AN: I was going to wait to post this until next week...BUT Miraculous Ladybug Season 2 came out today in Spain and I saw the first two episodes and it was ah-may-zing! So worth the wait, thank god!
Anyway, this story will have a few parts and then it is part of a new series I'm working on (loosely inspired by Carly Simon's Coming Around Again). It's a series of short stories that is going to show snapshots of Adrien and Marinette's lives through the years. Each story will be able to stand alone, but it's the same version of the characters throughout.
This is part one of the first story, so enjoy!

Ladybug raced across the rooftops in the fading sunlight towards where she knew he'd be.

"Thank god for Alya," she muttered to herself, her voice lost on the wind as she jumped between buildings and swung over streets.

Her best friend had called her only minutes ago, waking her from her unplanned nap with her exclamations about the most recent akuma attack. Marinette had woken up immediately, practically hung up on Alya and was out the door in a flash. Three years and not once had she slept through an attack, but of course she chose to sleep through this one, an attack that according to Alya's ramblings was the most dangerous akuma yet.

And Chat was alone. She picked up her pace.

Swinging over the tallest building in the arrondissement, she could finally make him out in the distance. She breathed a sigh of relief, seeing him still standing and hard at work, and started to survey the scene while she swung towards them. The akuma seemed to be another man disgruntled over being passed for a job promotion. If I had a euro for every disgruntled employee...she started to mutter to herself, but then she took a closer look at the akuma's actions and saw what Alya had meant. He was far more violent than they had fought in the past, and Chat was fighting a losing battle without her. She was the only one who could cleanse the akuma, so all Chat could do was hold him off until she got there. It was their method, and it always worked, but then she usually showed up in a matter of minutes, not a half hour later.

The akuma lifted a car, hurtling it towards a group of reporters, but Ladybug was still too far away.

"Cataclysm!" Chat shouted, jumping towards the flying hunk of metal and disintegrating it before it caused any harm. The reporters thankfully scattered, realizing this story was not worth their lives. Ladybug was grateful, but now Chat's time was limited. She looked at Chat who was clearly losing steam and her heart jumped every time he narrowly escaped an object thrown his way. She needed to end this.

She swung down finally making it to the scene. Running towards the battle, she noticed the moment Chat caught sight of her, his head turning slightly in her direction and a small smile coming to his face. Time froze for a moment as she smiled back.

Unfortunately, that distraction was all the akuma needed, and swiping viciously at Chat, it grabbed him by the tail and flung him into a nearby alley. Ladybug gasped as she saw a flash of green light up the passage before hearing a crash that indicated Chat's landing. She could only hope that something had broken his fall. Without the miraculous suit, an impact like that…

She shook her head, trying to dislodge where her thoughts were going and focus on the immediate danger. She knew there was nothing she could do until the akuma has been taken care of, so she focused on that. The anger that flooded her system gave her a single-minded focus. No one hurt her chaton.

In record time, she located and released the akuma, defeating the exhausted victim and using her miraculous cure before cleansing the butterfly. She didn't know if Chat had wore down the victim or if it was her need to go to him gave her some burst of power, but she didn't have time to question it. She ran from the scene, ignoring the confused akuma victim and brushing off the returning reporters as she skidded into the alley where he'd fallen.

"Chat!" she cried, seeing him laying in a corner of the dead-end alley. His face was turned away from her but she could see his blond hair matted with blood. She didn't waste another second.

She rushed to him and leaned down to turn his head and inspect the wound when the bustle of reporters sounded near the mouth of the alley and she panicked. Grabbing his waist and securing him against her side, she swung up to the rooftop and quickly made her way over the buildings to her house, thankfully only a few short blocks away. Landing on her balcony, she heard him grumble and looked over to see if he could stand to help her. Then she saw his face for the first time and her hand flew to her mouth as she gasped.

"Adrien?"

2 months earlier

Marinette stood on her balcony, her emotions warring inside of her in a bizarre combination of embarrassment, relief and disbelief. She'd finally gathered up her nerve and asked Adrien out that morning only to have it go...not great.

He'd honestly been a sweetheart about it, telling her he loved her as a friend, and if things were different there would be nothing he would want more... but there was someone else.

"I'm really sorry, Marinette. And I know this may not make sense, because this girl may not even like me back, but…" he trailed off, rubbing the back of his head nervously and not meeting her eyes. "But it wouldn't be fair to you to try something when I know my heart is with someone else."

She was happy she'd waited until they were older to have this conversation with Adrien, because younger Marinette definitely wouldn't have been able to handle the rejection. But she was seventeen now and had definitely over-analyzed her love-life enough to be struck by the similarities between her and Adrien's predicaments. She'd listened as he explained his situation and had to disagree. It made complete sense. Wasn't that exactly how she felt about Chat? For years her Kitty had pursued her, but there had always been Adrien, holding a part of her heart that she wasn't ready to give up on. Until now. She realized in that moment that letting go of that far-flung hope meant she would finally have to face up to her feelings for her partner. That moment had finally come.

She smiled at Adrien then, and the boy smiled back uncertainly, probably expecting the exact opposite of this reaction, but Marinette was running on high as everything seemed to shift into place. She was Adrien's Chat, in love with him even though he couldn't fully reciprocate, and he was her Ladybug, pushing back her advances because his heart belonged to another. It was so ridiculous she felt like laughing and never stopping.

She looked at him and made her decision. She'd never have this boy, not in the way she wanted. They were good friends, but that was as much as it'd ever be and all the romantic fantasies in her head were just that: fantasies. They weren't real, but she already had something real; she'd just been reluctant to admit it. Maybe at first, it was for fear of rejection. Afterall, Chat knew her as Ladybug not Marinette, but they'd been together long enough now that it wasn't a valid excuse anymore. So what if he punned horribly and had cat-ears. He was real, and she trusted Chat with all of her. She just had to hope that his idea of Ladybug wasn't as idealized as her version of Adrien had been. That was her fault, not Adrien's, but it needed to stop. He was real too, and he deserved for someone to see him as a person, flaws and all.

As she stood there, starting to do just that, she couldn't help but mentally compare the two. While it was admittedly a close call, there was a clear winner every time. Maybe if she'd taken Adrien off his pedestal sooner, he'd be a real contender, but Chat was her person, and she wouldn't deny it anymore.

"You should tell her," Marinette surprised herself by saying.

"Wh-what?" Adrien stuttered, and Marinette had to smile at how the tables were turned for once.

"The girl you're in love with? You should tell her. And I don't mean dropping hints. I mean tell her."

"Oh...um...but, you're okay? Like...We're okay, right?" Adrien looked so vulnerable in that moment, and Marinette realized how much he must love this other girl. He didn't have many friends, so turning down one of his closest and potentially risking their friendship must have been hard.

"Of course we are!" She leaned into her impulse and reached over and hugged him, feeling him sink into her embrace as the tension left his body. She vowed from that moment on to value him for who he was, not what might be between them.

"Thanks, Mari." And he hugged her back.

Later that night, she was sitting on her balcony, enjoying the last vestiges of the summer warmth when he dropped in. She found it funny that he tended to visit her after patrols not knowing that he was essentially meeting her twice in one night, but she didn't mind. Except maybe tonight. She was still reeling from what she'd realized earlier in the day and it would take a bit for her mind to catch up with what her heart already knew. Nevertheless, seeing him put a smile on her face.

"You seem happy, Princess," Chat remarked with surprise.

"I am...confused," she admitted. "But I am happy, too. Why?" She looked at him, and noticed his perplexed look. "Does that surprise you?"

"Well," he reached up and rubbed the back of his head nervously. The action struck her as familiar, but she supposed she'd seen Chat do it countless times without noticing. He continued. "I kind of heard about what happened today. I mean, what that jerk Adrien did…"

"He's not a jerk," she responded immediately. "He's my friend. He's not required to return my feelings and he was very nice about turning me down."

"Sorry," Chat said, but she could detect a smile playing at the corner of his lips for some reason at her response. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't. I just don't want people making something out of it that it wasn't." She sighed, looking away from Chat and back out onto the cityscape.

"Do you-Do you think you'll get over him?" Chat asked tentatively, hopping down from where he was perched on the railing and coming to stand next to her.

"There's not really much to get over, actually. We never got started, so everything in my mind is all what could have been. I love Adrien and I think I always will, but he's a friend. He may be my what if, but I know there's something real out there for me. I think I would have seen him sooner if I hadn't put Adrien on this untoppable pedestal."

"So, there's someone else for you too?" Chat's expression was hopeful, with just a twinge of sadness and she gave him a soft smile.

"Yeah, I think there is," she took a deep breath of the night air and tucked some wayward strands of hair behind her ear. "Now I just need to make sure I want him for him and not as some consolation prize."

"He's your second choice, then?"

"No," Marinette responded fervently, shocked by how passionately she felt about this, but realizing she was talking to the man himself and needed to make this very clear. "I think if I had met him first, none of this would be an issue, but I suppose our story wasn't meant to be easy." She laughed at the misfortune of her own situation. "And then Adrien game me that stupid umbrella, and well, I was toast. And here we are." She shrugged.

"When did you meet the other guy?"

"The same day!" she exclaimed. "But Adrien just got under my skin from the first moment and yo-the other guy," she caught herself. "Well...it was more complicated and he was more of a slow burn."

His miraculous beeped, and she finally forced herself to meet his eyes.

"You should get going, Kitty." She flicked her head outward, but he seemed hesitant to move.

"Maybe-" he started, but paused to collect his words. "Maybe it's the same for Adrien. Maybe if the timing were different, if everything weren't a jumble that day, it would have been different."

"Maybe," she agreed, smiling at his attempt to comfort her. "But we can't live on maybes. Our fairytale just doesn't seem destined for that happily ever after."

"You deserve a happily ever after, Princess," he responded, his voice thick with emotion.

"So do you, Chat. And maybe we'll still have one, just one that was different than we planned." She looked over and placed her hand on his with a smile. His ring beeped again and she knew she needed to shoo him off her balcony. As much as she wanted to know his identity, now was not the time.

"You should go. I'll see you later, chaton," she leaned up and kissed his cheek before retreating back into her room.

Chat stood there, watching her go, perplexed by the sound of Ladybug's nickname for him on Marinette's lips, but not at all bothered by it. He knew in that moment that Marinette was absolutely right. If the timing had been different, if he'd seen her-if he'd really seen Marinette-first, this all would be different.

But we can't live on maybes.

He sighed, vaulting off towards home in the humid Parisian night.