Watching Marinette

Plot: In which, out of nowhere, Adrien Agreste is suddenly compelled to look at Marinette closer than he should be. Series of drabbles. (Set after the Evillustrator episode)

"Dude, you're doing it again." Nino's voice jarred Adrien from his trance, making him flinch and tear his eyes away from a certain girl with bluebell eyes standing beside Alya in the Lycee courtyard. The girls were in the middle of a discussion about something in Marinette's sketchbook - most probably about some new designs the French-Chinese girl had come up with recently.

"Do what?" Adrien asked, internally wincing at the obvious nervousness in his voice. Nino quirked an eyebrow as his brown eyes appraised his friend before glancing at the direction Adrien's had been seconds ago.

"You're zoning out again." He sighed as he shook his head, a teasing smile tugging at his lips. "If I don't know better, I'll be thinking you're staring at Marinette."

"What-" The blonde began to splutter, a hint of a blush blooming at his immaculate cheeks. "N-No!" Damn, that sounded way defensive. "I was just wishing Father would let me cut some slack on the photoshoots this week." Which was half-truth, he has photoshoots lined up for the next three days and his father has no plans to at least see him for breakfast. Or just simply talk to him.

Nino just laughed good-naturedly, slapping Adrien's shoulder playfully as they walked on to the cafeteria. "Well, I can't blame you staring at her though. Staring at Marinette Dupain-Cheng just gives you that weird inner peace. Everyone agrees with me on this, dude. Well, except Chloe, but that's so totally a given."

If everyone included the boys aside from Nino...

Adrien finds himself not liking the notion.

Adrien didn't know where it started, to be honest.

Was that from the time with the Evillustrator? Maybe.

That was the first time he had interacted with her as Chat Noir. Flirty, confident, master of bad puns. He was suprised when she took his flirtations in stride; like she wasn't at least confused why the male half of Paris' superhero duo was standing in front of her house.

Even more so when she barely stuttered around him or watch how effortlessly she flirted with Evillustrator despite knowing the guy underneath - Nathanael - was in love with her.

The discovery made him discard his assumption that Marinette is just awfully shy around guys. She is just fine around guys, heck she could even playfully banter with them in stride, except him.

If her shriek of surprise and adorable stuttering mess the next day when he went up to her as Adrien were any indication.

But why?

"Well, that was new." Plagg spoke from his camembert paradise (a very smelly paradise in Adrien's opinion but whatever) "you're obsessing on somebody other than Ladybug."

"I'm not obsessing over Marinette, Plagg." Adrien frowned as he turned his chair towards his kwami. "I'm just curious, that's all."

The black kwami shrugged as he caressed a fairly large block of pungent cheese before devouring it in one big bite. "Whatever makes you sleep at night, boy."

Or maybe when Nino had a thing for Marinette a few days ago and you helped set them up? His subconscious taunted, sounding suspiciously like Plagg as his mind gave him an unwelcome recap of that moment.

He sighed as he stood up from his desktop. Overthinking about this would not help his case. "Plagg, claws out!"

"See, you're-"