“I love you!” Marinette finally blurted out, her lips tripping over themselves so the words came out louder than she wanted them to.
Adrien looked shocked. He hadn’t expected a declaration of love from one of his best friends, and he couldn’t help his eyes from going wide and his mouth from dropping. A couple seconds of confused eye contact between them ended with Adrien turning away, lifting a hand to scratch at the hairs at the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry, Marinette. But, I’m- I’m in love with… someone else.” He couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with her, and he forced himself to walk away, leaving Marinette reeling in her place.
“I love you!” Chat’s usual sly and confident banter was replaced with a yearning Ladybug had never seen in him before.
He wanted her to say it back. And she felt like she should.
Despite her recent rejection by Adrien, she still felt her heart reaching out towards him. The irrational part of her brain said that he just needed some time to love her, but the rational part told her to move on.
For the moment, she let her hope hold on.
“I’m sorry, Chat.” She felt Adrien’s own words form in her mouth. “I’m in love with someone else.” Before she allowed herself to turn around and see her heartbreak reflected on his face, she swung her yoyo into the night and disappeared.
Marinette detransformed on her balcony and sat with a huff on one of the lawn chairs she had dragged through the skylight. Her little terrace was covered in plants, roses and succulents, greenery and baby’s breath, and a few sprigs of peppermint and catnip here and there to act as bug repellants.
Half of the flowers were in bloom in the warm, mid-spring evening. She turned on the twinkling fairy lights which wrapped around the balcony railing so she could better appreciate the blooms in the dying light of the day.
She watched the sun fall below the horizon. The sky slowly melted from blue to orange and pink, and fade into an indigo-black. The city of lights held true to its name and flooded the lower horizon with a golden haze, almost eliminating the need for her lights.
Her eyes closed on their own and she felt herself drifting to sleep. It had been a long day.
A rustling above her made her eyes snap to attention. Green, iridescent eyes stared down at her from the roof of her house.
“Princess, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Chat climbed down from the roof and gave Marinette some room.
“No, you just startled me is all.” Chat nodded and turned to face the lights of Paris. His body was haloed in the golden lights, and she could distinctly see the slight droop of his shoulders as he leaned on the rails. “Are you alright?” She stood and walked over to him.
He shuffled somewhat uncomfortably and avoided eye contact. When she leaned over the rails to try to look at him, he turned away. With one fluid movement, he threw his legs over the railing and sat like a gargoyle next to her. She knew the answer to her question already. He wasn’t alright, really. Neither was she.
Chat didn’t quite know why he came, but her question startled him. Why would she be so willing to ask if he was okay, when he knew that she was upset about her own rejection by none other than his alter ego? He turned to face her and looked her up and down. She wore the same clothes she had worn that day at school. Her blue eyes sparkled almost silver in the lights of the city.
He chuckled darkly and decided he might as well vent. “I got rejected by the love of my life today.”
She averted her gaze to watch the city twinkle. “Me too.” The corners of her lips twitched up to offer him a comforting smile. He took it in stride and sighed deeply. She followed his lead.
“What a day, huh?” he asked, and she laughed despite herself.
“Not bad, in retrospect,” she said through her grin. “The weather was nice.”
“School was easy. At least the parts of it that I was awake for.” Chat laughed appreciatively.
“Another akuma was defeated without any casualties.”
“Very true. Nice job on that, by the way.” She nudged his shoulder with her own.
“It’s nothing. It’s mostly my lady who does the work.”
Marinette shook her head. “That’s not true. Sure, she purifies the akuma, but she’d be nothing without you, Chat. How many times have you saved her life and vice versa? You’re a team.”
Chat’s heart warmed and for the first time, the two met eyes without any awkwardness. They shared a moment of silent appreciation for each other before turning back to look at the horizon.
“Thank you,” Chat muttered. Marinette only nodded in response. He began tapping his claws on the metal railing, keeping an even, quiet beat to the night. She breathed deeply. The wind blew her hair around her face, and she undid her pigtails to tie her hair up in a bun. Her bangs still fluttered softly in the wind, but she didn’t have a pin to hold them back at the moment, so she let them hang around her face. Some pieces that didn’t make it into the hair band fell to frame her face. She tucked them behind her ears, but they occasionally fell out due to the wind.
She looked back up to where Chat was sitting, and found him staring at her. His mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes had gone wide. The gently flashing lights that tied around the rail he sat on shimmered in his thin pupils. His ears, which she learned expressed his emotions more than any other characteristic through years of partnership, were pointed forward and perked up. His posture had stiffened like he was surprised, but he was still relaxed next to her.
Instinctively, she brushed her hair behind her ear again. “What?”
He shook his head of his surprise. A faint blush was just visible under his mask in the low light of the evening. “Nothing…. I’ve just - I’ve never seen your hair up like that.”
She touched the base of her neck where her hairline just began and pulled at some baby hairs. “Oh yeah. I like my pigtails, but when it’s too windy they get in my face, you know?”
Chat smiled at her. “I like it.”
A creeping blush spread from Marinette’s ears to her cheeks. She could feel the heat flow to cover her entire face, and she was suddenly grateful for the low light. She forgot for a moment that Chat had excellent night vision, and he snuck a peek at the flush that came to her cheeks with a smug smile. “Thanks,” she whispered. It was too low for most people to hear, but she knew his heightened senses would pick it up.
Another gust of wind came from nowhere and pushed her hair out from behind her ears. She went to brush them back and Adrien found himself wanting to do it for her. Anything to get a little closer to her. He didn’t know where the urge came from. It was as sudden as the wind, but it pushed him to inch closer. The hand that gripped the railing to keep his balance brushed against her elbow when she leaned forward. Neither of them moved.
Chat found himself looking around the little garden Marinette had set up on her balcony. He recognized a few of the flowers, but most of them were foreign to him. He knew the names of maybe two or three varieties, but there seemed to be hundreds of different types blooming in the spring, their petals gently swaying in the breeze.
He bent over to sniff the closest pot to him, and smelled something tantalizingly familiar. His eyes grazed over the pots, looking for the flower that belonged to the smell. The search brought him several pots down, and he began digging gently at the pot filled with what he thought were carnations.
He didn’t notice that Marinette had crept up behind him to look at what he was doing. She watched over his shoulder and saw him pawing at the pot.
“What’re you looking for?”
Chat startled and bumped her chest with his back. His head came within centimeters of colliding with hers.
“Are you okay?” Chat almost yelled, and his hands came to hover around her as if to prevent her from breaking apart by sheer force of will.
Marinette giggled and nodded. “I’m fine, silly kitty.” She glanced over his shoulder at the pot he had been inspecting. “What did you find over there?”
Marinette walked around him and spotted what he had been so intent upon. “Oh my god!” she began giggling.
“What?” Chat turned to her and looked between her smiling face and the pot. Her laughter only grew.
She reached into the pot and sorted through the many petals of leaves until she found the right stem and picked a couple of leaves. “Do you know what this is?”
He sniffed the air and unconsciously raised his hand to grab it from her. “No. What is it?” He stuck it in his mouth and began chewing. Marinette could barely contain her laughter.
“It’s catnip,” she snorted.
Adrien froze and realized that he had stuck it in his mouth. He pulled the stem from his mouth and spat out the leaves. “What?”
He swung his legs back over the rail and stood. “Why do you have catnip in your plants?”
“It’s a bug deterrent. I don’t like pests hanging around my flowers.” She snatched the wilted stem from his hand and tossed it back into the plants. “But it seems to attract a different kind of pest,” she said, softly pushing his shoulder.
“Princess! You wound me.” He clutched his shoulder and slumped to the side like an injured warrior.
He stumbled and fell on all fours, coughing. “The attack was fatal.”
Marinette couldn’t stop herself from giggling. “Get up, tomcat.”
Chat sprawled himself across the floor, taking the time to make a more dramatic death scene. He curled in on himself only to stretch back out like he was convulsing. His clawed hands flexed and grabbed at his shoulder while he arched his back. When he had finally died, he lay on his back, taking up most of the floor space on the small terrace.
“Chat!” Marinette complained.
Adrien peaked up at her through a barely-opened eye. “I’m dead, princess. I must be resuscitated.”
Marinette came down on her knees next to him and hovered over him. “What ever must I do to save the famous Hero of Paris?”
“Well, princess. It seems to roles have been reversed. Now the princess must kiss the knight in shining armor to break the spell and wake him from his deathly slumber.” Chat Noir closed his eyes and listened to Marinette giggle. Despite the day he had had, she made him feel better. He found he regretted turning her down. Even if he didn’t love her like she loved him, it would have felt better to be with someone who liked him as much as she did.
Much to his shock, he felt her lips press against his cheek. His eyes shot open and he saw Marinette leaning over him, a coy smile plastered across her face. “Did it work?” she asked.
He saw the stubborn strand of hair had fallen from its place yet again. It must have been the catnip, but he found himself curling his fingers through her hair and tucking the loose strand back into its place.
Marinette didn’t expect the sudden show of affection, but found she liked the feeling of his pointed claws scraping gently along her skin. She shivered.
He wasn’t Adrien, she reminded herself, but it felt so much better to be close to him than anyone else at that moment. His fingers still brushed deftly along her hairline. She leaned into his hand, his warm palm caressing her cheek.
Chat Noir leaned forward and carefully placed a kiss on her lips.
The half second of contact sent another shiver down Marinette’s spine. She didn’t quite know how to react; she didn’t know how to decipher the feelings that were swirling around her chest.
Chat Noir was horrified that he had just done what he did. They were both upset about being turned down. But it felt like more than that. Now that the feelings for Ladybug had been pushed away, he found something creeping into his chest that spelled out the name of Marinette.
But the look of confusion on her face told him that it was the wrong thing to do. He regretted it instantly. “Mari, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
She cut him off with a solid kiss. She miscalculated slightly and ended up kissing the corner of his mouth. The weight that she put into leaning down forced her lips to slip of the side of his face and she came crashing down on top of him to try to keep her balance.
“Whoops!” Marinette said, her face burning fire engine red as she sat back up and drew away from him. Chat sat up along with her, keeping his eyes level with hers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Chat drew his fingers back up along her ear, and pressed his palm yet again on her cheek. The warmth of his fingers melted her. “Don’t be, princess.”
This time, they both leaned in to find each other’s lips. Chat’s fingers found their way to the back of her head, tangling in the loosely tied up hair. Marinette pushed into him. One of her legs swung around him until she was sitting on his lap. She found it much easier to kiss him here, and she tangled her hands in his hair and his found their way to the small of her back.
With a deep breath, they pulled away from each other, stars in their eyes.
After a long moment, Chat smiled. “Princess, you’ve broken the curse! I’m alive!”
Marinette shook her head with a roll of her eyes. “Silly kitty,” she said, and leaned back into him.
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