#smutember2017

Marinette briefly skims the screen being shoved into her face before pausing in her tracks, snatching the phone from her friend’s hand, “Putain…”

“I know right?” Alya squeals, taking her phone back, “#ladynoir is trending everywhere! It’s currently holding at number three in the United States and number four in Germany! That basically means that all of Eastern Europe is getting a piece of this which means the video on my blog is TRENDING WORLDWIDE!”

“A video? WHAT!?”

“What’s going on?”

Both Marinette and Alya turns simultaneously as Adrien and Nino approach from the road.

“Hey guys! Did you see my video?”

Adrien cocks his head, “On the LadyBlog? I haven’t had time to check it this morning.”

“Then you’re in for a treat because you won’t BELIEVE what one of my uberfans shared with me exclusively last night. You can’t watch it anywhere else, I have the rights! My servers are crashing!”

Adrien begins to pale, “What’s in the video?”

“Dude, just watch it,” Nino replies, stepping closer to Alya. She holds her mobile out in front of her as Marinette and Adrien join in to watch, “Alya said it’s insane.”

“Almost got it…here!” Alya pulls up the page on her phone’s browser, “I had to put a NSFW blocker up and everything. Okay, okay, it starts here.”

Alya hits the play button and it’s of someone rowing on the Seine. They’re chatting in what Marinette can only assume is either Spanish or Portuguese when the screen turns abruptly and…

Oh god.

“Is that…?”

“Yup. Keep watching.”

The camera zooms in and it’s definitely her and Chat in flagrante delicto, just barely visible behind one of the columns of le temple romantique. The rower suddenly puts the burners on to get them further around the island and the video is violently shaky for about fifteen seconds before evening out again.

“How do you even know that’s Ladybug and Chat Noir?” Adrien asks, his voice cracking.

“Well first off, they’re wearing their masks,” Alya replies, glancing briefly back at Adrien likes he’s blind.

“Yeah but…they’re naked.”

“So?”

“Couldn’t they could just be two people having fantasy sex or something?”

Alya winks at him, “Just wait ‘till the end!”

Marinette swallows uncomfortably and continues to stare at the screen. He's pinned her hands to the column and sandwiched her between him and the stone, devouring her neck and collarbones.

"My god, look at their bodies. Specimens."

"Check out the shot of his ass coming up. I swear he's carved from marble."

“It’s amazing how fit they are.”

"Ooh, I love this bit."

In the video, Chat hauls her leg up and thrusts into her.

"Daaaamn, that girl is flexible."

"Very flexible," Adrien mumbles and shifts slightly in his stance, sweat beginning to bead at the back of his neck.

"They're going to town, aren't they?" Nino can’t help but admire, “I mean…wow.”

"I love how he’s just totally dominating her right now."

"What?" Marinette interjects before she can stop herself, blushing red, “She's clearly in control.”

"It doesn't look like it," Alya retorts just as Ladybug all but sinks her teeth into Chat Noir’s throat.

"See?"

"Babe, that was so hot, can we—”

"Shush Nino, we're getting to the good part."

The video zooms in further and, although blurry, their faces are more or less discernable, "Watch this. Ladybug’s about to orgasm."

"What?" Marinette recoils, "How do you even know that?"

"Look look look, she throws her head back like this and bam! Eyes fly open and her body, she just shoots off the wall!"

Not for the first time, Marinette wishes the ground would swallow her whole.

"Trust me Mari, I've watched this video at least a hundred times. I've practically memorised it."

The video shifts in and out of focus for a few seconds and the person behind the camera zooms back to get a clearer picture.

"I gotta hand it to him, the dude has stamina," Nino remarks appreciatively. Adrien bites his lip and tries not to sputter, "It's been what, seven minutes? And they’re still going at it."

"Probably lots of practice."

"Obviously. They’ve been going out since the video of them making out on the Eiffel Tower.”

“You couldn’t even see them making out Alya, people just assumed it,” Marinette whispers, watching as Chat hauls her calf and ankle up and over his shoulder, lifting her onto her toes. She’s so beyond embarrassed right now but that isn’t stopping her body from reacting enthusiastically, her panties already uncomfortably damp with arousal. That, and as much as it pains her to know that all of Paris all of the world has seen her naked…

“Oh wow,” Marinette mutters, subtly squeezing her thighs together.

They were really, really hot.

“Alright, he’s about to orgasm.”

“About time,” Nino bunts Adrien with his elbow, “He’s making all of mortals us look terrible.”

Adrien blinks absently and tries not to choke on his own tongue.

“Watch this guys,” and they do, their eyes wide as Chat thrusts inside her with enough force to send them both reeling and…it’s visceral alright. They throw their heads back in tandem, eyes closed and lips parted, bodies arched in ecstasy and bliss and Marinette can't tear her eyes away.

"Wow..." Nino trails off, shifting his trousers uncomfortably. Alya waves at him to stop talking and points at the screen.

Collapsed of the ground, Ladybug and Chat Noir begin to converse and, although the camera is too far away to capture any audio, it's obvious they're laughing about something. He stumbles to his feet and offers her his hand, pulling her upright and they embrace again, kissing as Ladybug pushes Chat's back against the column.

"They are not going to have sex again," Nino deadpans, gawking at the screen.

"Chat may be a superhero, but he's still human," Marinette mumbles, neglecting to notice the way Adrien’s face turns an unpleasant shade of plum.

"Look look," Alya insists and the two of them break apart sluggishly to collect their clothing. It looks like they're chatting while they dress and suddenly Chat says something that makes Ladybug swat at his arm.

"They're just talking," Adrien whispers, praying the video ends within the next few seconds before—

Merde.

There’s a flash of white light that engulfs the screen, blinding them all for a few seconds. When the light finally dissipates into the atmosphere, Ladybug and Chat Noir are as they usually are, dressed and proper as if he hadn’t just buttered her croissant against a column on a moderately public island in the Seine. Adrien struggles to swallow and steps back as the video promptly ends, feeling for all the world like he might just vomit.

“That was…”

“Insane right?” Alya fist pumps the sky and tucks her mobile into her back pocket, “I know I can’t keep it up forever because yes, I know it’s super invasive and they’re probably dying right now, whoever they are, but I figure I’ll give it twenty-four hours. Besides, this is a gift! Nine months from now, there’s going to be a baby boom all over the world because this? This is the hottest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“Speaking of which,” Nino quirks an eyebrow and both Adrien and Marinette take their cue to beat feet up the stairs as fast as they can. Curiously, they end up side by side by no means or efforts of their own, and make their way to their lockers.

“That was…something.”

Adrien breaks the silence and it suddenly dawns on Marinette that Adrien has not only seen her completely and utterly stark naked but also in the throes of arguably the best sex of her life.

Capable loves Nux in the way that she feels she’s supposed to love a man. She loves both his soul and his body, the way he talks and how he kisses her and touches her so gently. She cares about the warboy so much, and yet... There are still moments that don’t belong to him. Not that they won’t ever, but just that, for now, they still belong to the man who had waged a different kind of war on her and her sister’s bodies.

She wishes so badly she could give him that embrace, the kind she aches for and she knows he would be delighted with. But any time that she comes close to the act, all she can see is the Immortan, thrusting on top of her, and she shies away from it all. Nux, dear, patient Nux, of course is always happy enough to satisfy her with his hands and tongue. He never asks anything of her, but still, Capable wants to share more with him.

Of course she goes to her sisters with her plight, begs them to help her, because they’re the ones in this world who would understand the most. And together, they come up with a solution, calling back to times when the only comfort and relief they could find was with each other. The Dag helps her sculpt her solution, carving it from a section of one of the Dag’s precious trees, polishing it smooth.

Capable lays the fruit of their labour on her bed in front of her as she waits for Nux to arrive, blustering back in smelling of sweat and sun as he always does at the end of a day. She runs her hands almost reverently over it, tracing the smooth lines and finding a comfort in how cold it is. Although it is a facsimile of what has hurt her in the past, Capable knows it will be different. Just as she can touch Nux and takes him into his mouth, actions she never engaged in with the warlord, this is far enough removed from her past that it will be unique.

Capable hears Nux before she sees him, thundering around the way that all the warboys do, desperate to be known in every moment of the day. A small tickle of nerves starts in the back of her throat, but it doesn’t stop her from smiling when Nux bursts into the room, goofy smile stretching his scars as he catches sight of her.

“Oh, glorious day.” Nux sighs, always so dramatic in his joy, as he sweeps across the room to kiss her. Capable leans into the touch happily, wrapping her arms around his neck and tasting the sweat on his lips. Every day he treats her as if she is the most precious thing in the world, as if she does him a favour simply by allowing him to see her.

Nux breaks their kiss, and when he leans back, his eyes light upon the object on the bed. Capable drops her arms as he perches on the edge of the bed and leans close to the sculpture, inspecting it with evident curiosity. “What’s this?”

“Well…” Capable plays with a small strand of her hair, trying to figure out how to explain it without delving into everything. Nux picks up the sculpture of male genitalia and looks so innocent that Capable can’t help but chuckle. Of course she doesn’t have to explain it, this is Nux she’s dealing with. “I was thinking we could try something different tonight.”

“With this?” Nux asks, and Capable nods. Nux shrugs, still inspecting the thing as if trying to figure out how it works, like an engine. “Sure. You know, this looks kind of like my stick shift.”

Capable feels herself blush slightly as he points out, in his own words, exactly what the sculpture is supposed to be. She stills his inspection by covering his hands with her own, and Nux looks up at her. “Yes, exactly.”

“Then… Oh!” Nux lights up as he makes the connection, grinning at her. For a moment his smile falters and a concerned crease forms between his brows, “It’s for you, right?”

Capable laughs and brings her hand up to brush her knuckles along his cheek, Nux leaning into the touch. “Yes, it’s for me, silly warboy.”

“Good.” Nux sighs in evident relief, “Because if you wanted, I would, because I trust Capable more than anything, but… I’m glad it’s for you.”

Nux beams at her, and Capable wonders how she was every even slightly nervous about showing him the toy. He’s her sweet warboy, and nothing will ever change that, and some day her body and mind will understand it and they’ll be able to do whatever they want. But for now… Capable cups a hand behind Nux’s neck, pulling him in for another kiss.

Nux is more than happy to place aside the toy in favour of sitting on the bed, letting Capable climb into his lap. They found this was the best way for them to mess around, the safest for Capable. And it allows Nux to rest on days when his old injuries hurt him, lets him give control to Capable, which they both enjoy.

Capable slides a hand between them, over the grease paint on Nux’s chest and stomach, to cup him through his heavy canvas pants. He’s already hard, which is entirely unsurprising. Nux lives as all warboys do, enthusiastic and fast, and apparently that extends to all aspects of their lives. Not that Capable minds, at all. She loves getting him off quickly, loves seeing him unravel under her touch.

“Me first?” Nux breaks from their kiss to ask, and Capable nods. Usually he’s so eager to please Capable that she’s climaxed at least twice before she even thinks to tend to Nux, but not this time.

Capable undoes Nux’s pants and slides her hand into them, freeing his erection from their confines. She spits on her hand before running it over his member, stroking him firmly and committing the feel of him to memory. She wants to have as much to draw on as she can, later. Contrary to her reaction, she does desperately want to lay with him, she just can’t, not yet.

Air leaves Nux in a heavy punch as she gathers his precum with her thumb, dragging it over the length of him. He’s already trembling beneath her, chewing on his scarred lips as he does when driven to distraction. Capable smiles and kisses his forehead as she pumps her hand.

“Ah-” Nux gasps as Capable twists her wrist, “My Valahalla-”

Nux knows to warn her when he’s about to finish, they’d had to have a discussion about that after the first time Capable had used her mouth on him. Capable simply hums in affirmation, letting him know she’s heard him and that’s it’s okay. Not that she would ever deny him his pleasure, but still. As soon as she does so, Nux cries out, tensing and expelling his seed. Capable covers the tip of his member with her free hand, catching it. As Nux collapses, she reaches for a spare rag to wipe her hand with.

“So chrome…” Nux mumbles, reaching up and brushing Capable’s hair back over her shoulder. She smiles and leans down to press her lips to his, a slow and decadent tangle of soft flesh and scars as Nux regains his energy.

He does so quickly, of course, because no warboy ever rests for long. Within a few moments, his hands are carefully mapping over Capable’s hips, teasing at the edges of her skirt. Capable responds to his touch by climbing off of him in order to discard the garment entirely, leaving her lower half bare to the world. She sits, leaning against the wall, and beckons Nux to come closer to her.

“Time for this?” Nux asks, picking up the sculpture and offering it to her. Capable catches her lower lip between her teeth and nods, butterflies in her stomach.

“Fingers first, though.” Capable instructs, and Nux nods, so serious and endearing. He sucks two of his fingers into his mouth, which is honestly more arousing than Capable had thought she would find it, and crawls towards her, propping himself on the bed next to her hip.

Nux presses a kiss to her ribs as he briefly slides his fingers along her folds before delving into her, Capable’s breath catching in her throat at the delightful intrusion. He keeps his lips on her skin, the rough bumps of his scars a sensation unlike any other, as he thrusts his fingers within her. Capable drops her head back against the wall, relaxing into his touch. As she begins to feel the first little snakes of warmth curling through her stomach, Capable stops Nux with a hand on his.

“Alright,” Capable says breathily, and Nux picks up the toy. Thoughtful as he always is, he takes the time to run his tongue over it, getting it slicked and ready for her. Capable finds her eyes tracking the motion of his lips and tongue, arousal pooling in her core.

“Good?” Nux asks, and Capable nods shakily.

She watches Nux line the toy up with her, and just before he moves it towards her she thinks to caution him. “Slowly, Nux.”

Nux nods, and ever so slowly he presses the tip of the toy to her. It feels so different from his fingers, and incredibly distant from the sensations that drove so much fear into her in the first place. Capable sighs in pleasure as the solidness of it breaches her, cool and firm. Nux takes her instruction to heart and slides it into her achingly slowly. He doesn’t stop until his knuckles, gripping the base of it, brush her folds.

“Oh, Nux,” Capable moans, closing her eyes and recalling the feeling of him in her hand. Like this, without his weight on her and the warmth of him invading her, she can imagine it’s him filling her. Her mind supplies what she wants, and Capable reaches down to stroke Nux’s bare head. “You can move now.”

Nux obeys, dragging the toy in cautious thrusts that stoke the fire within Capable. Yes, this is what she had been craving, this fullness and near-overwhelming sensation. She moans as Nux increases the pace slightly, ever so careful with how he touches her. Capable clenches experimentally as Nux drags the toy out of her and gasps at the intense sensation.

“You okay?” Nux, asks, concern evident in his voice.

“Oh yes, more than okay. Don’t stop, Nux.” Capable practically begs, timing clenching around the wooden sculpture in order to gain more of that delicious friction. “You can even move faster.”

As Nux obliges, Capable drops her free hand to just above the fervent motion, rubbing at the bundle of nerves there. It’s almost too much, the drag of the toy and her stimulation of her clit, but Capable feels her climax coiling in her stomach and keeps at it. She gasps uneven breaths and bucks her hips, seeking more and finding it as Nux drives the toy into her. Capable lets out a loud moan as her orgasm crests through her, bearing down hard on the toy and finding a deep satisfaction in having something to clench around.

“Oh, Nux,” Capables sighs, bending in order to kiss him as he looks up at her. She drops the hand that had been playing with her clit to the toy, encouraging Nux to cease his motions and remove it from her. She leans her forehead against his, breaking the kiss. “Thank you, my precious warboy.”

“Anything for you, Capable.” Nux looks at her with such naked love in her eyes that it makes Capable’s chest ache.

~

“Get in here.”

The alley near the passages was narrow and barely held enough room for the two of them. Chat doesn’t protest as she muscles him into the backstreet, digging her fingers into the flesh of his forearm with enough force to bruise and he can tell that she’s positively seething.

He shakes her off once they’re hidden in the darkness of the alleyway and stands across her, watching her features closely. Marinette is arguing with herself internally, want and need and a myriad of other emotions coursing through her veins like a fever, vying for dominance. Chat was hers and hers alone and no one, no one had the right to touch him the way she touched him. She shoves him against the wall.

“Ladybug, what’s going on?”

Marinette grabs two handfuls of hair and smashes her lips and against his, all teeth and tongue, and releases the fury she’s been feeling. Surprised, Chat yelps and the sound is trapped in the back of his throat, trapped by the ferocity of her embrace and the way she takes control of him like a puppeteer, fully and completely. He surrenders himself to her and snakes his hands around her waist, letting himself be consumed.

She finally breaks the kiss and she can feel his gasps against her lips, his heartbeat against the palm she has pressed against his neck. His lips are swollen and red and the evidence of their exchange glistens in the meagre light that filters down through the cracks in the walls.

“They can’t have you,” she says and she can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, uncontrollable and fuelled by the swell of possessive heat overpowering her common sense and blistering her skin, “I will not share you.”

“Ladybug, calm down—”

Marinette doesn’t grace him with a response, gripping his neck harder and reigniting the kiss between them. It’s less violent but still fierce in its design, desperate and unshakable, and she digs her fingers into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and scratches apologies into his skin.

“They want you,” she whispers, desperation and need clawing at her chest. She sounds ridiculous and she knows it.

“We’ve been in the spotlight for years Ladybug. That’s just the way it is.”

She swallows, suddenly feeling a bit silly. She doesn’t know what this feeing is that’s washing over her, “I think it’s the Miraculous.”

“You think?” he asks with incredulity, “You don’t see me hauling you into a dark alley and smashing you against the wall.”

Marinette frowns and still doesn’t relent against him, their bodies completely entwined, “You don’t feel it?”

“Oh, I feel it,” he chuckles darkly against her lips, his nose brushing against hers, “I’ve just gotten used to ignoring it.”

“How?”

“I respect you enough not to push it. It’s not like you haven’t told me how you feel.”

Another wave of possessiveness washes over her and she feels ashamed. She exhales, shuddering, “I want you now.”

“Not all of me,” he responds and there’s something else hiding behind his words, cheerless and unspoken, “But you already know that.”

Her fist grips his hair harder and pulls downwards, baring his neck to her, ever compliant in her hands. It thrills her that he’s so willing to surrender himself to her, to expose himself to her even though he knows what she’s still holding back, “Are you challenging me?”

His lips move soundlessly for a moment, “I would never force you to do anything.”

She takes a deep breath and smells nothing but him, “I know.”

“But,” he exhales, cocking his head to the side as if struck by thought, “In the spirit of open and honest communication, sometimes it really pisses me off.”

She can count the number of times he’s used that tone of voice with her on one hand and it always feels like a slap to the face, “I—”

“Most people just give up when the person they love doesn’t love them back. They don’t wait on them for years, by the way, only to have them taunt them about it later.”

“I didn’t—”

“No?” he implores, raising his brows and digging his fingers into the swell of flesh below her hipbones. He’s finally given into the furious desire to claim he’s been suppressing since they started this whole affair and it feels good to be angry, to let it all out, “Then why do you act like this means nothing?”

Chat turns the tables before she can respond and switches places with her, pressing her up ever harder against the wall. He covers her body with his own and shoves his knee between her thighs, his groin throbbing in response to the way she writhes and struggles against him.

“I love you,” he hisses and she’s wet with the way he says it, furious and fervid, “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving your side. I’m your partner and your friend and your lover, if only you’d let me.”

Marinette swallows uncomfortably, wedged between the wall and his body, long and lean and hard against her. Her mind is begging her to run away, to get out of there and keep with the status quo but her body says otherwise, provoked and soaked and all the things she’s been trying not to feel.

“Do you understand? Do you understand how it feels when you act like you want me but you don’t actually want all of me?”

“I…”

“Do you?” he demands. He presses hot kisses to the exposed skin of her neck and bites down, leaving a trail of wetness along the collar of her suit. He gets to the flesh beneath her earlobe and snaps down harder knowing the mark he’ll leave behind will be there long after she detransforms.

She hisses and arcs against him, scrambling for purchase against the fabric of his suit. He takes her wrists and stops them in their tracks, raising them up above her head and pining them there.

“I don’t care if you think that your Miraculous is making you act crazy, I know I have control over my actions when I’m in this thing. So don’t go making excuses and thinking you can make false claims about owning me when you don’t.”

He grinds his hips against her and anchors her pinned wrists with his right hand, trailing his left down her cheek so she can’t help but make eye contact with him, “If you don’t want me, fine. I’ll live. But you just hissed at a reporter to back off and it was embarrassing.”

Marinette squeezes her eyes closed and understands that what she did was humiliating. She knows it’s only going to fuel the press and make it a thousand times harder to do her job and it’s all her fault. She knows she can be impulsive sometimes, she knows that she acts without thinking about the consequences of her actions and without thinking about the people involved and she knows that this isn’t just her Miraculous talking. It’s compelling her, yes, and it’s making her aroused to the point that it’s driving her crazy, but my god, she’s being so unfair. Ridiculous. Insane. Stupid!

“I’m sorry,” she whispers like a prayer, her eyes widened at his insistent glare. He shifts his hips again and rubs the length of himself against her, panting against her lips.

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” his grip tightens on her wrists, “Make a decision. Either you want this or you don’t. It’s not fair to me, not now, not anymore. When you’ve made a decision, text me.”

He leaves another searing kiss against her lips before releasing her, freeing the baton at the small of his back and extending it upwards. He disappears onto the rooftops and goes god knows where, leaving Marinette slumped against the brickwork, alone.

Loïc purses his lips, “He’s much more careful that you’ve even been. He never takes the same route home twice and I always loose him between the 4e and the Seine.”

“Some hunter you are.”

“Says the woman who’s supposed to be responsible for defeating Le Papillon. I mean, it’s been, what, three years since you started your stint as Ladybug?”

“Two and a half,” she snaps back, “And you said I was the one who woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“If we’re in the business of being honest with each other, can I just say that Le Papillon is getting a bit antsy?”

“What do I care?”

“Seems he’s in the business of making demands and having them met. Pompous prick that he is, he does have a point.”

“And that is?”

“We’ve got ’till Saturday to fine tune this plan of ours. There’s some first responder appreciation thing going on so police presence on the streets will be at a minimum and that’s when he plans on getting this show in the road. You don’t believe me?” he questions, turning his lip at her less than convinced expression, “Here, read this.”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, finding the conversation and dropping it in her palm, “I made the mistake of giving him my number and now he won’t stop texting me.”

“They say I made a deal with the devil,” she mocks him, shooting him a glare before scrolling through his conversation, “How do I know you didn’t make this conversation up yourself?”

“Seriously?” he makes a derisive noise and Marinette can only assume he’s rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses, “Teenagers. So cynical.”

“Killers,” she snarks back, “So trustworthy.”

“Good god,” he grumbles, pulling a battered cigarette case from his back pocket, “You really are in a nasty mood.”

“Say something worthwhile and I might change my mind.”

“You’re hardly in a position to talk.”

“You’re hardly in a position to order.”

“I know where you live. I know your friends, your family. I know everything about you.”

“And none of that will help you get to Chat.”

“It’s only a matter of time before he slips up. Everyone does in the end.”

“I can’t trust you. You’ve given me no reason to start.”

“Despite my initial akuma fuelled power trip, I’m not all about causing chaos and terror,” he replies, flicking the spark of his lighter, “I prefer to stick to the status quo.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Every person who has killed a public figure eventually gets caught. Oswald, Ray, Princip, Godse; I don’t intend to be next.”

“But you want to be the first to get away with it.”

A dark shadow passes over his features, “You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

“At least you and Le Papillon have something in common.”

Loïc pinches the bridge of his nose, “Look, I am trying to work with you for the common good. Well, your common good anyway, I just want some powers back so I can make more money out east. Now, are we going to work together or not? It’ll be a lot easier if we just call a truce and be done with it.”

“How do I know you won’t kill him?”

“You don’t.”

“So how can I trust you?”

“You can’t. But in this case, trust my selfishness. I want control above anything, power and control over my destiny. I want a fat caseload and an even fatter wallet and with my very own akuma in my possession, I can have both of those things. I’m willing to cut a deal with the only person on this planet who has been able to kill me, and now that I’ve been resurrected I’m not about to make the same mistake twice. Let me get him for the spectacle and you don’t even have to take the damn ring, I’ll do it myself if that’ll make you happy, I don’t care. I get my powers back and you get that pain in the ass’s name and you’ll never see heads or tails of me ever again.”

Marinette walks quietly for a long moment, letting his words sink in. Tikki buzzes, agitated in her purse but Marinette can’t be bothered, Chat’s smile and voice haunting her decision like a plague.

“Fine.”

“Fine what?”

Marinette steels herself, “I’ll play your little game. But if you do more than graze him, I’ll kill you.”

“I doubt that,” he snorts, smoke pouring from his nostrils, “But like I said, I don’t plan on killing him. Nobody hires a merc with a price on his head.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“Yes darling, that we do.”

Marinette swallows the bile bubbling at the back of her throat, “Where’s he planning on striking first?”

“You know he’s all about spectacle.”

“Eiffel Tower?”

“Where else?”

“How dramatic.”

“It’s Le Papillon. What do you expect?”

“Nothing less,” she mutters, shifting the strap of her purse across her chest, “At night?”

“Dusk I believe.”

“Great. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of off the top of my head.”

“Good. Let me know if anything changes.”

“I know where to find you.”

“And isn’t that a comforting thought.”

“Catch you later Ladybug.”

Marinette sticks her tongue out in disgust and crosses the road to her school, “Can’t wait.”

~

Ladybug Do you want to do our patrol together tonight?

CN To what do I owe the honour?

Ladybug I know you’re usually busy on Wednesdays but I thought you might want to hang out after whatever it is you do.

CN Let me check my schedule.

Ladybug Your schedule?

Ladybug Sounds like a friend I know. He always has a schedule.

CN Really?

Ladybug Is it a boy thing?

CN Having a schedule?

Ladybug Yeah.

CN I don’t think so. I just like to be organised.

Ladybug Seriously? You’re the most scatterbrained person I know.

CN Meowch. I have an image to uphold you know.

Ladybug As Chat? Or as you?

CN Who says I’m one or the other?

Ladybug That’s how I see it. My civilian side isn’t anything like Ladybug.

CN I highly doubt that.

Ladybug Good thing you don’t know me in real life then.

CN I’d love to try

Ladybug Not yet.

CN Soon?

Ladybug We’ll see.

CN Rats Chats.

Ladybug …seriously? That was horrible.

CN If I just keep punning, will I eventually break you down?

Ladybug No. Don’t even think about it.

CN I’ve got a meowtain of them I want to try.

Ladybug You know, sometimes you can actually be kind of funny.

Ladybug But this is not one of those times.

CN Really? M’Lady thinks I can be funny? I’ve never felt so cattered.

Ladybug Please no. Forget I said anything.

Ladybug I take back everything.

Ladybug Chat?

“Marinette!”

Marinette jerks upwards from where she’s leaning against the oak tree in front of the music hall and stumbles slightly before catching her balance. Adrien suddenly appears beside her, gently grasping her elbow to help stop her fall.

“Adrien!”

“Long time no see,” he smiles, letting go of her arm and dropping his own against his side, “How are you?”

“I’m uh, good thanks,” she replies, plastering a sheepish grin to her face, “How are you?”

“Tired,” he admits, brushing his fingers though his hair, “Jetlag sucks and I was up pretty late last night.”

“Yeah? What were you up to?”

“Well…can you keep a secret?”

Marinette presses her back against the tree and tries to stay calm, “Me? Sure, I’m…I’m great at secrets.”

He takes a deep breath and smothers his smirk, “I was on a date.”

“A date?” she breathes, eyes widening, “With who?”

“She’s…she wants to keep it a secret.”

“Oh.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t still talk about it,” he shrugs, “It was amazing, she’s amazing. I mean, she even made me a picnic!”

“A picnic?”

“Yeah! It was pretty romantic.”

“Romantic?” Marinette looks down at her phone for a moment to check for a response, “That sounds…nice.”

“It was,” he sits down against the trunk of the tree and brings his knee to his chest, “She’s not really the romantic type to be honest so I was pretty shocked.”

“Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?”

“Being romantic?” Adrien cocks an eyebrow in surprise, “It’s a personal choice I guess. I love it though.”

Marinette slides down the tree to sit beside him, cradling her phone in her lap, “I wouldn’t know.”

“No lucky boy on your radar?”

Marinette tries not to choke, “B-Boy? No, nope. No boys.”

“Girls then?”

“No!” she scrambles to find her composure, missing the way he bites down on his lip to keep from laughing, “No nothing.”

“That’s too bad,” he replies with a grin he can’t quite stifle, “I know more than a few guys who have talked about asking you out.”

“I…I’m not…” she covers her face with her hands and cringes, her cheeks on fire, “It’s not…I don’t have time.”

“I’m the same way,” Adrien responds and tips his head back against the trunk, “But somehow I make time for her.”

“Yeah?” Marinette splits her fingers apart to peer through them, “Is it Kaia?”

“Kaia?” Adrien reacts, his eyes widening before dissolving into snickers, “Nooo. I mean, my dad set us up but…Kaia? I’ve known her for a couple years but I’m…not really her type? I don’t know, it wouldn’t work out.”

“You’re not her type?” Marinette drops her hands and stares at him incredulously, “How is that even possible?”

Adrien turns away and looks into the courtyard, willing his cheeks to keep from flushing, “She’s…she’s into guys who are…how do I word this? Stronger than me I guess?”

“Strong?” Marinette frowns, glancing down at his exposed arms, “Does she need glasses?”

Adrien bursts out laughing, “No!”

Embarrassment thrown aside, Marinette turns towards him and waves her arms in disbelief, “Then what could she not possibly see in you? You’re amazing!”

“Th-thank you,” he hiccups through his laughter, “But it’s alright. She just likes tough, bad boy types, that’s all. I don’t quite fit that description.”

“Then she’s missing out,” Marinette assures him, peering down at her phone again.

He gestures towards her lap with his chin, “Are you expecting a text?”

“Me? N-No, I mean…yes actually.”

“From who?”

“My friend.”

“A boyfriend?”

She narrows her eyes, “I already told you I don’t have a boyfriend. He’s just a friend.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah…why?”

“What’s that on your neck then?”

Panicking, Marinette's hands scramble to her neck, fervently brushing the exposed skin for imaginary bugs and winces when she comes across a particularly tender bruise just behind her left ear. She immediately freezes, her legs spasming outwards before curling in, and burrows her face in her knees.

“Is that a hickey?” he whispers conspiratorially, thankful that she can’t see the smug expression on his lips. She makes some sort of high pitched, anguished moan and Adrien almost takes pity on her, “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

Marinette pitches another fit into her thighs and curls her hand around her neck in a death grip, turning her head to expose one eye, “How am I going to finish school like this!?”

“I always keep a tube of concealer on me,” he says breezily, fishing through the school bag at his side, “My girlfriend loves to take her frustrations out on my neck.”

“D-does she?” Marinette squeaks, lifting her head.

“Oh yeah,” he intones, “She likes to bite.”

Marinette swallows uncomfortably and shifts her hips against the base of the tree, “Yeah?”

“Mmhmm,” he pulls the tube from a small green sack and holds it against her skin to compare shades, “It’s annoying to cover up all the time but I kind of love it,” he puts the tube back in the bag and searches for another, “And she’s a little possessive...it's actually pretty sexy.”

“Really?”

“Yup", he pulls out another tube and deems it suitable, twisting off the lid, "She does most of the heavy lifting, per se. I’m just along for the ride."

“Wh-why are you telling me this?”

“Well, now that it looks like you’re in the same boat as I am, I want to ask you a question,” he says, squeezing a dollop the size of a peppercorn onto the tip of his index finger.

“A question? A-about what?”

“Actually, let me rephrase that. I need some advice. See, my girlfriend is a bit of a control freak and tends to…take the lead, you know?” Adrien waves nonchalantly and keeps going, revelling in the blush spreading down her neck and chest, “What do you think she would do if I turned the tables?”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Marinette jolts from her spot against the trunk and turns back to Adrien, her eyes as wide as saucers, “That was the bell!”

Adrien chuckles, pulling himself to his feet, “It was. Come here and I'll put it on quick."

He leans in much closer than strictly necessary and dabs the concealer against the purple bruise, deftly blending the make-up into her skin. Marinette stands frozen and takes a deep mouthful of air, breathing him in and reeling at the way her senses seem to sharpen, the slowly subsiding springtime itch suddenly flaring at the base of her spine.

"All finished," he whispers, his breath flush against her ear, "I’ll see you later Marinette.”

She watches him walk away and jerks when the phone in her hand begins vibrating without warning. She nearly drops it before getting a grip and she brings it up to her face, quickly checking the message.

CN I can meet you after 23:00. See you tonight.

~

“Do you like games, M’Lady?”

“What?” she asks, her eyes flicking up to his face before returning to his belt.

“I said,” he repeats helpfully, “do you like games?”

“Not at the moment. Why?”

“Because I want to play one."

“No,” she retorts, her fingers casually resuming their task. Undaunted, Chat places his hands over hers and traps them, her fingers twitching futilely against his belt buckle.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” he urges, his expression predatory.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you’ll just have to head home to satisfy yourself.”

He’s taking a risk here and he knows it. After all, Marinette has always preferred to be in charge so as to know which way the shots are going to be called, especially since she’s the one usually calling them. There’s every chance she’ll just let go of his belt and call him out for taking things too far but...there’s also a chance she’ll take on his challenge and let him decide how things will play out. Chat maintains his expression of casual challenge while she frowns up at him, determined not to let his nervousness play out on his features.

“...Fine,” she purses her lips, “What’s the game?”

Chat smiles in relief, “Do you remember when we were talking about celebrity crushes?”

“Yes…” Marinette drawls, the word settling uncertainly on her tongue. He watches in earnest as the confusion on her face starts to fade and he know that she can see where this is leading.

"Then how about a little game of make believe?” Chat lowers his head to her neck and brushes his lips against her skin, pressing closer and walking her back towards the wall.

“Do you want me to call you Christiano or Abel?” Marinette teases, smirking even as his hips pin hers to the brick.

“Christiano maybe..." Chat can’t resist leaning back to look her in the eye any more than he can stop the smirk twisting his lips, “Or you could call me Adrien.”

“A-Adrien?” Marinette squeaks, her body stiffening in shock. She gapes at him, her eyes widening dramatically, “N-no! Chat, I go to school with him. We have classes together! How would I even be able to look at him?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Chat murmurs against her collarbones as his hands push her skirt upwards, his fingernails scraping her inner thighs before brushing against her clit. She gasps as the tips of his fingers rub circles around it, the cotton fabric of her panties grazing the sensitive nub in delicious counterpoint. Her hand reaches out, ghosting over the ridge in his trousers but Chat pulls his hips away, ignoring her whimpers.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he scolds even as the muscles in his thighs seem to tighten in protest. He dips his index finger deeper, teasing her entrance through the cotton and revels in the way she seems to widen her stance to accommodate his movements, “You haven’t agreed to play. Who will it be?”

“I can't call you Adrien,” she protests.

"Why not? We're both tall, blond and incredibly handsome. Is it so much of a stretch?"

Marinette raises an eyebrow, "Is this some sort of jealousy thing?"

"Hardly," he replies, his finger still pressing lightly in and out, teasing her lips while his thumb rubs against her clit. “I don't think I have too much to worry about. Besides, when you see him tomorrow at school, you’ll have to look him in the eye and remember all the things I did to you.”

She narrows her eyes, "You're being ridiculous."

"Come on Ladybug, it'll be fun!" Chat squeezes her chest beneath his fingers in retaliation, pinching her nipple through the fabric.

"That's, ah! not fair," she hisses, arching into his grip as he lowers his lips to nibble on her neck, "I see him all the time."

"Oops," Chat slips his fingers under the seam of her panties, running his fingertip along her slit and drawing up the moisture gathering there, "I guess you'll be thinking about me a lot then."

"You don't know any of your celebrity crushes personally," she grumbles back, "Wait...do you?"

Chat shrugs and sucks on the skin only a few centimeters away from the bruise he’d helped her cover earlier that day. Ruthlessly, he presses a finger inside her and listens to her breath hitch, "Does it matter? This is just a game M'Lady, no need to take it so seriously."

"Ugh," Marinette pulls back ever so slightly, "Where’s this coming from anyway? I just want to have sex with you."

"It'll be fun, I promise," he smirks into her skin, redoubling his efforts and adding a second finger, curling them to find that spot he knows drives her wild. His thumb presses into her clit as he sucks strongly on the patch of skin at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, purposely leaving a mark there. Clearly thinking the discussion was over, she makes quick work of the Armani buckle, deftly popping the button on his trousers and easing the zipper down.

Chat waits until she’s freed his erection from his briefs before stepping back, leaving her flushed and panting against the wall. He watches her expression as he stands there, shirtless and gleaming faintly under a light sheen of sweat from a combination of their activities and the mounting humidity of the heat wave. He sees her eyes darken as she looks down at his parted zipper, his cock bobbing and hard, jutting out into the warm night air and she steps forward but he grabs her wrist instead. Raising her fingers to his mouth, he kisses her palm before drawing the tip of her finger between his teeth, sucking hard.

“So?” he asks, releasing the digit with a pop before moving onto the next one.

"So what?"

"Are you going to play or not?"

“Chat...” she whinges, reaching for him with her other hand. He catches it without looking and easily pins it up against the wall, his erection rubbing over her stomach, “I already told you, I have to see him in class tomorrow.”

“Oh well,” Chat sing songs, nibbling along a third finger, canting his hips against her, “You'll just have to go to school and look him in the eyes knowing what I’m about to do to you or...I can leave you to your own devices. You have such talented fingers,” he taunts, “I’m sure you could put them to good use.”

“Of course…” he continues to tease, scraping his teeth over her thumb and swirling his tongue over the sensitive skin of her bare wrist, “If you’d rather have my cock…”

“Fine."

“Fine...what?” Chat’s eyebrow quirks.

She huffs, “Fine Adrien, I accept your terms.”

Smiling, Chat releases her wrist and allows her to touch him, her squeeze almost punishingly tight. He ignores her small retribution and continues trailing kisses along the inside of her arm, reaching under her skirt to grasp the edge of her panties and he drags them down just past the crease of her thighs, letting her worry about kicking them off. Quickly, he uses his free hand to shove her shirt up, pushing the cups of her bra aside to grasp one breast directly, and squeezes it firmly before tugging on her nipple. Marinette whimpers as he plants a final kiss on the inside of her elbow before letting her arm drop around his neck and her fingers pump his cock, her thumb brushing up and over the engorged head to distribute pre-come down the length of it.

Chat moans into her mouth as her lips seal over his, thrusting into her hand as he leans forward and pins her flush to the wall, “Here or—?”

“I don’t really care. Anywhere's good.”

“I don’t really care who?” he demands, grasping her thighs and lifting her up.

Marinette reaches down between them and shifts her skirt out of the way, grabbing his cock and dragging him up and down her wet slit before slipping his head against her opening, “Fine. Adrien,” she moans as she sinks onto him, “Ahh...I don’t care Adrien, just oh!”

Chat echoes the sentiment, his eyes slamming shut as he feels her wet heat envelope him. His hands circle her waist, sliding around to brace his palms against the wall to keep the brick from rubbing them both raw and Marinette reaches out, threading her fingers through his hair and tugging his face up to press her lips against his, groaning into his mouth.

“This is…ah, great,” she pants as she bites his lip, sucking on it to soothe the ache, “I think I love this position.”

Chat mutters something or other against her chest, mentally agreeing as he thrusts up into her, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips. His cock’s almost vertical inside her, her already tight channel clenching to an almost mind-numbing pressure as he rocks against her; everything about this position is tight and warm and gloriously wet as she moans and pants and writhes in his arms. They were about as close together as it was physically possible to be, another perk being that the position put her breasts very nearly in front his mouth as he rocks against her, increasing in tempo. He didn’t even have to lean down to catch the nipple between his lips, sucking hard on the tip and worrying it with his teeth as Marinette—

“Oh!” she gasps, nearly screaming, “Oh, Adrien, right…just like—ahhh, just…like that.”

Her walls flutter around him, not quite the compulsive spasms of an orgasm but it's close enough that he feels like he’s been lit on fire, his name on her lips igniting an inferno inside him that has him gritting his teeth in an attempt to control himself. Risking it, Chat pulls a hand out from behind her and reaches up to grasp her other breast as he leans in, fucking her senseless. Bracing her shoulders against the brick, he wraps a hand beneath her ass and holds her steady until he can pull back a bit further and slam into her.

“A-Adrien, I, ah! I’m going to—!”

Chat feels her clench around him, her inner muscles quivering as she arches in his grasp, her breasts pushing into his mouth, and her lips moaning his name. He cries out at the heady pressure, her civilian name spilling from his lips and smothered incomprehensibly against her chest as his heart clenches and lightning races down his spine. It feels like being shoved off a cliff, forcibly weightless and awestruck, unforeseen lights flashing behind his eyelids as he slams up into her, his muscles tensing as his release consumes him.

Chat Adrien comes down from his high slowly and finds himself shaking for a whole new reason; he’d wanted to chasten her – however vaguely and indirectly – for being so willfully blind to his identity; he wouldn’t come out and say it but now that he knew it was her, he was bewildered and annoyed that she stubbornly refused to see him in return. He wanted her to look him in the eyes tomorrow and remember what he’d done to her. He wanted her to sit down beside him in marketing and squirm against the bench, reliving the way he’d pressed her against a brick wall and made her toes curl.

What he hadn’t counted on, however, was what hearing his name from her lips would do to him.

He feels wrecked, if he’s being honest. All physical exhaustion aside, hearing her moan his name in the midst of her orgasm had him seeing stars, simultaneously shredding his insides and sending him into one of the most forceful orgasms he could ever remember having. Physically he was exhausted; emotionally he was drained.

Marinette’s snickers against his skin forces him back to reality as she uncrosses her legs to slide down his thighs, her legs unsteady. Arms snaked around his waist, she digs the pads of her fingers into the muscles on either side of his spine and presses her forehead against his collarbone.

“Some day,” she announces, oblivious to the turmoil playing havoc in his mind, and he feels a little better knowing that her voice is as shaky and as breathless as he feels, “I want to do this in a bed.”

After that, the more pragmatic side of the world was looking into how their transformations took place, which had obviously never been captured on film before. It took away a lot of the initial sting since the television news stations couldn’t exactly air the footage due to the subject matter; instead, they had to focus on other aspects of the incident.

There were the haters of course. The American organisation One Million Moms was arranging protests in their country, declaring a television boycott on the two Parisian superheroes in order to save the decency of their children. Others were saying Chat was being too rough (somehow forgetting that Ladybug had been just as rough, if not more so) and that they were too young to be having sex. After all, the press didn’t know their ages and their reports varied wildly, pegging them anywhere from fourteen to twenty-two.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

Marinette had been forced to wear a kerchief around her neck all day to hide the hickeys and even Alya had told her that she looked like she just walked off an Air France Boeing 747. Alya had tried to tug the scarf off and Marinette had clung to it like her life depended on it, so of course Alya was curious. Marinette tried to explain that she was covering a nasty zit with it and, when the bell rang, she escaped as fast as her feet could take her. She’d managed to evade Alya’s sticky fingers for the rest of the day, but the bruises wouldn’t be fading for at least another few days and no amount of concealer was going to save her.

And that wasn’t the even worst part either.

In true Le Papillon fashion, the supervillain decided today would be a great day to re-emerge from his two week absence and infect an angry lawyer, which meant that Marinette had to somehow sneak out of calculus to nip that in the bud. Mind you, the purification had been simple enough; the lawyer’s razor-sharp dossier of death had been no match for Chat’s cataclysme and they had everything tied up within ten minutes.

“So,” Chat attempts to break the ice, “How’s school?”

Marinette grabs his forearm and steers him away from the oncoming hoard of journalists, disappearing into a covered passage and running up the fire escape, “Oh, let’s see. Everyone in my school has seen me naked. So, you know, it’s been great.”

Chat ricochets off the stone wall and pulls her up with him until they’re on the roof, “I know. The girls in front of me in econ wouldn’t stop talking about my butt.”

“Yikes.”

Chat looks just as dazed as she feels, “It was…well, you had to be there. It was creepy.”

Marinette shivers and they set off towards the general direction of her school, “You’re telling me. My best friend won’t stop talking about it.”

“Mine too,” he dives between a clothesline and makes the next few bounds on all fours, easily keeping up with her, “It’s been surreal.”

She takes a sharp right and pauses at the brink of the boulevard, “Patrol tonight?”

“As always,” he replies, slipping his hand into hers for a moment, “We’ll talk later. I’ve got it get back to class.”

She gives his fingers a brief squeeze and waits until Chat has disappeared behind a building before yoyoing back to her school.

Back in her bedroom, Marinette sighs. That part wasn’t so bad, but still, sometimes it feels good to scream into a pillow and be dramatic, especially when pictures of your naked body are still trending worldwide.

When she’d ran home from school and opened the door to her parent’s bakery, her parents had been oddly subdued. She figured it had something to do with the oppressing heat making all of the measurements for their pastry recipes fall out of whack. It was extremely humid in the kitchens and her father asked her to try and fiddle with the air conditioning to get it flowing properly again.

“Is the cold air coming out?” Marinette hollers from the boiler room.

“Not yet!” her father booms from the kitchen and she jabs her fingers into the thermostat again, hoping to beat the ancient thing into submission by brute force alone. She wiggles the tiny handle and smacks her fist down over the top of it and all it does is pop, sputter and shut back down with a heaving clunk.

Marinette throws her head back and glares reproachfully at the ceiling, “Could this day get any worse?”

And now, with the house feeling more like the surface of the sun, Marinette screams into her pillow again and throws the offending cushion across the room for no better reason than that it feels good to do it.

“Marinette?”

She listens as her mother cracks open the trapdoor and reluctantly turns her head to acknowledge her, “Yeah?”

“Are you alright? I…heard screaming.”

Marinette sighs theatrically, “I’m fine mum. Just hot. And tired.”

Sabine makes her way into the bedroom and shuts the door behind her, “Are you sure? Do you need to talk about it?”

She barely keeps herself from snorting, “No, it’s okay. It’s just school and the heat, that’s all.”

“Alright,” Sabine nods but looks far from convinced. She pins Marinette with a knowing look, “Just remember, I’m here to talk if you need to. About anything, I mean it. I won’t get upset.”

The way she says it speaks of things Marinette has long suspected but never acknowledged, “I know but I really don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe later.”

“Okay.”

Marinette closes her eyes and Sabine retreats back into the bakery, leaving her blissfully alone. She turns her head and peels one eye open, taking note of the time and closes it again.

Three hours left until patrol.

~

“Good evening,” he calls from behind her, landing on the railings of the Hermès building in the 8e arrondissement. They’ve long used the building’s private rooftop gardens as a meeting place and have spent many a warm evening tucked in behind the trees and shrubs, chatting the night away.

“It’s a terrible evening,” she sulks, crossing her arms over her chest. She’d brought a water bottle with her this time, determined to stay hydrated in this life sucking heat.

“I heat to agree with you but I’m feeling the burn.”

Marinette briefly fantasises about throwing said water bottle at his face, “I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood for jokes?” he smirks, “I never would have guessed.”

“It’s been a rough day all right? I want to relax.”

“I can help you with that.”

“Good. Close your eyes, I need to get out of this suit.”

She drops her transformation as soon as he turns and sighs in relief when her skin is finally exposed, wearing only a soft tank and a pair of cotton shorts underneath. He opens his eyes and drinks in the length of her legs and the creamy skin of her thighs, so perfect and yet almost always covered. He’d only ever seen her in a skirt for the first time this week, his steady suspicions only confirmed further, especially since she’d disappeared during calculus at the same time he had. He wishes she would wear skirts more often, wishes he could dress her in some of the items in his father’s summer collection, all soft fabrics in flowing designs.

She lays down on the soft sod and closes her eyes, giving him a chance to detransform. He does so gladly, slips his mask on, and sighs when he finds himself back in the clothing he’d returned home in after the Versace fitting, perfectly tailored but altogether stifling in this heat.

Whoa.

“Ladybug?” he calls and his voice startles her, snapping her back to reality.

“What?”

He wiggles an eyebrow, “You’re looking a little red under that mask.”

“I am not,” she responds and flushes even more.

“I love it when you blush,” he hums, “Even your ears turn pink.”

She snorts, “Speak for yourself. You’ve swooned so hard I’ve had to scrape you off the ground before and you know it.”

“I have not,” he scoffs and sits down beside her. She tries to stay composed on the outside and bites her lip, conscious of the way she’s clenching her inner muscles and thighs together to relieve some of the pressure.

She sneaks a glance at him, dressed to the nines, and finds him watching her, a little grin spreading on his lips. She feels the familiar rush in her stomach that comes with the sudden onslaught of arousal and god, she wishes he would just crawl between her legs and be done with it. She doesn’t know whether it’s the heatwave or the itch beneath her skin but she can’t help the way she reacts as she inches closer and he leans in, his breath ghosting over the shell of her ear, “Let me make you come.”

She nods and turns her face towards him, their noses brushing, and he cups her face in her hands. He kisses her then, soft and hot and everything she’d been craving, burying his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. She responds, expert and bruising, and brushes her hands up his chest and neck and cheeks, rough with facial hair.

“Slob,” she chastises teasingly, grazing her knuckles against the rough texture.

“It took me a while to get ready this morning,” he blushes.

“Did I tire you out last night?”

Her teasing only makes it worse, “Yes. It was the best sex of my life.”

She may be the queen of baiting him but he’s always been able to knock her down a few pegs with his sheer and brutal honesty, “Oh.”

She’s falling back into the grass and his body slots between her legs like it belongs there and now, after all this time, she’s starting to believe it really does. Like Tikki had told her a thousand times already, a Chat Noir always finds his Ladybug eventually, no matter the odds against them.

Crawling over her, he hitches her legs upwards and hooks them around his hips, slender and addictive. She kisses him breathless and lets her mouth travel down his jaw and neck and collarbones, dissolving him into a puddle between her arms. She loves that these simple gestures, these effortless acts of adoration make him melt like putty in her grasp and smiles into his skin, transferring every ounce of her newfound love into her kiss.

She undoes his dress shirt, a slim fitted cotton poplin with mother of pearl buttons, and tries not to wince as she slips it off his shoulders and throws it into a shrub. She eyes the tag as she does so and tries not to choke at the fact that the Burberry shirt probably cost more than her three month bakery allowance.

She breathes out and slowly surveys him with starving eyes, revelling in the way he squirms under the appraisal of his body and she flattens her hands to his exposed abdomen, running them slowly upwards until they graze his rib cage and nipples.

He gasps, “Ladybug…”

“Make as much noise as you want,” she breathes into his ear, wishing she could rub her thighs together to diffuse the intense arousal she feels, “I want you to be loud for me tonight.”

“Loud?” he gulps.

“Well, all of Paris knows we’re having sex. What’s there left to lose?”

Marinette cannot believe the words coming out of her mouth. Who is this person and what has she done with her common sense?

He gasps as she rolls them onto their sides and leans into him, running her tongue and lips over his collarbones and chest. She nips at one of his nipples lightly before laving it with her tongue, bucking her hips against him. He groans, his eyes fluttering open and he feels hard and urgent against her core, turning her on even more.

He pulls her on top of him and his hands circle her waist, pulling her towards him and her clit is unequivocally throbbing at this point; she's been aroused for hours ever since she watched that stupid video and being around him doesn't exactly help stifle the heat and the itch.

"Up," he urges and she raises her arms, kissing him as he pushes hr shirt up and over her head. He unclasps her bra and she grabs the back of his neck, nuzzling him and enjoying the way her bare chest feels against the texture of his skin. He smiles into the kiss and runs those long, slender piano fingers of his through her hair, seemingly content to hold onto her for as long as he can.

He hooks one of his arms around her body and pushes her back against the grass, rolling a nipple between his fingers and drawing a gasp from her lips, "Our lives are insane," he mutters against her skin and she chuckles breathlessly.

"It could be worse," she admits, pulling back to press a kiss to the side of his neck, "I don't know how, but it could be worse."

"At least we looked good," he clutches her head against his neck and wills her to continue sucking marks into his skin. He’d spent a half hour covering them with concealer this morning but he couldn’t care less about that now, bucking his hips and sneaking his hand beneath the waistband of her shorts.

He pops the button open and slides the zipper down, slipping his fingers beneath her lace panties, "Have I told you how much I love you today?"

She's practically vibrating with anticipation at this point, watching eagerly as he sits up to pull her shorts down her thighs. He tosses them behind him and pulls her panties off as well, chuckling as she waves them around when they get caught on her ankle. He eyes her appreciatively, completely naked before him, and lets his fingers explore her body, ghosting over her inner thighs.

"You haven't," she replies, leaning back into the greenery. She whines as he just barely skims the sensitive skin there, her lips parting in pleasure.

"Let me make it up to you," he purrs, laying on the grass between her legs. He rubs circles with his thumbs on the crease where her thighs meet her hips before slipping back down to spread her knees. He raises one and Marinette catches on immediately, hooking them up and over his shoulders.

Without so much as a word, Chat dives in and cleaves her open with his tongue, pressing it against her clit. Her hips buck upwards from the sod and he grins against her, tucking one hand under her ass to squeeze and sliding the other up towards his face.

"Hng!"

He slips a finger inside her as he strokes her clit with his tongue and pumps them in and out experimentally, drawing the most delightful sounds from her throat. He explores her, his tongue thorough and languid, roaming over her clit with practiced ease, having found himself between her thighs so many times before. It was becoming their default and Chat couldn’t find it within himself to complain, not with the way his cock is reacting. Alone, he’s finding that his fantasies seem to revolve around getting her off this way, coming to the memorised sounds of her rasps and screams.

Marinette’s eyes threaten to roll to the back of her head as he nibbles on her clit, sending her reeling. She gasps his name and fists a hand in his hair, tugging and yanking and he seems to enjoy it, speeding up his movements in a way that’s making her soaked with need and passion and oh, he’s moaning against her clit and she tightens her thighs around his head because ah!, he’s slipping another finger inside her and he’s pumping in and out in fervour and fuck, this feels so good, so good and she’s so close, so close and—

“Oh! O-h! Chat!”

She shudders and can’t help the way her hips react, bucking off the grass and he holds fast, scissoring his fingers and prolonging her orgasm until all she can do is pant and stare in a sex induced daze at the stars above them, her body throbbing in post orgasmic bliss.

“So? Did I make it up to you?”

He crawls back up her body and she slams her lips against his, tasting herself and sending another pulse of heat between her legs. He moans and presses himself against her, still trapped in his perfectly pressed trousers that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe.

The wife uses the toe of her boot to lift the husband's cheek off the concrete, forcing him to make eye contact, "You low life, scum of the earth, rotten piece of shit. I'm filing for divorce and full custody of Samuel," she grinds her heel into his mouth and flicks her foot to knock his head back onto the ground, "I hope you're happy with your harpy wife, wherever the hell she is."

She turns to Chat and slips her ring from her finger, slamming it onto the ground herself, "Worthless piece of crap."

The wedding band breaks open and a black and neon purple butterfly emerges, stuttering briefly before fluttering back up into the sky. Chat gasps and recoils the yoyo from the husband, running back full force to where he'd left Marinette sitting on a bench. Subtlety be damned, he scoops her up and runs back to where the flapping akuma is starting to gain altitude, planting her on her feet and slipping the yoyo around her finger. He smashes the husband's ring on the ground as well and scoots in behind her, grabbing her hand and aiming it in the first akuma's general direction. Confused but catching on quickly, Marinette takes a deep breath and seems to get the hint.

"Je te délivre du mal !”

Chat throws the yoyo using Marinette's hand, concentrating on where he wants it to go with his thoughts as hard as he possibly can. The yoyo captures the first one and he reels it back into Marinette's palm, using the hand he has clamped around her waist to spin her and face the second akuma desperately trying to make a break for it. Like clockwork, she allows him to bend her arm back again and he chucks the yoyo at the second one, delighting when it captures that one too. Unable to keep his elation in check, he hops up and down a few times with joy and winds the yoyo back in, popping it back into her hand. It closes and he slides his claw along its lid, releasing the purified butterflies up and into the atmosphere to the sounds of cheers from all around them, the crowd babbling with excitement.

"We did it!" he hollers, leaving Marinette by herself for a moment to pick up the mirror left on the ground. He scurries back and sticks the handle within her fingers, taking her wrist and motioning for her to throw it skywards. He steps back as she readies her stance, cocking a hip and tossing it into the air.

"Miraculous Ladybug!"

A flurry of magical ladybugs bursts from the sky, splaying like fireworks and raining down on the people around them, scooping up the victims of the akuma attack and rendering them normal again. Marinette is wrapped up for a moment and blinks repeatedly against the blinding light when she emerges, her sight and hearing finally restored.

“We did it!” Chat shouts, nearly galloping back towards her, scooping her up into her arms and spinning her like a top, “We did it! We did it!”

She grabs onto the first thing she can reach, unbalanced and disoriented after being in the dark for so long; she can’t help but share in Chat’s effervescence, his enthusiasm so contagious that she begins to smile, holding onto his shoulders for dear life. He jumps up and down a few more times before setting her down, grabbing her hand and turning tail, running away from the hoards of spectators coming their way.

“Ahhhh!” he babbles as they make a break for it, unable to plug his energy from bubbling out from inside him, “I used your yoyo! We did it!”

All she can do is nod in bewilderment as he takes her hand and uses his baton to launch them into the air, leaning wildly so as to land on the edge of the highest fire escape. He lets her down first and leaps from the top of the baton, grabbing her hand again and leading her up the stairs towards the roof.

“It was so cool!” he gushes, taking each step three at a time, “Your yoyo is awesome!”

They make it to the top of the building and he skips towards the nearest chimney stack, rebounding against it with a backflip, “It was AWESOME! Best akuma fight EVER!”

Marinette shakes her head, loosening the cobwebs in her mind, “Easy for you to say.”

He turns back towards her and grabs her hands, dancing them around in a circle, “It’s like I got to be Ladybug for a day!” he raves, doing his best impression of a heart-eyed emoji, “Ahhhh!”

She lets go of his fingers and pauses for a moment to get her bearings, “Look Chat, I’ve got to get home.”

“Merde,” he pauses in his celebration, “So do I. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure,” she replies non-committedly, turning around and leaping off the building before he can say another word.

~

Marinette collapses face first into her bed and doesn’t move for a long time.

Her mum comes up to check on her twice, reassuring her that they’d put her dinner in the fridge in case she wanted to eat it later and Marinette appreciates the thoughtfulness, all things considered. Judging by the lack of harassment from Sabine after being over an hour late from her walk home from school, she already suspects she hasn’t been fooling anyone.

Least of all Chat.

She tries all the usual strategies: listening to calming music, tending to the boxes of spring flowers on her balcony, taking a stab at the chemise she’d been meaning to mend. Each time she ends up face first on her bed, the consequences of her inadvertent reveal hounding her thoughts like the plague.

She ends up drawing a long, hot bath and slipping into the water immediately eases some of that pent-up tension inside of her, the bubbles tucking in behind her knees and her ears like a security blanket, covering her almost completely. She sinks down until the water comes up passed her lips and sits there for a few minutes, far longer than she'd ever intended, watching the bubbles shine like spilled petrol on asphalt and pop in the ambient light. Like all things though, the tension in her spine creeps back up into her muscles and fogs her mind like a mirror, leaving her just as restless as she was before.

Giving up, she steps out and over the rim of the clawfoot tub and towels herself off before collapsing back into bed, her moans of frustration muffled by the mountain of pillows piled on her bed. There's no way on the planet she's even going to consider showing up to patrol later tonight but she needs something to relieve the pent-up pressure inside of her head, something beyond the proverbial mound of homework waiting for her on Google Classroom. If she doesn't do something and be smart about it, she knows she'll probably end up doing something reckless and stupid, something she's apt to do when she's in the weeds. She's stolen enough phones and stalked enough people out of misplaced desperation to attest to that.

Too lost in her own thoughts to be entirely aware of what she’s doing, it takes a minute or two to realise that her hand had snuck its way beneath the hem of the towel and continued its pilgrimage up to the crease of her thighs. Sighing into her pillow, she rolls over and closes her eyes, drooping her forearm over her head to block out the ambient light of her lamp and foregoes worrying about it anymore. She needs this, if she's going to be honest with herself. She might actually be able to hold a coherent conversation if she could just burn off a little frustration...

She lets her hand continue its creeping path up and across her abdomen, her fingers tangling in her hair before slipping down further along her folds. She’s not surprised to find that her body is already a few steps ahead of her brain, her lips slick and needy and she can't suppress the moan that bubbles passed her lips when she grazes her clit, bending her knees and bracing herself against her mattress. The little bundle of nerves sings with hypersensitivity and she's already half way there, imagining the way he smelled against her skin earlier that day, the sensation of his hair between her fingers, the vibration of his chest against her own. She takes her lip between her teeth and tries to stay quiet, her toes burrowing themselves in the sheets, her back arched and her muscles taut.

It’s only been a few short hours since they'd defeated the akuma, leaving her breathlessly confused and him bursting at the seams. Seeing him so happy nearly sent her reeling, the humbling realisation that she'd just been forced to detransform in front of his face and he hadn't really reacted, had just kissed her like he'd known all along, like his life depended on it. She thinks back to that moment and imagines those lips on her now, bringing her right to brink only to tease her, drawing back and kissing patterns against her inner thighs like he’d meant to all along, teasing her senslessly. Doubling down, she can't bear the thought of slowing down, jumping ahead in her fantasy to just give her some release and ah!

It's the lasting image of his face between her thighs that finally tips her over, her orgasm short and sweet and just enough to dull the razor's edge of her thoughts and worries, granting her the smallest modicum of relief. Curling up onto her side, she presses her face into the pillow and wallows in the afterglow, if only for a moment, and forces herself to try and relax in its wake, her ears still pounding in tandem with her heartbeat.

Crash!

The sound of the lock rattling against the trapdoor above her head jostles her back into awareness and she scrambles to her feet, grabbing the nearest object to her with a potential to maim. Wielding a table lamp in one hand and holding her towel up around her chest with the other, Marinette tiptoes over her mattress and hisses as loudly as she dares through the wood.

"Who is it?"

"It's me," comes the muffled reply, "Chat."

Shifting uncomfortably, she tightens her grip on the lamp, "Prove it."

There's a quick rustle of movement above her head, "Who else would be on your balcony at 22:00?"

Marinette purses her lips, "Humour me. What did we talk about last night when we left the courtyard?"

"You made fun of my Naruto socks."

Marinette smiles in relief and sets the lamp back down on the beside table, reaching up to unclip the lock, "You have to admit, they were ugly."

"You know, I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now," he pounces down onto the mattress, leaping with all fours onto the neighboring chaise.

"First Naruto, now memes?" she locks the trapdoor behind him and spins around, heedless to the way the towel flutters around her thighs, "You're lucky I don't kick you to the curb."

"But I just got here," he eyes her approvingly, his voice having dropped a few registers at the sight of her. She hadn't bothered putting her hair back into ponytails after her bath, her loose tresses falling in soft waves against her shoulders and back. She tries to quell the blush that threatens to spread to her collarbones and chest, having been the subject of his gaze more times than she can count, but she feels so exposed, so unprotected and bare to him now, her dollar store mask long forgotten in the back pocket of her jeans.

Not that she needs it anymore.

Something must show on her face because Chat suddenly changes his stance, settling against the cushions, "Hey Marinette."

"Hey," she replies, sitting back down on her bed. She looks down at her bare legs, swinging them idly, "Welcome to my room."

"It's nice," he says, looking around, "A little too pink for my taste, but it suits you."

She shrugs, "It's my favourite colour."

"So I guessed," he crosses his legs in front of him and leans to the side, propping his head on the elbow leaning against the chaise, “Did you watch the footage Alya posted on the LadyBlog?”

Marinette glances over towards her computer, “I’ve been meaning to.”

“I thought that would be the first thing you’d do,” Chat says, his surprise obvious in his tone, “It’s not like you had a first-hand experience or anything.”

“I…” she trails off, “Did you know? Before?”

“Did I know what?” he says, his face the pinnacle of innocence. He’s used it on her enough times before to no longer be fooled.

“You know what.”

Chat looks away, scratching at the back of his head, “If I knew your identity? I…I had my suspicions but I didn’t…I didn’t know for sure until then.”

She sighs and continues kicking her legs, her heels bouncing off her bedspring. Was it really such a bad thing? After all this time, everything they’d been through, everything they’d done…if anyone had earned the right to know who she was, it was this man. He’d asked before, and she’d denied him every time. She did her best to not think of who he might be, though she knew he was leaving clues for her to ignore.

He wanted to know who she was. He’d earned that knowledge in a thousand different ways. He’d had the opportunity to find out before and had never capitalized on it, but this? This situation was a little different than a door that hadn’t fully closed, or stepping around the side of a chimney. She had literally detransformed in front of him, with no way to hide or escape.

Finally raising her head, she makes eye contact with him across the short distance that yawns between them. This is yanking off a bandaid that had been on too long; hold your breath and try not to think of the sting. Because even if it hurts, the bandage needs to come off.

“Well, now you know,” she says and her tone is a little more acidic than she’d intended. She looks away again, embarrassed and frustrated and a myriad of other emotions all rolled up into one. She feels like curling up into a ball under the heat of his gaze, uncomfortable and exposed like an insect fixed to a pinning block. She doesn’t know what to think of his inaction, of the way he continues to sit across from her, eyeing her curiously.

“Do you want a hug?”

She looks up at him from where she’s hung her head at the hopeful look in his eyes, watching it spread across his features. It’s moments like these that she stops forgetting why she ever thought this was a bad idea.

He’s at her side before she can even say a word.

“I thought you were going to sneeze or something,” he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “I’m so used to seeing you in a mask that it’s kind of hard to get a read on you without it.”

She smiles at his attempts at levity, “Want me to go get it?”

“No!” he exclaims and Marinette reacts quickly, shushing him with a finger to his lips.

“My parents will hear you!”

“Oh,” he replies, a little sheepish. He snuggles closer, “Can I make it up to you?”

She fiddles with the hem of her towel with a middle-distance stare, “You still…want that?”

“What?” he pulls back ever so slightly and she’s ignorant to the sudden hopeful look that spreads across his features. He leans in and presses his lips to her cheek, easing her head to turn towards him and face each other, leaning forwards to meet her lips in a kiss that’s somehow just as soft and yet so much more than its predecessors. They’ve never quite kissed beyond the throes of the itch, explosive and frenzied from so many years of built up tension between them, but it’s still enough to send frissons all the way down her spine, his toes curling in his boots in satisfaction.

She kisses him back carefully, the way their lips move against each other no less passionate and yet somehow, somehow it managed to convey a depth of feeling she had never truly felt in the wake of his body against hers, crushing and overwhelming all at once. The metaphor of fracturing into a million indelible pieces of herself is not lost on her now and she finds herself pulling away much sooner than she had wanted, putting some much needed distance between them.

“This changes everything.”

“It changes nothing,” he counters, getting up to follow her across the room, “You’re still Ladybug.”

“I’m Marinette. Ladybug is…an alter ego.”

“Doesn’t mean the two of you are separate entities,” he takes her hands, ignoring the way her towel seems to be unravelling, “I love both of you regardless.”

“You don’t know me as Marinette,” she replies and Chat feels like tugging his hair out at the irony of the situation.

“Then let me,” he insists, “Trust me. Trust me with this. Trust me with you. We’re a team, right?”

“Yes.”

“And we agreed long ago that we had to keep the lines of communication open, right?”

“Yes.”

“Trust is a two-way street,” he weaves their fingers together, his eyes never leaving her face, “I love you regardless of who you are and we can’t let this distract us from what’s important.”

She takes a deep breath, “Knowing my identity has put us both in danger.”

“Then we just have to be more careful.”

“Careful?” she snorts softly, “When have you ever been careful?”

“Our flaws don’t define us,” he says, smiling wryly, “You can be borderline neurotic sometimes and I still love you.”

She narrows her eyes, “You’re a dick.”

“A loveable dick though.”

“I hate you.”

“Mm,” she honestly expects him to devour her at this point, so it comes as a surprise when he simply kisses the corners of her mouth, her bottom lip, her cupid’s brow. Impatient, she deepens the kiss and slides her tongue against him, drawing his lips between her teeth and swallowing his gasp.

The heat that had been steadily waning with the onset of summer races down her spine, coiling low and hot in her abdomen. His hands are everywhere and hers are no better, roaming his torso as her fingers trace the outlines of his muscles through his suit. He gasps as her hand ghosts across the evidence of his arousal straining against the fabric and she grinds her stomach against him, grinning against his lips at his reaction.

She steps back and lets the towel drop.

A blur of movement and the sudden weight of his arm across the bottom of her shoulder blades is the only warning she has before his other arm hits the back of her knees, scooping her up into his arms. Marinette feels herself gasp even as her arms automatically wind around his neck; it never fails to give her a thrill when he picks her up, a casual show of strength made more impressive by the fact that he isn’t bragging about it. Unwilling to swoon against his chest like a helpless damsel, Marinette braces herself and squashes the urge to squeal.

They don’t go far, just a few strides, and he spins her around, dropping her back down onto her bed with a bounce. A soft laugh escapes before she can censor it and the hands pressed into the mattress next to her on either side of her face stills momentarily.

“I did say I’d like to do this on a bed some time,” Marinette shakes her head with a wry smirk, moving up the mattress to nip along his jawline, revelling in the power she holds over him as he arches his neck in offering. She reaches out to thread her fingers through his unruly hair and bites down at the juncture of his neck and he responds in kind, grinding down and growling low in his throat.

“Have I told you how much I love you today?” he mutters against her collarbones, his purr well and truly triggered by this point. He puts his weight on one hand and explores with the other, tracing along her ribs and brushing against the undersides of her breasts. He slides his palms up and over, cupping one and running his gloved thumbs over her nipple, straining despite the warm air of her bedroom. He presses one thigh between her legs and she can feel herself grow hot and slick and straining for friction, more of it, anything to take the edge off, heat pooling low in her abdomen.

“Plenty,” she groans, smiling into his skin when he indulges her and shifts his leg, allowing her to grind up against him. The texture of the suit feels widely different than his fingers and she trails her hands down his sides, reaching to stroke him through the fabric, spreading her legs further to accommodate him. He rolls his hips forwards with excruciating slowness, the pace in direct contrast to the way he devours her lips and digs his claws into the skin of her thighs, nearly sending her skyrocketing to the ceiling.

He replaces his leg with his fingers, cupping a broad palm against her clit and she grinds against the heel of his hand, slick and needy. He feels hot even through the fabric of his gloves and she presses harder, eager for the friction, eager for the way he draws ragged gasp after ragged gasp when he drags his claw along the seam of her lips, circling her clit just the way she likes.

“Do you still hate me?” he purrs, slipping away momentarily. He’s so familiar with her body and he takes ruthless advantage of it, playing her like a musical instrument, grace be damned.

“No,” she mewls and he rewards her, dipping between her folds and slipping a finger carefully inside her, pumping once, twice, three times before retreating to her clit. He repeats the pattern a few times before changing the rhythm.

“And we’re going to be honest with each other now?”

He slips a second finger inside of her and the pressure in tantalising, “Yes.”

“Good,” he nibbles the shell of her ear and picks up the pace, cautiously curling his fingers to hit the spot inside her he’d found only recently and would never forget, not with the way she screams and clenches around him, “Because I have a question for you.”

He doesn’t elaborate and dives down instead, lapping unexpectedly at her entrance and she cries out in pleasure, heedless to the noises she’s making. He plunges his tongue inside and she can feel him rumbling though her, her entire body shuddering with it, the vibrations nearly sending her past the brink. Her muscles clamp down on his tongue and he only ups the ante, purring louder and it’s suddenly much harder to breathe, her back arching off the back in ecstasy. She’s so close now, her thighs quaking and her head tossing side to side, making a delicious mess of her hair against the pillows.

“Ah!” she cries, babbling nonsense against the hand now shoved up against her lips and it’s the graze of his teeth against her clit, the moans, and the knowledge that he’s taking pleasure from it all that finally sends her over the edge yet again. Her hips rocket out towards him and he holds her as she shudders, his tongue still tracing the seam of her lips to draw out her pleasure and she sinks even further into the mattress, boneless and sated and unreservedly satisfied. It takes her a second to open her eyes again, watching as Chat sits back up, straddling her thighs and lewdly wiping his mouth with his forearm.

“Can I ask that question now?” he says, his eyes fiery in contract to the clever pull of his lips. She’s helpless against him and nods, her entire body still thrumming with post orgasmic bliss.

He cocks his head to the side and Marinette is already regretting it.