----

When Chat Noir asks Marinette out he is already ALL IN with his feelings and the evening reflects as much. He picks her up at the front door (she expected him to show up on the balcony and remains frozen awkwardly while he interacts with her parents.) Tom is suspicious of this boy who already broke his precious daughter's heart once before; Sabine reminds him that it took the two of them a few tries to figure out their feelings for each other too, remember?

He reluctantly admits that she has a point, and Marinette dives at the opportunity.

"Great! Be back later BYYYE" as she grabs Chat and hauls him out the door (he's just like :D because they're holding hands; this is already going so well!)

His enthusiasm quickly shifts the tone away from any residual awkwardness. The kid is absolutely hamming it up (sweeping bows, flowery promises of a night she will never forget! etc.) The more Marinette giggles at his ridiculousness the more over the top he gets.

The first date event that he has planned for them is a rickshaw ride, during which he does spend maybe too much time pointing out places where he and Ladybug have defeated akumatized villains. Marinette is at first torn between annoyance and amusement, but amusement wins out. She feigns ignorance and lets him tell his version of events, only occasionally trolling him with a pointed question when he deviates a little too far from how she remembers things herself. By the time the ride comes to an end, she's endeared by his attempts to impress her despite herself.

Next he leads her on a stroll through the Trocadéro Gardens, fortunately leaving the tales of his superhero exploits behind. They walk a while, flirt a bit, and then music begins to float through the air! Chat Noir has stopped and is looking at her for her reaction; he planned this part too.

"This is your favorite song, isn't it?"

It's her favorite song because it's the song she and Adrien danced to at Chloe's party so long ago, but she tries to put that out of her mind. Adrien isn't here; Adrien isn't the one who planned this whole evening for her; Adrien isn't the one trying to sweep her off her feet right now! No it's this silly, sweet cat boy, and he's... succeeding?

"It is my favorite song," she tells him, smiling. "How did you know that?"

"Oh! I, uh, asked around." (He doesn't tell her, but it's becoming one of his favorite songs as well.) He extends his hand with a flourish. "Shall we?"

"I'm super clumsy," she warns him, pre- embarrassed for herself.

"I have catlike grace for the both of us!" he assures her with a wink. She hesitantly takes his hand and he gives her a little twirl, catching her with a hand on her waist when she starts to wobble at the end. "Relax, just let me lead."

Why not? It's usually the other way around but she'll let him take the lead this time.

So they dance! And it's delightful. She doesn't have to think, doesn't have to plan the next move. All she has to do is trust him and he makes her feel completely weightless.

The music eventually ends, they both thank the musician, and Chat sweeps Marinette off to the final portion of this romantic evening: a Chat Noir specialty, the candle-lit rooftop. It's similar to the scene he set for Ladybug so long ago, but this time he planned it all with Marinette clearly in mind.

There's a blanket and picnic basket, and instead of roses he's gotten his paws on pink cherry blossom cuttings, which he offers to her in a bouquet. The warmth in her heart matches the warmth of her cheeks as she takes the bouquet.

"Thank you... These are my favorite."

"I know."

"You 'asked around'?" Her tone is teasing, but she honestly doesn't expect him to blush too.

"You use them a lot, in your designs."

"I didn't think you'd notice something like that."

He fixes his gaze on her and there's a level of seriousness in his expression that she's not used to seeing when she isn't wearing her Ladybug guise.

"I've been noticing a lot of things about you, Marinette."

Even after everything else, that's the moment when she finally starts to realize she might be in over her head.

----

When Marinette asks out Chat Noir she is sure of NOTHING, except that she must have been temporarily insane to ask, and he must have been as well to agree. She deals with the storm of second-guessing in her usual way, by staying up the entire night before and filling her crazy serial killer board with date notes.

The morning of: "Relax, Tikki. Sure I only got fourteen minutes of sleep but I'm totally prepared for anything now! Ha! I feel soooo much better than I did last night; this is going to be a BREEZE."

The plan: meet Chat Noir at a cafe for mid-morning drinks and snacks. Lowest possible pressure date setting.

She has the conversation topics pre-planned, nothing too serious in case he falls for her too fast (what a disaster THAT would be!) They have to keep everything super casual until she can figure out if this thing is viable or not. Gotta somehow prevent him from investing his entire heart just in case she screws up down the line and ends up breaking it again...

At the same time that she is guarding against him falling in love too fast, she's also preparing for him to lose interest in her immediately because pft, Marinette? When he's been in love with LADYBUG this whole time? What a downgrade. (Marinette, girl, why are you so insecure.)

"If we meet at this time and this place then it'll be easy for him to leave, you know, in case he gets bored or something." Tikki points out that Chat Noir has spent time with Marinette before and never gotten bored, but Marinette waves her off. "We spent all that time together as friends; a date is completely different."

Marinette shows up at the cafe looking like a sleep-deprived zombie but with an unreasonably inflated sense of confidence. Needless to say, it all goes sideways immediately. She has prepped herself for nine hundred scenarios but none of those scenarios involved the stuff that actually happens, like her tripping over her own feet and pouring hot tea directly over Chat's head, or Tikki getting hit with another food craving, or Chat popping out of his seat way too many times to run off and use the bathroom (Adrien was also a little nervous about this and wrote some last minute date notes of his own on his hand, but he has to keep transforming back and forth to read them. He does not understand why everything is going so badly! Plagg antagonizes him at every possible opportunity. At one point Adrien is in the bathroom stall yelling, "FINE, how do YOU think I should fix it, then?" To which Plagg replies "I dunno, kwamis don't have anything to do with this mushy love stuff." A murder very nearly occurs.)

After forty minutes they have spent maybe ten of them sitting across from each other and talking, and even that part was a nightmare because Marinette was too exhausted to keep her pre-planned conversation topics straight. She manages to corral Tikki without him noticing somehow and flees the scene, offering one of the terrible made-up excuses that she had painfully imagined Chat would be using on her.

She has a good cry into her pillow and then mercifully falls asleep. Wakes up hours later, it's dark outside, she's still miserable but also resigned. That's that, then. Perhaps she'll just yell at the sky briefly and then move on with her life--GAH WHY IS CHAT NOIR ON HER BALCONY.

He stammers through an explanation: he saw her sleeping through the window-- wait no not like he was WATCHING her sleep; that would be weird--and he decided to wait for her to wake up because he needs to talk to her about some things. The horror of their terrible date is still so fresh in her mind, Marinette absolutely dreads whatever this awkward conversation is going to be.

But then one by one he starts addressing her fears, like he found them written in a book somewhere. Not every single one, of course, because he doesn't know anything about the Ladybug side of things, but somehow he has Marinette pretty well figured out.

He hasn't forgotten about Buttercup, acknowledges the difficulty of moving on from first love, promises that he understands (and she knows he's not lying.) He tells her he knows how much it means to her for the important things to be perfect, and today didn't go, uh, perfectly... But that wasn't her fault! Normally his reflexes are so much better; any other day and he would've been able to prevent that tea incident, for one thing. And of course, they've been friends up to this point and risking that is scary; there are a lot of unknown factors, but--

"I really care about you, Marinette. So... can we try again?"

His sincerity makes her heart open up like a flower and she realizes, oh right, this is why I asked him out.

The second date goes significantly better.

----

The third option that you never asked for,  but is perhaps my personal favorite, is AMBIGUOUS DATE where neither of them asked the other out because neither of them realize it's a date until the evening is nearly over.

Jagged Stone is performing another concert. Gabriel decides that Adrien is not allowed to go at the last minute because Gabriel is a piece of trash. Adrien sneaks out anyway as Chat Noir because it's a good night for some REBELLION.

The ticket taker is not rock 'n' roll at all and refuses to let him in, because saving Paris five hundred(ish) times apparently counts for nothing. Seriously?? Well fine then, he'll just sneak in if he has to--

But he doesn't have to, because Marinette shows up behind him and offers him an extra ticket that she has for some reason. She's trying to smile but she seems down about something, which is a shame, because he can see that all her friends are here too ((all of them, do you really think so, Chat?)) and this should be a fun night! He instinctively begins trying to cheer her up, enthusing about how cool the concert will be. What's her favorite song on Jagged's new album? ~Purr-sonally~ he's a fan of track number 4, etc.

She's laughing by the time the concert begins, and they both have a totally rockin' good time. When it's over they split from the rest of the friend group for reasons that aren't entirely clear and he tells her he'll walk her home. They're both still super hyped and belting out their favorite songs together like obnoxious teenagers. They end up being scolded by a crabby adult, and then break down laughing as soon as the guy leaves.

"Some people just don't know how to have a good time," Chat declares, shaking his head pityingly.

"Yeah! Like that ticket guy earlier. He seriously wasn't going to let you in? I mean, you've saved Paris like FIVE HUNDRED TIMES, that should count for something."

They laugh it off and continue their walk, both failing to point out that they are taking an unnecessarily long route to the bakery. Their conversation is animated, all over the place, and effortless. While they are crossing the Seine, Marinette stops to lean against the railing, looks out over the water, and sighs happily.

"I almost didn't go tonight..." The breeze lifts her hair away from her face and Chat finds himself staring, totally unprepared for her to turn suddenly and meet his eyes. Which is exactly what she does. "But I'm really glad I changed my mind."

The city light falls on her face just so, and also she can't help but notice how tall and handsome he is, and they've had such a good time together tonight. He smiles, she smiles, BUTTERFLIES (the good kind) and then they share a chaste kiss that feels perfect in the moment but very confusing two seconds later because neither one of them is sure if they were the kisser or the kissee just now. Uh.

Marinette immediately goes full Marinette and starts babbling. "HAHA OKAY THEN, WHAT A NIGHT!! SO LATE I SHOULD HOME BE GETTING, GOODBYE SEE YOU TOMORROW!" Tries to run off but he catches her hand.

"Wait! See you... tomorrow?" the boy asks, wild with hope.

"Um..." What is happening?? Her face feels hot and her tongue answers for her. "Why not? If... if you want to."

Kagami managed to avoid Chloe for almost a week before her luck ran out. She didn't even have to look and see who'd slumped down on the park bench next to her--the dramatic huff accompanied by a flash of blonde hair in her periphery spoke for itself. And somehow, despite how annoying the sudden presence next to her was, some part of her couldn't help but feel a tiny thrill run down her spine.

Truthfully, Kagami was embarrassed by that. Embarrassed by how aware she was of Chloe's proximity and how even now she couldn't help but remember the feeling of Chloe's mouth moving hard against her own, or the tiny gasp that slipped through Chloe's lips when--

"Here." Chloe thrust something into Kagami's lap. "I got you these."

Kagami looked down to see a small box of chocolates. She sighed. "I don't like mint."

She considered adding that if Chloe ever bothered to pay attention to anyone other than herself she'd probably know that by now, but, well...she wasn't the petty one.

"Oh." Chloe drummed her fingers lightly against the lid before quickly pulling the box away and tucking into the massive purse she'd wedged between her feet. "I'm sorry."

That drew Kagami's attention. An actual apology? One that sounded sincere? Kagami glanced sharply to the side, only to find Chloe staring at her shoes.

"You're sorry?" Kagami asked incredulously.

"Yes," Chloe hissed. "I am sorry." She kicked at a rock, and they both watched it roll across the sidewalk. "I'm trying here, okay?"

"Okay," Kagami agreed, if only because she had no idea what else to say.

"Good." Chloe looked up. "So next time...next time I'll do more research. I'll get you something you like."

Kagami dug her fingers into the edge of the bench, immediately regretting it upon feeling the damp texture of the wood under her nails. It made her skin crawl, but served as a reminder to keep her emotions in check. Even if Chloe made that damn near impossible.

"Next time what?" Kagami demanded. "Next time you insult Marinette behind my back? She's my friend, you know. One of my best friends. You can't just be a bitch to her and think everything will be okay between us."

"I know that."

"And you can't just make everything better with chocolate."

Chloe scowled. "I know that too! That's not what I...Ugh." She threw her hands up in exaggeration and stood, her purse tipping over onto the ground as she began pacing back and forth. "It's just...it's something my mom used to do, okay? When she had to go away for a while, or when she had work to do so she missed a school presentation she was supposed to attend or if she just didn't have time to spend with me."

Chloe stopped pacing, crossing her arms across her chest and staring at the ground again. "Sometimes it wasn't even when she was making up for something. Sometimes she just did it...because she cared, I guess? In her own way. As much as she could? I used to think it was her way of saying all the things she couldn't say out loud, like...that she loved me.

"Now...I don't even know. Maybe it didn't mean that at all. Maybe she just wanted me to shut up and leave her alone, and she'd learned that bringing me gifts was enough to do it. But that's...that's not really the point."

"I see." Kagami was distinctly aware of her own heartbeat. "So...these chocolates mean you love me?"

Chloe's face was bright red. "They mean I'm not brave enough to admit to it," she mumbled. "But...I want to be. I want to be better, alright?" When she met Kagami's gaze, the fire was back in her eyes. "I want to be someone who deserves you."

"I see." Kagami paused, staring at the box that had slid halway out of Chloe's purse, onto the ground. "Were they expensive?"

"What?"

"The chocolates. Were they expensive?"

"What the hell? I mean, yes. Duh. But why do you care? If this is some way to call me spoiled or stuck up, then--

"It's not." Kagami bent down and retrieved the box. She slid open the cover. picked a chocolate at random and held it up, trying not to wince at the smell stinging into her nostrils. "I just figured that if they're expensive, they can't possibly taste that bad."

"That makes no sense."

"You make no sense."

"Shut up, Tsurugi."

"Fine." She plopped the chocolate into her mouth, wrinkling her nose as she chewed.

Chloe snorted. "You look ridiculous."

Kagami swallowed and tried her best to lick the traces of chocolate from her teeth. "I told you. I hate mint."

"Then why the hell did you eat it?"