39. Chapter 39

That strange nagging feeling followed Adrien throughout the night, filling his dreams with confusing images and scenarios that slipped sand-like from his mind the moment he awoke. All he could recall were brief flashes: A hint of inky black hair, sometimes worn up and sometime laid loose. A laugh-turned-stutter-turned flirtatious purr, whispered low in his ear. A strange shade of pink that looked red under moonlight, worn by a young woman with his mother’s smile and his heart in her hand.

Rising from his bed, Adrien ground his fists into his eye sockets, unable to shake the feeling he was just barely missing something important.

Speaking of: He really needed to find out how Ladybug was smuggling things into his locker. Yesterday had been a love letter. Today? A tupperware filled to the brim with all the sugary snacks he wasn’t allowed to eat at home. Adrien knew his partner could be stealthy when she wanted to, but surely Paris’ most recognizable figure sneaking onto a busy campus would draw attention from someone.

That is, if she were sneaking in at all…

Biting down on his biscotti, Adrien shook his head free of the thought. Certain... coincidences he’d been noticing lately were far from solid proof, and he had other things to dwell on besides lipstick colors and familiar French Lit textbooks tucked into the selfies his girlfriend had taken to sending him each morning. He could drive himself mad with theories, pushing pins into cork boards and connecting clues via red yarn, but it was an ultimately fruitless pursuit.

Surely if Ladybug were as close as Adrien suspected she was, it wouldn’t be long before she did something to reveal herself.

“Just so we’re clear… everyone here is madly infatuated with Marinette, right?”

A dozen heads nodded in distracted affirmation.

“And this isn’t considered voyeurism if we all keep our hands on the table?”

Twelve more nods.

“Awesome,” Alya breathed, eyes never leaving the heaven-sent display taking place across the courtyard. “Glad we’re all on the same page."

It was a wide-spread phenomenon at their school; Had been since college really. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the girl to crush on.

Whether it be with random acts of kindness (an encouraging note pinned to the locker of a stressed-out sophomore, a macaroon pressed into the palm of the soccer player who’d missed his goal at the last game, etc) or through sheer sunny demeanor, Marinette had somehow managed to wrap nearly the entire student body around her little finger. With an infectious personality and dazzling appearance, she was the type of girl to sneak right into someone’s heart, making herself at home before the owner even had a chance to protest.

She was an enigma, an anomaly that existed outside of the normal bounds of mere romantic and sexual orientation. Falling for Marinette didn’t make you anything… other than human, that is. And even though many of her admirers had since moved on, forging new relationships amongst themselves, it was still a universally understood rule that one never quite got over their “Mari-crush”.

Which is probably why her current position had drawn such a crowd.

Alya had been the first one to spot that blessed sight, elbowing Nino who in turn elbowed Adrien, who’d somehow tripped and fallen into Ivan who… well, you got the idea. It had taken all of two minutes for the founding members of the “Madly In Love With Marinette” club to congregate on and around one of the concrete tables that dotted the school’s inner courtyard. Far enough to avoid immediate detection but close enough to grant a front row seat to the show.

And boy, was it a show.

Legs folded delicately atop the bench, shoulders lounging against the backrest and head slightly ducked as she scanned the magazine before her, Marinette was looking criminally cute on this crisp fall day. With her flower printed sweater and boots adorned with tiny pink puffballs, hair falling loose around her shoulders, she painted an image that so deceptively adorable that it clashed almost jarringly with the less-than-innocent actions of her glossed up lips.

Lips that were currently teasing at the long, ridged, rainbow-striped lollipop that served as Marinette’s lunch.

“I just want everyone here to know that I’m simultaneously kink-shaming us all,” Nino announced, his eyes fixed upon the curiously-phallic candy concoction. “This is absolutely despicable behavior.”

“She’s got to know what she’s doing, right?” Alix interjected, perched atop Kim’s shoulders, her own eyes screwing up to survey the situation.

“Have you seen her tongue?” Kim drawled from below. “It’s pretty obvious she knows what she’s doing.”  

“Yeah but does she know?” came Juleka’s almost pitiful reply, one gloved hand swooping up to pull her bangs aside for a better view. The only answer she got was a collective intake of breath, the gathered teens leaning forward in anticipation as Marinette’s tongue snuck out to swipe lazily across the tip, inspiring another chorus of muffled groaning.

Her actions were mindless, effortless. It was obvious Marinette’s sole attention was zeroed in on her fashion magazine (probably the only reason they’d yet to been busted for peeping), but her inattentiveness did little to dull the downright masterful way she went at her mid-day snack. Alternating between idle (devastating) licks along the length and tiny (catastrophic) twirls of her tongue at the very top, Marinette was unwittingly pulling moves that would put a pornstar to shame. And when she let a single inch slip into her mouth, the subtle shift of her jaw hinted at some very creative tongue action going on behind the scenes, an almost palpable shiver ran through the group.

“Alright, I’ll be the one to ask,” Alya sighed, as if she were about to shoulder an extraordinary burden, “What color?”

The understanding was immediate, no clarification necessary. A shroud of contemplation fell over the crowd.

You see, Marinette’s lollipop was comprised of six colors. One for each sinful inch of candy. It was red at the tip (as if the shape alone wasn’t suggestive enough) and purple at the base, following the flow of the rainbow as it radiated downward. So far, she had yet to venture past the warm tones, but the ardent peridots and steely indigos of places untouched sat in devious wait for her inevitable caress.

“At this point I’d give up a kidney to see yellow,” Nino admitted with an almost dreamy sigh.

“You’re underestimating her,” Alya assured him.

“Green,” Max piped up, clearing his throat from where his voice had cracked. “Given the average capacity of the female throat, cross analyzed with her age and experience, I calculate she’ll be able to reach the green stripe.”

A derisive snort sounded from the back. “Oh please! Thats-”

Chloe’s snide interjection was cut off by a chorus of shushes, leaving her to stew in silence.

(She could deny it all she wanted, but the fact she’d still stuck around for Marinette’s little display only confirmed her supposed “dislike” for her classmate was wholly fabricated.)

“I think she could take it down to purple,” Mylene cut in, her voice soft but insistent, “Six inches is not that hard to handle.”

Now that almost drew a few stares, but it was at that exact moment Marinette decided to return to licking at her treat, and any questions over Mylene’s supposed know-how quickly died upon the tongues that might have formed them.

Speaking of tongues…

Eyes never veering from her reading, Marinette tilted her head, dragging the lollipop length-wise across her tongue. It spanned the whole damn rainbow, that clever little organ, dipping into the shallow ridges the spiraled along the confection before lapping at the sweet flavor. It tasted, teased, explored…

And Adrien knew he was so fucked.

He knew he should look away, if not out of deference to their friendship than out of respect for his own very committed relationship, and yet his eyes remained glued alongside his classmates as they spectated with bated breath. He tried futilely, for perhaps the millionth time since the start of Marinette’s little snack break, to focus on anything but her mouth. He tried to focus on the homework beneath his hands, the kwami snoring in his breast pocket. Hell, he’d even gotten so desperate as to run through the benchmarks of quantum theory! But alas, no amount of theoretical physics was enough to occupy his mind, it would seem. Not with Marinette “Down-To-Bang-Both-Ladybug-And-Chat-Noir” Dupain-Cheng performing fellatio on a sugar stick a mere courtyard away.

“Orange!” Rose squeaked, voicing the thoughts shared by the group that surround her. “She’s hit orange!”

And she certainly had.

Adrien locked up in place, swallowing hard as he watched Marinette’s mouth wrap around the tip of the lollipop then sink down a good two inches. It was devious, the way she went at her treat. Devious, yet unintentionally so. And something about the notion this girl could render an entire squadron of teens to their metaphorical (and in the case of Nathaniel, literal) knees spoke volumes.

“Yellow,” Nino corrected in a pitchy voice, removing his hat and running his fingers thought the short hair beneath, “That’s definitely yellow territory.”

She sunk lower still, and Adrien was devastated to find he had to bite back an honest-to-God whimper.

“Green,” Rose breathed with a subtle undertone of pride, “looks like she bottoms out at gre-“

“B-blue!” came the distinctive voice of a certain hunched-over redhead, almost drowned out by the cacophony of stifled groans and gasps that rang out in response to Marinette dipping impossibly farther down.

It was a certifiable Code Blue, people. This was not a fucking drill.

Marinette’s cheeks hollowed, plastering to the sides of the lollipop within, and when her nimble fingers reached out to twirl the wooden stick between two digits, the gathered students warbled with another wave of wrecked and appreciative sounds. It didn’t matter that there were members of the group not equipped with the kind of... well... tools one might associate with the girl’s actions. It didn’t matter that half of the onlookers were already in relationships (some staring right alongside their partner.)

And Adrien tried to tell himself it didn’t matter that he felt a stirring low in his gut when Marinette’s eyelids fluttered shut. What he felt was inconsequential, purely physical.

“Yes!” Alya hissed out triumphantly, watching as her best friend finally breached purple, “Damn, that’s my girl! C.N better watch his fucking back, because I might just have to snap her right out from under him.”

“Or atop him,” Nino murmured, earning a few affirmative hums at the proposed mental picture.

Meanwhile, Marinette just continued to idly suck away, now lightly pumping and twirling the lollipop as it slid between her lips. She’d obliterated the line between ‘suggestive’ and ‘cheeky’, now charging straight into ‘erotic’ territory, and Adrien found himself in urgent need of a tall glass of ice water (possibly cold shower as well.)

His last hazy thought before the bell rang, effectively halting Marinette’s performance and drawing a chorus of complaints from the gathered crowd, was that C.N was one lucky guy.

Adrien watched, heartrate slowly descending back into it regular pulse, as Marinette withdrew the lollipop, it’s candy coating glistening with crystalline clarity in the sunlight. He watched as she slowly licked her lips of the lingering flavor, watched her throat bob as she swallowed the last bit of sweetness and finally had to stop watching as she leisurely pushed herself up from the bench to regroup with her friends.

“Scramble!” Kim commanded, he and about half of the others situated around the table rushing to make themselves scarce. Still, a few people lingered, perhaps hoping to get a line in with the object of their infatuation. Adrien forcibly glued his attention to the worksheet below.

“I swear these lunch breaks keep getting shorter and shorter,” Marinette announced as she rejoined them at the table. “I hardly have time to finish anything!”

(Her voice was too sweet, Adrien thought a bit plaintively, her tone too innocent in the wake of her prior actions.)

“Oh I don’t think you need to worry about your ability to finish things,” Alya murmured under her breath, giving Adrien a suggestive elbow to the sides. He choked on air.

“You’re keeping it?” Nino asked skeptically, eyeballing the way Marinette wrapped her lollipop before stuffing it in her purse.

Marinette shrugged. “My French teacher is pretty lax when it comes to eating in class-“

If anyone noticed the way Adrien suddenly seized up, there was never a mention.

“-I’ll just finish it then.”

“Are you sure you’ll even want it later?” Nino asked.

“Please,” Marinette said with a dismissive wave of her hand, the other yanking her magazine out from under her armpit, “I could go at that thing for hours.”

There was a spattering of stifled coughing, accompanied by the swift exit of the lingering crowd, and suddenly it was just Marinette’s three best friends that remained.  Wide eyed and gaping at her double edged response.

“H-hours?” Adrien heard himself stutter out, and was immediately hit with the overwhelming urge to slam his head against the table in regret. This was not a conversation to be having with his sweet, kind, innocent, sexy -platonic, he meant to say platonic!- friend. Even if she had put on what could arguably be classified as a soft-core porno right before his eyes.

Marinette turned to Adrien, her lips (‘DO NOT THINK ABOUT HER LIPS’) quirking up into a pleasant smile as she slid her magazine down into her shoulder bag. The publication was still folded open to the page she’d left off on, and Adrien felt his throat run dry as he saw the word “Gabriel” printed in a dignified font across the header...

As well as the image of his smirking, leather-clad self nestled beneath it.

“Hours~” Marinette purred, granting Adrien a final, inscrutable look before turning to slowly saunter away.

The noise of the busy hallways was perhaps the only thing keeping Marinette on her feet.

At this point she was practically a ghost. A ghost running on caffeine, sugar, and the desire to not fail her mid-terms. Between getting up early to help her parents with the seasonal rush in the morning and sneaking into a certain boyfriend’s bedroom late at night, she’d been surviving on an average of four hours of sleep per night for the past week, and it was beginning to take its toll. To top it all off, she’d completely forgotten to pack a lunch today, meaning she’d had to scavenge her locker for something remotely edible. Though, in the end, that mistake had actually worked in her favor.

Marinette hadn't even planned on using the unicorn lollipop she’d bought at a school fundraiser a few weeks back in her grand seduction, but then moment she’d spotted Adrien (alongside the majority of her class) watching her from across the courtyard, she just knew she had to put on a show. It was easy, really, and boy was it effective. In fact, Marinette was a little disappointed in herself for not thinking of it earlier. Discovering the Gabriel ad half-way through the magazine she was browsing had just been the icing on the cake, and she was pretty sure she’d never forget the expression on Adrien’s face when when he’d realized what she’d been looking at whilst she enjoyed her mid-day treat. It was very similar to the expression he wore now, watching her intently as she entered the classroom.

“Hey there, Adrien,” Marinette said sweetly, taking her assigned seat to his left. Adrien returned her greeting with a quick nod, his eyes darting almost imperceptibly to her bag before attaching themselves to the textbook in front of him, and Marinette almost snickered at just how very bad of a poker face he had. The way his body stiffened as she pulled out her half-finished lollipop, his Adam's apple bobbing as he very visibly swallowed, was so simultaneously expectant and agitated that she had to ask herself: Had she crossed the line between flirtatious and needlessly cruel?

Unfortunately, Marinette didn’t get the chance to ponder the cruelty of her seduction before the faint sound of a nearby akuma echoed through the open window, spurring her to action. This time neither the teacher nor Adrien tried to stop her as she bolted from the classroom, assumedly headed for the nurse’s office to treat the stomach ache she quite suddenly complained about, so finding a nearby janitor’s closet and suiting up was no problem. Ladybug was already two blocks over and closing in on the akuma when Chat Noir caught up, greeting her with a wave as he vaulted alongside her. From there it was a simple matter of discovering the who (delivery boy) and the why (non-existent tipper) of the situation before locating where the akuma was trapped (hat) and using lucky charm (clothes hanger) to nab it. When all was said and done the battle took a neat half hour, leaving two victorious heroes to wave for the cameras before leaping over the nearest building and out of public sight.

“Pound it,” Ladybug trilled, hoping her exhaustion wasn't evident in her voice. She held her fist out for their customary bump, expectant, but it never came.

Instead Chat grabbed her hand and twined their finger together, his eyes finding hers. He looked at her, really looked at her, as if searching for something in her face, and Ladybug squirmed under his appraisal, unable to escape the feeling he knew more than he was letting on.

“What?” she finally asked, aiming for playfulness but unable to quell her nervous chuckle. Now slowly circling her, Chat shrugged, as if his behavior were completely normal and not the actions of a psychopath. “What???”

“Nothing,” he finally answered, giving her face one last inscrutable sweep before he shook his head free of whatever thought had come over him. In its place sat an almost bemused smile, turned dangerous by the curiosity still lingering behind his eyes. “I just missed you is all.”

Suddenly, Chat leaned down, wrapping an arm around her slender waist to haul her in for a kiss, and she forgot all about her lethargy as she instinctively melted into the embrace. His tongue was uncharacteristically insistent, she thought. Almost desperate in the way he sought to explore her. Ladybug was used to being the aggressor in these types of situations, especially since the incident by the billboard had made him wary to initiate contact, but the sudden passion was far from un-appreciated. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she basked in the sensation.

“You taste so sweet today,” Chat murmured between kisses. "Like candy."

Ladybug stiffened. Surely that was a coincidence, right? Surely he wasn't referencing anything in particular. Just a causal observation, or one of his usual love-sick musings.

The feeling of clawed fingers playfully pinching at her backside broke her from her reverie.

“Someone's needy today,” Ladybug teased through a breathless laugh. "I wonder what’s got you all wound up,” she mused, as if she didn't already know.

“Can I not thank my girlfriend for bringing me breakfast?” he countered, eyes once again finding her lips seconds before his mouth followed. They shared another brief but heated kiss, before Chat broke their contact with a contented hum. “Also, how do you keep sneaking me things?”

Ladybug bit down on a smile. “I have my ways…”

At that, Chat Noir cocked his head, giving her face another obvious sweep, and this time she met his appraisal with confidence, almost daring him to make the connection.

‘C’mon Kitty, you’re so close…’

Her miraculous beeped.

“We should probably get going,” Chat said after a short eternity, and Ladybug dispelled the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she conceded, reaching reluctantly for her yo-yo. Before she could grab it, his gloved hand grasped hers, bringing it up to feather his customary kiss across her knuckles. Ladybug's cheeks bloomed pink.

“See you later?” Chat asked hopefully, giving her fingers a quick squeeze. His expression still held a curiosity she wasn’t quite sure how to react to, inspiring nerves and giddiness alike and driving her to give him one final peck on the lips.

“Sooner than you think,” Ladybug whispered to his retreating back, her heart beating oddly as she watched him vault off towards the school.

Nathalie was not pleased. That much was obvious. And when Nathalie wasn’t pleased she made sure everyone around her wasn’t pleased either.

“Your behavior tonight was unacceptable. Completely unbefitting of an Agreste.”

“Really?” Adrien replied, slurring just the teensiet bit as he focused on crossing through the front door without tripping on the door jamb. He made it past in one piece, though the sight of the winding staircase between him and his bedroom made his temples pound even harder than the five… or was it six?... glasses of champagne he’d downed at the gala. “I could’ve sworn getting drunk and making a scene was a family tradition.”

“Don’t start,” Nathalie warned, hints of venom seeping into her usual clipped tone.

Adrien stayed silent, but rolled his eyes at her hypocrisy. Oh sure, when his father went on a cognac bender and had a shouting match with a foreign dignitary (complete with a toppled bronze bust and no less than six destroyed paintings) he was a “passionate discussionist who wasn’t afraid to make his voice heard”. When his mother drank mimosas by the pitcher-full and wound up face-down in a bistro planter box at 10:38 on a Tuesday morning she was “a typical young starlette enjoying her time off between movie shoots”. But God forbid Adrien lose track of how much champagne he’d drank and accidentally stumble a bit when he’d stood to accept the philanthropist (ha!) award on behalf of his currently abroad father. Hell, it wasn’t like he was hammered! He was just… a bit more buzzed than what was usually appropriate for a charity banquet. So sue him.

"You will go straight to bed and we will further discuss this in the morning," his handler instructed, as if he were some child who needed scolding. She didn't even wait for his response before she turned on her heel and made for her own quarters, leaving him alone to stew.

It was through sheer luck and determination Adrien made it up the steps unscathed, staying steady on his feet till he finally plopped down in his desk chair, kicking his shoes off and loosening his tie in one fluid motion (if clumsy) motion. He didn’t like the way his head swam with the movement, and personally didn’t see the appeal in being drunk. He’d only drank because he’d been in public, surrounded by people he would never choose to surround himself with, and had been expected to deliver a speech on how selfless and altruistic his dear old father was.

As you can imagine, it’d taken a great deal of time and embellishment on Adrien’s part to scrape up a few decent words about the man.

This was, of course, written in his own personal time, of which Adrien had roughly ten minutes of each day. Between classes, shoots, tutoring, extracurriculars, homework, and miraculous-related activity his schedule was booked solid, and any shred of free time was usually reserved for sleeping. “Usually” being the key word here, as the last few night had be occupied by visits from-

“Ladybuuuuggg~” Adrien crooned, smiling dopily at his desktop background. It was the mother of all collages, made exclusively for him by none other than Alya (aka Ladybug’s second biggest fan) and he adored it. That beautiful clusterfuck of roughly 122 Ladybug’s in different action poses never failed to make him grin. Never failed to make him love and cherish and miss his darling girlfriend with a fervor only heightened by his slight inebriation. She’d been ravenous for attention lately, much to Adrien’s delight, and the fact she hadn’t contacted him at all tonight was suddenly cause for concern.

It was late, nearing 2 am, and Adrien was tired. Tired and tipsy and desperate to hear that lovely voice he so missed in Ladybug’s absence.

So it’s understandable, really, that he might be a bit clumsy in pulling his phone out of his breast pocket. Understandable that his finger would accidently press Facetime instead of Call. Understandable that he wouldn’t even recognize his mistake until she picked up.

...Until Marinette Motherfucking Dupain-Cheng picked up.