"Thank you so much for your help."

"It's no trouble," comes the easy reply. "I'm going to stay a bit longer, but you don't need to stay."

"If you're sure. See you, Luka."

There's a reply, before there's the drag of door hinges, followed by the bang as momentum pulls it closed again. Adrien, who was distracted by the familiar voices, turns back to the bookshelf. He's trying to find books for his History essay, and his personal library just isn't cutting it. Unfortunately, the public library doesn't appear to have a much better selection.

"Oh! Hey, Adrien."

Adrien turns. His bodyguard is leaning against the wall, but he doesn't stop Luka Couffaine from approaching. He's got his guitar slung across his back, as usual, and a black bag by his side.

"Hey, Luka," Adrien replies. "I thought I heard you. Was that Marinette?"

"Yeah," Luka says. "I was helping her out with some maths."

Adrien groans.

"Thanks for the reminder."

Luka just laughs.

"I also want to pick up a copy of the book we're reading for English. And the movie, if they've got it."

"Which one is it?" Adrien asks. Luka tells him, and Adrien is surprised he recognises the name. "Oh, that's pretty good."

"You've read it?" Luka asks, apparently surprised. It's entirely fair - Luka is a year above him. But Nathalie was never a fan of teaching according to something as superficial as age.

"Last year," Adrien admits. "Although it probably won't be as good if you're analysing every second sentence."

Luka shrugs.

"I don't mind analysing. It's interesting, to find layers of depth that seem invisible to the naked eye."

"Right, you're a musician," Adrien says. He should have thought that Luka might have an opinion regarding symbolism. "Do you use much symbolism?"

"Not a lot," Luka says. "Intentionally. But I think music adds its own depth."

Adrien can rapidly feel this conversation pulling him far out of his own depth, but he would feel rude to go back to browsing the History books.

Bzz.

Both boys hear the sound. Adrien takes his phone out of his pocket, and Luka pulls his from the bag on his shoulder. It becomes immediately obvious that the notification was Luka's, but Adrien gets his own notification barely a second later.

You have a new message!

Adrien glances over at Luka, but the other boy is typing a reply to whoever he was messaging. His bodyguard isn't paying attention.

There's another buzz from Luka's phone.

Heart in his throat - in over a year, he's never used the ChatNoir account this openly - Adrien unlocks his phone and clicks the message. Predictably, it's LadyBug.

LadyBug: u available for drawing? i had to go out this morning, but i'll be home any minute

Adrien glances back at Luka, but his phone buzzes for a third time and he still isn't paying attention to Adrien, so he taps out a reply.

ChatNoir: sorry, mlady, but i'm not home right now either. you can start, and i'll join you when i get home?

There's a surprisingly long pause - it's not like LadyBug to wait so long to send a quick reply. Maybe he's being selfish, but she never normally takes this long.

Luka's phone buzzes for a fourth time. It's irritating, actually.

LadyBug: sounds good!

Luka keeps typing, and without LadyBug's messages to distract Adrien, he begins to wonder who he's messaging. Whoever it is, it's making Luka smirk.

Adrien looks back up at the books, pulling them from the shelves, but none of them seem to be useful. He frowns, and starts to flick through the next one.

The phone buzzes one more time, and Luka replies, before apparently finishing his conversation. He puts the phone down on the shelf below Adrien.

"Can you watch my stuff for a sec?" he asks. "I'm going to go grab my book, and I've nearly knocked over several shelves."

Adrien laughs, and agrees. Luka pulls the guitar off, and disappears into the library. Adrien returns his attention to the book in his hands.

Bzz!

It's an automatic reason. The phone buzzes, the screen lights up, and Adrien glances at the phone that Luka's just left behind.

You have a new message!

Luka has Miraculous?

Another message comes through a moment later, and Adrien pulls out his own phone. He opens Miraculous, and searches for Luka's name and surname. He tries a few other words - anything he can think of - before being surprised.

"Thanks, Adrien."

As though caught in a terrible crime, Adrien drops his phone onto the shelf. Luka's picking up his stuff, including the phone.

"No problem."

For a moment, he stays silent, but then his curiosity gets the better of him.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help seeing your phone..."

Luka steps back, immediately wary and panicked. Okay, so apparently mentioning it was a mistake.

"I didn't read them," Adrien promises, attempting to backtrack. "I just saw you had Miraculous. That's all, I swear."

Luka relaxes.

What does he have to hide?

"All good," he says, slinging his guitar onto his back and picking up his bag. He's holding the book he went to pick up, and slides it into the bag beside a maths textbook.

"Out of curiosity," Adrien says, "what's your username?"

Luka glances at the screen on the shelf, still shining brightly and revealing the failed searches.

Luka grins.

"Viperion."

Adrien recognises the name immediately, and does a double-take. Luka Couffaine is Viperion? The Viperion? The one person who knows LadyBug's identity?

Luka laughs.

"Apparently my reputation precedes me."

"You know LadyBug?"

"That's why I have the maths book," Luka says. "I was helping her out with some Maths homework."

Adrien just looks at Luka for a moment. Knowing that, if he chose, he could tell Adrien who LadyBug is. The secret that's stayed secret for over a year.

"I'm not going to tell you," Luka says, as though it's all casual conversation. It probably is. "It's not my secret to tell. Curiosity killed the cat, you know."

"I wasn't going to ask you." And it's the truth. If LadyBug is leaving Miraculous after TP finishes, he will too. Miraculous isn't Miraculous without LadyBug, and if she wants to leave without telling him, that's her decision to make.

Luka smiles, and leaves the library. Adrien returns his attention to the books - which are, after all, why he's here. It takes him another ten minutes to find what he needs, scans them out, and goes home. LadyBug's just started Desperada, so Adrien helps her finish and completes his essay. It's only after they've finished, when Adrien's going down to have dinner, that he remembers Luka's other comment.

Curiosity killed the cat.

On a whim, Adrien pulls out his phone, and can't help smiling ruefully. Luka had seen his screen, seen the attempts at finding his username, but it's only now that Adrien realises that wasn't why he was smiling.

He was smiling because Adrien had forgotten to change which account he was on. He'd forgotten that ChatNoir's profile picture was sitting in the corner.

If LadyBug trusts him, Adrien will trust him too.

[A/N: I have 0 self-restraint. I'm isolated so I'm bored out of my MIND, and apparently have nothing better to do with my time than update this story more often than I planned to]