heyyyyy remember how confessions was a thing that i did? maybe? no? too bad have some confessions-y words. i present to you:
The lunch immediately following the last scene in Confessions.
“Mademoiselle Cheng, correct?” the woman in the limousine asks neutrally, her eyes lifting from her tablet for long enough to glance over Marinette.
Marinette’s brain short-circuits. Between Gabriel Agreste’s assistant remembering her name and Adrien sounding so much like Chat Noir, she finds herself flailing for words. “Th-thank you for having me!” she finally squeaks, crawling in and nodding shyly at the waiting woman.
She’s going to the Agreste mansion as Marinette. Marinette is going to the Agreste mansion! She almost wants to tell Adrien that she’s visited more times than he knows, but she can’t say anything when they aren’t alone.
If she can even tell him when they are alone. Adrien still doesn’t know that Marinette is Ladybug. Would he be excited? Well, probably, but would he still see her for Marinette? Wait— but she’s not supposed to tell anyone who Ladybug is. No matter how much she wants to, she can’t tell him.
He can’t know, she realizes as she buckles into a seat and nervously studies the fabric. She can tell him everything about Chat Noir even if she might not want to, but she can’t breathe a word about Ladybug no matter how much she wants to. The irony is painful.
Adrien climbs in after her, shutting the door behind him and buckling in. As they start moving, he offers his hand to her wordlessly, his long, graceful fingers extending into her lowered gaze. She takes them and looks up at him. Her face feels hot.
“I have to tell her,” he says quietly.
Marinette blinks. “What?” she asks, her mind spinning. Tell who what? That Marinette and Chat Noir are dating?
“That we’re…” He trails off uncertainly, and then takes a deep breath. “Nathalie, this is Marinette, my friend. My g-girlfriend.”
“How long?” the woman on Marinette’s other side asks. Marinette turns to her.
“Only a day,” Adrien tells Nathalie. “I can’t hide it from Nathalie or Père,” he adds to Marinette, “He… should approve.” But he sounds hesitant, and Marinette finds herself worrying about a whole new thing she hadn’t even considered.
She’s meeting Gabriel Agreste. She’s meeting Gabriel Agreste!
Except that she isn’t. Gabriel Agreste isn’t there, not at the entrance or on the stair landing before the front hall or in the dining room.
“He’s not coming, is he,” Adrien sighs as Nathalie starts to leave.
“He did not request for a break in his schedule,” Nathalie replies neutrally. “Please excuse me.”
Adrien turns to Marinette, sitting awkwardly far away from around the corner of the enormous dining table. “I’m sorry,” he says resignedly. “Père is…”
He’s at a loss as to how to finish the sentence, and he looks so ashamed, even though it’s not his fault. “At least now I can focus on impressing you,” Marinette blurts, and then feels her face heat when Nathalie leans over her shoulder, placing a silver, covered platter on the table before her. When had she come back?
Adrien cracks up once the older woman is gone, the same helpless bubbling laughter that Marinette had heard once in a rainstorm.
“You don’t have to impress me, Marinette,” he manages to splutter between gasping breaths, “but I’m glad to have your undivided attention.”
Marinette beams back, her smile stupidly and painfully wide on her face, and though she thinks she must look absolutely ridiculous, she can’t bring herself to care. Instead, she wonders briefly why he sounds so familiar as she drags her chair (loudly) closer to him so they can weave their fingers together.
(She is ambidextrous, because of course she is. Adrien, though, is so unabashedly astonished that it’s a wonder she doesn’t pass out from all the blood pumping through her cheeks.)
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