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Part 3

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Marinette couldn't breathe. She was on her own now! And Adrien was walking through the back door of the boulangerie, his sparkling eyes getting even shinier when they crossed gazes with her.

"Oh, there you are, Marinette."

Her mother popped her head just behind Adrien and smiled. "Shall you take Adrien upstairs to help him get changed? He told us you're going trick or treating with him."

Marinette gasped. "Oh yes! Treat tricking. I m-mean, trick or treating. Let's go!" She grabbed Adrien's hand and started marching to the stairs to go to the upstairs apartment. Then she realised what she had done, looked back at their intertwined hands, and gasped again, removing her hand from his with a stiff movement and another cringing smile. She guided him to the upstairs apartment and then into her room, showing him the chaise longue to put his bag down onto.

Taking his costume out of the bag didn't do anything to keep her sanity intact. He went behind the changing separator to put it on and when he came out he was a sight to behold, cat ears on his head and collar on his neck and all.

"What about you, Marinette? You said you were coming as a…nun?"

Marinette got startled. "Huh. Yes. Give me a moment." She went to a trunk hidden from view, not the one that held the Miracle Box but another one that she hadn't even looked at since last year's Halloween. She started rummaging in it. Taking out a black veil and a few different items of clothing, then put them back in and took out others. Eventually, she settled on something, but her cheeks were very red and she gulped awkwardly and cringe-smiled at him again before walking, still a bit stiff, to the changing separator herself.

When she came out, her face was rivalling her superhero's mask in colour. And the shade became even darker when Adrien's eyes widened, he sucked his breath in and didn't say anything out loud, but Marinette could see his lips opening and closing in a whispered 'wow'. Was it a little too much? Yes, maybe the black bodysuit she had put on was a little over the top, especially paired with the fishnet stockings, but she had hoped that the miniskirt she had put on was going to make up for it. Evidently not, based on the red dusting Adrien's cheeks right now. She squirmed under his gaze and made to get back behind the separator to take the costume off.

"NO!" he begged her and she froze in her tracks. "Please, don't change anything, that's amazing!"

She smiled stiffly. "Y-you really think so?"

He nodded. "Yeah. In fact—" He move closer and Marinette tried to walk backwards but her back hit the separator and before she could get the coordination to move to the left to go past it, Adrien had reached her and had grabbed her hand, placing the bracelet at the other side of the collar he was wearing on her wrist and patting it with both hands. "There you go. The nun and her werecat. Now's perfect!"

He winked at her. He BLOODY WINKED AT HER! AGH! Why did he have to do such a cruel attack on her sanity?

"Now," he continued, "you said you had fangs?" He fluttered his eyelids and grinned at her and Marinette pouted, groaning to herself.

"Yeah, right, come with me…" She walked to the trunk she had just taken the nun costume from and rummaged through it, eventually emerging with a box that she opened to reveal many different types of face masks and decorations, from which she selected a pair of fangs, shoving them into his hand. He grinned like a baby and put them on, dragging her to the mirror to look at the whole ensemble, and nodding approvingly.

It took another half an hour for Marinette to calm down enough to put some make-up on his face, and much less time for him to do the same to her, but when they looked into the mirror again, Marinette raised an eyebrow. "Wow, you're good at it…" She inspected carefully her face and nodded approvingly at the makeup.

"Comes with the job!" He flashed his fake fangs at her.

Now it was her turn to raise an amused eyebrow. "I thought you weren't a model anymore."

"I have been for a long time, Marinette. I'm not going to lose the knowledge out of the blue."

He had a point. She cringe-smiled at him, pulled down the miniskirt slightly and dragged him downstairs.

§§§

Marinette had always liked Halloween and had always enjoyed going trick-or-treating around the shops in the neighbourhood. But nothing had prepared her for what it would be like doing it with an overgrown child who seemingly had never done this before (well, knowing him and his father, Marinette could scratch off the 'seemingly' in her last sentence) and was super excited. At the start, she had been very embarrassed, but by the time they were ready to come back, both buckets that her papa had given them for the occasion full of all kinds of sweets and fruit, Marinette couldn't stop smiling. Adrien was over the moon, and the way his whole face lit up as he gave her an adoring look made up for all the awkwardness in the world. The boy was glowing.

As Marinette had promised him, they spent an even nicer time upstairs in Marinette's home, eating the sweets they had collected, laughing with her parents over a delicious dinner of pumpkin soup and sausages braised in white wine. Apparently a Dupain-Cheng Halloween tradition, Adrien had learned. And deeply enjoyed.

"This is amazing Mme Cheng," he said as he ate it. "Our chef can't cook food so tasty." That earned him a big smile from Sabine.

"I'm glad you like it, sweetheart, do you want a second helping?"

By the time dinner had finished, Adrien was stuffed. But the fun didn't stop there, and Adrien had to admit that Marinette was right—her father's spooky stories weren't scary at all, but they all pretended they were because Tom was putting such a big effort into it.

Eventually, however, the time came that Tom started to yawn and both Tom and Sabine excused themselves saying that they had to wake up early the next morning to open the boulangerie and bake the bread. Adrien pouted, starting to take his phone out to ring the Gorilla, but Marinette took the phone from his hands and looked at her dad.

"Papa, do you mind if Adrien stays over tonight?" Tom raised a tired eyebrow and Marinette cringe-smiled some more. "Uh, I m-mean, of course, if you don't mind. The guest room," she added nervously, but Sabine smiled and put a hand on Tom's shoulder, helping herself to get up from the floor they had been sitting on until then.

"Don't be silly, Marinette. You still have the two sleeping bags you used to have sleepovers with Nino and Soqueline, right? He can have one of them."

Tom stood up, patted his clothes clean of invisible dust, and gave all of them a fake outraged look. "Sabine, my love. Are you suggesting a boy sleeps in the same room as Marinette tonight?" He pretended to put a hand to his forehead in fake distress. Then his lips stretched in a genuine smile and he helped both Marinette and Adrien stand up. "Of course, I've got nothing against it. I trust my daughter, and I think I can trust you too, my boy. Do you need anything for the night?"

"Uh." Adrien sucked his breath in and thought of how empty his bag had been after he'd taken his Halloween costume out of it. He hadn't thought at all about the possibility of him staying and hadn't packed anything. "I…actually I didn't think I was going to stay the night so I didn't pack and…"

"Say no more." Sabine disappeared somewhere in the apartment and returned just a couple of minutes later, dropping into his hands a toothbrush, and a t-shirt big enough to cover him to his knees. "There you go. If you need a shower, there's shower gel and shampoo with conditioner in the master bathroom. I'll leave a couple of fresh towels there for you. The t-shirt is Tom's, it may be a little large on the neck, but it should cover you well enough."

Adrien's eyes filled with tears as he looked at the bundle of clothes and stuff Sabine had put in his hands and he started sniffling.

"What's wrong, pet?" she asked with a frown, a hand reaching for his shoulder to give him a reassuring pat.

Adrien wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. "Thank you!" he said between sniffles and hiccups. Sabine smiled warmly at him.

"You're most welcome. Now unfortunately it's time for me and Tom to go to bed, but don't hesitate to ask Marinette for anything. You'll always be welcome here, sweetheart, please remember that."

Adrien nodded, not trusting his voice to say anything as he wiped his eyes dry again and waved at Tom and Sabine as they walked out of the room, leaving them alone.

§§§

A shower, nighttime routine, and change of clothes later, Adrien was sitting in Marinette's lower bedroom, wrapped in an oversize t-shirt and feeling the happiest he had been in months. No, scratch that. Years. Had he ever been this happy before, even? His gaze darted around the room, inspecting everything that was still visible under the dim light, and when he reached the wall where Marinette used to hang all his pictures, he gasped noticing that most of them were gone. That clouded his gaze a little and changed his smile into a pout as he met Marinette's bluebell eyes.

"You took the pictures down?" he inquired. She blushed and looked away.

"Uh, yeah, it just…didn't feel right to have them up anymore."

"Why? I mean, I don't mind at all." He grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye with such intensity that Marinette forgot how to breathe. She thanked God that she was sitting down because she felt slightly dizzy and her knees were like jelly.

She sighed noticing his pout and remembered Alya's words. How was she supposed to cheer him up if she kept pushing him away? Even now that she knew she had no reason to push him away because the boy she had discovered starting to have feelings for was…still him? She looked at her hands and gulped dryly. There was only one thing she could do, but if she did it, it would change everything and she didn't know if she was ready for the consequences of her decision. She looked at her purse for the first time that evening—usually, Tikki was already sleeping by this time, but tonight because Adrien had stayed over, Tikki hadn't been able to fly to her little bed at the side of Marinette's yet. The little kwami looked back at her from inside her purse, smiled reassuringly, and nodded to her.

That was all the confirmation Marinette needed. She stood up with ease and walked towards the steps to her mezzanine. "You wait here," she told him turning towards him briefly and then climbing up the stairs to grab her picture board that hung right over her bed, and came down the stairs with it. She sat down with the board facing the floor, took a big sigh, and turned it around, her gaze studying his reaction carefully.

The day before, she had taken down Adrien's pictures from her wall and put them away, keeping only a few that she liked the most and corking them to this board. But that wasn't the only thing she had done. She had logged in to the Ladyblog, printed a few of her favourite pictures of her partner, and corked them to her board too. Drawing hearts on some of them. Her face caught fire when she noticed that he'd seen that and his eyes widened. She saw him opening his mouth to talk, and then closing it, opening it again, and closing it again.

Wow. She had left her kitty speechless twice in a single day. That was a first! Even as embarrassed as she could be, her lips curled in a little grin at the thought. She cleared her throat, her face still feeling extremely warm under his scrutiny.

"Why are you showing me this, Marinette? It's…a nice collage," he said, his voice coming out in a choked whisper as his hand reached for a picture of Chat Noir with hearts drawn all over it. Chat Noir's pictures weren't the only ones there, of course. They were mixed among pictures of Adrien, and other pictures of her friends. But no other picture had hearts drawn on it…

"I…" She gulped, her fingers dipping into the material of her pyjama pants as she took deep breaths to calm the mad racing of her heart. It was the time, and she knew it. Only…how to find the courage to do it? The right words to say it? She gulped again. "I told you the other day that my feelings for you had changed recently, but you paid no attention to it. You were too distracted thinking you had to go." She took a big breath noticing his confused frown, and added, looking him straight in the eye, "Chaton."

His eyes widened, and he paled and sucked his breath in. But his terror didn't last for long, because Plagg came out of behind his hair and flew in between them, giving her a look of pure and utter mockery.

"Bloody finally!" the kwami said, and Adrien blanched even more. Plagg shrugged. "And don't look at me like that. She called you chaton; she knows. There was no point in me hiding anymore. Where's my cheese, gamin?"

Adrien gestured towards his pile of clothes at the side of Marinette's desk and Plagg dashed there to come back out with a slice of camembert, which he chewed on slowly. Then, the boy looked again at the corkboard for some time, scrutinising each and every picture she had pinned on it.

"I don't understand," he muttered to himself.

She raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"How…" He paused for a while and then glanced at her, blushed, and looked at the pictures again. "I thought you were over Chat Noir and were in love with, uh, that guy? B-buttercup?" He frowned at her cringing smile. "And besides, Marinette…you've never told me that your feelings for me had changed. I mean," he said as his hand reached the nape of his neck, "you said that you loved me earlier, even though you took it back straight after, but then you didn't deny that my correction was right. But…you never told Chat Noir that your feelings had changed. Unless there's something I'm missing here?"

Marinette looked at her purse. She clenched her fists so hard that her hands started shaking. "I d-did tell you that, but…I dd-don't think you registered the detail, Adrien. You were too worried about going back to the Musée Grévin." She let out a shaky breath. "T-to look for…me."

He frowned, his confused gaze wandering around her room as his index finger reached for his mouth. What Marinette had said didn't make any sense.

No sense at all.

His eyes widened.

Unless…

Marinette saw the exact second that his brain made the connection and his head jolted up, his gaze looking at her as if he had never seen her before. Then, he looked back at the pictures, stroked tenderly the little hearts she had drawn on them (causing Marinette to nearly combust on the spot, because it was clear that his brain was connecting the remaining dots and…she felt so vulnerable, and so naked, and so not ready for…)

He looked up at her, tears running down his cheeks and a watery smile on his lips.

(...for…that…)

"Buguinette," he whispered, and Marinette's heart quickened in her chest at the sound.

She grabbed his hand, holding her breath. At this rate, her heart was going to explode, but she had to do it. She had to tell him. "Buttercup…" she managed to say. Glancing at him repeatedly, she noticed that he flashed his eyebrows, scratched his head, and covered his mouth with his hand, frowning and looking pointedly at the corkboard.

"What about him?" he asked. Marinette mentally facepalmed and cringe-smiled at him again. He needed it spelt out then.

"We started on the wrong foot when we met the first time," she said, looking at him.

"Yes, you'd said that last-" he started, but she put a finger over his mouth to shush him.

"We had a huge misunderstanding because of some—" She gulped. "-gum. A-and I thought you were different, you know? J-just a spoiled kid like Chloé… but I was so wrong…"

His frown deepened. "Are we talking about Buttercup still, or…?" But he diverted his gaze when he noticed that she was staring at him. He looked everywhere except back at her, still frowning, until he blinked, gasped, and put both hands to his chest, holding his breath.

Marinette pursed her lips but nodded. And again, she definitely wasn't ready for the explosion of joy that spread all over his face as realisation finally hit.

He grabbed her hands. "YOU LOVE ME!" She didn't even have time to nod because he wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug. "It was me? All this time it was me?" Marinette felt tears popping out of her eyes as she sniffled and managed to open her throat enough to let out a croaky 'Uh-huh'.

"It was you," she whispered, unable to add strength to her voice. "And then, recently I had tried to give up on you." She looked down. "After my feelings for you clouded my judgement that day and…I lost everything…"

He hugged her tighter. "No…"

"And I found myself falling in love with mon Minou…" Could anyone hug another person tighter than this? Marinette could hardly breathe. "I lied to you, Chaton. Monarch hadn't tampered with our dream at all. I…that must've been m-my dream be-because…I've always wanted to…" She couldn't finish and kicked herself mentally for being unable to finish, but buried her face into his chest and felt her tears starting to dampen the material of her father's t-shirt.

"I wanted that too. I…think that the desert island we were in at some point was my part of the dream actually." He chuckled to himself. "And the four kids. I've always wanted a big family because…well, mine sucks, so…"

She chuckled in his chest. "I wanted the kids too, Adrien. I had it all planned in my fantasies. We would have three kids, Emma, Louis, and Hugo, and… and a hamster. Yes, in my fantasies we also had a hamster."

He laughed. "I wanted a hamster too. Monarch really has tampered with our dream because the hamster wasn't there at all. I wanted to call it—"

But he wasn't able to finish, because she put her lips on his, and his eyes grew wide.

"I love you, stupid cat." She smiled at his surprise, but his shock was short-lived because soon he put his fingers to her chin and tilted it up to kiss her again. Ah, he would never grow tired of it!

"Say that again, Bug. I've waited for this moment for too long. Am I dreaming? I must've fallen asleep and now I'm in a dream—" He couldn't finish because Marinette pinched him very hard on his forearm. "Ouch, that hurt!"

"It's not a dream this time, mon doux Chaton. Kiss me again," she whispered, and Adrien was even too happy to oblige.

Fin

Author's Note:

Hello! Here's the end of the story! Thank you so much for all the comments at this story! You're all amazing ^-^ Hope you'll like this chapter too :) Please drop me a comment to let me know what you thought. It doesn't have to be war and peace, even one word would be nice. Of course, long comments are very lunch appreciated, but anything also makes me happy.

Guys, can't wait for Elation tomorrow. I need my Marichat fix ^-^

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