Hello friends! This is my first Miraculous Ladybug fan fiction.
It may appear that I am a new story writer, but I used to post stories on this website. I haven't written fan fiction in several years, but I found myself very impassioned by the most recent episode of miraculous Ladybug. Please read, review if you can, and enjoy! I appreciate all comments!

Marinette simply couldn't get the events that had just unfolded a mere twenty minutes ago out of her mind. She sat on the bus next to Alya, who was absolutely ecstatic from her discovery of Chat and Ladybug kissing. Marinette nervously looked out the window, trying to drown out Alya's excited squeals and her oh so important realization that the Ladynoir ship had finally set sail to the definitive destination called love.

"I just cannot believe that this is real!" Alya exclaimed, looking at the newly taken photograph on her phone. Marinette could see Alya's hands shaking from anticipation at the raw evidence that she held in her grasp, or what Marinette mentally referred to as dirt. This was nothing more than an exploit of her and Chat's relationship. A mistake she made while her memories were lost, taken completely out of context by a fan girl… and it was going to be posted online for the whole world to see. Undoubtedly, everyone was going to misinterpret the situation.

Marinette could imagine it now- the magazines, the tabloids, the news articles; all revolving around her supposed love affair with Chat Noir. Surely Alya would also include Ladybug's mention of the other boy, only encouraging the media into a further frenzy.

Marinette's could feel her stomach churn uncomfortably at the invasive thoughts.

"Maybe… Ladybug really doesn't love Chat Noir." Marinette said amongst Alya's chattering which paused dramatically upon hearing her words.

Alya looked to her shocked. "Of course they do! Why would Ladybug and Chat have kissed right before their memories were restored? It's obvious that they had realized their feelings for each other."

Marinette shook her head and looked down to the floor of the bus. "No that's not what I mean. I-I just think that the media takes things out of proportion with their relationship, and maybe you're letting that guide your perspective of them."

Alya looked a bit hurt. "What do you mean? I have the best intel on their relationship out there, better than any news outlet! I think I would know the most about their relationship."

In Alya's mind, she was convinced she knew ladybug the best out of any civilian. It didn't take long for Alya to understand that Ladybug was a stubborn type. Her judgements in action were usually precise and rationally sound, but she most often followed her gut instincts when it came to her emotions. She found it hard to let go of emotions, even if they were proven fragile or superficial. Alya predicted that in the case of Chat Noir, Ladybug's admonishment of her emotions for him was merely a result of the conflicting emotions she felt for this other boy.

"I know Alya, I don't mean to doubt you at all. What I mean to say is that we don't really know a lot about their hero lives, let alone their civilian lives. The media always frames them to be in love with each other, even though Ladybug has strongly denied it."

Adrien had been paying close attention to their conversation from the seat across from them. He could see that Marinette looked visibly uncomfortable in the conversation with Alya. He thought about interjecting, but Marinette continued on.

"Something very well could have led them to make a mistake or assumption about the nature of their relationship while their memories were erased, leading them to assume they were in love with each other."

Alya pondered this for a moment. "You know, you do make a good point. I hadn't thought about that."

"Yes, exactly! What if Ladybug and Chat Noir somehow saw some news coverage that kept insisting they were together, and they just assumed that it must be true. Having no memories and suddenly being told you're a couple would clearly make you see the other person in a different light"

Marinette was honestly hoping this was the case, although it was just a guess as to what could have happened.

Before Alya could respond, Adrien inserted, "but why would they be looking at news coverage if they had no reason to believe they were super heroes in the first place? I guess the better question is how did they rediscover that they were heroes?" Chat had already been hit by Oblivio's powers by the time Ladybug began drawing on the wall of the elevator, so he had no idea that she did in fact leave a clue for them.

Marinette was startled by Adrien's sudden question. She already partially knew the answer to it, albeit she did not know the full answer. "W-well" She choked out. "l was thinking that perhaps one of them left a clue somewhere before they lost their memories, to help them figure things out."

Adrien hadn't thought of that at all, and figured that fast thinking like that could only be attributed to one hero. "Probably Ladybug", he blurted out rather frankly.

Marinette giggled to this just as the bus stopped on the street in front of the school to let the students out.

Adrien looked to her with kind eyes as the students in front began to exit the bus and the rest in back stood up from their seats. "You know, I think that Ladybug probably did leave some kind of message behind. She's amazingly brilliant like that"

Marinette's face flushed red as a tomato and her legs felt weak to his compliment. "H-he thinks I'm brilliant!" She thought, and thanked god for giving her an Adrien Agreste approved brain.

"But I do disagree with one thing" Adrien added on, causing Marinette to refocus.

The spark of love and determination in Adrien's eyes overwhelmed Marinette and took her by surprise, and a bright smile adorned his lips. "I really do think that Ladybug and Chat are meant for each other, and that their kiss was absolutely genuine."

Marinette stuttered "yo-you really t-think so?"

"I know so" he firmly stated while picking up his bag. Marinette exited the bus right behind Adrien as she stared at the back of his pretty blond head dumbfounded.

How could he be so sure about this?

Marinette thought about what Adrien said the whole walk home for lunch.

"I don't get it Tikki, how can he be so confident about the emotions of two people he doesn't know?"

Tikki laughed, instantly having understood the intent behind Adrien's words. "Perhaps he's a fan of Ladybug and Chat Noir just like Alya is. You know how heated fans become when you question their uh- what do you call it?"

"Their ship?"

"Yeah that!" Tikki exclaimed. At least it wasn't a lie that Adrien was her fan, he was probably the biggest fan she had.

Marinette really thought about this. "I never really took him as an especially devoted fan of either me or Chat, but I guess it does give me secret brownie points in his favor if he really is a big fan!"

Tikki raised an eye brow. "And what are secret brownie points?"

"They're the secret points that only I get or acknowledge. I get them every time Adrien says something nice about Ladybug or compares me to Ladybug."

Tikki thought about this and grinned. "Oh…. Sounds a little bit narcissistic. I would much rather prefer real brownies."

Marinette looked to Tikki angrily, causing her to stop in midair.

"No! I didn't mean it like that, I know you're not a narcissist Marinette. I was just joking."

Marinette's face immediately melted into a smile as she tried to hold back a laugh. "Tikki I'm just playing with you, I know you don't mean it! You're so gullible sometimes." Marinette arrived in front of the Bakery.

Tikki gave a pouty face as she floated back into Marinette's bag. "you're the gullible one, you don't even know that Adrien is Chat!" She thought to herself.

She met her Maman at the front who greeted her with a hug. "Oh I'm so glad you called us earlier and told us you were alright, we were really worried."

Marinette wasn't surprised by this, but she was curious what her memory erased self managed to figure out.

"My memories were wiped earlier by the akuma, so I don't remember calling you. What did you and I say to each other?"

"Oh honey, I remember telling you that Ladybug and chat Noir were battling a super villain at the mount Pinos tower. It really scared me since I knew that's where you and your class were going on a field trip today." Sabine said with a concerned expression.

"Thanks for your concern Maman, what did I tell you?"

"Well, you said that you were safe and with your friends. You sounded a little unsure, but I'm sure that was just the forgotten memories. Did your friends help you out when you lost your memories?"

"Oh yeah, they must have totally told me everything that I needed to know about myself to contact you, otherwise how could I have managed it?" Marinette gave a weird smile and thought, "I doubt any of my friends even know I lost my memories!"

"I'm glad you're safe, Lunch is almost ready!" Marinette's father walked up, giving Marinette a kiss to the head.

"Ok Papa!" Marinette climbed up to her room, setting her bags down next to her desk. She dug her phone out of her pocket, and pugged it in to its charger.

"I had it in mind for my memory erased self to call Master Fu when I drew that turtle. That's more than likely how we learned how to use our powers." Marinette stated, sitting down at her desk chair and turning on her computer.

"You most certainly did, there was no way you could have understood how to use your miraculous without him. The same goes for Chat." Tikki said, munching on a cookie that she grabbed from Marinette's purse.

"On top of that, we also would have definitely seen each other's identities. Both me and Chat had already used our abilities by the time we got into the elevator."

Tikki nodded in agreement and gave a cheeky smile. "These recent Akumas have really been putting you and Chat to the test, in more ways than one."

Marinette let out a stressed groan to her kwami's snarky comment. "You're telling me! You know sometimes I think you must ship me and Chat together just like the rest of Paris." She huffed.

"I just like to tease you, I'll support whoever it is that you choose to love."

Tikki looked at her with sympathetic eyes; she understood the difficulties of Marinette's life better than anyone. Marinette had explained on numerous occasions that romance between superheroes would only give Hawkmoth another means of potential manipulation. Because of this, Marinette had tried very hard to not give any person a reason to believe that Ladybug and Chat were in love. One photograph was likely going to break all of that.

Marinette pulled up the lady blog. Alya hadn't posted anything about Oblivio yet, and it was making Marinette nervous wondering what she was going to write about the picture.

"I know there's nothing I can do to stop her from posting the picture, but hopefully she'll listen to what I said and won't try to spin some weird narrative on it."

"Marinette lunch is ready!" Her father called down.

Marinette walked to her seat and sat down. Adrien, Nino, and Alya were all already it their seats. Rose took notice to Marinette's presence, and walked next to her desk.

"Hey Marinette! I was wondering what happened to you during the field trip, we couldn't find you at all. Me and Juleka hid when the akuma attacked, so it didn't get us. After Oblivio left and most of our classmates lost their memories, we decided it might be dangerous for everyone to wander around so we rounded them up and explained what was going on!

Before Marinette could answer, rose also took notice to Adrien. "Oh yeah, you disappeared too Adrien! What happened?"

Adrien turned around. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Marinette quickly spoke up.

"Oh! Um, I got really scared and I-Uh ran off somewhere to hide as well! I lost my memories after that point, so I don't know what happened." Marinette said nervously.

Adrien saw this as an opportunity for an easy excuse. "Yeah same here!" He grinned.

"That's so funny! Where did you guys end up when you got your memories back? You must have been really confused."

Marinette's breath hitched and both her and Adrien looked at each other.

"W-well I uh…" Adrien desperately racked his brain for an excuse.

Marinette quickly thought of something. "Well you see…" She looked away bashfully, her eyes darting between Rose and the ground. Marinette ushered Rose in closer. "It's really embarrassing what happened after I got my memories back, I would rather not say." She whispered.

Rose covered her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You guys don't have to tell me!" She quickly walked back to her seat.

"Thanks Rose." Marinette smirked. She knew Rose wouldn't pry into a friend's business if she thought it could potentially embarrass them. Marinette peered over to Alya, thankful that she was far too busy typing away at the lengthy blog she was going to post.

Adrien felt relieved, thankful that whatever Marinette whispered to rose made her drop her questioning altogether.

Marinette sat at her desk later that night. She had been reloading the Ladyblog every few seconds, waiting for Alya to post her lucrative photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Finally, the picture of her and Chat kissing loaded onto the screen.

Marinette could feel her frustration rise again as she looked at the photo, just like it had the first time she seen it.

Chat Noir's cheeky "we're meant for each other M'lady, you're the only one who doesn't see it!" rang annoyingly in her mind. Marinette threw her head down, repeatedly tapping it against her desk.

"I don't believe it, I actually kissed Chat Noir! How could this have happened!"

Tikki flew in front of Marinette as she lifted back up her head. "Who knows!" She exclaimed. "Maybe you still have some things to learn about him."

"Yeah, I'm sure there's so much more to know about him." Marinette said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "It seems like 'annoying, pretentious flirt' sums him up pretty well."

"Oh Marinette, you know there's more the Chat than that."

"Yeah yeah…" Marinette dismissed Tikki as she scrolled to the description of the picture. It was several paragraphs long. Marinette read through the first paragraph, which just explained everything that had occurred before the kiss. Alya even admitted that "her and a friend" had been akumatized into Oblivio, and explained the embarrassing story the led up to it.

"Alya really is leaving out no details about what happened, even the part about her getting akumatized because of super penguino." Marinette laughed as she continued reading.

Shortly after I was deakumatized, I regained my consciousness just as Ladybug was going to reset everything with her magic. Ladybug was preparing to toss her lucky charm into the air, when Chat suddenly stopped her hand. He looked at her tenderly and asked "Do you think we'll remember all this afterwards?" Clearly, Chat and Ladybug were both definitely hit by Oblivio, if there were any doubts about that concerning the news coverage of the event. Ladybug explained to Chat that her miraculous Ladybug is supposed to revert everything back, so they wouldn't remember anything. Chat suddenly looked very disappointed, but he soon smiled and took Ladybug's hands into his own "alright then, with your permission M'lady." He said, looking at her with an expression of love.

Marinette felt absolutely speechless as she could hardly find it in herself to read anymore. "I can't believe it, she's writing this like it's one of her fan fictions!" She gasped.

Tikki, who had been reading over her shoulder, fell to Marinette's desk in a heap of hysterical laughter.

Marinette's face was bright red. "Tikki it's not funny! She's embellishing what happened, that's not honest!"

Tikki quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and regained her composure. She couldn't help but feel she probably looked a little like Plagg in that moment. Laughing at someone, especially her own holder, was very uncharacteristic of her. "Marinette, I was laughing at your comment about Alya, not about you kissing Chat." She quickly corrected to save face. "And anyways, how do you know Alya was embellishing things? I think she's only trying to describe the event as she witnessed it."

"Yeah but it's totally biased!" Marinette irately exclaimed. "with an expression of love", she mockingly quoted from Alya's post. "That is completely and utterly Alya's interpretation!"

"Calm down Marinette, let's just keep reading to see what else she says about it" Tikki tried to reason with Marinette, who begrudgingly began reading the rest of Alya's blog post.

Ladybug reciprocated Chat's expression, giving him a warm smile. Both leaned in to each other, and-

"OH MY GOD, PLEASE STOP THIS!" Marinette threw her head back dramatically and covered her face.

Tikki rolled her eyes and sighed. "Marinette, just keep reading! Save your reactions for the end"

"You know what, how about you finish reading this and I'll go grab some cookies. You can summarize it in a way that doesn't make me want to rip my hair out once I come back." Marinette went downstairs to the kitchen while Tikki resumed reading.

Marinette came back up with a box of cookies and some juice boxes. "What did you find out?" she asked.

Tikki flew to the box and grabbed a cookie. "Other that describing the situation a little… subjectively, she actually offered a lot of suggestions about why Ladybug and Chat Noir kissed. She explicitly mentioned your suggestion along with a bunch of other theories. Alya ended it very open ended by asking her bloggers what they think."

Marinette looked a little happier upon hearing Tikki's words. "Oh, thank goodness! I thought she was going to describe us like our relationship was set in stone. Did she mention anything about the other boy?"

"She did write that you mentioned him, and that the whole event made you become really flustered. Maybe this will end up working out for you thought, perhaps people will really beleive that it was a mistake and you truly love someone else."

Marinette sighed. "I really hope so. I honestly just want this whole thing to blow over, but I know it's going to be all over the news tomorrow."

Marinette went to grab her phone off the charger and turned it on. The blog post wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be, but it was still surely going to change some things about her and Chat's relationship. Marinette just wanted to relax. A little little penguino sounded fun right about now.

She climbed up onto her bed and unlocked her phone. She saw that the last thing she had up was her contact list, and curiously clicked to her most recent calls.

Marinette immediately gasped.

Today

Sabine Cheng

11:15 AM

Adrien

11:20 AM

Fu

11:32 AM

"Adrien? Why would I have called Adrien?" Marinette wondered.

"What's wrong Marinette?" Tikki worriedly asked.

Marinette's mind was running a thousand miles a second. "I- I called Adrien for some reason when I lost my memories."

Tikki's eyes widened. "Oh no this is bad." She wondered why Marinette hadn't cleared such evidence from her call history.

"I'm sure it was just an accident. Maybe you saw that Adrien was your phone background, and connected it to the picture of him in your contacts."

Marinette thought about this for a solid minute, staring at the call history. She finally shook her head. "But it just doesn't make sense though" Marinette concluded.

"And why is that?"

"I called Adrien after I called my mom, and I lied to my mom about being with my friends. That means that I had already realized that I was ladybug by that point, otherwise I wouldn't have lied."

Tikki was beginning to really worry Marinette would figure it out. "W-well how do you know you weren't with your friends. They could have found you before the call with your mom."

"No that doesn't make sense because Rose said earlier today that she couldn't find me after Oblivio attacked!"

The kwami sighed. "Why does it matter that you called your mom before Adrien anyways?"

"You said it yourself earlier Tikki, the only way I would have been able to understand how to use my miraculous was if I contacted Master Fu." Marinette said. She ran to her bag to dig out a pen and paper as she began scribbling things down at her desk.

"My phone was nearly dead when the Akuma attacked, and it was completely dead once I got my memories back. If I knew I was Ladybug when I called my mom, but didn't know how to use my powers, I would not have wasted my battery life to call Adrien at that point without a good reason."

"That's a big assumption Marinette!"

Marinette paused her scribbling to explain some more. "No, it really isn't Tikki! I know myself well, and I am extremely cautious about things! If I knew I was a superhero who clearly my mother doesn't even know, I would have immediately figured that even my closest family and friends likely don't know my secret. Besides that, I wouldn't just call Adrien randomly thinking that he knows about superheroes, especially since Chat would have been wi-", Marinette paused mid-sentence.

"Holy crap" Marinette's eyes grew large as she dropped her pen.

Oh no

"Rose also said that Adrien suddenly disappeared during the Akuma attack, and that they couldn't find him…" Marinette stared off in front of her with a completely blank expression. She finally regained her senses, her eyes darting directly to Tikki's small black ones.

"You don't think that…"

Tikki gulped.

"Adrien could be Chat Noir, do you?"

Tikki didn't respond at first. After a long pause, she finally spoke up. "I really couldn't tell you the answer to that."

Marinette looked extremely unsettled. She picked up her pen, but her hands were shaking too much to keep it steady. Tikki flew over to her, trying to offer comfort.

"It's ok Marinette. It's only a theory right now." Tikki suggested. She feared this would be the conclusion that Marinette would come to, but she supposed it was inevitable. In that moment, Tikki decided that Marinette likely would not stop her persuit as it concerned the love of her life possibly being her crime fight partner; the very same crime fighting partner that Marinette was irate about kissing. Tikki figured she couldn't really stop her at this point anyways, and purposefully giving Marinette reasons to doubt her own findings might make Tikki seem suspicious.

Marinette nodded her head slowly. "Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. It sounds almost impossible just knowing how different Chat and Adrien are, but even people who know me well would never think that I'm Ladybug. I'm going to think about it some more."

After a session of writing and piecing together what she knew so far, Marinette had finally constructed a time line.

"Ok Tikki, I'm going to run this by you. This is just what I know so far without assuming Chat could be Adrien..." To Marinette, it felt weird just saying it.

Tikki sat on Marinette's desk. "I'm listening."

"So we got hit by the akuma when we were still transformed. I noticed the turtle on the elevator wall. We would have wondered why we're dressed as superheroes, and we would have been weirded out when our outfits magically dematerialized."

Marinette paused when her kwami started giggling at the last part. She smiled.

"To know that Sabine is my mom, I would have had to find out my identity first. I always carry my ID in my purse, so that is most likely how I figured it out. I don't know how I unlocked my phone, but that isn't really important."

Tikki nodded. "That makes sense."

"I either already knew or just realized that I was a super hero when I called my mom. This is confirmed by me lying to her. The fact that our outfits dematerialized with little flying creatures suddenly appearing probably helped us to figure it out. At this point, there was no way I would have known how to use my powers. After that, I called Adrien for some unknown reason. The reason had to have been really important though with my phone being almost dead."

Marinette briefly paused. "This next part is where I'm starting to guess a little more. I would have had to of matched the turtle drawing to the picture in my phone. There's no way I could have immediately realized that the turtle drawing had to do with master Fu's contact picture, so I must have made the connection after I already scrolled past his contact when I called Adrien or my mom."

"If that's what happened, it makes sense why you called Master Fu last" Tikki added in.

"Yes exactly!" Marinette said excitedly. She flipped the page over, and a blush immediately came to her face.

"And now…. let's talk about why I called Adrien" Marinette nervously cleared her throat, but abruptly was startled by the noise of her ring tone.

She looked at her phone and screeched like a wounded animal. "Oh my god Adrien is calling me! Maybe he saw that I called him earlier!" Marinette immediately began playing hot potato with her phone.

"Oh god tikki what do I do!"

"Answer it! It could help you figure things out!"

Marinette quickly mustered up her courage and put on a determined face. "Ok Marinette you're in too deep now, you've figured out too much, you might as well just do it!" She quickly said to herself, slamming her finger on the answer button with unnecessary force and putting the phone to her ear. She held her breath until Adrien's voice rang on the other end.

"Hey Marinette! Apparently, I missed a call from you. Did you need something?"

An awkward silence ensued.

"Um, hello? Are you there Marinette?"

"No... wait I mean yes, am I! Oh no I mean Yes, I like yams! NOOOO that's not what I mean. What I meant to say Is… wait what did I mean to say? Oh no I forgot what you asked!" Marinette groaned embarrassed as she drew the phone to her chest looking rather defeated. She took a deep breath and brought the phone back up to her ear. "I'm sorry Adrien, I am a mess tonight."

Marinette held her breath; Adrien's sudden lack of response made her unreasonably nervous. To her surprise, Adrien suddenly erupted into laughter on the other end.

Marinette's face turned bright red. She was glad Adrien couldn't see her face, but she eventually found herself laughing right along with him.

"You're so funny Marinette! I was just wondering why you called?"

O-Oh that! That was when my memories were wiped." She managed to say relatively clearly.

"Oh, that explains it. I guess I didn't look at the time you called me. You already know I lost my memories too, but I guess I didn't answer because my phone was dead.

"I'm so stupid!" Marinette thought. She didn't realize that the call hadn't been received when she initially looked at her call history. Despite this, she remained suspicious and decided that she still had to have a good reason why she called Adrien.

On the other end, Adrien began wondering why Marinette would have called him without memories as well.

"A-anyways, homework. Gotta go!" Marinette kept her goodbye short to save from making a fool of herself with anything longer.

"Ok, well seeya in school tomorrow Marinette!"

Marinette hung up and took a deep breath. "That was incredibly stressful."

"You barely said anything to him! What did you find out?" Tikki Asked.

"I guess Adrien's phone was dead so he couldn't answer it. I didn't realize that the call was missed." Marinette said looking at her recent calls again.

"Does that mean you don't suspect Adrien of being Chat anymore?"

"Well it changes my theory, but I still think that Adrien might be Chat."

"So why do you think you called Adrien?" Tikki sighed, a little disappointed that this finding didn't cause Marinette to give up her pursuit.

"Both of our phones were low on power, so maybe me and him got separated or something and I tried to get a hold of him. Or maybe calling him was a part of some plan we came up with."

Tikki yawned. "You know I don't really know, maybe we should save this for tomorrow? I think I'm going to go to bed early, hopefully there are no more akuma attacks tonight."

Marinette nodded, but looked down a little sad. "If Adrien is Chat, that would mean that I've been rejecting Adrien time and time again."

"That's true, but Chat also rejected your feelings as Marinette." Tikki said as she was climbing into her bed.

"Yeah, but if he is Chat, it makes me feel several times worse knowing I felt bad about kissing him."

"If that's the case, I'm sure he'll understand!" Tikki was getting a little bit tired of these teenager problems, but she couldn't help but admire Marinette's intellect in being able to analyze the situation so clearly. She already discovered Chat Noir's identity, so Tikki had no doubt that Marinette was probably right about everything else as well. "Now I think you should finish your homework."

"I will, but one more thing Tikki!" Marinette said, causing the small creature to open one of her little eyes.

"Yes?"

"I already think my suspicion of Adrien is reasonable, so tomorrow I'm going to check if he has Chat's ring."

"Marinette, maybe I should have said this earlier, but are you sure you really want to find out Chat's identity?" Tikki asked concerned.

"Well… once I saw my call history, I immediately knew it was strange. I don't think there was any way I could have stopped myself from figuring it out after that point. Had I called Adrien first, I would not have become so suspicious."

"So, you're saying it was inevitable?"

"Yeah basically… It almost feels like I intentionally left myself a perfect set of clues to follow!" Marinette laughed. "But I know that's not true because I wouldn't have done anything to risk Chat's identity."

Tikki smiled and nodded in agreement. "No, you wouldn't have."

Shortly after Tikki had dozed off, Marinette finished her homework and went to sleep not too long after. She found herself tossing and turning in bed all night, reiterating all the evidence in her mind.

I don't know when I will update next, spring break is almost over!
Just hang tight until the next chapter lads.
Thanks!