Stitches • Marichat

Chapter Twenty

Heads up, I want to let you all know that Stitches will in fact be ending around chapter 23-25 and the Epilogue is still up for debate!

Let me know what you think please!

Also, Watching Miraculous is now uploaded on Archive of Our Own.

School was back on the following day, Madame Bustier reminding them of the homework they had been assigned. Adrien, Max, Sabrina, and Chloé were the only ones who ended up finishing the assignment, though Marinette was pretty sure that Chloé had Sabrina do her work. Again.

Marinette failed to hear a single word that Madame Bustier said though, her attention focused on the blonde boy in front of her. She wasn't too worried about anyone finding it weird anymore. She was pretty certain that everyone in the class except the boy himself had know that she had a huge crush on him. Well, the boy didn't know until she had told his alter-ego. This time though, she was staring at him for a different reason.

She was trying to come up with a plan where she could confront Adrien and figure out what happened in the nightmare that Sandman had given him, if he had been given a nightmare at all. With the way he's been acting lately, she most certainly believes that he had received a nightmare that he had yet to recover from.

Adrien, on the other hand, could feel her blue eyes burning into the back of his skull. He refused to turn around as his thoughts were focused on her as well. Her, and what may or may not be her alter-ego. After his talk with Nino, Adrien had started to piece a few things together, all of which lead Marinette into being Ladybug. The pigtails seemed to make his theory more concrete, as well as her bluebell eyes. The two also shared the same fear for water, and he was pretty certain that Ladybug did not know how to swim. Not that he could recall an instance when the two superheroes needed to swim together, but the fear in her eyes when the bathroom began filling with Aquafiend's water was enough proof. But if Marinette was Ladybug, then why didn't she ever tell him? She had so many opportunities to.

Adrien quickly shook that thought out of his head. If she was Ladybug, like he suspected, than he really had no room to talk. He still hasn't told Marinette that he was Chat Noir yet, and he really doesn't know what's holding him back. The little voice in his head told him that he knew exactly what was holding him back, but he pushed it to the back of his head as he continued to come up with similarities between Ladybug and Marinette. If he was going to confront her on this, he needed solid evidence. Irrefutable evidence, in fact. Because with how adamant Ladybug is on not revealing their identities, there was the possibility that Marinette was deny it until proven wrong.

Thinking back on it, there was one time when he saw both Marinette and Ladybug in the same place, but that was the same day that there were two Ladybugs. And later that night, when the superhero duo was on patrol, Ladybug had confessed that she went back in time with Timebreaker. Adrien bit back a sigh as he rubbed his pinched eyebrows to relax them. He saw Nino look at him through the corner of his eyes. His best friend patted his shoulder quickly before returning his attention to Madame Bustier as she started a new lesson. Adrien smiled gratefully at Nino, knowing full well that Nino would share his notes with him so that the blonde could focus on what was stressing him out.

Marinette, however, noticed the small act of affection and the cogs in her brain began to churn. Was it possible that Nino knew about something? While it may not be about Adrien's superhero identity, there could be something else going on that Adrien the civilian was going through. She saw something in Nino's eyes, a hint of recognition maybe?

Either way, Marinette could extract information from Nino a hell of a lot easier than she could with a bottled up Adrien/Chat Noir.

As if sensing Marinette was thinking about him, Nino turned to see her eyes piercing through his own. Gulping, Nino quickly turned around, not sure how he felt about the look Marinette had been giving him.