Adrien circled the corner, feeling the subtle ache of the distance crossed, like a fire in his legs that kept him charging forward. That, and the flaming envelope in his coat pocket, leaving his chest pounding with anticipation.

Plagg was nuzzled close, vibrating on his shoulder with a soft purr, unaware and pleased to be unaware of the red faced kitten that was pacing the Paris sidewalk.

"This is it," he told his kwami, despite Plagg's disinterest. "I'm finally going to find out who Ladybug is."

Plagg's eyes narrowed upward, and he sighed dramatically. "And I'm never going to hear the end of this one."

Adrien ignored him, continuing to contemplate out loud as he neared the building where his lady lived.

"And I mean, I won't really be finding out who Ladybug is exactly. I'll be finding out her name."

In many ways, a name felt irrelevant after all this time. He didn't need a name and a face to know her. He already knew her better than anyone else did.

"Kid, that's the same thing."

"It's not her name that has me excited," he said, reaching a finger up to scratch the kwami's neck. "It's the dynamic."

Plagg groaned.

"Our worlds don't have to be separate anymore. We can visit each other. We can get to know each other's friends. We can cover for each other. It will be great! And then, well, there's the other thing."

"What other thing?" Plagg asked with a half interested glint in his eyes.

"The us thing."

There had always been some milestone that needed to be reached. Some seemingly unattainable goal that existed somewhere just out of reach before they could share identities.

First, it had been Hawkmoth. For three years it had been Hawkmoth, terrorizing the city and being the one threat that was too great to risk exposing their identities. While it had been mostly Ladybug's insistence for a while, it had become a mutual understanding, a shared promise done for the protection of each other.

But then Hawkmoth was defeated and there was distance. Adrien needed some time to himself, or at least, he claimed he did. It hadn't done him any good. It had been a summer of self isolation and it left him more hollow than he could ever imagine. The isolation was foolish, but it was almost his default. It was what he was taught to do all his life.

Sometimes Ladybug would drop by through his bedroom window to check up on him, reminding him that it wasn't his fault and that he was nothing like his father. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't. It was her presence that he appreciated, whether it involved words or not.

It had hurt when both Adrien and Chat had disappeared from her life around the same time.

Adrien's absence had made sense to her. With the identity of Hawkmoth being public, he had no interest in returning to school or leaving the house for that matter. She couldn't even blame him, after seeing a few days of the constant questioning, the accusations, and paparazzi. Everybody seemed to think they knew best. That he must have known his father was Hawkmoth all along, and they drug his reputation through the mud over it.

Chat's absence confused her though. Even his reaction when they had defeated Hawkmoth had been somber. She had expected some kind of celebration due to their victory, but all she got was a quick excuse, and a quiet departure in the night. Weeks passed and all his responses were friendly, but short. He didn't seem to want to meet up and he found a multitude of excuses as to why he was too busy. And if she asked for more, he would just say it would be alright, since they didn't have to look out for akumas anymore.

Perhaps he doubted her commitment to their friendship. Perhaps he didn't realize how much she cared. Was their connection completely rooted in their duty or were they the friends she thought they were. It hurt her, far more than even she expected.

With Adrien, she could pop in though his bedroom window and talk to him. Check up on him and make sure he was alright.

With Chat she couldn't. With Chat she had to rely on messages he would rarely respond to. With Chat, she had no address. With Chat, there were too many questions. Questions that he didn't want to supply answers to.

She was never angry with him though. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong. But she really just missed him. She hadn't realized how much she would miss him until she didn't see his face for weeks.

When he managed to pull himself through, with the help of The Gorilla and some therapy, he let himself wear the mask and ears again, taking part in casual patrols and leisure activities on the rooftops. Ladybug questioned his months of silence, but she never pushed when it was clear he was upset. She was happy to forgive his absence, initiating a lot of their meeting just to suggest hanging out instead of patrols.

It was all well and good, so she even suggested it once, letting go of the secrets.

"I think it might be okay now," she said, hugging her knees, looking at him with wide, searching eyes.

"Revealing our identities?" He asked, with a spark in his eyes, that had become a rare phenomenon since the defeat of Hawkmoth.

"Well, yes," she said, stretching out her legs and scooting to the edge of the roof where Chat was, letting her dangling ankles tap his knee. "Identities, sure."

"What am I missing, LB?"

"I've been thinking," she said, suddenly growing steely and serious.

"That's never good," he said, nudging her elbow.

She swat at him, but her eyes still held the same amount of business. "I was thinking that maybe, now that things are peaceful and we don't have to deal with akumas, we could do it. We could get to know each other without the masks and we could try... us ."

As soon as they talked about the possibility, that possibility was put on the back burner of their options, due to a new super villain. A new super villain that tested them both in ways they had never imagined. More than once it was a miracle that neither of them knew their partner's identity.

He was defeated in less than three years this time, but then came another war, and another, and then another. By the time the Butterfly Miraculous went missing and Lila Rossi declared herself as the new Hawkmoth, that talk about identities and trying "us" was long forgotten.

Or, it had to be forgotten.

It was too dangerous to consider with the stakes so high.

In good time, Rossi was defeated. It had been another five years and they were hardly the same people.

Everything had changed.

They were adults now. Their childhood was gone.

"Something else will come," Ladybug told him, landing on a large roof that had become a favorite spot. "There's always something else."

He rolled his eyes. "Wow, My Lady, way to spoil a victory."

"I'm not the one who spoils it, Chat. I just wish I could make the world stop for one minute before we get thrust into more conflict."

"I know," he said simply, laying back on the black and red polka dot blanket Ladybug had rolled out. "I wish I could stop it too."

"But we can't," she stated, pacing the roof edge.

He just sighed, finding it easy to accept that reality.

"Which is why we can't wait anymore, Chat."

He looked up at her now, seeing the soft gaze of her eyes peering down at him, simultaneously levelheaded seriousness and pink cheeked glee.

He propped himself up on one arm, intrigued by her tone. "Go on. I want to see where you're going with this."

"I love you," she said, quicker than her own lips expected, and more certain than even the ferocity of her wide-eyed determination.

She meant it, leaving him frozen in his crouched position, with shock waves tickling through his bones. He went to mimic her words, ready to let the words climb his throat as passionately as his reckless youth, but she already had something else on her tongue.

"I want to know you, Chat Noir. Your name, your face, your address, your friends...I-I'm not afraid anymore. I know we'll have more enemies and there will be danger but...I think it's worth the risk. Don't you?"

She had scratched the words onto the paper, like a nervous teen scribbling out their number for the first time. Sealed in an envelope, sealed tighter by Chat's firm grip on the paper.

"My address," she told him, twirling the red Sharpie between two fingers, gazing into him with an avid expression. "Come without the mask."

"Should I bring something?"

"Just yourself. That's all I want."

So there he was, in front of Ladybug's apartment building, tracing the lines of red ink that had decorated the paper.

He knew the handwriting. He knew it matched the valentine still pinned above his desk. He knew it resembled the pretty writing of Marinette Dupain-Cheng's notes and her flowery signature. He knew it burned through his thumb as he touched it, increasing his heart rate and boiling him under the setting sun.

He was nervous in the most bizarre way. Not because he thought he might not like the girl behind the mask, because there was no doubt in his pacing mind that he would be enamored at the sight of her.

But he felt small in front of the building, somehow convincing himself that she might not like Adrien Agreste. That she might, in one of his fleeting thoughts, be horrified and disgusted that her partner was the son of Hawkmoth.

"Kid, she loves you," Plagg said after a stretch of uneasy silence, emerging from Adrien's shoulder and hovering in front of him. "And it's as disgustingly over the top as you sometimes."

"Yeah?" Adrien said, shivering at his insecurities and shoving the piece of paper back into the envelope and returning it to his coat pocket. "I hope that's true."

"Tikki can confirm," Plagg said with a yawn, climbing into Adrien's other pocket.

Before he could hesitate another moment, he found his knuckles tapping the wooden door, vibrating as he pulled away, struck with lightning at the thought of what this would mean for them.

A small squeak could be heard from the other end, and a rumble of fallen objects and clattering footsteps. Clearly had tied her heart into a knot and that relieved him. He was so thankful that she was just as on edge as he was.

When the door swung open to reveal Marinette's ashen face, accented by an immediate feverish smile, Adrien sunk into himself, feeling like he was walking slowly through a mystifying dream.

There was an instant moment of eye contact as she gripped the door, with eyes growing monstrous at the sight of him. She seemed taken aback for a moment, which startled him, but then her wide eyes crinkled up into a warm smile, and she burst out into a little giggle. "Adrien Agreste," she said fondly, moving to stand across from him in the doorway. "Of course."

Adrien still hadn't found a way to connect Marinette with Ladybug, even if it didn't shock him. But there was an instantaneous oh that lit up in his brain. He couldn't help but be delighted at the sight of her, offering her no words other than the content stare he slipped into as she whispered his name again, without the disdain that Adrien had feared.

"Marinette," he finally said back, heart souring. "Marinette," he said again, amazed by how much he loved her name on his tongue. Amazed by how much more he loved Ladybug despite that he had been bursting at the seams since he was fourteen years old.

"It's you," she said, and her cheeks were a feathery pink. "Of course, it's you. All this time…"

"I love you," Adrien couldn't help but blurt out, finding his face smiling without restraints to control or the will to force it. "I love you so much."

"I…" she said, looking into his sour apple eyes. "I love you."

Adrien could hear Plagg's snicker and Tikki's little sigh, but that didn't keep him from darting forward to embrace his princess, relieved to finally meet her lips after so many years of not being allowed to.

Marinette's elated hum flooded him with life, causing him to deepen his movements, holding her tight as they instinctively tiptoed through the doorway.

"Bugaboo," he whispered, running his fingers through her loose black hair. "Is that a yes?"

"Hmm," she mumbled against his lips. "To what?" She asked, resting her forehead against his nose.

"The us thing?"

"Worth a try," she mumbled, pushing him gently toward the couch and crashing into him again.

"I just can't believe it," she said, spread out on the patio. "I can't believe I got this lucky."

Adrien didn't quite know how to respond to that so he rolled over and kissed her forehead. "Yeah."

"It's just...you're the boy."

He raised his eyebrows. "Boy? What boy?"

She giggled. "The boy I said I loved, back during our first year. Remember? The one that stood in your way."

His confused expression quickly turned into amusement, and he began to submerge himself in laughter, starting with a soft chuckle and then growing until he was shaking on the patio floor with tears in his eyes. "Of course," he said, gasping for breath. "Of course I'm the boy."

She joined in, fitting her cheek in the crook of his neck. "Of course."

"A question," he startled again, still wiping away tears from his cheeks. "Did you answer my poem?"

She laughed harder, squeaking out a "yes" as she rolled onto her stomach.

"We're really stupid," he said after they had both calmed down.

She snorted. "The stupidest."

"It's so obvious."

"I know!"

"Maybe we share one brain cell."

Marinette shrugged. "I don't know. I'd be surprised if we even had one brain cell combined."

"Here's how I see it, Princess."

"Yeah?"

"This is final confirmation that we are made for each other."

She groaned. "I hate it."

He kissed her cheek. "Yeah, sure you do."

She melted into his side, muttering something under her breath. All he could make out was something about a stupid cat.