Adrien sat down the heavy box of Marinette's fabrics in the entry way.
"Well, what's left?"
He looked to Marinette who was putting the last of her cooking utensils into a tub with help from Tikki and Plagg. She made a contemplative face.
"There shouldn't be anything left other than this... maybe check the bathroom and the closet one more time? I might have left something in there by accident."
Marinette's apartment wasn't very large, but as Adrien walked through it with everything except the provided furniture stripped away, it felt smaller than ever. He was glad they had found her a place closer to his apartment. The new place had a spare bedroom where she could keep her designs and an extra bed for visitors.
Adrien checked the bathroom again, finding it clean and empty, and then made his way into Marinette's room. The closet doors sat wide open, showing the empty inside, but Adrien knew from experience that there was space beside each door where things were easily hidden. It was in these that he poked his head and ran his hands across the floor. He cleared the one on the right, but as he ran his hand over the one one the left it hit a small cardboard box. He pulled it out with a quizzical expression.
It was around a foot long and roughly three inches in height and width. It looked like it may have once been some sort of pastry box, though there weren't any markings on it.
"Hey Mari!" He called into the other room, "I found something."
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure, come look."
When Marinette came in, Adrien immediately handed her the box, noting the way her eyes trailed the package without any sort of familiarity.
"It was stood up in the back corner of your closet." He explained, "I nearly looked right past it."
Marinette's eyes flickered with some sort of recognition as she pulled off the lid. Adrien peered over her shoulder as she sifted through its seemingly random contents. He spotted a grey watch, a screw driver, a few guitar picks, and something made of black fabric rolled up in one of the corners. The later of these, Marinette picked up with a strange expression and unrolled. It was a man's t-shirt.
"Oh my gosh." Marinette giggled, "I forgot all about this."
She practically doubled over as her giggle became a laugh. Adrien however, was confused and quite honestly, concerned.
"Marinette." He said in a firm tone, "What is all this stuff?"
Marinette wiped a tear from her eye and took a deep breath.
"It's all the stuff my ex-boyfriends have left at my apartment over the years." She explained, "I can't believe their still here. They seemed too insignificant to return and too useful to get rid of at the time, so I just stuck them in a random box I had and over the years..." She started to chuckle again, but spotted the horrified look on Adrien's face. "Aw, don't worry, Kitty. These things don't mean anything to me. I'll just stick the whole thing in the donate bin. I don't have any reason to keep it."
Adrien continued to scowl just a little as Marinette pecked his cheek and carried the box over to the donate bin. She dropped it in carelessly, where it thudded loudly.
"Let's start carrying stuff down to the car." She called to him from the kitchen, "Then I can wipe out these drawers and vacuum before I turn in the key."
As the afternoon carried on, the box sitting in the donate bin continued to eat at his thoughts. He knew that Marinette had been in a few relationships while he was being an idiot but it wasn't something he liked to think about. Now he was faced with the thought that not only had these men been in Marinette's apartment, but they had actually left little sprinklings of themselves, like small claims of territory. The cat in him hated that. Correction, the cat in him despised that. Though he knew it was childish, especially since Marinette had already put the box out to be donated, his feline instinct told him there was a trespasser in his territory and he knew he wouldn't be satisfied until it was snuffed out.
When he kissed Marinette goodbye at her new apartment that night, he clung to her for an unordinary amount of time, peppering her neck with his kisses.
"What's all this for, Kitty?" She asked him, pulling away and smiling intoxicatingly.
"I'm just..."
What exactly am I doing?
"Don't worry, Marinette." Plagg said with a smirk, "He's just marking his territory."
Adrien snatched the cackling Plagg and shoved him back into his pocket as his face heated.
"Sorry..." he said, "It's all his fault anyway."
"Is this about the box?" Marinette asked with a concerned frown.
"N-No... Yes." Adrien admitted, "It was just odd to find. You know how I am."
Marinette hummed and smiled again, "My possessive Chat. Don't worry, that box is long gone."
Adrien kissed her again and said goodnight. As he walked back to his apartment, his messenger bag hung a little heavier at his side.
"Soooo," Plagg droned, "What 'ya gonna do with it?"
"I don't know, Plagg." Adrien said with a scowl at his little friend's tone, "I don't even know why I picked it up."
"Well, it seems to me like the right thing to do would be return the items to their owners."
Plagg ducked inside Adrien's pocket as they passed through the lobby of his apartment building. Adrien waved at the guy behind the front desk and stepped into the elevator.
"Return them?" Adrien answered in an exasperated tone, "And how would I do that? Knock on their doors and say, 'Hi you left this at my girlfriend's apartment, kindly never speak to her again?'"
"Sure, if that's how you're feeling."
Adrien walked through the empty hallway, ignored Plagg as he unlocked his door, and shook his head with a sigh as he entered his apartment. After taking off his coat and shoes, he set the box on the kitchen counter. He paused, embarrassed, then opened the lid and began to take out the box's contents.
"I'm such a weirdo."
"Oh, relax." Plagg drawled, "Let's just see what we have here."
Adrien looked carefully at the spread while Plagg lazily picked through it. As he had seen earlier, there was a watch, a few guitar picks, a t-shirt, and a screw driver but there was also a small notebook, a tennis ball, and something short and stocky that looked like some sort of speaker.
"Okay..." Adrien breathed, trying not to think about this as something crazy and obsessive, "Marinette had three boyfriends before me. So, theoretically, each of these items has to belong to one of them."
His stomach churned at the memories that statement stirred. He and Marinette had still been close friends at the time, he had met all three of them.
"The first one was Luka." He said speculatively, picking out the guitar picks and rubbing them through his fingers. "They dated for..."
"Three years." Plagg stated casually, flipping himself upside down as Adrien sighed.
"I could just take him the box first and have him pick his stuff out." Adrien commented, "He's decently cool with Marinette and I."
"What about the others?" Plagg asked, enjoying himself far too much.
"Nathaniel and Desmond." Adrien grumbled, picking up the notebook and looking at the simple sketches on the first few pages, "Nathaniel isn't so bad, but Desmond..."
Adrien found himself growling as he picked up the tennis ball and stared hard at it.
"I wouldn't mind sinking my claws into him."
