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It should be very clearly pointed out that Marinette never planned this. When she had become Guardian of the Miracle Box, it had made sense to get to know the individual Kwamis. Their personalities, favorite food, their quirks. But then Rooar had suggested that she should also learn about their abilities. What they excelled at, what disabilities their holder might face in battle, how their powers worked. It made sense at the time. Even Tikki had encouraged it, assuring her Chosen that she wouldn’t harbor any feelings of jealousy or ill will toward her for using other Kwami. After all, she was the Guardian now and she should understand her new wards better, if for no other reason than to match them with the right holder during future battles. With that kind of logic in mind, Marinette had gotten started.
And to be fair, at first it had been really fascinating to see how each Kwami differed. Take Barkk, for example. The Kwami of Loyalty, a playful and energetic dog-like Kwami. When she transformed with him, Marinette found her sense of smell was just as strong as any normal canine, and that his ability allowed her to track anyone she wanted to until time ran out. His downside was that the sense of smell could also be extremely distracting and he would require a holder who could manage and sort through the onslaught of scents without becoming overwhelmed. But he would be great for keeping tabs on the more elusive Akuma. Rooar, the Kwami of Inner Strength, transformed her into a Tiger themed heroine that was quick and agile, able to leap across rooftops without the help of a weapon. Unfortunately, wearers of the Tiger also tended to be a bit cocky and arrogant, so they weren’t always the best Team Players.
And then there was the Mouse, Mullo. The Kwami of Multiplication. Marinette had only had the pleasure of turning into Multimouse once before, but she had actually quite enjoyed the experience. She didn’t necessarily need to take Mullo out, but she had wanted to. Running across the rooftops was so different as Multimouse. She didn’t have her yo-yo to send her flying through the air, but she was fast. Much faster than she had ever been with the Ladybug Miraculous, and she always seemed to be drawn to shortcuts through the city that she previously never would have known about. A sixth sense, maybe? She was almost tempted to challenge Chat Noir to a race as Multimouse, before she recalled that as far as he knew, Multimouse was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. It was probably best not to let him see her while she wore Mullo’s pendant. But it wasn’t Chat Noir’s night to patrol, it was Ladybug’s night and she knew from what little her Partner could divulge of his Civilian life that he would be pretty busy with extracurriculars tonight. Piano and Chinese, if she recalled correctly. So really, this was the best night for her to transform into Multimouse and take to the streets. Which is exactly what she did.
Being Ladybug was exhilarating, she could never deny that and she adored Tikki. She wouldn't trade her for the world. But being Multimouse was freeing. As Ladybug, she had the whole of Paris counting on her to protect them from Hawkmoth. She was the Leader of Team Miraculous, as Alya had offhandedly dubbed them one day, and she was the only one who could purify Akuma and set the world to rights. The entire city depended on her being flawless and it was exhausting. But Multimouse didn’t have those responsibilities. In fact, the only one who had ever seen her as Multimouse was Chat Noir. Multimouse gave her a level of anonymity that she could only dream of as Ladybug. So when she left her balcony behind, leaping and bounding across the rooftops, she allowed herself to relax and just enjoy herself. She couldn’t remember ever just allowing herself to enjoy her time as Ladybug. Certainly never had she been so joyful and carefree as Chat Noir. She was certain quite a few Parisians thought she had a stick shoved up her butt for how serious she always tended to be. But that was Ladybug. Multimouse didn’t have that problem. Actually, she didn’t have any problems. If she wanted to goof off and do barrel rolls, if she wanted to flip and twirl through the air, then who was here to stop her?
Suffice it is to say, it’s that line of thinking that led her to this particular predicament. Kind of. Sort of. Well… okay, maybe this was just good ol’ fashioned, Marinette Dupain-Cheng luck. Because while she had been thoroughly enjoying herself for the literal first time ever, as she bounded across the rooftops, she hadn’t exactly been watching where she was going. It wasn’t like there was all that much to run into up here. Except, you know, an entire mansion belonging to Gabriel Agreste, father of her long-time crush Adrien Agreste, who was currently staring at her slack-jawed through the window she had just slammed into face first. Okay, first of all: ow. Her poor nose. Second of all, would someone please smite her where she stood. Tikki? Rooar? Anybody!? Of course not. Maybe if she asked really nicely, Chat would cataclysm her right in her stupid face. Adrien was the first to recover from the surprise, leaping up to open the window beside her, thus allowing her to peel herself from the glass and perch on the window sill.
“Are you okay, Miss…” he trailed off and for a second she was confused because he knew who she was, but then she remembered she wasn’t Ladybug or Marinette right now. And thank whatever deity that wasn’t set on making her suffer for that. Smiling awkwardly and trying not to spontaneously combust because of reasons, she offered up a small wave.
“Multimouse… you can call me Multimouse,” she said with a shy smile, rubbing at her nose with one hand. She hoped it wasn’t red from slamming into the window. It was probably red. Maybe her lack of good luck was because she wasn’t fused with Tikki right now. Or maybe her brief time as Lady Noire was finally catching up to bite her in the butt.
“Multimouse,” Adrien said, nodding slowly. His wide, wheatgrass eyes had yet to stray from her face and he looked conflicted, like he was trying to work through a puzzle but the pieces just weren’t connecting. “I’m Adrien.”
“I know,” she said, before her eyes widened and she scrambled to correct herself. “I mean! You- you’re famous! A famous model. In France. I mean Paris. Paris, France. Where we live. I definitely don’t know you personally, that would be crazy! Aha ha ha,” she said, silently cursing herself because why couldn’t she speak coherently when faced with his stupid, criminally handsome face!? Adrien blinked at her, not seeming to know what to say to that lovely display of word vomit, before his gaze softened.
“It’s nice to meet you, Multimouse. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Are you a new hero?” He asked curiously.
“I, um… Ladybug is a good friend of mine? So she let me borrow the Miraculous. I… I wanted to escape life for a little bit,” she said after a moment. Since Chat knew Marinette was Multimouse, she figured it would be best not to let anyone know that she was actually Ladybug. Even if lying to the boy she was madly in love with made her feel sick. He was nodding, as if that made perfect sense, and she would have loved to stay longer and just bask in his Adrienness, but it was late and she was sure she had overstayed her welcome.
“Anyway, I should go. I’m sorry if I woke you. I’m madly clumsy.”
Something flickered in Adrien’s gaze, a hint of confusion coming back before the expression cleared and he smiled warmly. “That’s okay, I was still awake,” he assured. Multimouse smiled and nodded, then rose from where she was crouched on the window sill. Right before she leaped, Adrien’s voice made her pause. “Wait! Will I… will you come back?”
Multimouse turned, a perplexed look in her cerulean eyes to find the model fidgeting behind her, a rosy hint to his cheeks. “Come… back?” She inquired.
“I just… um. It gets really lonely here, and you said you wanted to escape life so if… I mean if you wanted to, you could always come here? We could play video games, or watch movies, or whatever, and-” Adrien dropped his eyes, one hand scrubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “Nevermind, it’s stupid, I-”
“Ok.”
Adrien’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened to comical proportions. “Okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll come back,” she agreed, feeling her lips stretch into a smile. Adrien’s excited grin was well worth it, and with a parting wave she had leaped from his window and headed back home. This time being much more mindful of her surroundings. When she had gotten home, she had flopped onto her bed and sighed blissfully. Adrien Agreste wanted to see her again. Adrien Agreste wanted to hang out with her! This was a dream come true. Or, it was for about 2.5 seconds before Tikki tried to rain on her parade.
“Marinette, you know you can’t go back there,” the tiny Goddess said, flitting up to hover over her chosen’s face with a small frown.
“What? Why?” Marinette sat up abruptly, forcing the kwami to float backward less she knocked heads with the raven-haired girl.
“Because! The Miraculous are powerful tools. They aren’t toys and you cannot use them to get a boyfriend,” she exclaimed, exasperated.
“But Tikki, this could be just what I need to stop being so nervous around Adrien! I could finally get him to notice me,” she protested, but the Kwami shook her head firmly.
“As Guardian, you must act more responsibly. You can’t go back there, Marinette,” she said, before zipping off to her nest. Marinette knew she was right, she understood that Tikki wasn’t being mean and was only trying to protect her and the other Miraculouses. She even resolved to abide by Tikki’s rules and not go see Adrien as Multimouse. Yeah, that lasted all of three days.
On the day in question, Marinette had arrived at school late (as always) and ran into class with apologies already flying from her lips. She had taken her seat, fully intending on spending class the way she always did (staring at the back of Adrien’s head and daydreaming about three cherub-faced kids and a hamster), but something was wrong. It wasn’t Nino sitting beside the blonde model, it was Lila. The brunette was pressed right up Adrien’s side, clinging to his arm like some sort of leech and Adrien… he did not look comfortable. After over a year of sitting behind him, she was pretty familiar with how he typically sat. His posture had always been impeccable, but there was a softness to it that was absent now. Now, his back was ramrod straight, shoulders hunched and he was slightly leaning away from the girl clinging to his arm.
It bothered Marinette, the way the brunette clung to him. And it wasn’t a jealousy thing. She would never be jealous of Lie-la. No, Marinette was Adrien’s friend first and foremost, and as his friend she could confidently say that Lila’s touch was in no way consensual. Unfortunately, Marinette couldn’t do anything. If she tried to tell Lila to back off, she would bring out the tears and everyone would call her jealous. Adrien wouldn’t say anything, because he was a people pleaser and didn’t want to cause a scene. So she had kept her mouth shut, and she had seethed, and she had imagined Lila’s untimely demise in a million different ways. She had gone home at the end of the day, tried to take her mind off of things by focusing on some of her commissions, but her mind kept jumping back to Adrien and Lila. How he had looked like he was dying inside, how he had flinched every time she had touched him. The more she had thought about it, the angrier she got. Her blood boiled, her face flushed, and by the time bedtime rolled around, she was far too riled up to even consider sleep.
“Are you going to go see him?” Tikki had asked around the fiftieth time Marinette had stared forlornly towards her skylight.
“I have to, Tikki,” she had responded, voice soft and apologetic. Tikki looked conflicted, equal parts disappointed and understanding, but she had nodded and flown off to her own bed without another word. Marinette wanted to apologize, to try and make her friend understand, but she also needed to get to Adrien. She needed to know he was okay. So with a whispered apology, she had taken Mullo’s Pendant and climbed through her skylight, closing it quietly behind her. Arriving at Adrien’s window ten minutes later, Multimouse knocked softly. The room beyond was pitch black (she was not gifted with night vision the way Chat was) and for a moment she was afraid that Adrien had already gone to bed. But then a small lap was turned on and the window slid open. Dropping to the ground inside, she allowed her gaze to shift around as she tried to get her bearings. The light came from the desk, a small clap on lamp that barely made a dent in the darkness. It illuminated a small circle on the desks surface and not much else, so she didn’t see Adrien until he spoke.
“You came.” She turned, searching for the voice and finally made out a vaguely human-shaped lump curled up on one end of the couch.
“Adrien?” She asked uncertainly. She didn’t know who else she expected it to be, but the voice was just so off that a part of her brain couldn’t connect it to her friend. There was a reason that Alya called him Sunshine. Like a ray of light, Adrien always sounded light and warm, and friendly. Now his voice was flat and emotionless. Multimouse moved forward slowly, blindly, and finally felt her knee bump against the edge of the couch. “Are you okay?”
The Adrien-shaped lump shifted and suddenly the lamp beside the couch flared to life. This one was much stronger and brighter than the one on his desk, and she found herself momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. “Sorry,” Adrien mumbled softly, and she finally got a good look at his face. His normally tan complexion looked pale, while his eyes were puffy and bloodshot, like he had been crying. Her breath caught, eyes widening and she reached out for him. It was such an automatic response, to offer comfort, but Adrien flinched away and she immediately froze. Perhaps seeing the hurt reflected in her gaze, Adrien seemed to hunch even further in on himself. “I- I’m sorry, I just… I don’t really want to be touched right now?” He said, green eyes filled with such an array of emotion that she couldn’t even begin to sort through them all.
“Adrien,” she said softly, crouching before them while making sure not to touch him. He flinched, perhaps expecting her to scold or chastise him and it broke her heart. No one deserved to live like this. “Adrien, you know you don’t have to apologize for not wanting someone to touch you… right?”
“But-” She could see the denial on his lips and felt her anger rise once again. Not at him, but at Lila who couldn’t keep her slimy talons to herself and at Gabriel, who had made his son believe that he couldn’t tell people ‘no’ when he didn’t want to be touched.
“No, listen. No one has a right to touch you if you don’t want them to. Your body is your own and you’re allowed to say no,” she kept her voice soft, keeping the anger at bay because she didn’t want to make him think she was mad at him. She didn’t want to further traumatize him. Adrien sniffled, then he let out a sob, until he was crying openly and she had to physically hold herself back from offering him comfort in the way she normally was. She wasn’t Marinette right now; she knew that. Adrien didn’t have the same relationship with Multimouse that he did with Marinette, so it made sense that he might not want a virtual stranger laying her hands on him after what he had endured today.
Adrien cried until his tears dried up and he was left with red eyes and hiccups that rattled hollowly in his chest. He had to admit, he felt a little better after crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he had let himself cry, really cry, and it felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest. Drying his eyes with his pajama sleeves, he glanced down at the Superhero sitting on his floor. She hadn’t said a word while he cried, staring pensively off into space the entire time. He couldn’t recall the last time he had cried in front of someone and not felt judged for it. Certainly his father would have told him to grow up, while Nathalie would probably just awkwardly pat him on the back. Multimouse had just sat there quietly, radiating warmth and acceptance.
“I’m sorry,” he couldn’t help but say when he had mopped the tears from his face. She twisted slightly to meet his gaze.
“You don’t-”
“No, I just mean. I’m sorry you had to see that. You could have left, I wouldn’t blame you if you had,” he said with a weak smile. She frowned at him.
“Everyone deserves to cry, Adrien. Besides, you’re my… friend. I wouldn’t leave you like this,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” he said, surprised. When she smiled, it was warm and welcoming.
“You’re welcome.”
“So um… do you want to maybe watch a movie? It would be nice to get my mind off things,” he asked, scrubbing at the back of his neck. Multimouse had readily agreed, picking out the movie Ponyo from his vast collection and taking one side of the couch while he set it up in the dvd player. And if Adrien eventually found himself leaning into her as they watched the movie, if her arm tentatively found its way around his shoulders, well they were friends and friends could platonically cuddle without it being weird.
She came back. Tikki was… not pleased. But after watching Adrien cry, after imagining him doing that alone in this vast, impersonal bedroom, well… not coming back wasn’t an option. And no, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Adrien and she had ended up cuddling on his couch through several hours of Studio Ghibli Movies, or that he had eventually ended up with his head in her lap while her fingers ran through his hair and lightly scraped against his scalp. No, it definitely had nothing to do with that. That had just been her comforting a friend in need. It became routine for her to visit him on the nights when she was due to patrol by herself. Granted, she still patrolled. She didn’t need to give Tikki another reason to be mad at her. But if she happened to try to rush through the patrol in order to get to Adrien’s faster, well that was her little secret.
Adrien, she quickly discovered, was almost as big a dork as Chat Noir. It was a disconcerting revelation, but it was also endearing. She would have never guessed that golden boy Adrien Agreste, Paris’ teen heartthrob, was obsessed with anime but his extensive collection didn’t lie. She discovered that he was equally in love with Manga, that he could get surprisingly competitive at video games, and that he had a Ladybug Shrine in his closet. He insisted it wasn’t a shrine but… well it was almost more embarrassing than her Adrien pictures and that was saying a lot. Adrien was goofy, he was playful, and he had a horrible sense of humor that almost put her partner to shame and she found that these little things about his personality only made her fall more and more in love with him. Actually, it was making her realize that what she felt for him before was more along the lines of obsession. She had to admit she had never really known Adrien, had been little more than one of his crazy fangirls, but now that she did know him? She found he was more amazing than she had ever given him credit for.
She had been visiting him for a few weeks now, and she found that her frequent visits had almost completely eliminated her stutter. Sure, it still came out from time to time, but ninety percent of the time, both Marinette and Multimouse were able to string cohesive sentences together. On this particular night, Adrien had suggested something a little different than their usual fare. She should have known things would go terribly, terribly wrong when he pulled out a game of twister and suggested playing that instead of UMS or Mario Kart. Of course, in her mind she had simply focused on the idea of getting up close and personal with the boy she was madly in love with, so she didn’t take into account that she was still Marinette, and that she was still madly clumsy. And to be fair, the game started off pretty well. She was, after all, enhanced by Mullo and his Miraculous. She was far more flexible and agile as Multimouse, so once things started to get a bit dicey, she was fairly pleased that she was managing herself pretty well.
Of course, she was Marinette and Marinette had never had the best luck with Adrien, so it made sense that things would eventually go south. Following that logic she wasn’t really surprised when, in trying to reach over Adrien’s chest to touch a green spot that was tragically just out of reach, she lost her balance. Also, considering she was reaching over him, it made sense that Adrien would then lose his balance. She could handle that, it was part of the game and she wasn’t a sore loser. She could admit she had slipped first and was therefore the loser of said game. She could handle it if Adrien decided to gloat, rub it in her face, because she had done the same to him on numerous occasions when beating him at UMS. None of that happened. There was no gloating, he didn’t rub her loss in her face. No, he did something so, so much worse. He punned.
“Well, Princess. I do believe you’re Under Agreste,” he said smoothly, his delivery flawless as if he had practiced in the mirror before she showed up. Knowing him, he probably had but that wasn’t the point. And granted, it wasn’t necessarily the pun that did her in. She dealt with awful puns from her partner constantly, even those of the flirtatious variety. Especially those of the flirtatious variety. But this wasn’t her partner. This wasn’t Chat Noir, her goofy, silly, and not at all serious Kitty. Chat Noir was a known and notorious flirt; it was part of his charm, his over-the-top, larger-than-life character. Adrien was… not. He was sweet, he was kind, and he was sincere. He was quiet and polite and considerate of those around them. So when Adrien punned at her, with that flirtatious lilt and that sinfully attractive smirk that had no right to grace those perfect model lips, it devastated her.
Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and something akin to a strangled squeak left her throat. She could feel the heat creeping up her neck, spreading across her cheeks until even the tips of her ears burned and tingled with the sheer force of her blush. Adrien, who had started off cocky and confident, shifted to concern. Then he looked curious, and finally a look of speculation crossed his face. That… did not bode well for her. And it didn’t, because after that night he kept flirting with her. It wasn’t just puns either. It was pick up lines, compliments, and nicknames. The worst part was, she knew it was deliberate. For whatever reason, Adrien was trying to get a reaction from her. That much was clear by the way he always paused after delivering one of his lines to see how it was received. And it was driving her insane.
Her reprieve from being a stuttering mess around her crush was over. She didn’t think it could get any worse that it had been previously. She was sorely mistaken. Class was, in a word, a nightmare. The moment her eyes landed on Adrien, her entire face went fire engine red while her heart tried it’s best to jump out of her chest. Speaking to him was out of the question. All she seemed capable of in his presence was pure gibberish. The entire class was confused. She had been doing so well, it was natural for them to want to know what had changed. But she couldn’t tell them. She couldn’t explain that she was taking the Mouse Miraculous almost nightly to visit her longtime crush, or that he seemed to be making it his life’s mission to give her a heart attack. She could see her headstone now:
Here lies Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Killed Not By Akuma, but Insanely Hot Model.
She knew that she could technically stop visiting him, or that she could tell him she wasn’t comfortable with him flirting with her but… well then he would stop flirting with her. And while on the one hand, she hated being an incoherent mess around the blond Adonis, on the other hand, Adrien Agreste was flirting with her. Well, Multimouse her. He didn’t know that Marinette and Multimouse were the same person, and while he had been a bit touchier lately with her as Marinette, she attributed that to the fact that they had become better friends once her stuttering went away. Adrien had always been touch starved. She knew that, accepted it, could handle it. Flirty Adrien, not so much, and as the weeks wore on she could feel her sanity crack. Because the flirting was just starting to get worse and worse, and she meant that in the best of ways. Truly, she didn’t necessarily want him to stop flirting with her but she did want to understand why?
Was he interested in Multimouse? She knew he had a crush on Ladybug at one point (still had a crush on her??), so it wasn’t exactly far fetched that he might be crushing on a Superhero. Albeit one that he had literally never seen in battle because she had only used the Mouse Miraculous in battle once, and the only one to see her had been Chat Noir, so was Multimouse really a Superhero at all? She would have to come back to that one. It wasn’t nearly as important as figuring out the why? Because for all his flirting, for all of his casual but not quite platonic touches, for all that he acted like a cassanova… Adrien hadn’t actually made a move on her. In all the weeks since he had flirted with her, he never actually tried to initiate anything that could be categorized as definitely NOT platonic. And while it had frazzled and flustered her in the beginning, they were about six weeks into this mind-boggling flirtationship that they were in and he hadn’t done anything!!!
It stands to reason that eventually, Multimouse would get fed up with this game that she would like to put on record that she never signed up for in the first place. She had just kind of been sucked in and swept along for the ride, forced to put up with hours of puns and pick up lines, of compliments and touches bordering on inappropriate. Eventually, she had to crack. So when she arrived one evening, lost in thought and practically tripped through the window… when Adrien then caught her and got that sinful smirk on his face that she knew he could follow up with some stupid line about her falling for him… she screamed. A wordless scream of frustration, anger, and more than a little bit of pent up sexual tension because how could she not be sexually frustrated after weeks of enduring this beautiful asshole flirting and touching her but not actually doing anything about it. She didn’t even care that Adrien dropped her in surprise. She was too angry to care, and she was too angry to think, because if she had bothered to think just for a nanosecond, she probably wouldn’t have done what she did next.
In retrospect, grabbing your crush by the collar and kissing him senseless isn’t usually the best way to handle a situation like this one. Fortunately for her, Adrien did actually like her back despite his insanely confusing ways of showing it, so after the initial shock wore off he kissed her back. It didn’t matter that the kiss was a little bit sloppy, a whole lot clumsy, or that in her frustrations she had kissed him hard enough to bruise. Because as far as first kisses went, and as far as they were concerned, it was perfect. Right up until the moment the door slammed open, revealing Nathalie and the Gorilla looking sleepy, disheveled and ready to take on whatever was threatening the Agreste heir. Yeah, screaming in frustration in the middle of the night at your crush’s house where you are not supposed to be? Also not a great idea. But that was okay, Marinette decided as she raced across the rooftops towards home after abandoning said crush to deal with his bodyguard and his father’s assistant (which he totally deserved after what he had put her through). It was okay, because she had kissed her crush. She, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, had kissed the Adrien Agreste. And as their lips had molded together for the third, or maybe the fourth time before they were so rudely interrupted, it wasn’t Multimouse’s name that fell from his lips. It was hers. Marinette.