I own nothing about Miraculous save for this sorry little fic.

Enjoy. Or don't. Flame me if you want.

Updated March 2018

The dim light of her desk's lamp didn't really offer much by means of vision, the bulb old and used. She never really noticed as its brightness damped each time she turned it on, but tonight it was just as she made a finishing touch on an embroiderment that it seemed to occur to her. She set her work down carefully and stuck the pins in her handmade pin holder. She stopped a moment to consider the little voodoo looking black cat before standing and stretching, preferring to look at where Tikki was resting in a very much red and not cat-like bed.

Her shoulders stung like they'd been whipped from being crouched over so long.

It was a Saturday night, and her sixteenth birthday. There was a hoodie that she'd been working on for the last few days, and she wanted to get it finished before Sunday. That in mind, she'd set herself down and got to work. But as she glanced at the clock, her expression turned wry to find it two in the morning. She had been working for hours.

As she reached over to turn off her lamp so the bulb could cool, every one of her muscles complained like rubber that had lost its elasticity.

Her right eye closed, and with a strange mix between a groan and a moan, she rubbed her back to try and alleviate at least some of its ache. In the darkness of her room she could just make out the edges of all her furniture, the moon mostly covered by thick clouds, so she slowly (and stiffly) made her way to the hatch in her floor.

Not unused to late night visits downstairs, she didn't have to concentrate too much to open the door and climb the familiar stairs. She left it open for when she would go back up, though, because the less noise she made the better.

The thought made her scowl as her feet touched upon the floor. She didn't remember exactly when it started, but somewhere along the way Chat had started visiting her in her civilian form. She thinks he might even see more of Marinette than Ladybug, and he had no reason to see her as much as he did. Ladybug she understood, they were partners. But Marinette?

His visits had become so frequent as of late that she'd taken down all of her posters of Adrien out of embarrassment, he'd caught them once and it was not okay. He still teased her, and it's been months. What's worse is how her room had become littered with black cats in replacement of those pictures. Her pin holder, her mouse pad, and the most comfortable pillow she'd ever encountered. Some were little gifts from the egotistical kitty himself, others were things she'd made or purchased herself. The most dreadful thing about that was how she didn't even realize until after she'd done the deed of making or buying the object that the inspiration was him.

It became inherent.

Anyways, to the point, he wasn't always the most sneaky cat around. Sometimes he made enough noise to wake the neighborhood, maybe all of Paris. Her parents often confronted her about the ridiculous amount of noise coming from her room some nights, and she had the feeling they were beyond suspicious at this point.

They probably thought she was hiding some sort of lost animal, or harboring a stolen train that she liked to start up in the middle of the night.

Lost animal was pretty close, she supposed. Animal, check. Lost... yes, she smirked. Lost cause for sure.

She looked around all the rooms of the building, not really sure where the spare bulbs were, until she finally found the stash. She hummed quietly under breath as she shuffled through the boxes until she found one compatible with her needs. Box in hand, Marinette padded back to her room. Climbing the last step, the bulb almost dropped back down through the hatch.

She caught it, though. So it was all good.

Closing the hatch slowly and quietly, she made her way back to her desk. After tapping the current bulb to make sure it wouldn't burn, she unscrewed it and set it to the side. For some reason, though, she couldn't manage to open the box for her new light bulb. It was irritating. Apparently, the more she tried the more stubborn the lid got.

"Need some help?"

Her heart leaped to her throat and her stomach plummeted. With a short scream and a three foot jump, her elbow smacked the corner of her desk. Hard. "Ow! What-"

"Marinette?" She froze, because although it hadn't completely registered exactly who was in her room quite yet, that was her father. And that was not good. "What's going on, are you alright?"

Taking a second to calm her heartbeat and steady her voice, she called down in a surprisingly strong reassurance, "Yes, fine. Sorry to wake you!" She had little doubt of the incredible lack of concern she needed to have about her visitor.

"Alright, get some sleep, young lady."

"Will do!"

While she stood as still of humanly possible, she looked with wide eyes in the direction the voice had come from. She had a suspicion. Replaying the voice's question over in her mind, it certainly sounded like Chat. Usually he didn't just invade, though. If she didn't answer then he'd leave.

At least, she assumed.

Once she was sure her parents were back in their room, she moved into a more comfortable and demanding stance. "Look what you did," she accused.

The response was a good-natured, hushed laugh. "Sorry, Princess, didn't realize you scared so easily."

She grumbled and chucked the box in the direction of his voice, muttering angrily about night vision when she heard him catch it with ease. It took only a second for her to hear the cardboard flap slip easily from its slot, and then the sounds of boots on wood approached her. She felt him suddenly, so close to her but not touching, his breath on the crown of her head. She looked up, instinctively finding where his eyes would be. Sure enough, there was that glitter of green just barely visible in the dark. He leaned forward, and her breath caught in her throat because what was happening?

But suddenly there was light, bright and expansive. Her room was bathed in the glow of it, and Chat was halfway across the room again. She glanced behind her where the cardboard box was set on her desk and the bulb in her light replaced. "Thanks," she mumbled, turning back to face him.

His grin was far too cat-ate-the-canary for her liking. It was quickly replaced with rapture, and an amount of glee she hadn't thought possible for one human being to contain, when he looked past her. She wasn't as thankful for the change in facials as she thought she'd be.

"That's new!" he chirped, pointing at something behind her.

She was afraid to turn, but she did it anyways. It was her hoodie.

She regretted finishing it.

"Oh, yeah. It's... nothing special," she responded lamely, putting as little interest as possible into her voice in the hopes that he'd move on.

Not so.

He glided past her, and she rushed to snag the article before he could reach it. She shoved it behind her back, balling it up in the process. "Hey, I wanna see," he complained with an obnoxiously adorable pout.

"Too bad, not for your eyes, Kitty."

He stared her in the eye for a while, seeming to think something over in his head. After a moment he just winked and backed off. "Fair enough. So how's Adrien?"

It was amazing how fast her entire face could heat up. "I hate you," she sighed, crossing the room to stuff the sweatshirt in one of her drawers. She almost slammed it shut before remembering about her parents. "What are you doing here this time, Chat? Do you know what time it is?"

He adopted a sheepish look, grinning guiltily and rubbing his arm. "Sorry, but I had to give you your present. I was too busy earlier."

She blinked, her heart doing a strange little flip.

He got her a present. That... was so sweet.

Well, assuming it wasn't some little black cat trinket.

"Oh, Chat, you didn't have to get me anything."

"I wanted to," he defended immediately. "You're my friend."

She smiled warmly, reaching him with wide arms to give him a hug. "I would be more inclined to agree if you hadn't woken up my parents," she teased with a squeeze around his torso.

"Me-owch," he joked back, clutching at his heart once she'd backed away. "How easily you dismiss our friendship."

Blue eyes were rolled and a shoulder was punched, and a certain cat's laughter filled the room. He walked over to her desk where a wrapped box had been overlooked by Marinette. Had that been there since he arrived?

"I wasn't really sure what to get you, so I'm not sure you'll like it... but. Here," he shrugged, lifting it and offering it to the teen.

"I'm sure I'll love it, Cha-" she started as she slipped her fingers under a fold in the wrapping, stopping short when she saw a millisecond's worth of his devious grin. Her eyebrows connected like magnets and angled downward. His eyes widened innocently and he gestured for her to finish open it.

Frowning, she did so.

Once she'd removed the wrapping, she slid the lid off of the brown box beneath. Inside was another box, slightly smaller but identical in appearance to the first. She shot him a dry look, and he waggled his eyebrows in return. Dropping the larger of the two right there on the floor, she flipped open the next lid to find...

Another box.

This time her glare was plain dirty, and his brow-waggling even more enthusiastic. She opened this box, and then two more until finally there were no more. She lifted the layer of green tissue paper, eager to see what he'd stashed there, only to find the bottom of the box.

She slowly dragged her eyes from the box to the tissue paper, and to the box again. Then she lifted a gaze that just screamed: why? to her partner.

His face was beginning to tint red from holding in the laughter.

Her eyes dropped back down to the tissue paper before her lips warmed into a smile full of pure delight. "Oh, Chat! Just what I wanted: tissue paper! How did you know?"

At that he did laugh, hands clutching at his sides across his stomach and eyes nearly closed from the size of his smile. If she hadn't been looking at him, she might not have joined in. But his mirth was contagious.

"Marinette, is there someone in there with you? And why aren't you sleeping?"

It was her mother this time, "Crap." Her hands flailed to try and get him to hush up.

"Yes, Mama, I'm just on the phone with A-" she was about to say Alya, but wasn't sure if her parents could tell if the other voice was indeed that of a male. So, thinking fast, she turned mid syllable to say: "Adrien," to which Chat raised a malicious brow. She stuck her tongue out at him before remembering the second question. "Oh! Sorry, I tried to sleep. I, uh, just feel so... energized?" As her statement trailed off she cringed. That could have been more thought through.

"Oh, Adrien," she lilted back, causing Marinette to flush far too red because she had company and he was snickering at her misfortune.

Wasn't Ladybug supposed to be lucky? Must be because Chat was there. Speaking of which, she dearly hoped that Tikki had managed to stow herself away before Chat Noir could see her.

"Mama!" Her hands came up to cover her face.

The sounds of more than amused laughter trailed away as her mother left, and Marinette smacked Chat on the shoulder. "Stop waking them up!"

"Sorry, Princess. I forget myself when I'm around you," he reparteed suavely.

She rolled her eyes again and knelt down to pick up the boxes from the floor, but when she stood up again they fell right back down. "No!"

But it was too late. Standing at the other end of her room was her soon-to-be-dead-partner, wicked grin on his face and her latest hoodie in his hands. "Aw, Princess, I'm touched."

"That- that has nothing to do with you!"

His sideways smile and half-lidded eyes made her highly uncomfortable. "Oh really? He twisted it around to she could see her handiwork, "'Feline good,' and what's this? A black cat? With... are those green eyes?"

She pursed her lips, wishing him a million deaths with her eyes.

"I think you've become addicted to my presence, Princess."

"Doubtful," she grumbled, marching over and whipping the article out of his hands. She made a show of dumping it in the trash bin.

His eyes widened and he seemed to jump like a startled... well. A startled cat, quite frankly. "Hey! No! It's too perfect for the trash, I'll keep it." He rushed to take it out, shaking it off and slipping it on over his suit. It fit almost too perfectly. He cut a suspicious glance over to Marinette, whose eyes slipped easily to the ground. He looked back down at the sweatshirt's chest, genuine smile spreading fast.

"Suit yourself," she said, and he sent her a grin. Reaching behind him he slid open a drawer in her desk, one that she stored a wide variety of writing utensils in, and pulled out another box. This one fit easily into his palm, and he held it out on top of his open hand. She eyed it dubiously before reaching out a hesitant hand. Why was he so familiar with her drawers, what was this? A shared room now?

Her fingers brushed his gloved hand and it felt strange.

She took her time to preserve the beautiful wrapping paper despite knowing full well that she'd probably never have a use for it. It was silver and swirly and made her eyes glaze just a little. Still cardboard and brown, the box's lid came off and sailed for the floor. Green tissue paper soon followed. Her brows furrowed when below it was a waxy sort of paper, folded to fit the container. She lifted it out and spread it open. The contents had enough of her attention that she didn't really register the sound of Chat slipping out the window.

It was a picture of Adrien, signed.

What really dropped her jaw, though, was the message above it: "Happy Birthday, LB!"