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Marinette watched as the other player’s character died on screen, falling to his knees and letting out a scream that was almost as dramatic as the victory shouting coming from her partner.
“Knock it off, Chat,” she said into her mic, knowing he couldn't see her eye roll and yet doing it anyway. “You’re going to break my eardrums.”
“Anything for you, my Lady,” came his reply through her headphones. Actually being able to talk to each other during a fight had seemed like a good idea when Marinette had agreed to add her long-time gaming partner as a friend, but when she realized just how annoying his flirting was when it was constantly in her ears, she started to regret it.
“Just focus on the game, kitty,” she reminded him. “We've still got another one to defeat.”
“Well, Bugaboo, I'm sure we'll be done pretty fast.” She could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “You and I make an amazing pair. In fact, we're purrfect.”
“Tell another pun and I'm muting you.”
“But, my Lady, that would be a catastrophe, don't you—”
She cut him off mid-sentence.
And that was how it usually went.
They had originally met during an online tournament in Ultimate Mecha Strike III. She was playing with a custom character that she had designed to look like a ladybug, since that was the username she’d had since she was a child, after her stuffed toy, Tikki. There was only so much you could do to customize a character—there was a set of character types, with three attack options each—but she liked how she had made hers look.
He was playing with his own original character, too: a black cat. It was fitting, since his username was ChatNoir. His was a destruction type while hers was creation, and when they'd been randomly paired up together during a fight over a year ago they’d found they worked really well together. After that, whenever they were put into a team game together, they always picked each other. Sure, the flirty messages he would send her were kind of annoying, but he was a skilled player.
So, eventually, she had agreed to his pestering requests to befriend her. She didn't have any personal information in her gaming profile, so it wasn't like she was revealing herself to some stranger on the Internet.
They'd actually become sort of friends, which was weird since they'd never actually met. Their voices were also usually muffled through the headphones, so she didn't have a good idea what he sounded like, either. All she knew was that he was somewhere around her age, constantly flirted with her, and had an unhealthy obsession with both cats and puns that lead to way too many puns about cats.
He had suggested, once, that they actually find out who the other one was outside of the game. However, it had been drilled into Marinette’s mind since she was a child that she should never tell a stranger on the Internet who she was, so she refused. Besides, she enjoyed their time gaming and considered Chat a friend, but she was worried that progressing their relationship further might be taken as . . . actually progressing their relationship further, and she didn't want to lead him on. She still liked Adrien, and she doubted that was going away anytime soon.
Speaking of Adrien, she had to leave soon if she wanted to meet up with him, Nino, and Alya at the arcade. The couple was going on their first date (which Marinette was extremely excited about) and thought it might be less awkward if they brought along their best friends. Marinette and Adrien, being the amazing friends they were, had agreed out of the goodness of their hearts despite the awkwardness they both knew would be awaiting them. Even without the two lovebirds’ stilted flirting and general discomfort, Marinette dreaded (and suspected Adrien did, too, though he was too polite to say anything) spending a whole night consisting of small talk on his side and blushing and stuttering on hers.
She unmuted her headphones again.
“Well, chaton, it's been great,” she told him as they finished up their last fight (winning, of course), “but I've got to be going now.”
“So do I,” he said, sounding regretful. “Tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
The game played a happy tune as the end-game screen came up saying they'd won.
“Bien joué,” they said in unison.
She smiled as she turned off her console.
Marinette was standing anxiously in front of her best friend’s mirror, trying in vain to get her hair to lie flat. “I hate having my hair down,” she whined.
“Girl, you know I'm the one going on the date, right?” Alya pointed out with a laugh. “I'm the one that's supposed to be freaking out about my appearance, not you.”
Marinette fixed her friend with a mock glare. “First of all, don't pretend that you aren't inviting me and Adrien along so that you can set us up.” Alya shrugged, not denying it. “And second of all, you're going out with Nino. I don't think he could care less what you look like, as long as you laugh at his dumb jokes. Adrien is a model—a very attractive model—”
“Who is also not shallow enough to judge you based on a few flyaway hairs.”
Marinette sighed, knowing Alya was right and yet still feeling like she wasn't good enough. She pushed those feelings to the side. “Either way, you look good.”
“So do you,” Alya said. “Now let's go make those boys drool.”
The arcade was packed.
Marinette had never seen it this full. There were people everywhere, it seemed, though after a moment she realized that wasn't true. The tables were decently filled out, though not completely crowded, and most of the games had a few people at them. It was only one game that was taking everyone’s attention.
“What’s going on?” Marinette asked, forgetting to be embarrassed in front of Adrien. “Why is everyone at Mecha Strike?”
A boy at the counter looked over when he heard her voice. “Team Tournament,” he told them. “New contestants get to challenge the current winners, and whoever has the most points by the end of the night gets a fifty-dollar gift card to any store they want.”
Marinette bit her lip, glancing longingly at the game. Fifty dollars could be enough for an entire new dress—maybe two. But the tournament was for teams, and she didn’t know anyone she could take with her.
“Man, I love that game.”
At the sound of Adrien’s voice, she turned so suddenly she almost knocked him over. “You do?”
He seemed confused about her excited reaction, but smiled anyway. “Yeah, I play it all the time. I even made some friends through it—well, one friend, really—”
“Same here” she told him. “I play it a lot with my dad, and when he’s busy in the bakery I play online.”
She didn’t tell him about ChatNoir, somehow feeling like that was too personal. Like it was a different part of her life that she wanted to keep separate from this one. When she was playing with Chat—turning down his joking flirtations, making witty remarks, the two of them in perfect sync—it was like she was a different person. Ladybug didn’t have a place in Marinette’s life, and Marinette’s stammering and clumsiness definitely didn’t belong in her gaming world.
“Are you any good?”
Adrien’s question brought her back, and she smiled at him. “I like to think so.”
In truth, she was more than good. Her and Chat were notorious in the gaming realm for their gaming skills and perfect teamwork. Ladybug was slightly better known, since she was in all honesty the slightly better gamer, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to fight like that with just anyone.
“Well,” Adrien said, grinning with a somewhat nervous excitement. “Wanna go challenge the champions?”
Alya and Nino had walked over to a table nearby, where they were talking and blushing and seeming like they wanted privacy. No doubt she and Adrien had to find something to amuse themselves with while their friends made awkward small talk. What could be better than this?
Marinette smirked, already feeling like she did as Ladybug. “Thought you’d never ask.”
It wasn’t her console, so she couldn’t play as Ladybug, but she chose the same features that her character had. She noticed as Adrien prepared as well that he chose the same attacks as ChatNoir. Well, that was a weird coincidence, but Marinette was glad. She was used to playing with Chat, so she would know how to play off of him better.
The match started, and Marinette was surprised at the familiarity. It was like she was in her room, working in perfect sync with ChatNoir to fight their way to the top of the leaderboards.
“Take down his shield,” Marinette told Adrien, forgetting for a moment that he was not, in fact, ChatNoir and might find it rude that she was ordering him around. Well, too late now.
“On it, my Lady,” he replied, not sounding the least bit bothered as he used his Cataclysm power on the shield, allowing Marinette to use her Lucky Charm (as she’d lovingly named her favourite combo) to take him down. His friend was quick to follow, having no powerful shield to protect him from Ladybug and ChatNoir’s combined strength.
Wait—Ladybug and ChatNoir? Where did that come from? I’m playing with Adrien, not Chat.
But . . . had he called her ‘my Lady’?
The end-game screen came up, showing who had won, and Marinette grinned.
“Bien joue,” she said automatically. It wasn’t until she turned to see Adrien that she realized she’d forgotten again that he wasn’t Chat. And it wasn’t until another beat had passed that she realized he’d said it, too.
That doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. Everyone says good game after playing a match. It’s completely normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“You’re amazing at this game,” Adrien said, breaking the uncomfortable silence the two had fallen into. “As good as—well, the girl I’m friends with.”
Marinette’s heart was beating harder than it should have been. Harder even than it normally did around Adrien. The facts were all lining up, and she was trying her hardest to ignore them, but it was hard to not notice something that was staring her in the face. Great at Mecha Strike, friends with a skilled gamer girl, played with her in perfect sync, called her ‘my Lady’ . . .
“Ch—Chat?”
Adrien’s eyes widened, though he didn’t look as surprised as he should have. Maybe he had been going through the same thing in his own head. “Ladybug?”
There was an intake of breath from the people surrounding them. Oh, right. That. Marinette had momentarily forgotten about their reputation as Mecha Strike . . . heroes, for lack of a better word. Every serious gamer knew about them, and this place was packed with serious gamers.
“I can’t believe it,” Adrien breathed, staring at her with wide eyes.
She waved back. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
After a moment, he grinned the way Marinette had always pictured Chat grinning, slightly lopsided and with a mischievous glint in his eye that told her he was about to be annoying. “If I’d known Marinette was that sassy underneath all the blushing I would have asked her on a date months ago.”
The flirting caused her to immediately fall back into their usual ways, and she smirked at him. “Well, if I’d known that ChatNoir was this hot I might have agreed to go out with him.”
The second she realized what she’d said, Marinette slapped a hand over her mouth, cheeks reddening from embarrassment. Had she really just said that to Adrien Agreste?
But he was staring at her with surprise, amusement, and something akin to awe in his gaze—and a blush rivalling her own on his cheeks—and she found herself relaxing bit. This was ChatNoir. She teased him, fought with him, and turned him down every day. He was one of her best friends. She could handle a bit of flirting.
“Well, my Lady,” Adrien said, recovering from his momentary shock at her words. “How about after we win this tournament, I take you out for dinner?”
Marinette smiled shyly. “That would be nice, Chat.”
“So you’re telling me you’ve been flirting with him for months online in some dumb game?”
Marinette rolled her eyes at her best friend as she paced around her room, ignoring Nino’s attempts to defend the beauty that was Ultimate Mecha Strike III. Marinette herself was sitting calmly at her desk, working on a dress she was making with the fabrics she’d bought with her winnings. It turned out everyone had wanted a chance to play against the infamous Ladybug and ChatNoir, and they’d found it easy to beat their surplus of challengers. They really were a great team.
“Actually,” Adrien piped up from his spot at her feet, leaning against her leg, “it’s got to be over a year at least, by now, right Bugaboo?”
Marinette rolled her eyes playfully at the nickname and nudged him with her foot. “Our first game was a year and two weeks ago, tomorrow.”
Adrien’s face lit up at her words. “You remembered?”
“Well . . .” Marinette felt a blush forming on her cheeks and she ducked her head in embarrassment.
Across the room, Alya made a loud gagging sound.
“Get a room, you two,” Nino said.
“This is my room.”
“And I can’t believe how stupid you two were,” Alya continued, ignoring her best friend. “How could you not realize that the person you’ve been spending so much of your free time with is the same as the one that sits so close to you in class? That you hang out all the time with? That’s best friends with the person who’s dating your best friend?”
Adrien shrugged. “We didn’t really talk that much whenever we hung out with you and Nino. Marinette here was too much of a stuttering mess in my glorious presence to even get three words strung together.”
Marinette glared at him. “And Adrien always seemed so kind and polite. I could never have guessed that he was really just a flirtatious idiot.”
“And Ladybug was always witty and confident. Marinette, as previously mentioned, was too busy crushing on me to—”
“Mon dieu!” Marinette exclaimed. “Can we please shut up about that? You made cat puns. At least I stopped with the stammering after we found out! You kept going!”
Adrien grinned at her. “Are they really that pawful? I thought they were hissterical.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
Alya and Nino were watching this exchange with wide eyes, having never seen this side of either of their friends before. Adrien had always been so quiet and reserved, and Marinette so sweet and shy. It was like they brought out a whole different person in each other.
“You’re like an old married couple,” Nino remarked, as casually as he could manage.
In an instant, both of their cheeks were bright red.
“We are not,” Marinette argued, crossing her arms indignantly.
“I agree,” Adrien said. “Although, for the record, my Lady, I wouldn’t mind spending all nine of my lives with you.”
“That’s it,” Marinette said. She couldn’t work like this. “Out. All of you. Right now.”
All three of them started complaining loudly as she herded them out of her room and down the stairs. Alya and Nino promised to be less distracting, while Adrien just kept making puns like the annoying idiot he was.
“Aw, Buginette, you’ve got to be kitten me. That’s so unfurtinate. I’d be lion if I said I’m not upset we have to leave right meow.”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
“My Lady, I thought we would be together forever. Can’t I purrsuade you to rethink?”
“The puns aren’t helping.”
Alya and Nino were already out the door, standing on the sidewalk outside to wait for Adrien so they could walk together for a while. The boy in question, however, was hanging on the doorframe as his totally-not-a-girlfriend-Alya-what-are-you-talking-about-we-had-dinner-once tried to push him out.
“Okay, okay I’ll stop,” he said with a laugh in his voice.
Marinette stopped pushing for a moment to see what he would do next. Surprising both of them, he ducked his head and pressed his lips against her cheek. She froze, cheeks red, as he pulled away and grinned at her.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“Out.”