Marinette has had a lot of surprises in her life, to the point where she didn't think anything could truly shock her anymore. The most unbelievable things that had ever happened to her had been that she had been given the powers of Ladybug and became one of Paris's number one superheroes, and that Adrien Agreste, the famous model and her crush since his first ad appearance and subsequent magazine interview, was going to attend her school and be in her class. Not even the different Akuma she fought and almost lost to had shocked her as much as becoming Ladybug during her first battle. Marinette also knew that one day she would make her dream of being a fashion designer true (with a lot of work and love of course,) so if she did ever make it to the top of the fashion world, it wouldn't be something completely unexpected for her.

But she had been wrong. Very wrong. A big shock did in fact happen, and that was learning that her ridiculous and overly flirtatious partner, Chat Noir, was actually her crush Adrien.

"I can't believe this," Marinette said, sitting on top of the couch in her room, burying her face in a pillow.

She had just come back from the latest fight with an Akuma, one that had turned an angry pastry chief into the Crème brûsader, who was planning on baking Paris with an unbearable heat wave. That's where she found out the truth about Chat Noir and then ran away from him without a word before her own powers wore off, leaving Adrien standing there.

"What's wrong, Marinette?" asked Tikki, floating towards Marinette while eating a piece of cake.

The battle with the Crème brûsader hadn't spoiled her appetite for sweets. Marinette looked up from the pillow at Tikki, then she sighed. "Everything," Marinette replied.

"I know it must be a shock for you, but isn't this a good thing? Your partner is your crush! It has given you the chance to know him better."

"It probably is. The chances of me getting closer to Adrien otherwise were pretty low, knowing how I act."

Marinette sat up from the pillow and stared at her feet. "But still, part of me can't believe it. Adrien is just so….Adrien and Chat is just so….Chat."

"You're not making any sense Marinette."

"I know," she said, burying her face in her hands.

After few seconds of silence and inner frustration, Marinette got up from the couch and paced around the room, then she walked over to her desk and stared at her posters and prints of Adrien hanging above. Both his forms looked really similar, now that she thought about it. Marinette wouldn't deny from the parts of his face that were visible, Chat was attractive. She may have paid attention more to that fact if she hadn't noticed his civilian form first.

It was just hard to believe that Adrien could make so many…puns. "Though I'm one to talk," Marinette thought, considering all the puns she started making as worked with him.

Also as Chat Noir, Adrien would act comical all the time. It made it hard to take what he said and did seriously."I guess everyone has faults," she thought.

But, it isn't like she didn't know that about people already. Even Adrien would have had some faults, this was just a different way of finding out. And Adrien as Chat…wasn't bad. Not bad at all. I mean, had she not liked him as Adrien first, she may have considered him as Chat Noir. She now knew a lot of his habits, good and bad, they worked well together as partners, Chat could be just as sweet as he is as Adrien and its not like she minded his puns and silliness that much. I mean, it certainly didn't bother her enough that she wouldn't joke back with him, hang out with him, or help him; like that time she saved him from Copycat or that time she kissed him to break Dark Cupid's spell…

"Wait," she said to herself aloud, right as she was staring intensely at the largest poster of Adrien that hung on her wall, his most recent perfume ad.

That one time she kissed him. She had kissed him. She had kissed Adrien Agreste.

"Oh my god."

Marinette could feel herself heat up faster than the freshly baked bread in her family's bakery. She grabbed her face in some attempt to get a hold of herself. Obviously, it did not help stop the shame and butterflies in her stomach from spreading throughout her entire body.

"What's wrong now?" asked Tikki.

Tikki had finished her cake and floated on over to see what was wrong with her. Marinette, still covering her face with her hands, wobbled passed Tikki, flung herself onto her couch, buried her face into the pillow again, ready to die due to the second big realization of the day. "We kissed."

Tikki seemed confused at first, then remembered what Marinette was referring to. "Oh, right when he was under Dark Cupid's spell."

"I kissed Adrien Agreste. On the lips. I kissed him for a full, good minute. And I didn't know it was him.…Oh my god, what other embarrassing things am I forgetting?"

All the moments that she had with Chat Noir/Adrien came flowing back to her: all the times he held and kissed her hand, the time he worked with Marinette in her civilian identity, called her a princess and carried her (she almost stopped breathing remembering that,) and the multiple times he flirted with her and tried to kiss her (no matter how serious he really was.) Not to mention any of the times she embarrassed herself while she was Ladybug, he saw all of that too. All the negative shock from finding out Chat's identity was replaced with a new one. It was the shock that she had been doing everything she could have ever dreamed of with her crush, as well as every embarrassing thing she would have never been able to survive trying in real life. Every fiber in her body was red with embarrassment that was pleasant and mortifying at the same time.

"Please, end me Tikki. I don't think my heart can take much more of this."

"Well, if you are so flustered by all that stuff, you probably still like Adrien, regardless of him being Chat."

"Yeah… But how am I going to be able to face him now? I can't just pretend he isn't Adrien."

"Maybe you can."

"What?"

"Try to see him just as Chat Noir and act normal, until both of you decide how to handle his identity being exposed to you."

"What if I start acting like I usually do around him though? When he is Adrien, I mean."

"It won't be easy, but he doesn't know that you, Marinette are Ladybug. So he won't associate anything you do with your real identity as it currently stands. Maybe thinking about that may make it easier to interact with him as normally as possible."

"I…guess that makes sense? I'll try to do that Tikki. I can't let me potentially acting like a stammering dork stop us from keeping Paris safe."

"That's the spirit!"

Tikki hugged Marinette's face, barely wrapping around her cheek, glad that she made her feel better. Marinette smiled, but still, deep in her gut, she worried if how flustered she got thinking about the kiss would flare up when she stood with Adrien…Chat, face to face. She had certainly has had enough surprises to last a lifetime, she doesn't need to be the cause of anymore.

AN: I can't believe how deep I am in this fandom that I actually wrote this. I may write a few more chapters for this fic (it was originally going to be a one-shot about Mari freaking out over the kiss, but I ended up getting more ideas) but I am not sure. Well, lets see what happens. I'll leave it in-progress for now.