"Not that one… no…no…still no…" Marinette muttered as she rifled through a storage box under her desk. She sighed and tugged it close for a deeper dive. Leaning forward, she grabbed skeins of yarn off the top of her stash and threw them haphazardly over her shoulder, looking down into the lower-most layers of fiber.
"Hey!" Exclaimed a voice behind her and she twisted around in surprise.
"Chat Noir! I didn't hear you come in. Sorry about that," she apologized, with a devious sparkle in her eyes. "Found the cookies, hmm?" Her gaze rose from the young superhero, offending yarn balls collected around his feet, to the stairs of her loft, where scattered cookie crumbs gave the only evidence of the hastily consumed treats.
"I did warn you about leaving food out for strays. Didn't think you'd actually leave a trail of cookies for me to find." He leaned over to pick up the last cookie, resting temptingly on the third stair from the floor.
"I had too much to do to sit around on the roof today. I figured you would know an invitation when you saw one." Marinette turned back to her box of yarn and pushed a few more skeins around. She sighed and shoved the box away.
"What are you looking for?" Chat Noir hunkered down next to her and peered into the box curiously.
"Oh, something blue. I have a friend and I wanted to make mittens to match a scarf, but I don't have enough of the original yarn left. Nothing quite fits, though." Marinette frowned, disappointed.
"Wow, who rates a scarf and mittens? That seems like a lot of work."
"A school friend. And yes, he's worth the time, to me." Chat Noir's curiosity was piqued, but he resisted asking about any names. Not Nino, surely. He and Alya were together, and Marinette wasn't the sort to come between anyone. Nathanael? He had a crush on her once. Marinette noticed the small frown creasing his brow as he became lost in thought.
"Chat? What's wrong?" His eyes came back into focus and he smiled at her.
"Nothing. Hey, what about this one? Ooh, soft." Chat Noir brought a green skein to his face and rubbed it lightly against his cheek, then stopped when he saw Marinette's lips twitch. "What?"
She burst out laughing. "Next thing I know, you'll be batting it around my bedroom floor! Kitty, kitty." She grabbed the brightly hued yarn out of his hands and dangled it above his head. He growled, slightly less than amused.
"Alright, very funny. Can I help it if you have good taste in yarn?" She flipped the package over and looked at the label.
"Actually, you do, if you like this one." Chat Noir leaned close to look at the picture and was rewarded with an image of Gabriel Agreste, wearing his trademark near-sneer. He rolled his eyes. He'd almost forgotten about his father's year long obsession with knits from a few seasons ago.
"What's so special about that yarn?" He asked, unable to hide some of the disdain he felt.
"Well, let's see… organic cotton, beautiful slubby thick-and-thin texture, natural plant-based dyes… oh, and it looks rockin' in a herringbone stitch. Not all yarns can pull that off, you know!"
"No, I wouldn't know," replied Chat Noir, amused. He took the skein of soft, shiny yarn back from her hands, resisting the urge to paw at it again. "So, off to the reject pile for this one?" His hand lingered when he saw the thoughtful look on Marinette's face. She stared up into his green-yellow cat's eyes, her rosy lips pursed into a tiny bud of a smile.
"Hmmm…somehow, I suspect you might look rockin' in a herringbone stitch too, Chat." Marinette reached for the yarn, her fingers lightly brushing the palm of his glove. He shivered, hiding the reaction to her touch behind a broad grin.
"What about mittens for your friend?"
"If he wants handmade, he can afford it," she shrugged, rising to her knees and pulling two knitting needles out of an old coffee can on her desk. She held the yarn up next to his shoulder and smiled.
#marichat may