...Chat named this chapter, ok? Take your pun rage up with him. Also, yes I'm still working on Strange Aeons. I'm sorry! D': My life has been extra crazy the last couple weeks and I've been dealing the best I can. I'm hoping to have Ch. 7 up by the end of this week. Thank you for your patience. xoxo

This chapter is from a tumblr prompt list made by baneismydragon, and the prompt itself was sent in by an anon.

7. grab 'em by the collar and kiss 'em


Adrien and Mari Hang Out


"Don't panic," Adrien called over the wind, his words punctuated by a violent whip of the French flag that caught him across the cheek. Akuma attacks were never convenient, but the worst attacks of all were the ones where he was caught at the epicenter and left without his kwami. Plagg was in his backpack on the first floor of the library, where he and Marinette had been swept up as civilian bait to lure Lady and Chat out of the woodworks. So that's why the two of them were bound with rope to the flags that stuck out the front of the library near the roof, four stories off the ground, each facing the sidewalk with a pole at their backs.

When she didn't answer, he swiveled his head to look at her. She was struggling against the rope. Not good. "Marinette, try not to panic. You could fall!"

"I'm - not - panicking," she grunted, and continued her writhing. "I'm - stra - te - gizing. Yes! Got it!"

"Got what?" Though he trusted Ladybug with his heart and soul, he knew from experience that it was dangerous to count on her timely appearance when there were lives at stake. So if Marinette had a plan that could help in the meantime, he was all for hearing it.

"Pocket knife," she said, and promptly returned to writhing against the ropes that bound her arms to her sides and to the flagpole above her.

Okay, why did Marinette even have a pocket knife with her at a simple study session? Odd. "Hey, go easy," he worried, "you're gonna hurt yourself, Mari." The rope was giving way for her shoulder, but it wasn't getting any looser (which would also have been bad, considering that it was there only thing keeping her up). But where her skin started to show, he could see the rope was rubbing it raw. Already a clear burn was taking shape on the one shoulder he could see.

Two steely blue eyes squinted back at him in a way that tugged a familiar heart string. "If we fall it'll hurt a lot worse. Here, I've got it poking out now. Think you could grab it and cut me loose?"

Adrien blanched as the mental image of her plummeting four stories flared up in his mind like a wailing siren. Nooope. No. No way. "Cut me loose instead," he suggested. "My arms are tied too tight, I can't get one free." Lies. He was sure he could, but he was NOT cutting her loose unless his arms were free enough to grab her.

It was obvious that idea terrified her. "Oh, I don't know, Adrien. You could fall!"

He just gaped at her. This was the girl that had, literally two seconds ago, asked him to cut her loose without batting an eye. But when he asked the same, she balked.

How on Earth did the idea of him falling scare her more than the idea of her falling?

"Just do it," he urged. "I'm agile, okay? I won't fall. Marinette, look at me." She was starting to panic so he waited for her to slow her breathing and look him in the eye again, exuding as much calmness as he possibly could. "I won't fall."

The quiver in her lip and the wetness in her eyes woke a million dormant questionsㅡthings that had been stirring ever since she sought him out four months ago on the day after graduation, with the words 'I'd like to get to know you better' on her tongue.

"Promise?" she whispered, and the word was packed with more meaning and emotions than he'd known that word could carry. Her eyes burned with answers to the question he had never been brave enough to ask. Near death experiences had a way of burning all the veils. She didn't even have to say it. He saw it on her face, as bright as the high noon sun that cast their shadows in harsh relief amidst the gathering crowd far below. I love you.

He set his jaw. "I promise."

It took her just over a minute to cut through the first loop of the rope wound around his torso, and once she did he immediately felt the slack pulling his back away from the flagpole. A few whips of rope and he was fallingㅡor rather, he would have been falling if he hadn't been ready. But his hands flew up the instant they were free and caught hold of the pole near his head, leaving his legs to swing out wide and the unraveling rope to drip from his body in loopy waves, finally leaving him completely free. The crowd below surged with commotion. Cries and gasps abounded as Adrien fought for his grip on the bendy pole, scarcely able to see through the striped French flag as it fluttered madly.

Once the pole stopped wobbling, he was able to get a good swing going. A few deep breaths, then up and over. It was a cheap easy trick for Chat Noir. For Adrien Agresteㅡa powerless civilian seventy feet above the groundㅡit was borderline suicidal. But it was like muscle memory, and after a smooth 180 spin he stuck the landing, feet coming to rest between his hands on the pole. The resulting crouch may have been a bit too 'Chat' for his secret's sake, but with Marinette's life (quite literally) on the line, he wasn't really thinking about that.

The half-horrified, half-awed look on her face made him wonder if she was thinking about it, though.

"Alright, hang tight," he said, and he actually had to catch himself from tacking on a 'princess' there at the end. This was so not the time to accidentally reveal that her good friend Adrien was also the masked crusader that often saved her from harm with flirty lines that he was entirely too proud of. "I'm coming to get you, okay?"

"What, no!" she blurted, her face pulled askance with fresh horror. "No, just climb up! You can reach the roof ledge from there, Adrien, go for help!"

"And leave you tied here as human bait?" he asked, preparing for the jump by mentally calculating the angle and trajectory. "Not fucking likely."

"Adrien don'tㅡAH!" She screamed as his hands made contact with the base of her flagpole as simply as if he was a gymnast moving bars. "Adrien? Adrien!" She struggled in place to turn her head, but it was impossible to see him from where he was.

"Still here," he soothed, but it came out rather forced as he was currently climbing up onto the pole. Couldn't risk a flip this time, with her attached to this one. Once he was up, he took a second to catch his breath and calm his racing heart before hatching the next phase of his plan. "You trust me, right?"

"I don't like that question in this context," she squeaked. "But yes."

"Then I'm gonna get you out of there. Take my hand."

Spreading his weight out longways above her so as not to bend the pole any more than it was already bending, he took the pocket knife from her free hand and locked his forearm tightly with hers, hand to wrist and wrist to hand. Then he set about cutting her free. It took even less time than it had taken for him, considering she'd already loosened her bonds quote a bit in freeing her arm. There was a frightening moment when he felt her slipping away from him, but she was quick and had her hand on the pole before the rope had finished unraveling. After a short tense struggle she had climbed her way up onto the pole beside him.

"Fuck me," she breathed, eyeing the two bundles of rope on the sidewalk far below. "That could have been us…"

They got to their feet as one unit, with Adrien leaning on the wall for support and she with her arms cinched tightly around his bicep. From here, the distance to the roof was a few feet above Adrien's head.

"You first," she directed, "then you can pull me up."

Adrien could hear the gathered onlookers cheering as he pulled himself up, then turned around to lay flat on the rooftop and reach over the edge to lock hands with Marinette again. That fierce determination filled her eyes once more as she grabbed ahold of him and ran up the wall with a surprising amount of ease and dexterity. This girl was just full of surprises today. First the secret pocket knife, then the willpower of a god that drove her to free her arms through a mile of rope burns, and now she was running up walls likeㅡ like…

The thought was instantly detailed as she completed her run up the wall and slammed into him on her way over the edge, sending them both rolling backwards into safety. "Oh my god, your arms," Adrien gasped, catching sight of the rope burns on her bare shoulders before they'd even begun to untangle themselves from each other.

But she didn't hear him. Still laying prone on the bare concrete roof with her strew haphazardly across his body, he'd barely gotten himself propped up onto his elbows when she looked him in the eye, seized his collar, and kissed him with a desperation that was somehow both furious and triumphant.

He couldn't help it; he gasped.

Upon feeling his shock, she ripped herself away. "Sorry," she squeaked. But as she rolled off and tried to stand, his arms shot out after her and pulled her back to return her furious kiss with one equally as fervent. Soft fingers threaded into his hair as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Their lips moved in tandem, spelling out words in an unspeakable language. God, how he'd wanted this. Why did he wait so damn long? A noise of smothered longing escaped Marinette's throat and he reveled in it, tasting it, bathing in the fact that she was alive and unharmed and definitely absolutely as in love with him as he was with her. This kiss was more heart pounding than the entire experience of being left out as bait. By the time Marinette paused to speak he had worked himself into a state of underailable passion.

"You were amazing," she sighed, and her breath on his lips was a drug.

"Me? Are you kidding? You were amazing! I can't believe you had a pocket knifeㅡ"

"ㅡcan't believe you just swung up like that andㅡ"

"ㅡeven though it was burning you. I swear you're the most incredibleㅡ"

"ㅡreally thought you were going to fall and I don't know what I'd have done if youㅡ"

"Hey," he interrupted gently, and nudged her nose with his. "I promised I wouldn't fall. Didn't I?"

"Yeah," she sighed, and her hands trailed down from his hair back onto his collar, where they stayed. "You did."