Been a while… and for that I am truly sorry! furrgive me? Life has been so crazy, and I am on a mission to get all my stories finished AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Especially since I have so many more concepts flying through my head.

Thank you for your patience, and please enjoy the chapter =^.*=

Chat Noir sat with a cup of herbal tea in the living room of Marinette's house, as his friend and her mother said goodnight to each other. The blonde was happy that the petite woman was comfortable enough to trust him, a strange boy dressed in leather, with her daughter; but then he supposed he was one of the Parisian heroes… and he had saved Marinette the night before… Honestly, the hero was just grateful that the whole Waredad incident was completely forgotten and never mentioned since.

As Sabine's retreating form slipped down the hallway, Marinette grabbed her mug from the kitchen counter and came straight over to sit next to him on the sofa. She was wearing a fluffy dressing gown and the fresh smell of her lavender shower gel consumed his nostrils: the hero repressed the need to deeply inhale her scent. She looked much better than she had done earlier, and Chat was glad that the teen seemed mostly recovered, but Marinette was obviously not back to normal: the dark circles under eyes were evidence of that.

"It's strange being in the living room with you," Marinette commented quietly with a thoughtful lilt, "Maman said she heard noises from above and was a little surprised to see you… but I'm glad you came back tonight." She rested her head onto his shoulder and stifled a yawn, "I kinda fell asleep last night before you came up."

Chat moved his arm around the back of her shoulder and pulled the teen to lean on him fully, "I saw, when I came up you were conked out on your desk so I moved you to your bed." He turned his face to rest his chin on her head, "you don't mind that, right?"

Marinette shifted to look up at him and Chat moved his head back to meet the beautiful blue gaze of his partner. It was obvious now the blonde knew, but he kicked himself for not seeing it earlier. With her hand positioned on his chest to support her as she leaned up to get a better look at him, all Chat saw was the kind smile that was angled up at him along with the remnants of a blush subsiding on her cheeks.

"I'm surprised you managed to get in, but I'm glad you did." She settled her head back onto Chat's chest and snuggled into him. "Thank you for tucking me in."

The hero resisted the urge to kiss the crown of her head and decided to just rub the top of her arm affectionately. "You're welcome."

As Marinette and Chat sat there in a comfortable silence for a minute, the black clad hero pondered telling Marinette that he knew who she was; that Alya knew who he was; then proceed to give up his identity to her also. The moment did not seem right however, and Chat continued to just enjoy the comfort that being cuddled with her on the sofa brought. When Marinette leaned forward to put her now empty mug down on the coffee table, the blonde decided to ask about Luka's akumatisation. He was not wanting to revel in his fellow musician's rejection, but Chat felt it would be handy to have some sort of understanding of the situation should anything happen at the gig tomorrow.

With Marinette back in place after pulling the blanket over her legs and sharing it with him, the blonde took up his previous ministrations on her upper arm. "Do you want to talk about what happened last night?" Although the question was not specific to Luka, it still provided an opening to find out the information he wanted. "You don't have to tell me if you don't-"

"No, I want to tell you." Marinette leaned up to sit straight, and Chat mourned the loss of her snuggled into his side. "But there's a few other things I think you need to know too," she gulped before continuing and looked away while fidgeting with her hands. "I don't quite know how to say it though."

'Is she about to tell me who she is?' Chat tried to hide his anticipation at the implications of her words. 'Should I bite the bullet and tell her I already know?'

She blew out a puff of air, indicating that she was preparing to say something difficult. Chat held his breath and hoped Marinette had not picked up on the way his frame tensed. With her now sitting up and looking down to her lap, the blonde shifted on the sofa to face her, placing a hand on her shoulder and prompting her to look at him; it was only then that Chat realised Marinette was on the verge of tears.

"Marinette," he soothed her tentatively and took one of her hands in his, "you don't have to say anything you don't want to."

"I want to," the teen replied simply with a watery smile. "There's a situation, I've been in, these past few days, and it's caused a bit of trouble for the people around me…" Marinette trailed off sadly and sniffed while staring at her lap. "You remember what Alya said, about the boys not leaving me alone?"

Chat managed to reply without the growl that begged to come with it at the memory of all the extra attention she received. "Yes, I vaguely remember her saying something about 'sex hair'."

A small smile played on her lips and a blush rose on her cheeks briefly before she went back into her explanation. "Well, it's calmed down now, for the most part, but, well, there is a reason behind it, a reason I thought I'd uh, covered-"

Chat understood what she meant but was not exactly going to bring up the fact that he knew she had his boxers and sock in her possession… or what Plagg had hinted at her doing with them.

"-but," she took a deep breath and looked at him with sad eyes, "it still seems to be affecting some people and I… I don't know, I just wish that I could know for definite if it's because of the, uh, reason, or something else." Marinette swallowed audibly and shook her head, "Luka doesn't even seem to be himself at the moment."

As a tear fell from her eye and began rolling down her cheek, Chat moved closer and wrapped his arm around the back of her shoulders and comforted her with a side hug. Marinette gladly accepted his warm embrace and buried her face into his neck while bringing the blanket up to cover them more. The whole experience had obviously taken its toll on the teen, and all the blonde wanted to do was be there for her.

"It's not your fault," he told her quietly, knowing that the pheromones were a side effect of the Miraculous and not something she had purposefully done to gain attention. The comment made about Luka though unnerved him, especially with what little information he was already privy to. "What's going on with Luka? How's he different?"

Marinette did not move from where she was, instead she shifted slightly and Chat leaned back into the sofa so they were both more comfortable. As they relaxed, Chat brought his other arm around and laced his fingers together, effectively encasing the raven haired beauty in his embrace.

Marinette sighed after thinking for a minute before she answered. "He's gone a bit pushy, to the point that Papa had to stand in yesterday." Chat squeezed her briefly in a silent show of comfort and she cleared her throat. "He's never been like that, he's always been really patient, always been a great support but…"

As she trailed off, Chat could sense that she was reluctant to say any more, but he had been told earlier that his civilian guise would probably not be a welcome presence around Luka tomorrow. The blonde felt like it may have had something to do with how close they were in front of the musician, and after a very brief ponder, he knew it definitely did.

"It's because of Adrien, isn't it."

"Yeah." She spoke quietly, and Chat had not even noticed that her hand had wandered up to his bell until he heard it tinkle. The unexpected noise had him jolt slightly and Marinette quickly retracted her hand, but gloved fingers caught hers and placed them back to his bell without a word. While Marinette continued to absentmindedly play with his bell, she carried on with what had transpired.

"Luka seems to think that Adrien has had his chance, that he doesn't deserve to have a shot at dating me." Marinette sounded angry as she mumbled more to herself than to Chat, "as if it's even anything to do with him…"

The blonde could feel anger building at Marinette's words about what Luka had said, but he remained quiet to give her time to talk it through.

"Adrien was here yesterday," she sighed, "and so were Alya and Nino… everything was fine, it was going great actually!" She craned her neck to look at the blonde hero with big eyes to emphasise her point, "I'm not stuttering around him so much either!" Marinette rested her head back onto to Chat's shoulder, "Alya's told me too-"

"What?" He panicked, "what has Alya told you?"

Marinette did not seem to pick up on his alarmed tone and just carried on as normal, "she's told me that he's told Nino he likes me, apparently it took everyone else showing me attention though for him to figure it out…"

Chat rolled his eyes, up until he left yesterday, Alya had not said a word to Marinette about how he felt.

As if reading his thoughts, Marinette answered his question, "she told Luka to back off after he tried… and then told me in front of Luka about Adrien's plan to ask me-"

"Tried?" Chat pulled away from Marinette to look at her properly. He growled but really did not care if his anger showed. "What did he try to do?"

Marinette's eyes flickered away, she was obviously uncomfortable. "Nothing bad, it was just… out of character… 'tried' was the wrong way to put it, I s'pose."

"Marinette," Chat coaxed, "please tell me."

She took in a deep breath, "he, well I hugged him goodbye at the door leading down to the bakery, and then Luka asked me if I would consider tomorrow a date… I said no. But then he became angry…" she thought for a minute. "Or maybe frustrated. When Alya told us that Adrien wanted to ask me out and that Luka needed to accept that he wasn't the only one who wanted to date me… anyway, Luka started going on about Adrien, and that he was only going to string me along, but I have no idea where he would even get that idea from… Adrien's always been lovely. It's not his fault, we're friends." She rolled her eyes and mumbled, "I never exactly told him how I felt… and then my Papa saw from the bottom of the stairs, and by this point Luka was holding onto my arm pretty tightly, it all happened so fast."

Marinette's head dropped and Chat hugged her again, "did he try anything you didn't want him to?"

"Well," Marinette winced a little while working out the best way to word what she wanted to say. "After Papa intervened, and told him to let me go, Alya explained things had gotten pretty heated at school which Papa was already aware of after the whole Lila thing-I'll tell you about that another time-and everything seemed fine…" she nuzzled into the hero's chest and sighed. "Alya told Luka that there was no harm done, although my Papa was still acting really cautious, and I went to say goodbye to him again, and then, he said about the gift he bought me, so I gave it him back." She sighed again and shook her head against the blonde's chest. "I didn't want him to think that by me accepting them, it meant anything was gonna happen between us. And then he just tried to give me them back, said that he could get me better things and that money wasn't everything." She scoffed and shook her head again, this time it was in disbelief, "as if Adrien's money is what attracts me to him… Luka tried to insist that one date, one kiss would convince me-wait."

Marinette stopped a suddenly tense Chat from interrupting with a stern tone and prodded him in the sternum. "He looked completely confused and mortified with what he'd said and ran off down the stairs. I honestly don't think he meant to say any of it. I'm just glad Alya was there as a shield and my Papa was standing behind him as it looked like he was physically trying to stop himself from trying to get closer to me."

"That's no excuse, what if you'd been alone with him." Chat replied darkly, quietly seething at the actions of his fellow musician and Marinette sat up again to look at him with sad eyes.

"There's a reason behind it though Chat." She pleaded with him, "there has to be a reason that Luka, kind and gentle and lovely Luka, did something so out of the ordinary, and it's the same reason that Adrien's showing an interest, I know it is-"

"Mari, it's not-"

"-and what if Luka's right? Obviously he doesn't know what's going on to make people act like this around me, but what if when it wears off, Adrien realises that I am just a friend, that he was just being protective of me, and that-"

"What if Adrien wasn't affected by it though, what if his feelings really are true?"

Marinette breathed in deeply and looked away from Chat and kept her voice low, "there's only one person I know for definite that cannot be affected by the reason." She bowed her head, "and I've hurt that person by turning them down countless times because of a stupid crush which made me too blind to see what was right in front of my face."

As her brow furrowed, Chat brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear and was elated to see the small blush appearing on her cheeks when she turned her head to look at him intently. The way Marinette's blue gaze began roaming his features though, and her rapid blinking before she narrowed her eyes at him in thought, had the masked model feeling slightly worried. "Is everything okay? Purrincess?"

"How did you know it was Adrien?"

How indeed? Hmmm I guess we'll have to find out his answer in the next chapter (which is almost finished I purromise).

Thank you for your patience, for reading, reviewing, following and faving!

Take it easy (•.•)

Lady Rhi X