Chapter Text
‘I must be hallucinating,’ thought Nino vaguely, blinking away the after-effects of the bright pink glow that had faded nearly as quickly as it had come. ‘The pain must be getting to my head.’
Faint spots still danced across his vision but he ignored them for now. There were two things demanding his immediate attention at the moment, and neither of them made any sense.
Ladybug was… right there. And now she wasn’t, but… she was. Because in her place stood a quivering Marinette, disheveled hair barely caught in Ladybug’s loose ponytail, staring back at him with the expression of a deer caught in headlights.
“Oh no,” she squeaked.
“Oh dear,” murmured the second of the metaphorical elephants in the room, flitting out from behind Marinette’s head. “This is unfortunate,” the thing said, and tsk-ed quietly.
“I’m sorry!” whispered Marinette, although whether the sentiment was on behalf of or directed towards the bug-thing floating around her head was unclear and, frankly, he didn’t really care. “I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I messed up…”
“Oh, Marinette,” sighed the thing in a voice that sounded like bells, swooping down to nuzzle at Marinette’s cheek. “It was an accident, we’ll figure it out!”
‘Marinette?’ thought Nino dimly. ‘Ladybug? Marinette is Ladybug? Ladybug is Marinette is…’ He was starting to feel dizzy, yet also terrifyingly, vividly sane.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Marinette, whirling on him, eyes wild and desperate. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this, you weren’t supposed to find out at all, oh, and now we’re stuck—” Tears were forming in her eyes, spilling unnoticed down her cheeks in thick streams, all traces of her former Ladybug confidence gone like, well, magic as the color suddenly drained from her face. “Chat,” she breathed. And then she was going berserk, pounding and screaming at the unyielding door, the thuds of her fists sending tremors through the spindly wooden shelves lining the walls, lightbulb boxes and paper towels shuddering and bouncing.
“Marinette, stop!” yelled the tiny creature, trying vainly to calm the now-feral Marinette, whose fists were surely bruised and bleeding by now from the sheer force of her repeated blows.
And still Nino sat, staring unblinking at the scene unfolding before him, unable to do anything but… process.
“Nino!” cried the tinkling voice, and he was snapped from his daze as he suddenly found himself face-to-face with the bug-thing, its big blue eyes wide and urgent. “Help me,” it said. “She won’t listen to me.”
He opened his mouth automatically at the command but words wouldn’t come, his throat had closed in on itself and what could he possibly say to help a superhero on the verge of total collapse — no, not just a superhero, but his friend…
“Nino,” said the creature again, more gently this time but just as authoritative. “I know this must be quite a shock, but she needs you right now. Please.”
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Mari,” he croaked. She couldn’t hear him. “Marinette,” he tried again, louder.
Her screams of her absent partner’s name had subsided but her sobs and her desperate lunges at the door had not. Gritting his teeth, he summoned all his strength and lifted himself from his precarious perch on the stool, wincing as he limped clumsily the few steps to the door. “Mari,” he croaked again, a tentative hand reaching out to grab her fist before the next blow.
That simple touch seemed to sap all her remaining strength and she stood there, tears still streaming from wild eyes as she wavered and shuddered on the spot. And then she wasn’t anymore, because she nearly knocked him off his bad leg as she dissolved into fresh sobs against his chest, burying her face against his t-shirt as he clutched her close, awkwardly patting her hair in the most soothing way he could muster. It seemed like the only thing he could do.
The bug-thing hovered silently beside them, a grave expression on its face. “I’ll try to find something to eat,” it muttered, mostly, apparently, to itself. “People live here, don’t they? There must be food.” To him it added, “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, Nino. This is turning out to be a very… intense day, isn’t it?”
“Um,” said Nino, cradling a still-sobbing Marinette in his arms.
“I’m Tikki, by the way,” it said. “How silly of me to forget my manners, but you’ll have to excuse me.” It flitted towards the door, and paused. “If she asks,” it said, “just tell her I’ve gone to recharge. I’ll be back momentarily. And then we can see about fixing that door, shall we?” And then it went through the door — Nino blinked, sure he must have missed something — and was gone.
It took a few moments for Marinette’s hiccupping sobs to calm enough for her to catch her breath. “He needs me,” she whimpered into his chest, eyes bloodshot. “He’s waiting for me and he needs me, I was only supposed to be gone a few minutes…”
‘He?’ Nino stumbled blankly for a second before supposing with a sudden jolt: “he” would mean Chat Noir. Of course it would, because who else had she been screaming herself hoarse over? Chat Noir, the wild, flamboyant boy who was much more of a real person to Marinette than to the rest of Paris’s much more vague symbolic ideal; Chat Noir who, at this very moment, would be dodging bombs and biding his time while waiting for backup that wouldn’t — couldn’t, presently — come. A cold lump of horror slid its way into the pit of his stomach and settled there, hard and heavy as iron. “I — I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Nino as his voice cracked, unconvincing even to himself.
She straightened, taking tremulous breaths as she sought to collect herself. “Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes, mascara collecting in ugly rings under them and smearing on her skin. She glanced at him finally, a softer sort of concern tinging her expression now. “How’s your leg?”
He shrugged a one-armed shrug and winced as he did. “It’s been better,” he managed.
She took his arm and guided him gently back to the stool, careful not to disturb his ankle more than absolutely necessary. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all this,” she said quietly, kneeling beside him as he situated himself as comfortably as he could. “I never wanted any of you to find out this way. Or, y’know, at all, but…” She let out a weak, semi-hysterical kind of half-laugh that didn’t quite land.
He had a million things to say, a million wildly roiling thoughts fighting to be verbalized first, but when he looked at her all he could see was his friend, tired and scared, buckling under a kind of weight he could barely understand. “Yeah,” he said finally, pushing aside the Other Things for later. “Yeah, this sucks.”
She broke their held gaze, fidgeting without direction, looking haggard. “I’m sorry,” she said again, voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I should have been more careful,” she said viciously, lips pressing together in a harsh line. “I should have picked a better spot, I should have paid attention—”
“Hey, Marinette, this isn’t your fault!” he cut her off firmly. “You wouldn’t even be trapped in here if it weren’t for me.”
“You were my responsibility!” she spat, rounding on him with anger in her voice, but her eyes were nothing but regretful and terrified. “Everyone is my responsibility! Paris is my responsibility! And Chat…” She took a long, slow breath and looked at the ceiling, in an apparent attempt to quell any more rising tears. “He can’t handle this by himself, and I’m — I’m not there right now because I was stupid and careless…”
He gripped her shoulder before she could start crying again. “Hey,” he said softly. “Keep it together, yeah? We’ll figure this out.”
“Nino,” she whispered, voice wavering dangerously. “What if somebody dies?”
The question hit him like a punch to the gut but she kept going. “We’ve never had an Akuma this bad before — I mean, Jesus Christ, an actual terrorist? What if somebody dies because I was stupid enough to get locked in here and I couldn’t save them? What if Chat—”
“Hey now,” interrupted Nino shakily. “Don’t think like that, okay? We’re going to be fine, you hear me? They’re all going to be fine.” Through the sudden, violent barrage of intrusive thoughts racing through his mind — Alya’s broken body crushed under a pile of rubble, eyes unseeing behind cracked glasses; Adrien, burning; the mangled corpses of Kim, Alix, Rose, anyone he’d ever known, strewn across the sidewalk like ragdolls — he squeezed her shoulder in what he hoped was taken as a comforting gesture, despite it rapidly becoming more of a stabilizing gesture for himself than anything else.
She sniffled weakly and nodded, wiping at her nose with a half-hearted swipe of a fist as her gaze flicked across the room. “Where’s Tikki?” she asked.
It took a moment for “Tikki” to connect to “weird magical bug-thing that flies through walls” in Nino’s head. “Oh,” he said. “It, uh, said it needed to… ‘recharge’? It went through the door a few minutes ago, it said it’d be back soon to fix the door.”
“But I have cookies in my—” She stopped mid-sentence and groaned. “I told her to stop eating them unless there’s an Akuma, she promised! Those are for emergencies only!” She raked an exasperated hand through her hair, inadvertently yanking strands loose from her already haphazard ponytail. “I hope she’s back soon.”
“…She?” said Nino tentatively.
Marinette glanced at him, a tired half-smile quirking the corner of her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “Tikki’s my kwami, she’s the one who gives me my power.”
He took a moment to consider this factoid. “I see,” he said, not really seeing at all.
Her smile turned sad. “We’re going to have a lot to talk about after this, aren’t we?” she said rhetorically.
He met her gaze. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed.
Marinette glanced up at the ceiling, expression hard as the faint smile slipped from her face. “It’s awfully quiet out there,” she said.
Nino tried not to think too hard about the implications of this.
Their attention turned suddenly to the door as a sharp clunk broke through the silence, and the bug-thing — Tikki — finally reappeared through the door. “I did my best with the lock,” it — she — said. “I’ve never actually tried to do that before, but dear Lucretia was quite handy with a hatpin, and she showed me a thing or two — of course, it’s been nearly 200 years—”
Marinette stood up as Nino’s train of thought stumbled over “200 years.” “After this, you and I are going to have a serious talk about what ‘emergency rations’ means,” she said sternly.
“Won’t happen again,” said the now-sheepish kwami.
“Tikki,” Marinette said, and her voice changed somehow as she did, “spots on!”
The bright pink light filled every inch of the small room. Nino squeezed his eyes tight but it permeated his eyelids, pressed past his shielded gaze, a flicker of warmth washing over him with the light. And just as suddenly, it was gone, and Ladybug had returned. Only, it wasn’t just Ladybug. Not anymore.
Nino stared at her with bare-faced wonder; ogling, really, barely even registering the embarrassment that would usually accompany such boldness. It was like something had snapped in his head — it really was just Marinette in spots. He couldn’t understand how he’d never seen it before.
She flexed her fingers and aimed for a kick at the door. It held fast, but only barely, a clear dent by the lock now. “C’mon,” she whispered as she kicked again.
The door buckled off its hinges on the third try, flying open with a bang. “Oh thank God,” she breathed, unhooking her yo-yo. She paused in the doorframe, glancing back on him briefly with an expression he couldn’t place. “I’ll be back for you,” she said, and then she was gone.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring vacantly at nothing with unseeing eyes. So many thoughts raced through his head, he didn’t know which part to focus on first, so he simply let them come. Marinette’s odd behavior and flimsy excuses over the years; mysterious disappearances whenever an Akuma showed up, finally explained. Her muscles, less “jacked,” as he had described them in the past — that description made her sound like a body builder — but clearly those of a gymnast, or else an agile superhero who spent more of her time sprinting over rooftops than down on the ground; defined, but lean, not bulky. Her quick defense of Chat Noir, especially if debating with classmates who was “better” between him and Ladybug; why would she sing her own praises when the partner who she relied on so heavily was right there?
A magical bug-creature, who could phase through walls and gave Ladybug her magic. Marinette risking her life, right now.
Alya.
Alya, constantly worried for Marinette’s safety and considering it paranoia. Alya, betrayed. Alya, rushing away from an exploding building, crushed to death under falling rubble…
There was some yelling, somewhere on the outside, a familiar female voice he would now recognize anywhere. A thump. Some quiet. And then the unmistakable shout of “Miraculous Cure!”
Tiny, glowing ladybugs swept through the building, gently wiping every trace of destruction away. The door, leaning weakly on its own hinges, was righted in a second, balanced innocently on the stupid, insecure bucket that had started the whole incident. They washed over him, clearing away the grime and the sweat, warming his ankle and suddenly the pain was gone. He flexed his foot experimentally. Completely healed. He stood, grabbing the step stool he’d been perched on, and replaced the bucket with it.
Honestly, who thought a bucket with wheels would be even slightly secure against such a heavy door? The bucket, now moderately warped from the weight of it, rolled innocently away. He stepped out.
The apartment was actually quite nice, once it wasn’t half-destroyed. He made his way down the modest staircase, the simple front door no longer a twisted hunk of metal and broken glass. Pushing it open, he saw hordes of people, immaculate and unhurt, swarming around the distant figures of Chat Noir and Marinette-Ladybug, looking slightly more out of breath than before but with an otherwise press-friendly smile gracing her face. He stood for a moment, watching the crowds milling, hesitating. Should he wait for Marinette? Should they walk together back to the park, or return separately?
…The park!
Adrien.
Alya.
He fumbled for his phone.
The line rang twice before she picked up. “Are you okay?” she demanded, not waiting for or offering a greeting.
“I — yeah, I’m okay,” he said, and suddenly he began to shake, his knees threatening to collapse under him at the sound of her voice. ‘She’s alive,’ he thought dazedly, taking long, quivering breaths through his nose. ‘She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive…’ “Where’d you go? I lost you.”
He hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation, but she sounded nearly as relieved as he felt and ignored his tone. “I went home,” she explained in a voice that wavered with barely-restrained emotion. “After we lost each other, I-I ran into my sisters — they got separated from maman and I didn’t know where else to go… It was close enough to get to on foot but far enough away that the Akuma hadn’t touched our street yet…”
His heart fluttered and sank at the same time. “Your parents,” he said. “Are they…?”
“They’re fine,” said Alya roughly, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “They were the first people I called, Ella and Etta were crying so hard… Dad’s on his way right now, and Mom should be here any second.”
Nino collapsed against the brick wall behind him, dragging a hand across his face. “Good,” he said finally. “That’s… that’s good.”
“What about your parents?”
“They’re out of town,” he said, sinking slowly to the ground on his haunches as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Anniversary trip, they left this morning, thank God.”
“Thank God,” she echoed. “You should probably still call them. They’ll be worried sick once they hear.”
“They’ll probably hop on the next plane back,” he agreed. The thought of how anxious he’d been to get them on their way that morning, the relief he’d felt when they’d finally left and he had the house to himself for a rare week… How strange to think that had only been a few scant hours ago.
“Have you — hold on.” Alya’s voice cut off as the sound of her phone being shuffled around took over, and then a muffled chorus of “Maman!” and the shriek of relief from a grown woman’s voice filled Nino’s ears as the distant reunion could be heard in indistinct snippets over the phone line. Nino let it play out, the happy sobs of Alya’s little sisters filling him with a calm he couldn’t ever remember matching, and just as he’d begun to let himself drift the shuffling phone sounds were back. “Maman just got home,” Alya clarified unnecessarily. “I’m on my way back out. Have you heard from the others yet?”
“Ah — huh?” He snapped back to reality, and with him came a sudden rising dread. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.
“I can’t get through to Marinette or Adrien,” she explained urgently. “You either, until now. I’m heading back to the park, but you haven’t heard from them?”
“Um,” said Nino. When Marinette left him, she’d said she’d be back, but had failed to specify when. Or how. Or what he could and couldn’t share. His thoughts briefly turned to what Alya had said about Miraculous magic the other day and panicked. How much had she gotten right? What would happen if he accidentally slipped? Why hadn’t Marinette at least hinted at what to do when faced with the prospect of The Alya Inquisition? Why couldn’t there have been more time?
“A missed call from either of them? A text? Anything?” Alya prompted. Her voice was becoming increasingly worried, and Nino’s panic was rising.
And then, like an angel, he glanced around and there she was.
“Marinette,” he said.
“Marinette?” repeated Alya anxiously. “What about Marinette?”
“I — Marinette’s here. With me.” He gestured wildly and she made a beeline for him, hurrying over from the opposite direction from where he’d seen her and Chat last as he brandished the phone at her. “Here, prove to Alya you didn’t die.”
“Alya?” Marinette brightened instantly and grabbed the phone, running her fingers through the hair she now loosened from her wild ponytail. Her hands had been healed. Of course they had. “Oh, thank God… No, we’re fine. Did you…?” A pause. “Yeah, we’ll be there, we’re only a few blocks away. But…” Another pause. Her face paled slightly. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly, and then Nino was hit by it at nearly the exact same moment.
Adrien.
She seemed to read his thoughts as her phone was already out of her purse by the time he had the presence of mind enough to think to ask for it. She unlocked it quickly without looking, and Nino punched in the numbers without bothering to try scrolling through her contacts.
Three agonizing seconds ticked by as he held her phone to his ear.
A click. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message or try again later…”
He hung up and redialed. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is…”
Again. “We’re sorry…”
Nino looked up and met Marinette’s waiting gaze, a sick pit in his stomach. Her expression steeled as he forced himself to shake his head. “Nino will keep trying,” she told Alya. “We’ll see you soon.” She hung up without saying goodbye.
He kept calling as they walked, each step increasing the icy feeling in his gut until the emptiness spread to his toes, his fingers, clouding his gaze. ‘Pick up,’ he willed Adrien silently, as Marinette gently steered him over curbs and around lampposts. ‘Pick up, pick up, pick up…’
In what seemed like hours and yet only seconds, hard pavement gave way to soft, springy grass, and still there was no answer other than the robotic, vaguely feminine voice on the other end of the phone. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried — a dozen? A hundred? His fingers were numb, and still he hit redial…
“Mari! Nino!” And suddenly he wasn’t dialing anymore, because a sudden death grip around his neck and fiery hair in his face knocked the air from his lungs and the phone from his lungs as Alya rocketed across the park and folded him and Marinette together in a rib-crushing hug.
“We’re here, Alya,” soothed Marinette in a strangled voice as Alya sobbed openly onto their shoulders. “It’s okay, you can let go…”
“Bullshit, I’m never letting either of you go ever again!” came her muffled voice, buried somewhere in Nino’s shoulder, although the pressure around his neck mercifully lessened slightly. “God, I was so worried! The whole time I was with my sisters, trying to calm them down but the whole time I was thinking of you but now you’re here and you’re okay—”
“It’s all right, Alya,” said Marinette soothingly, petting her hair. “We’re fine. And you’re fine.” She gently but firmly loosened Alya’s death grips on them and turned to face her. “Is your family all right?”
“Yes, and so’s yours, by the way. Your mom called when she couldn’t get a hold of you.”
“I couldn’t get through,” lied Marinette, looking concerned and relieved all at once. “I guess the lines were all jammed up or something.” Nino watched her silently out of the corner of his eye. There wasn’t a trace of deception in her face, not that even Alya would have noticed right now.
“You didn’t hear from Adrien on the way back, did you?” asked Alya anxiously, looking between them as she wiped the residual tears off her face. “I’ve been texting and texting…”
“I… No, not yet.” He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away from Marinette, jumping back into the moment with some difficulty.
Marinette’s face fell, and that sinking, icy feeling in Nino’s insides returned. “Nino’s been calling, but… we hoped he might be with you,” she said.
There was a tense silence — Marinette biting her lip, hands wringing; Alya, suddenly looking ashen and small. Nino picked up Marinette’s discarded phone from the ground by his feet with fumbling fingers. “I’ll try him again,” he managed finally.
Alya’s phone was already in hand. “Nothing,” she said after a few seconds, looking sick.
“Well, try it again.”
Nothing.
“Okay,” said Marinette, pale but her face set with a determined calm. “Let’s just… stop for a moment. Breathe. Where would he go?”
“Home?” suggested Alya. “You know his bodyguard will have been scouring the city…”
The girls’ voices faded around him as Nino retreated into himself, weighing the possibilities. It could only have been, what? Ten minutes since the Lucky Charm cleared away the rubble? Twenty? Hardly enough time to do a full sweep of the city, even factoring in the limited area in which the Akuma had time to attack before Ladybug and Chat Noir put him down. There could be bodies all over the place, in forgotten alleys or empty apartment buildings; wherever people had retreated for cover.
Clearly they weren’t the only ones worried about loved ones either, considering everybody around them on the streets and in the park were on their phones or clinging to each other with sobs of relief. And Marinette said herself that she didn’t know the extent of her city-healing abilities…
Alya was by his side again, looking anxious as she tried the phone again. He felt his arms tighten around her automatically, feeling the warmth from her body trying and failing to ease some of the tension in his body, the monotonous tone from the phone still rattling around in his head; ‘We’re sorry…’
Through the sea of her hair, a familiar, stupidly tall blond head edged through the crowd, bobbing around like it was looking for something…
“Adrien!”
He was running before his brain caught up with his body, nearly knocking the girls over in his haste, tripping over his own feet and uneven ground and—
“You stupid idiot!” he yelled, nearly knocking Adrien to the ground as he squeezed him tight on impact.
“Dude,” protested Adrien in a wheeze, arms hovering only a split second before returning the hug. “What gives?”
“Answer your damn phone, dumbass,” said Nino, finally feeling the tears he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in flooding down his face. He didn’t even notice the girls following him until Alya crashed into them as well, Marinette in hot pursuit. “You stupid, goddamn idiot.”
Adrien let them dogpile him for a while before gently untangling himself to answer Alya’s clamoring demands about where the hell he’d been. After they’d got separated, he’d holed up in a clothing store a few blocks away, but hadn’t realized he’d dropped his phone in the confusion. He’d had to retrace his steps once the coast was clear, which was why he was the last one back, and had only just found it, kicked under the edge of a dumpster across the street from the park. Nino didn’t care how or why he hadn’t answered now. The only thing rattling around his head as he dried his face was the constant ‘He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe…’
“So, what now?” Adrien finished, glancing between them. “I… uh, don’t suppose there’s much call for the movies now, is there? Especially since I can’t imagine anything will be open just now.” The ghost of a grin flitted across his face and died.
“I want to hear about you guys,” said Alya, turning to Marinette and Nino. “What happened to you?”
“Oh, um, I just did a lot of running,” said Marinette sheepishly. “Kind of just… going wherever the Akuma wasn’t, you know? I found an apartment building and stuck around there for a while, and then I ran into Nino when Ladybug and Chat Noir caught the Akuma.”
It was so… strange, hearing her refer to herself like that. To Ladybug, knowing she was Ladybug. Nino felt a new level of appreciation for how difficult keeping the lies straight must be, and keeping herself from saying “I” or “we” when referring to the protectors of Paris.
“What about you, Nino?” said Adrien.
And then he blanked.
“Uh, well… I kinda ran around for a while when we got separated,” he stuttered after a moment. “I broke my leg—”
“What?” exclaimed Alya.
“I — um…” Marinette was watching him quietly, not pointedly, but he could see something behind her eyes; something willing him to please don’t fuck this up.
He couldn’t do it.
“Turned out,” interjected Marinette brightly after a few agonizing seconds, “we ended up hiding in the same building!” Alya and Adrien turned to look at her as Nino stared, partly grateful, partly shocked. “Yeah, Ladybug found him and dropped him off at the same apartment building I was in toward the end. ‘Course we didn’t find out until after it was all over and we came out of hiding, but isn’t that crazy?”
They all turned back to look at Nino, who coughed. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Crazy, huh?”
“Too bad she didn’t bring you to the same floor, right?” said Marinette lightly, nudging his leg with a toe. “Would have saved us a lot of panic, huh?” The gesture was casual, disguised as a playful act of camaraderie between two people who’d been through a harrowing ordeal — only he understood the hidden implication: ‘Play along.’
He coughed again gracelessly. “I was pretty glad to find you,” he admitted. “Since you never answer your phone and have a worse sense of direction than Alya, we might never have seen you again otherwise.”
“Hey, not cool,” protested Alya. “Too soon.”
“I’m just… glad you’re all okay,” said Adrien. “Sorry I freaked you guys out.” He looked between them all, a warm smile on his face, but… Was that Nino’s imagination, or did he seem… distracted? He wanted to shake himself. Of course there he was. They’d all just survived a terrorist attack, and a super-powered one at that. None of them were okay.
They were quiet for a moment, just savoring the fact that they were alive, that their families were alive and okay…
“So… what now?” said Alya quietly.
“I guess…” began Marinette, and then trailed off.
“Well, I’m pretty sure Nathalie and the Gorilla are looking for me,” said Adrien with a weary sigh, “so I should probably get a hold of them before they tear the city apart. Again.”
“I just wanna go home,” said Alya in a small voice, looking suddenly nearly as tired as Nino felt. “My mom didn’t want me coming back out so soon after she got back, but…”
“Me too,” agreed Marinette softly. “I guess, just… Stay safe?”
“We’ll talk later, yeah?” said Adrien with a half-hearted smile, and in the group hug that followed Nino pulled them all as close to him as he could, wishing to preserve the moment for as long as humanly possible.
But then the moment passed, and one by one they took their leave until only he and Marinette remained.
“So…” he said awkwardly after a pause.
“So,” she agreed with equal discomfort.
He cleared his throat with some difficulty. “So,” he began again, “when should I expect this… talk?”
Marinette looked down at her toes. “I have to see my parents first,” she said, “obviously. And—” She dropped her voice low, “—I… I have to see Chat, y’know, because we didn’t really get a chance to do… this after the fight.” She gestured vaguely at the teary civilians, and their own recently-disbanded reunion. “But I’ll stop by later, if that’s all right. Or you could come to my place, if you want…?”
“My place is probably better,” he said wearily. “My parents are out of town.”
She blinked. “Oh. Oh, I see.” She bit her lip. “D’you want to come to my place anyway, after I see Chat real quick? So you don’t have to be alone, I mean, I can meet you outside the bakery—”
“No, no,” he interrupted distantly. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I need to call my folks anyway.” A beat of silence. “Thanks, though,” he added hastily.
There was something behind her eyes, a deep sadness he tried very hard to ignore at present. “Are you… sure you’re all right, Nino?” she asked quietly.
Was he? Was anyone, right now? “I’m fine,” he lied.
She didn’t look like she believed him. “I’ll see you later, Nino,” she said, and then she, too, was gone.
He stood there for an indeterminate amount of time, just surrounding himself with the collective relief of Paris, the sudden and inexplicable peace after such a violent event. He kept his mind carefully blank, if only for that one moment, where he could pretend that none of it had ever happened, that nothing was wrong.
He opened his eyes and began to walk.
Time seemed immaterial at the moment. If he’d been asked, he’d have been hard-pressed to tell anyone how long it took him to get home, or which route he took. All he knew was that at some point, he found himself standing in front of his apartment door, and a few moments passed before he remembered to fish out his keys.
The apartment looked exactly as he had left it. Of course it did; why wouldn’t it? His laptop, snoozing on the kitchen counter. His breakfast dishes still piled in the sink. He’d left the bathroom light on by accident.
Nino sank into the couch, gazing blankly at his faint reflection in the darkened TV screen.
It was all… too much.
Calling his parents would be pointless — they probably hadn’t even landed yet, and if they had they hadn’t heard what happened, given the fact that they hadn’t blown up his phone yet; what would be the point in worrying them and ruining their vacation? So there was nothing to do but sit until Marinette-Ladybug showed up at his door.
He came to the sudden, terrifying realization that that was the last thing he wanted in the entire world.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want — no, need — answers; he did, desperately. As the silence of the apartment pressed in around him all he could see was the pink flash of light, all he could hear was Marinette’s terrified voice, ‘You weren’t supposed to find out like this…’
‘You weren’t supposed to find out at all…’
How long, exactly, had she been planning on keeping something like that a secret? Did she think she could just continue with this massive lie of a double-life for as long as she held the mantle of Ladybug, before quietly retiring an indeterminate number of years in the future without a word? Had she even thought that far ahead? Not like what happened today was in any way predictable, but still.
He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to have such knowledge forced upon him. He didn’t have Alya’s drive, her insatiable need to learn every dark secret Ladybug and Chat Noir had hidden away. He was content to live in the dark, let them live their lives as they wished. And yet here he sat, and all he could think about was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, clad in the red and black of one of Paris’s most prominent protectors.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the image brighter.
Marinette, her Ladybug suit melting away into jeans and sneakers.
Marinette, talking to a magical bug.
Marinette, beating herself bloody on the immovable door, screaming for her partner with a furious desperation he’d never seen the likes of before.
Everything Alya had told him swirled around in his head, mixing and matching with everything he could remember about Ladybug, everything he’d ever known about Marinette. Little quirks in Ladybug’s speech, half-remembered from Ladyblog streams past. Marinette’s every disappearance, and every Ladybug sighting moments later. Flustered excuses and panicked distractions melded together into one truth so brutal he could hardly bear to acknowledge, but knew he had to accept.
Marinette was a superhero, and she could have died today.
Even more so than any of the rest of them, and that scared him most of all.
He snapped back to reality at the sudden knock on the front door.
Opening it, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Marinette standing there in the hall — looking tired, of course, and nervous, but more put-together than before — and yet he was, slightly, anyway. “You got here fast,” he commented.
She looked at him quizzically. “It’s been two hours,” she said.
Really? Glancing behind him out the window, he finally noticed how the light had shifted, the shadows longer than they had been the last time he checked. Huh.
“…Can I come in?”
He looked back at her, hovering in the doorway, and blinked. “Sorry,” he said, moving aside, and she flitted past him into the living room.
“Um,” he said as he closed the door, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings and the situation and her, “d’you, I don’t know, want something to drink?”
“Oh,” she said, looking almost as uncomfortable as he felt. “No, thanks, I’m fine.”
They stood there in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity, both staring at anything that wasn’t each other.
Well, there were no two ways around this; might as well rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with. “So,” he said to the floor. “You’re a superhero, huh?”
She surveyed the bookshelf in the corner. “Yeah,” she said.
“Fighting crime,” he continued at a lamp. “Saving the day. Kicking ass.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re… Ladybug.”
She reddened slightly. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
It was a struggle, but he forced himself to meet her hesitant gaze. “So,” he said. “Parkour, huh?”
The split second of silence as she processed his remark was deafening, but then she cracked a grin, a relieved, genuine smile that seemed to melt some of the tension away. “To be fair,” she said, “it wasn’t exactly a lie.”
He gestured to the couch and they both sat down, albeit a bit farther apart than they might have before. Baby steps. “How are your parents?” he asked, picking imaginary lint off his jeans.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Dad cried a lot when I got home. They didn’t want me coming out again so soon, but I told them you were home alone and I wanted to make sure you were okay. You may or may not be expected for dinner until your parents come home.” She side-eyed him. “That wasn’t a lie either, you know,” she added softly. “Wanting to make sure you were okay, I mean.”
He cleared his throat. “Do they, uh, do they know?”
She looked away. “No,” she said. She sounded almost ashamed. “No, you’re the only one.”
He looked up in surprise. “The only one?” he repeated. “Doesn’t Chat Noir know?”
Her ears went red, and there was definite shame in her voice when she admitted, “No.”
“How — but why?” A thought struck him. “Do you know who he—”
She shook her head, picking at a loose thread in the seam of a couch cushion. “No,” she said quietly. “We can’t know. We’re not supposed to. Nobody is. Maybe someday, but—” She cut herself off and shook her head again. “We shouldn’t,” she reiterated. “It’s too dangerous.” She fiddled with the thread, a bundle of nervous, directionless energy, and sighed again. “It’s like,” she began again, and stopped.
Nino let her collect her thoughts, his own mind tripping over itself with questions and exclamations and the need to scream, but he let her figure out the words first. It was her secret, after all. Her life.
“The whole time I’ve been Ladybug,” she said finally, “protecting my identity has been, like, the most important thing. The most important, even more important than stopping Hawkmoth, because we can’t fight him if he knows who we are, y’know? He could just… find us, send Akumas after our families, take our Miraculous. It’s like this constant cloud over our heads. We can’t tell the people closest to us, because they might get Akumatized. And we can’t tell people who’ve already been Akumatized, because they might get Akumatized again…” Her fist clenched. “We don’t even know if we can get Akumatized — that’s the scariest part. And even if we can’t, he’s been controlled by them enough that… I can’t even trust him with that part of myself, and I trust him more than—” She cut herself off, exhaling as the fist slowly released its grip. “We argue about it sometimes. And I’ve been so paranoid for so long…”
“…You don’t know what to do,” finished Nino quietly. “Now that I know.”
She looked at him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said.
“Of course not. But I’m a problem now.” It wasn’t meant as a jab, just a statement of fact, but she winced anyway.
“I wouldn’t say ‘problem,’ exactly…”
“No, I get it.” He shrugged lopsidedly. “Trust me, it’s a problem for me, too. Like, how am I supposed to cover for you? Because I can’t lie, you know that.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, looking lost.
“Of course I will,” he continued, less to her now and more to himself, “obviously. But I won’t like it.”
She reached for him hesitantly, but couldn’t quite seem to bring herself to touch him. “I’m sorry, Nino,” she said.
He sighed. “Don’t be,” he said. “Honestly.”
“You shouldn’t be in this position,” she said, and to that he had nothing to say. So they sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own heads.
“Where’s your… uh, friend?” he asked delicately, as a way to break the awkward lull in conversation.
“My… Oh, you mean Tikki?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “She’s, ah, in my my purse. We figured it would be better that way, I guess. Easier.”
He frowned. “Why did you bring it — sorry, her, then? If you didn’t know if I could take it?”
“She’s always with me,” said Marinette quietly. “She has to be, y’know? Because of the Akumas.”
Of course. What a stupid question. Nino kicked himself mentally and cleared his throat. “You can… You can come out now, um, if you want,” he said, a little too loudly. He felt like an idiot, but then he heard a soft zipping noise and looked down to see Marinette’s purse opening on its own. As if by magic, or so it would have seemed were it not for the tiny paws reaching up through the zipper to move it. He stared.
The little bug thing — he had to stop calling her that, she had a name — poked her head out. “Hi, Nino,” she squeaked.
Nino blinked. “What’s hangin’, little dude?” he said faintly. He could feel himself beginning to detach at the sight of her. It wasn’t right, wasn’t real, he couldn’t take this — but he did. He could. He forced himself to stay present.
He’d turned into a supervillain controlled by a butterfly, after all. For daring to believe his best friend should have a birthday party.
This should be a piece of cake.
“Do you guys want anything?” he asked suddenly, jumping to his feet. “A snack? A drink? I think I have some Pepsi in the fridge…” He was babbling. He could handle this. Of course he could. He just needed to… move. Around. Sitting was boring, anyway.
“Oh,” said Marinette. She and Tikki exchanged glances. “I’ll have some water, I guess. Since you’re offering.”
“Great,” said Nino, clattering around the kitchen aimlessly. Glasses, where were the glasses? He felt like a stranger in his own home, and it took him two tries to open the right cupboard. The tap sounded awfully loud as he ran a fumbling finger through the stream of water, checking the temperature out of habit without really feeling.
“Do you have any cookies?” asked the tinkling voice of Tikki. He nearly dropped the glass in the sink.
“Cookies?” he repeated shakily.
“She prefers sweets,” explained Marinette from the couch.
He rummaged through some more cabinets to fish out a half-filled roll of Oreos. ‘Do kwamis need plates?’ he wondered uncertainly. He brought one anyway, the tiniest tea saucer he could find, although it was probably still larger than her entire body. On the way back, he hovered for a moment in front of the fridge before grabbing a can of soda for himself. Normally he’d have a Red Bull or some other highly caffeinated sleep-substitute, but he was high-strung enough as it was. He didn’t really want the soda, either, but at least now he’d have something to do with his hands.
He set everything down carefully on the coffee table, arranging everything meticulously in front of them. However, there were only so many ways one could stack Oreos on a plate before it started to look weird, and his stalling time ran out. There was nothing else for it but to sit back down and face the music. “There you go,” he said unnecessarily, not quite settling back down into the cushions.
“Thank you, Nino,” said Tikki brightly, fluttering over to the pile of cookies and perching on the rim of the plate. She took one — it was nearly as big as her head — and bit down in the tiniest bite he’d ever seen. He knew it was rude to stare, but he couldn’t help it. She certainly seemed to take no notice.
“You might want to let go of that Pepsi,” suggested Marinette quietly, “before it explodes on you.” He looked down to see his knuckles were white around the can, and there was already a dent in the metal from his thumb. He hastily set it down, but the dent remained.
“So…” he said awkwardly. “You’re… Tikki.”
Tikki swallowed with a delicate gulp and smiled. “Yes, I am.” Nino opened his mouth to say something, hovered for a moment, and closed it again. Tikki’s smile turned matronly, or as close to it as her strange features allowed. “I’m sure you have questions,” she prompted gently. “It’s alright. I answered them for Marinette.”
Nino glanced between them uncertainly, taking in Tikki’s strange patience and Marinette’s nervous encouragement, and swallowed heavily. “What…” He gripped the knees of his jeans, fingers tightening on the loose denim until the knuckles went white again. “What are you?” he asked quietly.
Tikki settled back on her pile of Oreos. “I am a kwami.” Nino looked at her blankly and she considered for a moment. “A sort of demigod, I suppose,” she said. “Marinette can call me to her Miraculous and access some small part of my power, when she needs to.”
Nino’s gaze slid back to Marinette, who was looking at him carefully. “What’s your Miraculous?” He paused. “I mean, where is it?”
Marinette gestured to her earrings, angling her head so her hair fell away. The studs were plain, dark stones — she’d been wearing them forever. Since collège…
Of course. He’d never been as into the Ladyblog as Alya would have liked, so it took him a second to put it together, but when he did he felt silly for not doing so sooner. His stint as an Akuma was vague, the memory faded by time and post-cleansing amnesia, but he’d seen enough attacks since to remember the manic demands from Hawkmoth’s henchmen. Ladybug wore earrings too, red and black like her suit. Like Tikki. Because Tikki…
“How long have you known?”
Marinette considered her cuticles. “I’d only had my earrings for a day or two when Ivan was turned,” she said. “They just… turned up in my bedroom. I found them when I got home one day. I had no idea where they came from. And then there was this… bug-mouse flying around, telling me I was a superhero and I had to fight an actual supervillain…” Her voice softened. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was… just so much.” Nino could sympathize. She paused for a moment and smiled. “You’re taking this very well,” she said. “When I first met Tikki I tried to attack her.”
That was… understandable. “Wait, really?”
She chuckled. “Threw everything at her but the kitchen sink.”
“And then you trapped me under a water glass,” added Tikki in an amused tone.
Nino blinked. “But you can go through walls.”
Marinette looked embarrassed. “Well, I didn’t know that at the time,” she said.
His hands were still trying to shake, so he released his death grip on his jeans and folded them carefully into his lap. His mind, however, was surprisingly calm. Tikki spoke in measured, lilting tones that were surprisingly calming, Marinette interjecting occasionally with a clarification or anecdote. He found himself asking fewer and fewer questions even than before — he didn’t even know what he didn’t know, so he simply let them take the reins and allowed the revelations to wash over him. An explanation of Ladybug’s powers and transformation. A brief rundown of what Alya had already figured out about the magic, with an added clarification here and there. Marinette reliving the first Akuma attack. A quiet smile as she recalled literally running into Chat for the first time.
And that was another thing.
“How’s he going to react to this?” Nino asked, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours. He rubbed his neck awkwardly. “I mean, you have to tell him, right? This is kind of… big.”
Marinette went quiet for a moment, a cloud passing over her expression. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted haltingly. There was silence again as she pursed her lips, picking at the loose thread again absently. “It was an accident, I’m sure he’ll understand that. But…” She trailed off.
“Marinette?” he prompted, but she stayed silent. “Mari,” he said again, more insistent this time as he finally understood her expression. “You can’t just not tell him.”
“Of course,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “I couldn’t keep this from him, even if I tried, I know that, it’s just…” She slumped forward slowly, hands dragging down her face before coming to rest on her chin as she stared blankly into space. “It’ll be hard,” she said. “You don’t understand. It hasn’t even been a week since…” She trailed off again, a flush starting creeping up her ears, still frowning at nothing.
“Since what?” he prompted when she didn’t finish her sentence.
She sighed and slumped back instead, sinking into the cushions. “We had a huge fight,” she said. “When that rainstorm hit the other night. It was horrible. There was this whole—” She gestured vaguely at nothing as she searched for a suitable description, “thing about a girl who triggered the magic for him, in his civilian life, I mean, and he told me about it, and it was… It was a mess.” Her expression twisted. “And then there was an Akuma attack in the middle of it all, and—”
“An Akuma?” interrupted Nino. “There wasn’t anything on the Ladyblog about it.”
Marinette shrugged. “It was late,” she said, “and absolutely pouring. The streets were deserted — I don’t know why that woman was out driving in the first place, you could barely see a thing. There were apartments and stuff, so I’m surprised nobody saw us from their windows, but if they did I’m honestly glad nobody tried submitting any pictures. That whole night was…” She sighed, running her hands over her face, through her hair. “It was something, all right. We don’t need that all over the internet.”
Nino frowned. “That was Tuesday, though,” he said. “You guys seemed pretty chummy on Wednesday. Not like you’d been fighting.”
“You noticed that, huh?”
She was hiding something. He squinted at her. “What?” he asked.
Her ears were well and truly red now, even though her expression betrayed nothing. She looked down, away, pursed her lips, fingers absently worrying at the loose thread. “We… kissed,” she said finally, almost embarrassed.
“What?”
“Well, I kissed him first, but then, well…” She trailed off, blushing furiously. “You know how it goes,” she mumbled.
“You kissed Chat Noir?” Nino didn’t know what to do with himself, reeling at the admission. Conflicted on whether to slump back or jump to his feet in shock, to yell or sit in silence, never mind what to do with his hands… He settled for clutching his hair.
“What, like I couldn’t pull a hot blond guy after what happened?” said Marinette, her voice laced with a defensive tone.
“What? No! I mean… what?” He was wringing his cap in his hands with no clear memory of how it got there. On a day that had felt like getting punched in the stomach multiple times in a row, somehow this was the revelation that had sparked the most reaction. Magic? Sure. Secret identities? Whatever. Marinette getting some with her partner? Stop the presses, hold the phone. Madness. He’d sort through his priorities later.
“It’s not that weird,” she said, sounding slightly miffed.
He waved his cap dismissively. “It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s just… Chat Noir.” She looked at him blankly. “Chat Noir,” he said again for emphasis.
“Oh, that’s right, you don’t actually know him,” she said. “He’s just a giant dork, honestly.”
“A celebrity superhero giant dork,” he corrected her. “Who wears a leather catsuit and has fangirls and gets cosplayers at fetish conventions. That Chat Noir.”
“Who also regularly stops patrols to pet stray cats and who cried on my shoulder for an hour and a half after I made him watch Titanic for the first time,” countered Marinette, the tiniest hint of a smile quirking up a corner of her mouth. “Really, it’s not that big of a deal. Well,” she amended, her cheeks turning slightly pink again, “it’s not not a big deal, but just not like that…”
Nino finally sank back into the cushions, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled and put his now severely wrinkled cap back in place. “Boy, you sure can pick ‘em,” he said, finally cracking the can of Pepsi with a soft hiss.
She smiled bashfully. “Tell me about it,” she agreed.
“How does something like that even happen?” he said. “I mean, you fight, kick ass, then, what, make out in an alleyway in the rain? With your superhero partner? Like, what?”
She paled. “I thought there weren’t any pictures,” she breathed.
“What? No, I just mean…” He reached for the gently sweating Pepsi can and cracked it absently. “Is your life an actual movie or something?” he said. “What the hell?”
“I wish it wasn’t,” she said dully. “Not that I don’t love Tikki, or care about Paris or anything, but I just wish—” She stopped. Sighed. “Everything’s so complicated,” she said.
He couldn’t disagree.
“I tried to give them to Alya,” she confessed finally, through the silence.
Nino nearly choked on his soda. “Give—” he spluttered.
“My earrings,” she clarified unnecessarily. “I tried to give them to Alya. After everything went so wrong with Ivan.” Curled up on the cushions as she was, she looked smaller somehow, as if the admission had shrunk her down to a child again.
Nino set the can down carefully, wiping soda off his chin. “Why?” he said after a moment.
She didn’t answer immediately. “She was so… confident,” she said finally. “So sure of herself, and so unafraid. Not like me. And she loves superheroes. She was so… excited when everything started happening. No powers at all, and yet she hurled herself into the middle of it all anyway. Just imagine how she’d be with magic.” A small smile twitched up as the image settled over them both. Of Alya, with her wild hair and righteous sense of justice, raising hell in black and red.
Alya.
He glanced at her as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, eyes cast down, lost in thought. “I thought a lot about it afterwards,” she said quietly. “Even after I decided to stay. About how different things would have been. They would have been easier…” She shook her head. “No, not ‘easier.’” She paused. “Simpler, I guess.” She hunched down lower, arms wrapping around her knees as if that could protect her. “I’ve never told anyone that before either,” she said.
He didn’t know what to say, but he had barely been able to keep up all day anyway. “She would have been a good Ladybug,” he agreed slowly. “But she wouldn’t be you.”
She blushed at that, frame relaxing a little. “Thanks, Nino,” she said. “It’s still one hell of a mess, though.”
“True,” he said.
“And that’s why telling Chat is gonna be a nightmare,” she continued. “Tuesday was the biggest fight we’ve had about it, and then… things…” She trailed off, embarrassed. “I don’t know what we are anymore,” she admitted in a small voice, “but I don’t want to ruin it.”
“It was an accident, though. It was out of your control.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “But I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”
“Would it… help if I talked to him?”
She glanced at him, a mixture of confusion and vague surprise on her face.
“I mean—” Nino swallowed, hardly believing the words about to come out of his mouth, “—if you’re worried about him getting mad, I mean, or blaming you or something, would it help if I was there? I could explain the situation, y’know. And maybe it would help to meet me for real, if he’s worried I might talk or something…”
“That’s…” She smiled a little, relaxing in her seat. “That’s really nice of you, Nino.” She took a thoughtful sip of her water and set it down again carefully, lips pursed. “I’m not really worried he’ll be mad, exactly. I think he’ll just be disappointed. Hurt, maybe.” Her expression twisted and she looked back at him out of the corner of her eye. “Could I keep you on retainer?” she asked jokingly. “I think I should talk to him alone first, but, like, just in case…”
“Anything you need.” The promise came automatically, and just like that, it was settled in his mind. Marinette needed him. There was no question; of course he would help her in any way he could.
She smiled again. “You might get a visit from him anyway,” she said. “Just… be warned. Even if he isn’t mad or anything, he’s still pretty protective of me. He’ll want to make sure you can be trusted.”
“I can take him.”
He absolutely couldn’t, but he made her chuckle, at least.
“And anyway,” he added, “Alya would want someone to interrogate the boyfriend. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”
She started laughing for real then, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “At least, I don’t think he is. He’s just… my partner. Who I like a lot. And kiss sometimes.”
“You’re right, my mistake, sounds completely platonic to me.”
“But…” And here she sobered a little, mid-laugh, the pink fading slightly from her skin. “I’m sorry about Alya, I know you hate lying to her.”
The reminder made his chest tighten, but he shook it off. “She doesn’t know I know anything,” he rationalized. “I won’t have to lie if she doesn’t ask.”
“I know, but her investigations…” Marinette sighed, massaging her temples with a finger. “She promised she’d drop it, and I want to believe her, but you know how she is sometimes. Especially lately…”
“I won’t say anything,” he promised. “Honestly, I don’t know if I can.” He glanced at Tikki out of the corner of his eye, who was now on her third Oreo. Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, he was surprised to find she looked kind of cute. Like a living stuffed animal, with unsettlingly large eyes. “Can I?” he said.
Tikki swallowed delicately. “You could,” she said. “But the magic knows it’s not your secret to tell.”
“What does that mean?” asked Marinette.
“It means,” said Tikki, “if you slip up on accident, you won’t reveal Marinette as Ladybug. But I’d be—” And here she paused a moment, considering, “—careful about what you say, or how much. The magic can have… consequences.”
Marinette and Nino exchanged glances. “Cool,” he said, in a voice slightly too high. “That’s cool. Cool, cool, cool.”
“You’ll… you’ll be fine,” said Marinette encouragingly. She wasn’t fooling anyone. “Just, like, don’t say anything, I guess.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” His hands were starting to sweat as he picked up the Pepsi can again. “Just don’t be suspicious around Alya, that’s all. No worries.” The soda was gone before he realized he’d been chugging it.
“I-I’ll talk to Chat tonight,” said Marinette finally in the silence. “Or maybe tomorrow, I guess. I need to plan out what I’m gonna say.”
“Great,” he squeaked. “Sounds great.”
“Hey,” she said suddenly, standing up, “let’s get out of here. You hungry?”
“Hungry?” The concept seemed foreign to him over the crushing sense of existential dread that had just settled over his shoulders, but his stomach rumbled in spite of himself.
She smiled and beckoned to Tikki, who swooped up and into her open purse, zipping it after herself. “My dad’s making some major comfort food tonight; he always cooks when he’s upset.”
He shook himself, setting the can down with exaggerated care. It was slightly crushed now, and tilted awkwardly to one side. “You sure?” he said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
She fixed him with a look. “Of course not,” she said. “And honestly, if I showed up at home without you, I’m pretty sure my mom would march right back here and drag you home herself. I told you, you’re expected.”
Seeing her standing there, looking down at him with an expression of such warmth that simultaneously left no room for argument, he let out a half-hearted sigh and got to his feet. “Alright,” he said. “Let me grab my stuff.”
“I’m sorry again, Nino,” she said as he cleaned off the coffee table and dumped dishes in the sink.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “I’m okay, really.”
“I know this day didn’t turn out how any of us wanted, but…” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I guess if it had to happen like this, if it had to be anybody but Chat… I’m glad it was you, and not some stranger.”
“A ringing endorsement.”
“Sorry.”
He remembered to switch off the bathroom light before they left.