Chapter Text
In the end, they really had to thank Nathanael. After all, it had all started because of him… actually, you could say it had started with the akumatized version of him – the Evillustrator. It was because of him that Marinette and Chat had found themselves having to work together to bring the boy back to normal. So, therefore, it had been him who had ignited that spark of curiosity Adrien held regarding Marinette from then on.
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After the fight against the Evillustrator, Adrien became rather curious about one Marinette Dupain-Cheng. If he was being honest, she had basically gotten them out of that glass box, and he had been secretly amazed by her attitude during the whole situation. The Marinette he’d worked with was calm and collected, unlike the Marinette he interacted with as Adrien, who easily became a stuttering mess whenever he approached her. Adrien had decided he liked the new version of Marinette better, and had made it his mission to find out more about her.
The night of the attack, Adrien had transformed into Chat, ignoring Plagg’s grunts of disapproval, leaping through the city, from rooftop to rooftop until Marinette’s parent’s bakery came into view. He had then knocked on her window, making her jump from her chair, and she had greeted him with a confused expression, going up to her balcony to ask him if everything was okay. From then they started talking, Chat making snarky remarks, cat puns and flirtatious comments, Marinette rolling her eyes and sassing him from head to toe. It had indeed been an eventful night, but neither knew what that night would turn into in the following weeks.
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“Oh, I’m going to love this,” beamed Plagg, while Adrien told him his plan for that day. Sometimes the boy had a sudden urge to swat that little creature like he’d swat a fly.
It had been a couple of weeks since his first visit to Marinette and, against his better judgement, it had become a regular thing. Sometimes it was just a quick visit during a patrol night, but most of the days, he just went there because he wanted to and it would become a two-hour-long visit, where they sat on her balcony, ate mountains of cookies – the best cookies he’d ever tasted, for that matter – and appreciated the dreamy atmosphere of a Parisian night while chatting about her latest designs or the latest akuma attack.
“Thanks Plagg, appreciate the support.” Adrien rolled his eyes at the kwami. He had come to the realization that he’d gotten to know more of Marinette in those couple of weeks as Chat than what he’d know since the first time he’d met her as Adrien. He had also come to the realization that whenever things got… bad at home, he’d turn to her for comfort, even though she knew nothing about his personal problems.
“C’mon kid, you don´t actually think that’s gonna work, do you?” the kwami asked as Adrien glared at him. “The girl practically runs in the opposite direction whenever she sees you, and you want to talk to her? Do you even have something to talk about?”
“I told you, I’ll ask her for her notes after class, it’s not that hard Plagg. Then the conversation will just flow.” he told his little companion as he prepared his bag for school.
“We’ll see about that. I’m just happy I’ll be there to watch it. Good luck.” he said, floating into Adrien’s bag as he slung it across his shoulder and rushed to get to school.
Apparently, Marinette hadn’t had the same worry, hurrying inside almost twenty minutes late. She lived across the street yet Adrien could count with one hand the times she had actually come before the class started. Why was she always so late? There were so many things he still didn’t know about Marinette and he had taken a sudden interest in finding them out.
He hadn’t noticed before that she tapped her fingers on the table whenever she was trying to solve a difficult task, or the way she bit her lower lip so she didn’t laugh out loud at something Alya had said. But when Marinette did laugh, he couldn’t help smiling at the familiarity of it, since he’d grown used to hearing that laugh over the last couple of weeks.
Nino’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts. “Chill dude, class is almost over.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, confused by his friend’s observation.
“You keep glancing back there at the clock, bro. Are you in a rush or something?”
A sudden heat creeps through his cheeks and he scratches the back of his head, trying to come up with an excuse. “Yeah the- the clock, well… you see, this class, it’s-“
“Boring the hell out of you and you just want it to end? Yeah, same.” Nino grunts quietly and Adrien nods, secretly grateful that his friend didn’t wait for him to finish his lie.
The boy takes another risky glance behind his shoulder. Marinette was scribbling something on her notebook, Marinette was smiling at Alya, Marinette was looking straight at him- Marinette was looking at him… shoot, he’d been staring. Her eyes widen slightly and her face turns pink as he gives her an hesitant smile and turns back around, cringing at himself for being so obvious. Behind him, Alya’s quiet chuckle can be heard and he inwardly groans.
After that embarrassing god-knows-which class, Adrien waits for Marinette to leave the room while Nino goes to his locker. As she walks past him with Alya by her side he marches up to catch them.
“Hey, Marinette?” he calls and the girls turn around. As soon as Alya sees him, she gives her friend a smug smile and excuses herself.
“Y-yes?” her face reddens again.
“Could you perhaps lend me your… Physics notes?” he says, trying hard to remember which class they’d just had.
For a moment, Marinette looks taken aback. “Isn’t Physics your favourite subject?”
Good one, Agreste, even she remembered that but it had completely slipped his mind while making that not-so-thoroughly thought out plan. “Yeah, it’s just that- uhm- I didn’t quite pay attention to this class. I got… distracted.” Well, that was not a complete lie.
“Y-yeah, sure. Let me just…” she pulls her notebook out of her bag and, after almost dropping everything in the floor, hands it to him hesitantly.
“Thanks Pr- Marinette!” his eyes widen as the nickname he calls her as Chat almost slips out of habit, but it seems like she doesn’t hear it.
“Thank you too… I mean, uh- you’re welcome.” she shakes her head, her bangs falling in front of her eyes. “I should- get going, uhm- b-bye.” and with that she is off to Alya’s side again, before he can even reply.
Well that was a disaster… he thinks, just as he feels something stir in his bag. Probably Plagg laughing his ass off because of his failure. He elbows the bag and smiles as he hears a tiny ouch.
The rest of the day goes by slowly. That day was Visiting Marinette day, so naturally, it goes by agonizingly slow.
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After dinner - which takes longer than expected as Nathalie decides to show him his schedule for the next week- Adrien bids his goodbyes and makes sure no one will disturb him for the rest of the night before going up to his room and shutting the door slowly.
“Oh kid, I still can’t get over what happened to you.” Plagg chuckles mockingly, pretending to wipe a tear form his eye.
Adrien glares at him but still provides him with a plate full of Camembert, which he devours in less than two minutes.
“Ready?” Adrien grins, just as the kwami swallows the last piece of cheese.
“Ugh… you teenagers with your pathetic teenage love.” he rolls his eyes at the blond, who narrows his eyes at him. “I’m going to need the best Camembert you can get me so I can suffer through that.”
“It’s not teenage love, me and Marinette are just friends.”
“Whatever you say, lovebird.” Plagg teases.
“Plagg, claws out!”
Chat runs through the rooftops of Paris, the wind dancing across his face as he nears the Dupain-Cheng bakery. The lights from Marinette’s room are on and he peeks inside, where the girl stands next to a mannequin, her brows furrowed in concentration, sketch book in her hand. He knocks on the window and watches with amusement as she jumps a little like she always does, and then turns towards the window and rolls her eyes at him. It’s his cue to enter through the trapdoor.
“Hey, Princess.” he says as he swiftly lands on her bed and jumps to the ground.
“Hey, dork,” she replies, ruffling his hair quickly, but otherwise too focused on what she’s doing to look up at him. “Thought you’d never show up.”
“Sorry, got held up by civilian me stuff.” She hums in response, and he gets closer, but the girl still doesn’t fully acknowledge him. “And what is diverting your attention from your knight in shining armour tonight?”
“Trying to picture how this design I made will look like when it’s done, but this is a female mannequin, and this design is for a man.” she explains vaguely, looking from her sketch book to the mannequin.
“A female mannequin?” he chuckles and she glares at him, but a smile plays on her lips. “Any boy you have in mind for this design?” he waggles his eyebrows, getting closer to her and she pushes his face away.
“No, actually, just experimenting,” she says, and they stay quiet for a minute, Chat watching her frustration grow by the second until she just sighs and looks at him. “This isn’t gonna work, come here.”
She grabs him by the shoulders before he has even registered her words and turns him so that he is right in front of her. “Stay still, I’m going to take your measurements.” she looks at him and he nods, still at a loss of words from being so easily maneuvered by her. Marinette was stronger than she looked. The girl snatches a measuring tape from her desk and comes back to stand in front of him, and he feels his cheeks heat up from being scrutinized by her.
“Do you want me to model for you, Princess?” he smirks, trying to conceal how this situation is strangely having an effect on him.
She rolls her eyes and slowly wraps the tape around his chest and his breathing stops for a few moments as he watches her -her face a little flustered- taking notes. She holds the tape there for a few seconds more than necessary and then moves her hand up to his arm, to hold it up, since it seems like he’s not capable of doing it himself. “Keep your arm like this.” she tells him, looking up into his eyes and suddenly she’s closer than he thought she’d be, her nose almost touching his, and he feels his face burning and his lips going dry, his body not moving despite his mind screaming at him to just lean backwards. She doesn’t move either for a second, her lips parting and her face turning a few shades darker, before she shakes her head and turns back to his arm, wrapping the tape around it and scribbling furiously a few measurements on her sketch book.
What exactly was that? She was so close but yet in that moment, he didn’t feel close enough. What was going on with him? He couldn’t say he had never imagined Marinette as more than a friend, he had to admit that the thought had crossed his mind before, but his lady was always in his head. Marinette was a mystery he wanted to uncover, but in trying to do so, he had gotten too attached. That wasn’t good, he was sure.
He gets brought back to reality as Marinette coughs, and he realizes he’d been staring at her. The heat crawls back to his cheeks and he can only imagine his face being as flustered as hers.
“I think we’re done with the measurements for tonight, kitty.” she puts the tape back in her desk and rubs her hands on her pink jeans.
“For tonight, hm? Want me to model for you again then?” he tries to be his natural flirty self, but his voice comes out raspy and he coughs to bring it back to normal.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice.” she teases him, flicking the bell on his neck, and he’s amazed by how unfazed she looks now, even though her face is still a pretty shade of pink. Maybe she can control her emotions better than he can, or maybe he’s just imagining this whole thing up and she really is unfazed by what just happened.
“Glad to be your only choice, Princess.” he finds his voice again and moves towards the ladder which leads to the trapdoor. “I better get going.”
“Yeah,” Marinette smiles at him. “It’s getting late.”
Before he leaves, Chat looks over his shoulder. “Look forward to being wrapped up in your measurement tape again, Princess.” he winks and gives her his normal two finger salute as her face turns bright red, before he disappears through the window.
As he jumps from building to building, Adrien thinks back to what had just happened with Marinette and finds himself unexpectedly smiling. Plagg is going to get the best Camembert he’s ever dreamed of when they get home.