Author's Note:

I'm incredibly fussy about smut and so I recently decided to turn my hand to the craft. Starts out slow (as all good times do). Mind the rating.

I'm as physiologically accurate as I can be because I believe in being so but this is still fanfiction please listen in sex ed HAHA

So Adrien had been visiting Marinette's balcony for a couple of weeks now.

After the whole Weredad fiasco, they had remained steady friends.

She'd never spoken a peep again about being in love with him. And never made him feel any sort of pressure or guilt about him still being in love with Ladybug.

Sometimes, actually, when he spoke about his lady, there was a glimmer in Marinette's eye that seemed strangely supportive of it. Maybe she was a Ladynoir shipper, like Alya?

Whatever it was, he was incredibly glad.

Because the more he got to know Marinette, the more he wanted to spend time with her. And an unrequited crush would be a pretty awkward thing to hang in the air between them.

Not that he didn't have a lot of experience with that particular atmospheric condition.

So the visits became more regular, and so did their mutual teasing about his unending appetite, her legendary clumsiness and sometimes, more intimate confessions.

"I don't want to be alone."

He admitted that once and the look on her face made him want to snatch the words back from midair. He didn't want her pity. Or her awkward silences. But he was wrong on both accounts.

"You're not alone, Chat." She swung her legs over one side, and patted the striped lounge chair - with space now freed - beside her. "You've got me."

And another time, a confession from her: "I wish I could be more brave about my feelings."

This had him cocking an ear toward her in surprise.

But she went on, "Not that you'd understand, Chat. The whole world knows you declare your love for Ladybug on the daily. It must be as easy as breathing for you."

But he disagreed. "It's not. It's tough to put my heart on the line. I just think you shouldn't bottle what you feel inside. Love is a wonderful thing, and it should be shared."

"Even if she doesn't reciprocate your feelings?" Her nose scrunched up in an adorable way. Maybe he had her pegged wrong and she wasn't quite the Ladynoir fan after all. Or maybe she wasn't talking about him at all. Maybe she had moved on from him to a female classmate!

"Well then, it is important to be respectful of their feelings," he said, channelling the wisdom of a man and not a teenager. He had learned this the hard way. "But," he added, "it doesn't mean your own feelings are invalidated. You've just gotta be polite."

"I see." Her head bobbed up and down in agreement; then, a smirk crept across her face. "If you're so in love with Ladybug, why do you always come calling onto my balcony, huh, Chat Noir?"

He slapped a hand to his heart, his mouth dropping open in a melodramatic gasp. "A cat can be in love with a bug, but at the end of the day, he's gotta return to his home."

"Oh, and this is your home now?"

At this, he grinned. "Well, you know what they say. Never feed a stray cat."

With an exaggerated groan, her hands opened up to cup her face. But he could hear the smile within her moaning. A fleeting thought crossed his mind - what if instead of her hands caressing her face, it were his hands?

But then she was ranting again, and when she reached for another chocolate chip cookie she had brought upstairs from the bakery, she fed it directly to his awaiting mouth without pausing to interrupt her soliloquy. He licked his lips to get all the crumbs, his tongue touching her fingers as they fed him another cookie. Her hand jerked back and a shriek affronted his cat ears. Mid-explanation of an intricate bridesmaid dress she was working on too. She scowled at him. He grinned right back. Threw in a wink for good measure. Cats licked people they liked. She had better get used to it.

She was a stuttering, furiously blushing mess for the rest of the evening. And it did not go unnoticed by him when she sucked on her fingers later, removing every trace of melted chocolate from her artist's hands.

Honestly, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was great.

He could do much worse than having such a great friend like her.

This story is proofread by the one, the only Captain_Meowvel - she's the best. Any errors you find are completely my own.

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