Marinette's depression carries for a little over two days, and even the best of Alya's efforts can't get her to unveil the reason why. She can tell that Alya's dissatisfied: her lips always purse after a failed attempt and she can sense the questioning glances the girl keeps flashing at her.
Nevertheless, after the fifth attempt and Marinette's lips still remained tightly sealed, Alya gives up trying to glean a reason and redirects her attempts to that of cajoling a smile instead.
Adrien has been absent for the remainder of the week, the reason, according to Nino when he'd been grilled by Alya, is that he had come up with a terrible fever. Marinette's concern somehow manages to reach through her grief to extract the appropriate questions in regards to his condition.
Nino only laughs lightly when faced with the assault, telling her, "He'll be fine, Marinette. Says he'll be back next week. I'm bringing his work around after school every day he's absent, so I'll be able to check up on him for you, if you like."
Though to be honest, a little of part of her is relieved that Adrien isn't here to see her wallow in her grief while Alya fusses over her like a mother hen.
Her concern is something Marinette deeply appreciates, and, for the sake of pleasing her dear friend, she does try to attempt a smile or two, laugh at a deliberate joke. But when Alya ropes in Nino into the not-so-covert operation of coaxing Marinette out of her depression, she can tell that her best friend is wholly unconvinced.
But there's nothing she could tell, short of citing a broken, devastated heart.
She can't explain that; even after hours of practice in front of the mirror, after consulting Tikki, she doesn't think she can explain to Alya how deeply she's grown to love Chat. How she has just realised that she hadn't just loved him, but has been in love with him for a length of time, the beginning of which she had no idea when.
Maybe it began with a smile, a soft laugh, a gentle jostle. Maybe it was when they flew and fell, when they reeled and sprung and Paris was always at their feet, waiting to catch them. Maybe it was when she began to recognise precisely the colour of Chat's eyes, map the shadows and trace the emotions, the joy and affection and courage and sorrow.
Truth be told, even phrasing the notion of being in love with someone besides Adrien to Alya is giving her a headache, much less when the person in question is Chat Noir, one-half of the superhero duo standing guard over Paris to keep it from falling into the hands of peril.
So, it's Tikki to whom she pours the entire contents of her heart out.
"Poor Marinette," her little Kwami manages to say, stroking her cheek as she wept into her arms, soaking the sleeves of her shirt with the salt of her tears.
It's long past school, the sun has slanted in her window, and her parents had closed up shop and gone out for dinner, convinced of the jovial facade she'd managed to pull throughout morning and evening. Now, she thinks with some relief, she can cry in peace.
"I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do."
"It's not your fault, Tikki," she says, taking the tissue hovering before her in tiny paws. "It's mine. It's always been mine."
Tikki's is silent. She chews her tiny lip, expression screwed into genuine concern. "Don't blame yourself, Marinette. You didn't know."
"That's the thing, Tikki," she says, softly, blowing her nose. "I did know, somewhere in my heart. I knew Chat's pick up lines weren't just jests. I knew there was something to it when he took my hand to kiss it, but I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see anyone but Adrien."
She throws her hands out and laughs bitterly to the ceiling. "What has that gotten me? Two years worth of a pathetic crush that had barely moved an inch since middle school."
"That's not true." Tikki floats nearer so she's closer to her face, and Marinette has no choice but to look into her blue Kwami eyes. "There is progress. You talk to Adrien now. You're more than just friends. I think he really cares about you. "
"Really, Tikki," she sighs, slumping. "Now you're just repeating what Alya said."
"I'm just stating what I saw." Tikki shrugs, lands gracefully over her monitor to sit. "Alya has solid points, actually. You shouldn't refute them so easily."
"Adrien!" She throws her hands up in defeat, in true anguish. "I used to call him my prince, you know. Gorgeous and faraway. And it would've stayed that way if that stupid Chat Noir hadn't waltzed in and called himself my knight."
"Don't say that," Tikki chides gently. "You said it yourself: Chat Noir is your other half. Ladybug can't exist without him."
"He says he doesn't love Ladybug anymore." On her lap, her fingers twist, joints knotted together. "I should've expected it because I had never given him the time of day."
"He loves you." Tikki grabs both her hands, quick to reassure. "He loves you just as you loved him before. He cares deeply for you, Marinette. Never make the mistake of forgetting that."
Just like how you love a best friend, she thinks, and is just about to say when there's a tap, soft, barely there that she had to swivel her head around to listen.
Tap. Tap.
She looks up. It came from the roof.
She exchanges a glance with Tikki. "Who could it be?"
"Can't hurt to find out."
Tap.
Somehow, Marinette chokes out a raw laugh. "You do know the amount of times that statement has gotten me into trouble, don't you?"
Despite her teasing, she gets up anyway, walks across the room, and turns on the tap on the sink. The mirror above shows a pallid girl, cheeks and eyes red. She tries to scrub away as much of the glazed misery as she can and had just barely achieved 'presentable' when the fourth, fifth, and sixth taps drum from above.
"I hope I don't look like something from a horror movie," she mutters as she ascends the ladder to her bed.
"You look fine Marinette," Tikki calls at her from below, just as she pushes the trap door open and a gust of cold wind slinks in from the open square.
Against the railing, a black-clad figure stands. He straightens at the sight of her, runs his hands through his feathery hair as his lips pull into a shy smile.
She almost falls back down into the hatch.
"Whoa, there!"
Chat Noir bounds forwards; in barely a heartbeat, he'd caught both her forearms, gloved fingers holding her tight, keeping her steady. He dips his head to meet her eyes and she swears her knees shook a little.
"Need a hand up?"
Her gaze flits away; she refuses to give herself a reason to let the heat spread any further than her cheeks. "Since you're already halfway there, might as well," she mutters, gruff.
The words had just barely left her mouth when she finds herself lifted out of the hatch. He sets her down gently, hovers for a moment longer as she sways on her feet, and finally steps back to a respectful distance when he deems she won't run the risk of falling again.
He watches her carefully with keen, cattish eyes as she tries to regain her ability to stand.
"What are you doing here?" The question came out sharper than intended.
His smile is intact, but she sees, barely there at the edges, the slow, creeping hurt. "I've caught you at a bad time, I see. Sorry, Marinette."
She sighs, hugs herself. She says, without looking him in the eyes, "No, now's a good time as any, I guess. What is it that you want from me, Chat?" This time, she tries to mould the question into a milder tone.
There's a flicker of hesitance in his green irises, a falter in his smile that he schools away to say, "I actually came to collect a promise you owe me, but seeing as I might have imposed myself on what I assume is an inconvenient hour, I guess it doesn't matter."
Damn those eyes. "It's okay, Chat. I wasn't doing anything." She barely catches the words 'except crying' from flying out. "I don't remember making any pacts with you, though."
"You promised me cookies." A lock of his fair hair flops into his glass green eyes. "For the last time I'd saved you from a particularly…" -he pauses searchingly -"colourful Akuma."
Oh, she remembers that. She'd been in the scene as Marinette and had needed a safe place to transform, and so in the guise of a damsel in distress had let Chat whisk her away to what he assumed is a safe location. She doesn't remember how, but he'd somehow wheedled the promise of cookies as repayment for his dashing rescue. (She had complained to Tikki when he was gone, though, and Tikki had giggled and said that if cookies were repayment, Chat Noir had certainly earned the right to the entirety of her father's bakery. Marinette rebuked rather hotly that she had saved him far more times than he had ever saved her.)
She deliberates the idea of inviting him in for a second longer than she should have. Chat, unexpectedly gentlemanly in the chilly twilight, doesn't come any closer. The way he looks at her from behind his mask is patient and polite. There's a readiness to his stance too, she notices, the way only half his body is facing her while the other points to the metal railing. As if he's expecting her to say no. To send him on his way.
She sighs deeply, not so much directed at Chat as it is directed at herself.
"Wait here," she says, turning, flinging herself down the trapdoor a little more forcefully than she should have.
Tikki zooms at her when she comes to bottom of the ladder, unsurprisingly horrified. "Did I hear that right or was that Chat Noir?"
"It is the stupid cat," Marinette grumbles. She rubs her sleeve against her raw eyes again and hauls the door on the floor of the her bedroom open. "I have to give it him: his timing can either be called detestable or impeccable."
"What does he want?" Tikki dives down the hatch to hover at the bottom.
"Cookies. Can you imagine that?"
Tikki says nothing more as Marinette descends another set of stairs that would take her to the bakery. Vehemently, she snatches a paper bag from the counter and slips into the kitchen for her father's day-old cookies. As she piles them in the bag, Tikki flies next to her head and asks, "Marinette, are you okay?"
Marinette only manages a garbled response that is part an expression of irritation and part a sob.
"Why didn't you send him away then?" Tikki asks, hovering in concern.
Marinette flashes her a wry smile filled with self-deprecation. "Because for some unexplainable reason, I can't do it."
She turns away, unable to stomach the sympathy in Tikki's eyes. More cookies suddenly drop into the bag, and not by her hand. Her fingers falter for a short moment as Tikki eases another cookie through the mouth of the bag without another word. She smiles at her Kwami, heart leavening when she receives one in turn, and gestures her away gently when she's sure the bag contains more than enough of Chat's share.
She leaves the jar out for Tikki and trudges up with the paper bag, careful not to trip on the way.
It's almost completely dark when she pokes her head out, only a smattering of stars between the swirls of clouds. Chat is crouched on the railing, his back to her, the belt looped around his waist dangling like a tail between the steel bars. His sharp ears prick at her soft steps, and he swivels around by the torso, glances at her with something like surprise in his eyes. Gracefully, he unfolds from his crouch, stands precariously on the banister with balance unusual to a boy of seventeen. Before she can open her mouth to automatically chide him though, he leaps down right in front of her, so sudden and startling that she drops the cookies.
With stealthy reflexes, he catches the bottom of the bag just as she regains her grip on the folded top.
It's brief, the moment when they meet each other's eyes, hold and stay.
She lets go of the bag first, furiously looking away.
The silent stretches for a moment longer before she hears him softly ask, "Were you crying, Marinette?"
She starts. "No, I -" she rubs her eyes, desperate to erase the evidence.
He smiles gently. "This cat's no stranger to a lady weeping, I'm afraid."
"I'm sure you've made many girls weep," she replies a bit sourly.
He sighs heavily. "I like to think not because it makes me sad too."
She stares at him from the corner of her eyes. He doesn't look like he's teasing; his unhappiness over the thought is genuine.
If he knew it had been because of him what would he have said? she wonders, and the urge to tell him, to call Tikki up from her room and transform her then and there is so strong, that she has to fight to push it back down, lock it in a box.
To distract herself, she tries to make herself think about something else. "What happened to your throat, Chat?"
His hand flies up, brushes soft fingers over the gauze wrapped over his bell, as if just realising that it's there. "Just a minor nick. Hardly a cat's scratch, nothing to worry about. Happened when Ladybug and I were trying to save Paris from our latest Akuma."
"The Poet, right? I heard about him." Her eyes linger on his throat, a frown forming. "How is it?"
"It's healing," he says, and his tone sounds gently reassuring. "It gets better every time I transform because -" He stops, as though catching himself in the middle of a train of thought. He smiles at her ruefully. "I'm afraid that's a secret."
She nods. She knows how the Miraculouses work: every time they transform, they share their Kwamis' energy, so Kwamis can direct a portion of their strength into their holder's body to accelerate the healing process of injuries. At present, his Kwami must be trying to coax the tissue to heal, the cut to close.
"Does it hurt?"
"Hardly."
She studies his expression intently; he doesn't seem to be lying so she relaxes, lets the thought go.
"Your concern for my well-being is flattering, Princess." He flashes a sideways smirk.
She scoffs lightly at him, and he laughs. She smiles too, but hides it quickly under the guise of a subtle cough.
"Quite a lot more than I was expecting," he teases, weighing the bag. "You're too generous."
"Since you're already here, why not?" She shrugs noncommittally, feigning indifference. "My father's going to sell those for half price tomorrow anyway."
Chat nods, courteous. "Well, beggars can't be choosers, and you've been very kind to a street cat who'd come only hoping for scraps."
"I'm not that mean," she says, lips tugged down with a frown, unhappy. "These may be a day old but I assure you they're just as good."
He bows his head in apology. "No, don't take it the wrong way! I didn't mean to imply anything that would offend you."
She can't seem stay mad at him.
"Why are you alone tonight, Chat?" she asks a little while later, cutting through a brief moment of silence. "Was there an Akuma attack? Where's Ladybug?"
His shoulders rise and fall in a fluid motion. "No Akumas, but it's been a stifling day. I needed to clear my head, and running on rooftops seemed like the best way. I guess, while I'm at it, I might as well patrol the city too."
"Do you do this often?" she asks curiously. "Patrol on your own?"
"Occasionally." She catches a glimpse of that devil-may-care smile. "My Lady can't be everywhere at once, so I try to do as much as I can to lighten the load."
Softly he adds, just under his breath, "We all have our lives."
The pain is like fog in her chest, gradual as poison taking root. It isn't much of a surprise to her to discover that Chat went on solo missions just as often as she, but hearing the reasons, valiant and unselfish, coming from his own lips did blossom in her a sort of wistful affection for the little black cat.
She hugs herself as another gust of wind runs its fingers through Chat's golden mane, catching wayward strands. "Well, you best get on then."
He doesn't.
He makes no move to leave as he stands across from her, bag of treats clutched in black gloved hands, pretty eyes looking ruminatively into her own.
"I was told that there's going to be fireworks tonight by the Tower." His eyes wander to the horizon, melancholic. "Can we see it from here?"
She swallows down her groan. Chat's eyes, when they turn back to her, are imploring, patient for an answer.
"Yes. Yes, we can see it from here."
It pushes at her throat, the desperate scream telling him to go away, to not torment her anymore, but just like air, it dissipates from her lips.
"Well." He jingles the bag of cookies. "I have snacks, if you would care to join me."
Despite the pain, despite logic telling her that it's a terribly bad idea to watch fireworks with Chat Noir when he's unknowingly the cause of her broken heart, she barks out a laugh and somehow can't find the strength in her to turn back, open the trapdoor, leave him there as she slips inside.
"You are… something, Chat. That you definitely are."
Infuriatingly, he smirks. "If by something you mean dashing and handsome and incredibly charming, then I agree."
"By charming you mean occasionally maddening, then I agree," she grumbles, coming forwards to hook her fingers over the railing, lean on her elbows to admire Paris' cold, aching beauty.
"You didn't refute dashing and handsome," he notes gleefully, sidling beside her; just by her right shoulder, close, but not touching. The same position he occupies when she's masked and plotting.
She rolls her eyes at him. "Chat, that ego of yours is going to be in for some bruising if you keep it up with me."
"I've always pegged you as a tough one." He bumps her lightly on the shoulder, friendly.
She physically refrains herself from bumping his back, which would have been her usual response, had she been Ladybug and Chat Noir is there to tease her.
She hears a rustle and notices that he's already reaching a greedy paw into the bag of cookies. He waves it under her nose as he munches happily. "Want some?"
She pushes his hand away. "I live in a bakery, Chat. I eat cookies every day. Those are all yours."
"No words can express my gratitude, Princess."
Though he says it with his usual eloquent finesse, much of the charm is lost in a mouthful cookies.
"Why don't you do this with Ladybug?" she asks, watching as he goes through his third cookie.
His chewing slows, stops. He takes his time swallowing even though just now he'd barely taken a breath between one chew and the next.
"I imagine Ladybug already has someone to watch the fireworks with," he says after a while. "She had always alluded throughout the few years of our partnership that there's someone that she loves. Someone she really cares about." He chuckles, soft. "I hope he realises what a lucky guy he is."
Unconsciously, she has begun to chew on her lip. Marinette quickly tucks her teeth back where they belong and tries to redirect her anxiety to her fingers, clamping down hard on the metal.
"You shouldn't assume. Ladybug might be just as lonely as anyone in the city right now."
Chat is silent for a while before he says, "I hope not. My greatest hope for Ladybug has always been her happiness."
She sighs softly.
"What about you?" He plucks another cookie and munches on it thoughtfully. "Why are you alone in such a lovely night? Didn't anyone invite you to come with them to see the show?"
She sighs. "A few did. My closest friends. But one couldn't come and I didn't have the heart to join the other two, so here I am."
"The one that couldn't come." She feels the warmth of his eyes on her, watching her. "Why couldn't he?"
"He was sick. High fever. I worry about him a little, but they all said he would be fine." She blows air between her lips. "I hope he will be."
"I'm sure he'll get well," Chat says reassuringly.
"What's your excuse?"
"Pardon?"
She stares at the distance, where the last dredges of light is being siphoned off the sky. "Why aren't you down there as yourself, not a superhero? With friends. With family."
"We can't always get what we want," he murmurs in answer, distant. There's hurt in his expression, vulnerability; inexplicable pain that she has never seen as Ladybug, when he is always Chat Noir, and not this mixture of lost boy and cocky superhero that she has yet to figure out.
"Are you lonely, Chat?"
He blinks, as if surprised to have been asked the question. "No," he answers, slowly, as if deliberating his words. "I have the best of friends. The best of partners. Between them and Ladybug, I've never felt alone."
"What about when they're not here, and you're not fighting crime with Ladybug?"
He gazes at her sideways, smiles a bitter smile. "I try to make do."
They hear a soft crackle, then the sound of rockets launching, the sizzle and spit of fire arching across air. They turn their heads to Paris' muted landscape, dulled by the fall of night. An explosion lights the entire city, tinges it with the green of emeralds, of Chat's eyes. More come at its tail: red, blue, exquisite turquoise. They leave behind smoke and scatter charred debris in the air. Some catch in her hair, flitter around Chat's dark suit and disappear.
"How beautiful," Chat mutters, wistful.
She nods, sighs. She leans her head against her palm and feels a twinge of guilt that Tikki isn't able to come join, that the poor thing is relegated to watching from the window of her room instead of under the gorgeous Parisian sky. She'll make up for it, she decides. She'll sneak in more of Tikki's favourite cookies and talk with her for the rest of the night.
A light brush of something against her hair makes her start. Chat's hand is still hovering over her head when she turns to look at him; he pulls it back, smiles, and rests his fingers back the on railing.
"Some of the stuff was getting in your hair," he says as a manner of explanation.
There's a bit of heat on her cheeks when she turns away. Chat's touch had been fleeting and gentle, a little like butterfly wings.
"I can't thank you enough, Marinette, for accommodating an uninvited guest. I guess Ladybug is right: I can be very selfish."
"That's not true," she automatically says, and has to stop herself from wincing because God, she should not have said the first thing that came to her mind out loud.
He laughs softly. "Well, maybe not. She did say it when were both fifteen. I think I must have been a real nuisance to her then."
"You were a bit annoying," she grudgingly admits. "Even to me."
"Think it's possible to forgive a cat's misguided attempts to impress a girl?"
She stares at a rocket spiralling into the night. "She'll forgive you. Ladybug's heart is not made of stone."
"What about you?" His voice is low.
"... I forgive you."
He smiles and it's genuine. Slowly, he folds himself into a bow; head dipped, red and blue and purple whirling across wisps of faint gold.
"That means a lot me." He rises with a playful smile and laughing eyes. "So long, Princess, and don't wait on me."
He winks, and like a shadow in the night, disappears. She makes out the outline of a lithe, slender boy leaping over the street, running over roofs, vanishing.
"Stupid cat," she says sinking her head into her hands.
