Revelations Ch 2

Chapter 2 – Frustrating Questions

Later on that night, Adrien was pacing around his room, thinking and analysing every word that Ladybug said to him. He couldn't stop thinking about what she told him, he wanted to know more than anything whether it was him that she loved or it was another Adrien that lived in Paris.

But there was one thing for certain...she didn't love Chat Noir.

It made him sink in his bed; he ignored almost everything his kwami said to him, reminding him that he was right about how things would turn out. He should have been more expectant of the outcome, yet the sparkle in her eyes and every time he looked at her, all doubts would be out the door. Plagg had warned him, he tried to make him feel more realistic about the situation, but Adrien couldn't help it.

"I just...can't think when I'm around her, that's the problem!" He exclaimed to his kwami. "There are so many things I want to ask her but I just can't!"

Adrien fell onto his bed, face first into his pillow as his kwami floated in front of his head. "Look Adrien, I think it's best for now that you sleep on it. You've worn the both of us out." He stated, slowly planting himself on Adrien's pillow right next to his head.

With a heavy sigh, Adrien got up and got ready for bed.

Meanwhile, Tikki was giving a similar talk to Marinette about how worried she seemed. She had been fretting all night that Chat Noir might do something to Adrien, but Tikki assured her that with his reaction to who she liked, he didn't show jealousy and anger, but yet sadness and devastation.

"Please Marinette, let's leave this for tonight. Remember you have school tomorrow." She reminded, floating over towards the calendar.

She sighed, pulling out her bottom drawer to get her pyjamas. "Okay, I just hope our next battle we can still fight together. He did seem upset about it." She added, still wanting to talk about it.

Her kwami assured her that things will eventually work out, and it wasn't best to talk about it that night as it could stress her out and sleep less. So Marinette got ready for bed and went to sleep.

The next day at school, Alya was the first to notice that Marinette was late yet again. A few minutes after the class started she burst through the door with countless apologies as to why she was late. The teacher resumed her lesson as she instructed Marinette to take a seat quietly.

She sat next to Alya, who still had her bag on the table in front but with her books and pencils laid out on the desk. She glanced over at Adrien who looked very down; she saw that Marinette was too busy organising her books to notice that Adrien's mood was different.

With a nudge of her shoulder, she grasped Marinette's attention and gestured to Adrien. "Adrien's still down, you think he's alright?"

She moved her bag off the desk, seeing that Adrien had sunken in his chair and was carelessly moving his pencil slowly across the table, she was relieved that the teacher didn't notice this. Marinette felt extremely worried for him, and with her curiosity boiling she wanted to know why he was upset, but saw that now was definitely not the time. She would check with Nino shortly after class to see if he knew anything.

When that time came, Nino responded with a shrug and a frown of concern. "I'm sorry, I wish I knew. But I do have a hunch that it's because of his father."

Marinette sighed, seeing that Adrien had walked off already and had not yet greeted her like he always did every day. Something was definitely down, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She consulted Alya for help with this situation.

"So, what can I do?" She asked, sitting on the bench with some yoghurt in her hand.

Alya rubbed her chin in thought, she was worried about how Adrien had been so down lately, but perhaps Nino was right. As far as they knew, only his father could make him feel so down in the dumps.

"It's most probably his father, maybe we could ask him and Nino to catch up at the cafe?" She suggested.

The navy haired teen thought for a moment, she knew that when he was with his friends he felt more happy and comfortable. Yet lately he had been down even around his friends, though maybe catching up with just the four of them together wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Alya left to find Nino while Marinette sat down at the bench with her food and silently talked to her kwami about how worried she was for Adrien.

"I just hope he's okay." She said, sighing sadly as she looked at her food.

"No need to worry Marinette, I'm sure whatever problem Adrien is dealing with, he'll recover soon." Tikki assured her with a smile.

So as the next lesson went by, Adrien began to talk more to Nino, but however still not really focusing in class. Nino had asked his best friend about catching up later and he seemed enthusiastic about it. In Adrien's eyes, it was a way to get his mind off the one thing that has been bugging his mind since the night before.

Did Ladybug love him, or another Adrien?

So after school, Adrien had checked his schedule and was relieved that he didn't have a photo shoot until later on at sunset and that his fencing classes didn't run on this day. So he was more than relieved that he gets to spend some time with his friends relaxing and forgetting about his big worry.

They all headed for the cafe together, Marinette was shaking almost too obvious for all of them for notice, and she was walking in between Alya and Adrien while Nino walked on Adrien's right side. Alya had nudged Marinette in reminder that she was walking right next to him. This made Marinette's heart race as she grew a widened smile of glee and nervousness on her face, relieved that Adrien didn't see the strange expression on her face.

After arriving at the cafe, they all sat down at a rounded table, Alya pushed Marinette to sit next to Adrien so that she could be closer to him. Marinette hesitated because she was far too shy but Alya insisted, and was going to make a scene if Marinette didn't. Adrien didn't mind at all, in fact he found it amusing that Alya was playfully forcing Marinette to do something she felt almost completely uncomfortable doing.

"Hey, it's okay I don't bite." Adrien assured Marinette, giving her a wink.

This made Marinette's mind jump to Chat Noir's silly puns that he always made up, it made her shake her head in denial and quickly focus her attention to what was on the menu.

"I think I'll just have a small coffee and two strawberry macaroons." She said nervously, before setting down the menu and reaching for her small pink handbag for her purse.

Alya raised her eyebrow but then smirked as she saw that Marinette was far too nervous to even talk to Adrien properly. However Alya did admit to herself that Adrien making jokes wasn't really like him, she tilted her head at him for a moment before looking at the menu to see what she wanted.

After they had all gotten their snacks and drinks, they began to have a nice conversation. Adrien tried to talk about school and a movie he was thinking of seeing soon, while Alya couldn't stop talking about her blog because of how increasingly popular it was getting. This made Marinette face palm and Nino intrigued to hear more from Alya.

"All those videos I post about Ladybug just get so many hits I feel like a worldwide sensation!" She exclaimed, with exaggerated gestures.

Nino chuckled, before reaching for a biscuit. "Don't get too ahead of yourself there." He warned playfully with a smirk.

The sound of Ladybug's name being mentioned made Adrien feel uneasy and down, he slouched in his chair a little as the thoughts from before had come back into his mind and robbed it from focusing on anything else.

Marinette was the first to notice, she didn't know whether she should butt in and ask what was wrong or let him deal with it himself. But feeling her curiosity rob her mind, she spoke up about Adrien's sudden low interest in everything.

"Um, Adrien...are you okay...? You don't have to talk about it but it would be better if we knew...I mean it's just that I'd know what to do- I mean...it's okay if you don't want to say anything."

With a heavy sigh, Adrien turned his head slightly to look over to Marinette, who was beginning blush a light pink due to her stuttered uneven words. He frowned, knowing that Marinette wouldn't understand what he was going through.

"I don't really want to say, but thanks for asking." He said, looking back down at his iced tea in front of him and fiddling with the straw.

This caught Alya's and Nino's attention, they both looked at the depressed blonde teen and were going to raise concern when they saw him take in a deep breath before changing the topic.

"So, what have you been up to Nino?" He asked, straightening his posture more upright so he seemed okay.

Nino felt startled by the sudden topic change to him, but didn't mind. He started to talk about how he was asking his parents for his own turntable to play his music on and have parties. While Marinette snuck a few glances at Adrien, seeing that his mood was better and she felt happy to see that he was now smiling.

As the afternoon went on, everyone except for Adrien talked about the things that were happening at school and in their lives such as Alya's ladybug blog, Marinette's fashion designing and baking practice with her parents, and Nino's talk about how he wanted to open up his own radio station someday.

They had wondered why Adrien didn't say much about himself but decided not to ask as he was in a happy mood and probably the only thing that was happening in his life right now wasn't a good thing to talk about. So they continued to talk about their own things while Adrien constantly asked questions and commented on what the other three were saying to keep the conversation stimulated on his part.

Once it was late, they parted ways. Nino walked by himself while Adrien had called for someone to pick him up and take him to his photo shoot, while the two girls walked with each other down to Marinette's home.

"Did you love sitting next to Adrien?" Alya asked with a tease, fluttering her eyes with a grin.

"Alya!" Marinette snapped as she felt warm blood rush to her cheeks in embarrassment. "And yes, I did. But, I'm worried about him. I feel like I should help him somehow..." She suggested, looking down in worry.

Her best friend placed a hand of assurance on Marinette's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure whatever the problem is, he'll have it sorted by the end of the week." She said with a wink.

Later on that day, Adrien was stumped again. He wanted to see Ladybug again and talk to her, ask her more questions about this Adrien she liked; he knew that he couldn't reveal his secret identity to her. But he was beginning to consider so if Ladybug was indeed infatuated with him. Plagg almost flew through the roof at the sound of Adrien saying that.

"Are you crazy!? And I thought it was bad enough when you wanted to confess your love to her...blech." He gagged. "And what if you tell her and then she says that it wasn't you? Do you think she'll even tell you if it's you or not? Have you thought any of this-"

Adrien grabbed his kwami and silenced him, feeling frustrated and pressured by all the things Plagg was asking and saying to him.

"Plagg! I just want to know if it's this Adrien she loves or if it's someone else." He exclaimed, gesturing to himself when mentioning his name.

Plagg rolled his eyes as Adrien gently let go of his kwami. "And what do you expect to earn from this? What are you going to do after you know? What if she likes another-"

"Enough!" Adrien yelled, wanting to grab him again but Plagg flew high up out of Adrien's jumping reach. "The most important thing for me to know now if she likes me or someone else named Adrien. It frustrates me that she doesn't like Chat Noir...she might not even like the real me if she doesn't love me the same way I love her..." He ended with a sigh as he sat on the edge of his bed, with Plagg slowly collapsing into his hands.

"What do I do?" He cried, feeling like he was going to break down in tears.

"Look, I'm not really big on love. And with the many other Chat Noir's I've been with they've almost failed every time to woo Ladybug so she would return the same affection." He explained, before quickly realising what he just said.

Adrien's eyes widened in shock, with the previous Chat Noir's Plagg has been with, many of them were infatuated with Ladybug and failed to be with her because she never returned the same affection.

"Are you saying I'm not the first Chat Noir to be in this mess?"

Plagg wanted to stay quiet, but seeing that Adrien had him in his hands and was beginning to tighten his grip on him he had no choice. "No, you're not. But almost all of the Chat Noir's I've been with all these years have at least been infatuated with Ladybug. And why wouldn't they? They've always worked together with Ladybug to keep everything balanced." Plagg explained, sounding more informative than he usually would.

The blonde teen had his mouth hanging open slightly with his eyes widened in the sudden realisation that this was a common thing to happen to him as it had happened to the Chat Noir's before him. But yet, it made his heart sink when he realised that many others had failed to have Ladybug love her in return.

"Only infatuated? You mean none of them grew close with Ladybug?" He asked, holding Plagg closer to his chest.

Plagg looked reluctant to say anymore, but he had to say because he knew just how curious Adrien got around information as astonishing as this. "I'll say this; if she's the lucky one...what does that make you if you two balance each other out?" He asked in a more sympathetic tone.

Adrien slouched, sighing and looking down as he realised what Plagg meant. "I'm the unlucky one...so me and Ladybug have never been together...?"

It was beginning to sound clearer to Adrien, Ladybug was lucky to have someone love her, while Adrien was unlucky to have her not share those same feelings.

Plagg wanted to answer honestly, as there was more to it than what Adrien knew, but then Plagg's little stomach made a loud growling sound that interrupted the moment. He chuckled sheepishly as he floated upwards.

"I take it you want some cheese?" Adrien assumed, still in a saddened mood but still willing to feed his kwami.

So after Adrien fed his kwami some more cheese, Adrien stared out the window in long thought about Ladybug. He didn't want to contact her again just to talk to her because now she knew all so clear why he wanted to talk to her more often, but it worried him that if he called her again he would frustrate her and she would be annoyed. He had thought of revealing his identity to her if she really did love him and not some other Adrien, but he didn't know how to place it since if that were to be true, Ladybug would be in for a huge shock that might be too overwhelming for her.

He kept it on his mind for the rest of the night and as he slept.