The next day, Nathalie informed Adrien that his friend's application had been received by the intern coordinators.

'Hey, Marinette! Congrats on signing up for the internship (Nathalie told me). My fingers are crossed for you! Good luck!'

'Thanks, Adrien! Hope you're having a good spring break! I'll see you at lunch with Nino and Alya tomorrow!'

He hadn't even remembered scheduling lunch with them that weekend, but he was always happy to spend time with them, especially as Adrien instead of Chat Noir. He knew he couldn't just show up and congratulate Marinette as Chat, but he was hopeful that she'd tell him as soon as possible so he could give her the hug she deserved for putting the entire application together in such a short period of time.

In the meantime, though, he needed to do some schoolwork and piano practice before he could go to Marinette's that evening. He tried to focus on what he needed to do, but he was mostly just wasting time instead of actually accomplishing anything. He took a shower, gave Plagg some snacks, made a few dumb tweets on the Chat Noir Twitter page, and finished one piece on piano.

Just before 18h30, he decided it was late enough that he could go over to Marinette's place. He was surprised when he approached to see that her fairy lights were turned on. He was even more surprised when he got closer and could see a tray of cookies and a hot water kettle on her table.

He was only standing there for about a minute before he heard the telltale creak of Marinette's trapdoor opening. He turned toward it immediately and helped her keep it open while she carried up a few blankets. It wasn't particularly a chilly evening, but he knew they could just spend hours talking and the temperature would only go down as the night approached.

"I figured we could spend some qualitea time together," Marinette said shyly, motioning to the table she'd set up. "I've been kind of ignoring you for the last few days and while I appreciate that you've kept spending time with me, I've kind of missed just casually hanging out with you like we usually do. Now that I'm done with the application, now seemed like a nice time to hang out, if that's fine with you." A little blush came over her face.

Chat Noir's face brightened, especially after hearing her pun. "That sounds like a tealightful way to spend the evening, princess," he agreed. "Is there anything that I can do to help you set everything up?" He tried to take the blankets from her, but she shook her head at him.

"Go sit down," she told him, "I can handle carrying a few blankets." He mostly believed her, but as Adrien and Chat Noir, he had seen her trip because of far less than a pile of blankets. Instead of sitting, he kind of followed her, happy that he did when he caught her from falling as she carried everything.

He caught her in a princess hold and it caused both of them to blush. "Okay," she giggled, "maybe I can't handle carrying a few blankets." When he got her back onto her feet, he took about half of the small pile from her hands and placed them onto one of the seats, leaving two chairs that were next to each other open for the two of them to use.

"So, this is the surprise you planned for me?" he asked with a smile on his face. He sat down on one of the chairs and she sat down next to him as she nodded in response to his question. From their seats, they could watch the sun setting over the Eiffel Tower and they were both comfortable just sitting there together for a while.

"I don't know what kind of tea you like, so I brought up a few different kinds that we could just brew up here." She brought a small container filled with tea bags over to the two of them and opened it so he could look at the options.

"I appreciate the sentimint, princess. This was a greyt idea. I always love when I get to spend a chamowhile with you." He motioned to all three sections of tea as he made each of the puns and Marinette couldn't help the reaction bubbling out of her.

"Chamowhile was a bit of a stretch," she responded with a full-bodied laugh. "I feel like it's just been soolong since I've been able to hang out with you." Again, Chat Noir felt his heart flutter at hearing Marinette make puns that were just as silly and ridiculous as his. She wasn't nearly as in practice as he was, but he considered every pun to be a win.

"What kind of tea did you want, though?" Marinette asked and he hadn't even considered what he wanted to drink, too focused on coming up with silly jokes to make the girl next to him smile and laugh with him.

"Oh, uh, mint. Mint sounds lovely," he landed on, hoping it didn't have too much caffeine in it. He rarely had tea, but he was pretty sure that earl grey had a lot of caffeine. He knew that chamomile tea was usually a sleepytime tea, but it wasn't even 19h00 yet, and he didn't plan to go to sleep for at least a few hours.

"Perfect," she said with a smile on her face. She opened two packets of the mint tea and put one into each of the mugs she'd brought up earlier that day. One of them was black and green while the other was grey and pink. He put some milk and sugar into his tea and Marinette did the same before the two of them clinked their cups together and relaxed to watch the sunset.

Chat Noir was happily eating the cookies while the two of them talked and joked with each other. Before they knew it, each of them had finished their first cups of tea and the sun was entirely set in the sky. Marinette went into her room to grab a small trash can where they could discard their used tea bags.

While Marinette was grabbing the trash bin, Chat Noir grabbed a few of the blankets, knowing the temperature was starting to drop. Marinette was wearing a pair of pajama pants, like the pair she'd worn to the movie with Adrien, along with a sweatshirt, but she always seemed to get cold so easily.

She placed the trash down at Chat Noir's side and moved around to her seat where he had been holding up the blankets to wrap around her. He wrapped her in them delicately, careful not to move the blanket too fast and accidentally create a further chill for her. She sat back in her seat and reached out to pour them each some more tea.

"Which varietea would you like this time?" he asked with a smirk on his face. She rolled her eyes, but the grin on her face didn't lessen at all in response to his question. In fact, he was almost convinced that her smile was even bigger than it was a second ago.

"Depends how late you want to stay up," she responded, "I was up pretty late working on the blazer last night, so if you want to stay up for a while I might need some caffeine." He could see a small tint of pink in her cheeks. She tried to hide a yawn behind the sleeve of her sweatshirt, but it wasn't as successful as she wanted it to be.

"Sounds like it's time for some chamomile for you, then, princess. If you go to sleep early tonight, I'll come by early tomorrow and we can hang out as much as you want." Marinette nodded in agreement, shy about the suggestion that he had made. He placed a bag of chamomile into the green and black mug, but he put another bag of mint into his.

Marinette put some milk into her tea and sipped it slowly, knowing that Chat would leave once she finished. The two stayed up talking for a while longer until Marinette was practically falling asleep on the table around 20h45. He helped her bring everything back into her room so she could take everything down once she woke up.

He gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and she basked in the warmth of the contact of his lips. He helped her get safely into bed, making sure that she was as warm under her covers as she could be. He made sure to close the trapdoor when he left and the smile on his face was huge, even in the hours he stayed awake before finally falling asleep himself.


Words used as puns in order: quality, sentiment, great, chamomile, chamomile, so long, variety