Chapter Text
It was cold. The kind of cold that drew Paris in, seeping through the stones and washing over the streets, pushing residents through doors to escape it. It left silence in its wake, across the streets and alleys, broken only by the occasional rapid click of shoes followed by the squeak of hinges, bouncing from building to building.
At this late hour, and without snow to muffle, even the smallest sound was a canon firing.
He resisted the urge to tap his baton, the swish of his tail cutting through the air making enough racket in the stillness to wake half the city. His breath formed thick clouds in front of his face, and hugging his arms to his chest, it was finally time to admit that he was beginning to feel it too, even through the armored leather of his suit.
A tug in his mind. Plagg. Go home already. I’m cold and hungry.
Not an option.
Standing and stretching, Chat felt his back pop in a few places. The Eiffel Tower was beautiful against the night sky, glittering in the inky black. Had it been a few degrees warmer, he would have gladly scaled it to his favorite view of the Parisian skyline, but as it was, his Kwami had a point: he was cold and hungry. And tired, scrubbing at his sore eyes with the heels of his hands and wondering if they could look bloodshot despite the green. He needed to find shelter.
Master Fu’s home? No. It was late.
Nino’s? His father must have already sent someone there to find him.
There weren’t many other options.
Unless…
The rooftop terrace was just the same as last time he’d visited, with the exception of the planter boxes, now empty save for some frozen soil. The fairy lights remained dark, the little lawn chair and spool tea table both in their same spot, though they both looked in need of a cleaning. And the skylight hatch, covered in a thick, fitted tarp, that led to the room below.
Chat poised his hand to knock, then lowered it. She was probably asleep by now, bundled up in her bed, warm and cozy and safe. What right did he have to disturb her?
He let himself thump down into the lawn chair with a sigh, curling his arms around himself and drawing his knees up.
xxx
Hovering on the cusp of sleep, with a half-formed dream swirling before her, Marinette let herself burrow further under her blankets. She was nearly there: a party. Cake, drinks, music. And waiting for her on the dance floor, with stars in his eyes --
A thump snapped her back to her bed like a rubber band. Marinette blinked against the darkness, hearing Tikki let out a tiny sigh from her little cushion on the shelf above her head.
She should go right back to sleep. A quick glance told her the skylight hatch was locked, and even if it wasn’t, her terrace was five stories up. No one could get up there without considerable effort. Unless they were…
Frowning, Marinette left the cocoon of quilts and gently prodded Tikki with her finger. The Kwami stirred, giving her a bewildered look. Marinette only pointed upwards with a frown. If he was up there, she didn’t dare risk speaking to Tikki. His keen ears would pick up even the barest of whispers.
Tikki seemed to understand, zipping from her cushion and phasing through the ceiling. She returned a moment later, nodding her head and mouthing Chat.
Marinette chewed her lip. What was he doing here?
As quietly as she could, Marinette stood on her mattress and flicked open the hatch lock, pushing it open with a grunt. The draft guard her father installed to keep the winter air from pouring on her in her sleep made it tricky, but the small trap door finally moved enough for her to spy the end of a black leather belt on the balcony floor.
Hefting the hatch up further, a blast of icy air hit her face and made Marinette cringe, her sweater doing next to nothing to protect her. She blinked against it, and when her vision cleared, she found a pair of glowing green eyes peering down at her from the lawn chair.
“Chat Noir?”
He gave her a small, lopsided smile. “Good evening, Marinette. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She stepped up using the shelves behind her bed as ladder and glanced around. “What are you doing here? Is there an Akuma?” And then, on a whim, added: “Is Ladybug with you?”
Chat shook his head, his blond hair bobbing around his ears. “Not to worry, Princess. All is calm, and I imagine my lady is somewhere warm and safe.”
He wore a grin, but after all the time they spent together, Marinette knew his ticks. The way the corners of his mask remained smooth told of a false smile, the brave face he put on in the face of danger and doubt. And on his neck, on the tiny bit of skin that his suit didn’t cover, goosebumps covered his flesh.
“Do you want to come in?”
He hesitated. “I don’t want to impose.”
“Chat.” She held out a hand and curled her fingers, beckoning him. “It’s cold. Come inside.”
It took another short bout of staring before he uncoiled himself from the chair, following Marinette through the hatch to land on her bed in a crouch. She closed the trap door and turned the lock, then settled beside him. Chat was quiet; that alone set off alarm bells, and coupled with his pensive stare was worrisome in a dozen different ways. Marinette put a hand on his arm.
It was like ice.
“Chat,” she breathed, finally noting his flushed cheeks and red nose, his pale lips. “You’re freezing.”
He had the nerve to wink at her. “Nothing a superhero can’t handle.”
It was so like him that Marinette pondered flicking his frozen ear, settling instead for yanking his arm and forcing him to sit as she gathered the blankets and quilts from her bed and wrapped them around him. Satisfied with the kitty bundle she’d made, Marinette stuck a finger in his face.
“Stay here,” she ordered, then descended down the stairs and left her room.
Her mother and father were still awake, watching television as she came down the stairs and went straight for the kettle on the stove. It was still warm.
“Marinette?” Her mother asked. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah Mom,” she lied, turning on the burner under the kettle. “Just can’t sleep, I think I need a snack.”
Her father waved a finger in her direction. “Nothing too heavy, now. You’ll wake up with a stomach ache.”
“Yes, dad.”
As the kettle boiled, Marinette loaded a dessert plate with a leftover croissant, pear slices from the fridge, a few squares of chocolate, and, remembering Plagg, a small wedge of brie.
xxx
It took several minutes for the feeling to bleed back into his fingers, wrapped up in enough blankets for at least three beds. They were warm, too - she must have been sleeping in them just before he disturbed her. Chat just barely managed to not sniff them, frowning at himself.
The door to her room creaked open, followed by it closing and light footsteps. A hand appeared at the foot of the loft, setting down a plate. Then Marinette came back into view, climbing up to sit beside him.
“Here,” she pushed a steaming mug at him, waiting patiently as he extracted his arms from the blanket nest she’d made.
Chat took a sip and closed his eyes. It was honeyed tea with cream, sliding hot down his throat and sending warmth through his numb body. She watched him in silence as he drank.
“Thank you, Marinette.”
She scooted over to sit beside him, and Chat smiled. Her pajama pants were covered in cartoon owls, her socks mismatched.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s nothing a cup of tea with a lovely girl won’t fix.”
He was hoping to get away with just an unplanned visit. But Marinette, for all her stammering and awkwardness, was razor sharp. He put on his best grin. It didn’t work.
“Chat.”
With a puff of breath he let his face relax, sipping at his tea. He could feel Marinette’s gaze glued to the side of his face like a hot ray of sunshine, burning against his frozen skin. He didn’t know where to start. Or if he should even start at all.
“Maybe you should talk to Ladybug about it?”
The laugh he let out was soft and humorless as he pictured Ladybug, in all her radiant beauty and power, saving Paris time and time again. “My lady has plenty to worry about. She doesn’t need this tomcat’s grumbling on top of everything else.”
Chat didn’t have to turn his head to see Marinette’s frown, the crease in her brow that her bangs wouldn’t hide. He reached for a square of chocolate to get away from it.
“Grumble to me, then?”
He turned to her, with her dark hair slightly tangled from sleep, her giant, honest eyes. Chat was tired. Adrien was tired. One would think leading a double life would afford him some outlet for the less than pleasant experiences, but he found none. Adrien had to be perfect. Chat Noir had to be a hero. There was little margin of error.
Marinette’s pinky finger extended towards him. “Whatever you say won’t leave this room. Promise.”
Chat grinned, adding ‘intuitive’ and ‘empathetic’ to his list of descriptors for Marinette Dupain-Cheng as he extended a clawed pinky to hook around hers.
He was quiet for a spell. He didn’t even know how to begin unpacking his copious amounts of emotional baggage, the weight of which he felt more keenly with each passing day, as time stripped him of his boyish naivety and replaced it with cold truths. He took a breath. “My relationship with my father is… strained.”
Marinette didn’t say anything. He finished off the tea and let her take the mug from his hands, setting it on the shelves behind them.
“We got in an argument today,” Chat continued, though ‘argument’ was practically a euphemism for what transpired in his house a few hours earlier. Shouting. Accusations. A bravery fueled by anger and frustration boiling in his chest, until the sting of his father’s palm against his cheek snuffed it out. Adrien’s backside hitting the pristine marble floors, staring up in shock at the dawning horror slowly contorting Gabriel Agreste’s face.
‘Adrien--'
He ran. Not to his room, but straight out the front door, crossing the yard in record time and slamming into the iron gate, feeling it give and open, then tearing down the street as several voices called for him. Ducking into the first deserted alley he could find and summoning Plagg to escape to the rooftops. But he didn’t dare tell Marinette that he’d run away. For all he knew, it was on every news outlet in Paris. He could picture it: Adrien Agreste Missing.
“He wants me to be something,” his own voice sounded foreign to his ears, tiny and fragile. “But I don’t know if I can be that person anymore.”
He felt Marinette shift beside him. “What about your mother?”
Chat wanted to laugh. The very source of his fight with his father. “She’s gone.”
The room was still and quiet. Then a pair of skinny arms covered in knit cotton wound around his neck, whatever reservations Adrien might have had crumbling as he allowed himself to be cradled.
xxx
Marinette awoke slowly, feeling seeping into her dreams until pink clouds and flying kittens faded into quilts and pillows. She opened her eyes to see the tiniest hints of light coming through her windows. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, but her parents were likely already hard at work, the aroma of fresh baked goods beginning to float up to her room.
She should go back to sleep. Her alarm wouldn’t sound for at least another hour, maybe more. Stretching her legs just a little, Marinette sighed into her pillow.
A matching sigh came from over her shoulder. Marinette froze in place, her eyes snapping open.
There was warmth at her back.
Someone breathing.
And now that her eyes were adjusting to the dark, she could see an arm, the skin a little more tan than her own with a dark blue sleeve pushed almost up to the elbow, draped over her.
Her heart began to race, a litany of there is someone in my bed blaring in her mind. Marinette was two seconds from panic when she spied a little black shape curled up in the blankets near the wall, rising and falling in a steady rhythm and accompanied by tiny snores. It twitched and whined, whispering “...camembert,” with a purr.
Plagg.
Plagg was in her bed. Her sleep-heavy brain tried to catch up. Why was Chat Noir’s Kwami --
Oh.
The memory came back in a rush. Chat Noir had come to her terrace last night, frozen to the bone, his eyes distant. She’d brought him in, fed him, listened to him. Let him coil himself in her lap and fall asleep. She must have fallen asleep too at some point.
Turning her head, Marinette caught sight of a lock of pale gold before whipping her head back towards the wall where Plagg wriggled against her sheets. The arm in front of her was not covered in black leather, there were no claws, just a human arm with tiny wisps of fine blond hair and human fingers with neatly trimmed nails. The mental math began to add up to a frightening reality: Chat Noir was in her bed. Chat Noir had destransformed at some point during the night. Chat Noir was out of his suit and sleeping in her bed.
The transition from sleepy contentment to surging panic was fast enough to give her whiplash. With a shaking finger, she reached out to scratch at the top of Plagg’s head.
“Plagg,” she hissed. “Plagg, wake up.”
The Kwami let out an undignified snort, leaning into her touch. She tried again, calling his name louder. That finally got a reaction, but not from Plagg, but from Chat, who sighed again, curling himself around her. The arm in front of her pulled her back against his chest, and a puff of hot breath came through her hair to fan over her neck.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Squeezing her eyes shut, Marinette steeled herself, patting the arm in front of her.
“Chat,” she called. “Chat, wake up.”
Another sigh, then a murmur. Then a warm nose nuzzling at her scalp. Marinette groaned, resisting the urge to smack her palm against her face. This was not happening.
“Chat Noir.” She let her voice be firm, giving his arm several pats in rapid succession. His body jolted softly against her, a quick inhale of breath followed by a confused hum. The arm draped over her shoulder lifted.
“What the…” she heard him murmur, his voice rough with sleep. “Where--”
There was a good four seconds of perfect silence and stillness, sharp enough to hear a breeze blow past her window.
“Oh shit,” Chat swore, and Marinette almost laughed. She’d never heard him swear before. She kept her eyes tightly shut and willed herself not to smile.
“I didn’t see anything,” she said. “I promise.”
He sat up hurriedly, extracting himself from the pile of quilts they were both under, reaching over her head. Marinette heard Plagg squawk.
“What’s with the rude awakening? Can’t a Kwami get some breakfast before--”
“Later, Plagg,” Chat hissed. “Claws out!”
A flash of green filled her room, lighting up the darkness behind her eyelids. A hand patted her shoulder, and Marinette opened her eyes and turned to see Chat Noir’s mask and green eyes.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice low. “I didn’t mean to stay here all night.”
“It’s okay.” Marinette rubbed at one of her eyes, gritty with lingering sleep. “You should get home, though. Your father is probably worried."
His face fell. “Yeah.” he turned towards the terrace hatch, stopping halfway to drop back down. Chat took both of Marinette’s hands in his own.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice barely a breath as he kissed her knuckles. Then he pulled away, flicking open the hatch lock and disappearing through it, only a puff of frozen air to stand as evidence of his departure. Marinette stared at the space on her mattress he’d occupied only minutes before, and kept staring long after Tikki came out of hiding to join her.
xxx
The morning was even colder than the night, the streets of Paris covered with a layer of frost, the dawn breaking blue and grey. Had there been more clouds, Adrien would have expected snow, his breath fogging thick as he breathed. It was far colder without the suit as well, Plagg grumbling from within his sweater as he trudged towards his home.
He spotted the police vehicles from several blocks away, at least three of them, lined up in front of his father’s mansion. This was not going to be pleasant.
Officer Raincomprix saw him first, running up to Adrien while speaking into the intercom attached to his uniform.
He was led back to his home, a blanket was draped over his shoulders. Adrien felt oddly disconnected from it, numb, like it was happening to someone else. Nathalie came rushing from the front door, sliding to her knees and wrapping him up in a hug. When she pulled back, Adrien took in her exhausted appearance, her unkempt hair and red-rimmed eyes, and felt a hot wash of shame from head to toe. So much trouble he’d caused.
His father was in his study, hunched over in a chair with a glass tumbler of amber liquid in his hands. The glass fell to the floor and shattered as he shot across the room to where Adrien stood in the doorway.
He braced himself. But instead of another hand across his face, he found himself crushed against his father’s chest, a hand in his hair.
“My son,” his father whispered. “My Adrien. You’re safe.”
After the shock wore away, he let himself embrace his father.