dun dun dun? so here is the answer to the cliff hanger I left you all on last chapter. Sorry it took a while, my Granddad died so ive been a bit... yeah...
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new POV, drop me a review to tell me what you think. Those reviews are really keeping me going right now and i wouldn't be as excited to update the new chapter without them. To everyone that has reviewed already, Thank you from the depths of my heart ~Midnight
Adrien looked blankly at the paper for a few minutes, silent both in his mind and outwardly, waiting for what he could see there to register.
Lain out in excruciating detail was a pattern for a particular item of clothing that he would recognize anywhere. The list of colors where she had crossed them out and circled blue, the material, the measurements... everything. On the very edge of the pattern, with an arrow coming off of it saying to do so in a faintly lighter color than the rest so that you only could see it if you knew it was there, was Marinette's signature needle work.
He blindly reached to his side and picked up his bag, pulling it out and bringing the end of the material closer to his face to inspect it. Not surprised when he found the very faint blue writing in the stitching at the end. Marinette. It was just like a smaller version of the stitching on the hat she had made for the competition. He could have cried, or laughed bitterly maybe, he knew his father would never be that nice to him.
He frowned, thinking about the day that he had received this scarf, his birthday, Natalie had come in with it and he tried to remember what she had said. It must have been very last minute. Natalie must have just gotten rid of whatever not Marinette had put on it and used it instead.
Although he couldn't remember what Natalie had said about it, the memory he did think of hit him like a ton of bricks.
The day afterwards he had seen Marinette and Alya outside of school and Marinette had looked so damn happy when she saw him that he thought she might burst. And it completely disappeared once Alya complemented his new scarf and he had gleefully told them both, to Marinette's face, that his dad had gotten it for him. He knew something had been off about her expression when she had watched him go into school. He hadn't liked how her face had changed back then, and now he knew why he felt like the most horrible person in the world.
She must have spent hours on this scarf, hand stitched and cut. To have that attributed to someone else, when that was obviously the reason she had been so happy, must have absolutely crushed her.
To make matters worse, on the next page over there was an incredibly detailed drawing of him wearing the scarf, every angle, every shadow, even different textures for his clothes.
Dated two days after his birthday with her delicate signature in the bottom corner.
The day after she found out that he had no idea the present was hers.
He raised his head to look at Marinette herself in real time, seeing how tight she was curling in on herself, like she was about to disappear or at least was trying to. He didnt want that. She must think he was terrible. And he loved that scarf. No, not loved, still loves.
It might no longer be a rare gift from his father, but it was warm and soft and he had kept it with him everyday since he got it, not because it was from his father but because it made him feel loved.
Somebody cared enough to make him something. It had always carried a faint smell of what he would consider a homely aroma, fresh baking from her home he realized, even though his home had never smelt like that. He would forever love this scarf, no matter who it had come from originally.
There was only one thing he wanted to know now, one thing that he needed to know.
"Marinette..." He could see her flinch, and that made him pause for a second, what did she think he would do once he found out? he stayed silent for a moment as she raised her eyes to him, just peeking out over her arms. He took that as his go signal. "...Why didn't you tell me?"
He watched her stare at him while he imagined she was finding her words, noting a vague blush.
"You looked so... happy. when you thought it was from your dad I mean. How could... how could I get in the way of that? and besides... I was just happy that you were happy" He sighed. This girl was wholly selfless. He considered what she said.
He would have been equally happy to have received this scarf from anybody, sure it made him more than a little angry and upset that his father hadn't actually gotten him any birthday present, but it wasn't a massive surprise because he knew that normally he either ordered something expensive that had nothing to do with Adrien or got Natalie to get something.
He got off of the root bench (as he had started referring to it) and stood up, Marinettes head drooping again as if she thought he was leaving. Really, did she think so little of him...? And he held out his hand towards her to help her off of the floor before she disappeared completely back into herself. This earned him a completely perplexed look from the girl before she complied, gently taking his hand as though he might shatter and allowing herself to be pulled up. Standing before him with her head bowed.
He took the scarf, one end in each hand, and looped it around her before pulling her closer to him and enveloping her in the biggest, most sincere hug he could muster. Something that he never thought he would be doing with her to be honest.
A lot of those occurrences were happening today.
She kept surprising him and he then in turn surprised himself with his responses. He stayed quietly hugging her for a little while, allowing himself to enjoy it a little bit to be honest, the way that her body fit perfectly against his that he had noticed back on the rope swing. Shaking his head of the thought as it most definitely wasn't a good idea to fantasize when he was already in love with Ladybug, he lent back looking down at her with a small smile.
"Marinette, if anything like this ever happens again, I want you to tell me. Yes I am upset that it was not a gift from my father, as it means he did not bother this year" She again flinched at that but he stubbornly and quickly plowed on ignoring the empty feeling in his chest when he had said it.
"But he was the one that taught me that designing something is putting your heart and soul into it and it becomes a little piece of you. I love this scarf and I love it all the more to know that it is one of a kind and made only for me, and to know that you did it from scratch makes me feel like somebody cares, I can see how much you put into this just from that one piece of paper"
Her eyes were getting wider with each word that came out of his mouth and he had to admit that it was absolutely adorable.
"Its ironic really, the son of a famous fashion designer has never been given an item of clothing personally designed for him and only him, until a shy girl in his class found out it was his birthday"
She blushed deeply then, looking away a bit and he chuckled. Breathing in slightly he caught a faint whiff of something that he would recognize anywhere. He grinned then, watching her face as she registered it and seeing the small frown of confusion make itself known.
"I did wonder why the scarf always smelt of cinnamon and vanilla, I guess I have you to thank for that too" She blinked owlishly at him for a couple of seconds before laughing.
Genuinely laughing.
A light laugh that made his heart skip a beat and his brain fog over. He was completely struck dumb by it. Normally Marinette wouldn't be able to string a full sentence together around him, but today, today she was laughing while he still had her trapped partially against him with a scarf. Normally if he got within close proximity to her then she would scream and jump a mile, but today they had more body contact than he had received from anybody excluding Ladybug in years.
It was one hundred percent amazing, wonderful, brilliant and as many other words that he could muster in the moment and he had no idea how to react to it. Here in this little corner of the universe that he called his own, he had tried the roof first but it felt empty and lonely without Ladybug there and his house being a constant and empty reminder of his absentee (and apparently much more neglectful than he had originally thought) father, he felt at home. This was the same feeling he got when he was whizzing around rooftops with his lady. The company mixed with the absolute freedom to express himself without judgement.
She was still laughing when he returned from his dazed state, but it was less powerful now, drifting off as she tried desperately to compose herself. That wasn't working so well he noticed. It looked like she was trying to get some sort of words out still under the euphoria of whatever had made her laugh so hard in the first place.
She did get there in the end though. The effort made him chuckle.
"You know, if I knew you were this much of a dork, I might not have been so nervous around you" it was his turn to blink. It was like talking to his lady now all over again, she always said he was a dork. What had he done that was so dorky this time...? And was that the reason she was always stuttering around him? She had been nervous about what exactly... his money? previous friendship with Chloe? Fame? It stumped him but he wasn't going to push it because she seemed to have relaxed completely now.
His brief fl-compliment attempt must have been the icebreak- Ah.
The flir- complementing her on the smell was him being a dork. Oh who cares actually, it was flirting and he knew it, no need to pretend the intent was different even in his own head. Flirting never harmed anybody and it didnt mean he liked Ladybug any less.
He got it now though. Thats when his lady always says it, just after he says something flirty. Either that or when he tries to show off and fails miserably due to his bad luck. A single thought crossed by the forefront of his mind.
Careful Adrien, your Chat is showing.
He laughed a little nervously after that train of thought before moving swiftly onward with a dopey grin.
"I'd love to say you are wrong, but you aren't the only person to point it out so it must be true"
"see? im an excellent judge of character" she stopped briefly, her head tilting to one side as she thought about something, it was actually really cute. His love life or lack thereof, he thought vaguely, was about to take a serious turn in an odd and completely unexpected direction. He waited for her to continue whilst wondering where the hell that had come from and what it meant for his love of Ladybug. This was moving horrendously and wonderfully fast in his brain.
"You know, now that ive seen you like this, I wasn't actually that far off with my mistake this morning" She laughed a little more, obviously finding whatever it was hilarious. "You are so acting like Cha- uh... Like I imagine Chat Noir would" This made him stop stock still for a second, brain racing. Should he go along with it? Does she know? Has she realized? But something in the way she had said it made him think otherwise, that she was just making a comparison.
What were actually the chances that he was Chat Noir anyway? well... 100% but she didnt know that.
He rapidly tried to cover up this momentary panic and decided on option number one. Just go with it. He remembered her sketches of herself as his lady, grinning again.
"If I am the handsome Chat Noir, does that make you the beautiful Ladybug?" There was the flirting again, but if she was going to compare him with his more adventurous side she might as well get the full package. He paused briefly when he felt her body still itself in his arm as he had done moments earlier. Wait. In his arms. Crap. He'd never let go of her. How could he not realize something like that?
But he couldn't and wouldn't let go as quickly as humanly possible. Why? well because he kinda liked it, but mainly just so that she didnt turn back to being uncomfortable with him again. If he dropped her like a hot potato completely out of the blue then that was a very likely outcome.
His solution would be to wait for her to notice. Yeah. That sounded like the best plan. Then he could pretend to have blanked it this entire time and keep hold of her for as long as possible.
God. He really was a dork.
After that brief second of stillness, she became animated again, laughing once more but more controlled this time. A soft giggle. She held up a fist in front of her in a gesture he had both initiated and returned a million times now.
Inwardly pouting because it meant that despite his admittedly not very well thought out plan that he would have to let go of her now to return it. At least she was less likely to notice this way. Lifting his own hand away from her and letting the other drop inconspicuously to his side holding the scarf, he held his own fist up and they bumped them together.
The mission accomplished fist bump that he had put in place early on in his partnership with Ladybug. Marinette seemed so much like her in this moment, her confidence higher than he had ever seen her around him made the comparison he had made at the beginning of the day seem completely unfair.
This girl had confidence to spare. Thinking back, she always had been very quick to stand up to Chloe, and Nino had mentioned how sassy she could be. He had just never seen it for himself.
But before him now, there she was. It was stunning.
"Then I guess that makes us partners then, doesn't it Kitty cat?" He couldn't have been any happier with that and laughed softly at the nickname Ladybug always used for him, shrugging nonchalantly and looping the scarf around her neck and wrapping it up. Enjoying the blush that spread on her cheeks as he did so, he responded in kind, using his own name for her in return and taking a swooping bow, maintaining eye contact.
"Whatever you say My Lady." He winked and she laughed again. Oh how that sound reverberated in his ears.
"Alya is going to have a fit if she hears you calling me that" And that was that. For the rest of their extended lunch break they stayed there, the easy banter flowing free and fast, Adrien completely let go of his civilian personas walls as if they had never been there in the first place. He felt the same as when he was suited up, but here he can ask all sorts of questions.
There was no hiding information from each other to keep a hold on their secret identities like there was with Ladybug, or he should probably refer to her in his head as his number on lady from now on to avoid confusion, because him and Marinette had picked up the extra nicknames like glue. There were attached to them now. Both sides of Adrien now came under the same umbrella.
Whilst it was a little bit concerning how close she was to his second life, he wasn't that worried about it as she would never have the opportunity to find out, really find out.
It wasn't as if they talked about anything specific, just talked, and the time flew past. He learnt that she actually lived above her family's bakery, that all of her best designs were conceived at 4am when she hadn't been able to sleep at all, that although she had tried various perfumes before everything she wore still smelled like fresh baking. That one made him laugh, gesturing to the scarf and mentioning what a good smell it was though. She blushed a lot but never went back into her previous shell either, a nice balance.
He laughed even harder when she told him that her favorite animal was a cat. Promising her that the next time he saw Chat Noir that her dirty little secret was out. That earned him an eye roll obviously meant to say 'yeah right'. The fact that she had just said this to Chat Noir made him laugh even harder, much to her annoyance and confusion.
He couldn't understand her embarrassment when he asked her what her favorite color was only to hear the mumbled answer green. He didnt get it, there wasn't anything embarrassing about liking green. The place they were now was predominately green leaves, his eyes were bright green. It was a nice color, not something to blush about. The blushing only deepened when he told her that his favorite was blue. Well it was the color of Ladybugs eyes specifically, and he couldn't say that. Marinettes too if he looked close enough. That set his own blush off.
They continued on this way right up until they heard the bell ring in the distance, learning these little factoids about one another. And by the time they had started walking back to class, it felt like they had known each other for years. Not the brief moments they had spent together that could only have accumulated to about a day or two of speaking time over the whole school year. Most of which was today.
And when Chloe nearly had a heart attack as they walked into class with her arm looped through his, Marinette wearing the precious scarf that everyone thought his father had made specifically for his birthday -except Alya, he shivered slightly when Marinette told him how angry she had been about it- they both shared a look and burst into laughter before making their way to their desk, her returning the scarf once they had sat down. Their desk. All because of a seating change. If the teacher thought Alya distracted Marinette, they were definitely in for a surprise now.
They settled into their chairs, and after a few minutes of gawking from everybody. Literally everybody. Even the teacher. Life resumed as normal.
Well, as normal as it can do when your life has drastically changed in under 24 hours.
They were both in for one hell of a ride. Adrien grinned behind his hand were he lent on it, watching the teacher write on the board, absentmindedly taking notes. He could tell it was going to be worth it.
So that was probably a bit anticlimactic for a lot of you, expecting something else?, but it really pissed me off that Natalie and Gabriel did that and I really wanted Adrien to know who the scarf really came from.
So peace out ~Midnight
