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"I always knew you liked me," Adrien said, fiddling with her hair.
Marinette snorted. "Yeah, right."
"I did."
"Who even said I liked you?"
He chuckled. "Well, I hope you do. Or I'd feel a little awkward about letting you wear my shirt."
Though he couldn't see her face with the way her head was tucked under his chin, Adrien knew she was smiling. The breath she let out rose goosebumps all over his chest, and he could only hope, despite her hand on his stomach, that she wouldn't notice.
"Just the shirt?" she asked. "Not the making out?"
There were some benefits to the way they were cuddled up in the backseat of his car. Though Marinette couldn't see him blush, she most definitely could hear the increment in his heartbeat, which wasn't much better.
"That, too," he said, a little shakily. "But I thought that was self-explanatory."
Marinette hummed. He could feel it through her cheek onto his skin.
Adrien shivered.
When he had asked Marinette to join him for his first ever drive in his first ever car, he thought they'd get a little further than the parking lot of a twenty-four hour supermarket. In their defense, most shops had closed by eight p.m., and their candy haul from the supermarket definitely broke in his car boot.
In some ways, they got further than Adrien ever thought they would. Hence the shirtlessness and Marinette lying in his arms at the back of his car.
" Do you like me?" he asked softly.
Marinette laughed, but it was the kind of laugh that gave him hope. The one that sounded almost accidental, that usually only came out when he kissed her hand or held her gaze or pulled her hair out of her collar for her.
"Truth or dare?" she said.
Puzzled, he replied, "truth."
Marinette reached her arm across his chest to toy with the seatbelt buckle. Cold, it brushed against Adrien's waist; he jolted.
"Do you like me ?" she asked.
"My Lady, I've been in love with you since we were fourteen. Come on."
She paused, then gulped.
"Truth or dare," Adrien asked back.
"Dare," she said, letting go of the seat belt to tuck her arm in the warm space between their bodies.
He rolled his eyes. "I dare you to tell me how you feel about me."
She laughed again, no different to the last time. "That's not really a dare."
"Are you forfeiting?"
"Yes."
He grinned, pressing his temple against Marinette's hair.
Outside, a woman pushed her trolley back into the shelter, then headed back over to her car. She switched on the ignition, and the headlights broke through the darkness. He wondered, then, how much of his own car was visible. The interior lights had turned off a little while after he had lain Marinette down, so maybe they — Adrien, with his head right by the window, Marinette with her cheek on his bare chest — were invisible.
"Your heart is beating so fast," she said with a giggle. "Don't tell me you can't handle your superhero partner lying on top of you."
"When have I ever been able to handle you, My Lady?" he sighed, smiling, and tilted his head back against the seat.
Marinette shifted in his arms. He didn't realise she'd moved to look up at him until he opened his eyes.
"Do you mean that?" she said softly. The shirt, much too big for her, slouched along her body. It fell across her shoulder, revealing her pink bra strap and the length of her collarbone. "Even after all this time, do you really…?"
Adrien let out a breath. He took his arm off her back and touched her cheek. "Have I ever lied to you, Bugaboo?"
"Well, maybe not when we were fourteen. But don't think I didn't notice how you convinced your father to let us go out tonight."
He laughed. "I'd never lie to you. Just for you."
"I don't like lies."
"Marinette," he said, "quit avoiding the question."
She looked at him for a moment. If a car hadn't passed by with its headlights at full blast, Adrien wouldn't have caught Marinette's blush.
She sat up, turned away from him. The shirt was rumpled around her waist. "I'm not avoiding anything."
The shirt didn't fall back into place. Adrien reached over and tugged it down. Instead of removing his hand, he slipped it up the material, and placed it along the curve of her back.
"I do still love you," he said. He ran his fingers over a bump on her flesh — a healed scar, perhaps, from an old akuma battle. "You don't need to love me back. But I just want you to know I wouldn't kiss you like that if I didn't love you."
Marinette shivered. She rubbed her arms. They were covered in goosebumps.
Adrien sat up, too. He pulled Marinette back into his chest, making sure every part of her visible skin was pressed to his.
"I thought you'd moved on," she said gently.
"So did I." He tightened his embrace when she curled up closer to him. "But I never did. I don't think I ever will."
Getting that out there felt like releasing a long-held breath.
Adrien had expected for it to come out in some way or another for a long time now, but never with Marinette arms in the backseat of his car. How much longer could he have been able to keep it in for? He remembered being fifteen years old, fresh out of a relationship that had sucked because it hadn’t been her, and realising how devastatingly wrecked he was when Ladybug had laughed behind her hand at one of his jokes that hadn’t even been funny.
He loved her so much his stomach hurt — and it had seemed to only get worse as the years progressed. It was a surprise he had managed to wait until he got a taste of her lip gloss (and her neck and her perfume and that one part of her blouse that had gotten in his way) to tell her that.
For what felt like a long time, Marinette said nothing, and Adrien was left to watch the synchronised rise and fall of their bodies under the street lights.
Then, she broke out into a smile. “You’re insane.”
He laughed — because what else could he do? Adrien laughed, too scared to push the strand of hair caught in her mouth behind her ear. “I know.”
She twisted around, then, and lifted herself higher up his body. When she straddled him, Adrien cupped her thighs as if he had been prepared for it (he hadn’t) and leaned closer as if her smell — a little bit of her and a little bit of him and a little bit of his piney car freshener she had been fiddling with on the way there — didn’t make him dizzy (it did). Marinette’s arms tightened around his shoulders. His T-Shirt hitched up around her waist, proffering her flesh to his thumbs. If he didn’t know any better, Adrien would’ve thought she was going to kiss him again.
(It felt a little sacrilegious to be praying right now — in a supermarket parking lot with his lady in his lap — but Adrien begged whatever God was out there for Marinette to kiss him one more time).
And she did. Much chaster and much sweeter and a little ways away from where he had imagined it, but Marinette still kissed him — not on the mouth, but on the cheek.
But then her lips began to wander, and Adrien couldn’t pinpoint where exactly it had changed, but her kiss turned into kisses that, although just as sweet, were no longer as chaste. He tilted his head back into her hands and let her kiss his neck, sighing in a way he definitely wouldn’t have if he had even a morsel of strength against her.
“H-hey,” he said breathlessly, “you didn’t answer the question
Marinette gave him a love bite and giggled, bringing her mouth to his ear.
She kissed his ear lobe. He could hear the smile in her voice. “You know I’m not all that good with words.”
They stayed like that for a moment. Still. Adrien didn’t realise how fast she had been breathing until she slowed down.
Marinette sat back on her haunches and looked up. She was flushed and dishevelled. Her pink bra strap had disappeared back behind the T-Shirt, and one of her pigtails had come almost completely undone.
She took his hands and led them to her cheeks. Marinette smiled against them.
“I’m really bad with words,” she reiterated. “But…”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I think I know, anyway.”
And he must have gotten it right. Marinette threw her arms back around him, and kissed him.