Marinette showed up for school the next day with a smile on her face, and an extra bag in hand.

Adrien was already sitting at his desk when she arrived, so she set the decorative little bag right in front of him, and headed behind him to her own.

He looked down at it with wonder, before he turned to speak to her.
"You really brought me a cookie?"

She pointed towards the bag. "Take a look inside."

Adrien glanced over at Nino, who was resting his head on his hand, and shrugged at him. "You should see what she brought you, bud."

Eagerly, he opened the little bag and gasped when he saw all that was inside.
She had stacked several of the cookies they made together, and threw in a croissant, two macarons, and two pastries that he was unfamiliar with.

"Whoa, thank you Marinette!" he beamed up at her. She shyly smiled back.

"I know you said not to, buuut you did make them, so it's only fair that you get to eat them. I also thought I'd throw in a few other things from the bakery. It's okay to indulge every once in awhile, you know?"

"That's true, and maybe I can stash them in my room without him knowing."

"You did a really good job, Chat Noir stopped by last night while I was eating them on the balcony and he loved them. I hope you don't mind that he had a couple."

Alya and Nino's heads shot to look at Marinette in amazement, but Adrien remained calm.

"Oh, did he? I don't mind, I'm glad he liked them," he smiled in a way Marinette hadn't seen him smile before, but she knew she had seen it on someone else ...

"You spent time with Chat Noir last night and didn't tell me?!" Alya cried in disbelief. She was only her best friend, and the one who ran the Ladyblog after all.

"I didn't mean to keep it from you Alya, I fell asleep right after he left and I just didn't think about it this morning," she shrugged. Adrien wasn't sure he liked that she was being so nonchalant about his visit. Did she really not care for Chat Noir either?

"I don't think we've talked about it before, but who's your favorite superhero: Ladybug or Chat Noir?" Nino asked, getting into the conversation. "Mine's Chat Noir, he's one cool dude."

Adrien's instinct told him to say thank you for the compliment, but thankfully his need to keep his identity a secret overshadowed his instilled need to be polite.

Alya laughed. "Do you even need to ask me? It's Ladybug, of course! How about you, Adrien? Who's your favorite?"

"Ladybug," he said without a second thought, a slight wistful sigh escaped his lips after he said her name.
Marinette's eyes shot over to look at him. She knew he admired her somewhat, but he sounded almost as if he had feelings for her...
Nino and Alya hadn't heard however, and said nothing about it.

"What about you, Marinette?" Adrien asked her. "Ladybug or Chat Noir?"

"Chat Noir," she replied almost as quickly as he had given his reply.

All three of her friends stared at her in surprise. Adrien seemed a bit more alert than he had been moments before.

"Chat Noir?" he asked. "I would've bet that you would've picked Ladybug, most people do. Why is he your favorite?"

They looked intently at her, which caused her to blush. "Ah, well, as great as Ladybug is, she wouldn't be able to save the city on a daily basis without him. He sacrifices himself for her whenever she's in danger. And... he's really sweet. He really doesn't get the credit and attention he deserves, but I for one can see how much he means to the city of Paris, and know we'd be in trouble without him."

Adrien marveled at her words.
So she really did like Chat Noir. This news, along with her words made him extremely happy.

"Wow Marinette, I had no idea you saw Chat Noir that way."

"Ahh, I just... really don't think people give him enough credit, is all."

"Do you know him?" Nino asked her. "If he came by your place and had some cookies with you, surely you must know him."

"Not- not really. I did help him fight an akuma once," she leaned in towards her friends and whispered, "Nathaniel when he was Evillustrator."
"And when Alya became Lady Wifi again because of Puppeteer, I explained to him the situation, and then there were a couple more instances where we spoke, but it's not like we're friends or anything," she laughed nervously at the end.

"From the sounds of it, he seems to like you. Promise me if you two start dating, you'll let me know, right?" Alya teased.

"Alya!" she whined in response. "He's a superhero and I'm - I'm, well I'm just me. There's no way, don't even joke. Besides, doesn't he seem to like Ladybug?"

"Of course, I was just teasing you. And hey, none of that! You're awesome girl. Chat Noir would be lucky to have you."

Marinette just stuck her tongue out at her playfully.

"Ladybug and Chat Noir really are perfect for each other, but I don't think Ladybug's realized it quite yet," Alya mumbled offhandedly while she got the contents of her bag out onto her desk to be ready when Ms. Bustier walked through the door.

Marinette and Adrien both stiffened in their seats. She glanced down at Adrien, and protested loudly in her head that she was wrong because Adrien was like the sun, something she could never be without.

He on the other hand was shouting in his head about finally somebody seeing what he had felt all along. She even knew that Ladybug just didn't realize that they were meant to be together, like he did.

"Sometimes people deny their feelings for someone, when that deserves a chance, just because they hold somebody else on such a high pedestal that they can't see what's actually right next to them," she added pointedly, looking particularly at Adrien when she said this. However, both of them took her words to heart.

"Okay class!" Ms. Bustier walked in then, hoping to bring the class to silence. "Please take out your homework from last night so we can go over it before we begin learning anything new."