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"...Princess?"
Clinging tightly to the top of the tree she'd landed in only seconds before her transformation faded, Marinette very slowly shut her eyes.
Of course Chat would be the one who found her.
She bit down the instinctive you just saw me, you dork, (because he had and he hadn't and the adrenaline from the fight might still be clouding her mind but she had more sense than that) and tried to turn it into a properly swoony, "Oh, Chat Noir! Wh-wh-what are you doing here?"
It came out a little flat because she hadn't properly adjusted to her 'distressed civilian' role yet, but thankfully, Chat appeared to dismiss it.
"I saw a kitten in a tree," he said teasingly, balanced easily on the top of his extended staff. "What kind of superhero would I be if I just walked by?"
Marinette had to physically sink her teeth into her tongue for a good five seconds to keep from saying, I don't think I'm the cat here, minou-minou.
"Nnnot a good one?" she ended up venturing meekly, and hated herself the moment the words were out of her mouth. If Chat ever found out she'd said that, she would never live it down.
(So, as it turned out, talking to one of your best friends while desperately trying to pretend you were someone else was difficult and awkward, but also...)
"Exactamundo," said the resident dork, flexing broadly. "I may not be Ladybug, but I assure you I'm no slouch."
(...undeniably hilarious.)
Impulsively, Marinette stuck her nose up. "Hm! Maybe I should still wait for Ladybug. She's prettier."
And immediately regretted it.
Nonononono! She was supposed to keep him from suspecting her as Ladybug! What was she saying?!
Chat drew himself up, looking more surprised than offended. "Excuse me?"
"Uhhhh... heheheh..." Marinette gulped.
Shoot.
Chat gave a little chin-jerk, like the one Chloé gave when she tossed her hair, and said, "Princess, I know Ladybug may be a classic beauty, but you really gotta look outside the box sometimes!"
"...Outside... the box."
The statement was too flat to be a question.
(Chat was one of the most 'classically beautiful' people she knew, second only to Adrien. It was true that it was more of a 'Classic bad boy' look than Adrien's, but still undeniably pretty. What sort of out-of-the-box thinking did he need her to do?)
The cat nodded wisely, and then pointed to his face. "You see this jawline?"
Marinette did, indeed, see that jawline.
"It may not look like much now—" (Marinette begged to differ.) "—but I assure you that this jawline can do wonders."
"Wonders?" she echoed, clamping her teeth down tight at the corner of her mouth to keep from grinning.
"High collars," said Chat, like it was the true secret of the universe. Then, "Sorry, did you want me to get you down from there?"
"I think not," was Marinette's arch, automatic response. "I'll wait for Ladybug. Unless you wanna show me that high collar of yours. Then I'll consider a rescue."
"Meowch," said Chat, laughing. "I'll... see if I can find her."
"Or a collar?" Marinette suggested hopefully.
The fashion designer in her was indubitably intrigued. Could a high collar accentuate a jawline perfectly like that? She must know.
It earned her an odd look from Chat, but he leaned away and started slowly descending anyway.
"Or the collar," he confirmed, and then paused. He looked up at her, the dappled sunlight that filtered through the akuma-made trees turning his kind face into something unearthly, something fey and wild and other, for one heart-stopping moment.
"...You know, princess? You aren't so bad."
The backhanded compliment hit her in a funny place, and she inhaled, intending to respond, but no duh ran into excuse me? ran into thank you ran into wait, what? and none of them escaped her in the end.
Chat disappeared while she was still gaping uselessly, and by the time she pulled herself together enough to shut her mouth, it was Tikki she was faced with.
Her kwami looked amused. "You do realize he could have gotten us down, right?"
Marinette blew a raspberry, feeling her face flush.
(To be honest, she wasn't quite sure she wanted Chat carrying her anywhere. Having that not-leather clad form against her body with only one or two measly layers of cotton of protection always left her feeling just a little bit... strange.
Strange in a way she hadn't decided whether she liked or not yet.
Much better to leave the Chat-handling for when she had a nice, protective, shock-absorbent suit to keep her from feeling any of... that too acutely.)
"I can get us down too," she protested, squirming at the tingles of yes-no-maybe-want spidering out from her gut.
"Without cookies?" Tikki questioned drily, and then, "—Oh."
Because Marinette was now very carefully scaling her way down the tree, hands and knees stinging as they were scraped raw by the loose bark.
"Without cookies," she confirmed in a grunt, and sighed in relief when she hit her first substantial, weight-holding branch.
"C'mon Tikki, we've got a city to save."
When she was properly spotted back up and back on the battlefield, Chat greeted her with a, "Ladybug! I've been looking for you!"
She pushed down the funny tangle of affection in her chest that he'd actually gone looking for her. "What's up?"
"I found someone stuck in a tree," he said, smiling easily, wryly. "Said she only wanted to be rescued by Ladybug. Can you believe that?"
It took everything in her not to let the snort escape her as she tossed her hair, just as he had earlier. "Of course I can. I am the pretty one, after all."
"Woooow."
Ladybug preened unrepentantly.
...Which was about when Chat slung an arm around her shoulders in a moment of utter unself-consciousness, and was also about when Ladybug's stomach, horror of horrors, decided to erupt in butterflies of all things.
"She's in the east block, highest tree at the back, by the way," he said, warm and rich and spine-meltingly low in her ear, apparently oblivious to the way she'd just gone stock still under his arm.
"Thhhhanks," Ladybug wheezed, voice strange under the pressure building in her chest, the panic crawling under her skin. "B-but, um, akuma! Akuma first!"
(Whywhywhywhy—
She could barely feel him through her suit! Why now? What was this?!)
Chat shot her a look nearly identical to the one he'd given her when she'd asked after the collar, but let her go, which was the important (...disappointing?) part.
"On it, my lady." And then he paused, plucking at the collar of his suit with an inquisitive frown. "Say, what would you think of a high collar on this?"
"Wear one," she said automatically, and then narrowly avoided facepalming. "...It'd look good, I'm sure."
Chat beamed, which wasn't really good for anyone's blood pressure.
"But do it later, because we have a mission."
"Yeah, yeah," said Chat, and settled into a battle stance as he looked around for the Enviromentalisp, watching the skyline for any trace of new trees being hissed up.
Ladybug joined him, privately hoping the akuma hiss her right to the top of another tree.
God knew it would be less humiliating than being down here.