Author's note:
GAH! Too much fluff! The next chapter is mostly fluff as well. This fic is getting longer than I thought it would be. Also, I'm not really sure where this fic falls anymore in terms of ratings so:
*BE WARNED THIS HAS SOME SUGGESTIVE MATERIAL.*
It's not too terrible I swear, it's just teenagers trying (and failing) to keep their minds from being controlled by their hormones. Also, I think there may be a veiled dirty joke in it... I don't remember anymore.
Sorry for the late posting, but this week has been... eventful. Not in a good way. Midterms anyone? WELL HERE THEY ARE ANYWAY!
Happy Halloween!
Adrien was in class. School didn't get canceled for Akuma attacks anymore. Today, Adrien wished it had. He had a lot to mull over.
Adrien was recovering from the emotional strain of thinking that his Lady was dead. It was lucky he thought to kiss her.
He had kissed her.
Months of daydreaming, yearning, and pining and he finally kissed Ladybug. So why was he so… blasé about it? By all rights he should be on cloud nine, thinking nonstop about the kiss, it was his first, and it was with the girl he had been dreaming about for months.
But all that came to mind when he thought of his kiss with Ladybug, was sheer terror and the overwhelming relief of knowing that he would not have to live without his friend.
His friend. He mulled that over. He compared his feelings for Ladybug with his feelings from a month prior. There was a clear difference between the two. Before, Adrien had spent every spare thought on Ladybug. Their time together, their fights, wondering who she could possibly be, and imagining a future with her and their three adorable children.
Now? He still wondered who she was, still remembered their fights… but it was different somehow. As if he was seeing his friend as... just that. A friend.
What changed? Unbidden, his mind flooded with images of Marinette. Her smile, her laugh, her jokes, even her clumsiness filled him with warmth and comfort. His feelings toward her were different than anything he had ever felt for Ladybug. His feelings for Ladybug had been full of admiration, amazement, and awe, as well as a feeling of inadequacy that he could never fully overcome. She was anonymous, mysterious, and brave, but Marinette?
His feelings for Marinette were that of warmth and comfort. It was more subdued than what he had felt for Ladybug, and yet strangely, it felt far more potent. She was someone he wanted to share himself with, every mess-up, every triumph, everything. He also wanted to know everything about her, what her favorite song was, what games she played with her mom, what cookies she baked with her dad, what made her get up in the morning.
It went beyond friendship, he realized with a start. It was strange, he had thought that he would love Ladybug forever; now he was discovering that, while that may still be true, his love was shifting from romantic to… almost brotherly. He felt guilty. How could he be so fickle? How could his love shift so easily from one girl to another?
Even so, he was beginning to realize that his infatuation with Ladybug may have been nothing more than a celebrity crush. He didn't know her that well. He knew how she fought, and how she thought, but beyond that they were strangers. Marinette had shared more about herself in the last month than Ladybug had in the last year. Besides, Ladybug didn't think of him that way anyway. Maybe it was time to let her go, and take a chance with another girl. Mari said she liked him, right?
A plan burst into in his mind, fully formed. It was as if his subconscious had been dwelling endlessly on it. He would ask Marinette out as Adrien. They would probably have to keep a low profile, as Marinette didn't need rabid Agreste-Fangirls making her life miserable. Other than that, Adrien figured that his father wouldn't complain; Marinette was nice, and Adrien had seen Gabriel's praise of Mari's work. Chloe would probably cause another akuma with her bitterness, but she would cause an akuma no matter what, so might as well do something he wanted to do.
Never had it crossed his mind that he should ask her out as Chat. There was no way she would fall for him twice. What were the odds?
*MLMLML*
Marinette had fallen for Chat.
Marinette had been trying not to dwell on this fact by working on the finishing touches of Chat's formal outfit.
She had avoided everyone today. Especially Adrien. Even though she was over him, she still found that she couldn't look him in the eye after what had happened.
Marinette had flown through the air, prepared to snatch the wand from Sleeping Needle's fingers when she saw the girl turn. In a green flash, Ladybug knew she had failed.
Marinette had felt something warm and soft on her lips. She smelled the comforting aroma of leather and spicy-sweet cologne. Her eyes opened, and she saw blonde eyelashes brushing against leather-clad cheeks. Tears dripped from his closed lids as he kissed her, gently but desperately.
She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to hold him, and tell him that it would be okay. She would fix whatever it was that was making him cry. She would protect him. She would protect him like he had always protected her.
Every time he had taken a blow for her rushed through her mind. All those times that he had saved her, he had shown his love for her. Why had she always rejected his advances? What had possibly made her ignore the bravery and kindness of her partner? Why had she only ever saved him out of friendship and duty rather than love?
Fire burned through her, starting from the gentle press of his lips against hers. It burned away all thought, leaving only sensation in its place. She felt his ragged breath, his warmth, the tickle of his hair on her cheek, the feel of him cradling her head in his lap. She, who had set her life by logic and reason, was now learning the way of her heart.
She reached up to pull him closer, to run her fingers through his hair. She ached for more.
Chat had pulled away, relief and worry etched into his face. Ladybug saw to her dismay that while he was showing plenty of emotion, there wasn't any... desire in his eyes. He wasn't flustered, or embarrassed, in fact, he had been very business-like as he released the akuma for her to catch, and ran as she performed the Miraculous cure.
He didn't like Ladybug anymore. A lump grew in her throat. It stung at her eyes and gave her a headache that throbbed with each blink of her eyes. She detransformed in the girl's restroom. She walked to class and sat, immersed in her own thoughts, for the rest of the school day.
Chat Noir didn't feel anything for her anymore… but she had finally begun to feel something for him.
The irony was not lost on her. She began to laugh. She finally felt something for her kitty, right at the moment when she had lost his affections. A dam broke. Tears spilled from her eyes. She couldn't tell if she was laughing or sobbing.
There was a tight ache in her chest. It was a sense of loss and self-condemnation. If she hadn't been so blind, maybe she would wouldn't be sitting in her room heartbroken.
She sat on her chaise, knees tucked under her chin as if trying to protect her heart from further damage. She cried. She was so stupid. Apparently, she had a thing for boys who had zero interest in her. What a joke. What a cruel turn of fate.
What felt like an eternity later, her tears began to dry up, leaving Marinette feeling like she had been wrung out and hollow. Tikki, who had given Marinette her space, came out of the shadows now. Marinette needed a comforting hand. Tikki gave encouragements and reassurances that Marinette drank like water in a desert. Marinette had started to feel better, but her mind and limbs were heavy. Tikki suggested some rest.
It was late afternoon; too early to go to bed. She decided that she needed a nap. Or rather, she needed to curl up in some comfy clothes and cocoon herself in warm blankets. She set a timer so that if she managed to fall asleep, she would wake up with enough time to get her homework done before bed.
She burrowed under her covers, Tikki cooing soothing comforts into her ear. She closed her eyes.
*MLMLML*
She awoke. Confusion filtered through her foggy brain, the light was on the wrong side of the room. She looked at the clock. Late afternoon. Oh, she had taken a nap. The timer still had a half hour left on it, so what woke her up?
The knock sounded again. It came from the wrong direction. Her sleep-addled brain tried to process this. With a jolt, she realized that it was coming from the trap-door up to her balcony.
Chat was turning to leave when the trapdoor opened, and a disheveled Marinette appeared. Chat's breath caught. The loose, thin shirt accentuated her curves alluringly. The shirt drooped to one side, revealing a pale collarbone and shoulder. He cleared his throat, bringing his eyes up to hers.
"Early night, Princess?" Chat quipped. Marinette blushed, suddenly self-conscious.
"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting a knight in shining leather to come interrupting my beauty sleep." She mumbled. Her long dark lashes seemed to brush her cheeks as she looked away from him, her lips curled in an adorably angry pout.
"And what a beauty you are, Purrincess!" this made her blush more. Chat's brow creased in confusion. She was acting like she used to around Adrien.
"What a strange sense of beauty you have! I have bed head, and haven't wiped the sleep out of my eyes yet." She rubbed at her eyes. Chat nearly died of cuteness overload.
"Uh… y-yeah," Chat stammered, trying to regain his bearings "And you wear it so well!"
Chat could have kicked himself. You wear it so well? What the heck did that mean? Idiot!
"So, uh… let's see your clothes! Wait- that sounded wrong! I meant, uh… let's see my clothes! Wait- I meant-" Marinette giggled.
"Come here kitty, I'll show you the progress I have on yours and Ladybug's formal wear." She turned and led Chat a relieved down the latter.
"I haven't got all your accessories made yet, but I think I have most of Ladybug's. She said that she couldn't take off her earrings, so I made earring embellishments. They clip onto the earring and make it look different." she held up what looked like two pendants made of intricately looped golden wire with a small white yang symbols on them. He marveled at the craftsmanship. How did she make this?
She held up a necklace with a golden chain, on it was a pearlescent yang pendant. "I made the yin-yang stuff with some seashells I had lying around from the last time I went to the beach with my parents," she said, her tone casual. "I had to pick up some gold-plaited wire, fully gold wire would have been far too malleable. But the hair piece was the one that gave me trouble. At first I was thinking that I wanted to go with gold wire like the earrings, but then I couldn't get it to not get caught in hair. I tested it on myself, and I thought I was going to lose a good chunk of hair over it. So instead I went with red plastic embellished with gold leaf. I had a devil of a time cutting out a hole that was just the right size for that furshlugginer yang thing. I wound up having to buy a small sanding bit for my power drill." Chat looked at her sideways.
"What?" She asked.
"I didn't know you owned a power drill." Fashion designers didn't usually need power tools. Adrien tried to picture his father using one. He couldn't imagine it. Adrien had never touched one himself, his father felt that it was improper.
"Every girl needs a well-stocked tool set. My mom used to mooch off my tool kit, but she kept losing pieces of the set. Now I do all the repairs around the house because dad doesn't know a flat head from a philips, and mom kept losing my tools. How else do you think I make all my things myself? I made that chaise over there." she pointed to an overstuffed lounge chair, "I can't exactly do that with only a needle and thread."
Thoroughly awed, he decided to change the subject before he became a tongue-tied mess again. "So how is my outfit coming along?" he asked.
"Quite well, actually. I can't go much farther without a fitting though." She picked up a small black piece of cloth, and handed it to him. To his surprise, he found that it was a half- finished black silken mask.
"Why would I need this?" he asked. Marinette blew out a sigh of impatience.
"Well, you can't exactly go transformed, can you?" Chat looked at her, his expression clearly asking 'why the heck not?'
"Firstly, the clothes wouldn't fit very well on you, Ladybug has a fairly unadorned suit, but you have bells and whistles." She tapped the large bell on his neck.
"Besides, having you guys outside of your suit makes it so that I have more design options. I can actually have Ladybug showing some shoulder." Chat remembered that Ladybugs suit covered everything from the neck down. Point taken.
"And lastly, Ladybug told me that any clothes you wear tend to 'disappear- to be replaced by the suits', therefore from a tactical standpoint, if there is trouble in Paris you guys can just transform and have the cumbersome fancy stuff out of the way for fighting. No strip-down required." Chat Noir couldn't argue with that.
He grabbed the suit that she held out to him and asked, "Where should I change?" She turned beet red.
"Uh… well, I suppose that I could go up to the loft and you could erm… change underneath so I can't see you." Marinette walked stiffly up the stairs to her bed. Chat walked under the loft and waited until he heard a 'womf' that meant that she had flopped onto her bed. He let his transformation go with a green flash. Plagg drifted out of his ring
"Where's my- hey! This isn't your room! This looks like a girl's bedroom. What, did you finally get over your Lady-love?" The kwami asked suggestively. Adrien turned beet red.
"Shut up, it's not like that! Marinette needs to do a fitting for Chat Noir's clothes for the Gala." Adrien started to tie-on the mask before he started to undress, in case Marinette heard the conversation he was having and got curious. He was not unused to undressing with other people in the room. He was a model after all. What he was unused to was undressing in a girl's bedroom, not only that, but Marinette's bedroom.
"Alright, I think I'm done" Adrien started to gather up his clothes and quickly realized that his civilian clothes would be easily recognizable. His secret would be out if Marinette saw that Chat Noir wore the same outfit as Adrien on the same day that Adrien wore it. Adrien balled up his clothes and tossed them quickly under her desk. He smiled nervously as she descended the stairs
Ten minutes later Chat was standing in the middle of the room being poked and prodded by Marinette. Of course, he had experienced this kind of thing before, but it was different when it was done by someone he actually liked.
His discomfort was amplified when she started to pin the inseam of his slacks. He cast about for something, anything but the feeling of her hands trailing up the inside of his leg.
"Uh!" he started, louder than he'd meant to. She looked up, still kneeling in front of him. He forced his eyes to hers. He was doing his darnedest to be a gentleman. "Er… I notice you don't have any p-pictures of Prince Meringue. What happened?" he asked.
Great idea, genius! Ask her about her crush on you while she is… er… down there. You always know how to get out of trouble, don't you? Adrien thought to himself.
She shrugged. "I don't really feel that way about him anymore. I mean, I still have moments, but by-and-large I think that I am over him." Adrien's stomach flopped like he had missed a step walking up stairs.
"Oh. That's… good to hear." he tried to hide the sickening twisting in his gut. "So, does that mean that you have a new beau, Princess?" He tried to access Chat Noir, which felt awkward when he wasn't transformed.
"Maybe." she answered back. Chat's gut turned to ice. "I have recently discovered that I have taken a liking to a boy who had his eye on a certain polka-dotted heroine," she sighed. Anger bubbled through Chat.
"Who is this idiot? Why is he passing up someone as amazing as you for a stupid pipe dream?" this was the most civil response that passed through his head in that moment. A twinge of embarrassment passed though him; her love life was none of his business. Incongruously, she smiled.
"This boy is nothing like you, he is a bad boy who dresses in black leather, so you are right out monsieur goody-goody" she reached up and flicked his tie teasingly.
"WHAT? Who is this… t-this no good, half-baked poser?" his embarrassment was steam-rolled by his anger and jealousy. This jerk had the gall to woo his Princess? She deserved better! Chat's expression made her giggle.
"A boy with cat ears who runs around with Ladybug and saves Paris." She said, her tone almost patronizing. Huh? Wait, saves Paris? Marinette grinned at his obvious confusion.
She put her hand to her brow in an overly dramatic pose "And his puns are irresistible! I don't know how all the girls in Paris don't run away screaming" She feigned a love-sick sigh.
Oh… Oh! A light dawned.
Chat, who was catching on now said, "Yup, what an idiot! If I were him I would have asked you out by now!" his smirk matched Marinette's.
"Ah-ah! You forgot that he has the hots for Ladybug. I could never keep him from his precious Lady." her voice while light, seemed strained.
It seemed that she had guessed, but she still had doubts.
He knelt so that his eyes were at a level with hers. She avoided his gaze.
"Princess." he tilted her chin so that she would look into his eyes.
"I love Ladybug. I always will." She turned away. He placed a gentle hand on her cheek.
"She doesn't think of me that way. I don't think she ever will. Recently, I've realized that my love for her has changed from romantic, to that of a friend or sister. " She bit her lip, she pulled her eyes to his.
"And since I have started to spend time with a certain amazing designer" His eyes flicked around the room meaningfully, and back to hers.
"I have realized that there is an amazing, smart, creative, funny, and beautiful girl who would let me into her life." She blushed, her lips parted. Chat spoke again before she could start- he needed to say this.
"I would much rather spend my romantic energy on someone who will tell me her thoughts and dreams, " he smiled at the memory of a sleepy conversation in the wee hours of the morning.
"Or kick my butt at video games," he gestured to the computer where just two days ago she had thoroughly trounced him at every game he brought from his room. She laughed.
"Than someone who won't even tell me what her favorite color is," she smiled. He was surprised to find tears welling in her eyes.
He felt an overwhelming desire to kiss her, but didn't want to kiss a girl without her permission- magic revival kiss notwithstanding- so he pressed his lips to her forehead instead. He inhaled the scent of cinnamon, vanilla, and strawberry shampoo. It was so perfectly… Marinette.
When he pulled away, Marinette looked almost frustrated.
"Chat, I adore that you want to respect my boundaries. That said, from here on, if it feels right, go for it. I will tell you if I don't like something, if you will do the same. Agreed?" She asked. He nodded. He felt awkward. He had never done something like this before. Well, he had kissed Ladybug, but that was to save her, which didn't really count.
She gave an impatient sigh and pulled him in for a kiss. It was soft, sweet, and full of promise. Everything that a first kiss should be.
Chat Noir grinned like an idiot.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself, cat." Marinette scoffed, trying not to grin herself. His ego didn't need any fuel.
"Why ever not? I'm the cat that got the cream." he flashed a Cheshire grin at Marinette. "She was tasty too." he smacked his lips and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. She valiantly tried to groan, but was too busy laughing.
"How long have you been saving that one up for?" she asked, tears of mirth streaming from her eyes.
"Right around when I first saw your pretty face." He tried.
She rolled her eyes. "Not buying it. Stand up kitty, I gotta fix your jacket."
Author's Note:
The other day I was brainstorming ideas for this fic and I came up with a couple horror scenes. In the spirit of Halloween, I would be willing to publish these as a separate story (rated T for blood and horror). It will likely have some spoilers for this fanfic in it, but I can probably adjust it so that it's not too spoiler-y. Lemme know through PM, Email, or reviews if I should publish these scenes.
If I were to publish it, I would probably name it "Madame Blue" FYI.