"Faceless Future" Book 2 of "Secrets Unraveled" Trilogy |COMPLETED|

Chpt 32: Time Travel is Always So Confusing!

Marinette and Adrien were sitting on the chaise in Marinette's room. They were watching Plagg and Tikki giving each other spins on Marinette's chair. Before Plagg moved in, Marinette would never have thought Tikki would like to do something like that, but they seemed to show their child-like sides around each other. Marinette found them fun to watch. Especially tonight when her mind was trying to process all of what Alya told them about her visit with the villain in the future.

"So, something changed?" Marinette said out loud (for what seemed like the tenth time to Adrien), trying to think through what could possibly make such a difference in a timeline. Adrien's head hurt from thinking about it the last hour. He didn't know how she could remain so focused on it.

"I'm going to walk through what we know again, but all out loud this time," she said.

"Okay," said Adrien with a sigh.

Marinette looked over at him but chose not to comment on his lack of enthusiasm. "One. It all seemed to diverge at my Dad's akumatization. That would seem to indicate that it could have something specifically to do with me. Or you and me. And since in the other timeline, black lucky charms don't seem to exist, it is probably tied to our relationship. Since, without that, there wouldn't be any black lucky charms. So, back then I profess my pretend love to you-"

"Well, not really pretend love as you were in love with me," interjected Adrien, "Just not the me you didn't know I was." He smirked.

"Ditto," she returned with her own smirk. 

A confused look crossed Adrien's face.  "Wait? Is that right? The me that you didn't . . ."

"Can you focus please?" she asked him. 

"Fine," he said, "But I'm tired and apparently crabby and . . ."

Marinette laughed at his use of the word 'crabby'. It sounded so cute, like a little kid!

"What?!" he asked her, not thinking that any of what he said could be considered funny.

"Never mind. Okay, where was I? I profess my pretend love to you when you're Cat Noir because I think that you are putting together that I am Ladybug and I'm hoping to distract you."

Adrien laughed at how wrong that went.

"Yeah, not my best plan," she admitted. "My Dad invites you to brunch. You tell me you're sorry, but you love Ladybug. I pretend to be upset, which upsets my Dad, causing him to get akumatized. He puts me in a thorny prison in the sky which I have to rescue myself from since Cat Noir never manages to defeat my dad," she looked over to take note of the blush that she knew Adrien would get over that statement. "I save the day. Yay for me!" 

 Adrien humphed at that. "And two, before I try to rescue you, I talk to your mom and she is very supportive, so that is how I end up returning to the bakery to talk to your supportive mom later, and she offers to talk once a week with me. So helpful!" he adds. Marinette nodded her agreement.

"So, three," said Marinette, "We get paired by Ms. Bustier on our project, which she's never done before (often a cause of my earlier unhappiness), which lets us finally spend time together and get to know each other. Plagg and Tikki intervene- four- with Plagg's sock plot . . . Could that be it? The kwamis directly interfered even though they knew that we weren't supposed to be together."

"Could be. But in order for that to happen, Ms. Bustier had to pair us or we never would have even been together at my house for the sock plot," said Adrien.  The memory of their first kiss came into his mind at the mention of the sock plot.  That was some kiss! he thought.

"True," said Marinette, startling Adrien as he thought at first that she had read his mind.  He blushed a little as he realized that his thoughts had taken a completely different path from Marinette's.

"Okay, so a couple of possible divergence points so far. Later on, we're talking about our non-superhero lives, which we weren't supposed to do (another point- five) and I put together some things you say and realize that Cat and Adrien are the same person," said Marinette.

"And you reveal yourself to me with that amazing rooftop kiss."  I guess it's obvious where my mind is going today! He tried to get his focus back on the problem.  "So, six, another possible divergence. You wouldn't necessarily have had to reveal yourself- but, I am grateful every day that you did, because I was pretty clueless. And, I am very happy now," he added. "Though you never know, I might have eventually put it together as Ladybug kept reacting to Cat Noir's touch," said Adrien, remembering that very well.

"If we didn't get together in our normal lives, we wouldn't have gotten together in our superhero lives, and we wouldn't have spent so much time together . . ." said Marinette.

"And we wouldn't have started investigating my father together, no black lucky charm that leads me back to me father, no confrontation, and Hawk Moth would still be around akumatizing people," he finished.

The both sat silently thinking about all of that.

"Is it kind of weird to think that us being together changed a whole timeline?" asked Adrien looking over at Marinette.

"Yes," she said, overwhelmed by where their thoughts led them. If Adrien and I didn't fall in love, the world could potentially change that much?

"That's a lot of pressure," said Marinette, echoing the thoughts she had when she heard that Master Fu and Wayzz had discussed how she and Adrien were made for each other.

"I've kind of lost track.  Why is this so important to figure out?" asked Adrien, trying to decide if he was just tired or it had been unclear.

"I don't know if it is, but according to Alya, the villain seemed particularly interested in what caused the timeline to change. I suppose if the villain were able to figure out what made the timeline change and wanted the old timeline back that led to the future that the villain is currently in, that the villain could go back farther in time and change whatever had originally made our timeline happen so it wouldn't," said Marinette, sounding very certain in her statements.

Adrien's mind, on the other hand, spun around in circles. He was so confused! His brain worked on it for a moment and what he concluded from her thoughts made his stomach drop.

"You mean, if the villain figured out the divergence point, they could go back and keep whatever we or someone else did to bring us to our today from happening, which could then throw us into a future where Hawk Moth is still akumatizing people and you and I are maybe not together! We might not even remember there was an 'us'!" Adrien's eyes grew wide at that realization.

Marinette tried not to panic. He's right! That could happen! How can we keep that from happening? Think!

Marinette climbed over Adrien to reach the back of the chaise, turned around, and leaned against it. She pulled Adrien over to join her, feeling a little more safe with him sitting so close to her. With him there, she felt more calm and started to think rationally. She did keep a tight hold on his hand, though, while she said "If you think back on most of the points we just mentioned, there is no way anyone but us would know what was important or different in those situations. We were mostly by ourselves, and not even in our superhero personas most of the time. No one would have possibly paid any attention to what we were doing. I think we're safe from the villain messing around in our past- he wouldn't even know where to start!"

He slowly nodded in agreement.  "You're right. I guess we just overreacted. But, I really don't want to lose 'us' and I would hate to go back to living at my house. That seems too horrible now!"

"So, I guess the thing we should go back to concentrating on is the villain's technology. Then, if the villain comes back to our timeline again we can keep him from returning through the portal and maybe get some answers," said Marinette.

"And keep Paris, us, and this timeline's relationship safe," said Adrien, continuing to hold on tightly to her hand.  He didn't want to lose her.