"So, what did you pick up fur lunch?" Marinette asked Chat. He took a few steps away from her and sat on the floor. He smiled up at her, still sitting in her computer chair. He smiled at her and she giggled before standing up and moving across her bedroom to sit down on the floor near him. He took both boxes out of the bag and opened the first one.
"For the princess,' he began, "a croque madame, no edits or substitutions because I know Café Cloche makes your favorite in the city." Marinette wondered how Chat knew that, but she decided not to question him while he was being a sweetheart. "And for me, the Chat Noir special" He opened the lid of his sandwich and didn't know what to expect.
He hadn't actually read the description of the sandwich before he ordered it because he was so excited that there was something named after him. If he had, though, he would have known before he opened the box that it was a tuna salad sandwich, complete with celery in the tuna salad. He didn't judge anyone who liked tuna, but it wasn't a flavor he liked.
"Sticking with the cat theme," he said, a little less sure than he was a minute ago. And it has my colors." The bread of the sandwich was dyed black, which he thought was cute. Combined with the celery, it did have both of his colors, but Marinette could see that he wasn't thrilled with the choice that he had made.
"Do you want to trade?" Marinette offered, "I like tuna and you may have noticed, I kind of like Chat Noir, too." She smiled at him, hoping that a little flirting would help him out of the disappointment he found himself feeling. He smiled at the offer.
"I'll be fine," he assured, "I don't mind tuna, plus that one's your favorite." Marinette thought his response was sweet, but she didn't necessarily agree with his response. She reached over to the bag their lunches came in and found a pack of plastic utensils.
"Isn't Ladybug always telling you to be a little less selfless? This seems like a perfect, low consequence time to start practicing." She didn't know if he'd ever told Marinette that, but she would think of a lie later if she had to. He was always so quick to sacrifice himself or something he wanted for anyone else and that was something she both appreciated and hated about him.
She took out a little plastic knife and cut her sandwich in half, thankful that the egg was over medium so the yolk didn't spill everywhere. She placed half back into her box and held out the other half to him. "Sharing is caring?" she asked hopefully. His heart soared at the gesture and he took the sandwich from her hand.
He placed it on top of his fries so it wouldn't come in contact with the tuna sandwich. "If I'm sharing my burden with you, you have to start sharing your burdens with me," he replied. "I care about you, Mari, and I know that this is just a sandwich, but I also know that you're not taking care of yourself enough. There's nothing Toulouse by letting me be there for you."
Marinette took a deep breath and didn't want to agree to start sharing her responsibility with him. He already took on as much as he could as her partner, she couldn't expect the same of him as her significant other, too. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she looked up, meeting his eyes. "Deal," she agreed, almost immediately regretting it.
He took the knife and split his own sandwich in half. He held out one half of it to her and she took it with a soft smile on her face. She took a bite of the sandwich and he did the same. "Serious things are for later though," she said when she finished her first bite. "I need to Aix you some more fun questions while we're hanging out."
He chuckled, finishing his own first bite. "As long as you're not going to Moscow I'm so devilishly gorgeous," he responded, flipping his hair, "I don't think I'd be able to give you a good answer to that one." She rolled her eyes and shook her head fondly at the boy who seemed genuinely just happy to exist with her.
"I wasn't," she assured, "I was going to ask. If you could Rome anywhere in the world, where would you most want to go? I know that you already Cannes go anywhere, but I'm just curious, I guess."
He took a moment to think before he snapped his fingers. "Oh, that's easy," he claimed after a moment. "I would want to go back to China. I had to go for work once, but I didn't get to spend much time there, so it's pretty Shanghigh on my list of places to go back to."
"You had to go for work?" she wondered, quirking an eyebrow at him as she took another bite of her sandwich. Based on her facial expressions, it was easy to see that she was trying to figure out if he was really that much older than she was. He knew that he had messed up, there were very few jobs that someone could have at his age that would involve traveling that far.
It took everything in his power to keep the blush from developing across his cheeks as he came up with an answer. "Yeah," he tried to say coolly, "someone who will not be named got lost in Shanghai, so Ladybug and I had to go over there to make sure she didn't get herself into any trouble. I meant that I had to go there for superhero work, obviously."
Marinette could clearly tell that he was Lyons through his teeth, but she was also sure that she wasn't ready to learn more about any other job he would possibly have to travel for. "Now, I want to Dublin down on a few questions. Where would you want to travel and what's your favorite trip you've been on."
If she'd been asked a few months ago, she would have said New York in a heartbeat, because that was where she danced with Adrien in the sky. However, that was also the trip where she had lost her partner for the first time and she didn't want that to be anywhere near the memory of her favorite trip.
Chat watched as a few different emotions rushed over Marinette's face and he didn't know if he would be able to give her support or help in making the decisions. "My nonna and I took our bikes down to southern France last summer after I turned 17," Marinette said with a small smile on her face. "It was a Nice trip and I'm glad I got to spend that time with her."
She was stressed because it meant leaving the earrings with Scarabella for about a week, but it seemed like their resident supervillain happened to take that time off anyway. "Ottowanna go to Quebec, I think," she finally said after a period of thought. "Especially during the winter, I think that the snow would be gorgeous and it seems like it could be so inspirational."
He smiled at her answers and the two of them sat on her floor, eating and talking for a few hours. It didn't feel much different than normal, except for the fact that the two of them were brushing against each other more than they did in the past. They continued making city puns together until Chat had to leave, but not before kissing her temple and agreeing to come back the next evening.
