Work Text:
Her hands, flecked with cracking paint, hung off the edge of her desk. Her paintbrush tilted precariously between her thumb and forefinger. One pigtail had been pushed terribly askew by the cushion of her upper arm where she had now decided to rest. Pretty and fair, Marinette unconsciously slept beneath the stare of her companion with morning air leaking through her bedroom window. Adrien paused to quietly admire her; the slope of her neck, her decorated fingers, her slow and steady breathing that parted her lips. He didn’t really want to rouse her. She looked blissfully unaware of the outside world. Here, she wasn’t trying to be brave or save civilians, she wasn’t spluttering over a boy, she wasn’t rushing about the bakery like a flurry as she baked the next batch of croissants. Unconscious, Marinette was as peaceful as anyone else in deep sleep, and Adrien removed the paintbrush slowly.
She’d abandoned the easel in front of her to paint something else, something more important it seemed. The half-painted image was unrecognizable, but the completed one? He’d be able to spot Cat Noir a mile away. It was him in front of a full moon, glow pulsating like a fresh light bulb in the sky; bright like the flash of a camera. She’d painted him so that his natural blonde colour poked into liquid mercury, stunning and silver before the new moon. Even in the painting, however, something felt distinctly out of place. Adrien wagered that it was likely just a fluke feeling, but the more he admired it, the more offsetting the lonely hero began to look.
Had he always appeared like this to her? A beautiful stray looking wistfully to the man in the moon for guidance? Lonely and pleading with big green eyes? It certainly romanticized the hero he was and Adrien allowed himself to wonder whether this view of him off the Eiffel Tower was Ladybug’s version or Marinette’s.
At the core, both ladies were the same -were still molding into one another after their reveal- both as separate entities, they had seen all sides of him: wild, subdued, flirtatious, clever, confident, soft. Had it, therefore, been sweet Marinette looking at him from the outside or the intimacy of Ladybug’s companionship that had allowed her to paint it? What dominated in her mind now? Adrien or Cat Noir?
“Adrien?” He tried to hush Tikki as best he could. “Is she late again?”
He pushed a couple of cookies towards her. “No, not at all. I’m quite early, and her mom told me to wake her up. But I don’t really want to. I can wait downstairs until she’s ready.”
“She’d want you to wake her up, you know. She likes spending time with you.”
“And I like spending time with her too, Tikki, but I can wait. Just eat up and wait for Marinette to wake up. I can take her place downstairs for now. She seemed awfully busy last night.”
“Mhmm. She was so nervous that she mixed up the paints and had to start over.”
“It turned out beautiful.”
“Make sure you tell her that.”
“I will. I get the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to see it.”
“Yeah,” Tikki grinned, “but I won’t tell her.”
“Thanks.” Adrien grabbed the comforter from her bed and pulled it around her shoulders before heading out and shutting the door with a soft click behind him.