Back at the apartment, Alya was gone for the night — spending it at Nino's — so Marinette laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling, a dreamy, lovesick expression smeared all over her features. She clutched her pillow to her chest, and Plagg sighed to himself, diving into the Cheese-Itz box. It was all too mushy for him to handle.
"Can you believe it…? Coccinello loves me…" she murmured.
Plagg crunched on a cracker and decided this had gone far enough. "Marinette… you are aware that nothing has actually changed, right?"
That broke her out of her trance. She rolled over onto her side and peered at him. "What do you mean?" she asked, and it was still a little faraway, her tone not as serious as it should have been.
"I mean," Plagg responded crossly, floating up into her face and gesturing heatedly, "the reason you broke up with Coccinello? Because hero relationships are dangerous? Does that ring a bell? Yeah, they still are, by the way. And getting back together did not solve the problem. The two of you are putting yourselves just as much at risk now as you were yesterday."
All of Marinette's elation came crashing down around her head. How had she been able to forget that? Coccinello was so important to her that she had almost lost herself in the idea that she had lost him. But Plagg was right. Nothing had changed. Not really.
Marinette groaned and put the pillow over her head. In a quiet voice, devoid of all previous jubilation, she asked her kwami, "What do you suggest?"
Plagg thought about that for a moment, and Marinette saw the look in his eyes. She interrupted before he could speak.
"Because the truth is, I'm not sure I can continue to be an effective superhero if I lose Coccinello. I'll be so distracted by the fact that we're no longer together, and if there are hard feelings, I'll be a total wreck on the battlefield. I was a total wreck for all of today, and there wasn't even a sentimonster. Can you imagine what a disaster that would have been?"
Plagg's expression grew uncomfortable. He was aware that Marinette was also right, that they needed to find a solution less black and white. But both of them stayed as they were, their minds racing, trying to come up with the perfect way to deal with this situation, but if the silence was anything to go by, they were both stuck at square one.
Marinette rubbed her temples, sitting up in bed so as to think more clearly. How in the world could they do this? How could she and Coccinello stay together, in a way separate from their battles, so that they could be safe? Because what they were doing now was not working, but ending things altogether was simply not an option Marinette was willing to consider.
Marinette's phone buzzed, and she lurched for it, automatically assuming it was Fu. Her face fell when it was just a notification that some apps needed to be updated. But when Marinette's eyes fell on the time, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Plagg, it's almost 01:00! We need to solve this problem tomorrow!" And she turned out the lights and tried to go to sleep as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately for Marinette, she didn't have another chance to figure it out, because first thing in the morning, as she sat at the dining table, trying to wake up over her yogurt, her phone blipped, and her heart nearly fell out of her chest, because it had been almost two weeks since she had heard that telltale blip.
She couldn't pull her phone out fast enough.
"Nadja Chamack on the scene at the Louvre museum. A monster is currently on the rampage! But this is no ordinary monster! It seems to be making demands!"
Marinette choked as the camera focused on the sentimonster. It was like nothing she'd seen before. It looked so… humanlike. Had Marinette not already known there was someone trapped in there, she would have no choice but to come to that conclusion now. It was almost as if the sentimonster was the armor the possessed person was wearing. She seemed to be a living tulip. The flower was her head, and the rest of her body, including her limbs, were long, thorny vines, twisting and braiding into each other to protect herself.
But that wasn't all. As the camera came closer to the sentimonster, it opened its mouth and spoke! "Coccinello! Kitty Noire! Come and fight me, before my patience wears out!"
"It appears the heroes aren't on the scene yet! Will they get here in time?" Nadja narrated, the camera back on her.
Marinette shoveled the rest of her breakfast into her mouth, shaking her head. "It's 07:00!" She ran to the kitchen to put her spoon in the dishwasher, and got dressed as fast as possible, trying not to think about her conversation with Plagg last night, trying not to let her stomach pool with dread.
In moments, she was Kitty Noire, leaping across rooftops, racing to the museum. Her thoughts were racing just as quickly. This monster was new. Would their unlucky charm still work?
In her distraction, she didn't notice Coccinello until he yo-yoed right past her, calling, "Need a ride, my love?"
Seeing him made her forget her concerns. Kitty tried not to turn into a puddle as Coccinello alighted right beside her, pulling her flush against him, his arm snaking around her waist. She wrapped her own arms around his broad frame, and Coccinello gave the tip of her nose a small kiss before launching them forward, flying toward their latest adversary.
But as the museum grew closer, Kitty had to shake her head to remind herself to focus. This sentimonster was a big deal. Clearly, the owner of the peacock miracle stone had been biding their time for a reason; to unleash something previously unseen. Kitty Noire's smile slipped off entirely.
When they reached their destination, Kitty Noire's stomach fell out. The sentimonster was much bigger than she had appeared in the news footage. Kitty had assumed she was as tall as a regular human — but her stature in person was close to eight feet.
Coccinello's feet touched down on an adjacent rooftop. He loosened his grip on Kitty's waist and she just stared at their enemy, mind reeling.
"Kitty Cat," Coccinello cooed. "It's gonna be fine. So she's strong. We can handle it. Let's face it, those old sentimonsters were child's play. I'm looking forward to an actual challenge." He cracked his fingers and stretched, his eyes closed in cocky confidence.
Kitty Noire just looked at her feet, not sharing it. "Part of me agrees with you. But there are lives at stake. I can't help but feel I'd rather fight easy adversaries if it meant everyone turned out okay. I'm nervous to screw this one up, too." The last sentence was said quietly, much more quietly than the rest, almost as if she was telling it to herself.
Coccinello's hand came to rest on her shoulder. "You won't screw this up. I promise. I'll be here to help you. We're a team, remember?"
Kitty Noire met his eyes and almost agreed, but her past wouldn't allow her to. Her eyes fell back to their shoes. "But Mme. Renault…?"
Coccinello shook his head, as if there was to be no more talk on that topic. "We were inexperienced. How many times have we failed since then? Let's just follow what we know, what we've become amazing at. I promise you that it will be just like every other time we've succeeded."
Kitty Noire wasn't convinced, but she nodded all the same. They didn't have a choice, in the end, regardless of her apprehension.
She pulled out her baton and elongated it, giving Cocci a curt nod. He smiled at her, nodding back, and with that, they jumped off in opposite directions, preparing to scope their enemy out.
But the flower sentimonster surprised Kitty by knowing exactly what she was about to do. As Kitty Noire was near to landing, the sentimonster threw out her arm vines, which seemed to extend impossibly long, and Kitty had to lean all her weight to the side to dodge the attack.
Her heart was pounding in her ears. Already she was starting to feel like she was in over her head.
The sentimonster's vines returned to herself, and she laughed, and it was bone-chilling.
"You two think you're so smart, do you? Well, my mistress is done playing games with you. She's bided her time, she's scoped you out by sending easy monsters your way. Don't think it will stay that way! She's determined to get your miracle stones now!" And as if to punctuate what she was saying, the sentimonster launched her vines at both Kitty and Coccinello simultaneously, and although Coccinello had expected it and dodged appropriately, Kitty's heart hammered harder as she felt a vine ghost the bottom of her foot as she barely escaped.
She landed on a rooftop to catch her breath, trying not to panic, trying to reel herself back in. She was a superhero. She could handle anything.
But as the facts settled on her, she began to wonder whether or not that was true. Whether being a hero and believing in herself would be enough.
Coccinello landed beside her, brow furrowed. "You alright?"
Kitty shook her head. "Did you hear her? She's talking about her creator! The peacock wielder says she's done playing games! Don't you see it, Cocci? She's upping the ante so that she can get our miracle stones! We thought we were the ones who were cleverly learning about our opponent. But in reality, all those other easy sentimonsters were just that — tests for us. She made them so that she could learn about how we fight, learn our weaknesses, and take advantage of them. That's what this is! We're not prepared for anything! It's like… it's like, this whole time, she was letting us win!" Kitty Noire's voice became more hysterical the more she went on, the more she realized it was true as she spoke about it.
She had been right before. They were not prepared, not one bit.
But somehow, Coccinello wasn't seeing what she was seeing. "That might be true, but we also learned about her. It isn't as if all of our practice and coordination with each other was for nothing. We learned how to take down monsters, Kitty Noire. And that's exactly what we're going to do today!" and he clenched his fist, looked to her, and jumped out into the fray, as if to demonstrate.
Kitty's hand reached out to try and stop him, but she couldn't move herself forward, couldn't do anything but watch as her partner put himself in danger. Her mind screamed to move, to help him, but her fear for him, her love for him, paralyzed her.
Coccinello threw out his yo-yo and wrapped it around the sentimonster's legs, trying to trip her, but she just snickered and lifted a foot, catching the steel wire against one of her thorns. The thorn cut cleanly through it, and it fell away, useless.
Coccinello stared wordlessly at his hand, where just the hoop of the yo-yo hung. The end of the wire glowed pink, and Kitty could see from her vantage point that the weapon was regrowing, but not quickly enough. Coccinello jumped out of the way of a vine, and now that he was defenseless, Kitty Noire's brain snapped into action.
She had to do something. She had to save him. She couldn't lose him like this, the exact way she'd been afraid of, the exact way she'd tried and failed to prevent.
She dived off the roof and right at the monster, elongating her baton to use like a bat, hoping to lop the floral head right off of the sentimonster. She wasn't thinking; she was following her instincts, knowing only that she had to do something to help the man she loved.
Her lack of calculation was her downfall, as the sentimonster brought up a vine to protect herself, and a thorn caught on Kitty Noire's arm and cut right through her suit. Kitty screamed in pain, her trajectory askew, and she fell to the ground and rolled right behind the museum in a heap.
"Kitty!" Coccinello shouted, but all Kitty could hear was ringing in her ears. She desperately turned her arm over to asses the gash. Blood was rapidly pooling where her skin had broken. She fought the panic rising in her throat. Now was not the time to hyperventilate.
"The suits are supposed to be indestructible!" she cried through the pain.
The sentimonster just laughed again, low and cruel. "Maybe to silly things like bullets. But my thorns are made from the same magic as your suit. We're on par with one another now!"
The blood ran like ice in Kitty Noire's veins. What kind of power did the peacock wielder have? No other sentimonsters could do such damage before. Kitty Noire wrapped her good arm around her wound, feeling suddenly naked and ridiculous, as if she were here as Marinette, on the battlefield, trying to save only thing that kept her from succumbing to her panic was the slow green glow crawling up her arm. The suit was healing itself, and her, but not instantly.
She lifted her head to look around the building, desperate eyes searching for Coccinello, her heart jumping when she finally found him, his yo-yo now reformed, about to throw it up into the air. "Luck—"
His spell was cut off abruptly as the sentimonster's vines snaked up and around Coccinello, yanking him to her, pinning his arms to his sides and surrounding his whole body in a tight coil. "Let's stop playing games, now, shall we?" she asked, chuckling into Coccinello's terrified eyes.
Kitty Noire looked down at her half-healed arm. It would have to do. She had to go back out there. Had to help Coccinello. Couldn't waste another moment while he was in danger.
She came back around the building, exposing herself. But it didn't matter, because the sentimonster was not looking anywhere near Kitty Noire. The vines on her other arm were reaching underneath the coil she had made, to Coccinello's hand hanging helplessly at his side, to the ring adorning his finger, the one giving him his power.
Kitty had to think fast.
She elongated her baton, using it like a pole vault, sending herself flying right at the monster once more, and once she was up in the air she retracted it to a smaller size, perfect for close combat.
The sentimonster looked up from Coccinello, batted the baton and Kitty away effortlessly, her thorns making even more cuts in Kitty Noire's suit. "Hah!" she jeered. "You can't save him! And soon enough, everyone will know the identity of your lovebug!"
But she had used the arm that was about to steal Cocci's miracle stone to do it, and that was all Kitty had wanted. To buy her partner some time.
"Do your thing, Kitty Cat!" Coccinello called, and Kitty Noire jumped closer to him, prepping her cataclysm right as Coccinello tried something new. He threw his yo-yo out to the side, instead of up in the air, and shouted, "Lucky charm!"
There was no guarantee it would work, and for a second Kitty's heart stopped, her despair beginning to consume her, until she saw the telltale pink glow and dived to the side, to where Coccinello was throwing his summoned item.
It fell into her hand before she knew what it was, and when it met her destructive strength it turned dark and powerful as it always did, and the familiarity of the situation gave Kitty newfound strength. Coccinello was right. They knew what they could do, and they were an amazing team.
As the lucky charm turned unlucky in her palm, Kitty Noire gave it a quick glance as she continued speeding toward the sentimonster. She only had a moment before their enemy tried to steal Coccinello's miracle stone once more, and she had to make it count.
Her eyes danced over the words "weed killer" on a spray can. A plan formed without her having to think about it, and she launched herself up in the air, her arm moving to lift the spray up over her head, when the unexpected happened.
The sentimonster changed tactics, her free arm shooting out vines at Kitty Noire, wrapping her up tight as a boa constrictor, and pulling her right up against herself. She smiled evilly. "Now I have you both, and it was so easy. I can just carry you to my mistress; let her have the pleasure of taking your miracle stones herself."
But Kitty paid no mind to the monster's words. Instead she angled the spray can in her hand, twisting it slowly so that the nozzle was facing outward, and then, a heartbeat later, her clawed finger was on the tip, pressing down with everything she had, sending electric black spray into the air, but most importantly, onto the vines trapping her.
The sentimonster shrieked in agony, her arm shriveling away, melting beneath the destructive magic, and as soon as Kitty felt her bounds slacken, she yanked her arm up to the tulip-covered head of the creature, spraying with all her might, and the flowers dissolved as well, and the sentimonster had no choice but to release Coccinello, to free her arm to defend her face, but Kitty kept spraying, not letting up on the nozzle even a little bit, until the entire can was emptied and the sentimonster was destroyed.
In her place was a middle-aged woman, and because Kitty Noire's limbs were stiff from the adrenaline, because her shock rendered her frozen, Coccinello did the honors, turning the victim over to remove the dark feather.
Kitty Noire's arms finally slackened, and the spray can fell to the ground with a clang. Kitty hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she finally inhaled, blinking to clear her head. They had done it. Coccinello was safe. The threat was gone.
Tears started to well in her eyes and Kitty Noire brushed them away messily, smearing blood on her mask from the cuts that hadn't had a chance to finish healing. She didn't want to cry now, while the news cameras were beginning to close in, while their fans were cheering and shouting that they were unstoppable. Kitty Noire didn't feel unstoppable, didn't feel as though she had succeeded. She felt as though she had barely made it out alive, that it was a very close call, and in Kitty's book, close calls were not successes; they were near-failures.
Coccinello helped the woman onto a stretcher and passed her off to the medical professionals before turning to give Kitty Noire a tight hug, pulling her away from the reporters, and sending his yo-yo out into the distance, no longer making excuses.
He took her somewhere she hadn't been before, somewhere near her apartment building. It was a small landing, a deck on the rooftop, and it was empty, which was all that mattered right now.
Coccinello set her down, giving her another squeeze, saying the words he didn't want to say in front of so many onlookers. "Thank you for saving me. You were so brave." He said the words into her crown, his chin buried in her hair.
Kitty Noire held onto him like she might fall if she didn't, those tears threatening her again. She felt Coccinello beneath her palms, and she couldn't stop herself from crying. She was holding him, and it was all the more terrifying because she knew she had almost lost him, had almost lost the ability to do this.
"We need to talk to Fu. Our adversaries are stronger. We need more power," he told her, and she could nearly feel the cogs spinning in his head, trying to come up with a new plan of attack, finally accepting that she had been right, that this was now more dangerous than it had ever been before.
That relieved her, but she still felt her heart being squeezed as if in an iron hold. They simply could not continue on like this. It was too dangerous. She wouldn't allow it.
Kitty Noire pulled away from the hug, relishing one long look in Coccinello's eyes, appreciating that they were there before her, and not in the clutches of a sentimonster. Her hands slid to rest on his upper arms and she nodded to let him know that she agreed; they did need to speak with Fu. "There's something more important on my mind, Cocci. More than ever now we need to find a solution to this problem. I knew something would happen, I knew I would lose you, I knew our enemies would use my love for you to their advantage. I could have failed today because I was so blinded by my panic, by my desperate need to save you…" The tears began rolling down her cheeks now. "Don't you see? It's too dangerous to be as close as we are. It keeps me from being rational, from thinking clearly. I'm too apt to follow my heart when it comes to you."
Coccinello's expression constricted into a pained frown, and he wiped the tears away with his thumb. "I know, Kitty. I was terrified today. I almost lost you, too. I was thinking… I didn't care about my miracle stone in the moment. I just cared about you."
Kitty Noire smiled, and it was a sad smile, twisted by the next wave of tears. "But that's just it! We need to focus on the miracle stones, on the battle. We need to change our priorities."
"But I can't!" Coccinello nearly interrupted. "My priority is you. I love you, Kitty."
Kitty Noire hated how much his declarations moved her, how much she just wanted to give in and tell him she loved him in return, how much she wanted to forget all about this and just be with him. She shook her head madly. "I love you too, but that's the problem! It's forbidden for a reason. We're putting so much at risk by loving each other the way we do. It's not what heroes are meant for. We have a job to do and our relationship puts that job in jeopardy!"
Coccinello's eyes narrowed and he held onto her more tightly. "Oh, no. Oh no no no. You're not breaking up with me again! I'm not going to let you do that to us! We're going to stay here and figure this out without panicking. Because there has to be a solution. I love you, and I want to be with you, regardless of the fact that we're heroes. Because I know that even if we weren't, I'd want that, and the thing about love is, you have to keep it close to you when you find it, you can't let it slip away because of something circumstantial…"
Kitty stopped hearing him. That was it. There was the solution, staring her in the face. Her words from last night echoed in her mind — how could they stay together in a way separate from their battles? — and they lingered with Coccinello's words right now: "Even if we weren't heroes, I'd want to be with you…"
She gasped. It was perfect! How did she not think of it before? Her face spread into a radiant beam, and she grinned up at Coccinello until he trailed off, raising an eyebrow. "What happened? I'm glad you like what I was saying, but this lovely smile is too happy just from hearing something said again that you already knew."
She put her hands on his cheeks. "I figured it out! How to be together, but not as heroes! To keep those two parts of our life completely separate! And it will be perfect! Because I can have you all to myself without any crazed fans chasing us! And we won't have to feel like romance time is on the battlefield, because we'll have so much romance time off the battlefield! And I know what you're gonna say, that technically right now is off the battlefield, but it isn't really, because every time I wear this suit I mentally feel on the battlefield —"
"Kitty, slow down. What's your brilliant idea?" Coccinello's eyes were wide in excitement, and Kitty Noire had to catch a breath.
"Oh, yeah. It's simple. We break up as Kitty and Cocci. But we continue dating as whoever we are in real life!" She looked up at him, waiting for him to jump up in elation, to agree that it was indeed perfect.
But that elation never came. Coccinello's smile slowly melted into a frown, and then his eyebrows came together in anger. "You — you mean, reveal identities?" Disbelief.
Her stomach twisted. This wasn't right at all. He was supposed to be happy. "Yes…?" but her uncertainty tipped the end of her answer in fear.
"But… but… that's against the rules," he spluttered.
"So is being together, but you didn't seem to have a problem breaking that one!" Kitty Noire retorted.
Coccinello straightened, dropped his hold on her arms, moved away so that he could think. "I couldn't help myself when it came to that rule; it was an accident. But purposefully going against what has been set down to protect us? I don't think you realize the gravity of what you're suggesting," he explained, a little horrified.
Kitty Noire shook her head. Why wasn't he getting it? "Don't look at it that way," she argued. "We both know we're in the same fifty person class. Would it be such a stretch to assume we would have figured it out anyway, eventually?"
Coccinello's face twisted in unease and he shook his head.
Kitty Noire moved closer to him. "If we were together in our civilian forms, we could focus better in our hero forms. Face it, Cocci! We're not a normal couple! We can't even have a conversation without getting swarmed. It's hard to concentrate during battles because our fans are screaming at the tops of their lungs. Imagine a world in which I could be your girlfriend without any of those things. All I want is to get Andre's with you without getting chased. Is that so crazy?"
Coccinello turned his head to look at her, moving a hand up to thread his fingers in her braid. He closed his eyes to block out the hope in hers. "It's tempting, Kitty, I'll admit that. But this is not sitting well with me. Maybe later, if we really, really have to."
Kitty Noire's ears fell along with her gaze. Her disappointment was tangible and Coccinello hated being the one to let her down. He put his hand under her chin to look into her neon cat eyes. "It's not because I don't want to. But we're already in danger. If I knew your real identity, I could give our enemies so much power over you." He ran his other hand over her hair, petting her head gently. "Besides, even if we did reveal to one another, it wouldn't stop us from being vulnerable to villains. I will love you as Kitty Noire even if we get together in our civilian forms, and I'm sure the same is true for you. So, really, it wouldn't help the problem. The only real solution is just to fall out of love," he told her, running the back of his hand along her cheek. "But I can't do that," he whispered, allowing a small smile to creep back onto his features.
Kitty sighed. It was all so logical, and she had no choice but to agree with him, albeit reluctantly. But it would help her compartmentalize so much.
After a weird and difficult day in class (what was left of it, anyway) and at her internship, Marinette was very ready to wind down with some much-needed girl time with Alya.
They cooked dinner together that evening before they decided on what movie to go see. As Alya adjusted the heat flaming up underneath the pot, Marinette leaned against the counter, scrolling on her phone.
"So, there's the action comedy at 20:15, 21:30, and 22:45; there's the romance musical at 20—" Marinette stopped as she saw Alya make a gagging face. "Okay, no romance musical," she amended, scrolling further, "and it'll be a no from me on the horror movie," she chuckled as Alya pouted.
"Oh, come on! Horror movies aren't that scary!"
But Marinette shook her head. "It's non-negotiable. I guess the action comedy it is. Which showing makes more sense?"
Alya turned back to the pot, lifting the lid and stirring. "Well, it's 19:00 now, so maybe the 20:15 sounds good. That way we can both get enough sleep for tomorrow."
"Alrighty," Marinette smiled, pressing the purchase tickets button.
There was a moment of silence, and so the things Marinette's brain had been returning to all day resurfaced once more. Was Coccinello right or was he being a goody-two-shoes? Revealing identities wasn't that big of a deal… was it? Marinette looked up suddenly at the best friend two feet away from her. A potential fountain of wisdom. So she put her phone down and asked, as casually as she could, "Alya, if you were Kitty Noire or Coccinello, would you want to reveal identities? Just to make things easier? I mean, it must be hard to be a couple with someone you don't even know, right?"
Alya stirred, her back to Marinette. "Hmm. I'm not sure. It seems kind of dangerous. But I can understand why they might want to. It would make some things easier, it would allow them to have the privacy they can't get now. But at the same time it might make things weird if they broke up. Like, can you imagine having to be a superhero duo with your ex? Yikes!" she laughed, because to her it was all hypothetical, just a thought to wonder about, that would never really matter to them.
So Marinette laughed along, a forced and painful laugh. She hadn't even considered that. But then she remembered that this was herself and Coccinello they were talking about; they would probably have broken up for real by now if they were going to. No, she was pretty sure they were in it for the long run, because how could they not be? Being a superhero duo with someone was the kind of relationship that eclipsed all others; the things you go through with them, that neither of you ever go through with someone else… it's a strong bond. Marinette was sure she'd never love anyone the same way she loved Coccinello, even if things did end one day. He would always be special to her.
Since Marinette bought the tickets, Alya volunteered to buy the popcorn, and Marinette went to the restroom while she waited. When she had finished washing up, Plagg emerged from her purse, and she was about to scold him before she remembered that he could tell when a room was empty even better than she could.
"Can you sneak some of that delicious smelling stuff for me?" he asked, his mouth watering.
Marinette chuckled. "Of course I can, you little glutton," she teased, poking his head. Then another thought struck her. She hadn't even asked Plagg for advice yet. "What would you do, if you were in my place? Is it really so outrageous to propose sharing identities as a good compromise?"
But Plagg could only shrug. "It's your life, Marinette. At this point, just do what you want."
Her shoulders fell and she grumbled. "Why is everyone giving me such wishy-washy advice?"
Plagg sighed. "Well, the only reason I would stop you from doing it is that if someone tortures you, they could get Coccinello's real identity and steal his stone while he's in his civilian form, completely defenseless."
Marinette's brows tugged together and she chewed the inside of her cheek. That was true. But she shook her head once she reasoned it through. "But our love endangers the safety of our stones, anyway. If they torture me, I'm sure Coccinello would not hesitate to give up his ring. I know I wouldn't." She said it and it echoed in the empty bathroom, giving her words a strange sense of finality.
She looked back down to her kwami, meeting his eyes that had already been gazing at her. He smiled, and Marinette couldn't quite understand the emotion behind it. Was it pride? Resignation? "I know," he finally said, "which is why I can't advise you. You've broken one rule and so I understand why breaking another matters less. If I were in your shoes I'd do the same thing. The line has already been crossed; what difference does it make if you cross it more, so long as you can be happy?"
They stayed looking into each other's eyes for a moment, Marinette unable to stop the smile from worming its way onto her lips. She understood it now. Plagg just wanted her to be happy. It made part of her chest feel warm and light.
Plagg dived back into her purse, leaving Marinette confused for just a beat until she heard heels clicking on tile, the bathroom door's hinges squeaking open.
Marinette pretended to be drying her hands and left the facilities to join back up with Alya, her heart still buoyant.
After the movie had ended, when Marinette and Alya were walking back to their apartment, Marinette's phone buzzed, and she nearly froze thinking who it might be. Alya didn't notice her momentary freak-out; she was too busy bubbling about how awesome the action scenes had been. Marinette reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. Lo and behold, she had one unread message from Fu.
"Meet me," it read.