This work (along with the rest of my works) is crossposted to Archive Of Our Own. If you want to see the cat memes that Félix sends Marinette and eventually see images of what they look like at the dance, please check out this fic there. Félix Cloche by Formidable_Coccinelle
I also post there before I post here, so follow on AO3 for faster updates.
The next day, he wasn't at school because of a photoshoot, so instead he spent the day sending Marinette texts and a few pictures. One of the photos was a flowering pink tulip, a few were cat memes. She smiled at each of them and Alya noticed.
'Did you know that I'm an aspiring Ladybug Cosplayer?'
'No? Please tell me you aren't serious.'
The next picture was a picture of him in a Ladybug suit, complete with mask. It wasn't a Mister Bug outfit because the shoulders and neck didn't have the black they'd need. It looked like he bought a red bodysuit and drew on his own black polka dots. He was wearing a mask, though, and that's what really mattered.
"Is that him," Alya asked from over Marinette's shoulder. Marinette couldn't help but jump slightly.
"Oh, yeah. This is Félix. He doesn't have school today, so he's been sending me stuff instead. He's trying to claim to be a Ladybug cosplayer, but I don't really believe him." Marinette thought through everything Chat had sent if there was anything incriminating that she shouldn't show Alya. She landed on it being okay to give Alya her phone.
Alya looked up to make eye contact to get permission before she started looking through Marinette's texts. Marinette nodded. "You can go through whatever. We just exchanged numbers last night, so there's not a lot to look at. You have to look while we walk, though."
Alya started scrolling through Marinette's phone and was disappointed to learn that Marinette was right about there not being a lot to look through. Alya smiled at most of the memes. She handed Marinette's phone back to her. When Marinette got it back, she typed a text to send to him.
'I'm going shopping now.'
'Have fun with Alya. Text me later?'
'Yeah.' She responded with a selfie of herself and Alya while they walked to the shop.
That day, Marinette found a pair of strappy silver heels. She also found a beautiful hairpin that would match nicely. She bought both and helped Alya choose between a few dresses she'd been seeing on the racks. Alya ended up with a dress with a sweetheart neckline. The skirt was full length and more form-fitting than Marinette's. She found a pair of heels and a clutch to match the dress.
The two decided to stop at Marinette's before heading to Alya's for the night. On the walk back to the bakery, Marinette saw something in a store window. She pointed to it to get Alya's attention that she wanted to stop. They went inside and Marinette went up to the counter.
"How much for the blue roses in the window," she asked the cashier who was working. The cashier looked up to see what she was talking about. There was a display of blue artificial roses in the window. She charged €5 for 4 of them. Marinette was happy to pay that much for them.
They arrived at the bakery and went up to Marinette's room. She put together a duffle bag of pajamas and an outfit for the next day. She also put together a bag of materials she could use to work on the masks. She was planning to put two of the roses on the masks and use two of them somewhere else in the outfit.
'I have a surprise for you.' The text was cryptic, but it made Adrien smile regardless while he was having his makeup removed after his photoshoot. He decided he would wait until he got home to respond to her. He put his phone back into his pocket, but the smile he'd been wearing for the entire shoot was noticed by the whole crew.
After he arrived at the mansion, Adrien responded to Marinette's text. The two of them spent the rest of the night texting while Marinette hung out with Alya. Marinette had a few cat memes of her own to share.
'Do I get a hint of my surprise?' Marinette sent a picture of what his mask looked like so far, on the side of the mask, barely cut off by the picture, he could see a small thing attached to the front of it. He couldn't see enough to tell what it was, but it was something on his mask. That by itself was enough to excite him.
'What time should I come by?' Marinette got the message from him at close to 14h on Saturday. She considered what she planned to do that day. She had enough of her dress done that she could try it on, but she was wanting to finish their masks before he came over.
'20h? I'll have pastries for you.'
':) I'll see you then.'
That night, she sent him a text. 'Come in when you get here, I went to grab the pastries.'
He did. When he arrived at the bakery, he waited in her bedroom instead of on her balcony. He'd been showing up for weeks, but it felt strange to be in her bedroom alone. Being alone in her room made him think about how often they were in her room alone as the two of them. She came back upstairs and he was just standing in the middle of her floor looking like a deer in headlights.
"Do your parents know I'm taking you to the dance?"
"Are you just opposed to small talk," she asked in response. "I swear you keep starting off conversations with big, important things. Yes, though, they know I am taking Chat Noir to my school's ball. Papa wants to know if this means he can tell people that I'm dating Félix Cloche." She rolled her eyes at her papa's comment.
"Do they know I'm spending time with you while you work on your design?"
"Yeah. Maman just made us hot chocolate," she held the tray which contained two mugs of hot chocolate and a small plate of pains au chocolat and macarons. "They like you, Fé. They trust you and they know you still have feelings for Ladybug, not me. Now, come on. I have things to show you." She held the tray in a way that gently pushed Chat Noir toward her chaise. He sat down and she put the tray down next to him.
"Okay, I'll be right back." She grabbed the dress from the dress form, picked up the shoes she got yesterday, and the mask she made. She turned on some music because she really didn't want to talk to Chat Noir while she was changing. She went behind her screen and put on the outfit.
"What do you think," she asked, coming around to his side of the screen. When she looked at him, she noticed his mouth was hanging open slightly and he spent a short time just staring at the dress. "Is that reaction good or bad," she tried to make it sound like she was joking, but she knew there was a chance she was biased and it wasn't as good as she thought.
He remembered to breathe after a moment, but that also caused him to choke on the bite of macaron that was in his mouth. She rushed toward him.
"I'm fine," he said quickly, wanting to make sure she wouldn't trip and ruin the dress. "This dress is amazing," he told her, voice dripping with sincerity once again. He stood up to get a closer look. He was surprised to see that there were no gems on the bodice, after seeing them in the skirt. He looked at the mask and saw the surprise.
"A blue rose," he said in a whisper. "It's gorgeous." He reached out to touch it, but stopped himself. He didn't want to tear it with his claws and he wouldn't be able to feel it anyway. He took another step back to admire the whole outfit. The silver heels looked cohesive with the skirt, but he still wasn't sure how he felt about the simplicity of the bodice.
He didn't want to seem like he was staring at her chest if he asked about it, but curiosity killed the cat. She blushed under his examining eyes.
"Will you help me," she asked?
"Of course. What do you need?" She handed her phone to him. Her screen was facing her and she pulled up a picture. She grabbed a white fabric pencil off of her desk. Looking between her bodice and her phone, she began drawing dots across her torso, starting near her chest and traveling down to the skirt.
Usually, he would love to watch her work, but in this case, watching her work would feel like an excuse to just look at her chest, so he didn't. Instead, he looked around her bedroom, noticing her posters and decorations. There were a few signed Jagged Stone posters, some from Adrien's old ad campaigns, a signed Kitty Section poster, and a poster of himself and Ladybug that Ladybug signed. It was the first time he'd noticed it.
She took the phone back from him and held it to face him. "How did I do? Does everything look evenly spaced?" He looked between the phone screen and the bodice. He looked at each dot, then looked at the picture as a whole. He didn't fully know the plan for the dots, but they matched the picture on her phone.
"Looks good," he affirmed. "Seems well spaced to me." He gave her a thumbs up. He sat back down on the chaise and she did a spin to make sure everything had the motion she wanted it to. "Did you want me to sign your poster," he offered. The fact that she had a poster half-signed that she could've had him sign any time was rubbing him the wrong way.
"If you wouldn't mind," she responded, "I would appreciate it. I kept trying to get out to see you after an akuma attack just like everyone else, but you always left too quickly, or I just couldn't get through the crowds. I just didn't want you to think I'm your friend just so I can get your autograph. Sharpies are in the top drawer. I'm going to change back while you do that."
He got back up and looked into her drawer, considering the colors. He originally wanted to use green, but he didn't think it would show up well on the poster. He considered blue because that was the color they were wearing to the dance, but when he picked up the blue, he saw a silver metallic sharpie underneath it. He grabbed that one and signed her poster.
He wanted to sign it to his Purr-incess, or from her knight, or from Félix, but he knew Alya. If he signed it in any way that wasn't casual, she would see it and question Marinette. That wasn't something he'd want Marinette to have to deal with, especially since there was a possibility of Alya posting it on the Ladyblog.
After another minute, Marinette came back from the other side of the screen and put the dress back onto her dress form. She looked at the dots she had drawn on and pulled up the picture. "You were right. They're nicely spaced. Thank you for helping me."
"Happy to help my favorite civilian," he told her with a wink, "even though I didn't really do much. I just like to be able to spend time with you." He blushed brightly when he realized how sincere he was being instead of making a joke like he usually would.
"Samesies," she said quietly. It was something Chat said once when he first started visiting. He forgot the term 'Mood' when he saw a video of a cat just flopping down on someone's foot to demand attention. He could see the edge of her lip turn up in a smile. She leaned over to get something out of a bag. "This is yours," she said, handing him his completed mask.
He placed it on his face over his mask and Marinette laughed at his goofiness. "You should get some mask adhesive before the dance. If you tie it on well enough, there shouldn't be any issues of it coming off, but it would make it even harder for your identity to be revealed."
"That's a good idea…" He went quiet for a minute, trying to decide whether to ask his next question or not. "Do you know what blue roses mean?" He didn't know that there were blue roses before tonight, otherwise he would've looked into them.
"Mystery. Well, at least that's what I saw for the dark blue roses. Light blue roses mean something else, but I didn't look super closely. I originally thought they'd just look nice on our masks, but I figured you'd want to know what they mean, so… yeah, mystery." It was one of the first times that Adrien had seen Marinette ramble while he was in his Chat Noir guise.
"Ooh, I'm a mystery to you, am I?" He seemed like he was trying to wiggle his eyebrows under the double layer of masks.
"The only mystery you are to me is the mystery of how someone as dorky as you became a superhero," she retorted. She gently shoved his arm. It went without saying that the mystery behind the rose was the mystery of his true identity.
"Well, you'll have until the end of the ball to try to solve that mystery, Princess." He winked at her.
"I think it'll take longer than that. I guess you'll have to keep coming back after the ball, too." She tried to make the comment sound like a joke, but her heart was pounding in her chest at the knowledge that she just asked him to keep spending time with her.
"You mean I have to keep spending time with my favorite civilian," he asked exasperated, "I could never." He chuckled. "I should get home, Princess. I'll see you tomorrow?" She nodded. He leaned down to kiss her forehead.
"Text me if you need anything," she said as he walked toward her trapdoor. He smiled over his shoulder to her and gave her a two-finger salute before he left for the night.