A/N: I am fairytale AU and Marichat trash. Always. Disclaimer nobody needs: I don't own ML or its affiliated characters and concepts. Onwards and upwards!
Marinette had no idea how she got into these situations.
All she'd done was win a design competition and the runner up, Lucie Devereaux, had gotten so piqued that she was determined to destroy her and all of Europe if necessary. Really, the girl's designs had been good, but the judges just liked Marinette's "rainy day" theme for her sample of an original line better than the high fantasy theme her competition had submitted.
Marinette ducked lower behind a bush as the akuma in question passed by. She was dressed in a trailing green gown with bell sleeves and gold embroidery and blue panels in the skirt and bodice. A scowl marred her pretty, fairy like face, violet eyes narrowed. The akuma brushed one luscious blonde curl out of her face with a silver wand clenched tightly in slender cream-colored fingers as she stalked forward, cocking her head to listen for her quarry with her delicately pointed elven ears.
"Fairytales aren't stupid or overdone; they're classic!" Storybook ranted, her voice still managing to sound musical and sweet through pearly white teeth ground tightly. "You should be grateful I'm trying to include you in the narrative!"
... Which brought Marinette back to the whole reason she was hiding behind a bush in the first place instead of kicking this girl's butt and smacking some sense into her with her yo-yo.
Because Marinette had been A) the target of Lucie's rage and B) in the room with her when Hawk Moth got to her, she had been the first to be hit by Storybook's magic. The akuma could turn people and things into characters, beasts, and enchanted items straight from the pages of a fairytale... with some obvious Disney influence. Marinette had seen cars become pumpkin carriages, a homeless man under a bridge become a troll, and dogs become packs of talking wolves, among other things. It had been quite the crazy day.
Marinette herself was, unfortunately, Snow White, complete with yellow dress and little red bow and bob hairstyle. This meant that turning into Ladybug was impossible because her Kwami was now a little redbird with a black crest of feathers, not a tiny god of creation that could enter her miraculous. Which meant she was stuck with zero ideas on how to fix this mess.
If she had to be a princess, she would have preferred Mulan because she could fight amazingly, saved her entire country while in disguise (cough, cough), and was- ahem- actually Chinese, like half of Marinette. Sure, the baker's daughter was a little on the pale side, and she had big blue doe eyes that hardly screamed "trained soldier," but come on. Couldn't she just, at least this once, have a little fun with akuma magic instead of being trapped in a small space or thrown off a building or having half of her arm digitized?
Anyway, Storybook clearly couldn't control what kind of fairytale thing her victims became. Otherwise, Marinette would look distinctly more hag-like or something right about now. Despite things not going quite her way, the akuma was determined to see every story she started brought to its appropriate conclusion and she was trying to find Marinette so she could poison her to sleep. Typical.
It was not lost on her that the rapidly growing and increasingly menacing park vegetation was not unlike a dark forest a huntsman could chase her through. Storybook was actually zapping everyone she came across in order to hopefully make a huntsman by chance so the story could go right, but she would be fine if she had to skip to the part where she got to play the villain as the evil queen. Thus, the hiding, which was becoming increasingly difficult to do stealthily because all the little forest animals were gathering around her and making a slowly escalating racket.
She wanted to be charmed by how they flitted around her and vied for her attention, but when she was trying to stay concealed, it was more than a little annoying, even when they dropped a very well-constructed flower crown on her head, which she was not above admitting being impressed by. Storybook's influence was spreading and slowly influencing everything, even if she didn't directly attack it.
Storybook passed her location without a glance, Marinette physically restraining as many little creatures as possible until she was gone. Once the danger was temporarily out of sight and out of earshot, she sighed in relief and slumped backward, leaning against a tree that had absolutely not been there when she first hid in the underbrush.
"Trouble, Princess?" a voice asked.
She jumped, whipping to face a looming pair of luminous green eyes. Relaxing, she grinned at her partner in crime-fighting, the alley cat who had snuck his way onto her balcony and into her heart this past year and she extended a hand to be helped up. Full skirts were pretty, but not very practical for movement. He did so with ease, pulling her close for a quick hug.
He looked into her face with a mischievous quirk to his lips that silently begged her to kiss them. Marinette refused. Chat wasn't in love with this side of her, and he couldn't know it was her because of secret identities. It was becoming increasingly frustrating the more her feelings grew- her obstacles for telling Chat how she felt seemed confining and a gradually less important reason to deny herself- but it was necessary for safety: both his and hers.
"Your nickname is especially appropriate today," he teased, bringing her back to herself and giving her a once-over that, despite its utter lack of suggestive lingering, made her blush prettily. "I like the new look and all, but I was sure that pink was your color. Maybe you should have been Aurora instead?"
Marinette punched him lightly in the arm. "Not blonde enough, unlike some people I could mention," she retorted, sticking out her tongue and tugging gently at a strand of his bangs. "Speaking of new looks, I am admiring yours, Kitty."
Chat was outfitted in a sixteenth century version of his outfit, a bit like Wesley from the Princess Bride or Zorro, but with a leather vest and pants over the black shirt. His boots were more pirate-y and no longer steel-toed, and he had a sash that hung like his belt tail which encompassed his waist, bearing a scabbard that held a silver cavalry sword with a beautifully curling guard and a green jeweled pawprint winking from the pommel. His signature mask was unchanged, but his ears were now attached to the hood of a short black cloak that fell only to his waist.
He winked cheekily and gave her a model-perfect turn. "I do cut quite the dashing figure as the loveable rogue."
"As always," she replied with a smirk. "Handsome boy." So she couldn't say three little words, but flirting was harmless- not to mention fun.
His face was on fire underneath the mask. Chat cleared his throat. "So, um, the akuma is after you specifically?"
"Yeah. I beat her at a design competition and it made her unhappy," she answered with a frown. "Her name is Lucie Devereaux and she's personally offended on behalf of all fairytales that her theme wasn't chosen."
"You do seem to upset people by winning things," he remarked. "I remember when the Gamer was out for your blood, too."
She rolled her eyes. "I do seem to recall that. And I also seem to remember you rushing in to save me after I tripped and carrying me at a dead run for blocks. It was a good day for the good guys, and this one will be, too," she declared with determination.
"It will," he agreed, "Ladybug should get here, soon. She'll be wherever the action is."
Marinette cringed guiltily. "Um, it may actually be up to the two of us to save the day this time, Kitty."
He quirked an eyebrow. "What makes you say that, Princess?"
"Er, well-" she stuttered, rocking back and forth on her toes. "Redbirds don't usually have black spots or blue eyes, so I'm pretty sure this is either her or her Kwami." She held out a finger for Tikki and she gracefully stepped off Marinette's shoulder and allowed herself to be lifted up to Chat's eye level.
Chat paled, reaching out a tentative claw to stroke the back of the little bird. "My Lady?" he whispered.
The bird cocked her head at him and made a 'no' motion with it as best as she could, chirping nonchalantly.
"So you're her Kwami?" he asked.
Tikki flapped her wings excitedly and chirped rapidly.
"Why did you get changed? Tiny floating things with magic kinda belong in fairytales," he pointed out.
Marinette and Tikki shrugged at the same time. "I have no idea," the girl said. "Maybe tall, blonde, and crazy wants to be the only fairy-like game in town. Maybe this was a strategic move to separate her from Ladybug and keep her from transforming. The point is that it's going to be hard for Ladybug to help us Kwami-less, so we're going to have to team up again."
He grinned. "Ah, well. Of course LB will be missed, but I couldn't have asked for a better person to team up with," he complimented.
She smiled back and gave his hands a quick squeeze that mirrored the half-guilty, half-pleased constriction of her heart. "Let's go beat the bad guy."
They snuck up behind a distracted Storybook, who seemed to be directing a goblin army (that was new) to search for Marinette.
The motioned to each other with hand gestures that would have been inscrutable to any outsider but made perfect sense to them. Basically, they decided with a flurry of hand waving and highly detailed facial expressions that Chat couldn't out-class her at fighting since she'd be expecting the knight in shining armor approach. Instead, he'd have to unbalance her with something so crazy and undignified that she'd never see it coming in her beautiful and orderly fairytale world. Then get her wand to Marinette to run it off somewhere far away.
Therefore, the second every monster had dispersed, Chat nodded at Marinette and leapt onto the back of the akuma with a feline yowl, tearing her wand from her hand.
She let loose a screech of unholy rage and began to claw at the cat who was covering her eyes with one gloved hand and holding the wand aloft with the other. Marinette stumbled out of the bushes and waved at Chat like a soccer player saying "I'm open!"
He tossed the magical stick to her and shouted, "Catch, Princess!"
She snatched it from the air and then ran full tilt for the dark forest. About that time, Storybook dislodged Chat's hands from her eyes and spotted her sprinting for cover. Enraged, she flipped Chat off her back and a set of gossamer, gold-veined butterfly-ish wings popped into existence from her back. Crap! They had thought that was a cape.
Chat desperately tried to latch onto her legs to keep her from taking off, and half-succeeded. He managed to drag her off-balance enough that she veered out of control into a bush near Marinette, not preventing her escape, but close enough to snatch at the hem of her dress and make her stumble. She wrenched away and kept going, but the damage had been done. She'd been slowed down enough that when Storybook wailed for her goblin army, a few soldiers were close enough to grab Marinette by the arms, and drag her kicking and struggling back to the clearing.
She managed to loose one arm enough to toss the wand in Chat's direction, but it was intercepted by Storybook, who swooped between them and grabbed it from the air. She tried to turn it on Marinette, but Chat was there, blocking with his sword. With a grin and a flick of her wrist, she turned it into a staff and met his next strike with it. They parried back and forth for a bit, but her wings gave her the edge of agility and maneuverability and she finally got enough room to shoot her magic at Chat.
He was engulfed in an enormous burst of sparking green, and his startled yelp morphed into a roar. When the light cleared and Marinette had blinked the stars from her vision, she saw that Chat had been turned into an eight foot tall, black-furred creature with feline eyes and ears and hind paws, but a bear-like muzzle and curling horns and a wolfish tail. He was wearing his outfit, but there was no mask- not that it mattered since he no longer had a human face. His forepaws still looked a bit like hands, but that was the only humanish thing about him. He was even crouched on all fours and shaking his head like a wet dog.
Before things could really sink in for either the cat or the princess, the goblin guards leapt on top of him. It took four to hold him down, even though they were hulking things that reminded her of video game orcs. Despite being pinned beneath all that, Chat continued to struggle until a fifth one pressed the blade of a ginormous axe to the back of his neck, causing the transfigured superhero to go perfectly still. Marinette couldn't breathe. Her kitty had been hit with magic and was now being menaced with weapons. She was unable to summon Lucky Charm and she was yo-yo-less. What was she going to do?
Without warning, she was dropped without ceremony onto her feet. She wobbled for a second before catching her balance, but when she did, there was an apple being shoved under her nose. She leaned back and glared at a grinning akuma, who pressed the fruit into her hands and tapped it with her now normal-sized wand. It glowed a sickly yellow and then reverted to a regular-looking apple. Welp, that was definitely poisoned.
"You only have one choice, Snow White," Storybook sneered. "You either take a bite from my lovely little apple- or the Beast here gets declawed with extreme prejudice." She indicated Chat with a lazy flick of her wrist, and more importantly, the axe pressed against the back of his neck.
Swallowing heavily, Marinette tried to reason with the akuma. "Lu- Storybook," she corrected. "Please, don't hurt him. Why are you doing this? What did I do to you? It's not my fault that the judges chose my project over yours."
"Oh, they've already been punished," she laughed, high and pretty like a bell with an undertone sharp and jagged as broken glass. She gestured to her goblin army with a sneer. "They should have chosen me in the first place, and now they get to make up for it and choose my way all the time as my personal slaves! Forever at my beck and call."
"So you have your revenge. Why come after me?" Marinette asked.
"Because!" Storybook snarled. "You're exactly like Snow White. Grimhilde just wanted to be loved, but thanks to her stepdaughter, she was always a pale shadow to the King's first wife and to his precious little girl. No matter how beautiful she was, she was always second fiddle! Whereas Snow White didn't have to do anything other than bat her big doe eyes and people would fall at her feet."
"But I did work for what I got," Marinette insisted. "I spent hours-"
"No!" Storybook interrupted, stamping her silk-slippered foot. "You win these things every time. I come in second place over and over again in every fashion competition. You're so good without even trying and you had such a plain, everyday theme as rain but you still beat me even though I poured my heart- and hours of research into all the versions of the old tales so I could get the details just right- and days and weeks and months of painstaking work on this and I thought that this was it: my big chance to finally come first- just once. But no."
"I had no idea," she stammered. She hadn't even noticed that Lucie had been at other competitions she'd placed in before. "I'm sorry-"
"Sorry isn't good enough!" she hissed. "Too little, too late. Now take a big bite of that apple or the cat loses one of his nine lives." She motioned for her head goblin to lift the axe higher, a looming threat.
Marinette looked to Chat, transfigured by the earlier spell into an almost unrecognizable feline beast. He cut a fearsome figure, even pressed to the ground- glinting fangs and long claws and muscles rippling with raw strength straining against the guards in vain. The only thing familiar about him was his eyes- green sclera and slitted pupils that should have been unnerving but instead spoke to her of something that felt right, something that felt like home. Those eyes were pleading with her to weasel her way out of this, to forget him and leave him behind, at the mercy of a crazed sorceress.
Abandoning Chat Noir was one thing that she could never, ever bring herself to do.
"Tick tock, Snow!" Storybook shouted and her henchman hefted the axe up to his meaty olive green shoulder, muscles bulging with the weight of the thing. She needed to make a decision now or Chat would be decapitated.
With no time left, and no other options left on the table, Marinette squared her shoulders, lifted the apple to her lips, and took a bite. It was sweeter than she'd expected, cloyingly so, and it got caught at the back of her throat. Suddenly it was terribly hard to breathe.
"NO!" Chat screamed, clawing against restraining hands, a feral look of desperation in his glowing eyes.
His cry of protest was too late. Marinette's eyes rolled back in her head, fluttered shut. Her arms went limp first, the apple falling from her hand. Then her knees buckled and she swooned backwards to the ground, limbs splayed and head tilted at what looked to be an uncomfortable angle. Ladybug's Kwami flitted around her anxiously, chirping at warp speed, clearly worried.
To Chat's overwhelming relief, her chest rose and fell, though slowly and shallowly. He doubted anyone without cat senses would have picked up on it. But otherwise, she was as still as the grave.
Storybook cackled, head thrown back.
"Finally," she crowed. "I won!"
"Not yet, you haven't," Chat snarled, hackles rising. "In the stories, there's always a way to break the curse."
She scoffed, "Yes, true love's kiss and all that. Tell me, Beast, is there anyone this girl is madly in love with who loves her back? Hmm?"
Chat deflated. He thought Marinette hung the moon and he would describe himself as "madly in love with her" in a heartbeat, but she had mentioned liking someone a while back, and he didn't think she thought of him like that. But she had never told him the guy's name, so Chat wouldn't be able to bring him here. That didn't mean he was going to give up, though. Without Ladybug's healing light, this was the only way to save his Princess. His determination hardened and he looked the villain straight in the eyes, twisting his neck at an awkward angle in order to do so.
"No, I don't," he answered. "But I'll find him. I won't give up until she's safe."
Her mouth thinned into a stern line. "Well, good luck getting anywhere near her if you do!" she spat. The purple butterfly outline blinked over her eyes for an instant and was gone. She smirked. "It'll be harder without your miraculous."
With a wave of her wand, she bid her creatures to carry Marinette off. Chat struggled mightily, but he didn't break free until she was already out of sight. The grips of his captors loosened as their mistress crouched to take his ring, and he managed to throw them off in a dogpile on top of Storybook. Ladybug's Kwami winging after him, he ran on all fours, desperate to catch up, and to evade the pursuers hot on his tail who wanted his miraculous, but he was too late. Marinette had vanished, not a trace of her scent to be found. With a frustrated growl, he broke away from her lost trail and lost the mishmash army of fairytale monsters.
Panting, concealed by the Dark Forest's thick underbrush, he started to plan, going through the list of possible candidates in his head. There was Nathanael, of course. Theo Barbot had winked and flirted when he met Marinette at an art gallery once. He was pretty sure Nino was head over heels for Alya now, but it might not hurt to bring him. Kim and Max were unlikely possibilities, but he filed them on his mental backup plan roster.
As far as he was aware, Marinette didn't know that many boys her age very well. It was a pitiful start, but it would have to do. Without further delay, he was off to round up suitors for his Princess. It made his chest ache fiercely to think of anyone else kissing her, being her true love, but she wasn't really his, and he would gladly give her up if it meant saving her.
Hang in there, Princess, he thought. I'm coming to save you.
He found the three people he thought most likely to be Marinette's true love and they were all affected by the magic. Unfortunately, none of them were in much better shape than he was, magical-transformation-wise.
Nathanael was a mute merman- clearly the red hair was enough to make the magic think Ariel fit- who had to be transported in a wheelbarrow, arms crossed, a tight-lipped frown on his face, clearly annoyed at having no voice and no legs. Some wires had gotten crossed with the magic there.
Pushing him was Theo, who had been transfigured into some sort of dryad, with woody skin and leafy hair. His movements made creaks like an old swing and he kept having to bat woodland animals off him who tried to nest on his shoulders.
Trailing behind the two was Nino, who was almost as peeved as Nathanael. He was a Bard, and he could not stop strumming the lute he was carrying even though he desperately wanted to. He could play as softly as possible, but he couldn't quit entirely. He kept blowing the enormous feather from his hat out of his face with irritated huffs of breath.
Chat was all determined focus on rescuing Marinette, brows furrowed, mentally planning all the different ways he could box this akuma's ears for putting everyone through this, especially poor Marinette. He, however, was also just as annoyed as the rest of the group because the heavy black fur of his transformation was too hot for such a warm spring day and it itched.
You could say that they were quite possibly the grumpiest adventuring party ever to exist.
It actually hadn't been all that hard to find where Marinette probably was. Notre Dame was A) the closest thing to a castle in the vicinity and B) completely surrounded by an enormous wall of thorns.
Storybook wasn't exactly skilled in the art of subtlety. She also seemed to have her fairytales about comatose princesses mixed up.
Chat's sword managed to carve a path through the thorns wide enough for their passage and they stumbled inside the tall prickly wall to find the place mostly unchanged, with one significant difference. The end of the building opposite the two bell towers now loomed as a high tower of its own. Chat was fairly certain that this new addition was where he would find his Princess.
He led the adventuring party through the castle without incident until the chamber at the base of the tower, where Storybook waited with her creature army.
Chat grinned, which looked like an aggressive curling of the lips what with his snout full of jagged teeth. If video games had taught him anything, obstacles meant that they were going the right way. He had been looking forward to a good fight to work off the anger building under his skin ever since Marinette had bitten that apple.
He lunged forward on all fours, foregoing his sword entirely in favor of batting combatants out of the way with his massive paws. He headbutted the biggest one, who had been holding the axe to his neck, and the orc-looking thing crumpled to the ground in a satisfying heap.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party had not been sitting idle and were contributing to the fray.
Nathanael had leapt from the wheelbarrow and was balancing on his hands while he whipped around using his tail to slap assailants violently across the face.
Theo was commanding the woodland creatures to peck any exposed skin they could find and the goblins were flailing uselessly at the swift and agile birds and squirrels. Ladybug's Kwami seemed to be having the time of her life, chirping triumphantly.
Nino alternated between countering Storybook's magic with his own song spells- composing on the fly- and simply whacking her over the head and in the stomach with his lute. Apparently not playing was permissible as long as he was using his instrument to bash people's skulls.
With one really good whack, he sent her careening into Chat's waiting claws. Chat, having subdued all the magical army, grinned that scary grin down at his quarry, and with a nod, signaled Theo to pluck the wand from her hands. She started to screech angrily about how she was the hero of this story, and she was supposed to win, but a low growl from Chat shut her up. Her previously madly fluttering wings also folded with a snap.
Theo waved the wand at Nath and Nino and Nath was suddenly on his feet- wearing Ariel's pink dress from the movie. Nino remained unchanged aside from the removal of the ridiculous hat.
"I don't even care," Nath said happily, beaming. "I will wear the frilliest, poofiest dress if it means I can walk and talk again."
"I kinda wish that I could stop playing the lute, but I am glad not to have that stupid feather in my face."
Theo surrendered the wand to Nathaniel, who waved it at Theo and Chat to no effect other than Theo's shoulder branches shortening a bit. He shrugged as though to say, "Eh, I'll take what I can get." Chat was unchanged, not that he seemed to notice or care. His mind was set on Marinette.
Chat passed the akuma to Theo and was already starting towards the stairs when he asked, "Can you hold her for a bit? I'm gonna scout ahead."
Chat pounded his way up the stairs, the others hot on his heels, Theo holding a struggling akuma. He burst through the door at the top of the stairs and found Marinette laid out on a canopy bed, arms crossed over her chest like a corpse, her face ashen. He rushed to her side and gently brushed a stray lock of inky hair from her face with an extremely careful claw.
"I'm here, Princess," he whispered. "I hope one of these guys is your true love even if it kills me that I'm not it. And if they're not, I'll find him- ah, geez, or her, I didn't even think of that, I'm sorry. I'll try Alya next if this doesn't pan out because no matter what I'm gonna save you. I promise."
The others entered on the heels of that statement, out of breath. Theo moreso than the others since he was wrestling with the slimy witch who had started this mess. Chat stalked over and lifted her bodily from Theo's grasp and held her at eye level.
"You will try nothing, or I will see if whatever manner of thing you turned me into has a problem with eating rogue sorceresses," he growled. "Do not so much as twitch suspiciously."
She nodded mutely, white as a sheet.
"Okay. Each of you give it a go- just a peck on the lips, and if it doesn't work out for any of you, we- or I- will go and find out who Marinette's true love is."
The three boys lined up beside Marinette's bed and one by one attempted to kiss her. Theo pressed a warm kiss to her mouth while cupping the side of her face, but despite the tender romance of it, nothing happened. He moved out of the way and Nathanael shyly pecked Marinette's lips with a little awkwardness, face aflame. Nothing happened, and then Nino clumsily shifted the lute to its least cumbersome position and nervously smooched her while his fingers continued to play soft, hopeful music. They waited and waited with no reaction, and their faces fell in unison. Nino's plucking took on a somber, disappointed note.
Storybook started to cackle and Chat shook her warningly, feet still dangling above the ground. He sighed heavily and tossed her over one shoulder so he could scrub a paw down his face.
"Well, I guess we widen the net," he groaned. "Might as well get to it. I'll carry the nuisance, and maybe we can broadcast to the city or something- if the news still works- and put out a call for Marinette's true love. She mentioned liking a guy awhile back, but I never got a name..."
"Oh, that was probably Adrien," Nino said, strumming thoughtfully. "He's probably Prince Charming or something if he got hit. He's a model, a gentleman, and a fencer, so he's like halfway there even without magic."
"Adrien?" Chat repeated.
"Yeah, Adrien Agreste," Nino confirmed. "You've met, I think. Akumas attack our school a lot. Marinette had a crush on him for ages that was painfully obvious to anybody but my dude himself. I'm talking head over heels obsessed. Alya told me she had his schedule memorized first semester. But lately, she seems to be able to talk to him like a person, so maybe the spark has faded or something."
Chat blinked. "She- she liked Adrien all this time?" He barely managed to remember to refer to himself in the third person.
Nino raised an eyebrow at him but it was Nathanael who confirmed, "Yeah. I always kinda knew I never had a shot against him, but that didn't stop me from crushing on her. Hope is stubborn like that."
"I never knew," he said softly, mind reeling with all the things that suddenly made sense, all the awkward interactions explained. But wait. They were right. She had been different around him lately. More casual. Maybe she'd fallen out of her crush on Adrien and fell for somebody new? "But I know she likes someone. She blushed when I asked her about it not even three weeks ago."
"You talk to Marinette a lot?" Theo asked.
"Oh yeah, all the time. Usually at least once a week. We have movie nights on Wednesdays," Chat said. "She's a really good friend and I care about her a lot. That's why I've been half-crazy trying to keep her safe all afternoon."
The three other guys exchanged a look. Nino cleared his throat and ventured, "Have you ever considered that the person that Marinette likes... is you?"
"Me?" he spluttered. "No, of course not! I'm just a goofball in a catsuit who lobs lame puns at her and accidentally ruined her yarn that one time. She doesn't see me like that."
"Well, I think it's obvious that you see her like that," Theo snorted. The birds on his shoulders seemed to nod in agreement, including Ladybug's Kwami. "So before we go combing the city for people to kiss Marinette, we ought to at least let you try first."
There was no air in the room. "I'm scared to find out for certain if I'm not her true love," he confessed.
"You'll never know till you try, dude," Nino informed him sagely. "I think she may surprise you."
So Chat passed the villain of the week off to Theo once more and padded over to Marinette's side. He knelt and took her hand in his paw, swallowing nervously. "Hey, Princess," he greeted with a soft smile, and then he shot a glare at Nino as the music swelled to some kind of tension-building romantic ballad-sounding melody. "Do you mind?"
"I can't help it! I have no control over my hands," he protested.
So Chat blocked it out as best he could and did his best to minimize her contact with his cold wet nose as he leaned forward and pressed a feather-light kiss to her lips. He pulled back slowly, hardly daring to open his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the complete lack of results. But then they flew open as he heard her cough. The piece of apple flew from her mouth and she gasped and sat up violently, conking heads with Chat since he was so close.
"Ow!" she cried, hand going to her temple. "Wha-? Chat?"
"Hey, Princess," he greeted, paw patting his snout. Pain radiated through his face, but it was worth it. He couldn't stop smiling. He was her true love. "Looks like this time I'm Prince Charming instead of your knight- or maybe a bit of both."
"Well, I'm not surprised that you saved me," she laughed, hands stroking the fur on his face as she pulled it closer to touch their foreheads together. "But, um, what did you do?"
"True love's kiss!" Nino whooped from the corner, strumming a victorious marching kind of song.
Marinette startled. "Wait, what?" She suddenly noticed three grinning teenage boys and an angry sorceress in the room.
"Um, yeah. It turns out that true love's kiss would wake you up. I didn't know what else to do, so I let Nino, Nath, and Theo try- sorry I couldn't ask your permission first- but then they convinced me to give it a go and you woke up!"
"You're my true love?"
"Uh, yeah?" he coughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you- Are you disappointed?"
"Of course not!" she cried, clutching his arms. "I mean, I already knew I loved you, but I didn't think I was your true love."
"I thought it was the other way around and that you didn't feel that way about me!" he cried. "But we were both wrong because I mean, otherwise the kiss wouldn't have worked, right?"
"Oh, it's working, alright," Theo crowed, flexing his significantly less woody hand.
Chat became aware of a tingling under his skin and noticed that he was far less hairy and the tufts of fur hanging in his eyes were more blonde. He was shrinking and shifting and in a matter of moments, he was in his rogue outfit again.
"You know..." Marinette drawled, pulling his attention back to her. "It's working kinda slowly. Maybe we should do it again to speed things along a little- since I missed the first time and all."
Chat blushed to the tips of his ears but pulled her closer until she was kneeling in front of him where he sat on the bed, chests pressed together. He bent his neck until their foreheads rested together and whispered, "I think that's a marvelous idea, Princess."
And then he was being yanked forward by small but strong hands fisted in his shirt, and Marinette's mouth was on his. He melted into the kiss and they fit together so perfectly it was like they'd done this a million times before. He wanted to do it a million times more. The world around them faded away and there was nothing but their two bodies pressed together. Nothing else existed. They didn't even notice that Storybook's magic was unravelling a lot faster until they tumbled to the ground as the bed vanished underneath them.
They were a giggling tangle of limbs clothed in their usual garb- no old-fashioned rogue costumes or long dresses. Nino, Theo, and Nathanael were returned to normal, and Lucie Devereaux was blinking at everything in confusion, clutching a flower pen. Still blonde and pretty with big eyes and a graceful figure, but no longer otherworldly. Theo gently took her by the elbow and explained the situation, and they appeared to be getting along famously once the disorientation was cleared up.
Marinette and Chat climbed to their feet. A white butterfly landed on Marinette's nose and flapped once before fluttering out the window.
"Bye-bye, little butterfly," she told it fondly, making meaningful sideways eye contact with Chat. Tikki peeked out from behind her pigtail and waved cheerfully before diving into her purse.
His jaw dropped and she smiled sheepishly. "I think it's high time we talked about a few things," she said by way of explanation.
He smirked and drew her close to whisper, "Yeah. I want to know if it's true that you had my schedule memorized last year."
She gaped at him and he snickered. "Adrien?" she hissed almost inaudibly.
"In the flesh and leather, Princess," he purred with a wink.
"Lucky me," she purred right back, tugging him down for another kiss.
"Hey, you two can make out in a church all you want, but the rest of us are going home," Nino called.
They broke apart, blushing, but followed the others out hand-in-hand.
As they stepped into the sun, Chat declared, "And they all lived happily ever after."
Marinette playfully smacked him upside the head. "Silly Kitty."
They walked back to Marinette's place hand-in-hand, catching each other in the middle of furtive glances and dissolving into helplessly happy giggles. They had every reason to be happy, after all. The time for secrets was over, the time for true love had arrived, and by all appearances, happily ever after looked like a distinct possibility.