The Naked Truth

Chat Blanc

Did he hear right? Adrien's eyes went wide. "Who?" he tentatively asked.

"No! No no no no no! You shouldn't have known about this!" Marinette hid her eyes behind her fingers, panic spreading again on her face.

"Who are you talking about, Buginette?" He tried to take her hand out of her eyes but she refused.

"No, no, no..." she muttered. "This isn't happening, I had sworn to myself you wouldn't have to find out!"

He frowned. "Find out what? Who's this Chat Blanc? What are you not telling me?" Adrien grabbed her hands and took them off her face, lifted her chin and forced her to look at him.

She gave him a cringe look and blushed crimson. "Please don't ask. It's nothing you should worry about!"

"You just said that he is the reason you weren't falling into my arms. How does it make it something I shouldn't worry about?" He glared at her. "Who is he? Tell me, Marinette."

She stared at him.

"Tell me!" he repeated a bit louder, his hand grabbing her arm and squeezing it.

Her lips opened up in a small o. "You can't be jealous of Chat Blanc, Minou." Her mouth curled up in a small smirk when he lost his angry outlook and his gaze fell, as his cheeks tinged pink. She just giggled and put a hand to his chin, stroking his cheek tenderly with the other. "You are... oh, Adrien, you really shouldn't."

"Why shouldn't I?" His voice cracked. "It hurts, Marinette. You've rejected me so many times and just after I thought that it had always been me and I wouldn't need to worry any more, you talk to me about someone else. Who's Chat Blanc?" He couldn't help it, he shouted it out, and her lips lost their smirk as she gave him a quick hug and then sighed, looking at him seriously in the eye.

"He's your akumatised self, silly Chaton." The words came out as a low whisper, but she knew he had heard, because the blood drained completely from his face and he gave her a look of pure and utter shock.

"I've never been akumatised!" He whimpered in disbelief. That couldn't be true, could it? Yes, sure, every akumatisation victim had always said that they didn't remember what they were doing while being akumatised, but at least he should remember what happened afterwards, shouldn't he? Ladybug consoling him? He should remember feeling desperately angry or sad; the only time he went so close to have a feeling as strong as that was when they were in New York, and he certainly didn't remember Ladybug consoling him then. Only him going on a plane, and Aeon coming to the rescue and bringing him back to help his Lady. No, the more he searched in his memory, the less he could think of a single occasion he would have been desperate enough to get akumatised, except that once.

But when he looked at Marinette, her eyes were full of tears and her expression was one of the saddest he'd ever seen. "You have, but not on this timeline."

"What?" He was confused. What did she mean not on this timeline?

"It happened a long time ago, Chaton. Do you remember the day you saw Ladybug-me getting out of your room, and I told you that lame excuse of the Brazilian fan club?"

He nodded. "Yeah, the stupid excuse that took me only two minutes to suss out."

"Yeah, you mentioned that much," she muttered and blushed, giving him again a nervous smile. "You see, originally I had made an even worse mistake. I had signed my present with my own name, and had left your room the second you came back in, not realising you had seen me. So you saw Ladybug-me leaving, but the present was from Marinette. You must have joined the dots in seconds."