblown when he was flying from building to building and somersaulting in midair to avoid an akuma attack. All those nights where the mission had ended, and it had been time to detransform and go home, and her partner had been so reluctant to do so, because—

"I don't wanna go in there."

Because he'd either had to go home to an empty house, or to Gabriel Agreste, which was almost worse than nothing at all. And then there was the newly added dimension to the understanding that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, a revelation that had shaken Marinette to her core and sent Adrien into a tailspin for the better part of that year. But she could only imagine, knowing what she knew now, how he must have felt in the moment as Chat Noir: triumph, at first, in finally apprehending their years-long enemy, only to find out it was his own father. And then, to see him taken to jail and dragged through the mud, and to bear some of that burden as his son, as well, without being able to tell a soul that he'd been the one to capture him in the first place.

Marinette felt a fresh pang of hurt for him in her heart. Of course of course of course of course—

"Oh, Adrien," Marinette breathed.

Adrien's own expression transformed as he registered the sorrow in Marinette's eyes, in the set of her mouth. His lips parted, and Marinette heard the softest intake of breath. "You believe me."

Marinette nodded. "I do."

She did. All this time. All this time, the partner she'd missed and mourned and cursed and cried over had been right here. Everything inside her was on fire.

"Thank you, Marinette," Adrien said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lowering his head. "You have no idea—"

And surely—surely, he didn't have a clue that she was—

In the back of her mind, Marinette heard Adrien's voice shaking, and she tuned back in, alarmed.

"—I thought it'd get easier, you know, with the passage of time—but it's been two years, and…" Adrien ran his hands through his hair. "I still feel so empty, like I lost a part of my body, or worse—like—"

"Like you don't have the same soul you did before," Marinette finished.

Adrien looked up at her, and Marinette bit back a gasp. The glassiness in Adrien's eyes was now distinctly amplified by unshed tears.

"Yes," he whispered. "And the worst part is… Marinette… I abandoned her. Ladybug. After it was all over. I saw…You know. That night, I saw my father, and—I just—I got scared, and I went to M—the person who'd given me the miraculous in the first place, and I gave him my ring and told him—I couldn't do it anymore, I—" Adrien stopped, and one hand rose to shield his eyes as a stifled sob erupted from his chest. "Sh-she was my best friend. And I left her all alone, with no explanation, and now she's gone. I miss her. And now I can't even tell her… It's all my fault."

Marinette felt her own hand cover her mouth as she watched Adrien—sweet, joyful Adrien—begin to cry. Swallowing back tears of her own, Marinette scooted closer to him and put an arm around his back and leaned her chin on his shoulder, not knowing what she could possibly say. When—if ever—would be a good time to let him know that she was right here?

Adrien was wrought with sobs now, unable to speak. Marinette had never, in her many years of knowing him, seen him like this—but then again, she thought, it probably wasn't often that he let himself let go this way. She rubbed his back and tugged on his shoulder a bit, and eventually, he moved so that his head was tucked neatly between her chin and her shoulder. She could feel warm tears on her collarbone.

When Adrien had quieted, Marinette moved to sit up, as she'd slid against the back of the couch, but he was dead weight against her. She leaned down to see his face—his eyes were closed. Deep breaths told her that he was asleep.

She studied him. But for the wetness on his face, which Marinette wiped away carefully with the back of her index finger, it was impossible to tell he'd been so grief-stricken just moments before. Her heart was so full that she really thought for a moment that it might burst. Both sheer joy and potent, rending sadness competed to fill the empty space that had been left in Chat's absence.

Adrien Agreste, Chat Noir—one and the same. Both totally heartbroken, just like her. She wondered how they'd managed to hide from each other so well for so long.

"Chaton," she tried, softly. Her heart pounded like a bass drum in her ears.

Adrien remained dead asleep. Marinette bit her lip and felt two hot tears slip out of her eyes, down her cheeks, onto her neck, where Adrien's had been moments prior.

"I'm here," she breathed. "I'm here."

Minutes later, Marinette succumbed to her own inebriated exhaustion, and she fell asleep.

Marinette awoke when the ache in her neck grew to be too much to bear. She felt dizzy and a little ill, and the buzz in her head told her that she was still somewhat intoxicated. Adrien clung to her, his head on her chest, his own chest rising and falling with the rhythm of his sleep. She was parched.

As gently as she could, Marinette slipped out from underneath him and tiptoed through the dark to get to her kitchen, where she filled and downed two glasses of water. She filled one more and brought it back to the living room, where Adrien, hair mussed and eyes half-lidded with sleep, but awake, nonetheless, sat before her.

Marinette moved to hand him the glass, and then thought better of it. She reached out her free hand. "Come on."

Adrien blinked at the outstretched hand for a moment, and Marinette, much to her surprise, felt four-year-old nerves revving back to life in the pit of her stomach. Thankfully, before she could stammer out a clumsy explanation, he took her hand, and Marinette led him to her small bedroom in the back of the apartment, turning out the lights as she went.

"Comfortable?" Marinette said quietly, making her way to the bed.

"Yes. Thank you." Adrien's silhouette was unfamiliar in the darkness, and again, Marinette's stomach churned just a little bit.

"Of course," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible, and suddenly, she was so nervous that she couldn't even turn to him. She lay down, facing the ceiling. They were far enough apart that they didn't touch, but still, Marinette was quite aware of the heat emanating from his body.

Tell him. Why won't you tell him?

Marinette lay wide awake for who knew how long, pondering the question. It should have been such a simple thing. You know how you said you're Chat Noir? Well, I'm Ladybug. Surprise!

But the terrifying part wasn't really telling him, then, was it? It was what came after—the unknown. Would he be relieved and overjoyed and sad for the lost years, as she was? Or overwhelmed at the notion that she'd been there all along? Or—and this was the worst option, and the reaction she feared most—disappointed, perhaps, that it was just her? That would tarnish not just one, but two relationships she'd cherished since she'd been a young teenager. She didn't know if she could take any more heartbreak.

But she knew she couldn't keep it to herself. Now that she knew where her partner had been this whole time, he deserved to know the same. He deserved to know that she'd never really held it against him for disappearing, too.

"Adrien—"

"Are you awake?" Adrien whispered, at the same time Marinette had said his name. "Oh. I guess you are."

He turned onto his side so he could face her. Marinette did the same. She could see the outline of his face—the dip between his brow and his cheekbone, the glint of his eyes—in the dim city light filtering in through the window.

"Wh-what's up?" she said, and she was glad she had an excuse to whisper, or he'd have heard her voice trembling.

"I just wanted to say thank you," he said softly. He sounded distinctly more sober now than he had before. "I've never told anyone what I told you tonight. It feels like a huge weight is off my chest. And maybe now… Even if I can't go back and fix things, I can—"

"Adrien." Marinette clutched at the sheets, the churning in her stomach intensifying.

"Hm?"

"I have something to tell you, too."

"What is it?"

Marinette knew he could hear the trepidation in her voice from the concern in his.

She took her time, trying to choose her words carefully. "Um… You know… How you told me—that you felt like you'd lost a part of yourself… ever since you gave up being Chat Noir?"

Adrien nodded.

"W-well, me, too. I knew exactly how you felt, Adrien," Marinette murmured, "because I've been living that for the last two years, too. Right there with you."

There was a long pause. She couldn't even hear him breathing anymore. In the darkness, Marinette couldn't read Adrien's eyes, but she wasn't sure if she should be comforted or made more nervous by the fact that he didn't take them off of hers.

"Mon minou," she whispered, and she blinked away tears. "It's me. I don't have my miraculous, either, because I gave them back to Master Fu after… After I gave up on you coming back."

She knew then that Adrien had to have been holding his breath for quite some time, because she finally heard him let out a shaky exhale. Instinctively, she pulled the covers up so close that they reached her nose.

And then, she felt his hand, skimming along the side of her face, tracing along her cheeks and lips.

"Buginette?" his voice was teetering somewhere between joy and disbelief, not a trace of disappointment to be found.

She let out something that was half a laugh and half a sob, and before she knew it, Adrien had closed the gap between them and thrown an arm around her so that his face was buried in her hair.

"My Lady," he said, voice low. Marinette suspected he was trying to hold himself together. "Marinette. How? How did I not know?"

Marinette laughed thickly. "I guess we're really good at hiding our identities, after all. I always thought I was pretty terrible at it." She paused. "How were you so quick to believe me?"

Adrien pulled back, meeting her eyes. She saw a look of hesitation cross his face for the briefest moment—or maybe that was just the darkness—and then his hand slid down to hers under the covers, where he intertwined their fingers. Marinette felt something spark to life inside of her, deep and low.

"Well, you mentioned Master Fu. No one else could have possibly known about him. But even if you hadn't, it's like… You said it, and suddenly, I knew."

Marinette smiled. "Me, too."

Adrien smiled back, but then his face fell. "You—you said you gave your miraculous back to Master Fu after you gave up on me coming back. Does that mean you waited for me?"

Marinette bit her lip. She thought about lying. There was no point in him knowing, really, she thought; it'd only cause him fresh heartache that he didn't need. But it seemed wrong to be dishonest in this particular hour, even if it were for his own good. "Yes."

"How long?"

"Just a few weeks," Marinette said, trying to make it sound as nonchalant as possible. But she was sure he could visualize it almost exactly as it had happened: Ladybug landing, night after night, on their usual rooftops, hopeful at first, then worried, spending the nights searching for him, and then beside herself, until she'd given up altogether out of pure exhaustion.

Adrien let out a soft "oh."

"Please don't be down on yourself about it," she added hastily. "It's not a big deal—and now we know—"

"So that's why you were so—that whole year. After it was all over. For a really long time, Mari, because of me, you weren't… You weren't all there."

Marinette squeezed his hand, which was still interlocked with hers. "Neither were you."

And now she knew why. He had lost so much more than his father that year.

A long breath escaped Adrien. "I'm really sorry, Buginette. So sorry."

"No, really," Marinette insisted, panicking a little at the anguish in his voice. "Please don't be sad. It's okay now, see? We found each other in the end, right? And I was never angry to begin with. I just didn't understand. And now I do."

Adrien was silent for what felt like an eternity. For some reason, Marinette worried for a moment that he might bolt—but finally, she saw the outline of his shoulders relaxing, and he moved himself closer to her, so that their foreheads touched. Marinette forgot how to breathe.

"I know I never lost you, after all," he said. "But I'm really glad I found you again."

Marinette couldn't speak. She nodded, and Adrien let go of her hand to brush a tear away from her eye before it fell. His fingers remained on her face, his eyes fixed on hers, and she only had a second or two to ponder the expression on his face before he moved, ever so slightly, to press his lips against hers.

"You WHAT?" Alya groaned loudly into the phone, and Marinette carefully stepped out of bed, hoping she hadn't woken Adrien. She wandered into the kitchen and began to gather pans and ingredients to make breakfast as Alya ranted about how she couldn't believe this was happening in the middle of her finals.

"I swear, Marinette, once this is over, we need to go out and I want every. Juicy. Detail."

Marinette laughed. "It's not—okay, well—it's kind of juicy."

Alya let out something akin to a scream, and Marinette heard a faint, "Babe, what is it?" in the background.

"Go away! I can't talk to you right now! I'm busy," Alya hissed, presumably at Nino.

Marinette giggled as she imagined Nino slinking off sadly to another room. "You really should be nicer to him."

"Don't change the subject! What happened? I can't wait! I've decided. I need to know now."

"Well," Marinette started, twirling a pan full of oil this way and that to coat it. She wondered where she could begin.

She and Adrien had discussed the night before the extent to which they should reveal their being together to their best friends, but they hadn't come to a decision. On the one hand, there really wasn't any need to explain their alter egos as part of the story, but on the other hand, it felt wrong to keep it from them any longer. She held her tongue. Maybe it would be better if they decided to tell Alya and Nino together, she thought. She cracked several eggs into the pan, and they hit the metal with a satisfying sizzle.

Just as Marinette had made the decision to give Alya the abridged version, she felt a pair of warm arms slide around her waist and a chin against her shoulder. Marinette turned around and tried to bite back a laugh as Adrien placed a soft kiss along her jawline.

"Would you look at that," she said into the phone. "Bad timing. I've got to go, Alya."

"What? You can't just go now! I need to know!"

"I know, I know. Think you could afford to do dinner tonight? Maybe I can tell you then?"

Alya didn't answer for several seconds, and then she sighed. "I'm going to work my ass off today, Marinette. Double speed. Because I know this story will be worth it. You'd better not let me down!"

Marinette caught Adrien's eye. He looked at her quizzically, and she grinned. "I won't. Promise. Bye!"

Adrien kissed her forehead. "Good morning."

Marinette put her phone down, and she couldn't help but beam at him. His hair was mussed in every which direction, eyes bright and wide and alert. He was chewing on his lower lip to bite back a smile. It was adorable.

"Good morning, Chaton."

"Can I help at all?" he asked, watching her flip the eggs.

"Nope. How are you feeling?"

"Well, I feel like someone threw a boulder at my head last night," he said, leaning against the counter beside her. "Also, there's a chance that I'm going to be sick."

Marinette winced.

"But I think I'm perfectly happy, regardless." He smiled down at her.

Fireworks exploded in Marinette's stomach. She had to remind herself to look back down at her pan so the eggs wouldn't burn.

Adrien's phone went off then, and he held the screen up to her to show that Nino was calling. Shooting her a grin, he answered and placed it on speakerphone.

"Hey, Nino."

"Dude, did you make it home last night? I didn't understand anything you were trying to say in your texts, and Marinette sent me like, four snapchats of you guys in that bar at three in the morning."

Adrien laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Not necessarily… But I'm fine."

There was a pause. "Wait. How are you not super hungover? Why do you sound so happy? Does this have anything to do with why Alya is in her studio freaking out by herself?"

Adrien exchanged glances with Marinette and burst into laughter. "It's a long story."

thank you for reading! typically, i post my ml work to my tumblr (boreum-dal) and ao3 (boreumdal), but i thought i'd give sharing here a shot, too. this story involved far more crying than i envisioned, but it was very fun to write! please let me know what you think in a review!