7.Loving and Confessing

It was already past midnight and Chat Noir still sat on her sofa, having eaten all of her pizza, though she did not mind at all.

At least there was nothing to throw away and she swore to herself, that she eventually would bake a new pizza for the kwamis, but she knew, that her tiny friends wouldn't mind her guest either.

And weren't they curious themselves? Marinette could sometimes see them – peeking from behind the curtain, whispering with glee and surprise most noiselessly, but they were gone, before Chat Noir would have noticed them.

Though Marinette was still unsure about Chat's reasons for his late-night visit, for he did not talk about any topic, that might be bothering his mind.

… maybe because of the lingering presence of possible scolding words from his Lady – if he only knew, who was sitting across from him…

But for Marinette it felt just nice to have somebody there. She liked his presence and was a little angry with herself, for behaving so badly the first few times, they saw each other, again and after so many years.

… just like she refused to see Adrien in the eyes, when he had so happily embraced her earlier this day. She had merely talked with Lila about the payment and left without another word.

She mistreated that poor man as well…

… both times it hadn't been the fault of the two men.

So…. Yeah… maybe Chat was right, when he said, that she had turned bitter over these past ten years and maybe she shouldn't show her deepest feelings so much to everybody around her.

But… wasn't everybody changing, when they grew older? After all there was a difference in behaving like a 15-year old school girl or like a 25-year old woman, who had to witness a few ups and downs in her life.

So neither Chat Noir, nor Adrien were still the same and both shouldn't behave like nothing has ever changed.

… and… things have changed… She can't deny that – and they shouldn't do that, either!

Sighing she got up from a cushion, taking the baking tray in her hands and brought it back to the kitchen, vowing to herself, that she would clean it in the morning. She didn't want to leave Chat alone for too long.

Maybe he would want to talk.

…or maybe he would get too curious and accidentally find the Miraculous Box. And she certainly didn't want that…

When she returned she saw Chat, now standing, once more looking at the photographs in their newly bought frames – for many had been destroyed, when the thief broke in – and softly smiled.

"What is so funny?", she asked with raised eyebrows and stood next to him, facing the colored pictures as well – photographs of her and her friends. Of Maman and Papa. A cute little picture she had taken from Alya and Nino a few years ago, when they were out partying.

Some of these pictures were new, some only a few months, maybe only one or two years old.

One was quiet old and a picture from her old class, complete with Madame Bustier and even Chloé and Sabrina and Lila hidden away underneath the wood of the frame. Even Adrien was there, too, standing next to Nino, who had an arm around his best buddy, smiling softly into the camera.

She liked this very photograph very much, for back then everything was still okay.

"How old were you on that one?" he asked softly, pointing on the small Marinette on the picture, who was grinning nervously, since the teenage Adrien was standing far to close to her and her nerves had gone high wire back then.

"I believe 14… Maybe already 15… Adrien Agreste is still on that picture, so there was everything still alright, before… you know~"

"Oh – so this was before Ladybug and I captured Hawk Moth?", he said calmly.

She nodded and Marinette vividly remembered that very day, when she came to school, after that reckless and brutal fight with Hawk Moth and Mayura. After she had taken their Miraculous – she still thought to that day, that Chat's shock must have been bigger, than hers, when the two villains transformed into Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur. She had immediately called the police, remembering the defying silence between Agreste, Sancoeur and her partner. And they had found Emilie, Adrien's mother, underneath the mansion.

Adrien himself had come to the scene, when she and Chat were long gone.

He never came to school on that day after. Or any other, at all. But there where rumors everywhere. Everybody talked about the incident and on the TV in hushed voices. But nobody knew the truth.

But the news knew better. Hunting down the poor boy, paparazzi blocking his every way, terrorizing him like vultures, until he broke down, not having eaten for days. Or slept for that matter.

Eventually it was Chloé, who brought the news, that Adrien had left Paris to live with his aunt and cousin – the only family he had left.

Marinette herself hadn't transformed into Ladybug for a long time after that day. Because there were no akumas. And the grief and shock in her heart were just too big to focus on anything else.

But when she was ready to finally talk about that day with her Chat Noir – the one person she trusted the most – he wasn't there.

… but now he was standing right beside her and he still didn't know, that she was his partner.

She still wondered, what he would say, when he found out, that his Lady and his princess were the same people.

But not now… or any other time soon…

"I still don't think, that he has nothing to do with it. You know – knowing, that his father was Hawk Moth, and that his mother was hidden underneath his very home… He was just so… innocent… And he always was far too kind for these kind of things. Adrien couldn't harm a fly, why would he help to terrorize Paris?"

"You speak very kindly of him" Chat said with some astonishment in his voice. "Had he been your friend? Or perhaps did you have contact with him these past years?"

"My friend?" She sighed, nervously brushing a few strands of her hair behind her ear, a slight blush returning to her cheeks once more. "I had a huge crush on him during that time. I mean – a crush on an astronomical degree! Like fantasizing about our future children and the house we would be living in and things like that! But I couldn't even form a complete and understandable sentence in front of him. Well – and then he had a girlfriend and then I had a boyfriend and then you and Ladybug found out that his father was Hawk Moth and he moved away. And that was basically the end of our love story, before it has even started. But I am over him by now…"

She hadn't noticed the way, that Chat Noir had sucked in his breath, when she admitted her past feelings for the teenage model. And Marinette certainly was not noticing the way he was starring at her, turning away from him to get over to one of the shelves, wanting to pack a few more packages for her online shop, to get them to the post in the morning. She smiled to herself, feeling some kind of relief for openly talking about Adrien like that – at least about his past feelings for him.

"Hasn't he returned? Adrien Agreste? Isn't he back in Paris?"

Marinette looked back up again and over to the superhero, who still stood in front of the wall, his hands hanging strangely limp by his side, while his face was for once unreadable for her.

She did not like that.

Could it be, that he despised the young man for being Hawk Moth's son? Did he even know Adrien himself? Or was there something else?

"He is back…" She answered meekly, merely shrugging, before she folded a shirt, she had designed and put it inside the small box. "… but I don't know more…" And Marinette didn't want to think about it right now.

"Oh? So… you have already met him? Have you two talked. I mean… I-it is surely a big thing – meeting the big crush again after so many years..."

"…I ran away from him…" Just like she had always done before.

"You did?" Chat Noir asked in a strangely sounding surprised voice. "Why would you do that?"

"… because… urgh… just because, okay?"

"So you were mad at him? Or – perhaps – old feelings returning?"

"It's complicated, okay?"

"Is it?"

"Aren't you a bit nosy there?"

He took a step back, scratching the back of his head and grinned at her sheepishly.

"Maybe I am just nosy. And maybe I really want to help you…"

Marinette pursed her lips, carefully lowering the shirt, she just wanted to fold and looked over to the young man, studying him for a moment or two. She was not sure, on why he would want to help her, for the outcome of this conversation surely wasn't beneficial for him in any way.

But on the other hand – talking felt very nice, maybe could help her and she could come to good terms with her own thoughts about this whole fiasco.

"He has a child…" Marinette therefore merely whispered and turned her face towards the window, not wanting to see any emotion on Chat Noir's face, when she had said that. "… I am pretty sure he only returned here to met his daughter. And the very fact, that he is a father pretty much… confuses and irritates me…"

"…so? People grow up and have children… I am not… I am – I am pretty sure, that… well-"

"I believe, that this child's existence is an accident…"

"Accident?"

"Yeah…?"

"So- like he had been very, very drunk for once in his life and lowered his standards to sleep with that child's mother, who lied about the contraceptive. And being drunk that way he threw all caution and judgment out of the window to sleep with that woman only to find it as one more huge mistake in his life. Finding out a few years later about that very child and now he tries to make up for the lost time to be an actual good father for her…because is own father had screwed up big time in every way possible?"

Marinette blinked with Irritation when she heard Chat Noir's voice, turning towards him with wide eyes and a dumbfounded expression on her face.

"Huh…?"

He waved his hands franticly in front of him, laughing nervously and tried to explain himself a little further:

"I mean – that is pretty much something, that an Adrien Agreste would do, if you ask me! I mean – he is pretty much branded by his own father and lost family, why not trying to do better, right?"

Right…

"Maybe…", Marinette said unsurely, shaking her head in thought as she tried to find the right words. "… but then again this girl is the daughter of the worst woman I know! And I pretty much know, that she will try everything to- Oh, never mind!"

Hastily she put the folded cloths inside the box, taping it shut, ignoring Chat Noir's first question. Then the second, before he eventually stood right in front of her, laying one gloved hand between the package and the young woman, who wanted to write the address in that very moment.

"What would that woman try, Marinette? Tell me…", he demanded calmly.

She merely shrugged, but then sighed.

"It is clear as glass, that Lila would try everything to make Adrien fall for her. She likes him – or at least finds him most attractive…"

"How would you know?"

"Chat, really… It is not importan-"

"It is to you…" He said calmly. "And it is important to me. You are my friend, remember?"

Marinette rolled her eyes, something sarcastic scratching the back of her head. But she bit her tongue to stay silent about that, instead answered his question:

"She was basically undressing him with her eyes, when I was there. And that is a very prude way to say it…Like – she would have fucked him right there and then, if Emma and I haven't been there with them! Though… Lila would have made I move, if it had only been me with them…"

He snorted, when he heard that and a tiny smile was returning to Marinette's lips as well.

"And do you really think, that Adrien Agreste would really fall for that in any way? Does he even like her, or is he just accepting her mere presence, because she is the mother of his daughter, but nothing more?"

Another shrug and once again she rolled her eyes.

What a strangely precise way to say this and yet she found Chat Noir's thoughts strangely appealing.

She shook her head.

"Fall for her? Hopefully not! He did not like her back then and her whole behavior. Why would that change, right?"

"Right!" A lopsided grin reached Chat's lips and he finally made way to let her finish that very package. "So you could try and seduce him instead!"

She barked a laughter, unable to fully believe, that she was talking about that with her partner.

"I will not seduce Adrien Agreste! We don't know each other! And I don't think, that there is a high chance of us meeting again. I don't know his number. I don't know, where he lives and I am over him by now. Ten years have passed, since I had my crush on him and that's it. I don't even have the time to seduce somebody!"

He pouted.

"But you could need somebody… Packing boxes in the middle of the night is surely not something you would want to do when you get old…"

"I don't need somebody…" she mumbled, shaking her head.

"But I don't think, that this makes you happy…"

She stared at him and Chat Noir stared right back, his green eyes felt sad and deeply concerned. She merely gulped, unsure of what to say.

Happiness… such a strange word, that suddenly seemed to be so relevant. For Emma. For Alya with her ladyblog and the upcoming birth of the twins. It was even relevant to Gabriel in his tiny prison cell. And now it was important to Chat Noir as well…

She did not want to think about not. Not now and not on any other time, for she would start to doubt her decisions up to this very point in her life, regretting and lamenting over choices she could have taken differently.

But then – on the other hand – she wouldn't be where she was and who she was right now, if things had went differently.

… yet Chat Noir would not understand and he certainly wasn't somebody, with whom she should share her deepest and darkest thoughts.

Marinette could not answer, had not the time, when a strange blue light suddenly illuminated the room, when something undefinable flew across the sky by her apartment.

Both their eyes were immediately drawn to the night sky and the cat hero jumped over her sofa and towards the window, stopping right in front of it to look outside – Marinette close behind, knowing, that Tikki was watching from her hiding spot as well.

"Shit…" Chat mumbled and he already reached for the handle to open the window, jumping right onto the windowsill, squatting there, while once more facing the young woman. "… Akuma. I need to go! Stay inside – Ladybug and I will take care of it".

She nodded, knowing, that she eventually would follow, once he was out of sight.

Yet it irritated her once again, when he was not going right away, instead watching her closely for a few moments more.

"What is it?", she eventually could mumble, her senses already tingling, ready to transform herself. "You need to go!"

"And you need to stop over thinking everything and just start to live a happy life, okay?"

"Sure…"

"I am totally serious about it, Marinette! Somebody like you deserves a happy life!"

"Okay, okay – I follow my heart, if that makes you happy! Now go! I don't want to be the reason on why this particular Akuma destroyed all of Paris!"

He grinned.

"That would certainly make me very happy! And now – sleep well, Princess! I will take care of this Akuma and make sure, that your dreams remain undisturbed."

He bowed lightly in front of her, before he easily jumped of the sill and was gone in the darkness of the night.

A/N:I certainly want to build up the relationship between Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Chat Noir in all forms of their love square, for I love all the forms of it. Also I find it very hilarious, that in this case Marinette told Adrien unknowingly, that she had a crush on him. And Adrien brought some light into Emma's existence - more will follow, once he stands without a mask before Marinette :DI hope you enjoy this chapter...Next chapter: A frightening Akuma...