35. Chapter 35

Marinette swore by the power of alt rock as a cure all.

Sad?

Perfect soundtrack for letting it all out!

Partying?

Awesome, turn it up!

Spent the last week coming to terms with the fact your superhero boyfriend was your supermodel classmate, and past couple hours catching up on all the homework you missed while you were agonizing over said superhero/supermodel boyfriend?

Yup, nothing a good dose of rock and roll couldn’t fix.

Jagged Stone was the world’s best study buddy, and Marinette’s slim fingers reached out to turn the stereo up.

With a massive pile of books laid out before her and a pair of old reading glasses perched atop the bridge of her nose, her look just screamed "responsible student", and for once Marinette found herself actually wishing her parents would pop into her room unannounced, so they could congratulate her on being so studious. But that five A.M. wakeup call was a real bitch and the two bakers had turned in hours ago, so her dedication went without praise.

‘Good for you, Marinette!’ she thought, scribbling away at the homework she’d put off during her prior week of “thinking”, feet kicking idly beneath the desk. ‘Why thank you, Marinette! I do try my hardest!’

She sighed, eyes crossing as she reached the tail end of her second straight hour of work.

She missed her boy.

Adrien hadn’t been at school that day, which had left Marinette both relieved and a bit put-out. His absence was a blessing considering she might have thrown herself across his desk with a rose in her mouth and a love sonnet on her tongue the second he walked into the classroom… and a curse for the very same reason.

She couldn’t bring herself to call last night a failure, per se. It’s not like she regretted the time they’d spent giggling away in their hideout. If anything, it was an… incompletion.

Plagg had personally seen to that.

But still, the fact of the matter was Marinette had let her feelings get the best of her again. She’d let that damn cat woo her away from the one goal she’d laid out for herself that evening, and she wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Marinette was certain the very next words she’d speak to Adrien would be “I love you”.

Her phone chose that exact moment to let off a familiar ringtone.

‘Miraculous…’ she thought drolly, digging through her pile of worksheets and extracting the vibrating device with its flashing “C.N <3”. ‘Well... maybe not the very next words.’

She tapped accept.

“Hello?”

“I almost committed arson today,” Adrien said by way of greeting.

Marinette arched her brow, a little caught off guard by the topic but glad to hear his voice none-the-less.

God, she loved his voice.

And him.

She really, really just-

“Well hello to you too,” Marinette said slyly, pinning her phone to her ear with one shoulder as her hands fluttered about her crowded desktop, “My day was great, thanks for asking.”

“Oh… sorry.” Adrien sounded tired, the strain evident in his speech even buried as it was beneath that cheery front. “Hi Ladybug, how are you doing today my beautiful, radiant angel of sunshine?”

Marinette closed her book, brow furrowing at his tone. A slight frown crossed her lips. “Tell me about this attempted arson.”

“It’s not really anything important,” Adrien brushed off with a groggy laugh. “Just a little stress from work stuff, no big deal. What are you up to, Bugaboo?”

“Adrien…” Marinette coaxed softly, kicking herself for her initial dismissiveness when it was obvious he needed someone to talk to. “You can tell me what happened, you know. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I wasn’t interested in hearing about your day.”

“No, no, it’s fine! I shouldn’t bog you down with my problems.”

“I’m your girlfriend and your partner. Your problems are my problems.”

Silence.

“You don’t mind if I just… complain in your general direction for a few minutes? I can hang up if you’re busy!”

Marinette let out a quiet sigh, though her frustration was hardly aimed at him. She crossed her legs atop her office chair, gently spinning herself away from the desk.

“I was just doing homework, but you take priority,” she assured him, trying to make her voice as non-judgmental and inviting as possible. “Complain away, kitty.”

And after a brief hesitation, he did.

Over the next fifteen minutes Marinette managed to pry the full story from her hesitant boyfriend. Though it was an uphill battle both ways- barefoot and through the snow, even.

Some things, like his irritation over being kept from school, Adrien was more than willing to share un-prompted. Other things, like the frustration that came with being used more like a company asset than a person, took some urging on her part to get him to spill.

He told her about his day, from the grueling six A.M. wakeup call to the fully-loaded schedule he’d found taped to his door the moment he was finally allowed back home. He talked and Marinette let him, staying silent for the most part until she sensed he was glossing something over for her sake.

She would not stand being coddled.

Every time Adrien paused she would gently nudge, and at her urging he’d continue on, but in a way that made it obvious he was still sugar-coating things. More than once an incident set off major red flags in Marinette’s mind — lunches too meagre to sustain a child, much less a growing young man; hours spent being manipulated into hard-to-hold poses under scorching floodlights. But time and again Adrien would brush off her concern with a too-casual chuckle.

“It’s just the life I lead,” he’d say, as if that were any excuse.

Regardless, she was fuming. And by the time Adrien had finished recounting the way his father had skipped out on the family dinner he’d promised his son, citing more important affairs took precedence, Marinette had ripped every scrap of Gabriel brand magazine clippings from her inspiration sketchbook.

Those weren’t the actions of a man fit to be idolized.

In fact, over the course of their conversation she came to realize nothing about Adrien’s life was enviable. There was nothing glamorous about being dressed up into designer clothes when every fastened button was a reminder that his figure was everything. There was nothing swoon-worthy about dodging fans only to slip into an empty back seat for yet another silent car ride between shoots. Missing school now and again might have been a fun notion for Marinette, but for Adrien it was his whole life.

And he hated it.

Stilling in the center of her room, curled up on her chair with a lump in her throat and a waste bin full of utter (if couture) trash, Marinette came to the startling realization that Adrien hated what he did. Listening to him hollowly narrate the way his runway coach had drilled him for hours on the proper way to walk, voice devoid of the life it always carried, she realized for the first time ever that her so-called “golden boy” took no pleasure in his forced line of work.

He didn’t overlook the downsides because he was passionate about what he did. He didn’t simply have an off-day every once in a while.

Quite simply, Adrien Agreste hated being a model.

And quite simply, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was pissed.

“…now to top it all off, I’m ruining my girlfriend’s academic career by distracting her from her homework,” he ended with a humorless chuckle, his tone far too light for the massive emotional baggage he’d just revealed (probably just a drop in the bucket if she knew him as well as she thought).

She was going to hunt down Adrien Agreste’s emotionally repressed ass and hug him until he burst.

“Don’t worry about me!” Marinette snapped, instantly following up with a hushed apology. It wasn’t him she was pissed at, after all.

She shoved her chair back and stood to pace about the room.

“What can I do?” she asked helplessly, resisting the urge to take out her anger on her oft-abused cat pillow. She could just picture the ratty thing, cowering in her loft after years of physical and psychological abuse.

“No, no! You don’t have to do anything! Actually, just listening was probably the best thing you could have done for me right now.”

“You sure? I could suit up and knock a few skulls if it would make you feel better.”

“As borderline erotic as the mental picture of Ladybug beating my father to a pulp is... no. I think that would be an abuse of power.”

The joke was on him, because Marinette was more than willing to abuse her status as Ladybug to defend her sun-haired prince from harm. In fact, the only other person she’d ever wanted to punch harder than Gabriel Agreste at that moment was Hawkmoth himself.

If only there was some way to beat the shit out of both of them at the same time...

“You’re pacing again, aren’t you?” Adrien sighed through the phone.

“Of course I’m pacing!” Marinette exploded with a stomp. She froze, willing herself down from her murderous streak with a deep breath. “Sorry, just… Is there anything else bothering you? I’m all ears.”

“Only that you aren’t here for me to drape myself across right now.” She could almost hear his relieved smile, and it helped her to shelve the rest of her fury for a later date. “What about you?”

“The only problems I’m dealing with are the ones on my history homework,” Marinette sighed, glancing over at her cluttered desktop with distaste. The god-awful worksheet was really the last thing she wanted to be doing right now, especially in her keyed-up state. Luckily, it wasn’t due until next Monday.

“That so?” Adrien began, sound more cheerful as each second passed. “You need some help? I’m as smart as I am handsome.”

“No, I’d like to actually pass my class,” she teased, giggling as he gave a playful hiss. “It’s a sweet offer, but I don’t think there’s much you could help me with unless you were here.”

“Yeah, I guess I could see— Hey, wait! I have a bedroom!”

Marinette quirked a brow. “What a coincidence — I do too.”

“Let me rephrase: I have a bedroom and no secret identity to hide from my partner.”

A beat of silence.

“Oh,” she said, understanding dawning.

“Do you… want to come over?” Adrien posed hopefully. Timidly. “I could help you out in person.”

“Uh, actually, I just finished the last problem,” Marinette lied, gnawing her lip. She couldn’t let Adrien help her with the same homework he himself had probably done hours earlier. That would raise far more questions than she was willing to answer at that point.

“Oh, well… all right then.” The disappointment in his voice was palpable, and it broke her heart.

“But that doesn’t mean I can't just come over to hang out,” she nudged, swallowing her unnecessary (and at this point downright annoying) bashfulness. “I mean, if you don’t have anything— “

“YES!” Marinette yanked her phone away from her ear, caught between wincing and giggling at the way he’d nearly screamed through the speaker. “Sorry— yes. I’d really like it if you could come over to hang out.”

She almost didn’t hear his reply, distracted as she was by the image of her and Adrien giggling over the video games she’d beaten him at years ago before he leaned over to give her a winning kiss. Or her and Adrien lounging before a crackling fire (did he have a fireplace?) as they looked longingly into each others' eyes. Or her and Adrien falling asleep in each others' arms by candlelight, twelve-piece orchestra gently lulling them into a blissful slumber as the stars shone—

“A-all right,” Marinette said, shaking her head clear of those overly sentimental fantasies as she began shutting off the lights in her bedroom. They were going to hang out!!! “Give me about ten minutes to grab some food for us and I’ll head over.”

“God, I love you.”

Marinette gulped, pulse spiking. “I…”

She couldn’t. Not over the phone.

“I’ll see you soon.”

If Adrien noticed her hesitation, he gave no sign, cheerily bidding her goodbye after confirming she remembered where he lived (as if she could forget). Pressing her phone's locked screen against her forehead, Marinette took three deep, steadying breaths.

Tonight was the night for sure. It had to be.

“Tikki!” she called, climbing her loft with hands shaking in nervous excitement. “Spots on!”

( ~ Oh hey look, middle of the fic author’s note! Seems like I have to go back to 2008 fic writing logic because there are still people incapable of reading my actual authors notes. Heres the deal- I’ve had people commenting, sending asks on tumblr, posting Instagram comments and even spamming my work email asking me when I intend to update. Bottom line: I write this fic for fun, and when I have people breathing down my neck, it no longer feels fun. You may phrase it as a compliment but just know that every time I get an “OMG PLS UPDATE” comment, I mentally put off the next chapter release by another half hour. Requests like that stress me out, and make it very hard to write. Please be considerate. I am one person reaching my wits end, and I will no longer tolerate the excuse of “I didn’t know”, seeing as though im expressly announcing this mid-fic.)

(please please please please stop)

(please)

“LADYBUG IS COMING!” Adrien yelled, dragging a vacuum cleaner through his bedroom door before kicking it shut.

“Not if she’s with you she isn’t,” Plagg mumbled, only to sputter as a thrown dust rag knocked him from the air.

“Plagg, if you haven’t cleaned up your bed, throw it away. It’s too late.” Adrien wrangled with the power cord, spitting curses under his breath each time he failed to properly plug it in. Finally, his frantic hands managed to get it in the socket, and Adrien let loose a shout of anxious triumph as the vacuum roared to life in his grasp.

Ladybug was coming over. Ladybug was going to be in his room.

Granted, this wouldn’t be the first time his partner had been to his house, but it would be the first time she'd visited since they’d started dating. And if their luck held (probable, considering who she was), they wouldn’t even have an akuma to deal with this time. Just him and her. Alone at last and—

“Where’s my kwami??!!?!”

Plagg tunneled his way out from his terrycloth prison, only to be greeted with the sight of his screaming human friend searching frantically in circles. It was almost enough to make him worry.

“Don’t you think this is going a bit overboard?” the kwami asked, floating towards the chaos.

“I need bird feeders!” Adrien exclaimed, a little unhinged as he swung the roaring vacuum nozzle about the room. He wasn’t quite sure what or how to vacuum; he only knew the device was used for cleaning. Which was what he was currently attempting to do. “I need a bird feeder in every window.”

“You have like thirty windows though.”

“I need you to get me thirty bird feeders.”

“Sure,” Plagg deadpanned. “Let me just check my stockpile of bird feeders real quick.”

Adrien narrowed his eyes, turning mid-swipe like a mother cat scorned. “Keep that attitude up and you’re going back into the Shame Orb.”

“Oh, you mean the one with the soundproof walls and warm comfy bed?” Plagg clarified flatly. “You wouldn’t dare be so cruel.”

“You asked for it,” Adrien warned, walking to his bedside table and lifting the glass fish bowl that rested upon it. “Get in.”

With a roll of his eyes, Plagg dove into the pile of cashmere bunched atop the table, sighing in content as Adrien lowered the bowl top-down around him. Adrien knew Plagg didn’t really see his time-out spot as any particular punishment, but it allowed the two some much needed time apart, so the practice remained.

Having gotten his kwami adequately squared away for the evening, Adrien fully focused on the mission at hand. He flew around the room, straightening anything that looked crooked, dusting anything that looked dusty, and generally losing his mind, all the while lugging the roaring vacuum around with him as if to cleanse the very air he breathed. Nathalie poked her head in at the noise only to step back out without saying a word — Adrien didn't even notice.

He worked with the single-minded fervor of a housewife on cocaine, muttering to himself between each sweep of his rag. He was persistent, ruthless and utterly unforgiving to any unlucky piece of filth he happened to come across. He struck fear into the hearts of stray socks. He stopped dust bunnies dead in their tracks.

He completely forgot to keep an eye on the clock.

“Is that a ponytail?”

Adrien shrieked, dropping the vacuum as he whirled toward the source of the voice. It crashed to the floor with a bang, shutting off with a pitiful dying noise that didn’t sound good at all. Well, that would be coming out of his savings account, but Adrien couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Because there, outlined in the window pane, stood the very angel herself. Smiling down at him, a parcel tucked under one arm and body shifting slightly from side to side, Ladybug was the definition of a vision.

And she was in his room.

(His room!!)

Adrien willed his heart to start again.

“L-Ladybug, hey!” he said, aiming to lean nonchalantly against the couch but ending up at somewhat of an awkward hunch as he bent down to brace his hand against the arm. “Welcome to this place!”

Her mask peaked up in silent question, lower lip trembling with stifled giggles.

“I MEAN… uh… welcome to our— MY room. Welcome here to my room… please stay?” Adrien slid one palm down the front of his face, resisting the urge to throw himself out the open (bird feeder-less!) window. “Sorry, you said something when you came in but I didn’t really hear it over the sound of my inner eight-year-old girl.”

“I asked,” Ladybug said, grinning as she examined the cleaning supplies strewn across his room, “if you were wearing a ponytail.”

Eyes wide, Adrien ripped the bit of elastic from his hair so suddenly it almost snapped, flinging it somewhere behind him with a nervous chuckle. “Nope!”

“That’s too bad, you would have looked cute like that.”

‘Well now…’ With a roll of his shoulders, Adrien vaulted the couch in search of his discarded hair tie, scrabbling across the floor on all fours. He heard Ladybug snort.

“Found it!” he cried, hands snatching the loop and thrusting the tiny treasure up into the air. “Let me just— “

*SNAP*

“—fuck…”

As he watched his very last elastic sever between his fingers, Adrien suddenly had the strong desire to crawl in bed and start his whole day over. But as he clambered to his feet with another curse, taking in the sight of a now hopelessly giggling Ladybug as she pressed one hand to her chest, he couldn’t help but think there was at least one bright spot to his otherwise disastrous day.

At that, Adrien felt all his worry drain away, leaving only pure excitement for the evening ahead of them.

“It looks like a janitor’s closet exploded in here,” Ladybug observed, hopping down from her perch to stalk through the graveyard of cleaning supplies.

“I wanted to make sure our first date was perfect, but it turns out I’m really bad at cleaning.”

“Is this a date?” she squeaked, blinking in surprise. God, she was cute.

“I…uh…” Adrien gave a bashful sort of chuckle, wiping his suddenly clammy hands down the front of his jeans. “I was hoping it was. Is that okay?”

“Yes! Yeah, no, of course that’s great! I just wish I'd dressed up a bit more,” she joked, smiling timidly up at him as she indicated her trademark spotted suit. He broke into a relieved beam.

“You look ravishing,” he assured her, finally closing the distance between them for a hug.

The instant his arms wrapped around her, Adrien found himself lost in her scent — warm sugar mixed with something vaguely citrusy — and considered the merits of just burying his nose in her hair for the remainder of the night. But beneath that came the tell-tale aroma of baked goods, and it wasn’t long before he’d sniffed out the box of pastries wedged beneath her arm like some carb-tracking bloodhound.

“They’re all for you,” Ladybug said brightly, transferring the aromatic box into his eager hands. “I ate earlier.”

“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't share?”

“The kind who I know hasn’t gotten nearly enough calories today.”

“I knew it,” Adrien gasped, fishing out an éclair and shooting her a look of utter scandal. “You’re trying to fatten me up, aren’t you?”

“You got me,” Ladybug giggled, poking him in his sides with a considerate tilt of her head. “So, are you going to give me the grand tour or…?”

Adrien vehemently nodded, setting the package down on the coffee table before snaking an arm around her waist.

“Couch,” he said through a mouthful of pastry, gesturing to the piece of furniture as Ladybug rolled her eyes.

“All right, smartass…”

“Television,” Adrien continued with a snarky little grin. He took another big bite before drawing her across the room. “Bashketball hoof.”

Ladybug peered up at him in challenge. “You got game?”

“Oh, I got game,” he assured her with a wink, throwing in an eyebrow wiggle for good measure when she didn’t immediately swoon into his arms. She remained unconvinced.

Adrien made a mental note to dunk on his girlfriend sometime in the near future.

“Okay, what else?” she prompted, darting in to take a tiny nibble of éclair. Self-preservation told him to rip the pastry out of reach, but kindness forced him to let his girlfriend steal his precious food.

‘Good thing, too,’ his libido remarked, not at all displeased at the sight of Ladybug licking crème filling from the edges of her lips. Adrien pushed the thought away.

“Climbing wall, parkour ramp, zip line.”

“Ah yes. All the things any normal teen bedroom should include. Mine has three skateboard ramps and a waterfall.”

“Then our next date will just have to be in your room,” Adrien retorted before he could really consider the impossibility of the statement. Ladybug went silent, and he rushed to gloss over his slip of the tongue.

“Um, my book collection is up in the loft!” One arm extended upward. “That’s where Plagg keeps most of his stuff too.”

Ladybug nodded in interest. “Speaking of Plagg,” she began politely, “where is he, anyway?”

The words had hardly left her mouth before her eyes alit on…

“Why is he in a fish bowl?!” Ladybug asked, a little dumbfounded as she strode over to the bedside table. Inside the glass globe Plagg lay peacefully snoozing.

“Bad kittens get sent to the Shame Orb to atone for their sins,” Adrien explained with a resolute nod. Ladybug threw him a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder.

“You can’t send a literal god into time-out, Adrien,” she chastised, tapping at the glass. “And why doesn’t he just phase— “

“Ladybug!” Plagg exclaimed, shooting out from his so-called prison to tangle himself in her bangs with a loud purr.

“So now you decide to get out the easy way,” Adrien muttered.

“He doesn’t usually?” Ladybug asked, a slow grin spreading across her face at the way the kwami continued to rub against her forehead. Her fingers came up, plucking Plagg from the air to settle in her palms for a kiss atop the head. “Awww, I missed you too, kitten!”

“No, he usually scratches at my door to be let out at 2 A.M.” Adrien sent his friend a poisonous glare, partly in response to his utterly annoying antics and partly because Plagg continued to nuzzle against his Lady with a smug little smile. “He’s woken me up every night for the past three years. Even though he’s more than capable of leaving on his own!”

“If I’m going to be treated like a house cat,” Plagg began with a sniff, “I might as well act like one too.”

“What kind of house cat gets his own tablet and enough cheese to feed a small army?!”

“I’ve told you before, I…”

It took about two solid minutes of squabbling, a near cat fight, and finally a soft appeal from Ladybug, but eventually Plagg agreed to give them their privacy. He melted under her suppliant blue eyes, promising he’d be right up in the loft if she needed him, and Adrien would have found it comical how soft-hearted his kwami was when it came to his girlfriend if not for the fact that he himself was equally smitten.

‘Or, that is to say, kitten.’

Damn, he was losing his edge.

“So anyway!” Adrien continued, shoving the last bit of éclair past his lips and quickly polishing it off. “Let’s conclude the tour, shall we?”

“After you,” Ladybug said with a nod.

“Okay, well, we kind of skipped the bed, so…” Adrien swiveled them around with a sweep of his arm. “Bed.”

“Looks comfy,” she quipped, stepping forward to run her fingertip along the crisp line of his blanket. Adrien gulped hard at the image, mouth having gone dry in an instant.

Perhaps Ladybug didn’t know the effect those kinds of words would have on him, or maybe she was all too aware of the insinuation. But regardless of whether the tease was intentional or not, it was devastating. Just seeing her standing so close to the stage that dominated the majority of his fantasies was getting Adrien a bit hot under the collar, but having her speculate how it might feel?

Now that was downright torturous.

“Yeah, it’s pretty— ack!“ He nearly hacked up a lung as Ladybug plopped herself down on the edge of his bed, hands stroking the comforter in a way that did little to cool his ardor.

‘Oh no. Oh bad,’ his mind chanted, Adrien trying to keep some semblance of composure as he watched his girlfriend shift atop his mattress. ‘Ladybug. Ladybug on my bed. Ladybug smiling as she sits on my bed. Ladybug grasping at my sheets as I pin her down and…’

Then, as if the sight wasn’t morally compromising enough, she bounced.

And Adrien damn near choked on his tongue.

“Springy, too!” Ladybug giggled, jostling up and down with pigtails bobbing.

Adrien could only nod, not trusting the next words out of his mouth to be anything other than, “Wanna see if it’s unbreakable?”

“Sorry,” Ladybug apologized, slowing to a stop as she took in his shell-shocked expression. “Uh… got distracted.”

‘Don’t be sorry, just keep bouncing.’

“Guess I should get up…”

‘Or I could join you.’

“…wouldn’t want to ruin the rest of the tour.”

‘What tour? Tour’s over. This is the final stop.’

Adrien just stared dumbly as Ladybug stood, resisting the urge to tackle her back onto the plush surface. ‘The night is still young,’ the endlessly hopeful part of his personality reminded him, conjuring images of he and Ladybug tangled atop his oh-so-springy mattress.

Adrien couldn’t tell if the figures in his mind were merely cuddling… or engaging in activities far less G-rated.

One look at her happily marching over to examine his arcade games and he decided it was best not to dwell on it.

After letting her (he said, as if she wasn’t more than capable of winning with two hands behind her back) thoroughly own his ass for a solid twenty minutes, Adrien coaxed Ladybug back to the couch, kicking the discarded vacuum out of the way before laying his extensive Blu-Ray collection out before her. To his utter delight, she settled on Howl’s Moving Castle, a personal favorite. To his further delight, she also decided to disregard her own blanket in favor of invading his own, sliding up against his side with a bashful smile.

“C-can I?” she asked, as if she even had to. Adrien swore his heart almost burst.

Leave it to him to get this worked up over cuddling the girl he’d nearly orgasmed beneath just yesterday.

“Absolutely,” Adrien breathed as he cocooned them beneath the fleecy barrier.

With a contented sigh, Ladybug slotted herself along his side, curling her legs up onto the couch beside her and allowing one hand to twine with his own. After pressing the play button and quickly tossing the remote onto the table, Adrien retreated back into their little bubble of warmth, unable to keep what was most likely a dopey grin off his face as he squeezed Ladybug’s fingers beneath the blanket.

It was a scene right out of one of his cheesiest romance fantasies. Pastries, Ghibli movies, and Ladybug snuggles??!?! Adrien was in heaven. Two minutes in and he was already planning ways to get her back again tomorrow night, as well as the night after that.

Things were comfortable — perfect, even, and Adrien found it a real struggle to focus on the (admittedly familiar) plot with his girlfriend nestled so comfortably against him.

Well that, plus the fact Ladybug was incapable of going more than two minutes without offering up some sort of reaction.

 “Wait… is Howl evil or…?”

“I’d like to think he lies in a moral grey zone.”

“Why is the kingdom at war in the first place?”

“Well, they—“

“And how come Sophie is only sometimes old?”

“She—“

“Does Calcifer’s spirit possess the castle? And if so, does that make it a sentient bein—mmfgt!“

Adrien had made a vow to never shut his Lady up with a kiss again.

Luckily, that promise did not extend to cupcakes.

He came to discover that as long as her mouth was otherwise occupied, Ladybug’s interjections would be kept to a minimum, and Adrien could think of no worthier sacrifice for his precious hoard of sweets. Still, she laughed at Howl’s tantrum, gasped at every twisting plot point, and even got a little teary eyed at some of the more tender scenes. By the time they were approaching the tail end of the movie, every muscle in Adrien’s body had unwound.

The tensions from work, from his father… they all seemed inconsequential now, and Adrien decided right then and there he’d gladly a face a million more bad days if only they all ended like this. Girlfriend warm against his side, stomach blessedly full, and soft lamplight illuminating the room that no longer felt like a prison to him.

Even the sudden arrival of a rainstorm, which would usually put him right on edge, couldn’t dampen his spirits. In fact, Adrien probably would have missed it altogether, caught up in the moment as he was, had Ladybug not murmured something about loving the rain. She’d looked up at him as she said it, eyes dancing with a tenderness Adrien couldn’t exactly place and mouth curved into a smile just as dreamlike, but he didn’t have long to ponder the almost knowing expression before she’d nestled back in.

He found solace in the warmth of Ladybug, of the blanket still wrapped around them. He found comfort in the chest that rose and fell alongside his. His room, Adrien noted, felt much cozier with another human body to help fill it.

(That said human body was more less on top of him certainly didn’t hurt matters, either.)

Rain fell, thunder rumbled, hands were held and baked goods were consumed. His day from hell had concluded with a trip to heaven, and Adrien was content. He was happy and free and downright giddy as he settled his head in the crook of Ladybug’s neck.

Well… tried to settle his head into the crook of Ladybug’s neck.

“You’re too tall for that,” she grumbled, her voice entirely without venom as Adrien continued his attempts to burrow into her collar. Their height difference, not at all reduced by the fact they were both sitting, made the task a veritable feat, but he was nothing if not resilient.

“Maybe,” he conceded, shimmying down as far as he could manage without disappearing under the covers completely. “Or maybe you’re too short.”

In the end, it was Ladybug who solved the problem, most likely growing tired of being pawed at. Eyes still trained on the tv, she slid into his lap and Adrien responded by drawing her back to his chest with a nuzzle of thanks.

He tried to focus on the movie, he really did. But watching an anthropomorphic bird flap around after a sentient scarecrow couldn’t hold a candle to the inviting skin of the neck stretched before him, and it wasn’t long before that notorious Chat Noir attention span started to wander.

Leaning towards his original destination, Adrien pressed his face flush against the spot where Ladybug’s hair met skin, nose twitching as it met with the dark strands along her neck. Once again, he found himself overtaken by the trademark scent of her, of his Lady, though this time there was no all-encompassing hunger to distract him from the aroma.

(Well, no hunger for food, at least.)

His first kisses were lazy, tiny little pecks that patterned up Ladybug’s neck as she watched the movie reach its conclusion. Had Adrien been in a more lucid headspace, he might have realized the kind of messages his actions could give off (inviting a girl over to hang out, snuggling up on the couch, putting the moves on her right as the film drew to a close), but in that moment he could find no proper reason to pull away from her inviting warmth.

Ladybug didn't object, so he didn't stop.

Next his kisses turned to tastes, little flicks of his tongue in order to see if perhaps he could lick the sweetness he smelled off her very skin. He pressed, insistent and hot. No, it turned out Ladybug wasn’t sugarcoated, but Adrien decided the subtle taste of sweat and skin and girl he swallowed instead was undeniably more filling. He felt her gulp, watched as goosebumps rose along the path he traced, and her body’s little reactions alone were their own sort of permission.

And yet…

“This okay?” Adrien whispered beneath the dip of her jaw, needing to hear Ladybug’s verbal consent despite all the non-verbal cues that hinted this was more than okay. Call him a stickler, but he would not be having a repeat of the billboard incident.

“That’s nice,” she replied, the words vibrating the skin beneath his lips as they spilled from hers. After a brief pause (an implied deliberation) he felt Ladybug shift, the blanket tangling between them as she turned to more comfortably straddle him.

Grinning at the new position, Adrien’s mouth leisurely, almost lazily, found its way to her cheek, then ventured on to her earlobe. He tongued the edge of her Miraculous stone, as if paying tribute to the magical item responsible for bringing them together, and she shivered as his teeth toyed with the studs.

“Don’t break them,” Ladybug cautioned without a trace of actual warning. Her voice had dropped an octave.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he mumbled back, equally as low.

Their mouths reconnected, and neither of them felt the need to speak anymore.

It was as though they existed in a bubble, the muffled sound of the outside storm as it thrummed through the walls was the only noise besides their occasional breaths and the soft, melodic chime of the DVD start menu. There was a sense of intimacy in the soft light of the TV screen as it cast hues of blue across their entwined forms. In the taste of cream and sugar that passed between their lips with each new caress. There was a sense of peace and rightness and ‘this is what we should be doing always’, but above all, there was an unmistakable sense of time.

Time to wander across every mark and freckle he’d probably glanced off his Lady a hundred times over but swore he was seeing anew in the comfort of their private embrace. Time for her nails to chart a course across every hair on his scalp until he practically melted into the couch beneath her. Time for idle exploration and breathy pauses and stretches of near-stillness before their hovering lips reconnected again and again.

They had time.

Because this wasn’t some back alley quickie. They weren’t constrained by Miraculous beeps or semi-public locations or the ever-present fear of being caught. This was her and him. Private, alone, and (for once in their lives) with all the time in the world.

They could afford to take it slow… and something about the notion made everything seem remarkably easy.

Almost too easy.

It was too easy for them to unknowingly ramp themselves up until they tip-toed across the line of their usual boundaries. His mouth sucking bright (obvious) patterns along her throat was mindless. Her hand creeping up his clothed inner thigh to territories never before breached, was unthinking. Sweet nothings (“You’re soft” “You’re precious”) turned into charged somethings (“I want you” “I need you”) in the span of a few minutes, and everything began to move with a hazy, dreamlike speed.

Everything was his lips and her hands (or was it her lips and his hands?) pressing and teasing and coaxing with an almost drugged-up sense of ease. Everything was numbing nips and suppressing caresses and—

It was when her fingers balled into the hem of Adrien’s very removable shirt, intent on, well… removing it, that Marinette knew she needed to escape.

Movements slow, as if pulling herself from a long slumber, she peeled away with an audible pop as Adrien’s mouth disconnected from her skin. Her hands disengaged to the backrest of the couch, gripping the cushions as she initiated a full-fledged retreat.

“I’ve gotta…” She fought to craft an acceptable excuse, tongue heavy with the words and mind still swimming in about twelve different layers of bliss. “Gotta… pee.”

At that, Marinette sobered, eyelids snapping open like someone had thrust a tube of smelling salts beneath her nose.

‘Gotta pee? Gotta pee??!?’

Boy, she just loved to die.

 “Uh… all right,” Adrien said as he stared up at her in mild shock. He looked as though he’d just been snapped from a coma, eyes glazed over and hair still mussed from her thorough petting. “The bathroom is—“

“I remember!” Marinette squeaked, promptly turning on her heel to stomp around the couch. Had her voice always been that pitchy? She didn’t have the willpower to think on it further as she more or less sprinted to the door across the room.

Reaching the bathroom, Marinette flung herself in, the frame rattling with the force of her slam and the cool tile floor seemed to sizzle as she slid down upon it. The atmosphere was too bright, too stark after the muted glow of the bedroom proper. It hurt her eyes and her chest was heaving and—

Plan!

She had a plan!

Not only did she have plan, but also an endlessly smug kwami who’d somehow managed to convince her to go double or nothing on their bet. She had two (two!!) boxes of cookies from her already dwindling stash riding on tonight, and she’d be damned if she let her hormones or her partner's romantic gestures get in the way once again.

She was going to declare her love for Adrien Agreste, by God. And she was going to do it tonight.

A solid seven or eight minutes passed by Marinette’s count before she sobered up enough to leave her hideout. Using the closest of the two sinks to splash water on her face had helped… the realization that Adrien had likely been naked in that room countless times before did not. Drying off with a handy bath towel had helped… the insinuation of the little A. A. stitched into the corner and the whiff of body wash she picked up off the cotton did not. Looking herself over in the mirror and delivering a pep-talk befitting a superheroine helped…

…catching sight of her already-forming hickies did not.

He’d marked her! He’d never marked her before!

(Marinette found she liked the notion of being claimed far more than she cared to admit.)

In the end, only the fear that Adrien would come asking after her health was enough to propel Marinette from the bathroom. As nervous as she was over the task at hand, that anxiety was nothing compared to the sheer mortification she’d have to face if Adrien assumed she was constipated or something.

With that in mind, she slid out the door and back into his bedroom.

After the fluorescent brightness of the bathroom, Marinette almost had trouble seeing in the sudden dim, but her eyes (so used to weekly midnight patrols) were quick to adjust. She padded across the hardwood, costumed feet silent as she made her way towards where she saw a tall, vaguely boyfriend-shaped figure stowing her unused blanket in a cubby near the wall by the bed. The shadow straightened, thumbs hitching into the waistband of his—

Wait, when had he changed into sleep bottoms? And was that…

“Are you wearing Ladybug pajamas?”

Adrien jolted, turning to her with metaphorical claws out and a hiss on the tip of his tongue. Still acting like Chat Noir… despite his contrasting wardrobe choices.

“Jeez, I forget how sneaky you are,” he gasped, one hand pressed to the center of his chest as he quickly recovered a regular breathing pattern.

“Didn’t meant to scare you,” Marinette tittered, eyes roving his polka-dotted attire and heart constricting at the unfair cuteness of it all.

Adrien stood before her in a fitted black t-shirt — one she knew for a fact only came in children’s sizes, because she’d tried tracking one down for Alya’s last birthday. Printed across the front in a bubbly crimson font was her superhero name surrounded by a flurry of ladybugs, not unlike the swarm that rose up to cleanse the city each time she flung her Lucky Charm skyward. It was a sophisticated design, though the composition was thrown off by the way it bunched up around his armpits and fell a good four inches too short.

Contrasting that, the bottoms (red with black polka dots, of course) were actually meant to be worn by adults. Marinette knew this because she’d watched her mother pick up an identical pair from the women’s section of a popular retail chain three months ago. They fit better — not great, but better. The only hangup was the general bagginess and still too-short hem.

All that was missing was the matching pair of Ladybug slippers.

If Adrien held any ounce of shame regarding his choice of attire, it didn’t show. In fact, he seemed downright giddy as he posed before her.

“We’re matching!” Adrien said, grinning as he twirled with arms thrown wide. With each inch his hands rose, so did his shirt’s hemline, and the pants fluttered without a pair of flared hips to fill them, but somehow he still managed to make the ill-fitting ensemble look like the season’s hottest buy.

‘I LOVE YOU,’ Marinette screamed in her head.

“You look like a dork,” her mouth said instead.

Awesome, things were going so well already.

“Like I said, we’re matching,” Adrien teased, sending her an exaggerated wink that had no business speeding up her pulse like that. Marinette ducked her head so he wouldn’t spot the pleased blush that spread across her face.

This was Chat Noir for Pete’s sake! This was the partner she’d watched get his tongue stuck to a lamppost last winter because he “was too hot for the laws of thermodynamics”. This was the boy who regularly made a habit of running around on all fours for no reason other than it made him look more like his fursona. This was just some goofy teenager dressed in kids' clothes for the express purpose of looking like his girlfriend.

And yet she found herself undeniably kitten—

Smitten! She meant to think smitten!

—with him.

She was going to skin this cat. Right after she said…

“So just out of curiosity, what time is it?”

Nope, that wasn’t it either. ‘Dammit Marinette, get yourself together!’

“It is…” Adrien fished his phone out from his pajama pants pocket, tapping it to life before flashing her the screen. “9:23. Why, you need to leave?”

“No, no,” Marinette murmured, hand reaching out almost of its own accord to trace along the edge of the device. Smiling from his screensaver were four very familiar teens, faces cast in a purple glow and eyes excited for the concert ahead of them. She felt a pang (of longing perhaps) at the memory, one of the happiest she could recall. “Tell me about them? Your friends, I mean.”

She knew she was stalling, but it did nothing to dampen her curiosity. Besides, Adrien looked as if she’d just asked him for his hand in marriage, as nerve-flaying as the comparison was. Who was she to deny him a little gushing?

“Well, that one’s Nino,” he began excitedly, sliding up beside her and tilting the screen so she could properly see the picture she’d glanced at a hundred times before. “He was akumatized into the Bubbler, if you recall crashing my birthday a few years back.”

“Eh, that party was lame,” she said as an attempt at humor.

‘Jokes are good. Jokes are safe. Jokes are not love confessions and therefore GREAT.’

“It was until you showed up,” Adrien replied, dropping a quick kiss atop her crown. “Anyway, Nino’s probably my closest bro. He can be a little neurotic sometimes but he puts up with my social cluelessness, so I guess that makes us even. In fact, I’d say we’re about 40% gay for each other.”

Marinette did her damndest to hold in a snort. ‘You and I both know that number should be closer to 70%,’ she thought, recalling the pair’s close-knit (possibly bordering on homoerotic) friendship.

She found she didn’t mind playing second fiddle to Nino. Brohood was sacred, after all.

“And I’m sure you recognize the girl taking the picture,” Adrien went on. “Lady Wifi, AKA the author of the Ladyblog, AKA Alya Césaire. She’s been my friend for about as long as Nino has.”

“They look pretty darn comfortable… are they?”

“Oh, definitely, though I’m not sure exactly what their relationship is. Nino’s been weirdly tight-lipped about the whole 'Alya situation'.” Adrien shook his head, mirroring her own confusion at their friends’ supposed entanglement. “Ah, well. Marinette and I will wrangle the truth out of them eventually.”

‘And there we go.’

“Marinette…?” she asked innocently, trying not to leap out of her skin.

“Yeah, you remember that girl who helped us take down Evillustrator? She actually goes to my school.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say! In fact, she’s my third best friend— er, actually. I should call her my first best friend. She was the first person I ever really saw as friend.” He shrugged, thoughtful. “But then again, I think she only just started liking me back recently.”

“What!?” Marinette exclaimed in a near shout, and Adrien jumped. She cleared her throat, affixing her face with a neutral expression of curiosity. “I-I mean… why do you say that?”

“We didn’t exactly meet on the best of terms,” Adrien said with a wince, no doubt recalling their fabled gum incident. “There was a bit of a social misunderstanding, just me being my dumb homeschooled self, and it took a long time for me to make up for it.”

Marinette could only gape.

He thought she didn’t like him? How in the word could he not know she was head over heels incomprehensibly smitten?! Marinette had assumed her crush was as obvious as the nose on her face, but apparently she’d underestimated Adrien’s ability to misread a situation.

Suddenly, all of his behavior over the last three years seemed to snap into dizzying focus.

Adrien was a nice guy, a gentleman, the “let-'em-down-easy type”, and she'd taken that to mean he knew very clearly she had a crush him but didn’t want to break her heart. That had always been the best case scenario. That was what she’d come up with to explain his behavior towards her.

Now Marinette couldn’t decide whether this reasoning was better or worse.

“But things are all good between us now!” Adrien said, puncturing a hole in her jumbled inner musings. “Or at least, I hope they are.”

‘They are! They’re great! We’re great!’

“Marinette is… well…” He paused, giving a considerate tilt of the head. That devastatingly genuine smile was not good for her blood pressure, Marinette decided, and she made a mental note to get the alarming flutter in her ribs checked out by a doctor. Stat. “She’s just loved by everyone, really. In fact, she’s probably one of the most popular girls at my school.”

That was news to her.

“You make her sound l-like she’s perfect,” Marinette said, internally cursing the return of the stutter that only illustrated how utterly un-perfect she really was.

“Well… I don’t think anyone’s truly perfect.”

Marinette waited for the inevitable “Except for you, my Lady!”, but to her surprise it didn’t come.

She found she didn’t mind at all.

“And yeah, I guess Marinette has her faults just like anyone. She has this habit of taking on too many things at once and she sometimes gets her words mixed up.” Adrien chuckled. “I remember one time, when she was in the middle of running for class president re-election and setting up a bake sale fundraiser and making her neighbor’s wedding dress. She walked right into homeroom, looked me in the eye, and said, 'Hello sunshine morning, how day are you?' Oh god I would have fallen out of my seat laughing if she hadn't looked so embarrassed!”

Marinette wanted to interject, possibly with shriek or long series of unintelligible noises, but Adrien was on a roll.

“She also does this thing where she scrunches up her face when she’s bothered. I’ve learned to get out her way when that expression shows up.”

“Must b-be weird looking, huh?”

“Nah, it’s actually pretty adorable.” Was she breathing? Sources said no. “In a vaguely terrifying way. Oh! Did I tell you she also likes fashion?”

“Y-you didn’t.”

“Yeah, she sews like half her own clothes— it’s crazy how talented she is!”

“I shouldn’t be jealous here, should I?” Marinette teased weakly, doing her best to manage a playful shake of her finger in her cloud of utter elation.

Adrien had stars in his eyes. Why did Adrien have stars in his eyes?!

“You should be very jealous, and not just because you’re super gorgeous when you’re all green with envy.” The eyebrow he wiggled assured her he was just teasing. “See, not only is Marinette selfless…”

Was she?

“…and kind…”

He was talking about her, right? Marinette Dupain-Cheng?

“…and beautiful…”

Fuck the doctor’s visit, she was going to need an ambulance.

“… she also lives in a bakery,” Adrien finished rapturously, sighing as if the very notion was an instant deal-sealer. Knowing him, it probably was.

Marinette had to take great care not to melt right into her polka-dotted boots.

“Oh,” she managed through a squeak (though just barely). “T-that’s cool.”

It wasn’t cool. None of this was cool. She wasn’t cool and he—

Adrien cared for her.

He cared for Marinette.

He noticed things about her. He’d called her selfless and kind and beautiful. The whole notion was entirely, overwhelmingly exciting, and Marinette probably would have sung… if her tongue hadn't been squarely lodged somewhere between her liver and gallbladder.

‘Probably for the best. Never did me much good anyhow.’

“She is cool,” Adrien hummed, grinning down at his phone and pressing the lock button when the screen grew dim. Marinette dizzily watched her face pop back into color, recalling the night they’d taken that picture with a flutter of nostalgia.

It was less than two months ago that she’d sat propped atop his shoulders, body buzzing from Chat’s kiss and Adrien hands and the thrum of music around them, yet it still felt as though everything had changed since then.

In a way, it had.

“I think you guys would really get along with each other if you ever happened to meet,” Adrien sighed, his words punctuated by the low rumble of far-off thunder. He looked contemplative. Longing. “I know it’s important for you to keep your identity a secret, and I meant it when I said we can wait as long as you’d like, but I just wish I could… show you off, you know? My friends would love you just as much as I do, I’m sure of it.”

‘…love you…’

‘Now,’ her mind urged. ‘Do it now.’

“Alya would talk your ear off about how great she thinks Ladybug is, and would want to know everything about you. She’d probably sit you down and wouldn’t let you leave until she’d uncovered your whole life story. She’s good like that.” Adrien chuckled, resuming his idle pace around the room as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “I already know you and Nino would gang up immediately. I could just see you two now, plotting my demise. And Marinette…”

“Yes?” she wanted to answer, wanted to drop her guise and slide into his arms with every declaration she longed to make. She wanted to love him and thank him and make up for every little transgression she’d ever made against him. She wanted to give him her whole self, or at least something, because lord knew he deserved all that and more.

Her throat. She needed to make her throat work.

Her tongue had made its way past her stomach and back up to her throat, inching its way towards where that three syllable admission sat in wait. She silently egged it on, fists clenching in anxiety.

“Marinette would just make your life a thousand times brighter,” Adrien breathed. Marinette didn’t. “The second she saw you, she’d give you that trademark smile of hers, and I know you’d instantly have a new best friend. The pair of you would be unstoppable together, inseparable.”

A wondrous shake of one head and the delirious swim of another. Was it okay that she wanted to cry?

“Marinette and Ladybug,” Adrien spoke in awe, the words a swan song as they sailed out from his grinning mouth.  “Two of my very favorite girls in the worl—“

“I love you, too!”

With a blinding sense of sincerity — of relief — the declaration launched from Marinette’s newly-recovered tongue…

…just as a brilliant flash of light lit up the room around her.