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“Marinette, it’s happening again.” Chat burst through the trapdoor, slamming it shut behind him and racing Marinette to the other windows to shut the curtains.
“Chat, this is getting ridiculous.”
Chat flashed Marinette a quick grin, taking note of the lack of tension in her shoulders and the roll of her eyes.
Not actually upset, then. Good.
“You’re telling me, princess. They’re my fans, they’re all chasing me.” Chat crossed the room quickly, peeking through the curtain Marinette had closed before she pushed him away from it. She crossed her arms while studying him, one eyebrow lifted. “I am well aware of how ridiculous this is.”
“Can’t you just tell them you’re not interested, Chat? That’s what you did with me and I listened.”
“Marinette, they don’t listen. These are not reasonable people right now, they are fans. Every one of them is screaming love confessions or telling me they want to marry me while running down the street. At least you did it to my face and not yelling it at my back while I’m trying to run away.”
Chat flopped bonelessly onto the chaise, trying in vain to smother his face in the pillows. Even with his face buried, he could hear Marinette’s eye roll.
“Fine. I’m going downstairs to get some snacks then. If it’s anything like the last four times, you’re going to be here a while.”
Chat managed a muffled, “Tell Sabine I said hi,” before the door shut and Chat was left alone in the room.
The first time he’d shown up after the incident where he got Marinette’s father akumatized, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Surely the girl whose romantic advances he’d turned down wouldn’t be interested in hiding him from other people in the same situation.
Even if she doesn’t know that not all of them are confessing to Chat.
Leaving the house had gotten so much more complicated lately, when everyone he ran into as Adrien either wanted to tell him they loved him or wanted to ask him to do his impression of Chat Noir.
And then when he transformed into Chat, it got even worse somehow, because that stupid movie had made both of him even more popular than ever.
And when he suddenly had fans on both sides of the mask, the only person he could think of turning to was the only person who had shown interest in Chat before he was a celebrity instead of a hero.
There was definitely nothing in their past interactions that said she’d be at all willing to help him.
But she did. And then she offered to let him come back the next time it happened too. It didn’t hurt that she’d fed him, either.
Chat rolled to a seated position on the chaise, still clutching one of the pillows to his chest, a black cat head lined in neon green. He smiled down at it, and the memory of Marinette presenting it to him on one of his last visits.
“If you’re going to be here all the time, I should at least give you one pillow I don’t mind you messing up,” she’d told him, smiling brighter than the sun. Her eyes scrunched closed and nose crinkled as the smile broadened. It took several moments for Chat to respond, his breath caught in his throat.
His mouth had flopped open like a fish and he was certain after the fact that his heart had stopped for a minute or two. Marinette had kindly wrapped his tense claws around the fluffy pillow and squeezed his wrists when he still didn’t respond.
He considered himself lucky that he didn’t pop it when he crushed Marinette into a hug over the kind gesture.
She had become one of his best friends over the last few months that he’d been coming here. She was kind and generous and sweet and made him feel-
His head tilted to the side, ears drooping.
What’s the feeling I’m looking for? Safe? That she makes me feel safe?
It didn’t feel quite right, even though he knew it was true. He didn’t feel closed in here, even with the doors and windows locked up tight. He’d never felt a panic attack looming while in Marinette’s presence, not since starting to spend time with her at home.
He wasn’t even on high alert for akumas, and he was always on alert for akumas. Even at home, it kept him up at night and colored his dreams.
It just didn’t feel like the right word.
It didn’t encompass enough of Marinette to be the right word.
He was jarred out of his thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps landing heavily on the stairs. The door to the rest of Marinette’s house slammed open with more force than she ever used and Chat leapt to his feet.
Marinette’s father lifted his sizable form through the door, followed by a tray-laden Marinette. Chat moved forward as quickly as he dared to in order to take the tray from her, setting it on her computer desk.
Tom drew himself up to his full height, staring down at Chat. Chat tried to smile disarmingly, but really only managed sheepish before Marinette bustled her glaring father downstairs with a hurried thank you.
Tom’s eyes stayed locked on Chat’s as he slipped back down the stairs, narrowing in a warning that Chat felt in his gut.
Marinette smiled apologetically at Chat before settling into one of her chairs with a financier in hand. She took a bite, gesturing at the tray with the little cake, and Chat carefully lifted a pale green macaron off the plate. He studied the cookie. The contrast of light pastel against the black of his glove made him pause, falling back to his earlier struggle to find words for how Marinette made him feel.
He allowed his hands to fall into his lap, treat uneaten. Marinette tilted her head and her eyebrows dropped low as she watched him stare into space. He swallowed thickly.
“Marinette, what made you so sure you were in love with me? What did that feel like?”
A small gasp made him look over at Marinette. Her eyes had gone wide and darted frantically around the room. “I uh.”
“I just- Okay, I feel something for a friend of mine. And I don’t really know what it is. It’s not the same as what I feel for Ladybug so I’m just wondering what it felt like for you when you knew you loved me.” His shoulders slumped and he lost the nerve to maintain eye contact. Staring at the floor, he waited for Marinette to respond.
“I wasn’t in love with you, Chat.”
His heart stopped.
“But- You said-“
“I know what I said.” His chest hurt too much to look at her. Why did his chest hurt?
“And at the time, I... I thought it was true.”
He swallowed again, drier and more painfully this time. He dropped the macaron back on the tray, uneaten.
“So you aren’t in love with me.” That sinking feeling that he got every time Ladybug took a hit or turned him down sat low in his stomach. He could feel it churning everything inside him into a gluey mess and making his limbs stiff.
His chest still hurt. He raised a hand to rub at it absently.
“I didn’t say that either.”
And slammed his fist into it when his heart tried to beat out of his chest in the next moment.
Marinette paused, staring at Chat. She’d leaned back in her chair and her brows jumped into her hairline but she must have found what she was looking for in his eyes because she eventually continued.
She scrubbed her palms on the thigh of her jeans, looking away. “I don’t know how I feel about you, Chat. I love spending time with you. It’s kind of a highlight of my day.”
She huffed out a small laugh and Chat allowed himself a small smile.
“You’re my very best friend, and I swear to God if you tell Alya, I’ll end you. Superhero or not.” Chat snorted and made a show of zipping his lips when Marinette glared at him.
“It’s more than I feel for any of my friends, but not the same as my crush. You just... You feel like home, Chat.”
“Oh.”
Home.
He felt like home to her.
Safe.
He breathed out in a rush of air, feeling the fresh air fill his lungs like he’d never quite breathed before. It bubbled in his veins, making his head feel light and filled with warmth.
So that’s what that feeling is.
“So do you.”