Marinette stayed up as late as she could talking to her boyfriend about her theories about Monarch and the Miraculouses, but eventually she fell asleep. She ended up falling asleep on his shoulder and he couldn't help but admire how cute she looked as she slept. He helped her lay down, moving slowly to not jostle her awake.
"I love you, princess," he whispered to her. He knew he should leave, but before he could do that, he needed to talk to her kwami. "Tikki," he called out for her quietly, "can you come out to the balcony. I need to talk to you." Tikki lazily floated out of one of Marinette's scrap piles and the two of them went up to the balcony.
He closed the trapdoor between them and his girlfriend. "I don't know how to help her," he told the kwami, floating at his eye level. "She was so… comfortable lying to me about the fact that she was overwhelmed. We were hanging out for weeks and Marinette never said anything. I've been Ladybug's partner for years and she never said anything. Is she okay?"
Tikki didn't know how to answer that question. She knew that Marinette wasn't doing okay with everything, especially since Chat was coming over to keep her company. At the same time, though, she knew that there was a chance that him knowing the secret would work Marinette into a tizzy, trying even harder to figure out the identity so the two of them could be done being heroes.
"She'll be fine," Tikki tried to assure, but the stranded look on Chat's face showed that her answer didn't give him the confirmation he wanted. "She has you by her side, more than she knows. You help remind her to take care of herself. Thank you for that, Adrien." Hearing the kwami say his name was nerve wracking, but he quickly relaxed.
"Should I tell her who I am?" His voice was shaky as he spoke and it was clear from Tikki's expression that he wasn't going to like her answer.
"I can't make that decision for you," she replied carefully, "neither can Plagg. That's a decision that needs to come from you and Marinette. She won't ask about your identity and I can't say how she'll react if you ask about it. She has the day off tomorrow, though, if you want to come hang out with her while she works on some pastries for her parents."
He nodded with a smile and took off into the night, back toward the mansion where he was hopeful he wasn't sleeping under the same roof as Paris' biggest threat. He tossed and turned for most of the night, hoping he would eventually fall asleep, but it took what felt like all night for him to finally fall asleep.
It felt like he slept for a total of 5 minutes when he woke up the next morning, exhausted. He rolled over and checked the time, 09h30. He knew that he could go back to sleep without getting in trouble, but he didn't. He wanted to go see his girlfriend as soon as possible. He double checked that there was nothing on his schedule before he transformed, leaving through his window by 10h00.
Marinette had been waking up at 07h00 on a daily basis for the internship during the entire summer. She would sleep in until 08h00 on her days off, so he wasn't surprised to see that she was already out of bed when he got to the apartment. Based on what Tikki told him yesterday, he went straight into the kitchen and saw his girlfriend, his partner standing in the kitchen.
"Good morning, princess," he greeted with a big smile on his face. Even though he was citron he'd only gotten at most 2 hours of sleep, her very presence was able to jolt him awake. He stepped over to her and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before rounding the counter to take his normal seat on the stool across from where she was working.
"Good morning, minou," she greeted as she cut up one of the pears in front of her on the counter. "You're here clawfully early today." She was right, he usually wouldn't show up until closer to 12h00 when she wasn't working, but that was usually when he had things to do as Adrien, too. It was also when he wasn't needing an answer to a question.
"Yeah," he agreed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I kind of couldn't wait to come back here to see my pearfect girlfriend. Maybe lend her a paw if she needs it. Plus, I needed to check with Ladybug about something and wanted to get it knocked out as quickly as I could before I end up messing anything up."
"And what," Marinette asked, stopping the chopping of the knife, "can Ladybug help you with today?"
"I asked her custarday about if it would be okay for me to reveal my identity to my girlfriend and she never actually answered my question. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the answer I got from her, but I don't know if the answer she gave me will be appleicable to my situation." He watched as his girlfriend giggled and it filled his heart.
She hadn't even realized that she hadn't given him an answer when he asked about telling his girlfriend. It had felt like so much had happened since he first brought up the idea versus now, but she knew he needed an answer. "Do you trust her?" Marinette asked, hoping her voice was louder than the pounding of her heart.
"More than anyone," he responded, voice filled with sincerity. He took a deep breath and she did the same, meeting her boyfriend's bright, peridot eyes. She wondered, absently, what his eyes looked like under the transformation. Did they look like Mister Bug's, or did Tikki change his eyes like Plagg did?
"I figured you did," Marinette agreed, "if you think you need to tell her, Ladybug says you're allowed to." A smile came over his face and he opened his mouth. Marinette wasn't ready for his identity, but if it meant that much to him, she would listen to him and learn whatever he wanted to share about himself.
"Grape," he said with a smile. "I'll be sure to tell her next chance I get." Apparently, Marinette was more ready to learn his identity than she thought, given how disappointed she was by the fact that he hadn't just told her who he was. "For now, though, what can I do to help you with baking? Or should I just go ahead and distract you by whisking you off for a nice date."
"You really only make the worst jokes," Marinette said, "I'm constantly shocked I haven't just let the entire mango and split from you by this point. If you want to help, though, you could start washing off the apples and peaches for me."
He followed her instructions and the two spent the next while baking pies together. Well, Marinette spent the next while baking pies while Chat Noir was being a berry successful distraction fur his girlfriend.
