Sorry about that cliffhanger!

"Marinette?!" Chloe gasped. "You're Ladybug?!"

The girl she'd hated all her life was the hero she'd looked up to and adored. The shock of the news subsided, however, when she saw the pain in Marinette's eyes.

She forced her conflicting emotions down. "Marinette, what's wrong?"

"Akuma..." Marinette took deep, laboring breaths. "Gone now, but Tikki needs food." She opened her hand, revealing a strange red creature.

"She can save me, fix the damage the akuma did." Marinette coughed. "But she needs food."

"Uh, okay!" Chloe began to pace around her room, anxiety and panic beginning to set in. "Okay, what kind of food?"

"Cookies."

"Hang on, I have some." Chloe tried to bury her feelings. A small part of her wanted to leave Marinette, but she pushed it away. Ladybug needed her.

She returned with the cookies, setting them by Marinette.

"Thank you," Marinette sighed. The small red creature crawled out of her hand and began to eat.

Chloe sat in silence as the red creature ate for a while. Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette is Ladybug, Marinette is Ladybug.

"Sp-spots on Tikki."

Chloe watched as the creature was sucked into her earrings and Ladybug appeared before her eyes.

"Thank you, Chloe." Ladybug picked herself off the ground. "You're a good person for doing that."

"I fed that thing cookies," Chloe muttered, "Yeah, I'm a total saint."

"Tikki needs energy to give me the power to transform." Ladybug explained. "Fighting the akuma inside of me almost killed me. If I hadn't been able to transform I could've died. You see, Tikki helps me withstand more than a regular human. But since I used my lucky charm, I de-transformed. She can't protect me when I'm not Ladybug."

"Oh." Chloe wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"Are you okay?" As much as she despised the girl, Marinette felt pity for Chloe. "What's wrong?"

Chloe felt conflicted and depressed now. She hated Marinette, but loved Ladybug. Who was she talking too?

Does it matter? The small voice inside of her convinced her to push aside her feelings. Chloe had never listened to this small voice before, even though she often heard it, especially in her daily antics of putting people down.

"I'm a bad person." Chloe admitted, looking at her hands as she sat on her bed.

Ladybug eyed Chloe strangely. "As a super hero and defender of Paris, I'm a bad person too. I've hurt people before, burned bridges."

"But you're Ladybug! And Marinette! Everybody loves you."

"But I'm also Marinette, the jealous girl who hurt others to get what she wanted, and Ladybug, the hero who caused an akuma. Chloe, you aren't perfect, but nobody else is either." Ladybug explained.

"I know that!" Chloe threw her hands up exasperatedly. "How do I fix that?"

"Apologize and move on?" Ladybug sighed. "I'm sorry, Chloe, I'm not very good at this."

"It's okay," Chloe took a deep breath as Ladybug moved towards the door. "And Marinette?"

Ladybug turned her head to look at Chloe, confused.

"I'm sorry about telling Adrien," she admitted. "And I believe this is yours." She held out the pen she had bought from Alya.

Ladybug paused after taking the pen, unsure how to respond. "Thank you for promising not to tell this secret."

Nathan had given up on reaching Chloe via text. He'd been feeling guilty about his little revenge since he'd done it, but when he got her apology text he immediately knew he'd done the wrong thing.

He had his sketchbook open on his lap to the page where he had drawn his plan the day Chloe and him had teamed up.

1. use security tapes as leverage to be her partner

2. be nice to her, but not too nice

3. once she starts to trust you bring up that you're backing out of the plan

4. Chloe will get angry

5. use opportunity to tell her who she really is

He ripped the page out of the book, crumpling it up and throwing it across the room. Nathan now knew what he should've done. He should've left the situation where it was.

He chucked his sketchbook at the wall, the guilt gnawing at the sides of his stomach. Nathan needed to fix this. If he couldn't reach her through her phone, he would have to reach her at her house.

Nathan dragged himself from the bed, sickness and fatigue dragging him back. However, he wasn't about to rest up when he had a mess to clean up.

"I'm a friend of Adrien's." Marinette folded her hands neatly in front of her, her back straight and her expression unreadable.

"Uh, okay," Nathalie kept her eyes focused on her computer. New emails from Gabriel Agreste required her undivided attention. She took a second to glance up at Marinette, decided that she wasn't a threat, and gave her permission to go on up.

Marinette began to walk up the spotless white stairs, her hand shaking as it ran along the smooth marble railing. Her breath came out quick and panicked. Its better to do it now than at school with everyone watching.

The feeling inside her was strange. A certain exhilaration of him knowing overwhelmed her along with the possibility that he liked her too, but that was combined with the fear of rejection. She took a deep breath and tried to console herself, knowing that she was about to see him in a couple minutes.

"You got this Marinette," the girl whispered to herself, brushing stray locks of dark hair out of her face. She stopped at Adrien's door and took a deep breath.

Marinette pulled out her phone and put her camera into selfie mode, making sure she looked as pretty as possible. She opened her purse to put her phone back in her pocket and was met with a reassuring glance from Tikki.

She gave Tikki a weak smile and knocked on the pristine white door.

A couple seconds later, Adrien opened the door. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw who it was.

"Marinette! You're okay!"

"Yeah," Marinette fumbled with the clasp on her bag. "About today, I'm sorry for r-running off, I, um..."

"I know." Adrien smiled at her warmly. "And I'm sorry for being so oblivious."

"It's okay," Marinette giggled nervously. "To be fair, I was trying to make sure you wouldn't found out."

"I didn't eat lunch today," Adrien said randomly.

"Huh?" Marinette was confused.

"And we never got those smoothies," Adrien continued. "If you want, we could go to that smoothie place and then come back here and hang out."

"Really?" All of the best emotions in the world seemed to wash over Marinette at once.

"Well, yeah!" Adrien confirmed.

"I'd love to!" Marinette was overcome by euphoria at her crush's acceptance. He's asking me out. He's asking me out!

"What are we waiting for?" Adrien laughed, taking her hand. He stopped laughing to look at Marinette. "And Marinette?"

She met his intense gaze with wide blue eyes.

"I like you, too."

Nathan arrived at Chloe's room twenty minutes after leaving his. He knocked on her door nervously.

"Its unlocked," a miserable voice murmured from inside.

Nathan turned the doorknob and walked in to see Chloe on her bed. Her makeup was smudged and her eyes were red from crying, her shoulders were slumped forward with hopelessness.

"Chloe, I got your text." Nathan sighed, holding up his phone. "And you shouldn't have to apologize."

"Yeah, I should!" Chloe cried. "I am a horrible person! I-"

"Just let me talk!" Nathan interrupted. "I was never really your partner. This was all some scheme I drew up to get revenge for telling everyone I had a crush on Marinette!"

"What?"

"It was wrong of me to manipulate you, and I'm sorry."

"No, thank you!" Chloe began to cry again. "You've showed me who I was and now I know that I need to change!"

"But you were already changing! I could tell, by the way you treated me you were actually starting to be my friend. It was really fun being Silver Ink and Golden Lens, and even if we can't expose Ladybug, that doesn't mean we can't keep being reporters!"

Nathan ran to her bathroom and returned with a washcloth. "Can you forgive me and continue being Golden Lens?"

Chloe took the cloth and wiped her tears away. "Only if you forgive me." She smiled tearfully. "You're the best Silver Ink I could've asked for. I was a bad person, and I swear on my life I'm going to try to change that."

"I guess we've both been pretty unappreciative of each other." Nathan grimaced. "But we can work on that." He pulled something out of his pocket, a bracelet.

It was made of black leather that had one charm: a small golden circle.

"It's a phone camera lens I painted gold," he explained. "I know it's not made by some famous designer but-"

"I love it," Chloe slipped it on her wrist. "And I have something for you, too." She walked to her bedside table and pulled something from the drawer.

She held out a silver pin shaped like a silver pen. Chloe smiled brightly as she pinned it on his jacket.

"Friends?" Nathan opened his arms.

"Friends," Chloe hugged him wholeheartedly. And maybe something more someday.

Thank you so much for reading my story! Please leave a review!