Hi, sweet-childhood-dreams!
I'm your secret santa in the 2017 exchange and I hope you enjoy your gift!
You're an awesome person, really sweet, and your art is absolutely amazing! I couldn't even believe it when I read your name in the mail I got ;)
Happy holidays!

"Look, look!", Chat Noir prompted, pointing up into the dark nightly sky, "There's a crocodile!"

Marinette laughed, shaking her head with an amused twinkle shining in her eyes.

"There is no constellation named crocodile, Chat.", she giggled but he pouted.

"No, there! See? There're big jaws and then these three stars could look like-"

Before he could even finish she already laughed louder, cutting him off. He couldn't help but allow a cheeky grin sneaking onto his lips as he turned his head towards her, watching her giving him a high, clear laugh. She was beautiful like this, barely illuminated by the pale light of the moon. They were lying on her balcony on one of the last warm days of the year in November, stargazing. He didn't really know how they had ended up like this, he thought that maybe he started it by pointing out a star and they didn't want to look up in a standing position so they had used the lingering warmth of the sun on the stone plates of her balcony and had laid down.

He watched her profile as her laughter converted to giggles, joy shining on her face.

Of course, his one and only love would always be Ladybug.

No question about that. No…

But Marinette had somehow managed to make her way into his heart, lately. He had begun visiting her more often after her birthday. Feeling like he should somehow comfort her about the fiasco with her grandmother. Well, the party had gone on without a problem after that and she had even been happy about his present! But-… He knew how it was to have someone akumatized he was close with. When his father had been the collector…

He shivered involuntarily. His father had never really been what most would consider close to him. But he was the only family he had left. Plus, it was his father. Of course, he loved him. He was busy, yes, but he had given Adrien so much. His mother had loved him, too, after all.

"… Okay?"

"Huh?", he shook his head, irritated, "I-I'm sorry, what?"

Marinette shot him a worried glance, lifting her hand to bury it in his hair on his neck. He immediately began purring – a tradition they had found themselves to grow fond of. When he had visited her after her birthday for the third time he had let himself be vulnerable around her. Had shown his Adrien rather than his Chat.

And what had she done? She had hugged him and hadn't judged a superhero for being weak. Instead she had held him and let him tremble in her arms. She had buried her face on his shoulder and let him do the same on her hair. And he had already felt better until Marinette had reached up, starting to bury one hand in his hair.

To say they had both been surprised when he had started purring had been an understatement. Chat, of course, had already known he could purr but he had jumped because Marinette had been right there pressed against him, definitely feeling that. She had, for obvious reasons, been far more shocked than he had been. But after a few seconds of staring at him, she had slowly began scratching him again, making the purring louder. She had rested her ear on his chest and had listened, just remaining like this for a good hour.

By now, they both enjoyed that part of the evening. When she would put her hand on the nape of his neck again, gently beginning to drag her fingernails through his hair and provoking this soothing sound from his chest.

"I asked if you were okay.", she tried again, her voice soft and a little worried, making Chat's heart jump, "Because you looked so-…"

He merely nodded, cutting her off so she didn't have to explain it. Didn't have to speak out loud how troubled he must've looked when thinking about his father's akumatization.

"… I'm fine, Marinette, thank you.", his voice shook lightly, partly because of the purring but also because he remembered how hard it had been to fight against him. To see him even more heartless than usual.

"Are you sure?"

He smiled at her and nodded, his purr getting louder as an indication that he was feeling better the longer she kept scratching him.

"Yeah. Absolutely fine, princess, don't worry. I just thought about a few things but nothing too important."

She nodded knowingly and he once again enjoyed how understanding she was. As if she immediately knew exactly how he felt. She was indeed a very empathic person.

"Yeah, I know what you mean…", she mumbled, looking up into the night sky again. Her eyes became so different again as if she was far away, and she smiled.

"Oh, oh, look!", he suddenly exclaimed, pointing upwards, "There's a shooting star! Quick, that's yours, wish for something!"

Marinette giggled and closed her eyes, her lips moving. He desperately tried to make out what she wished for but before he could decipher a word she already opened her eyes again.

"Thanks! Hopefully, it'll help…"

"Help with what?", he couldn't hold back his curiosity but she put a finger on his nose and pushed him back – a very familiar move.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Chat. I won't tell!"

"Please?", he tried again but she just shook her head, looking upwards again. After a few moments, she spoke up again.

"There's Cassiopeia.", she remarked, pointing up to make him turn his head again, "The 'W' in the sky."

"But maybe it's really just a 'W' in the sky?"

She laughed again, making him grin along with her, his purring becoming just a bit clearer as his lips parted.

"But maybe it's more fun to imagine a beautiful, ancient queen than a boring 'W'?"

Chat couldn't help but laugh at her witty remark, then he stared up at the star constellation, tilting his head a little towards her.

"It could also be a snake?"

"No, the snake is somewhere else."

He chuckled.

"Hey, maybe it's a flight of stairs? Like-…", he wiggled his eyebrows as he turned towards her again, already hinting at his joke before he'd even speak it out loud, "… Stairway To Heaven?"

She burst out laughing as did he, looking back up at the stars to laugh even more as she saw what he meant.

"You're a really big dork, you know that, right?", Marinette pressed out under laughter, tears already collecting in her eyes. He shrugged nonchalantly and winked at her, then he looked up again, quietly whistling the melody of the old song he now got stuck in his head.

"Hey, maybe there's a cat constellation?"

She shrugged, pulling out her phone while already trembling a bit because of the quickly cooling air. While she searched for a cat constellation in her app Chat grabbed a fleece blanket from one of her balcony chair and draped it over her, gently rolling her to the side to tuck it beneath her. Marinette was too focused to really bother so she just let him do it.

When he was finished she was done with searching, her hand immediately flying back to his neck as she put her phone away.

"Well, I found Leo, of course, but that's pretty much it."

He grinned and pointed to a star constellation that jumped in his eyes just as he looked up, it seemed to be like a small pile of stars but when he focused on it a small cluster of brighter stars crystallized out of the spot.

"And that there? That could be a cat! It has a boxy shape that could be the cat! I can even picture the two ears at the bottom, these two stars and the tail's the little star up there! That's definitely a cat, c'mon Marinette!"

She giggled, shaking her head again.

"Chat, that's Andromeda. That's the galaxy next to the Milky Way."

"How is this Andromeda?!", he complained, furrowing his eyebrows but his purr never wavering, "I mean, c'mon, you do see the ear, right? And the tail? It's unmistakably a cat! A tiny, adorable cat!"

She briefly shrugged at that, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders with her free hand.

"Well, that's just the name. I don't make the rules."

"But you're taking the fun out of it! Isn't star gazing way funnier if you imagine your own pictures?", he asked, a little sharper than he had wanted. She shot him a gaze, then looked up again.

"… I see the ear, yeah. And the tail.", she admitted slowly, a small smile searching its way to her lips after a bit of staring at their neighboring galaxy, "It could be a cat, okay."

He grinned, his eyes twinkling with newfound joy.

"And what can you see in the Cassiopeia one if you don't imagine a queen?"

She looked at it for a while, then she began giggling.

"What? What's so funny?"

"It looks a little like your tail when Ladybug startles you.", she laughed, her hand gently twitching in his hair. He imagined his tail jumping into such a ridiculous, comically jarred line and had to chuckle himself.

"Well, it definitely feels like this."

She smirked but left it at that, letting the calmness of the night take over. She admittedly got a bit sleepy by looking into a dark night sky. And it also got a little too cold so she decided to finally end this, as unwilling as she found herself to be about this.

"Okay, Chat, I think I'll head to bed now.", she softly began, already feeling him tensing. He hadn't told her much about his life at home but she know it wasn't really a place which he wanted to come home to.

"Okay.", he nodded, staying right where he was, unmoving.

"Chat, you can't sleep on my balcony.", she tried again and this time, he sighed and slowly sat up, hesitating and definitely forcing himself to move.

"Okay, okay…", he mumbled, before kneeling and stretching out a hand for her to take. She let herself be pulled up and smiled.

"You can come back again, you know? Anytime."

This seemed to ease him a little, even cheer him up, so he smiled as he opened the hatch for her to get down onto her bed.

"I'll take you up on that offer. Not too often, but I'll definitely come back again. It's really nice to spend time with you.", he offered his hand for her again so he could help her down into her room. She smiled and took his offer gratefully, still keeping the fleece blanket around her shoulders.

"Thank you, Chat. I'll always prepare a plate of cookies for you, just so you know."

"And where was it today, purrincess?", he playfully mocked her as she merely sent him a dry gaze back.

"If you're demanding I'll throw you out to the other alley cats."

He laughed at that, one hand already on the hatch again to close it above her.

"Don't worry, I made a joke."

"I didn't.", she smirked smugly, leaving him to blush a little of surprise because of her fierceness.

"Uhm-…"

She laughed heartily, then she sat down on her bed, grinning up to him.

"Goodnight Chat. Be safe, okay?"

"O-Of course!", he promised, then he gently shut the hatch and took a run up to jump over the railing, back home. His heart never stopped beating at highspeed until he was back in his room, had changed into his pajamas and his head had touched down on the pillow.

The next morning, Adrien could barely contain his curiosity about the shooting star anymore.

Nino already asked him why he was so absent but Adrien merely put it off as a shortage of sleep so that he wouldn't give away what he had been doing last night. But he wanted to know…

As he knew Marinette she'd be late. So, he wouldn't be able to talk to her until after the lesson, actually. He just had to wait.

Which is why he anxiously slid around in his seat when Marinette barged in ten minutes too later, hurriedly explaining to Miss Bustier that she had overslept. The teacher rolled her eyes at Marinette and smiled, sending her to her seat behind Adrien, already all too familiar with the antics of the young girl.

Marinette hung her head and trotted to the desk in the second row, sitting down only to quietly be chided by Alya. The girl actually threatened her that she'd come by before school and wake her with a bucket of icy water. Adrien shivered involuntarily, both amazed as well as terrified by Alya's cruelty. And this definitely didn't have to do with his cat-like tendencies, no…

The ticking of the clock went by far too slowly. He let his knees bounce up and down underneath his desk until Nino poked his side, giving him a very annoyed glare, and begged him to please stop, holy shit dude, you're driving me crazy today.

Adrien could only grin apologetically at that, shrugging lightly.

"Sorry. I guess I'm just a bit jumpy today.", he smiled.

"Well, I hope you'll tone it down. C'mon, dude, I can't fail this class."

Adrien laughed at that, having heard Nino's mocking undertone. It was math, Nino's favorite class just after music, and he didn't even begin to fail at that.

"Yeah, yeah…", the blonde chuckled, forcing his attention down to his notes again. Maybe then the lesson would be over sooner.

It indeed was, as he found. Just as he moved on to the next task the bell rang to signal the end of the lesson. He didn't think he had ever jumped up so quickly and collected his stuff to talk to Marinette. As soon as he was done he turned around, putting his hands down on Marinette's desk. It took all of him not to directly ask her what she had wished for.

Damn Chesire curiosity…

"Hey Marinette?", he innocently asked, completely not expecting a surprised shriek as well as a thump as she fell from the bench next to the desk. He looked down to her with a dumbstruck expression as Alya began to cackle.

"Uh-… I'm-… Sorry?", he tried, stepping out from his own seat to help her to her feet again. Alya meanwhile rested her forehead on Nino's shoulder, still laughing.

"N-No, that's, uh-… Finally total, uhm, totally fine!", she managed to stutter, straightening up and brushing off her jacket with shaky fingers. He wondered if he had really surprised her so intensively.

"Okay… Uhm… I wanted to ask you something?"

Marinette grabbed her bag and blushed, nodding at him to go on, obviously too-… Embarrassed to speak? Too shocked? He shook his head.

Focus, Agreste.

"Uhm, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang out today? I, well, I got a bit of free time this evening and, uhm, if you wanted to, well…"

She suddenly grinned, nodding enthusiastically.

"Yeah, that'd be cool!", then she added something a little quieter, obviously only for herself, "Thanks, Chat."

In an instant, he blushed as well, understanding what she had wished for. Time with him, with Adrien. He gulped and tried to manage a shaky smile but as their eyes met again he couldn't help but feel the corners of his mouth wandering up on their own.

"It's a date then!", he smiled. And now it was his turn to land on his behind, recoiling because of a shriek that definitely came from Alya's and Nino's direction.