The Blanket Fort
The parents wanted the kids to stay in the same house with them. That was a tiny hotel they have chosen for the closeness with the local people. It was the choice of Marinette's uncle, the famous chef, as he always looked for inspirations and new ingredients. The room they slept in the first time was not taken, but this time, they did not have their sleeping bags. The room was small and not heated and it was the only spare room available. The only other space they could use was the large common living space with the dining table and several pieces of furniture that were used as sofas. The biggest benefit was that it was much warmer. After they have not slept in a proper bed for almost two weeks, the kids looked forward to sleeping on the floor.
They collected all the extra blankets and pillows from the adults (that they could spare) and Marinette insisted to build a pillow fortress while the others took turns checking the two sofas. Ling quickly booked one sofa and threw herself on it. She was exhausted and ready to go to sleep, but her mouth kept chatting about everything they did and everything that happened.
Marinette found a way to build a blanked fort using the chairs and distributed the cushions on the floor in between. She collected all the cushion from the chairs, two sofas, bench in the hallway and a few she found in the small storage room. Adrien really enjoyed building the fort with her. She was missing everything she used at home and yet she managed to find a replacement for it.
Adrien stacked the chairs in a row as he continued what Marinette did.
"These are all the pillows I could collect." The girl said as she carried a pile that was higher than her head so she did not see where she was going. Adrien caught her before she tripped and took the pillows from her and then they distributed them on the space between the two rows of chairs.
"Okay, what do we do now?" Adrien asked as he spread the blankets. Marinette turned a few chairs to her liking and then spread one blanket.
"Let's see how big they are." She proposed. "At home I would use sheets, but ..."
Adrien grinned. He could not remember if he ever built a fort in his life. They spread all four blankets and in the end Marinette connected all four on one corner and tied them up with the thinnest one. Then they spread the blankets over the chairs and got a small tent like space below the blankets.
Adrien laughed the whole time, called her Princess and pretended to be the her knight.
"Hey it is dark in here, Princess." The boy joked as he crawled into their castle.
"We could bring in some light." She replied while she peeked out between the blankets to see if she could find anything appropriate, but all the lamps were attached to walls or the ceiling.
Ye laughed and Ling screamed with joy. Until someone knocked on the door and warned them it was late and they should be quiet.
"You know, you used all the blankets to build that thing, we have nothing to cover ourselves." Ye complained.
"Let's go and find if they have any more blankets to spare." Ling proposed as she got to her feet and the two older teens got out from the room.
"They are right." Marinette surveyed what she built and sneaked into the space that was hidden from the rest of the room by the blankets. "Perhaps we could remove a few blankets and still build it or maybe we can use something else." She was on her knees in the middle of the fort and raised her hands above her head as she tried to untangle a few blankets that were connected by one corner each in the central point without making the whole structure fall apart.
Adrien crawled back into the tent after her. He waited to hear the door had shut to know that the two of them were alone. They spent so much time together, they were barely apart in the last two weeks and yet they were seldom alone, and even when they were, they were about to fight, or to scheme a plan of attack or bring water or deal with the kwami or … or they were just too consumed with everything that happened. But now they should have about ten minutes of alone time and the boy had a plan, or better a thought, a wish to do something. And this looked like a good opportunity, the best he could hope for in the next few days anyway. He knelt in front of her and wrapped his arms around her.
"Princes, please do not take apart our castle." He spoke quietly in her ear. He nudged her earring with his nose and then held her closer. As if he needed her closeness to collect courage for what he wanted to do. That was his lady he held, that was his Ladybug, the everyday and the magical one, all in one person.
She shivered from the gentle tone of his voice and suddenly realized she was in his arms. She lowered her hands put on his shoulders. As they were both on their knees and she was on a thicker pillow there was barely any difference in height. She noticed how close his face was. Very close, too close, she could not see him straight, it was dark, he was warm, she felt his breath one her face. What was he doing? Was there something wrong?
"Adrien?" She squeaked. He smiled. They were finally alone and unsupervised (save the two kwami who were hopefully asleep in Marinette's purse). Her blue eyes were so wide. How he never noticed those blue eyes on Marinette before? He did. He just never noticed they were exactly the same as Ladybugs. That was what prevented him to see them as the same.
"Your charming knight at your service." He smiled gently. It was dark in the blanket fort as all the sources of light were outside. Marinette mentioned they should bring some source of light into the fort before, but right now, Adrien was happy she did not. He felt the warmth in his cheeks. He could feel the heat radiated from her cheeks too. That was encouraging as well as scaring him. Because he knew how she felt, after everything they told each other, she was not going to push him away. Probably. She was his lady, after all.
"Charming?" She hitched a breath. Yes he was charming. He was most definitely charming. His warm green eyes were so bright, she could see them clearly. She felt the heat wash over her face, she knew she was blushing. Why was he so close? Was he cold? Was he scared? He did not look that way. It was not the same feeling as when they were going to sleep. He had some kind of fire in his eyes.
"Yours." He whispered again. That was the word. That was the word that had sucked all the air from her lungs and all the blood from her brain and all that was left was a light cotton fluff that prevented any thought to surface.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was going to do that. They already told each other how they felt. But they never did anything about those feelings. There was just too much of everything. He learned his lesson, he did not try to make a move in the middle of the battle. And after the battle … well, let's say that was not the first thing that crossed his mind.
"Do you think, maybe, we could … kiss?" He whispered. The next second they were kissing. It was not even a conscious move he did not know when exactly he closed those last centimetres, neither did she. Just one moment he was asking the question and the next moment their lips were connected. They did not think what to do, they just let their feelings guide them for a while. Then they let their lips disconnect but their foreheads were connected.
Adrien was giddy, he kissed his lady and he could expect to remember this particular kiss. Finally he had a kiss to remember. She was completely dazed. Perhaps she fell asleep and was dreaming. She had not dreamed about kissing the boy for a long time. She stopped dreaming about that, she made herself stop, because it was wrong to dream about kissing your friend. And now she kissed him. Or it was him who kissed her? She was not sure. She found she did not really care about such details.
And then they kissed again. It was light and confused and they still did not know what they were doing but it was okay because it was with the person they wanted. They parted when they heard the door squeak open.
Marinette looked at Adrien like a deer in the headlights. Adrien stared at her for a moment but then he remembered her words and looked up.
"How do you untie those blankets?" He pretended to sound casual as if nothing had just happened. He knew that who ever was at the door could not see them, just maybe their feet under the blanket fort. He smirked once more and gave Marinette one more quick kiss and then let her go and grabbed the knot that the girl created before when she tied the blankets together. He tried to untie it but then quickly wrapped one of his arms back around her as she started to move.
"We got no more blankets, we need those that you tied up." Ling announced as she closed the door.
"I can sleep in the jacket and trousers." Ye offered. "It seems sufficiently warm." He wanted the kids to have their fort, particularly because Adrien wanted it, and he felt sorry for the boy.
"How many blankets do we have here?" Adrien asked quietly.
"Four." Marinette whispered.
"Can we untie them?" the boy smiled to the girl.
"Um, yes, just … " She raised her hands and pulled one end and they all untied. Adrien quickly grabbed two ends to keep their blushing faces covered. Two other blankets fell to the floor.
"So Marinette, you can take the other sofa." Ye offered. "And Adrien and me can sleep on the floor.
Marinette looked at Adrien's face, he was so close, then she peeked between the blankets towards the sofa and then back at the boy.
"You can, um, take the sofa?" She offered and blushed even more than before. Adrien grinned. He could not hide the 'yes' he screamed internally.
Ling grabbed the two blankets and separated them. She saw the faces on the two kids and closed them swiftly.
"Take the sofa, Ye." Ling said bluntly while she bent over to take the two free blankets and tossed a blanket in his direction.
"But." The boy complained, he felt guilty to take the sofa while the two younger kids, one of them a girl, would sleep on the floor. "She … would be … cold?"
"Take the sofa." Ling ordered and threw herself on the other sofa.
"Okay? You sure?" The older boy asked the blankets before him.
"Sure." Adrien replied with a small smile as he looked at the girl before him.
"Sure." Marinette squeaked.
Ye turned around and slowly proceeded to take a few steps towards the other sofa.
"You two plan to spend the rest of the night on your knees?" Ling asked teasingly.
"Um, no?" Marinette squeaked.
Adrien lowered his hands and the blankets fell to the floor. He looked at the chairs that surrounded them and the absence of the cover and looked disappointed.
"Give me that thin one, it is larger that the rest." Marinette asked. She tried to throw it over the chairs but failed. Her hands were not listening to her as they usually did, or perhaps her brain did not issue any coordinated instructions. Then Adrien understood and got on his feet. He grabbed the other two ends of the thin cover and they both threw the thin cover over the chairs together. They made a small tent. The ends did not reach the floor but they had a small space separated from the rest of the room, or at least the ceiling.
Then they both crawled underneath the cover and arranged the pillows. They kept moving them around and moving and moving until it became clear to both of them they were just postponing the inevitable and they looked at each other shyly. Adrien took her hand and pulled her to sit down, then he sat beside her and took the blanket. They lied down and covered themselves as they stared at the cover above them. The thin cover had tiny uneven holes from the errors done while it was hand made and the light that was shining through could be seen as tiny stars with a little imagination. And at that moment everything was magical to the two of them.
"I am not sure that this counts as proper supervision that we promised to aunt Sabine and uncle Tom." Ling teased. Ye snorted.
"As if we were paying attention up to now." He teased her back.
Both Adrien and Marinette stiffened a bit.
"Don't worry, she is just teasing you." Ye turned to the two kids. "Besides I can see you clearly. So you can go to sleep."
"Good night." Adrien spoke first.
"Good night." Marinette wished with a slightly higher pitch in her voice than usual.
"Good night." Ye said, turned around and closed his eyes.
"Good night lovebirds." Ling teased and looked for a reaction.
Marinette squeaked quietly and Adrien muffled his laughter. The older girl winked at the odd construction next to the dinner table and closed her eyes.
'I kissed him' Marinette repeated like a mantra 'No, he kissed me.' Came the next thought. 'We kissed each other' was the next thought. 'What is the difference?' she thought. 'Does it matter?' she asked herself again. She missed talking to Tikki, but then this was her own matter to resolve.
Adrien kept rolling the thought 'I kissed her' in his mind, 'I kissed My Lady' he repeated to himself, and this time he knew it was mutual, it was not an akuma attack and it was because they both felt the same. He looked for her hand under the blanket and squeezed it.
They breathed slowly and looked at each other until the weight of the day finally pulled down their eyelids and they fell asleep.