Woah, i was not expecting quite as much enthusiasm so very quickly!
Yeeks!
Here's Chapter Two for you. It's a little shorter, but i was a little excited.
Waow. So many favouriters so very fast! You guys rule!
Happy reading!
Chapter Two
Adrien had to remind himself to draw and release each breath. His heart was beating so hard he was actually afraid the others would hear. He stared down at his jotter, hardly daring to believe what had just happened. Nino was talking to him but he couldn't pay attention, his mind going at a million miles a minute.
She'd told his joke.
Marinette had told his joke.
The one he told LadyBug last night.
The one he told LadyBug.
Last.
Night.
It was too much a coincidence for her to say she heard it last night. And she'd said it was him! Cat Noir! She knew it was a Cat Noir joke! If she'd said LadyBug had passed it on then he'd have believed it and it wouldn't have been a big deal but she'd claimed Cat Noir had stopped by and he hadn't had he?
He'd been nowhere near the Dupain-Cheng bakery as Cat Noir in over a fortnight.
He visited Marinette every now and then, had taken to doing so when life at home became too much. He would tap on her window and she would let him in, feeding him cookies and pastries and making them hot chocolate, or teasing him with a glass of milk.
He'd gotten to know her better in the mask than out of it because for whatever reason she didn't stutter around Cat Noir. She was relaxed and open, willing to talk about things she wouldn't with Adrien.
Things his lady wouldn't let her guard down about even though his partner and he were closer every day.
He'd grown fond of Marinette and thought the feeling was mutual. The beginning stages perhaps, but in time…
She would flick his bell and laugh with him and sometimes even scratch behind his ear to tease him, giggling when he purred. She treated him with a level and wry sort of fondness, amused and brightened by his presence. He had begun to notice how she lit up when he tapped on her window, the softness in her voice when she comforted him on the bad nights, the reluctance that had begun to appear in her smile when she watched him vault back into the night. It was nice to be wanted, for his presence to be welcomed.
But he and LadyBug had been so busy with all the latest akuma attacks and his homework had been increasing in volume and he hadn't visited his classmate in a while.
Certainly not last night.
He could barely keep his eyes open this morning. It was becoming a regular occurrence with HawkMoth trying more and more often to steal their Miraculous'. They'd upped their patrol nights, doing five or six out of every seven. On top of homework it was a wonder he was getting any sleep at all.
How had he not noticed Marinette was so tired these past few weeks too?
Because it was so obvious now that he thought about it.
All her excuses about starting a new design and having to stay up to finish it because she couldn't bear to leave it alone.
All the mornings she had sipped coffee with Alya before class and yawned every time she said hello to Nino.
The days she had been so exhausted she barely had the energy to stutter around him or run away.
It was so incredibly obvious that he couldn't accept that he had been so incredibly blind.
That he, the one so desperate to discover his partner's identity, hadn't put all the clues together when they were right there in front of him the whole time.
Or behind him, to be precise.
His lady, his partner, his Bugaboo.
She'd sat behind him all last year, hung out with him and Nino and Alya in the summer and now sat behind him again in the first weeks of the new school year and he'd completely missed it.
He wanted to kick himself, and resisted the very intense urge to bang his head on the desk.
He'd missed her completely and she was right there.
How many times had he dropped by the bakery as Adrien and seen her confident prowess in the kitchen? How many times had he seen her scowl and hiss at Chloé when she was picking on one of their classmates?
How many times had he dropped by right after patrol and failed to notice that she seemed as breathless as he was, and just as tired?
How could he have missed the fact that he had never seen her near LadyBug, never seen her when an akuma attacked and his partner appeared?
How could he not have recognised the bluebell eyes that met his gaze and danced away again every single day?
Oh God.
His lady, the holder of his heart, couldn't even look at his civilian self.
His heart fell.
He had never worked out Marinette's problem with him. Had always chalked it up to his celebrity status, or her awe/fear of his father and his family name. They were working on it and things were getting better. They were. He spent time with her and sometimes she seemed to forget she was talking to him and she would relax, talking animatedly or beating him at video games or showing him how to shape croissants just right.
And then she would come back to herself as if she'd realised it was him again and she'd get all edgy and stammer and the wall would come back up between them. Not as forcefully as she had in the beginning, but just as anxiously. Sometimes he worried that she was still dubious about his friendship because of the gum incident way back when they had first met. It hadn't been the best of meetings and it had gone so terribly he had worried he might never make friends with anybody.
But then the rain…
He had tried to make amends and she had accepted his offering and he'd thought that maybe they were going to be okay.
She was the first person he'd labelled a friend. Even before Nino, despite the boy's help that first day. Because there was something about her, something he desperately wanted to access. Something he wanted to bring out in her and all this time she had been the partner who saved his tail when they fought, who had scolded him so automatically that first fight when he had used his Cataclysm before realising he could only use it once.
He'd fallen for her literally when she had dropped out of the sky, tangling them both in her yo-yo string and apologising as they hung from his Sabre in that street. He had watched her save Chloé and saw her scale the eiffel tower and he had fallen for her, swearing that no matter who was under that mask there was no way he couldn't love her.
And she'd been Marinette the whole time.
The girl of quiet steel and righteous anger who couldn't string a sentence together when they spoke. The realisation made his heart flutter. To say he couldn't be happier just wouldn't cut it.
He was ecstatic!
But a cold feeling settled in as his mind raced over his new information.
Despite how warmly Marinette always received Cat Noir, LadyBug spurned his advances and Marinette avoided Adrien whenever she could.
His love disliked both sides of him.
It hurt worse than he could have thought.
