AN: With real life responsibility bombarding me on my left, and obligations from multiple, previous fandoms barraging me on the right, what do I do?

Join a new fandom, of course lmao.

But MariChat is life and I'm living my best one with them so NO REGRETS XD

As always, HUGE shoutout to my bestie Selina for dragging me into this trash can lmao. But in all seriousness, you are the very heart and soul of this fic and every word beats for you. Thank you for everything, your friendship most of all!

"Bug out."

He expects this.

After four years of defeating evil side by side—day to day, year to year—he knows the tell-tale ring of their Miraculous is a sign of their time together coming to an end. So he more than knows this to be customary.

He is used to it.

In fact, the endless monotony and expectation of it all should bore him… which is probably why he is jarred by this abrupt break in routine.

Watching her leave is an odd combination of dreadful and thrilling for him—he hates the stretch of distance that grows between them with every departure but damn if she doesn't look good doing it.

(The wind in her midnight hair, the curve of her bottom in that skin-tight suit… it does things to him and superhero or not, he is still a boy—one whose blood continues to run hot even after the adrenaline dwindles and the scent of her remains)

Tonight is different.

His blood simmers, yes, but it is accompanied with a heat in his eyes that stems from a pressure behind his lids. This time, he turns away from her to take in more of the crisp, Autumn air so that he hears more than sees the long tract of her yo-yo as it coils around the neighboring building and pauses. With a heavy heart, he anticipates the swooping whoosh of her absence and is instead met with the snap of the string retracting.

Before he can throw out a snappy pun or utter a witty comment, an arrogant yet charming, back so soon? I knew you couldn't get enough of me, her hand descends upon his shoulder like it was made to be there and she fills his line of sight.

"Chat… thank you."

Stunned, not at the words but at the gravity with which she voices them, it takes more than a couple heartbeats before he can muster a reply. He shakes his head.

"For what?"

For what, indeed? She couldn't possibly be thanking him for having her back—it is unquestionably a part of the job description. She couldn't also be thanking him for saving her life, for that is a force without exception, as embedded to him as breathing.

So what?

She steps closer, and it feels as if all the oxygen in his lungs seizes when she takes the hand from his shoulder to cup his cheek.

She's touching me.

It's a stupid thought. They've touched before, more intimately even and a kiss had been stolen (and as of yet, unrecovered—much to his dismay). This is nothing, it's elementary.

If only his heart would get the message, because an even stupider thought enters his head.

I haven't shaved.

It's a five o'clock shadow and a barely discernible blond against his skin, but it's the sort of hysteria his brain clings to. She doesn't seem to mind though, not when she's running her thumb along the line of his jaw, her nail catching on the stubble and scratching at the hair there. It takes all of him not to purr the way he did as a hypersensitive 15-year old.

(Even if he does feel just that every day he's with her)

Her sigh is a breeze flirting across his lips, the kind of cool air he had been searching for earlier that night.

And though shivers do crawl the length of his spine, too bad it does the exact opposite of chilling him.

"Nothing… everything," she stammers, the gesture familiar yet unequivocal to the ever unflappable Ladybug. She takes a breath, her eyes closed, and when those moon-wide orbs focus on him, they are overcome with an expression so open and vulnerable—it could only be described as tender.

"Just, thank you."

He feels blood rush to his all ready heated face. Once again, there's that feeling of more, the air between them riddled with things unsaid, with secrets and the unknown, but the obvious too, like—yes, hello, I know you, our souls are one and the same.

Yet, even if he could think of some semblance of a sane reply, his ring chimes with urgency and then, swift as a hummingbird's wings, she's gone.

And he is all alone.

But he doesn't want to be.

That feeling of unease—of wrongness—fills his chest, growing tenfold so that even his bones feel like they don't fit right, clumsy and disjointed with iniquity. It spreads throughout his body like wildfire, till there is nothing but white noise in his head and a persistent feeling that something was missing.

Rather, someone.

This life of fighting crime has enlightened him to various experiences—mostly fascinating, some he'd rather forget (stupid crocodile), one he had apparently forgotten (stupid Valentine's day) and others… just plain strange.

Today for instance—he had been playing the piano for so long, before he could even walk or reach the pedals, that it was practically an extra body part. So imagine his surprise at discovering how lethal the instrument could be, never occurring to him that it could be used as a weapon till the day's villain, Con Rubato, used the notes to hypnotize people into listening to him—

—the strings to slice through flesh.

Con Rubato had been aiming for a building, but cut a fleeing bystander's arm on the way. The welt of blood that had pooled on their skin had inspired the bastard to use the metal strands on his true victim.

Marinette.

Marinette, whose endearing clumsiness cost their music teacher's performance and Chloe, exacerbating the man's embarrassment by starting a round of laughs. They practically handed him to Hawk Moth, the Akuma latching onto his negative emotions with alacrity.

With his target spotted, the evilized man focused on her, razor sharp vendetta fueling his motions, his fingers dancing in the air and commanding the instrument the way a masterful pianist should. The terror that had overcome Chat, seeing the deceptively delicate cords fly towards her, he—

He lost it.

"MARINETTE!"

She had been helping others escape because of course she was, ever ignorant to her own safety. If there was one thing, just one thing, he has learned about this girl—this woman—it's that saving people is as instinctual to her as blinking, without thought or provocation.

It's one of the many things they have in common as he's learned over the years, getting to know each other on the roof of her home, growing fonder with every morsel of information she deigns to share and him herding them like the rare, invaluable currency they are. The fact of the matter is, his celebrity and superhero status does not lend to genuineness in people. There is always that undercurrent of are you using me? to every interaction, coupled with his own secret double life, that makes forming connections near impossible. Few have made the exception—Marinette being one of them, for both Adrien and Chat Noir.

So there was no confusion or ambiguity—only innate protectiveness driving him to her side, running faster than he ever had he could have been flying, yet it still wasn't enough, the string cutting a lock of her hair just as he reached her and rolled them both out of the way.

He hadn't stopped. Using the momentum of their spin, he sprung to his feet with Marinette cradled in his arms like a bride. She hadn't needed to be told twice—her arms winding around his neck, her face burrowing onto his chest. He sped towards a closed shop, breaking in like the cat burglar his suit suggests he is, and deposited her behind the counter. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he was on her—hands roaming her every line, curve and flesh, needing to be certain she was unharmed.

"Are you okay? Are you injured? Did he hit you? Tell me where he hit you—"

"Chat, I'm fine—"

"Tell me where it hurts—"

"Chat, you need to slow down, you need to breathe—"

Harsh gasps filled the room where his chatter had been and he realized they were coming from him, his breathing ragged as hyperventilation forced his inhalations and exhalations.

Marinette cupped his cheeks.

"In through your nose for four seconds, hold for one, then breathe out for another four."

Her hands on his face, he held her stare—because it took all of his carefully constructed restraint to hold himself up instead of collapsing in relief, because he had forgotten how to breathe and she was teaching him how, because he was drowning and her eyes were the surface.

Because he might have been the hero but she was his salvation.

"You can't, you can't—"

"I'm alright. No cuts, no wounds and no bleeding. Don't worry about me."

Don't worry. Don't worry? She couldn't possibly be serious!

"You can't stay here. Ladybug needs you!"

For once, Ladybug wasn't on the forefront of his mind. But the reminder is a staggering realignment in priority.

Or at least it should have been.

"You have to promise me you'll stay here."

"But—"

"Marinette," he pleaded. "He's after you. I won't be able to concentrate unless I know you're safe from him. So promise me."

The barest of hesitations, and then—

A nod.

It was so unconvincing as to be laughable, she was a terrible liar. But not even he could conjure any levity to diffuse the charged situation. He saw the gears shifting in that big, beautiful brain of hers and he knew it was a vow she couldn't keep. So he kissed her forehead in lieu of a fruitless insistence.

"Please be careful," he murmured onto her warm skin, and in that moment he swore he'd never known such hardship as leaving his friend behind.

His ring blares a final warning, ferrying him back to the present, and he has just enough time to step into the shadows as he transforms to Adrien.

Plagg is cranky and hungry, no surprise there. He feeds the Kwami three huge chunks of camembert in an effort to butter him up into transforming again.

What does surprise Adrien is Plagg's lack of whining and complaint. The little thing looks at him through narrowed, suspicious eyes that leave him feeling naked despite the many layers of clothing he has on.

"It's okay, you know," Plagg says.

"What is?"

Why does everyone insist on being so cryptic tonight?

"You don't love Ladybug any less just cause you're worried about a lady friend."

Again, he is struck by the revelation that Ladybug hadn't even crossed his mind.

So rather than correct his wayward friend, he stutters out an agreement—anxious as he is to transform—before he goes, "Claws out!"

It is with logic that he concludes she would be at home, and under median circumstances he would have been right. But it isn't logic compelling his motions, it's heart, and it beats in the direction of the school so it is there he runs.

The front door is locked but it takes only a shimmy of his claw to open it, and then he is stepping inside. It's an odd sight, the school at night—but not entirely unwelcome. With the halls bereft of the bustling energy of working students and laughing, mischievous children, it is calm... awash with a peacefulness that has his muscles melting in repose.

Marinette is here.

He senses her, in that inexplicable way that goes beyond his feline senses, his body attuned to her own as if they were but an extension of each other, and so he is always aware of her.

But even without this intrinsic sense, he need only follow the sound of the disjointed notes piercing the otherwise silent academy and know without a shadow of a doubt that it was emanating from her.

"I would think you'd have had enough of pianos, after today."

She laughs, swiveling on her perch on the piano bench so that she faces him.

"Well, as proven by time and time again, you don't know everything."

He rolls his eyes but the grin that stretches the breadth of his lips belays any hint of annoyance. He glides towards her side and there is no hesitation from her, only that inherent connection that shapes them into synchronicity, as she slides to make room for him and he falls into place beside her.

They don't say anything, their friendship long past the need to fill the space between them with meaningless chatter, content as they are in each other's presence that the silence isn't so much as encumbering but comforting.

Marinette's fingers fly across the keys in tuneless disarray, elegant digits pressing at random before blending into something more purposeful.

The melody of All I Ask of You floats in the space between them, lovely yet hollow, incomplete as it is. After all, it isn't a harmony till two are playing.

He joins her then, his hands poised over the keys in practiced grace as he commandeers the bass quarters and matches her measured beat. There's a gravity to his movements, a pressure in his chest filling with sensations aching to be free of him, yet those with which are inadequately expressed by words. So he lets the music do the talking instead, lets it course and crash through their veins in a symphony of speechless elucidation, till the hissing static of terror ringing in his ears fades, till the weight in his rib cage abates.

Till there is only safety, and the warm cocoon of her engulfing him, present and steady.

The last note reverberates throughout the walls and in the aftermath she whispers, "I didn't know you played," as unwilling as he is to pierce through the echo of the melody with gratuitous exuberance. He doesn't miss the underlying awe in her tone though, and he smiles.

"Contrary to your belief, you don't know everything either," at her curious expression he adds, "I've been playing since I was a child."

"Wow," she murmurs, mouth hanging open in disbelief. It baffles him.

"What?"

"I just… didn't peg you for a classical musical instrument guy. Electric guitar maybe. Certainly not broadway."

That cursed blush makes a reappearance and spreads to his cheeks. To cover it up, he replies, "Been thinking a lot about me, have you?"

She rolls her eyes. "You wish, Kitty."

The nickname bestowed upon him by Ladybug passing through her lips awakens something in him, and that undue intimacy—like he's been here before, like he knows her in some other way—wafts through him like smoke.

But then she stutters and just as quickly, it is gone.

He chuckles at her brazenness and to save her from herself, he asks, "How about you? How long have you been playing?"

She shoots him a grateful look before grimacing. "I don't, actually. My fingers would constantly stumble over themselves."

He laughs harder. "I can see that, yeah."

She glares, before slumping her shoulders in defeat. She releases a frustrated puff of air before smiling, fondness painting a captivating image of her face. He tucks the stray lock resting on her cheek behind her ear to better see her.

Her smile widens and he feels his own lips widen to mirror her joy.

"I love Phantom though. I was determined to learn All I Ask of You and even then I couldn't manage to play it in its entirety."

"Let me guess, bad hand-eye coordination?"

"Got it in one," she groans. He nudges her shoulder with his good-naturedly.

"I don't blame you for wanting to learn. I mean, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a genius!"

She giggles. "Well, at least I can now add 'pianist' and 'Phantom of the Opera fan' to my extensive and ever expanding knowledge of Chat Noir."

"Yeah, and you better guard that information with your life. Do you know how many people would kill you to gain all that insight?"

There's a sharpness to his articulation as the humor drains from him. The reminder of how close he'd come to losing her mere hours before erases whatever tranquility he had managed to conquer in the minutes past.

A feeling of apprehension settles around them, a stifling and suffocating mien that causes his hands to tremble from their place in his lap.

"Good thing I don't have to worry about that," she affirms in lambent susurrations, her fingers breaching into his space and tangling themselves with his, "not when I have you."

He gulps down the lump in his throat, even as a mist burns in his eyes.

"What if I wasn't there? What if I had been too late? What if—"

"But you weren't."

Her hold on him tightens, her grip firm but gentle, the contrast of her pale skin remarkable against the ebony leather of his suit. He clings to this—to her—to keep himself from spiraling towards his dark thoughts. Being close to her again, holding her, knowing they will have this night and many more like it to come, he savors it with a newfound appreciation that he knows she reciprocates when she takes his chin in her free grasp.

"I didn't get a chance to earlier and I should have for all the times before, but I want to say, thank you."

He is hit with a sense of déjà vu as her lips wrap around the words. But then she's cupping his face in her palms so that he sees nothing but her and he's overcome... by her voice, her warm, butter and vanilla scent and those kind, compassionate, depthless eyes—it almost feels like she's staring at the very heart of him.

"Chat Noir, thank you."

He shakes his head. How can he make her understand? There is no hesitation, when it comes to her, there is simply no precedent—her life is invaluable and, apart from Ladybug, she is above everybody else.

Even him.

But he doesn't say this. Instead, he tells her, "You're my best friend."

And he's never said it before, but as the words come out, he knows them to be true. With her, he can be honest even with his mask on. With her, he isn't so alone.

"I can't lose you, Marinette. I think I'd go crazy."

She doesn't say anything, for what is there to say? With Hawk Moth at large, either one of them could perish in the crossfire and there isn't any one thing they could do about that.

So she presses her forehead against his and they sit there in companionable quietude. The way she holds him, their tears falling as they breathe each other in, makes him think she somehow hears the words that clog its way up to his throat, pleading, pleading that she keep herself safe, that he never has to know a day without Marinette in it.

"Please," she says after some time, "will you play for me?"

It's late, he should be getting her home and they technically are trespassing, but he is helpless against the current of her gaze and so he acquiesces.

Beethoven's Sonata 1 Opus 2 pours from his hands as remnants of his sadness fragment his soul. But then Marinette lays her head on his shoulder and it soon fades to Liszt's Love Dream, a tinkling background to accompany the contemporaneousness of their heartbeats.

When she droops against his side in slumber, he takes it as a sign to stop. But as the final melody languishes, he doesn't get up right away. He closes his eyes and focuses on the solid weight of her, at her even breaths, how they tickle the sliver of exposed skin on his neck and how they form the perfect soundtrack for him to cap off the night.

And when he has his fill of her (at least, for now) he scoops her into his arms. He is grateful for the darkness when he swoons at the way her arms curl around his neck, even in serene languor. As he walks to her building, his heart nearly falls right out of his chest at the touch of her lips to the underside of his jaw. Then, she nuzzles her face into the curve of his shoulder.

A cuddler, he muses with equal parts beguilement and affection. This tidbit he tucks into his part of the brain reserved for all things Marinette.

With her still in his arms, he turns her covers over before settling her onto her bed, a forethought to his every action. He relieves her of her bag and hangs it on her bedpost because he knows she likes it close to her at all times. He takes her shoes off, contemplates removing her jacket before thinking better of it and leaving it on—even if it might be scratchy against her skin—so as not to wake her. He takes off her pigtails, her hair spilling like the night sky against her pale, pink sheets. He feels drawn to the silken locks glimmering beneath the waxing moonlight so, propelled beyond control, he runs a hand through her hair.

"Chat," she murmurs, turning on her side and reaching for him. He obliges, and this time it is him who twines their fingers.

"Always taking care of me," she says around a yawn. "How can I take care of you?"

He thinks she's awake when she asks this, but then a snore trills from her. He chuckles, his hand never having left their perch on her head so he twirls the soft strands in his digits once more, and answers her anyway.

"You all ready do."

And it is only because he's assured she is deep within the inescapable clutches of sleep that he hums, "Marinette, love me."

He pulls the covers up to her chin, tucking them the way he remembers his mother used to do for him, even well into his teen years.

He kisses her forehead, but it isn't enough. His lips feel like metal, her skin a magnet where he whispers, "love me, love me" in between nuzzling her cheek… brushing the corner of her mouth...

"Love me, Marinette."

No one will harm you, he silently promises her. The sleepy smile on her lips feels seared into his brain, a balm to the anguish in his soul when he looks down at her and knows that with him, as Chat Noir and Adrien, she is cherished.

"That's all I ask of you."

AN: This is my first ever Miraculous fic. I hope you liked it!