Marinette leaned into Chat Noir's side as she stared at their abandoned Uno cards (she had won three rounds in a row). They were on the floor in her room, surrounded pink fabric and dim twilight.
"Hey, Bug?"
"Hm?" It was strange, how easily she'd gotten used to him knowing her identity. It had been an accident, but she wouldn't change anything now.
"Can I ask you something?" His voice rumbled through her.
"Aren't you asking something now?" She'd expected a laugh or at least a resigned sigh, but he said nothing. Marinette pushed a wild card with her toe. "Sure."
"If it weren't for that other guy, do you think you would have fallen for me?"
Every point of contact her body had with his seemed suddenly electrified, her head on his shoulder, her arm against his, where her knee brushed his leg, and she shifted away to give herself some breathing space.
Her walls were bare. He'd asked permission to visit her at home, and she'd taken down almost every picture of Adrien. Evidence of her crush on someone else was not something she wanted to push on him every time he came over. He didn't deserve that.
"Um... do you want to play another round of Uno, or should we do something else?"
"Marinette, I'm serious. Would you have?"
Chat Noir wasn't often serious. If he wanted to go down this path, the best she probably could do was make his pain quick.
She shrugged in response. "Maybe, I guess. Video games? I have UMS 4."
"Really, that's it? You guess? That's not a real answer."
"Please, chaton. Don't do this to yourself."
He slid closer, closing the tiny gap between them that she'd opened up. "I just want to know."
Twilight was slipping into full dark as they sat. The streetlamp outside her window blinked on. He wasn't going to back down on this, was he? Fine. As quickly as she could, then.
"You're kind and compassionate. You're reliable. You're funny." Again, she waited for some reaction, a laugh, a self-satisfied "I knew it!" but he only waited for her to finish. "We have such a strong connection, and I trust you with my life. You're brave. You're my best friend." Softly she added, "It would have been so easy. That's the real answer."
The room was quiet enough that she heard how fast his breathing was. They were so close together that she swore she could feel his pounding heart. Or maybe that was hers. Sitting side-by-side made her feel like a coward. It was too easy to avoid his eyes.
How badly had she hurt him?
"So why haven't you talked to him yet?" Chat Noir asked.
"What?"
"If you'd pick him over all that, then you must like him a lot, but you aren't together. And I can't imagine anyone rejecting you, so you must not have asked him out yet."
Maybe she should have added perceptive to the list, but to be fair he'd never been so devastatingly accurate before.
At least this was something they could laugh at together. "I'm... very awkward around him. I'm pretty sure I make him uncomfortable sometimes."
"I doubt it," he said. "So who is he?"
Marinette got up. She suddenly needed some movement. Time to think. More space. "We shouldn't be talking about this."
"Why not?"
"Because I hate this!" Marinette turned to face him for this first time that night. "I hate hurting you every time you bring it up."
He leaned back like he was unconcerned, but he didn't return her gaze. "I'm only curious," he said. "I just want to know what type of person attracts Ladybug. That's all."
"I'll tell you under two conditions."
He stopped studying her mannequin to peek at her from the corner of his eye.
"One, you stop asking about it. Two, you don't laugh at me."
He finally turned to her completely. "Laugh? Why would I laugh?"
Part of her wished that he would. His laugh would be a welcome sound right now.
"Because you're going to think it's a celebrity crush, and it's not."
He raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to continue.
Marinette groaned. Nothing to do about it now except get it over with. "Adrien Agreste."
Chat Noir was on his feet so fast Marinette almost didn't see him move. "Plagg, claws-"
She didn't hear the rest of his sentence over her shrieking "NO!" but did she see the flash of green light behind her eyelids. "What are you doing? Put your suit back on!"
"No."
"I'm not going to look at you."
Where were the kwamis? Why weren't they telling him this was a bad idea?
"You have to retransform." Marinette backed up until she hit her desk. What on earth was he doing?
"No, not until you look."
"You'll have to," she said. "You can't walk out my front door and let people see you. You'll have to leave the way you came in."
"You're just going to keep your eyes closed for the rest of the night?"
She nodded.
Soft footsteps walked toward her. It wasn't the normal tap of boots that she was used to. It sounded wrong. Another reminder that one mistake from her would put his identity in jeopardy. He stopped right in front of her, circled his arms around her loosely and waited. It wasn't until she let herself sink against his chest that he tightened his grip.
"I'm not opening my eyes," she said.
"Then please just listen to my voice," the boy who was Chat Noir said. "I won't tell you my name, but please just listen?"
She nodded, her face buried in his neck. Even if she did open her eyes, she wouldn't be able to see him.
"When I'm not transformed, I'm much quieter."
"A quiet Chat Noir?" Marinette asked. "What must that [italics] be like?"
"I don't show off either. I try to avoid attention, actually. I get too much of it."
As he spoke, his voice started to change, matching the quieter, more gentle picture of himself that he painted for her. It sounded like... like...
"Did you know that we know each other outside the masks? We go to the same school."
With each sentence, Marinette began to realize that his voice was achingly familiar. He still sounded like her partner, on days that they were just talking or when they'd share sad stories. But he also sounded like someone else, someone whose voice she'd thought she knew by heart.
He stopped talking, letting her figure out the truth in silence.
She couldn't open her eyes. She couldn't. But her fingers could wander. They found his ungloved hand first, then moved up to his wrists. His forearms were bare, and as she expected, his sleeve had been rolled up above his elbow. Her fingers skimmed his upper arm and across his shoulder to his neck. She found the buttons of an open overshirt with a soft cotton tee underneath. If she wanted to, she could have reached up to touch his hair or trace her fingers over his nose and cheeks and eyelids, everything his mask usually hid. He would have let her.
Instead she leaned into his neck and felt his head drop on top of hers. Marinette finally opened her eyes. The overshirt was white. The tee underneath was black with colored stripes. Exactly how she remembered.
"You're kind and compassionate," he said. "You're brave and creative and amazing."
A tear slipped across her cheek. She was crying. When had that started?
"It was so easy to fall in love with you, Marinette."
Her hands left his shoulders to wrap around him and pull him closer to her. "I love you too, Adrien."
A/N: Written for Marichat May 2021. Prompt: Jealousy.