"Tikki, listen, I'm really sorry, I am. But this is a good thing."
"It's ok Marinette," Tikki sighed, "I understand your reasoning and even though I still think it's a bad idea, we can't afford to not be in harmony. I will help you."
"Thank you Tikki."
Tikki floated to the desk to look over Marinette's shoulder. "You should wear that design. And if you don't change, you're going to be late. For your date. Remember?"
Clothes were thrown wildly across the room as Marinette windmilled through her wardrobe in an attempt to get ready at the speed of light.
"Slow down," Tikki giggled, "you've still got half an hour till you need to leave the house."
"Right." Marinette began to pick up all the scattered clothes strewn across her floor. She'd make it on time for once. She would.
She didn't.
"Marinette, sweetie, there's someone at the door for you!" Sabine shouted from the living room.
"Coming Maman."
"What could they possibly want?" Marinette whispered to Tikki, confused as to why someone was visiting her now of all times.
"I don't know, but look at the time, if they stay long you'll be late to your date with Chat Noir."
"Marinette! Could you hurry up please!" floated through the trapdoor.
"Right, I'm here, who is it?" called Marinette as she descended from her room.
"Hi."
Marinette fell down the rest of the steps. If that damn cat kept frightening her like this…. What was he doing in her house anyway? She wasn't that late.
"Are you ok? I didn't mean to startle you." Chat said worriedly.
"Mmmhmm. I do it all the time. Maman despairs of it, don't you maman?" and looking up at her mother's face as she climbed to her feet, Marinette found the answer to the question she wished she hadn't asked. The cat was in her house to meet her parents, because that was one of their rules. Nevermind that he could have warned her first and she had no idea what he'd even said to her parents.
"Yes sweetie. Now go, before you're late. Have a nice time and be back for dinner."
The urge to strangle Chat was barely resistable. By the time they'd got out of the door, Marinette snapped. She whirled around on her feet and struck Chat with an intense glare.
"You could have warned me!" she spat furiously. Glaring at him with intent to kill by looks alone – they'd never be able to trace it back to her.
"You look purrfectly meowtiful." Chat grinned, the smugness he was exuding telling Marinette that he knew exactly how much trouble he was in and didn't care one jot. He did, in fact, seem to want to make it worse.
"Thank you," Marinette hissed through gritted teeth, making sure her eyes said that she would kill him and make it look like an accident.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist."
"What did you tell them?" Marinette paused as a horrific thought struck her. "What did they tell you?"
"Nothing much, I mentioned I was here to gallantly pick up my fair maiden, they looked a bit suspicious and then proceeded to tell me tales of you as a toddler…Ow!"
"That, was not funny."
"Fine, fine. Nothing much really. You came down before we could really talk much. And I meant it by the way, you do look astonishing."
"Thanks." Marinette said, taken aback by the genuineness in his tone. She twirled and let the sun rays catch the glinting metal eyelets placed along the waist of the dress. It was one of her better sundresses, pale pink with black ribbon threaded through the metal eyelets at her waist, shoulders and hem. The black heart in the middle of the bodice leant it a whimsical effect. It was cute and on the border of casual and fancy, perfect for a coffee date.
As they were strolling down the cobbled streets, she could feel civilians stop and stare. Chat Noir didn't have as large a fan base as Ladybug, but he was just as famous.
"They're staring.." Chat Noir muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Don't they always?"
"I'm never this close to civilians unless I'm out with ladybug. This is odd."
"You're just as famous as ladybug. You do just as much to save the city and no don't open your mouth we are not going to get into it here, because there are people watching."
"But.."
"No."
"Hold my arm."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because there are people watching and you're frowning and we need to look like a happy couple." Chat pitched his voice a little louder and bowed from the waist, "Princess, would you do me the honour of letting me escort you to your coffee?"
Marinette giggled despite herself.
"I didn't know you were such a good actor," Chat whispered out of the side of his mouth, and she had to remind herself quickly that none of this was real.
"You looked silly," she smiled.
"I beg your pardon?" he said, mock offended, one step away from feigning a dagger to the heart.
She nudged him with her shoulder. "How long do you reckon before a reporter turns up? My friend Alya runs the ladyblog and I'm certain she'll be here with her boyfriend as soon as she can."
"Well, factoring in the time it takes to hear about it from her sources, the resistance from her parents as she tries to leave the house, I think she'll be here right…about…now."
Chat turned her round, so she could see a panting Alya running down the street with her phone out and the ladybug charm bouncing around as she pumped her arms. Marinette turned back around.
"How accurate you were."
"I can improve on that. Watch this: 5, 4, 3, 2…"
"Chat Noir, can you tell us why you're out and about with a civilian?" Alya panted, thrusting her phone up to his face. He surprised Marinette by responding as if he was used to rabid reporters asking him why he was walking down the street.
"There isn't any danger, I'm simply enjoying Paris as my alter-ego, with my lovely Marinette here and she's taking me to a coffee shop. Right?"
"Mm."
Alya stared incredulously at Marinette. They indulged in a silent conversation which included many death threats (from Alya) and a promise to talk about it later off the record (from Marinette).
"So are you and ladybug.." Alya trailed off as Marinette shook her head violently. "I'll leave you to get to that coffee shop then." Alya turned around and walked off.
"Keep moving," Marinette murmured into Chat's ear, disguising it as a caress. "She'll keep following us to the coffee shop, don't worry. Our 'date' will be public knowledge in roughly three seconds."
"And that's good, right?"
"If this isn't public, how do you expect ladybug to know?"
"Oh. Well, if it isn't le bec absurde. My princess, I do believe that we have arrived at our destination."
"Are you looking forward to a cup of coffee?"
"Are you kitten, I have bean waiting for this since school started this morning."
"You go to school?"
"Oh, well, yeah. Oops." He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and looked at the sign in the window instead of her. "After you, princess."
Once they were settled in their booth, Chat began to yawn.
"You have a lot of sharp teeth." Marinette observed
"I'm too tired. I'm going to murder that coffee. I stayed up till 3am last night working on some physics."
"You're bad at physics too?"
"It was an extra credit project."
"Wow and I only thought you were a nerd because of the puns, now I know why your nerd vibes were electric."
"I'm almost too tired for puns, can you imagine the horror? Imagine ridding the world of my hissterical wit."
"Now that we've stopped walking or doing anything, you look like you're going to keel over from exhaustion. Do you just want to sleep or make the effort to talk?"
"Coffee…give me…Coffee…" Chat groaned.
"Can I take your order?" asked an, in Marinette's opinion, over-eager waitress. A toothy smile took up far too much of her face and her eyes glinted beadily behind a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses, complimenting the vacuum-fitted skinny jeans and form-fitted t-shirt she was barely wearing. Marinette narrowed her eyes.
"Coffee…Coffee..my long lost love…." Chat groaned theatrically from where he was slumped against the booth. He was hamming it up now, for the audience, Marinette was sure. In a familiar move, she rolled her eyes at him and ordered from the waitress, whose gaze had not strayed from Chat at all. At all. Not even when Marinette was speaking. Not as if that was rude or anything. Yep, much more polite to ogle someone's date than look at them when they were talking to you. Once the waitress was gone, Marinette poked her partner.
"C'mon, up. Smile. Pretend you're a human being, not a cat."
"But cat naps, they sustain me…I take offence at your eye-rolling – that was a valid statement!"
"Is Alya gone yet? I don't want to turn around and look in case she is. You have a better view."
"Yeah, she's still out there, to be fair, I'm surprised she hasn't come in and spied on us from behind a hideous disguise."
Marinette let out a laugh, "Ah yes, the famous disguises, I believe I was coerced into helping make the newspaper with eye holes and the detective hat. You should have seen the disguises she came up with when we were on a mission to confess my feelings to my crush."
"What type of mission could that be?"
Marinette shut up promptly, locked her mouth and threw away the key. No one needed to know about those. Why had she mentioned them? This was just like her, to absolutely humiliate herself for no reason whatsoever. She could already feel the heat of the blush spreading across her cheeks and she had no doubt that she looked like a complete tomato. She shook her head. Chat would pry those stories out of her cold, dead body.
"C'mon. They can't be that bad."
Marinette temporarily lifted the talking ban she'd placed upon herself.
"They are never to be spoken of again, do you understand?"
Chat rolled his eyes, clearly unconvinced of the humiliation the tales would bring. But thankfully, so thankfully, honestly, Marinette had the best fairy godmother in the world, he dropped it. Only to pick up with:
"So who is this Prince Charming that's worthy of such interesting missions?"
"He's more like the Prince from Rapunzel, the original tale. He's completely and utterly blind. It's as if he wears blinkers, because I'm not subtle, I think I might be physically incapable of it, and he still hasn't noticed."
"Ahh, so an oblivious child, you have."
"Stop talking about my love life, can we please?"
"Ha ha! A fellow Yoda impressionist, I have finally found!" exclaimed Chat, complete with Yoda voice, because what dork couldn't resist an opportunity to dork? (And dork was totally a verb, if you didn't think so, then you could fight Marinette). (She was prepared to go down with her beliefs on verbing nouns). (Her father had taught her that anything could be a verb if you didn't care enough).
"Ok, but in all seriousness, which series of star wars films is the best?"
Marinette stared at Chat as if he'd grown a third eye.
"The original…duh."
"Oh thank god, I wasn't sure I could like you if you preferred the recent ones."
They gagged in tandem, in sync with the belief that the modern Star Wars films should not be touched with a 10 foot pole.
"I can't even with the recent ones." Marinette finally said.
"Me either. They're so horrible I can't even pun about them."
"Poor you."
"Oh. For that sarcasm. You get the special treatment." Chat's face lit up with unholy gleee, as he leaned forward to whisper completely dead-pan, "Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful jedeyes, Marinette? Because they make you luke good. In fact, yoda the Obi Wan for me."
Marinette hastily interrupted, before Chat could pick up more speed and vent some of the ones that she could see building in his eyes. This was unfair. Why should she have to deal with her kitten's unholy grins and awful puns, even when in civilian form? Was there no escape? How had the pick-up lines known to follow her, to haunt her every footstep?
"Your pick-up lines are not even punny," she retorted, indulging her kitten with a pun of her own, to show him how they should be used, of course.
"When do you think the coffee will get here?" Chat replied, and Marinette drew in a deep breath of relief at the lack of puns.
"I really hoped the Darth-catering would be better. I mean, they don't even do food! I want a sith-kebab now!"
"No, just no." Marinette responded, somehow unable to muster up annoyance at the latest stretch of puns.
"But.." he protested.
"They're the worst ones you've used yet!" A useless fact that had not helped Marinette hide her grin; the damned cat must be rubbing off on her.
"That's the point," Chat condescendingly explained, "They're funny coz they're bad."
Marinette was unable to point out just how flawed the logic was behind a sense of humour that was only funny because it wasn't funny, because Alya ran into the store, all sense of subtle stalking gone.
"This is not good. This is very not good. Have you seen Adrien?" she interrupted, leaving a trail of ice shooting down Marinette's spine. Alya never sounded worried. She just rapid-fired questions at you instead. What had happened to Adrien?
"No why? What's happened? Alya! You can't just say that!"
"He was meant to go home after fencing ages ago and he hasn't showed. His dad and Nathalie think he's been kidnapped by an akuma or something, but me and Nino think he might have run away. We need to find him. Have you seen him? He won't answer his phone."
"I'd have texted you, you know I would. Do you need help looking for him?"
"That would be so great Marinette. Look! The search party's here now! Can you join?"
And lo and behold, their whole class was walking through the street, Mylene and Ivan holding hands and Chloe complaining loudly from the back about how they weren't searching hard enough. There had never been any question of joining the search party, in Marinette's opinion. Of course she was going to help Adrien, who did Alya think she was?
"C'mon Chat, lets pay and get going. We'll join you in just a sec," she assured Alya.
"Umm, I don't think I'll be much help?" Chat whimpered, colour rising to his cheeks as he took in the glare Marinette and Alya gave him.
"Don't be silly Chat, you and Ladybug will be able to do long-range reconossaince! We can't see from the rooftops like you." Alya replied.
"Alya, I don't think it's a good idea to bother Ladybug, surely? She can't be called in for every missing persons case. Especially when it hasn't even been 24 hours"," Marinette interjected.
"No, I agree with Alya. Ladybug will be so much more useful than me. I'll call her and just go.."
"No. Kittycat. You are so much more useful than Ladybug and besides, you're already here, aren't you?" Marinette responded, careful to lead her partner away from the idea of calling Ladybug. She couldn't join the search as both Marinette and Ladybug! She'd be missed if she tried to duck out of this as Marinette. She couldn't risk it. Chat's hand was back up to rubbing his neck, and it was with great reluctance that he nodded and waved the waitress over to take the bill. Honestly, Marinette thought, her kitty needed to learn some self-confidence. He was every bit as useful as Ladybug.
Within minutes, they were out on the street, mingling with their fellow hunters. Alix and Kim had rushed ahead to try and scout out the most places first; Max was running probability calculations on where Adrien was most likely to go; Sabrina was attending to Chloe, who was on her phone to the mayor in an attempt to get more people to join the hunt; Mylene and Ivan were scouring the street; Juleka and Rose were trying to talk to civilians; and Nino and Alya were on their phones, Nino to Nathalie, by the sounds of it, and Alya to anyone she thought might be able to help – following leads like any good reporter. Marinette dragged Chat Noir into the middle of the crowd. They had a mission. She checked with everyone in the party – no one had seen Adrien since fencing, and they'd searched the entire school already. Other than that, not much progress seemed to have been made.
Juleka and Rose were struggling the most with their role of talking to people, so Marinette headed for the civilians around them. She'd let go of Chat somewhere along the line and he appeared to have been accosted by Max, who wanted Chat's map of Paris, presumably. Every civilian Marinette turned to promised their help and the search party expanded astronomically, snowballing into a party of fifty, as friends, family and concerned civilians joined their ranks. Nadja Chamack was here with Manon, live-streaming the situation; the Mayor hadn't joined in person, but he was very clearly the voice screaming into the ear pieces of the motley collection of hotel staff that were scouring the streets; Sabrina's dad, Roger, was yelling instructions no one was listening to from the back of the parade – huffing and puffing as he jogged to keep up; and even Mme Bustier was there, comforting all the kids that were clearly worried for Adrien. They'd almost reached Adrien's house when she spotted Chat Noir slink away to the rooftops and out of sight. It was a shame their date had been interrupted and she hadn't gotten to say goodbye. Chat was so easy to talk to when she was Marinette – she'd enjoyed his company. There weren't many people she could geek out about the Star Wars films with (her Papa didn't count, his favourite series was the prequels).
Not long after that, Alix and Kim came zooming back to the search party, accompanied by none other than Adrien Agreste, the man of the hour. The rush of relief Marinette felt upon seeing him was not something she could describe. The icy feeling that had been radiating out from her spine ever since Alya had interrupted her fake-date was no longer constricting her breathing. But that didn't stop the curious, nagging, little voice inside her head that wondered what exactly Adrien had been doing, that he'd gone missing for what was three and a bit hours now, when he'd never (as far as she knew) rebelled against his father like that before. Adrien's bodyguard must have been called though, because he whisked Adrien away and back to the manor before Adrien could answer anyone's questions, or even thank them for trying to find him. By the time the search party had properly disbanded, Marinette was left with only a lingering feeling of regret that she'd never managed to say goodbye to Chat and a vague apprehension of the talk that she was going to have with Alya.