Somehow, Marinette felt more exhausted that morning than after fighting akuma at ungodly hours. Her nights spent as Marinette with Chat weren't nearly as physically taxing, but the weight on her heart made her whole body sore. Even though it's been almost a week since started practicing his confessions with her, that one early moment was seared into her mind.

He was looking at her with eyes so full of affection. The words that spilled from his lips poured into her and waves of warmth washed over her in every tide of his breath. This was so much different than all the other quips between them in the past or during battles. He said these things and she got to know him. He wasn't putting on a brave face for Ladybug with her. He was nervous and insecure and so, so honest that it hurt. Each time he fell in love it's as if it were the first time each time. He earnestly only wanted to be loved back.

So why did this hurt as much as it did?

It happened slowly, but surely enough. Her confidence in what she knew she felt for him wavered.

She threw off her covers with a groan and climbed down to stand in front of her mirror, gripping the vanity table tightly that her knuckles turned white.

She glared into her glossy eyes in the reflection and whispered, "No more crying, Marinette. Come on."

She had no idea why he chose to ask her for help when he could have easily asked anyone else in his civilian life. To be fair, he did say she could say no. She hated how nice she could be sometimes, but it was Chat Noir! Her partner needed her help. Not to mention that despite the "no knowing either's secret identity" rule, it's not like she never wondered about what he was like outside of battle.

There was the unrelenting truth that she trusted him with her life. That didn't mean she knew him. She still didn't, not completely. But she got to see these other facets that made him more than the flirty, self-sacrificing 2D image of her partner.

…Wait. What was that on her face?

Marinette brought her fingers up to her face, all previous thought dropped. Her fingers traced three smears of blue across her cheek. They were faded from movement in her sleep but she knew exactly what they were.

Chat had the audacity to mark whiskers on her cheek.

But when did he – oh.

Marinette shivered at the memory of his fingertips brushing her hair behind her ears, lingering where her ears and jaw met. The way her heart was suddenly racing must have shown on her face, because his eyes widened and he retracted his hands quickly – his fingertips only ghosted against her cheeks. He was apologizing but she had to go and say it.

"No, it's alright. It's all for your practice, right?"

He still looked surprised for a moment before nodding and slowly placing his hands back, careful of his claws.

He wouldn't tell her the girl's name, so she insisted he used her name in its place so he could speak properly.

Oh how she quickly regretted that suggestion.

"Marinette…" he breathed. "You're brave, and selfless, and just being around you makes me so happy. I really want to get to know you better. So, m-maybe…"

With the way her heart kept beating Marinette thought she was going to die. Her eyes shut, unable to keep eye contact with his brilliant green. One hand drew back from her face, the other still barely making contact.

But nothing came afterwards. Ten seconds awkwardly passed.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her poor heart finally gave out.

Chat was still barely holding her face with one hand, but the other hand clamped over the bottom half of his face. The small glimpses of skin visible between his mask and his hand were flushed a brilliant red that would even defeat Marinette's own face around Adrien. His eyes looked down at his feet and his body was hunched in deflation.

'Oh God, he looks so adorable flustered.' Marinette bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from giggling. She didn't mean to almost damage her partner's confidence, but since when could she ever see this side of Chat?

Chat's eyes flitted back up to hers and his cat ears folded back in response. "No! I can do this! I can…ughhhh."

He lifted his hand from this mouth only to cover his eyes as he groaned. Marinette appreciated the now clear view of the rest of his face blooming up to his real ears. He took his hands back and dived back onto the floor where the poor remnants of his confession notes lay and crossed out a few more lines.

Breathe. Just calm down. Her heart wouldn't return to a normal pace just yet. "That felt way too intimate anyway. Maybe you should just keep it as simple as possible." She tried to supplement, joining him on the floor, face turned once again to the ceiling. This position just became regular habit after every attempt seemed to send Chat to hide himself in a corner.

The boy was flipping his paper over multiple times, squinting. He killed at least two of her pens on that paper alone, she wondered briefly if there was even any space left to write on it.

A thought crossed her mind. Chat was having way too much trouble with this whole ordeal. Compared to Ladybug, where his flirtations were an everlasting fountain of admiration, this Chat seemed too different. Sure, he was another person behind the mask; Marinette knew this better than anyone, but maybe the words weren't the problem.

"Hey," she started carefully, turning her eyes to look at the frustrated cat next to her. "Maybe the problem is you're trying to force yourself to be Chat Noir and not…you know, you-you?"

He looked at her as if she grew a second head. "What? I am Chat Noir! Chat's more me than I am me, how could I be forcing myself to be Chat?" His eyes, however, were looking around the room everywhere but her.

Gotcha. Now how to word it without just saying "Same."

"Well, Ladybug talked to me about this too, how she feels pressured all the time that she should be Ladybug all the time, sometimes even outside the mask. But the fact is the you-you came first before the Chat-you. Even if it's not as open or as honest as Chat-you, it doesn't mean that part of you isn't you?"

She winced. Well that didn't sound confusing at all. He was still watching her patiently.

She turned her face away from him, twiddling her fingers nervously. "It was a hard thing for Ladybug to come to terms with too. She hated how Ladybug-her overshadowed her real identity who was a complete opposite. But recently-" she turned back to look at him, seeing the argument about to roll off his tongue. "She realized how important her real self is. How Ladybug can't fix everything and that sometimes you need someone just a little less spectacular to really save the day."

He closed his mouth, eyes looking back to the page, face unreadable. She hesitated for a moment. "Are you talking to this girl as Chat Noir or as yourself? That might also be the problem that your Chat-ness isn't working."

The pen in his hand snapped in two.

Ah, there it was.

He stuttered something incoherently, snatched up the paper and climbed up out onto the roof. She followed him, but didn't get an answer before he stood frozen for a moment, then grabbed her face in his hands roughly. Her eyes widened as she saw multiple emotions dance across his eyes – she recognized fear and apprehension, but not much more. Her heart ached dull in her chest.

"Chat?" Her fingertips came up to touch his wrists and he snapped out of it.

"I'm sorry, Princess. I need to go. But I promise I'll come back tomorrow." His voice was weak.

Fingers pressed harder against her cheeks and his eyes wavered, looking to each of her own eyes for a moment before pulling away. She was distracted by how she missed their warmth, but thinking back she realized he blinked at her face and then at his hands before grinning and leaping off her railing into the night.

Finally she let go of her vanity table, a second alarm from her phone ringing distantly.

She had to meet with Alya, Adrien, and Nino in an hour to work on a group report.

Adrien…

Her head softly hit the mirror. Being infatuated by two people at once was more than she could bear. After getting to know Chat better as Marinette, this last week made it apparent that he slowly wormed his way under her skin and into her heart. But every day in class, she still was barely able to get a "good morning" out to Adrien.

And now, she had a point of comparison and it scared her that either she's falling out of love slowly with Adrien or falling for Chat even harder. Which was worse, she couldn't tell.

The bathroom door slammed with an aggravated yell as her reflection there still bore the mark of his touch on her cheek.

She was going to kick Chat's butt the next time she saw him. No matter how confused she was she knew this much.

The fleeting thought that he never answered which side of him was doing the confessing was shoved to the back of her mind.

Adrien's hand hit his nightstand three times before finding his phone to shut off the alarm. The alarm label on the screen glared back at him.

"TELL HER THE TRUTH!"

Maybe if he didn't get out of bed the day wouldn't start yet. Plagg was still snoring on his desk. The morning was silent, no emergency or attacks to force his morals to take charge…

No. He had to stop running away. He also had to get better control of his impulses.

Both times he held Marinette's face in his hands he was horrified how easily his mind whispered to him to just kiss here right there and then. That same feeling happened maybe once or twice after a particularly difficult akuma fight, more or less out of relief that they both made it out okay and just in general how much he admired Ladybug.

But this? The thoughts came up in the most mundane of moments, and focusing in class was a nightmare. Not to mention he had to see her today as Adrien! Being Chat Noir around her was so second nature, he already knew today was going to be hell just struggling to keep as masked as possible. Despite his struggles in the past week, he wasn't ready to tell her about his identity. Confessing alone was impossible, where would he even find a place to tack on "Hey I like you, and I'm also your famous model classmate who was sat right in front of you this whole time!"

Distantly, he could hear his kwami laughing at his muttering.

"You've really got yourself in a tangle this time!" Adrien could see the black blob float towards him from the corner of his eye. "But hey, I'll give you this much. Don't worry about still liking Ladybug. You're two halves of a whole, but that doesn't mean you're destined to be together romantically. It's been a while since a Ladybug and a Chat Noir fell in love like that. Just go confess to this girl so you can stop suffering and I can get a break from transforming you every night."

He didn't like the way the small cat smirked at him, but finally got up after relishing in the warmth of his bed a little longer. Adrien chuckled at his reflection - hair wild and sticking up everywhere much worse than his alter ego's. It didn't take that long to get ready, and only a little while longer to convince Nathalie to let him walk the distance by himself.

As soon as he was out the door, however, he ducked into a nearby alley and peeked into his jacket pocket. Neon green blinked up back at him before narrowing.

"No. No way. I am not-" Plagg's eyes widened as Adrien pulled out a full carton of cheese from his bag, eyebrows lifted but not saying a word. The cat scowled. "This is the last time, I mean it!"

Adrien only grinned. "Plagg, claws out!"

There really wasn't a need to transform since he could get there on time easily on foot, but somehow Chat's problems were just easier to sort through as Chat. And boy, did he need to do some sorting before seeing Marinette again.

With a leap, he made it up to the rooftop and bounded absent-mindedly in the right direction.

He had to end this all today, he decided. After finishing his project and checking in back home, he'd transform again and visit her and tell her the truth. If she took it well, then he hoped he could stick around just to break the remaining tension from the week. If not… he didn't want to think about it, but they were good enough friends that she would still be friendly and help him through things.

Or so he hoped. He hoped with all his might.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to sort his feelings out right before seeing her.

Green flashed into his view. He was already near the park? But that meant-

Looking to the left was his favorite destination. He paused on a taller roof across the street, looking down at her balcony. Movement flitted in the window before disappearing, and a few moments later he spotted a pink and black figure jogging from the front door of the bakery.

His body acted on its own accord, leaping to follow her. But of course, as his heart soared, his luck would soon drop, as his body did when he lost the power behind his leap from the loose gravel on a rooftop. With a bitten-off cry, he was able to extend his staff above him between the two ledges, leaving him dangling by an arm in the narrow alley.

Of course, he didn't go unheard. Black hair slowly peeked around the opening, blue eyes scanning the ground, then widening as she looked up.

"Chat?!" This was normally the part where she mocked him, but he realized from her shock that he didn't have any excuse for why he was so close by.

"Hey Princess! You know, just, ah, hanging around." He grinned and she gave a look that just read "Really?". They stayed there for a moment before he remembered to retract his staff and landed on his feet.

"I'm kind of busy, Chat. I don't really have much time right now for any more practice." She was already trying to back out of the alley.

"Wait!" His arm reached out for her and she stopped. He's been doing too much thinking on his feet lately. "Um…it's not for practice, actually. I know I've been making a fool of myself a lot but tonight's the night. I'm going to do it." Somehow his voice found the strength to sound confident.

Marinette stumbled before looking back at him. "You really mean it this time?"

"Yeah. I mean it. I'm going to tell her later today. I promised myself I'm not going to be scared anymore." He smiled at her, but her smile back didn't meet her eyes. It was a look that was all too familiar on his own face. She turned away.

"I'm…glad." She took a breath in between the words, holding it before continuing ahead, avoiding the main streets as much as possible so that they weren't in plain sight. "You've been practicing almost every night, so I'm glad I could help you."

"Yeah. I really owe everything to you. I can't thank you enough for helping me out with this crazy plan." He wanted to reach out, but the air between them felt too tense to close the gap between them. Their pace slowed but he kept the same distance. His tail twitched nervously and he couldn't read her body language. The looming guilt that this was all a big mistake was crawling on his back.

They now stood in an alleyway not to far from their destination. Any further and Chat would be seen with her. The knots in his stomach only tightened as he grabbed her wrist. She didn't turn to face him.

"This is the last…just one more time. Please." He didn't know what forced that out of him. He couldn't keep doing this. She didn't look at him, why wouldn't she look at him?

"You really don't need it, Chat." Her voice was…shaking? Chat's mind started panicking but his eyes stayed focused on where her eyes were covered by her bangs. Her head stayed lowered. "I know it. If she just looks into your eyes, she'll see how much she means to you."

Did…he do something wrong? "Marinette…"

Distant screaming rang out.

"TOWER!" A voice broke through the air.

Chat and Marinette both jumped, wide eyed as they saw a bolt of lighting split across the clear sky. It was almost like a trick of the imagination, but the roar of thunder was deafening. The ground shook violently as they saw the bolt reappear and strike the street in front of the cafe, glass shattering violently from all the windows down the street.