Marinette spent years of her life wanting Adrien 'Buttercup' Agreste to fall in love with her and he never did. She wasn't surprised by that fact, at least she wasn't surprised by it anymore. She had held out hope that things would work out for the two of them and they could start going on real, propurr double dates with Alya and Nino.

Instead of that happening, though, Adrien didn't fall in love with Marinette. He told her about the girls he did have feelings for, mostly Kagami, but also this girl he sometimes mentioned working with. She tried to not let it bother her when she was just lumped in as 'one of the guys' when Adrien talked about the girls he had feelings for.

At lunch, though, Adrien was talking about this girl he'd spent every day of their break with and Marinette could see the look in his eyes. The peridot green eyes were filled with hope, filled with love as he spoke about the girl he'd been 'overlooking for years,' but he'd 'developing feeling for' over the last few months.

Apparently, she was brave, smart, beautiful, funny, and the purrfect girl for Adrien. Marinette paused her internal voice to shake out the involuntary cat pun she'd made. She really had been spending too much time with her partner. Apparently, this stranger was enough for Adrien when Marinette never was.

Marinette used that knowledge as a catalyst for change and decided to find someone who would make her as happy as this girl made Adrien. Again, she tried to shake off the involuntary cat pun, doing her best to pretend she hadn't thought of it in the first place. She was having a nice time out with her friends at the catfé.

That pun caused her smile to be just a little bit bigger than it had been a minute ago, not enough to be a visible change, but enough for her to be able to tell there was a difference. She tried not to notice when Adrien looked at her more than he usually did when the four of them went out to lunch because she didn't want to feel jealous of the girl he liked.

Mostly, though, Marinette was just wanting to go home. She was having fun chatting with her friends, but she also knew that her minou said he would come by earlier than usual that day. She found herself wanting to tell him about the puns that she was coming up with while she was with her friends, but she knew that it would just catastrophically inflate his ego if he found out.

She couldn't help but to find herself wanting to make jokes that she would usually make with Chat Noir. When Adrien talked about the magazine he was going to be featured in, Marinette had to stop herself from asking him questions about the catalogue just to entertain herself. No one else would appurrciate her cat puns like Chat Noir would.

"So, how are you going to categorize the new articles?" Marinette was able to ask at one point when Alya mentioned that she was working on a few new pieces on each of the heroes for the Ladyblog. She was also trying to get an internship over the summer and Nadja Chamack had made a few suggestions on how to improve the website, including tagging every article.

Marinette didn't see Adrien's reaction to her making a cat pun. He felt his heart race in his chest and wondered if she would ever like him as much as he liked her. He was practically catatonic when he heard her make the pun. He knew that she would joke around with him as Chat Noir at home, but he didn't think she would ever publicly make puns.

He thought he was bready to tell the bakers' daughter how he'd been falling in love with her for the last few months. They spent time together most days and she was always so happy to spend time with Chat Noir. He wondered if she would ever be able to be at yeast that happy with Adrien, or if he would have to catch her attention in his hero guise.

He was almost certain that she would never feel the same way about him, though. After how much Ladybug rejected him, he was terrified to get turned down by Marinette, too. Especially since she would barely even look at him during their lunch that day. She seemed to have her eyes fixed anywhere except for him.

He was placated by the fact that he could maybe get away with telling her how he felt as Chat Noir instead of Adrien. On the likely chance that she didn't like him the same way as he liked her, he would be able to abdicate his feelings and it wouldn't accidentally ruin the friendship between the four of them.

It would mean that he probably wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her as Chat Noir, but he would still be able to gain the catharsis from being honest about his feelings. Plus, if she was accepted for the Gabriel internship that summer, he would still be able to spend more time with her than Adrien and Marinette usually would.

Marinette had looked lost in thought during most of their lunch that day and he wondered what she was thinking about. Her facial expurrsions didn't help him figure out if her thoughts were good or bad and he didn't like being unsure. She wasn't looking at him, not that she usually did, but he always held out hope that she would become more comfortable with him during the years of their friendship.

He needed to figure out a way to communicate his feelings to Marinette, as soon as possible, but he knew that she wouldn't appreciate him just caterwauling outside of her window at night, even though that was purretty close to what he did on a normal basis. She never seemed to have a purroblem with him doing that, but he wanted to know how she felt before he did anything.

He needed to figure out a catalyst to use as a means of figuring out how she felt about him. He considered asking Alya, knowing Marinette would almost certainly tell her best friend about her crush, but he knew that would go catastrophically, Alya would immediately tell Marinette that he asked and that would throw off his plan to confess as Chat Noir.

He wondered, briefly, if he could just not deal with feelings. Maybe, if he were sneaky enough, he would just be able to relocate to the catacombs below the city and only leave his new home when Ladybug needed her partner. Surely, that would be easier than trying to confess his feelings to the girl sitting across the table from him.

Or, purrhaps, he could find a catapult that would just send him away from Paris and he would never need to deal with any complications that came along with having feelings for her and having a secret identity. Marinette had put so much effort into her application, though, he couldn't just leave until he at least knew whether she was accepted or not.

"Sunshine?" Alya's voice was able to capture his attention. She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he zoned back into the lunch he was supposed to be having with his friends.

"Huh? What? Sorry, I was cat- caught up in my own head. What were you saying, Alya?" He was glad that Marinette didn't seem to notice him, almost saying that he was 'cat up in his thoughts,' but that didn't explain why she was still looking so distracted. He wondered if she would tell him what was bothering her when Chat Noir went over after their lunch was done.

"We're getting ready to head out." He nodded in agreement. The four of them paid their bills then left with Alya and Nino leaving together and Marinette and Adrien heading in their separate directions to transform and head over to her place. Adrien stopped at his room for a while, making sure that Marinette would have enough time to get home from lunch before Chat Noir showed up.


Words used as puns in order: proper, perfect, catalyst, café, chatting, catastrophically, catalogue, appreciate, categorize, catatonic, ready, least, catch, placated, abdicate, catharsis, expressions, communicate, caterwauling, pretty, problem, catalyst, catastrophically, relocate, catacombs, perhaps, catapult, complications, application, caught