"I'm making this one a black cat," Marinette said as she was pouring black icing on a cat shaped gingerbread cookie. Chat noted how excited she looked.

"Well I always knew my handsomeness should be portrayed on gingerbread," Chat said and grinned. He was kind of happy Marinette wanted to make a cookie of him.

Marinette rolled her eyes but smiled anyway. "You should make a ladybug."

"Hmm..." Chat grabbed a woman shaped cookie. "I think I'll make a princess."

Marinette looked surprised. "Come on, we need the heroes of Paris."

"Tell me Princess, why are you making everything handmade when you could've just as easily bought the dough and icing from the store and no one would've judged you?" Chat asked and turned his face to Marinette, who was now looking even more surprised.

"Uh..." Marinette placed green icing as the black cat's eyes. "Well, the ones in the store aren't as delicious, and they also have an unnecessary amount of sugar," Marinette smiled at the cookie she had just finished and moved on to the next one. "So I figured this way would be the best."

"See? Making the best cookies possible for your classmates, that's what I call a hero!" Chat felt happy. He wished for Marinette to realize how awesome she was.

Marinette looked down. "Urm..." Chat could see her cheeks were a light shade of pink. "Thanks, kitty."

o - o - o - o - o

Her patrol was over, but she didn't feel like going home just yet. The superhero decided to transform back to Marinette and walk around the city for a bit.

The streets were already full of decorations and many balconies had different colored lights on them. Mari had always enjoyed the atmosphere Christmas brought to Paris and how it inspired her to design. Like how she had made herself a detailed red dress for the party her class was having. Oh right, the party.

Marinette still needed to figure out which tactic she would use to get Adrien to go to the party with her. She had been planning on asking him today, but things hadn't turned out the way she had expected them to. Though if she were to be honest, she knew she probably wouldn't have had the courage to ask him anyway.

The only way she could ask him now was by texting or calling, or by meeting up with him for only that one question. A letter? Everything seemed hard and Marinette wasn't sure what to do. I'll figure it out when I get home.

It wasn't snowing right now but the ground was covered in snow as leftovers from the snowing that happened earlier that day. Marinette realized she wasn't very far away from her house anymore. She noticed a familiar silhouette in the dark throwing snowballs at trees. Her heart stopped for a second.

What do I do? Do I walk past? Do I say hi? HELP ME SOMEONE BUT NOT YOU ADRIEN, PLEASE DON'T NOTICE.

The blond turned around to grab more snow and he looked almost startled. "Marinette!"

I WASN'T MENTALLY PREPARED FOR THIS! "Good morning - no I take that back - it's the evening, silly me!" Marinette slapped herself in her mind. "H-hi Adrien."

"Oh I know, your house is nearby, right?" Adrien smiled looking kind of shy and Marinette nodded;

"Y-yeah..."

"Listen Marinette," Adrien frowned a little. "I'm really sorry about today. Don't get the wrong idea, I really did wanna come," Adrien looked like a lost kitten, at least in Marinette's eyes. "I'm sorry I let you down."

"Don't worry about it, the cookies turned out great!" Marinette showed an understanding smile. It's not like Adrien didn't text her before her patrol to check up on things. He was ready to do the work, but Marinette had already finished things with Chat. "Besides, I had a friend help me out."

Marinette was willing to believe she and Chat were great partners at both saving the city and decorating cookies. Chat hadn't even seemed to mind she wan't Ladybug. Now that she thought about it, she felt she could open up to Chat more as Marinette, when she didn't have to worry about him finding out her identity. And it had been surprisingly fun to casually chat with Chat. A smile reached Marinette's face.

Adrien looked happy too now, probably because he found out Marinette wasn't alone crying in a corner making broken hearts out of gingerbread. Adrien's smile was really cute.

"A-and I always enjoy making gingerbread cookies anyway," Marinette said.

"I didn't know you liked to bake! Cool."

Marinette chuckled. "Well, my parents do own a bakery."

Adrien's expression changed. "Yeah..." Did I say something wrong? "But it's not always for sure that children would like what their parents do."

Adrien swept some snow off a bench and sat down. Marinette nervously sat down next to him.

"I don't think I've ever told you, but I don't like modeling," Adrien sighed.

"What?" Marinette looked at Adrien eyes wide open. "But you're so good at it!"

Adrien laughed but not with energy. "My father's forcing me to do it. I feel like I can't escape the career, but I just..." Adrien paused. "I just wanna do my own thing. You know?"

"I understand. Sometimes I feel guilty for not being there to take over the bakery, but I have too much passion for designing."

"My father just doesn't get it. I don't know what to do," Adrien looked desperate, an expression Marinette was not used to seeing from him.

"Hey," Marinette grabbed Adrien's arm. "It'll be okay. I mean, you're Adrien Agreste. You're one of the greatest people I know, there's no way life doesn't have something brilliant planned out for you."

"Wow," Adrien looked at Marinette, hopelessness disappearing from him face. "Thank you, Marinette. I really appreciate it."

Marinette flashed the warmest smile she had to give. "No problem."

They stayed there enjoying the atmosphere. It started snowing again. It was supposed to be cold but the touch of Adrien's shoulder next to Marinette's made her burn inside.

Adrien's phone rang. He didn't answer it, but from the look on his face Marinette knew it was Gabriel Agreste.

"I should probably head home now."

"Me, too," Screw it, she needed to spit it out before she would change her mind. "Will you - no - could you, maybe, uh, if you'd like," Adrien looked at Marinette. "WOULD YOU GO THE BALL WITH ME?" She said with a red face. "The party... I mean the party..." she muttered.

"Yeah, sounds fun," Adrien grinned. "See you tomorrow!"

Marinette watched the blond disappear from the street. Everything she had done seemed to hit her. I TALKED WITH ADRIEN. I have to call Alya! Did I grab his arm? Am I just creating fake memories? I GRABBED HIS ARM?!

Marinette felt like falling down on the snow and giggling herself to sleep, but instead she ran home. She had to go figure out what to do with her hair.

Author's note:

Thank you for your support! I really appreciate the comments, favorites and follows :)

To 'A Loyal Reader': Yes, my username is Mel-llama, it's actually because my name starts with 'Mel' and my friend made fun of me for being such a llama (?) so she called me that :D I checked out the mashup, sounds pretty cool!