Chapter One: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

The day after their accidental reveal, both Marinette and Adrien decide to use Christmas as a good excuse to spoil their partner.

Sunday 1st December 2019. 11.54 a.m.

Marinette slowly drifted up towards consciousness as she nestled in the warm cocoon of her blankets. No alarm had jarred her awake this morning, no shout from her mother that she was going to be late, no explosions that she needed to investigate, just a nice and natural trip towards being awake.

It had to be a Sunday.

The bakery was closed, there was no school, and most of her friends knew better than to contact her before noon unless it was a life or death situation. It was the one day of the week when she could sleep in.

For a good few minutes, Marinette lay in her blissful half-asleep state and contemplated rolling over and drifting off again. What a wonderful way to while away a Sunday morning, falling back into her dreams of...

Wait?

Dreams!

Her eyes snapped open as her dreams came rushing back into her mind in startling clarity, leaving her no option but to roll over and bury her face in her pillow and scream. And scream, and scream, and scream.

Nope. No way. She was not going back into those dreams today, no thank you. Or at least not until she'd done a lot more screaming and talked through things with Tikki.

Things had been so busy yesterday with school and chores and shopping and working in the bakery that she hadn't had the time to talk about it. Hence why her subconscious had tormented her all night with those dreams.

She was blaming the akuma.

It went against everything she'd been arguing for the last two years but right now she didn't care. She was blaming the akuma. It was all his fault. If it hadn't been for that akuma then she wouldn't know what she knew now.

She wouldn't know Chat's identity and things would be just fine.

She let loose with another scream into her poor, abused cat pillow.

It was all the akumas fault. Worst akuma ever! Because of course the akuma would be just tricky enough to eat up all her free time for the day, and of course she and Chat would be down to their last minute by the time she was able to cleanse it, and of freakin' course they would choose the same alley to detransform in, and of course there would be no time for either of them to come to terms with this new knowledge because both of their phones began ringing as they were reminded of the many, many things they had to do for the rest of the day.

Quite honestly, it was a miracle that Marinette had been able to keep this scream contained until Sunday morning.

Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir.

She screamed a little more, internally and externally, and she allowed her mind to run through all the catastrophising and the major freak out that she had been delaying.

Though she had never admitted to it, Marinette had always been curious about the true identity of her partner. How could she not be? She trusted him with her life on a daily basis, she trusted him to work alongside her and save her city and her friends all the time, how could she not be a little curious about who was under the mask.

She had just never, ever, ever expected to already know him. That was one doozy of a shock.

Adrien was Chat!

It just… how did… her brain was just refusing to process it. How could it be real?

How could sweet, gentle, and polite Adrien be the cocky, brash, and outgoing Chat? How could her daft, goofy, dork of a partner be her serious, studious, and unfairly overly-talented classmate? And how the hell could they be the same person when Chat was always seen out and about in the city and never had any issues getting to an akuma attack while Adrien was always horribly busy and excessively over-scheduled with every minute of the day accounted for?

She gave one final scream into her pillow, letting the last of the stress and tension and shock out of her body in one shrill note. It just didn't make sense!

'Except' she thought to herself as she rolled over to stare at the ceiling again, 'it kinda does.'

Sure, on the surface, it seemed totally implausible, completely impossible, for two boys so very different to each other to actually be one and the same. There was no way Adrien was Chat; she remembered being so sure of it as she told Alya one day, years ago, when the journalist had been teasing her.

But she knew them both better now, a lot better, and she could honestly say that there were a startling number of similarities to them.

Sure there were physical similarities - both were blond with gorgeous green eyes, and both had roughly the same build, and they both went through a growth spurt at the same time and both now towered above her at roughly the same height - but the more she got to know both of them as friends, and the more she forced herself to think about it while cocooned in her duvet, the more she realised just how deeply their similarities ran.

Both were amazingly kind and patient, whether helping her with physics problems or consoling an akuma victim. Both had the same wonderfully awful sense of humour, even if Adrien didn't show that side of himself very often. Both were amazingly loyal. Both had a deep-rooted sense of justice and right and wrong. Both were lonely. It was no surprise really that Chat was so over-the-top, flamboyant, and energetic when Adrien had so few outlets for that thanks to his father.

They both loved the same things too, like fencing, video games, pastries, and superhero comics. Both could talk for hours about the things they loved with the same passion, the same energy, the same smile.

It made sense.

Adrien was Chat.

Honestly, the more she thought about it, the more she was amazed that she hadn't realised the truth sooner.

How had he sat in front of her for two years without her noticing?

"It's the glamour magic of the miraculous," Tikki said, yawning as she floated over from her hidden home by Marinette's bed. She landed on Marinette's shoulder and immediately burrowed into the warm duvet, giving a happy chirp and she settled.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yep."

Marinette winced. "Sorry Tikki. Sorry about the screaming too. Did I wake you?"

Tikki shook her head. "Not really. I was mostly awake, but I knew you needed to get this out of your system. You did so well holding it all in yesterday."

Marinette smiled and nuzzled her kwami in thanks before resuming staring at the ceiling like it could give her all the answers she wanted even though she didn't know the questions.

Her mind was awhirl, jumping from thought to thought and memory to memory, but in the chaos only one thing stood out clearly to her.

"It's him."

Tikki grinned. "I know."

"I can't believe it," Marinette laughed, positive there was a dopey and ridiculously happy grin on her face right now. Tikki's giggle confirmed it and she quickly reached for her phone to avoid her kwami's knowing gaze. "I just can't believe it. Not in a bad way, because I know it is him, I saw it with my own eyes yesterday, and I dreamed about him all last night and I spent-" she quickly checked the time on her phone and groaned when she realised "-nearly an hour screaming about it this morning, so I know it's him. I meant it in a good way… in a how did I get so lucky way."

"You're happy."

"I am. I really am."

"It's like your Christmas came early."

"It did," Marinette sighed and lay back down, fully aware of the smile on her face. "It was a totally unexpected present, but those are the best kind."

"I'm so happy for you Marinette!"

"Thanks Tikki."

She allowed another happy sigh to escape as she snuggled under the duvet with Tikki, determined to linger in her warm cocoon of bedding for as long as possible before she had to get up. She had nothing planned for today so she was letting herself indulge for once. Besides, there was no way this grin was leaving her face for a while, her love-sick-for-Adrien grin as Alya had dubbed it, and she was not ready to face her mother's curious and knowing looks when she went down still wearing it.

Marinette wondered if her mother would believe her if she said she had good dreams? Or had been fantasising about his face when he saw her gift? Or thought of another amazing gift to make for Adrien? It wasn't like she could tell her the real reason for this grin.

She let her thoughts drift down the desk below her bed where all her Christmas presents for friends were sitting in various stages of completion. There was one there for Adrien, a Marinette-original Jagged Stone t-shirt that wouldn't be released by the rock star for another month yet as well as the three shirt designs that didn't make the cut. She'd got Jagged's permission to give them to Adrien weeks ago as well as a card signed by the man himself. But there was also a special present just for Chat of a terrible Christmas jumper complete with cat puns. She'd been planning to make them both their favourite treats to go with the clothes too. But much as she knew he would love them, it wasn't enough. Not now that she knew.

She needed to do something more. Something to prove to that adorable dork that she was happy knowing it was him, to prove to him that they were still good, to show him that he was her most important person.

"You've got that look on your face."

Marinette looked down to see Tikki grinning cheekily up at her and feigned innocence as best as she could. "What look?"

"The look that says you're probably going to stay up late and lose more sleep than you should by designing something big."

"That's not a look."

Tikki just cocked an eyebrow and Marinette crumbled. There was no point lying to her kwami about anything. Tikki saw it all and heard it all.

"Ok Tikki," she sighed. "It's a look. But I'm not designing anything. I'm still planning."

"Planning what?"

Marinette tried not to wince at the suspicious tone. She wasn't that bad. Not really. Was she? "A gift for him."

"You've got him two already though?"

"One for Adrien and one for Chat… but I want to give him a gift now that I know he's both. I want him to know that I'm happy that we know now, and because I'm so glad he's him."

Tikki sighed but smiled and nuzzled Marinette's cheek. "I can't stop you when you're on a roll… but promise me you'll look after yourself and not pull too many all-nighters this time?"

"I can promise to try?"

Tikki just shook her head fondly. Marinette gave a wry chuckle back. When she was on an inspiration kick the passage of time was hazy at best to her. It was easy to forget things like eating, drinking, sleeping… but fortunately for her she had a pocket-sized friend always there to help her out.

Besides, she wouldn't be spending that much time on her designs. Not this time. Her presents were all mostly finished and only really needed a few tweaks here and there. This special gift wasn't going to take up too much of her free time either, not when she could already be using that time to spoil him and let him know just how much he meant to her.

Marinette snuck on hand out of her cocoon and grabbed her phone again and quickly wrote out a text to Adrien.

Christmas had indeed come early and she was going to use that as an excuse to spoil him with treats.

She was still blaming the akuma though. Worst akuma ever!

Adrien grinned as he lay back in the stylists chair and stared up at the ceiling. He couldn't have stopped smiling even if he had wanted to, not after yesterday's akuma.

Best akuma ever!

Hands down it was his best one ever, even beating the one that was giving away free chocolate for the whole fight. And he loved that akuma. He had managed to eat so many delicious chocolates while Ladybug hadn't been looking.

But yesterday's akuma was even better than that one! Not because of the akuma itself; it had been pretty generic as far as akumas went. No, it was the best because in the aftermath of the battle he had been lucky enough to find out the true identity of his Lady.

Ladybug was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The amazing and beautiful girl from his class, an up-and-coming sensational designer, best class rep ever, and one of his closest friends was actually his fearless, gorgeous, courageous and insanely creative partner.

And he thought he couldn't fall any deeper in love with her?

Adrien did his best to conceal the love-sick sigh that was threatening to escape. No way could he explain that to his stylist and make-up team. Plus there was always guaranteed to be at least one spy of his father's in his entourage at any given time and the absolute last thing Adrien needed was his father hearing he was dreaming about a girl.

He'd never leave the mansion again.

And he couldn't let that happen. Not now. Not when he had been given the best present of his life. Not when he had plans to spoil Marinette like the Princess he had once called her. Not when he was determined to use this festive season as a way to show her how much he cared, how much he treasured her, how much he loved her.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking about her since then, his every waking and sleeping moment had been consumed by her even as he posed for the cameras and showed off the clothes to perfection. She had been the only thing he thought about. He knew he had been in many conversations with people yesterday but honestly he didn't have a clue about what they had spoken about and couldn't find it in himself to care that it was going to come back and hurt him at a later date.

How could he care when he had realised two very important things from his musings. One, he was a blind idiot for not seeing the truth sooner. Of course it was her; there was simply no other possibility at all. And two, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the greatest treasure on this earth and he would be an idiot if he didn't do everything in his power to show her how much he loved her.

In truth, he had been a heartbeat away from a romantic declaration in the alley yesterday when his phone rang, followed seconds later by hers. Nathalie had been dragging him back to his modelling obligations and he could hear her promising her parents she was on her way to her bakery shift as she ran out of the alley. They had barely been able to wave goodbye before their separate duties dragged them away from each other.

Christmas was always a busy time of year for both of them. The bakery had a vastly increased volume of customers, their special orders practically quadrupled overnight, and every year they found themselves making more bûche de Noël than the year before and still running out. Adrien was usually busy with one photoshoot after another, fittings for the lines coming out for fashion week in the New Year, various galas and charity events, and putting on a show as his father's heir for the press.

Between the two of them they barely had time to breathe. But Adrien was working on a plan that would give him more time with his Lady, his Princess, his love. He was determined to make this Christmas the Christmas she knew how much he treasured her. All he had to do was make it through the rest of today's activities and he could start putting it into action.

Christmas was going to be amazing this year!

Author's note: Merry Christmas everyone! Here's another monthly writing challenge just for Christmas. Please check out my Tumblr for the full list of prompts - I wrote the list myself and if anyone would like to write their own version then please feel free. The more the merrier.

Unlike my Fictober 2019 monthly challenge, this fic will not have a regular posting schedule. I bust my wrist when I slipped on a patch of ice the other day and typing has been quite problematic since then (I can type quite quickly with two hands but when I'm down to one working hand a snail would be faster). I'll do my best to post every day but it might not happen.

Also, just a quick reminder that I have still not seen all of Miraculous Ladybug season 2. Check out my author's profile and my Tumblr to see which episodes I have caught up with but it would be best to assume that I know nothing.

This is cross posted on here, my AO3, my Tumblr, and nowhere else.