"Marinette? Who is this Marinette?"

Nobody looked amused. "Um, excuse me please." Marinette tried to walk away, but Alya wouldn't let her.

"What was that?" she asked with a glare. "I'm not letting you leave until you at least acknowlege him. Otherwise, you'll just keep hurting yourself."

Marinette wasn't proud of her tantrum, but what could she do? Mind games had seemed like a good recovery tactic at first, but the deeper she went in, the harder it became to come back out. This needed to stop; she'd just denied her own identity for crying out loud - but what could she do? She forced herself to meet Adrien's gaze. Pathetic, but that was a large accomplishment for her right now.

Adrien looked hurt. "I can't answer that," he responded to Marinette's earlier question regarding her own identity. "I thought I knew who Marinette was, but maybe I don't. For one thing, I thought you hated liars. I must have been wrong."

Marinette hung her head, the end of Alya's last blogpost echoing in her mind. When she had first read it she refused to let it sink in, but now it struck a deeper chord within her. 'I'm worried about her. She has been dealt a difficult hand, but unless she learns to play with it she is going to force herself away from the one she loves.' Adrien meant too much to her for her to abandon him like that. If she did, a giant "what if" was going to follow her for the rest of her life. He was here and giving her a chance, but no way would he stick around if she acted like she didn't want him there. She had to act now, or forever hold her peace. (a/n - I did it again 😅. Also, I did that emoji from my laptop.)

"No. Right you are! I mean, you right it. I hate hypocrites, so I'm a liar! Ugh, other way around. I'm so sorry A-Adrien. I panicked."

Adrien sighed. At least she was trying to talk to him now. Her word scrambling and stuttering had returned, and it would likely take quite some time before he would hear her speak normally to him again - but as long as they put forth an effort to work together, everything would be just find in the end. He instinctively reached out a hand to her shoulder, but retracted it before making contact, blushing lightly from embarrassment. Any gesture that was even half-way affectionate had become too awkward. No, he had to ignore what his father said. After all, that was what he was going to ask of Marinette. Mind over matter - no way was that overdoing it; after all he had put his hand on her shoulder several times while they were still just friends. "Don't worry about it. In fact, you shouldn't pay any attention to what my dad says. He's pretty self-important, so if he feels like his words don't have much power over us, it's sure to throw him off his game. Besides, I'd like to have our relationship back the way we had it."

She laughed and hugged him. She'd worried way too much. Once they had the courage to face each other, a few simple words were all it took. An enormous pickle still loomed over their heads, and she still didn't know what would happen, but she wasn't afraid anymore. They were back on the same page, holding each other, and were comfortable.

Adrien felt his irritation at her melt away. "I just can't stand the idea that you might be kicked out on the street because of my dad."

"WHAT?!" The surprised reaction came from Marinette and from Alya, who they had almost forgotten was there.

"You don't even know about that? Great..."