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Marinette lands on her balcony, her feet thumping on the tiles with a heavy sort of finality. Between one blink and the next, her transformation unravels, the weight of the evening settling over her shoulders as her invincibility vanishes in a flash of pink light.
“That was very close, Marinette,” Tikki’s voice is tired, her sweet blue eyes dark as she gazes upon her chosen, the years shining through.
Marinette swallows. “I know…” Her reply comes out far rougher than intended, the words scraping against her throat as her mind stutters, trapped in some kind of hellish, perpetual feedback loop.
The searing heat. The horrific screech of metal collapsing. The starburst of panic she’d experienced, right before her world became nothing more than black smoke and black, consuming darkness…
Marinette is deeply, intimately aware of just how close ‘very close’ actually was. Even though her suit had protected her from any real physical harm, her skin still feels feverish and tight under the thin cotton of her pyjamas; too warm even in the crisp night air. She’s half-convinced her ears will never stop ringing, the beginnings of a tension headache wrapping themselves around her head and s q u e e z i n g—
Her heart pounding out a frantic rhythm, Marinette grasps for the handle of her trapdoor, her hands shaking so badly that at first she can’t get a solid enough grip to unlock it. When she finally does, she all but tumbles through the hatch, landing with an inelegant thump on her mattress. She doesn’t bother moving.
Tikki flies off immediately, heading for the stash of snacks Marinette makes sure to keep in her room for such occasions. After all, sneaking down to the kitchen for sweets at two in the morning—on a school night, no less—was a surefire way to land her in hot water with her parents. Or, even worse, it might make them ask questions. Questions pertaining to things that Marinette isn’t certain she can look at too closely right now without the risk of spiralling into a full-on breakdown.
She tries to imagine how that conversation would play out.
‘Oh, sorry that I woke you, mom and dad. I just needed a bit of sugar… Nothing works up an appetite quite like having a near-death experience with the boy I’m pretty sure might be the love of my life!’
Marinette presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, pushing down until she sees stars.
It doesn’t do anything to remove the image of Chat’s ashen face from her mind’s eye. Or the sound of his agonized screams from her ears.
(—All it takes is one screw-up for a difficult fight to become a deadly one.
She doesn’t notice the flaming projectiles coming until they knock her clear through the side of a building, taking out the retaining walls as they go. She barely has time to blink the dust from her eyes before the structure starts crumbling around her, and with the threads of a plan only just forming, Ladybug has a split second to make her decision.
Save Chat, or save herself—)
A heavy thud comes from above her head, followed seconds later by a shattering sound.
Marinette winces. At the time, the choice had been easy.
Because you knew you’d only have to deal with the fallout if you survived, a snide voice points out, the barb made all the more painful for its poignancy.
Then the door to her balcony is being wrenched open and she’s momentarily blind, her field of vision flooded with neon green starlight—so brilliantly bright against the darkness that it leaves spots dancing on the backs of her eyelids. She attempts to blink them away, watching in fascination as her shooting star unfurls, leaving behind an infuriated blonde boy.
“What the HELL were you thinking?” Adrien snaps, a black blur zipping off over his shoulder the moment his transformation is released. Plagg clearly doesn’t want to be around for this conversation any more than Marinette does.
She feels a stab of envy at his easy getaway.
What I wouldn’t give for the ability to phase through objects right about now… She thinks with chagrin, closing her eyes briefly if only to avoid Adrien’s accusatory glare.
“Please keep your voice down,” she sighs, unsurprised to find Adrien still looming above her when her eyes reopen. “You know my parents are sleeping.”
“You knew I was there. You saw me,” he hisses, stiff with indignation. “Why did you push me out of the way? I could have helped you.”
Marinette sits up slowly, her body aching even though her powers have repaired all of the physical damage caused by the fight. The constant bone-weary exhaustion is something that she’s just had to learn to live with since she donned the mantle of Ladybug and took up arms against the forces of evil trying to undermine the safety and well-being of Paris and her citizens. First Shadow-Hawk-Monarch and his seemingly never-ending stream of superpowered victims, and now this new mystery villain, who appears intent on taunting them from the shadows.
I need a vacation, she thinks to herself, not for the first time. Or maybe a nap. A really, really long nap.
“You did help me, Chaton,” is what she says instead, doing her best to reassure her partner with a smile that she almost feels. Aiming for a little levity to cut through the increasingly heavy atmosphere, Marinette delivers her next line with a cheeky wink and a laugh. “Besides, you can’t expect to get rid of me that easily.”
Unfortunately, her statement appears to have the opposite effect.
Instead of calming him down as she’d intended, her words cause Adrien to sway in place; all of the colour suddenly leached from his skin. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, he falls to his knees on her bed, as though his legs have simply given out beneath him.
“You can’t do stuff like that.” His face disappears into his hands.“You can’t just expect me to sit back and—and watch you d-d—” Adrien gasps, his sentence choking off abruptly.
Marinette crawls closer, her hands fluttering over his shoulders. They shake beneath her touch.
“Oh, Chat.” Her heart cracks at the sound of his rattling breaths. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you.” She wraps her arms around him, hugging him even as he remains immobile in her grip. “It’s okay, Adrien. I’m here. You got me out with your cataclysm, just like I knew you would.”
He reaches for her then, his arms forming a solid band around her chest as he clings to her in desperation.
“Yeah, but what if I hadn’t?” His voice is small, all of his earlier anger fading away, leaving only fear and vulnerability behind.
Marinette has no response for that, other than to hold him tighter.
Adrien shudders.
They stay like that for several moments, neither very eager to put any space between them. Marinette is surprised to discover how safe and at ease she feels, being in Adrien’s embrace. Even though she’s the one who is supposed to be comforting him, the longer she spends in his arms, the farther away her troubles seem—reduced to nothing more than shadows, forced to flee in the face of his warm light.
Finally, Adrien pulls back slightly, his arms falling slack, coming to rest loosely around her waist.
“My lady, I—”
His face is flushed, his eyes carefully averted. Marinette smiles softly at his bashfulness, her heart fluttering as she waits for him to find his words.
My god, he’s so adorable.
“—I think I broke one of your plant pots.”
Her smile falls.
-x-
After that, things go back to normal. Or at least as normal as normal can be for two teenagers who spend half their time moonlighting as magically-imbued spandex-clad superheroes, and the other half mooning after each other.
(They don’t talk about it.)
-x-
Adrien Agreste is in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng. And Marinette is in love with Chat Noir, who is Adrien, who used to be in love with Ladybug (who, as it turns out, is Marinette), who used to love Adrien, but gave up when it seemed like her feelings could only ever lead to dead ends, and bad ends, and the never-ending feeling that some things just weren’t meant for beginnings.
And then, all at once, everything becomes crystalline.
The miraculous have been recovered and Monarch, Shadowmoth, Hawkmoth—he’s had so many names over this past year and a half, but none more shockingly horrifying than his real name, which is Gabriel Agreste, and oh god, the ramifications of that are still rippling through them like aftershocks—has been defeated and the world suddenly, after eighteen months of sheer terror and constant motion, goes eerily still.
He knows, and she knows, and they both finally at long last know that they’ve been watching each other’s backs for the better part of two years and they’ve been in front of each other all along.
And they’re both maybe, possibly, quite certainly hopelessly in love.
But they don’t talk about it.
The dust settles on their reveal, and a new routine is established and the world—somehow—doesn’t end, and they still don’t talk about it.
Until Marinette almost gets buried alive in a fiery building collapse, and now she can’t stop thinking about the fact that if she were to die tomorrow, she would only have the memory of the few—wonderful, magical, and so, so brief—kisses they’ve shared, and that would be it. Chat would never know how she felt (feels? Will always feel? ) about him, and how the warmth of his lips brushing against hers has been haunting her dreams and her every waking moment since their ill-fated ice cream date so many weeks ago.
Ever since her Close Call™—which served as an unpleasant and unwelcome reminder that for all of her magical prowess, she is, at the end of the day, still human like everyone else—Marinette hasn’t been able to shake the niggling feeling of having passed some unseen benchmark without really noticing. Her time can neatly be divided between then and now, and suddenly all of her previously held notions don’t seem as ironclad as she’d once believed.
The post-battle clarity that she’s used to experiencing lingers far longer than normal; shedding light on thoughts that have, until now, remained idle in the recesses of her mind, collecting dust like interest.
And of course, they all have to do with her relationship with Adrien Agreste.
She’s gotten so good at ignoring her feelings since she discovered that Adrien was her partner. First, because she’d been preoccupied with navigating the other facets of their new relationship—both in and out of their suits—and second, because things have historically been so goddamn confusing between them.
She’d lost hours of her life lamenting her feelings for Boy A, and then so many more giving up said feelings in order to pursue Boy C, only to discover that they were, in fact, the SAME BOY THE ENTIRE TIME.
Marinette wants to scream.
But instead, she reminds herself that things are different now. Now she knows him—all of him—and with every day that passes, she can’t help but marvel a little more at the myriad of ways the Chat and Adrien sides of him come together to form the boy that she is now certain she is truly madly deeply in love with.
Which means they probably need to talk about it.
Which means that Marinette needs a plan.
-x-
It isn’t until about a week later that she finally gets the courage to put said plan into motion.
She sends Chat a message through their communicators, since it’s the safest and most reliable way to pass along information, and she’s still not used to the idea of being able to open up the contact that reads ‘Adrien Agreste’ in bold letters on her phone screen and just…message him out of the blue, whenever she wants.
Even though she knows that these days he spends far less time in the suit than out of it, busy dealing with the fallout of his father’s crimes, and the logistical nightmare of trying to emancipate himself from a man that he still loves dearly, who also happens to be a magical terrorist who tried to murder him.
He’ll see the text sooner or later, she reassures herself, trying to ignore how distinctly unheroic she feels when she sends the message and immediately de-transforms before he has the chance to respond.
The long look Tikki gives her when she emerges from the earrings doesn’t help.
“What?” Marinette asks, her tone a shade too defensive for plausible deniability. “It’s his turn to patrol tonight. He’ll see it.”
Tikki very pointedly does not respond.
Still, Marinette can’t help but throw a smugly satisfied look her kwami’s way when, lo and behold, at eight-fifteen on the dot her partner slips through her trapdoor, landing in a crouch in her loft.
Take that, Tikki, she thinks, right before the abject terror overrides all of her non-essential brain functions.
Get it together, Dupain-Cheng! Her inner voice snaps, sounding like a curious mix of both Chloe and Alya. The combination is as effective as it is disconcerting. You’ve got a job to do.
Steeling herself, Marinette spins to face her guest, her pace deliberately, agonizingly slow.
“Chat Noir… I’ve been expecting you.”
Chat pauses next to the railing, one side of his mask lifting along with his brow.
“Uh… what’s with the supervillain routine?” He eyes her askance, his posture practically radiating dubiety. “Is this where you steal my miraculous and reveal that you’ve actually been Hawkmoth in disguise all along?”
“O-of course not!” Marinette stands from her computer chair, her face colouring. She hopes her makeup can hide it. “That’s preposterous.”
Chat nods sagely. “Right, because then you would have to be my dad. And that would be weird, because you’re supposed to be in prison.”
Marinette blinks uncertainly at that, still unused to navigating the reality in which the Venn diagram of ‘Adrien’s dad’ and ‘Hawkmoth’ had actually just been a single, overlapping circle the entire time. Or the fact that one of Adrien’s primary coping mechanisms has been making occasionally ill-timed and increasingly dark jokes about the whole state of affairs.
Deciding that it’s in both of their best interests to sidestep that line of conversation for the time being, Marinette manoeuvres them away from that minefield with all the delicacy of a drunk baby elephant, letting out a laugh that is both too high-pitched and too brief to be natural.
“Right,” she says, even though nothing about the situation really is, and strides over to the stairs leading up to her loft. She meets Chat halfway in his descent, grabbing his wrist and all but throwing him toward the chair she’d just occupied.
“Whoa!” He yelps, feline grace abandoning him in the face of his surprise. Arms windmilling comedically, he eventually ends up sprawled across the pink plastic, limbs akimbo and expression mildly affronted.
“Geez, princess. If this is your way of rolling out the red carpet, I think I’ll try the back door next time,” Chat says sourly, straightening himself with as much dignity as he can muster. “What is all this about, anyway?”
Marinette fidgets with the hem of her sweater, unexpectedly flustered now that he’s actually sitting in front of her.
She clears her throat.
“I brought you here today because I would like to discuss a subject that I believe may be of some interest to you.”
Chat tilts his head, his tail swishing behind him.
“This is only getting more ominous. Should I be worried? I feel like I should be worried.”
Marinette turns, pulling down the projector screen in one fluid motion as the lights flicker off. Chat glances around in alarm, only to settle once he notices Tikki floating by the light switch.
“Thank you, Tikki,” she says. “Now, let us begin.”
She presses the button on the remote in her hand and the projector whirs to life, bathing the room in blue light. Marinette doesn’t need to look behind her to see the words displayed on the screen. They’re practically burned into her sclera now, considering how many hours she’s poured into making this PowerPoint.
“Reasons to date me: a presentation by Marinette Dupain-Cheng?” Chat’s voice rises, teetering on the edge of a crack. “Mari, wait, what is this?”
Marinette holds up a hand to stop him.
“Please save all of your questions for the allotted question and answer period at the end,” she says, biting her tongue to keep from blurting out anything too embarrassingly telling like if I don’t get through this right now, I’m pretty sure I never will, or I want to kiss you on the mouth. With my mouth.
Chat merely gapes at her incredulously as she clicks through to the second slide in her presentation. The word ‘intro’ is emblazoned at the top in bold, aggressively pink letters.
“As you know, we are both superheroes, tasked with protecting the city of Paris and her denizens from threats both within…and without.”
The slide changes, showcasing a highlight reel of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s best takedowns (courtesy of the Ladyblog, of course).
“Although a noble undertaking, it is not one without risk. We’ve occasionally had some pretty close calls, and this has got me thinking.”
The next slide is just a stock image of a random woman, one hand raised to her chin in mock pensiveness.
“What if there’s an accident tomorrow and I never see you again? Nothing in life is guaranteed, and I can’t stand the thought of something happening to one of us and denying us the chance to have this conversation. Or going through the rest of my life without you ever knowing how I feel.” Marinette tries to ignore the way her voice shakes. She’s only partially successful. “S-so I figured I should probably tell you this… Um, so here goes?”
She feels Chat’s eyes boring into the side of her head, glowing brightly in the darkness of her bedroom. Terrified to see the expression on his face, Marinette keeps her gaze very carefully pinned to the screen, like she needs any help remembering her talking points. (She doesn’t.)
Another click and the screen changes. They’re at the meat and potatoes of her presentation now.
“Reason number one to date me: as the daughter of a baker, I have access to a nearly unlimited supply of baked goods of all varieties. By dating me, you too would be able to benefit from an all-access pass to the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie—the number one bakery in all of Paris according to a very legitimate survey that was conducted by someone who definitely isn’t me…”
Chat huffs slightly at that, and even Tikki lets out a giggle from across the room. Success.
“Reason number two. As you may know, I happen to have a passion for design and creating things. As my boyfriend, you would be first in line to receive a variety of unique and trendy items, including but not limited to: hats, sweaters, mittens, scarves, and more!” She adopts her best enthusiastic salesman voice as the slideshow continues to play behind her, cycling through the various gifts she’s made for friends and family over the years.
The last image in the queue appears, and she hears Chat’s breath catch, arrested at the sight of a very familiar blue scarf.
Marinette had originally taken the picture to send to Alya, to celebrate the completion of a project she’d spent so many late nights agonizing over. In it, she’s posing dorkily in front of her vanity mirror, soft blue fabric draped haphazardly around her neck as she beams like a fool into the camera.
It’s not a particularly flattering photo, nor one she ever intended for Adrien to see. But something—some tiny voice—had compelled her to include it at the last minute, and she’s grateful for that spur-of-the-moment decision now, if only for the way it’s caused Chat’s expression to shift, something soft and wonderful overtaking his features.
Marinette holds his gaze for a moment, suspended in luminescent green.
She wonders what he’s thinking.
And whether, perhaps, he might be thinking about kissing her (...because she’s certainly thinking about kissing him).
Before she can do anything to satiate her curiosity—and oh boy, is that a thought—the slide is changing again; breaking the spell that has fallen over them and pulling Chat’s focus toward what lies above her head and over her shoulder.
He blinks once.
Twice.
Then he bursts out laughing.
Marinette whirls, wondering what could possibly have caused such a reaction.
To her horror, she finds the entire screen taken up by another series of photos, each one more embarrassing than the last. She’s at the Grévin museum, standing next to the wax figure of teen heartthrob and fashion model Adrien Agreste, wearing possibly the stupidest, most lovesick expression known to humankind.
OH NO.
She blushes an incandescent shade of red, cursing herself for her forgetfulness as she frantically clicks to the next slide.
This is what I get for staying up until four am working on this godforsaken thing!!!!!!
The slide disappears. Chat’s guffawing, unfortunately, does not.
“I, uh, meant to delete that one...” Marinette says, her voice strained even to her own ears.
Chat, oblivious to the psychic damage she’s just suffered, wipes a tear of mirth from his eye, straightening from where he’d been doubled over. “W-were you drooling in that last photo?”
Marinette very deliberately avoids eye contact.
“No,” she says, like a liar.
Chat’s smirk is far too knowing.
“Moving right along!” Marinette says, raising her voice slightly to drown out his snickering. “The third and final reason to date me… is that I’m cute. So there.” She sticks her tongue out at him in a fit of petulance, but Chat merely laughs again, hands raised between them in a gesture of surrender.
“Hey, can’t argue with you there,” he says, giving her a look full of such warmth that it causes her toes to curl in her slippers.
Marinette purses her lips, tamping down the giddy smile threatening to overtake her serious mien. She can’t get distracted now. She still has to get through her concluding slides.
“In conclusion, there are many reasons that you, Adrien Agreste, should date me, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”
A rapid-fire highlight-reel plays on the screen, cycling through the best images from earlier in her presentation, along with a few newer ones.
“You acquire: a near limitless supply of baked goods. Cozy homemade clothing and other gifts. A cute girlfriend.”
“And I acquire—” here she’s inserted the cover of a recently published teen fashion magazine. The garish headline reads: ‘Adrien Agreste voted Paris’s Dream Boyfriend for third year in a row!’
Marinette’s lips curve upwards when Chat lets out a groan. She knew he would appreciate that one.
“Paris’s Dream Boyfriend. Who, as luck would have it, also happens to be my dream boyfriend too.”
At this point it feels like her heart has taken up permanent residence in her throat, her chest too full to contain it any longer.
“The boy who could have anyone in the world, but who I’m hoping might be willing to settle for me instead. The boy who I fell in love with at first sight, and then kept falling for again, and again, and again, and again.”
She clicks the button on the remote to bring them to the final slide, stuffing her hands in her pockets to hide how they’re shaking.
“Sooo… are there any questions?”
-x-
Chat stares at her blankly for what feels like an eternity. Then he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing.
“Plagg, claws in.”
Marinette winces against the sudden brightness, squinting until the green light fades.
When her eyes readjust, it is Adrien who sits motionless before her, his face pale in the gloom. The last vestiges of magic dissipate around him, tiny sparks of glitter clinging lovingly to the edges of his hair and clothing.
He opens his mouth to speak, but a loud groan cuts him off, shattering the stillness of the moment with the force of a thunderclap.
“Finally!” A little black blob floats into view, lingering in front of Marinette’s nose with the smug satisfaction of a well-fed housefly. “I thought you two would never get it togeth—URGH!”
Suddenly the blob disappears, tackled in midair by a furious blur of red.
“Plagg, be quiet!” Tikki squeaks indignantly, her sideswipe carrying them both clear over the edge of the loft and through the ceiling beyond before Plagg can get a word in edgewise.
Nonplussed, Marinette stares after them for a moment, before turning her gaze back to Adrien.
Adrien, who still has yet to show any signs of life, having apparently been rendered mute with shock by her confession.
Well, this is going swimmingly, Marinette thinks, as silence blankets the room once more. She tries not to let the encroaching panic squeeze the air from her lungs and can’t help wishing, in a moment of weakness, for Tikki and Plagg to return; if only to save them from this suffocating nothingness.
And then there’s a breath.
“Did you mean it?”
The words cross the space between them, skipping like pebbles over a pond, leaving ever-expanding ripples in their wake. They’re faint—barely audible over the whir of the projector, in fact—yet they ring like church bells in Marinette’s ears.
“Did you mean it?” Adrien asks again, stronger this time. “Do you really…?” Love me, he clearly intends to say, but his voice fails him at the last second.
Luckily Marinette understands. She always understands.
“Yes.” She can’t bring herself to look away, greedily cataloguing the micro emotions flickering across his face as he stares back at her. “Yes, I meant it.”
“Oh.” Adrien looks, strangely, like he might cry. “Okay,” he breathes.
Marinette inches forward, moving slowly so as not to startle him.
“Okay?” She repeats, hardly daring to hope that he means what she thinks he means. She stands in front of him now, close enough to reach but not enough to crowd. He’ll come to her when he’s ready.
She watches the way happiness morphs his features, lighting him up from within until he almost hurts to behold; brilliant and bright and beautiful like a starbeam.
Adrien leans forward, wrapping his arms around her middle and burrowing his face into her stomach. She cards a hand through his silky blonde hair, the other rising to cradle the back of his neck.
“Okay,” he says again, and despite the fact that his voice is muffled, Marinette can tell that he means it too.
Just like she can feel, rather than see, the moment that he smiles.
-x-
Eventually, they move to her chaise lounge, lured by the promise of much more comfortable cuddling positions.
Marinette reclines on her back, Adrien’s entire body draped bonelessly over hers as he dozes. His head is nestled into the crook of her shoulder, arms and legs wrapped around her like he’s worried someone might come and try to separate them while he sleeps. Marinette doesn’t mind the way he clings to her like a limpet, though. She’s more than happy to provide him with as many cuddles as he wants, understanding that his implicit desire for physical contact probably stems from being deprived of it for so long.
Although her left arm is starting to go slightly numb…
Attempting to shift discreetly to alleviate the pins and needles, Marinette freezes when she feels Adrien stir.
“‘m I too heavy?” He murmurs sleepily, his eyelashes fluttering against the bare skin of her neck.
Marinette smooths his hair back from his forehead with her free hand, gazing down at him tenderly.
“No, silly,” she says, her smile growing when Adrien chases her fingers, butting up against them like a cat seeking scratches. “You barely weigh anything, actually. I don’t know what kind of low-carb, low-joy diet your staff has you on, but I can tell you right now that shit is not gonna fly around here. As soon as my parents find out that we’re dating, they’re gonna ply you with so many pastries your dietician will probably have to go off on stress leave.”
“Mm, sounds yummy…” Adrien hums, his eyes slipping closed again, expression blissful at the thought of baked goods. “You know I love your parents’ pastries…”
Almost on cue, his stomach roars its approval, letting out an earth-shattering growl.
Adrien’s eyes fly wide open and he’s up and off of her in a shot, his face glowing redder than she’s ever seen it. Even the tips of his ears are flushed from where they poke out of his hair. Marinette can’t help but find the sight hopelessly endearing.
“I’m so sorry!” Adrien babbles, waving his arms wildly. He looks mortified. “I had to head out on patrol right after I got home in order to make it here on time, so I didn’t really have a chance to eat anything…”
Marinette’s heart clenches at the image of him rushing home after fencing practice—or Chinese lessons, or whatever extracurricular activity he had on his overstuffed schedule for that evening—in such a hurry to make it over to her house that he forewent supper.
She allows the fond, ooey-gooey smile she’s been fighting to slide onto her face. “Well, we can’t have that now can we?” She quips, getting to her feet.
Grabbing him by the hand, she begins pulling Adrien towards her trapdoor, only to halt when he digs in his heels, shooting her a panicked glance.
“Wait, aren’t your parents here? Won’t they see me?” He eyes the door nervously, as though her parents are liable to burst through it at any moment.
“Nope,” Marinette tugs at him gently, urging him forward. Now that he’s mentioned food, she can’t ignore the persistent rumbling in her own stomach. She’d been too worked up to eat earlier, but now that the proverbial storm has passed, she’s positively famished.
“They’re catering an event out of town tonight, and it’s not supposed to finish until late, so they decided to just stay the night there. Which means we’ve got the place all to ourselves...” Her grin takes on a distinctly sly edge.
Adrien looks like he can’t for the life of him decide whether to be relieved or even more worried at that news.
Smart man, Marinette thinks with a smirk.
She leads him downstairs, ignoring the part of her brain that points out how unnecessary the gesture ultimately is. Adrien has been in her house many times before, after all, and he knows his way around. But Marinette isn’t quite ready to let go just yet, and she’s more than willing to take any excuse she can if it means getting to hold his hand for slightly longer.
Besides, if the way his fingers are interlaced with her own is any indication, Adrien doesn’t appear to mind the contact in the slightest.
“By the way,” Marinette says when they reach the kitchen area. “In the interest of full disclosure, I feel like I should warn you that the only thing I am confident in my ability to cook is pancakes. Are you okay with that?”
A peculiar look flashes across his face, and Adrien’s hand tightens briefly around her own.
“Pancakes, huh...?”
She waits—for him to process whatever he’s currently grappling with; for an explanation, if he’s able to give one. She would happily wait for him forever, just holding his hand and keeping him grounded if that was what he needed.
Finally, Adrien’s expression clears; his shoulders relaxing as the shadows are banished to the far corners of his mind. They’re not completely gone from his green eyes, but they’ve been put away for now—shelved for later, to be dealt with another day.
He gives her an easy smile and releases her hand, the corners of his eyes crinkling when she instinctively smiles back.
“Whatever my lady desires,” he says as she turns away to reach into the refrigerator. “I am more than happy to have pancakes for dinner if it means getting to be here with you.”
Marinette flushes to the roots of her hair, nearly dropping the carton of eggs and the milk she’s holding.
“Not fair,” she grumbles, pretending to dig around for more ingredients as she waits for her face to cool down. “Catching me off guard like that…”
When she finally emerges and meets his eye, Adrien merely gives her an unrepentant grin, looking devilishly handsome as he leans against the kitchen counter, sleep-rumpled clothing and all.
This boy will be the death of me, she thinks, eyeing the long lines of his body and the disastrous state of his bedhead. And to that death, I submit willingly.
Before she can get any funny ideas—namely about abandoning their pancake venture, and finding different, more exhilarating ways of satisfying their hunger—a nasally voice suddenly pipes in from her left.
“I don’t know about you, Sugarcube, but these two are so sickeningly sweet it’s almost enough to turn my stomach.” Plagg’s tone is thick with disgust, his nose upturned as he observes them from his spot on the back of the sofa.
“Oh hush,” Tikki's eyes are warm with fondness when she pops into view. “I happen to like sweet things, you know,” she says, flying up to Marinette’s face and nuzzling her cheek affectionately.
Plagg floats closer, his little face puckering as he scrutinizes the ingredients laid out on the counter, no doubt disappointed by the lack of cheese. “Well, there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.”
Without turning, Adrien plucks his kwami neatly out of the air, before depositing him in his shirt pocket.
“Be good,” he tells his pocket, giving the wriggling lump in it a firm pat.
Plagg yowls in outrage, the sound no less potent through the layers of fabric.
Adrien glances up, catching Marinette and Tikki’s twin looks of disbelief.
“What?” He asks, flushing slightly. “He was ruining the moment.”
-x-
Marinette whips up the batter in record time, helped significantly by her hunger, and the fact that she pretty much knows the recipe by heart at this point, seeing how it’s one of only two that she can make. Pancakes are usually her go-to meal when her parents are away, or when they don’t have time to make dinner for whatever reason. The recipe is practically idiot-proof, and although it couldn’t perhaps be included on the list of most nutritious supper options, there is something profoundly satisfying—and downright illicit—about the feeling of eating breakfast at dinnertime.
She dishes up the first batch, heaping them on a plate and dropping them in front of Adrien where he sits at the counter. Marinette is pleased with how they’ve turned out—all golden brown and delicious smelling; curlicues of steam wafting in the air above them. It’s an accomplishment to be proud of, especially considering the fact that the first pancake is notorious for being a dud.
When Adrien doesn’t make a move to eat, however, she nudges the syrup toward him.
“Eat,” she tells him firmly, turning her attention back to the pan and the next round of batter.
She waits with bated breath, only relaxing when she hears the tell-tale sound of cutlery clinking on dishware.
“How are they?” She asks after a while, focusing her attention on the pancakes in front of her. They’ve begun to firm up around the edges, bubbles just starting to form in their centres. A few minutes more and they’ll be ready to flip.
She hears a sniffle, and then Adrien responds, his voice thicker than normal. “Good. They’re good.”
Pancakes all but forgotten, Marinette spins in place, her jaw going slack when she notices the fresh tear tracks on his cheeks and the lingering sheen in his green eyes.
She surges forward, her stomach filling with dread.
“Oh my god, are they that bad?” She gazes down at the plate in horror, wondering how she could have possibly bungled the recipe so badly that Adrien would be reduced to tears upon trying to eat them. Her hands flail uncertainly between them as she tries to determine whether her first course of action should be to throw the offensive plate in the garbage—where it clearly belongs—or to comfort Adrien. He sniffs again, and just like that, her mind is made up.
Gently clasping his face between her palms, she wipes away any remaining traces of moisture with her thumbs, staring at him in concern.
“What’s wrong, kitty?” She keeps her voice soft, trying to soothe him with more than just her touch. “You know you don’t have to eat them if they’re that bad. I promise I won’t take it personally.”
“No, no it’s not that,” Adrien pulls away, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand. The other reaches out to clasp her wrist before she can withdraw fully, keeping her firmly at his side. “It’s not the pancakes, I promise. They’re actually really good.”
He meets her eyes then, and Marinette feels her heart stutter, stop, and restart at lightspeed when she takes in the sheer amount of adoration in his gaze. It’s overwhelming and invigorating and humbling all at once, to see his feelings so clearly laid out in his eyes.
“I’m just happy,” Adrien says earnestly, wearing such a sweet and soft look that it sets her soul alight. “I’m really, really happy.”
“O-oh,” Marinette blinks, her face flushing fire-engine red. “Well, I’m happy too... Especially now that I know I didn’t accidentally poison you or something.” She mutters under her breath, glancing at the pancakes still left on his plate.
Adrien grins, his hand slipping into her own. “Nope, no poison. Although now that you mention it, there was this really weird aftertaste…”
“STOP, are you serious?” Marinette scrambles for his fork, spearing a piece of pancake and shoving it into her mouth. She chews briefly, swallows, then levels him with a thunderous look.
“They taste completely fine, you ass!” She swats at him, but Adrien simply bursts out laughing, leaning forward to clutch at his stomach as he pretends to groan pitifully.
“Quick, call 112!”
Marinette growls.
"Oh, you're gonna need 112 all right, especially after I'm through with you!"
Yet before she can enact her (well-deserved) vengeance for the slight against her cooking, Marinette's attention is forcibly drawn to the rather unpleasant acrid smell emanating from the stovetop.
“OH NO, MY PANCAKES!” She hollers, running back to the stove to try to salvage the charred remnants of her own supper.
Adrien, if possible, only laughs harder.
And afterwards, as she scrapes the blackened disks of dough into the garbage can, listening to her boyfriend laugh with Tikki and Plagg about her catastrophic culinary failure, Marinette can’t help but think that maybe sacrificing her dinner was worth it after all.
Besides, she can always steal some of Adrien's pancakes later when he isn't looking.
-x-