Chat Noir continued to show up at Marinette's on a regular basis. Now that summer was slowly approaching, Marinette spent more evenings sitting out on her balcony instead of being cooped up in her bedroom.
She was working on a design of something to wear on her first day of the internship. She was still stressed about the idea of losing the internship if she couldn't keep a proper schedule because of her Ladybug duties, but that wasn't a purrticularly solvable problem, or one she could talk to Chat about, so she didn't mention it.
He sat on the other side of her balcony's table and was drumming his clawed fingertips across the surface as he looked at something on his laptop. The sound of the little 'tap, tap, tap, tap' was a little grating and Marinette found herself looking at her partner more than she expected as he made the distracting little sounds.
She couldn't help but find herself smiling at the obnoxious laptop case he used when she did look at him. The case was black and green and had a sticker on it that said the phrase 'super tailented' surrounding a chibi picture of his own face.
She reached out a hand toward him and placed it under the spot his claws were hitting on the table. "The sound was being a pain in my tail," she mumbled with a light blush on her face. She had her palm face up and closed her fingers around his hand, not particularly meaning to hold it, but also not regretting it.
"Well, I'll have you know that bothering you is a purrticular tailent of mine," Chat Noir said with a small smile spreading across his cheeks. He jokingly raised an eyebrow at her and rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.
"Trust me," she responded with an eye roll, "I know." Now that the drumming was over, Marinette was able to get back to focusing on the work she'd been doing in her sketchbook, not considering the fact that she was just holding Chat's hand from across her table. He, on the other hand, was very aware of the fact that she still hadn't let go of his fingers.
His heart was pounding in his chest at the feeling of holding Marinette's hand, but he was also embarrassed about the fact that he didn't know if it was intentional on her part or not. Marinette was making tiny notes in the margin of her sketchbook and Chat assumed that she was making a list of details or materials.
The list was really just possible information about Paris' villain's identity. From what they could tell when they saw him in person, Marinette knew that he was definitely tailer than the average Parisian. They knew that he was a male and someone with a lot to gain if he were their local terrorist.
"What are you working on?" Chat asked her with a smile on his face. She didn't seem to hear his question when he asked it, so he squeezed the hand that was still holding his. She looked over at him and shook her head, trying to dislodge hero thoughts for a little while.
"Huh?" Her mouth was open in a little gape when she responded and he chuckled.
"I just asked what you've been working on? If you can talk about it." He knew she'd been more secretive with her designs lately and he understood that it was necessary sometimes, but it felt like she was keeping them from him more often than not lately and he didn't like the feeling that came along with that.
"Oh," she responded, using her hand to cover the scrawled notes on the side of the page. She took her hand from his and they both felt a little more alone than they did a second ago. Neither of them were ready to draw attention to that fact, but Chat felt his heart fall a little bit and Marinette found herself missing the warmth of his hand.
"I'm trying to work on something to go with the blazer I made for my application, but I can't figure out the details for it." I was originally thinking I'd make a dress to wear under the blazer, but I was worried because from what I've heard, interns are usually running around all day and a dress wouldn't purrticularly lend itself well to that."
Adrien would have recommended a romper, but wasn't sure if Chat Noir would know what that is. Hopefully, though, Marinette wouldn't think anything of his knowledge of fashion terms, especially given how often he came over to hang out with her while she was working.
"What if you made a rompurr instead?" he suggested. He pointed to the basic design of the dress on her page. "If you just turn the skirt of the dress into loosely fitted shorts, you can still keep the shape of a dress with the purracticality of the shorts. You're super tailented, princess, I'm sure you'd be able to manage something like that."
Marinette was, once again, caught off guard by Chat's sincerity. Between seeming to know how to fix the problem she was having and offering compliments, she wasn't sure how she'd never noticed how fatailly sweet he was before. She could've collapsed from just how amazing he was and how kindly he treated her without trying.
"That's a great idea, Chat," she admitted. "Thank you for the idea." She rose from her seat at the table to lean over and kiss him on the cheek before sitting once again and starting a new, real 'Notes' section in the margin of the page, away from where her supervillain notes were trying to be inconspicuous.
"I'm always happy to provide ideas for the girl who is just a few years away from totailly taking over Paris fashion," he responded, wiggling his eyebrows at her playfully. At least, Marinette thought it was meant to be playful, she was still not sure what was meant to be flirty and what was meant to be friendly with him.
It seemed like his actions didn't change after he had admitted his felines to Ladybug, so Marinette wasn't sure if he had just always been flirty with her, or if he wasn't flirting because he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. She couldn't help but notice his big his smile was, accompanying the compliment and the pun.
The smile on her face grew to match his and her smile caused his heart to start racing. "Stop waggling your eyebrows at me," she joked. He chuckled with a small eye roll before he went back to focusing his attention on his laptop. He went back to drumming his fingers across the table and she placed her hand back out to him.
It took him almost no time to place his fingers onto her palm, stopping the drumming. She wrapped his fingers in her hand and blushed lightly. "I like hanging out with you," she admitted. "Even just… doing work independently next to you. It's nice." He looked at her long enough to smile, filled with genuine appreciation and warmth. "Even when you're being a pain in my tail."
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