Tale 1 – Marinette & Cat Noir in "Flirting"

Tale 2 – Nathalie Sancoeur & Emilie Agreste in Roomates

Tale 3 – Marinette, Cat Noir & Chloe in Betrayal

Tale 4 - Adrien Agreste & Marinette in Altered Ladybug (in the spirit of How It Should Have Ended)

Tale 5 - Cat Noir & Ladybug in "Is it Wrong to Want Revenge After a Funeral?"

Tale 6 - Adrien, Marinette, Nino, Alya, Rose and Juleka in How Truth or Dare Goes Wrong.

As the bottle spun, Marinette, Adrien, Rose, Juleka, Nino and Alya watched from their seats around the dinning table at Rose's apartment. The bottle pointed at Adrien and Nino grinned. It was one of the rare times Adrien had an afternoon off and his father allowed him hang out with friends after school, and Nino took the opportunity to suggest a game of truth or dare.

"I am so glad we're not playing spin the bottle." Adrien stated looking at Nino.

"Dude, why you gotta be like that?"

"Because of all the onions you had on your burger. Was there any meat at all or was it just an onion patty. I can smell your breath from here." The girls laughed. Nino breathed in his own hand to get a whiff of his breath and gagged on it.

"Oh dude, that is nasty. Anyone got a breath mint?" Julek, Rose and Alya all handed him one.

"Yeah, you better eat all of them or you won't be kissing me tonight either." Alya threatened. Nino popped all three in his mouth, as the other's laughed. "Besides Mr. Agreste, can you imagine how jealous the other boys in class would be to find out you were playing spin the bottle with a four in five chance to kiss a gorgeous girl?"

"That is until they realized there was a one in five chance to kiss the onion dragon over there." Adrien replied pointing at Nino, who ignored it and continued with the game.

"So anyway my dude, truth or dare?"

"I guess I'll go with truth." Adrien replied.

"Okay, so who was the first girl to tell you I love you? And Chloe doesn't count."

"Actually I don't think Chloe has actually even said that to me, as much as she assaults, I mean flirts with me." He smiled and the girls laughed, well except Marinette. "But it was Marinette who did." He replied and realized his mistake when the entire group lets out a series of gasps. He imagined the sound of the needle on a turntable scratching along a vinyl record. Adrien had been so distracted with trying to clear up the Chloe thing, that he'd forgotten Marinette had confessed to Cat Noir, not Adrien Agreste. He needed cover and he needed cover quickly. "At least it kind of sounded like that, you know how she gets all tongue tied and says random stuff, it sort of sounded like she was saying I love with you this one time or it could have been I love mules, which I figured she could have been talking about footwear." He voice took on a slightly higher pitch and speed.

"Hold on, you mean to tell me it sounded like she confessed to you and you ignored it." He heard Alya say, however the lighter voice of Rose sounded in the undercurrent of Alya's irritated one and his mind was slow to process what Rose had just said.

"When you put it that way it really sounds like a jerk thing to, wait a minute, did you just say Marinette's been in love with me?" He looked directly at Rose who suddenly looked like she was about to have a panic attack. His gaze swung over to Marinette, his eyes widening to the point of being painful. Marinette for her part had her head down and her hands hiding her face, but Adrien could see the heat of embarrassment in the blush taking over her ears. Everyone had gone silent. Adrien grabbed the bottle and gave it a spin, stopping it when it pointed at Marinette.

"Truth Marinette, are you in love with me?" He asked in a moment where his reactions were faster then his thinking. Still, the moment the words came out of his mouth and he realized what he'd said and done. He started to speak again to tell her not to answer, or he tried to. A pair of dark skinned hands had wrapped around his mouth to stop him. As he went to lift his arms to pull them away, another set of hands grabbed him from the right and a third from the left, immobilizing him in a tight two-sided hug of death. He looked at Nino, pleading with his eyes to help, but Nino looked panicked now as well, caught between his loyalty to his best friend and his girlfriend.

"You are not going to ruin this moment, Agreste. I have been waiting for a long time for her to say this to you." Alya whispered in his ear even as Marinette mumbled something from behind her hands. "What was that?" Alya asked Marinette who mumbled a little louder. "Still can't here you girl."

"I said, I'm in love with Adrien and have been for a long time but didn't want to say anything because he's seeing Kagami!" She yelled as she looked up with an angry expression on her delicate features. That expression softened when she saw Adrien struggling against the three girls, making it obvious that they were keeping him from stopping her from answering. As if all were thinking the same thing at the same time, Alya, Rose and Juleka released him. Adrien seemed to slump slightly and more words poured from his mouth before he had time to even think about what he was saying.

"I wish I'd known earlier." Adrien quickly covered his own mouth wishing he had the Snake Miraculous right now. A five-minute second chance would have been the most wonderful power to have in that moment. Marinette, still red from her initial embarrassment stared at Adrien. Adrien turning both red and green stared at Marinette. No one spoke for what seemed an eternity. Finally the silence was broken.

"I think maybe I should go." Adrien's voice betrayed the distress he felt in that moment.

"No, no, no. I should go." Marinette countered.

"No, you guys don't need to." Alya cried out, feeling guilty for her part in the awkward moment. She hadn't expected the answer would have hurt her friends, but she'd forgotten that Adrien had started seeeing Kagami. She just wanted Marinette to finally tell him how she felt.

"It'll be weird if I'm still here." Adrien countered. "I'm sorry for bringing the group down like this." He stood up and grabbed his bag off the floor.

"No, yes, well I mean, I should leave too." Marinette managed. "No matter which of us stays, it'll be weird for everyone." She also grabbed her backpack.

"I'm, I'm so sorry." Alya apologized softly, her voice weaker then anyone had ever heard it before.

"See you guys at school on Monday." Adrien stated and opened the door to walk out.

"It was fun earlier." Marinette remarked. "I'm sorry about this." She too walked out and ended up joining Adrien on the Elevator for the trip to ground level. They stood in awkward silence until the ding let them know the doors were opening on their destined floor. The pair slipped out of the elevator, through the lobby and onto the street. Adrien headed for the car that was waiting with the Gorilla still in the driver's seat, reading a comic book.

"Would you. . . "Adrien started to ask, but Marinette held up her hand to stop him and shook her head. She turned away and walked down the sidewalk in the direction of her parent's bakery. Adrien slipped into the back of the car and sighed.

"You really screwed up this time." He said to himself. The truth was, he wasn't even sure why he'd said that last part to her. Why did he wish he'd known sooner? He'd always just thought of her as a friend, so why did her confession hurt so much? He wished he could talk to his father about girls and love, but his dad barely spoke to him about anything. Besides, he really didn't think speaking to his father would help. Nathalie, as much as he liked her, would tell his father, since she was first and foremost Gabriel Agreste's personal assistant and that would probably cause even more problems for him. The Gorilla couldn't actually talk, so he was out of the question, and frankly Plagg was, well Plagg. Suddenly Adrien had never felt so alone in all his life.

The End.

NOTES

Just a quick short story before I start writing another long one. I know, people either love or hate the Truth or Dare stories, but I wanted to write this one, because to be honest, every one I've seen previously has them either admitting their feelings and getting together, or revealing their identities. I wanted to do something different. I didn't want them to get together in this one, and I liked the idea of Adrien being confused about his feelings.

I thought about having him think of Asking Kagami about it because I do think he'd consider that option, but I really didn't want to do it since it would be such a horrible thing to do to your girlfriend. "Hey Kagami, Marinette confessed to me, and it made my heart hurt, what do you think that means?"

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the amusing yet ultimately a downer short story. I might do an addition to this later. I have a vague idea of doing part of this from Marinette's perspective.

Peace and Love!