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“Can I borrow your ring?”
Adrien’s eyes snapped open. He had been about to fall asleep, sitting with his back against a tree and Marinette’s head resting in his lap, but now he was wide awake and not ready to rest calmly any time soon anymore.
“My ring?” he sputtered.
“Yes, your ring.”
Marinette kept her eyes on his hand, caressing it with her fingers, massaging it a little at times. He would have enjoyed it if she hadn’t so casually asked for his miraculous—not that she knew it was.
“Why would you want my ring?” he asked slowly after a pause; it wasn’t that he thought Marinette would steal it, but he was curious as to why she was taking an interest in it all of a sudden.
She kissed the tips of his fingers. “I don’t know. I like wearing your stuff.”
He relaxed a little and chuckled. “You’re already wearing my sweater.”
“Which is very comfy, by the way.”
She mimicked snuggling up into his dark sweater that she was wearing and he couldn’t help but smile fondly at her.
“A ring isn’t comfy, though.”
Marinette smiled at him and slightly pressed her fingers on his ring while letting her thumb caress the finger wearing it up and down.
“I would make wearing it comfy,” she said.
Adrien laughed and bopped her nose. “I have no doubt about that, but let’s not try with this one, okay?”
She pouted at him and took his hand back in hers, and circled his ring with her index.
“If you don’t let me borrow it, you’ll have to give me back my winter hat. The pink one.”
“Hey!” he said indignantly. “No. I love that hat. It has a fluffy and glittery pompom.” He bopped it to emphasise his point.
She giggled. “You’re wearing it so often and it’s not even winter.”
“More reason to keep it, I wear it more than you do!”
If he were smart enough, he could make her forget about the ring and drive the conversation away from it. There was only so much teasing could do before he had to really rack his brain for a plausible excuse as to why exactly he couldn’t lend her his ring.
Talking about the winter hat Marinette had lent him seemed like a good plan.
Marinette was smiling softly at him now. He let himself drown in her gaze a little, until she dramatically extended her arms towards him.
“Help me sit, Adrien!”
He snorted. “No.”
“Whaaat?” she whined. “I thought you were a gentleman!”
“Maybe. But you’re cute lying down in my lap so I want to keep you there a little longer.”
She blushed and bit her lip, looking conflicted. “Even if I just wanted to kiss you?”
Well, he couldn’t really argue with that. Mentally patting himself on the back for driving all her thoughts away from his ring, he finally relented and helped her sit up in his lap instead.
She brought a hand to his cheek and caressed it with her thumb, looking at him with eyes that didn’t leave him with much doubt as to her feelings. He brought her closer to him, his left arm securely wrapped around her waist.
“You know that I love you, right?” she whispered against his lips.
He smiled at the declaration. “Yeah… Yeah I know. And I, you.”
She giggled while capturing his lips with hers. Adrien really liked kissing Marinette, but he loved being kissed by her—she had this delicious way of being paradoxically shy but bold, gentle but firm, and controlled but wild.
As he was drowning at the end of her lips, he felt the fingers of her free hand tentatively lace through his.
It felt nice.
So he let her do it and shivered at the way her fingers tenderly stroked his, before carefully sliding away from his hand.
Marinette broke the kiss and he opened his eyes, still dazed, to meet hers that were full of mirth and—
“Aha!” she exclaimed. “Now I got your ring!”
Adrien’s eyes snapped to the ring she was now slipping on her finger, his ring, his now very much light pink ring and oh no.
He must have had a wide-eyed panicked face because Marinette’s expression suddenly turned apologetic.
“O-oh no, Adrien I’m sorry it was a joke I—wait. Wasn’t it sliver before?”
“I—” ...what? What could he reply to that? ‘I was so sure it was silver before too, Marinette! Wow we must both be colour blind, funny right?’ or ‘It’s a magic ring that changes colour depending on your mood! You know, the cheap ones you buy in tourist shops? Oh, why is it always silver for me? Because it’s as grey as my mood, courtesy of my dad, nothing to worry about!’
(Maybe this one excuse could work, all things considered).
But before he could voice any of it, Marinette frowned.
“Wait a minute. I’ve seen this somewhere before.”
Adrien startled. “You—you have?”
She took a sharp intake of breath and turned her gaze away from his ring to stare right at his face, an unspoken “no way” drawing at her lips that Adrien didn’t know what to make of.
She brought a tentative hand to his face, grazing it but not touching it, as if afraid something would change if she did.
Adrien didn’t dare move nor speak during all this time, in a way hypnotised by her actions and in another not knowing how to react to this turn of events.
She cast a furtive glance behind her, then took a sharp intake of breath and looked straight into his eyes.
“Plagg,” she murmured—and if Adrien’s eyes weren’t wide before, they definitely were now— “claws out.”
If he had had inspiration to think, and more importantly, to act, Adrien should probably have snatched the ring back from her hands the moment he had realised she had taken it.
But Adrien had panicked and Adrien wasn’t known to act smartly when panicked.
Now all he could do was watch and gape helplessly as his girlfriend transformed right in front of his eyes and looked like—
“Eeeeeh?”
She looked like Marinette. With the black cat miraculous.
...Ladybug. With the black cat miraculous.
He blinked. She blinked.
Oh.
It was her, wasn’t it?
He didn’t know if he was breathing too hard, or not at all; if he was hallucinating—dreaming—or not.
They kept staring at each other silently, though Adrien had no idea for how long—not that he cared about time at that moment.
Even if he hadn’t been expecting Marinette to transform right after stealing his ring, Adrien had even less been prepared to see a familiar masked face in her place. One that he had seen only once, and that his brain was still struggling to realise and piece.
But the image it was slowly coming with was one of the happiest he’d seen.
“Um,” he finally managed to speak, “kiss me again?”
With eyes still incredulously wide, and a fierce blush spreading on her cheeks, she yanked him by the collar and did just that. Hard.