Chapter Text
It was too early to wake up, Chloé could feel the sun on her face and she really wanted that ball of fire to explode just so she could rest more. She felt like she deserved to rest after the revelation she had the day prior. But as the seconds passed and more light could be felt on her closed eyes, the heiress knew she would have to open them soon, go about her day while trying to not think of Marinette and her pretty face and her shy smiles and her hair flowing in the wind and... She opened her eyes, she had already failed, the blonde sighed, she needed to focus on something else, no Marinette thoughts.
And so she stared at the ceiling. The pink ceiling. The ceiling that was not the one from her suite. She wasn't in her room. The girl lifted herself off the pillow she had been resting on and, after sitting up right, took in the rest of the room she was in. It seemed like an attic turned bedroom and every details of it screamed at her that she had already been to this room. That she could feel comfortable, safe, at peace here. She wanted to move, explore the place, wanted to remember why she felt that way in this room but as she moved toward the foot of the bed a pressure made itself known on her waist and brought her crashing back onto the bed. Chloé was about to complain quite audibly before she saw what was holding her down.
The baker girl.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Marinette was holding her.
The ravenette had her arms around the blonde waist and by the tight grip she had her in, Chloé could not escape the predicament she was in.
Not that this had reach her brain. She was silent, stunned, her breathing had stopped, she felt hotter than inside an oven. Her thoughts were a tangled mess of various screams. Which were about to exit her mouth when a red blur entered her vision and she felt a small paw rest on her lips. She looked down and saw a kwami, a red kwami with a black dot on its forehead, a ladybug kwami. Her need to scream came back stronger before the kwami flew to her at eye level and gave her the deadliest stare one could be given.
The kwami introduced herself, she was Tikki and she really did not want her holder to be woken up now, so Chloé was threatened with a fate that would make death look tame if she were to scream or raise her voice too high. Once Chloé had feverously nodded to Tikki's demands, the kwami gave her a warm smile before telling her that if she had question, she would try to answer them. And Chloé had questions, lots of them, she breathed deeply before locking eyes with the kwami and opening her mouth.
Marinette was beginning awaken from her slumber. She would hear tow voices near her, one that she recognized immediately, it was Tikki's but the other... She could almost put a name to it but the sudden panic that someone had seen her kwami and was talking to her cut her thoughts short, made her violently open her eyes and lift herself on her forearms.
As she got used to the blinding light of her room the figure next to her became clearer, she had gold pouring from her head, her eyes looked like the most beautiful of gem and the sun made her skin glow, to put it simply, the pig-tailed girl had what she believed was a goddess in her bed. She felt herself grow redder, she blinked multiple times before squinting at the now silent figure. Now that her eyes were correctly adjusted to light and she could admire the other girl in complete clarity which only colored her face in even more crimson as she saw who she had before her. The other girl was staring back at her with her head slightly tilted to the side and her full attention on the ravenette while her kwami gave her a shit-eating grin only rivaled by the ones of her destructive counterpart.
In her panic at the situation she was in, the shorter girl crawled backward and promptly fell of her bed, as she hit the floor she felt a sharp pain in her back and behind. Tikki flew after her and asked her in a second about a dozen variation of how well she felt and if she had hurt herself but Marinette was not focused on her in the slightest. No, she was focused Chloé. Chloé who was laughing at her but not in her usual haughty laugh. No. This laugh was louder, less structured, les theatrical and with far more uncontrolled snorts. And it made the heiress look more divine.
It was at that moment that Marinette realized that Chloé was not wearing anything, which was expected if she had stayed the night in her canine form. The wolf had never came wearing clothes. But it nevertheless made the already crimson faced girl grow a shade of red that could make the kwami of creation jealous. She sharply turned her head to the side until she heard a gasp followed by what she assumed was her blanket shifting around, this made her take a small peek toward the blonde who was looking away from her but by the color of her ears she was potentially as red as Marinette. Bursting laughing at he situation Marinette could not see Chloé grab one of her own pillow and throw it at the laughing girl with the accuracy and strength that is expected of one of Paris' hero.
They were both starting to calm down, Chloé's ammunition had run dry as she had thrown all the pillows she could find at Marinette while the latter's hysterical fit was slowing dying down. The heiress could see the confusion starting to grow in her eyes. She sighed peacefully and nodded toward Tikki, making the dark haired girl turn her head toward her kwami with a questioning look. As Tikki explained that she was going to answer her holder questions Chloé got off the bed, still clutching the blanket around herself and sat on the chair near Marinette's desk, wanting to observe the girl's reactions to the kwami answers.
Her questions were similar to the ones the blonde had asked. Her first one being why had Tikki revealed herself to Chloé. The answer was that her secret identity was not going to stay a secret to Chloé for long which seemed to confuse the ravenette more as she turned to Chloé, hoping she would give her more information. She only snorted and told her to let Tikki finish her explanation. As the kwami began to talk once more Chloé zoned out of their conversation, she wanted to engross herself in Marinette's beauty and had already heard about this almost an hour ago: apparently as she become more in tune with her canine self she would start to remember what she had done or what had happened to her in the moments she was not in control of herself and since her wolf self knew that Ladybug was Marinette, her human self would sooner or later learn of that fact, so Tikki had elected to reveal herself to make it easier on both girls while also retelling to Chloé how Ladybug met her other self.
After that first one, the questions had become more werewolf focused. Was it a disease ? Was she turned into one by an other werewolf ? Does she have any control over her wolf self ? And many other until it came to the one that Chloé had been the most existed to ask but that Marinette had asked warily. Could Chloé gain control of her other self ? No, she could not. But she could learn to influence her canine form, just as her canine form could learn to influence her. To which Chloé interposed herself to add, with slight annoyance, that she was pretty sure that the wolf already knew how to do that. She had not procured the two with why she believed so. After her numerous questions to Tikki she had felt a strong sense of clinginess toward Marinette. She had had to control herself to not jump back into the girl's arms and she was sure that this was at least partially because of her other self.
It was starting to get close to the time when the hotel staff would began to bother her on her off days when Chloé once more cut the hero and the kwami's back and forth to inform them of that fact and that she didn't want to be label as a missing person just because she wasn't in her suite. Marinette stood up with explosive force and with great excitement told the heiress that she would walk her back. Chloé shortly cut that idea, the walk from the Dupain-Cheng household to Le Grand Paris was too long and reiterated that she didn't want to throw the hotel in chaos on a Saturday morning. She could practically see the gears turn into the baker's girl head, how she frowned with the most adorable pout while trying to find a solution to the problem at hand. The ravenette eyes snapped with focuson Chloé before she asked her with a Cheshire grin how she felt about going on a swing with her favorite superhero.
As they swung above Paris, Ladybug could see stars in Chloé's eyes, entire clusters of them, it made her blush a similar color to her suit. But what was making her heartbeat faster and stronger that it had ever been before were the blonde's almost childishs laugh when they were free-falling after a particular high swing and how her hair flew in the air as if she was underwater. She could also see that her ears were quite red, Ladybug wondered if she was cold after all she was only wearing a crop top and shorts that she had gave her but the heiress was not shivering so the polka dotted hero could hope that it was because Chloé's mind was in a similar place as hers.
Not before long, they landed on the heiress balcony, it was not the most graceful landing for the Ladybug. As soon as their feet had touched the ground they had tripped over one another and were it not for her enhanced reflexes the hero was pretty sure that she would have ended up on top of Chloé, it was maybe the first time that she cursed those reflexes. Instead, only the blonde had ended on the ground glaring at Ladybug with her hand extended to be helped up. Ladybug helped her but did so with a bit too much force almost making them collide, leaving them only centimeters away from one an other, maybe the super reflexes were not so bad after all. Chloé's face grew red in a fraction of a second, backing a little away from the hero. Left with a small pout on her face, Ladybug only stared at the heiress. Kwamis she looked more than perfect, she always knew that factually she was a pretty girl but maybe seeing her with her hair styled by the wind did something to her or maybe it was the fact that she was wearing Marinette's clothes, ones she had made and that they fitted her as if Marinette had carved them on her body.
All this made Ladybug braver than she had ever been. Chloé was turned slightly away, mumbling about something that was not registering into the masked girl brain. She slowly approached the blonde whose mumbling progressively ceased with each step from the hero. They were at arms length when Ladybug rested her hand on Chloé's cheek, they brighten up with a deep scarlet and a burning warmth could be felt through the gloved hand of the hero. She looked the taller girl in the eyes as if trying to ask a question, one that was either not understood or not answer. Her gaze dropped to the heiress's lips and for what felt an eternity all she could see were soft pink lips with small bites at their sides. She lifted her gaze back to Chloé's eyes, this time they shone with something more pleasing than stars, with answers, a burning yes, an imploring please and a demanding now. With a smile Ladybug brought their lips closer and before they could met she heard the softest of whisper, one that could have been blocked out even by silence. To her it was the most deafening sound ever, three words that made her stare even deeper into Chloé's soul while setting hers ablaze.
”I love you.”