Marinette was struggling to clear her head. For the past week, Adrien had been all she'd been able to think about and honestly, she had had enough. Especially after that incident at the lockers (I mean, had he really been waiting for her inside of one of those lockers the whole time for her?! There was no other way he could have creeped up on her like that so suddenly without making a noise.

Until now, she had been perfectly happy to admire Adrien from a safe distance, somewhere where she wouldn't be judged and feel her face grow increasingly red as her palms collected sweat. It had been fine – no confrontations, no interactions… Why did she ever allow her house to be filmed on live television, with Jagged Stone as their presenter, of all people? Of course her photos of Adrien were bound to be found and broadcast to the whole of Paris, what with them being plastered over every inch of her bedroom walls.

"I'm interested in fashion" she muttered sarcastically under her breath as she trudged home. "What was I thinking? Adrien's not stupid, he probably saw right through my lame excuse

He probably still thinks I'm an obsessive crazy fan like all his other stupid admirers over the city."

The crazy ones that screamed his name unceremoniously behind gaggles of crowds, giggling like idiots outside his manor trying to catch a glimpse of the dreamy Adrien Agreste… drooling over issues of his newest photoshoots – (okay, maybe she was kind of a fan). Nevertheless, she couldn't have Adrien think anything about her that seemed weird or off-putting, and having his face plastered all around her room was not the way to go about that. She did really like him.

"You have a plan though, right?" Tikki had asked after the whole fiasco.

She had to keep it cool, calm and collected. Like Adrien. Let him know that she didn't care! "You're a cool, collected girl who isn't fazed by something as minor as a glimpse of her bedroom on a TV show. You'll rock it, and if he doesn't like it, he can shove off!"

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and stopped. Who was she kidding? As much as she wanted to try, Marinette didn't have the ability to just not care. Believe me, she wanted to so badly – often she thought about and was envious of the kind of people who just didn't care what others thought – but something in her never allowed her to truly let go. In the end, she'd always be coming out red faced and apologising profusely to everyone and nobody at the same time.

She, Marinette, could never be seen as the brave, bad-ass girl that she could be when she was Ladybug, in real life. All she was at school was the clumsy, sweet and adorable girl that blushed at the mere mention of Adrien's name. How would she ever gather the courage to talk to him normally, let alone ask him out on a date?

Tikki chimed in. "You know, Marinette, you don't need to be like Ladybug to get Adrien to like you – he likes you anyway just the way you are already! Besides –"

"Nooo, don't say that Tikki-"

"-you need Adrien to like the real you, and you're a bad-ass anyway in the passion that you have for your art. No one needs to be brave when they have brains like yours and your sense of loyalty…"

Marinette sighed. Tikki was truly the only companion she could have ever asked for. And she was right. Turning to look down onto the street below over the rail, she wondered what Chat Noir would think of all this. Would he laugh at the whole awkwardness of the Jagged Stone episode and roll his eyes, making some stupid cat pun, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that's unfor-tuna, blah blah

Of course, she could never tell him the whole truth because he would figure out her real identity, but…

She repeated her thought aloud to Tikki, but she nodded vaguely and all of a sudden was quiet for a little while.
After a second on silence however, the kwami spoke up. "Why don't you ask Chat Noir what he thinks?"

Marinette's eyes widened.

Chat Noir?!